Philip José Farmer's The Dungeon 06] - The Final Battle (16 page)

"Either will do, sir. But may I ask who you are?"

"Carstairs. I am the editor of the
Recorder and Dispatch
. May I inquire, sir, your business with me?"

"Perhaps I have the wrong Carstairs. I am seeking Mr. Maurice Carstairs."

"I am he, sir."

"Impossible. Maurice Carstairs engaged me to furnish the
Recorder and Dispatch
a series of reports on my expedition to Equatoria in search of my lost brother."

"I am very sorry, sir. I have no recollection of any such arrangement, nor do I have any recollection of you. When do you claim this, ah, arrangement was made?"

"It was the month of May, sir. The end of the month of May."

"Of this year, Mister Folliot?"

"It was May of the year 1868, sir."

The bespectacled young man slid precipitously into his seat. "You are aware of the present year, are you not, Mister Folliot? If you ever received such a commission, it would hardly have been from my hand. It was the year 1871 in which I first saw the light of day."

"And the Maurice Carstairs who was the editor of this paper in 1868—where is he, sir?"

"Alas," the young man said, "that Maurice Carstairs was my father. I regret that he is long dead. Long dead and buried, Mister Folliot. I'm afraid that in the years since his death—"

"In what year did Maurice Carstairs die?" Clive interrupted.

"It was 1886. I was fifteen at the time, and had to fight tooth and claw to claim my position as proprietor and editor of this newspaper. But as you can see, sir, I succeeded."

"Oh." That was all Clive could gasp, for the moment. He took a chair, all unbidden, and stared in silence at young Carstairs. Then he said, "Maurice was your father."

"He was, sir."

"The
Recorder and Dispatch
was a far less splendid enterprise in 1868 than it appears today. I fear that the paper and its editor at that time both suffered somewhat in repute."

"I have no illusions regarding my late father's character." The young man smiled whimsically. "But he was a man of real talent and possessed a certain eccentric integrity all his own, Mister Folliot. He taught me a great deal about the newspaper business—pardon my use of the cliché, but I might even say that he taught me everything that I know. It was by the application of his lessons, and upon the foundation that he laid with the
Recorder and Dispatch
, that I was able to bring the paper to its present position of prosperity and respect."

The young man looked down and opened a drawer of his desk. He bent very close to the drawer, squinting into it. At length he looked up at Clive. "If you are indeed the same Major Folliot whom my father employed in 1868, perhaps you will be able to answer a question or two, to verify your identity."

"Are neither my card nor my word sufficient, sir?"

"Ah, there you have the great paradox, sir. If you are truly Major Folliot, your word alone would surely suffice. Your card is a mere fillip of superfluous substantiation. But if you are an imposter, you would easily lie as to your identity, and you could surely furnish yourself with a false calling card. So we are caught between Scylla and Charibdys, Major Folliot. If you are he."

"Very well. What are your questions?"

Carstairs peered into his desk drawer once again. It looked almost as if he were going to climb into it, but at length he sat upright. "First, sir, what is the name of the missionary-priest whom you encountered in the village of Bagomoyo? And, second, who was the East Indian gentleman who joined the party comprising yourself and the traitorous Sergeant Horace Hamilton Smythe shortly before you entered the Sudd?"

Clive leaped to his feet, anger boiling within him. "Your questions are easily enough answered, sir. Those two I shall never forget—although for very different reasons, sir. The priest was the Reverend Father Timothy F. X. O'Hara. And the East Indian was a most remarkable personage who called himself Sidi Bombay."

Carstairs nodded noncommittally.

"But your application of the adjective
traitorous
to Sergeant Smythe is most offensive!" Clive resumed. "If it were possible for me to strike a person wearing spectacles, I might just seek immediate satisfaction for that insult to my companion. Horace Smythe is—was—as noble and gritty a man as ever it was my privilege to serve with in Her Majesty's Guards. And in our adventures in the Dungeon he performed uncounted deeds of heroism. His behavior was inconsistent and at times may have
appeared
disloyal. But he had been victimized by nefarious operatives and was acting under an irresistible compulsion at those times!"

He drew a deep breath, then added, "Sergeant Smythe is an upstanding man, and I will not permit him to be slandered by any ink-fingered panderer of Fleet Street. In fact—"

Clive halted in amazement as young Carstairs, without a change in his expression, disappeared still again beneath the level of his desk. There was a lengthy delay punctuated by soft thumps and ill-suppressed exclamations.

Then the chair was shoved back from behind the desk and Quartermaster Sergeant Horace Hamilton Smythe, smiling brilliantly, rose with his hand extended to Clive.

There was a moment of stunned immobility. Then Clive sprang to his feet, circled the desk, and embraced the other man. "Smythe! Smythe! I knew you could not have gone over to Philo Goode!"

"Of course not, sah. And I trust that you'll forgive my little charade of a moment past. You see, what I said—what Mr. Carstairs said—was quite true, sah. There are forces at play, sah, to whom the secrets of disguise are as an open book, and to whom the creation of an apparently living, perfect simulacrum is little more than child's play."

"I know that, Smythe, all too well. I have encountered simulacra of both my father and my brother, as well as at least one female member of my family, all to my regret. But tell me, please—were you the publican who rescued me from a mob of ruffians the other night, only to turn me over to the untender mercies of Philo Goode? It was this incident to which I just referred."

"No, sah—that was not I. And what you tell me raises an alarm within me!"

"Then where have you been? If you have not been employed as a publican, have you been engaged in the publishing trade? Is this identity of a younger Maurice Carstairs a fictitious persona which you have assumed?"

"No, sah. Young Mr. Carstairs is a real enough person, and is indeed the editor of this paper. He is a good man, sah! One of our own, sah! I assume his identity from time to time, as necessity dictates. You might say that on occasion I act as Mr. Carstairs' very shadow."

"His shadow, eh? Well, shadow, tell me—what do you mean by the expression,
one of our own
?"

"I'll willingly tell you all that I know, sah. As ever, I am your ally. You will recall my occasional lapses." An expression of discouragement appeared on the man's face. "Such conduct was the product of devices implanted in my brain. In my very brain, sah! But I have managed to overcome their influence. I am myself now, my true self. I hope the Major will believe me!"

"I believe you, Horace."

"The Major has my gratitude. And I will tell you what I meant by
one of our own
, sah. But first, sah, there is another man here at the
Recorder and Dispatch
whom you must meet. A gentleman of color. The first such, I believe, employed by a London daily in a position of authority and respect."

Clive accompanied Smythe to an adjoining office, where a man of dark skin, with black hair and mustache, labored behind a desk. He looked up as the others entered.

"Major Folliot," Carstairs-Smythe said, "may I introduce our chief editor for overseas reportage, Mr. Pandit Singh."

The Indian rose to his feet. He was costumed in morning coat, wing collar, and cravat. As he stepped from . behind his desk he revealed striped trousers, spats, and properly polished boots.

Clive gaped and his jaw fell open. "Sidi Bombay!" Once more he embraced another. Then he said, "I have already seen Miss Annabelle Leigh, my brother Neville, my father, and Philo Goode since my return to London. I suppose the only one left to make a miraculous reappearance is Father O'Hara."

It was as if a pall had fallen on the room. Horace Smythe and Sidi Bombay looked at each other in silence. Clive felt that he had said something dreadfully wrong.

Horace Hamilton Smythe broke the long silence. "P'raps I'd better explain, sah. I promised that I'd elucidate upon the phrase,
one of our own
. I might begin by saying, sah, that Philo Goode is
not
one of our own. He is the very opposite of being one of our own, sah. The very antithesis, sah."

"You mean he is of the Chaffri?"

"I wish that were all I meant, sah. It's far worse than that—although I wasn't aware of how much you know of the Chaffri, sah."

"I know of the Chaffri. And of the Ren. And somewhat, I know of the Gennine, although almost nothing save that they exist and that their home world is a place mentioned only in whispers and dread."

"If the Major will pardon my playing schoolmaster, just what is it that the Major
does
know of the Chaffri and the Ren and the Gennine? Specifically, sah, if the Major doesn't mind."

"Why, that the Q'oornans and others that we encountered in the Dungeon are the pawns, some of them—and the agents, others—of two great warring empires. These are the Chaffri and the Ren. Their homes are on planets far beyond the scope of our astronomical knowledge. And they are engaged in a longtime, deadly struggle. So great is their power, there are some who suspect that they are the basis for the Zoroastrian tradition of the struggle between Ahriman and Ahura Mazda."

Pandit Singh—or Sidi Bombay—nodded. "You know of the beliefs of the Zoroastrians, then?"

"Travelers returning from journeys to Persia and Irak have described that fascinating religion. At Cambridge, it might have been compared to some of the heresies that wracked the early Christian church."

Throughout Clive's peroration, Horace Smythe and Sidi Bombay had exchanged significant glances and nods. Now Smythe said, "That's very apt, sah. And of course, the Dungeon is their chief field of struggle, with uncounted persons and uncounted other creatures snatched up from this world or that, from this era or that, and transported to the Dungeon to serve as pawns in their grand chess game."

"But what of the Gennine, Smythe?"

"The Gennine are most troublesome, sah. They seem to regard the Chaffri and the Ren equally as foes—or as rebellious inferiors. Consequently, sah, the Chaffri and the Ren have been known to make alliance, from time to time, in opposition to the Gennine. Sort of, the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

"There is a maxim in the Arab world," put in the man who was Sidi Bombay, " 'I fight my brother until our cousin appears, then we fight him together until a neighbor appears, then we fight
him
together until a stranger appears, and we
all
fight against the stranger.' "

"What is the point of all this?" Clive asked.

"The point, sah, is that there is a great organization whose purpose is to fight the Chaffri and the Ren—
and
the Gennine. There are agents in place in every era and every region. In the Dungeon and on the Earth and on other planets as well. They are among the Finnboggi, among Shriek's people, among Chang Guafe's, among the people of the world of Lord N'wrbb and Lady 'Nrrc'kth."

"And the name and purpose of this organization?"

"It is known—somewhat ironically, if I might add my comment—as the Universal Neighborhood Improvement Association. Its purpose is simply to resist the hegemonistic schemes of the others—equally of the Chaffri, the Ren, and the Gennine. Our enemies have agents as well. We have all encountered them, Major. Philo Goode, the Ransome couple, Father O'Hara—"

"But—a priest? A man of God? Whether one subscribes to Father O'Hara's faith or not, the fact that he has given his life to the service of the Divine—"

"Priest or not, Timothy F. X. O'Hara is still a man. Whether he joined the enemy voluntarily or was somehow hoodwinked or blackmailed or mesmerized into his role, still it is one he plays." Sergeant Smythe paused contemplatively. Then he said, "They can fuddle a man's mind, Major Folliot. Cast clouds upon the brain. I know whereof I speak, sah."

"Yes, Smythe. I recall your distress when you recalled the incidents of your trip to the burgeoning American metropolis of New Orleans. I am sorry."

" 'Nothing of it, sah. Perhaps Father O'Hara is more to be pitied than despised, but he is nevertheless an enemy. If we can win him back—that is, clear the pall from his mind and restore his loyalty to the human species and the respect of all intelligent beings—so much the better. If we cannot, we must fight him as we fight the Ren and the Chaffri and the Gennine."

"What, then, are we to do?"

"We'll get out of here, sah, for starters. If the Major will kindly wait a few ticks while I resume a safer identity…"

Smythe returned through the interconnecting door that led to Maurice Carstairs' office. He returned promptly in the guise of the nattily dressed, nearsighted Carstairs, squinting and blinking his weak eyes and blundering into furniture and doorways. He carried a gold-headed walking stick, using it almost as a blind man uses his cane.

"Mr. Singh, please—will you accompany Major Folliot and myself?"

"Of course, Mr. Carstairs," replied Sidi Bombay.

They left the offices of the
Illustrated Recorder and Dispatch
and climbed into a hansom that waited at the door. The driver peered down through the roof-trap and "Carstairs" gave him instructions.

"Can you trust a cabbie?" Clive inquired.

"He is one of us," Smythe answered.

"But if the enemy is capable of mesmerizing men—of planting devices for control in their very brains, or of abducting them and replacing them with simulacra—how can you know even that?"

"A good question, Major," Sidi Bombay interjected. "There are ways of knowing a natural being from a simulacrum, although they are less than certain and there is always an element of danger. Similarly, sir,, when a man has been mesmerized, his behavior is often distinguishable from that of his true nature. But one always faces risks, and one must always take precautions. As you shall see, Major."