Delusion World

by Gordon R. Dickson

  “Oh?” said Feliz. “Have you done much satisfying of action-hungry muscles yourself lately?”

  “Dear me, no!” said El Hoska.

  “If you’d care to try it . . .”

  “But, my boy! That would be carrying coals to New Newcastle.” El Hoska chuckled again gently. “I have already spent a long lifetime attuned to nature. I have long since made my identification. It is you who have yet to do so. More and more I find myself worrying about you. I fear for your ego." He shook his head. "Yes, I fear you stand in need of a great deal of reorientation.” And he beamed into Feliz’s face with a gently satanic expression that sent a chill down Feliz’s back. It was a chill that threw his mind into high gear. He had a sudden inspiration—was it possible that sense could be talked to the mayor after all? El Hoska seemed to be just a little bit too independent and intelligent to be the dupe of the situation he appeared at first glance.

  Feliz made up his mind.

  “You might be right,” he said. He looked down into the hold where the work crew, under Harry, was doing as good a job as could be expected. “As it happens, there’s something I could use from my ship right now to make the fountain really sing. If you don’t mind walking with me through the woods to my ship. . .”

  "My boy, how could you doubt it for a second?" beamed El Hoska. “The forest. The trees. Good conversation. Nature. The very thing for you.”

  “Yes,” said Feliz. “I was thinking so. Shall we go?”

  “Indeed.”

  Feliz took a quick glance about the square. But nobody was in sight who seemed to have the sort of authority that might try to stop him.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  There was no trouble going out of town. In fact, Feliz could hardly believe it. They reached the edge of the woods without a single black-clad individual showing up in pursuit. A few strides further and the leafy branches hid them from the city below and behind them. Feliz let out a long-held breath and turned to El Hoska. The mayor had been babbling steadily since they had left the square.

  "The monotheistic attitude of the divertent ego," he was saying, at the moment, “embranchiates and impalpates the retro-consciousness—"

  Feliz looked at the man narrowly out of the comers of his half-Micturian eyes, and decided on shock treatment.

  “All right,” said Feliz. “You can turn it off now. We’re both men of the world, after all.”

  El Hoska did not seem to be put out. He stopped, winked at Feliz and chuckled. He jabbed Feliz in the ribs with a knife- pointed elbow.

  “Very well, my boy,” he said merrily. “Let us get down to plain language then. You realize you’re a danger to the community?”

  “I am?” said Feliz, considerably startled. He had hoped El Hoska would rise to the bait of a frank discussion—not swallow bait, line, rod, and half his arm at once. “Well, in that case," he said, recovering, "maybe I’d better just get in my ship and blast out of here—with your permission of course.”

  “Of course,” said El Hoska. “No. Hmm. I’m afraid it isn’t that easy. You come from some place; and where you came from there must be more like you. If you go back to them, a lot may start coming here. And an influx of backward people is the last thing we want.”

  Feliz stared.

  “You don’t really believe that?” he said. “About having progressed beyond mechanical civilizations?”

  A thin film, like a nictating membrane, seemed to flicker down over the old man’s sunny blue eyes, turning their appearance of mild insanity to cold determination. But he still spoke gently.

  “Now, now,” he said. “I believe you, personally, have had some experience of what the group mind can perform."

  “Group mind—guttergunk!” said Feliz impolitely. “That’s you, and you know it. That’s why I thought maybe we could talk sense just now, like a couple of adults. You know what the situation really is here. Admit it. Tell me honestly now. Don’t you ever see people dressed in black?” The mayor stiffened, his frail body like a dry reed leaning obstinately against the wind.

  “I,” he said, spacing his words so that they dropped into the woodsy silence individually and heavily, like single stones into a very deep well, "see nothing but what is real."

  "All right," said Feliz. He threw up his slab-thick hands. “All right, all right! I give up!”

  They stalked along for some short distance in silence. Feliz swatted a small insect that came to investigate the orifice of his ear. He felt the thistle down weight of the old man’s hand on his shoulder. Dark glee burst in his keg-like chest. He turned and saw the blue eyes on his own, stained deeply with sincere and heart-felt sympathy.

  “You will feel better,” said El Hoska tenderly, “after I have reasoned with you in a more practical sense . . ."

  Meanwhile, they had crossed through the green hush of the woods, and now they came out into the meadow where the ship was. The ship rested unchanged, as it had on the morning of its landing after Feliz had repaired it. The common-sense, down-to-reality appearance of it was a shock after the last couple of days. At about a dozen feet or so from the hatch, El Hoska halted.

  "I would rather not contaminate my ego with the machine, any more than is necessary,” he said. “In fact, I should probably have waited for you at the edge of the woods, as I have done previously. However, here we are now. I will wait at this spot.”

  “All right,” said Feliz.

  “I expect that you will be coming Out again shortly to return to the city with me. I expect that if you find yourself with any thoughts at variance to that, that you will set any action aside and emerge at once.”

  “I expect so,” said Feliz gloomily. He climbed up the ladder and in through the open hatch.

  After the bright sunlight of the meadow, the interior of the ship, illuminated only by what reflected light came through the hatch opening, seemed plunged in dimness. Then, as his pupils dilated, the control room brightened about him.

  He immediately noticed differences about it. Here things had been somewhat disarranged. There they had been put back in an order different from the one Feliz generally used. Feliz’s eyes narrowed. He rose from the chair and stepped across to the cabin. The bed had been slept in and made up again in strange fashion, with the pillow under the covers in the exact middle of the bed. He stepped back into the control room and yanked open the door of the food locker.

  A majority of the food inside had not been touched. But he noticed a shortage in the fruit, nuts, roast beef and bread departments. He closed the locker and had a look at his log book. The sketch of him sleeping was still there as it had been. But a small devil with tail and horns had been added. The devil was tickling Feliz’s unconscious feet with a large feather.

  Feliz rubbed his nose.

  Well, he thought, it was a relief to know that Kai was all right. He wondered where she was at the moment. She was liable, he thought, to be anywhere. At any rate, she seemed to be making out all right. Feliz was rather surprised to find what an extremely large load it took off his mind to know this. Of course, he reminded himself, he was a natural worrier. Things like this would be bound to prey on him, where they would probably never even occur to a more extroverted, adventurous sort of individual.

  That thought reminded him of his real purpose in coming here. He glanced out through the hatch, just to check; but El Hoska was seated cross-legged on the grass, half turned away; and apparently guarding his ego as carefully as possible from any contaminating contact with the machine. Feliz turned swiftly back to his communications instruments and punched a/series of controls.

  The screen fogged, darkened, and cleared to reveal stars. For a second it was silent and then it chimed softly, four times. At the same time, four small red points of light appeared on the screen.

  A white call light began blinking insistently below the screen. Feliz whistled tunelessly between his teeth and punched the receive button. The stars blinked out and were replaced by the face of a Malvar wearing a fleet of
ficer’s collar.

  "We have recorded the activity of your scanning beam," said this face. “We know you are aware we are here. You cannot possibly escape past us. You would be best advised to come out and surrender in civilized fashion.” It began again. “We have recorded . . .”

  "Ho, ho! And a loud ha-ha!" muttered Feliz, but without activating the transmitter at his end. "Dunroamin forever, in preference." He sneered at the screen. "If you’re so tough,” he said, '‘come in and get me.” The sneer was replaced by a thoughtful frown. He cut off the receiver as the Malvar on the screen was patiently beginning his message for the third time, and turned to the other lockers about the ship.

  He gathered up some impressive-looking odds and ends, some firecrackers and Roman candles he had made to demonstrate a technique in pyrotechnics he had sold on Caswell’s planet three months before, the parts and pieces of the mashed-up Mark in hat-destroying plastics converter, a lucky silk scarf with good fortune wishes written on it in red Mandarin Chinese characters, and made himself an enormously thick cheese sandwich. Munching on the sandwich, he rejoined El Hoska outside.

  “Let’s go,” he said to the mayor.

  They walked away in silence until they reached the edge of the woods overlooking the city. As they stepped out from beneath the shadows of the last trees, El Hoska sighed.

  "When you are old, ” he remarked with a note of wistfulness in his voice, "and in a position of authority, it is easy to be unfair."

  Feliz looked at him suspiciously.

  "It occurs to me,” said El Hoska, turning his head to meet the younger man’s eyes, “that I haven’t been absolutely fair with you.”

  “No!” said Feliz. “Not really!”

  “We have,” said El Hoska, as they started down the slope, “in most essentials, a good life here. Not a perfect life—who would want perfection? But a life with a good core to it.” He glanced over at Feliz. "Would you like to hear our history?”

  “I’ve been hearing some of it recently,” said Feliz. “But probably not the full story."

  "Undoubtedly not the full story,” said El Hoska. “Few of us know that. It is not a completely happy story."

  “Ah,” said Feliz.

  “In fact, most of our people do not know it. I think they are happy not knowing how we made the final break with our culture of the machine. At one time, you see, what has now become our way of life was merely a political philosophy.”

  “Political philosophy?” said Feliz.

  “Yes. You see, I don’t try to deceive you by claiming we were pure from the start. No, originally we were merely a planet-wide political party that advocated decentralization of the government and freedom of the individual. At that time, I should add, practical politicians—so called—were in the majority in our party. And true nature worshipers such as we are today, were very much in the minority."

  “That changed, did it?” said Feliz.

  “It did. You see, at the same time there was another planet-wide political party known as the Authoritarian Party, which believed in extreme centralization of control. The division was so sharp between the two parties that some foolish people even feared a way would be found to resolve the dispute by war ”

  “You said,” Feliz inquired, “foolish people?”

  “Yes,” said El Hoska. “For of course war was impossible.”

  “Why, naturally,” said Feliz warmly.

  “For the founding fathers of this world had, by unique legislation, required that genetics and psychological conditioning be put to a wonderful use. All children for a number of generations had been conditioned from earliest infancy to a violent emotional reaction against the very idea of mass violence.”

  Feliz’s eyebrows went up.

  “The breach,” said El.Hoska, “with the Authoritarian Party was, however, unreconcilable. Our people, regretfully, took the only way out. We sent all members of the Authoritarian Party to Coventry.”

  “Oh? Where was that?” said Feliz.

  “I was using,” explained El Hoska, “an old-fashioned English expression. It meant that we ignored them completely. That we went our own ways exclusively, pretending that those who disagreed with us did not even exist. It was a harsh measure, evolved necessarily to deal with a harsh situation. We did not foresee the results.”

  “Well, I’ll be blowed!” exploded Feliz, stopping in his tracks and turning to the mayor. “Then you actually do realize what happened?”

  “Of course,” said Eli Hoska. “They all died.”

  “Died,” said Feliz.

  “Yes,’’ said El Hoska sadly, and wandered on again. Feliz took two long strides and caught up. El Hoska was still talking: “Died like the dinosaurs of our original homeland. Like the flowers of the field, ignored by the sun and the rain, they perished. We noticed them grow fewer and fewer; and there came a time when none of them were to be found any more, anywhere.”

  "What happened to the bodies?" demanded Feliz bluntly.

  "I imagine," said El Hoska, "they were buried at first by their own kind. And then those few that were left had their remains obliterated by the forces of nature. Remember, this was many years ago. I don’t imagine there were many ever to be found. Most undoubtedly left the cities and wandered in search of their own kind. And finding none, traveled on until they fell by the road.”

  Feliz looked at him, and opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Then he opened it again.

  “Look,” he said.

  “Yes?” said El Hoska sweetly. They were entering the outskirts of the city now, and their footfalls came upon plastic pavement.

  “You have an open mind, wouldn’t you say?" said Feliz.

  El Hoska smiled again.

  "The most important part of our culture is an open mind," he said.

  "Are you willing to admit the possibility of something that would turn your whole system of beliefs upside down?”

  “Of course, my boy."

  “Then brace yourself,” said Feliz. “You know those old political opponents of yours? Well, they didn’t die off after all. They’ve gone on living side by side with you all these years, conditioning their children not to see you people either.”

  El Hoska neither laughed nor looked startled. A shadow of a sadness crossed his lean and ancient face.

  “So, ” he sighed, “you, too. Tell me,” he laid a hand on Feliz’s heavy sleeve. “Tell me—you’ve been seeing people in odd, tight-cut black clothing, haven’t you?”

  “And feeling them. To say nothing of—”

  “Now, now, let’s not embroider the tale," said the mayor, gently. “Such hallucinations are, unfortunately, common among my people. Many come to me in each generation, seeking some means to free themselves of such. Some I can help. Others, like that poor child, Kai Miri . . .’’ He sighed again. “I can only tell them all what I tell you now. The hallucinations are the result of a racial guilt complex for what our ancestors did to those other, unfortunate people many years ago.”

  “But—” began Feliz. El Hoska held up a halting palm.

  “I realize that they seem perfectly real to you.”

  “Oh, you do?”

  “Of course. I am sure that you suffer quite as much from them as if they were actual, real people.”

  “You can,” said Feliz grimly, “say that again.”

  “Of course. I don’t want you to think that I don’t understand. I quite believe you suffer as much from them as if they were perfectly real.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But actually, I know they aren’t real at all. They are really totally imaginary. Your diseased ego and mind are inventing them. Actually—you must trust me, I have studied a good deal and understand these things—you really enjoy the suffering they cause you. That’s why you invent them.”

  “Guk,” said Feliz.

  “So, when I say I understand, you mustn’t take it to mean that I have any ignorant sympathy for the discomforts you are inventing for yourself. It would be the height
of ridiculous- ness to sympathize with a person who is actually enjoying himself—and has a weak, diseased character to boot. You, even you, would scarcely credit the lengths to which such self-delusional indulgence can take a man.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Feliz.

  “Let me tell you,” said El Hoska. “I once had a man come to me who believed—actually believed, mind you—that he had been accidentally shot by one of these imaginary characters.”

  “No!”

  “Yes, indeed. So strong was the deulsuion, he actually had a wound clear through him from which he was bleeding profusely. He came staggering to me for help. I did what I could, of course—it was clearly an hysteric condition—by immediate hypnotherapy; but he kept on bleeding, eventually turned chalk-white and died.”

  “Clung,” said Feliz, “to his delusion to the end?”

  “Yes. That man,” said El Hoska, moved to a note of unusual strong emotion in his voice, “was a psychological mess!”

  They walked on in silence together for a few moments, each clearly immersed in his own heavy thoughts. They were nearing the square.

  "So you see,” said El Hoska, almost hurriedly, "why it is of extreme importance that you remain here. This report of your hallucinations confirms the matter. It is as I suspected."

  “What did you suspect?” Feliz looked suspiciously at him.

  El Hoska sighed.

  “You would not have noticed it yourself,” he said. “But in spite of marked—er—physical differences in the body, you bear a rather striking resemblance to some of our own people. In the face, now. . . I don’t pretend to know just what the connection is, but I can hardly doubt that there may be strains of relationship between yourself and us.”

  “Damned strained relationship,” muttered Feliz.

  “And if this is so, we have a duty to each other. To be truthful with you—" The mayor stopped and Feliz saw to his surprise that the old man had tears in his eyes. “Somehow things have not been working out too well for us lately. I am ashamed to say it, but there are only two others beside myself I can count on to do the necessary work properly at the plastic clothes casting complex—which is the one machine on which we still depend. And only a few will gather nuts and berries for any besides themselves or their own children, in spite of the fact that all should give to all.”