A Saucer of Loneliness

by Theodore Sturgeon

  “Yeah,” said Don. “I got to be capable of understandin’ the meaning of reverence, obedience, an’ honor to certain ancient mysteries.”

  “Have you just memorized it, or do you feel you really are capable?”

  “Try me.”

  “Very well.” She moved aside. He came in, shoving a blue knitted cap into his side pocket. He shucked out of the pea-jacket. He was wearing blue slacks and a black sweater with a white shirt and blue tie. He was as different from the scrubbed schoolboy neatness of his previous visit as he was from the ill-fit flashiness of his first one. “How’ve you been?”

  “Well, thank you,” she answered coolly. “Sit down.”

  They sat facing one another. Don was watchful, Miss Phoebe wary. “You’ve … grown,” said Miss Phoebe. It was made not so much as a statement but as an admission.

  “I did a lot,” said Don. “Thought a lot. You’re so right about people in the world that work for—call it yin an’ Yang—an’ know what they’re doin’, why they’re doin’ it. All you got to do is look around you. Read the papers.

  She nodded. “Do you have any difficulty in determining which side these people are on?”

  “No more.”

  “If that’s true,” she said, “it’s wonderful.” She cleared her throat. “You’ve seen that—that girl again.”

  “I couldn’t lie.”

  “Are you willing to admit that beastliness is no substitute for the true meeting of minds?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well!” she said. “This is progress!” She leaned forward suddenly. “Oh, Don, that wasn’t for you. Not you! You are destined for great things, my boy. You have no idea.”

  “I think I have.”

  “And you’re willing to accept my teaching?”

  “Just as much as you’ll teach me.”

  “I’ll make tea,” she said, almost gaily. She rose and as she passed him she squeezed his shoulder. He grinned.

  When she was in the kitchenette he said, “Fellow in my neighborhood just got back from a long stretch for hurting a little girl.”

  “Oh?” she said. “What is his name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Find out,” she said. “They have to be watched.”

  “Why?”

  “Animals,” she said, “wild animals. They have to be caught and caged.”

  He nodded. The gesture was his own, out of her range. He said, “I ate already. Don’t go to no trouble.”

  “Very well. Just some cookies.” She emerged with the tea service. “It’s good to have you back. I’m rather surprised. I’d nearly given you up.”

  He smiled. “Never do that.”

  She poured boiling water from the kettle into the teapot and brought it out. “You’re almost like a different person.”

  “How come?”

  “Oh, you—you’re much more self-assured.” She looked at him searchingly. “More complete. I think the word for it is ‘integrated’. Actually, I can’t seem to … to … Don, you’re not hiding anything from me, are you?”

  “Me? Why, how could I do that?”

  She seemed troubled. “I don’t know.” She gave him a quick glance, almost spoke, then shook her head slightly.

  “What’s the matter? I do something wrong?”

  “No, oh no.”

  They were quiet until the tea was steeped and poured.

  “Miss Phoebe …?”

  “What is it?”

  “Just what did you think went on in that car before we got arrested?”

  “Isn’t that rather obvious?”

  “Well,” he said, with a quick smile, “to me, yeah. I was there.”

  “You can be cleansed,” she said confidently.

  “Can I now! Miss Phoebe, I just want to get this clear in my mind. I think you got the wrong idea, and I’d like to straighten you out. I didn’t go the whole way with that girl.”

  “You didn’t?”

  He shook his head. “Oh,” she said. “The policeman got there in time after all.”

  He put down his teacup very carefully. “We had lots of time. What I’m telling you is we just didn’t.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh!”

  “What’s the matter, Miss Phoebe?”

  “Nothing,” she said, tensely. “Nothing. This … puts a different complexion on things.”

  “I sort of thought you’d be glad.”

  “But of course!” She whirled on him. “You are telling me the truth, Don?”

  “You can get in an’ out of County,” he reminded her. “There’s records of her medical examination there that proves it, you don’t believe me.”

  “Oh,” she said, “oh dear.” Suddenly her face cleared. “Perhaps I’ve underestimated you. What you’re telling me is that you … you didn’t want to, is that it? But you said that the old memory of the rat left you when you were with her. Why didn’t you—why?”

  “Hey—easy, take it easy! You want to know why, it was because it wasn’t time. What we had would last, it would keep. We din’t have to grab.”

  “You … really felt that way about her?”

  He nodded.

  “I had no idea,” she said in a stunned whisper. “And afterward … did you … do you still …”

  “You can find out, can’t you? You know ways to find out what I’m thinking.”

  “I can’t,” she cried. “I can’t! Something has happened to you. I can’t get in, it’s as if there were a steel plate between us!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said with grave cheerfulness.

  She closed her eyes and made some huge internal effort. When she looked up, she seemed quite composed. “You are willing to work with me?”

  “I want to.”

  “Very well. I don’t know what has happened and I must find out, even if I have to use … drastic measures.”

  “Anything you say, Miss Phoebe.”

  “Lie down over there.”

  “On that? I’m longer than it is!” He went to the little sofa and maneuvered himself so that at least his shoulder blades and head were horizontal. “Like so?”

  “That will do. Make yourself just as comfortable as you can.” She threw a tablecloth over the lampshade and turned out the light in the kitchenette. Then she drew up a chair near his head, out of his visual range. She sat down.

  It got very quiet in the room. “You’re sleepy, you’re so sleepy,” she said softly. “You’re sl—”

  “No I ain’t,” he said briskly.

  “Please,” she said, “fall in with this. Just let your mind go blank and listen to me.”

  “Okay.”

  She droned on and on. His eyes half closed, opened, then closed all the way. He began to breathe more slowly, more deeply.

  “… And sleep, sleep, but hear my voice, hear what I am saying, can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” he said heavily.

  “Lie there and sleep, and sleep, but answer me truthfully, tell me only the truth, the truth, answer me, whom do you love?”

  “Joyce.”

  “You told me you restrained yourself the night you were arrested. Is this true?”

  “Yes.”

  Miss Phoebe’s eyes narrowed. She wet her lips, wrung her hands.

  “The union you had with me, that flight of soul, was that important to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like to do more of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t you realize that it is a greater, more intimate thing than any union of the flesh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Am I not the only one with whom you can do it?”

  “No.”

  Miss Phoebe bit her lip. “Tell the truth, the truth,” she said raggedly. “Who else?”

  “Joyce.”

  “Have you ever done it with Joyce?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Are you sure you can?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Miss Phoebe got up and we
nt into the kitchenette. She put her forehead against the cool tiles of the wall beside the refrigerator. She put her fingertips on her cheeks, and her hands contracted suddenly, digging her fingers in, drawing her flesh downward until her scalding, tight-shut eyes were dragged open from underneath. She uttered an almost soundless whimper.

  After a moment she straightened up, squared her shoulders and went noiselessly back to her chair. Don slumbered peacefully.

  “Don, go on sleeping. Can you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you to go down deeper and deeper and deeper, down and down to a place where there is nothing at all, anywhere, anywhere, except my voice, and everything I say is true. Down and down, deep, deep …” On and on she went, until at last she reached down and gently rolled back one of his eyelids. She peered at the eye, nodded with satisfaction.

  “Stay down there, Don, stay there.”

  She crouched in the chair and thought, hard. She knew of the difficulty of hypnotically commanding a subject to do anything repugnant to him. She also knew, however, that it is a comparatively simple matter to convince a subject that a certain person is a pillow, and then fix the command that a knife must be thrust into that pillow.

  She pieced and fitted, and at last, “Don, can you hear me?”

  His voice was a bare whisper, slurred, “Yes …”

  “The forces of evil have done a terrible thing to Joyce, Don. When you see her again she will look as before. She will speak and act as before. But she is different. The real Joyce has been taken away. A substitute has been put in her place. The substitute is dangerous. You will know, when you see her. You will not trust her. You will not touch her. You will share nothing with her. You will put her aside and have nothing to do with her.

  “But the real Joyce is alive and well, although she was changed. I saved her. When she was replaced by the substitute, I took the real Joyce and made her a part of me. So now when you talk to Miss Phoebe you are talking to Joyce, when you touch Miss Phoebe you are touching Joyce, when you kiss and hold and love Miss Phoebe you will be loving Joyce. Only through Miss Phoebe can you know Joyce, and they are one and the same. And you will never call Joyce by name again. Do you understand?”

  “Miss … Phoebe is … Joyce now …”

  “That’s right.”

  Miss Phoebe was breathing hard. Her mouth was wet.

  “You will remember none of this deep sleep, except what I have told you. Don,” she whispered, “my dear, my dear …”

  Presently she rose and threw the cloth off the lampshade. She felt the teapot; it was still quite hot. She emptied the hot-water pot and filled it again from the kettle. She sat down at the tea table, covered her eyes, and for a moment the only sound in the room was her deep, slow, controlled breathing as she oxygenated her lungs. She sat up, refreshed, and poured tea.

  “Don! Don! Wake up, Don!”

  He opened his eyes and stared unseeingly at the ceiling. Then he raised his head, sat up, shook himself.

  “Goodness!” said Miss Phoebe. “You’re getting positively absent-minded. I like to be answered when I speak to you.”

  “Whuh? Hm?” He shook himself again and rose. “Sorry, Miss Phoebe. Guess I sorta … did you ask me something?”

  “The tea, the tea,” she said with pleasant impatience. “I’ve just poured.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Good.”

  “Don,” she said, “we’re going to accomplish so very much.”

  “We sure are. And we’ll do it a hell of a lot faster with your help.”

  “I beg—what?”

  “Joyce and me,” he said patiently. “The things you can do, that planting a reflection in a mirror the way you want it, and knowing who’s at the door and on the phone and all … we can sure use those things.”

  “I—I’m afraid I don’t …”

  “Oh God, Miss Phoebe, don’t! I hate to see you cut yourself up like this!”

  “You were faking.”

  “You mean just now, the hypnosis routine? No I wasn’t. You had me under all right. It’s just that it won’t stick with me. Everything worked but the commands.”

  “That’s—impossible!”

  “No it ain’t. Not if I had a deeper command to remember ’em—and disregard ’em.”

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” she said tautly. “She did it!”

  He nodded.

  “She’s evil, Don, can’t you see? I was only trying to save—”

  “I know what you were tryin’ to save,” he interrupted, not unkindly. “You’re in real good shape for a woman your age, Miss Phoebe. This power of yours, it keeps you going. Keeps your glands going. With you, that’s a problem. With us, now, it’ll be a blessing. Pity you never thought of that.”

  “Foul,” she said, “how perfectly foul …”

  “No it ain’t!” he rapped. “Look, maybe we’ll all get a chance to work together after all, and if we do, you’ll get an idea what kind of chick Joyce is. I hope that happens. But mind you, if it don’t, we’ll get along. We’ll do all you can do, in time.”

  “I’d never cooperate with evil!”

  “You went and got yourself a little mixed up about that, Miss Phoebe. You told me yourself about yin an’ Yang, how some folks set a course straight an’ true an’ never realize the boundary can twist around underneath them. You asked me just tonight was I sure which was which, an’ I said yes. It’s real simple. When you see somebody with power who is usin’ it for what Yang stands for—good, an’ light, an’ all like that, you’ll find he ain’t usin’ it for himself.”

  “I wasn’t using it for myself!”

  “No, huh?” He chuckled. “Who was it I was goin’ to kiss an’ hold just like it was Joyce?”

  She moaned and covered her face. “I just wanted to keep you pure,” she said indistinctly.

  “Now that’s a thing you got to get straightened out on. That’s a big thing. Look here.” He rose and went to the long bookcase. Through her fingers, she watched him. “Suppose this here’s all the time that has passed since there was anything like a human being on earth.” He moved his hand from one end of the top shelf to the other. “Maybe way back at the beginning they was no more ’n smart monkeys, but all the same they had whatever it is makes us human beings. These forces you talk about, they were operatin’ then just like now. An’ the cave men an’ the savages an’ all, hundreds an’ hundreds of years, they kept developing until we got humans like us.

  “All right. You talk about ancient mysteries, your Yoga an’ all. An’ this tie-up with virgins. Look, I’m going to show you somepin. You an’ all your studyin’ and copyin’ the ancient secrets, you know how ancient they were? I’ll show you.” He put out his big hand and put three fingers side by side on the “modern” end of the shelf. “Those three fingers covers it—down to about fourteen thousand years before Christ. Well, maybe the thing did work better without sex. But only by throwin’ sex into study instead of where it was meant to go. Now you want to free yourself from sex in your thinkin’, there’s a much better way than that. You do it like Joyce an’ me. We’re a bigger unit together than you ever could be by yourself. An’ we’re not likely to get pushed around by our glands, like you. No offense, Miss Phoebe … so there’s your really ancient mystery. Male an’ female together; there’s a power for you. Why you s’pose people in love get to fly so high, get to feel like gods?” He swept his hand the full length of the shelf. “A real ancient one.”

  “Wh—where did you learn all this?” she whispered.

  “Joyce. Joyce and me, we figured it out. Look, she’s not just any chick. She quit school because she learns too fast. She gets everything right now, this minute, as soon as she sees it. All her life everyone around her seems to be draggin’ their feet. An’ besides, she’s like a kid. I don’t mean childish, I don’t mean simple; I mean, like she believes in something even when there’s no evidence around for it, she keeps on believing until the evidence comes along. There must
be a word for that.”

  “Faith,” said Miss Phoebe faintly.

  He came and sat down near her. “Don’t take it so hard, Miss Phoebe,” he said feelingly. “It’s just that you got to stand aside for a later model. If anybody’s going to do Yang work in a world like this, they got to get rid of a lot of deadwood. I don’t mean you’re deadwood. I mean a lot of your ideas are. Like that fellow was in jail about the little girl, you say watch ’im! one false move an’ back in the cage he goes. And all that guy wanted all his life was just to have a couple people around him who give a damn, ‘scuse me, Miss Phoebe. He never had that, so he took what he could get from whoever was weaker’n him, and that was only girls. You should see him now, he’s goin’ to be our best man.”

  “You’re a child. You can’t undertake work like this. You don’t know the powers you’re playing with.”

  “Right. We’re goin’ to make mistakes. Some of ’em will be real bloopers, an’ a lot of people are goin’ to get hurt. But we know what we’re doin’, we know what we want to do. We see some guy in Congress is featherin’ his own nest instead of workin’ for all the people—especially the guy who’s after power more than anything else—an’ we go after him. We fight whoever wants to burn books. We fight whoever wants to make all the people think a certain way—any certain way. But sure, we’ll fumble some of the plays. An’ that’s where you come in. Are you on?”

  “I—don’t quite—”

  “We want your help,” he said, and bluntly added, “but if you can’t help, don’t hinder.”

  “You’d want to work with me after I … Joyce, Joyce will hate me!”

  “Joyce ain’t afraid of you.”

  Her face crumpled. He patted her clumsily on the shoulder. “Come on, Miss Phoebe, what do you say?”

  She sniffled, then turned red-rimmed, protruding eyes up to him. “If you want me. I’d have to … I’d like to talk to Joyce.”

  “Okay. JOYCE!”

  Miss Phoebe started. “She—she’s not—oh!” she cried as the doorknob turned. She said, “It’s locked.”

  He grinned. “No it ain’t.”

  Joyce came in. She went straight to Don, her eyes on his face, searching, and did not look around her until her hand was in his. Then she looked down at Miss Phoebe.