Sputnik Caledonia

by Andrew Crumey

  It was a plain, white-walled room, eight or ten metres across, not particularly clean in appearance, with a cluttered workbench running all along one side, on which electronic equipment was littered in varying stages of assembly or repair. Of more immediate concern to Robert when he entered, however, was the wheeled, steel-framed hospital stretcher in the centre of the room that stood bathed in the astringent glare of an adjustable overhead lamp. Rosalind was beside it, snapping on a pair of latex surgical gloves. ‘Close the door and take off your clothes.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘At least the lower half, though it’s better to do a full strip in case of soiling.’ She went to the workbench and attended to a multi-switched device whose tuning dial she twirled with her gloved hand, the protective covering on her fingers clearly being for her own hygienic benefit rather than his. He undressed and hung his clothes on a steel peg near the door, finishing with his underpants, which served as a last, mildly ridiculous garland. She turned and looked at him. ‘When did you last ejaculate?’

  He was standing with his hand over his crotch. ‘Why do you need to know?’

  ‘You don’t need to know why I need to know anything at all, Coyle.’ She was holding an electrical cable in each hand, one red, the other black, both connected to the device on the workbench and terminating in a pair of black rubber suckers. ‘Have you had sexual intercourse in the last twenty-four hours?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you masturbated?’

  ‘No.’

  She nodded at the stretcher, which was covered with an absorbent paper sheet. ‘Come and lie down, please.’ He did as she ordered; the harsh brilliance of the lamp hurt his eyes until she redirected the angle of its beam to highlight the film of nervous sweat on his abdomen. ‘I don’t want you to be afraid, Volunteer Coyle. It might disrupt the experiment. I also want you to be completely honest with me. Have you ejaculated in the last twenty-four hours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘By means of what stimulation?’

  ‘A woman.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Her mouth. Hand.’

  ‘Did you ejaculate inside her?’

  ‘No.’

  Rosalind rubbed a cold gel on Robert’s forehead and told him to lie still while she attached the rubber suckers of the electrodes, then turned again towards the workbench, fiddling intently beyond his view. He thought he heard the strident leap of an electric spark, but felt nothing. ‘Did you enjoy it?’ she asked without looking at him.

  ‘Probably not as much as you’re enjoying this.’

  When she approached again he saw there was something new in her hand. Made of gleaming metal that looked like polished steel, it resembled in size and shape the end of a broom handle, and was attached by a long spiral cable to a controller on the bench. ‘Believe me, Volunteer Coyle, this is no time for impertinence. The quantity of ejaculate is related to the manner of stimulation and is of great relevance to my research. Was it the first time you had been with this woman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In the Blue Cat, I expect.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She tapped the steel rod in her hand like a policeman’s baton. ‘The girls there are experts. We can only guess, but let’s suppose you lost four cc’s.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  Rosalind resumed her preparations at the workbench. ‘What was her name?’ she said over her shoulder.

  Robert at first resisted making any reply, then realized how much he wanted and needed her here. ‘Dora.’

  ‘Oh, her,’ Rosalind said casually. ‘The tea lady. I’ve heard she’s good. Couldn’t you afford more than a hand job?’

  Why didn’t he fly off the trolley and beat her? Was it because of the pacifying effect of the electrodes stuck to his head, or because he’d been brought up to disapprove of violence against women? No, the truth was that he lay still because he knew he had agreed to all of this in advance. ‘Do you ever go there?’ he asked.

  ‘The Blue Cat? Sometimes.’

  ‘I mean, do you work there?’

  She laughed. ‘What do you think I am? I don’t need to sell my body.’

  ‘But if you did?’

  ‘Then I would.’ She came back from the bench, not carrying the shining poker this time, but instead what looked like a helmet of metal wires. ‘Raise your head a little while I put this on you,’ she ordered.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The focusing device.’ She held it in his view while she examined its connections, lavishing on the contraption all the care and tenderness her experimental subject was denied. It was an elaborate filigreed crown whose jewel was a small glass sphere, oddly crude in appearance, like a child’s marble.

  ‘The lens doesn’t look very clear,’ said Robert.

  ‘It’s not for focusing light,’ Rosalind told him brusquely, then held the crown close above his face while she gave the electrodes on his forehead a further check. ‘This is our latest version of the non-invasive transducer.’

  ‘The thing that was under my pillow?’

  ‘That was a prototype.’

  ‘And did it have a marble in it too?’ Robert was staring at the rough greenish globe, seeing in its fragmented reflections a distorted geometry of his surroundings.

  ‘A large proportion of the Plant’s current activity is devoted to the production of this glass,’ she said with a casualness born of pride. ‘It has to be incredibly pure.’

  There aren’t many things in the Installation of which that can be said, thought Robert, and he felt the marble press against his head when the crown was fitted firmly on to his scalp. Rosalind instructed him to move his head so she could make sure the fit was neat, and he was reminded that his chief qualification for being on the mission was that he was the right size.

  She went back to the bench, then returned with the poker whose spiral cable dangled from her hand. ‘This is the invasive transducer. Now turn yourself onto your left side, facing the far wall.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’ As he rolled she pushed his shoulder to encourage him to take the required position. ‘Bend your leg, that’s it.’ She adjusted the crown on his head, then a moment later he felt something cold and wet on his anus, and a finger burrowing inside.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Sterilizing you. Why are little boys always so bad at wiping themselves?’

  He heard her walk to the bench where she flipped a switch with a loud clack, followed by an electric hum. ‘Relax,’ she said, coming back, then without any further warning he felt the metal rod being shoved into his rectum.

  ‘Aargh!’

  ‘Don’t move; it needs to reach the right spot. Think of anything you like, but don’t twitch the probe out of position.’

  It was nearly clawing at his stomach. She must have found the place she was looking for, because the hum changed in pitch and at exactly the same instant his penis spontaneously inflated like a party balloon. Rosalind glanced over his shoulder and murmured with satisfaction at what she saw.

  ‘Right on target – my aim’s getting good. Enjoy this, Robert; some people pay good money for it.’

  She left the probe parked deep inside him and walked around the trolley, stopping in front of his aching groin. With gloved fingers slightly blackened from workbench grease, she lifted the end of his penis and prodded its firmness like a fussy customer in a fruit shop. Then she looked at his perspiring face and stared into his wide, helpless eyes. ‘I bet even that whore of yours couldn’t make you this hard.’ She returned to the workbench, her every retreating footstep echoing in Robert’s ears, and as he gazed at the far wall, its posters and notices above the white enamel sink unintelligible at the ninety-degree angle from which he had to view them, he wondered how much longer this would go on. When she came back in sight she was carrying a tube-shaped flask which she slid over his member. ‘Get ready for the finale,’ she announced, stepping back to the con
trols.

  He could hear another sound as well as the hum; it was a rhythmic beep, which he thought at first might be his heartbeat. It set a different pace, though, slower and more steady, and in the long moments while he waited, he began to sense some profound connection between this steady chirp and the workings of his own mind. The wires on his scalp were transmitting something to the pinging box on the bench; they were draining thoughts, fears or other sensations and turning them into a simple mathematical wave that Rosalind could record in her notes: the material basis of human consciousness. As he lay in dread of what might be about to happen, he found a single supportive companion in that recurring beep, the scientific correlative of his soul. Every part of his body was tense and painful, including his head, where the glass marble rested like an insistent thought, and into which a dull, nauseous ache had been introduced by Rosalind’s insults, and perhaps too by some return path of those electrical wires she had stuck on his scalp, stirring up an unnatural circulation of his mind and making it turbid. Yet out of that sickening confusion of impressions something clearer was beginning to emerge; something was dawning inside him in those infinitely compressed moments which seemed to him so interminable. It was a simultaneous craving and loathing; an urge to confront the invisible monster hurtling across space to meet him, yet also to fly from it. Yes, here it was, seen through melting glass: the Red Star, accelerating in its plummet towards the stretcher where he lay, opening itself like a carnivorous blossom, about to swallow him whole.

  His body exploded. There was a blue flash, he would recall later, and the room went a searing white, then black. He had been on the verge of entering the Red Star, and it had been the most terrifyingly beautiful moment of his existence. It was over in less than a second.

  ‘Let’s see if you filled it,’ said Rosalind, coming back round. She lifted the flask, held it close to his face and showed him the thick grey contents, swirling them like a satisfied alchemist. ‘I think we tipped six mils.’

  He was drenched in sweat, every part of him tingling, and the beep he heard again was a rushed staccato only gradually returning to its former state. He watched Rosalind take the flask to the sink and pour away the semen, then she filled the vessel with a burst of water, leaving it at the side for more thorough cleaning later, and came back towards him carrying a stiff wad of paper towels, her eyes never leaving his barely diminished erection. ‘Time to switch off,’ she said, walking past and going to the workbench. The control clacked, the hum stopped and Robert softened.

  ‘Are we finished?’ he asked weakly.

  ‘I only need to get a little more of your baseline brain function … There, that should do it.’ She came and pushed the paper towels into his hand and carefully disconnected him. ‘Give yourself a quick clean – I’ll take you to the shower in a moment. Was it good?’

  He rolled onto his back, wiping his groin and clammy abdomen. ‘I think I saw the Red Star.’

  She nodded approvingly. ‘What did it look like?’

  ‘Not like anything. It had no shape or colour or texture. It was invisible but I could somehow see it.’ He sat up, turned to dangle his legs over the side of the stretcher though still feeling too feeble and unsteady to stand, and saw Rosalind unwrapping what proved to be a coarse paper gown which she handed to him.

  ‘I’ll need to study your brain pattern in detail, but at a first glance there appear to be spikes I haven’t encountered in other subjects. I’m very hopeful it could be the scalar-wave influence we’re looking for.’

  Robert looked closely for the first time at the instruments on the bench. ‘How many men have you done this to?’

  ‘A few,’ said Rosalind. ‘But as the technique improves I’m able to get more reliable results.’

  ‘You mean your aim gets better with that cattle prod?’

  She snorted. ‘That part’s straightforward; it’s getting the right brain signal that’s tricky. Ejaculation just happens to be a good way of raising activity in the appropriate cortical area.’ She watched as he wrapped the gown around his shoulders. ‘Making a man hard is the easiest thing in the world.’

  ‘You have such a black-and-white view of the human male.’

  ‘Based on ample empirical data,’ she said. ‘I know you all have your personalities and your hobbies, but let’s face it, you’re all the same. All the art, all the wars, all the civilizations and their discontents, they’re all about a bag of flesh that gets pumped full of blood.’

  ‘I’d better take that shower,’ said Robert, standing up from the stretcher. ‘But tell me, is there any man in the world you can respect?’

  ‘Professor Kaupff,’ Rosalind said at once.

  ‘And what’s so special about him?’

  ‘It’s simple,’ she said. ‘He’s the only man here who’s never wanted to fuck me. He’s never tried it on, never made a pass, never looked at me like I’m meat.’

  ‘That’s only because he’s queer.’

  ‘And you only say that because you’re jealous of him. Now take your clothes and go to the shower block just beyond the toilet – you’ll find everything you need there. Wash the filth off, then go and get yourself some lunch.’

  19

  Cleaned, dressed and with no trace of his ordeal left lingering in his body, Robert made his way to the dining area. The place had not yet begun to fill, and he quickly collected the meal of the day, a gravy with some macerated flesh in it billed as Irish stew. At the till sat the same plump and blowsy girl he had seen yesterday, who took his voucher book and tore out what he owed. ‘Made a friend here yet?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know, somebody to walk out with.’

  It was an expression he’d only ever heard used by people of his parents’ generation, but the checkout girl was no older than himself. ‘You offering?’ he asked playfully.

  ‘Depends if you’re asking.’

  He realized she was serious. ‘Sorry, I’ve got someone.’

  Her face changed. ‘Well, you’re a fast worker, then.’ She put his voucher book back on his tray and he went to choose a seat, opting for one that was well away from her. Soon afterwards he felt a hand on his shoulder; it was Colin Forsyth, smiling broadly and carrying a full plate of stew in his other hand.

  ‘Hey, college boy, guess where I’ve been.’

  The cheerfulness seemed forced. He deposited his food on the table and sat down beside Robert, who could think of only one place that might make Forsyth so excited. ‘Blue Cat?’

  ‘Fuck no,’ he said, starting to eat ravenously and speaking with his mouth full. ‘Simulator.’

  Robert felt strangely envious. ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘You’ll see. Been up to anything?’

  Robert had no wish to recount his torture. ‘Lectures, boring stuff. Tell me about the simulator.’

  After being so keen to mention it, Forsyth was oddly reluctant to elaborate. ‘Fucking tiny,’ he said with a laugh.

  ‘We could see that from the outside.’

  ‘Aye, well be sure to scratch your arse before you have a go because there’s no chance of moving once you’re strapped in. No light either – pitch-black in there. Who’d you shag last night?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Ought to do it when you’ve got the chance.’

  ‘Why?’

  Forsyth paused. ‘Because every fuck could be your last.’ The mask of jollity was falling.

  ‘What happened in the simulator?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He carried on shovelling food into his mouth, but Robert could tell he’d been through an experience as bad as his own. ‘Did it shake you up?’

  Forsyth ignored him. ‘I’m trying that redhead next time if I get the chance.’

  ‘And is that how you deal with it?’

  ‘Deal with what?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  Forsyth put his fork on his plate. ‘No, I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Deal with
the fear,’ said Robert.

  ‘Like you never feel any?’

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying.’

  Forsyth looked as though any further provocation might set him fighting. ‘What exactly are you saying?’

  Robert raised his palms in a placatory gesture. ‘I’m on your side, remember?’

  ‘Sure, us against them.’ There was sarcasm in Forsyth’s voice as he picked up his fork to finish his meal. ‘What about Harvey?’

  ‘Haven’t seen him today.’

  ‘I expect he’s been thrown off the mission after the way he behaved last night. Talking back to a Party man like that, when all he had to do was go with a whore.’

  ‘Harvey’s got problems,’ Robert said, immediately feeling as if he was betraying a secret. ‘Family problems, I mean. Sick mother.’

  Forsyth’s sarcasm thickened. ‘Oh, that explains everything, then. Better not shout too loud at the poor thing.’ He stared at his empty plate as though he had no memory of eating what had been on it.

  ‘What happened in the simulator?’ Robert asked again.

  ‘Nothing,’ Forsyth insisted. ‘Absolutely nothing.’ He looked up. ‘But you’re right, I was scared in there. Shit scared.’

  ‘Was it the darkness, the spinning?’

  He shook his head and gave a contemptuous laugh, but the contempt was directed at himself. ‘I thought I was going to die in there. I’m a soldier, it’s supposed to be what I’m trained to deal with. Not like that, though. This was just blind terror.’ He swallowed hard. ‘You know, only one time in my life I’ve been as scared as that, when I was a wean. My dad locked me in a cupboard for dogging off school, said he was going to leave me there till I starved.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘I don’t know, six or seven. And seeing as I’m not very bright I believed him. The simulator brought it all back – for a moment I was that wee boy again, trapped, screaming for my maw. I shat myself.’ His head sank in shame. ‘Reckon I’ll be going the same way as Harvey.’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Didn’t think it’d have that effect on me – I’ve been in armoured cars, locked cellars, all sorts.’