The Silent Speakers

by Arthur Sellings

  “The enemy of all of us is war itself. Unless we get out to the planets, and soon, we’re going to have the most senseless war that ever happened, because the destruction will be total. I realized early that the space race was a safety valve, a substitute for war. It took up the West’s productive capacity, and it satisfied the prestige needs of the other side. But it can’t go on forever. The pressure’s getting too high, and the safety valve is still too narrow in bore.

  “I don’t care who widens it first. You can discount all the twaddle about the military advantages of bases on the moon. It’s settlements we want, not bases. Whoever it is who cracks it, you can bet your life the others will soon follow. Though, naturally, I’ll bust a gut to see that we do it first. And if that involves testing a few hundred volunteers to breaking point, or causing Dr. Fisher to go off-beam under an accumulated guilt complex, then that’s a small sacrifice.”

  “So that was what the history lesson was all in aid of—to get me to carry on with Fisher?”

  “Of course. It was also a testament of faith, if you like. One that I’ve never stated to anybody before. If that were on tape it would cost me my job.”

  Arnold looked at the big man with a glimmering respect. Not that there was any possible danger of his words having been recorded. Colonel Jay obviously ordered the fixing of any tapes round here. Or did he? With what he said about factions in the military machine, wasn’t it quite possible that there was a clique who’d like to see Jay deposed? He caught himself with a start.

  He was beginning to catch the cloak-and-dagger virus himself.

  “In fact,” Arnold said, “your history lesson was wasted.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Oh, I was interested in your point of view. I wasn’t brought up in a military family, so I wasn’t taught the military virtues. But duty isn’t copyright by the army or anyone else. Some things are reflex, so you don’t have to worry. I can no more refuse to go on trying to get Fisher’s mind back than I could stop myself diving in to save him if he were drowning.”

  It was the simple truth.

  “Good man,” Jay said. He clapped Arnold on the shoulder. Then he suddenly broke into a rumbling chuckle. Arnold looked at him suspiciously.

  The big man subsided. “What price strange alliances! Our mutual enemy was Pevsner. He nearly had a fit when the orderly called him and he heard what happened. He actually threatened to resign if I let you have any more to do with his patient. I told him to go right ahead and try and I’d have his head on a plate. He soon backed down. A pity. There’s one person I’d really like to get tough with.”

  —The subsequent sessions with Fisher were not nearly so arduous as the first. But they were gruelling enough to make Arnold wonder just how long anyone telepathic contact could last. He had never tested it, but twenty minutes at a time with Fisher was as much as either of them could stand in anyone day. It was as if the effort drained cells that had to be recharged. But he would have to time it under more normal conditions. This now was no fair test. Communicating with a mind like Fisher’s, at once brilliant, as he soon realized, and currently off-centre, was as painful as an astigmatic man squinting at a bright sun.

  After two weeks Fisher had come back sufficiently into the world to recognize his own identity—and to remember his work. His subconscious made desperate efforts then to drag his mind back again. But by now his conscious mind realized that something new and strange was at work on him and his scientist’s curiosity was aroused.

  That was the turning point.

  In another month Arnold was able to hand Dr. Fisher back to Pevsner. That he did so directly, without consulting Jay, somewhat mollified the psychiatrist and pleased Arnold. He was beginning to feel sorry for anyone who came up against the hydra-headed battering ram of the colonel. He went to report to the big man.

  “I’ve finished.”

  Jay beamed. “Fine. Fine.”

  “Mind you. I don’t know how long it will last. Fisher’s more keen on what I can do than on his work. I’d no sooner got him half-way to normal than he wanted to have me on the couch.” He grimaced. “And on the dissecting table, too. He’s really itching to know what makes me tick. Of course, that has helped the process of recovery considerably; his thirst for knowledge, I mean. I steered him off by saying that I’d already been dismantled and put together again. I told him he’d hear about the whole affair before long. In brief, I was tactful.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Don’t be too grateful. It wasn’t only for the sake of your project that I told him that, but mine, too. Which reminds me—when do we go back?” He looked out of the window over the scorched plains of Woomera, shimmering in the sun.

  “You can leave any time you like. I’ll lay everything on. But I’m staying behind. Now you’ve got Fisher’s brain back for us I’ve got to give it a good washing, to forestall this happening again.” He smiled wolfishly. “You must think I’m a thorough bastard.”

  “Yes.”

  “But I’m a grateful bastard too. Personally I think your world view is as mixed as hell, but I knew you had integrity. I’ll see you get properly rewarded for this. This must have interfered with your own plans, and probably will yet—”

  “How do you mean?” Arnold interrupted.

  “The dislocation and everything,” Jay said airily. “But I’m sure everything will come out right for you. And I wish you all the luck.”

  He put out his hand.

  Arnold surprised himself by taking it.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Six weeks among the straight lines of Woomera and under its blearing sun were enough to make his first sight of London unreal. They came down to Heath Row through thick fog which only cleared fifty feet above the airfield where the dispersal beams were going full blast. When the door was opened the air struck chill into his bones.

  He poised at the top of the steps, stopped by what he saw. A hundred people were clustered about the aircraft, a score of cameras craned above them. Two television cameras were trained on the doorway.

  Arnold looked around, wondering who the celebrity was that he had travelled with unknowingly.

  He soon knew. It was him. The newshounds descended in full cry.

  “Mr. Ash, we’d like a statement, please.”

  “What were you doing in Australia?”

  “On behalf of the largest—”

  “Can you confirm the statement by—”

  “Is it true anybody can do it?”

  “Can I have a message for our women readers?”

  “What’s all the secrecy?”

  “… League of Higher Thought wish to convey—”

  “Our viewing audience—”

  “What’s your favourite sport, Mr.—”

  Arnold staggered beneath the rain of questions as he pushed his way down the steps. What had happened? Somehow the truth about the power, or a version of it, had leaked out.

  A voice hissed in his ear. “No statement. Say ‘No statement’.”

  Clutching at one spar of sanity, Arnold responded automatically.

  “No statement.” His voice was lost in the hubbub. He bellowed this time. “No statement.”

  There was a shocked silence, then a howl of protest.

  The voice whispered in his ear again. “Tell them a statement will be released later today.”

  Arnold turned to see who his counsellor was. The face was familiar. What he could see of the man’s garb in the press about them confirmed it. Black jacket, bowler hat, stiff white collar—it was one of Jay’s men, the same one who had done the talking when he had been escorted to Jay’s office that morning six weeks ago.

  “What—what’s happened?”

  The man smiled urbanely in the midst of chaos, and called out in an exquisite accent which cut through the newsmen’s protests like a jewelled scimitar.

  “Mr. Ash will release a statement to your offices in time for tomorrow’s edition. That’s all he has to sa
y now, so please clear a way.”

  The official’s silent companion of the morning of Arnold’s delivery to M.I.9 popped up from nowhere and took Arnold’s case. Together they shepherded him through the crowd and the airport buildings as if landing and customs regulations had no meaning in their universe; they probably hadn’t, Arnold thought. They led him to a waiting car.

  “How did they get alerted?” Arnold asked as the powerful car drew away. “Did Colonel Jay’s security backfire?”

  The official hitched an elegant trouser. “Even the Colonel wouldn’t have been able to stop it, had he been here. You yourself evidently sowed the seeds. News, Mr. Ash, flowers in strange ways.”

  And the official turned away to look at the hurtling factories of the Bath Road. Obviously, Arnold recognized, he was going to get no immediate change there. A sudden thought struck him.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  The man turned back, looking puzzled that Arnold should ask the question.

  “Why, your home, of course. Where else?”

  They arrived to find the place curiously deserted. After the clamour at the airport Arnold would have been surprised at nothing. But the only sign of anything untoward was the presence of two men, in plain clothes so plain they might as well have been in uniform, standing at the entrance to the yard.

  “Wonderful what the word of authority docs,” commented Arnold’s companion. “When all those bright boys called their offices from the airport, they found there was a D-notice on this.”

  He chuckled, and Arnold was surprised at an expression of emotion, however meagre, from that prim figure.

  “A D-notice. That’s censorship, isn’t it?”

  “Well, we don’t like to use the word.”

  “But why? What I did for your department wasn’t that important, surely.”

  The official made no answer. They escorted Arnold up to the flat. The silent one took a key from his vest pocket and opened the door.

  Arnold was annoyed. “Where did you get the key from?”

  The speaking one said, “Sorry about that. But we haven’t done any snooping, believe me. One of our men has stayed here each night since the news broke. If you knew the press as well as we do—and not only the press—you’d realize that it was done for your own protection. You might easily have found the place pulled apart. Shall we go in?”

  In fact, the flat bore no sign of having been searched, although this outfit was probably expert enough to leave no trace. It looked almost disconcertingly normal, the sight of it underlying the unreality of all that had happened—was happening.

  Arnold flung himself into a chair. He looked up at the official.

  “Now will you kindly explain?”

  “Certainly. But first I should introduce myself. My name is Blake. My companion is Tompkins.”

  At least they sounded more like real names than Jay. Perhaps his name was Jay.

  “Well, Mr. Ash, as you can see, the news of you has broken. Your power, that is. That’s unfortunate, but we couldn’t help that. In fact, it doesn’t concern our department. What does is your operations at Woomera. The papers know you’ve been there. They only latched on to that a couple of days ago. You probably passed a jet-load of journalists on your way back, going in the opposite direction.

  “We are preparing a statement for you to sign to the effect that you’re a free-lance writer. That your visit to Woomera had nothing to do with any special powers you claim to possess. It was just a routine assignment which you had contracted to do for the Ministry of Information. It’s not a brilliant story, but it will have to do. It may take a little time to blow over, but blow over it will.”

  Arnold heaved a sigh of relief. “That settles that, then. I can do with a couple of weeks to get my bearings again.”

  Blake coughed. “It will take rather longer than that, I’m afraid.”

  “Well—three, four?”

  “It could be longer than that, Mr. Ash.”

  Arnold began to feel annoyed again, as much by the man’s bland manner as by what he was saying.

  “Well, how long?”

  “For just as long as you’re a security risk.”

  “Me? A security risk? How paranoiac can your department get. I’ve already signed an official secrets undertaking.”

  “I know. But, because of that, we can keep full security on you for just as long as we like. You can go wherever you want to—but one of our men will accompany you.”

  “But that’s monstrous!” Arnold exploded. “It’s an infringement of personal liberty.”

  “Not at all. It’s perfectly legal under the Security Act of 1968. And your liberty will not be infringed. Well, apart from such trifling things as tapping your telephone and reading your correspondence. You will receive an official form to that effect.” He surveyed his fingernails. “Just to make it legal.”

  “Just trifling things! They are personal liberty.” He fought back his anger. “Just how long will that state of affairs continue?”

  “As I said, for just as long as is considered necessary. In fact, until we’re sure that what you learned from Dr. Fisher is no longer valuable to a possible enemy.”

  Arnold’s anger could be controlled no longer.

  “You blazing idiots! I didn’t learn anything from Dr. Fisher.”

  “You penetrated his mind.”

  It was ludicrous. The whole thing was ludicrous, but this capped everything! To him such a phrase was quite normal now—but not on the lips of a precisely clad civil servant, spoken without as much as the batting of an eyelid. Was this how the unknown became accepted? As phlegmatically as this?

  “But not technically. Well, I suppose I gathered a few facts.” It was true, he realized, he had. “But nothing in such detail as to be of use to an enemy.” That was also true. Or was it? Who was mad? They? Or he?

  “That we have to be sure of. We know the other side are doing research parallel to Dr. Fisher’s. We’re ahead, we’re sure of that, but we shall intensify our intelligence efforts immediately to establish just how far ahead. On that information will depend your priority status for security relaxation.”

  Through the gobbledegook, Arnold thought he could discern a semblance of meaning.

  “In other words, my release depends upon the inefficiency of Russian counter-intelligence! Of all the—”

  But at that moment the other agent, Tompkins, came in bearing a tray, and spoke for the first time that Arnold remembered.

  “Tea?” he inquired.

  That was all it needed, Arnold thought despairingly.

  “We’ll try to speed it up, Mr. Ash,” Blake said, his teacup poised in a manicured hand. “Technology, especially in this field, accelerates all the time. It may be over much quicker than you think. And our men will be as discreet as possible.”

  “And how am I supposed to earn a living in between times?” It was the least of his problems, but it had to be reckoned with.

  “Oh, that’s all taken care of. You’re one of us now. On the force. Temporary Executive Officer, Grade Three. You will receive a monthly pay cheque.”

  Arnold spluttered into his tea. So that was what Jay had meant about his efforts being rewarded. He remembered the big man’s enigmatic words when they had parted—“This must have interfered with your plans and probably will yet.” He must have known all about this; he must have been kept fully posted in Woomera about developments. Funny that he had seen nothing in the Australian papers about himself. Had Jay censored them? Or was the news too recent to have spread to Australia by then?

  “I trust I’m allowed to see what the press here has been printing about me?”

  “Of course.” Blake nodded to Tompkins, who promptly left the room.

  “And not just The Times,” Arnold called after him.

  Blake smiled. Tompkins returned immediately.

  “There’s a complete file here,” said Blake, “up to this morning’s edition, prepared by our own clipping service.” He cau
ght Arnold’s suspicious glance. “It’s complete, I assure you.”

  Arnold seized the file greedily and riffled through it.

  The news seemed to have broken five days before. Green had started it all with the publication of a paper in the Proceedings of the Institute of Sociology. Arnold could see no mention of his own name in that—understandably, in a learned society’s bulletin—but the papers seemed to have got hold of it soon enough. WHO IS ARNOLD ASH? blared the headline in one popular paper. A report in another set out to answer the question with a mass of garbled details that made up a picture, like a cubist nightmare. Somewhere there was a face and a history that resembled his—but only just.

  Somebody had turned up with a face—a photo from the TV show. For a day Steve Conrad had bathed in the tributes to this fresh proof of his ability to spot People Who Mattered. Vic’s face glared from several reports. One tabloid attacked the power with a lurid article on goings-on in Chelsea.

  Arnold was devoutly thankful for one thing. There was no mention of Claire in all this—apart from a couple of brief mentions of her being the landlord of the flat. In that he was grateful for the inaccuracy of the press. And nobody had tracked her to Ireland. Strange that he hadn’t heard from her, though. Especially after all this. Which reminded him.

  “Where’s my mail?”

  Blake smiled. “It’s stacked in your bedroom. All eight bags of it. We’ve already sorted the personal ones out.” He gestured to Tompkins.

  “I thought,” Arnold protested, “that you hadn’t searched the place.”

  “Nor have we. The past doesn’t concern us. Anything currently arriving does. In any case, when you see just how much mail you have got. I don’t think you will be ungrateful.”

  Tompkins came back with a slender sheaf.

  There was a letter from Claire. It was dated two weeks back. It said very little—that Sally was happy, that the weather was fine again after a week of gales, that her painting was progressing. It made no mention of the possibility of her returning, but it was somehow—in a way he couldn’t define—warmer in tone. It was as if she had resolved the problem of their relationship and its effect on her future. She didn’t say as much, but the tone was strangely acceptant.