Two men sat facing each other across the table.
“Ahh,” Fraffin said. “On the left we have your pet’s father, and on the right we have the man she’d have mated with had we not stepped in and given her to you.”
“Stupid, useless natives,” Kelexel sneered.
“But she’s watching them right now,” Fraffin said. “This is what’s going into her pantovive… which you so kindly provided.”
“She’s quite happy here; I’m sure of it,” Kelexel said.
“Then why don’t you release her from the manipulator?” Fraffin asked.
“When she’s fully conditioned,” Kelexel said. “She’ll be more than content to serve a Chem when she understands what we can provide her.”
“Of course,” Fraffin said. He studied Andy Thurlow’s profile. The lips moved, but Fraffin kept the sound bar turned off. “That’s why she watches this scene from my current production.”
“What’s so important about this scene?” Kelexel demanded. “Perhaps she’s caught by your artistry.”
“Indeed,” Fraffin said.
Kelexel studied the native on the left. His pet’s father? He noted how the native’s eyelids drooped. This was a heavy-featured creature with an air of secretiveness about it. The native might almost have been a gross Chem. How could that thing have fathered the slender grace of his pet?
“The one she’d have mated with is a native witch doctor,” Fraffin said.
“Witch doctor?”
“They prefer to be called psychologists. Shall we listen to them?”
“As you said: What harm could there be in that?”
Fraffin moved the sound bar. “Yes, indeed.”
“Perhaps it’ll be amusing,” Kelexel said, but there was no amusement in his voice. Why did his pet watch these creatures out of her past? This could only torment her.
“Shhh,” Fraffin said.
“What?”
“Listen!”
Thurlow bent to arrange a stack of papers on the table. The sound was a faint hissing. There came the smell of dusty air, stale and full of strange essences, as the sensimesh web encompassed Kelexel and Fraffin.
Joe Murphey’s guttural voice rumbled from the stage: “I’m surprised to see you, Andy. Heard you had some sort of attack.”
“It must’ve been the one-day flu,” Thurlow said. “Everybody’s been having it”
(Fraffin chuckled.)
“Any word from Ruthy?” Murphey asked.
“No.”
“You’ve lost her again, that’s what. Thought I told you to take care of her. But maybe women’s all alike.”
Thurlow adjusted his glasses, looked up and straight into the eyes of the watching Chem.
Kelexel gasped.
“What do you make of that?” Fraffin whispered.
“An immune!” Kelexel hissed. And he thought: I have Fraffin now! Allowing an immune to watch his shooting crew! He asked: “Is the creature still alive?”
“We recently gave him a little taste of our power,” Fraffin said, “but I find him too amusing to destroy.”
Murphey cleared his throat and Kelexel sat back, watching, listening. Destroy yourself, then, Fraffin, he thought.
“You wouldn’t get sick if you were in here,” Murphey said. “I’ve gained weight on this jailhouse diet. What surprises me is how well I’ve adjusted to the routine here.”
Thurlow returned his attention to the papers in front of him.
Kelexel felt himself caught by the creatures’ actions, sensed himself sinking out of sight into these other beings, becoming a bundle of watchful senses. One irritant remained to gnaw at him, though: Why does she watch these creatures from her past?
“Things are going along all right, eh?” Thurlow asked. He stacked inkblot cards in front of Murphey.
“Well it does drag,” Murphey said. “Things’re slow here.” He tried not to look at the cards.
“But you think jail agrees with you?”
Fraffin manipulated the pantovive controls. Point of view moved closer to the natives. The two figures became enlarged profiles. (Kelexel experienced the eerie sensation that his own flesh had been moved, pushed forward to a new vantage.)
“We’re going to run these cards a little differently this time,” Thurlow said. “You’ve been having these tests so frequently, I want to change the pace.”
An abrupt crouching look came over Murphey’s hunched shoulders, but his voice emerged open and bland: “Anything you say, Doc.”
“I’ll sit here facing you,” Thurlow said. “That’s a bit unorthodox, but this situation’s full of irregularities.”
“You mean you knowing me and all?”
“Yes.” Thurlow placed a stopwatch beside him on the table. “And I’ve changed the usual order of the cards.”
The stopwatch exerted a sudden attraction for Murphey. He stared at it. A fault tremor moved up his thick forearms. With a visible effort, he arranged his features into a look of eager brightness, a willingness to cooperate.
“You sat behind me last time,” he said. “So did Doctor Whelye.”
“I know,” Thurlow said. He busied himself checking the order of the cards.
Kelexel jumped as Fraffin touched his arm, looked up to see the director leaning across the desk. “This Thurlow’s good,” Fraffin whispered. “Watch him carefully. Notice how he changes the test. There’s a learning element involved in having the same test several times in a short period. It’s like being put in jeopardy enough times until you learn how to avoid the danger.”
Kelexel heard the double meaning in Fraffin’s words, watched as the Director sank back, smiling. A sense of unease came over Kelexel then. He returned his attention to the pantovive stage. What was the importance of this scene, this confession of guilt? A conscience? He studied Thurlow, wondering if Ruth were released would she go back to that creature. How could she after experiencing a Chem?
A pang of jealousy shot through Kelexel. He sat back, scowled.
Thurlow now gave evidence of being ready to start his test. He exposed the first card, started his stopwatch, kept a hand on it.
Murphey stared at the first card, pursed his lips. Presently, he said: “Been a car accident. Two people killed. That’s their bodies beside the road. Lotsa accidents nowadays. People just don’t know how to handle fast cars.”
“Are you isolating part of the pattern or does the whole card give you that picture?” Thurlow asked.
Murphey blinked. “Just this little part here.” He turned the card face down, lifted the second one. “This is a will or a deed like to property, but somebody’s let it fall in the water and the writing’s all smeared. That’s how you can’t read it.”
“A will? Any idea whose?”
Murphey gestured with the card. “You know, when grandpaw died they never found the will. He had one. We all knew he had one, but Uncle Amos wound up with most of Gramp’s stuff. That’s how I learned to be careful with my papers. You’ve gotta be careful with important papers.”
“Was your father cautious like that?”
“Paw? Hell, no!”
Thurlow appeared caught by something in Murphey’s tone. He said: “You and your father ever fight?”
“Jawed some, that’s all.”
“You mean argued.”
“Yeah. He always wanted me to stay with the mules and wagon.”
Thurlow sat waiting, watchful, studying.
Murphey assumed a death’s head grin. “That’s an old saying we had in the family.” Abruptly, he put down the card in his hand, took up the third one. He cocked his head to one side. “Hide of a muskrat stretched out to dry. They brought eleven cents apiece when I was a boy.”
Thurlow said: “Try for another association. See if you can find something else in the card.”
Murphey flicked a glance at Thurlow, back to the card. An appearance of spring-wound tension came over him. The silence dragged out.
Watching the scene, Kelexel had t
he sensation that Thurlow was reaching through Murphey to the pantovive’s audience. He felt that he himself was being examined by the witch doctor. Logically, Kelexel knew this scene already lay in the past, that it was a captured record. There was an immediacy about it, though, a sensation of moving freely in time.
Again Murphey looked at Thurlow. “It might be a dead bat,” he said. “Somebody might’ve shot it.”
“Oh? Why would anyone do that?”
“Because they’re dirty!” Murphey put the card on the table, pushed it away from him. He looked concerned. Slowly, he reached for the next card, exposed it as though fearful of what he might find.
Thurlow checked the watch, returned his attention to Murphey.
Murphey studied the card in his hand. Several times he appeared about to speak. Each time he hesitated, remained silent. Presently, he said: “Fourth of July rockets, the fire kind that go off in the air. Dangerous damn’ things.”
“The explosive kind?” Thurlow asked.
Murphey peered at the card. “Yeah, the kind that explode and shoot out stars. Those stars can start fires.”
“Have you ever seen one start a fire?”
“I’ve heard about it.”
“Where?”
“Lotsa places! Every year they warn people about those damn’ things. Don’t you read the papers?”
Thurlow made a note on the pad in front of him.
Murphey glowered at him a moment, went on to the next card. “This one’s a drawing of where they’ve poisoned an ant hill and cut the hill in half to map out how the holes were dug.”
Thurlow leaned back, his attention concentrated on Murphey’s face. “Why would someone make such a map?”
“To see how the ants work it out. I fell on an anthill when I was a kid. They bit like fire. Maw put soda on me. Paw poured coal oil on the hill and set a match to it. Man, did they scatter! Paw jumping all around, smashing ’em.”
With a reluctant motion, Murphey put down the card, took up the next one. He glared at Thrulow’s hand making notes, turned his attention to the card. A charged silence settled over him.
Staring at the card in Murphey’s hand, Kelexel saw Chem flitters against a sunset sky, a fleet of them going from nowhere to nowhere. He experienced a sudden fearful wondering at what Thurlow might say to this.
Murphey extended the card at arm’s length, squinted his eyes. “Over on the left there it could be that mountain in Switzerland where people’re always falling off and getting killed.”
“The Matterhorn?”
“Yeah.”
“Does the rest of the card suggest anything to you?”
Murphey tossed the card aside. “Nothing.”
Thurlow made a notation on the pad, looked up at Murphey who was studying the next card.
“All the times I’ve seen this card,” Murphey said. “I never noticed this place up at the top.” He pointed. “Right up here. It’s a shipwreck with lifeboats sticking up out of the water. These little dots are the drowned people.”
Thurlow swallowed. He appeared to be debating a comment. With an abrupt leaning toward, he asked: “Were there any survivors?”
A look of sad reluctance came over Murphey’s face. “No,” he sighed. “This was a bad one. You know, my Uncle Al died the year the Titanic sank.”
“Was he on the Titanic?”
“No. That’s just how I fix the date. Helps you remember. Like when that Zeppelin burned, that was the year I moved my company into the new building.”
Murphey went to the next card, smiled. “Here’s an easy one. It’s a mushroom cloud from an atomic bomb.”
Thurlow wet his lips with his tongue, then: “The whole card?”
“No, just this white place here at the side.” He pointed. “It’s… like a photograph of the explosion.”
Murphey’s blocky hand shuffled to the next card. He held it close, squinting down at it. An air of brooding silence settled over the room.
Kelexel glanced at Fraffin, found the director studying him.
“What’s the purpose of all this?” Kelexel whispered.
“You’re whispering,” Fraffin said. “Don’t you want Thurlow to hear you?”
“What?”
“These native witch doctors have strange powers,” Fraffin said. “They’re very penetrating at times.”
“It’s a lot of nonsense,” Kelexel said. “Mumbo jumbo. The test doesn’t mean a thing. The native’s answers are perfectly logical. I might’ve said comparable things myself.”
“Indeed?” Fraffin said.
Kelexel remained silent, returned his attention to the pantovive stage. Murphey was peering warily at Thurlow.
“Part through the middle might be a forest fire,” Murphey said. He watched Thurlow’s mouth.
“Have you ever seen a forest fire?”
“Where one’d been. Stank to heaven with dead cows. Burned out a ranch up on the Siuslaw.”
Thurlow wrote on the pad.
Murphey glared at him, swallowed, turned to the final card. As he looked at it, he drew in a sharp, hard breath as though he’d been hit in the stomach.
Thurlow looked up quickly, studied him.
A look of confusion passed over Murphey’s face. He squirmed in his chair, then: “Is this one of the regular cards?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t remember it.”
“Oh. Do you remember all the other cards?”
“Kind of.”
“What about this card?”
“I think you’ve rung in a new one.”
“No. It’s one of the regular Rorschach cards.”
Murphey turned a hard stare on the psychologist, said: “I had a right to kill her, Doc. Let’s remember that. I had a right. A husband has to protect his home.”
Thurlow sat quietly waiting.
Murphey jerked his attention back to the card. “A junkyard,” he blurted. “It reminds me of a junkyard.”
Still, Thurlow remained silent.
“Wrecked cars, old boilers, things like that,” Murphey said. He tossed the card aside, sat back with a look of cautious waiting.
Thurlow took a deep breath, collected the cards and data sheets, slipped them into a briefcase which he lifted from the floor beside his chair. Slowly, he turned, stared directly into the pantovive.
Kelexel had the disquieting sensation that Thurlow was staring him in the eyes.
“Tell me, Joe,” Thurlow said, “what do you see there?” He pointed at the pantovive’s watchers.
“Huh? Where?”
“There.” Thurlow continued to point.
Murphey now stared out of the pantovive at the audience. “Some dust or smoke,” he said. “They don’t keep this place too clean.”
“But what do you see in the dust or smoke?” Thurlow persisted. He lowered his hand.
Murphey squinted, tipped his head to one side, “Ohh, maybe it’s kinda like; a lot of little faces… babies’ faces, like cherubs or… no, like those imps they put in pictures of hell.”
Thurlow turned back to the prisoner. “Imps of hell,” he murmured. “How very appropriate.”
At the pantovive, Fraffin slapped the cutoff. The scene faded from the stage.
Kelexel blinked, turned, was surprised to find Fraffin chuckling.
“Imps of hell,” Fraffin said. “Oh, that’s lovely. That is purely lovely.”
“You’re deliberately allowing an immune to watch us and record our actions,” Kelexel said. “I see nothing lovely about that!”
“What did you think of Murphey?” Fraffin asked.
“He looked as sane as I am.”
A spasm of laughter overcame Fraffin. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, then: “Murphey’s my own creation, Kelexel. My own creation. I’ve shaped him most carefully and certainly from his infancy. Isn’t he delightful. Imps of hell!”
“Is he an immune, too?”
“Lords of Preservation, no!”
Kelexel studied the Dire
ctor. Surely Fraffin had penetrated the disguise by now. Why would he betray himself, flaunt an immune before an Investigator from the Primacy? Was it the witch doctor? Had these natives some mysterious power which Fraffin could use?
“I don’t understand your motives, Fraffin,” Kelexel said.
“That’s obvious,” Fraffin said. “What about Thurlow. Does it give you no pangs of guilt to watch the creature you’ve robbed of a mate?”
“The… witch doctor? The immune? He must be disposed of. How can I rob him of anything? It’s a Chem’s right to take whatever he desires from the lower orders.”
“But… Thurlow’s almost human, don’t you think?”
“Nonsense!”
“No, no, Kelexel. He has a great native capability. He’s superb. Couldn’t you see how he was drawing Murphey out, exposing the flesh of insanity?”
“How can you say the native’s insane?”
“He is, Kelexel. I made him that way.”
“I… don’t believe you.”
“Patience and courtesy,” Fraffin said. “What would you say if I told you I could show you more of Thurlow without your seeing him at all?”
Kelexel sat up straight. He felt wary, as though all his previous fears had come back amplified. Bits of the scene Fraffin had just shown reeled through his mind, clinging and wisping away, their meanings changed and distorted. Insane? And what of Ruth, his pet? She had watched that scene, perhaps was still watching more of it. Why would she wish to see such a… painful thing. It must be painful for her. It must be. For the first time in his memory, Kelexel felt himself drawn to share another being’s emotions. He tried to shake it off. She was a native, one of the lower orders. He looked up to find Fraffin staring at him. It was as though they had exchanged places with the two natives they’d just watched. Fraffin had assumed the role of Thurlow and he, Kelexel, was Murphey.
What powers has he gained from these natives? Kelexel asked himself. Can he see into me, divine my thoughts? But I’m not insane… or violent.
“What paradox is this you propose?” Kelexel demanded. And he was proud that his voice remained level, calm and questing.