HARM (9 page)

Although he longed not to be standing there, he feared what would be his treatment when they summoned him into the room.

They summoned him in.

It was a small, windowless room. It contained only a bare table and two chairs. One of the chairs was an armchair. He stared at it longingly, not daring to approach it.

A casually dressed man with an open-neck shirt entered the room by a rear door.

He gestured toward the armchair.

“Do, please, sit down. I must apologize for keeping you waiting.” He turned smilingly to the guard. “You can leave us now, Charlie. We’ll get on fine on our own, thanks.”

By way of introduction, he said that the prisoner could call him “Dick.”

He was clean-shaven and in his mid-forties, of good complexion. His dark hair was long and rumpled. He sat down opposite Prisoner B. Before him on the table he placed a fat dossier, which he proceeded to leaf slowly through.

Prisoner B was made nervous by this procedure, and alarmed by the comfort of the armchair. He longed to sleep.

Suddenly darting a glance at his prisoner, the interrogator said, “You are looking a touch pale. Not been sleeping too well lately? Would you like a cup of tea?”

In the prisoner’s mind rose a vision of a cup of tea in all its benison. He agreed eagerly. “Dick” nodded encouragingly but, doing nothing further, again immersed himself in the dossier.

“I see here that you are fluent in Pashto, Baluchi, and Urdu?”

“No, I’m not. I know a few words of Urdu.”

“In what language did you converse with Osama bin Laden?”

Such disconcerting questions made him stutter. “I didn’t—I never—I never spoke—I never met—bin Laden when he was alive.”

With a supercilious smile, the interrogator said, “You could hardly be suspected of speaking to him once he was dead.” He returned to his burrowing in the dossier.

“So, Paul, would you like to tell me something about your life?”

The man’s mild tone, his seeming friendliness, released something in the prisoner, released a torrent of speech he could hardly check.

Paul began talking about his father’s arrival in England, years ago. Maybe twenty-five years. No, twenty-four. He spoke good English and grew to love England, with its mild, reasonable politics and climate. His wife never accepted that she had left Uganda, made no effort to learn the language. He divorced her and kicked her out.

His father then married an Englishwoman, Gloriana Harbottle, who soon gave birth to Paul. Gloriana demanded too much of her husband. She made him feel inferior. He took to drink and became brutal.

Paul dressed like an English boy. Integration was encouraged. His mother defended him from his father. He was bidden to respect English justice. He was sent to a good school, where he was mercilessly bullied and teased. The other boys called him “Insane Hussein.” But he learned his lessons, later procuring a decent job in a law office, where he—

“I don’t know when that cup of tea is coming,” said the interrogator absently, cutting into the flow of reminiscence.

The prisoner, hurt, fell silent before continuing. “It was in that solicitor’s—”

“I see here you were suspected,” the interrogator said, without looking up from the page, “of being brainwashed, so that without your knowing it you were in reality a compulsive killer—a latent killer awaiting the signal to kill…”

“That is utter rubbish. I am completely normal.”

The interrogator looked up. He gestured, raising an eyebrow, saying in a reasonable tone, “But surely not completely normal. Your medical records show a split-personality syndrome. What they call multiple personality disorder.”

So they had his medical records…He said, “I am not a killer. Far from it.”

“Oh, I accept that. It’s a laughable suggestion. Someone must have been watching a DVD of
The Manchurian Candidate
one too many times!” He chuckled.

Paul felt that here at last was someone on his side. “The—what used to be called a ‘split personality’ is actually a help to me as a writer.”

“Oh? So when did you first have sexual intercourse with this Irishwoman, Doris McKay, or whatever her name was?”

He was startled, shocked. “That has nothing to do with it!”

“And you fucked her sister, I believe.”

“Certainly not.”

“Have you been circumcised?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“How frequently did you have anal congress with this woman?”

“What’s this all about?”

“I understand she disliked the flavor of your semen.”

He tried to stand up but it proved not so easy. “These bloody questions!”

Dick became furious. “You dare raise your voice to me! Why do you suddenly refuse to answer my questions? I thought we were getting along well, establishing rapport, as it were. Now you dare take advantage of my—”

“Oh, I don’t have to—”

“What’s this? You are contradicting me now? Just when I was trying to help you? You ungrateful swine!” He banged his fist on the desk. “Records show you to be a ruffian of the first order! Guard!”

The guard appeared with astonishing promptitude.

“Charlie, take this blackguard and lock him up in one of the basement cells.”

Paul cried, “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“You Muslims are all the fucking same!” Dick shouted. “Ungrateful pigs!”

“Come on, sonny boy!” said the guard, propelling the prisoner forward by the neck.

T
HE BASEMENT CELL
was small and dark. Its walls were slimy. Its floor was slimy. A stink of vomit prevailed. Something came crawling over the prisoner’s body and he shrieked. It scampered off. He supposed it was a rat. And there were other rats. He heard them running here and there. They ran across his legs.

It seemed the rats had fleas. Or the last miserable wretch to be shut in here had left some of his fleas behind. There were other things, too. Crawling or flying. Gnats hummed by his ear.

Suddenly an overhead light came on, blindingly bright. Someone down the end of the corridor had switched on the light—not out of kindness, but so that he could see the filth that surrounded him. The vomit lay in a corner, mainly green and streaked with blood. The rats were at it. They flinched for a moment at the light and then went on with their feast.

As Prisoner B scrunched himself up against the opposite wall, a large cockroach ran from under his heel. It scuttled away, took a swift turn, and disappeared under the cell door. A mosquito, flying blind, came too near. He scrunched it against his forehead.

His whole body itched. He was in the kingdom of the insects.

And the cell was chillingly cold.

S
LEEPING IN THE TREES
was chillingly cold.

Initially, he chose a tree which had a creeper climbing over it, covered in little fruits like pearls. The creeper grew from the ground, twisting around the trunk of the tree and ascending into its very tops. It was the season for the small fruits. Fremant tasted one, but the flavor was repugnant. With dawn, the fruits shone like teardrops.

He regarded the creeper as a parasite and took some trouble to haul its many stalks out of the branches of the tree. Finally the strands were all cleared away and lay in a pile nearby. The tree immediately began to die. By the next Dimoff, it had fallen, rotten, to the ground.

One day he awoke at sunrise, shivering. Looking down from the rough platform he had constructed in a tree, he saw the ground overnight had become covered with wild irises which were just bursting into pristine bloom, coloring the landscape with their purple-blue flowers. Each opening bud contained a blue-tinted grub.

Although he wondered if the irises exuded poison if you touched them, he climbed down and crouched among them, still shaking with cold. He listened, all senses alert. He caught surrounding vibrations. Something like a noise, almost music, came to him. It could be unseen insects. The plants he had taken for irises themselves gave out a low vibration; their petals were crisp and rubbed gently against each other—Fremant assumed to attract pollinators and to shake out the nesting grubs.

Or fractions of those elusive vibrations possibly emanated from his own body. That extra 3 percent of oxygen on Stygia, as compared to Earth, could be affecting his own metabolism. He was burning out more quickly than normal—burning to death. A kind of religious angst overcame him.

He stood up, to find himself ankle-deep in the stridulating purple flowers.

He was filled with wonder for this strange planet—wonder and dread. He was alien to it, and it to him.

Similar worries bedeviled his quest for food: Was this or that berry edible or poisonous? The one fruit he recognized was the clammerdumm, which he had eaten when under Bellamia’s care. He thought affectionately of the woman, with her gentle ways.

Rambling about the nearby hillsides, he came on a sheltered gulch. In the gulch stood a strange artifact. A central stake supported a leather tent which rose to a point. Its sides were decorated with symbols. The structure, temporary at best, was in a dilapidated state. Fremant stood for some while staring at it. It reminded him of something he could not trace. At last he went forward, to pull aside the flap of the tent.

A foul smell, the effluvium of a decaying body, assailed him. On the floor lay a small bipedal body in an advanced state of decomposition. Flying things rose up from it, angry at being disturbed. The surface of the body, and its pits as well, seethed with maggots.

He was staring at the remains of a Dogover who had died alone.

He dropped the flap and retreated.

Hunger drove him back into Haven. Bellamia gave him an affectionate welcome and embraced him. “You are welcome in my little nook,” she said. Later, he thought about her phraseology.

FOUR

F
REMANT GOT A JOB
working in a gunmaker’s forge, owned by a big blank-looking man whose small boy was in charge of the bellows. The bellows brought the fire to a temperature which made malleable the metal parts necessary for the machining of crude guns. Fremant’s job was to shape wooden stocks for the guns. The last man doing the job had just died.

“You got to keep at it,” said the gunsmith, by name Utrersin. “Them stocks don’t make themselves.” He had a thin skull with a hank of black hair that hung over his forehead like grass over a cliff edge.

His boy politely brought Fremant bread and meat every day at midday.

Fremant took a liking to this lad, whose name was Wellmod. He tried to teach Wellmod the elements of procosmology, drawing diagrams in the ashes of the fire with a poker. The boy was interested.

“Here is the system from which we originated, with a G-type sun. Way over here is another G-type. This is where we are. The distance is vast. We say one thousand and eighty light-years.”

“What’s a light-year?” Wellmod asked. As Fremant explained, the gunmaker, Utrersin, came over and listened to the explanation.

He mopped his brow. “How did we ever do it? I opted for years in Cryogenic Storage, as they calls it, so I can’t make out how old I be. Centuries, in all probability. ’Tis a bit confusing.”

Fremant tried to explain that no one had remained physically whole for the long journey; the brain functions and DNA of many people, male and female, had been stored in so-called Life Process Reservoirs. There was no one on the ship for many centuries. Its shell remained empty and airless; only computers and certain androids were functioning. Otherwise, it traveled chill, without atmosphere, the only sounds being the whisper of cybernetic instruments.

“What about me?” Utrersin asked. “Jupers…I heard all this before but never did I believe it possible.”

“It’s what happened. What was planned. Five years before landfall on Stygia, the ship awoke, the LPRs reconstituted people. The PR it was—Process of Reconstitution. A computer bestowed names on us at random. No two people had any relationship together. It was part of the plan. We were exercised to bring us back to physical health. There were exercises, too, for mental health, and those who did not pass examination were simply eliminated. The LPRs had their failures.”

Utrersin shook his head slowly. “All that…I thought all that was just bad dreams I had.”

“We all have bad dreams.”

“Uh. Mine are partickler bad.”

“The real bad thing was how quickly people divided into various sects. Atheists, technophobes, religious, and so on…”

Utrersin said in wonder, “Jupers, so that’s how we was born for life here on Stygia…No wonder we be such a rum lot…”

“I wasn’t born on the ship,” said Wellmod brightly. “I’m too young for that.”

“Back to work,” said Utrersin. “I still can’t hardly believe what you say.”

The boy started bringing Fremant a jelly of the golden busk, which he ate with pleasure. “You children are so well behaved and kind,” he said.

Wellmod smiled and nodded his head without answering.

Every evening in the little square, Elder Deselden and Essanits held a service which all attended. An a cappella choir chanted sacred songs, after which dancers danced. Such songs were designed to be understood by the peasant farmers.

The seed we put in the land

In ways that we don’t understand

Will grow into food we eat—

As God takes us all by the hand

And when our growth is complete

Will lead us on to the Glor-huh-hory Seat…

And one evening after this ceremony, a bench was brought out and a boy tied down on it, his arms spread and strapped down along the bench. Fremant was amazed to recognize the lad as Wellmod. He was then subjected to twelve lashes with a long, springy cane.

Wellmod had been caught stealing busk jelly from a nearby shop. After the beating, his mother led him away.

Now Fremant understood why the children of Haven were so well behaved. They feared punishment.

When the Shawl brought Dimoff again to Haven, a fire was lit in the little square and sacred songs were sung. Elder Deselden preached that the Shawl was passing over them to express God’s contempt for his people, and that they should repent their sins.

Since the doctrinal disagreement between Deselden and Essanits, their relationship had become frosty. Essanits still preached on the fringes of Haven, and some came to listen. He claimed that God loved all his children and the Shawl was an expression of his sorrow. Meanwhile, Elder Deselden ordained that a long melancholy dance was to be performed about the central fire.

After this ceremony, Fremant ventured to argue with Essanits. “You merely confuse people’s minds, saying that the Shawl is somehow an expression of your god. The Shawl is merely an astronomical fact, like the Sun, like Stygia. It’s a physical law. There are only physical laws.”

“Fremant, my son, I grieve that you do not let God into your heart. Who do you think ordains the physical laws, if not God?”

They argued for a while. Both Ragundy and Bellamia came and told Fremant to be quiet. Essanits was patient, if disdainful, appearing prepared to argue forever. He said, “My friends, you cling to your foolish ways if you must. God will accept sinners who repent. I have a disagreement with Deselden, so I shall leave Haven and return to Stygia City.”

Fremant spoke respectfully but firmly. “It is obvious that the Shawl and the six broken Brothers are the remains of some kind of cosmic collision. Why do you need to bring God into it?”

Essanits frowned down at the ground before he spoke.

“Remember, God is in everything—even in your disbelief. Remember how we came here. The great voyage here took many many years. We were contained in molecular form in the vats. Only in the last years of that voyage were we reconstituted from the LPRs. Many persons failed to reconstitute properly and died. Time had taken its toll.

“In those years before we hit Stygia, there was much turmoil. Many factions grew up. It was not only weapons that were destroyed. So was much equipment. Captain Calex was powerless to stop the destruction. I was fortunate enough to salvage a disc which explained to me the omnipresence of Almighty God in the universe.”

Sighing, Fremant said that there was no proof God existed.

“Not so. You and I, Fremant, are that proof, with our immortal souls.” He stood up, thereby signaling an end to the discussion.

“I am needed in Stygia City and have much to do. I shall see how poor, frightened Hazelmarr fares. I shall slip away while the Shawl is still overhead.”

Ragundy cursed. “Essanits, you are a fool! You let Hazelmarr go free after you had told him we were going to come here. He probably went straight to the All-Powerful, to curry favor. Even now, Astaroth’s army will be preparing to attack us. You will be spared because you are powerful, but we shall be killed.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Essanits. “You unbelievers are always afraid of something—something that may never happen.” And he strode away.

Fremant and Ragundy got drunk that night. “I can never understand how people think as they do,” complained Fremant.

With a sweeping gesture, Ragundy said, “You didn’t come here by the ship. You’re a supernational—a what?—a supernatural entity!”

“I’m as real as you are. Want me to prove it?”

“Why bother?” said his friend. “Action’s what we should bother about, not thinking.” He took another drink.

Eventually, both of them fell into a troubled slumber.

He was working in a shirtmaker’s shop. There was no denying it. The atmosphere was steamy and obscure. Shirts were hanging from lines like giant birds, some red, some black. The owner of the shop was a big fat man with huge side-whiskers and a black beard. His head was bald and shining, as if the hair there had tumbled down to form a sub-chin proliferation of whiskers.

This man held up a shirt dripping from the dyeworks and addressed his staff.

“See this short? We make the tails too long. From now on, make them a hundred and thirty millimeters shorter. Then I make more profit every short we sell.”

Fremant heard himself say, “But the Waabees tuck their shirts into their trousers. If you cut our shirts short, they will not stay put in the trousers.”

“They will stay tucked in for half an hour.” He brought out a huge watch, which he set ticking. “In half an hour these fool buyers are out of the shop.” Already people were leaving. The shop itself was changing.

“But, sir, they will never buy another of our shirts!”

“
Short loyalty,
are you saying? Who ever heard of short loyalty?

You buy a short here one day, the next day another short somewhere else. Short loyalty is for the birds.” Such loyalty would not last long. It was confusing that in the dream shirts were “shorts.”

“I, for instance, always buy our shirts.” But he could not see any.

“Maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but you work here—which you won’t do if you keep on arguing with me. Let me make it clear, I’m the boss.”

“I’m speaking in your interest, boss.”

“Look, we cut off a hundred thirty millimeters like I say, maybe we start a new fashion. Maybe everyone wants our shorts what are a hundred thirty millimeters shorter than an ordinary short. Like it’s the style. Like it’s more hygienic. Also it needs one less button per short. That’s all told a savings of…” He brought out a huge calculator, wound it up, and began doing sums. The figures fell and covered the floor. Fremant kicked them aside. They spelled something, possibly “Astaroth.”

“So I make a profit of ten, maybe eleven stigs on each short, We sell a hundred shorts like a week, that’s—um, eleven hundred stigs. So maybe I raise also your wages—those of you I haven’t sacked.” The hanging shirts were shaking with what he thought was laughter.

But someone was shaking him. “Get up,” said Ragundy. “There’s trouble!”

Fremant struggled to his feet, groaning.

The window of the room in which they slept looked south toward distant Stygia City. What immediately met Fremant’s gaze was the frowsy head and shoulders of the gunmaker, Utrersin, who had been tapping on the window from outside. More distantly, more alarmingly, a troop of horsemen was approaching, galloping in the gloom cast by the departing Shawl. In the gray light, it was hard to make out any detail.

Ragundy looked terrified. “It’s Astaroth. He’s come to kill us, like I said,” he cried. “What are we going to do, Fremant?”

Fremant was equally alarmed. Without answering, he ran outside to Utrersin, who stood clutching Wellmod’s hand.

Wellmod seemed none the worse for his beating, and was jumping up and down. “Isn’t it exciting?” he said.

“More than that.” Fremant stared ahead. The horsemen were no nearer, although they were galloping furiously. Some men carried banners. It was impossible to make out the insignia on the banners. Indeed, the whole scene was oddly blurred, perhaps, Fremant thought, because of the departing Shawl.

“They’re coming to get you,” said Utrersin with a chuckle. “Yer in for it!”

Fremant narrowed his eyes, staring ahead, trying to make out what was happening. The approaching group of men and animals was oddly unclear. As furiously as they galloped, they were not advancing. Nor did a sound come from them, no shouts, no drumming of hooves.

He looked anxiously at Ragundy.

“They’re…why, they’re ghosts!” Ragundy exclaimed.

“No, they’re not,” said Wellmod. “They’re ’lusions.”

Utrersin smote his thigh and roared with laughter. “Had you scared, didn’t we? Like the kid says, they’re ’lusions. They’ll fade in a moment, you’ll see.”

“I could kill you, you bastard,” said Ragundy. “You had me really scared.”

“I like to see them,” said Wellmod. “They’re fun.”

“You was scared once, but not no more, are you?” said Utrersin.

“I like to see them. First they come, then they don’t come.”

As he spoke, the cavalry began to fade. In the breath of a moment, the countryside was empty and the charging horsemen were no more.

Fremant plunged his fists into his pockets. He stared at the ground by his feet. He was mystified.

“It’s something to do with the Shawl,” said Utrersin. “Don’t worry about it.”

“No, it’s not,” said Wellmod. “It’s them magic dogs hanging about in the valley.”

When Fremant asked the obvious question, Wellmod said that when the Dogovers had been slaughtered, some of their dogs had escaped. They were magic dogs. They projected the ’lusion to scare people.

“How could dogs do that?” Ragundy asked contemptuously.

“I don’t know, ’cos I’m not a dog.”

N
OT A DOG BUT HARDLY A MAN.
The statement hounded him in his sleep that night. He had been beaten like a dog. Once more, he was imprisoned in the rundown edifice, once more questioned and abused. He was moved to a room upstairs, where another prisoner had died. His body had not been discovered for some days; the room still stank of his death and decomposition.

Paul felt he was nearing the end of his tether. Looking about the room, he saw pale rectangular patches on the grubby, embroidered wallpaper where framed canvases had once hung. A picture, doubtless a contributor to one of the light patches of wallpaper, and one of the last treasures of an earlier day, lay among the rubbish in one corner of the chamber.

Summoning up his energies, the prisoner made himself, after some time, go over to examine the picture. He could see from the back of it that it had been damaged. One side of its ornate gilt frame was missing. As he moved the painting to turn it over, a pair of rats rushed out and disappeared into a nearby hole in the skirting.

The canvas had been slashed, so that a strip of canvas hung down. It depicted a sturdy middle-aged woman in an apron. She was holding out her bare arms to welcome home a tired laborer in a smock, evidently trudging back to their cottage. The cottage was beehive-shaped and thatched. Behind the male figure were little plump hills, shapely trees, a small flock of woolly sheep grazing.