Watson, Ian - Novel 10 (16 page)

 
          
“Oh,
aren’t we a
Roman
society now?”
Weinberger had compared the present world to ancient
Egypt
because of the new pyramids of death. But
Egypt
was the wrong comparison entirely. The
ancient Egyptians had been obsessed with the
afterworld
, with the land of the living dead. Whereas nowadays. . .
“That’s it, isn’t it? No Gods but the State — society. We retire when the time
seems ripe. We compose our farewell ode, in rhyming couplets — because they’re
easier to write — and we climb into a hot bath accompanied by our faithful
razor.
As it were.”

 
          
“You
aren’t suggesting, by any chance, that we’re
all
murderers in this House?” asked
Alice
quietly.

 
          
“You
certainly seem to want
me
to be an
executioner, not a guide!”

 
          
It
was a lame retort. Everyone, even Ananda, was staring at him as though he was
some alien visitor disguised as a man.

 
          
“Dr
Menotti is no executioner!” cried Sally Costello indignantly.

 
          
“We’re
simply
discussing
this, Jim,” said
Resnick evenly. “Perhaps you’re unused to democratic decisions: the free play
of opinion, after which one settles on a common course.
Coming
from a larger House, as you do.”
After a moment’s thought, he added,
“But yes, we
are
a Roman society.
That’s quite a neat comparison! And Norman Harper was our finest patrician.
But there’s one little difference. Nowadays everybody is equally a patrician.”

 
          
Mention
of the poet utterly riled Jim. A poem broke from his lips like a belch.

 
          
“The
Aztecs did it with an axe,

 
          
The Romans with a razor.

 
          
We
do it with a silver needle — Needles take longer to go blunt!

 
          
“If
he’s a poet, then so am I. Equally, and democratically
.*
*
Resnick shook his head sadly.

 
          
“It
seems you have little real feeling for the humane collective spirit.”

 
          
“In
my view,” said
Alice
, “we have more pressing matters to discuss than literary criticism, or
Mr Todhunter’s qualifications as a poet.”

 
          
“Ah
yes,” said Jim, “we have a killing to plan.
All right.
Very well.
Bravo! I shall put it to Nathan Weinberger
that we will give him the surprise of his own sweet life. In return for which
he will compose a farewell oration for us.
Or something of
the sort.
If that will please you, Alice.
We
all want to please you, don’t we?”

           
“Jim,” warned
Resnick
.

 
          
“Oh,
I’m perfectly serious. Excuse me for feeling some slight resentment at not
being allowed to carry out my duties as a guide — as I truly see them.”

 
          
“You’ve
been doing all right in other respects.”

 
          
“Except for a few missed appointments.”

 
          
“Except for.”

 
          
“Let’s
get this heap of junk taken apart for starters, eh? Who’ll give me a hand?”

 
          
“One
of the attendants can see to that, Jim. I’ll send someone down right after
lunch.”

 
          
“Ah,
no public penance for me, then.” Jim laughed.
“Only for
Nathan.
My penance will be quite private.
To pull the
trigger at dead of night.
If I can get the gun back!”

 
          
“I’ll
give you a note for the Peace Office. Take it down to the Octagon this
afternoon. But beyond that, we don’t know anything about this, remember.”

 
          
“And
more than Nathan will? Maybe the dead of night’s too obvious. The dead of day
might be more surprising.”

 
          
“None
of us
know
, Jim. That way, no
precedent exists.”

 
          
“Oh,
now I see. I, who have no feeling for the humane collective spirit, will
naturally be the kind of maverick who couldn’t possibly set a precedent.”

 
          
‘Ideally,’
he thought grimly, ‘after shooting Nathan I should do the decent thing and turn
the gun on myself! I should stick the barrel . . . somewhere . . . and end this
chain of murder before it spreads any further like a replicating virus.
Incidentally, where
do
I point the
gun?
At my forehead?
Or stick it under my ribs? Shall
I ask Nathan for advice? ‘‘Nathan, how did you know just what part of Norman
Harper’s anatomy to aim at? Wasn’t it a little risky shooting him in the throat
first, just because you hated his poems? Such a tiny target! Or were you just
firing wild, and lucky?” ’

 
          
‘‘You’d
better send two attendants down,” Jim told Resnick. ‘‘This junk is bulky. I
should know.”

 
          
‘‘The
material still belongs to the client,” pointed out Ananda, adopting the prim
tone of a legal adviser.

 
          
Resnick
rubbed his hands.

 
          
‘‘Soon,
it won’t.”

 
          
Jim
nodded.

 
          
‘‘No,
he won’t
be needing
it. Not any more.”

 
          
Indeed
he wouldn’t be. Not while Jim had the hypno-tape and the pills. This cage was
out of date already. Who wanted to cage Death, when you could follow Death home
to its native haunts instead?
Which they had done together —
almost.
The behaviour of any caged creature was usually quite different
from its behaviour in the wild.

 
          
This
gilded cage was quite irrelevant now. Weinberger was trapped in a cage labelled
‘Room 203’. And Jim was being trapped too, by circumstances and intrigues. Let
the House pull Weinberger’s invention to pieces. It would reassure them. The
important thing was for Jim — and Nathan — to escape from
their
cages.

 
          
‘‘I
wonder what life and death are like these days in
China
and
Russia
and other assorted places?” said Jim on
impulse.

 
          
‘‘You
mean
former
places,” Resnick
corrected him. “I’d say: hot — from isotopes.
Skinny, from
starvation.
Pocked, with plague — and as cratered as the Moon.
Quiet, really quiet on the whole.
You can’t call those
‘places’, Jim. They’ve fallen off the map.”

 
          
‘And
where else is off the map?’ Jim wondered.

 
          
Jim accompanied Resnick
to his office,
where the Master scrawled a very brief note on House stationery and tucked it
into an envelope which he didn’t bother to seal.

 
          
“Give
this to Toni Bekker, at the Octagon.”

 
          
Jim
pocketed the envelope.

 
          
“Bekker, eh?
I’ve met him.”

 
          
“Oh
have you really? Would you mind telling me how?”

 
          
“He
was the officer I gave the gun to, at the ceremony.”

 
          
“And
he took time off to tell you his name?”

 
          
“No,
it was when I went down to the Octagon to register. I happened to make some
enquiries about Weinberger.”

 
          
“Did
you indeed?”

 
          
“I
was shunted on to Officer Bekker. He’d been out to Weinberger’s apartment. He
thought it was some sort of sex pervert’s den, with the cage and screens and
whatnot.”

 
          
Resnick
snorted.

 
          
“A
pervert’s den is about the size of it, downstairs right now!
Not
a sex pervert’s, though — a death pervert’s.”

 
          
“By
the way, Bekker sent you his regards. I forgot to pass them on.”

 
          
Resnick’s
eyes narrowed.

 
          
“You
do get around, don’t you, Jim? A couple of days in Egremont, and you know
everyone in town, and you’ve even paid a visit to the afterlife. It would be a
real shame to lose so versatile a guide.”

 
          
“Look,
I’m just trying to do my job. But I keep on feeling as though I’ve walked into
a performance of Macchiavelli’s
The
Prince
. And no one has bothered to tell me my lines.”

 
          
“Ah,
innocence is the best shield for any man, I always say.”

           
“I thought you usually said, ‘If
any of this gets out.’
Alice
seems to have put her finger on
that
.”
Disregarding Resnick’s obvious anger, Jim ploughed on: “Any of what?”

 
          
“Damn
your impertinence! You’ve been planted here, haven’t you?
By
Gracchus?
No, not by Gracchus — it goes further than that! Who are you
really, Jim?’’

 
          
“Huh?
I’m Jim Todhunter, and I’m an ordinary guide, that’s all.”

 
          
“And
yet you indulge in sly jibes at the very basis of society! We all heard you.’’

 
          
“I
thought I heard
you
say something
about the free play of opinion ...”

 
          
“What’s
more, you wheedle your way in with Weinberger, who is our ultimate hot
potato.’’

 
          
“But
you asked me to . . . This is insane! You told me to guide him.’’

 
          
“Ah,
I had to, didn’t I? Who else was available? And so conveniently, too! Who else
happened to arrive on the very day — and at the very hour! —
when
Weinberger was planning his big surprise for us? As though your arrival was a
signal to him! Poor
Norman
, he was one of the most innocent men alive ...”

 
          
“If
innocence was
his
shield, then it
certainly wasn’t bulletproof!’’ Jim hastily checked his tongue, but the harm
was done.

 
          
“So
Norman isn’t good enough for you. But you’ll hole up with that bastard Weinberger,
and build his mad machine, and arrange for his miracle cure! How was
that
part engineered, eh? The cure’s
real all right, I’ll give you that, //'his illness was ever genuine in the
first place!’’

 
          
“Not
genuine? This is crazy. If I was . . . what you’re suggesting ...”

 
          
“And
what’s that? What is it, eh? Come on, put a name to it. Define it.’’

 
          
“Well,
some kind of special agent — or conspirator — who’s trying to . . .’’

 
          
“Go
on, say it.’’

 
          
“To bring down our present society.’’

 
          
“
Yes,
and whose agent would that be?”

 
          
“I
haven’t the slightest idea!”

 
          
“It’s
often better that way. You can’t betray anyone. Why did you ask that question
about
Russia
and
China
? No, that’s a red herring — literally! How about the Church, eh Jim?
Put the fear of death into people, and they’ll pray! But who cares about the
Church any more? Or is it some really secret group?
The
Rosicrucians?
The Illuminati?

 
          
“
Control
: that’s what it comes down to,
isn’t it? Power! Bring this society of ours down in ruins, and you’ll need a
goddam dictatorship to replace what we’ve got now! All that we’ve blessedly won
after years of stress and fear! And what better way to bring this society down
than to infect everyone with the fear of death? The old terror! Only a beast
would do that!
A devil!”

 
          
Jim
stared at the Master, amazed. Resnick was raving. Yet there was a curious
self-control to his ravings, which Jim noted with bewilderment. Ordinarily a
stutterer shouldn’t be able to rave . . . So this had to be a performance: a
show put on for the benefit of someone elsewhere — some imaginary person who
would presently hear Jim’s report.

 
          
Meanwhile
Resnick was trying to trap Jim into betraying his ‘controllers’, by such wild
stabs in the dark. Alice Huron would have done it more subtly and surgically.
But Resnick had taken it upon himself, in order to reassert his authority — his
own mastership.

 
          
‘And
I thought Nathan was paranoid! Nathan’s the sanest man I ever met.
Except for Mike Mullen.
And me, I suppose.’

 
          
Resnick
was out of control — like an actor who had begun to shout off about his own
problems in the middle of a play.

 
          
And
he was waggling his hands while he sounded off, as if making signals to Jim. He
was crossing himself, genuflecting, twisting his wrists, bending his fingers. It
looked like a sort of upright epilepsy.
Or else a code known
only to initiates.
Yes, that was it: a secret code. Unfortunately Jim
had no idea what the correct response might be. He couldn’t signal back.

 
          
There
was only one possible explanation for Resnick’s behaviour. The awful truth
about the red creatures which preyed on souls was suspected — or even known for
a fact — by some select group, with whom Resnick had links, and whose creature
he was. Yes, a group of individuals somewhere in the hierarchy of the Houses!
And they were desperate to suppress that truth, for if it got out, why, the
whole society of good death must inevitably go smash. The result could quite
conceivably be the extinction of the human race in a new round of sudden
violence, civil war,
missiles.
(Had
the doomsday machine ever really been dismantled? Or was it simply in
mothballs?)

 
          
Were
those people — the Controllers, as Jim now thought of them — prepared to permit
any number of souls to go to the crystal hells and purgatories in order to
preserve the human race on Earth? The hidden Controllers could, of course,
always arrange a surprise death for
themselves
... a
death such as Norman Harper had died!
But subtler, far less
public.

 
          
The
poet hadn’t been one of those Controllers. He was an innocent. Resnick said so.
Resnick hoped to become a Controller if he fielded this crisis. HaWng risen
already to Mastership of a House, he had discovered another summit hitherto
hidden from view by the peak of the House.

 
          
Puppets
. . . and puppeteers ... It might even be that what Weinberger had suggested
was true: that the Death creatures could indeed influence the minds of those in
power, and consequently the whole structure of society, to provide a smooth
supply of peacefully dying souls . . . Perhaps the Death creatures even repaid
their minions, their puppets, with paradises after death or with free passage
through to the white light — if the creatures could be trusted to keep their
word.
Or if they could give it in the first place.

 
          
But
. . . only a very few people could
ever join this privileged elite, and they had to be initiated into it very
cautiously.

 
          
The
first qualification for membership in the ranks of these secret controllers was
to realize that they existed at all. Resnick knew that they existed, and he
aspired to be one of them. But, as yet, he didn’t realize that the secret truth
they guarded was the very same one that Jim and Weinberger had stumbled on. Or
maybe Resnick suspected it, and the suspicion was driving him crazy.
That,
and the fear that he was being tested for loyalty.
Or for something beyond loyalty.

 
          
Weinberger’s
machine and Jim’s apparent complicity in it must seem to
Resnick
like a cunning test!
Out of the blue.
And Resnick
feared that he would fluff the test. Maybe Alice Huron was one of those secret
controllers herself — and Resnick, her protege, was hoping to join her on equal
terms . . . Possibly, too, the Controllers competed behind the scenes.
For power.
Whatever else did people ever compete for? If
Resnick failed
Alice
, she lost ground.

 
          
‘That’s
as may be,’ thought Jim. ‘I’ve no way of knowing. All I can find out is about
Death itself. That’s my destiny.’

 
          
Looking
disgusted and angry, Resnick slumped into his chair.

 
          
‘If
I was testing him, I would flunk him. That makes him very dangerous to me.’

 
          
Once
again, Jim placed his hands firmly on Resnick’s desk — realizing, as he did it,
that this was an unfortunate move. It made Jim seem far more important, and
knowledgeable, than he really was.

 
          
“I’m
going to forget all about this . . . outburst, Noel.’’ No doubt this was
inappropriate too. “I’m just a guide, and I have a deal to offer to my client.
’’ Jim patted his pocket. “But first, I must visit the Octagon. So I guess I’ll
skip lunch.’’

 
          
“Hmm,”
said
Resnick
, presumably unable to decide whether Jim
was declining a non-existent invitation tactfully, or pointedly.

 
          
Once
outside the office, Jim doubled back down to the basement. In the midst of his
grand gesture of condemning Weinberger’s machine to the scrap heap he had
forgotten something essential, though he had remembered to bring the cassette
player from the blue room.

 
          
Crawling
into the cage for what would be the last time, he disconnected the pheromone
dispenser with its few remaining drams of the liquid which had already fooled
Death twice. The attendants whom Resnick would send down shortly would have no
way of knowing it had ever been part of the cage.

 
          
Jim
regretted the loss of the ‘thanatos’ rhythm equipment. However,
its
absence would be noted, sooner
rather than later. Besides, it was too bulky and it required a power source.