Evil Water and Other Stories

by Ian Watson

  Just thirty months later the announcement has come, from Matsuya Biotechnic KK of Japan, of the development of artificial bionic eyes which can be plugged into the optic nerves.

  Matsuya Biotechnic’s de luxe model improves upon our ordinary visual organs of muscle, jelly, and liquid amazingly. With tiny touch controls (hidden by the eyelid) these Japanese eyes can be adjusted to range into the infra-red; to magnify telescopically; and to peer owl-like on the darkest night.

  The world’s armed forces are very interested; though there’s one small snag. To use Matsuya Eyes first you need to have your own eyes amputated.

  In the two years gone by I must have visited John almost a dozen times at his retirement cottage in a little village near Porchester, where Mrs Mott continued to care for him; and I knew how he was suffering.

  Not pain—but anguish.

  Not poverty—his book had sold massively in paperback and in foreign editions in the wake of his self-blinding—but claustrophobia of the spirit.

  John had been fitted with false plastic eyeballs which were most convincing. The blue pupils were holographically etched so that the eyes looked twinklingly alive, more so at times than real eyes.

  He phoned me a fortnight ago.

  “I’m going to buy a pair of these new Matsuya eyes,” he told me. “Assuming that their experts can summon up the nerve to fit them!” He laughed sharply. “The optic nerve, I mean. Just so long as there’s enough optic nerve still alive and kicking in my head. I can’t take any more of this hellish darkness, Morris. The halo-creature must have died ages ago. Given up; gone home—whatever halo-creatures do when their host starves them out.”

  We had spoken much about the “halo-creature”, John and I.

  An angel? A demon? An extraterrestrial life-form? Or a creature from some other universe entirely—from some other mode of existence—which had strayed across the boundary from its reality into ours?

  The creature wasn’t necessarily intelligent. It might have been no brighter, intellectually, than a fish of the abyss or a firefly.

  Maybe it was a parasite upon some alien beings who had visited our world in secret; and it had escaped. Did it convey some advantage upon such hypothetical alien beings? Or was it just an inconvenience to them—a sort of common cold, a bug of the eyes? The evil which John had sensed might well have been the quality of alienness rather than some moral, metaphysical pang.

  We had gradually settled on a naturalistic explanation, though without any actual notion of the natural history of the beast involved. Certainly a parasite which blinded its host and lit up a beacon above its head didn’t seem very survival-minded. But maybe in this respect John was a South Sea Islander infected by European mumps or measles.

  Or at least, I had settled upon this solution. John still spoke of hellish darkness.

  Now technology would save him by banishing that darkness—just as improved artificial lighting had progressively banished spooks and spirits, devils and gods, lumen by lumen, century by century.

  “I’ve been in touch with the Japanese trade people in London,” he said. “Matsuya are going to fly a couple of their surgeons, and a pair of eyes, over the Pole. It’s good publicity for their company. You could say I’ve been pulling strings. In ten days’ time they can pull mine, inside my head, and see whether those still work. If all goes well, I should be home with my new eyes in a couple of weeks. Jubilate!”

  All has indeed gone well.

  John Ingolby can see again. He can see far better than ever he saw before in all his life. He can see better than almost all of the human race—unless they’ve had nature’s optics removed and bionic eyes substituted.

  The newly-revealed world comes as a revelation to him. My face, unseen these last two years, is a mystic vision. So too is Mrs Mott. Likewise her cottage garden of herbs and flowers.

  Likewise the night-time which he can pierce with ease, seeing monochrome hills and trees and cows and hedges, the stars above drilling a thousand bright little lamp-holes.

  Likewise the heat-image of the world at dawn with those same cows appearing as vivid red humps in the cool blue fields, leaving faint rosy footsteps behind them in the dew. A bird is a flaming meteor.

  Such beauty redeems John’s soul. His new eyes look less human than the plastic ones; they’re silver-grey and at some angles seem like mirrors in his head. But that’s of no account.

  “John—”

  It’s the second night of my visit, and we have stepped outside to star-gaze. Mrs Mott has already retired early to bed.

  “It’s back, John.”

  “Eh?”

  “Your halo: it’s showing faintly.”

  “Don’t joke, Morris.”

  “I’m not joking. I can see it.”

  He hurries closer to the cottage and peers in a curtained window-pane. Everything is much more visible to him. His reflection there confirms my word.

  “Oh my God. So it wasn’t living in my eyes and feeding on the photons. It was in my brain all the time. It’s been lying dormant like a frozen virus. The light has brought it back to life. Oh my God. These Matsuya eyes are permanent. I can’t pull them out when I feel like it. …”

  “And you can’t switch them off?”

  “Why should anybody want to switch their eyes off? When I go to bed, my eyelids do the job. An on–off button would be one control too many. It’s early days yet for bionic eyes.”

  He tells me how Matsuya Biotech KK boast that future bionic eyes will have computerized display functions activated by voice command, with memory chips located in a unit which might be surgically implanted behind the ear or in the jaw. Owners of Matsuya eyes will be able to call up statistics, run graphics across their field of view, access encyclopaedias.

  Not for several years yet.

  “John, this time I think we ought to tell people. You could begin by telling the Japanese.”

  “No.”

  “Why not? They’ll be worried in case the halo’s some fault of the Matsuya eyes. Or they might suppose you’ve stumbled on some hidden power of the mind which their eyes have triggered. The liberation of the third eye by their lenses! They’ll have equipment for probing the halo. They might be able to look into your brain through the eyes.”

  “No, Morris, the problem’s the same as ever. Oh God, to have all the wonder of the world restored to me thrice over—then to have it polluted and thieved again! I’m no saint!” he snarls suddenly. “I might have been a saintly codger in Porchester but I damn well stopped being one during these past two years.”

  We go inside the cottage and drink brandy.

  John gets drunk.

  *

  The halo isn’t at all conspicuous when Mrs Mott serves us our breakfast of bacon and eggs. She notices nothing odd, but I can spy the faint shimmer.

  The sky is blue, the sun is bright.

  “Lovely spring morning,” observes John. “Might cloud over later. We’ll take a walk up Hinchcombe Hill.”

  Hinchcombe Hill is a mile away along a lane then up through a steep forest ride to a gorse-clad hilltop, which is deserted save for some Suffolk ewes. Suffolks are a chunky breed which lamb early, before Christmas; these ewes are already parted from their offspring.

  It was cool walking up through the shade of the fir trees, but here on the hilltop it’s as hot as a summer’s day.

  “Can you see our circular friend?”

  “The sun’s too bright,” I tell him.

  “Good. Now, we all know that we shouldn’t stare at a bright sun, don’t we Morris? The sun can burn the cells of the retina. My retina is a machine. It’s much more resilient. The flash from a hydrogen bomb might burn Matsuya eyes—but we all know that a nuclear flash is brighter than a thousand suns, don’t we? So I ought to have lots of spare capacity even if I switch over to night-vision.”

  “Don’t do it, John.”

  “I don’t care if I harm these eyes. Not now.”

  “You might damage your brain. The
visual centres.”

  “Where the beast dwells, eh? Unless it dwells in a separate universe, or in Heaven, and only has a peephole in my head.”

  He sits down on a boulder facing the sun. “You want feeding?” he cries out. “I’ll feed you!”

  For some reason—habit, ritual, or insurance policy?—he crosses himself, then begins to stare fixedly at the sun. Loudly he hums the hymn tune, “Angels from the Realms of Glory”, over and over again monotonously.

  Minutes pass.

  “I can see it, John. It’s glowing.”

  Brighter, ever brighter.

  Presently it’s a full-fledged radiant halo; and still he stares into the sun.

  He breaks off humming. “Report, please!” he says crisply.

  “I can’t look directly at it any longer. It’s getting too fierce.” At least the halo’s light is cold, otherwise John’s head would surely start to cook.

  “Not from my point of view! The day grows dim. The sun looks like a lemon in a mist.” Ang-els! from! the Realms! of Glo-ry!

  I simply have to turn away. The ewes have all trekked off down the slope away from this second, miniature sun in their midst.

  “I’m going blind fast, Morris. It’s really gobbling light.”

  “And pumping it out again!”

  “I’ll soon be back in darkness. But no matter.” Ang-els! from!

  If only I had some tinted glass with me. I only dare risk a glance now and then.

  Glance:

  The halo isn’t doughnut-shaped any longer. It’s a sphere of furnace light just like a second head. Its after-image bobs above the fir trees as though a ball of lightning is loose.

  The Realms! of Glo-ry!

  I cast two shadows on the grass and gorse.

  Glance:

  “It’s elongating upwards, John!”

  A pillar of blinding silver radiance: it could light a whole street.

  In the afterimage a figure hovers over the trees, sliding from side to side: a body of sorts. It fades.

  Glance:

  Now the after-image is sharper. That isn’t a human body. It’s too slim, except where the chest swells out. The legs are too short, the arms too long and skinny. The head is like a bird’s with a beak of a mouth.

  Ang-els! from!

  The after-image has wings, great trailing plumed wings.

  It’s the blazing angel who threw Adam and Eve out of Eden.

  “There’s a creature perching on your head, John! A tall scraggy bird! It’s like a man—but it isn’t.”

  Its claw feet are planted on John’s skull as if his skull is an egg which it is clutching.

  Glance:

  The after-image opens its beak.

  “Hullo! Hullo! Hullo!” What a screechy, reedy voice.

  John isn’t humming any longer. The words are screeched from his lips in the tones of a parrot or a mynah bird.

  “I hear you,” I shout.

  I shade my eyes with both hands in a visor: John is sitting as before gazing rigidly up at our sun.

  “I come,” screams the bird of light. “I announce myself!”

  “Where do you come from?”

  “I take!”

  “Take what? Where to?”

  “My prey! To my eyrie!”

  John must be the creature’s prey. I have to break his link with the power of the sun! Sheltering my head from the horrid pillar of light, I stumble at a crouch and buffet him sideways off his rock. With my own eyes closed tight I cast myself down beside him. Fumbling, I find his head and seal my hands across his Matsuya eyes.

  “Aiiieee!” shrieks the voice.

  John’s own voice calls out: “Oh blessed visions! Realms of glory! Celestial city of the angels! With the slimmest, highest of towers all lit by cold light at night as though a star has settled on every pinnacle—an angel perching on each. White angels drifting through the pearly sky of day. A meadowland below with little blue goat-elves all a-grazing by the river of milk—”

  “Don’t heed it, John! Cast it out of your head.”

  “My soul will go inside an angel’s egg.”

  “Refuse! The thing is trying to take your mind away with it!”

  “I’ll be reborn—angelic.”

  “They’re birds of prey, John. Alien eagles, not angels.”

  “No, they are celestial—” His voice chokes off.

  “Aiiieee! I triumph!”

  John’s body shudders then grows still.

  Cautiously I open my eyes. The blinding light, the second sun, has gone. Only our own yellow sun beams on the gorse, the rocks, the grass; and on my friend’s body.

  I feel for his pulse; there’s none. His heart has stopped. I don’t know how to give the kiss of life but I still try to breathe animation back into him—in vain.

  I sit by his sun-warmed corpse for a long while.

  John thought that his mind would go into an angel’s egg on that alien world, in that other reality.

  Presumably he would hatch.

  As what? As an angel, the equal of the other angel-birds?

  Or as a prisoner, bringing honour to its captor? A slave? A sacrifice? A gift to the Lord of the Birds of Light?

  I shall soon walk back down the hill, through the forest ride, along the lane alone. I shall have to say that the strain of the ascent caused a coronary and broke his heart. I shall say that his spirit has ascended to Heaven, where he is now at home.

  I must hope that no one else saw the blinding light on Hinchcombe Hill, the radiance that raptured John away to an alien eyrie, leaving the abandoned clothing of his flesh behind.

  Maybe John will be happy when he hatches, to the cold light of that elsewhere-city. And maybe there’s no such city; maybe his last visions were lies, opiates pumped into his skull to paralyse his will. …

  A few ewes return, to stare at the two of us with mild curiosity.

  WHEN THE TIMEGATE FAILED

  We were carrying an alien passenger on that particular trip. It belonged to the race which had created the timegate. Its name was Mid Velvet Fastskip, and I was under orders to become intimate; to seduce it.

  These orders ran contrary to every other rule as to how to behave aboard a starship. I didn’t expect to retain the respect of my crew.

  But I couldn’t take anyone else into my confidence. Nor did I dare ignore those orders. One of my crew would be a covert security officer, briefed to see that I carried out my confidential mission. Which of my crew? I had no idea.

  I could trust no one except myself; yet I had to win the trust, the “love”, of an alien. Because of this, no one would love me—least of all the woman whom I would need to exploit.

  Nobody loved or trusted a starship, either. Not deep in our hearts, in our guts. Oh, we trusted the human-built stardrive to thrust us successfully from sunspace to sunspace. But how could any human being trust the timegate when we didn’t understand it? That was why I needed to become the “lover” of a creature whom no human being properly comprehended—and in two weeks flat. Obviously I would fail. It was the calibre of my failure which counted; what clues our scientists could deduce.

  A certain Wittgenstein once said, “If a lion could speak, we would not understand him.” Mid Velvet Fastskip and I both spoke Harrang, the artificial mediation language. But Harrang is essentially a functional language. Where emotion, metaphor, deep meaning are involved, around the periphery of language, one could only improvise hopefully.

  “The timegate is a technical problem,” I’d been told. “Harrang will suffice.”

  I feared that this wouldn’t be so. The timegate was invented by an alien psyche. It was envisioned out of alien moods and impulses which were surely opaque to humans. Otherwise human beings would have been able to invent the thing, surely? Or at least to unriddle it by now. I fancy that one’s inventions and one’s kind of consciousness are closer allied than is often imagined. We invented a stardrive; Mid Velvet’s people failed to. Instead they invented something which we couldn
’t, and still can’t, match.

  Maybe I shouldn’t make unduly heavy weather about the “alienness” of aliens? When the chips were down, Mid Velvet might simply lie to me.

  Ah no. Herein lay the cruel cunning of my masters back in Solspace. They claimed to have learned an essential feature of love among the aliens of Fastskip’s species: the Truth Moment, the Sharing.

  In Harrang, Mid Velvet’s breed were known as “Those Who Run Faster”. We called them the Tworfs for short, a derogatory-sounding name reminiscent of Wop or Chink or Dago. According to my masters all Tworfs were neuters. On their home planet the Tworfs parasited sexually upon large silky animals, semi-intelligent “pets” which roamed wild, and which could even speak in a limited way. These beasts played the role of actual external sexual organs.

  A Tworf would “engage” a male animal by clinging to its back, sinking tendrils harmlessly into its nervous system. A certain amount of petting-courtship was apparently involved prior to this. Wooing songs. Wooing the animal was important, either ritually or biologically. Lots of foreplay, to attune Tworf to beast.

  Once joined together, the symbiotic duo would chase after a female animal to mate with her. Spying a large parasite mounted on prospective mate, the female would flee furiously. The Tworf urged its mount to run faster. Catching up, the Tworf would en-trance the female. Vicarious copulation would take place, during the course of which the Tworf would pump a vast amount of information through the nervous system/sexual circuit of male beast, female beast, and Tworf. The Tworf would channel its whole being through the mating couple, and back into its neuter self. During this time the male animal would experience a heightened state of awareness. He would have access to the higher consciousness of the Tworf, which would be spewing out its intimate, secret person.

  The simple male animals would chant simple myth-songs about their Tworf riders and these moments of illumination, of Godhood, which flooded them during mating—ungraspable after the event, yet able to be celebrated.

  If the event was so desirable, why did the female animals flee, and need to be chased down? True, the females weren’t themselves illuminated by the intercourse. Perhaps the chase, too, was a ritual matter. And perhaps racing caused hyperoxygenation or adrenalin release or some other necessary chemical, hormonal change. Perhaps!