by Brian Aldiss
Danger: Religion!
Brian Aldiss
We made a strange group, the four of us plodding manfully through nowhere.
Royal Meacher, my brother, led the way. His long arms and bony hands fought the wind for possession of his cloak, a shabby mantle that stayed about him no more certainly than his authority.
Next, the breeze from the north plucked at the figure of Turton, our man Turton, poor old Turton, the mutant whose third arm and all but useless third leg combined with his black cloak to give him from behind something of the appearance of a beetle. Over his shoulder, Turton carried Candida in an attitude of maximum discomfort.
Candida still dripped. Her hair streamed in the wind like frayed ribbon. Her left ear jogged up and down the central seam of Turton's coat; her right eye peered sightlessly back at me. Candida is Royal's fourth wife.
I am Royal's younger brother, Sheridan. I felt defeated by Candida's stare. I kept hoping that the jig-jog of Turton's walk would shake her eye shut; and so I suppose it might have done had her head not been hanging upside down.
We walked toward the north, into the molars of the wind.
The road on which we walked was narrow and absolutely straight. It appeared to lead nowhere, for despite the wind a miasmal mist rose from the damp about us, obscuring everything ahead. The road ran along a dyke, the sides of which, being newly constructed, were of bare earth. This dyke divided a stretch of sea. We had the sea on both sides of us.
Almost as far as our vision extended, we could see another dyke extending parallel with ours. The sea was being chopped into polders. In time, as the work of reclamation proceeded, the squares would be drained; the sea would dwindle into puddles; the puddles would become mud; the mud would become soil; the soils would become vegetables; and the vegetables—oh, yes!—the vegetables would be eaten and become flesh; ghosts of future people grew here.
Treading steadily on to the rear of Turton, I looked back over my shoulder.
The vast funeral pyre we had left was made insignificant by distance; the kiln was a tiny black pipe topped by flame. No more did we feel its heat or smell the burning bodies, but the effluvium lingered in our memories. Royal still spoke of it, rambling in and out of quotation as his habit was, addressing the wind.
"You note how the parsimonious Dutch reclaim both their land and their dead in one operation. And those grisly corpses, maligned by sea and radiation, will make excellent fertilizer with their ashes. How convenient, how concise! Occam's razor cuts precious fine, friends: the obscene fag ends of one chemical reaction go to start another. 'Marvellous is the plan by which this best of worlds is wisely planned!' Forty thousand dead Dutchmen should guarantee us a good cabbage crop in four years, eh, Turton?"
The bent old man, with Candida's head nodding idiot agreement, said, "Back before the last two wars, they used to grow tulips and flowers here, according to the engineer at the kiln."
Dark was coming in now, the mist thickening, the sulky captive sea falling motionless as the wind died. Beyond the outline of my brother's back I could see lights; with gratitude I mouthed their ugly name; Noordoostburg-op-Langedijk.
"That moldy towerful of cadavers would seem to be less appropriately applied to tulips than to cabbages, Turton," Royal said. "And what more suitable envoi to the indignity of their deaths? Recollect your Browne: To be gnawed out of our graves, to have our skulls made drinking bowls, and our bones turned into pipes, to delight and sport our enemies—"how does it go?"—are tragical abominations escaped in burning burials.' Since Browne's time, we've grown a lot more ingenious! Nuclear destruction and incineration need not be the end of our troubles. We can still be spread as mulch for the genus brassica...."
"Cabbages it was, cabbages or tulips," old Turton insisted, but Royal was not to be deflected. He talked on as we trudged on. I was not listening. I wanted only to get off this eternal earthwork, safe into civilization and warmth.
When we reached Noordoostburg-op-Langedijk, a mere platform joined by dyke and mole to the distant land, we went into its only cafe. Turton laid Candida down on a bench. He unbent his beetle back and stretched his arms (but the third never stretched straight) with groans of relief. The cafe manager came forward hurriedly.
"I regret I cannot introduce you properly to my wife. She is religious and has passed into a coma," Royal said, staring the man down.
"Sir, this lady is not dead?" the manager asked.
"Merely religious."
"Sir, she is somewhat wet!" the manager said.
"A property she shares with the confounded ditch into which she plunged when the coma overtook her, my man. Will you kindly bring us three soups: my wife, as you see, will not partake."
Dubiously the manager backed away.
Turton followed him to the counter.
"You see, the lady's very susceptible to anything religious. We came over with the party from Edinburgh specially to see the cremation down the road, and Mrs. Meacher was overwhelmed by the sight. Or perhaps it was the smell, I don't know, or the sound of the bodies bubbling in the incinerator. Anyhow, before anyone could stop her, backward she went— splash!—and—"
"Turton!" Royal called sharply.
"I was just trying to borrow a towel," Turton said.
We ate our soup in silence. A puddle collected under Candida's clothing.
"Say something, Sheridan," Roy demanded, rapping his spoon on the table at me.
"I wonder if there are fish in those fields," I said.
He made his usual gesture of disgust and turned away. Fortunately I did not have to say anything more, for at that moment the rest of our Edinburgh party came in for soup. The incineration ceremony had finished just after we left.
Soup and rationed chocolate were all that the caf6 offered. When the party had finished up their bowls, we went outside. I draped Candida over Turton's shoulder, and we followed Royal.
The weather was showing its talents. The wind had dropped; rain began to fall. It fell on the concrete, into the polders, into the sour sea. It fell onto the buzz-jet. We all packed into it, jostling and pushing. Somehow, Royal managed to get in and away from the rain first. Turton and I were last aboard, but Turton had been wet already.
This buzz-jet was a missile left over from the last war and converted. It was uncomfortable, yet it could move; we headed northwest across the sea and over northern England, where not a light showed from the stricken lands; in a quarter of an hour the lights of Edinburgh showed through the slashing darkness.
Our craft was a government one. Private transport of any variety was a thing of the past. Mainly it was fuel shortage that had brought the situation about; but when the last war ended at the beginning of 2041, the government passed laws forbidding the private ownership of transport.
At Turnhouse Airport we climbed out and made our way with the crowd to a bus shelter. A bus arrived after a few minutes; it was too full to take us; we waited and caught the next one; it crawled with us into town, while we stood like cattle in a truck.
That sort of thing takes the edge off what otherwise had been a very enjoyable day's sightseeing. We had made several such excursions to celebrate my demobilization from the army.
Since the war, Edinburgh had become the capital of Europe, chiefly because the others had been obliterated or made uninhabitable by radiation or the aftereffects of bacterial warfare.
Some of the old Scottish families were proud of this promotion of their city; others felt that this greatness had been thrust upon them; but most of them took advantage of the shining hour by thrusting up rents to astronomical heights. The thousands of refugees, evacuated and displaced people who poured into the city, found themselves held to ransom for living space.
When we climbed out of the bus at the city center, I became separated from the others by the crowd, that cursed anonymous crowd speaking all the tongues of Europe. I brushed off a hand that clutched at my sleeve; it came again, detaining me more forcibly. Irritably, I looked round, and my eyes met the eyes of a square, dark man; in that instance, I took in no more detail beyond saying to myself that his was a great Gothic cathedral of a face.
"You are Sheridan Meacher, fellow of Edinburgh University, lecturer in history?" he asked
I dislike being recognized at a bus stop.
"European history," I said.
The expression on his face was not readable, weary triumph, perhaps? He motioned to me to follow him.
At that moment, the crowd surged forward, so that he and I were borne out of it and into a side street.
"I want you to come with me," he said.
"Who are you? I've got no money."
He wore a black and white uniform. That did not endear him to me. I had seen enough of uniforms in those weary war years underground.
"Mr. Meacher, you are in trouble. I have a room not five minutes away from here; will you please come with me to it and discuss the situation with me? I assure you I will offer you no personal harm, if that is why you hesitate."
"What sort of trouble? Are you a black marketeer? If so, shove off!"
"Let us go and discuss."
I shrugged my shoulders and followed him. We went down a couple of back streets, toward the Grass-market, and in at a grimy door. The man with the Gothic face preceded me up a winding stair. At one point a door opened, a dimly lit hag's face peeped out at us, and then the door slammed again, leaving us in gloom.
He paused on a landing and felt in his pocket. He said, "I shouldn't think a house like this has changed much since Dr. Johnson visited Edinburgh." Then in an altered tone, he added, "I mean—you did have a Dr. Johnson, Samuel Johnson—didn't you?"
Not understanding his phrasing—yet I had not taken him for other than an Englishman—I said, "Dr. Johnson visited this city to stay with his friend Boswell about 1773 a.d.”
In the dark he sighed with relief. Sliding a key into a lock he said, "Of course, of course, I was just forgetting that the road from London to Edinburgh was open by that date. Forgive me."
He opened a door, switched on a light, and ushered me into his room. What could the man mean? Edinburgh and London had been connected—though often tenuously—a long while before Johnson's visit. I was beginning to form ideas about this Gothic stranger—all of them later proved wrong.
His room was bare and nondescript, a typical lodging room with a combo-toilet in one corner, in another a hand generator in case the main electricity supply failed, and a screen standing on the far side of the room with a bed behind it. He went across to the window to draw the curtains before turning to confront me.
"I should introduce myself, Mr. Meacher. My name is Apostolic Rastell, Captain Apostolic Rastell of the Matrix Investigation Corps."
I inclined my head and waited; the world was full of sinister-sounding establishments these days, and although I had never heard of the Matrix Investigation Corps, I did not say so. We stood looking at each other, summing one another up. Captain Rastell was a considerable man, untidy perhaps, but prepossessing, strongly built without being bulky, a man in his late twenties, and with that square, dogged, extraordinary face. I could not make him out—truth to tell, I have never been able to make him out.
He went behind his screen, to emerge carrying a light folding screen. This he opened and stood up.
The screen was locked with some sort of a combination lock. Rastell worked it, staring at me somewhat grimly as he listened to the tumblers click.
"You had better look at this before I offer any explanation," he said.
A seat unfolded from the screen, and behind it, the screen surface turned silver and mirrorlike. I took a good look, and faintness overcame me. I staggered and he caught me, but I quickly recovered.
I saw myself in the screen. The anonymous room was also reflected there, if reflected is the word, its dimensions cramped and twisted, so that it looked as if the figures of Rastell and myself stood on the outside rather than the inside of a cube. The effect was as if I peered into a distorting mirror; but this was no mirror—for I found myself staring distractedly at my own profile!
"What's this bit of gimmickry?"
"You are an intelligent man, Mr. Meacher, and since I am in a hurry I hope that already this sight has suggested to you that there are departments of life which are a mystery to you, and into which you have not peered or cared to peer. There are other earths, other Edinburghs, than this one of yours, Mr. Meacher; I come from such a one, and I invite you to follow me back to it now."
I sat on a chair and stared at him. There is no point in recounting the terrors, hopes, and suppositions that poured through my mind. After a moment, I listened to what he was saying. It went something like this:
"Although you are not a philosopher, Mr. Meacher, you perhaps understand how many men spend large parts of their lives waiting for a challenge; they prepare themselves for it, though they may not guess what it is until the moment comes. I hope you are such a man, for I have no time for lengthy explanation. In the matrix from which I came, we had a dramatist last century called Jean Paul Sartre; in one of his plays, a man says to another, "Do you mean to say that you would judge the whole of someone's life by one single action?" and the other asks simply, "Why not?" So I ask you, Mr. Meacher, will you come with me? Will you test all your life with one action?"
"Why should I?"
"You must ask yourself that." In the circumstances, what monstrous assumptions behind that remark!
"You will come? Excellent!" he said, moving forward and grasping my arm. Unthinkingly, I had risen, and he had taken my rising for assent. Perhaps it was.
I allowed myself to be led over to the seat in his—let me use his own term—his "portal." He saw me settled there and said, "This is nothing that you are unprepared for; you may be astonished, but you are not surprised. It will be news for you, but probably nothing upon which you have not privately speculated, when I tell you that the earth you know is merely a three-dimensional appearance—an outcrop, a geologist would call it—of a multidimensional universe. To comprehend the total multidimensional universe is beyond man's power and perhaps always will be, one impediment being that his senses register each of its dimensions as a three-dimensional reality."
"Rastell, for God's sake, I don't know what you are saying!"
"The violence of your denial persuades me otherwise. Let me put it this way, with an analogy with which you may be familiar.
"A two-dimensional creature lives on a sheet of paper. A bubble—that is, a three-dimensional object-passes through the paper. How does the two-dimensional creature perceive the bubble? First as a point, which expands to a circle that at its maximum is the circumference of the bubble; the bubble is then halfway through paper; the circle then begins to contract until it becomes a point and disappears in the next instant."
"Yes, yes, I understand all that, but are you trying to imply that this two-dimensional creature can climb onto the bubble, which is...."
"Listen, all that stops the creature climbing onto the bubble is its attitude of mind, its system of logic. Its mind needs a twist through ninety degrees—and , so does yours. Join the creature's strip of paper up at both ends and you get a lively representation of your mind; a closed circle! You can't perceive the other matrices of the multidimensional universe. But I can make you perceive them. I'm going to give you an injection now, Mr. Meacher, that will have that effect on your perceptions."
It was crazy! He must somehow have hypnotized me—fascinated me certainly!—to make me go as far as that with him. I jumped up from the chair.
"Leave me alone, Rastell I don't know what you are saying, and I don't want to. I don't want any part of it. I lost my sense of adventure in the army. I
— Rastell!"
His name came from my lips as a shriek. He had put out a hand as if to steady me, and plunged the tip of a small hypodermic into the vein of my left wrist. A stinging sensation coursed up my arm.
As I swung toward him, I brought my right fist up, aiming a blow at his face. He ducked, and, carried off balance, I staggered forward.
“I’d sit down if I were you, Meacher. You have nicomiotine in your veins, and, if you are unused to it, exertion may make you sick. Sit down, man."
My gaze fixed on his face, with its tall lines, and the extraordinarily sensible relationship between its various features. I saw that face, graven onto my sight, as a central point, a cardinal fact, a reference from which the whole universe might be mapped; for the influence of time and event lay in that face, until it in its time influenced time and event, and in that linkage I saw symbolized the whole wheel of life that governs men. Yes, I knew—even at that time I knew— that already I was gliding under the influence of the drug Rastell had given me. It made no difference. Truth is truth, whether you find it or it finds you.
When I sat down in the seat, it was with a motion that held the same magic dualism. For the act might have looked like submission to another's will; yet I knew it was more vitally a demonstration of my will, as inside the universe of my body a part of me had brought into play a thousand minute responses, and blood and muscle cooperated in the act. At the same time that this dramatic and cosmic act was in process, I was hearing the voice of Rastell, booming at me from a distance.
"In this matrix of yours, I understand you passed through what is now referred to as the Tobacco Age, when many people—this applied particularly to the first half of the last century—were slaves to the tobacco habit. It was the age of the cigarette. Cigarettes were not the romantic objects portrayed by our historical novelists; they were killers, for the nicotine contained in them, though beneficial to the brain in small quantities, is death to the lungs when scattered over them in large quantities. However, before the cigarette finally went out of production toward the end of the seventies—how are you feeling, Meacher? It won't take long—before the downfall of the cigarette firms, they developed nicomiotine. Because the firms were in general bad repute, the new drug lay neglected for fifty years; in this matrix of yours, it is neglected still, as far as I can ascertain."
