The reactions of the various members of the group to their situation varied; some remained comparatively active, like Bronsil and Marion, others retreated to the stack of couches with Joanna forming a parasitic splinter group which had to be fed by the remainder. In general this group, numbering three men and one woman beside Joanna, tended to be the most avid consumers of liquor from the bar, whimpering frequently for a drink which they sucked straight from the bottle, ignoring the plastic cups which were offered. After a while their corner of the room began to smell unpleasant and Bronsil found the work of sustaining them falling almost entirely on himself.
A third and fortunately smaller group of two men and two women became antisocial in a different fashion. Ignoring both the bar and the couches, they sat in a small huddle near the doors, gazing with unfocussed eyes and occasionally breaking into weird chants praising the Prells, their benefactors. It appeared that Bronsil represented the material manifestation of the Prells and they praised him too, lauding him in dissonant song and thanking him effusively when he brought them food, before once more relapsing into communal stupor.
Bronsil’s own group of four men and two women made every attempt to keep themselves active, engaging in discussion and speculation, watching the occasional broadcasts and passing on the information to the other groups.
The broadcasts, which became known as Justifications, continued to be interesting though baffling. It appeared that Primary Justifications concerned the Prells and they were seen in varying situations at work and play, which it seemed was intended to emphasise their dissimilarity from the human race. They appeared to be slow-moving, easygoing to the point of idleness, non-competitive and gentle. Humans, on the other hand, were presented as being imaginative, belligerent, inventive and selfish. These latter presentations were known as Secondary Justifications.
Watching a particularly bloody battle in which human had slain brightly clad human and the air was thick with flying arrows and flashing lances, Marion said, lounging back in her chair sipping a drink: ‘Sometimes it makes you wonder which is which. I mean, look at us lying here, eating and sleeping and helping those idlers in the corner. We look like what they call humans, but we act like Prells.’
Bronsil spent a long time pondering the truth of this remark.
* * * *
One night Joanna disappeared.
Night was the period when the globes in the ceiling were extinguished. Many of the community favoured the night and, indeed, had tried to simulate it by throwing bottles at the globes in an endeavour to break them, but without success. The soft darkness of night was reminiscent in many ways of the Scarlet Rooms and Bronsil found this worrying, feeling instinctively that darkness was a regression; he was always relieved when the lights came on again, signifying day. Some of the group members, particularly those among the couches, would set up a screaming on the commencement of day which could only be assuaged by liquor.
One morning Bronsil approached the couches with an armful of bottles, passing them as usual to the hands which protruded demanding from within the stack of furniture. This particular morning, Joanna’s hand was missing. Bronsil pulled the stack apart at this point, eliciting sullen moans of protest from the other occupants, but could see no sign of the young girl. Concerned, he called Marion across.
‘What’s up?’ Her nose wrinkled in distaste as she observed the soiled furniture.
‘Joanna’s gone.’
‘Oh...’ She shrugged; it was no concern of hers.
‘But don’t you see?’ Bronsil persisted, ‘we haven’t found a way out of here except by the doors we came in. And if she went out that way, someone must have opened them from the outside. Why?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know. Why don’t you ask the Godly?’
This was the name by which the group at the doors had become known, Bronsil approached them. Three appeared to be in some sort of trance; their heads lolled back and their eyes were turned up whitely; but the fourth, a man, was comparatively alert. He greeted Bronsil with a lupine smile.
‘Hello ... We’re conducting a little experiment here, Bronsil.’ His eyes were frighteningly intent; the smile which slashed the lower part of his face left them unamused. He had the look of a fanatic.
‘Joanna seems to have disappeared. I wonder if you------’
‘In their wisdom the Prells have not seen fit to communicate with us direct, leaving we, their children, to seek the way to praise them in a manner by which they may be informed of our love.’
‘Their children?’
‘I do not speak in metaphor. Prell is the essence of life; the primeval form which first developed and from which we are descended; they themselves having ascended to a higher plane of existence. That is what they are telling us by means of the screen. You will have noticed the contrast between the divine Prell way of life and the base stragglings of Man. You will have realised that they are tracing the history of Mankind in reverse, preparing us for the moment of revelation when Prell and Man, good and evil, split from the same creeping spark of life.’
Bronsil stared at the man, hypnotised by his eyes, unable to comprehend half of what he heard.
‘You see, Bronsil, I am beginning to remember. For me, there was a time before the Scarlet Room. I know this as clearly as I know your intellect cannot grasp such a concept. My friends’—he indicated the supine three—’are also tracing their history, Mankind’s history, the infinite backwardness which is in all------’
‘You’re talking nonsense, Wilkinson.’
The doctor had appeared, suddenly; Bronsil had been so engrossed he had not seen the man enter. Wilkinson continued his flow—’men, but which only the privileged few------’
Abruptly, the doctor slapped Wilkinson’s face.
What did you do that for?’ Bronsil asked, in the sudden silence.
The doctor’s face was haggard; he examined his hand, which was trembling violently. ‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ he muttered. ‘Bronsil ... Just do as you think fit, eh ? I mean, don’t be ... influenced by people. Follow your own ideas. You’ve made out pretty well so far, haven’t you ?’
‘Have I?’
‘You’re doing fine, Bronsil, fine.’ The doctor hesitated; grasped Bronsil’s shoulder. ‘Great work, Bronsil. Keep it up.’
‘Joanna’s gone.’
For a moment he thought the doctor was going to collapse; the man turned grey and a sudden spasm seized him. ‘Gone,’ he repeated woodenly. It was not a question.
‘You knew, of course,’ said Bronsil with sudden insight.
‘What makes you think that? Breathe deeply. Say “ah”.’
The change of subject took Bronsil by surprise and unresisting he allowed the stethoscope to be placed against his chest. The doctor listened, head cocked to one side, for a long time; then straightened with an air of satisfaction. ‘You’re fine, Bronsil,’ he repeated as he walked away.
* * * *
The doctor had been in the habit of restocking the bar at regular intervals, wheeling in a trolley loaded with bottles and stacking them on the shelves, taking out the empties. Following the incident with Wilkinson, however, the supply of liquor ceased and before long existing stocks dried up amid vociferous complaints from the occupants of the couches. Within a week two of that group were dead; the doctor wheeled them away on the same trolley as he used for the bottles and with about as much emotion.
Bronsil began to get the feeling that they were all in some way expendable. No further additions had arrived for many days and it appeared that the community, having reached its optimum, was now on the decline. In discussion Marion agreed with him, but unlike himself she seemed resigned to the situation.
He explored his memory, urged by the ravings of Wilkinson and his small sect, but was unable consciously to recall anything prior to his period in the Scarlet Room. He admitted that there must have been something; perhaps there had always been something, but he could pin down no definite recollections. Yet he knew
and could understand simple speech and the concepts which developed in discussion with Marion and the larger group. He could assimilate a large part of the information shown on the screen too, and appreciated that intelligent beings were of two types, human and Prell. The reason for the great divergence in appearance and behaviour of the types he could not however grasp, and the Justifications were uninformative on this point. He found Wilkinson’s explanation unsatisfactory and obscure.
Joanna reappeared; one morning her arm was protruding from among the couches as he made his early tour of inspection.
‘You’re back,’ he observed, peering into the small space and seeing her dim outline.
‘Please give me a drink,’ she requested quietly, with unaccustomed politeness.
‘There’s none left.’
‘Oh, God...’ She fell silent.
Bronsil reported back to Marion who expressed no surprise at the return of the girl. Nobody expressed surprise at anything any more; Bronsil found this disturbing. Interest in discussion had waned lately and even the members of his own group spent most of their time gazing at the blank screen with lack-lustre eyes.
The Justifications had become infrequent; the most recent having been days previously, merely a brief shot of a few hairy, bestial men emerging from a cave and walking across a forest glade, carrying sticks. The only remarkable point about the scene was that it had shown, for the first time, Prells and humans in the same surroundings. The shot panned from the hunting party to a pair of Prells concealed in a tree.
Four days after Joanna’s return the doctor made his next visit and Bronsil was alarmed at his appearance. The man looked thinner, older; his hair straggled limply across his forehead, his face was glossy with dried sweat. His examination of the members of the community was cursory and disinterested with the exception of Bronsil himself, whom he treated with a strange deference.
Then, calling for Bronsil’s assistance, he made for the stack of couches. Together they dragged the occupants into the light.
When it came to Joanna’s turn the doctor hesitated.
‘All right, I’m coming out.’ Her voice was curiously defiant. She emerged head first, crawling, blinking at the light.
She wore a crumpled green dress. Bronsil gaped at her in astonishment.
‘There’s no need to stare. You’d look better with some clothes on, yourself.’ She jerked open the front of her dress, exposing her small breasts. ‘Feel away, old man,’ she said contemptuously.
Averting his eyes, the doctor gingerly held his stethoscope to her heart. She lay quietly, looking at him, her gaze inscrutible. With obvious reluctance he carried out a thorough examination, checking her pulse, her temperature, flashing a light into her eyes, inspecting her scalp, her ears. When he took the hem of her skirt between his forefinger and thumb and lifted it away from her thighs she smiled slowly.
‘A valuable piece of property, that’s me,’ she remarked obscurely.
At last the doctor straightened up, his face red.
‘We need some more liquor,’ said Bronsil.
The doctor turned on him furiously. ‘Damn you, Bronsil,’ he hissed. His fists were clenched; he was trembling violently. ‘You think you own this place, don’t you?’ He glanced down at Joanna and back to Bronsil. ‘You bastard,’ he muttered, turning away with an effort. ‘You superior bastard, Bronsil...’
He walked quickly from the room.
* * * *
From that time Joanna’s stature in the community increased; in some way she had established supremacy over the doctor, the representative of the Prells. The doctor himself had never hinted at such a relationship between he and the aliens; the community had tacitly made up its collective mind on the subject.
Bronsil was vaguely uneasy about Joanna’s new position. It did not affect his own standing in any way; he was still acknowledged as leader of the community, but Marion was definitely fading into the background, becoming listless as the young girl took her place as Bronsil’s lieutenant. Following the episode with the doctor Joanna had left the stack of couches and now sat with the larger group near the Justification screen. She even tried to promote discussion, refusing to be discouraged by the lack of enthusiasm around her. She never, however, referred to her period of absence.
‘It seems we’re ... fading out,’ murmured Bronsil one day as he lay back in an easy chair, scanning the room. Nobody had spoken for some hours apart from Joanna; many eyes were closed and Wilkinson’s group had achieved a trancelike state which had lasted for a day or more; their expressed search for knowledge had deteriorated into a mindless attainment of Nirvana.
Marion roused herself. ‘We’re OK,’ she asserted. ‘There’s plenty of food and it’s just as well the liquor ran out. Why worry?’
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit... sad, that we should lie here and wait to die ? That’s all there is to do, now. We don’t find out anything new. The Justifications seem to have finished.’
‘Find out?’ An elderly man named Jackson spoke. ‘But we know everything, I thought we’d decided. We know all about our environment. It’s only the Justifications that make us unsettled, make us wonder if there’s somewhere else.’
‘We don’t know why,’ Joanna pointed out.
‘Why what? Does there have to be a reason?’ Old Jackson had become alert; Joanna’s presence had introduced a new factor, a new mind to pit oneself against. There was a noticeable quickening of interest within the small group. ‘Conceive this room,’ Jackson was saying. ‘Conceive outside this room, containing it, another larger room. And another one containing that, and another, and another, bigger and bigger. It’s got to stop somewhere. Why not now, at the extent of these four walls? Why should there be anything else ? Here is, why or how can there be a reason ?’
‘There were the Scarlet rooms, and the square rooms, and where the doctor comes from,’ Joanna pointed out practically.
‘I’m speaking in general terms. One large room enclosing all that can be the full extent of everything. All that we have seen can be all there is.’ An acid note crept into the old man’s voice. ‘Of course, I realise you’ve been outside here recently, young lady; but that doesn’t mean you know it all.’
‘That’s just what I’m saying,’ Joanna persisted. ‘None of us know it all.’
Jackson replied: ‘I’m not sure I want to know. If I’m not right and all this is indeed infinite, then I’m scared.’ For a moment he considered Joanna’s ideas; he seemed to shrivel in his chair and his hand crept towards his mouth.
‘We should find out.’
‘How?’
‘Get out of here, of course. Have a look around.’
‘Why?’
‘Look.’ Joanna was bouncing in her chair with irritation. ‘You’re all wrapped up in dreaming. You really don’t want to know. Now I don’t know all the reasons, but I can guess some. We were in Scarlet Rooms, right? We were driven out by cold and hunger. Then we were in square rooms. The same thing happened. We had to leave, or we would have died. Now we’re here. We’ve got food and warmth and this time they haven’t been cut off. But we’re still dying, one by one. I feel we’re being told to get out of here, not so directly as before, but told to get out just the same. Get out, or die. The choice is the same as it was in the Scarlet Rooms.’
Jackson sniffed. ‘If you took that dress off, you wouldn’t feel so superior to the rest of us, young lady. If man had been intended to wear clothes, he would have grown fur.’
Silence fell. Joanna looked sulky.
Depressed at the collapse of the discussion, Bronsil scanned the group for further participants, but they had all fallen asleep again.
* * * *
‘You were right,’ Bronsil said to Joanna the following day. ‘We’ve got to get out of here. The sooner the better.’
‘I’m willing. What about the others ?’
‘I’ll try...’ He walked over to the group; they sat relaxed, breakfast finished, waiting for Bronsil to clear
away the soiled plates. ‘It’s time we went,’ he informed them.
‘What ?’ Faint alarm showed on their faces.
New Writings in SF 21 - [Anthology] Page 16