Various Fiction

by Robert Sheckley

  “And if I decide not to?”

  “I am only asking out of courtesy,” Murchison said. “Whatever you’ve written is available to me whenever I want to take it.”

  “And if I destroyed it?”

  “We could reconstruct it. Please, Marcus Tullius, I think you understand your position. Why not just hand over the writing and spare yourself any unpleasantness?”

  “Why, then I have no choice,” Cicero said, and pointed to a small pile of papers from his desk. “Thanks,” Murchison said, and disappeared.

  There was no way of judging time in this cloud-kingdom, but Martin was back very soon, as Cicero had expected. He was holding Cicero’s writings, which were in the form of small drawings, like hieroglyphics.

  “Cicero, what the hell is this? Code? Is that it? If so, I can assure you that we can break it.”

  “It’s not code at all,” Cicero said. “It is a shorthand of my own devising.”

  “Will you translate it for me?”

  “With great pleasure, Martin. After we finish discussing terms.”

  “To hell with that,” Murchison said. “I don’t need to give any terms. I can get the best cryptologists in the world to work on this.”

  “Come back and see me after you talk with your experts,” Cicero said. “Perhaps we can work something out.”

  “I hate to tell you this,” Simms said, struggling to conceal his smile, “but that sly old Latin has put one over on you.”

  They were in Murchison’s office. Murchison had given Cicero’s writings or drawings or whatever they were to Simms and told him to find out what it was and how long it would take to break the code or cypher. Simms had conferred with a colleague in the Classics department at Harvard. “We’ve got millions of dollars of computer capacity at our disposal,” Murchison said. “We’ve got experts who can break codes in any language known to man. What’s the problem?”

  “What you have here is Cicero’s shorthand system. It’s a group of symbols which refer to a personal mnemonic system—”

  “Would you mind putting that in English for me?” Murchison said.

  “Writing was difficult in the ancient world,” Simms said. “People didn’t carry around notepads. There weren’t any typewriters or computers. There weren’t even ballpoint pens and scratch pads. Back then, an educated man studied the ars memoriae artificialis, the art of artificial memory.”

  “What’s that? Something you carry around?”

  “No. It’s something you carry in your head. It’s an associational system by which a man can remember things. Often very lengthy things. Some of those old guys had phenomenal memories. One of the Persian kings in Hellenic times is said to have known the name of every man in his army. That would be at least ten thousand names, the way armies ran in those days, maybe a lot more than that.”

  “You mean that Cicero has memorized this new stuff he’s writing?”

  “Not exactly. What he’s done is use an associational system involving names and images. I’ll give you the standard example. Imagine an enormous house or palace filled with hundreds of rooms. Each room is a locus, a place. A studious man would develop a strong visualization of these rooms so that, in his mind’s eye, he could walk through them. Each room would be different so that he could tell one from the other.”

  “All right,” Murchison said. “We’ve got this mental palace full of rooms. Then what?”

  “When a man—Cicero, for example—wanted to remember something, he would mentally create an image, of a statue, for example, or a volcano, or three old ladies, or a golden hand, and mentally put the image into the locus. The more grotesque the image, the easier it would be to remember. Then, when he wanted to access the contents, he would walk—mentally, of course—through the rooms, and, in the words of the ancient authors, demand that the images give up their contents. It’s an interesting early way of using the mind in a computer-like fashion.”

  “And Cicero knew about this stuff?”

  “He wrote the Ad Herennium, one of the standard texts on the subject.”

  “Are you telling me we can’t decipher these scribbles?”

  “Not unless we know what words Cicero was associating what images with.”

  “This is not Austria,” Bakunin said. But his police guard was gone. The German policemen, the coach, and the horses had vanished. Bakunin’s house at Premukhino was gone, too. Bakunin was standing on the bank of a sluggish gray river, looking at a marshy island directly in front of him. There was an enormous stone building beyond it on the far shore.

  “I think you know this place, Michael.”

  It was Martin’s voice. But the man was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where are you?” Michael Bakunin asked. “Never mind,” said Martin. “Do you know what you’re looking at?”

  Bakunin nodded heavily. “The river is the Neva which flows through St. Petersburg. The island is Janisaari, and the building is the Peter and Paul fortress.”

  “You remember the place?”

  “After seven years in its dungeons, I’m not likely to forget. Is that where you’re sending me, Martin?”

  “Only if you make me. You know, Michael, there’s no need for this. What I’m asking of you isn’t unreasonable.”

  “You are not asking,” Bakunin said. “You are : demanding. I am not a slave to be ordered around.

  The rights of man—”

  “You are not a man,” Martin said. “You are a spirit, a reassembled spirit, and as such you have no rights.”

  “As long as I have consciousness,” Bakunin said, “I have rights.”

  “Just talk with a few people I want to bring you,” Martin said. “I’m not asking you to betray anyone.”

  “Except myself.”

  “Have it your own way,” Martin said. “You I know what comes next.”

  Bakunin was all too familiar with the great dismal fortress. This was the infamous Peter and Paul, where so many had been shut up, tortured, murdered, or, with luck, released after months or years in the dungeons, broken in health and spirit, to be shipped to Siberia to spend their last days. Peter Kropotkin had been imprisoned here, and lived to tell of it. Karakozoff had been tortured and hanged, though they had barely gotten him to the scaffold alive. Here the Decembrists and other revolutionaries had been sent to rot. Here . . .

  And then, between two blinks, he was in a cell that was horribly familiar to him. It was twilight in the cell, a dim light filtering through from the deeply set window fifteen feet above the floor. The floor and walls were covered with felt, originally painted blue, now faded to gray. But this was not the true wall. Five inches from the walls iron wire nets were suspended, covered with heavy linen and with faded yellow paper. This was to prevent the prisoners from tapping on the walls and communicating with each other. The place stank of unwashed bodies. But what was most oppressive was the heat, which came from the large stoves outside the cells. They were kept continually stoked in order to prevent moisture from forming in the walls. But the heat was unbearable, and the coal fumes could asphyxiate a man. It was like being a side of beef hung in a Turkish bath.

  Czar Nicholas I had imprisoned him in this place on 23 May, 1851. That was a date he would never forget. He had been released by Nicholas’ successor, Alexander II, after almost seven years, and exiled for life to Siberia. The date of his release had been 8 March, 1857. The prison diet had given him piles and scurvy. Most of his teeth had fallen out. He had suffered continual headaches, shortness of breath, and noises in the ear like the sound of boiling water.

  Seven years, that time. And how long this time? Forever?

  Or until he gave in, betrayed every principle he had ever stood for, became Martin’s slave.

  Bakunin lay on the floor and wept.

  Simms turned away from the holo image of the tiny black-coated figure huddled in the ancient prison cell he had simulated. “You don’t really propose to leave him there, do you, Martin?”

  “He’ll come around
. Anyhow, what does it matter? It’s not a him in that tank. Bakunin and Cicero are not real people, Simms. They’re nothing but data, intelligent data. You told me so yourself.”

  “In a way,” Simms said, “we’re nothing but data, too.”

  “You’re taking this entirely too personally. Simulacra seem like people, but the courts have ruled that they are to be classified as images. You can’t violate the civil rights of an image.”

  “That ruling is under appeal.”

  “The appeal is frivolous. Simulacra have none of the attributes of living human beings.”

  “Except awareness. Intelligence. The ability to feel pleasure. And pain.”

  “Doc, you’re breaking my heart. See you later.” Simms had been heading up the scientific team on Project Resurrection, as the simulacrum program was sometimes called, for almost two years, ever since Richardson had taken a leave of absence to pursue new lines of development. He’d seen a lot of strange things during his tenure, but none of them had prepared him for Martin Murchison, the new Director in charge of Implementation. The man was a computer illiterate, and a sadist.

  He did have a point, though. There was no Bakunin. Only a glowing web of electronic data.

  But he wondered what that glowing web of data was thinking about? What was it feeling?

  Cicero looked up and smiled when Murchison appeared suddenly in the room.

  “Martin! I’ve been expecting you. Do make yourself at home. I wish I could offer you refreshment, but I suspect that no Falerian wine is available, and even if it were, our incorporeality (which I perceive that we share) makes the ingesting of food and wine, if not impossible, then merely ritualistic.”

  Murchison’s simulacra floated across the room and seated itself on one of the lumpy couches with which Bakunin’s house was furnished.

  “You’re talking a lot,” Murchison said. “Are you getting lonely with Bakunin gone?”

  “Nothing I can’t deal with,” Cicero said. “Where have you taken him, by the way?”

  “You wouldn’t want to know,” Murchison said.

  “Oh, that place,” Cicero said. “But I see the subject is distasteful to you. Tell me, have you succeeded in deciphering my recent writings?”

  “No, we haven’t.”

  “What a pity,” Cicero said. “You were so confident, too.”

  Murchison stood up suddenly. “Listen, you son of a bitch, with a single command I could disappear you.”

  “Poor Martin,” Cicero said. “Extinction is your only real threat, and it has little force against one who has already died. For such, I surmise, is my true situation.”

  “I could try to think up something better than death,” Martin said.

  “Why bother? I want to cooperate, Martin. I’m eager to do so. And I have some ideas which would, I think, greatly enhance my value to you.”

  “If you’re so cooperative, why don’t you translate your writings for me?”

  “I will, all in good time. But first let’s strike a deal.”

  “You have nothing to deal with.”

  “I have no power, but I have something you want even aside from my writing.”

  “How do you figure?”

  Cicero sat arrow-straight, his proud eyes fixed on Murchison’s. “First answer a question or two. I’m in the future, aren’t I, and you, or those you represent, have managed to recreate the images of figures from the past. These images, of whom I am one, exist with the self-consciousness and selfawareness of men, but without true bodies, and without any way of effecting true physical change. Am I very far off the mark?”

  “You’ve got it pretty good,” Murchison said grudgingly.

  “In this new world of yours, not only the written words, but also the presence of what you would call archaic authors could be of great value. It’s as if we in the Rome of my time were able to interview Socrates, or Sophocles, or the great Homer himself. Is not my situation comparable?” When Murchison didn’t deny it, Cicero went on. “I will produce new works for you, Martin, that will yield you great profit, to say nothing of scholarly luster. How does that sound, Martin?”

  Murchison could see it already: CICERO SPEAKS TO MODERN AMERICANS. On Morals. Sexuality. The Lessons of History. Just name it, Cicero would give you an oration on it. And of course a cooperative Cicero could make a great interviewee for guest shots on various tv shows. Cicero had the gift of gab. And imagine him appearing on the tv news clad in his toga? He could be worth millions, billions. There were endless possibilities. A movie, for example, based on Cicero’s view of Caesar and Marc Antony . . .

  As though he were reading Murchison’s mind, Cicero said, “And remember, too, Martin, that I am not merely an essayist on law. I was also a poet, and a playwright, too. Might not something be made of that?”

  If Cicero was willing to do all that, he could be a goldmine and he could be marketed world-wide. “Marcus, old buddy, what is it you want?” Cicero took his time about answering. Finally he said, “Martin, I want a body. A real one. I want to live again, but in the flesh, not as a spirit.” That took Murchison off his guard. He hadn’t been expecting it. “How’d you know we could do that?”

  “I didn’t. But it’s the only thing I want.”

  “I’m not sure the technology’s up to cloning yet.”

  “Whatever that means. But I understand the general import. Fear not, Martin, I can wait until you and your friends are able to prepare a suitable body for me. And our various profitable ventures can also wait.”

  Martin had to admit it, the old bastard had him over a barrel. But it was a solid platinum barrel, and it could be rolling in diamonds.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Murchison said, and disappeared.

  Cicero settled back at his desk and continued writing in his impenetrable mnemonic code. He’d need this writing to keep up his share of the bargain, after Murchison had convinced his representatives that making Cicero a whole man was to their strongest personal advantage.

  “What about Bakunin?” Simms asked.

  “He still won’t cooperate. Calls it a matter of principle. Can you imagine it, an anarchist—actually an electronic simulation of an anarchist—claiming to have principles?”

  “Yeah,” Simms said, “it’s hell when the images start getting uppity. Martin, I think we should take him out of there.”

  Murchison looked at him sharply. “Simms, they told me you were a top computer scientist. Maybe you are. But I think you have an attitude problem.”

  Simms opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it.

  “Anyhow, Cicero is cooperating beautifully. That guy’s Mr. Show Business of the ancient world. He’s going to put our project into the black. But I need a reward for him.”

  “You want me to simulate one of his friends?” Murchison shook his head. “Cicero wants to live again in the veritable flesh. What I need now is a cloned body for him.”

  “Yassa, boss, one cloned body, coming right up.”

  “Don’t take that attitude with me. You told me you could imprint a simulacrum on a cloned body.”

  “I also told you the process is still under development.”

  “I want it in a week.”

  “And what about Bakunin? Can I take him out of the prison?”

  “He can get out any time he wants,” Murchison said. “All he has to do is cooperate. Can you work up some sensory input for him? I want him to feel that cell, and smell it. I want him capable of experiencing physical discomfort.”

  “Pain, you mean?”

  “Yes, if you want to call it that. I need to convince him quickly. There are TV and magazine people waiting to interview him.”

  Murchison left, and Simms peered again into the holo tank, at Bakunin crouched in a corner of his cell. Simms thought, You poor bastard, even in death you couldn’t escape from people like Murchison.

  Simms sat down at his terminal keyboard and called up a coding program. He played with it, his attention elsewhere. On Murchison
and how fed up he was with him. It was obviously time to resign. Before he got fired anyway.

  And the simulacra?

  Cicero seemed to be doing all right. But Bakunin . . . What that unhappy son of a bitch really needed was a Get Out of Jail Free Card . . .

  So that he could roam throughout the computer’s system, unimpeded.

  But that could never be. Simms was too good a scientist to let a wild card, an intelligent self-sustaining intelligence and personality package, loose in the system. There was no telling what damage he could do.

  It was out of the question.

  While he was thinking this, Simms found that his fingers had called up the programming instructions for an access descriptor.

  Bakunin’s nerves were always trying to betray his principles. His ghostliness did not interfere with the ability of his mind to torture itself. He wondered if peace might he on the far side of this agony. How could anything go on forever? And yet, it was still going on. His enemies were persecuting him. Not even in death was he safe from the revisionists. They were still trying to break his will. They didn’t understand that after death, will is all a man has left, all that enables him to call himself a man.

  It was during this not very cheerful musing that a man walked into Bakunin’s cell, passing through the heavy wall as if it were air. Bakunin looked up but did not react. They had a lot of tricks, the Czar’s scientific police. The man was not Martin, and he didn’t seem to be a prison guard. He was dressed in civilian clothes. A high official wearing the latest fashion, that would explain it.

  “I know that you have come to persecute me,” Bakunin said, “but I would remind you that the knout is ineffective against insubstantiality. Even lacking bodies, we are still bound to Hegel’s dialectic.”

  The man smiled. “Hi, Michael. For a guy sitting in the Peter and Paul fortress, maybe for eternity, you can still make a pretty rousing speech.”

  “That is because I am Bakunin,” Bakunin said. “And because I am Bakunin, you have come to ask something of me.”

  The man smiled. “Wrong, Michael! I have come to give you something.”