New Writings in SF 29 - [Anthology]

by Edited By Keith Bulmer

  The gently curving corridors following the periphery of the Coma Colosseum were mostly deserted; but occasionally white-coated figures were to be seen entering or appearing from doors on either side of the corridor. They took no notice of Massner and his silent custodians. Turning at right-angles along an intersection, he was escorted along an even wider radial corridor towards the hub of the complex where Anglesomne lay in Coma-death. Near the hub centre, Massner was shown into a circular room.

  There were five people sitting around a solid oak table. One of them, a tall slim man, stood up and smiled at Massner.

  ‘Welcome to the heart of Tethys,’ he said.

  Massner didn’t hear. He was staring at the girl in the television broadcasts.

  * * * *

  There is an infection totally beyond medical aid. An infection of the soul. It defies description or explanation. It has to be experienced.

  Massner realized gradually that he was sitting at the table, listening to words without meaning, looking at a circle of faces while seeing only one. Inseparable, agony and exhilaration washed over him. The sensations of life when life is at its most intense.

  In a dim confused corner of his mind, Massner listened while introductions were being made. The two men on his right were Robinson and Sharpe, doctors in parapsychology and the ecclesiarch respectively. The elderly woman sitting next to them was a Miss McCormac. The angular bearded man handling the introductions was Perrers, ‘John Perrers,’ he said, smiling. ‘And the lady on my left,’ Perrers placed an affectionate hand on her, ‘is Mrs. Lynda Sagar.’

  Sagar! The name churned an area of once dead memories now made all the more bitter by the realization that this incredible girl with the same name as his wife had married Sagar. He stared at her, thinking of Sagar, a man Massner once believed he had exorcized from his life. Now he had returned to haunt him again.

  ‘You will of course have anticipated why you were invited to the Coma Colosseum,’ Perrers was saying. ‘We are all aware of the problems facing Tethys. Not just the physical problems that confront us, those we can at least attempt to rectify, but the malaise of the mind and the spirit which threatens us all at a much deeper level. Purpose, even the belief in life itself, is deserting us.’

  Perrers’ hands had never rested. His expressive fingers fluttered nervously on the table like an impaled butterfly.

  ‘We have to assume that Tethys is the last surviving fragment of humanity. It must be protected,’ Perrers insisted. ‘Massner you can help us. We need all the help we can get.’

  Massner smiled inwardly, reflecting upon what Kircher would have made of that statement.

  Dr. Robinson spoke for the first time. His voice was deep, with an inflection that suggested Australia. Beneath his horn-rimmed spectacles his eyes were bright and intelligent.

  ‘I suggest ladies and gentlemen that this is an opportune moment to introduce Massner to the reason for his presence in the Coma Colosseum. As we agreed, it would be advisable for him to be familiarized with the programme before Sagar arrives. The sooner he is made aware of what we are trying to do the better.’

  The assumption that Massner was willing and capable of helping them had evidently been decided before he entered the room.

  ‘And Dr. Sagar?’ Massner asked. ‘Does he know? Is he aware that I shall be joining your - team?’

  Perrers answered the question. ‘It was he who insisted that your help would be invaluable to us. Now to save time and confusion, I suggest that only one of us should show Massner around the project. Dr. Robinson, perhaps you would care to explain what we are doing?’

  Robinson stood up. ‘Yes, of course. I’d be delighted.’ He left the table, and opening the door, stepped out into the corridor. ‘Would you follow me, please?’ he asked Massner.

  Dr. Robinson talked animatedly as they walked along the radial corridor towards the hub, but Massner could not concentrate on his words. Though the situation he found himself in was puzzling, his thoughts were entirely on Lynda Sagar.

  The suggestion of an emotional flux between them seemed incredible. She had hardly looked at him while Massner had been in the room; barely acknowledging his presence when introduced. Yet Massner had experienced a rapport, a subtle intangible exchange that caused his senses to swim and which rendered everything else secondary. Massner had suspected for days that Lynda Sagar was the focus of inexplicable forces. To have that assumption confirmed was beyond his present comprehension.

  * * * *

  Two

  They were standing in a small room in the exact centre of the Coma Colosseum. The room was a dodecahedron in shape, each of its twelve sides measuring approximately two metres. The twelve wall segments were transparent. Behind each segment was a further room; a dodecahedron beyond a dodecahedron. The odd design failed to register at first.

  Massner’s attention was attracted to the iron-framed beds, one in each of the outer rooms. Nine of the twelve beds contained occupants. The central room in which Massner and Dr. Robinson stood also had a bed. It was empty. Like the others, thick leather straps hung down from the metal frame.

  Dr. Robinson’s amused laughter echoed off the transparent walls. ‘No, that’s not intended for you, Massner. Though I agree that it must appear somewhat disconcerting when seen for the first time. We tend not to see that side of things now, only the end result.’

  Massner turned to face him. ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘We are going to give back to what’s left of mankind something he forgot a long time ago.’ Dr. Robinson answered. ‘Something that will enable him to overcome the psychological as well as the physical horrors that threaten him now in Tethys.’

  Massner stared at him. ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘We are going to prove the existence of man’s immortal soul.’

  Suddenly the glare reflected from the dozens of strip-lights illuminating the double dodecahedron irritated Massner’s eyes. He turned away, temporarily confused.

  * * * *

  Massner spent the next half-hour listening in a cynical, distracted fashion while Dr. Robinson outlined in vague terms the mechanics of the operation.

  His interest was minimal, and that was alarming, for the concept was as dangerous as it appeared absurd. But for Massner, Lynda Sagar was the only reality. Everything else seemed irrelevant. There was a contrariety about her, a paradoxical personal intenseness that denied identity. She seemed almost disparate; a person of many reflections. And Massner’s professional insight only emphasized the error of his unavoidable infatuation.

  Dr. Robinson penetrated Massner’s distraction only with his parting words.

  ‘Oh, we’ve arranged a room for Lynda and yourself while you’re in the Coma Colosseum.’

  ‘Lynda?’ Massner asked, stunned.

  ‘Yes, we thought it would be better if your wife was near you. You won’t worry about her then, will you?’

  * * * *

  Massner sat at the foot of his wife’s bed in the tiny room they had been allocated. Around the bed were the ever alert machines watching over her physical condition. Any change would instantly be reported to a central monitoring area which not only scanned the Coma Colosseum complex, but the entire city. In an undersea environment such a system was more than desirable; it was essential. One slowly learned to live with it.

  Massner looked at his wife. It was the blankness that unnerved him. Anything else he could eventually have come to terms with. The removal of the malignant tumour had also eradicated her personality.

  There had been moments, soon after the operation, when Massner believed he had detected hopeful signs; a vague response to his promptings, a half-smile or a suggestion of tears. Yet slowly, his detestation had grown, despite all his attempts to control it.

  His worst fears were always that somehow his wife could detect on some subconscious level the direction of his thoughts. He studied her face. The intellectual arrogance that had once attracted him was now dissolved in the relaxed and fl
acid contours of near imbecility.

  How many billions, he wondered, had there been on Earth before the infection struck? How many survived? In Tethys there were less than thirteen thousand. Outside Tethys, how many? Fifty thousand? Fifty? Or one?

  Massner looked down at his wife. Was she a survivor? He thought of Dr. Robinson’s words and shuddered. Did she still have a soul?

  * * * *

  His sense of peripheral insularity heightened during a second meeting of the committee presided over by Perrers. Massner was disturbed but intrigued by that delitescent yet exotic atmosphere of disassociation growing within him. It should have been a cause for concern; but strangely Massner welcomed it. There was a madness spreading within Tethys, and no one could remain untouched.

  Perrers seemed tense, even excitable. As the room began to fill up, his mood was sensed and intensified by the newcomers. Several of them stared openly at Massner, but for the most part he was ignored. Conversations sprang up consisting of angry strained voices; but Massner hardly registered them. He watched the door for Lynda Sagar.

  The murmur of voices died when Perrers stood up and called for attention. People were still drifting in.

  ‘As most of you will be aware,’ he began, ‘it has now been found necessary to bring forward the date of the programme in an attempt to offset the increasing unease and depression spreading throughout Tethys.

  ‘This accelerating deterioration must be reversed soon or the city and its inhabitants will begin to die from irreversible internal disorders; disorders affecting both our critical life-support systems and the psychological condition of everyone in the city.

  ‘The inhabitants of Tethys, all of us, have to regain faith in our capacity for survival, in mankind’s ultimate purpose in this life and beyond. The blight which has decimated the surface of our earth is a shadow here in Tethys which threatens us all.’

  Dr. Sharpe, a slim intense young man whom Massner recalled meeting earlier, stood up. ‘Mr. Perrers, we are all well aware of the situation and how it affects us. What we need to know is when the demonstration is now scheduled to take place.’ Dr. Sharpe’s inquiry was taken up by a number of questioning voices demanding an answer.

  Perrers raised his expressive hands in an attempt to placate the meeting.

  ‘Gentlemen, the decision to advance the programme came from Dr. Sagar after a detailed analysis of current disturbing trends amongst the population. The demonstration will take place forty-eight hours from now.’

  The rest of Perrers’ words were immediately drowned out by the loud objections of nearly everyone in the room. From the uncertainties voiced, and the currents of unease circulating the gathering, it seemed that not everybody was as convinced as Perrers and Dr. Sagar of the desirability of such a drastic rescheduling.

  Massner stared at the faces around him. At least, he reflected, it removed one problem. Dr. Robinson had remarked that Massner’s knowledge and practical experience in the area of Gestalt Behaviourism would prove invaluable in suggesting the most effective method of presenting the project to the inhabitants of Tethys. There was little he could accomplish in forty-eight hours. It would be impossible to do more than indicate superficial response areas. Now he was reduced to the role of observer. A role that suited his present vague uncertainties.

  Lynda Sagar had entered the room. Massner knew it without turning his head. He was aware of her presence as if she had been standing directly before him. The sensation was incredible.

  Somehow, Dr. Robinson had disentangled himself from the arguments. He approached, waving a greeting. ‘You heard of course?’ Massner nodded. Dr. Robinson shrugged apologetically.

  ‘I’m afraid the rearranged programme will prevent you from contributing anything tangible. You won’t even have sufficient time to familiarize yourself properly with every aspect of our work here.’

  ‘Unfortunate,’ Massner commented.

  ‘You don’t sound too disappointed.’

  ‘Don’t I?’

  * * * *

  At Dr. Robinson’s suggestion, they left the confusion of the committee room and made their way towards the polyhedral centre of the Coma Colosseum. Massner had needed little encouragement. For a reason not yet apparent, Lynda Sagar had joined them.

  This time, before they were allowed to enter, Dr. Robinson insisted that they put on white gowns, face-masks and plastic gloves similar to those worn in operating theatres.

  In the central dodecahedron, Massner noticed technicians connecting a series of transparent tubes of an extremely narrow diameter to clamps around the unoccupied bed. They all wore the germ-resistant clothing. Massner studied the transparent tubing. It snaked out across the floor, one length leading from each of the beds in the twelve surrounding segments to the central room.

  Sliding back one of the transparent dividing walls, Massner, Dr. Robinson and Lynda Sagar entered the cell beyond.

  The room was occupied. A naked man, apparently asleep, lay on the single bed. Massner stared at the hyaline tube clamped several inches away from his narrow chest. Robinson and Lynda Sagar seemed to share none of Massner’s initial anxiety that their presence might awaken the sleeping man.

  Though much of it was beyond his limited experience, Massner recognized some of the intricate medical equipment surrounding the sleeping man. That it was instrumental in keeping the patient alive, Massner did not doubt for one minute.

  Lynda Sagar remained silent. Inside, Massner was shivering.

  * * * *

  ‘We really could have used your knowledge, you know,’ Dr. Robinson said again, staring thoughtfully at the sleeping man. ‘We needed your grasp of the psychology of the mass mind, your understanding of manipulation and protreptic motivation. That would have been invaluable to us.’

  Massner began to protest; but Dr. Robinson would not listen. ’Of course, we did not expect you to believe in what we are doing here, that would have come later, after the demonstration. But I’m sure you understand better than anyone the urgent need for the revitalization of belief in personal and racial identity here in Tethys. How we achieved it, I suspect, would not have concerned you. Only after would you have realized the import of our demonstration.’

  Again Massner attempted to speak, but Dr. Robinson refused to be interrupted. ‘Think Massner, what if it is possible for a man’s soul to continue its existence after the death of the body! That’s what we shall prove. Imagine the consequences for everyone when we demonstrate that to be fact!’

  Massner turned away. The Australian parapsychologist’s eyes had become unnaturally bright.

  ‘Who is he?’ Massner asked at last, indicating the patient lying on the bed.

  ‘A man called Butterworth. Ian Butterworth. The eleventh donor.’

  ‘Donor?’

  ‘An operative term. He’s the eleventh person who has agreed to donate his soul towards the programme.’

  ‘He’s dying then?’ Massner studied Butterworth’s fleshless mask.

  ‘Yes. Cancer. He has at the most two months to live.’

  ‘Two months?’ Massner stared at the patient’s summary chart hanging at the foot of the bed. ‘But Perrers spoke of rescheduling the programme to take place in forty-eight hours.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  Massner could ignore the obvious no longer. ‘What exactly do you intend to do?’

  ‘Kill him,’ Dr. Robinson replied.

  ‘And the others? Those too?’

  ‘Yes.’

  * * * *

  Three

  Dr. Robinson’s gaze wandered from the patient on the bed before them, to the others seen through the transparent walls of the cells beyond.

  ‘Paraplegics, terminal disease cases, patients condemned to minimal mental or physical activity,’ he explained. ‘Two of them suffer from irreparable brain damage. Three have to be drugged to such high levels that their lives are meaningless. Like Butterworth here, the others are kept alive by total reliance upon machines. Those aware enough to take
the decision themselves have welcomed the opportunity extended by Dr. Sagar.’

  ‘Murder,’ Massner said.

  ‘A release,’ Dr. Robinson corrected, ‘in exchange for the highest form of existence.’

  It was a situation which would once have appalled Massner. Once he would have stormed angrily out of the room. Now the thought of leaving never entered his head. He was standing in the same room as Lynda Sagar, and that meant more to him than personal values or ethics in these strange times.

  Still she hadn’t spoken to him. More important, she had never yet looked directly into his eyes. Even though they were standing just a few feet apart, Lynda Sagar seemed to be avoiding him. Why? That thought carried fascinating implications. All the time Robinson was talking, Massner’s eyes never left her face.