Dark Ages полностью

Sa Mangsang used the squid for its dirty work. The big squids had swarmed to the surface by the thousands during the crisis. That was how the Chicago Giant was captured. Now Sa Mangsang was in slumber, or hibernation, or comatose, depending on how you looked at it So the giant squid in Chicago was just a giant squid. Magnificent, but completely natural. Right?

Howard had tried telling himself that there was nothing to worry about—and he wasn’t very convincing. He kept an eye on the Chicago Giant, and set up alerts for news about the creature.

Now the Chicago Giant was ill, maybe even dying, if he read between the lines. Shouldn’t that be good news? When the thing was dead, he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.

Smith looked up to find Mark Howard sitting rigid in his chair and even rocking slightly. The young man was as pale as death and didn’t seem to know Smith was there.

“Mark?”

Mark’s eyes flitted in Smith’s direction, then back to the screen.

“What’s the matter?” Smith demanded. He strode behind his assistant’s desk and glared at the open window. Chicago Tribune. The captured giant squid.

“What of it?” Smith demanded.

“I don’t know.”

“What about this concerns you?” Smith pressed, unsatisfied.

“I don’t know.” Howard was pressing his fists into his abdomen. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Smith wordlessly handed Howard the plastic-lined wastebasket. As Howard wretched into it, Smith leaned over him and scrolled through the article. When Mark sat up again; he hit Smith’s chest with the back of his head.

Smith retreated to his own desk thoughtfully. Mark Howard was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Hurts. I feel like my stomach is full of ball bearings.”

“This is related to the item on your screen?”

Mark Howard nodded slightly, eyes dancing as if he were trying to avoid mentioning it. “Somehow.”

“Is it nerves? Or is this something that is, uh, meaningful?”

Mark Howard made a sort of sickly smile, like the last grin of a dying man who was shot under ironic circumstances. Mark left in a hurry, heading for the washroom, and met Mrs. Mikulka coming in. The old dear was in early. Smith’s secretary wasn’t supposed to arrive until 9:00 a.m., but her old habits died hard. She didn’t get a chance to say good-morning before she got a whiff.

“Oh, dear, poor Mark.” She took away the wastebasket.

Smith was deep in thought. Did Mark just have a case of stomach flu? Was he being nervously affected by the news from Chicago because it was related to the traumatic crisis in the Pacific Ocean? Or were his unique abilities communicating to Mark that there was some sort of impending crisis related to the squid in Chicago?

Smith was uncomfortable discussing Mark’s abilities. They were so undefined, so unquantifiable that one could only use terms like extrasensory perception and precognition to name them. Those terms had been applied for years to charlatans and quacks. Smith was unsure about the nature of Mark’s abilities—although there was nothing fake about them.

In the same way, Smith had never satisfied himself about the nature of the crisis in the Pacific Ocean. An elder god of the lost continent of Mu? It was the stuff of bad documentaries from the 1970s. Still, Master Chiun’s myths of Sa Mangsang had held true throughout the crisis, including the worldwide mental disturbances that worked destructively on Mark Howard.

Smith felt sudden alarm as he made the connection. Could Mark’s nausea and emotional distress be coming, again, from Sa Mangsang—whatever Sa Mangsang was?

The Masters of Sinanju had assured Smith that the gargantuan creature was withered and weak, and had gone down with its ancient island into the Pacific waters to begin again the aeons-long restorative sleep. But how could he trust their understanding of this creature? Chiun was superstitious. Remo, at times, was less than brilliant.

And Sa Mangsang—whatever Sa Mangsang was— had been an influence on the world even through its period of convalescence. Minds around the planet had always been affected by the creature.

Maybe Mark Howard just had a virus.

The giant squid in the Chicago Tribune article hovered before Smith’s vision. A squid eye was visible. It didn’t look intelligent, the way the eyes of a marine mammal can look intelligent. There were those who claimed cephalopods were extremely intelligent, and that man was simply too limited in his creative scope to find ways of communicating with the more alien cephalopod mind.

Smith idly wondered what kinds of thoughts were inside the mind of the Chicago Giant. Was it suffering in its confinement? Was it capable of being angry at its captors? Was it smart enough to have an agenda?

Smith, not a superstitious or imaginative man, knew the creature had been following some sort of a command or signal when it was captured. Were the signals broadcast in real time through the oceans, or were they orders—given, received and remembered by the squid?