Delusion World

by Gordon R. Dickson

  “Oh, that’s all right,” she said, snuggling closer in his arms. “I realize now you were just trying to make me see things for my own good." She rubbed her nose in a friendly way against his chest, and Feliz found himself making a deep-chested bearlike sound in response. Her nose almost tickled. She is, thought Feliz, a feather-brained young nut, but you can’t help feeling protective toward her. Even me. Here I hardly know her, and I already feel like her father. Like her uncle, I mean.

  “Well, I found a hole finally,” Kai said. “A building we don’t use, and they don’t either. And I lay there almost a day feeling sorry for myself. But finally I kind of reached a limit on that. Besides, I began to get awfully hungry. So I got up and went out again.”

  A young uncle, Feliz was thinking, as he beamed into the darkness above her head.

  “Well, the only place where I was sure I could get food easily was your ship. So I went there.”

  A cousin? Feliz was thinking.

  “And, my, that cupboard you keep food in is marvelous. You know, it never seems to get empty!”

  “Yes,” said Feliz, “automatic processing.” No, just an old friend of the family. A young old friend of the family; that’s what Kai makes me feel like.

  “Uh,” said Kai. “I’m sorry about drawing some more in that book of yours. I wasn’t really understanding things yet, and—”

  “Yes, yes,” said Feliz, beaming into the darkness, “it was beautiful.”

  “Beautiful?”

  He felt her head come up, and returned quickly to his senses.

  “The art of it, I mean. Uh—such line. Such control.”

  “Oh!” Pleasure thrilled in Kai’s voice. “Does my art really reach through to you?”

  “It’s magnificent!”

  “Oh!” said Kai. “Oh! Do you really think so? What first struck you about it? How did you feel when you first saw it? Were you really impressed, right from the start?”

  “Yes,” said Feliz.

  “You said it was magnificent. Did you mean magnificent?Or just magnificent? I mean, did you really mean magnificent?”

  “I said it, didn’t I?”

  “Oh!” said Kai. And hugged him. Feliz hugged her back, cautiously. Suddenly, he woke up to what he was doing.Whoops, he thought.

  “Now is not the time,” he said aloud.

  "Now? What?” He could feel Kai staring at him suddenly through the darkness. “Not the time for what?”

  “Never mind. I’ll tell you later,” he said. “Go on with your story.”

  “But I thought we were talking about my art.”

  “There will be time for such a—” What am I talking about? wondered Feliz. He cleared his throat. “We will talk about your art. Later," he said. "Right now, the situation is urgent." I'm not making much sense, he thought. Oh, well.“Go on,” he said.

  “Well,” said Kai reluctantly. She took a deep breath. “Well,” she said, “after I’d eaten, I began to think over what you said. And I decided to.get it straightened out, one way or another. So I went to the library.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Well, I did think myself that it was high time somebody did. But, Feliz! It was awful. There’s all sorts of spiders and things crawling around in there, and it’s dark. Nobody’s been there for a hundred years! And the dust is so thick that you can’t see where you’re going, and you can’t breathe. And I got l-lost—” She was shaking again.

  Feliz held her cautiously.

  “But," he prompted, "after you found out what you went after . . .”

  “Yes. After all, I found it,” she said. “And it’s all true. First we started out not having anything to do with them. And then we began the acting and dressing differently. And then we started pretending they really weren’t there at all. And all the time they were doing the same things. Feliz! You’ve got to let me stay with you always, from now on.”

  Feliz shivered slightly.

  “Well, we’ll see,” he said.

  “I don’t have any people but you any more.” She clung to him. “Can’t we go away from here and live by ourselves, somewhere where they’ll never find us? They wouldn’t follow us back into the hills; I know they wouldn’t.”

  “Well,” said Feliz. “Going into the hills isn’t always the solution. I mean, there’s things about me you don’t know.”

  “I don’t care!” she said.

  “Well, that’s nice. But I’m still a prisoner here, and there’s various things to think of," said Feliz. "What I really need right at the moment is to know everything you can tell me, both about your people and these others.”

  “Just ask me!” said Kai.

  “Well—uh,” said Feliz. “What would happen if you saw somebody with his clothes off? I mean—” he broke off. Kai had just given a soft little shriek.

  “Oh, how terrible!” she said.

  “Terrible?”

  "Any decent person,” said Kai primly, "wears clothes allthe time.”

  “Night and day? Alone as well as in company?”

  “I should think so! Why, even if you were alone, you could never be sure who might be look—oh!" She broke off suddenly. There was a little silence. “I see what you mean,” she said.

  "One of the other group might be present or watching; and even though you couldn’t admit to yourself that they were there, you couldn’t be sure that their conditioning was as strong as yours,” said Feliz. “They might be letting themselves see you.”

  “Yes,” said Kai unhappily.

  “Also," said Feliz thoughtfully, “it might be a matter of violating the basic taboo, since someone without clothes one could not be identified as a member of a particular party.”

  “Taboo?” said Kai. “What’s a taboo?”

  "Tell you later. When did you really first start admitting to yourself that you saw these other people?”

  He heard the sharp hiss of her breath, indrawn in the darkness.

  “I always did!” she burst out suddenly. “I always knew they were there. I just pretended I didn’t.”

  “And I’ll bet,” said Feliz grimly, “everybody else, or nearly everybody else, was in the same boat. A few might have been so good at autohypnosis—El Hoska, for example—that they actually couldn’t see the others. But I’ll bet most are just like you were.”

  “Yes,” said Kai. “But what good does knowing that do? They won’t admit it!”

  “No,” said Feliz. “But that’s not important.”

  “What is important?”

  “If l told you, you wouldn’t believe it," said Feliz. “Both your groups here, like all social ideas carried to extremes, are starting to break down of their own weight. El Hoska has become a strong central authority out of sheer necessity, and Taki—”

  “Who?”

  “Taki Manoai, head of the black-dressed people. He’s reached the stage of wanting to give half of his authority away.”

  “He has?”

  “And still the Malvar don’t dare land.”

  “The who?”

  “There are many things,” said Feliz, “I’m going to have to explain to you. But now now. Right now, I want you to go back to the ship and wait for me there. I’11 sneak away right after the ceremony tomorrow, when that deal in the square gets dedicated. You go back to the ship and wait for me. And stay inside it.”

  “All right, but—”

  “No buts. Stay inside.”

  “Oh, I will. But—” Kai yawned suddenly. “I’ve been going steadily since yesterday, and I’m so tired. Can’t I just close my eyes here for five minutes?”

  “Well. . ." said Feliz.

  “Please.”

  “Well,” growled Feliz, “all right.” He started to move out from under her so she could lie down; but Kai merely sighed comfortably and curled up a little tighter in his arms.

  “Just five minutes. . .” she murmured, and began to breathe slowly and steadily.

  “Five minutes,” said Feliz helplessly. He looked aroun
d the dark room, and out the dim window. In the moonlight, he could see the edge of the rooftop of the room adjoining. As he watched, the dark silhouette of a rabbit hopped into view and paused there, outlined against the night sky like a black paper kindergarten cut-out of itself. It barked.

  “That reminds me,” said Feliz suddenly. “Something I particularly wanted to ask you, Kai . . . Kai?”

  He looked down. Kai breathed on, unconscious. For a second he debated waking her, then gave up the idea. He sighed, and looked back out the window.

  The rabbit barked softly at the moon.

  Chapter XII

  Feuz squinted at the sun of Dunroamin, a yellow, Sol-type star, which was about at its zenith above the square of Shangri-La; and above Feliz himself, where he stood on a small circle of foundation material. About him was the pool of the fountain order-broadcaster. Beside him were the visible elements of the infernal machine itself. These consisted of a long pipe, an antenna fastened to the pipe, and a Chinese silk scarf fastened to the antenna and whipping merrily in the breeze. The innards of the Mark were wired about the base of the pipe, with their more glittery and impressive-looking parts toward the outside. Arranged around the Mark III parts were the firecrackers and Roman candles.

  Out of sight, underneath the Mark III parts, Feliz had constructed a small serviceable water pump, powered from the energy pack of the Mark III.

  From his small island—some ten feet or so removed from the terra firma of the square’s plastic pavement—Feliz observed the proceedings. To his right, Taki Manoai was speechifying to orderly ranks of black-clad men, women and children. To his left, El Hoska was gently lecturing to a loose gathering of colorfully dressed ditto. It was perfectly remarkable to see the way the two crowds managed to ignore each other’s presence. Occasionally a toddler of one faction or another made the mistake of paying attention to a toddler of equal age from the other group. But since their parents, at that moment, invariably found some transparent excuse to spank their offspring, such acquaintanceships were usually not of long duration.

  Just at that moment, Taki wound up his peroration to his people, and these burst immediately into a stirring song of praise for their controller. Wiping his brow and ignoring the music, Taki turned and spoke across the three foot depth of water to Feliz.

  “Well?” he inquired. “What did you think of the speech?”

  “Instructive,” said Feliz.

  “Thank you,” beamed Taki. “I flatter myself I have a knack for getting through to people from the platform. Made up your mind about that offer of mine, yet?”

  “Well, yes as a matter of fact, I have,” replied Feliz, showing all his large teeth in what he fondly imagined to be an engaging and disarming grin. "I’ve decided you stick by me and, by golly, I’ll stick by you.”

  “What was that?” said the voice of El Hoska from across the pool. The mayor also, it appeared, had finished his address to the populace. “Did you say something to me?”

  “Yes, sir," said Feliz, turning in that direction. “I’ve decided as long as we work side by side, you can count on me!”

  “Marvelous. A wise decision, ” glowed El Hoska. “Is the fountain ready?”

  "That broadcaster ready to go?” demanded Taki Manoai.

  “It is,” replied Feliz to them both and the square at large. “Here we go.”

  He reached down and set off the Roman candles and the firecrackers.

  “Oooooh!” said the two crowds. “Aaaaah!”

  He turned on the fountain. Water spurted forty feet into the air and drenched everyone with a ten yard circle. Cries of admiration arose. Taki Manoai and El Hoska glowed.

  Feliz, thoroughly soaked by this time, reached down and turned on the rebuilt Mark III.

  The Mark III, as the one in Feliz’s possession had proved not long since, could do a good job of vaporizing a hat. However, there was also no reasonable reason why it could not do a good job as well of vaporizing a lot more than that. It was just a matter of how wide you wanted to set its beam, and how heavy a drain you wanted to put on its power pack. Feliz had thoughtfully set its beam on full circle aperture at ground level, and triggered the power pack to spend all its energy in one brief, glorious burst of annihilation.

  The beam of a Mark III is not stopped by ordinary substances such as make up buildings, walls, and the stone and earth of an everyday countryside. It followed, therefore, that one micro-second after Feliz bent down to turn on the switch, no scrap of cast plastic existed within the city limits of Shangri-La, or outside them for about ten miles in every direction. And between ten and thirty miles, any cast plastic would be pretty badly melted out of shape.

  The one exception was Feliz’s spaceship. Kai would be safe inside since Feliz’s ship, like most enclosures back on the civilized worlds, was Mark III beam-proof. Any other arrangements would have resulted in a lot of lawsuits between neighbors.

  But that was back on the civilized worlds. Where Feliz was at the moment, in the square of Shangri-La, one second there were two hordes of differently dressed people standing staring at Feliz. Two seconds after that there were only two hordes of people standing like statues and staring at each other.

  And one second after that there was one horde of people. One mass of wild, frantic, terrified people, all with only one thought in mind—to get away from everybody within sight of them and hole up somewhere until they could become decently clothed and identified again.

  People who have grown up in a more usual society, thought Feliz, as he hastily stripped the silk scarf from the antenna and wrapped its good fortune wishes around himself hastily in loincloth fashion, would have found it hard to believe it was possible to panic so on simply being deprived of their clothes at a public gathering. Or would they? Feliz paused, struck by the idea. Possibly he should try it out sometime. Or possibly he should not. No, on second thought, it was a matter for speculation rather than for practical experimentation.

  Here, of course, the nakedness taboo was much more deeply implanted than in a usual society. For generations now, they had been distinguishing between strangers on the basis of their clothing—to the point where the wrong sort of clothing rendered the stranger invisible and impalpable. Now, with no means left to distinguish, their conditioning broke down. The average horrified onlooker in the square was suddenly faced, not only with himself and his undressed neighbors, but with the sudden appearance of a multitude of naked strangers. It was too much. Everybody ran.

  Almost everybody. Feliz was just putting a last knot for safety’s sake into his loincloth, when there was a distant cracking noise and something whizzed past his ear. Looking around, he saw a rifle barrel protruding from an upstairs window.of the closest building to the square. Some black-clad (originally) guard, no doubt, posted in a lookout’s position by Taki Manoai to keep an eye on Feliz just in case.

  Feliz stayed not upon the order of his going. But went.

  Down in the square was a seething, howling riot of humanity, tangled in itself in its attempt to escape. The children and the mothers, luckily, had been back on the outskirts; and these were already streaming away in every direction across the square. But the men of both factions were a tangled mob, and into that mob Feliz plunged.

  Fortunately it was the sort of thing he was built for. His enormously muscled legs drove his bulldozer-like body through the melee like a fullback. That is not to say that, powerful as he was, Feliz was not tossed from side to side of his line of escape, like some swimmer in heavy waters. But three hundred pounds of flesh and bone have certain advantages over other flesh-and-bone conglomerations averaging about half that weight. In a matter of seconds, scratched and bleeding from a number of small surface wounds, but with even the Chinese scarf intact, Feliz broke free into the less dense edges of the crowd and headed for the hill.

  The streets were filled with other escapees, fleeing for sanity’s sake toward the safe darkness of their homes, and the full closets they fondly expected to find there. These ot
hers, Feliz joined—and passed .

  A half-breed Micturian can run very swiftly for a short distance. Feliz passed the people of the city at about thirty miles an hour; but by the time he reached the outskirts of the city he was huffing badly, and his heaving lungs forced him to slow to a jog trot. This pace, however, though he snorted like a rhinoceros, he grimly kept up, all the way up the slope to the stone wall’s comer and the beginning of the woods.

  At this point he did collapse, toppling to earth like an undercut monument, and lying almost helpless for several minutes while his breathing processes struggled to return a sufficiency of oxygen to his starving body and remove the fatigue poisons from his oversized muscles.

  After a short interval he felt better. Then he felt much better. He sat up and looked back down the slope the way he had come. And saw a small group of seminaked individuals wrapped in odds and ends of black draperies, rugging and such, waving their fists at him and approaching rapidly.

  They were also hauling and tugging along up the slope what looked like a medium-sized, old-fashioned, solid-shot cannon. Such a weapon as the space station had used to cripple his ship originally.

  One of the figures lifted a rifle, which cracked. Something whistled by at no great distance.

  With something between a growl and a groan, Feliz scrambled to his feet and went lumbering off into the woods. He had marked the direction in his memory as well as he was able from yesterday when El Hoska had walked him to the ship. Now Feliz followed what he was almost positive was the proper route. But his heart stayed inconveniently close to his throat until, finally, the trees thinned ahead of him and he saw through their partial screen the welcoming gray bulk of his spaceship, with the hatch open and waiting.

  Feliz crawled up the ladder, staggered through the hatch and fell into the chair before the control board. Panting, he located the controls to close up the ship, and punched them. There was a welcome sound of metal closing against metal, behind him. He gulped air, thought of the cannon coming up behind him, and reached for the take-off controls. And suddenly his heart congealed as if his chest cavity had suddenly become filled with liquid air.