out as well. They’re human beings and they’re filled with the suspicion
and fear that you loathe. You won’t have peace on Earth. They’re just
playing for time. When they’re ready, or when they think that they’re
ready, they’ll come at you with everything. You just said it yourself: they’re not logical creatures. They’re human beings and they’re moved by primitive fears – and that’s the flaw in your scheme. Sooner or later, they’ll try it. It might be madness, but they’ll try it. Then the war that
will come, caused by you, will be the war to end wars.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Wilson said quietly. ‘I’ve made allowances for
that. I’m not so naive as to imagine that this race can continue. The race
will not continue. It will end in ten years time. Within ten years every
major government post will be run from this colony. We have people
everywhere, in every country, in every government, and those people
have electrodes in their heads and will do what we tell them. They are
currently in the Pentagon, in the CIA and FBI, in NASA and the
Cheyenne Mountain Complex, in the Army and Navy and Air Force, in
every top-secret project. It’s the same all over the world. We have our
people everywhere. We’re robotizing important people every year, and
every year it gets easier. They don’t know they’re robotized. They
believe they’re making their own decisions. But every new law of
suppression, every new surveillance system, every action that changes
the course of world events is dictated by us. We grow more numerous
every month. We’re gradually climbing up the pyramid. In ten years –
or possibly less – all the rules will be our rules. Your world is ending,
Stanford. It will soon be no more. If I sent you back out there tomorrow,
it would do you no good.’
Stanford didn’t know what to say. There was nothing left to say.
He hadn’t experienced emotion for months, but now he felt it returning.
That emotion was fear. It might well have been despair. He gazed down
at the man behind the desk and saw the ice of his blue eyes. Those eyes
were devoid of feeling. No malice, no resentment, no greed… It was
organization.
Stanford thought this and was shocked. He thought of the world
beyond the mountains. That world, his own world, was procreating and
becoming too complex. The cities couldn’t be controlled, the great
suburbs were a mess; inequality and boredom and frustration were
leading to madness. Increasing violence and civil strife, increasing
wealth and attendant poverty; the contradictions of society were
exploding and destroying whole nations. The politicians were defeated:
freedom foiled them every day; more and more they were introducing
legislation that encouraged suppression. They didn’t appear to have much choice. Increasing chaos overwhelmed them. Categorization and surveillance and harassment were all they had left. Stanford thought of it with woe. He desperately wanted an alternative. He felt human for the first time in months and he was paying the full price. The fear chilled him and shook him, turned into bitter rage. He looked at Wilson and felt
the first stirrings of a cold, hard defiance.
‘Where’s Epstein?’ he asked.
Wilson reached across the desk, flicked a switch and then stood
up. He led Stanford across the room to a door, not saying a word.
Stanford looked above the door. A red light flashed on a console. He
turned his head and looked out through the window at the Antarctic
wilderness. The panorama was stupendous: the white plains stretched to
the sky; the jagged mountain peaks were just below, their rocks ringed
with blue ice. Then the steel door slid open. Wilson waved Stanford in.
They stood together in the white-walled elevator and the doors closed in
front of them.
The elevator descended quietly, dropping down through the
mountain. Stanford thought of what the German had told him about
Hitler’s teahouse. He saw a window in one wall. Floors slid upward and
disappeared. There was hardly any sound, no sense of motion, and the
elevator was comfortably warm. Wilson didn’t say a word. He studied
Stanford with detachment. Stanford saw a huge cavern, littered grottoes
and caves, various workshops and storerooms and offices, people
working in silence. The elevator door slid open. They stepped out into
an office. The walls were painted white, the shelves were packed with
books, and Professor Epstein was sitting behind a desk, looking up,
smiling distantly.
‘Hello, Stanford,’ he said.
Stanford studied his old friend. Epstein did indeed look healthy.
He had put on some weight, his gray beard had been trimmed, and he
was wearing a shirt and tie, a white coat, his cheeks ruddy, his eyes
clear.
‘I’ll leave you now,’ Wilson said. ‘I hope you come to an
agreement. You’ll have to make a decision, Dr Stanford, and I hope it’s
the right one.’
He turned back to the steel door, the door opened and he stepped
in, then the door closed and Wilson was gone, leaving silence behind
him.
Stanford studied his old friend. Epstein stayed behind his desk. His
hands were clasped under his bearded chin, his eyes clear and steady. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said.
‘Is it?’ Stanford asked.
‘It’s been a long time,’ Epstein said. ‘It seems more than a year.’ ‘What happened to the cancer?’
‘They cured me,’ Epstein said. ‘They’re really quite extraordinary
that way. I must say I was grateful.’
‘Grateful?’ Stanford asked.
‘A new life,’ Epstein said. ‘Not just that, but new purpose, new
work… Something worth living for.’
Stanford looked at his old friend and a felt a searing anguish, a
despair that came out of his very bowels and made him feel lost. ‘What did they do to you?’ he asked.
‘They did nothing,’ Epstein said. ‘They cured me of cancer and
explained what they were doing, and I realized that their work was
important and decided to stay.’
‘They did an implant,’ Stanford said.
‘Not on me,’ Epstein said.
‘Either you’re lying or you simply can’t remember. They must
have done
something .’
‘They did nothing,’ Epstein said.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Stanford said.
‘Believe me, they didn’t do a thing. They just talked and I
listened.’
‘And this is what you want?’
‘Yes, it’s what I want. They took me up above the Earth and
showed me things that I just can’t forget.’
‘They did an implant.’
‘Not in me.’
‘They do it to everybody,’ Stanford said. ‘They must have done it
to you.’
‘They didn’t.’
‘You don’t remember.’
‘I don’t remember because they didn’t do it. I just want peace and
quiet now.’
‘I’m taking you out of here,’ Stanford said.
‘I won’t go,’ Epstein said. ‘The very thought of it gives me a
migraine. I just don’t want to go.’
‘A migraine?’ Stanford asked.
‘The thought of outside,’ Eps
tein said.
‘They did an implant.’
‘No, they didn’t,’ Epstein said. ‘I just don’t want to go.’ Stanford felt hot and clammy, swept with anguish and despair, a
hopelessness that threatened to drown him and choke off his resistance.
He thought of Jacobs and Gerhardt, of the girl near Galveston, of
Scaduto and Epstein and himself and all the years now behind them.
The mystery was resolved. The nightmare was manifest. The world was
being saved from itself and taking on a new face. Stanford wanted no
part of it. He didn’t want to lose himself. He wanted to live with his
contradictions and conflicts and the pain of free choice. Yet the price
was too great. He didn’t know if he could pay it. He looked down at his
old friend, Professor Epstein, and the pain slithered through him.
Professor Epstein was no more. His placid eyes were all-revealing. His
gazed at Stanford without malice or friendship, offering nothing and
everything. Stanford shook with grief and rage. He let his senses fly
away. The pain took him apart and just as quickly put him back together
and gave life to defiance.
‘You must stay here,’ Epstein said. ‘We need people like you. You
will work and know great satisfaction and never feel discontentment.’ ‘I don’t want it,’ Stanford said.
‘You must accept it,’ Epstein said.
‘You’re not Epstein,’ Stanford said. ‘You’re someone else. You’re
not the person I knew.’
‘I’m the same,’ Epstein said. ‘They just cured me of the cancer.
Now I do the kind of work I always dreamed of – and feel wonderful
with it.’
‘They’ve stolen your mind.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ Epstein said. ‘I know you. I remember my
past. I know just who I am.’
‘They’ve stolen your will.’
‘They’ve stolen nothing,’ Epstein said. ‘They just talked and I
listened and that’s all. They did not operate.’
‘You can’t remember,’ Stanford said.
‘I’m getting a headache,’ Epstein said. ‘We really must stop
talking about this. You must stay. You can’t leave here.’
Epstein’s gaze was placid. His hands were folded on the desk. He
looked at Stanford with a calm, remote interest, talking quietly and
patiently.
‘You can’t leave here,’ he repeated. ‘There’s really no place to go.
You can walk out whenever you wish, but you’ll freeze to death out
there. Here you’ll live a painless life. Your life will take on some
meaning. You might be deprived of your imagined freedom, but think
of the blessings. No more discontentment. No decisions to be made.
You will work and take pleasure in that work and never know doubt or
fear.’
‘I’ll be robotized.’
‘They won’t do that.’
‘They did it to you,’ Stanford said.
‘No, they didn’t. They didn’t.’
Stanford knew it was useless. His feeling of loss was
overwhelming. He let the grief and rage shake him loose and make him
fight for his freedom. It didn’t matter where he went. He didn’t give a
damn what happened. The point now was to make a decision and then
follow through on it.
‘You said I can leave.’
‘That’s correct,’ Epstein said. ‘We won’t stop you, but we won’t
help you either. The decision is yours.’
‘I want to leave.’
‘You’ll freeze to death,’ Epstein said.
‘Fuck you,’ Stanford said. ‘Fuck you all. I won’t submit to this
shit.’
Epstein sighed and stood up. He walked to the nearest wall. There
were large curtains drawn across the wall, reaching down to the floor.
Epstein tugged on a sash cord. The wide curtains drew apart. A dazzling
light poured through a plate-glass door and washed over both of them.
Stanford blinked and rubbed his eyes. He was looking along a hall of glass. Through the glass walls he could see the glaring white of the
immense, frozen wilderness.
‘The choice is yours,’ Epstein said. ‘You can stay or you can
leave. However, once the decision is made there can be no turning back.
You just have to touch this door. It will open and let you through. Once
you step into the hall the door will close and trap you in there. You can
only leave by the other door. It’s at the far end of the hall. That door
opens by contact from inside, and leads out to the wilderness. You can’t
open it from outside. If you step out, you have to stay out. You can
leave or you can stay – as you wish – and you must decide now.’ Stanford looked at his old friend, at his gray, remote eyes, mutely
prayed for some sign of emotion, but received calm indifference. The
feeling of loss was overwhelming, the pain unprecedented, shaking
Stanford and making his heart pound, leaving nothing but rage. He would hold the rage and use it. He would make his decision.
Neither old friends nor memories nor hopes would make him bend to
their will. He was not a machine. He would not be a cipher. Stanford
looked along the hall, saw the dazzling sunlight, saw the white haze
running out to the sky and then pressed on the plate glass. The wide
doors slid apart. The glass hall was filled with light. Stanford stared at
his old friend, at his gray eyes and beard, thought of all that they had
been through together and dissolved into anguish.
‘You’re not Epstein,’ he said.
He stepped into the hall. The plate-glass doors closed behind him.
Sunlight blazed through the glass walls and roof to form dazzling
mosaics. Stanford zipped his jacket up. He covered his ears with his
woollen hat. He put his hands in his pockets and stepped forward,
determined not to look back. The past was now behind him. The hall
stretched out to the future. Stanford saw a globe of fire fill the sky with
lines of silver and pink. He walked quickly along the hall. The flashing
glass was all around him. He reached the door at the far end of the hall
and stopped a few feet away from it. Stanford wanted to say something,
wanted to speak to the silence, but he stepped forward and the glass
doors slid open and the fierce cold rushed in.
All white. Everything. The cold was appalling. Stanford leaned
into the wind and stepped forward as the doors closed behind him. He
didn’t stop or look back. The white wilderness lay before him. The wind blew the snow in languid, glinting clouds across the pack ice and glaciers. Stanford kept moving forward. He didn’t care where he was going. He saw an arch of light above a horizon that forever receded. All light. Flashing light. A unique and dazzling vision. The light flashed and made his eyes sting and weep. Stanford didn’t give a damn. He felt defiant and proud. He was alive and he kept moving forward to disprove all their theories. He saw a monstrous balloon. It was floating there before him. The balloon was transparent and it shimmered and framed a pink sky. Stanford shivered and stumbled. He had to clench his chattering teeth. The wind moaned and made the snow swirl around him and settle upon him. He ignored it, kept going. His teeth began to ache. The snow settled on his beard and his face and then formed a light
frost.
All white. Everything. Definition was lost. The wind moaned and
the sn
ow blew all around him and made him a part of it. He fell down
and stood up and stumbled forward again. He thought of Epstein and
Wilson and the colony and the great flying saucers. The future was here
and now. His own time had passed. The snow formed immense
darkened portals that were luring him in. He stepped in and saw a light,
stumbled forward and watched it grow. The snow hissed and swirled
and then the shimmering bright light exploded. All white. Everything.
He let the wilderness embrace him. Glinting glaciers and flashing pack
ice and streams of yellow and violet. The frost thickened on his face. He
couldn’t feel his numbed lips. The hands deep in his pockets had
vanished and left shrieking nerve ends. Stanford laughed as he froze.
The icy air filled his lungs. He stumbled onward, heading into the
wilderness, and would not be defeated.
He went out a long way. The mountains fell far behind him. The
white wilderness stretched out on all sides and offered no exit. Stanford
didn’t give a damn. He thought of what he had left behind. The future
that would rise from the ice held no promise for him. Stanford’s lips
cracked when he smiled. His blood froze on the instant. He moved
onward with his weeping eyes stinging, his hands and feet missing. No
feeling. All numb. The ground shifting and sliding. A great rainbow
appeared above the horizon and framed a fierce whiteness. Then a
luminous balloon. A mirage: a sun dog. He saw miracles of blue ice and
light, the dazzling wastes of the snowfalls. Stanford stumbled on, regardless. He started talking and singing. He heard a voice that was offering comfort and coaxing him onward. He followed the Pied Piper. He let the sun and snow dissolve him. He fell down and saw the huge
slabs of pack ice that drifted and glittered.
He would travel, he would move. He crept along on his belly. His
frozen fingers found the snow and dug in and his body inched forward.
Stanford saw the drifting ice. He sang and muttered under his breath.
Jagged black lines on white glare. A giant jigsaw in the sun. Stanford
felt a fierce defiance and exultation that would not let him die. He
crawled across the frozen earth. He dragged a dead thing behind him,
his body, and would not let it go. Stanford slithered across a crevice.
His fingers touched a slab of ice. The ice glittered and reflected the sun
GENESIS (Projekt Saucer) Page 62