The tale of the body thief - By Anne Rice Page 0,163

late swim.

The first time I succeeded, I was absolutely aghast. I went speeding towards David, and felt the impact in the same purely mental fashion in which I felt the freedom of the flight. Then I was inside David, and for one split second saw myself—slack-jawed and staring dully—through the dim lenses of David’s eyes.

Then I felt a dark shuddering disorientation, and an invisible blow as if someone had placed a huge hand on my chest. I realized that he had returned and pushed me out. I was hovering in the air, and then back in my own sweat-drenched body, laughing near hysterically from mad excitement and sheer fatigue.

“That’s all we need,” he said. “Now I know we can pull this off. Come, once again! We’re going to do it twenty times if we have to, until we know that we can achieve it without fail.”

On the fifth successful assault, I remained in his body for a full thirty seconds, absolutely mesmerized by the different feelings attendant to it—the lighter limbs, the poorer vision, and the peculiar sound of my voice coming out of his throat. I looked down and saw his hands—thin, corded with blood vessels, and touched on the backs of the fingers with dark hair—and they were my hands! How hard it was to control them. Why, one of them had a pronounced tremour which I had never noticed before.

Then came the jolt again, and I was flying upwards, and then the plummet, back into the twenty-six-year-old body once more.

We must have done it twelve times before the slave driver of a Candomble priest said it was time for him to really fight my assault.

“Now, you must come at me with much greater determination. Your goal is to claim the body! And you expect a fight.”

For an hour we battled. Finally, when I was able to jolt him out and keep him out for the space of ten seconds, he declared that this would be enough.

“He told you the truth about your cells. They will know you. They will receive you and strive to keep you. Any adult human knows how to use his own body much better than the intruder. And of course you know how to use those preternatural gifts in ways of which he can’t possibly even dream. I think we can do it. In fact, I’m certain now that we can.”

“But tell me something,” I said. “Before we stop, don’t you want to jolt me out of this body and go into it? I mean, just to see what it’s like?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t.”

“But aren’t you curious?” I asked him. “Don’t you want to know … ”

I could see that I was taxing his patience.

“Look, the real truth is, we don’t have time for that experience. And maybe I don’t want to know. I can remember my youth well enough. Too well, in fact. We aren’t playing little games here. You can make the assault now. That’s what counts.” He looked at his watch. “It’s almost three. We’ll have some supper and then we’ll sleep. We’ve a full day ahead, exploring the ship and confirming our plans. We must be rested and in full control of our faculties. Come, let’s see what we can rustle up in the way of food or drink.”

We went outside and along the walk until we reached the little kitchen—a funny, damp, and somewhat cluttered room. The kindly proprietor had left two plates for us in the rusted, groaning refrigerator, along with a bottle of white wine. We sat down at the table and commenced to devour every morsel of rice, yams, and spiced meat, not caring at all that it was very cold.

“Can you read my thoughts?” I asked, after I’d consumed two glasses of wine.

“Nothing, you’ve got the trick.”

“So how do I do it in my sleep? The Queen Elizabeth 2 can’t be more than a hundred miles out now. She’s to dock in two hours.”

“Same way you do it when you’re awake. You shut down. You close up. Because, you see, no one is ever completely asleep. Not even those in a coma are completely asleep. Will is always operative. And will is what this is about.”

I looked at him as we sat there. He was obviously tired, but he did not look haggard or in any way debilitated. His thick dark hair obviously added to the impression of vigor; and his large dark eyes had the same fierce light in them which