Evil Water and Other Stories

by Ian Watson

  “A nexus. A connecting force.” Max Edmunds nodded authoritatively. “It’s all a question of adolescent libido and psychic energy. She was the paranormal channel into our dreams, and to the future Dream-world. She was the sexual volcano—and now she’s blown off steam.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Tom rounded on me accusingly. “I saw you and her, after the meal.”

  I defended myself. Hotly. Not least because a week had gone by and normal behaviour ruled again. “Don’t blame me! Bardot arranged that deliberately—to fix the weak spot.”

  “And now we’ll never eat as well again. All thanks to you. None of the rest of us would have touched Mitzi.” Tom flushed with moral indignation.

  “You were too busy with Greta Garbo,” I pointed out. But I appeared to be in a weak position. For Glenda spoke out vindictively.

  “What was all that about ‘desire level twelve’ beforehand, and ‘desire level one’ afterwards? What a mess you must have made of it. But what can one expect from a professional bachelor? You probably turned the poor girl off for life.”

  I turned to Mitzi, but she was staring away out of the window. I’d been wondering why she was wearing a shapeless sweater and old jeans; but surely that couldn’t have anything to do with it.

  “We’d better divvy up the takings,” said Tom, just as though he was the Chairman; and no one disagreed. So he headed for my larder, to rifle it.

  “Couldn’t we,” said I, “try a different approach?”

  Jon Rhys Jones fairly glared at me. “It’s all over, boy, don’t you see?” I particularly resented the “boy”.

  But it wasn’t all over.

  Two months later Mitzi discovered that she was pregnant. She didn’t tell me, though. The first I knew of it was when two police officers called. Because, of course, Mitzi was under the legal age for sexual relations. There was even a vague hint of unwillingness on her part. A whiff of rape rather than seduction. But I think this was just the police trying to get me to confess to something more serious, which might look better on their records.

  Naturally I explained the events leading up to this awkward outcome; and referred the two officers to Glenda, Don, Max and the others for confirmation. By this date, alas, I hadn’t any dreamfood left and had tossed the empties away. But I assured the officers that various cans, tubes and flasks would be buried in the garbage in-fill outside town. They might even still be lying on the surface. A search ought to turn them up …

  “So,” said officer number one, ignoring this helpful advice as he scribbed in his notebook, “you freely admit that you had sexual intercourse with Mitzi Hayes here in your flat.”

  “No, no; up there.” I pointed.

  “On the ceiling? Like a fly?”

  “Above.”

  “In the loft?”

  “No, in the future … And it spoiled everything.”

  “I’ll say it did,” agreed number two sourly.

  Still, they were quite formal and polite, merely arresting me and promising to corroborate my story with the others—and with Mitzi, who apparently had said nothing of the sort when they interviewed her. Well, that was understandable.

  I also referred them for good measure to the small ads I’d placed a few months earlier. Why do such a thing, if this wasn’t all gospel truth? They promised to check that out too.

  Would you believe it, not one of the former members of the Dream Channel Panel backed my story up? A few conceded that they knew me casually by sight; the others swore blind that they had never met me in their lives.

  While I was out on bail pending prosecution for sexual offences against a minor—and out of my job too, pending the outcome—Jon Rhys Jones slipped round furtively to my flat one night.

  “We’re awful sorry, boy,” was the gist of what he had to say. “You know how it is with us who have families to think about. And family businesses, such as butcher’s shops. I mean, getting ourselves involved in an orgy! Good thing young Mitzi had the sense to confide in a man of experience like Tom …”

  So that was it.

  The really ironic thing was that I might have got off with a few months in jail, or even a suspended sentence. But not in view of what I’d said. This ensured that I was referred for a psychiatric report.

  I had read about cases like mine before. Somebody commits a trivial offence, and next thing the poor sod is detained indefinitely at the pleasure of the overworked psychiatrists of our prison service. Because he’s considered “mad” he can spend five years inside. Or ten.

  Hastily swallowing my pride, I swore that I’d been lying.

  And no one believed me.

  Because of the newspaper ads. Which was particularly galling, as I need never have mentioned those.

  Except that I had to, to explain how the Dream Channel Panel got together.

  Except that it never did, according to the others—whose names I must have picked out of the phone book or a street directory, they supposed.

  There was one small consolation in all this. I wasn’t considered a violent sort of looney. So I wasn’t sent to a high-security lockup for the criminally insane miles from nowhere on some windswept moor. Instead I was despatched to a permissive prison for mild cases, where we inmates could weave baskets and grow cabbages for the Governor, and perform other useful intelligent forms of therapy.

  It’s been six months now, and as feared my case hasn’t come up for review.

  Prison food is ghastly, after you’ve tasted sklesh on kallopies. Boiled cabbage, mashed potatoes, stringy stew: it’s enough to drive any self-respecting gourmet round the bend.

  But I’m making progress.

  Because we’re considered low risk in my group, the male nurses sometimes leave us in the workshop unsupervised. And I seize the opportunity to tell my fellow inmates tales of the dreamfood of the future. Not forgetting the orgy that followed.

  And then I choose twelve disciples to dance round with me in a circle, singing:

  “Can’t refuse

  “Ampathuse!”

  and:

  “We wish

  “Humbish!”

  There’s no Mitzi here, of course. Women are kept apart from us. But consider: three of my group are under twenty. Morris, Martin and Paul. Morris is in here for exposing himself to little girls. Martin is a Peeping Tom. Paul stole ladies’ underwear off washing lines. In their own way they’re volcanoes of sexuality, and bound to be virgins too.

  And all our dreams are troubled, now that I’ve persuaded my disciples to spit out their nightly doses of largactil and chlorpromazine, as soon as the nurses’ backs are turned.

  Troubled; though not quite yet by advertisements for kallopies and koozels. But if I plug away at my own propaganda, and if the prison kitchen keeps on dishing up such soggy cabbage, it’s inevitable.

  Consider: Frustration level ten. Desire level ten. Fantasy level ten!

  We nearly did it this afternoon, too.

  Thirteen of us were dancing round the workshop floor amidst neglected baskets. Morris was sweating with more than mere exertion. Paul was positively drooling. Martin looked goggle-eyed.

  And a little circle upon the ceiling glowed. It wasn’t only a patch of sunlight. It was The Glow.

  “Keep it up!” I cried. “Pop a can of kallopies! Pop a can, pop a can! What do we wish? Humbish!”

  At this point my lookout at the keyhole, Sparky Jones, an alcoholic, spotted male nurse Turner approaching at speed down the corridor. So, alas, we had to break ranks. The glow promptly faded out.

  But tomorrow we’ll do it. Or the week after. Now that the Dream Channel Panel is back in session again.

  Food of the future, how I yearn for you!

  THE PEOPLE ON THE PRECIPICE

  One evening Smear climbed down to our ledge and told us a story about people who lived in a two-dimensional world.

  He had made the story up, of course. To amuse and enlighten. (This could have been Smear’s motto.)

  “Just suppose,
” he said, as the daylight dimmed, “that a whole world is as flat as a leaf! And suppose that creatures live within that leaf, who themselves are perfectly flat. Imagine that this narrow ledge here simply carries on”—he chopped his hand out into empty space—“in that direction forever! Imagine that it is a simple, infinite surface with nothing above it and nothing below it. And with no precipice to jut out from.”

  Bounce giggled at this idea so much that she almost fell out of her bower of vine-rope.

  Tumbler, our chief—who had no sense of humour—said, “Preposterous! What would hold your ledge up? How would we ever get over the lip, to harvest sweet fungi below?”

  “I’m asking you to imagine a different kind of world. A plane—with no ‘below’ or ‘above’. With no ‘up’ or ‘down’. The inhabitants are flat, too.”

  “But how can they grip anything? They’ll all slide away, and slide forever.”

  “No they won’t. You see, they don’t live upon the flat surface. They’re part of the surface.”

  “You’ll do me an injury!” squealed Bounce.

  “So how do they make love?” enquired Fallen. “How can they squeeze on to one another?”

  “Aha,” and Smear winked at her, “now you’re asking.”

  “Tell us!” cried Bounce.

  But Tumbler interrupted. “I hear that young Clingfast from three ledges down fell off yesterday. That was his mother’s fault for giving him such an unlucky name. ‘Bounce’ is a risky name, too, in my opinion.”

  This remark annoyed Bounce. “Just you try to invade my bower, Tumbler, and you’ll get bounced—right off the cliff. That’ll teach you what my name’s all about.”

  “Can I please tell my story?” asked Smear.

  And so he did.

  He regaled us with the hilarious adventures of Ma and Pa Flat in their flatworld; and what preposterous antics those were, to be sure! Still, his story seemed to have a couple of sly morals buried in it. Compared with the imaginary flat-people we were fortunate indeed—being gifted with all sorts of mobility denied to Ma and Pa Flat. In other words, things might be a lot worse. But also, Ma and Pa at least tried to make the very best of a bad job—did we always do likewise?

  By the time Smear finished it was black dark, and we had long since tightened our tethers for the night. Obviously Smear would be spending the time of darkness on our ledge.

  Soon after, I heard suspicious scraping sounds, suggesting that Smear was recklessly edging his way along to reach Bounce’s bower. (He had positioned himself close to her.) Subsequent smothered giggles and gasps indicated that he had succeeded: a surmise proven true in the morning when light brightened and we saw Bounce and Smear clinging together asleep in her harness of vines.

  Smear quickly roused himself and departed upward, his horny toes in all the proper cracks, his left hand holding a guidevine, his right hand reaching up in approved style for well-remembered, reliable holds. You could never wholly trust guidevines with your total weight. They might snap or rip their roots free. Then you would be taking the long trip down through empty air.

  We breakfasted on the leftovers from yesterday’s harvest of berries and lichen, rockworms and beetles.

  The pearly void was bright; the day was warm. Below, the precipice descended forever. Above, it rose forever. To left and right, it stretched out unendingly. Occasionally, thin silver water-licks oozed from the rock, dribbling down till the droplets bounced into space. Here and there were still some surviving pastures of moss and fungus and fleshier plants; though by now our appetites had stripped most decent rock-fields bare, adding to the area of naturally occurring barrens. Soon we would all have to migrate—just as we had already migrated at least a hundred times since I was born. A planning conference was slated for today high up on Badbelay’s ledge. Tumbler as our chief would attend.

  As our tribe clung to the rockface considering which way to forage, a scream from above made us tighten our holds. We tried to flatten ourselves completely—just like Smear’s mythical beings. A young lad plunged past, an arm’s length away. I could have reached out to touch him, if I was foolish enough.

  “Butterfingers!” shrieked Fallen in sympathy. The lad probably never heard her.

  The falling body diminished until it was a mere speck deep below.

  Bounce surprised us by saying, “Next time we migrate we ought to head upwards and keep on migrating upwards for a whole lifetime, to see what happens.”

  “That’ll be one of friend Smear’s fancy ideas, I suppose?” Tumbler spat contemptuously into space. “What a strain that would be, and what peril, compared with migrating sideways. My dear Bounce, it’s all very well to climb up a few ledges, and down a few ledges. Indeed this keeps all our muscles in trim. But to climb one way only? Faugh! Do you imagine our grandchildren would reach a top? Or a bottom, suppose we migrated downwards? And what would be at this imaginary bottom? Bones and rubbish and shit, floating in foul water, I shouldn’t be surprised!”

  “I didn’t mention any bottom.”

  “And what would be at this top of yours? Not that it exists! I’ll tell you: a place where our muscles would weaken through disuse so that we could no longer harvest the precipice. We’d starve within a generation. Our present way of life is perfect.”

  “Clinging on by your fingertips all life long is perfect?” she retorted. “There might be a huge flat space up at the top—with oodles of really big plants all over, because they wouldn’t have to worry about their weight ripping them away.”

  “What’s wrong with hanging on by one’s fingertips, pray?”

  “A certain tendency to fall,” she said. “Especially when you get old and sick and mad and exhausted.”

  I spoke up, since something had been worrying me for a while. “When we migrated here, it seemed to me that this particular patch of precipice hereabouts was … well, strangely familiar. When we arrived I felt as if I’d been here before—when I was only a child. All the cracks and finger-grips were somehow known to me.”

  “That,” said Tumbler, “is purely because of the expertise you develop at clinging on after twenty or thirty years.”

  “So why do experienced adults ever fall off?”

  “They get tired and ill and crazy,” said Bounce. “Everyone does, in the end, after a lifetime of clinging on.”

  “We always migrate leftward,” I pointed out.

  “Obviously! Who on earth would migrate back to a patch which had been stripped the time before?”

  “What if,” I asked, “the sum total of our migrations has brought us back to the very same place where we were years ago? What if our precipice isn’t a straight wall but a vast … um …”

  “A vast cylinder,” said Bounce.

  Tumbler pointed impatiently to the right where the view was more barren. “Look: if that isn’t straight—!”

  “Maybe it only seems straight,” said Splatty unexpectedly, “because it’s so enormous. Maybe it bends ever so slightly? We can’t actually see the bend, but after tens of years of travel … If so, what’s the sense in migrating?”

  “To find food, slippy-thumb! To survive! Suppose we do come back to the same patch eventually—so what? The pastures have fleshed out again.”

  “It’s hardly progress,” said Bounce.

  “Progress? Cylinders? Bends? Have you people gone nuts? Are you planning to let go and dive into the abyss? This is all Smear’s fault. Listen: we hang on by the skin of our teeth. We make daily forays up and down for food. When we’ve scalped a patch we migrate sideways. That’s life.”

  Even Topple joined in. “It’s life. That’s true. But is it living?”

  “Damn it, it’s as good a life as any! In fact I can’t imagine any other. How about you?”

  Topple shook his head. “I’ve been clinging on for a lifetime. What else do I know?”

  “And you’ll die clinging on. Or rather, you’ll die pretty soon after you stop clinging on. Now, today I’m climbing up to the Chief-of-Chie
fs for that conference. Bounce will guard our ledge and keep the kids tied up. Loosepiton”—that’s me—“will escort me upwards.”

  “Why me, Boss?”

  “Perhaps you would like to plead your notion that we’re climbing round in a circle. That ought to raise some laughs.” (Aye, and likely damage Smear’s advocacy of migrating upwards. …)

  “The rest of you will forage. Splatty and Fallen and Plunge can head far to the left, and chart the distant cracks while they’re about it. Slip and Flop can forage to the right for what’s left of the familiar pickings. Gather well, my tribe! We need to store some supplies in case we have to cross wide barrens.” To me he said, “Come on, Loosepiton. Best foot upwards!”

  And he began to ascend the sheer precipice, toehold by toehold.

  “On what wide surface shall we store our huge harvest, oh Chief?” Bounce called after him. He ignored her.

  When Tumbler and I paused on Smear’s Ledge for a quick rest we learned that Chief Smear had already preceded us upwards. Apparently Smear had done a lot of shinning about, visiting other ledges and telling merry stories, recently.

  “He’s campaigning to change our lives,” I remarked to Tumbler.

  However, our chief seemed more annoyed with Bounce. “That woman’s a fool,” he groused. “A vertical cliff puts constraints on the amount we can store. Of course it does. That stands to reason. So this limits the amount we can sensibly harvest. Consider the alternative! If we could tear up everything and pile it all on some vast ledge we’d exhaust our resources much more rapidly. What’s more, we’d overeat. We’d grow fat and clumsy and far too heavy to haul ourselves up and down.”

  We climbed onward together.

  Another body fell past us; a woman’s. She held her arms wide out on either side of her, as down she flew.

  “Diver,” puffed Tumbler. “Deliberate dive.”

  “Dive of despair.”

  “What’s there to be desperate about, eh Loosepiton? Beautiful weather today. Soft breezes. No slippery stone.” He plucked a crimson rock-worm loose with a “plop” and popped it into his mouth.