An Island Called Moreau

by Brian W Aldiss

  Beneath his helmet was a pale face which sweated just like mine did.

  “Who are you, and where did you spring from?” he demanded.

  I am trained to understand men, to cut through their poses. I understand tough men, and men who have merely tough facades. Despite the truculence of this man’s voice, I thought I detected uncertainty in it. I moved forward from the rock where I had been leaning.

  He shuffled awkwardly in order to remain facing me, at the same time swinging his gun up to aim it at my stomach. Once my attention was thus directed to it, I recognized the riot gun as a kind issued to Co-Allied Invasion and Occupation Forces. It was a Xiay 25A, cheaply manufactured by our Chinese allies, capable of multiple-role usage, firing ordinary bullets, CS gas bullets, nail bombs, and other similar devices. The robot-like man carried a whip and a revolver in his belt. He was well armed if he was out for a morning walk.

  He repeated his question.

  I faced him squarely, fighting down my weakness.

  “I’m American, which I believe is more than you can claim. My name is Calvert Madle Roberts, and I am an Undersecretary of State in the Willson Administration. I was returning from state business when my plane was shot down in the Pacific. Your employees brought me ashore. I have to get in touch with Washington immediately.”

  “My employees? You must mean Maastricht. What the devil was he playing at, landing you here? This isn’t a funfair I’m running. A carnival, you’d say, being American. Why didn’t he bring you round to the lagoon?”

  “I’ve been nine days adrift. I’m about all in and I need to contact my department soonest, okay? If you’re in charge, I hold you responsible for looking after me.”

  He uttered a grunt which might have represented laughter. “I am in charge here, that’s for sure.… And I can’t very well have you thrown back into the ocean.”

  “That’s big of you. I’ve told you my name. Roberts. What’s your name?”

  His lip curled slightly. “You call me Master, same as the rest of them do.” He swung himself about with a violent bodily motion and began striding back the way he had come. I followed.

  We made our way along what served as a wretched street for the native village. The natives, having gathered their courage, had returned to peer at us. They uttered apotropaic phrases as their Master went by.

  “His is the Hand that Maims.…

  “His is the Head that Blames.…

  “His is the Whip that Tames.…”

  Beyond the little ragged village lay the lagoon. The road skirted it, winding past its tranquil green waters to buildings glimpsed through trees. Beyond everything was a steep hill, its gray cliffs looming above the jungle. However mean the affairs of men, Nature had added a note of grandeur.

  It was impossible to keep up with the great mechanical strides of the self-styled Master. I lagged farther and farther behind. There was a gang of natives working on the far side of the lagoon, where I observed a mobile crane; they stopped work to stare at us.

  My vision began to waver as I moved uphill. A stockade of tall and rusty metal posts stood here. The top of the stockade was decorated with barbed wire, strand after entangled strand of it. The Master halted at a narrow gate in the wall, stooping awkwardly to unlock it. I heard tumblers click back. He turned a wheel, the gate swung open, and he passed in. As soon as I had followed him, he pushed the gate shut and locked it from the inside.

  Weakness overcame me. I fell to one knee.

  “Bella!” he called, ignoring me.

  I rose again, making my way forward as a strange figure came out of a building toward us. It was wearing a dress. It—no, she, Bella, had the short deformed legs common to most of the other islanders. Her skin was a dull pink. Her face was as hideous as George’s and his fellows’, although her eyes were curiously—lambent, I believe the word is. They seemed to glow and had an oriental cast. She would not look directly at me, although she approached readily enough while listening to what the Master was telling her.

  To my surprise, she came straight up to me and attempted to lift me off my feet. I felt a sort of nervous thrill at her embrace. Then I collapsed.

  My senses never entirely left me. I was aware of strange faces about me, and of being carried into a shadowy room. Something cool was placed on my forehead. Water was poured into my mouth; I could hardly swallow, and the cup was taken away. Then my eyes were bandaged. I lay without volition as expert hands ran over my body and I was given a thorough examination. These were things that hardly registered at the time, although they came back to me afterward.

  When I finally roused, the bandage was off my eyes. I lay naked under a sheet and felt refreshed. As I propped myself up on one elbow, I saw that an ointment to soothe my sunburns had been applied to my chest and face. The woman called Bella sat hunched in one corner of the room. Her eyes flashed greenly at me as she turned her head.

  “You—feel okay now?”

  “I think so.”

  “You like whisky?”

  “Thanks, but I don’t drink.”

  “No drink? You drink water.”

  “I meant that I don’t drink whisky.”

  She stared motionlessly at me. She had short dark hair. I wondered if it was a wig. She had a nose that resembled a cat’s muzzle.

  “Thanks for seeing me through, Bella. I was in a bad way. Just reaction.”

  “I tell Master.” She slunk away, hardly opening the door enough to get through, closing it directly she was through it. Decidedly feline.

  The room took on new proportions as soon as she had gone. My body felt extremely light. Well, I said to myself, that’s how it is, here on the Moon. You mustn’t expect reality. Reality here is only one-sixth of what it is on Earth.

  Without any sense of effort, I climbed out of bed and found it was easy to stand on my two feet if I stretched out my arms for balance. Being naked made things much easier. I floated over to my one unglazed window. No glass: but of course there were no minerals on the Moon.

  “M for Moon,” I told myself aloud.

  There was music, played close by, music and the strong heat of a tropical day. The music was Haydn’s, that composer who had come to dominate all the others, even Bach and Beethoven, in the last decade. I believed it was his Fifty-fourth Symphony being played. Haydn and heat …

  By some trick of the mind, I remembered who Moreau was.

  I was gazing out at an untidy courtyard. Cans of paint were stacked there, sheets of wood, and panels of metal. Maastricht, still clutching his bottle, crossed my line of sight. I had forgotten he was on the Moon.

  I heard the Master shouting at him. “Why the hell did you dump that politician where you did? It was asking for trouble—this is no fun-fair! Suppose George had—”

  “I didn’t bother to take him round to the harbor because I was in a haste to get to the fish nets, like you told me,” Maastricht’s voice replied. “I’ve had enough shouting at for one day. George brought him in safely, didn’t he?”

  “I had to go and rescue the man. They were about to tear him apart, just to put you in the picture.”

  “Pfhuh! I don’t believe you. Anyway, what do we do with the guy now he’s here?”

  “You know he can’t be allowed to stay. Hypothesize, man. Suppose he took it into his head to team up with Warren?”

  “Jeez, don’t mention Warren.… Let it ride a while, Master. It’s time I had a drink.”

  There was more, but strange waves were radiating through my head, bringing darkness. I staggered back to the bed, tucked a hand under the pillow, and fell into a deep, troubled sleep. Over and over again, I was half roused by the terrors of my dreams, in which the recurrent motif was a gigantic letter M, black, carved sometimes from rock, sometimes from flesh. Occasionally I roused to find the woman Bella ministering to me, or clumsily mopping my brow.

  Since I was on the Moon, things were pleasant that would otherwise have been unpleasant. In her cat-like fashion, Bella pressed herself aga
inst me. Her mouth, with its sharp incisors, lay against mine. I enjoy power, and the wielding of it; in any given situation, I will maneuver until I am in control; but with Bella against me, fawning yet predatory, I relished the weakness in which I floated. Things go like that on Luna.

  At last a time came when I sat up and was absolutely clear in my head. My internal clocks told me I had been in fever for two or more days. Neatly pressed clothes lay by my bed. I climbed out and stood. My shanks looked thinner than before. I tested my balance, and a faint heaving still lingered, a phantom of the days adrift in the boat; but I took command of myself and had no trouble walking across to the window.

  There lay Moreau Island, soaking in the unending daily dosage of sun, with the Pacific waiting as always on the horizon, a vat of energy. In the untidy courtyard, a bird swooped. All else was motionless. The Moon had set below my psychic horizon. I returned to the bed and sat down.

  A while later, Bella slunk into the room.

  “You—are better?” she asked.

  I beckoned her closer. She stayed where she was, one hand on the door. Scrutinizing her, I reassembled the mixed feelings I had toward her during my fever. She wore an ankle-length drab gold dress. It was torn. The tear, and her general demeanor, conveyed an impression of wretchedness; yet there was in her regard, in her hunched shoulder, a defiance which I admired. By the same token, she was ugly enough; yet there was an animality about her which had made some kind of appeal to my more carnal instincts.

  “I appreciate your attentions to me while I was sick, Bella,” I said. “Now I have to work. Where’s your shower? I sure can use a shower.”

  “The Master wish to speak to you.” Maybe she understood, maybe not.

  She led me down a short corridor and into another room. Music was playing—Haydn again. I had expected to see the Master towering over me, but he was not there. It was quite a pleasant room, but almost bare of furniture. There was a long window which gave a view over the top of the palisade—almost a seductive view, you might say, if it were not for the sinister nature of the surroundings.

  I could see part of a placid lagoon, where the water was almost turquoise and sheltered from the blue Pacific beyond by a spine of land which almost enclosed it. On the curve of the lagoon was a harbor, with a battered landing stage and a boat moored to it. Tall palms leaned across to the water, overshadowing some huts. Behind them was jungle, climbing up a slope, the top of which was lost behind the building in which I stood.

  It was such a typical tropical view that I wondered if I had seen it before, perhaps in some previous reincarnation. Then I recalled that this vista embodied one of the favorite early twentieth-century dreams of escape from civilization: the retreat in the South Seas, where the steamer came from Europe once a month and the girls wore grass skirts. And I reflected, as I turned away to observe the Master’s room, that I had a great deal for which to be thankful. Like life itself.

  On one wall was a 3V screen: I was looking into a vast and ornate chamber, part perhaps of some German palace, in which an orchestra was seated, giving of their best to the soul of Joseph Haydn. I recognized the channel instantly as World Third; it beamed music out from Munich twenty-four hours of every day, and was available by satellite anywhere, even on this remote spot on the ocean. They could pick it up in Moon Base too. One of the good things that the war had not yet put a stop to.

  Then the Master’s voice cut in over the music, the orchestra dimmed, and he said, “I’m coming in to speak to you, Roberts. Are you prepared?”

  “Certainly. What now?”

  “You may be surprised.”

  At that, a side door opened, and someone entered from the next room. Maastricht followed, but I scarcely noticed him.

  I was too busy looking at the first person who had entered.

  It was the Master. I recognized the pallid face. He was about thirty-five years old. He was cut down to size since I last saw him swaggering along. He came rapidly forward in a mechanized wheelchair and halted in front of me. I backed away and sat down on a relaxer. He had no legs. A loose-flowing garment covered his body.

  “This is where it’s at, Mr. Roberts. Now you see me like this, we both know where we stand.” He was full of old-fashioned slangy phrases from some decades back, and used this one without a hint of humor. “In any event, I can’t take prosthetic limbs for very long in this heat. Now, you and I are going to have a little talk while Bella brings you in something to eat.”

  Peeled from his armor, and decked out in that loose-flowing garment, the self-styled Master looked weak and female on first impression. But in the pallid face with its sheer cheeks and narrow pale mouth I saw a remorseless quality that would have to be taken into account: either respected or circumvented.

  As he turned to say something to the Netherlander who hovered by, I was busy estimating him.

  “Tough luck about your accident,” I said, indicating the elaborate wheelchair. “How come you’re living on an island in the Pacific War Zone? You’re a Britisher, aren’t you, to judge by that accent of yours?”

  He regarded me unblinkingly.

  “It does so happen I was born in England. So what? I care no more for England than it ever cared for me. Damn England. I’m stateless—as simple as that. Follow me?”

  I let that go unanswered. Bella entered, wheeling a trolley which she set in front of me. The trolley held an assortment of alcoholic drinks which I ignored and some fresh lime juice which I drank avidly. The food was Korean, served straight from deep-freeze lunch’ trays and very palatable, especially to a man who had had nothing solid in his stomach for days.

  “Do you know something about construction works, Mr. Roberts?” Hans asked.

  “That’s not important,” the Master told him. “Go away and let me speak to Roberts alone. Get back to the harbor. Why are you hanging about here, anyway?”

  “First you want me to paint signs, then you want me to work at the harbor—”

  “Hans, this is no fun-fair. There’s work to be done. Get down to that harbor when I tell you. You know the scum don’t work well without you.”

  “You think I care?” Maastricht said, but he backed out all the same, casting black looks on the man in the chair.

  When we were alone, the Master said dismissively, “I try to run a tight little ship. Now then, Mr. Calvert Roberts, we can have a talk, since you are here, however unwelcomely.”

  “Food’s good.… After a week and more in an open boat, I tell you, a man is more than glad when Providence delivers him to terra firma, and to water, food, and human company—however unfriendly.”

  “Nobody has ever thanked Providence for being on this rock before.”

  “Maybe they should have tried it.… I want to discuss what you call this rock with you—”

  He shook his head. “I want to discuss you. Never mind what you want. First things first. I have my priorities.”

  “Look, friend, you come on pretty heavy. You haven’t even introduced yourself. You don’t own me, remember. I’m not addressing you as ‘Master’—what’s your name?”

  “‘Master’ is my name here.”

  “You’ll gain nothing by persisting in that attitude, I promise you. Your presence here, in the middle of a War Zone, is probably against military law, and carries severe penalties.” I continued to eat, while the orchestra continued to play and he wheeled himself fast about the room.

  He returned to swerve in front of me, confronting me, and said, “If you find it so damned important, my name was Dart. Mortimer Dart—though I’m now as nameless as I am stateless. As I am formless. There is no place for you on this island unless you submit to my authority.”

  “Why not cool it, Mr. Dart? I’m not challenging your authority, and I certainly don’t require one slice of your little island. My intention is simply to get back to the States as soon as possible. My presence is required. ASASC—that’s the Allied Space and Aerospace Corps, if you’re out of touch—will be searching this
whole area for survivors of the shuttle crash. I must use your radio to get in touch with ASASC HQ in San Diego, to have a message relayed to the President, letting him know I’m functional and pinpointing my present position. You will be compensated for any inconvenience.”

  He looked at me over one malformed shoulder, his lips compressed.

  “According to you, you’re an Undersecretary of State. A buddy of the President’s, eh? Quite a big wheel. Important. It’s not a tale I find likely—you, washed up here half dead. Prove you’re who you claim.”

  “All my papers were lost in the Leda crash. Get on to ASASC, ask them if Undersecretary Roberts is missing. Or I can raise my own department on confidential wavelength—they’ll be glad to identify me. You can also check on the names of the other guys in the crash. I can give them to you. I am real enough. The news I carry to the President is real enough.”

  He regarded me suspiciously. “What news?”

  I looked at my watch and calculated. The war moved fast, even in its rather phony opening stages. Military movements which had been secret ten days ago on the Moon would be common knowledge on Earth by now.

  “You follow the events of the war?”

  He gestured toward the orchestra without removing his angry eyes from mine. “This I prefer. If men kill each other, so what?”

  “Soviet ground, sea, and air forces are about to occupy Hokkaido and neighboring islands of Japan. They will thus command the Sea of Japan and sever sea links between the United States and China. I was returning from a conference on the Moon deciding the future conduct of war in the Japanese theater; it is essential I report back at once. Too much time has been lost to the enemy already.”

  Dart considered this sullenly. Then he spoke in a more conciliatory tone. “I saw a bulletin this morning. A tremendous strike against Japanese cities and ports has just started. Give me some details about yourself, just to put me in the picture.”

  I clutched my knees. The nightmare, the closing agony of the twentieth century, was unrolling, and here I sat humoring some petty madman.… Briefly, I gave him a few details. Born on a farm in Connecticut, only son. Ambitious father of German descent, mother Scottish Presbyterian. Both sides of the family affluent. Father’s connections enabled me to go into politics straight from university. A minor post in the Ammader Administration enabled me to go on a mission to Peking when the Russo–Chinese campaign along the Ussuri flared up. Was in Helsinki at the time of the Helsinki Incident marking the start of active Soviet expansionism. Escaped Finland and Europe with certain vital memory discs from NAPA HQ. Given governmental post shortly after, under President Willson.