The Far Side of Evil

by Sylvia Engdahl

  His emphasis on that last remark seemed excessive, as if he was attaching extraordinary and sinister significance to it, but as yet I couldn’t decipher that significance. I looked around at one of the most intricate computer installations I had seen on Toris, complete with tape drives, banks of dials, and a primitive array of flashing lights, but overshadowed by the room’s central feature: a huge, incongruous tank of water that looked deep enough to harbor sharks. Take it easy, I told myself. Pretend this is just another training exercise.

  At the thought, I relaxed a little, seeing a true comparison with the sort of “games” at which the Academy excels. The theory behind them is that since on alien planets you may be plunged into alarming and totally unpredictable situations, you need plenty of practice in meeting simulated ones. I’m sure the instructors must spend a lot of time dreaming up diabolical ways to try you out. They, too, tell you “don’t be frightened” while skillfully steering your feelings in the opposite direction. You’re aware, of course, that they won’t let you come to harm; but they have ways of counteracting that, ways that work beneath the level of your reason. For instance, they don’t really need all the paraphernalia they surround you with—incomprehensible machines, disorienting gravitational fields, and so forth—any more than my interrogator needs the elaborate setup he uses; those are all stage props. Well, Dr. Sturn was obviously playing by similar rules, and I would be all right if I approached this experience in the same manner: simply by taking it as it came.

  I was conducted to a small examining room, where two coldly efficient nurses performed an exhaustive physical, taped various sensors to my body, and then ordered me to put on a thin, close-fitting rubber suit that encased me completely. I followed their instructions placidly, curiosity gradually overcoming my fright. Back in the main laboratory, Dr. Sturn again approached me. “I’ve been told by the Commander that I must explain what’s going to be done to you and offer you the option of confessing voluntarily,” he said. “I would prefer not to. I consider you an excellent subject for this experiment; I’m anxious to see how you’ll react to it, and your reaction would be more valid from the scientific standpoint if you had no foreknowledge of what to expect. But I, for one, have learned that Commander Feric is not a man to be trifled with.”

  “I won’t tell him,” I said, “if you want to skip the preliminaries.”

  “You will tell him anything he asks when he next sees you.” He appraised me judiciously. “You’re skeptical. You think I’m planning to put you through some barbaric horror that I believe will break your spirit, and you feel superior, for unlike the esteemed Commander you’re aware that some people, including yourself, can hold out against that sort of thing. Well, I am a scientist; I do not concern myself with primitive notions like “spirit” or “will.” The treatment I shall administer is not a form of persuasion and it’s not designed to elicit your conscious cooperation. It pertains solely to the functioning of your brain.”

  I had a moment of pure panic, fearing that he might be a genius who had discovered a means of direct access to the subconscious mind far ahead of his time, though I knew Torisian science was nowhere near advanced enough. But I got hold of myself. Such a fear was ridiculous, for anybody who considered spirit and will “primitive notions” was no genius.

  “The brain cannot function without inputs,” Dr. Sturn continued. “Think of all the inputs it normally receives: from your eyes, your ears, your senses of smell, taste, and touch. Those inputs can be cut off. Sensory deprivation, it’s called, if you want the technical name; in practical terms it means that you’ll be placed in a tank where you can’t see, hear, smell, taste, or touch anything. It doesn’t sound too distressing, and at first it won’t seem so; some of your feelings may even be enjoyable. Later—well, later you will experience uncontrollable terror, and then hallucinations, and when you’re taken out you’ll be temporarily detached from reality and will comply with whatever we suggest to you.” He added reassuringly, “Don’t worry about your safety. You’ll suffer some hours of panic in its most extreme form, but we will, of course, keep track of you by means of our instruments to make sure that you do not die.”

  I didn’t comment. They blindfolded me again, this time with tightly fitted goggles that shut out all light, and plugged my ears and nostrils. A breathing apparatus was put into my mouth in such a way as to ensure that I could move neither my lips nor my tongue, after which I felt the rubber face mask being pulled over my head. Then I was carried to the tank and lowered into it; but I could feel nothing, neither warmth nor cold, for the water was kept at the exact temperature of my blood. My limbs had been weighted so that I would float motionless, beneath the surface, in perfect equilibrium. I couldn’t have thrashed around if I had wanted to, for in addition to the air hose there were restraining lines.

  Slowly, deliberately, I began to think the situation through. I had heard of sensory deprivation, and I knew that what Dr. Sturn had said about it was absolutely true as far as it went: The brain cannot endure a total lack of inputs for very long. He didn’t realize, however, that the senses are not the only source of input to the brain. When you are deprived of sensory inputs, your mind concentrates that much more on the extrasensory ones. It isn’t harmful if you know how to deal with them. A Youngling who hasn’t the use of any psychic skills would be in a bad spot—would panic and, in comparatively few hours, come completely unglued mentally. But for me, it need not be so.

  Except for one small detail. There was no one near enough to communicate with.

  I could “speak” telepathically to Younglings, but they would not respond; without knowing that I was addressing them, they wouldn’t be able to interpret my thoughts. There was no one close by with whom I had previously established rapport, not even the ambivalent emotional rapport that existed between myself and the Commander. There wasn’t anyone at all, for that matter, whom I could contact without disclosure.

  I had one other resource to draw on: clairvoyance. I wasn’t good at it. I’d had scarcely any practice. Yet under these circumstances, if it was the only way to preserve my sanity, perhaps I might “see” clairvoyantly, provided I stayed free of panic. After all, my emotions were going to become pretty extreme, and strong emotion always enhances psychic power…

  Enhances it! All at once I was struck by an exciting implication: There was a chance that this ordeal would work to my advantage. Things turn out in strange ways sometimes. It was possible that Commander Feric, in his zeal to break me, had engineered the triumph of my scheme.

  Could sensory deprivation enhance my telepathic powers to the extent of enabling me to contact Randil?

  Randil was somewhere in the city. Normally, we would have to be in the same vicinity to communicate, though not necessarily in the same building. Under emotional stress we could make contact over a greater distance; but I had tried to do so, on that first agonized day when I had denounced him and many times since from my prison cell. He had been beyond range. Yet the inner desperation I had felt then, although great, had been nothing compared to what I would be feeling in a few hours. Moreover, for the first time in my life, my mind would be wholly free of outside distractions. Those two factors combined might make my thought intense enough to reach Randil, and the total absence of other input would undoubtedly increase my sensitivity to his response. Surely, it would be justifiable to gamble on that.

  It would mean taking a calculated risk, a terrifying risk. I would have to avoid any attempt to “see,” letting myself experience what Dr. Sturn intended me to experience, until I was perilously close to the breaking point; for only under the spur of uttermost necessity would my powers be sufficiently magnified. If I then failed to get a response from Randil, it might be too late to fall back on my undeveloped clairvoyance. The line between insurmountable terror and panic is very thin, and once I crossed it, I would be helpless. It would end as the doctor had described, and the result would be not only the failure of my stalling action, but disclosure.
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  Disclosure would destroy the Torisians. Yet the ship would destroy them sooner, and the only person who could do anything about the ship was Randil. Unhesitatingly, I committed myself to the risk.

  *

  I can’t say how many hours I was in the tank, and I find the sensations of those hours difficult to put into words. At first, as Dr. Sturn had predicted, it did not seem so terrible; and for me, that stage lasted longer than it would have for a Youngling because of my training in relaxation and self-control. There were some pleasurable feelings: Mere movement of my fingers, for instance, took on significance it had never had before; it was positively delightful.

  The time came, however, when I was sick and tired of absolute blackness, aloneness, nothingness; I would have given anything I had ever possessed for one sound, one touch, to assure me that I was still attached to the world. It was like being off in the middle of space, between galaxies, outside my ship and with no suns or planets anywhere around. Then the terror began to come. It wasn’t like terror I had experienced in the past, terror connected with some outer threat that could be dealt with or endured. Rather, it was pure terror arising from the depths of my mind: a warning that my brain’s needs were not being met.

  But it was not uncontrollable terror. I still had free will, and though it was hard not to turn to clairvoyance—harder still not to make a premature and perhaps abortive attempt to reach Randil—I stuck by my decision. I knew that there was another stage to be gone through.

  The mind protects itself. If its usual inputs aren’t forthcoming, it finds a substitute. In my case, I wasn’t unduly upset by the process because of my prior instruction in confronting different levels of consciousness; when I began to have altered perceptions of my body and to see vivid brilliantly colored images, I knew them for what they were and was not disturbed by them. Also because of the instruction, I slipped easily into a deeper psychedelic experience without the intervening period of panic most Younglings would have faced, and I retained full awareness of what was happening to me. But with that awareness I felt rational, well-justified fear.

  An artificially induced and unguided psychedelic experience is, of course, extremely dangerous. It was less dangerous for me than for an untrained person because I had been taught how to snap out of it; but my instruction had been based on the supposition that there would be a real world there to make contact with. In the sensory deprivation tank no such contact was possible. I could not snap out of it. Without external aid, I could only sink further until my own will was dissolved and I succumbed to the sheer panic that would make me subject to the will of my captors, for I was neither mature enough nor strong enough to maintain the integrity of my personality in complete isolation from the outside world. I had known this turning point would come; it had been part of the risk I had accepted. But when I felt it upon me, the terror took hold, and it was worse than anything I had imagined. I was lost in that black, empty void. I was disintegrating…

  I could save myself only by contacting Randil; the time had arrived, and there wasn’t a second to lose. I poured all the intensity of the terror into one despairing appeal: Randil, help me! Help me!

  I received no response. My personal identity was melting, but I knew that I was not dying in the physical sense. It would have been better if I had been, for only that could prevent disclosure; but it does not work that way. You cannot will yourself to die even when your will is strong, much less when it is being dispelled. Please, Randil, I implored. Oh, please help me!

  Elana? Elana, are you in trouble? I was asleep—

  That one message from outside, the first I had received in what my distorted time-sense perceived as weeks or years rather than hours, pulled me back from the abyss. Oh, Randil, keep sending, I begged. Don’t leave me!

  I won’t, he agreed quickly, knowing from my emotions that I was closer to panic than any agent ought to be. But where are you? How did you find me?

  I don’t know where I am, or where you are either. We’re quite far apart, I think. Swiftly I told him what I was being subjected to, more concerned with his next response than with explaining matters.

  He realized at once that I was dependent on our link and did not waste time on questions. Don’t worry, I’ll stick with you, he promised. Look, Elana, can you “record?”

  I think so, as long as I’m receiving.

  All right. I’m going to give you Varned’s report. I’ll never get it back to the starship, but you might, and it shouldn’t be lost.

  It was ideal therapy; Varned’s report, supplemented by Randil’s own collection of information, constituted enough data to give my brain all the input it could absorb. By the time I had “recorded” it, I had regained my grip on myself and was ready to get on with the vital communication for which I had risked so much.

  What I don’t understand, Randil declared, is how you got into such a fix. In the first place, why are they trying to brainwash you, and in the second place, why couldn’t you save yourself through clairvoyance?

  To answer the second question first, I didn’t try. I needed to reach you, Randil, and I knew I’d have to be at the end of my rope to do it. I went on, then, to tell him the whole story.

  And a thing happened that had never, never occurred to me through all the days of steadfast stalling. He didn’t believe me! He flatly refused to believe that the dictatorship would use our landing craft to deliver nuclear bombs.

  From the start, my hopes had been pinned on holding out long enough to somehow get word to Randil. It had never entered my mind that he wouldn’t take steps to get rid of the ship once he was fully informed. Even if he disagreed with me about the disastrous long-range consequences of its being in Torisian hands, I had thought that he could scarcely fail to see that he must at all costs forestall the immediate war of annihilation that his intervention was about to set off.

  Yet he maintained, Even if you were right about their plans, it’s too late. I couldn’t send the landing craft back into orbit if I wanted to; they’ve got it hidden underground now.

  I guessed they would. That’s why it’s got to be destroyed.

  Stubbornly, Randil protested, I’m sure you’ve done what you thought right, Elana, but there are thirty or forty people near the ship. More, probably, since they’ve got the underground installation finished; every top scientist in the country is in there. It would be murder!

  Do you suppose I didn’t consider that? I demanded. I thought back over the past days: the anguished hours by the river; the desperate, repeated attempts to perform the psychokinetic detonation, a task that demanded not the mere pressure of a finger on a trigger, but the willing of it with my whole mind; the endless interrogations, with Commander Feric’s insidious voice telling me over and over again that if I could only come to believe in the enormity of my crime, I would find peace… Who are you, Randil, to tell me what it would be? I raged. Do you suppose it would have hurt less for me? Do you think I tried to kill forty people because I wanted to?

  I don’t know what to think, he admitted. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t kill anybody for any reason; I don’t see how any agent could.

  Yet you could stand by and let less scrupulous men kill millions. You’re putting an awfully high price on your own purity, Randil.

  Two wrongs don’t cancel each other out.

  No, but there’s a matter of degree to take into account! That’s how it’s been on every world, from primitive tribes right on up: People have had to commit certain wrongs to prevent bigger ones. Otherwise the bigger ones would have won out every time.

  His response was delayed so long that I began to fear that our mental tie had been broken. Then I felt sudden pressure on the lines attached to my unbearably sensitized arms and legs, and I knew that they were raising me from the tank. Randil! I cried in renewed fear.

  I don’t know how to answer you, he told me. The only thing I’m sure of is that nobody, not even the Neo-Statist rulers, could wipe out whole cities in cold blood. The Torisian peop
le want peace! If war comes, it’ll be by accident, simply because both sides distrust each other.

  That’s naïve! Randil, I order you— It was no use. I emerged from the tank, the contact irretrievably lost, to face a barrage of sensory impressions that was almost more than I could cope with. My goggles and earplugs were removed, and the pain of seeing and hearing again was excruciating until I was given dark glasses and earmuffs that reduced the stimuli of normal sight and sound to a level I could accept. Technicians helped me to a chair in which I collapsed, burying my face in my arms on the table before me. I could hear Dr. Sturn saying, “Frankly, I don’t understand this. She was in the tank twice as long as anyone else has been, yet she displayed none of the physiological signs of panic. She came close once, some time ago, but she’s been stable so long now that I removed her for fear she’d lapse into a coma.”

  Commander Feric’s voice replied harshly, “You will regret it, Sturn, if you’ve damaged her memory.”

  I raised my head. “Don’t worry, it’s intact,” I said, my own voice sounding unbelievably loud to me. “Not that it’ll do you any good.”

  Their shock, magnified by my still-heightened telepathic sensitivity, flooded my mind; they had supposed me unable to say anything except in response to direct questioning. Finally, the Commander, with his eye on Dr. Sturn, declared with bitter sarcasm, “I trust you will forgive me, Elana, for any inconvenience you may have suffered in the hands of this bungler.”

  “I forgive you,” I told him sincerely. “As a matter of fact, you couldn’t have done me a greater favor if you’d tried.”

  So here I am back in my old cell, and I have no choice but to go on with the game, hopeless though it now seems. Perhaps Randil will meet someone like Commander Feric. Perhaps something will force open his eyes to what the men in power here are capable of. A mind-bending technique like sensory deprivation, for instance; I got through, but to know that Younglings inflict such a thing on each other—well, it makes you sick. And yet … I think that if these people keep on with it, someday they will try it on the wrong person, or rather, the right one: the one who will learn what we of the Federation know from experience about the enhancement of psychic powers. And that will be a real breakthrough for the Torisians. Would it be worth the suffering of all the other victims? Of course not, when there are better ways of achieving the same end. But it does show that good can come from evil.