Gray Matters

by William Hjortsberg

  The Sentinel has the Tropique’s head in close-up focus during the critical phase of the operation. Y41-AK9 is not interested in the techniques of chemical surgery, but he pays close attention as the healer applies a cellular solvent to the exterior cranial surface. The liquid solvent is traced on human tissue with a needlepoint stylus. Against the bone white of the cranium, the fine blue line looks as innocuous as ink, yet the solvent takes effect in less than a minute. The healer gives a slight pull and the skull comes apart exactly along the line. Almost a pint of liquid drains out onto the ground.

  The moment is come. The cranial container is opened and the healer reaches in with her hands (with her hands!) and withdraws the brain of Obu Itubi. Y41-AK9 is spellbound. It seems so simple. The brain is rinsed of electrolyte solution and held in place as the healer meticulously reconnects severed nerves, arteries, and veins with organic adhesive. Y41-AK9 feels the beginnings of an old regret. Obu Itubi is free! Free to walk the earth again, to be among men. And all because of luck, simple haphazard luck. The same damned luck that doomed him to a career of combat with hammerheads and makos while others were born to have a whale for a guru. But this time it is different. Itubi will not get away. Even if it takes a hundred years, the Auditor will triumph. This time the luck will be his.

  Unlike Y41-AK9, Auditor Quarrels is not a mystic by nature. As a young man he was a hedonist, a playboy jet pilot tending a napalm rose garden. Sex and speed were his obsessions. A war in Southeast Asia provided ample amounts of both. The war happened to Quarrels at Mach II it was totally silent and calm. Night raids were the most beautiful. Only once was it real: a SAM missile hurtling up at the speed of sound out of the green-and-brown abstraction below. His elaborate evasion tactics, a grim, desperate ballet, first taught him that you become a mystic when it isn’t fun anymore.

  The lure of glamour, movie-star girlfriends and the fastest playthings on earth attracted Quarrels to the space program. He got it all as an astronaut, along with space in the bargain. Quarrels never wanted to come back down. And so he volunteered for the Aldebaran Expedition.

  The three-hundred-and-twenty-year voyage of Endurance II proved the spacecraft worthy of her name. For Quarrels it was a rite of passage, an initiation earning him a residency on Level II of the Depository. Quarrels is content being a cerebromorph. His body was old, worn-out. He left it gladly and didn’t mourn when it burned along with the rest of North America in the Thirty-minute War.

  Hardship and disappointment seemed meaningless when confronted by the vast eternal tranquility of the cosmos. Suffering, regret, anguish, envy—all of the old woeful earth-bound pains were purged by the awesome grandeur of space. Since his return from the Aldebaran system nothing has disturbed the serenity of the only Level II resident not born in a hatchery. The destruction of Skeets Kalbfleischer’s brain is a setback for Auditor Quarrels, but the Commission notes that he takes the news calmly and without emotion. Truly remarkable for a native of the most neurotic century the world has ever known.

  And later, when the report comes from the Medical Authority, Quarrels loses none of his calm self-possession. There are no facilities available for the production of cerebral tissue; the hatcheries are not equipped to manufacture brains; the perfection of the modified (brainless) humanoid is the result of years of genetic research. Moreover, Center Control regulations forbid any departure from established procedure. Requisition denied.

  Vera wakes with her head throbbing. She shuts her eyes to the brightness of the open window and drops back into a canyon of eiderdown pillows. Her pulse thunders between her temples like the muffled kettledrums of a funeral cortege. The headache sends tendrils of pain downward through her body. Her limbs are heavy and sore, her breasts swollen, eyelids puffed and tender. She hurts all over. Vera wishes the funeral were her own: the padded satin of the coffin, the numb nothingness of death, a tomb’s cool enclosing silence.

  On other mornings, Vera found her slender adolescent body marked by love bites and scratches. Often she identified the lover by his imprint on her flesh: the itching thorn scratches on her nipples, the delicate canine punctures of blue-ribboned Hugo. Vera learned about hickies in Hollywood, but the ripe raspberry memories of passionate kisses could have come from any of a hundred casual pickups among the film colony. How amusing to discover the traces of a middle-aged passion blemishing her flawless schoolgirl’s complexion.

  Today she is not amused. The pain is too great for any pleasure, the pulsing headache an agony she has long forgotten. Two teeth are loose and her jaws open only with difficulty. She recognizes the author of these discomforts. Her first husband was fond of beating up people. He would provoke arguments in restaurants just for the chance to use his fists. A brutal man. Vera had been first attracted as much by his savagery as by his hard athletic body. He was a hunter, the son of a French industrialist. He took Vera on expeditions to India and Africa and introduced her to the catharsis of the clean kill. (The tigerskin on the floor was a souvenir of a trip made with Raoul.) At night he would come for her with a riding crop, although she feared his heavy gold-ringed hands much more. He beat her until she couldn’t stand, seeking submission, not pleasure, and when she was on her knees he took her from the rear like an animal.

  She tried to hide from him, sleeping on couches and under the billiard table in the library, as he stalked through the dark château. One night he cornered her in the trophy room and she seized a shotgun from the wall rack and added another corpse to the collection. The mounted shadows of oryx, kudu, Grant’s gazelle, and the world’s record rhinoceros were the only witnesses. The police reluctantly accepted her sobbing story of burglars and mistaken identity. The publicity was a great boost for her career.

  But this was centuries ago, at Montigny-sur-Ourcq with its medieval keep and crenellated battlements crouching under a sullen sky. Vera sits up with a groan and confronts the summer luminance of a Caribbean morning. She hasn’t thought of Raoul since that night she pulled the trigger. All memory of her husband’s cruelty was cleanly erased by a magnum goose load of number four shot. Why then should he haunt her on her secret island?

  Vera eases out of bed and limps to the dressing table to examine Raoul’s handiwork in her mirror. Raw wales and welts are everywhere on her body, even her stomach bears a painful stripe, but her face shows the worst damage. Through dark swollen eyes, Vera studies the ugly purple shine of her bruised cheeks and the bee-sting puffiness of a cut upper lip. She’ll wear tinted sunglasses today and a wide-brimmed hat for the comfort of its concealing shadows.

  Vera crosses the hall to the guardarropa, remembering a long-sleeved summer gown tucked in a trunk somewhere. Although there is no one to witness her wounds, there are many mirrors and Vera wants to look her best, if only for herself.

  She is searching through a deep leather trunk for a scarf to match her dress when she makes an entirely different discovery: the side-by-side Holland & Holland twelve gauge, one of a matched pair Raoul had bought in London, the weapon her groping hand chanced to find on the gun rack in the darkness long ago. Vera stares at the shotgun for a moment: the sheen of the richly blued barrels, the hand-rubbed gloss of the walnut stock, remembering her moment of terror among the stuffed animals, antlers twisting like tree branches above her in the gloom.

  For a joke, she brings the piece to her shoulder, sights down its length, and whispers, “Bang.” Perhaps, she thinks, returning the shotgun to the trunk, that will kill the ghost who was so rough with me last night. She closes the lid and her wish comes true. Splattered against the opposite wall is the same gory pattern of stray pellets, bone shard, brains, scraps, hair, and tattered flesh that the police spent long hours photographing the morning after. An eyelid clings to the full-length mirror. Vera screams and runs from the room, skidding on the fragments of teeth scattered across the parquet floor.

  Obu Itubi opens his eyes. A fierce blue sky curtains his nightmare visions and his terrified scream constricts into a gasp of amazement. The fear
remains, a palpable demon lurking just behind the protective gauze of sun-bright clouds. For the moment anyway, he is safe. As long as his eyes are open, nothing can happen to him.

  The realization that he has eyes and is not seeing the world through a scanner comes at the same moment he discovers his hands. Are these his hands? This face he feels, can it be his? Cheeks, nose, lips—Itubi pokes a thumb into his eyeball and laughs for joy at the tears and the sharp lingering pain. He looks up at the palms of his hands, a latticework of fingers dividing the sky, and delights in a barrage of sensation: hot sun on his skin, the smell of pinewoods, a soft tickling underneath him. He sits up laughing.

  Three Nords stand and watch. Their embroidered costumes and bleached-wheat hair anchor them like monuments against a background of whirling green. There is too much to see: trees, grass, flowers; the whole earth around him a dizzying blur while these three splendid humans loom as distinct as giants.

  “Welcome,” one says, smiling, his voice loud and glad. “You are reborn.”

  Auditor Quarrels prepares a final Commission Memorandum on Subject Denton Kalbfleischer. Hoping to find evidence that his sexual therapy was at least in part beneficial, he submits Vera Mitlovic’s file number to the communicator. Preprogrammed information is returned instantaneously: THE RESIDENT YOU WISH IS TEMPORARILY DISCONNECTED ON ALL CHANNELS.

  This is annoying. Can Center Control still be enforcing disciplinary isolation? Quarrels decides to check it with Vera’s Auditor, but when he signals on the Commission’s special channel code he hooks up with the Denton at Aud-Com HQ instead.

  THE AUDITOR YOU ARE SEEKING IS DISCONNECTED AND OFFICIALLLY SANCTIONED FOR VOLUNTARY TRANCE RETREAT.

  All right, when will he be returning?

  THE TRANCE IS SCHEDULED FOR INDEFINITE DURATION.

  I certainly wish him luck.

  LUCK?

  It is my wish that his endeavor prove enlightening.

  THAT IS TO THE PURPOSE. LUCK IS NOT A FACTOR IN THE SYSTEM. THE LAWS OF CHANCE DO NOT APPLY IN THIS SITUATION.

  Look, I’m not about to discuss semantics with you today. What is happening to this Auditor’s caseload?

  CENTER CONTROL REGULATION 24-092: ALL SUBJECTS HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED APPROVED STUDY PLANS AND ARE MONITORED BY COMMISSION HQ.

  Thank you. I am familiar with the regulation. You have been most helpful. As always, the dependable Deltron.

  THE SERIES IS PROUD OF ITS REPUTATION.

  Rightly so, why shouldn’t a machine be permitted the luxury of pride. End transmission.

  In Philip Quarrels’ opinion the Deltron is as dull a machine as the Amco-pak series, for all of its renowned dependability. And so sanctimonious about the Trance Retreat. To Quarrels, it is just another overambitious Auditor risking everything for a quantum jump to the Great Liberation. The last three levels in the System involve isolation and total withdrawal, and residents are known to have been elevated hundreds of degrees at one time, skipping all intermediary levels on the Path to Understanding. But an indefinite trance state is a gamble; most of those who take the chance come back babbling, candidates for emergency therapy.

  Quarrels prefers the Path of Obedience and Dedication. At the moment, he has a memorandum to finish and an interview with Vera Mitlovic is essential. By regulation, Interlevel memory-merge is only permitted between an Auditor and his subject. Quarrels has often regretted not attempting such a merge with Skeets. The boy was a Scout; they could have gone on camping trips together, swapped yarns around a roaring fire, become pals. It is too late now for regrets; the best he can do for Skeets is file a complete memorandum.

  Quarrels knows that if he wants to talk with Vera it will have to be on the island. Her cranial container is in isolation and he couldn’t communicate without the entranced Auditor’s authorization. Quarrels arranged Vera’s merge with Skeets. He knows the correct coordinates; simple rewiring is all that is required. Even his background is right. As a young pilot, Quarrels was stationed at Boca Chica Naval Air Station and made frequent flights down through the Caribbean. Once he was forced to eject after a flame-out over Tortola.

  Also, there’s a sentimental coincidence in breaking regulations this one time. During the Apollo Project, when astronauts had considerable cachet as celebrities, Philip Quarrels was a familiar figure in Hollywood; movie studios often arranged dates for him with aspiring starlets and go-go girls. He received invitations to all the best parties. At one such poolside occasion he picked up a flashy European actress and spent a delirious weekend with her at a motel outside Palm Springs. They never saw each other again, although he went to several of her pictures. Her name was Vera Mitlovic.

  Y41-AK9 watches on his scanner. The Nords help Itubi to dress, outfitting him with extra garments from their pack-baskets. There is no talk after exchanging names. Itubi follows like a clumsy child and stands to one side, watching as the Nords prepare torches. The fire frightens him; a close-up of his eyes reveals utter panic as the pyre is ignited.

  Communication channels are at last open to the surface installation. Y41-AK9 commands the lens and the Sentinel’s movement, but when he orders the hovering robot to restrain the Tropique he gets no response. Man is sacrosanct to a machine; inhibitions are built in at the factory; the order is meaningless.

  Itubi follows when the Nords start single file for the woods, leaving a gathering of maintenance vans to witness the end of the funeral pyre. The Sentinel is right behind, skimming over the tree tops. Y41-AK9 watches Itubi struggle to keep up, tripping on exposed roots and thrashing in the underbrush. The contrast with the Nord’s agile grace amuses the Auditor. Every clumsy movement, each comic pratfall endorses the validity of the Depository System. Itubi’s undignified performance is typical of a Level I resident. It takes more than a body to make a man.

  Back in her bedroom, with the door locked, Vera regains composure by breathing deeply and concentrating on the frangipani tree outside the window. Her morning orange juice is untouched in a goblet beside the bed. She takes a calm and grateful sip. The flavor is strangely wrong. A hint of almonds recalls a deranged Norwegian wardrobe mistress who doused her snacks with cyanide for several months before she was exposed by the death agonies of a miniature schnauzer greedy enough to make off with a box of contaminated marrons glacés.

  Vera spits the suspicious mouthful into a wash basin. First Raoul and now Hilda; the past grows malevolent. A beating is bad enough, but she has no intentions of spending half her days in bed with stomach cramps. Her original misgivings about the house seem justified; all that treacherous nostalgia. Memories grow musty like everything else. It is time for some fresh air.

  In a field outside of town, Vera slips a halter over Chi-Chi’s nose for the first time in what must be weeks. Her wide-brimmed sunhat makes a slow walk the only practical gait and the horse plods along the dusty road leading to the beach. A steady wind sends serpentine waves rippling across an ocean of sugarcane. She stares aloft at the motionless glide of a man-o’-war bird as an orange-and-white striped parachute opens like a flower against the distant blue of the sky.

  Philip Quarrels watches the island enlarge between his feet, thinking: fifty years since the last drop, sealed in the scorched hull of all that remained of Endurance II. But it is a memory of something which has not happened to him yet, for this is the young pilot’s first jump and he clings to the shrouds, so excited he is unable to keep from smiling at the prospect of thirty million dollars’ worth of aircraft nosediving into the empty Atlantic.

  An eight-knot wind carries him north northeast, across the island. Details on the ground emerge out of the patchwork geometry: a single-track dirt road dividing the even rows of cane, a circle of tapering royal palms surrounding an acre of scum-green pond, an abandoned greathouse, the shell of a ruined windmill, a girl on a horse. Suddenly, a tamarind tree expands beneath him like an opening umbrella. Quarrels hauls at the lines, fighting for every foot as he drifts past the threatening limbs and into the green uprush of a grass-cove
red hillside.

  He is standing on the collapsed chute, unfastening his harness straps, when the girl comes riding over the crest of the hill. She stares at him, anonymous behind dark glasses and the shielding hatbrim. Her glossy black hair is tied in a single braid down her back like a schoolgirl, yet the dress she wears suggests sophistication and maturity in spite of the way the skirt is pulled up to expose her slim tanned legs. It is a dress designed for buffet garden luncheons and lounging on sofas in the late afternoon, and looks as out-of-place on horseback as does his Day-glo orange flight suit grounded in the relentless tropic sun.

  “Hello, Vera.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is … Quarrels, Philip Quarrels.” He wonders if she remembers the Palm Court Motel.

  “How do you know who I am?”

  “I’m … a friend of Skeets’.”

  “Oh?” Vera laughs, not the nervous giggle of a young girl; the chill sound is bitter and sardonic. “Well, he’s gone. You missed him.”

  “Yes, I know. There was an accident.”

  “What do I care about that?”

  “He didn’t suffer. It was instantaneous. I thought you’d like to know.”

  “You’re from the Depository.”

  “Well … I—”

  “Don’t deny it, you didn’t just drop out of the sky. What do you want with me?”

  “Nothing definite.”

  “Merde! You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t want something. What is it? Did they send you to bring me back?”

  “No, nothing like that, I don’t think they even know you’re here. I only want to talk for a little while.”

  “Talk? What about?”

  “Skeets.”

  “Skeets?” The name is lost in cynical laughter. Vera clutches her flopping hat, drives her heels into the horse’s flanks, and gallops out of sight over the hill.

  Obu Itubi sits with his back against the rough bark of a lodgepole pine, limp as a stringless marionette. His legs ache, his face and arms are scratched and bruised, his blistered feet a throbbing reminder of the many miles he’s come from the Depository. A host of other minor discomforts—itching insect bites, a sunburned nose, the prickling of dried sweat, the unfamiliar demands of thirst and hunger—all declare that the distance to Aisle B must be measured in something more than mere miles.