The Chromosome Game (17 page)

Instead, he had the impression that he had somehow been conveyed, via Trans-Relativity radio-telephone, into an empty room. In it could be heard the sputter of untended machinery. It echoed eerily through what sounded like a concrete chamber. It was a kind of counter — a regular beat percussively hammering on a concrete slab.

He could hear the last of some scuttling footsteps beyond this concrete enclave.

Then there was a sudden whirring-noise, like a ratchet clicking through some ten positions.

Abruptly, the acoustic of the concrete room was obliterated.

There was nothing, save a steady tone in his ear. It implied that the line no longer existed. Then even that ceased.

Eagle hung up slowly, then switched off the gear. Two large plates of metal, spaced some two feet apart, glowed, faintly luminous, in the darkness of the Fan Room. The fluorescence gradually dimmed out and there was nothing, just blackness.

Into the darkness Eagle murmured, ‘That’s how it happened. They really did it.’

And, for a while, he secretly cried.

Among the victims — he knew — were his parents.

And he knew — somehow — that in a sense they loved him.

*

Scorda whispered hoarsely, ‘What are you doing in my dormitory?’

Sladey-555 jabbed him in the stomach. ‘We mustn’t ask questions, Scorda-Boy, when Sladey is doing his tour of duty. Especially when you need a bath. Why don’t people complain?’

‘What do you want?’

‘You’ll see. Go and get Flek. I want the two of you to meet me outside the Fan Room in ten minutes. And this is top secret so keep your voice down. Only get out of those grubby pyjamas or the fan will distribute your delightful bodily scents all over the Environment. Mustn’t pollute the Environment, Scorda.’

‘What do you want me to wear?’

‘This isn’t a formal occasion so a black tie won’t be necessary. At the same time, punctuality is all.’

At the door of the Fan Room Sladey observed Flek and Scorda distastefully. ‘Flek, the act of playing baseball seems to have stretched your arms in the most curious way. What are they made of? Chewing gum?’

‘There’s no need to be insulting.’

‘There’s every need to be insulting. You’re three parts asleep; I really don’t know what you’ve been dreaming about but you look like the Naked Ape.’

‘Only I ain’t naked.’

‘No you ain’t, thank goodness. And see here, you two. Not a word will be spoken at any time about what I’ve discovered in here. Did anyone follow you down?’

Scorda said, ‘Why should they?’

‘If they were addicted to B.O. they could hardly avoid it, Scorda.’ He eased open the flange-lock of the Fan Room.

Flek exclaimed abruptly, ‘I don’t want to go in there!’

‘Don’t you know who
does
come in here? — Don’t you know who tries to carry out highly dangerous experiments? … Take a look inside. Mustn’t run away, now. For this is where Eagle tampers with the unknown. See these two big plates? They’re electrodes of some kind. And via all this electronic gear they’re connected to the telephone.’

Scorda said, ‘Those plates are luminous. I don’t like it.’

Sladey said, ‘Touch the two plates, Scorda. Tell me what you feel.’

‘I … I might get a shock.’

‘Only not the kind you’re thinking of. Touch them, Scorda-Boy.’

Scorda looked at him almost pleadingly. ‘What will happen?’

See.

Scorda nerved himself to touch them and then jumped back, terrified.

‘Well? What did you feel?’

‘I won’t say!’

‘You
must
say.’

‘It wasn’t exactly a feeling. It was a smell.’

‘Of what?’

‘Death.’

Sladey nodded. ‘I’ve stood outside the door while it’s going on.’

‘While what’s going on?’

‘While Eagle mutters into that telephone and communes with the dead.’

Scorda starred. ‘The dead? Who’s dead, then?’

‘
You
are — from the neck up, only that isn’t the problem. Think. Where else aboard this ship have you noticed the same smell?’

Scorda could only whisper. ‘Up on the other decks.’

‘And how do we know Eagle is
sane
? — You have to be mad to want to talk about this and that with dead people. Raving mad.’

Flek scoffed, ‘he’ll be taking-off in a flying saucer next.’

Sladey said, in a dried-out voice, ‘So who — or what — is Eagle? And where does he belong? … I’ll tell you. One day we’ll find out for certain: he belongs with the dead. He belongs with all that twisted rubble you saw.’

Scorda felt a shiver go through him. ‘Spying on us from the past.’

Flek rapped, ‘Someone’s coming!’

It was true. Footsteps in the corridor. Sladey commanded, ‘All out of here. Quick!’ He closed the Fan Room door and cranked the handle tight. ‘Remember. Not a word. You never saw it … Who’s coming down the corridor, Scorda?’

‘Trell is coming down the corridor, Sladey.’

‘Well, I want to speak to Trell alone. So you two can Scapa.’

‘Scapa?’

‘In other words, piss off.’

There was silence except for the retreating footsteps of Scorda and Flek. Trell had reached the Fan Room door and now stood motionless before Sladey.

Then Trell said, quite quietly, ‘What are you doing along here at this time of night, Sladey?’

‘You sound as if you imagine you have some authority over me, Trell … Which brings me to a point we may have in common.’

‘I don’t think you and I have much in common, Sladey.’

‘Not as yet, perhaps. Let’s go and talk.’

‘We don’t have anything to talk about.’

‘I promise you it’s in your own interests.’

‘And yours, I take it? — Okay, let’s get this over with.’

‘Except I find it slightly draughty out here. Why don’t we go to the disco bar? There won’t be anyone there.

Trell said, ‘Let’s make it fast. I need my sleep.’

‘I’m offering you joint leadership in this community.’

Trell kept his reactions to himself. ‘Go on.’

‘On certain conditions, of course.’

‘One of them being that people might not accept you, Sladey, as any sort of leader.’

‘I think they will — eventually.’

‘You’ve certainly been working at it.’

‘That’s because I’m needed.’

You’ll have to prove it before anyone will want to know.’

‘I think you’re out of touch, 484.’

‘What with? The computer?’

Sladey smiled urbanely. ‘May I explain the conditions?’

‘If you wish.’

‘First of all, Kelda is not suitable for any position of leadership.’

‘Who says that?’

‘I say that.’

‘But then you so frequently talk to the Controller. What’s next? Who else is to be left out of this chummy club?’

‘Eagle-100.’

‘Why?’

‘I have my reasons.’

‘Being what?’

‘He doesn’t belong.’

‘He’s one of the best guys around this place.’

‘He is not … normal.’

‘And what do we mean by normal?’

Sladey smiled thinly. ‘Not what is dictated by your one-track mind, Trell. I know all about you and Kelda. It’s ever so sweet.’

‘Just stick to the point. What do you mean by “not normal”?’

‘The proof is in the Fan Room.’

Trell said, ‘I don’t pry, in there. That’s Eagle’s laboratory.’

‘Tradition hath it that Frankenstein also had a laboratory … Eagle must go, Trell.’

‘Have you finished?’

‘I’m offering you a partnership.’

‘I have my team, thanks all the same.’

‘And I have mine.’

‘I’ve noticed. I do not like your team, Sladey.’

‘Yours includes a dangerous maverick.’

‘Dangerous to you, perhaps. Not to me. No deal.’

Sladey got up from his chair. ‘Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance, Trell.’

‘I take my own chances, Sladey. A partnership with you is not one I care to take.’

Sladey grinned suddenly. ‘You imagine the Blind must continue to lead the Blind?’

‘At least I don’t see dark shadows when they aren’t there.’

‘What do you see?’

‘The birth of a democracy.’

‘And do you not know what happened to democracies in history?’

‘We don’t have to repeat history.’

‘Then let’s hope you can prevent its repetition.’

Minus Four

With the Fall came the rains, and with them the tides of the Equinox. They raised
Kasiga
piecemeal and drove her farther inland toward Digne. Carross remained aloof, though, and withstood the Autumn gales as it had done so majestically for many hundreds of years, going back in time before ships like
Kasiga
were even dreamed of, or wars of the magnitude which pre-ordained her construction were even packaged within the most secret nightmares of the insane.

But the qualifications needed by Twentieth Century Man for entry into a lunatic asylum were not always relevant to the nature of the disease. Nuclear physicists and ranch-loving politicians regarded doing the psychotic splits as the acceptable status quo. So did the moguls of Aerospace; the elite hooligans of Moscow; the obsessive Chinese — between games of ping pong. No single culture was exclusively to blame. All were making one-way history designed to knock spots off previous attempts at mass homicide. So the insane had their way in the end because they
did
know what they were doing, and accordingly they did it well.

Among these were the architects of Futureworld.

*

With the rains came also merciful relief to the animals which had summered in such agony in the French forests. Losses were enormous; but there was not time for the self-indulgence of perpetual mourning. Most of the mares were robbed of their offspring; but to them this meant a dedicated renewal of procreation, rather than the histrionics of a Disney’s dream.

Freshwater fish, dead by the million in the emptied channels where nature had so callously pulled the plug on them and drained their source of oxygen, stank until September as they slowly died with the last drops of moisture clinging to their gills. They would have been seen as a seething, silver bed of quivering activity, flailing themselves into oblivion, then spreading plagues among the mammals from the putrid rot of their flesh, now in a grill-pan in which murderous bacteria provided the sauce for the lethal repast. Hungry beavers, and antelopes, and otters, their diets and enzymes changed through the process of mutation, water rats, the new lemmings — larger than their ancestors but just as easily panicked — ate the fish and died in paroxysms. The rabbits, who had been doing so well at last, after the long aftermath of paralysing myxamatosis, ate the fish. Vultures ate the fish, and did not sustain a single mortality. Immune from such plagues as they were from any sense of decency, they thrived as never before. Here was a gourmet’s dream. An excellent starter in the dried-up river beds followed by a delicious entree on its shrivelled banks. Gluttony, however, proved their undoing as a Master Race: they couldn’t be bothered to lay an egg. The fashionable restaurants on the exclusive plains kept them from their D les; the family could go to hell … Here was luxury all-found and for free. Who cares if the body weight is rather a stress upon lazy wings? Why fly for a meal when you can lurch from table to table? The vultures became bloated and uglier than ever, and their mates were unaroused by the universal paunch.

*

And with the rains disease was washed away. What remained of decomposing trout, salmon, pike and a billion minnows were flushed from the streams and swept away by the tidal undertow. The rivers repaired themselves, so that the great gashes in their beds closed up and allowed the water level to rise joyously. Life came back to the grass and made it green. The forests south of the Alps revived — even the threatened sycamore — and the glorious spectacle of gold, as leaves refreshed back to health spent it all in a reckless, last-minute binge, burnished the plains with a very expensive-looking gilt finish. Autumn had arrived for a world premier, hastily concealing the enormous toll of natural life that lay behind its sudden and immaculate success.

*

The thunderclap of one hundred and forty-four pressure-rivets being exploded-out of
Kasiga’s
departure bulkhead thumped a shockwave into the ravine.

The Computer had decided to blow the hull-seal.

An enormously heavy slice of armour-plate was hurled like a giant’s discus into the sky.

The titanic explosion produced standing waves in the gully, amplifying themselves until all animal life was terrorised for miles around. A sonic bang struck the granite face of the mountainside and triggered a rockfall ten miles to the north. As horses stampeded, so the cool water around Kasiga’s hull contrived shock-pat terns. The water was nature’s seismograph; riplets curled and crossed over each other, then washed back from the banks, while gradually the multiple echo of ignited TNT died and was gone.

Then, from the side of
Kasiga’s
tubular body, a long, articulated group of cantilever arms stretched themselves and unfolded, while an apparently linear platform, clutched between the arms, corrugated and became steps.

The far ends of the arms lowered themselves automatically so that the steps descended from the aperture in the hull and provided a safe pathway to the shore.

For the Management of the universe to view, there still exists a videotape which shows, in full colour, the parade of incubants as they began their trek into the Real World. The picture has been taken, evidently, from an oblique angle and gazing slightly upward as each incubant views the Catastrophe of Distance. For the first time in the life of each, their eyes go into long focus, and try to accept the dimensions of the world they see, mid-Autumn. Each pauses at the top of the steps, stares as if in disbelief, then stands erect and proud of the simple fact of surviving thus far.

For the world they see is their world, their Futureworld. They know, as they stand and stare, that no mortal Being of comparable intelligence shares it with them. It is theirs, to do whatsoever they think fit with it … the world belongs to just one hundred and ninety-four people. That is all there are on this planet.

But what on Earth does Supernature make of this sudden emergence of a forgotten species? For even though suspicions lurked all the time in the universal helix of Life’s unconscious, an occasional gene here and there that seemed both reminiscent and portentous, the shockwave that pulsed through the Biosphere when tangible humans, unchanged and unrepentant, altered at a stroke the newfound balance restored to Planet Earth by its freshly-evolved living things … well, this was really tough to take.

The conscious sea-weed visibly cringed, then slunk back into the sea, as the incubants coolly stepped out of the submarine as if nothing had happened.

*

It is evident from the videotape that though the initial reactions of each emerging incubant are mostly similar, each betrays, after conjoining with the real world and becoming a part of it so abruptly, a private and personal response unique to each personality. Futureworld has come about and it has intense meaning. Reproduced so faithfully on the video screen, their eyes reveal their innermost thoughts as the impact of natural ultravision becomes embossed on each brain.

Although most of the faces are familiar to us by now, the first we can put a name to is Krand.

It is unlike Krand to look outwardly so solemn because habitually he doesn’t need to. His thoughts and feelings run deep enough to permit an overlay of easy friendliness to enshell such philosophy. Yet, when he views the near-unbelievable dimensions of Futureworld his external gloss becomes transparent and we can only see Krand as he really is — the severest of observers, a man in boys’ clothing who has always been able to view the sciences as one integrated entity. For him, physics and metaphysics dovetail elegantly; and we see in his eyes a depth of understanding which, for the most part, exceeds our own. Then he relaxes, quite suddenly. A grin appears and there’s a reason. The reason is the new horses.

Krand takes one glance at the exquisite ponies. Airplanes simply vanish from his mind. They recede above and beyond the cirrus, thirty thousand feet away or more. Thinks Krand, let airplanes by all means pollute the stratosphere if they must, but those horses are for me!

Pass on to Handem and Gendabrig and Flek — then pass them over quickly. They are bored.

Not so the exotic tandem — Sakini and Inikas. They greet the world with a giggle, as if they knew exactly what it would be like all the time. Immediately, they sprint down the ramp toward a flat strip of grassland. They’ve found their miracle: mow this down, fix up a net … Side or Service?

Hallow can’t see the landscape. He can only see them.

Cass, his chess partner, views the undulating plains with the cool satisfaction of a mathematician. Yes, this curve is just right; indeed, the perspective leading away to the distant mountains is quite extraordinarily like the music of Bach — so arithmetically elegant, and yet so skilfully integrated. He sees Futureworld as a set of pleasing equations … not to be solved in a hurry, but pored over in solitude for years to come, until the entire fugue — at last analysed — can be enjoyed from an intimate knowledge of the score.

There is Eagle.

His thoughts are not penetrable, though we can see his expression is that of one totally absorbed, almost severe. To him, Futureworld and Pre-history are not entirely distinct from each other. As a scientist he is searching for the coupling between past and present, and something makes him stare at the sunlit sky.

For Eagle cannot be shot of the implications of his experiment. Thoughtwaves, to him, though not as tangible as they are to the gods of the universe, are meaningful and provable through the use of electronics.

He ponders this as he gazes across the rich terrain.

There are Nembrak, Fulda, Triumph and Nicola — a couple of couples who do everything together except when they are copulating … They call it ‘copulating’ too, neither taking it seriously nor particularly enjoying it. They’d much rather sit in a row of four and drink specials.

Here is Helen. Already she has almost forgotten the lascerations inflicted upon her, though she remains revulsed by the hypocritical vengeance of Tortureday. Now, though she is Krand’s girl, she insists on keeping a tactful distance, and does not emerge into Futureworld with Krand at her side.

For a while she stands motionless, marvelling. The sight of wheat browning in the sun physically arouses her. She responds to Super-136 nature by unconsciously adopting her most alluring stance. From this we can see there is not a spare ounce of fat on her body. She is sinew and health and she is in love. You should see her in the gymn. There, she is second only in achievement to one other incubant; and he comes next.

Scorda-099. So arrestingly disturbed are those eyes, we feel inclined to freeze-frame as we view. Only because we dare not examine them too closely do we discard the idea and let the tape go on running through the machine. But we see how repressed is his bitterness, how it lies there waiting for expression. We note that the lust he displays for Helen is the lust of a failure despite racial views he has acquired, second-hand, from Sladey. Being still very young and therefore only victim of sexual conflict in embryo, he can acrobatically manipulate his libido and pretend what he likes. He fails only in that he is incapable of giving genuine love to any human form, whether male or female. He could only use someone else’s body as a place to shove his penis, which Helen has longsince debarred.

Now, we see from the VTR that he is not satisfied to leave her alone because there festers an unnatural ache to despoil her body so that he can thereafter dismiss her as a person. He wants — and here it is best to express it the way he thinks it — to have a free go … as with a pinball table that might come up with a commendable score before the telltale appearance of the Tilt Sign.

Scorda hardly notices the breath-taking view of the panoramic plains, with its incredible back-drop of the Alps. He shrugs it off because his mind has never stopped conspiring with itself ever since Tortureday. The need for revenge totally engulfs him, insulates him from hope and optimism and forgiveness. And he is aware that, right behind him, is Kelda-275. He is anxious to fuck her; he feels he can prove to himself and to her that his desire is for the female and for the female only. His reasoning on this point is as obscure and perverse as on all things to do with human relationships: he wants her above all the others because he is livid that another man won her before any of the other male incubants had won any of the females. It is as irrational as desiring to possess the first piano in the showroom to have been played by someone else … thus proving that it can, in fact, make music.

Kelda says, ‘Look! Wild horses!’

Trell can only reply, ‘Aren’t they marvellous!’

For a time they are children again.

Others file past while Trell and Kelda still look on. To varying degrees each incubant is affected … Already a guy called Frume observes the lonely Prenda (he thought her plain until now) as a potential companion — if only he can find a way of overcoming his shyness and say something real nice. Then he is lost in the crowd as the scramble down the ramp becomes an engaging stampede. There is fun to be had before dusk — and maybe some more after it. Don’t let’s waste time.

Almost last is Sladey. To our surprise, he is still urbane and apparently relaxed as he talks to one of his cronies. He makes some witty comment — Good God, I thought the outside world would be in black and white — and chats on as if he’s already travelled a lot before, sunning himself in Nice and sipping a sour in Whisky-a-Gogo. He shows no sign that bears on Tortureday; it is all locked inside, totally camouflaged and inert.