The Parallel Man (7 page)

He stood back from the View, then walked toward it, scanning the stars. Eventually he pointed to a star fainter than many of the others. “That’s a planet,” he said. “Probably Carpathia, because we seem to be heading for it.” He pressed another circle beside the view and the stars altered their pattern. The faint star was now a tiny disc and the star which had shone so bright was a white circle near the edge of the View. “Long way out yet,” he said. “We won’t land until tomorrow. I’d try to sleep if I were you; it will be real sleep now that we’re out of Q.” I lay down on my bed and after a while began to feel drowsy. For the first time since I had boarded this strange craft I lost consciousness.

I awoke feeling heavy and unrefreshed, cleaned myself up and made my way back to the circular room Elena Petros had called the “bridge.” Several panels in the room now showed starry sky with a blue disc in the center. The captain was seated in her thronelike chair and beckoned me to her side. On a great screen which faced her chair I saw starry sky and a blue disc the size of a man’s head at the center. It all looked very much as things had looked at the beginning of our voyage and I coldly realized a truth that had, for now, no emotional impact. We had journeyed the heavens, from to star.

“Let’s have extreme magnification on the port city,” said Elena Petros, and suddenly the screen before us showed a view from a great height of a sprawling city, even larger than the city I had left to begin this voyage, but on a more human scale with buildings large and small, old and new, jumbled together.

“This is Thorn,” said Captain Petros. For a moment I didn’t comprehend. Thorn was a little village, huddled below the Castle. Then a familiar outline caught my eye, and my eyes traced the craggy shape of the Hill of Thorn up to the towers and battlements above. There were a few changes, but very few. Standing above the vast alien sprawl of the unfamiliar city was Castle Thorn, the home of my fathers, which I had left, surely, no more than a week ago!

Elena Petros turned to me and asked with that same controlled appearance of normality, “Are you familiar with the city, Casmir?’’

“My ancestors lived there,” I said, gesturing at the castle. She nodded. “Of course, Casmir Thorn; you’re named for the city. Your family must have left soon after Rediscovery, though; Carpathia hasn’t been in the Commonwealth all that long, if I remember the data fax we got on the planet. Do you have relatives here?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. I wondered in a remote fashion what my emotions would have been if they had not been frozen by the enchanted voyage I had taken. For Thorn to have grown from the village I remembered to this sprawling city must have taken generation upon generation. Had our magical voyage taken centuries? But no, Pellow had said that these star voyages took no real time at all, despite the days that seemed to pass. And Pellow had no reason to lie—or had he? Whom could I trust, whom could I believe in this land of enchanters which seemed to have reached ot and engulfed my homeland? The problem was agonizing, but I felt no agony, locked as I was in the frozen emotions which were the price of star voyaging.

We landed in the city as routinely as we had left the city where I had boarded
Argo
; there was another great stretch of the false lawn with the same glowing globes on high poles. There were fewer of the enigmatic structures, and only two of the great discs which must be “starships” like
Argo
. Of course, we felt nothing as the ship landed, but I felt a certain detached admiration for the evident competence and efficiency of Captain Petros and her crew as
Argo
settled her immense bulk on the false greensward as lightly as a leaf falling from a tree.

“Finished with the engines,” said Elena Petros. “Open the sally port and prepare to receive planetary officials.” She turned to me. “We generally get rid of passengers fairly quickly, Casmir Thorn, but you and your companion are quasi-crew, If you’d like, use your cabin for a while until you get oriented here on Carpathia. The duty officer at the sally port will give you a ship’s badge which will get you in and out of the Starport and let you use the crew shuttles into the city.”

“I thank you, Lady,” I said. Was Elena Petros merely being kind, or did she have some hidden motive, I wondered coldly. Perhaps she saw some advantage to be gained from learning more about my reasons for coming to Carpathia. Pellow had told me that the captain of an independent starship like
Argo
had to be a shrewd trader, quick to seize opportunity. Perhaps, too, Elena Petros had some interest in me as a man; there had been a certain spark between us before our emotions had been frozen.

I turned to go, but she stopped me with a gesture. “I don’t know what your business is on Carpathia, Casmir Thorn,” she said, “but if you’re ready to leave before
Argo
lifts, come and see me about a real crew berth, The technical things can be learned—many of them can be autolearned. But the ability to function as well as you did in Q condition is something that’s very rare. This flit was just a delivery run. After it, we’re outward bound for some trading on our own. There’s wealth as well as adventure in the star trade. If that appeals to you, I can always use a good man.”

I tried to put some feeling into my voice as I said, “I will remember your words, Captain, and I thank you again.” As I left the bridge I considered her offer. I was a man ripped out of his own place and flung into a world which was often incomprehensible. If I could find no way back to my own place, I could certainly do a great deal worse than to join the small, disciplined world of
Argo
. But before I abandoned the world I remembered to try to see what I could make of this new one, I wanted to know how and why I had lost my old world. I had a feeling that Mortifer might know, and Mortifer, according to the “fax” which Benton had given me, was not in this city of Thom.

If it were not for my frozen emotions, I might have stormed my way into Mortifer’s presence and demanded an explanation. But in the cold light of reason, without emotion to influence me, I saw that the better course was to learn everything I could before trying to confront Mortifer. Most of the city was strange to me, but the castle which loomed above the city on its rocky crag was at least outwardly familiar. I decided to make it my first goal.

Benton had given gifts of clothing to me when I left his lodge. During the voyage I had simply pulled on whatever garments came to hand, but now I looked through Benton’s gifts and did my best to find garments that would not have looked wildly out of place at my father’s court. At the sally port I was given a little circular patch of black which seemed to have a star gleaming in its center. “Most of us wear them over our C and C chip,” said the duty officer. “Marks us as starcrew and it’s no business of the planetaries how much credit we have, since we pay in ecus anyway. Captain said to treat you as crew, so I’ll give you the same advice as I’d give a new crewman. Stay in the port area until you come out of freeze; planetaries are often scared of starcrew or hostile to them. They don’t understand freeze and they have strange ideas about it. If you’re anxious to get out of freeze as quickly as possible, don’t fool around with the so-called emotional therapists; go to a blackout.”

At my look of incomprehension, he explained, “They’re plays, short and pretty melodramatic. But somehow all that stage emotion seems to unfreeze your own emotions. See a good blackout and get a good night’s sleep and by tomorrow morning you may begin to feel human. If not, repeat treatment. We were two days on GE drive that’s two days out of Q. Cutting it a little fine, but you kept active in Q and that helps.”

I hesitated, then decided to take his advice. Much as grudged the time, I realized that a man in emotional freeze was conspicuous and I did not want to be conspicuous when I set out to find what I could about Mortifer and about what had happened to me.

There was certainly nothing recognizable and almost nothing Carpathian about the area around the starport. The men and women who filled the taverns and wandered the streets in various stages of emotional freeze were the same strange mixture of faces as I had encountered aboard
Argo
, along with others even stranger; lithe, brown creatures who seemed to slither rather than walk, and exotically plumed beings who almost seemed to float along.

It was easy enough to find a blackout; there were several theaters near the starport gates. The first surprise was that the play featured both humans and the sealed lizard-like creatures I had learned to call Szilara. There were four players, a male and female Szilar, a man and a woman.

The plot, looking back on it, was thin enough stuff; a tale of danger and hairsbreadth escapes with the Szilara as villains, the woman as victim and the man as rescuing hero. But it was well written and well acted. At first it seemed merely interesting, then it became absorbing. At a tense moment in the plot I found myself gripping the arms of my seat and realized that my emotions were returning. By the end of the play I was joining in the catcalls which greeted the appearance of the villains and shouting myself hoarse to cheer on the hero.

The play ended abruptly with the lights turned out at a high point of tension; the “blackout” from which the plays took their name. As the lights went on again and the audience filed out, I exchanged sheepish smiles with other men and women whose badges proclaimed them as starcrew. We felt foolish, but we felt human again.

It was late and I headed for the starport gates, planning to get some proper rest and head for the castle in the morning. A small man in brown caught my attention with a courteous gesture as I strolled away from the theater and I paused to see what he wanted of me. On closer inspection there was something rather unpleasant about his smooth manner and foppish appearance, and I regretted not having ignored him. He came to my side and spoke in a low rapid voice, not looking at my face; “The honorable startrader may wish to complete his emotional recovery by sampling our wares,” he said, “the finest gynas, perfect simulacra of the most beautiful women in the Commonwealth, programmed for your pleasure. . .”

I did not completely understand what he was offering, but I understood well enough to be disgusted. “Be off with you!” I said and raised my hand as if to cuff him. He cringed and slid off into the shadows.

“Good for you, flitter,” said a woman’s voice behind me. I turned to see a richly dressed woman of considerable beauty, with a hardness to her voice and features that let me guess her profession. “Too many flitters are spending their credit on those mechanical dolls. Afraid of a real woman, most of them. If you’re not, I’ll give you a special rate for sending that puppet pimp about his business.”

I gave her a grin. “Not tonight, my pretty one. But good hunting,” I said. She gave a little trill of laughter, raised a hand in salute and strolled languidly off, her eyes searching the faces of the men who were emerging from the theater.

Back aboard
Argo
I found Pellow lying on his bunk and told him of my adventures. He nodded dully, still wrapped in emotional freeze. “Yes, blackouts will do the job all right, but I don’t want out of freeze until I leave this ship,” he said. “It will be bad enough knowing I can’t flit again except as a passenger without living in crew quarters and seeing starflitters about me every day. I’ll look for lodgings in the city tomorrow, I think. What about you?”

I hesitated, “I may know more after tomorrow. Don’t leave
Argo
for good without leaving me word of where I can find you.” He nodded listlessly and was stretching out again as I asked, “These gynas the man spoke of, what are they? The bawdy called them dolls, and puppets . . .”

Pellow shrugged. “That’s what they are, mechanicals just like andros, Technically I suppose they’d have to expose the blue dome under their wigs if they ever went out of doors But you’ll never find them outside a bawdy house. Physically they’re a perfect replica of a woman but their programming is pretty limited; they’re made for only one thing. The ones that are replicas of famous actresses and other well known women are kept in pretty tight seclusion; their owners would be in big trouble if the duplication could be proved. You hear stories of women who’ve been copied without their permission hiring wilders to break up a bawdy house and destroy the gynas. On the other hand, you hear stories of 3V stars who let themselves be duplicated for a share of the profits.”

I groped for a way to put the question I wanted to ask without exposing my ignorance. “The andros—I’ve seen none of them here so far.”

Pellow shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t expect to see any here. They can’t flit, the effect of Q on them are too unpredictable. A general-purpose andro like we were pretending to be costs a small fortune to build; more than most cits make in five years. It’s not worthwhile making them on a backwater planet like this; there are humans to do even the most menial jobs. Gynas are another matter; you can always peddle exotic sex, especially near a starport.”

I fell into my bunk, my head whirling. The “andros,” then, were some sort of doll or puppet, moved by enchanters’ arts. No wonder they gaped and stared in poor imitation of humanity. But what about the serfs I remembered, surely they were natural men, born and not built by magical arts. But except for their shocks of unkempt hair. . . Suddenly I had a sort of double image; serfs as I had remembered them up to now and then a different set of images: serfs grinning, laughing, drinking; buxom serf women smiling at me and shock-headed children tumbling on the cottage floors. My heart pounded and I broke out in a sweat. Up to now I had not doubted my memories. I had reckoned myself a sane man in a mad world of enchantment. What if it was I that was mad . . .”

I made myself breathe deeply and relax. Whatever had been done to me, some things I could hold to. I knew enough of hunting to win Benton’s respect. I could handle myself well enough in this strange world to make Elena Petros offer me a berth on
Argo
. Whatever I learned about myself I was my own man and could hold my own in this or any other world. And surely my memories of Castle Thorn and my life there could not all be false. I knew that castle as well as I knew my own hands—or did I? Tomorrow would tell. I made myself sleep.

The next day it took an effort to keep my voice steady as I asked the guard at the starport gate about transportation to the castle. He shrugged. “Oh yes, you can get there all right, they run tours. But not many flitters care to go. Tell you what, go over to the passenger gate round the fence there; cut across the field. There are probably regular tours leaving from there for visitors with time to kill here. Some of the tours are free; the city merchants run them to attract business. I’d take off your crew badge and hope they take you for a wealthy cit.”

I thanked the man and cut across the false grass to the gate he had indicated. A more grandly dressed gatekeeper looked at me oddly, then told me to wait. Presently he returned with another man. “The regular tour is gone, citizen, but Jelleck here will give you a lift to the castle gate and find a tour you can join.” I thanked him and accompanied the other man to a moving platform smaller and faster than the one I had ridden with the andros the day I first met Pellow. I settled in a seat beside the man named Jelleck and was whisked through crowded streets toward the castle. Nothing I saw looked familiar until we came to the castle gates. Where I remembered a moat there was a broad paved area, but the gate themselves and the walls above were heart-stoppingly familiar.

The man named Jelleck looked around him. “If you’ll wait here, citizen, I’ll find a guide for you,” he said, and entered the castle through a small postern gate that I did not remember. I climbed off the platform and stretched. Another unfamiliar object near the gates was a statue standing immediately before the gates, a man in armor with an unfurled flag in one hand and a bared sword in the other. I strolled casually over to look at it and was suddenly standing there staring, unable to move. Dimly I heard a child’s voice behind me, “Mama, look! The man standing there looks just like the statute of King Casmir the Protector!”