by Roger Elwood
The bodies breathed. Regularly. Slowly. With a steadiness that no human impulse could have originated. The chemical balances were perfect; they had to be for the machines to function. Bit by bit, two souls were joining; two flickering consciousnesses were becoming closer than any two had ever been before.
He was becoming she, and she was becoming he. They, would be one person sharing two bodies—and if these two bodies died, they would exist without them in the mind of the computer, or they would find new bodies. But the important thing was that they would never be apart.
Never.
A single tear welled up in his right eye. A matching tear appeared in her left.
A technician noticed and wiped them away, but whether they were tears of joy or unhappiness, no one would ever know but these two.
Long after the adventure had been forgotten, long after their bodies and the bodies of the doctors who had ministered to them had crumbled into dust, they still endured; the two of them lived as the flux of patterns within a mighty complex; their existences were fantastically more varied than any living human being could have conceived. Their wonder was bright and their love was intense and endless.
They were not alone. There were others, hundreds, thousands, millions of others, all of whom had chosen not to die, but to live on in this curious glittering web. But these two were special—not because they were among the first, but because they were curiously different from the rest.
“For one thing,” explained a master technician to his apprentices in a far-removed century, “these two patterns are identical. They act, react, and respond in unison to every imaginable impulse or set of impulses. For that reason, we’re sure that they’re only monitor patterns maintained in the matrix as a control for all the other patterns. Certainly, it would make no sense to duplicate any single individual this way; there’s no purpose for it—but there is a purpose for monitors and self-comparison controls. This year we expect to add at least three million patterns to the hereafter matrices. We have to keep our transmissions errors below one in every one billion bits. That’s why these monitor patterns are so important.
“One of the first things you learned in information theory is that information held in storage tends to decay; but the whole purpose of the hereafter matrices is to prevent decay of the personality patterns of the individuals within. We use these two monitor patterns for that purpose . . .
The master technician droned on, lost in his lesson and unaware of the vast changes that had come about in the world; he was only a victim of it too, not a master.
He perceived himself as a floating silver sphere; that was his identity module, a sensory device which did his traveling for him. The students were lesser modules, colored to show their status and identity. The bodies, if any, were removed elsewhere, floating in weightless tanks of nutrients.
The interface between man and machine had become so total that it no longer existed—man and machine were two parts of the same entity, a vast many-faceted being. The range of possible experience for the human mind had become unlimited.
This was a world where sex was an electronic experience, programmed for maximum impact. Love was unnecessary. This was a world where electronic telepathy allowed all minds to be one. Love was a perversion. This was a world where bodies were only inefficient storage units to be replaced as soon as possible. Love was a psychosis. Physical coupling no longer existed, mental coupling had been forgotten, and pair bonding was an unknown process.
In his glorious reach for godhood, man had been liberated from his body; and with it, he had been liberated from all the bloody-animal experiences that went with it. Love was unknown.
“But these are human patterns, aren’t they?” asked an apprentice. “Aren’t they aware?”
“They’re pseudo-human patterns,” corrected the master. “But I understand what you’re asking. Yes, they’re aware—but it’s a theta-two awareness, a false awareness. Originally, these two patterns had been tied together with a comparison and correction circuit—that is, they monitored each other and adjusted continually. But we eliminated that centuries ago, and also removed some of the memory inconsistencies, which had been allowed to appear in each. We couldn’t erase the crystals completely, of course, but we could reprogram them. Now, instead of each pattern looking at the other, they look only at themselves, and each thinks it’s seeing its opposite number. So you see, they aren’t really aware at all—and even if they were, they wouldn’t mind. After all, they’re happy, aren’t they?”
A TRUE BILL
A CHANCEL DRAMA IN ONE ACT
by
James Blish
Preface
As its subtitle indicates, this play is intended to be performed in a Christian church, not on stage. For best effect, it should be a substitute for a regular service, without prior warning to the congregation (except, perhaps, posting its title as if it were to be the subject of the day’s sermon). For this reason, the actors who join in from the floor should not be heavily made up; usually the quarters are close enough so that stage makeup is unnecessary for anybody. The planted actors should be well scattered, but all in positions allowing easy access to the aisles.
A True Bill was written for a Little Theater group called the Rogues’ Gallery and played during the Easter vacation in fifteen churches in 1966. The churches, in the Maryland/Virginia/Washington, D.C. area, ranged from High Episcopalian to an all-Negro Baptist congregation in a city slum. After the play was over, the genuine minister in charge asked the congregation to remain and discuss what they’d seen with the actors, and such groups were invariably large and lively. At no time did we encounter anyone who had taken offense either to the surprise or to the play itself, and as word got around, we got more invitations than we could accept. In lieu of selling tickets, we asked for half of the day’s collection (except in the slum church, where we played for nothing).
We had no Asian to play the Judge, but we did have a Negro—admitted to the group, I’m happy to say, when several of the more prejudiced Southerners among us yielded gracefully to a majority vote—and we asked him to do it. It is a major role, and he had had absolutely no prior experience; but he was the first of all the main characters to memorize all of his lines (our lawyer blew his few lines in a new and different way at each and every performance), and he turned out to be magnificently versatile and convincing.
I have indicated simple music cues for the church organist. As it happened, we had three audio-cum-music buffs (including the author) in our membership, so we rigged up a quite simple sound system and taped incidental music, including a prelude, from phonograph records. I shan’t say what pieces and excerpts we used, for if you have the resources, you’ll find it more fun to choose your own. For the gun we used the obvious, a rented starting pistol; I’d expected this to be noisy, of course, but the actual sound of the shot under church acoustics made even the actors jump, and they at least knew it was coming.
Should you rehearse in a quiet residential area, better have the Corporal say “Bang!” when the shot is supposed to come, or be prepared for police inquiries. (This also saves money on cartridges.) It’s even more important to have one rehearsal in each new church you play in, for church layouts vary widely; we hit one, for instance, that was fan-shaped and had no central aisle, and so required a completely different disposition of the entrances from the back and of the bit parts in the audience for the mob scene.
This is the first appearance of the play in print. For performance rights, please address me at Treetops, Woodlands Road, Harpsden (Henley), Oxon., England.
James Blish)
To Anne McKenzie
and the Rogues
CAST OF CHARACTERS
(in order of appearance)
THE CAPTAIN A MARCHER
THE CORPORAL MAGDA
THE SERGEANT A DOCTOR
A MINISTER A LAWYER
THE JUDGE A SCIENTIST
TEEN-AGE GIRL A HOUSEWIFE
TEEN-AGE BOY
A COLONIAL
A POET MARY
Time: Today
Place: A courtroom
[Prior to the opening of the service, the MINISTER , the MARCHER, the TEEN-AGE GIRL, the HOUSEWIFE, the TEEN-AGE BOY, MAGDA, the LAWYER, the DOCTOR, the SCIENTIST, the POET, and the colonial take places here and there in the pews, MARY should also be seated, at the back of the church. They are all in contemporary costume except MARY, who wears mourning weeds of no particular period.
[The service opens as usual and proceeds to an offertory or meditation during which the organist plays “Sheep May Safely Graze.” As this ends, the CORPORAL, in fatigues and helmet-liner, wearing a .45 automatic and a brassard marked provost, escorts the CAPTAIN down the center aisle. The CORPORAL is a young man, slouching and feral, but precise in his purely military courtesies. The CAPTAIN, almost as young a man as the corporal but carrying his responsibilities heavily, wears a summer uniform and has a briefcase in one hand.
[Both stop at the head of the aisle and exchange salutes. The CORPORAL does a right-face and walks back out, his face expressionless. The CAPTAIN, once out of the CORPORAL’s range of view, stares after him and shakes his head ruefully.]
CAPTAIN [softly]: Whew.
[The CAPTAIN goes to the central bench, opens his briefcase and removes from it a gavel and a folder of papers, both of which he places carefully on the lectern in the pulpit. He then returns to the bench, looks briefly out at the congregation, and extracts from the briefcase more papers and a pair of reading glasses, which he dons. He sits down and begins to read.
[The CORPORAL takes up a position of parade-rest at the rear of the church. Any latecomers will have to push past him; he does not yield for them.]
CAPTAIN [reading aloud, but to himself, almost by rote]: . . . Witnesses must previously have sworn to uphold the Constitution, if any, of the provisional government or other authority currently recognized by the Occupying Forces . . . Officers and counsel of courts appointed by the Occupying Forces are deemed to be gentlemen and invested with the dignity of existing local law, if any, by act of . . . Ah, it’s no use. It makes no sense. I feel sick, that’s all. If I ever get out of this flea-bitten pocket-handkerchief of a country—
[Enter the SERGEANT, a matter-of-fact career man perhaps ten years older than the CAPTAIN. He too is in summer uniform but wears a side-arm like the CORPORAL’s. Since he is armed, he remains covered—that is, he keeps his hat on—throughout the play. He marches down the aisle to the front of the bench and salutes.]
SERGEANT: Reporting for duty, sir.
CAPTAIN [remaining seated, but returning the salute]: It’s you again, eh Sergeant? How long have you been on duty, anyhow?
SERGEANT: Since they cut them three agitators down and carted ’em off, sir.
CAPTAIN: At ease. Ugly, wasn’t it?
SERGEANT: It’s always ugly. But they was only out to make trouble for the rest of us. These gooks will put a knife in your back as soon as scratch, and never mind whose side they’re supposed to be on. At least them three won’t bug us any more.
CAPTAIN: It’s not over yet.
SERGEANT: I see it ain’t. Excuse me, sir, but just what the hell are we doing here? I thought the trial was over three days ago.
CAPTAIN [ironically]: Sure. What we’ve got here now is an inquest. It’s a custom we imported ourselves.
SERGEANT: Never heard of it.
CAPTAIN: Neither did the gooks till we barged in on them. In the old days, those three would have been strung up, and that would have been that. But now it’s got to look legal. There’s been a death by violence—three deaths. There were reporters from home there, four of them. They’ll all tell different stories, but they’ll call it either mob rule or a military execution unless we give the people a chance to decide for themselves what it was, under one of their own judges. You can see we’ve got quite an audience already.
SERGEANT: That’s crazy! Excuse me, sir, but we ordered those guys strung up, ourselves, in the long run. This inquest thing could wind up with us being the defendants.
CAPTAIN: Well, that’s part of the point of it
MINISTER [from audience]: Give us back our dead!
CAPTAIN [forgetting for a moment that he’s not officially supposed to be in charge here]: Quiet out there! Who’s that?
[There is no answer.]
SERGEANT [after the pause]: Sir, that’s what I meant This is a bad time to stir ’em all up again. There’s some kind of mob collecting outside the building, too—all talking at once—some of ’em carrying posters. They’re working themselves up to set fire to the library, or stone the embassy, or some other damn thing like that The reporters’ll love that, too.
CAPTAIN: I know it. It can’t be helped. Just keep your eye on the people here, and whenever you spot somebody speaking up, get him up here. We’ll put him on the witness stand and see how loud he shouts from there.
SERGEANT: But . . . Yes, sir.
[The SERGEANT begins to prowl back and forth before the front pews, sternly eyeing various people in the audience. The captain puts his glasses back on and resumes reading.
[Enter the JUDGE, a small man with much professional gravity, which, however, tends to wilt slightly whenever he has to recognize the existence of the captain. He walks slowly toward the pulpit. His entrance produces a slight murmur from the audience. The captain looks up.]
CAPTAIN [sotto voce, to sergeant]: Psst. The judge.
SERGEANT [coming to attention himself, and barking at the audience] ’Ten-SHUN!
[The CAPTAIN tries to flag the SERGEANT down, but it is too late; all the other members of the cast in the audience have come to their feet, and after all, the captain is standing too.
[The JUDGE climbs embarrassedly to the pulpit and sits down.]
JUDGE [to CAPTAIN]: Uh—thank you. Everyone may be seated.
[This is superfluous, since everybody has already sat down again except the CAPTAIN.]
CAPTAIN: Thank you, sir. [He too sits.]
JUDGE: I presume we may proceed?
CAPTAIN: Of course, your honor.
[The JUDGE picks up his gavel, looks at it nervously, and then hits the pulpit with it with ear-splitting enthusiasm. The SERGEANT grins; the captain tries to ignore the noise.]
JUDGE [to audience-, fluently, but with a faint trace of an Asian accent—overlaid, if possible, by an equally faint trace of Oxford]: Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. Order in the court, please. This court is now in session, please, yes?
We are met here by order of the provincial governor, and by permission of the Occupying Forces, to hold an inquest on the deaths of the three persons who deceased up on the hill day before yesterday. Since this is not a usual procedure in our country, you should understand that the governor and the Occupying Forces wish to make certain that the deceasing was in accordance with law and with the will of everyone concerned.
If it was, then the case is closed. If it was not, we will consider further how to proceed. [He shoots a sidelong look at the captain, who tries to nod unobtrusively.] We have asked all the possible witnesses to come here and testify. All of you gathered here now constitute what in democratic countries is called a—a Star Chamber?—an umkali imtomronat—
CAPTAIN: A Grand Jury.
JUDGE:—a Grand Jury. And your verdict, whatever it may turn out to be, will be called a True Bill. Thus, if you decide that the Occupying Forces executed the three men unjustly, you may return a True Bill of murder against the officer or officers who ordered the execution. [Somebody in the audience snickers. The JUDGE ignores this, but the SERGEANT glares in the direction of the sound.] Or, if you find the deceased to have been criminals or anti-democratic elements, you may return a True Bill of legal deceasement or justifiable homicide. Or perhaps you will find the incident properly only death by misadventure. We will explain these terms to you as we go along.
Now, are there any questions?
MINISTER [from audience]: Just give us back our dead. Don’t make marty
rs of them.
JUDGE: You may be our first witness, sir, yes?
[Nobody stirs.]
CAPTAIN [to SERGEANT]: Bring that man up here.
JUDGE: Yes, if you please.
SERGEANT [to judge]: Sorry, your honor. I still can’t see who it is. [Aside, to captain] If any one of ’em actually comes up here, I’ll eat my rifle, bayonet and all. That’s how gooks are. First they ask you to do their dirty work. Then they hide behind the nearest rock and holler that you did it wrong.
[The JUDGE, at first at a loss as to what to do next, cocks an ear toward the sergeant.]
CAPTAIN [aside]: Maybe we did. [Noticing the JUDGE’s regard] Shut up.
SERGEANT [not hearing the order, already responding to the previous three words]: There ain’t any right way to do dirty work, except to do it fast. Otherwise, too many guys buy it.
JUDGE: Buy what, please?
SERGEANT [still to the CAPTAIN]: Buy a farm. Six feet. Gets planted. Hell, sir, you know. [The captain is trying to make him shut up by a combination of frowning and sheer telepathy; the SERGEANT is simply further exasperated by the young officer’s naivete]. Killed.
JUDGE: Let us hear some more about this. Will you take the stand, please?
[The SERGEANT, realizing that he has talked out of turn, looks helplessly at the captain, who stands formally and faces the judge.]
CAPTAIN: Your honor, the Occupying Forces will be pleased to testify. We hope that other witnesses will follow our example.
[The SERGEANT sits in the witness chair provided.]
JUDGE: Will you identify yourself to the court, please?
SERGEANT: I stood guard over the prisoners at the trial, your honor. And afterwards, at the execution.
JUDGE: All by yourself?
SERGEANT: No, sir. I had three PFCs with me. Good men.
JUDGE: That remains to be seen. Did any of the condemned talk to you? In particular, the ringleader?