The Complete Short Stories

by Brian Aldiss

  ‘How long am I likely to be down here?’ he asked the corporal.

  ‘Let’s have your watch too. That depends on you.’

  ‘I’ve got to be out tomorrow.’

  ‘Have you now? I’d better tell the chap who makes the coffins to get busy, then, hadn’t I?’

  He disappeared, leaving the private on guard. In two minutes he was back. Signalling to Wyvern, he led him through a swing door. It was hot in here, and there was a smell of antiseptic and ether about.

  ‘This is where they operate,’ the corporal said in a hushed voice. ‘They do some terrible things in here.’

  A man in a white coat passed them, wheeling a patient along on a trolley. The corporal gaped.

  ‘Did you see that?’ he whispered. ‘The poor fellow has had his lower jaw removed! How long do you think he’ll live like that?’

  Without hanging about for an answer, he pushed Wyvern through another door, remaining outside himself and bolting the door. Wyvern found he was alone with a nurse.

  ‘I must warn you that any show whatsoever of violence, or any raising of the voice in shouting or screaming will be dealt with very firmly indeed,’ she said, in the voice of one repeating a lesson. ‘Now come and have a shower. This way.’

  ‘I don’t need a shower,’ he said.

  ‘Come and have a shower,’ she said. ‘You’re filthy. Mr Parrodyce is funny about people who stink.’

  The shower was nothing. True, for a few seconds Wyvern, twisting in pain against the cubicle wall, thought he was being scalded to death; but then it was over, and the cold soused him back to a grim sanity. Someone, presumably, was just getting his hand in.

  ‘Now you look quite a healthy pink,’ said the nurse sociably.

  She shackled his hands behind his back on a pair of long-chained cuffs, and led him into another room. Wyvern noticed the walls and door were very thick; the room itself would be quite soundproof.

  It was furnished with steel cupboards, a big chair like a dentist’s with gas cylinders attached, and a light table at which a plump man sat, his hands folded on the table top. His spectacles flashed as he looked up at Wyvern.

  ‘This is Mr Parrodyce,’ the nurse said, and left the room.

  ‘I’ve got to kill this devil,’ Wyvern thought. He had never felt that way about anybody before; the emotion came on a wave of revulsion that shocked him with its strength.

  Yet Parrodyce had not touched him. He had merely come round the table, looked, and gone back and sat down, putting his hands back on the table top. Now he sat there, his hands trembling slightly.

  And Wyvern hated him.

  Also, he had suddenly realised that the power to kill might well lie within his mind. The shock of ego-union which everyone called telepathy was formidable; driven steel-tipped with hate into an unprepared brain, it should prove fatal, or at least cause insanity. And that would be nice, thought Wyvern.

  ‘What shall I do to you first?’ Parrodyce asked.

  Suddenly, it was as if Wyvern had already suffered all this in another existence. For was this not, he asked himself, the nightmare which had afflicted every generation since the first World War: to be delivered into the hands of a merciless enemy; to feel one’s precious life at a burnt-out end; to know that all the bright things in the world were absolutely nothing against the privilege of not having to bear pain?

  But Parrodyce turned his broad back and went over to a steel cabinet.

  ‘This is my kingdom down here,’ he said abstractedly, rummaging in a drawer. ‘I can do what I like; I am encouraged to do what I like. They are pleased when I do what I like – provided I get information for them. And I generally do get it: by advanced, clinical methods. I sometimes think I was born with a silver hypodermic in my hand.’

  He laughed, and turned. There was a silver hypodermic in his hand.

  Wyvern started to run round the other side of the table. A section of the floor instantly sank eighteen inches; unavoidably, he tripped into the pit so formed, and fell. He barked his shins painfully and – his hands being secured behind his back – caught his head hard on the floor. Parrodyce was upon him before his vision cleared; the needle was sliding into the sinews of his arm.

  ‘There!’ Parrodyce exclaimed. ‘Now get up.’

  Carefully Wyvern stood up. His heart beat furiously as he searched himself for the first indication of harm the drug might produce. He was all right now, and now, but in a minute, in twenty seconds –?

  ‘What have you pumped into me?’ he gasped.

  ‘Oh – I think I will not tell you; it is better your mind should not be at rest. Get on this chair here.’

  He sat in the dentist’s chair, and was secured by steel bands which clamped round his throat and ankles. Parrodyce went back to his cabinets, glancing at his wrist watch as he did so.

  ‘Just wait for that injection to take effect,’ he said ‘and then we’ll start the questioning and see how much of a potential mind-reader you are.’

  Wyvern watched the plump man’s nonchalance, thinking, ‘He’s acting a part to me; here I am helpless, yet he finds it necessary to put up some sort of a front. Is it just to scare me?’

  With the same careful nonchalance, Parrodyce flipped on a slow-moving tape of dance music, an import from Turkey. He sat with his chin in his hands, listening to someone else’s nostalgia.

  ‘What if it’s spring, if you’re not embraceable?

  I feel no joy, joy is untraceable;

  Don’t even hear the birds, hear only your parting words:

  “Life goes on; no one’s Irreplaceable”.’

  Like the drowsy beat of the music, giddiness swept over Wyvern in spasms. He was away from reality now, a mere ball of sensation expanding and contracting rhythmically from infinite size to a pinpoint, each heartbeat a rush to become either an atom or a universe: yet all the while the silent concrete room bellowed in his ears.

  And now the Inquisitor was leaning over him. Wyvern saw him as a fish might see a corpse dangled bulge-eyed over its rippling pool. The corpse’s mouth was opening and shutting; it seemed to be saying ‘Irreplaceable’, but every syllable was followed by the gurgle in Wyvern’s tympanum: ‘Irgugregugplagugcegugagugbull, irgugreguggugplagugcegugagugbull.’

  The human mind, like the body, has its strange, secret reserves. Among the madness and noise there was a split second when Wyvern was entirely in possession of himself. In that moment, he acted upon his earlier decision trap of his mind, pouring out loathing to the utmost of his strength – and was met with a counter-surge of telepathic force!

  On the instant of ego-union between them, Wyvern learnt much; he knew, for instance, as unmistakably as one recognises a brother, that Parrodyce was the drunken telepath he had bumped into years ago in London; and then he dropped deep into unconsciousness.

  III

  Eugene Parrodyce talked rapidly.

  Sweat stood out on his forehead, like grease on a bit of dirty vellum. As he spoke, he held a bitter-tasting beaker of liquid to Wyvern’s lips, letting it slop down his chin while he concentrated on what he was saying. With the sense of urgency harrying him, he had not unlocked the bands round Wyvern’s throat and ankles; but instead of standing over him, he now knelt before him.

  ‘Open up again, Wyvern,’ he whispered. ‘For heaven’s sake open your mind up again, and let me in. Why’re you closed down on me? You know it’s dangerous to be talking to you like this – for all I know, they’ve got secret microphones about the place, although they may be too disorganised to have thought of it yet. But H might come in. He came down here once before. If you’d only open up again for a second, we’d get everything cleared up between us – more than we’ll ever be able to do by talking.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Wyvern said.

  The bitter liquid cleared the fire in his body.

  ‘Release my hands and neck, and let me sit up,’ he said.

  ‘You – you won’t try anything stupid, will you?’

  ‘Keep
my ankles locked if you’re afraid I’m going to murder you.’

  Abjectly, muttering apologies, Parrodyce released the chafed wrists and neck from their bands; he left ankles locked, as Wyvern had suggested. And talk burst from him again.

  ‘We must communicate, Wyvern! Be sensible! We’re the only ones who have this gift – this great gift. You must let me in: I’ve so much so say and explain …’

  ‘Shut up!’ Wyvern said. ‘I won’t open my mind to you again. I’d be sick if I did. You’re a walking cess-pit.’

  ‘Oh, it’s easy to insult me now, now you know my secret –’

  ‘Parrodyce – you had me here unconscious. Why didn’t you kill me then?’

  The plump man didn’t answer. He shook his head helplessly, his eyes fixed on Wyvern’s, tears blurring his gaze. He was trying to break through Wyvern’s shield. Wyvern could feel him like a blind man padding behind locked mental doors.

  ‘Stop it!’ he said. ‘You aren’t coming in. I won’t have you. You’re too foul, Parrodyce!’

  ‘Yes, yes, I am foul,’ the other agreed eagerly. ‘But can’t you see we are brothers really in this. You’ve got to help me get out of here. You’ve –’

  ‘Oh no,’ Wyvern said. ‘You’ve got to help me get out of here. And first of all there are several things I want to know.’

  ‘Let’s connect – then you can know everything!’

  ‘Question and answer will do me, you dog! How did you get this job?’

  Parrodyce knelt back wretchedly. He wrung his hands as if he were washing them; Wyvern had read of this gesture but had never before seen it actually performed. On top of everything else he had suffered, this man’s sudden transformation had considerably shaken him. From a torturer, Parrodyce had turned into a sobbing wreck: Wyvern had regained consciousness to find the creature slobbering round his neck.

  ‘A telepath is an ideal inquisitor,’ Parrodyce was saying now. ‘Don’t you see, when I had someone shut up safe in here – so that nobody outside could feel what I was doing – I could explore his mind when he was drugged and read every secret he had. When they came round, even if they were allowed to get away alive, they didn’t know what had happened to them. And – and I always delivered the goods to H. I couldn’t fail. And I didn’t dare fail –’

  ‘But why did you do it?’

  ‘I – I – Let me into your mind! I’ll explain then.’

  ‘You filthy vampire! No, I won’t let you in,’ Wyvern said. And Wyvern had no need for explanation. Their second of ego-union had given him the real truth: Parrodyce was a pathological coward; full of fear himself, he could only exist on the fear of others.

  Yet it was not so much this shameless exhibition of fear which revolted Wyvern. Rather, it was to find that a fellow telepath had slipped so far from everything regarded as decent in human conduct. Isolated from others of his kind, Wyvern had vaguely imagined that a telepathic community (supposing such a thing should ever exist or had existed) would be free from vice; given such a powerful instruments of understanding, surely it would always consider the feelings of its fellows which it could learn so easily? Now he saw the fallacy of his assumption; telepathy was a gift which lay in its place alongside all the other human traits, good or bad. There could no more be a true brotherhood of telepaths than there could be a true brotherhood of man.

  ‘Get these bands off my legs,’ Wyvern ordered. ‘You’re going to let me go free out of here.’

  ‘No! Oh no, I can’t let you go now I’ve found you!’

  ‘Wait! Colonel H’s little pal told me there was another telepath. What was his name – Grimslade? What did you do to him?’

  ‘You mean Grisewood? I never got near enough to him to communicate … Don’t remind me of him – he died horribly, when they tried to couple him to Big Bert. That must be the worst pain of all; I pray I never come to that!’

  ‘Get these shackles off me!’ Wyvern said.

  Tears ran from Parrodyce’s eyes. His spectacles misted. He fumbled at the locks by Wyvern’s ankles. When they were undone, he lay helplessly where he was at the foot of the chair.

  ‘You’re going to betray me to H! You’re going to betray me,’ he muttered, over and over again.

  ‘If I betrayed you, I’d betray myself,’ Wyvern said in a hard voice. He was testing out his legs; they just held him. Parrodyce, too, got slowly to his feet.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘If you betray me you betray yourself.’

  He mended visibly. Some degree of colour returned to his face. He could see there was hope for himself.

  ‘I can get you safely out of here by just giving the word,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it at once.’

  He turned and went slowly back to his cabinets. He began to speak into a concealed phone in something like his old manner. When he finished, he pushed the phone back and came and put his hand on Wyvern’s arm.

  ‘I’m in control of myself again now,’ he said. ‘It was the shock of finding another telepath at last. I must have a drink. Let me give you one, too. They only allow me a stingy bit each day, or I try to drown my sorrows.’

  Wyvern curtly refused the drink when it was offered. Parrodyce drank it off and poured himself another.

  ‘I’m kept down here,’ he said. ‘My life’s pure misery, Wyvern, I swear it is. They’ve given me an assistant just recently, a fellow called Joe Rakister. The company’s good for me – it’s just someone to talk to, you know. I’ve become quite fond of Rakister, in my own way, you know. But all the while I’m afraid he’s really one of H’s men, sent to spy on me. I’m getting a bag of nerves, Wyvern; I never used to be like this, even during the Fourth War. I suppose it’s the feed-back effect of the torture. I don’t get any pleasure out of it. At least – well, I’m sorry afterwards. Sick, you know. In my dreams they come back and do all the things to me I’ve done to them.’

  His hand started quivering. He put the glass down, biting his lip, and suddenly swung round to confront Wyvern.

  ‘For God’s sake do something for me,’ he begged.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you ever get the chance – I want you to communicate with me. Oh, I know what it must be like for you: free-diving in a cesspool … But you’ve got to find what I’ve got wrong with me, Wyvern. You’ve got to go down and find it, and try and put it right. It must be something buried right down in my id, I don’t know what: something someone did to me when I was a kid in a pram, perhaps. Psychiatrists can’t do anything. But you could! You’re telepathic, Wyvern! You could put me straight again, Wyvern.’

  Yes, Parrodyce was right. He was just one of the bits of horrible mess man had infested his world with. If you could, you put it right; even if it did no ultimate good, the gesture satisfied you yourself. And that was something.

  ‘If I get the chance, I will, Parrodyce,’ Wyvern said. ‘Now I want to go.’

  Parrodyce thanked him hopelessly, and handed him over to the nurse.

  ‘I spoke to H’s secretary,’ were Parrodyce’s last words. ‘You’ll be allowed out the main gate.’

  He went back into his silent torture chamber, polishing his spectacles and shaking his head.

  The nurse handed Wyvern over to the corporal. The corporal gave him his clothes and watched him dress.

  ‘Not a mark on you, except that bruised shin,’ he exclaimed wonderingly.

  ‘Where are my belongings?’ Wyvern asked.

  ‘Just going to get them. In a hurry, aren’t you?’

  He produced them in an old toffee tin. Wyvern looked rapidly through them; everything was there except two items: the ticket to Luna and his passport. He looked sharply up at the corporal.

  ‘Something missing?’ the latter asked. ‘This was the Colonel’s secretary’s orders. He told me to give you this.’

  He produced a grubby envelope from a tunic pocket. It contained the Luna ticket and the passport, torn to tiny shreds.

  A private soldier led Wyvern upstairs and out across the
barrack square. It was still raining. Wyvern had no coat, but he scarcely noticed the wet. With a minimum of formality, he was let through the gate into freedom: they had ceased to be interested in him.

  He had no option but to walk home, exhausted as he felt. Before dawn, the rain ceased. The sun rose behind cloud. The country was fine and still, trees bending in luxuriant summer growth, dripping moisture into the ground. Grass blades shimmered like harmless spears. The birds rejoiced in the new daylight.

  At last Stratton Hall was in sight. It would be empty now, except for the two old servants, as empty as Wyvern felt. He had no hope. Somewhere, thousands of miles away, was a girl he might have loved. Now he would never get to her. There was nowhere else to go, nothing else to do.

  A car engine sounded behind him as he turned into the drive gates. Instinctively, he flinched. Had they come to get him back again already? Perhaps he shouldn’t have returned here at all; he could have lost his identity and become one of the many nomads who tramped the countryside.

  But the driver of the car wore no uniform. He pulled up in a spray of mud and called out, ‘Is this place Stratton Hall?’ He looked about eighty, but his voice was young and sharp.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You just going in? Well I’m Government Mail. Give this to Mr Conrad Wyvern for me, and spare me half a mile.’

  He was off. Wyvern looked blankly at the green envelope. He stuffed it in a damp pocket and trudged up the drive. A side door had been carelessly left open. The servants seemed to be still asleep; even the Flyspy was not stirring in its metal nest.

  Wyvern sank wearily onto his bed before opening the envelope and reading its contents. Then he sat recalling the discontented voice of Captain Runton saying: ‘There’s a lot of reorganisation needed here – everyone lives in watertight compartments. No government department knows what the next one is up to.’ He began to smile. Then he began to laugh. He laughed helplessly, stupidly, until he was out of breath.

  He had just received a government warrant to report to the Ss Aqualung at 1200 hours on that date for service on Luna. The warrant overrode any such formalities as passports or tickets.