“Rights? A strange question.” The monk chuckled to himself. It was a sound like ice tumbling into a cold glass.
“Yes—rights. You must have some sort of organisation here. Therefore you must have a ruler—or government. I demand to be taken to someone in authority.”
“But I am in authority here, old boy,” purred the blue-skinned man. “And—in a sense—so are you. If you agreed with my suggestion, you could hold tremendous power. Tremendous.”
“I don’t want to discuss that again.” Seward began to walk towards the wall-hangings. They merely watched him—the monk with his face in shadow—the Man Without A Navel with a supercilious smile on his thin lips. He walked around a screen, parted the hangings—and there they were on the other side. He went through the hangings. This was some carefully planned trick—an illusion—deliberately intended to confuse him. He was used to such methods, even though he didn’t understand how they’d worked this one. He said: “Clever—but tricks of this kind won’t make me weaken.”
“What on Earth d’you mean, Seward, old man? Now, I wonder if you’ll accompany Brother Sebastian here. I have an awful lot of work to catch up on.”
“All right,” Seward said. “All right, I will.” Perhaps on the way to wherever the monk was going, he would find an opportunity to escape.
The monk turned and Seward followed him. He did not look at the Man Without A Navel as he passed his ridiculous dais, with its ridiculous leather armchair.
They passed through a narrow doorway behind a curtain and were once again in the complex series of passages. The tall monk—now he was close to him, Seward estimated his height at about six feet, seven inches—seemed to flow along in front of him. He began to dawdle. The monk didn’t look back. Seward increased the distance between them. Still, the monk didn’t appear to notice.
Seward turned and ran.
They had met nobody on their journey through the corridors. He hoped he could find a door leading out of the fortress before someone spotted him. There was no cry from behind him.
But as he ran, the passages got darker and darker until he was careering through pitch blackness, sweating, panting and beginning to panic. He kept blundering into damp walls and running on.
It was only much later that he began to realise he was running in a circle that was getting tighter and tighter until he was doing little more than spin round, like a top. He stopped, then.
These people evidently had more powers than he had suspected. Possibly they had some means of shifting the position of the corridor walls, following his movements by means of hidden TV cameras or something like them. Simply because there were no visible signs of an advanced technology didn’t mean that they did not possess one. They obviously did. How else could they have got him from his own world to this?
He took a pace forward. Did he sense the walls drawing back? He wasn’t sure. The whole thing reminded him vaguely of The Pit and the Pendulum.
He strode forward a number of paces and saw a light ahead of him. He walked towards it, turned into a dimly lit corridor.
The monk was waiting for him.
“We missed each other, Professor Seward. I see you managed to precede me.” The monk’s face was still invisible, secret in its cowl. As secret as his cold mocking, malevolent voice. “We are almost there, now,” said the monk.
Seward stepped towards him, hoping to see his face, but it was impossible. The monk glided past him. “Follow me, please.”
For the moment, until he could work out how the fortress worked, Seward decided to accompany the monk.
They came to a heavy, iron-studded door—quite unlike any of the other doors.
They walked into a low-ceilinged chamber. It was very hot. Smoke hung in the still air of the room. It poured from a glowing brazier at the extreme end. Two men stood by the brazier.
One of them was a thin man with a huge, bulging stomach over which his long, narrow hands were folded. He had a shaggy mane of dirty white hair, his cheeks were sunken and his nose extremely long and extremely pointed. He seemed toothless and his puckered lips were shaped in a senseless smile—like the smile of a madman Seward had once had to experiment on. He wore a stained white jacket buttoned over his grotesque paunch. On his legs were loose khaki trousers.
His companion was also thin, though lacking the stomach. He was taller and had the face of a mournful bloodhound, with sparse, highly greased, black hair that covered his bony head like a skullcap. He stared into the brazier, not looking up as Brother Sebastian led Seward into the room and closed the door.
The thin man with the stomach, however, pranced forward, his hands still clasped on his paunch, and bowed to them both.
“Work for us, Brother Sebastian?” he said, nodding at Seward.
“We require a straightforward ‘Yes,’” Brother Sebastian said. “You have merely to ask the question ‘Will You?’ If he replies ‘No’ you are to continue. If he replies ‘Yes,’ you are to cease and inform me immediately.”
“Very well, Brother. Rely on us.”
“I hope I can.” The monk chuckled again. “You are now in the charge of these men, professor. If you decide you want to help us, after all, you have only to say ‘Yes.’ Is that clear?”
Seward began to tremble with horror. He had suddenly realised what this place was.
“Now look here,” he said. “You can’t . . .”
He walked towards the monk who had turned and was opening the door. He grasped the man’s shoulder. His hand seemed to clutch a delicate, birdlike structure. “Hey! I don’t think you’re a man at all. What are you?”
“A man or a mouse,” chuckled the monk as the two grotesque creatures leapt forward suddenly and twisted Seward’s arms behind him. Seward kicked back at them with his heels, squirmed in their grasp, but he might have been held by steel bands. He shouted incoherently at the monk as he shut the door behind him with a whisk of his habit.
The pair flung him onto the damp, hot stones of the floor. It smelled awful. He rolled over and sat up. They stood over him. The hound-faced man had his arms folded. The thin man with the stomach had his long hands on his paunch again. They seemed to rest there whenever he was not actually using them. It was the latter who smiled with his twisting, puckered lips, cocking his head to one side.
“What do you think, Mr. Morl?” he asked his companion.
“I don’t know, Mr. Hand. After you.” The hound-faced man spoke in a melancholy whisper.
“I would suggest Treatment H. Simple to operate, less work for us, a tried and trusty operation which works with most and will probably work with this gentleman.”
Seward scrambled up and tried to push past them, making for the door. Again they seized him expertly and dragged him back. He felt the rough touch of rope on his wrists and the pain as a knot was tightened. He shouted, more in anger than agony, more in terror than either.
They were going to torture him. He knew it.
When they had tied his hands, they took the rope and tied his ankles. They twisted the rope up around his calves and under his legs. They made a halter of the rest and looped it over his neck so that he had to bend almost double if he was not to strangle.
Then they sat him on a chair.
Mr. Hand removed his hands from his paunch, reached up above Seward’s head and turned on the tap.
The first drop of water fell directly on the centre of his head some five minutes later.
Twenty-seven drops of water later, Seward was raving and screaming. Yet every time he tried to jerk his head away, the halter threatened to strangle him and the jolly Mr. Hand and the mournful Mr. Morl were there to straighten him up again.
Thirty drops of water after that, Seward’s brain began to throb and he opened his eyes to see that the chamber had vanished.
In its place was a huge comet, a fireball dominating the sky, rushing directly towards him. He backed away from it and there were no more ropes on his hands or feet. He was free.
He began t
o run. He leapt into the air and stayed there. He was swimming through the air.
Ecstasy ran up his spine like a flickering fire, touched his back-brain, touched his mid-brain, touched his fore-brain.
EXPLOSION ALL CENTRES!
He was standing one flower among many, in a bed of tall lupins and roses which waved in a gentle wind. He pulled his roots free and began to walk.
He walked into the Lab Control Room.
Everything was normal except that gravity seemed a little heavy. Everything was as he’d left it.
He saw that he had left the Towers rotating. He went into the room he used as a bedroom and workroom. He parted the blind and looked out into the night. There was a big, full moon hanging in the deep blue sky over the ruins of Hampton. He saw its light reflected in the faraway sea. A few bodies still lay prone near the lab. He went back into the Control Room and switched off the Towers.
Returning to the bedroom he looked at the card-table he had his notes on. They were undisturbed. Neatly, side by side near a large, tattered notebook, lay a half-full ampoule of M-A 19 and a hypodermic syringe. He picked up the ampoule and threw it in a corner. It did not break but rolled around on the floor for a few seconds.
He sat down.
His whole body ached.
He picked up a sheaf of his more recent notes. He wrote everything down that came into his head on the subject of tranquilomats; it helped him think better and made sure that his drugged mind and body did not hamper him as much as they might have done if he had simply relied on his memory.
He looked at his wrists. They carried the marks of the rope. Evidently the transition from the other world to his own involved leaving anything in the other world behind. He was glad. If he hadn’t, he’d have had a hell of a job getting himself untied.
He tried hard to forget the questions flooding through his mind. Where had he been? Who were the people? What did they really want? How far could they keep a check on him? How did the M-A 19 work to aid his transport into the other world? Could they get at him here?
He decided they couldn’t get at him, otherwise they might have tried earlier. Somehow it was the M-A 19 in his brain which allowed them to get hold of him. Well, that was simple—no more M-A 19.
With a feeling of relief, he forced himself to concentrate on his notes.
Out of the confusion, something seemed to be developing, but he had to work at great speed—greater speed than previously, perhaps, for he daren’t use the M-A 19 again and there was nothing else left of much good.
His brain cleared as he once again got interested in his notes. He worked for two hours, making fresh notes, equations, checking his knowledge against the stack of earlier research notes by the wall near his camp-bed.
Dawn was coming as he realised suddenly that he was suffering from thirst. His throat was bone dry, as were his mouth and lips. He got up and his legs felt weak. He staggered, almost knocking over the chair. With a great effort he righted it and, leaning for support on the bed, got himself to the hand-basin. It was filled by a tank near the roof and he had used it sparsely. But this time he didn’t care. He stuck his head under the tap and drank the stale water greedily. It did no good. His whole body now seemed cold, his skin tight, his heart thumping heavily against his ribs. His head was aching horribly and his breathing increased.
He went and lay down on the bed, hoping the feeling would leave him.
It got worse. He needed something to cure himself.
What? he asked.
M-A 19, he answered.
NO!
But—Yes, yes, yes. All he needed was a small shot of the drug and he would be all right. He knew it.
And with knowing that, he realised something else.
He was hooked.
The drug was habit-forming.
3
He found the half-full M-A 19 ampoule under the bed where it had rolled. He found the needle on the table where he had left it, buried under his notes. He found a vein in his forearm and shot himself full. There was no thought to Seward’s action. There was just the craving and the chance of satisfying that craving.
The M-A 19 began to swim leisurely through his veins, drifting up his spine—
It hit his brain with a powerful explosion.
He was walking through a world of phosphorescent rain, leaping over large purple rocks that welcomed his feet, drew them down towards them. All was agony and startling Now.
No-time, no-space, just the throbbing voice in the air above him. It was talking to him.
DOOM, Seward. DOOM, Seward. DOOM, Seward.
“Seward is doomed!” he laughed. “Seward is betrayed!”
Towers Advance. Towers Recede. Towers Rotate At Normal Speed.
Carnival Aktion. All Carnivals To Explode.
Up into the back-brain, into the mid-brain, on to the fore-brain.
EXPLOSION ALL CENTRES!
He was back in the torture-chamber, though standing up. In the corner near the brazier the grotesque pair were muttering to one another. Mr. Hand darted him an angry glance, his lips drawn over his gums in an expression of outrage.
“Hello, Seward,” said the Man Without A Navel behind him. “So you’re back.”
“Back,” said Seward heavily. “What more do you want?”
“Only your All, Seward, old man. I remember a time in Dartford before the war . . .”
“Which war?”
“Your war, Seward. You were too young to share any other. You don’t remember that war. You weren’t born. Leave it to those who do, Seward.”
Seward turned. “My war?” He looked with disgust at the Man Without A Navel; at his reptilian blue skin and his warm-cold, dark-light, good-evil eyes. At his small yet well-formed body.
The Man Without A Navel smiled. “Our war, then, old man. I won’t quibble.”
“You made me do it. I think that somehow you made me suggest Experiment Restoration!”
“I said we won’t quibble, Seward,” said the man in an authoritative tone. Then, more conversationally: “I remember a time in Dartford before the war, when you sat in your armchair—one rather like mine—at your brother-in-law’s house. Remember what you said, old man?”
Seward remembered well. “If,” he quoted, “if I had a button and could press it and destroy the entire universe and myself with it, I would. For no reason other than boredom.”
“Very good, Seward. You have an excellent memory.”
“Is that all you’re going on? Something I said out of frustration because nobody was recognising my work?” He paused as he realised something else. “You know all about me, don’t you?” he said bitterly. There seemed to be nothing he didn’t know. On the other hand Seward knew nothing of the man. Nothing of this world. Nothing of where it was in space and time. It was a world of insanity, of bizarre contrasts. “How do you know all this?”
“Inside information, Seward, old boy.”
“You’re mad!”
The Man Without A Navel returned to his earlier topic. “Are you bored now, Seward?”
“Bored? No. Tired, yes.”
“Bored, no—tired, yes. Very good, Seward. You got here later than expected. What kept you?” The man laughed.
“I kept me. I held off taking the M-A 19 for as long as I could.”
“But you came to us in the end, eh? Good man, Seward.”
“You knew the M-A 19 was habit-forming? You knew I’d have to take it, come back here?”
“Naturally.”
He said pleadingly: “Let me go, for God’s sake! You’ve made me. Made me . . .”
“Your dearest wish almost come true, Seward. Isn’t that what you wanted? I made you come close to destroying the world? Is that it?”
“So you did somehow influence Experiment Restoration!”
“It’s possible. But you haven’t done very well either way. The world is in shambles. You can’t reverse that. Kill it off. Let’s start fresh, Seward. Forget your experiments with the tranquilomats a
nd help us.”
“No.”
The Man Without A Navel shrugged. “We’ll see, old boy.”
He looked at the mumbling men in the corner. “Morl—Hand—take Professor Seward to his room. I don’t want any mistakes this time. I’m going to take him out of your hands. Obviously we need subtler minds put on the problem.”
The pair came forward and grabbed Seward. The Man Without A Navel opened the door and they went through it first, forcing Seward ahead of them.
He was too demoralised to resist much, this time. Demoralised by the fact that he was hooked on M-A 19. What did the junkies call it? The Habit. He had The Habit. Demoralised by his inability to understand the whereabouts or nature of the world he was on. Demoralised by the fact that the Man Without A Navel seemed to know everything about his personal life on Earth. Demoralised that he had fallen into the man’s trap. Who had developed M-A 19? He couldn’t remember. Perhaps the Man Without A Navel had planted it? He supposed it might be possible.
He was pushed along another series of corridors, arrived at another door. The Man Without A Navel came up behind them and unlocked the door.
Seward was shoved into the room. It was narrow and low—coffinlike.
“We’ll be sending someone along to see you in a little while, Seward,” said the man lightly. The door was slammed.
Seward lay in pitch blackness.
He began to sob.
Later, he heard a noise outside. A stealthy noise of creeping feet. He shuddered. What was the torture going to be this time?
He heard a scraping and a muffled rattle. The door opened.
Against the light from the passage, Seward saw the man clearly. He was a big, fat negro in a grey suit. He wore a flowing, rainbow-coloured tie. He was grinning.
Seward liked the man instinctively. But he no longer trusted his instinct. “What do you want?” he said suspiciously.
The huge negro raised his finger to his lips. “Ssshh,” he whispered. “I’m going to try and get you out of here.”
“An old Secret Police trick on my world,” said Seward. “I’m not falling for that.”
The Best of Michael Moorcock Page 32