by Fritz Leiber
He said, “This time, remember, we can’t go back any fifty years. These are such recent matters that there wasn’t any hint of them even in last year’s Report on the Psychological State of the World. As the experts agreed, we are dealing with an entirely new kind of mental disturbance. At least, no cases can be established prior to the last two years, which is the period covered by this projection.”
He looked toward the map. “Each yellow dot is a case of delusions of nonrecognition. An otherwise normal individual fails to recognize a family member or friend, maintains in the face of all evidence that he is an alien and impostor—a frequent accusation, quite baseless, is that his place has been taken by an unknown identical twin. This delusion persists, attended by emotional disturbances of such magnitude that the sufferer seeks the services of a psychiatrist—in those cases we know about.
With the psychiatrist’s assistance, one of two adjustments is achieved: the delusions fade and the avowed alien is accepted as the true individual, or they persist and there is a separation—where husband and wife are involved, a divorce. In either case, the sufferer recovers completely.
“And now—cryptic amnesia. For a reason that will soon become apparent, I’ll first switch off the other projection.”
The yellow dots vanished, and in their place glowed a somewhat smaller number of violet pinpoints. These showed no tendency to form clusters.
“It is called cryptic, I’ll remind you, because the victim makes a very determined and intelligently executed effort to conceal his memory lapse—-frequently shutting himself up for several days on some pretext and feverishly studying all materials and documents relating to himself he can lay hands on. Undoubtedly sometimes he succeeds. The cases we hear about are those in which he makes such major slips—as being mistaken as to what his business is, who he is married to. who his friends are, what is going on in the world—that he is forced, against this will, to go to a psychiatrist. Whereupon, realizing that his efforts have failed, he generally confesses his amnesia, but is unable to offer any information as to its cause, or any convincing explanation of his attempt at concealment. Thereafter, readjustment is rapid.”
He looked around. “And now.
gentlemen, a matter which the experts didn’t bring out, because I arranged it that way. I have saved it in order to impress it upon your minds as forcibly as possible—the correlation between cryptic amnesia and delusions of nonrecognition.” He paused with his hand near the box, aware that there was something of the conjurer about his movements and trying to minimize it. “I’m going to switch on both projections at once. Where cases of cryptic amnesia and delusions of nonrecognition coincide—I mean, where it is the cryptic amnesiac about whom the other person or persons had delusions of nonrecognition—the dots will likewise coincide ; and you know what happens when violet and yellow light mix. I’ll remind you that in ordinary cases of amnesia there are no delusions of nonrecognition—family and friends are aware of the victim’s memory lapse, but they do not mistake him for a stranger.” His hand moved. Except for a sprinkling of yellow, the dots that glowed on the map were pure white.
“Complementary colors,” said Clawly quietly. “The yellow has blanked out all the violet. In some cases one violet has accounted for a cluster of yellows—where more than one individual had delusions of nonrecognition about the same cryptic amnesiac. Except for the surplus cases of nonrecognition—which almost certainly correspond to cases of successfully concealed cryptic amnesia—the nonrecognitions and cryptic amnesias are shown to me dual manifestations of a single underlying phenomenon.”
He paused. The tension in the Sky Room deepened. He leaned forward. “It is that underlying phenomenon, gentlemen, which I believe constitutes a threat to the security of the world, and demands the most immediate and thoroughgoing investigation. Though staggering, the implications are obvious.”
The tautness continued, but slowly Conjerly got to his feet. His compact, stubby frame, bald bullet-head, and uncompromisingly impassive features were in striking contrast with Clawly’s mobile, halfhaggard, debonair visage.
Leashed anger deepened Conjerly’s voice, enhanced its authority.
“We have come a long way from the Dawn Era, gentlemen. One might think we would never again have to grapple with civilization’s old enemy superstition. But I am forced to that regretful conclusion when I hear this gentleman, to whom we have granted the privilege of an audience, advancing theories of demoniac possession to explain cases of amnesia and nonrecognition.” He looked at Clawly. “Unless I wholly misunderstood?”
Clawly decisively shook his head. “You didn’t. It is my contention—I might as well put it in plain words—that alien minds are displacing the minds of our citizens, that they are infiltering Earth, seeking to gain a foothold here. As to what minds they are, where they come from—I can’t answer that, except to remind you that Thorn’s studies of dream landscapes hint at a world strangely like our own, though strangely distorted. But the secrecy of the invaders implies that their purpose is hostile—at best, suspect. And I need not remind you that, in this age of subtronic power, the presence of even a tiny hostile group could become a threat to Earth’s very existence.”
Slowly Conjerly clenched his stub fingers, unclenched them. When he spoke, it was as if he were reciting a creed.
“Materialism is our bedrock, gentlemen—the firm belief that every phenomenon must have a real existence and a real cause. It has made possible science technology, unbiased self-understanding. I am open-minded. I will go as far as any in granting a hearing to new theories. But when those theories are a revival of the oldest and most ignorant superstitions, when this gentleman seeks to frighten us with nightmares and tales of evil spirits stealing human bodies, when he asks us on this evidence to institute a gigantic witch-hunt, when he raises the old bogey of subtronic power breaking loose, when he brings in a colleague”—he glared at Thorn—“who takes seriously to the idea of surveying dream worlds with transit and theodolite—then I say, gentlemen, that if we yield to such suggestions, we might as well throw materialism overboard and, as for safeguarding the future of mankind, ask the advice of fortunetellers!”
At the last word Clawly started, recovered himself. He dared not look around to see if anyone had noticed.
The anger in Conjerly’s voice strained at its leash, threatened to break it.
“I presume, sir, that your confidential investigators will go out with wolfsbane to test for werewolves, garlic to uncover vampires, and cross and holy water to exorcise demons!”
“They will go out with nothing but open minds,” Clawly answered quietly.
Conjerly breathed deeply, his face reddened slightly, he squared himself for a fresh and more uncompromising assault. But just at that moment Tempelmar eased himself out of his chair. As if by accident, his elbow brushed Conjerly’s.
“No need to quarrel,” Tempelmar drawled pleasantly, “though our visitor’s suggestions do sound rather peculiar to minds tempered to a realistic materialism. Nevertheless, it is our duty to safeguard the world from any real dangers, no matter how improbable or remote. So, considering the evidence, we must not pass lightly over our visitor’s theory that alien minds are usurping those of Earth—at least not until there has been an opportunity to advance alternate theories.”
“Alternate theories have been advanced, tested, and discarded,” said Clawly sharply.
“Of course,” Tempelmar agreed smilingly. “But in science that’s a process that never quite ends, isn’t it?”
He sat down, Conjerly following suit as if drawn. Clawly was irascibly conscious of having got the worst of the interchange—and the lanky, sleepy-eyed Tempelmar’s quiet skepticism had been more damaging than Conjerly’s blunt opposition. though both had told. He felt, emanating from the two of them, a weight of personal hostility that bothered and oppressed him. For a moment they seemed like utter strangers.
He was conscious of standing too much alone. In every face he could
suddenly see skepticism. Shielding was the worst—his expression had become that of a man who suddenly sees through the tricks of a sleight-of-hand artist masquerading as a true magician. And Thorn, who should have been mentally at his side, lending him support, was sunk in some strange reverie.
He realized that even in his own mind there was a growing doubt of the things he was saying.
Then, utterly unexpectedly, adding immeasurably to his dismay, Thorn got up, and without even a muttered excuse to the men beside him, left the room. He moved a little stiffly, like a sleepwalker. Several glanced after him curiously. Conjerly nodded. Tempelmar smiled.
Clawly noted it. He rallied himself. He said, “Well, gentlemen?”
III.
But who will reveal to our mailing ken
The forms that swim and the shapes that creep
Under the waters of sleep?
The Marshes of Glynn, Sidney Lanier
Like a dreamer who falls headforemost for giddy miles and then is wafted to a stop as gently as a leaf, Thorn plunged down the main vertical levitator of the Opal Cross and swam out of it at ground level, before its descent into the half mile of basements. At this hour the great gravity-less tube was relatively empty, except for the ceaseless silent plunge and ascent of the graduated subtronic currents and the air they swept along. There were a few other down-and-up swimmers—distant leaflike swirls of color afloat in the contracting white perspective of the tube—but like a dreamer. Thorn did not seem to take note of them.
Another levitating current carried him along some hundred yards of mural-faced corridor to one of the pedestrian entrances of the Opal Cross. A group of revelers stopped their crazy, squealing dance in the current to watch him. They looked like figures swum out of the potently realistic murals—but with a more hectic, troubled gaiety on their faces. There was something about the way he plunged past them unseeing, his sleepwalker’s eyes fixed on something a dozen yards ahead, that awakened unpleasant personal thoughts and spoiled their feverish fun-making.
The pedestrian entrance was really a city-limits. Here the one-building metropolis ended, and there began the horizontal miles of half-wild countryside, dark as the ancient past, trackless and roadless in the main, dotted in many areas with small private dwellings, but liberally brushed with forests.
A pair of lovers on the terrace, pausing for a kiss as they adjusted their flying togs, broke off to look curiously after Thorn as he hurried down the ramp and across the close-cropped lawn, following one of the palely-glowing pathways. The up-slanting pathlight, throwing into gaunt relief his angular cheekbones and chin, made him resemble some ancient pilgrim or crusader in the grip of a religious compulsion.
Then the forest had swallowed him up.
A strange mixture of trance and willfulness, of dream and waking, of aimless wandering and purposeful tramping, gripped Thorn as he adventured down that black-fringed ghost-trail. Odd memories of childhood, of old hopes and desires, of student days with Clawly, of his work and the bewildering speculations it had led to, drifted across his mind, poignant but meaningless. Among these, but drained of significance, like the background of a dream, there was a lingering picture of the scene he had left behind him in the Sky Room. He was conscious of somehow having deserted a friend, abandoned a world, betrayed a great purpose—but it was a blurred consciousness and he had forgotten what the great purpose was.
Nothing seemed to matter any longer but the impulse pulling him forward, the sense of an unknown but definite destination.
He had the feeling that if he looked long enough at that receding, beckoning point a dozen yards ahead, something would grow there.
The forest path was narrow and twisting. Its faint glow silhouetted weeds and brambles partly overgrowing it. His hands pushed aside encroaching twigs.
He felt something tugging at his mind from ahead, as if there were other avenues leading to his subconscious than that which went through his consciousness. As if his subconscious were the core of two or more minds, of which his was the only one.
Under the influence of that tugging, imagination awoke.
Instantly it began to recreate the world of his nightmares. The world which had obscurely dominated his life and turned him to dream-research, where he had found similar nightmares. The world where danger lay. The blue-litten world in which a mushroom growth of ugly squat buildings, like the factories and tenements and barracks of ancient times, blotched the utopian countryside, and along whose sluicelike avenues great crowds of people ceaselessly drifted, unhappy but unable to rest—among them that other, dream Thorn, who hated and envied him, deluged him with an almost unbearable sense of guilt.
For almost as long as he could remember, that dream Thorn had tainted his life—the specter at his feasts, the suppliant at his gates, the eternal accuser in the courts of inmost thought—drifting phantom-wise across his days, rising up starkly real and terrible in his nights. During the long, busy holiday of youth, when every day had been a new adventure and every thought a revelation, that dream Thorn had been painfully discovering the meaning of oppression and fear, had been security swept away and parents exiled, had attended schools in which knowledge was forbidden and all a man learned was his place. When he was discovering happiness and love, that dream Thorn had been rebelliously grieving for a young wife snatched away from him forever because of some autocratic government’s arbitrary decrees. And while he was accomplishing his life’s work, building new knowledge stone by stone, that dream Thorn had toiled monotonously at meaningless jobs, slunk away to brood and plot with others of his kind, been harried by a fiendishly efficient secret police, become a hater and a killer.
Day by day, month by month, year by year, the dark-stranded dream life had paralleled his own.
He knew the other Thorn’s emotions almost better than his own, but the actual conditions and specific details of the dream Thorn’s life were blurred and confused in a characteristically dreamlike fashion. It was as if he were dreaming that other Thorn’s dreams—while, by some devilish exchange, that other Thorn dreamed his dreams and hated him for his good fortune.
A sense of guilt toward his dream-twin was the dominant fact in Thorn’s inner life.
And now, pushing through the forest, he began to fancy that he could see something at the receding focus of his vision a dozen yards ahead, something that kept flickering and fading, so that he could scarcely be sure that he saw it, and that yet seemed an embodiment of all the unseen forces dragging him along—a pale, wraithlike face, horribly like his own.
The sense of a destination grew stronger and more urgent. The mile wall of the Opal Cross, a pale cataract of stone glimpsed now and then through overhanging branches, still seemed to rise almost at his heels, creating the maddening illusion that he was making no progress. The wraith-face blacked out. He began to run.
Twigs lashed him. A root caught at his foot. He stumbled, checked himself, and went on more slowly, relieved to find that he could at least govern the rate of his progress.
The forces tugging at him were both like and infinitely unlike those which had for a moment controlled his movements at the symchromy. Whereas those had seemed to have a wholly alien source, these seemed to have come from a single human mind.
He felt in his pocket for the object he had stolen from Clawly’s mysterious confidant. He could not see much of its color now, but that made its baffling texture stand out. It seemed to have a little more inertia than its weight would account for. He was certain he had never touched anything quite like it before.
He couldn’t say where the notion came from, but he suddenly found himself wondering if the thing could be a single molecule. Fantastic! And yet, was there anything to absolutely prevent atoms from assembling, or being assembled, in such a giant structure?
Such a molecule would have more atoms that the universe had suns, j
Oversize molecules were the keys of life—the hormones, the activators, the carriers of heredity. What doors might not a supe
rgiant molecule unlock?
The merest fancy—yet frightening. He started to throw the thing away, but instead tucked it back in his pocket.
There was a rush in the leaves. A large cat paused for an instant in the pathlight to snarl and stare at him. Such cats were common pets, for centuries bred for intelligence and for centuries tame. Yet now, on the prowl, it seemed all wild—with an added, evil insight gained from long association with man.
The path branched. He took a sharp turn, picking his way over bulbous roots. The pathlight grew dim and diffuse, its substance dissolved and spread by erosion. At places the vegetation had absorbed some of the luminescence. Leaves and stems glowed faintly.
But beyond, on either side, the forest was a black, choked infinity.
It had come inscrutably alive.
The sense of a thousand infinities pressing upon him, experienced briefly at the Yggdrasil, now returned with redoubled force.
The Yggdrasil was true. Reality was not what it seemed on the surface. It had many roots, some strong and true, some twisted and gnarled, nourished in many worlds.
He quickened his pace. Again something seemed to be growing at the focus of his vision—a flitting, pulsating, bluish glow. It was like the Yggdrasil’s Nidhogg motif. Nidhogg, the worm gnawing ceaselessly at the root of the tree of life that goes down to hell. It droned against his vision—an unshakable color-tune.
Then, gradually, it became a face. His own face, but seared by unfamiliar emotions, haggard with unknown miseries, hard, vengeful, accusing—the face of the dream Thorn, beckoning, commanding, luring him toward some unknown destination in the maze of unknown, unseen worlds.
With a sob of courage and fear, he plunged toward it.
He must come to grips with that other Thorn, settle accounts with him, even the balance of pleasure and pain between them, right the wrong of their unequal lives. For in some sense he must be that other Thorn, and that other Thorn must be he. And a man could not be untrue to himself.