‘A capsule is launched containing an adult male human whose neural tissue serves as a detector of scalar radiation. The tissue is suitably prepared using electromagnetic fields, and the extraneous influence of gravity is removed by making the capsule follow a free-fall trajectory.’
He turned to Kaupff once more. ‘This is all about trying to communicate telepathically with the star’s mind, isn’t it?’
Kaupff nodded. ‘We have found a suitable subject in Robert Coyle.’
‘Is that so?’ Davis said rhetorically. ‘And have you told Coyle exactly how his flight is meant to proceed? What about that preparation using electromagnetic fields?’
‘He knows,’ said Kaupff.
Davis fixed Robert with his stare. ‘Oh, he knows. Then I pity him; but let me enlighten everyone else.’ He continued to read. ‘The carrier field is applied cranially, but endogenous excitation is also produced through automated induction of penile orgasm. In other words, during the whole of the flight, Coyle has an electrified rod in his rectum, making him ejaculate at precisely the right moment. Is this not the most obscenely ridiculous idea that has ever been proposed? Ah, but there’s more. Not content with anally violating our fine young serviceman, Kaupff proposes an even greater atrocity, and the hideous truth lies in that innocent-looking requirement of free fall. Has he explained that one to you yet, Coyle?’
Robert looked at Kaupff and saw once more the pitiful expression the old man bore this morning when he had stood sobbing on the bowling green. ‘No, Commissioner Davis, he hasn’t explained.’
‘Then I shall. It is an awkward but inescapable consequence of physics and economics that a rocket cannot be launched into Earth orbit from Britain. Instead, to send the capsule aloft, it must be slung beneath the fuselage of a specially modified SN53 jet bomber. Taken to an altitude of forty-six thousand feet, the capsule is then released, sending its grotesquely impaled occupant tumbling weightlessly inside it. Only in this way, Kaupff claims, can the effects of gravity be sufficiently eliminated so that the star’s waves can make some impression on the subject’s brain. But how much time will be needed for pen recorders on the ground to be able to chart a useful amount of mental data? About ninety seconds, Kaupff estimates. And how much time would that leave for the capsule’s parachute to open? Not long enough.’
‘You mean …’
‘That’s right, Coyle. There’s no parachute. As Kaupff puts it in his memorandum, Preservation of some electronic instruments will be possible if thickly encased in blast-proof containers, but all living tissue in the capsule will be destroyed on impact. It is not expected that post-mortem analysis will yield useful data.’
‘I was going to tell you everything, Robert,’ said Kaupff, ‘but not like this.’
Davis resumed his denunciation. ‘What kind of man could devise such a plan? The Central Committee were puzzled but felt obliged to give Kaupff the resources he required, knowing what he had achieved in the past. Even so, it was decided that special monitoring was required, and now we know the sad truth. Immersed in his secret researches, bewitched by the ramblings of alchemists and poets, ignoring the advice of those who could so easily have rectified his errors, Professor Kaupff has strayed completely off the path of socialist science and into the ideological wilderness. He is not a saboteur, but a fool. Well, let him savour the romantic literature he enjoys in the long and healthy retirement we hope will keep him from causing further damage …’
‘It could really work!’ Kaupff insisted. ‘The method is extraordinary, but so is the phenomenon we are trying to investigate.’ Finding no response from Davis, Kaupff instead appealed to his colleagues. ‘You heard me explain the science in many lectures before now – you listened and you agreed it was worth attempting. You could have said no, but you didn’t. Were you too cowardly then to disagree, or are you too craven now to say otherwise?’ His eyes were moist and pleading, like a beaten animal’s, and Robert thought of bringing the gun out of his bag so as to end this misery. First Kaupff, then Davis, Willoughby, Rosalind … as many of them as there were bullets in the pistol. Instead he spoke, and though Robert’s gaze was on the professor, what he said was aimed at all of them. ‘I hate you.’
Davis came and stood before him, leaning over the desk which separated them to place a benevolent and fatherly hand on the shoulder of the young recruit. ‘You speak like a patriot, Volunteer Coyle, but there is no need for hate, only pity, and gratitude for the achievements of the past, which Professor Kaupff’s present mental disturbance need not eclipse. We know you would gladly give your life; but the motherland detests unnecessary sacrifice. Professor Vine will redesign the mission, and we trust him to find the best solution.’ He turned to Kaupff. ‘We also trust that you, sir, will accept with due dignity the irrevocable decision of the Science and Defence Council of the Central Committee. You are free to return to the Lodge.’
Kaupff looked startled, then strangely grateful. Davis was not going to arrest him after all; he was not to be shot. Kaupff got to his feet, shakily at first, straightened as best he could, and looked at his colleagues. He spoke softly but clearly. ‘I thank you all for your friendship. I have complete confidence in Professor Vine who will, I am sure, continue to build on what we have achieved—’
‘Please, Professor,’ Davis interrupted. ‘This is not the time for a retirement speech. Go now.’
Kaupff stared down at his feet, a final hesitation, then raised his face and walked firmly towards the door, never looking at Robert or any of his colleagues, all of whom slowly turned their heads to follow the lonely course of his retreat. When he opened the door, two armed guards were waiting there, and it was with this escort that Kaupff departed, their footsteps echoing along the corridor as they receded into the distance, getting steadily fainter while everyone listened as though to the beating of Kaupff’s own heart, terminating eventually with the heavy banging of a far-off door.
‘Professor Vine, I now hand over to you,’ Davis said. Vine came to replace him at the front of the room.
Vine struggled to speak, though there was little for him to say except that the meeting was adjourned. It took a moment for those present to make sense of all they had heard, then there was a scraping of chairs and a sullen procession to the door. Of the stunned witnesses to Kaupff’s downfall, most began returning to their offices in silence, while Robert walked alone along the corridor to the lift. He heard Willoughby’s voice some distance behind, turned, and saw that the corpulent academician was coming in the same direction with Rosalind. The couple met Robert’s gaze but on their faces there was no trace of sympathy or any human warmth, and rather than share the lift compartment with them, Robert decided to take the stairs he reached beforehand. He pushed open the swing doors on the stairwell, and Rosalind caught up with him. ‘Wait – I want to talk to you.’ It sounded more like a command than a request. Willoughby excused himself with a nod and walked on without a word to the lift. ‘This is a disaster I never expected,’ she said quietly.
‘You mean you weren’t part of it?’
She looked disgusted by the suggestion. ‘How can you say such a thing?’ They began descending the stairs together; it was a bare, inhospitable and echoing place in which to discuss Kaupff’s fate, and they spoke in anxious whispers.
‘Whose side are you on, Rosalind?’
‘Nobody’s. When one man goes down we can’t let him take the rest of us with him.’
‘So much for all your loyalty and admiration: you didn’t say a word in Kaupff’s defence, and all you want now is to save your own skin.’
She stopped. ‘That’s right, I do.’ When he looked at her face he was surprised to see a tear on her cheek, fear in her eyes.
‘You were prepared to let me die.’
‘Everything was going to be explained properly so you could decide.’
‘I don’t believe you.’ He carried on indignantly down the steps; Rosalind’s pace behind him was more hesitant. ‘You’re a liar and a coward,
’ he said over his shoulder.
‘I’m a human being and there are times when I regret it.’ He turned and saw more tears. ‘You asked me if I was ever in love: the answer’s yes. With Heinz.’
‘Kaupff? But he’s …’
She shook her head, choking back a sob. ‘Oh, shut up, Coyle, you understand nothing. Yes, I’m a coward and a liar. I’m a woman and I’m scared. But however much you hate me, don’t blame Heinz. If it could have been him in the capsule instead of you, do you think he would have said no?’
Robert ignored her and went down into the foyer where researchers were milling around; he looked among the crowd for Dora but saw another woman at the trolley. When Rosalind reappeared beside him she had dried her eyes and restored as much of her usual aloofness as she could manage. ‘Your friend must have got the day off. Better find her before that meat in your bag goes rotten.’
‘I will.’
‘You think I’m no better than a whore, don’t you?’
‘The ones at the Blue Cat are infinitely better than you.’
‘No,’ said Rosalind. ‘We survive: they’ve got their way, I’ve got mine.’ She stood before him and stared into his eyes. ‘You think we planned to kill you – you’re wrong. You’re dead already. As soon as you passed the perimeter fence, as soon as you entered the Installation, that’s when your life ended. Because this place is hell, and you’re never getting out of it.’
He brushed past her with mute contempt and walked across the foyer to the stout, middle-aged woman at the trolley. ‘Where’s Dora?’
‘Off sick,’ was the complacent reply.
‘Where does she live?’
The woman raised her snub nose in a gesture conveying it was none of his business but she’d tell him if he could make it worth her while. He brought out his voucher book and she cast a precautionary glance over her shoulder before tearing out a slip and stuffing it in her overall pocket. ‘Just off the main street, first right after the housing office, one with the blue door – she’s upstairs.’
He was still memorizing these directions like a school-room verse when Rosalind came and took him by the arm, leading him back to the side of the room. ‘Wait here for me while I find out what happens next.’
‘No,’ he said bluntly. ‘I’m going for a walk. Might even do a runner like Harvey.’
‘Don’t be a fool, you could be next on Davis’s list.’
He was unruffled. ‘If he’s got me marked then nothing’s going to save me. But if you can’t look after your volunteers then soon there’ll be no reason why anyone should want to save you either, so perhaps you’d better start treating me a little more pleasantly. You need me, Rosalind. I’m the only one who passed your playing-card test – I’m the most important piece of your apparatus.’
She leaned close to his ear. ‘Don’t be so sure of that, Coyle. I faked the test results.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Heinz wanted a telepath and I gave him one.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘It’s every man for himself now, and I can easily find another like you. So off you go.’
21
Rosalind’s taunts didn’t scare him, and though he wondered if he might be stopped by the guard outside, he was free to proceed as soon as his identity had been checked. It was all a most uplifting illustration of how the Installation preserved the freedoms its citizens enjoyed: Robert was at liberty to go almost anywhere he wished, precisely because everywhere was so identical.
Walking into Town in the fading afternoon light, he saw a familiar figure on the opposite side of the street, wearing a suit and proceeding purposefully past a row of offices. It was Lachlan Macleod, one of the first of the recruits to have been eliminated. Robert hurried across the road to greet him. ‘Lachlan!’
Macleod stopped but had a puzzled, embarrassed air. ‘Look at you,’ Robert said teasingly. ‘Suit and tie, eh? Have they given you a desk job?’
He was still staring blankly. ‘Do I know you?’
‘What are you talking about!’
‘I think you must be mistaking me for someone else …’
Macleod began to move on; Robert blocked his way. ‘Don’t play tricks, Lachlan, I know it’s you. I can go along with all the secrecy shit but don’t pretend you’ve never seen me. We were all supposed to be in this together, weren’t we?’
The man’s face remained unaltered. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I have to get on with my work.’ Robert stood aside and watched him go past, disappearing soon afterwards into one of the offices. No, he wasn’t mistaken – Macleod looked different in a suit but not that different. They’d done something to his brain.
Robert was sickened but not surprised: this place was hell, forgetfulness its only possible comfort. He went on until he reached the darkening main street, following the directions he had been given until he came to Dora’s blue door. It was a terraced house like most others in the Town, with the ubiquitous white pebble-dash, stained by years of harsh weather, giving it the dismal air of a seaside cottage washed far inland. There were two doorbells; Robert pushed the upper one, waited, and when no response came he stepped back, looked at the upstairs window whose curtains were closed, then tried the bell again. This time, after another wait, he saw the curtains twitch, and a few moments later heard feet coming down the stairs inside. The door opened only wide enough for Dora to check who was there, and for Robert to see that she was wrapped in a long, drab dressing gown. She looked tired, unwell, and not pleased to see him.
‘Go away.’
‘No,’ said Robert.
‘I’m not working today.’
‘I brought you a present.’
‘I told you, I’m not working.’ She tried to shut the door but Robert kept it open with his shoulder and foot. She was too weak to push him out, and soon relented. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she said, stepping back to let him in, then closing the door behind him before any more of the freezing winter air could enter.
‘I wanted to give you some things,’ he repeated.
‘Come and let’s get this over with,’ she said, leading him past the chipped door of the lower flat and up a narrow carpeted staircase that creaked beneath their feet. Her door at the top stood open, and when Dora showed him in and closed it, Robert found himself in a place reminiscent of Kaupff’s bachelor apartment in the Lodge, with a similar tiny kitchenette adjoining the small living room, and doorways leading off to the bedroom and bathroom. Here, though, there were no books and few possessions of any kind, the only glimmer of humanity that seized his gaze being some artificial flowers crowding from the neck of a glass sauce bottle on the windowsill. Robert took the rucksack from his back and opened it. The meat had lain there for several hours now and had leaked blood through its brown-paper wrapper onto the box containing both pairs of gloves. The gun, too, was slicked, but undamaged. Robert brought everything out except the pistol, apologizing for the mess.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Dora, taking the paper package first. ‘That’s what meat does.’ She pulled away some of the wrapper and inspected a corner of red marbled flesh, finding it to her satisfaction. ‘It looks good,’ she declared with the authoritativeness of a connoisseur, raised it to her nose and sniffed, then took it to the kitchenette and put it safely in the small fridge. Next she came back to examine the white box, smeared pink along one of its narrow sides. She opened it and took out the thick winter gloves that lay on top of the folded crêpe paper. ‘These will do,’ she said simply as she put them on and flexed her fingers, turning her hands and enjoying the warmth she felt, seeming almost unwilling to take them off. Robert, who had remained standing all this time, was beginning to appreciate how cold it was inside the flat.
‘Look what else is in the box,’ he urged. ‘Inside the paper.’
Giving him a suspicious look, Dora removed the thick gloves and returned to the open box she had lain on the simple dining table. Robert watched her peel back the paper, but when she saw
his most precious gift she looked less delighted by it. She lifted the fine gloves and held them hanging limply in her fingers like withered stems.
‘Do you like them?’
‘They’re beautiful,’ she said politely. ‘They’re very, very beautiful.’ All at once Robert realized that beauty was not what Dora wanted or needed. Without trying them on, she put the gloves back in their container, folded the paper across them, and tried to wipe away the blood from the box with a fingertip dampened by saliva. She wanted to keep them in good condition so that she could exchange them for more meat, more warm clothing. Their only value to her, Robert knew, was whatever material necessity they could be traded for. ‘Thank you,’ she said, then she opened her coarse robe and let it fall to the floor, standing before him in a flimsy nylon shift that made her look more emaciated than he remembered.
‘Put it back on, don’t get cold …’
She pulled the shift over her head, leaving herself completely naked. Then she went to the bedroom door and pushed it open. ‘It’s best if we do it here …’
‘No!’ Robert remained where he stood, angered by the callous equation she made between his gifts and the sex she thought he now expected.
‘All right, if you prefer.’ She came back, kneeled on the floor at his feet, and reached for his belt. ‘Shall we start with some sucking?’
He took hold of her face and raised it so that he could see the hopelessness in her eyes. ‘I didn’t bring you presents for this.’
‘Then why did you bring them?’ She was unbuckling his belt.
‘I came because I love you.’
A smile haunted the corner of her lip, as if she’d heard an old joke from childhood that still retained something of its risible innocence. ‘Then let’s make love, baby.’ The belt was undone; she lowered his zip, his trousers began to slide down his hips. He pulled them up and moved away from her.
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