Transmigration

by J. T. McIntosh

  "Sit down, Ross," said Steen. His manner made Anita's seem friendly. "I've read your essay. I've read it several times. The French is good. The content is execrable."

  He stared grimly down at Ross, who was sprawled comfortably in an armchair in Steen's study.

  "Before you make your usual insolent reply," Steen went on, "let me warn you that the moment you do your case goes before the Senatus. I want to speak to you, Ross, and this time you'll listen."

  "Of course I'll listen, sir."

  Steen waved the essay in the air. "Your essay cleverly hints at a perverted relationship between the Principal and the Chancellor, thinly disguised as two Breton peasants. What you have done here is an evil thing, a reckless thing, because it can please nobody, but must disgust and antagonize anyone able to understand it -- as you knew very well, Ross, I would. Yet to use this revolting document against you would inevitably be most unpleasant for all concerned, while you would be free to insist innocently that there was no double meaning, far less a triple meaning."

  He stood over Ross and fixed him with his eyes. "To use talent for such ends is apparently your purpose in life, Ross, but it is not the reason you are here. You are supported here at Government expense, and this means you must ultimately bow to authority."

  He sat down opposite Ross.

  "Despite your relative caution, it would be very easy at this moment, before you further express your unedifying personality, to kick you out. You would then be in an unenviable position, Ross. You have no rich father or mother or patron. Without a degree, your undoubted linguistic talents would have very little market value. In other fields you are totally untrained."

  When he paused, Fletcher said: "I am aware of all that, sir. One thing I should make clear; your opinion of me is flattering compared with my own of myself."

  What he said was true in many ways and at several levels, and there was no doubting his sincerity.

  Steen couldn't doubt it and was put off his stroke. "Well . . . well, Ross. If that is the case, perhaps you . . . Mr. Ross, please tell me one thing. Have you ever had psychiatric treatment?"

  Fletcher smiled. "No, but I've studied psychology. I have some idea why I act as I do."

  "Well . . . well . . . " Steen was totally at a loss, having started by going tooth and nail, in his academic way, for a student who needed a swift kick in the pants, then suddenly got the idea that psychosis might be involved and then . . . "I don't know," he said. "Good afternoon, Mr. Ross."

  Anyway, Fletcher thought, he had won a "Mister."

  Catching Anita after her lecture, he said firmly: "This way."

  She hung back. "Considering you broke into my bed- room last night and hit me . . . "

  "That was Ross, Anita."

  She shrugged impatiently. "Oh, don't be ridiculous. This is just another of your dirty schemes -- "

  "I can prove I'm Fletcher, if you let me."

  "I can see you're Ross."

  "Ross too, of course. But he isn't here at the moment. He's sulking. What I mean is, I can prove that part of me is Fletcher."

  "How?"

  "Remember the waiting room in the psychology department? You told me you fancied yourself as Mata Hari."

  That caught her. She paused, frowned.

  "I said I liked your voice. You said 'Just my voice? I thought I had rather nice legs.' You asked if I was a misogynist . . . "

  "All right, I'll talk to you. Maybe I can help. I know several psychiatrists."

  That again. Fletcher was unmoved. "Insanity isn't involved. I don't think I'm Napoleon Bonaparte, I know I'm John Fletcher. And so will you, if you let me talk to you."

  "Where do you want to go?"

  "Somewhere quiet."

  "In the Union? You must be joking."

  "No, it's easy." He led her to a locker-room which proved to be deserted. "Fletcher, poor sucker that he was, was always amazingly good at unimportant things like this."

  "You' mean, knowing a place was deserted before he went there?"

  "Or, sometimes, going to exactly the wrong place. That was the trouble."

  "You say you're Fletcher. Then you talk about him in the past tense. If this is some kind of game, please don't keep changing the rules."

  He told her more things which only she and Fletcher knew.

  "When did Fletcher tell you this?" she demanded.

  "Fletcher and Ross never met except at that session."

  "I don't know." She tapped one foot thoughtfully. She wore a white blouse, a red skirt, and high-heeled shoes. The blouse was demure and plain but highly provocative. Fletcher was shocked at his thoughts, and could not blame Ross for them.

  "I wouldn't put it past you," she said, "knowing Fletcher and I had a private session, to seek him out and pump him about what was said."

  "And would I -- would Fletcher -- have told him?" he demanded.

  That, too, had its effect. She frowned again.

  "Listen," he said, and poured out the whole story.

  Now she was totally incredulous. Rather disappointed in her, Fletcher had to admit that after all it was very different for her than for Judy and Ross. They knew . . . you don't argue with what you know, no matter how incredible it may be. If you awake with two heads, your future life has to be predicated on the plain fact that you now have two heads -- which, in a way, was what Judy and Ross had done.

  "I don't like elaborate hoaxes," she said. "In general, I believe what people say. That makes me gullible, I suppose. Last year you and I had a bet on the Boat Race. You told me later the Cambridge boat had sunk. I paid up. It was hours later I found this was supposed to be a joke."

  "This is no joke, Anita."

  "Now, that . . . " she said, again uncertain, "would be clever, if you knew about it. Ross never called me Anita. Oh, I don't know."

  "Go and see Judy."

  "You want me to ask if Fletcher was ever in her . . . " Anita gave up impatiently, incredulously. "And that fantastic story of walking along the parapet of the skyscraper. Really, Ross."

  "No," said Fletcher. "Not that. It's obvious nothing will convince you but facts. Right, find out the facts about Judy. She's at a special school. That girl you saw yesterday. Her IQ is on record somewhere, 60, 70, I don't know. You remember she told you she couldn't write."

  "Yes," said Anita slowly, again momentarily impressed. "I couldn't figure that out. She seemed a normal kid, brighter than average, perhaps."

  "Well, you look into it. Judy couldn't learn to read or write became she was too backward, doomed to illiteracy for the rest of her life. How about giving her a test now? In fact, that's the main reason I wanted to talk to you. I like Judy, and I feel responsible for her. If nobody does anything about it, she'll go back to the school when her leg is better. In due course they'll find out she's different. They'll take months over it. Then, since her case is unique, they'll take more months figuring out what to do about it. She can't be sent to an ordinary school with girls of her own age, because she's so far behind. She can't be sent to a primary school with seven-year-olds to catch up. Probably she'll be left in the special school because that means less trouble for everybody."

  "Oh, no!" said Anita, jumping up. "That would be horrible for the poor kid. Somebody's got to . . . "

  She broke off, for Fletcher was smiling at her, and she couldn't help smiling back.

  "Tell me what, particularly, you can't believe."

  "Oh, everything. The whole crazy story."

  "Yet you took part in a test looking for psi talent in Fletcher. Why, if you were going to refuse to believe in it when you found it?"

  "This isn't psi."

  "Tell me, what is psi? What are the rules for clairvoyance? What are you allowed to do, and not allowed to do, in the fields beyond human knowledge?"

  Rather weakly she said: "It's incredible."

  "What, particularly, can't you believe?"

  "Well, maybe the absence of science, of machines. I'm not technically minded, and perhaps because
of that I believe gadgets can do anything. If you, Fletcher, had been put in a glass case with a steel band round his head, and Ross sat in a chair with another band round his head, and lights flashed along neon tubes, as in the films, I could probably believe it."

  "Not very logical, is it?''

  "Why not? When you get something like this that never happened before . . . "

  "There are vast tomes of investigation into such phenomena. Even if the results are inconclusive, you have to admit that thousands of people have been honestly convinced that this kind of thing has been happening since the dawn of history."

  Unexpectedly, she was suddenly interested, eager. She took a couple of quick steps and stood just in front of him, small, vibrant, challenging.

  "You're Fletcher?" she said.

  "Yes."

  "You're also Ross?"

  "Yes."

  "But meantime you're Fletcher?"

  "Yes."

  "Kiss me."

  He saw at once what she had in mind, but he didn't think about it. Such an invitation from such a girl required no consideration.

  He took her in his arms and sought her lips with his. She was passive, then willing, then responding. As kisses went, this one soared to the stars. Neither of them had anything to learn from any of the great lovers of history.

  When Anita could speak, she whispered, still in his arms: "Now I believe the unbelievable. But it's not what you told me. You're not Fletcher, obviously. And you're not Ross either."

  Fletcher thoroughly enjoyed one part of the day. Ross usually lunched at the Students' Union, but he cooked his own evening meal, which he called supper, because he never had anything else to eat later. If funds ran to it he drank, but never ate.

  Left to his own devices in Ross's tiny kitchen, Fletcher ran riot with the modest stores. Since there was rice, tins of chicken, prawns and shrimps, ham left over from breakfast, a few sausages and tomatoes, he made a vast mound of paella and ate every last morsel. He had never enjoyed a meal more. Ross's healthy appetite combined with Fletcher's unhealthy preoccupation with food made it a feast of the gods.

  At last, as Fletcher was sprawled on the bed in postprandial torpor, Ross admitted his existence again.

  --You ate enough to last me for a week.

  --Wasn't it wonderful?

  --I can't understand the way you eat, Fletcher.

  --I can't understand the way you drink, Ross.

  --Anyway, I want to be rid of you.

  --We're agreed

  --And I've thought of a way that might work. A very simple way.

  Their thoughts were very guarded. Each had reached certain conclusions he didn't intend to share with the other.

  --What is it? Fletcher asked.

  --You'll have to let me do it.

  --I will. You want to take over now?

  --Yes, but I think after all I'll tell you what I have in mind. You remember what happened before you got into Judy's brain?

  --Of course.

  --You knew your time had come, so you got in touch with Baudaker. For more than twelve hours you strove to touch other minds. That must have toned you up, stimulated you in some way. You got a headache. Without really knowing why, you got drunk. That toned you up some more.

  --Appearances were much the other way.

  --But don't you see? You wanted to live, and you wanted to die. You wanted to find out about your special talents, and you wanted to pretend they didn't exist. You tried to touch minds, and achieved only negative results . . . like a golf champion pretending he couldn't play golf and doing ten times worse than someone who had never tried.

  --Well?

  --I'm going to buy two bottles of whisky, and drink them.

  --No! Why not beer, like before?

  --Because you don't like whisky. You don't like being drunk, either, do you? I'm nearly sure I've found the way, Fletcher. Somewhere around the end of the first bottle you'll hop into oblivion or into somebody else, and which it is I personally do not care.

  After a moment's hesitation Fletcher realized there was nothing to hesitate about, if he meant what he had said.

  --Go ahead.

  For a time Fletcher closed all the doors and let Ross take over. The first taste of whisky brought him back: he wanted to gag, but Ross wouldn't let him.

  Back in his room with the two bottles and a glass, alone, the door locked, in a comfortable armchair, Ross said aloud: "It's good stuff, Fletcher. Proper malt whisky, the real Highland stuff. I can't really afford it, but anything to get rid of you."

  --The feeling's mutual.

  --Yes, I wonder if some celestial entity is having a game with us? We're all sick. You're sick, Judy was sick, I'm sick. I use the past tense in one case because possibly Judy isn't sick any more. It's interesting about her. Cute kid. Pity she weren't six years older. That's one thing I never did, Fletcher, rob cradles. Anyway, maybe she isn't sick any more.

  --That's one thing I'm happy about.

  --Be happy if you like, Fletcher. But not when I take another swig of whisky, because that's not supposed to make you happy . . . .

  It did not.

  "As for me," Ross said, aloud again, "you may even have done me some good too. That is, assuming this works and you get the hell out of me."

  He sipped some more whisky, drinking it like wine.

  "We're alike in many ways, as you finally decided. Insecure background, no security of affection. It hit us in different ways, that's all. You decided not to exist any more than you could help. If anyone said 'boo' to you, you crawled into your shell. I decided I'd bloody well take what I could get. And it worked, in a way."

  --Not a good way.

  "No. We're agreed about that. Ours is better."

  --What do you mean, ours?

  "Wow, what a kissl And she was right. We weren't Ross, and we weren't Fletcher. We were something possibly worthy of Anita. Did you notice, she seemed to think so too?"

  --I don't understand.

  "Then you're a fool. Well, maybe that's unjust, Fletcher. I take it back. I take it back, but you're still a fool."

  The level in the whisky bottle was sinking rapidly.

  "I really am most extraordinarily grateful to you, Fletcher -- that is, assuming you get the hell out of me in about five minutes." As was only to be expected, he made a sad hash of the word "extraordinarily."

  The whisky, evidently, had hit him very suddenly, almost in mid-sentence. That was quite possible at the rate he was drinking it.

  Fletcher, although acutely uncomfortable, was not as drunk as Ross was, and this was strange. The same blood was coursing through the part of Ross's brain that was his, and the alcohol content of the blood was rising rapidly. But then, there must be something quite non-physical about these recent phenomena; what remained of Fletcher was more than just a small area of Ross's brain.