by Sarah McEvoy
himself.
“That’s right.” Uldar made some show of closing the box and locking it again. “I have nothing here except for the resources that are inside me. Nobody can take those away from me without also taking my life, and so I’m quite content. I have an imagination, and I have a memory. With them, I can make beautiful things.” He smiled again. “I started with the green onyx one. I did mention that that was one of my favourites. I visualised it very carefully until I could turn it around in my mind and see it from every angle, all the subtle details of the veining in the stone. I promised myself right from the beginning that I would never acquire another egg until I could see each one of the others well enough to be able to paint a picture of it from any angle I chose. You’d be surprised at how much thought and care that takes. I started my collection not long after I was locked in here, and even now I have only a dozen eggs.”
“And Catherine the Great?” demanded the psychiatrist, intrigued despite himself.
“Ah, well, I have a whimsical streak,” explained Uldar, slightly deprecatingly. “I once saw a picture of a Fabergé egg which genuinely did belong to Catherine the Great, and I tried to model mine on it as closely as I could recall. And since, after all, I make the rules for my egg collection, who’s to say it’s not the same one? Did it look any different to you?” he asked, mischievously.
“What do you think I am? A mind reader?”
“Clearly not, or you would definitely have appreciated my eggs. It really is rather a pity you’re not a telepath, as a matter of fact. I’d like you to have been able to see them. I’m rather proud of them.”
“So what was the point of going through the charade of showing them to me?”
Uldar shrugged again. “Just so you knew they were there,” he replied, calmly.
“And what good do you think it will do you to have me know that?” asked the psychiatrist.
“Oh, no,” replied Uldar seriously. “It was for your benefit, not mine. After all, I’ve nothing against you.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?” asked the psychiatrist, suspiciously.
Uldar sighed. “You’re an intelligent man, Alberto. Unfortunately intelligence is a rather dangerous thing to possess in this present society, which is why, of course, it will eventually collapse and be replaced by something which is both more logical and more compassionate. One day, you will be horrified to discover that you, too, have developed some interest which is not acceptable to the State, and unless you are prepared to live with the constant dissembling required to conceal it, you will end up in the same situation as I am. And then… I’d like you to think of me, Alberto, and remember my eggs. Of course it doesn’t have to be eggs; it depends on your exact turn of mind. I’m an artistic type, so I do the mental equivalent of painting and sculpture. You may be the literary type, and write books that exist only in your head. It’s entirely up to you. But I can assure you, you will need some way to cope, and to reassure yourself that you are still a human being no matter what they try to do to convince you otherwise. Do you understand?”
The psychiatrist stared at him for a long time. Uldar’s brown eyes met his gaze, thoughtful, kindly, a little mischievous, totally fearless.
“Well, do you?” he prompted, mildly.
“I am a loyal citizen,” replied the psychiatrist, licking dry lips. “I am not guilty of any offence which would place me in your situation.”
“So far,” added Uldar, with a hint of a shrug. “After all, you’re quite a bit younger than I am. Besides, do you know what they’re going to decide to criminalise next? I’m sure I don’t.”
“I… think I’d better be going,” said the psychiatrist hastily. “This has been, er, a most illuminating interview, and I shall make sure that your exceptional willingness to co-operate with me is mentioned in my report. I’m sure that will count in your favour.”
Uldar grinned. “My word! You never know, it may even save me an afternoon on the machines. You’re very kind, Alberto.”
“Er… Kalenak,” mumbled the psychiatrist, suddenly and impulsively.
“I’m sorry?”
“My name’s not Alberto. It’s Kalenak.”
“How very nice of you to tell me that,” replied Uldar, clearly quite moved. “Kalenak. It’s a nice name, too. It has a ring to it. Just one moment, before you go. I don’t suppose I shall ever see you again, but I’d like you to have a little keepsake.” He took out the imaginary key once again, and opened his invisible box. “Here you are. This is the carved rosewood one. It has such a lovely feel to it.”
Kalenak stared at his outstretched hand. “But I couldn’t take that!” he stammered. “You spent so long making it…”
“That’s perfectly all right. I can make another one. Not quite the same, obviously – there would be no point in doing that. Every one of them has to be unique, just like people. But I can make one that’s very like it. Rosewood’s quite versatile stuff, you understand.”
Kalenak solemnly took the imaginary egg from Uldar’s hand, and transferred it to his pocket. It was an uncanny, disturbing sensation; he almost imagined he could feel its weight and the warm touch of the polished wood. “Thank you,” he murmured, awkwardly.
“My pleasure,” replied Uldar with a smile. “It’s nice to be able to do something for someone. I very rarely get the chance these days.”
“Well…” Kalenak tailed off, not quite sure how to go on.
“Don’t worry, Kalenak. I’ve enjoyed our little conversation this morning. It’s not often I get a visitor. Are you seeing any of the other prisoners today, incidentally, or just me?”
Kalenak almost smiled, for the first time since he had entered the room. “I suppose it’s no good reminding you that you are not a prisoner, you’re a social patient?” he enquired.
“None whatsoever,” agreed Uldar cheerfully. “You may think this a little strange coming from a man who has just shown you his collection of purely imaginary eggs, but I’ve always been a realist.”
“Perhaps not so strange,” mused Kalenak. “I must go. I have to write my report on you. I was called in specifically to see you because of your… somewhat unusual nature, you understand. They wouldn’t ask me to go round talking to all the patients here.”
Uldar beamed. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me since I came here. Unusual nature! You reassure me immensely, Kalenak. It means I am not a clone, not a copy, not a number, not a statistic, but myself. Still myself, even after everything that has been done to me. A little battered around the edges by time and cynicism, of course, but essentially still as God made me. I think that’s a victory I’m entitled to celebrate a little, don’t you?”
“How will you celebrate?” asked Kalenak, fascinated.
“How do you think? I’ll make another egg, of course!”
“Good luck,” murmured Kalenak, as he left.
“Kalenak!” Uldar called after him. He turned.
“What?”
“You left the door open. You really ought to lock it, you know. If I escaped, you could get into terrible trouble, and I wouldn’t want that to happen after you’ve been so kind.”
“Ah… yes… you’ve given me quite a lot to think about, Uldar,” replied Kalenak, shaken. Had he really been so distracted, or had a rebel part of him taken over and left the door open deliberately? He was not at all sure that that was one of the things he wanted to think about. He locked the door and set off slowly back down the corridor the way he had come.
He’d just used the man’s name, not his number. That was something else he was sure he hadn’t meant. It had just slipped out. Almost without willing it, he put a hand into the pocket where the imaginary rosewood egg was supposed to be. He drew it out again sharply. If he weren’t careful, he could let that kind of thing cloud his mind, and he was going to have to write a sensible report.
In which he would recommend… what?
He already knew he could no longer recommend mental reprogramming. He’d have to live with himself for ever afterwards if he did, remembering those gentle, humorous brown eyes, and feeling the intangible but curiously real weight of the egg in his pocket for the rest of his life, like the Ancient Mariner’s albatross. Uldar had been absolutely right: his body would live on, but his mind would be dead as effectively as if he had been given the lethal injection which was the standard penalty for violent crime of any seriousness. But how could he write “This man is harmless and should be released”? If he did that, then Uldar’s disquieting prediction about his own future would be fulfilled far more quickly than Uldar could possibly have envisaged.
He thought bleakly about the treatment generally meted out to those labelled as criminally insane. It wasn’t encouraging. He shivered involuntarily.
Insane but harmless? That was a possibility. It would still mean Uldar would be institutionalised for the rest of his life, but at least he would be treated with some measure of kindness, and it would mean respite from the Pavlovian stimulators – no, damn it, the torture machines. What else were they? And he might just get away with it, too. Whatever else Uldar was, however seditiously individualistic his opinions, at least there was no way in the Galaxy anyone could call him violent. Yes, it might work. At any rate, it was the best compromise Kalenak could think of.
He made up his mind. “Insane but harmless” would do. After all, he could cite plenty of corroborative evidence. The man had a collection of twelve completely imaginary eggs, which he could describe in detail and insisted on regarding as real. Present that in the right way, and it wouldn’t be difficult to convince the authorities that they were dealing with, to put it in the sort of blunt terms Uldar himself would favour, a complete fruit cake.
It’s the best I can do for him, he told himself. I have to put something down that stands a chance of being taken seriously, or it won’t improve his situation and it may even make it worse. Perhaps there’s a chance he’ll be reassessed and released at a later date. At any rate, the psychiatric units aren’t so bad. They may try to sedate him to the eyebrows, of course, but I’ve got a funny feeling he’ll find a way round that. Make out he’s so sensitive to the drugs they’re using that they’ll have to lower the dose. He can act well enough to make his box of eggs look convincing, so I’m sure he can pretend to be more sedated than he really is if he has a mind to do so.
He sighed as he stepped into the Chief Administrator’s office. “That was quick,” observed the Chief Administrator drily.
“I’ve found out all I need to know,” replied Kalenak tersely. “The man’s stark staring mad, but totally harmless. He shouldn’t be in here. He should be in a psychiatric unit.”
“Indeed?”
Kalenak nodded. “Go and see him for yourself and ask him about his eggs, if you have any doubts on the matter. He has an imaginary box under his bed, locked with an imaginary key, with a dozen imaginary eggs in it, every one different. He insisted on showing them to me.”
“H’mm.” The Chief Administrator stared at something on the desk for a moment. “And you’re going to put that in your report, are you?”
“Of course. But I thought I ought to give you the gist of it before I left. These things take a while to produce, you see, and my professional opinion is that this unit is acting to the further detriment of the patient’s remaining sanity. I’d like to recommend to you that he is transferred to a psychiatric unit immediately, without the delay which would be involved in the production and distribution of my official report.”
The Chief Administrator frowned. “You are quite sure about that? Patient 113 is, as I’m sure you’re well aware, a man of exceptionally high intelligence. I take it you have considered the possibility that he might have been trying to fool you into thinking he was insane, in order to secure such a transfer?”
“Naturally. I am not exactly stupid myself, Chief Administrator, and I have a great deal of experience in dealing with mental patients.”
“I see. And you are quite convinced that he is not acting?”
“Entirely. Why do you think the Pavlovian stimulators have completely failed to have any effect on him? His mind is simply not normal.”
“And your precise professional diagnosis of his condition?”
Kalenak was immediately wary, suspecting a trap. “Schizophrenia,” he replied slowly, ready to produce chapter and verse on the subject of delusions. He caught himself in alarm. This was the Chief Administrator of Unit H51, someone he would probably never see again after he left here and of whom he had no reason to be afraid. Was he himself beginning to develop paranoid symptoms?
“Our own unit medic found no evidence of that.”
“It’s more than likely to have developed since he arrived here, as a response to the rather extreme conditions created by the Pavlovian stimulators. There’s no history of delusions or other mental illness in his file, but it’s clear that he has always been somewhat unstable or he would never have persisted in his unfortunate habit of studying languages when he was perfectly aware that it was not acceptable in modern society. What began as a minor instability has now become a full-blown mental illness, and I repeat my professional opinion that the Pavlovian stimulators are having the effect of exacerbating that and may well have caused it in the first place. Schizophrenia is a well-recognised and perfectly controllable condition. Moreover, unlike many schizophrenics, Patient 113 is not violent, and therefore he cannot possibly qualify in any way as criminally insane. His needs, and those of society, would be best served by placing him in an ordinary psychiatric unit.”
“So you are saying,” persisted the Chief Administrator smoothly, “that the judicial system has made an error?”
“Sending him here in the first place was a matter for the judges, not for a psychiatrist,” he replied. “The question is not whether there was a miscarriage of justice at that time, but how far circumstances have changed since then, and whether it is still appropriate to keep him in this unit. You called me in for a professional opinion. I have given it. It’s not up to me to criticise those who sent him here. I wasn’t there at the time.”
“I see. Well then, pending your report, I shall send the unit medic to see him, and if she agrees with your diagnosis I shall be prepared to act on your somewhat unusual recommendation.”
Kalenak gave a stiff little bow. “Thank you. I shall have the report in your hands as soon as possible.”
He left, and as the door closed behind him he let out a deep breath which he had not been aware that he was holding. That had been an uncomfortable little interview. He felt like a marked man, as if Uldar’s egg were visible in his pocket, betraying itself and him to the Galaxy.
Oh, Uldar had been right, there was no doubting it. He knew that with a sudden sinking certainty as he walked through the interchangeable corridors back to the sector where he was currently staying; the next morning he would catch the shuttle back to Earth, and it would not be a moment too soon. Yes, Uldar had been right. You either acquiesced, as Kalenak had done all his life so far, and watched your identity slowly but surely disappear. Or you took the first tiny, hesitant step towards freedom, and it opened wide its arms and called you forward until, one day, maybe sooner, maybe later, depending on how clever and cautious you were, you heard the heavy tread of armed guards following you, and then you’d find yourself in a cell that was called a room, in a prison that was called a unit, in the company of torture machines that were called Pavlovian stimulators.
One day it would happen. He owed it to Uldar, as well as himself, to put off that day for as long as he possibly could, but he knew he could not put it off for ever. The most he could hope was that he might manage to live to about Uldar’s present age before it did, by which time Uldar stood a good chance of being safely dead.
He slipped his hand back into his pocket, an unreadable smile on his face. But whe
n it does, he thought wryly… I shall still have my carved rosewood egg. And whatever happens, they will never take that away from me, nor the reality for which it stands.
* * * * *
About the Author
Sarah McEvoy was born in Kendal, and wanted to be an astronaut when she grew up until she realised that would mean being more sporty than she was at all interested in being. She now lives in Yorkshire with two cats and a large number of books. She has a varied range of interests including website building, baroque music, translation and needlecrafts, and every now and then she seems to end up doing something a little out of the ordinary. In 2013 this will involve directing a production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor for Opera Seria, Manchester. She never leaves the house without a hat, and, this being England, usually also an umbrella. If there is a real-life Mars colony in her lifetime, she would like to volunteer to live in it.
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