“You may go crazy,” the man said but did not elaborate. Duncan knew, somehow, that the man would not explain his statement.
“The mess in your apartment was cleaned up,” the man said. “But there was no time to replace the door. The Wednesday tenants did not report for work. The organics investigated and found the tenants still stoned and the lock on the front door burned out. Your cylinder was empty. The mystery will never be cleared up, I hope, but Wednesday left a message for Tuesday reporting the situation. You are done as Andrew Beewolf. And Snick is done as Chandler. A few Tuesdays may pass before it’s noticed that Padre Cabtab, known as Citizen Ward on Tuesday, is missing from the warehouse. The organics will assume that Chandler and Beewolf fled this city. But they’ll know that somebody destoned Ward and spirited him away. Perhaps they’ll tie all three of you together. It should be easy to find out that you were together at the Snorter more than once. Where the back-trail will lead, I don’t know yet, of course.”
“Are you PUPA?” Duncan said.
“In a sense, I am of PUPA and in another I am PUPA.”
“The leader,” Duncan said. “The head.”
“Yes.”
“You must have a reason for keeping us here instead of just getting rid of us.”
The man lowered his eyelids halfway.
Looks like a sleepy hawk, Duncan thought. Or one thinking about past strikes with great pleasure. Or future strikes with even more pleasure.
Two courses of action were open to the man. He would find some use for his captives and they would stay alive for a while, perhaps for a long time. Or he would have them stoned and hidden or killed and hidden. Whatever would happen, it was going to be determined this morning.
“I’ll be honest with you,” the man said. “Snick and Cabtab are superfluous and could be a danger to us. It’s not that I don’t trust them—to a certain extent. Snick revealed her doubts about the morality of our purposes, and that makes her unstable from our viewpoint. However, if she swears that she will not betray us, she won’t. That much we learned about her.
“Cabtab is unstable in that he really believes that he is in some sort of communication with God. He may be for all I know, but God has His purposes, and we have ours. He might swear that he would never betray us, and he would be sincere. But if the spirit came upon him, the Spirit of God, he would say, then he would obey the voice of God. And if God told him to betray us, he would.”
He switched his gaze to the padre.
“Isn’t that correct, Cabtab?”
“You already know that,” the padre said.
“So we have a morally uncertain ex-organic and a theologically certain street preacher as agents. Not what I call stable agents. We also have you, Beewolf, a man of many parts, as you said, and a man who knows far more than he realizes. A man who can be very valuable to us; he can teach us the technique of lying while under the mist. He also knows something else he doesn’t know, but that will remain suppressed, I hope.
“In any event, he can be used to great effectiveness. Not in the field, however. He’ll have to stay hidden and teach the rest of us. Not all of us. A few key personnel. Will he do that? Can he do that? Does he know how he did it? He was under TM but said that he did not know how to teach it. Did he lie then? Or was he or whatever it is that speaks for him when he’s unconscious telling the truth?”
“I really don’t know,” Duncan said.
The man smiled. His eyes were still half-hooded.
“Someone in you does know. We’ll find out somehow just who that persona is. If we don’t…”
“Yes?”
Duncan spoke clearly and loudly and bravely enough, but he felt cold from the very center of himself. He also felt as if a finger tipped with a sharp claw were scratching at the rear of his hindbrain.
“It may be very painful for you,” the man said, “I am not hinting at physical torture. The pain will be psychic, though that can also be physical. But if you…if we are successful, then you will be able to come out from hiding and take your place in society. Which place will be very high, I promise you. Meanwhile, we have your friends. I doubt you’ll really cooperate with us if they are not safe or kept alive. So I promise you they’ll not be killed. But I think it best to stone them for a long while. They’ll be out of the way, hidden safely, and when the time comes, they’ll join you in the good and free life you’ll be enjoying.”
Duncan glanced right and left at Cabtab and Snick. Their faces were blank, unless you considered a lack of expression as an expression. In this situation, it certainly was. They did not want to be stoned even under these conditions. If the revolution failed, they would remain frozen forever. If the man was lying, the same would happen. Their future depended upon how much influence Duncan had.
26
“I’d like to have all this clear and hard in my mind,” Duncan said. “You want me to teach your people how to lie when misted. I can’t guarantee that I can do that—”
“I know that,” the man said. “We’ll experiment.”
“—but I’ll try, I’ll cooperate with you fully. That is, I will if you let my partners stay with me. I need them, if only to keep me company. It’ll be a very lonely and frustrating life for me if I’m kept in one room or even have the run of the rest of the rooms in this apartment. I won’t be able to function 100 percent without them. If you did stone them, I’d hold that against you. Though I’d know that their lives depended upon my success, that’d be an extra burden on me. Worrying about them would squeeze the juice out of me. I’d resent you, hate you, if you want the truth.
“They should be allowed to live and to live with me. They’d be helpful. Their lives hang on helping me do what you want me to do.”
The man smiled, and he said, “That’s what I thought you’d say. That’s why I didn’t get them out of the way at once. Very well. They can stay with you, but I expect the fullest cooperation from them. If any of you, and that includes you, Jeff… Andrew…try anything, any trick, any attempt at escape, all three of you will go into the cylinder. You’re getting your chance now, but I won’t give a second one.
“You understand that?”
Duncan nodded, and so did the other two. Snick sighed softly, and her hands squeezed Duncan’s gently.
The man had said, “Jeff.” And Duncan had once been Jefferson Cervantes Caird, a Tuesday organic. Did the man know that Snick had told Duncan that? He might not have specifically questioned Snick on that point. But he would probably expect that, since Snick had known Caird, she would have told Duncan all she knew about him. The man, however, had not shown any sign of chagrin at the slip of tongue. Either he did not think it of significance or he was a good actor.
Could he, Duncan, somehow summon up a full-blown Caird, question him, get the answers he needed, and then push Caird back down into whatever dark abyss he now occupied? Or would it be too dangerous? Would Caird fight to regain control and to topple Duncan back into the abyss?
Would it make any difference if Caird did? Would not he, Duncan, be also Caird?
No. They were separate identities. Duncan was as horrified of losing his control as…as Caird must have been when he lost his. No. Caird had voluntarily, eagerly, in fact, become six other personae. He must have had enormous will power to overcome the same searing panic that Duncan felt at the idea of dissolving and letting Caird take over. No. It was not really a dissolution. It was a repression, a retreat into a rathole in the brain, in a manner of speaking. Or it could be said that Caird became semistoned. That was a better analogy. Half-stoned but still able to send out thought waves when, through some neural mechanism, Duncan wanted certain memories. Some memories were provided, though they were not always clear. Other memories just would not be transmitted.
Duncan became aware that the man and the guards were staring at him. Snick squeezed his hand again and said, softly, “What’s the matter?”
“I’m sorry,” Duncan said. “I didn’t hear you. I was thinking of some
thing. What did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything,” the man said. “You looked rather peculiar, as if your mind had gone to Mars. Are you subject to fugues?”
“No, not at all,” Duncan said briskly. “I was thinking about working out techniques for lying while unconscious. Also, I was wondering if you would tell me your name. Not your true one, of course, any name by which we would know you. The man is too impersonal, too indefinite.”
“Is that what you were really thinking about? Or are you trying to route me onto some other subject-track?”
“I would like to have a name.”
“Labels and names seem to be vital to humans. Very well, you may address me as Citizen Ruggedo.” He chuckled as if at some joke known only to himself.
Citizen Ruggedo rose from the chair. He held his hand high in the air, and a wall displayed the time and date: 9:00 A.M., Wednesday, D2-W3, HOPE, N.E. 1331. Day-Two, Week-Three of the month of Hope, New Era 1331. It was as Duncan had thought. They had just slept through the morning from midnight to about eight o’clock and had awakened on the day immediately following Tuesday. They had not been stoned. Which meant that they had been drugged to ensure that they slept after the effects of the TM had worn off.
“This room will be your quarters,” Ruggedo said. “If you and Citizen Chandler, aka Snick, wish to share it, you may. All three of you may live here if you wish.”
Snick shook her head. Cabtab said, “I’d be happy to share it with Citizen Beewolf, but I imagine he’d rather have privacy.”
“What say you, Citizen Beewolf, aka Duncan, among other names?” Ruggedo said.
“Complete privacy,” Duncan said. “It’s going to be crowded enough during working hours if this will also be where we try to figure out techniques.”
“Very well. You, Chandler, will have your own room, though it won’t be nearly as commodious as Duncan’s. The same for you, Cabtab.”
“Since you seem to know my real name,” Snick said, “you may as well forget Chandler.”
“Your supervisor will be here at ten o’clock,” Ruggedo said. “Snick and Cabtab will also be here at that time. I won’t be here very often, I have work elsewhere, but I’ll be getting reports about your progress at frequent intervals. Work hard.”
He turned, and two guards followed him out. The others motioned to Snick and Cabtab to precede them. The padre said, “See you, Dunc. I’ll be praying for you, Snick and me, for all of them, including Citizen Ruggedo. God, the Singular, will guide them if it so pleases It.”
When the door had closed, Duncan went to it and pushed on it. As he had expected, it did not give, but he had to test it. He did aerobic exercises hard for an hour, his mind working on the future while his body automatically labored in the present. He alternated between scenarios of escape and self-questioning about how he could teach the techniques. By the time that the door opened again, he had envisioned nothing successful for either of the problems. Nor had he been able to summon memory of where he had seen “Ruggedo” before.
Snick and Cabtab, looking fresher than when they had left, entered. Duncan expected the guards and the supervisor whom Ruggedo had mentioned. To his surprise, no armed people came in. The person following Duncan’s companions was Professor Carebara. He closed the door and said, “Good morning, Citizen Duncan.”
“You’re the supervisor?” Duncan said.
Carebara said, “Yes,” and sat down in a chair. “Now—”
“What the hell?” Duncan said. “You’re an insect specialist. What do you know about psychology? Am I just another bug?”
“No need to smart off,” Carebara said. “You forget I’m also an organic officer. I’m very experienced at interrogating unconscious people. I majored in psychics at college before I switched to entomology. Homo sapiens is too maddeningly irrational for me. The class Insecta are free of neuroses, and I seldom get emotionally involved with their problems. Besides, no psychicists are available just now. I’ve answered your questions. Do you mind if we get down to work?”
“If I only knew how to do it,” Duncan said. “I don’t even remember how I became the I that I am now.”
Carebara put his hands together and moved the palms across each other while his left thumb slid up and down the lower part of the right thumb. His green eyes were wide and bright; his expression, eager and confident. Then he pulled out of a pocket of his bottle-green jacket a small blue can. He rose, saying, “Lie down on that sofa.” He moved the can. “Herein lies the truth.”
“Jesus!” Duncan said, but he went to the sofa. “You think it’s that easy? You were told the problem, weren’t you? Your problem, I mean, not mine. You can’t get the truth out of me with that.”
“I’ve been thoroughly briefed,” the professor said with a lofty expression. “I’m not an amateur. I’ve studied the tapes of your interrogation made after you were brought here. They revealed what you think you do know. Now, we’ll find out what you think you don’t know. But I don’t expect we’ll do it quickly.”
Duncan looked up at the long thin face and the abnormally large eyes. “I wish you luck. But what I need is an archaeologist of the mind, not an entomologist, a bug-crazy gank.”
“I don’t mind your hostility,” Carebara said. “I’m used to hate.”
The can hissed. Duncan smelled the faint odor, as violet as its color. The last sense to go, his hearing, made him think that he had just been bitten by a venomous snake with fang-tipped antennae. When he awoke, the professor, Snick, and Cabtab were in the same positions. Carebara looked like a puzzled ant. His hands were placed on his chest, and his fingers wiggled like feelers.
I have to stop this, Duncan thought. He’s human, not an arthropod.
“You can get up,” Carebara said. “We’ll have some coffee first, then run the tape. What I plan to do is to show you every session so you’ll feedback me, and I, you. You know yourself better than anybody else, theoretically anyway, so you may be able to observe and analyze yourself and then perhaps synthesize a psychic key to open yourself.”
“See what’s going on, you mean?” Duncan said.
“Crudely but correctly phrased.”
They watched the session three times, the professor and Duncan with keen interest, but Cabtab yawned the second time around and Snick got up and prowled during the third running.
“As you see,” Carebara said at the end of the first showing, “I am concentrating on your most recent persona, Andrew Beewolf. I formulate the process as peeling an onion, if you don’t mind so homely a metaphor. First, Beewolf. Then, Duncan. Then Isharashvili and so on back to Caird, the primal psyche.”
“I hate to tell you,” Duncan said, “but Beewolf is not a persona. He’s a role. I was always acting as if I were Beewolf; I never was him.”
Carebara looked both nettled and embarrassed. He said, “Then I should have ignored Beewolf and gone for Duncan’s jugular?”
“Yes, though that’s too violent an expression. Your gentle probes weren’t going for the jugular. I’d call them tickles.”
The professor looked indignant.
“You don’t know much about psychicism. If the practitioner lays rough hands upon the patient’s psyche, he may bruise, not evoke. It’s like a worker ant of the Myrmecocystus species stroking the distended abdomen of a replete. The strokes must be gentle if the worker is to get the replete’s honey.”
Snick stopped pacing. Cabtab sat up. Duncan said, “What?”
“Certain ants produce a special type of worker called repletes. These are fed enormous quantities of honeydew or other kinds of sugary liquids. The replete stores the liquid in its abdomen, which, as time passes, becomes huge, larger than the body of the replete itself. Often the size of a large garden pea. The repletes hang from the ceilings of the nest tunnels and regurgitate the highly nutritious and energy-packed liquid to the workers when stroked on a certain area.”
“Yes? And if the workers are too rough, they might tear open the swollen abdomen?
Is that what you’re saying in reference to my swollen psyche?”
“Not swollen. Many-layered. But each persona will be delicate and so requires a feather touch. That is, until the very core is exposed. Then a more vigorous but still cautious manipulation is demanded. Often, the patient suffers agonies. Of an emotional nature, of course. The child in us cries out and fears a beating even if none threatens.”
Duncan did not reply. He was galvanized, though he did not move a muscle. A spark, such as that shooting off from two naked electrical lines touching, a brief flash, white, blue-edged, had swelled in his mind. Swelled? Swollen abdomen? Swollen psyche? The light had faded, but not before he saw the face of a child, ten years old or thereabouts, grinning at him while tears ran down its cheeks.
He sobbed, and he started to speak to Carebara but thought better of it. He did not want Carebara to know of this.
In ancient times, when criminals were hanged, they must have felt the shock of certainty and the not-to-be-sidestepped when the trap door dropped. That face. It was his. That, however, was not what had made his mind jump and hop as if it had stepped on a floor laid with hot wires. It was the realization that that child was not Jeff Caird. It was he, Duncan, and also Caird, but only in that it inhabited the same body.
Jefferson Cervantes Caird, whom he had thought was the original persona, was the original creation. He was the first to be conceived in the mind of the child, nourished in the womb of his imagination, brought forth as J. C. Caird. Thus, the child was the first of eight, not seven, separate psyches. Beewolf, of course, did not count.
“I said something?” Carebara said.
“That’s twice today,” Snick said. Though she had seemed impatient and bored, she must have been watching him closely.
“A flash of something. Gone. I can’t even describe it.”
Carebara rose. “I’ll see you after lunch, say, two o’clock. We will start on Duncan then.”
He started to walk away but stopped and turned back. “You’re not lying to me, are you? Beewolf is really just a role?”