‘And you?’ growled Carappa.
‘I was sent as an anthropologist, to live among and observe what is, to us, a strange race. It’s a three year stretch – tough, but engrossing and – well paid. I am not the first, nor the only anthropologist. We have to undergo long training; then we are slipped in the emergency hatch, and find our way through the ponics either to Quarters or Forwards, or one of the other tribes. But they have some good brains in Forwards. The Council of Five caught one or two of my earlier colleagues, and although they gave as little as possible away, suspicions are aroused, as you know. I was lucky to get away as I have.’
‘That luck may not last,’ Carappa said threateningly. ‘You have to get Tom and me safely to Earth before you can be sure you have survived.’
Still gripping his right elbow, Crooner straightened himself.
‘That’s not in my hands,’ he said. ‘Directly I got here, I radioed to Satellite One, told them of my plight and asked them to pick me up. A rocket’s on its way over now, to take me down Earthside. My spell of field work was nearly over anyway – by Jove, won’t civilisation be good, to say nothing of a decent drink! But whether or not you come down with me is not for me to say; the boys on the rocket’ll decide that.’
‘I can shoot ’em all!’ Brandyholm snapped suddenly. He waved the gun demonstratively.
Crooner just laughed. ‘I suppose you might be able to, little man. And what good would that do you?’
There was silence, accompanied by some lip chewing from the priest.
‘The rocket’ll be here in about twenty minutes,’ Crooner announced casually. He looked more confident now.
‘It does seem rather a deadlock, Carappa,’ Brandyholm said. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we went back into the ship?’
Carappa ignored the suggestion, and said smoothly to Crooner, ‘It seems, Bob, as if we shall need your help after all. As you realise, we intend you no harm, otherwise we should have shot you like a pig long before this. And don’t forget how Tom here saved your life when Wantage went beserk in the tangle.’
‘It’s useless whining at me,’ Crooner said. ‘I’m not your judge. I told you, it’s all up to the boys on the rocket.’
‘Now don’t get me wrong, Bob. Why are we not free – why is not everyone on shipboard free – to return to Earth?’
Crooner paused. ‘Do you really want an answer?’ he asked.
‘What is the answer?’
‘It’s the answer to everything, as far as you are concerned,’ Crooner said sadly. ‘You are valuable to Earth for only one reason: you are an insane society. For that we study you, and by that study learn to control ourselves. Fortunately, you are too isolated up here to be a menace; but if you were an Earthbound tribe, you would have to be exterminated to the last babe among you. You are all dangerously mad.’
He let the words sink in, and then said, ‘When the ponics overwhelmed the ship, a few men saw the terrible dangers of a return to primitivism. Madness, fighting, even cannibalism were rampant; the controls were wrecked. That’s when the Teaching was formulated. Unfortunately it was based, not on any long-tried religious creed, but on some half-truth of a psychological theory which happened to be current at that time. It became diverted and perverted in the hands of so-called priests like yourself, until the ship was full of maniacs whose avowed object in life was to humiliate their associates. You’re death-obsessed. That’s why you aren’t fit to walk on Earth! You’re tainted, mephitic, contagious! Earth’s too lovely for you! You’re only fit to live in a coffin like this ship! Nothing’s too foul – Ahhh!’
Reeling away from Carappa’s blow, he brought his good hand up to his mouth, covering it as if to hide the pain. He shook his head and squeezed his eyes, groaning.
‘Quickly, Tom,’ Carappa said. ‘There’s no time to lose. If that’s how things stand, we’ve no hope but to warn the others in the ship – Master Scott and the Council of Five. This fellow comes back with us.’
‘No!’ Crooner cried. ‘Shoot me, do anything, but don’t take me back in there!’
Carappa paused, his eyes widening. Slowly over his face a crafty smile dawned. He had struck accidentally on Crooner’s weak spot.
‘A bargain then, Crooner,’ he said gently. ‘You come back to face the Council of Five with us now – or else you guarantee to get us two to earth, as patients, or subjects for further study, or whatever excuse you wish. Well? Choose quickly.’
‘Let’s get him back to the ship,’ Brandyholm urged.
Crooner looked from one to another of them like a man peering at wild animals. The blood from his mouth had been brushed over his jaw, giving him a dirty, beaten look. He licked his lips with a dry tongue.
‘I daresay I could get you down,’ he said.
‘That’s more like it!’ Carappa said. ‘Now we’ll forget all differences between us, Crooner – but remember I shall have this gun trained on you.’
‘If you don’t mind,’ Brandyholm said, ‘I’d rather return to the ship, Carappa. I think Earth’s going to be too big for me.’
‘Oh no you don’t,’ Carappa said. ‘We’ve been together in this all along, Tom; I won’t let you desert me now. You’re coming too.’
‘I couldn’t face it,’ Brandyholm pleaded. ‘Please let me go. I’m a different kind from you – I belong to the ship.’
As he watched, Carappa’s face hardened dangerously. The priest’s fist doubled and came slowly up. His lips gradually thrust out, as if in relish at the weakness in Brandyholm’s features. Then he shrugged, and said in a flat voice, ‘Get out, then.’ He turned his broad back in contempt.
That there should be no trust between men was an integral part of the Teaching. It seemed a miracle to Brandyholm to be standing again in the peppered night of space: he had momentarily expected a bullet in the back from the priest’s gun.
He squared his shoulders inside the space suit and began to walk slowly back to the escape lock in the giant hull. His feeble bluff had succeeded; liars like Carappa can easily be taken in by lies. Without a doubt Crooner would trick the priest sooner or later, whereas he, Tom Brandyholm, had escaped by returning; he had the power that lay in knowledge. His was the victory.
He came to the lock. Remembering Carappa could hear over the suit-to-suit, he said, ‘Good-bye, priest. I’m just going back into the rat run. Only it’s going to be a different rat run from now on. The Council of Five is going to be a Council of Six. Or if I don’t like their manners, it may just be a Council of One. You thought I was weak, but I’m not. I’m going to show ’em all.’
He clung to a hand-grip to steady himself. Ambition seemed suddenly to consume his very bones.
‘And remember Master Scott, Carappa?’ he continued. ‘He’ll be the first to go to the wall. And that girl Viann – ’ as he spoke her name, she seemed at that instant to be the reason for his return ‘– Viann might well be all that Gwenny never could be.’
The priest flung back an obscene answer which Brandyholm scarcely heeded. He activated the lock. Slowly the panel slid back. The ship! It always had been his world and always would: its confinement, its jungles, its foetid corridors, its taboos and terrors; but now he would be more than a mere hunter – he would be a ruler. Eagerly, he stepped inside.
A dozen figures awaited him. He drew up in amazement. Although they all wore suits and helmets, he recognised Viann at once. And another face that he knew was Master Scott’s. Master Scott, as did many of the others, held a weapon levelled at Brandyholm’s heart.
‘Yes, we’ve been listening carefully over the suit radios,’ Master Scott said. ‘You came back inopportunely, didn’t you?’
‘Uh – uh,’ Brandyholm began, but no words came. His last bolt had been shot. Now the journey was over. The pressures in his brain burst out against their artificial dam, flooding and breaking their neural paths. He tried to summon rage to his aid, to help and strengthen him, but it would not come. He reeled blindly in the semi-dark.
‘
We were waiting quietly here to rush the relief rocket when it arrives,’ Scott said levelly. ‘And then in you come, with your big ideas. Well, I think there’s still time to finish you.’
He turned to look at Viann, who had rested a hand on his suit. She shook her head.
‘Leave him,’ she said. ‘He’s harmless now.’
Indeed, Brandyholm had slumped to his knees, almost in an attitude of prayer. The great stars beyond him were suddenly blotted out by the dark, arriving shape of the relief rocket.
Psyclops
Mmm I.
First statement: I am I. I am everything. Everything, everywhere.
The universe is constructed of me, I am the whole of it. Am I? What is that throbbing that is not of me? That must be me too; after a while I shall understand it. All now is dim. Dim mmmm.
Even I am dim. In all this great strangeness and darkness of me, in all this universe of me, I am shadow. A memory of me. Could I be a memory of … not – me? Paradox: if I am everything, could there be a not-me?
Why am I having thoughts? Why am I not, as I was before, just mmmm?
Wake up! It’s urgent!
No! Deny it! I am the universe. If you can speak to me you must be me, so I command you to be still. There must be only the soothing mmmm.
… you are not the universe! Listen!
Louder?
Can you hear at last?
Non-comprehension. I must be everything. Can there be a part of me, like the throbbing, which is … separate?
Am I getting through? Answer!
Who … are you?
Do not be frightened.
Are you another … universe?
I am not a universe. You are not a universe. You are in danger and I must help you.
Mmmm. Must be mmmm …
… If only there were a psychofoetalist within light-years of here … Well, keep trying. Wake up! You must wake up to survive!
Who are you?
I am your father.
Non-comprehension. Are you the throbbing which is not me?
No. I am a long way from you. Light-years away.
You bring me feelings of … pain.
Don’t be afraid of it, but know there is much pain all about you. I am in constant pain.
Interest.
Good! First things first. You are most important.
I know that. All this is not happening. Somehow I catch these echoes, these dreams.
Try to concentrate. You are only one of millions like you. You and I are of the same species: human beings. I am born, you are unborn.
Meaningless.
Listen! Your ‘universe’ is inside another human being. Soon you will emerge into the real universe.
Still meaningless. Curious.
Keep alert. I will send you pictures to help you understand …
Uh …? Distance? Sight? Colour? Form? Definitely do not like this. Frightened. Frightened of falling, insecure … Must immediately retreat to safe mmmm. Mmmm.
Better let him rest! After all, he’s only six months; at the Pre-natal Academies they don’t begin rousing and education till seven and a half months. And then they’re trained to the job. If only I knew – my leg, you blue swine!
That picture …
Well done! I’m really sorry to rouse you so early, but it’s vital.
Praise for me, warm feelings. Good. Better than being alone in the universe.
That’s a great step forward, son. I can almost realise how the Creator felt, when you say that.
Non-comprehension.
Sorry, my fault; let the thought slip by. Must be careful. You were going to ask me about the picture I sent you. Shall I send again?
Only a little at once. Curious. Shape, colour, beauty. Is that the real universe?
That was just Earth I showed you, where I was born, where I hope you will be born.
Non-comprehension. Show again … shapes, tones, scents … Ah, this time not so strange. Different?
Yes, a different picture. Many pictures of Earth. Look.
Ah … Better than my darkness … I know only my darkness, sweet and warm, yet I seem to remember those – trees.
That’s a race memory, son. Your faculties are beginning to work, now.
More beautiful pictures please.
We cannot waste too long on the pictures. I’ve got a lot to tell you before you get out of range. These blue devils –
Why do you cease sending so abruptly? Hello? … Nothing. Father? … Nothing. Was there ever anything, or have I been alone and dreaming?
Nothing in all my universe but the throbbing. Is someone here with me? No, no answer. I must ask the voice, if the voice comes back. Now I must mmmm. Am no longer content as I was before. Strange feelings. … I want more pictures; I want … to …
Mmmm.
Dreaming myself to be a fish, fin-tailed, flickering through deep, still water. All is green and warm and without menace, and I swim forever with assurance … And then the water splits into lashing cords and plunges down, down, down a sunlit cliff. I fight to turn back, carried forward, fighting to return to the deep, sure dark –
– if you want to save yourself! Wake if you want to save yourself! I can’t hold out much longer. Another few days across these mountains –
Go away! Leave me to myself. I can have nothing to do with you.
You must try and understand! I know it’s agony for you, but you must stir yourself and take in what I say. It is imperative.
Nothing is imperative here. And now my mind seems to clear. Yes! I exist in the darkness where formerly there was nothing. Yes, there are imperatives; that I can recognise. Father?
What are you trying to say?
Confused. Understanding better, trying harder, but so confused.
Do not worry about that. It is your twin sister. The Pollux II hospital diagnosed twins, one boy and one girl.
So many concepts I cannot grasp. I should despair but for curiosity prodding me on. I’m one of a pair?
There you have it. That is a little girl lying next to you: you can hear her heart beating. Your mother –
Stop, Stop! Too much to understand at once. Must think to myself about this.
Keep calm. There is something you must do for me – for us all. If you do that, there is no danger.
Tell me quickly.
As yet it is too difficult. In a few days you will be ready – if I can hang on that long.
Why is it difficult?
Only because you are small.
Where are you?
I am on a world like Earth which is ninety light-years from Earth and getting farther from you even as we communicate together.
Why? How? Don’t understand. So much is now beyond my understanding; before you came everything was peaceful and dim.
Lie quiet and don’t fret, son. You’re doing well; you take the points quickly, you’ll reach Earth yet. You are travelling toward Earth in a spaceship which left Mirone, planet where I am, sixteen days ago.
Send that picture of a spaceship again.
Coming up …
It is a kind of enclosure for us all. That idea I can more or less grasp, but you don’t explain distances to me satisfactorily.
These are big distances, what we call light-years. I can’t explain them for you properly because a human mind ever really grasps them.
Then they don’t exist.
Unfortunately they exist all right. But they are only comprehensible as mathematical concepts. OHHH! My leg …
Why are you stopping? I remember you suddenly stopped before. You send a horrible pain thought, then you are gone. Answer.
Wait a minute.
I can hardly hear you. Now I am interested, why do you not continue? Are you there?
… this is all beyond me. We’re all finished. Judy, my love, if only I could reach you …
Who are you talking to? This is frustrating. You are so faint and your message so blurred.
Call you when I can …
&n
bsp; Fear and pain. Only symbols from his mind to mine, yet they have an uncomfortable meaning of their own – something elusive. Perhaps another race memory.
My own memory is not good. Unused. I must train it. Something he said eludes me; I must try and remember it. Yet why should I bother? None of it really concerns me, I am safe here, safe forever in this darkness. This whole thing is imagination. I am talking to myself. Wait! I can feel projections coming back again. Do not trouble to listen. Curious.
… gangrene, without doubt. Shall be dead before these blue devils get me to their village. So much Judy and I planned to do …
Are you listening, son?
No, no.
Listen carefully while I give you instructions.
Have something to ask you.
Please save it. The connection between us is growing attenuated; soon we will be out of mind range.
Indifferent.
My dear child, how could you be other than indifferent! I am truly sorry to have broken so early into your foetal sleep.
An unnamable sensation, half-pleasant; gratitude, love? No doubt a race memory.
It may be so. Try to remember me – later. Now, business. Your mother and I were on our way back to Earth when we stopped on this world Mirone, where I now am. It was an unnecessary luxury to break our journey. How bitterly now I wish we had never stopped.
Why did you?
Well, it was chiefly to please Judy – your mother. This is a beautiful world, around the North Pole, anyhow. We had wandered some way from the ship when a group of natives burst out upon us.
Natives?
People who live here. They are sub-human, blue-skinned and hairless – not pretty to look at.
Picture!
I think you’d be better without one. Judy and I ran for the ship. We were nearly up to it when a rock caught me behind the knee – they were pitching rocks at us – and I went down. Judy never noticed until she was in the airlock, and then the savages were on me. My leg was hurt; I couldn’t even put up a fight.
Please tell me no more of this. I want mmmm.
Listen, son! That’s all the frightening part. The savages are taking me over the mountains to their village. I don’t think they mean to harm me; I’m just a … curiosity to them.
The Complete Short Stories- The 1950s - Volume One Page 19
