One of the faceless gods produced a thundering whisper in Dasein's skull:
“This is my commandment given unto you: A poor man cannot afford principles and a rich man doesn't need them.”
Dasein lay suspended in a hammock of silence.
Fear of movement dominated him.
He sensed a world-presence somewhere beneath him. But he lay stranded here above. Something beckoned. Familiar. He felt the familiar world and was repelled. The place seethed with disguises that tried to conceal a rubble of pretensions, devices, broken masks. Still, it beckoned. It was a place in which he could fit, shaped to him. He sensed himself reaching toward it with a feeling of exuberant self-gratification, drew back. The rubble. It was everywhere, a blanket over life, a creamy ennuiâsoothing, cajoling, saccharine.
Still, it beckoned.
The lure was inexhaustible, a brilliant bag of pyrotechnics, a palette flooded with gross colors.
It was all a trick.
He sensed thisâall a trick, a mass of signal clichés and canned reflexes.
It was a hateful world.
Which world?
he asked himself.
Was it Santaroga â¦
or
the outside?
Something grabbed Dasein's shoulder.
He screamed.
Dasein awoke to find himself moaning, mumbling. It took a moment to place himself. Where were the faceless gods?
Piaget leaned over him, a hand on Dasein's shoulder.
“You were having a nightmare,” Piaget said. He took his hand away. “Win's back with the foodâsuch as it is.”
Dasein's stomach knotted in pain.
Burdeaux stood at his right next to the adjoining bed. A box piled with canned food rested on the next bed.
“Bring me a can opener and a spoon,” Dasein said.
“Just tell me what you want and I'll open it,” Burdeaux said.
“I'll do it,” Dasein said. He raised himself on his elbows, Movement set his arms to throbbing, but he felt strongerâas though he had tapped a strength of desperation.
“Humor him,” Piaget said as Burdeaux hesitated.
Burdeaux shrugged, went out the door across from the bed.
Dasein threw back the blankets, swung his feet out. He motioned Piaget back, sat up. His feet touched a cold floor. He took a deep breath, lurched across to the adjoining bed. His knees felt stronger, but Dasein sensed the shallowness of his reserves.
Burdeaux reappeared, handed Dasein a twist-handle can opener.
Dasein sat down beside the box, grabbed a fat green can out of it, not even looking at the label. He worked the opener around the can, took a proffered spoon from Burdeaux, lifted back the lid.
Beans.
An odor of Jaspers clamored at Dasein from the open can. He looked at the label: “Packed by the Jaspers Cooperative.” There was a permit number, a date of a year ago and the admonition: “Not for sale in interstate commerce. Exposed Dec. '64.”
Dasein stared at the can.
Jaspers?
It couldn't be. The stuff didn't ship. It couldn't be preserved out of â¦
“Something wrong?” Piaget asked.
Dasein studied the can: shiny, a glistening label.
“Beans with meat sauce and beef,” read the yellow letters.
Dasein ignored the lure of the aroma from the can, looked in the box. He tried to remember whether the can had given off the characteristic hiss of a vacuum seal breaking as it had been openedâcouldn't remember.
“What's wrong?” Piaget insisted.
“Can't be anything wrong,” Burdeaux said. “That's all private stock.”
Dasein looked up from the box. All the cans he could see bore the Co-op's label.
Private stock?
“Here,” Piaget said. He took can and spoon from Dasein's hands, tasted a bite of beans, smiled. He returned the can and spoon to Dasein, who took them automatically.
“Nothing wrong there,” Piaget said.
“Better not be,” Burdeaux said. “It came from Pete Maja's store, right off the private stock shelf.”
“It's Jaspers,” Dasein rasped.
“Of course it is,” Piaget said. “Canned right here for local consumption. Stored here to preserve its strength. Won't keep long after it's opened, though, so you'd better start eating. Got maybe five, ten minutes.” He chuckled. “Be thankful you're here. If you were
outside
and opened that can, wouldn't last more'n a few seconds.”
“Why?”
“Hostile environment,” Piaget said. “Go ahead and eat. You saw me take some. Didn't hurt me.”
Dasein tested a bit of the sauce on his tongue. A soothing sensation spread across his tongue, down his throat. They were delicious. He spooned a full bite into his mouth, gulped it down.
The Jaspers went thump in his stomach.
Dasein turned, wide-eyed toward Burdeaux, met a look of wonder, dark brown eyes like African charms with butter-yellow flecks in them. The can drew Dasein's attention. He peered into it.
Empty.
Dasein experienced a sensation of strange recallâlike the fast rewind on a tape recorder, a screech of memory: his hand in a piston movement spooning the contents of the can into his mouth. Blurred gulpings.
He recognized the
thump
now. It had been a thump of awareness. He no longer was hungry.
My body did it,
Dasein thought. A sense of wonder enfolded him.
My body did it.
Piaget took the can and spoon from Dasein's unresisting fingers. Burdeaux helped Dasein back into bed, pulled the blankets up, straightened them.
My body did it,
Dasein thought.
There'd been a trigger to actionâknowledge that the Jaspers effect was fading ⦠and consciousness had blanked out.
“There,” Piaget said.
“What about his bandages?” Burdeaux asked.
Piaget examined the bandage on Dasein's cheek, bent close to sniff, drew back. “Perhaps this evening,” he said.
“You've trapped me, haven't you?” Dasein asked. He stared up at Piaget.
“There he goes again,” Burdeaux said.
“Win,” Piaget said, “I know you have personal matters to take care of. Why don't you tend to them now and leave me with Gilbert? You can come back around six if you would.”
Burdeaux said: “I could call Willa and have her ⦔
“No need to bother your daughter,” Piaget said. “Run along and ⦔
“But what if ⦔
“There's no danger,” Piaget said.
“If you say so,” Burdeaux said. He moved toward the foyer door, paused there a moment to study Dasein, then went out.
“What didn't you want Win to hear?” Dasein asked.
“There he goes again,” Piaget said, echoing Burdeaux.
“Something must've ⦔
“There's nothing Win couldn't hear!”
“Yet you sent him to watch over me ⦠because he was special,” Dasein said. He took a deep breath, feeling his senses clear, his mind come alert. “Win was â¦
safe
for me.”
“Win has his own life to live and you're interfering,” Piaget said. “He ⦔
“Why was Win
safe
?”
“It's your feeling, not mine,” Piaget said. “Win saved you from falling. You've shown a definite empathy ⦔
“He came from
outside
,” Dasein said. “He was like me ⦠once.”
“Many of us came from outside,” Piaget said.
“You, too?”
“No, but ⦔
“How does the trap really work?” Dasein asked.
“There is
no
trap!”
“What does the Jaspers do to one?” Dasein asked.
“Ask yourself that question.”
“Technically ⦠doctor?”
“Technically?”
“What does the Jaspers do?”
“Oh. Among other things, it speeds up catalysis of the chemical transmitters in the nervous systemâ5 hydroxytryptamine and serotonin.”
“Changes in the Golgi cells?”
“Absolutely not. Its effect is to break down blockage systems, to open the mind's image function and consciousness formulation processes. You
feel
as though you had a better ⦠an
improved
memory. Not true, of course, except in effect. Merely a side effect of the speed with which ⦔
“Image function,” Dasein said. “What if the person isn't capable of dealing with all his memories? There are extremely disagreeable, shameful ⦠dangerously traumatic memories in some ⦔
“We have our failures.”
“Dangerous failures?”
“Sometimes.”
Dasein closed his mouth, an instinctive reaction. He drew in a deep breath through his nostrils. The odor of Jaspers assailed his senses. He looked toward the box of cans on the adjacent bed.
Jaspers. Consciousness fuel. Dangerous substance. Drug of ill omen. Speculative fantasies flitted through Dasein's mind. He turned, surprised a mooning look on Piaget's face.
“You can't get away from it here in the valley, can you?” Dasein asked.
“Who'd want to?”
“You're hoping I'll stay, perhaps help you with your failures.”
“There's certainly work to be done.”
Anger seized Dasein. “How can I think?” he demanded. “I can't get away from the smell of ⦔
“Easy,” Piaget murmured. “Take it easy, now. You'll get so you don't even notice it.”
Every society has its own essential chemistry,
Dasein thought.
Its own aroma, a thing of profound importance, but least apparent to its own members.
Santaroga had tried to kill him, Dasein knew. He wondered
now if it could have been because he had a different smell. He stared at the box on the bed. Impossible! It couldn't be anything that close to the surface.
Piaget moved around to the box, tore a small, curling strip of paper from it, touched the paper to his tongue. “This box has been down in storage,” he said. “It's paper, organic matter. Anything organic becomes impregnated with Jaspers after a certain exposure.” He tossed the paper into the box.
“Will I be like that box?” Dasein asked. He felt he had a ghost at his heels, an essence he couldn't elude. The lurking presence stirred in his mind. “Will I ⦔
“Put such thoughts out of your mind,” Piaget said.
“Will I be one of the failures?” Dasein asked.
“I said stop that!”
“Why should I?”
Dasein sat up, the strength of fear and anger in him, his mind crowded by suppositions, each one worse than its predecessor. He felt more exposed and vulnerable than a child running from a whipping.
With an abrupt shock of memory, Dasein fell back to the pillow.
Why did I choose this moment to remember that?
he asked himself. A painful incident from his childhood lay there, exposed to awareness. He remembered the pain of the switch on his back.
“You're not the failure type,” Piaget said.
Dasein stared accusingly at the odorous box.
Jaspers!
“You're the kind who can go very high,” Piaget said. “Why do you really think you're here? Just because of that silly market report? Or because of Jenny? Ah, no. Nothing that isolated or simple. Santaroga calls out to some people. They come.”
Dasein looked sidelong at him.
“I came so you people could get the chance to kill me,” Dasein said.
“We don't want to kill you!”
“One moment you suspect I may be right, the next you're denying it.”
Piaget sighed.
“I have a suggestion,” Dasein said.
“Anything.”
“You won't like it,” Dasein said.
Piaget glared at him. “What's on your mind?”
“You'll be afraid to do it.”
“I'm not ⦔
“It's something like a clinical test,” Dasein said. “My guess is you'll try not to do it. You'll look for excuses, anything to get out of it or to discontinue it. You'll try to misunderstand me. You'll try to break away from ⦔