thirteen
Donald Mander was on the telephone to Wessex House in London. He had been brought back from Wessex a day before Julia Stretton and the others, and any signs of residual strain had passed. He felt rested and well, although the news of Tom Benedict’s death had had a sobering effect on him. At fifty- four he was now the oldest member of the projection.
‘... the inquiry will be held the day after tomorrow,’ he was saying to Gerald Bonner, the trustees’ legal adviser. ‘Yes, after the funeral.’
Bonner was concerned about the possibility of adverse publicity following Tom’s death. Although the Wessex project was not secret, after the initial interest shown at the inception of the projection, the media had turned its fickle ear to other matters and for most of the two years’ life of the projection the work had gone on with what had become jealously guarded privacy and concentration.
‘... no, there’s no need for a post-mortem, apparently. Tom was technically under medical supervision. Yes, naturally we’re being careful. The medical checks will be intensified before anyone goes back into the projection.’
He listened to Bonner talking about the possibility of a claim from Benedict’s dependants, and how much that might cost.
‘He wasn’t married,’ Mander said. ‘But I’ll see if anyone here knows about his family.’
Afterwards, Mander rang through to Maiden Castle and spoke to John Eliot, who had requested a meeting of participants this morning.
‘We’ll be ready to start in a few minutes,’ he said.
Eliot confirmed that observation of all the participants had been stepped up. The only real cause for alarm was David Harkman; he was now the only participant who had never been brought back. The fact that he had been traced at last meant that it was only a matter of time, but for a human body to be held in suspension for more than two years could have any number of physiological side-effects. The two projection retrievers - Andrew Holder and Steve Carlsen - were in Wessex looking for him at the moment, but whether Harkman’s long exposure to the future had weakened the mnemonics and the deep-hypnotic triggers was something nobody knew.
The retrievals were overlaid with elements of chance, and Mander himself couldn’t help being amused at the way in which he had been retrieved this time.
Andy and Steve had presented themselves at the Commission, asking for a visa to visit France. The clerk on the desk had noticed the rough-sewn clothes - the unmistakable style of the Maiden Castle community - and had stonewalled them for an hour. The two young men had persisted, until the clerk summoned Mander. Once they were in his office they produced their little mirrors, and he had followed them back to the Castle without any resistance.
It was always a haphazard operation. Neither the participants nor Steve and Andy had any real idea, while they were in their future personae, of why they should meet, and it was a credit to their own initiative and mnemonic training that they ever found the people they were looking for.
Like all the others, Donald Mander always felt an acute sense of frustration in the hours after being brought back. Once one had the perspective of one’s real memories it was always so simple to see what could have been done as an alternative. But the future alter ego took over completely; personality and memory were left behind.
It was at the heart of the problem concerning Harkman: inside the projection he was motivated by the memories and personality of his alter ego.
By the time Mander had collected together his various notes, and the report he had typed up the night before, John Eliot had arrived from the Castle, and they met in the hall downstairs.
‘Have you seen Paul Mason yet?’ Eliot said, as they walked slowly down the corridor to the lounge they used for the meetings.
‘I spoke to him briefly last night after I’d seen you. I didn’t find out much about him.’
‘He’s got a good degree. Durham University. He did a spell in journalism, but for the last five years he’s been in commerce. Technically, he’s just what we need to replace Tom. He worked with a property research group, planning capital outlay.’
‘But do you really think he’ll fit in?’ Mander said, expressing the one doubt that could never be allayed by Eliot’s talk of qualifications and experience. Yesterday evening, he and Eliot had had a long, private argument, Mander voicing what he imagined would be the objection of all the other participants: that no one new could join the projection this late in its existence and not bring drastic changes to its shape.
‘Whether he fits in or not, you’ll have to prepare yourself for him. The trustees are adamant about his joining. But I don’t see any problems. He’s a very personable young man, and he’s certainly grasped the principle of projection quickly.’
‘I gather he’s coming to this meeting.’
‘That’s right. I thought he should meet one or two of the others.’ They had reached the door, and Eliot pushed it open. ‘After you.’
Because the projection was weakened by the removal of participants, it was held that at any one time no more than five people should be out of the projector, and with Tom Benedict’s death this number had been reduced to four.
At the moment, in addition to Don Mander himself, Colin Willment had been brought back, as he was due for a period of leave. Mary Rickard had been retrieved also, at the request of her family, but she was expected to stay out of the projection for only a few days. In addition, Julia Stretton had been retrieved for further discussions about David Harkman, and the situation arising out of Tom’s death.
When Mander and Eliot walked into the lounge, Colin and Mary were waiting for them. Julia had still not arrived.
Mander nodded to them with the slightly wary expression he found himself adopting whenever he met fellow participants outside the projection.
Apart from himself, Mary Rickard was the most senior member present. She was a biochemist from Bristol University, and had been with the projection from its earliest days. A shrewd judge of character, and a forceful theoretician about the nature of the projection, Mary had gained the respect of the others in the early, planning days, but since then, because of her inadvertently secondary role in Wessex, her manner had mellowed somewhat. Mary’s future alter ego was a member of the Maiden Castle craft community, and neither she nor Mander had any recollection of their ever meeting in Wessex.
Colin Willment was the project’s economist, and had been missing, for a time, in the way that Harkman had been missing. He had been traced eventually to the commercial dock at Poundbury, where his alter ego worked as a stevedore.
While they waited for the others to arrive, Mander and Eliot poured themselves coffee from the electric percolator that the staff at Bincombe provided.
Mary Rickard said: ‘Don, I’d like to go to Tom’s funeral. Will that be possible?’
‘Yes, of course. I imagine Julia will want to go too.’
‘Has she been retrieved?’ Mary said.
‘Yesterday. She should be here. Does anyone know where she is?’
John Eliot said: ‘Trowbridge examined her this morning. She knows about the meeting ... she should be here.’
As Mander and Eliot found chairs, Julia walked into the room. Mander’s first thought was that she was still recovering from the after-effects of retrieval: she looked pale and drawn, and seemed very tense. She said hello to the others, then went to the sideboard to pour herself a cup of coffee. He noticed that her hands were shaking, and that as she spooned sugar into her cup she spilled a lot of it into the saucer.
Watching her, Mander was reminded of the many times he had seen her future persona at the stall in Dorchester. His own alter ego was a mildly lecherous one, and purposely passed the stall during his evening strolls. The first time he had met Julia outside the projection, he had explained to her that his frequent winks and knowing smiles were obviously a symptom of the subliminal recognition that members of the projection often experienced between each other in Wessex.
To the amused embarrassmen
t of his real self, the Wessex Mander’s lechery had continued afterwards, and showed no sign of abating. Once she had caught him standing on tiptoe to peep down the front of her dress as she leaned forward ... and the look she had given him then had not been one of projective recognition.
As Julia sat down, John Eliot said: ‘I’m afraid we have quite a lot of work to get through this morning, but first we must establish who will be returning to the projection this week. Mary, you have to go up to London?’
Mary nodded; her house had been occupied by squatters, and there was a court-order to apply for. She said: ‘I’ll probably be away for a couple of days.’
‘The problem is,’ Eliot said, ‘that Andy and Steve are likely to be retrieving David Harkman very soon. That will mean another three will be leaving the projection. Julia, I take it you could go back in the next two or three days? And you too, Don?’
They both confirmed this, Julia staring away from them, looking through the window and across the grounds.
‘And you, Colin? You’re due for leave.’
Colin said: ‘I’ll take it if I have to ... but if I’m needed I’ll go back in tomorrow.’
‘You’re all eager to stay. Sometimes I think you’re happier in Wessex than you are here.’
No one said anything to that, and Mander, glancing round the group, saw something of the bond between them, the bond that tied them inside the projection. This was rarely discussed when they were in these meetings, but speaking in private he had found that his own experience was typical: Wessex had become the ideal retreat, a place where there was no danger, where the whims of the unconscious were satisfied. Life had a hypnotic quality of peace and security, an ordered languor; it was a restful, secure place. Even the climate was good.
Most of the participants came from or presently lived in the cities; at least half came from London. Life today in the cities was far from pleasant. Housing was in increasingly short supply, leading to the almost automatic occupation by squatters of any property left unoccupied for more than a day; exactly what had happened to Mary Rickard, in fact. Also, with the phenomenal cost of any kind of heating or fuel, the recurring food-shortages and consequent black-markets, the daily life of the average city- dweller, according to what remained of the responsible press, was approaching the level of urban savagery. All this, compounded with the ever-increasing incidence of violent crime and the terrorist attacks, made anywhere more than twenty miles from a city a place of temporary escape.
Wessex, tourist island in an imagined future, became the ultimate escapist fantasy, a bolt-hole from reality.
Mander knew that none of the participants would admit to this, for it coloured in garish poster-paint a response which was for him, and for those with whom he had discussed it, a delicate watercolour of an experience.
The attraction Wessex held for him was a subtle affair; he knew that his own alter ego was discontented with his job, and had been for many years, and there was a routine dullness to life in the Regional Commission that he had not had to endure since an office-job he had taken during one university vacation thirty-five years ago. Even so, Mander always felt restless when he was out of the projection, hungered for the return.
Eliot said: ‘There’s one other matter of great importance, and that’s the effect on the projection of Tom Benedict’s tragic death.’
Mander glanced at the others and saw that they looked as uncomfortable about it as he felt. On the one hand there was the human tragedy of the death, but on the other the projection would have to go on. The majority of the participants, in other words those presently inside the projection, would have no knowledge of what had happened.
‘Tom was very centralist,’ Colin Willment said. ‘I was in the projection until yesterday, and I’m not aware of any change that followed.’
‘I think we all appreciate that,’ Eliot said. ‘The real problem is with the trustees. You all know that there have been various suggestions from London that the projection has now outlived its usefulness, and that it must be run down soon. I know that when they heard the news about Tom, the first reaction was that this was as good a reason as any to close it now.’
‘But was Tom’s death directly caused by being inside the projector?’ Mary said.
‘I don’t think so. I shall be giving evidence at the inquiry, and as the senior doctor on the project, my opinion is that it was death from natural causes.’
‘And you’ve said this to the trustees?’ Mary said.
‘Of course. That was their first reaction, as I said. On later consideration, it seemed to them that the projection could continue, but at the same time it would be possible to correct some of what they see as its present shortcomings.’
Eliot looked briefly at Mander as he said this. It was a sensitive area to tread, for the participants were fiercely jealous of their creation.
Eliot went on: ‘You’ve heard the criticism before ... the belief held by some of the trustees that in certain ways the projection has become an end in itself.’
Looking at Mary Rickard and the others, Mander again saw his own thoughts reflected. It was a charge against which they were more or less defenceless. In the early days the reports the participants had made had reflected the spirit of the projection: that they were discovering a society, and speculating about the way it was run. As time passed, though, and as the participants became more deeply embedded in that society, their reports had gradually become more factual in tone, relating the future society to itself rather than to the present. Expressed in a different way, it meant that the participants were treating the projection as a real world, rather than one which was a conscious extrapolation from their own.
But this was inevitable and always had been, although no one had realized it at the time. Because Wessex was created in part by the unconscious, it became real for the period of the projection.
The trustees, who had budget considerations always in mind, had not been getting the results they were seeking.
It was a daring and imaginative conception: to postulate a future society so far ahead of the present day that the contemporary concerns and problems of the world would have been solved, one way or another. There would be no famine, because the projection created a world with plenty of food. There would be no threat of worldwide war, because the projection imagined a stable world political situation. The population explosion would be contained, because the projection decided that would be so. The use of technology and fossil fuels would have stabilized, because the projection created a world where this was achieved.
The projection itself created the ends; the participants, by moving within that society, would discover the means by which they had been achieved ... and this was the purpose of the projection.
Two years since the projection began, the processes of the solutions were still not understood. Wessex in the early years of the twenty-second century, and the place it occupied in the world as a whole, was imagined and understood in the finest detail, but only the barest hints of how the stability had been achieved were capable of being passed back to the Foundation that funded the research.
‘Some of you will be aware,’ Eliot said, ‘that the trustees have employed a Mr Paul Mason to replace Tom Benedict. I gather that Mr Mason was appointed two or three months ago, to assist the trustees in assessing the worth of the project’s findings, but after the news of Tom’s death it was suggested that Mason should replace him. They believe that he has the necessary qualities to direct our work more towards obtaining the information they require.’
Mander said: ‘Do the trustees realize the effect a newcomer might have on the projection?’
‘You mean in possible changes to the projected society?’ Eliot, cast in the unlikely role of apologist for the trustees, seemed uneasy. ‘I believe so. Mason is quite clearly a man of formidable intelligence, and has spent the last few weeks familiarizing himself not only with the original program, but also with the reports that have been filed. I’ve spent a lot
of time with him myself, and his grasp of what we are doing is remarkable. I believe that any changes that might happen as a result of his joining the projection would be slight. No more, in fact, than those caused by Tom’s death.’
‘But Tom’s projective part was very much a consensus one,’ Mary Rickard said.
‘How do you know that Mason’s is not?’ Eliot said. ‘I’d like you to meet him this morning. He’s waiting outside. You can make up your own minds about him.’
‘And if we do not think him suitable?’ Mander said.
‘Then, presumably, the trustees would expect the projection to be closed in the next few weeks.’
‘So we shall have no real choice,’ Mary said.
‘I think you’ll find that Mason isn’t as much of a threat as you think. He seems committed to the projection.’
Again, Mander saw Mary Rickard and Colin Willment catching his eye. He knew their doubts without being told, for they were the same as his own. No one could be ‘committed’ to the projection without entering it. It could not be experienced by sampling the reports, nor understood by reading the program. It had to be lived in to be felt ... and only then was a commitment formed.
But the projection was an intensely private world; any newcomer, however sympathetic, would be an intruder. Paul Mason would not be welcomed until he had made the world reflect his own personality ... and no one in the projection would willingly allow him to do that.
Mander said: ‘I suppose we should meet Mr Mason.’
‘May I bring him in then?’ Eliot looked at the others for their approval. ‘Good. I’ll go and find him.’
Eliot left the room, and as soon as the door was closed Mander turned to the others.
‘What do we do?’ he said.
Colin shrugged. ‘We’re tied. We have to accept him.’
Mary Rickard said: ‘We’re being blackmailed. If we accept him, he’ll affect the projection. If we reject him, the projection will be closed.’
‘So what do you think?’