The Dark Design

by Philip José Farmer

  “It’s like Alice said, ‘Mysteriouser and mysteriouser,’ isn’t it?”

  Her heart pounding hard and her hand shaking, Jill switched off the intercom.

  Firebrass was one of Them.

  A moment later she called Graves back.

  “Firebrass said he’d tell us why he wanted us x-rayed. But he never did, not to me, anyway. Did he tell you?”

  “No. I asked him to tell me, and he just put me off.”

  “Then you don’t know whether or not Thorn has a sphere in his head. If he should die, open him up, Doc.”

  “I’ll do that. Of course, I could expose the brain, anyway. But not now. He has to get well first.”

  “Wouldn’t that kill him? I know that the top of the skull is removed in operations, but can you expose Thorn’s forebrain?”

  “It won’t hurt me a bit.”

  Twenty-four hours passed. Jill tried to keep the crew busy, but there was very little to do except unnecessary cleaning and polishing. She wished that she had brought along some of the movies made in Parolando. Except for talking and playing checkers, chess, and card games and throwing darts, there was little to occupy them. She did organize exercise periods to tire them out, but only so much of this could be done, and it was almost as boring as doing nothing.

  Meanwhile, the dark and the cold seemed to seep into their bones. And the thought that below them there might be those mysterious beings who had made this world for them was nerve stretching. What were They doing? Why had They not come out?

  Above all, what had happened to Piscator?

  Cyrano de Bergerac seemed to be especially affected. His long silences and obvious brooding could be caused by the death of Firebrass. It seemed to her, however, that something else was bothering him.

  Dr. Graves asked her to come to his office. On entering it, she found him sitting on the edge of his desk. Silently, he held out his palm. In it was a tiny black sphere.

  “They were all so badly burned that I couldn’t even determine the sex by exterior observation. Obrenova was the smallest, though, so I dissected the smallest corpse first. I found this at once. I didn’t say anything to you because I wanted to examine all of them first.

  “She was the only one to have this.”

  “Two of them!”

  “Yeah. And it makes me wonder about Thorn.”

  Jill sat down and lit a cigarette with trembling hands. Graves said, “Listen. The only liquor aboard is in my locker. It’s for medical purposes, but I think you need some medicine. I know I do.”

  While he got a bottle out, she told him about overhearing the quarrel between Thorn and Obrenova.

  He handed her a cup of the purplish fluid, saying, “So they weren’t just nodding acquaintances?”

  “I don’t think so. But I don’t know what all this means.”

  “Who does? Except maybe Thorn. Cheers!”

  Jill downed the warming, fruity liquor, and she said, “We found nothing suspicious in the quarters of any of them, Firebrass’, Obrenova’s, or Thorn’s.”

  She paused, then said, “There was one thing, significant not by its presence but by its absence. Like the dog in the Sherlock Holmes story who didn’t bark. Thorn’s grail wasn’t in his chopper or in his cabin. I have, however, ordered a more thorough search of the chopper.

  “You told me a few hours ago that Thorn’s conscious now. Can he be questioned?”

  “Not for very long. I’d advise waiting until he’s stronger. Just now, if he doesn’t want to talk, he can pretend to fall asleep.”

  The intercom rang. Graves flipped on the switch.

  “Doctor? C.P.O. Cogswell here. I’d like to speak to the captain.”

  Jill said, “Captain here.”

  “Captain, we just found a bomb in the No. 2 chopper! It’s plastic explosive. Looks like it weighs about two kilograms, and the fuse is connected to a radio receiver. It’s on the underside of the arms locker in the rear.”

  “Don’t do anything until I get down there. I want to see it before it’s removed.”

  She stood up. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that Thorn set off a bomb in Firebrass’ chopper. The investigating crew hasn’t determined the cause of the explosion, but the chief said he thought it might have been a bomb.”

  “Yes,” Graves said. “The question is why Thorn would want to do that.”

  Jill started to walk toward the door, then stopped. “My God! If Thorn planted bombs in both choppers, he could have hidden some on the ship, too!”

  “You never found a transmitter when you searched his quarters,” the doctor said. “Maybe he hid one, or several, on the ship.”

  Jill immediately alerted all personnel. After giving orders to Coppename to organize the search parties, she left for the hangar bay. The bomb was where the chief had said it was. She got down on her knees and looked at it with the aid of a flashlight. Then she left the machine.

  “Remove the fuse and receiver. Put the plastic in the explosives hold. Call the electronics officer and tell him I’d like to know what frequency the receiver is set on.

  “No, wait, I’ll call him myself.”

  She wanted to make sure that his experimenting would be done in a shielded room. The various bombs—if any—would have been planted at the same time, but Thorn would set the receiver of each to respond to its own wavelength. Still, there was no use taking a chance.

  After making sure that Deruyck, the electronics officer, understood why he should use a shielded room, she went to the control room. Coppename was at the intercom, listening to the reports of the search parties.

  Cyrano was in the pilot’s chair staring at the panel as if the ship were in flight. He looked up at her as she entered.

  “Is it permitted to ask what Doctor Graves found?”

  So far, she had not concealed anything from the crew. She felt that they had a right to know as much as she did.

  Cyrano said nothing for some time after she had finished. His long fingers drummed on the panel while he looked upward as if something were written on the overhead. Finally, he stood up.

  “I think we should have a little talk. In private. Now, if possible.”

  “With all this going on?”

  “We can step into the chart room.”

  He followed her in and closed the door. She sat down and lit another cigarette. He began pacing back and forth, his hands locked behind him.

  “It is evident that Firebrass, Thorn, and Obrenova were agents of Them. I find it hard to believe that Firebrass could have been. He was so human! Yet it is possible that They are human, too.

  “Still, that being who called himself an Ethical said that neither he nor the agents were violent. They detested and abhorred violence. But Firebrass could be very violent; he certainly did not act like a pacifist. And then there’s the incident of the newcomer Stern. It seems from what you tell me that Firebrass may have attacked him, instead of Stern assaulting Firebrass.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jill said. “It would be better to begin at the beginning.”

  “Very well. I will tell you what I promised to keep secret. I do not easily break my word, in fact, this is the first time. But I may have given my word to someone who is my enemy, my secret enemy.

  “It was seventeen years ago. How long ago that has been, yet how recently! I was at that time living in an area of which most of the people were of my country and time. On the right bank, you understand. The left was populated by brown-skinned savages. Indians who had lived on the island of Cuba before Columbus found it, though I believe its inhabitants were not aware that their country had been lost. They were fairly peaceful, and after some initial struggles and difficulties, our area had settled down.

  “My own little state was, in fact, headed by the great Conti, under whom I had the honor to serve at the siege of Arras. Where I received a thrust through the throat, the second of the serious wounds that convinced me, along with all else I had seen of war’s miser
ies and horrors, that Mars was the stupidest of the gods. Also, I was delighted to find there my good friend and mentor, the so justly famed Gassendi. He, as you no doubt know, opposed the infamous Descartes and revived Epicurus, whose physics and morals he so splendidly presented. Not to mention his influence on Molière, Chapelle, and Dehènault, all my good friends, by the way. He persuaded them to translate Lucretius, the divine Roman atomist…”

  “Stick to the point. Give me only the undecorated truth.”

  “As for the truth, what is it, to paraphrase slightly another Roman…”

  “Cyrano!”

  Very well. To the breach. It was late at night. I was sleeping soundly next to my so lovely Livy, when I was suddenly awakened. The only illumination was the night light seeping in through the wooden bars of our open window. A huge figure was standing over me, a black mass with a tremendous round head like a burned-out moon. I sat up, but before I could bring up my spear, which always lay by my side, the figure spoke.”

  “In what language?”

  “Eh? In the only one in which I was then fluent, my native speech, the most beautiful of all the tongues of Earth. The thing spoke not the most correct of French, but I understood him.

  “‘Savinien de Cyrano II de Bergerac,’ he said, giving me my full nomenclature.

  “‘You have the advantage of me, sir,’ I said. Though my heart was pounding hard and I felt the most intense need of pissing, I conducted myself most admirably. By then I could see, even in that faintly starlit darkness, that he was not overtly belligerent. If he had a weapon, he had concealed it under his huge cloak. Though I was somewhat distracted, I could not but wonder why Livy, a light sleeper, had not been awakened. But she slept on, snoring lightly and prettily.

  “‘You may call me whatever you wish,’ he said. ‘My name is not important at this time. And if you wonder why your woman is not also awake, it is because I have made sure that she will not. Oh, no!’ he said, as, furious, I tried to get up, ‘she is not harmed in the least. She has been drugged and will awake in the morning without even a headache.’

  “By that time, I discovered that I, or at least a part of me, had also been drugged. My legs would not function, though, strangely, they did not feel leaden or numb. They just wouldn’t work. Naturally, I was furious at the liberties taken with my person, but there was little I could do about it.

  “The stranger then pulled up a stool and sat down by me.

  “‘Listen, and then determine for yourself if I am not worth listening to,’ he said.

  “And he told me a most amazing tale, Jill, the like of which it is evident that you have not heard. He said that he was one of the beings who had resurrected us. They called themselves Ethicals. He would not go into detail about their background or where they came from or anything like that. He did not have enough time for that. In fact, if he were caught—by his own people, mind you—it would be bad indeed for him.

  “I had many questions, of course, but when I opened my mouth, he told me to keep quiet and listen. He would visit me again, he said, perhaps more than once. Then he would answer most of my questions. Meanwhile, I was to understand this! We had not been given life so that we could live forever. We were just subjects of scientific experiments, and when the experiments were finished, we would be finished. We’d die for the last time, forever.”

  “What kind of experiments?”

  “Well, it was more than just experiments. It was also a historical project. His people wanted to collect data on history, on anthropology, and so forth. They were also interested in finding out what kind of societies we humans would form when we were so mixed together. How would people change under certain conditions?

  “He said that many groups would be allowed to develop without any interference from his people at all. But some would be influenced, some subtly, some by more outright methods. The project would take a long time, perhaps several hundred years. Then it would be finit for the project and finit for us. Back to dust we would go—forever.

  “I said, ‘That does not sound so ethical to me, sir. Why do they deny to us what they have—eternal life?’

  “He said, ‘That is because they are not truly ethical. Despite their high opinions of themselves, they are cruel, as the scientist who tortures animals to advance science is cruel. But he has his justifications, his rationalization.

  “‘You see, the scientist is doing some good, being ethical in one sense. It is true that as a result of this project, a few of you will become immortal. But only a few.’

  “‘How is that?’ I said.

  “And then he told me about the entity which the Church of the Second Chance calls the ka. You know of this, Jill?”

  Jill said, “I’ve attended many of their lectures.”

  “Then you know all about the ka and the akh and the other stuff. This person said that the Chancer’s theology was partly true. Mainly because one of the Ethicals had visited the man called La Viro and had thus caused him to found the Church.”

  “I thought that was just one of the wild tales those visionaries had invented,” Jill said. “I didn’t put any more credence in it than I did in the ravings of Earth prophets. Moses, Jesus, Zoroaster, Mohammed, Buddha, Smith, Eddy, the whole sick crew.”

  “No more did I,” Cyrano said. “Though, when I was dying, I did repent. But that was to make my poor unhappy sister and my friend Le Bret happy. Besides, it couldn’t hurt if I made a deathbed conversion. And, to tell the truth, I was scared of hellfire. After all…”

  “Your childhood conditioning.”

  “Exactly. But here was a being who said that there was such a thing as a soul. And I had proof positive that there could be a life after death. Still, I could not help wondering if I was the butt of a joke. What if this man were just one of my neighbors, pretending to be a visitor from the gods, as it were? I would believe him, and then tomorrow I would be laughed at. What? De Bergerac, the rationalist, the atheist, to be taken in so completely by this fantastic tale?

  “But… who would do this to me? I knew no one who would have the motive or the means for such a joke. And what about the drug which made Livy sleep and which paralyzed my legs? I had never heard of such a drug. Also, where would a practical joker get that sphere which enclosed his head? There was just enough light to see that it was black and opaque. Still…

  “And then, as if he perceived my lack of belief, he handed me a lens of some material. ‘Put this in front of your eye,’ he said. ‘Look at Livy.’

  “I did so, and I gasped with astonishment. Just beyond the top of her head was a globe of many colors. It shone brightly, as if illuminated by itself. It spun and swelled and expanded and put out arms from time to time, six-sided tentacles, and these shrank back into the globe and then other arms came out.

  “The being then reached out and told me to drop the lens into his hand. He did not say so, but it was evident that he did not want me to touch him. I obeyed, of course.

  “The lens went back into his cloak, and he said, ‘What you saw is the wathan. That is the immortal part of you.’

  “Then he said, ‘I have chosen a few of you to help me fight against this monstrous evil my people are committing. I picked you because of your wathans. You see, we can read wathans as easily as you can read a children’s book. A person’s character is reflected in his wathan. Perhaps I shouldn’t say reflected, since the wathan is the character. But I don’t have the time to explain that. The point is, only a minute fraction of humanity will reach the final, the desired ultimate stage, of wathanhood, unless humanity is given much more time.’

  “He then went on to sketch what the Chancers expound in such detail. That the unfulfilled wathan of a dead person wanders through space forever, containing all that is human but unconscious. Only the complete evolved wathan has consciousness. And this stage is attained only by those who achieve an ethical perfection while alive. Or near perfection, anyway.

  “‘What?’ I said. ‘The ultimate in attaining ethi
cal perfection is to wander like a ghost through space, to bounce off the walls of the universe like a cosmic handball, back and forth, yet be conscious of this horrible state and unable to communicate with anyone but one’s self? That is a desirable state?’

  “‘You must not interrupt,’ the stranger said. ‘But I will tell you this. The being who attains perfect wathanhood or akhhood, goes beyond. He does not stay in this world. He goes beyond!’

  “‘And where?’ I said, ‘is beyond?’

  “‘To go beyond is to be absorbed into the Overwathan. To become one with the only Reality. Or God, if you wish to name the Reality that. To become one of God’s cells and to experience the eternal and infinite ecstasy of being God.’

  “I was more than half-convinced then that I was dealing with an insane pantheist. But I said, ‘And this absorption means the loss of one’s individuality?’

  “‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But you then become the Overwathan, God. To trade your individuality, your self-consciousness, for that of the Supreme Being is surely no loss. It is the greatest gain possible, the ultimate.’

  “‘It is horrible!’ I cried. ‘What kind of monstrous joke is this that God plays on His creatures? How is the afterlife, immortality, any better than death?

  “‘No! It does not make sense! Speaking logically, why should the wathan, or the soul, be created in the first place? What sense is there to this creation when most wathans will be wasted, as if they were so many flies hatched only to be eaten or swatted? And those wathans who do survive, in a manner of speaking. What about those who achieve near perfection, sainthood, if you will, only to be cheated in the end? For surely to lose your self-consciousness, your individuality, your humanity, is to be cheated?

  “‘No, I want to stand as myself, Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, if I am to be immortal. I do not want this spurious immortality, this beingness as an unknowing, brainless cell of God’s body! Nameless and brainless!’

  “‘Like most of your breed, you talk too much,’ he said. ‘However…’

  “He hesitated, then said, ‘There is a third alternative, one which you will like. I did not want to tell you… I won’t, now. I do not have time, nor is this the best time. Perhaps the next time. I must leave shortly.