Doppelgangers (10 page)

It all sounded very unlike the Mole's way of working, but, then, what was the use of saying that? Didn't he know that the Mole's power was just that: he never had one way of working. What you might be sure of was that whatever you heard was not meant to give you light but to make you think you saw, the better to hoodwink you. That commonplace reflection ran through his mind once or twice; there seemed no other reflection to make. But when he had gone over it again, no fresh material for reflection was provided. He sat still in the dark, waiting. After about five minutes, however, he heard a small sound in the complete silence; it was the kind of sound that switching on a microphone circuit sometimes gives. He judged that he was being listened to by someone not in this room. He saw no reason for giving them anything, however, and after perhaps another five minutes, he heard (as though voices were at some distance) one say, “It is extraordinary; clearly, there is only one thing to do.”

Then the voice became clearer. The speaker must have drawn up to the microphone. The voice was clear but spoke in a whisper or such an undertone that all character was taken from it. Yet, as it went on, he kept on wondering whether in it there were not tones which somehow he associated with a voice that was in some way familiar. But what it was saying was enough to keep such speculations out of any mind that retained even the slightest interest in its self and its future.

“I have now viewed you for myself and I find the report perfectly accurate. You will now be brought over and if you co-operate you have nothing to fear; if not, your life will be ended tonight.”

Co-operate, yes, that was the old phrase, but what in the name of the uttermost underworld could the Mole now be up to? He had almost become vividly interested, by the time that he felt himself taken hold of again, loosed from the chair, led down the passage, and ensconced in the dark cab. They drove for perhaps as long as the first drive had lasted; the city sounds muted and then dropped, though he could still hear a distant hum.

The door opened onto a small dark court. He was bundled into the building that rose round it, hurried into a small elevator, and silently they went up, some ten floors he judged by the clicks which must be landings being passed. The door switched back; a small carpeted passage, his feet told him; then a door opened within a yard of his face and he was given a push by his attendants who were now behind him. He went through into the room, and the door closed behind him. Light came on. He was alone in a small, well-furnished apartment.

“Sit down.” He obeyed the voice which came, he thought, from the left-hand wall. There was silence for eleven minutes. He knew this accurately because there was a fine timepiece on the bookcase on his right. He noticed that it was five minutes to one when he arrived; it was six minutes past when a door, opposite the one through which he had been pushed, opened.

His first thought was, “Can the Mole have got disguises on the brain?” Here was he himself obliterated and here facing him was another triumph of “living clay” make-up, for the man who faced him wore a face, the face best known in a conventional way to everyone. It was Alpha's. Of course, he could see it wasn't quite the Alpha known by a billion reproductions to five hundred million people. But it was of a most creditable closeness. And the voice, too. He smiled; why shouldn't he enjoy the absurdity? Seriousness belonged to the living who had to go on living, not to those already made free of the complete non-relevance of death. The other man evidently, though, knew his part better than to co-operate at that grave-level.

He remarked, “I have viewed you already. This work now I must and can only do myself.” Then he stopped and seemed to wish to impress his listener with his weariness. It was quite a good piece of acting, thought his audience of one.

“I presume you understand your situation,” the one with the speaking part went on. “You can go on living at one cost, and it's a reasonable price: that you cease to be a person and become a double, a shadow. I am told that such accidents do happen. Those who handle such supervisions reported to me that there had suddenly, appeared a man who was my double. They were, of course, for killing him outright. But this was, as it happens so often with me, providential for me, and maybe for him. The inquiry shows that he obtained a post in the place where my food is prepared and that of my staff; that he had either had some injury or was undergoing some kind of facial treatment and that on obtaining new teeth, the set of the face was completely altered and he appeared as my double.”

The listener kept his balance as his view of his problem went through this capsize.

“May I see a mirror?” he asked.

The man who was now standing in front of him put his hand in the breast of his tunic and held a small mirror in front of him. He could see his own face—or what he supposed was what his face had now become—and the face of the other just above it. Quietly he checked over the two images. What a piece of work and what a piece of planning!

The man in front of him put back the glass into his tunic, sat down in front of him, and went on in the same commonplace voice, “It does not matter whether you realized what has befallen you or not, and I don't care how it happened, for though none of my staff sees the appositeness of this, I do. This was meant to happen and is one more proof, if I needed one, that I am the one person who really knows and understands the age and epoch in which we are, and through which I am leading all of mankind that counts.

“Only a few weeks ago I was wondering how I could carry on without endangering unity of command. For the others are only hands, at best. I alone am the head because I alone understand the Revolution. I had to have a substitute head without a brain, a mask so as to be able to duplicate that work which I plan, but, as I cannot carry it all out without fatigue, I cannot actually perform. And, naturally, the people are right—they will have no substitute. That is all you need to know about your general situation. All great central figures get a dummy, if they can, for appearances, when only an appearance and no action is required. But, as usual, I have thought out the matter further. Now speak.”

“If that is our position and I am your ventriloquist's dummy, then you must tell me what to say.”

Evidently his answer did not displease, for without a pause his interlocutor's voice suddenly swelled, “On this occasion of the anniversary of one more of our new freedoms.…” He repeated the words, and he noticed how closely his voice seemed now to have the coarse, vibrant tone he had just heard, and with which half the world was so familiar.

“Yes, I have provided for that. Many of my records are ghost-voiced for me by phonetic experts who train speakers to get the tone. There will be no difficulty in getting your voice in proper pitch and intonation. Now I will take you through your area. You will live in this apartment. Your sleeping cell is here.” He threw open a panel, and a small slip of a room, containing just a bed and chair, with built-in wardrobe, appeared.

“I shall call you whenever I have need of you. Your food will be sent up by this hatch and is present when that bulb glows. You put what you want cleaned in that other hatch. All supplies will reach you that way. Anything more you may require will be sent you by the same method. Remember, you are under observation all the time and will never see anyone but me and the couple who'll train you save on those occasions when you will be taking my part for me.

“By the way, you need not wear that loyal piece of filigree. I am not a vain man. I have no need to be. And I shall not be impressed by your loyalty if you wear it. I know men, and they are of two types: those who like to lounge and those who like to work; one has to provide for both types. I have. If you give the actives enough work they will serve you and if you never give the slack anything but leisure they will never support anyone who might upset you and then put them to work. That is my simple secret—or all you need to know about it.” And the creature, that now more nearly ruled the whole world than had any man ever before, turned on his heel and went through the door.

When he had gone, the remodeled man sat fingering the little emblem. But he did not take it out of his buttonhole. His mind was busy arranging the volume of information—not much, it was true, but bringing together all the weary weeks he had been through into a single point. So the Mole, after all, was a really big man. He had begun to doubt. But now that he saw the width of the planning, what he thought was dead in him—admiration, cold and detached, but all the more sincere for that-rose like a star in his mind. The Mole must have watched his opposite number, the Bull, and realized that this psychological crisis was coming on; he must, he supposed, have gathered it from studying the countless photographs and getting them enlarged and so detected and diagnosed the small tensions and perceived the little tics that showed in the film pictures. He knew that Alpha must be wanting a double and did not know where to get one that would actually stand up to the constant photographic scrutiny which the present master of the earth could not avoid—the real white light that beats upon a throne. And when the Mole was sure of that, then he picked from his servants the man whose general form measurements were quite close, took that victim and carved him into shape so that the key would fit the lock precisely, and next planted the key where it would be picked up, must be picked up. It was daring, but really of a simple directness that, if you could find anyone to undergo it, it would have a high chance of success, and you would get your prospective victim actually to take on board the instrument which was aimed at him. It was like those old tales of witchcraft where the final skill of the sorcerer—without which all his magic cannot avail—consists in making or persuading his victim voluntarily to receive the object or the familiar which is to destroy him once he has willingly but unwittingly taken it into his possession. Yes, if this was Alpha, then the Mole was Omega—the last word, the one who laughs longest and loudest because he laughs last. Such a mind was worth serving.

All the old element of adventure woke in him. Certainly this was a supreme exploration into the unknown. And he was being treated as an equal. He was left with no instructions. He could do as he pleased. The life here might not be impossible. It was obvious that he might very well be indispensable to the central figure of the age and might become increasingly valuable. He, the remodeled man, needn't do anything unless he wished, unless he felt a co-partner with the Mole in the cause. He could lie up here snug as a ferret, sent down to turn out rabbits, can lie up in the rabbit burrow and refuse to come up, serving its own ends on its own. He was quite safe. That was as clear, too, for after years of effort it was undeniable that the Mole had found that he could not strike directly at Alpha; all the attempts had failed, and with each failure went the increasing risk that one day the Mole himself would be rooted out.

It was clear that this amazing plan, of which the remodeled man was the tool, had been attempted only because there was no other way through; and, if it were attempted, the only possible thing was to leave the tool free to do as he liked when you had put him in reach of the prize. After a period of great passivity—in the exact sense of that word, the sense of suffering and patient enduring—he had then come out for a small spell into a busy routine life in the kitchen. And now a third phase had opened: he was to call the tune and he need not call it until he decided it was time for the music to begin again. He suddenly felt a great tiredness. He went into the little bunkroom, undressed, and fell asleep at once.

When he woke, his trained eye saw that nothing had been touched—he had not been able to resist the routine of his old training, as fixed a habit now as a child's repetition of its nightly prayer, to check up on everything. The way he had thrown his robe over the chair, the place his socks were in, the fold of his garments—he memorized them all automatically, and now, looking over these and a number of other small place-clues, he judged that no one had been in the room since he had fallen asleep. He got up and went into the sitting room. There, too, the disposition of everything, he would have given his word, was unaltered. Yes, he might be observed but he was evidently not to be intruded upon.

That he was observed was pretty clear, for, by the time he came back from his shower, the bulb over the service lift was shining, and, opening the hatch, he found his breakfast ready for him. He ate it with relish. Alpha certainly had practiced at home—at least for his guests—what he preached abroad. When he had finished, he put the tray into the other hatch as he had been told. As he closed the panel he could just hear a gentle whir; yes, he was certainly being waited upon with instant vigilance. He leaned back in the chair a moment. Then he sat down to wait. He had been taught how to do that and he had plenty to run over in his mind. There were excellent cigarettes, too, in a small glass box on the table beside him. They were of that new synthetic smoking mixture which was so much more fragrant than tobacco, was a true stimulant instead of a narcotic, and which did not hurt even a singer's throat. He had much to think over and recheck.

He was just trying to put out all the pieces, to understand the particular place and problem of his late employer, the chef, when a voice which was the very antithesis of that tempestuous bass that had been called “the ground-swell of Mankind's Tide” said, “Good morning,” just behind his chair. Of course, his watch and his meal and everything but the daylight which never came into this place told him it was morning. He swung round and faced a figure which was certainly as unformidable as the voice. A little fellow in silver gray stood bowing slightly. He was certainly a typical cell of the brain-trust section—one who, because of his excessive cerebrotonia (the standard classification of the day was now used by everyone) must have been picked and conditioned almost from the kindergarten. He was the type which would have worn spectacles had not eye-surgery and exercises made such clumsy hangovers and hangouts an anachronism.