Against a hazy background of shifting sand and crawling marine life, they sent their brilliant reflections out to strike vivid illumination into murky depths. Then, like the gaping maw of an enormous seadragon, a vacuous hole opened in the ebon distance. And in its depths sparkled the most lustrous gem imaginable.
All around me, as though I weren’t in a Psychorama at all, I could feel the wetness of water, the loneliness of desolate, submarine depths, the awful crush of despair and hydrostatic pressure.
Then came the violent, lurching transition—from wetness to blistering dryness, from the suffocating loneliness of unfathomable reaches to the choking aridity of a vast stretch of wasteland.
The only concept that had held its stability during the change had been the incomparable gem. Only, now it, too, was metamorphosing—into a delicate, many-petaled crimson blossom that gave off a poignant redolence.
So hypnotic was Rojasta’s projection that I had been sucked irresistibly into the spirit of the reading. And I could now recognize the excerpt:
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark, unfathom’d caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Gray’s
Elegy,
of course.
Now we were looking down on the profuse vegetation flanking one of the Martian canals.
The waters roiled with the restless presence of thousands of—
There was a jarring end to the poetrycast as the main lights came up in the Psychorama. A four-sided video screen dropped down to envelop Rojasta and each facet immediately came to life with a picture of the activity outside Reactions, Inc.
Some semblance of order was being restored. The monitors were falling back before the crippling spray from a score of heavy lasers which had been set up on top of the building.
Federal troops had moved in. They were swarming on the roof. They were dropping down by the hundreds in Army vans.
ARM had lost.
The Operator had lost.
The Upper World had failed in its last desperate attempt to destroy Fuller’s simulator within the bounds of rational expedient. The Operator couldn’t preserve His response-seeking system—our reaction monitors establishment.
I knew what it meant.
This entire world would have to be wiped clean so a new behavior-predicting simulectronic complex could be programmed.
I lowered the now dead Participation Skullcap from my head and merely sat there wondering when it would come. Would universal deprogramming be effected immediately? Or would the Operator first have to consult a special advisory group, a board of directors?
At least, I consoled myself, I didn’t have to worry any longer about being yanked individually, or even being scrutinized through an empathy coupling. If
every
circuit was to be wiped, I would simply go down the drain with all the rest.
Then, just as I had convinced myself that I was no longer a candidate for special treatment by the Operator, it came.
The visual details of the Psychorama blurred and the tiers of seats spun insanely about me. Bending under the crushing impact of faulty empathic coupling, I staggered out into the foyer. The sea that roared in my ears became booming thunder which gradually faded into what sounded like—rumbling laughter!
I cringed against the wall, aware that even now the Operator was picking every bit of vital information from my mind! And the laughter—like a component of nonresonant coupling—became like the beat of a tympanum in my head, sardonic, sadistic.
Then it was gone and my mind was free once more.
I stumbled out onto the staticstrip—just as an air car, with a crescent and star emblazoned on its side, cushioned down onto the street directly in front of me.
“There he is!” the uniformed driver shouted.
And a laser beam, lethal in its pencil-like thinness, lanced out against the side of the building next to my shoulder, crumbling concrete at its focal point.
I spun around and charged back into the foyer.
“Stop, Hall!” someone called out. “You’re under arrest for Fuller’s murder!”
Was this latest development motivated by Siskin? Had he decided to lower his boom as a final, absolute means of getting me safely out of the way? Or was this a result of programming by the Operator? Was He still sticking to conventional, rational means of disposing of me, despite the fact that He would soon deprogram His entire simulectronic complex?
Two more laser beams lashed out at me before I made it safely back into the Psychorama.
I circled wide around the tiers of seats and plunged out a side exit into the blazing sunlight of the crowded parking lot. Within seconds I was in my car, riding it skyward at full throttle.
There was nowhere to go except my cabin on the lake. It was just possible that I might be temporarily safe there if only because it was too obvious a place to hide.
I had no doubt, as I brought the car down into the clearing among needlelike pines and sent it skittering into concealment in the garage, that the police were under orders to shoot to kill. If they were reacting to the tug of Siskin’s strings, that was a certainty.
But out here in the forest, I would at least have a chance for concealment and self-defense should a homicide squad cushion down.
On the other hand, if the Operator was pursuing His own purpose of eliminating me, independent of police action, He would follow one of two courses:
Either He would yank me abruptly, without warning-in which case I could do nothing.
Or He would send His agent to handle the job
physically
to effect the appearance of suicide or accidental death.
And that was what I had wanted all along: a chance to come face to face with the Contact Unit. Out here, he would be stripped of his anonymity. He would have to show himself and share with me the isolation of the forest.
I went inside the cabin and selected my heaviest laserifle. Checking its charge, I choked it open to a spread beam. I didn’t want to kill the Operator’s agent outright. Not when talking with him might suggest a plan of action.
I sat by the window, facing both the lake and clearing, laid the weapon across my legs and waited.
All my reasoning was, of course, predicated on the assumption that, for some purpose, the Simulectronicist Up There was staying His hand on the switch that would wipe out my entire world. Why He might be waiting, I couldn’t imagine.
For hours on end, the stillness outside was disturbed only by the furtive movement of wild life among the thickets and up in the foliage, the gentle lapping of the lake upon its rocky shore.
Just after sundown, I went into the kitchen and broke open a pack of camp-out rations. Afraid to turn on any lights, I sat huddled beneath one of the windows and went through the mechanical motions of eating. And all the while I couldn’t dismiss the incongruity implicit in the need of an immaterial being for immaterial food.
It was almost dark when I returned to the trophy room, drew the curtain, and tuned in the evening videocast. I adjusted the volume to a whisper.
On the screen was a picture of the debris-strewn street in front of Reactions, Inc. Close-ups of federal troops outside the building were shown next, while the announcer deplored the “bloodshed and violence that have taken their toll on this gruesome day.”
“But,” he went on soberly, “rioting is not the only development that brings Horace P. Siskin’s latest enterprise boldly into the news this evening.
“There is more—much more. There is intrigue and conspiracy. Murder and a fugitive. All are directly involved in the alleged Association of Reactions Monitors’ plot to deprive an anxious world of the blessings that will flow from Horace Siskin’s simulator.”
My own image leaped onto the screen and was identified by the announcer.
“This is the man,” he said, “who is wanted for the murder of Hannon J. Fuller, former technical director at Reactions. He is the man whom Siskin trusted implicitly. Into Douglas Hall’s hands was placed the profound obligation of perfecting the simulator after Fuller’s supposedly accidental death.
“But, police charged today, Fuller was actually
murdered
by Hall for personal gain. And when Hall saw he was going to be denied that gain he turned treacherously on the Siskin Establishment, on the simulator itself.
“For Douglas Hall is the man who was trailed this morning by Siskin’s own security forces as he entered ARM headquarters to seal his treachery. He did that by perpetrating the unsuccessful mass attack on REIN.”
I tensed. Siskin, then, had known instantly about my visit to the pollsters’ headquarters. And he had assumed I was planning to betray his conspiracy with the party. So he had hit his panic button and dispatched the police with shoot-to-kill orders.
And suddenly I recognized one possible reason why the Operator hadn’t yanked me yet: He might have seen that Siskin was, unwittingly and in pursuit of his own objectives,
taking care of the job for Him!
Oh, the Operator could help out a bit. For instance, if it appeared the law was dragging its heels, He might pull off another empathic coupling, find where I was hiding, then program the police to conceive of looking for me at the cabin.
He would either arrange it
that
way, or He would send His Contact Unit to do the job. It was a cinch He wasn’t merely going to yank me, and then have to reorient a whole cast of ID characters to the alternate fact that I had never existed.
But even as I tried to surmise the Operator’s strategy, I realized finally that the entire world
might not be erased after all!
Perhaps the Operator had decided to iron out the present complications, then have another—an absolutely final—try at eliminating Fuller’s simulator.
The videocaster was still on the subject of my supposed treachery:
“Hall’s heinous activities, however, didn’t end with his alleged murder of Hannon J. Fuller and his purported betrayal of Siskin and the simulator—not as far as the police are concerned.”
A picture of Collingsworth flashed on the screen.
“For,” the announcer lowered his voice to a grave pitch, “he is additionally sought in connection with the most ghastly murder in local police annals—that of Avery Collingsworth, consultant psychologist on Reactions’ staff.”
It was a full minute before I took another breath. The Operator had
already
gotten around to Avery!
The newscaster went on to describe the “stark brutality” of Dr. Collingsworth’s murder.
“Police,” he intoned emotionally, “called the death the most vicious mutilation ever committed. Dismembered fragments of the body—joints of fingers, forearms, ears—were found strewn about Collingsworth’s study. Each stump was, in turn, carefully cauterized to control loss of blood so that death would be forestalled during the barbarous torture.”
Appalled, I snapped off the video set. I tried to shake my head clear, but I could see only visions of Avery—helpless, terrified, knowing all the while that he couldn’t escape what was happening to him.
It hadn’t been a physical agent, a Contact Unit, who had done that. It had been the Operator Himself, using extra-physical means of torture. I could see Collingsworth screaming in agony while the terminal segment of his little finger was detached, as though severed by a knife; while a modified laserbeam appeared from nowhere to seal off the stub.
I rose, swearing in horror. I knew now that the Operator
was a
sadist. Perhaps, in that Higher Existence, everybody was.
I went back to the window, opened the curtains on the murky purple of late twilight and sat there gripping my rifle and waiting. For what? The police? The Contact Unit?
Briefly, it occurred to me that the Operator might not know where I was. But I rejected that possibility. He had probably already coupled himself with me since my arrival here. Oh, that was possible, all right—even likely. For I saw now that I had been aware of previous couplings only because He had wanted it that way—so He could savor my tortured reaction.
Outside, the dark deepened and a myriad stars, swept into and out of visibility by wind-tossed foliage, made the blackness seem like a lambent field of fireflies. Crickets chirruped their doleful accompaniment to the flickering night. In the distance, a bullfrog rounded out the score with an occasional bass note.
The illusion of reality was oh,
so
complete. Even the minor details had been meticulously provided. Up There, They had stinted on but few of Their simulectronic props. They had inadvertently allowed only minor, imperceptible inconsistencies.
I found myself looking into my star-spangled sky, trying to see through the universal illusion into absolute reality. But, then, that Real World was in no
physical
direction from my own. It was not in my universe, nor I in Its. At the same time, though, It was everywhere around me, hidden by an electronic veil.
I tried to imagine how Phil Ashton had felt when he had climbed up out of Fuller’s simulator. My thoughts wandered up a notch to the Higher Existence. What must it be like Up There? How vastly different from the pseudoreality I knew?
Then I understood that it
couldn’t
be very different at all. The world of Phil Ashton, sustained by the currents in Fuller’s simulator, had had to be, in effect, a replica of my own if the predictions we got from that analog creation were to have valid application up here.
Similarly, my world would have to track that Higher Existence. Most of the institutions would have to be the same. Our culture, our historical background, even our heritage and destiny would have to correspond.
And the Operator, and all the other people Up There, would have to be human beings, just like us, since our existence could be justified only as analogs of Them.
The darkness outside faded before a cast of intensifying illumination that was playing against the trees. Then I heard the swish of an air car as it followed its lights down.
I studded the door open and hurled myself outside, diving behind a hedge and bringing my rifle up before me.
The car cushioned down, extinguished its lights and cut its engine. Desperately, I squinted into the suddenly impenetrable night.
It
wasn’t
a police car. And there was only one occupant.
The door opened and the driver climbed halfway out.
I cut loose with the laserifle.
Secondary illumination from the broad crimson beam limned the features of—
Jinx Fuller!
And, in that same confusing moment, I watched her slump to the ground.
Shouting her name, I hurled the rifle aside and lunged into the clearing, boundlessly grateful that I had choked the weapon down to only stun intensity.
Long after midnight I was still pacing in the cabin, waiting for her to revive. But I knew she would be unconscious for some time, since her head had been included in the laser spraying. Nevertheless, she would suffer but few after-effects, thanks to the broad beam.
Innumerable times during the early morning hours I groped through the darkness to place cold towels on her head. But it wasn’t until dawn began filtering through the curtains that she moaned and brought a limp hand to her forehead.
She opened her eyes and smiled. “What happened?”
“I sprayed you, Jinx,” I said, contritely. “I didn’t mean to. I thought you were the Con—the police.”
I had caught myself just in time. I couldn’t complicate things further by re-exposing her to bits of forbidden knowledge.
She tried to sit up. I supported the effort with a hand behind her back.
“I—I heard about the trouble you were in,” she said. “I had to come.”
“You shouldn’t have! No telling what might happen. You’ve got to leave!”
Attempting to stand, she only fell back upon the couch. She wouldn’t be able to go anywhere for a while-not by herself.
“No, Doug,” she insisted. “I want to stay
here
with you. I came as soon as I found out.”
With my help she finally made it to her feet and clung to me, crying softly against my cheek. I held her as though she might be the only real thing in this entire illusive world. And I staggered under an overwhelming sense of loss. All my life I had wanted someone like Jinx. Finding her, however, had been but a hollow accomplishment. For there was no reality save the surge of biasing impulses in simulectronic circuits.
She backed off and stared compassionately into my face, then came forward again. She pressed her lips against mine, fiercely. It was almost as though she, too, knew what was going to happen.
While I kissed her I thought wistfully of what might have been. If only the Operator had succeeded in having Fuller’s simulator destroyed! If only I were still with Reactions, so I could do it myself! If only the Simulectronicist in that Upper Reality had reoriented me as he had reoriented Jinx!
“We’re going to stay together, Doug,” she whispered. “I’m never going to leave you, darling.”
“But you can’t!” I protested.
Hadn’t she realized how impossible everything was? On the basis of the threat posed by Siskin and his police, alone, there was no hope for me.
Then I drew back confused, forced once again to consider reasonable alternatives. Either her love for me was so limitless that nothing would stand in its way. Or she simply wasn’t aware of all the police charges against me. Certainly she hadn’t heard
how
Collingsworth had died, or she wouldn’t be here now.
“You know I’m wanted for the murder of your father, don’t you?” I said.
“You didn’t do it, darling.”
“And—Avery Collingsworth?”
She hesitated. “You didn’t—couldn’t have—done that.”
It was almost as though she were speaking from personal, absolute knowledge. Her loyalty, her love were that intense. I was only thankful now that They
had
successfully reoriented her, that she didn’t have to face the peril I was now facing.
She caught my hand and turned toward the door. “Maybe we can get away, Doug! We’ll find some place to hide!”
When I didn’t move, she relaxed her grip and my hand fell from hers.
“No,” she told herself despondently, “there’s
nowhere
we can go. They’ll find us.”
She didn’t know how true that was. And I was infinitely relieved that she was altogether unaware of the ambiguity of the “they” she had used.
There was a noise outside and I seized my rifle. At the window, I parted the curtains, but saw only a doe thrashing through the hedge to get to the now-empty feeding bin.
Alertly, it lifted its head and looked toward the cabin. My fears allayed, I let the curtains fall back in place. Then I tensed. Rarely were there deer in the area at this time of the year. I turned back to the window. The animal headed toward Jinx’s car, stopped a short distance away and regarded the open door.