The Silent Speakers

by Arthur Sellings

  His captors looked at each other, obviously taken off guard.

  “How do we know,” said the short one, “that the information would be correct? How do we know that the mind can’t lie just as well as words?”

  “You don’t know now. But you would as soon as you made contact.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t explain to somebody who has never done it.”

  The two looked at each other again, and Arnold smiled to himself, despite the danger he was in, at another example of mad—and unspoken—logic that was now being worked out. This was a completely new factor thrown into the argument—one they needed to discuss between themselves. But they could not both withdraw; one had to be left on guard. To have gone into a huddle and discussed it in whispers would have been not only undignified and unprofessional, but a confirmation that they had been thrown off-balance.

  The tall one spoke. “This is in the same degree as lie-detectors or truth drugs. It could only lead to a negative result.”

  Arnold thought desperately—and came up with an answer.

  “Not necessarily. The exploring consciousness can sometimes penetrate the other person’s subconscious in a way that the other person’s conscious cannot. If I do have any information of use, you’ll be able to do better that I can. That alloy, for instance—I may know the answer without knowing I know.”

  The tall man pondered. His partner said, “I don’t like it.”

  “You’d better get to like it,” Arnold said. “It might become standard practice before long.” He immediately regretted saying it.

  “In which case,” said the tall one, “it might be better to draw a line through this operation right now. There are too many imponderables in this profession already.”

  Arnold swallowed hard. “If you did you’d lose your chance of exploring a new method.”

  “So would anyone else.”

  “But—but I’m not the only one. It would get around without me.”

  “Make up your mind, Mr. Ash,” the short one said impatiently.

  Arnold realized that he had blundered. He talked quickly.

  . “I mean, you’ve got me here. You might as well avail yourselves of the opportunity. In fact… you know your own business… but I’d say that the power I have would be of far more use to you than any details of anti-acceleration research.”

  “But one’s worth money, the other’s not.”

  “All right—but doesn’t the fact that I make the offer go some way towards proving that I mean what I say about the extent of my knowledge?”

  The two looked at each other again. The shorter one scratched his chin. “How long does it take?”

  “Not long.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t exactly know. I’ve never tried it against time. Say twenty-four hours. I’ve done it quicker, but in unusual circumstances.”

  “Well, I’m game,” said the shorter one, “if you are.” He looked questioningly at his companion.

  “All right,” said the tall one.

  Arnold uttered a silent prayer that at least one of them would be open to it. Green’s men had scored one failure out of six. Five to one on were good odds, but he needed a certainty now.

  “Right, then.” He nodded at the short man. “If you’ll sit down we’ll make a start.”

  Two hours later, Arnold gave up. The man was absolutely resistant. The circumstances didn’t help, but Arnold felt that, even in ideal conditions, the outcome would be negative.

  “He’s bluffing,” said the subject sullenly, getting up from the chair.

  “Now, now, no pique,” said his confederate. “Perhaps you just haven’t got the talent.” But it was in a different, grimmer, tone that he said to Arnold, “Strike one. But in this game you’ve only got one more chance. I’ll give it a throw. If it doesn’t work this time, you’re out.”

  Arnold started to sweat. Perhaps it didn’t work with spies, whatever euphemistic name they called themselves by. Perhaps years of caution and concealment bred a layer of resistance.

  The tall man swung into the vacant chair facing Arnold.

  “Ready?”

  Arnold nodded. “Ready.”

  An hour passed. Nothing happened.

  Another.

  The short man fidgeted. “It’s no use going on.”

  “Wait,” said the tall man tersely.

  Arnold saw him blink. He knew the reaction by now. Then he felt contact. Only the first contact—the sensation that the mind opposite felt the presence of his own—but contact.

  He broke off.

  “Well?” said the subject. “Is that all?”

  “No, just the first stage.”

  “What happened?” asked the shorter man, almost plaintively.

  “Nothing much,” said his partner.

  “Oh, give it up.” The short man’s tone was the disgusted one of a man precluded from the important stage of a business deal.

  “No, I’m going to let Mr. Ash play this out—if he can.”

  By eleven o’clock that night, Arnold and the tall man had not broken through to second stage. Arnold had a dull headache. The short man had spent the time drinking and riffling through newspapers, plainly ill at ease.

  The tall man got up from his seat.

  “Well, that’s it, Mr. Ash. Personally, I feel like starting on our own methods right away.” His companion looked up eagerly. “But I’m whacked.”

  “I’m not,” said the shorter one.

  “No, we’ll split shifts tonight and both be fresh in the morning. I think Mr. Ash may be trying to make fools of us, but my judgment could be jaded.” He turned to Arnold. “I’ll give you a one-hour session in the morning at eight. That’s your last chance.”

  Arnold found it hard to sleep. Whenever he turned, he could see the humped shadow of the short man on the other divan, leaning forward in the dim light of a shaded table lamp. He was still awake when the shifts changed over. He looked at his watch. It was four o’clock. Four hours—plus one—to go.

  When he woke up it was to the light of day.

  He blinked and sat up. His captors were getting careless. Neither of them was in the room. Then he looked at his watch. It was nine o’clock.

  He debated rapidly what to do. He got up and pulled his trousers on. He padded over to the door and tried the handle. It was locked. He called out, quietly. He merely wanted to find out what was happening—not run the risk of causing a misunderstanding that might have unpleasant consequences.

  There was no answer. He called again, more loudly, but with the same lack of response.

  He shrugged and, since there was nothing else to do, finished dressing. It was as he walked over to the mirror to straighten his collar that he noticed the morning paper lying on the table. The headline only vaguely impinged, so that he took a step or two past it before turning back. He picked the paper up.

  The headline read: NEW SPACE BREAKTHROUGH. That was nothing new; the papers claimed it every other week. Then a sub-heading: ISRAELI SPACESHIP LANDS ON MOON. Well, that was something new, he hadn’t even known that Israel had a space project. But it only meant that one more country had joined the moon club.

  Then he saw it—

  “An Israeli space craft, operating on a radically new principle, had made its first flight. It takes the world by surprise, for Israel’s space project has hitherto been regarded as low-budget and therefore mainly academic. A spokesman for the Israeli government said that the craft did not use rockets at all, but harnessed atomic power directly to propulsion by cancelling the force of gravity around the ship. The implications are enormous. It means that a spaceship no longer has to carry a back-breaking load of fuel, with the resultant need of burning it up as soon as possible. This, in turn, means that murderous acceleration is unnecessary. A prominent official—”

  It took a long moment for the truth to sink in. Then he knew that his captors had left—and why. The information he was supposed to possess was no lon
ger of any use to them—it was superseded. His first impulse was to laugh at the irony of it; his second—because his legs felt suddenly weak—was to sit down. He did so, on the divan.

  He was roused by a noise. He heard heavy footsteps coming along the passage outside. His heart started to pound. The footsteps stopped outside the door. He half-expected to hear a key turn ominously. But, instead, the somebody outside knocked on the door.

  Arnold crept over the door to get behind it. But on the way he stumbled over the edge of the carpet and his shoe clattered on the hardwood with frightening loudness.

  As if in response to the sound the knock was repeated.

  “Who is it?” Arnold called, looking around desperately for something—anything—to use as a weapon.

  “London Messenger Service. I have a package to deliver.”

  “I don’t have a key.”

  “I know, sir. That’s the package.”

  There was a sound of a key turning, and the door swung open.

  And there stood a stolid figure in a dark uniform, an ex-sergeant major to the life.

  “Here’s the key, sir, and the outside door key. Just sign here, please. What’s the matter, sir, are you all right?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  He came up into the light of day.

  His place of late captivity was a basement in a street of big houses. The upper part looked empty. He couldn’t identify the neighbourhood exactly, but the nearest street corner sign told him—Pimlico.

  The recommended course seemed to be to get in touch immediately with Jay’s men. He shrugged the thought away. Information Incorporated, or whatever they called themselves—he wondered if they had letterheads?—were well away by now hotfoot for Tel Aviv in all likelihood. The hell with it! M.I.9 would know soon enough when he got back to the flat. He hailed a taxi.

  But when he got back to the flat there was no sign of Jay’s men outside. He let himself in. Tompkins had always reported for duty by now. But the flat was deserted. The desk in the “office” Tompkins had rigged up in the living-room was bare, except for a white envelope. Arnold opened it.

  A brief letter on Foreign Office stationery said simply, “This is to inform you that your appointment has been terminated. Enclosed is a cheque for six months’ salary in lieu of notice.”

  Suddenly all the tension of the past thirty-six hours—and the weeks and months and all they had brought—exploded in laughter. It was all over. He was a free agent again. He winced at the word agent. But it was the word free which stopped his laughter.

  He looked around the flat and suddenly the loneliness of it invaded him. It was here that it had really started—all of it. Now there was nobody. No Claire, no Sally, no Green, no Blake or Tompkins or any of the oddly assorted people who had shared his short stay here. He must write to Claire. He must get in touch with Green, wherever in the world he was hiding.

  But first he must have a drink—a good one.

  He went to the pub on the corner. He remembered the blonde girl and his wild drinking that night. But now the drink had no effect. It was as if he were too numbed by recent events for anything to affect him.

  At three o’clock, when the pub closed, he went back to the flat and stretched out on his bed.

  The last light was draining from the winter sky when he was awakened from his half-sleep by a knock. He stretched and went to the door.

  It was Professor Green.

  “Hello, Arnold.” His voice was hesitant, almost sheepish.

  Arnold smiled hugely.

  “Come in. Come in.” He couldn’t help the slightly caustic note that crept into his voice as he added, “The Congress finished, then?”

  “You don’t know Congresses, my lad. It was due to finish this week. But I cut it and took the first plane from Rio as soon as I heard the news. And I’ve come now straight from London Airport.”

  Arnold looked puzzled. “What news? About me? But it hasn’t been in the papers.”

  The little man smiled gently. “I don’t know what latest adventure of yours you’re babbling about, but if you’ll kindly let me finish… I mean the news that was on the front page of every paper in the world this morning.”

  “Oh, you mean that Israeli space flight? But why—”

  “It was the last piece in the puzzle. It’s been in our hands long enough, but I didn’t recognize it. And it’s the vital one. Now it’s in place it makes the picture intelligible.”

  “It may be intelligible to you, but it’s still a puzzle to me.”

  “It isn’t a puzzle. And not so much a picture. It’s a pattern. The pattern.”

  “For heaven’s sake! What have I got to do with Israeli spaceships? No, correct that. The Israeli landing probably saved my life. But that’s a chapter we needn’t go into right now. Anyway, you don’t know anything about it. How otherwise am I connected—enough to bring you rushing back half the world to see me?”

  “Can we sit down? This is going to take some little time to explain.”

  “I’m sorry. Of course.”

  The little professor seated himself.

  “Now, I forget exactly what I said to you the last time I was here. I hope I made clear my perhaps irrational views on social dynamics. All science goes on intuitions, hunches—”

  “Not only science,” Arnold murmured.

  “What was that?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Then please don’t interrupt me.” His voice held a note of the lecture room. “This is important. In a science like mine, it has to be hunches. You can’t measure social currents in miles per hour or a cultural explosion in megatons. I know that I did explain to you my views on action and reaction. That I said I welcomed you as a vindication of what I had only dimly postulated. You embodied it and gave shape to it. You not only happened. You—or something like you—had to happen.

  “I thought you were necessary to preserve human sanity—its identity as a species. I’ve been thinking hard about that on my way back over the Atlantic. I had reflected that I might have been unduly pessimistic about the human race—too subjective, anyway. That what I feared was not necessarily bad, but only a natural reaction against the automatism of man. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Not quite, I’m afraid.”

  “Then let me try again. I remember that when I said that man waft becoming dangerously mutated and isolated from his fellows, you said that you thought that mankind was becoming the reverse, too conformist. In fact, they’re the two aspects of the same stress—the two ends of the tug of war.

  “I feared the victory of the one force, the isolating one. Whereas it could be that that was an instinctive counter-action against conformity. The situation might explode—but quite naturally, to correct a situation of intolerable stress. That wouldn’t be comfortable, it certainly isn’t even to contemplate. That’s why I say my attitude may have been subjective—and therefore blind to the fact that such a violent corrective might be the preliminary to an ultimately healthier situation and a new advance. Now do you see?”

  “Well, I think I do. In fact, what you’re saying is that I may not be so necessary as you first thought.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well?”

  “It’s all right. That was before this morning’s news.”

  “I still don’t see any connection with what you’ve been saying and Israeli spaceships.”

  The little professor chuckled. “Spaceships we’ve had for years now. And Israel? Well, I’m proud, naturally. But that’s irrelevant. The point is—the way is open now. This is the steam train after the stationary engine, the jet liner after the Wright brothers. This means that men can move out to the planets in an ever-increasing stream. And to the stars. That’s why you’re important, in a way that puts my previous theorizing about your role on earth into the background. This had to come—just as you had to come.”

  “I still don’t see the connection.”

  “Then you’re not as bright as I thought
you were. No, forgive me. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m excited, that’s all. You see, men will move out, disperse, among distances that are almost inconceivable to us. And they will disperse not only astronomically, but individually. They will be living in a complex of mutatory forces far more dangerous to them than anything on earth, if only because the environment will be entirely new. It was a race between whether mankind would reach the planets or blow himself up first. The resources for the one would accomplish the other.”

  Arnold remembered the conversation he had had with Jay. One man was a security agent, the other a sociologist, yet the words they had each used were strikingly similar, even though they had been looking at a situation from different directions and for entirely different reasons. It was strange—yet was it? He himself had been at the other end of each discussion. He could not see yet the precise implication of what Green was saying, but he felt now that he was at the centre of indistinct but huge forces.

  “There’s another race,” Green went on, “between the centrifugal forces of man’s dispersal—and the centripetal force that your power has unlocked. We live in telescoping times. If it weren’t for you, I can envisage mankind scattered over the near universe, changing to such an extent that in time—in a much shorter time than we think possible here and now, say in as little as twenty generations—the descendants of man on different planets would be completely alien to each other. And therefore dangerous to each other and to all about them.”

  “But isn’t it inevitable that men will adapt themselves to different worlds? They’re bound to change, surely?”

  “Certainly. But the group identity must remain, the racial memory that only telepathic contact can keep alive. Dismiss that as a lot of idealistic theory if you like, but I feel it in my bones.”