We did short projections at first, just a couple of feet. The rat became two rats and looked a bit startled; then the two of them went back to what they were doing. As we’d noticed with the spiders, they would sometimes do different things, like one would clean its whiskers while the other one was eating. I’d found that surprising enough with the spider, but I can tell you, when it happens with an animal like a rat it looks even more odd. After each experiment we’d bring the two back together, and watch it carefully for a while. In the end we took the plunge and did a projection through the copper mesh and over to a table we’d placed about twenty feet away, on the other side of the room. The rat wasn’t running around there because we projected its cage with it; we weren’t taking any chances. Then we detuned and powered down and the two rats became one. Again we looked carefully, but again the animal seemed none the worse for having led a dual existence. Rodge put the rat, still in its cage, into a sports bag and took a cab round to Queen’s to return it to Tom.
We stayed at my flat the next day, waiting for Tom to call us. We knew the result was going to be crucial and neither of us could settle down to anything. Rodge fiddled around with some calculations. I tried to study a course text, but it was hopeless: I’d turn a page and wonder what I’d read on the previous one. Our nerves were stretched taut. When the phone finally rang at five o’clock we both jumped. Rodge took the call.
“Hi, Tom. Yes. Right, so you’ve been testing it all day…”
I realized he was repeating the conversation for my benefit.
“Behaviourally normal, total retention of memory, normal problem-solving abilities. Does that mean it’s okay? Oh good. Thanks a lot, Tom. We really appreciate your help.”
That was it. It seemed the way was clear.
*
Three weeks is all it took. Three weeks between the crucial experiment with the spider, when the full possibilities started to dawn on us, and Rodge sitting in a chair inside the cage with me charging the capacitors and bringing up the radiated power. And then waiting, my finger poised over the big red button.
RODGER
16
I was getting along perfectly well on my own and if Mike hadn’t happened along that’s the way I’d have kept it. When it comes to work I find most people very irritating. They swan through life without an original thought in their heads, and then—like Ledsham—fully expect to take credit for what you’ve done, just because they happen to be around at the time. They even steal your ideas and publish them as their own, so you’ve got to be careful. There are exceptions, of course. Tom Mayhew was one. Mike was another.
I didn’t mind working with Mike and it didn’t annoy me to have him around. It was the same in our undergraduate days. Some people thought we were an unlikely pair, because he was in no way my intellectual equal. Actually—setting aside for the moment that I didn’t care a damn what they thought or said—they were completely missing the point. I know he was inordinately grateful to me for explaining the things to him that he couldn’t understand, but it wasn’t pure altruism. Mike was actually quite useful to me, as a sort of litmus test of my own understanding. If I could explain something to him in a way he could grasp then I knew I’d mastered it properly myself. If I couldn’t explain it, I’d say to him, “Sorry, Mike, I need to clarify this a bit in my own mind.” I didn’t try to fob him off with a lot of jargon and I didn’t sneer at his limited intellectual ability, as some people might have done. Because it was like a flag being waved, telling me that my own understanding was incomplete. And that would prompt me to go into it in much greater depth, until I did understand it properly. Then we would sit down together and I would explain it to him again.
I suppose he was a bit of a puppy dog at college, following me around as he did, but it didn’t do any harm. The good thing about Mike is that he’s uncomplicated; you know where you are with him, you never feel there’s a hidden agenda. I couldn’t say that for the rest of them. Mike was certainly no idiot, but he was no genius either; his great virtue was to know his limitations and be honest about them. The others all thought they were better than they actually were. It’s true that some of them were academically able, but they didn’t have any real vision. As far as the physics course was concerned, they could only see as far as passing the exams and getting well-remunerated jobs; that was the extent of their love of science. And because they didn’t feel the need to acquire any deeper insight they missed the point about Mike and myself, which was that our relationship was as valuable to me as it was to him. It was fortuitous that we were able to pick it up again several years later when he came back to the University to do his M.Sc.. By then he was reasonably competent technically, so he could be quite helpful around the lab.
It must have come as a surprise to him to discover how deep in debt I was. He would have assumed I was properly funded as a postdoctoral fellow, and up to that point I hadn’t disabused him of the notion. In actual fact I wasn’t receiving any funding at all. It was no fault of mine. I knew I’d made a damned good job of my doctoral research, and my so-called supervisor, Ledsham, had to acknowledge that. He disliked me, all the same—I know he did. Perhaps he felt a twinge of guilt because he’d made no intellectual contribution to the work whatsoever—not even to the joint paper Tom and I had put his name on. You’d have thought he’d have been grateful to have something to put in his report to the electricity company, to show them they’d got something of value for their money. But when I approached him about a postdoctoral appointment he was totally unhelpful.
“I don’t think that’s on, Rodger,” he said. “I’ll be continuing as Dean for the moment, so I’m not going to have any time to run a research lab. I don’t have any funding for a postdoc and because of my commitments I can’t in all conscience apply for it.”
“What about a lectureship?”
“Out of the question. There aren’t any vacancies, and even if there were you’re far too inexperienced. No, my advice to you would be to broaden your experience elsewhere. That’s the usual career pattern, you know. You’re a capable chap. You should be able to find another lab to take you on.”
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. It might be the usual strategy to move around and gain experience in different labs, but I wasn’t looking for a conventional career. If I moved I’d have to work for someone else on what they fondly believed to be a worthwhile project, knowing all the time that I had a far more ambitious goal that was very nearly within my grasp. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and I was well equipped to do it. The windowless old lab, with its damp walls and peeling paint, had an excellent power supply. Then there was all the apparatus I’d been putting together over the last three years; I couldn’t leave all that behind.
“Prof, I’m sure that’s good advice,” I told him, “but the thing is, my doctoral work here has opened up a number of avenues which I’m very keen to explore. I don’t actually need anything further in the way of equipment or running costs. How would it be if I stayed on, on a purely honorary basis?”
“Well, that would be most unusual. I suppose if you think you can manage I can’t object. We’re already short of space in the School but I don’t think there’ll be any great demand for that lab you’re occupying until it’s properly refurbished. I have to say again I can’t offer you a salary, but I’ll do what I can to arrange an ex gratia payment out of college funds. Perhaps you can do some paid demonstrating in undergraduate practical classes—that might help you make ends meet. But I do urge you to think of this as a temporary measure. It would be far better, from a career point of view, if you got a properly funded postdoctoral position somewhere else.”
That was all I wanted. After that conversation I didn’t see him again. He did get me the ex gratia payment but it was hardly worth having. I never followed up on the demonstrating and I have no intention of doing so now. I had quite enough of students when I was an undergraduate myself.
My debts started to mount up, of course, but there was no way
I was going to ask mother for help. If you want to know why, you have to know a little about my background. Mother was a Laverne-Villiers; they can trace their family back to the twelfth century. But as with a lot of the old families, death duties had taken their toll, the houses needed a lot of upkeep, and the money was running out. Mother was very handsome—well, she still is. She caught the eye of Dukas at some reception or other, and he started to pay her a lot of attention. He was very much new money: investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, that sort of thing. The family were enthusiastic about the match—because of the money, of course. I think he was keen because he thought it would give him an entrée into polite society. I don’t know whether mother was attracted to him, or even liked him, but she was always a strong believer in duty. So the marriage went ahead. Incidentally, I got all this from a talkative old aunt. Mother would never have confided anything like that in me; she bore her lot with fortitude and totally in private.
It was a big wedding with a lot of publicity, but once they were married things failed to go according to plan. On the one side, the family declined to admit him to their own circle, let alone introduce him into society. To be fair I think they did try a small dinner party or two but he was just an embarrassment to them; he was too loud and uncouth for their refined company. On the other side, the expected largesse from Dukas showed no sign whatsoever of materializing. He took no interest in the upkeep of the main part of the estate. He didn’t even want to live there. He was abroad most of the time, on business, as he liked to put it. He installed mother in a modest house on the estate—I think it once belonged to a gamekeeper—and gave her some sort of allowance, but I know it wasn’t nearly enough to live on. He probably spent more on his other women in a week than he gave her in a month. Fortunately her uncle was old Lord Rambourne. He was fond of her, and as he didn’t have any family of his own he left her a bequest. After he died it kept her going, particularly as she now had a son to bring up. I believe mother named me after one of my illustrious forebears, Sir Rodger de Villiers. It didn’t make any difference to me. Names aren’t important; you are who you are.
So now I was part of the Dukas household, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that I didn’t feature importantly in father’s grand design. He didn’t ill-treat me: he just ignored me. It was like I wasn’t there. He’d come home for a few days and spend most of it going at my mother. And not just in the bedroom either. I remember one occasion—I suppose I was about eight—when I went down to the kitchen in my pyjamas to get a drink of water. Mother was standing at the sink doing the washing-up. He’d come up, lifted her skirt and pulled down her panties, and he was having her from behind, holding her strongly by the hips and bending and straightening his knees to get a good thrust. And she just stood there quietly, head hung forward, waiting for him to finish, her rubber-gloved hands extended to either side of the sink to steady herself, the soap bubbles popping as they dried on her gloves. I crept away without them seeing me, feeling revolted and at the same time strangely excited. It was an image that returned to me again and again. After a while he started to come to the house less and less frequently. I had few regrets about that, and I’m sure Mother felt the same way.
You might have thought that, with an animal like that for a husband and father, mother and I would have grown closer together, but it didn’t work like that. I don’t know why. Perhaps she thought the marriage would have been more successful if I hadn’t come along, although that was fairly hard to believe. Perhaps she resented me because I got in the way of her marrying someone else, someone more cultivated. I’m sure it hurt her the way father ignored me, and no doubt she would have liked me to achieve something spectacular, just to get back at him. I’m afraid I failed her in that respect. I didn’t need him or care what he thought about me, and I wasn’t going to be a pawn in their game. I went to a good public school and did moderately well but not brilliantly. The school was keen for me to sit the entrance exams for Cambridge but I got impatient with the stupid questions they asked me at interview and that didn’t go down too well. I wasn’t bothered when they failed to give me a place. I was already interested in the physics of matter and it seemed to me that Prince Albert had the better course anyway.
When I was an undergrad I used to go home during the long vacations, but the family didn’t share my interest in science; their interest was limited to my potential earning power. Mother expressed no opinion one way or the other. I got a First, but only because I wanted to be able to compete successfully for a research studentship. I decided not to give my mother or my absentee father the satisfaction of seeing the degree awarded; at the time of the degree ceremony I arranged to be on holiday in France. I haven’t been home since I got the Ph.D. There’s no way I could approach her for money now, even if I thought she had it to give me. For the moment, then, I’ve had to let the debts mount up.
The bank manager who was around when we first came to the University was a decent chap who took a long view. He knew we were all bright enough to earn a good living, and that some of us would be high-fliers, financially speaking. So he regarded my custom as a long-term investment, and the growing debt a temporary aberration that would be corrected in good time. The new manager, Mr. Meredrew, has a less charitable outlook. Although he’s constrained not to voice his opinions, it’s fairly obvious that so far as he’s concerned students are a lot of free-loaders cluttering up his nice bank, and the sooner he can be shot of us, and have some decent clients’ assets to play with, the happier he’ll be. In fact I don’t think happiness even enters into the equation for Meredrew. Since nothing can ever live up to his standards, what other people would experience as happiness he regards merely as a lesser degree of irritation.
The last time he called me in, he was really offensive about my overdraft. He sat there in his grey suit and carefully ironed striped shirt with the white collar and tightly knotted tie and matching pocket handkerchief, and in his condescending manner and disdainful voice proceeded to tell me my responsibilities, and spelt out all the legal consequences for me in great detail and, I thought, with a certain relish. I despised him more than anyone I have ever met. It took a real effort of self control not to put my fist in his face there and then, and I was still choking on my own bile when I got back to the lab.
17
Mike, to his credit, didn’t try to probe into the reasons for my lack of solvency. He saw the state I was in and suggested straight away that I moved into his flat. That’s typical of Mike; he sees what needs to be done and he does it. I must say it was a mighty relief because I was behind on the rent and with Meredrew foreclosing on me I hardly knew what to do next.
I’d rented furnished accommodation so there wasn’t much stuff to move; it was mostly clothes, and I don’t have a large wardrobe. As soon as we got back to his flat, Mike took charge of the situation. He cleared a few drawers for me, gave me some hanging space for jackets and trousers, and then came in with an armful of bedclothes.
“Here are some blankets and spare sheets. This sofa converts to a bed—I’ll show you how. You’ll need to strip the bed every morning and put the sheets and blankets in here,” he indicated a drawer, “so we can use the room as a lounge again. You can make the bed up again in the evening. It’s not a problem if you want an early night because I mostly do my work on the kitchen table.”
“I really appreciate this, Mike.”
“That’s okay. It’s not a permanent solution but it makes sense until you’re back on your feet. Can you cook?”
“I know several different ways of preparing eggs. But I’m afraid that’s the limit of my…”
“All right, it’s not a problem. I can do the cooking.”
He continued to show me round the flat while he explained how we could divide the tasks. It was as if he was ticking off the items on a mental list: cooking, washing-up, shopping, laundry, housework… I was in no position to argue—after all, he was putting a roof over my head—but I did find myself
wondering whether it was really necessary to have this degree of organization. Somehow I’d muddled along before without devoting so much of my precious time to the minutiae of day-to-day living. The thought occurred to me that he might entertain people here from time to time. The whole place was so neat and clean that you could have invited anyone back at zero notice. That’s not something you could have said for my place, but then I didn’t do any entertaining so the problem didn’t arise. Well, if he did have visitors I supposed I’d be meeting them soon enough.
*
By now Mike had become very familiar with the equipment, so I could feel reasonably confident when I took my place in the cage with him at the control panel. If something did go wrong, I felt he’d know what to do. But I was determined that nothing would go wrong. I spent the whole of the previous day checking the tuning and output of every generator, every amplifier, every photodiode array, every laser. I took the table out of the cage to make room for a chair under the antenna array. And before I even went into the cage I had the power supplies running for an hour, and checked once again that everything was within spec. It was, so I went and sat in the chair and he started to charge the capacitor bank and run up the radiated power.
“Mike? After we’ve projected, wait for a bit. I’ll raise my hand when I want you to kill the resonance. When that happens, detune and power down, all right? If I don’t raise my hand in two minutes, do it anyway.”
“Okay. Are you still sure about this, Rodge?”
“Yes, yes, quite sure. Let’s do it.”
“Okay, I’m pressing the button…now!”
I heard the circuit breaker go clonk and I had a brief sensation of movement, a bit like the feeling you have when you get off a boat and the ground still seems to be heaving. I realized I must have been projected but I couldn’t interpret my sensations. The main problem was my vision; it seemed confused, doubled. I persevered for a bit, then made a decision and raised my hand. There was a pause and then suddenly things returned to normal. Mike sounded very anxious.
The Man in Two Bodies (British crime novel): A Dark Science Crime Caper Page 9
