Echo Round His Bones

by Thomas Disch

  "Oh, but that's always the great mystery. Even Bridgetta cannot penetrate to the essential Panofsky, but keeps peeling off layers like an onion. Not my metaphor, of course -- Ibsen's. But what, particularly, puzzles you?"

  "That you should try to do this all on your own. I'm sure if you spoke to someone in the government, though they might be skeptical at first, they would, eventually believe you and aid you."

  "I'm just as sure of that, Nathan, and so I have said nothing. One of the few consolations of being here is that I am, for the first time in my life, a free man. I have at last found a way of escaping successfully. The government's first act of assistance would no doubt be to send a crew of men through the transmitters to supervise me here."

  "If your luck turned, and Worsaw were to discover you, you'd be thankful for such supervision."

  "That's the chance I take."

  Hansard shook his head disapprovingly, but by the set of his jaw it was evident that he had decided not to pursue the argument.

  "Consider, Nathan, what I have already suffered at the government's hands, and then think if I could gladly invite them here . They have taken my invention -- which could have made the world a paradise -- and turned it into a weapon, as though the world wants for new weapons. I should despair if I thought it were possible for my achievement to be suppressed forever. Happily, as Norbert Wiener observes, the greatest guarantee that a thing will be done is simply the knowledge that it is possible. So that in the long run, unless they prefer annihilation -- and they may, they may -- my work will not have been for nothing."

  There was a long pause during which Hansard considered how most tactfully to protest against Panofsky's apolitical attitude. Didn't the man see the moral necessity of the war? Was he not himself a refugee from the tyranny of East Germany? But before he could formulate these objections clearly, Panofsky had resumed speaking, in a rather more wistful tone.

  "Imagine what it might be like. Think what a source of power the transmitter represents. The mind staggers. Even my mind staggers."

  "Of power?" Hansard asked.

  "Instead of moving something laterally, suppose one were to transmit it upwards. Water, for instance. A circular waterfall could be created, which could power a dynamo, and only the smallest fraction of the dynamo's power would be needed to operate the transmitter itself. In effect, a perpetual motion machine."

  "Then it does violate the laws of conservation!"

  "At our level of reality, yes. But within the larger system, no. In other words, another universe somewhere is shortly going to experience a considerable power drain. Let us hope they have no means of plugging the hole, eh?"

  "My God," said Hansard, who was still envisioning the circular waterfall. "It would change everything."

  "Everything," Panofsky agreed. "And it will change our view of the universe as well. Not too long ago, in 1600, I regret to say that the Catholic Church burned Giordano Bruno as a heretic. The church will have to change its position now. The universe is infinite, after all; but there is no need for God to be embarrassed on that account. God can simply be more infinite. The bigger the universe, the vaster must be God's might. There are, just as Bruno envisioned them, worlds no telescope will ever see; worlds beyond those worlds, worlds still beyond infinities of worlds. Imagine, Nathan, if the earth itself were to be transmitted, and if Earth-Sub-Two were transmitted afterwards, then Earth-Sub-Three. . . . And not just once, but each a dozen, a hundred, numberless times, each transmission producing its own echo."

  "Is it possible?"

  "Much more is possible, though perhaps not just now. The solar system itself could be transported. We could take our sun with us as we journey about the galaxies. Is it possible? With a transmitter such as this, anything is possible. And what do you use it for? What is the only use the military mind can find for such a marvel? To dispense bombs with it!"

  "Does the President know about that waterfall-machine you spoke of?"

  "Of course he does. It was immediately evident to every scientist in the country that such a thing is possible now."

  "Then why isn't it being built? Why, with a source of unlimited power, there never need be a war again -- or hunger, or poverty."

  "You'll have to answer that question, Captain, for you represent the government, not I."

  "You know," said Hansard, unhappily, "perhaps I don't."

  TWELVE

  THE NATURE OF THE SOUL

  "Then you still don't want to tell him about it?" Bridie asked.

  "To what end?" Panofsky said. "Why call him back from vacation when there's nothing he can do to alter the situation?"

  "He might gather his roses a little more quickly, if he knew," Jet said.

  "I think we might best consult the tastes of the lady most directly concerned," said Panofsky, turning to regard Bridgetta, who was now a blonde and no longer, in fact, Bridgetta, but merely Bridget. Her smile spoke for her: she was satisfied.

  "Any more objections?" Panofsky asked.

  "It's best so, of course," said Jet. "It was only selfishness that made me want to share my fear with him. But it becomes harder and harder, as the time advances, to pretend to be lighthearted."

  "The effort will be good for both of us," Bridie said. "Pretending makes it so."

  "Furthermore," said Panofsky, "we have every reason to suppose it will be called off. The day is fully a month away."

  "Not quite that long," corrected his double.

  "Well, very nearly a month. After all, it's not as though this were being decided by merely human wit. The best computers in the world are blowing fuses this very minute to do something about it. It's all game theory and bluffing. I, for one, am not worried about it. Not in the least." But when Panofsky's eyes looked across the room and met the eyes of his double, his gaze faltered and his assurance failed.

  "Well," said the double somberly, "I, for another, am ."

  Toward the end of Hansard's second week at Elba, and five days after the preceding conversation had taken place, our hero found himself doing something he had promised himself never to do again -- arguing with his host. Panofsky had made another passing reference to his "little euthanasia program," and Hansard had furrowed his brow just enough to show that he considered it a little murder program; but he steadfastly refused to discuss it.

  "It's hardly fair, Nathan, for you to sit in judgment -- and Minos himself could not more prominently sit in judgment than you -- your face crinkles up like Saran Wrap -- and never allow the poor sinner a chance to justify himself, if he can."

  "I'll allow that something of the sort has to be done, but . . ."

  "But? But? Now, it really isn't fair to stop at that but , is it?"

  "I was going to say that it seems a perfectly reasonable attitude, from the scientific point-of-view, but it seems strange in a Catholic."

  "What a picture you must have of science, Nathan! You pronounce the word as though it were a euphemism for something unspeakable, as if science were the antithesis of the ethical -- as, since the bomb, it has in part become."

  "I have nothing against the bomb," Hansard protested hastily.

  Panofsky allowed this to pass with scarcely the raising of an eyebrow. "But it is curious that you should imagine an opposition between science and Catholicism which, I am sure, you regard as wholly irrational. No? Yes. A dismal prospect, if evil can only be opposed by unreason."

  "Honestly, Dr. Panofsky, I don't follow you when you go off on figure-eights like that. What I had in mind was simply this: Catholics are supposed to believe in immortal souls, and that sort of thing. In fact you've already said that you do. But suicide is -- I don't know the technical term for it."

  "A mortal sin. And so it is, but fortunately I cannot commit that sin at this level of reality. Only Panofsky-Sub-One can commit suicide, in the sense that it's a sin."

  "Well, if you take poison and die from it, what else can you call it?"

  "First, Nathan, I must explain to you the nature of the so
ul. At conception, when the soul is created, it is unique, only one, indivisible. God made it so. Do you think I can create souls? Of course not. No more can the transmitter, which I invented, create souls. So that the apparent multiplicity of my selves means nothing in God's eyes. I would not go so far as to maintain that I am a mere illusion . Rather let us say that I am an epiphenomenon."

  "But physically your existence on this plane of reality is just as . . . as existent as it ever was. You breathe. You eat. You think ."

  "Ah, but thinking is not a soul . Machines can think."

  "Then you're no longer bound by any moral laws whatever?"

  "On the contrary, natural law, the law derived from reason as opposed to that which is revealed to us divinely, has as binding a force here as in the Real World, just as the laws of physics work here . But natural law has always condoned suicide in certain circumstances: consider all those noble Romans throwing themselves on their swords. It is only in these Years of Grace that suicide has become an evil because it is in contradiction to the second supernatural virtue -- hope. It is not allowed for a Christian to despair."

  "Then you've ceased to be a Christian?"

  "I am a Christian perhaps, but not a man. That is to say, the fact that I no longer possess a soul does not prevent me from believing as I always have. I am the same Panofsky as ever, so far as you or I can see, for it is not given to us to see the soul. When Hoffmann sold his soul, he lost his shadow, or was it the other way around? In any case, it was a visible sign. But how much sadder to lose something which one cannot even be sure afterward of having ever possessed. Happily, I am prepared for this paradox by being a modern.

  "Camus, you know, was troubled by a similar disparity between the strict atheism which he felt reason required, and his feeling that it was wrong to do evil. But why was it wrong? For no reason at all. But still one must have some basis for action, for choosing. So one just tries to do the best one can, from day to day, without examining the ethical dilemma too closely . . . which is more concentration-camp philosophy. I'm sorry I have nothing better to offer you."

  "But if it's all meaningless -- and isn't that what a soul is all about, meaningfulness? -- then why does Panofsky-Sub-One keep providing for you? Why should he care?"

  "That is a question that I hope he will never chance to ask himself. Happily, up to now he has devoted all his attention to our physical rather than our spiritual condition. If he were to convince himself that we are soulless, he might very well stop sending us supplies."

  "I just can't believe that, Doctor."

  "Only because you're not a Catholic."

  "Look, if what you said that day in the transmitting room were to happen, if the whole damn world were to be transmitted -- what then? With all the people on it, the Pope, everyone?"

  "Nathan, what a splendid question! I'd never thought of that. Of course the basic situation remains unaltered, but the magnitude of it! A whole world without shadows! Yes, and for a final paradox, what if such a transmission were to take place not tomorrow but two thousand years ago, and Christ himself . . . Nathan, you do have an instinct for these things. You may have changed my mind, which is an almost unheard-of thing at my age. I will certainly have to give a good deal of thought to the question. But now that I've shown you my soul, such as it is or isn't, would you like to show me yours?"

  Hansard's brow furrowed more deeply this time. "I don't understand."

  "Why is it, Nathan, that you wake up screaming in the middle of the night?"

  And yet another week later.

  "I'm sorry," Hansard said, "for flying off the handle with you like that."

  "Not with me, I'm afraid," said Panofsky, "though Bernard did tell me about that incident. As a matter of fact, Nathan, I scolded him on your behalf. Your dreams are nobody's business but your own. I think Bernard's let himself become something of a snoop since he left the Real World. That happens to all of us to some degree, but he could confine his eavesdropping to that world and leave us alone."

  Hansard laughed uneasily. "It's funny you should say that, because I'd just come to tell you -- to tell him -- that he was right. Or, perhaps, not exactly right, but . . ."

  "But you were going to answer his question anyhow? Confession does ease the soul, as they say. Especially -- I've always observed -- the souls of Protestants, in which category I would include those of your stamp. It's because they're so severe with themselves that the fact of mercy overwhelms them."

  "I'm not looking for mercy," Hansard said dourly.

  "Precisely my point. You'll be all the more surprised to find it. Tell me, Nathan, did you fight in Viet Nam back in the Sixties?"

  Hansard turned pale. "I was just about to tell you about that. How did you know?"

  "It's nothing telepathic -- just a simple inference. If you're thirty-eight now, you would have come of age for the draft at the height of the whole mess. Some very nasty things happened in that war. We civilians with our heads in the sand probably got little idea of what went on, even though the newspapers were full of stories almost every day. Women and children?"

  Hansard nodded. "It was a child, a little boy, he couldn't have been much older than five."

  "You had to shoot him in self-defense?"

  "I incinerated him in self-defense."

  They were silent together a long while, though it was not, on Panofsky's part, an unsympathetic silence.

  Then Hansard said, reaching for a tone of ordinariness, "But you knew it all before I even told you. You anticipated everything I had to tell you."

  "We sinners are never as unique as we suppose ourselves to be. When a boy of thirteen goes into the confessional with his nails bitten to the quick, the priest will not be surprised to learn that he has committed sins of impurity. When a grown man, an Army captain, who usually evidences the most strait-laced moral code, wakes up screaming in the night, one looks for a cause commensurable to the pain. Also, Nathan, your case is not unique. There have been a dozen novels written about that war by other men who woke up screaming. But why is it, after all this time, you wanted to speak about it?"

  "I haven't been able to tell Bridgetta. I tried to, and I couldn't. I thought perhaps I'd be able to, if I told you about it first."

  "And why were you anxious to tell her?"

  "I've always thought that one of the reasons my first marriage never worked was because I didn't tell Marion about that boy. She wouldn't let me, the one time I tried. This time I won't make that mistake."

  "This is news! You're marrying the girl then?"

  "In another week. There's going to be a big society wedding at Grace Episcopal, and we thought we'd just sneak in and make it a double wedding. I hope you'll be able to be there to give the bride away."

  But before Panofsky could commit himself, Bridie came into the room unannounced and wearing a look of grave concern. "You'd better come and see this, Bernard. We have them on the screen now, and it's just as we feared."

  Hansard followed Bridie and Panofsky into the sitting room adjoining Bridgetta's bedchamber. There Bridgetta-Sub-One, in a terrycloth bathrobe and her hair wound up in a towel, was standing a few feet back from the 12-inch screen of the videophone. The Sub-Two residents of Elba were crowded close about another receiver, apparently on an extension line from the first.

  The image on the screen that Bridgetta-Sub-One was watching was of Panofsky, but on the other screen there were two Panofskys, the second of them with what appeared to be a cloud of cellophane wreathing his head. With the two Panofskys crowded before the screen and the others pictured on it, there were a total of four functioning Panofskys visible to Hansard in a single glance. It was too much, by at least one.

  "What in hell is -- " he began, but Bridie silenced him with a peremptory gesture.

  No sound came from either videophone, but this did not seem to dampen the interest of the spectators. While he waited for this strange charade to end, Hansard reasoned. He reasoned that (1) the videophone that Bridgetta-Sub-O
ne was watching belonged to the Real World (which was confirmable by sticking a finger into it); that (2) the Panofsky pictured upon it must therefore be Panofsky-Sub-One (and hadn't there been talk lately of his having gone off for the Bolshoi's spring season?), and that (3) the second Panofsky, visible on the screen of the other videophone (which was tangible to Hans ard's touch), must be a sublimated Panofsky.

  When the call was concluded and the image had shrunk to a small dot of light, Panofsky congratulated Hansard on his reasoning. "One of our knottiest problems," the old man went on, "was establishing communications with the others of us around the world. You see, I've made as much provision as I can for the Sub-Two Panofskys produced by the transmissions from Paris or Moscow back to Washington. There is a gas mask and oxygen supply stored beneath the seat of my wheel chair at all times. It gives me -- or him, whichever way you choose to regard it -- more or less twenty-four hours' time; enough for one last night at the Bolshoi and sometimes a visit to the Kremlin.