by Brian Aldiss
That was all; but with the thought ‘I’ came, vaguely, her name: Eileen something – Eileen South, it had seemed to Wyvern.
She ceased sending. In a moment, she disappeared behind a pillar. The camera lost her. Wyvern forced himself to begin breathing again.
Who the ‘him’ was Eileen South had to follow, he could not grasp; but floating behind the pronoun had been another phrase in her mind; ‘the impossible smile’.
Of one thing he was sure. He had to get to Luna – he had to find Eileen South; she was his kind.
II
Around the factories and the quaint housing estates – dating back to the fifties of the previous century and already in decay – which fringed the capital of the Republic, a clutter of prefabricated buildings had gathered like rubbish along the high tide mark of a beach. Refugees and traders from London and the shattered Midlands accumulated here in all the disorder of an oriental bazaar.
It was to this region that Wyvern drove in his shooting brake the next morning. He had a small collections of canvases under his arm – a Dufy, two Paul Nashes and a Sutherland, the last of his father’s fine collection. Wyvern knew of no other way to raise the required money for a lunar ticket quickly. In this quarter, they bought anything – at their own price.
After half an hour, Wyvern emerged with five thousand, five hundred pounds in greasy tenners; it was about a half of what the Dufy alone was worth. But it bought a ticket on the moonship Aqualung, leaving at midday the next day.
That gave him twenty-four-hours to wait. He just hoped he would still be at liberty when the time came. But the officials at Thorpe spaceport had seemed casual enough: his passport had been checked, his papers examined, and not a word said. He drove home in a state of modest triumph.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, soon after he had got back to Stratton, he was arrested by the New Police.
At four-thirty, after a bumpy lorry-ride which he spent handcuffed to the frame of the lorry, he found himself back in Norwich again.
The New Police had taken over a big department store on one corner of the market square; it swarmed with activity. Still handcuffed, Wyvern was taken through a side door up to the second floor and left with a Captain Runton, who nodded to him in abstracted fashion and continued to direct some builders working there.
This floor was still being converted to police use. Once, it had been a spacious restaurant; now, flimsy partitions were transforming it into a nest of tiny offices.
‘Let’s see, what are you here for?’ the Captain asked Wyvern mildly.
‘It’s no good asking me: I don’t know,’ Wyvern said, truthfully.
‘You don’t what?’
‘Know, I don’t know,’ Wyvern said.
‘Sorry, there’s so much banging here! You have to watch these fellows or they down tools. I think they suspect they are not going to get paid for this job.’
A swinging plank narrowly missed his ear. He ducked under a partition frame.
‘Now,’ he shouted, above a fresh outburst of hammering. ‘We’ve found in practice that the quickest thing for everyone is for you to confess at once, without mucking about.’
‘Confess what?’
‘The crime.’
‘What crime?’
‘What what? Oh, what crime? Why man, the crime for which you were brought here.’
‘You’ll have to tell me what it is first,’ Wyvern said grimly.
‘Oh hell, I suppose I’ll have to take you down and look at your bloody papers,’ Captain Runton said sourly. ‘It won’t pay you to be unco-operative, you know.’
He bellowed to the workmen to keep hard at it and led the way to a lift. They descended to the basement and Runton pushed Wyvern into his room; cocking his leg up on the edge of a desk, Runton read carefully through the ill-typed report someone had left on his pad.
Wyvern looked round. Tarnished mirrors greeted him, and glass-fronted cupboards with cracked glass, containing cardboard boxes and big rubber bouncing balls for children. He saw little wooden spades, yachting caps, a dusty poster saying ‘The Glorious Norfolk Broads’. Nothing very frightening: he wondered why he felt frightened.
The captain of police was looking at him.
‘So you’re Conrad Wyvern, one of the inventors of cruxtistics?’ he said.
‘Is that why I’ve been arrested?’
Runton went and sat heavily down in the room’s only chair. His behind was running to fat and his hair thinning. It was a wonder how he did it on the lean rations. No doubt he had lost his family and spent long evenings feeling sorry for himself, drinking. He looked the typical man of his age: comfortless, unlovable.
‘Why do you suddenly want to go to the Moon, Mr Wyvern?’ he asked.
‘There’s nothing sudden about it,’ Wyvern said. ‘I’ve been planning this trip for some time.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh – a change.’
‘A change from what?’
‘From routine.’
‘You don’t like routine?’
‘Yes, but I just want a change.’
‘You realise you do an important job, Mr Wyvern?’
‘Of course. I thought a change –’
‘The government doesn’t like to lose its important men.’
‘I booked return, didn’t I? I’ll be back in four days, before the next course starts at Stratton.’
‘The government doesn’t like to lose its important men even for four days.’
‘It’s getting choosy, isn’t it?’ Wyvern asked. He could feel his temper rising.
‘These are bad days, Mr Wyvern.’
‘Need we make them worse?’
‘You can still hear that bloody banging, even from here.’ Runton sighed deeply. He picked up the phone.
‘The palace,’ he said, not without a trace of irony. After a pause, he said, ‘Get me Colonel H.’ After another pause, ‘I’m Captain Runton, late of Leicester; he’ll remember.’ Later, ‘Yes, I’ll settle for his secretary.’
Finally he was put through.
‘Hello? Captain Runton here … Good. Look, we have Conrad Wyvern here … Yes, that’s him. He is being rather impolite in answer to polite questions … Yes … May I bring him over to you? … Well, for one thing, we have the decorators in here, making a lot of noise, and for another I hoped I might perhaps have the great pleasure of – er, possibly meeting Colonel H again … Oh yes, yes, I’m sure he must be … Yes, well another thing was, I hear you have a marvellous new Inquisitor up there, eh? … No, oh no, sir, that was a mild joke merely. I’m sorry. I naturally meant Questioner … Thank you.’
Runton hung up, puffing out his cheeks. Somebody at the other end of the line evidently did not love him.
‘Come on, Wyvern,’ he said heavily. ‘We’re going over to see the big chiefs at the barracks.’
It took ten minutes to drive, in a commandeered Post Office van, up to the barracks where Our Beloved Leader had been shot. It took a further twenty to get inside, by which time Captain Runton was more nervous than his captive.
Aside from his own preoccupations, Wyvern was intrigued by the Captain. The man was plainly using him as an excuse to ingratiate himself with the powers-that-be. He seemed to have nothing specific against Wyvern; the mere fact that Wyvern was someone of importance made him worth hanging on to. All of which might be very well for Runton, but was uncomfortable for Wyvern.
And now, no doubt, Runton was reflecting that if he had come on a wild-goose chase he would get, not congratulations, but a kick in the well-padded seat of his pants. And that would make him unscrupulous about getting something pinned on Wyvern. Just what would happen seemed suddenly in the hands of chance; one thing Wyvern sincerely hoped: that the State’s inter-departmental communications were poor, and that these people did not know his sister had been arrested at East Hingham.
That question at least was partly answered when they were finally allowed out of the guard room, and Runton grumbled, ‘There’s a l
ot of reorganisation needed here – everyone lives in watertight compartments. No government department knows what the next one is up to. You can’t get anything done.’
The barracks swarmed with soldiers and police. Tanks were drawn up in the old drill square.
‘I’d better take your handcuffs off,’ Runton said. ‘They look a bit ostentatious in here. And for God’s sake don’t try anything, or I’ll shoot you down and swear blind you were OBL’s murderer.’
‘I thought they’d already caught the killers?’ Wyvern asked, mildly surprised.
‘Hold your tongue while you’ve got the chance,’ Runton said in a sharp burst of savagery.
They passed together into the main building, where an armed guard met them and escorted them upstairs. The armed guard met them and escorted them upstairs. The guards’ hobnails clattered loudly up the stone steps. A clock at the top said nearly six. ‘Eighteen hours before my ship goes,’ Wyvern thought grimly.
They were pushed through a door on which, in still wet paint, was the legend ‘Col. H & Sec.’ Inside, the first thing that caught Wyvern’s eye was the pot of white paint itself. It stood nearly empty on a desk, the brush in it. Someone had been doing over the window casement with it, and the room stank of paint.
‘Same old Republication muddle,’ Wyvern thought, but the man in the room, Colonel H’s secretary, gave him other ideas.
The secretary was a man in his late fifties, as thin and neat as a picked chicken bone. His uniform was spotless, his white hair impeccably parted. His eyes were fish cold.
‘Oh – er, we’ve an appointment with Colonel H,’ said Runton, plainly distressed at lack of clue to rank on the secretary’s uniform.
‘Are you Conrad Wyvern?’ the secretary asked Wyvern.
‘I am.’
‘You have an appointment with Colonel H,’ the secretary said. ‘Thank you for bringing him, Captain. Have you his report there? Thank you, splendid. We will keep you no longer.’
He accepted the report and waited for Runton to shamble backwards out of the room, without once removing his gaze from Wyvern. The latter, to his chagrin, found himself fidgeting and looking down. He decided to defend by attack.
‘I am hoping to receive an official apology for the way I’ve been treated,’ he said. ‘I was handcuffed and brought here on the very flimsiest of pretexts.’
‘Our junior officers make up in enthusiasm what they lack in manners,’ the secretary said.
‘Is that supposed to be an apology?’
The secretary stood up.
‘No, it damn well isn’t,’ he said. ‘The State does not apologise. We brought you here to cross-examine you, not kiss you better. The Republic is in its early days – we can’t afford to be sentimental. Don’t you know, the road to success is paved with bruised egos like yours. If you feel badly about all this, it’s obviously because you are out of sympathy with us. Why are you out of sympathy with us, Wyvern?’
‘I don’t think –’ Wyvern said, then lapsed into silence. It was hardly an answerable question.
‘You are an important man, Wyvern – or you could be. You should be a member of the Party, Wyvern. Why aren’t you a member of the Party, Wyvern?’ He used the name as if it were a dirty word.
‘I’m busy – teaching your young men.’
‘And?’
‘Well, it’s a full-time job.’
‘You get four or five days break between each course, don’t you?’
‘I have to organise things – administration, rations …’
‘Oh? But it has to wait if you fancy a flip to Luna, eh?’
‘Can you tell me how long it will be before the Colonel is ready to see me?’ Wyvern asked pointedly. ‘Perhaps you would care to continue painting your office?’
The secretary reached out and struck him across the cheek. Then he turned, going by a side door into the adjoining room. It slammed behind him, hard.
By now, Wyvern was slightly rattled; he even contemplated stepping into the corridor and trying to make a break for it. But a slight scrape of an army boot and a mutter of conversation outside the room told him the corridor was guarded.
Devoutly, Wyvern wished he could use his hidden power to find just what these people intended of him; but that was impossible; he could no more commune with this secretary without his being aware of it than he could dance with him.
The secretary returned accompanying a sturdy man with wide shoulders and small features. He looked more plebeian in the flesh than over TV, but was unmistakably Colonel H. He held a juicy pat of butter in one hand and ate it with a teaspoon.
‘Loot!’ he explained to Wyvern. ‘First fresh butter I’ve tasted for months. There are some advantages in having OBL out of the way.’ He chuckled and sucked the spoon greedily.
The secretary frowned.
‘Sir, may I know why I have been brought here in this undignified way?’ Wyvern asked urgently. ‘If I’ve broken any laws, please tell me.’
A slip of butter fell onto the secretary’s desk.
‘We’ve none of us got any dignity these days,’ Colonel H said. ‘We gave up our right to dignity when we dropped the first fusion bombs. Oh, I know it’s easy for me to theorise … Look here, Wyvern, we can’t let you go to the Moon. How do we know you’re not planning to nip off to the American Sector as soon as you get there? We’ve got to have you here, teaching our boys cruxtistics, or whatever it is.’
‘Why should you think I was planning to leave the Republic?’ Wyvern asked.
Colonel H laughed.
‘We can’t trust anyone,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be tough in Britain this next decade, and those who can’t face the prospect will betray us. A hungry man will cut his brother’s throat for a crust of bread. I’ve just had word of a roundup of profiteers at a place called East Hingham – the list of prisoners should be in at any minute. Those sort of people, they’re swindling someone, they only deserve shooting.’
He lapsed into moody silence and dug into his pat of butter.
‘If only there was some way of really knowing what people are thinking inside here.’ The colonel thumped his stubbly skull. ‘Really knowing … And there is a way, if we could only get at it.’
‘I don’t think that idea is something we should discuss with a suspect,’ the secretary said primly.
‘Why not?’ the colonel asked. Then he laughed, ‘You see, I was thinking of sending him down into the cellars to see our new inquisitor – and he ought to know what it’s all about first.’
At that, the secretary laughed too, and wet his lips.
‘You better tell him about it,’ the colonel said. He licked the last of the butter off the paper, dropped the paper into a wastepaper basket and slipped the spoon into a pocket of his tunic.
‘It won’t take long,’ the secretary said crisply. ‘You have heard of Big Bert, Wyvern. It is the largest computer in existence, except for Fall Cut, the American computer on Luna. For a number of years, for lack of adequate staff, Big Bert has lain practically idle, yet it is potentially the Republic’s greatest weapon. You see, Bert has latent mind-reading abilities. Once he is taught, we, the State, will be able to know what any citizen is thinking!’
Wyvern’s hands had gone damp. He rested them lightly on the desk.
‘When – when is he going to be taught?’ he asked. His voice sounded unreal in his ears.
‘That’s the snag!’ Colonel H exclaimed. ‘Only a telepath knows what this telepathy stunt really is. We’ve got to get our hands on a telepath – as soon as possible.’
‘Actually, we had one,’ the secretary said. ‘A fellow called Grisewood volunteered. But there are surgical difficulties – which have now been overcome – in coupling these freaks to the machine. Grisewood died. Now we want another of his ilk. You don’t happen to know any telepathic persons running round loose, Wyvern, do you?’
Were they playing with him? Did they know all the time?
Wyvern said: ‘I wouldn’t kno
w one if I saw one.’
Colonel H went over to the door. ‘Big Bert seems to think that telepathy is a sort of side product of intelligence – you wouldn’t get it in an idiot, for instance. So we’re checking on anyone who isn’t imbecile. We are starting a republic-wide drive very shortly. You’d better be checked now you’re here, Wyvern.’
He turned, his finger on the door handle, and looked at Wyvern. In his eyes was a terrible kind of excitement; Wyvern recognised it: it was blood lust. He knew then his life and reputation were mere straws to these men.
‘Is this justice?’ he said.
‘My dear man, of course not,’ the secretary said, his voice expressing incredulity at such a naïve question. ‘We are only police, and as such our concern is with the law, not with justice. For justice you must go to the government – if you can get there!’
‘You are the government!’ Wyvern said.
‘Good God, not yet!’ Colonel H said. ‘OBL only died the day before yesterday. Give us a week!’
He uttered his meaningless laugh again, and opened the door.
‘Corporal, take this civilian down to Parrodyce in the cellars,’ he called.
A corporal and a private marched in at once.
‘Parrodyce is our new Inquisitor,’ the secretary whispered to Wyvern, conspiratorially. ‘You’ll find he’s hot stuff!’
Wyvern was seized and marched into the corridor. He did not struggle; it seemed useless. The mentality of the captive had descended suddenly upon him, a resignation blind to life.
They clumped downstairs, and then down two underground flights, and then along a corridor, and then through a locked steel door and down another corridor. And as they moved more deeply into the stronghold, paradoxically, a hope began to grow in Wyvern. This Inquisitor, Parrodyce, however cruel his methods were, would have no more understanding of telepathy than anyone else; he would not know what to look for; he would fail; Wyvern would be released.
The corporal pushed Wyvern into a tiny room. ‘Strip,’ he ordered, and stood watching interestedly while Wyvern did so.
‘Let’s have your kit,’ he said.
Wyvern handed it over. Protesting would do him no good. Yet in his pocket went his health certificate, passport, identity and ticket for the Aqualung.