“I suppose there will be a trial?” said Dion, at length.
“A reasonable supposition,” returned Leander with some complacency. “Regicide is a dying art, but it still commands some small respect.”
Dion laughed. “Guilty but inane.”
Leander laughed also. “And that, sweet prince, is the verdict of us all.”
“You realize, of course, that I only wanted to live in peace, that I had found something worth having, that I’d made a world where the twenty-first century didn’t exist.”
Leander was unmoved. “I saved you from becoming a vegetable.”
“So that I could be transformed into another kind of vegetable.”
“Possibly. But there was also something I had to know. It seemed important.”
“What the Stopes could be that important?”
Briefly the mask fell from Leander’s sardonic face. “I had to know if we were men… And I did not want to be alone.”
Then they heard the sound of approaching footsteps in the corridor outside.
Nineteen
La reine est morte. Vive la reine.
Elizabeth the Third, having combined in her own superbly juvenile fifty-year-old body the joint persons of heir presumptive and heir apparent, succeeded the late martyr queen; and as her first public act attended the legal circus (one of the alltime highs of Intervid shows, with an estimated viewscore of nine hundred million) that was to dispose of those who had made her accession possible.
The trial lasted three hours and forty minutes, including intermission and natural breaks. It had been carefully placed in the peak viewing spot, Standard Federation Time, and therefore ruined several million dinner parties and similar mild social diversions. Both prisoners pleaded Guilty but Sane, and both pleas were rejected.
The nominal jury consisted of seven doms, two sports, one squire and two infras, all good citizens and true, each being granted permanent relief from jury service thereafter and one half of one per cent interest in the vid rights, still-pix, dramatization rights and transcript sales for a period of five years. It had been estimated that gross earnings (an American dom had already bid a clear half em for the musical version) would touch one million lions.
Leander performed with his customary verve, and Dion made two short but moving orations on the rights of man. The actual verdict was unanimous: Guilty but Insane. And the viewdict, recorded by the Intervid computer showed: Guilty but Insane, three hundred and forty-two million, two hundred and ten thousand, three hundred and seventeen; Guilty but Sane, nine hundred and two thousand and forty-three; Innocent, one hundred and four.
Donning her black silk shift, the judge directed that the prisoners be removed to a place of contemplation for three clear Sundays before being taken thence to suffer the blessed relief and total absolution of grade one analysis, together with the permanent suspension of time shots. Leander, protesting violently at being denied capital punishment, had to be removed from the court forcibly by four smilingly efficient doms who did not hit him until they were out of vid range. Dion blew a kiss to the queen, thumbed his nose at the judge—whose silk-covered breast was heaving rhythmically for the benefit of vid close-ups—and left the court under his own steam.
He did not see Leander again. They were taken to separate cells. Leander, declaring himself to be a devout Muslim, requested a prayer mat. He spent the next two days secretly unravelling it and fashioning a tolerably strong noose. On the third day, he hanged himself, thus registering in the strongest possible terms his complete disapproval of the abolition of capital punishment. He had cunningly timed his demise so that discovery would be too late to give the resuscitation doms a chance of retaliating with resurrection. However, his final gesture was neutralized by a vid release which claimed that he had suffered massive cerebral haemorrhage occasioned by agonies of remorse and repentance.
Neither Sylphide nor Juno had attended or watched the trial—for different reasons. The shock of the assassination and the capture of Dion was sufficient to cause Sylphide, still living at Wits’ End, to miscarry. Since she was only a few weeks pregnant, this was, in purely physical and medical terms, a very small happening. But for Sylphide, whom Dion had taught to love and to be proud that she would one day bear a child that she could call her own, it was the end of the world. On top of Dion’s capture and imminent grade one, it became too much for her already overloaded neural circuits. She grabbed the nearest sharp instrument that came to hand (a pair of antique scissors that Dion had acquired to go with the antique world he was creating in his antique house) and struck out. Or, rather, struck in.
There had been a memorable phrase in an old book from which Dion used to read to her: If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee.
Her womb had offended. It had betrayed her, Dion and the future. So, in a frenzy of grief, she took the scissors and stabbed with hate and anger at the smooth white belly that had rejected her son. She stabbed until pain and anguish and the fog in her mind turned the world coolly and sweetly dark.
She would probably have bled to death—though, surprisingly, none of the wounds were fatal—if Juno had not arrived that same evening, having jetted up to Wits’ End to comfort her after the verdict had been reached. Juno found her lying in the bathroom, with the scissors still clutched tightly in her thin white hand. Fifteen minutes later, Sylphide was in the South Manchester Clinic with the domdocs arguing as to how much resection of the intestines there would be and whether a synthetic stomach was required. In the end, they managed to patch her up. Sylphide, without any knowledge of anatomy, had aimed well. A hysterectomy had to be performed. If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out…
And now she lay in bed at the Clinic, recovering in body if not in mind.
And Leander lay in a plastic coffin, oblivious of the final joke. For his passage into the cleansing fire of the Greater London Crematorium (Alien Religions Division) was attended by thirty-one Muslims, two muezzins and a self-styled latter-day prophet.
And Juno, having been granted a pre-treatment visit, jetted to Her Majesty’s Major Analysis Centre for Disoriented and Asocial Persons.
And Dion, having been left incommimicado, knew nothing about anything.
Their meeting took place after the third clear Sunday, and two days before grade one analysis was due to begin. It was a short visit, Juno being allowed ten minutes only. He didn’t even want to see her; but since she was armed with Authority, his wishes were of no account.
He did not look up when she came into his cell. But he looked up when she told him about Sylphide and then about Leander. And each saw that the other’s face was wet with tears.
“Dion, there’s something I want,” said Juno softly.
He tried to laugh. “In exchange for the good news you bring?”
“In exchange for our memories of the good times,” she retorted in an abnormally calm voice. “Because soon they will belong only to me.”
Dion was silent for a moment or two. Then: “I’ve always heard you can’t weep after a grade one… It will be a vast improvement.”
“You can’t write poetry, either,” said Juno. “Dion, there isn’t much time… I want you to give me a semen donation.”
“A what?”
“A semen donation… I—I want there to be more of your children.”
This time he managed to laugh. Uproariously,
“By Emmeline, Marie, Victoria and all the saints in the great grey calendar, that is one overripe peach of a notion! Here is a delinquent dom inviting a regicide to proliferate proxywise. Now will I believe in footsteps on the face of the water, and all that cacophony.”
“Dion, please. There isn’t much time.”
“You are right, flat-belly, there isn’t much time. There never was much time, not from the day I first met you to the day Leander sweet-talked me into a myth.”
“Time was always the enemy of troubadours,” she observed sadly. “That’s why I want there to be more of your childr
en.”
“I want no children now,” he said with bitterness. “I want nothing.”
“This is not for you. It’s for me.”
“Can you give me one good reason why I should do anything for you?”
“I love you, that’s all.”
“It’s not enough.” Then he added after a moment. “But we can strike a bargain, you and I. You want something. I want nothing—except to know that someone will think for Sylphide, since she is incapable of thinking for herself.”
“I’ll think for Sylphide, then.”
“She is to be quite free, you understand.”
“Agreed.”
“She will stay at Wits’ End.”
“Agreed.”
“You will not see her unless she wants to see you.”
“Agreed.”
“Then you can have your semen donation—and God bless the wretched infras whose wombs will receive seed, the sowing of which brought no joy.”
“I’ll… I’ll send someone to collect the sample.”
He laughed. “Then you can stick it in a bottle labelled Hie Iacet Dion Quern, who ejaculated to the last.”
Juno could bear it no longer. She turned to go. Then she paused. “Don’t you want to know anything about Jubal—where he is, how he’s progressing?”
Dion looked at her. “Who is Jubal?”
Juno knocked on the cell door, had it opened, and fled, hoping to get away from H.M. Major Analysis Centre for Disoriented and Asocial Persons before she broke down completely.
Her hopes were not fulfilled.
Twenty
NIGHT and day lost their meaning, and were swallowed and inwardly digested in the bleak black stomach of eternity. He lived for millennia—he existed for millennia—in a place that had no walls, no roof, no windows, no floor. The sound of his voice—and at first he screamed and shouted greatly—was absorbed by the padded sphere of darkness. He dreamed, he had nightmares, he talked to himself and to people who were not there.
Presently, he was taken out of the disorientation sphere and, before he could recover his wits, he had an armful of needle holes, each hole representing a further measured dose of eternity.
Now he was in a world of multicoloured lights, their patterns changing perpetually and hypnotically. Occasionally, he was aware of other voices, other ghosts.
They came out of a mist. White, they came, talking softly so that he could not hear, talking about him. He strained his eyes, but he could not see the faces. He strained his ears but he could not hear the words.
Slowly, patiently, the great machine of grade one analysis picked its way through the primitive psychic jungle that was called Dion Quern. The domdocs probed his memories, charted his weaknesses, all his experiences, all his joys and sorrows.
The computer predicted his crises, as it arranged a programme of progressive catharsis. Psychodramas were projected on the vacant screen of his mind, symbols were brought up and cancelled. And, fear by fear, grief by grief, joy by joy, triumph by triumph, the tensions and the hypertensions were eroded away.
He felt himself becoming empty. The plug had been taken out of the bottom of his soul, and the personal history of a man was draining out like cold bath water gurgling through ancient pipes.
Night and day lost their meaning; and there was only the long emptying, leading to a long emptiness.
“Who are you?” a voice asked.
He was asleep or awake or both.
“Dion,” he managed to say. “I am Dion.” Then he stopped, exhausted.
“Dion what?”
Dion what? Dion what? Dion What?
He didn’t know. He knew he should know. But he didn’t know. He curled up to think about it. He fell asleep. Or awake.
“Who are you?” a voice asked.
“Yes,” he said reasonably, “you are quite right.”
“Who are you?”
“Dion… I think.”
“Dion what?”
“Dion… Dion… Dion dying… Dying Dion.” He began to laugh.
Time passed. History dissolved. Darkness was upon the face of the deep.
“Who are you?” asked the voice.
He was getting to love the voice. It was friendly and warm. Intimate. It might almost have been his own.
He screamed and curled up and thoughts about it. He fell asleep. Or awake. Or both.
A wind whistled and whispered through trees that were not there. A cat jumped over the void left by the absence of the moon. One hand clapped.
“Who are you?” asked a different voice.
“Why are you a different voice?” he enquired with casual interest.
“A different voice is a different man,” answered the voice.
“Who are you?”
“Not who, but what,” he pointed out.
“What are you, then?”
“I am alone.”
“How long have you been alone?”
“Since the beginning of the world.”
“Whom do you love?”
“I love no one, because there is no one in the world.”
“Whom do you hate?”
“I hate no one, because there is no one in the world.”
“What do you want?”
“There is nothing to want.”
“Why do you exist?”
He did not know. He wanted time to think about it. He curled up to think about it. He fell asleep thinking about it. He woke up thinking about it.
He found the answer. He was nothing.
“I exist because I am nothing,” he said with some conviction. “My existence is imperfect because I am not yet the negation of nothing. If I could cease to think, I should be most perfectly nothing and the question of my existence would not arise.”
“Then,” said the voice, “you must strive not to think. Your name is Dion Quern. Think nothing of it. You are a man. Think nothing of it. You are alive. Think nothing of that also.”
Dion sighed with contentment. He had arrived at the ultimate truth.
* * *
One cold, wet spring morning, a man emerged from the closely guarded precincts of Her Majesty’s Major Analysis Centre for Disoriented and Asocial Persons. His name had been tattooed on the inside of his left wrist, in case he should forget it.
He sniffed the damp cold air and shivered. This world outside the world was a strange and formidable place. He did not know what to do.
Someone was waiting for him. He did not know her.
“Hello, Dion,” said Juno.
He looked at his wrist and saw that his name was indeed Dion. He smiled. It seemed a safe sort of thing to do.
“I’m going to take you home,” said Juno. She knew what to expect. And she had promised herself that there would be no tears.
“Home?”
“A place where you used to live.”
He thought about it for a while. Then he said cautiously. “I think I would like that… What is home called?”
“Wits’ End,” said Juno. “It’s a house called Wits’ End.”
He grinned. “Your face is wet,” he said. “Has it been raining?”
He was immensely pleased. He had remembered about rain. It was water that fell from the sky.
Epitaph
THE old man had been a recluse for many years. Once there had been a woman living with him; but that had been a long time ago. How long, he did not remember. Sometimes he remembered her name. Sometimes he forgot that she had ever existed. Sometimes he heard her voice, and remembered that she had died.
He was alone with the hills and the sky—alone in an old house that would have looked to anyone else like a mausoleum.
He thought he was a farmer. He had a few hens and a few sheep and a rusty plough and an antique tractor that wouldn’t work. One of these days he was going to fix the tractor and plough up half of his five acre field. Then he could grow corn for the hens. One of these days.
He had no money; but every week groceries and beer were del
ivered to his house. And corn for the hens. The supplies were delivered in the night, and he always found them on the doorstep in the morning. He did not know where they came from or who sent them. They had been delivered so regularly over the years that he ceased to think about them. They were as natural as sunset and winter, as natural as hunger and sleep.
Sometimes, he saw people; but mostly he saw nobody. He didn’t mind. In the daytime there was much to be done. In the evenings there were books to read, and music to listen to. It was easy enough to read the same book over and over again, because by the time he had reached the end he had usually forgotten the beginning.
Occasionally, the words disturbed him. Because occasionally they sounded strangely like music. He would form them laboriously, speak them out aloud, wondering at something that he did not understand. Something that he would once have recognized as rhythm and cadence.
For though they be punished in the sight of men,
yet is their hope full of immortality.
And having been a little chastised,
they shall be greatly rewarded:
for God proved them,
and found them worthy for himself.
He did not fully understand the meaning of such words; but he knew that in them there was something of beauty.
One day, a woman jetted into the valley from the south. He did not know her. He knew only that she seemed young and full of energy, and her hair glinted gold in the sunlight.
She held out her hand. He didn’t know whether to take it or kiss it or do both. So he did nothing.
“It’s been a long time, Dion,” she said.
He looked at the name on his wrist and knew that she knew him.
“Yes,” he said cautiously, “it has been a long time.”
“Once you gave me something.”
“I did?”
“You did. And in a little while, I shall be giving you something back… You don’t remember me at all, do you?”
“No. I don’t remember… I’m sorry… Is there something I should remember?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m going to tell you something, Dion. Perhaps you won’t understand much, but it doesn’t matter. It is something I want to tell you… A long time ago, when you were young, you were full of fire and wonderful words. You had to live in a world dominated by women, and you hated it. You hated the women, but also you loved them. In the end, you did something terrible—for which the women took away all your fire and all your wonderful words. Do you understand?”
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