Brothers of the Head

by Brian Aldiss

  ‘Immediately, it was like I had been transmuted into another person. I was just walking down a road in a rather boring way. I wasn’t on the island any more. I had the carpet and I had the girl. She walked with me, much diminished. She had been writing a diary but now had hidden it and would not even tell me where it was; I did not wish to know where it was, but her silly refusal to speak about it chafed my spirit – I wanted free communion between us.

  ‘Because of this, I led the way into a small village in a snug river valley, where we were surrounded by singing people all having great fun. Somehow I despised them. I was apart from them, though I sang with them. Yes, and I can even remember the song I sang …

  ‘No, I have forgotten the tune, but I remember what the song was about. It was about a planet entirely covered by water. Over the ages the water became conscious. It flew away to another solar system, leaving a great world of sand where the tide had gone out for ever. I ran laughing over the golden sand, tremendously happy because again I was free. Things were hatching out of the dark damp sand, growing, spinning. They evolved into enormous complex castles and people and – oh, unimaginable shapes. It was wonderful.

  ‘These inventions of my song invaded the snug river valley. Nobody paid any attention to them. Everyone left me. There was just the sand. Someone was standing by me, explaining. I did not like what he was saying, particularly as I could not see him.

  ‘“Now you understand how the ocean became intelligent and developed life,” he was saying, going into some long obscure scientific explanation.

  ‘As he was speaking, I saw he was referring to a head which was growing out of the sand. It was more or less like a human head, but at the same time I could see inside it. It was all divided into different sandy floors and rooms, rather in the manner of a complex dolls’ house. From it were pouring sandy thoughts. The thoughts were so powerful that I felt that they were overcoming me, and soon – I cannot tell you what terror I still experience when I say it – the whole universe was becoming nothing but dry sand thoughts. I saw that the stars shining overhead were just gobbets of sand.

  ‘I was full of disgust. Even the sunlight was composed of fine particles of sand which threatened to suffocate me. With an effort, I began running for safety. The sand-grains stung my cheek. Even running was painful. Behind me, the head was growing bigger and bigger; it was virtually a planet in its own right.

  ‘Looking down, I saw my limbs, my body, were composed of sand too. They began to crack and break … I scarcely dared wake up in case the dream proved to be real.’

  We sat unmoving. At last I asked Tom if he would like a swim, just to convince himself that he was perfectly well.

  ‘Just let me be. I’ll sit here a while and recover. You go to bed, Rob.’

  I pointed at the other head.

  ‘That thing was awake, Tom. It is alive, it has thoughts. I don’t think it is any friend of mine or yours. Suppose it wakes up fully and you’re reduced to unconsciousness …’

  Tom stood up. I saw anger on his face. ‘You get up to bed, girl, and don’t talk nonsense. Leave me alone. I’ve been meddled with all my life.’

  ‘But what do you think, Tom? Aren’t you afraid? Why not talk about it?’

  ‘There’s nothing to talk about. Leave me alone.’

  His manner had changed so abruptly that I was scared. I made my way reluctantly upstairs. My father was still snoring securely; it would have taken the Last Trump to wake him.

  Well, I thought, one more night to go before we get Tom to proper care.

  In the morning, he was gone. Father wanted me to do various odd jobs, and it was afternoon before I could strike out across the Head and find him. He was sitting dejectedly under the shade of an elder tree.

  He seemed to be his old self again, saying he was sorry for his angry outburst. I coaxed him back home and gave him something to eat.

  As the day wore on, he was increasingly listless. I kept looking at him when he was looking away. Barry’s head was sunk down useless on to his chest. His cheeks looked gaunt and withered. The other head – was it not tense, as if feigning sleep? Hadn’t its face filled out? Wasn’t its hair less grey, less dead-looking?

  Nameless fears filled me; I thought, if only we can get through the night, tomorrow the ambulance, London, proper care … I had not dared tell Tom yet what was planned. In a good mood, he would do as I bid. And he would surely want to be a separate person on his own if that was possible.

  Towards dusk, I persuaded him to come and swim with me. Father sat at his table, watching us go, smiling vaguely.

  The visitors had left. One or two solitary lights dotted the distance. The sea was flat, its surface heaving as if in a stupor. Not a wave broke. A leaden mist moved slowly over the sea like oil, the token of another day’s heat already in preparation.

  I stripped off my clothes and flung myself in the water. Tom waded in. As he launched himself, the other heads came up, and Barry’s limbs went through swimming motions just as if he were alive. Just their two outer arms moved, the way of swimming they had adopted long ago. We did not stay in the water for long.

  Above us in the sky shone the full moon, the Norfolk harvest moon.

  ‘I think I’ll sleep better tonight,’ Tom said. ‘I wish Laura was here.’

  So we went to our bedrooms. Despite all my anxieties, I was soon fast asleep.

  No sooner had my eyes closed – so it seemed – than the screaming started. It sounded like the snarling of a pair of wild dogs fighting. I staggered up, full of sleep, and again made my way to Tom’s room, like a somnambulist. Again I had a strong impression that I was dreaming. Everything was precise in detail yet faint over-all, like a dream.

  I went down the corridor like a swimmer, very slowly. When I entered Tom’s room, the snarling had stopped. He was propped up in bed, smiling at me. He had arranged the sheet over the other heads.

  It was so light in the room with the moonlight that his teeth gleamed when he yawned.

  ‘What’s happened? What was all that noise.’

  ‘I had another dream.’ That was all he said. He yawned again.

  Tom, are you all right?’

  ‘It wasn’t anything at first. I can’t remember ever having the same feeling in a dream, or in real life. I was just nothing. Surrounded by nothing, I can’t describe it. I had been sucked dry of all life, although I wasn’t dead.’ There he paused. When I thought he was going to say nothing more, he began again, in a dull voice.

  ‘There just seemed to be wind about, blowing hither and yon. What slowly appeared was like part of my thoughts, at least at first. I was surrounded by desert. Only gradually did I realize that there were soldiers marching through it, whole ranks of them. Only they weren’t soldiers; they were knights in armour. They trailed on through the sand with automatic tread.

  ‘As I followed them, the revelation came that they were robots, things of metal, without consciousness. They were governed by a great distant machine, a vast metallic bowl like a flat face, like a huge radio telescope, which stood on the distant horizon.

  ‘We marched and marched. There was a typical dream contradiction, because the lifeless robots occasionally fell and died and decayed as they hit the sand, so that we found ourselves marching over skeletons.

  ‘Another contradiction – though it was all negative, nothing, it also seemed vastly important.

  ‘The desert sloped down towards sunset and night. All the robots were marching into night, going from sun to dark and disappearing. It looked frightening. I didn’t want to go that way. As I tried to leave them and go another way, I discovered that I had been turned into a robot too. I had no control over myself. I was forced to march into that destructive cloak of night.

  ‘The night was artificially generated by the distant machine. I knew something about that machine but was unable to remember what. Now I was entering the dark, crying in despair.

  ‘A powerfully built man stood at the entrance, flogging everyone
in.’

  Tom paused, yawning again. Frightening though his dream sounded, he was telling it in mild tones, as if he were bored. I stood at the foot of the bed, listening, not moving.

  ‘My emotion was so strong that there was a sort of break in the dream, almost as though I was being given time to dissolve. I felt that I was sinking to the bottom of an ocean – or rather, to the bottom of a multi-layered city which was drowned in an ocean. I could see lights, and people laughing and talking inside open windows as I floated down.

  ‘As that awful downward drifting continued, I got to know more about the people. There were myriads of them, myriads and myriads, and they were all working on one immense project. The project was secret and involved building a super-weapon which would obliterate life on Earth – or wherever I was. The scheme went forward under immense secrecy, which was why the city had been built at the bottom of the ocean.

  ‘Learning this information filled me with a sense of doom. I know the whole dream is filled with doom, but it was sharpened by the obsessive secrecy with which everyone worked. They were doing such a diversity of things towards the one end – pickling vegetables and embroidering cloth as well as working on all kinds of machines; apparently everything that was done in the city contributed to the one hideous end.

  ‘What made it worse was that everyone was enjoying themselves in a quiet way, despite the oppressive conditions and the secrecy. As I passed along the submerged street many a person I saw giving a crafty laugh or a sly snigger.

  ‘It began to seem funny to me, too, although I knew it would all end in a mighty explosion …’

  Again Tom paused. He snuggled down comfortably against his pillow. I waited for him to continue, but time lengthened and he said no more.

  ‘Tom?’

  He was asleep again. His breathing was even and regular.

  I felt as unreal as a ghost, standing there at the foot of the bed. Drawn by an unknown compulsion, I moved round to where Barry’s body lay covered. Grasping the corner of the sheet, I moved it: then, with an effort, pulled it down.

  Barry’s head lolled uselessly. But the other … Its eyes were regarding me. They glittered from under heavy lids, like oil. The mouth was partly open.

  I brought myself to speak. ‘Who are you?’

  No reply. But it moved, craning up on its neck to regard me better. I took a pace back and repeated my question.

  Then words formed in its mouth. ‘You are part of my dream …’

  The voice was suffocated, as if it came from under a pile of mouldy pillows.

  ‘You aren’t Barry. Who are you?’

  Again a long wait, during which we stared at each other. Then it said ‘My name is …’ The word it spoke was instantly lost. I could not remember it as it was spoken and have been unable to since. ‘I have been penned in this tree all my days.’

  ‘You are not in a tree. You must be dreaming. Go back to sleep.’

  The sense of effort when it spoke. ‘Now I am escaping from the entrails of the tree. The two wicked ones who imprisoned me will be punished …’

  Then silence. Then, with little regard for what it had just said, ‘One has already died, one remains.’

  On me was the strong spell of a dream from which I was unable to break free. ‘You’re wrong, you’re wrong,’ I was repeating, but it took no notice.

  ‘I’ll wake Tom,’ I said.

  Immediately, it was in action. Barry’s body leaped up at me. Its arm came out and I was seized viciously by the wrist. The move was totally unexpected. It pulled me down to it, getting its other hand behind my neck.

  I saw myself about to be dragged down on it, to have my face in contact with that face. At last I managed to scream. What a joy to make that noise, as when I first gave cry!

  Tom’s eyes opened.

  He was immediately aware of what had happened. He twisted his body and struck the other’s arm. The other released me and tried to grasp Tom by the throat. In its anger, it looked much like Barry, whose head lolled peacefully between the struggling pair.

  A fearful battle took place between the two of them. I rolled off the bed and ran in fright to waken father. I burst into his room and beat him on the shoulder. Swearing, he came to his senses at last and climbed out of bed, grasping his sporting rifle which stood propped against the chair by his bedside. I had heard a rumpus on the stairs. When we got out there, the pair were down below. Father rushed down in the dark, shouting, I followed. Sounds of crashing and the back door bursting open.

  The table in the living-room had been overturned. Father and I ran to the open door. It was almost as light as day outside. The twin figures were distant, still struggling together but making away across the low dunes. Father raised his rifle to fire, but I seized it and dragged it down, screaming at him.

  ‘Are you mad, are you dreaming? That’s your son out there!’

  ‘They should never have been born.’

  He stood where he was, wiping his mouth over and over again with the back of his hand. The struggling figures disappeared into the night.

  Switching on the light, I looked at our old clock ticking on the mantelpiece. I saw with horror that it was only just a quarter to one in the morning. I wanted Bert to help me, and Dr Collins – anyone – but there was nothing we could do till daybreak.

  Sleep overcame me. I dozed off in the old chair. When I woke, dawn was moving in across the flat prospects outside. I was stiff and cold.

  The table was still overturned, the door still hanging open. There was no sound in the house. I boiled up the kettle and made myself a mug of tea. No one would be stirring in the Staithe yet. Soon I would switch on our flashing emergency light outside, our way of calling the mainland. Aunt Hetty would see it when she rose at six-thirty and would go to summon Bert.

  I padded outside and looked about. The early mist had not yet dispersed. The low line of the mainland, with its woods and church towers, was obliterated. We might have been on an island out to sea. Nothing moved. I tried calling Tom, but there was no answer.

  Somehow, I did not feel like venturing too far from the house, but I took a stout stick and walked towards The Feather. There I strolled with my feet in the wavelets, as common and lesser terns started up all round me. The tide was at its full. A boat was chugging up the channel.

  The sound of that engine, the lines of the boat, and that figure in the blue jumper standing at the tiller, were all dearly familiar. It was Bert in his boat, amazingly, gratifyingly early.

  A moment later I saw he had a passenger. Not Dr Collins. Too early for her. It was Laura Ashworth.

  I ran across to Cockle Bight, calling to them.

  Soon Bert was helping her ashore. I caught his look of admiration as he gave her a hand. She was wearing the same clothes as last time I had seen her, a brown suede outfit. She gave me a big hug.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I saw about the heart transplant on someone’s television. I was in Spain, in the south. I got here as soon as I could.’

  ‘Laura came up on the milk train from London,’ said Bert admiringly.

  ‘And got you out of bed, I see,’ I said. But there were more important things to talk about. ‘There’s trouble, Bert. I know Tom’s in fearful trouble.’

  As quickly as I could, I told them both what had happened.

  ‘I’ll stay and help you find Tom,’ Bert said. He tied up his boat and we headed back to the house.

  ‘This new creature who’s taken possession of Barry’s body,’ I said. ‘It seems to think that all its life so far has been stolen from it. Now it wants to take over Tom’s body as well. They are caught in some terrible battle I don’t understand.’

  ‘Another psychic battle! Poor Tom’s been involved in a psychic battle all his life,’ said Laura.

  ‘It could be over today.’ I told them about the hospital arrangements.

  Laura had not slept all night. I made her some tea, and then we set out to search the Head. She and I set
off together eastwards along the seaward side, Bert took the landward side.

  We had the sun in our eyes. We said little to each other. Every now and again, we called Tom. I pictured him struggling with that new nameless thing, the evil face close against his, his feeling of absolute desperation. I longed to be with him. I longed for Laura to be with him.

  After about two hours, we heard a distant shout. We answered it. We stood where we were. Bert appeared over a distant dune, waving once. Immediately, I knew something was wrong. Laura and I looked into each other’s faces and set off in Bert’s direction.

  His face was grim. As we came together, he took my hands without looking at Laura.

  ‘Tom’s over by the observation post, my love. Don’t go.’

  ‘I must go to him.’

  ‘He’s dead, love. Laura, you look after Robbie, will you? I’m going to get back to the boat fast as I can, and I’ll come back with the police.’

  He gave me a kiss and was off across the uneven ground at a jogtrot.

  ‘I got to go to Tom,’ I said.

  She came with me.

  The joined bodies lay on the landward side of the observation post. A bank of cobbles was piled against one side of the wooden hut and they lay together on the cobbles. All the way, I had been unable to believe Tom could be dead. Directly I saw him, I knew. The two joined bodies were huddled in positions the living never use.

  Laura gave a cry and took a step ahead of me. She too stopped. You could go no nearer.

  On the brow of the other head was a black and bloody contusion, where Tom had struck it with a stone. Tom’s head was almost locked with Barry’s.