Your language is flawed, it admits contradiction where none exists. We will separate part of the whole. Maneck will sacrifice himself to maintain the flow. Maneck is we, and not-we. Maneck will accompany you and watch over you. Through him, your tatecreude will be protected."
Well, the thought that the aliens would send him out alone into the bush, trusting him to keep to the task they had assigned, was one that had always been too good to be true. But the fact that there would be only a single guard was a blessing. Two or three of the things would have been difficult to evade. More than that, impossible. Only one, however ...
The alien who had led him here moved silently to Ramon's side. It was eerie - nothing so big should be so quiet.
"Maneck, eh?" Ramon said to the thing. "Your name's Maneck? I'm Ramon Espejo."
While Ramon was still wondering if he should attempt to shake hands with it, Maneck abruptly reached out and took him by the shoulders, lifted him like a doll, and held him immobile in the air. Ramon fought instinctively - nights at the bar and in the street coming back to his arms and legs in a rage. He might as well have punched the ocean. Maneck didn't budge.
Up from the pit rose a pale white snake.
Ramon watched in horrified fascination. It was obviously a cable of some sort - two bare wires protruded from the visible end - but its movements were so supple and lifelike that he could not help but think of it as a pale and sinister cobra. It reared almost to eye level, swayed slowly from side to side, and aimed its blind pallid head at Ramon. The head quivered slightly, as though the snake was testing the air in search of its prey. Then it stretched out toward him.
Again Ramon tried desperately to break free, but Maneck wrenched him effortlessly back into position. As the cable-snake came closer, he saw that it was pulsating rhythmically, and that the two naked wires in its head were vibrating like a serpent's flickering tongue. His flesh crawled and he felt his testicles retract. He felt his nakedness vividly now - he was unprotected, helpless, all of the soft, vulnerable parts of his body exposed to the hostile air.
"I'll do it!" Ramon shrieked. "I said I'd do it! You don't have to do this to me! I'll help you!"
The cable touched the hollow of his throat.
Ramon felt a sensation like the touch of dead lips, a double pinprick of pain, a flash of intense cold. An odd, quivering shock ran up and down his body, as though someone were tracing his nervous system with feather fingers. His vision dimmed for a heartbeat, then came back. Maneck lowered him to the ground.
The cable was now embedded in his neck. Fighting nausea, he reached up and took hold of it, feeling it pulse in his hands. It was warm to the touch, like human flesh. He pulled at it tentatively, then tugged harder. He felt the flesh of his throat move when he tugged. To rip it free would obviously be as difficult as tearing off his own nose. The cable pulsed again, and Ramon realized that it was pulsing in time to the beating of his heart. As he watched, it seemed to darken slowly, as if it were filling with his blood.
He saw with horror that the opposite end of the cable had somehow linked itself to the alien that had held him, blending into its right wrist. Maneck. He was on a leash. A hunting dog for demons.
"The sahael will not injure you, but it will help to resolve your contradictions," the thing in the pit said, as if sensing his distress but failing to understand it. "You should welcome it. It will help to protect you from aubre. Should you manifest aubre, you will be corrected. Like this."
Ramon found himself on the floor, though he did not remember falling. Only now that the pain had passed could he look back at it and realize that it had been the worst pain he had ever experienced, as a swimmer turns to look back at a wave that has passed over his head. He didn't remember screaming, but his throat was raw, and it almost seemed as if the echo of his shriek was still reverberating from the chamber walls. He caught his breath, and then retched. He knew that he would