He didn’t exist.
The centrifugally introduced gravity of the interior of this alien world was about three-quarters Earth-norm, making the travel easy going. Conversation between him and Veronica had petered out to silence, designed to preserve breath as much as anything. Charley’s mind was cut loose to wander outwards—
—and inwards.
Nirlan was perhaps the mildest planet yet discovered by mankind, its climate fostering a unique sense of well-being. Although life had developed, intelligence had not. Colonists had flocked to its lakes and meadows enthusiastically; curiously enough, considering the odious history of mankind, the first dwellers upon the fourth planet in the Formalhaut system had immediately acted to preserve its natural beauty, screening those who applied to live there, carefully designing the architecture of settlements to blend with the scenery. Technology and manufacturing was curtailed to low levels; the economy was mostly geared to the agrarian and to tourism of the most genteel and select form. Thus, it was not any great surprise that Nirlan was chosen as a world to copy for one of the dozens of encapsulated environments that clustered together within the framework of the Star Fall.
As much as he tried to lose himself in its beauty, Charley Haversham could not shake his mental preoccupation. They were walking along in a gently rolling meadowland scattered with stands of majestic trees and flowers whose color patterns and forms were matched in loveliness only by the sweet fragrances they exuded. Herds of shy six-legged creatures grazed in the distance, peacefully. Overhead burned a mock-sun in a sky the color of serenity. The air had that fresh-textured coolness of evergreen forests, though more sublime and subtle upon the skin.
He was an aberration, Charley thought. A collection of strung-together memories and identity complexes copied and then imprinted on the mind of another man—whose true persona was now marching across an exotic landscape of make-believe toward some mystical destination. The real Charley Haversham was back on Earth, no doubt feeling used and disappointed, without the faintest idea of just how lucky he was to have been left behind to lead his dull but solid, life mucking out the starport and conducting his byzantine emotional and sexual relationships in his Commune.
Dammit, though, he thought, scuffling along behind Veronica in the high grass, nearly tripping over a quartzlike rock thrusting from the ground. I remember working the cleaning detail, my hands aching from pushing buttons, wax crusting around my shoes, the disinfected smell at dawn after a night’s work as we waited for the next slew of feet and tentacles and cilia to slop their way through the terminal. I remember pushing chesspieces around in front of the blinking lights of robotic eyes. I remember bouncing on the Commune trampoline, holding Francie or Heidi in my arms, laughing. I remember the scent of Debbie’s newly washed hair as we sat over our special private dinner to celebrate my selection to serve a year’s term on board the Star Fall. I blew a wad on a real steak, blood rare.
I remember her tears on my shoulder as I hugged her goodbye ...
He looked up, for a moment concentrating upon the taut movement of Veronica’s buttocks beneath her jump suit, the way her now dried hair bounced on her shoulders, the sleek, feminine way she moved. She was totally real, and his impression of her and his response was totally Charley Haversham’s.
And yet, he was not Charley Haversham.
He was just a god damned photocopy or something.
Feeling dizzy, he sat down on a smooth boulder and uttered a heartfelt “Shit!”
Veronica turned gracefully. Her face in repose seemed to be frowning with disapproval. “You okay?”
He spat. “Hell no.”
“The connecting airlock should be only a couple kilometers distant. That should put us in a section of the ship adjacent to the complex where Hurt had his quarters. It also, incidentally, is not that far from the place that your counterpart, Todd Spigot, was telling you about. The Core, Charley. The thing you have the diagram for.”
“I could give a bloody hoot, Ronnie. The Star Fall and its entire contents, animate and inanimate, could be shoved right up the asshole of this Collective Unconscious and I wouldn’t give a good goddamn.” He looked up at her mopily through the splayed fingers of his hand, in which he held his heavily burdened head. Her face shifted his way, dark rich eyes concerned, delicate hands fitted to her sides.
“What’s gotten into you now, pal? Just a few hours ago when we started our trek across this delightful wilderness you were all grins and wisecracks. Getting tired I bet, huh?”
“No. The air is invigorating.”
“So what’s the problem?” She sat down beside him on the boulder, the scent of her sweat ripe and exciting.
The warmth of her presence, the increased awareness of his senses, the quickening of his heart and his breath which her sexuality and personality prompted, made his situation all the more poignant.
“It’s just penetrating this thick skull of mine,” he murmured. He lifted his arms in exclamatory excitement. “I’m the equivalent of a robot! A computer program, for heaven’s sake, uneasily mortared atop the brain and body of someone else.”
Veronica frowned and regarded him contemplatively.
“I don’t exist. Somehow that goddamn leg managed to defeat the holistic process of this brain, imprint engram copies of a guy named Charley Haversham within Todd Spigot’s neurons and axons and synapses, forming a cohesive, differentiated template of identity. Namely me. A kind of pseudo-consciousness, Veronica.” He heaved a heartfelt sigh. “I’m just a conjurer’s illusion being used as a tool in something I don’t understand.”
“Huh? You’re a little beyond my comprehension, sweetheart. What I know is that the entirety of humanity is in jeopardy from a dangerous man whom I happen to have a score to settle with. You are a person who woke up in the body of a guy named Todd Spigot, despite that wonderful gizmo stuck on your back, who can contact Todd’s mind wired into the Fabrication. You’re the fellow in charge now, Charley Haversham. You’re responsible for moving those legs”—she patted them gently—“lifting these arms, blinking those hazel eyes and moving those lips.”
“Veronica, you don’t seem to grasp the agony I’m experiencing,” Charley said, shaking his head. “The real me is back on Earth, right?”
“Presumably.”
“So then, if Charley Haversham is back on Earth, sweeping the floor of my Space Terminal, eating my favorite foods, making love to my girlfriends at the Commune, then who the hell am I?”
“Charley Haversham, of course. Even though you look like Todd Spigot, you certainly don’t act or talk like him.”
“No. We just agreed that Charley Haversham is not aboard the Star Fall. And yet here I am with all of Charley’s memories, behavior characteristics, personality quirks—carrying on a continuity of Charley’s identity to the point where a cursory brainscan reveals me to be, in fact, Charles Harrington Haversham. But that possibility is canceled out by the fact that this name, this slot in the scope of existence, is already taken up. What I’m saying is that I must really be a programmed Todd Spigot. Yet I hardly know the guy. You’d better believe I’m feeling kind of free-floating—nothing to touch down on. Alienated. Because, dammit, I feel as though I’m Charley Haversham, I like being Charley Haversham, and yet I know I’m not Charley Haversham!”
“Hmm,” she said sympathetically. “Sounds pretty awful.”
Her eyes focused on the horizon, which rolled gently upwards and around to meet itself on the other side of the artificial sun. “It’s kind of like this biosphere. It matches Nirlan’s characteristics—has its air, its landscaping, flora and fauna, feels like Nirlan—yet is not the original Nirlan, but a copied construct.”
“Exactly. But it doesn’t think, so it doesn’t have an identity crisis.” He spread out his arms hopelessly. “It just exists, so long as the support systems surrounding this biosphere keep on supplying water, air, whatever’s
needed. But the moment the Star Fall decides to change the atmosphere, environment, gravitation—zip, Nirlan is no more. Just like when all of this is over and Spigot takes over again. Spliff! I’ll be gone. No more. Fini. As though I’m even anything now.”
“But you are now, right?” Veronica said encouragingly.
“That’s just it. I’m not who I think I am.”
“But you exist.”
“I don’t exist, dammit. That’s why I’m having motivational problems! That’s why I don’t give a shit if we succeed or not. That’s why you can go ahead and do whatever you have to do, take this heavy canister off my back and begone while I’ll just linger here under a shade tree by that lake yonder and laze about till kingdom come. And when Todd Spigot pipes up again inside of me, I’ll just tell him to shove off! I’m enjoying life while I’ve got it.”
“To enjoy life, though, you must admit that you do exist.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Just a moment. I can’t let you do this to yourself, Charley. I took a philosophy course once. Who was it? Pascal? Anyway, someone said, ‘Cogito Ergo Sum.’ ”
“Descartes. I think, therefore I am.”
“Well, you think, therefore you are.”
“That’s the problem. I’m not who I think I am.”
“But you am ... you are, I mean. The difficulty you’re experiencing now is one of interpretation, not actual existence. You’re not the Charley Haversham on Earth. Let’s call him Charley Haversham Prime, just for the sake of argument, and you Charley Haversham Two.”
“Okay, I’m Charley Two. Pretty soon I’m going to be Charley Nobody.”
“Right. But for all I know, it won’t be long before I’m Veronica Nobody. We’ll be wedded in the bliss of Nothingness ... or maybe mashed together, if Hurt is right, in a state of Nirvana, Cosmic Consciousness or somesuch slop. Maybe in Heaven, maybe in Hell, but the thing is I don’t know for sure.” She brushed back her hair. “I suppose what I’m saying is that neither I nor any other human being knows—whatever they may claim. We’re all in the same situation as you, pal. Why do you think mankind has been knocking its head against the wall of knowledge for so long? To see if something gives. Why do you think Earnest Evers Hurt is so desperate to hook himself up to the Human Collective Unconscious? Because he’s scared too. The difference is that he thinks he knows who he is—and he wants to keep it that way.”
“Telling me other people’s situations doesn’t help me much. Besides, like I say, I’m not really a person. I’m just a construct, a copy, an embedding, an imprinting.”
“Okay. You’re approaching things from a dialectical materialist point of view. The universe is simply interaction of matter and energy—randomly, occasionally, forming a pattern such as humanity. Looking at it that way, though, how can you say that any human being is different from you? A collection of biochemical reactions in which Identity is just a program—a conscious interface between a being and the surrounding reality. The difference between you and the rest of us is that you’ve got it in your head that somehow you’re different.”
“Well, dammit, aren’t I?” Charley fumed. He stood up and paced distractedly.
“Not under the specifications that you’ve just given me on what a human being is.”
Charley groped for words. “I guess—I guess what I’m saying is that if I’m just a copy, I must lack a soul.”
“Ah. But there you’re defining yourself on a term and concept ingrained into culture. That ineffable quality—or quantity—of individuality. A religious term, soul. And yet I suppose you’re right, in a way. You have to look at things from a religious point of view sometimes. Oh, maybe not with dogma and ritual—but you have to have a certain amount of faith and trust in the way things are ... even if those things exist only to allow beings to determine and affect their own individual existence. Seems to me that as we all walk the tightrope of linear time from birth to death, we have to believe that there’s a purpose for the walk, otherwise, when we stop and look around and see the precarious state we’re in, we lose our gift of balance.”
“Oh, all that’s wonderful. Words and thoughts and blatherings about the nature of existence.”
“You think I don’t consider these kind of things? You think you’re the only one who has examined the nature of being? How do you think I feel, learning that I was specifically manufactured by Hurt—that I’ve been sleeping regularly with my own father, taking his handouts—realizing that everything I am was carefully planned according to his wishes and tastes? Hmm? At least, if you are indeed a copy of someone, you’re a copy of a legitimate human being. I’m a flesh and blood copy of a crazy man’s idea of a woman.” She stood, turned him around and stared him in the eye. “Look, Charley. Don’t go staring at your own belly button too long. It doesn’t suit your character. What do you think we all are, whether planned or accidents? No more or less than you. Pockets of matter and energy in a biological matrix of cooperation. You are what you are, soul or no soul ... you just have to accept what you are in order to understand yourself. The very fact that you are having existential anxieties regarding the nature and validity of your being means that you’re an individual. An individual with a purpose ... you’ve got to stop a looney guy who is screwing with Mother Nature. We can talk philosophy until we’re blue in the face. We can use complex terms and symbolism and point out interrelationships and feel a lot of self-satisfied pain—and it won’t do shit for anyone. I must admit that I’m pretty tired myself and could use a rest, and we can’t do anything here for that. But for God’s sake, cut this feeling-sorry-for-yourself business!”
“Why should I?” he said, pouting.
“You obviously have human feelings, right?”
“Sure. I guess so.”
“Okay. Then you should feel privileged. You’ve been created—or copied—specifically to help the human race out of a jam. Copy or not, you are a human being, and you have a chance to prove yourself. Let me ask you this. Can Charley Haversham Prime help me stop Hurt from getting what he wants—namely control of all humanity—ultimate power? No, of course not. Only Charley Haversham Two can.”
Charley thought about that. He looked at the woman standing beside him in an entirely different light. She wasn’t just attractive, she was damned bright. As soon as he stopped thinking about himself, his concern for her, for the welfare of humanity, rushed back. Curiously, that eased his anxiety as well. He remembered other occasions in his past—or rather, Charley Haversham’s past—when selflessness had led to a similar dissolve of fear and worry. No, strike that, he told himself. That was my past too. If memories were indeed chemically stored, then his memories were just as genuine as Charley Haversham Prime’s. He was a real, valid person.
He smiled sheepishly at Veronica. “Hey, kid. You’re a pretty good motivator.”
“You’ll come along with me then?” She looked at him, her dark-brown eyes alive and moist with hope. She bit her lip, looking concerned, and something went soft inside him.
“Sure. I’ll do anything I can. Not for Todd Spigot. Not for that robot leg. For humanity—maybe.” He grinned. “Most of all, Veronica ... for you.”
She laughed a lively laugh and her eyes seemed to glitter with relief and something more. “You still think you don’t exist?” she said with good-humored girlish bounce.
“Niggling doubts,” he admitted.
“Ever hear the story about Dr. Johnson’s reaction to Bishop Berkeley’s theory of immaterialism?” she said, a wry expression appearing on her face.
“No. You mean Dr. Samuel Johnson? From 18th-century Earth?”
“Your memory is well stocked,” she returned. “Yes. That’s the one. Seems that a fellow named Bishop George Berkeley had just developed a theory of metaphysics quite new to the Western World which said that there was no such thing as a material existence. Everything was spirit—energy, if
you will—or ideas. Well, one day after a church service, Dr. Johnson was walking with his friend Boswell, who was quite taken with these ideas and was expounding them at length. After Boswell finished, Johnson walked to the side of the road, harumphed, and kicked a rock, hard, with his boot. ‘Thus I refute thee!’ he cried.”
“So?” Charley said.
She leaned forward and kissed him lingeringly on the lips. “You say you don’t exist? Thus I refute thee, Charley Haversham.”
Instinctively he grabbed for her, but she slipped easily away from him. She smiled down at him, teasing.
“Hey! What the shit are you trying to do to me?”
“Identity crisis, bullshit. You were just trying to make me feel sorry for you.”
“I have feelings too, you know.”
“Yeah. All in your glands.”
He got up, holding out his arms entreatingly, grinning. “Look, give me a break!”
“Touch me and I’ll break your arm!” But her eyes had softened, amused.
“We need some rest. We’ve only got each other right now. I promise I’ll be good.”
“You rest where you are. I’ll rest right here.”
Charley shrugged, walked over to her and put his arms around her gently. “You know, this would be very good help for my ego—just a little cuddling, hmm?”
Reluctantly she put her arms around him. “You do feel like Todd. Oh God, why am I so easy?” They settled on the ground for a while, gently clutching each another.
“Charley, you’re a bit of a shit, but I kinda like you,” Veronica said. “Feel better now?”
“Hmm. Much better.”
“Charley, you’re not going to take advantage of me, are you?”
“I think right now you’re taking advantage of me, Veronica.”
She thought about that a moment, then smiled at him. “You know, I do believe you’re right.”
A SUN that was not real shouldered its way through nonexistent mountains to spread a filmy pink wash of false light over the Fabricated Land.
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