The Far Side of Evil

by Sylvia Engdahl

  Kari’s face showed me that this advice had struck home, and indeed I picked up her doubt through telepathy; though her lips didn’t move, she was crying desperately, Oh, Elana, it can’t be the way he says … can it?

  I couldn’t answer her, for she wouldn’t have recognized it as communication; the best I could hope for was that she would sense enough of my emotion to trust me. Aloud I said, “I don’t expect you to understand, Kari. All I can tell you is that what we’re mixed up in involves a lot of people besides you and me, so we’ve no choice but to be brave.”

  “A noble appeal,” the interrogator said dryly, “but while you are being brave, Kari, remember that one word from her will stop this.” He took the control dial into his hand and moved the switch.

  Actually, what he gave Kari at that point was not very bad. I know; I felt her sensations telepathically. That sometimes happens when a person you know well and care about is in pain. The pain we experienced was only a mild foretaste of what I knew would come later; in fact Kari had probably had worse in the dentist’s chair more than once. But her terror magnified it, and she had absolutely no knowledge of how to cope. So it was pretty awful for both of us.

  She was screaming to me silently, and I was trying to shut out her agony by repeating the words of the Oath over and over in my mind: Above all other considerations … above all other considerations… And then suddenly I realized that my approach was all wrong. I should be helping her! I couldn’t do it by giving in to them, not when that would mean plunging her whole planet into nuclear war. But I could help her to bear the pain; I could use my telepathic powers for that, surely, and somehow I must. Whatever courage I could muster, I must share.

  Commander Feric released the switch and said to me coldly, “Enough, Elana?”

  Ignoring him, I knelt on the floor beside Kari’s chair and looked straight into her eyes, putting all the telepathic force I could gather behind my spoken words. The first step was to prove to her that defense was possible. “Kari, take my hand,” I said. “Hold it tight, like this.” I gripped her cold fingers firmly. “Now we will both feel it,” I told her. “It’s electrical, you see, and the current will pass from your body to mine.”

  She stared, awestruck. “Is that true?” she asked the interrogator. “Will she feel what I feel if we hold hands?”

  He frowned. He must have had mixed feelings; though he knew pain didn’t faze me, it would obviously be to his advantage for me to be made acutely aware of what was being done to Kari, and yet my voluntary acceptance of that awareness was not a hopeful sign. “Yes,” he said slowly, “it’s true. Possibly she is trying to assuage her feeling of guilt in that manner. I should warn you, though, that it is a dishonest attempt. She is insensitive to pain, inhumanly so; she will not suffer as you suffer.”

  “That’s right, Kari,” I admitted. “It won’t be as bad for me because I’ve learned not to panic. But physically I’ll experience just what you do, and neither of us will be harmed by it.”

  Could the telepathy work the other way? I wondered. Could I give the skill instead of receiving the anguish? Theoretically, yes, for that’s the way it’s taught at the Academy; you get telepathic assistance while you’re learning. But you must be calm and resolute, and you must know what to expect. Kari was in no condition to be receptive. When the pain began again, I tried desperately to pass along my power over it, but I just couldn’t reach her.

  It did not go on long. Commander Feric wasn’t trying to break Kari; his aim was simply to terrify her, in the hope that once we were alone together she would prevail upon me to yield. “Tomorrow,” he promised grimly, “we will go further. We will go as far as we need to go. And let me remind you, Elana,” he added as a parting shot, “that since this girl is known to be innocent, there is no advantage to us in filing formal charges that would lead to a public trial.” Fortunately, Kari was too naïve to understand the implication.

  But I understand. And I cannot bear it! For the first time, I’m up against something I don’t think I can bear. There’s no doubt as to the right course; not only under the Oath, but any way I view the situation, Kari’s life is no more worth the price than my own. But suppose I lose control of myself? Suppose I crack up? I will, I’m afraid, if he goes far enough—and he knows it. He has known it all along.

  The Commander’s remark about hardened professional agents makes sense to me now. I’ve been trained to meet horrors, but it’s true that I’m not “hardened” in the way that he meant; the Service chooses people not for insensitivity but for empathy and compassion. If that is weakness, as he claims, then I prefer it to strength. Yet when a whole world’s future may depend on a strength you don’t have…

  It would be different if Kari herself were strong. If it were a fellow agent, for instance—even someone I loved—I could endure whatever might happen. Because that would put it on a very different basis. A fellow agent could handle the pain, and besides, an agent would be willing. It’s not innocence that matters, but consent. After all, innocent people often have to suffer in order to save things; that is the way of every world.

  Yet the capacity for consent is in everyone—Kari, too! She is braver than she knows. If I simply said to her, “Look, Kari, it’s either this or nuclear war tomorrow,” what would she say? Wouldn’t she be willing? Wouldn’t anyone? Countless Younglings have been, over issues far less clear-cut.

  Kari would be willing, at least she would want to be. But she wouldn’t be capable of it. She couldn’t maintain her courage when the going got really rough; she just hasn’t the resources. That’s what I can’t bear: the fact that she is defenseless, like a little child. Yet she is not a child, and the potential is there, not only for consent but for the psychic powers too, as it is in other Younglings. That potential can be awakened sometimes! Only under very special conditions, to be sure, but still…

  It is possible to create those conditions. Oh, if I were wise enough and skilled enough, I might know how. Father, Meleny, any of the senior people would be able to reach Kari, reach her and enable her to release the latent powers of her mind. Could I possibly do it? Should I try? I tried this afternoon and failed, but I didn’t go at it in the right way. It takes preparation. It can’t be done directly; there has to be a subterfuge of some kind, a foundation. I’ve studied the theory. I’ve even had some experience: On Andrecia we taught a Youngling to use psychokinesis, and the principles are just the same.

  She is asleep now. They gave her a sedative, for they do not want to wear her down too soon. I haven’t been able to tell her anything because of the cell’s being bugged; I explained that quite openly, for Commander Feric is already aware that I know the surveillance camera is in here. I’m sure he’s smart enough to realize that I won’t confess to her. All the same, we will be carefully monitored tonight in the hope that I may let slip some small detail that could be of use to them, so I shall be severely limited in what I can say aloud. We have few hours left till morning, and I’ve as yet no idea of a workable scheme.

  Yet somehow, some way, I must protect Kari; I must get through to her and teach her what she needs to know. That is the only solution there can be.

  *

  The hours have passed, and I have resorted to a rather deceitful stratagem. I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing, but at least I’ve made an attempt—the only possible attempt—to fortify Kari. We have a while longer to wait before we’re sent for, and I am going to “record” what I did, because if it doesn’t work out I may not be in any shape to think about it later.

  Last night I racked my brains for an endless time before coming to any conclusion. I was determined to activate Kari’s latent defenses, but how? Why not hypnotize her? I thought suddenly. It would be easy for me to put her into a trance so deep that she would not feel any pain at all. Easy—but dangerous, too dangerous. I don’t have enough skill; it takes a real expert, like Meleny, to do it so that things that ought not to be upset aren’t tampered with. I might never get Kari
all the way out of it, particularly if they separated us later. Besides, my sort of a job would be detectable. They would simply call Dr. Sturn, and he would bring her out of it fast.

  No, Kari must learn to use her defenses consciously. Yet how could she? It had taken me days to learn! And they hadn’t been easy days; you have to accept that, and trust you’ll get through the rough part, which you’re able to do only because you know that everybody else has gotten through. Younglings haven’t any basis for that kind of trust. They can’t ever learn psychic skills by the same methods we use; the initial failures shake their faith too much.

  But there is a shortcut. It doesn’t give full mastery, but once in a while it can enable a Youngling to use such powers in some particular circumstance such as arose on Andrecia. The key to it there was that our protégé was never allowed to fail—or even to suspect that he might fail—because he was given something external to trust in.

  There are three prerequisites. The first, strong emotion, Kari would have no trouble with; she was thoroughly terrified. The second, telepathic help, I could provide. It was the third and most essential, absolute belief, that would be the difficulty. Kari did not believe in anything—not in herself, not in the fallibility of force, and certainly not in “supernatural” powers. And what you don’t believe in, you just can’t do.

  On Andrecia it was simple. The culture was a comparatively primitive one, and the people believed in magic. We gave a man a magic talisman, telling him that it would give him psychokinetic powers, and it did. It did, even though it was not really “magic” at all.

  But Kari would not believe in a magic talisman. People from materialistic cultures like the one of Toris scoff at anything that doesn’t fit their concept of “science.”

  It was just plain hopeless, then—or was it? Excitedly, I realized that I had stumbled upon the germ of an answer. Materialism is a narrow view, but the belief in magic is pretty narrow, too; it’s not the narrowness that counts when you work through a subterfuge. You must provide something external through which the Youngling thinks his or her power will come. When calling it “magic” won’t do, you call it something else. Something that fits what that Youngling does believe. It was not true that Kari didn’t believe in anything. Everybody believes in something, even if it’s only something concrete.

  Kari, like all Torisians, had unshakable faith in the materialistic brand of science that dominated her world. So what would she expect could alter her mental processes? Why, science. Drugs! When she had a headache she reached for her bottle of tablets, and when she was nervous she took a tranquilizer. There were three different kinds of tranquilizers in her drawer of our bedside table back at the apartment. Whenever Kari had to study for an exam, she used pep pills, which I had been unable to persuade her to abandon. After all, I had just barely kept her from trying that psychedelic drug we were offered, and then not on principle but only on the grounds of specific perils.

  Of course I didn’t have any drugs that would miraculously release Kari’s psychic defenses; I didn’t have any drugs at all. But I hadn’t had a real magic talisman on Andrecia, either. I had used a quite ordinary thing that had looked like a talisman, and in this case a similar ruse could be employed.

  There remained one major hurdle: the spy camera and the inevitable hidden microphone. I would have to talk to Kari, at least till I could teach her to recognize telepathic communication, and I would have to do some things that would look highly suspicious if monitored. The camera and microphone would have to be disabled. Since they were out of reach, there was only one way of accomplishing that—psychokinesis. I hadn’t considered it before because it wouldn’t solve anything for long; the guards would send someone to fix them. But if I could manage it, it might give me the few minutes I would need.

  The psychokinesis itself would be easy. I had the required emotional impetus, certainly, and to disconnect a couple of wires would be very elementary. The hard part was knowing which wires, where. The camera was in the ventilator; there just wasn’t any other place it could be, since the walls and ceiling were otherwise smooth and solid. The microphone was probably with it, although conceivably a microphone could be within a wall. The thing was, I had never seen them, and what you can’t picture exactly you can’t touch mentally. So before I could do anything, I had to see them clairvoyantly.

  Clairvoyance has never been my strong point. Psychic abilities, like abilities of any other kind, vary from person to person, and nobody is talented in everything. If I had been blinded, I would have become more clairvoyant, eventually. Or if, in the sensory deprivation tank, I had concentrated on a need to “see” rather than to communicate, I might have developed the skill there. Though the urgency of my current need would be a similar stimulus, I knew that my only chance to master that skill quickly was to give myself completely over to it. I must shut all worry, all speculation out of my mind and concentrate on the task at hand, and I must shut out all sensory inputs, too. Kari, fortunately, was still sleeping; resolutely I lay down on my bunk, closed my eyes, and, ignoring the unrelenting glare of the light bulb, I tried to imagine myself back in the tank.

  Passage of time is hard to judge in this cell, for the bulb never flickers, no light seeps through the opaque shutters that have been installed over the window, and I am fed at irregular intervals; still, I’ve developed an uncanny sense of duration, somehow. So I believe that it took about an hour of preparation. I knew better than to try too soon and shake myself with failure; I waited until I had succeeded in emptying my mind of absolutely everything but a vague murk of nothingness, a murk that made me ache for something, anything, to break the monotony. I let myself feel the terrifying vacuity I had experienced in the tank. Then, determinedly, I reached out mentally toward the ventilator and “looked” behind it.

  The camera was there, all right, and so was the microphone. There were wires leading to them—I could “see” them, though I can’t say what color they were—and psychokinetically I jerked them free. Then I tried scanning behind the walls of the cell in case there should be a second microphone; but although I detected nothing, I could not be entirely sure. If I had missed anything, we would be in hot water, but the risk had to be taken. I had no choice but to speak with caution and hope for the best.

  *

  I judged it to be near morning by that time, and I went quickly to Kari’s bunk and sat on the edge of it, knowing that whatever my doubts, however shaky I felt inside, I must push all uncertainty from me. I must be totally confident, totally sure of myself, and unswervingly courageous; for I could not communicate those things unless I felt them. Mustering all my strength of will, I put my hand on Kari’s shoulder and gently shook her awake.

  “We can talk now,” I said quietly. “The camera is disabled for the time being, and so is the microphone; at least the one I know about is. There might be another, so we’re taking a chance, and I can’t say anything that could be important to the SSP.”

  She sat up, her eyes wide with fright and bewilderment. “But how?” she asked dazedly. “How could you disable the camera?”

  “Never mind! They’ll probably come to fix it before long, so we’ve got to hurry.” I grasped her hands, warming them between my own. “We’re in serious trouble, Kari, but there’s a way out if we trust each other.”

  Kari’s voice was low but solemn. “I trust you, Elana,” she said slowly. “I’m not sure how, but when you took my hand, in there, I—well, I just knew … I knew you wanted to help me.”

  Thank goodness, I thought. At least the telepathy would be easy to establish.

  “So then of course I knew the things he was saying about you must be lies,” Kari continued.

  This was the first crucial point, and I knew that the success or failure of my plan would rest on my handling of it. Meeting Kari’s gaze, I said honestly, “They weren’t lies, Kari. Everything he said was true, though naturally he did not tell you the whole story.”

  “You did those things? Spying?
Sabotage? And you—you could have confessed, and they’d have let me go?”

  “They want more from me than a confession,” I explained. “They want information, information that I can’t give them because if I did they’d win. Win forever, I mean, all over the world. They’d start the war tomorrow, and they’d use the Bomb, and in the end there wouldn’t be much world left.”

  She didn’t doubt me; unbelievable as it must have sounded, from my telepathic reinforcement she recognized it as the truth. “You really are a Libertarian agent, aren’t you?” she said, awed.

  “No, though they think I am.”

  “Then who are you? You’re not like other people, I’ve always felt you weren’t! He was right about that. Was he right about the amnesia, too? Was it only a—a cover?”

  “I did lose my memory, Kari,” I said gently, “but I got it back, and I wasn’t free to tell you. Why I wasn’t, and where I came from, doesn’t matter; I simply don’t want the dictator to start a nuclear war.”

  “Neither do I,” she whispered. “Anyway, you know how much I hate his government. But oh, Elana—”

  I hesitated. It was only fair to warn her. “I do know, and we’ve got to discuss it,” I told her, “but you must realize the chance we’re taking if there should be another microphone, because you see, the authorities don’t suspect that you oppose them. They think you’re a loyal citizen of their regime.”

  “But why did they ever arrest me, then?” she demanded.

  “For exactly the reason the interrogator gave you,” I admitted grimly.

  “Just so they could torture me, and make you watch?”

  “Yes. The information I’ve got is vital to them, and they’re pretty desperate. They’ve done all kinds of things to me, but they weren’t getting anywhere.”

  With a kind of reverence she asked incredulously, “Are you really insensitive to pain, Elana?”