Viscous Circle

by Piers Anthony

  "I know enough of the how. Telepathy, a general broadcast of emotion, interpreted by each receiver-brain. I'm asking why. Why create this pointless discomfort for people?"

  The creature tried again. Evidently there was confusion. The straight transmission of meaning did not preclude some misunderstandings. Must. Need. Feed.

  "How does scaring people help you to feed?"

  Feed on fear.

  Then Ronald understood. "You consume emotion!"

  Feed on fear, the monster agreed.

  "It's like priming the pump. You send out a little, and receive a lot more."

  Feed, Cerberus agreed again. He was evidently not extraordinarily bright. He hardly needed to be, with this system of sustenance.

  "But why does it have to be negative? Why not broadcast love, and feed on happiness?" But as he spoke, he knew the answer. Fear was one of the strongest, least-reasoned emotions. There would be a greater percentage in fear, so Cerberus was tuned to that; probably he was unable to broadcast any other emotion. Maybe his distant ancestors had experimented with other emotions and natural selection had centered on this one.

  That meant there was no peaceable way out. The monster was a menace to human society and had to be eliminated.

  As Solarian Monsters were a menace to Band society....

  But that was a thought from the underworld—that of the double ring. It did not belong here, however relevant it might be to his present situation. In this memory he had a purpose; for the sake of his pride, for the meaning of his life, he had to do what he had to do.

  Yet even in the memory, he was not at ease. He did not really like destruction, and sought some other way. Violence, he remembered, was the last refuge of the incompetent. The primitive tribesmen saw no alternative except the killing of the monster; Ronald, more civilized, sought something better. Even Chief Speed remained primitive, highly informed though he might be about Spherical matters; at his gut level he sought revenge and victory over an enemy—a perceived enemy—rather than accommodation with a marvelously talented creature.

  "You will not go away?" Ronald inquired. "To some other part of the planet, where you will not make human beings afraid?" Maybe they could work this out.

  For answer, Cerberus attacked. Not physically; mentally. The force of fear, which had been idle during their conversation, now intensified horrendously. The creature might seem clumsy dealing with dialogue-thoughts, but it was highly skilled in the manipulation of this emotion.

  Ronald had never been so frightened in his life. Fear choked his throat, terror froze his body, and his mind was a storm. He had thought he had conquered the emotion by his logic, his civilized understanding—but he had not. The beast had merely held its power in abeyance. Perhaps that was the way with all the horrors of the human imagination; they were never truly conquered, but only restricted temporarily.

  Vanity, vanity! He had thought that as a civilized man he could not be affected by magic. He had been wrong; magic had turned out to be telepathy. Under that other name, it struck just as ferociously. He had thought he had conquered it through understanding; he had been wrong again. He had deluded himself; his faith in himself had been arrogance. In the end, emotion always dominated understanding; that was why people went to war. He remained paralyzed with terror.

  Yet, oddly, despite the endless emotion and recrimination, he was not fleeing. The fear beat about him like a tempest, but something anchored him. A trace of morbid curiosity seeped through the tide of negative feeling: why?

  Slowly, in the manner of a tree righting itself as the wind that almost broke or uprooted it subsides, he realized that his slender strength was stiffening. Though fear had overtaken him, even now it was not his most fundamental attribute. He could feel joy, anger, love, and fear, but he was not an animal to be completely governed by these emotions. There was something else in him that, when the final tally was made, preempted any of these.

  It was pride. Ronald had few claims to exceptional status. His aura was high, but not truly remarkable in itself; it qualified him to be a routine Transfer agent, no more. He was, in his natural host, healthy and handsome—but again not to any really noteworthy extent. He was intelligent, but had encountered many people who dwarfed him in intellect. But Ronald had the ability to marshal all his capabilities, of whatever nature, large or small, to succeed to the maximum extent possible for him. He had a virtually perfect record: anything he really put his mind to, he accomplished. His private index of efficiency was high. Of course he did not tackle things foolishly; he always made sure he had a reasonable chance. A significant proportion of his success lay in his accurate judgment of what was and was not feasible. He knew his limits.

  This time he was into considerably more challenge than he had bargained for. He had not had opportunity to assess the risks in advance. He had been sent unprepared into a situation of amorphous challenge. But this was the nature of Transfer duty: alien creatures were the ultimately unpredictable element. He had needed to discover whether he could survive when he had not been able to pick and choose carefully on the basis of information. If he wanted to hold this particular job, he could no longer play it safe. Instead he had to rise to the occasion, transcending his personal weaknesses. This required a change in his philosophy. He had always played it safe while seeming to take risks. Now he had to take real risks, and perhaps suffer losses. He realized now that he had never thought through the nature of Transfer duty. He had been blinded by the delights of it, the novelty, the notoriety. Maybe it was not, after all, the proper employment for his type of personality. Surely his superiors, who had exquisitely detailed and cross-referenced computer printouts of all his qualities, were aware of his flaws. They had been uncertain whether he was suited to the job. So they had given him more than the routine break-in task he had asked for. They had deliberately placed him in a situation as challenging as an alien Transfer mission would be. First, the abrupt change in social values, such as the privacy of sexual relations, that he had navigated the night before. Second, this appalling terror. This was the crisis: could he handle it?

  He could back down. He could admit that this was too much for him; that he was, after all, unsuited to this type of challenge. Far better that he do it now, than discover in alien host that he couldn't handle it! If he was not fated to be a Transfer agent, his sensible course was to recognize that now, take his lumps, and seek other employment. At least he would be alive.

  But now that the crisis was upon him, Ronald discovered that his pride was greater than his practicality. He wanted, even more than success, to accomplish something meaningful in his life. Success came to many men; meaning to few. He could have success writing up routine reports in some planet-side office, doing a job anyone else might do. But to have meaning—for that, he had to do a job no one else could do. Or one that no one else who had the capacity would do. A job like going native, bedding a buxom native girl in public on a banquet table, donning archaic and sweaty armor, and dueling a magic monster. Few, very few civilized people would or could unbend enough to make it with the girl, and few would be able to resist the terrible telepathy of the monster. Perhaps only he, Ronald, was in a position to do both.

  Was this what he really wanted? And the answer was, he wasn't sure. His pride restrained him; he hardly dared desire what was beyond his capacity, because of his risk of pride. But if he could conquer here, then he could afford to desire more. He could enlarge his personal perimeter.

  Terror still froze him in place. But it hadn't put him to flight, and it hadn't stopped his other thoughts. If he hadn't yet won, at least he had not yet lost. He simply could not yield that last portion of his dream: partly because the shame of failure would be worse for him than the release of fear; partly because the first step he took away from Cerberus would also be away from his dream of adventure on far planets, among completely alien creatures. He would rather, yes he would rather, die here, than survive stripped of his pride and his dream of the potential meaning
in his existence.

  The emotion abated. You don't flee, Cerberus thought, perplexed. My power destroys you, yet you stay.

  Now the creature was uncertain. It, too, had encountered more than anticipated. It could comprehend resistance to its broadcast, but not this unresponsive susceptibility. A terrified individual always fled, yielding a rich harvest of delicious emotion. How could it be otherwise?

  "I am civilized," Ronald said weakly. It was all the explanation he could manage.

  Again the terror tore at him, worse than before. But again the tree clung to its soil. Ronald now had a better understanding of his own motives, and that lent him strength. He had himself together now. Fear might kill him, but it would not make him flee.

  The siege was shorter this time. Cerberus had thrown more energy into this effort, and received less back, and tired faster. He, too, had his limits. For the first time, Ronald sniffed the faint whiff of victory.

  Now was the time. He took a step forward, his leg like lead. The monster hurled another surge of emotion, with a sharp cutting edge of despair. But it was the despair of Cerberus, not Ronald; the creature's power was weakening.

  But conquest of fear was not enough. There was still the physical three-headed canine to deal with, and that was formidable enough. All those jaws...

  Slowly Ronald drew his sword. His arm, too, was heavy with seeming fatigue and muscular reluctance. Fear inhibited the body. Step by step he advanced through a crumbling ruin of emotion that merged with the physical terrain. Volcanic fissures steamed and smoked in his mind as well as in the land. He did not like the notion of slaying a uniquely talented creature, but there was no other way unless the monster relented and retreated. And he would not, for his own pride and welfare were at stake. If Cerberus lost this battle by retreating from a terrified enemy, he was finished.

  They were locked in a battle of pride, Ronald realized. There was no right or wrong to it; one force had to prevail over the other. In any event, it was not his place to make judgments of merit; he merely had to do his job—to help the Hurrians, and to prove that he could succeed as a Transfer agent.

  Now he stood within sword range of the monster. Cerberus was evidently not accustomed to this sort of combat; his motions were awkward. Perhaps millennia ago, when his species was evolving, he had been a ferocious fighter with his three heads. But the efficiency of telepathy had made such combat unnecessary, and his body had atrophied much as the tail and appendix had in man. Use it or lose it: nature's law.

  One head jerked forward. The jaws gaped wide.

  Ronald's sword slashed. It was not a clean cut. He chopped the head in half, lengthwise. Blood poured out, and the head made half a scream.

  The other two heads converged. One tried to bite him on the leg. The armor stopped it, and in a moment he had cut this head off, more cleanly, at its small neck. Then he whipped the sword backhand at the third, slicing on the bias, and the head fell to the ground, snapping at the dirt.

  It was over. The fear was gone. A grotesque, flopping, gore-spouting hulk lay before him. Now all he felt was disgust fading into a dull lack of emotion. Had it been right to kill Cerberus? He couldn't say, emotionally, because that sort of feeling had been wiped out by the creature's death. Ronald couldn't feel remorse.

  He braced one foot against the shuddering body and shoved. The corpse slid lumpily over the brink of the chasm and dropped out of sight. Ronald waited for the sound of its striking bottom.

  Then a pinprick of apprehension stabbed at him. Ronald looked around. There, in a shallow crevice near the surface of the fissure, was a crude nest. In the nest was a tiny three-headed dog.

  Ronald put his foot against the nest, about to shove it and its burden into the depths of the chasm. But he paused. This was a baby Cerberus, unable to terrify on a mass scale. It would be years, perhaps decades, before it grew to full size and power.

  Ronald reached down his gauntleted hands and picked the creature out of the nest. It tried to bite his fingers, but recoiled in pain.

  "Cerberus Junior," Ronald said, trying to concentrate his thought so it could understand. "You must forage alone." The adult had been male; perhaps the mother had perished elsewhere, or maybe she was hiding, lacking in telepathic ability. So either the pup could survive without nursing, by scaring squirrels or whatever other small life lived here, or it had a remaining parent. "Your father attacked a man, and was killed. You must never attack a man. Go, hide in the forest, survive. But stay away from this locale. Our fear is not for you."

  The baby whimpered, seeming to understand. Ronald set it carefully on the other side of the cleft and watched it scramble away. Yes, it had gotten the message.

  And he, Ronald, had proven himself. He would be a Transfer agent.

  Chapter 14

  Maze

  "What does it mean?" the Bands wondered.

  "That is for you to decide," Ronald replied. "You evoked the memory."

  They tried. It was a moral puzzle. Had it been right to violate his social principles by copulating with the Human female? If not, could his commitment to Cirl, to him an alien female, be justified? Had it been right to slay the fear-monster? This was a concept that would have been incomprehensible to the Band intellect prior to Rondl's training of Bands and the advent of the invasion of the Monsters. Now, since the slaying of the Kratch, they could to some extent appreciate his rationale.

  "The fear-monster resembled the Kratch," the thought circulated, picking up on that current. "It sought to aggrandize itself at the expense of others. This was unsocial."

  "Yet destroying life is also unsocial," Rondl argued, playing the advocate.

  "To this extent we have become monsterized," the Bands thought, and from the opposite circuit the emotion concurred. "We now understand that sometimes evil must be met with evil. Yet never should evil be initiated."

  "Solarian Monsters initiate evil," Rondl thought. "It is their nature. It is my nature, for I am one of them. This memory merely shows the background of my actions among you. I was able to slay Cerberus and the Kratch because I was already tainted with evil myself. You Bands must remain untainted."

  "Without your leadership we revert to our nature," they agreed. The great majority of the participants of this circle were strangers, but a few had been part of Rondl's combat force, and these lent comprehension to the full circle. "If what we participate in is evil, it is at your instigation. Yet we cannot condemn you, for now we comprehend your nature. This memory has shown us that. It has revealed your most basic motive."

  "You grasp me better than I grasp you," Rondl flashed. "Yet is that enough?"

  "No. Now you must change circles."

  "How do I do that?"

  "Cirl is before you. Rotate with her, exchanging glances and directions while we hold firm."

  Rondl was sorry he could not join Cirl in her own circle. But at least this way she would get to assimilate the conscious aspect of his memory, instead of the unconscious aspect. He rotated with her, exchanging places and circles. What an intricate device this double circle was!

  Now the frame of the exploring Band hero opened out for him. He had flown to a strange planet, seeking something, and gone near the surface. The terrain had become strange indeed, a maze of surfaces and colors; of great mountains, deep valleys, and flat waters. Creatures had appeared, some seeming friendly, some hostile. That hostility was a new experience for Rondl the Band, an emotion he had thought alien. Of course his larger awareness advised him that this phenomenon related to emotion that generated from the other side of the circle, as a man approached a strange culture or a monster; but here the other experience translated into confusion and doubt. Yet there was a positive element, too. The friendly creatures thought he had come to help them eliminate the hostile ones, but he felt emotionally and physically ill-equipped. How could he, a visitor, do what the natives could not? Should he? Violence was not his nature.

  No, violence was not necessary. Just assistance. If he could just
converse with the hostile element, find out how the objection could be ameliorated, he might come to some understanding of its nature and discover a peaceful way to abate its animus.

  Rondl realized that this Band approach differed from the Solarian approach to what might be a similar problem. The Solarians had never considered the view of the fear-monster; they had sought only to eliminate the creature. The Bands did not seek elimination, only accommodation. But perhaps that would be no easier than it had been for the Solarians.

  Yet he had to try, for it was the Band way: to help one's neighbor. He agreed to seek the other party. Immediately he flew farther across the strange terrain, following the magnetic lines, finding his way to the region of the other.

  He arrived, and discovered horrendously alien things. Alarmed, he veered away—and discovered himself captured.

  The very notion of Band capture was alien, for Bands were completely free entities. Yet now there were a limited number of available lines, and across each of them was a globular, multiappendaged mass of creature. In the center of each mass was a light-emitting disk. Each disk was flashing in a primitive emulation of communication.

  Communication? Was it possible? Could these animals be sapient despite having no magnetic lenses?

  This was, Rondl realized, a long time ago, before the Bands realized there were other intelligent species in the universe. All non-Band species they had known before were animals.

  "Then who were the friendly creatures?" he inquired. "I thought they were sapient aliens."

  "Not exactly," the Bands of this side of the circle replied. "They had lenses, but lacked civilization. This becomes complex to clarify."

  Without doubt. Rondl returned to the myth-memory, leaving the details of the order of discovery of sapient alien species for another occasion.

  Experimentally, he flashed a beam of sunlight at one of the gross creatures. "Meeting," he said carefully.

  "Meeng," the thing replied, generating its own clumsy fluctuations. Yet this was a creditable effort. It was indeed trying to communicate!