Traitor to the Living

by Philip José Farmer

  The semb could not actually speak, of course. Speech required vocal cords, and the semb was, as far as anyone knew, a pure energy configuration. But it could move the electrical analog of its lips and its tongue and its vocal cords and its lungs, and the analog of its cerebral-neural system and muscles functioned electronically as it had in life.

  The voice that came out of the speaker was not exactly Rufton Carfax's. It resembled it but had a stiffness and metallic quality which made it sound like a robot trying to imitate a human voice.

  Patricia had brought along a small recorder and played a tape of her father's voice for Carfax. Carfax had listened to it many tunes, and now he recognized the voice as that of his uncle's, despite its robotic quality.

  "I ... feel you again," it--he?--said. "Don't leave me again. Please! Don't leave me!"

  "We'll be with you for some time, uncle," Western said. "This is your nephew Raymond this time, uncle.

  And the next voice you'll hear will be your other nephew. Gordon Carfax. He has some questions, uncle.

  I hope you'll be cooperative."

  Had Western's voice sheathed a threat? Or was he being overly suspicious and so had supplied the hint of threat himself? What could Western possibly threaten his uncle with? Withdrawal of communication?

  It struck him that Western had used his new name.

  This might or might not mean anything, since it was possible that his uncle had known about his name change before he died. And perhaps Western, during previous contacts, had told him about it. Carfax filed away this item with the intention of asking Western about it later.

  Western whispered, "Go ahead."

  Carfax's throat closed up. He was actually about to talk to a dead man. What do you say to a dead man? But, according to his own theory, this was not a dead human. Reminding himself of that did not help him. Whether a dead human or an other-universe sentient, this thing frightened him.

  After being nudged by Western, Carfax said, "Hello, uncle."

  "Hello, Hal," the semimechanical voice said.

  "It's Gordon now, uncle," Carfax said, his throat beginning to open up.

  "Oh, yes, Gordon, that's right. Raymond just reminded me of that again, didn't he?"

  Carfax wished his numbness would thaw. He was not thinking as quickly and as clearly as he should.

  "I have some questions, uncle," he said.

  "They all do," the voice said.

  Carfax blinked his eyes and shook his head. Was his brain deceiving him, or was the globe expanding and contracting, as if it were a photonic lung working to expel ectoplasmic air for a ghostly voice? (But the human mind had to cast everything into an anthropomorphic mold.)

  "How are you, uncle?" Carfax said. (As if he were meeting him on the street!)

  "It would take me a long time to tell you exactly how things are here, my boy. When I say time, I don't mean time as you know it. But I don't have the language to tell you what time is here. I'd take time, all of my time, Gordon, if you had the time. But you don't. Raymond tells me that time is money, as far as MEDIUM is concerned, anyway.

  "It's lonely here, boy, though I don't lack company. But it's not company that I chose. And it's weird here. They tell me that after a while the strangeness wears off, and then the world we left becomes the strange world. But I don't believe them."

  "I'm sorry if you're unhappy, uncle," Carfax said. "But your universe does have some advantages, and where there's life there's hope."

  He stopped. A second later, a flat metallic hooting laughter came from the speaker. It finally stopped, though Carfax had been afraid that it would go on and on.

  "Speak up, nephew," the voice said.

  "Yes, uncle. First, did you invent a machine to communicate with, uh, the dead?"

  There was a long silence. Then the voice said, loudly, "I? Of course not! My nephew, Raymond Western, invented it! He's a genius! The greatest man who ever lived! We had no hope before, but we do now be... "

  Carfax waited a few seconds and then said, "Because of what, uncle?"

  "Because we were cut off forever, we thought, from the world we left behind, what else, you simpleton?

  You don't seem to understand that we're as wildly excited about MEDIUM as you are!"

  Carfax did not believe that that was what his uncle had meant to say, but he had no way of proving it. And he had to be tactful with his questions, because his uncle could not be forced to talk if he did not wish to do so. His uncle? He must remember that this thing could be of nonterrestrial origin.

  His next question caused Western to straighten from his slump. Carfax saw him out of the corner of his eye, and he wished that he could watch both him and the screen at the same time.

  "Tell me, uncle, can you, uh, people, ever get through to this world via human mediums? Or are human mediums all fakes?"

  There was another silence. Western slumped back into his chair, though his fingers drummed on the console. Carfax looked at his wristwatch. If Patricia had phoned, she wasn't being routed through to Western.

  A hand coming into the area of his side vision made him jump. But it was only that of a man who had entered with a note for Western. He unfolded it, read it, frowned, put it back in his pocket, and stood up.

  "I'll be back in a few minutes," he whispered. "Harmons will take care of you."

  Carfax hoped that it was Patricia's call which had taken him away. Harmons would be listening, and the interview was being taped so that Western could run anything he'd missed. But it might be too late for him to do anything about it.

  "Your nephew, Western, is gone now," Carfax said.

  "You can speak freely."

  Harmons sat down in the chair Western had vacated. He did not look at Carfax or even seem aware of what Carfax was saying. But Western may have told him to say nothing.

  "What?" the voice said. "What do you mean? Why shouldn't I speak freely when he's around?"

  "Your daughter ..."

  "My daughter! Why hasn't she talked to me? Just because I'm dead and can't do her any good..."

  "She's afraid to come here. She's afraid of Western. Listen, if you were murdered..."

  "Didn't Raymond tell you that I don't know how I died?" he said. "I went to sleep, and awoke, if you can call this awakening, here. I was in shock..."

  "Yes, Western told me that over the phone. But if you didn't invent MEDIUM, what were you working on that ate up so much power that you had to borrow money from Western?"

  Carfax shook his head again. The globe seemed to be expanding and contracting at a faster rate.

  "Ask Western," the voice said. "I've told him the complete details. Don't waste time with such questions."

  "I will ask him," Carfax said. "But did you tell him why you kept your work from your daughter, why she couldn't be told?"

  "All right. If I'd told her I was building a device to detect and interpret messages from outer space, she would have thought I was crazy. But I thought that I'd found a certain pattern in interstellar noise, and if I was right ... but I wanted to keep it secret until I knew for sure that I wasn't on a false trail."

  "Why would a receiver take so much power?" Carfax said. "I could understand it if it was a transmitter." Carfax tried to think of his original question. He had asked his uncle, or the thing, whatever it was, something about. .. something about...

  The globe had become much larger; the brightness was suddenly around him.

  He reared up off the chair, crying out and trying to push against the light. He turned and ran, stumbling, half-blinded by the brilliance, to the door. It opened automatically for him, and he was out in the hall. The brightness around him faded and then was gone.

  He was sitting slumped against the wall, breathing as hard as if he had run for several blocks at top speed. His heart was thumping, and his chest hurt. He was cold except around his crotch and his thighs. Later, he would realize that he had wet himself.

  Western had appeared from nowhere and was leaning over him. He looked
very strange.

  "What happened?" he said.

  Carfax felt very alone, weak, and helpless. He was in a building from which he could leave only by Western's permission.

  7.

  Carfax got onto his feet and leaned against the wall.

  It felt reassuring at first. But ghosts could come through solid walls, or walls thought to be solid. Actually, there was no such thing as a solid object if you thought of it in terms of molecules and atoms. The spaces among the microcosmos of atoms were vast, and many things could slip through them.

  He moved away from the wall, as if glowing tentacles would reach through the interstices of invisible worlds and snatch him back through them.

  "I thought that thing--uncle Rufton--had leaped out of the screen and was about to wrap itself around me."

  Western did not laugh. He said, "Let's get some coffee."

  They walked down the dull white corridor and went around a corner and into a small room. This had bright murals of sea life, derived from some Cretan murals, no doubt, what with its blue octopi and orange dolphins. The rug displayed black bulls dashing at naked brown-red boys and girls who were leaping every which way from the bulls' paths or grabbing the homs preparatory to a forward flip onto the beasts' backs. In one corner a huge silvery um perked.

  Western went to it and picked up a large ceramic mug.

  "Cream or sugar?" Western said.

  "I don't want any coffee, thank you."

  Western added two cubes, of sugar and a generous amount of cream to his coffee and stirred it vigorously. Western blew on the coffee to cool it, took several sips, and then said, "You can see now why we require our clients to sign papers freeing us of all liability. And why we also required that the records of a physical examination by an M.D. be sent us before we process applications."

  "What about all those old people who've hired MEDIUM?" Carfax said. "Surely? . .."

  "None of them showed indications of advanced heart trouble or of mental disturbances."

  "The old woman who wants to speak to her dog?"

  "She won't be accepted."

  "What about my experience?"

  Western raised his thick eyebrows and said, "I was coming to that. You're not the first to see that globe of light rush at you. But it's a visual hallucination. I can assure you of that. There is no possible way for a semb to escape the bonds of its colony or to get through the barrier between this universe and its own universe. I don't know what causes this phenomenon. I don't even have a theory, though I'm sure the effects are purely psychological."

  "Are there any other such phenomena?" Carfax said.

  "Yes. Sometimes a client has just the opposite of your experience. He feels that he's being pulled into the screen."

  "Why haven't I read about this?" Carfax said. "I've read everything about MEDIUM I could get hold of."

  "It's not that we're hiding anything sinister. Nor do we require that our clients keep quiet about such things. We're not publishing anything about it, as yet.

  We're afraid that such information might suggest to people that they'll experience these phenomena, and so they will. We do plan on publishing sometime in the future. But only after we have a fairly reasonable theory to account for them. That way, we can reassure people before they sit down at MEDIUM. You must not forget that MEDIUM is new, that only about six hundred people have used it so far. There are many things that we could publish, but we prefer to evaluate these before publication."

  Carfax did not find the explanation satisfactory, but he had no definite rebuttals.

  "You keep saying we," he said. "I thought that you were the one who made the decisions here."

  Western smiled and said, "I am head of the team, yes. And I do own MEDIUM and expect to own it for some time to come. I am keeping its principles and theory of operation a close secret, you know. I haven't even applied for a patent, because I don't want anyone stealing its schematics from the patent office. Believe me, it would be done. This is, as you are no doubt tired of hearing, the greatest thing since creation."

  "Which is why you won't be able to keep it to yourself,"

  Carfax said.

  "We'll see."

  "I think I'll go now," Carfax said.

  Western put the cup down and said, "Of course. I'd like to talk to you later about this when I have more time. And when you've recovered enough to think about it with the calmness of retrospect. Perhaps you could tell me by tomorrow, though, whether or not you'll be taking up my offer of a second free session."

  Carfax felt his skin warming up. Western was hinting that he was afraid. Which, he had to admit to himself, he was. But he certainly was not going to pass up another chance.

  "I can tell you now," he said. I'm looking forward to another session. And next time, I won't bolt. At least, I don't think I will."

  "Very well," Western said. He seemed to be looking oddly at Carfax, but Carfax told himself that this might be a reflection of his own disturbed state.

  "Do you want to make contact with uncle Rufton again?"

  Carfax swallowed and then said, "No. I'd like to speak to Frances."

  "Your wife."

  "The thing that is pretending to be my wife," Carfax said.

  Western grinned. He said, "You still cling to your theory that sembs are nonhuman, alien entities. Well, why not? You really haven't seen anything to prove otherwise."

  "That's a very fair-minded statement," Carfax said.

  "I try to be logical about this. Objectivity isn't easy, since I'm so close to this. But I realize what a scientific proof demands and how little I can really offer. I have demonstrated that a phenomenon does exist, that there is another universe and that sentient entities exist in that universe. There can be no doubt about that; there's no fakery about MEDIUM.

  "But, on the other hand, are these entities really the souls, or whatever you wish to call them, really sembs, as I call them? If they're not, how do they succeed in knowing so much about the people they claim to be?

  Why are those who claim to be English-speakers able to speak English with the true accent? Could alien sentients reproduce not only the general English accent but the personal? Everyone contacted by someone who knew the dead when he lived has recognized the voice as being genuine. You heard uncle Rufton. There are certain distortions because of our still-primitive electronic means. But you recognized our uncle's voice, didn't you? I certainly did."

  "The greater weight of the evidence is on your side," Carfax said. "I'll have to admit that. But it's possible that these sembs, as you call them, have means of learning about human beings and of feeding back information about them--of posing as them. How, I don't know. But you can't deny that that's a possibility."

  "No, but I do maintain that it's a very unlikely possibility. And why would they be posing as the spirits of the dead? What could they get out of it? They can't possibly do anything to us!"

  Carfax felt irritated, but he recognized its source. Western was being too reasonable, and he was too likable. He certainly did not seem to be the person described by Patricia. He could, of course, be an excellent actor. There was no doubt that he was extremely tactful and that he knew how to go about making friends.

  Or, at least, how to act friendly. Carfax wanted to believe that he was lying; he wanted to believe Patricia's story. He was finding it difficult to do so. And this ended in his feeling that he was betraying Patricia and himself.

  Western escorted him back to the main office and delivered him into the hands of Mrs. Morris. Carfax had one question before he left. Would the examination by the religious committee be shown on TV?

  "If the networks agree not to censor any of it,"

  Western said. "I don't want any editing that will give a false impression. You'll notice I didn't say unfavorable. I said false. I just want the truth presented. But there is very powerful resistance to showing this session on TV, you know. You didn't? Oh yes, there are many established religious organizations that have objected to
its being put on TV. This, mind you, even though they don't know what the results will be. Or do they suspect the truth and so fight against it? Well, enough of this. See you Thursday at ten."

  Western turned away but stopped, hesitated, and turned back to Carfax. He was smiling. "Tell Patricia she can come along if she wants to."

  Carfax did not reply. He felt that he was anything but master of the situation. Western had found out that Patricia had flown in on a separate plane from Busiris. In fact, she should be phoning him at his hotel shortly after he got there.

  The trip to the hotel on Wilshire did not allow him to think about what had happened. The TV in the cab was set on a news station.

  "At 15:35 today, Crawford Goolton, of 6748, Westminster Spiral, apartment 6J, was allegedly killed while selling a Do-It-Yourself Spirit Communication Handypak to Anastasia Rodriguez, 99653, Crewles Castle Towers, apartment 89F. The alleged slayer, Maui Aleakala, of 347A-4D, New Paradise Cabanas, is reported to have attacked Goolton with a knife. He is reported to have been in a rage because a Handypak sold to him by Goolton the week before had, allegedly, failed to perform as claimed..."

  How, Carfax wondered, could a person be allegedly killed? Either they were or they weren't. But the news media had to be very careful about how they phrased their reports. The libel and slander suits were clogging the courts now as much as the marijuana cases had a decade ago. The result was that the news media were using some rather peculiarly phrased statements nowadays. In this age, when full nudity was nothing exceptional on daytime TV and sex education films with views of most of the possible positions and group combinations were being shown after 22.00 (when the kiddies were in bed), censorship was steadily cutting down freedom of speech in other areas.

  The people of the United States still had not learned that freedom entails responsibility, and it looked as if they would not learn for a long time. The only ones to teach them would have to be themselves, but no one seemed to know how to get the lessons started.

  You had to make a choice between the abuses of democracy and those of totalitarianism.

  He reminded himself that he had something more immediate to consider. There was nothing he could do to bring about a swift or even a slow change in the world outside. Nothing that made him feel that he was getting results, anyway. But he could--perhaps--deter-mine whether or not Western was right. He could--perhaps--find out whether or not Patricia was right.