Doppelgangers (2 page)

The phrase of the old standard psychologist sheldon came into his mind, Anemectomized—the soul cut out. But what was a soul? Could you cut it out? Has the Mole a soul? The jingle had been quite frankly repeated among his fellow agents. Certainly no one felt it was disloyal to doubt if the central brain had a conscience—how could it, considering what it was always having to do, in lying, killing, yes, and torturing? For their counterattack had two edges: there were the agents like himself, more or less above ground, real men taking the fighting, and there were—others. You couldn't be long in and not know that, though that was never talked about. Perhaps every now and then one of the toughest of the tough, in a moment of hard exultation, when perhaps he'd just picked off one of the fairly high-ups on the other side, would, with a sort of sham modesty, allow that he had his uses but that he was a clumsy fool beside the real workers, the men really near the Mole, the men who, when you did succeed in bringing back your game alive, really praised you for not killing. Because with a live one in their hands they could always make him speak.

“We never split or bend, we just die in their hands as dumb as a log. But when we catch one of them and bring him home alive, in the end he always squeaks and speaks, whole volumes. Oh, yes, the Mole may have no soul, but, by the powers of the ultimate underground, he has a brain, twice that of anyone above. That's why we'll win.”

Yes, that was the favorite argument why they must win and why, no doubt, the Mole, who certainly didn't seem to be one who cared a rap for flattery but cared a whole hecatomb for obedience, let this kind of jest run about among the agents. Suddenly a thought ran through his mind. Maybe it was because of something that a captured official of the other side had let slip that he himself, Agent numbering this week 6.X51.L. (your number was changed every month or so, so you had no identity) had been given those instructions which, though now ash, still gave him, when he recalled them, that shock of disgrace, the gooseflesh that pimpled his skin as he'd read that phrase, “living clay.” He shuddered, and the girl, who had now, because of what she took to be his assumed indifference, taken his arm, laughed.

“That's a good opening and quite refreshing. I can't remember when the last man I picked up shuddered when I touched him. This is going to be better than the usual run. You're what we used to call an innocent.”

She was perfectly natural and frank. There was no coquetry, still less harlotry. She was not an animal, but she was a woman with a child's mind. The people were that now, adults who were let go back to childhood, not expected to have good taste, high views, noble ideals, grit and heroism, but fun and foolishness and enjoyment. That's what they wanted, you couldn't doubt. Carniave, not Carnivale. Carnivale meant farewell to the flesh, a last wild wave of the hand before repentance engulfed you. Now the flesh was being welcomed back. “
Io saturnalia
!” but no frenzy, for there was no hurry. There was plenty of time; and sugar and skilled gluttony were just as much fun as sex and skilled pornography. While—so he'd heard—as you got on, you needn't get sour. The arts eased you out until they, too, modulated into religion and you found yourself ushered soothingly and in the best taste into Nirvana. She had drawn him down to a seat and laced her fingers through his; but as soon as they were settled and she had cuddled up to him she was engrossed by the show. Like all these cabaret acts, it only lasted for about twenty minutes and then the people—all the younger ones—got up to dance, and the others to eat or play at one of the games provided.

“Shall we meet again?” she said. “I don't usually, because new people are so exciting, but somehow perhaps one could take two bites at you. You're slower than most are. Nobody has any mysteries now, and usually I don't care for that kind of stuff. It's all making oneself out to be important, I believe. But I suppose there is some difference between one handsome face and another, or one wouldn't keep on changing, would one? So if you're different I'd like to know why.”

She spoke as frankly about herself as about him. That was, of course, common enough. But what he found catching in his mind was the thought—the thought he didn't want to hold—that she was under no fear, she didn't seem aware that the whole of this thing that suited her and these thousands and millions so well, was all based on force and fraud and fear and violence, cruelty and treachery—fought by cruelty and treachery; that this was a flower garden of rather garish flowers, where underneath, in the rich beds, centipede, ferret, rat, and mole, dug and bit, writhed and struggled. She was kindly, too, in an unsentimental way.

“Why not let yourself unbend? I'm not much, but quite a good sort. I don't hold onto men—and that's always an advantage, I think. You know where you are with me, and I shan't fool you. When we're not enjoying ourselves, well, we'll quit quickly, and not spoil the first fun. But there's no point in not getting that, for fear it won't last, is there?”

Was there? He said something noncommittal—that if he were free he'd be there the same time next day. She didn't press; she smiled and waved her hand and was lost in the crowd. He felt curiously lonely then, and what was ahead looked even darker. Why had he gone to the park? He should have stayed somewhere quietly. Why shouldn't he come tomorrow night? Tomorrow night where would he be, what would he be? Somehow, having been with that bright, careless human being made his life look insane. Weren't they right? Hadn't life always to be happy and careless or full of confusion and struggle, always leading to greater complexities and horrors? Could all the men who were above ground and who managed this life for the careless, carefree masses, be calculating brutes? Did they know any more of what the system was based in, than the youngest, rawest activity-agent, who joined last week with adventure and heroism filling his callow mind, knew of the Mole and those round the Mole. Lord, what thoughts! Of course he wouldn't be killed for them—oh, no; but if in the dormitory they even came out in the random runnings of dream speech and were recorded in the microphone which was said to be in every one of the bunk-burrows, he'd be in for treatment, and treatment, whether it was the pentathol or electric shock, always meant that you were never the same. For one thing, in a little time they found you needed it again and then at more frequent intervals until you became—an old term from the old prisons—a trusty, a creature who always said yes and would do anything. It was said that such trusties were used by the other side especially when attempting “extractions” from the Mole's losses. It was said that such trusties were used when extractions were being made from a captured officer from the other side.

His mind had slipped again. He made an effort and suddenly something broke, skidded in the opposite direction from which he'd meant to pull it out. Suddenly he knew, he couldn't go on. Once or twice he'd felt such twinges, but, thank his stars, always when with others. They were never allowed to drink alcohol, but they had their synthetic-seltzer, as they called it, one of those chemists' brews that fizzed; after you'd taken it you could be sure your black mood was out, though your “trigger-finger” was as steady as ever. But of course no drugstore here on the surface had his medicine. He'd have to ride the storm alone.

But why? Why not stay on the surface? Living was easy. One could always get a job or relief. The old suspicious official attitude had gone, had been carefully smoothed over—on the surface. Everything, everything hard, the government and the opposition, was now underground; on the surface everything was bright, easy, generous, and apparently open. He felt cool. He'd think it out. What was the reason for going on? He'd gone in from high motives, courage, and the wish to revenge certain horrid wrongs of which he knew. He'd gone on asking questions till he'd dug up some horrible-smelling stuff, and he'd resolved, romantic young sprig, that he'd dig right to the roots and make the whole of the earth, right down to the subsoil and the deepest graves, smell as sweetly as the hay and the flowers on the surface in June. They'd soon knocked that out of him, and it was, of course, indefensible rot. There was always decay and muck underneath, and flowers and grass grew from that and went back to that. Then what had he been fighting for, ever more foully? For fear they'd get him if he turned back? Well, he'd been no coward when he started. When had he become one? Was it mere habit? They'd always said an agent's no use that can't think for himself. But he'd never really been alone; now he was—really alone.

The pull of the world to which he had come to belong, the world of the Mole, was now exactly, at this moment, matched by the pull of the surface world of the Bull, Alpha. He'd dismissed that surface pull by calling it debauched, mean, sham, cruel. And his world, of dark shadow, as brave, true, real, clean. But surely that was simply the most snatchy judgment that sentimentality could make. There was none of that boasted detachment and objectivity they were taught to prize, in such a notion. But if not, why go on? There was no answer.

Had he been underground at that moment there would have been the routine, the seltzer, etc., to drag him over the dead center. Here there was nothing. The present was the lit, pleasant streets, the gay crowds, the easy, relaxed, deliberately entertained, amused, and distracted life. Below was a life going ever lower. And for him? In an hour or so a fate which he had to own was worse than death. He would be sacrificed for the Mole's ever more obscure sense of purpose and goal and right. The moment had done it.

He wouldn't go on. He wasn't breaking. He'd broken, broken with it all. He'd meet Alie; that, she'd told him, was her name. Tonight he wouldn't be at 45.67.23. That spectral spider's-web map of cryptic, sinister reference that lay and had lain all these months in his mind over the bright city would vanish away. He'd see things again as sane, aboveboard people saw them. He'd leave these nets and toils to those who cared to play with imaginary futures and nightmare presents. He wouldn't judge them. There had always been, perhaps always had to be, people who played at that—the government and the opposition, whether they debated or, as now, actually dueled. But politics wasn't life, and, more, it never got anywhere. He'd learned enough now to know that and, thank the bright sky, he'd learned enough to know how to get out of the cellars and tunnels back under that bright sky again and see that he wasn't snarled. That was worth the learning. He knew enough to know how to keep clear.

It was a lovely summer night, the moon full and sailing free with a few stars and some scales of mother-of-pearl clouds in attendance. His spirits rose to a level he hadn't known for—he couldn't remember how long. Often in those past months he had felt keyed—proud, keenly, grimly alive. But this was different; he felt careless, easy, a new sense of health began flowing in him. What fun to be meeting Alie tomorrow! He felt hungry, too. That was a good sign. He went into a restaurant and ordered a good meal. As he finished it, he saw, with an amused relief, as he looked at the clock, that he was already handsomely late. He dawdled out into the crowded, dense streets—wandering with only one will and direction—away from the rendezvous.

No one would miss him. A man who went on an assignment disappeared, as far as his few bunkhouse companions went. To inquire was absolutely forbidden. You never mentioned him again, if he didn't turn up. If he did, you went on, and so did he, as though the days he'd been out had disappeared. He'd be starting a fresh life anyway—anyone on assignment did. His Number, which was all that he was known by, would be shifted, someone else would be in his bunk. Oh, yes, they had brought anonymity to the frontier of total disappearance of the personality—so why not disappear? Besides, as his assignment had shown, no one had ever yet been planned to disappear so completely. He was being annihilated as a person. All right, he would go, go for good, for his good at last.

His mind grew clearer and clearer. He wondered why he hadn't done this before. He began to feel a kind of gratitude to them for pressing him out, extruding, exuding him. Who knows, perhaps the Mole, who seemed to know most things,
had
known he was through, and so used this method of shooting him back to the surface—as in old submarines when they'd sunk, you could escape by getting into the conning tower and shooting yourself back to the surface by opening the top hatch and going up in the uprush of the escaping air. The Mole would know he wouldn't ever want to go down or make trouble again for either side. Melodrama and the Mole, you couldn't think of them together. He cared for any personnel so little that the idea of revenge would have seemed to him as nonsensical as love at first sight.

He was thinking this out, so true and so reassuring, that, as he was waiting for a traffic light to change, he saw the middle color flash. He hurried to cross and was nearly over before the GO sign took over. It would still have been all right had not one of the cars, drawn up and ready to go ahead, been impatient. It swung out a little ahead of the others. The driver was evidently a little tipsy, too. He made straight for the tardy crosser, but then, when nearly on him, fortunately swerved. The mudguard just missed his thigh. He would be missed by less than an inch. But as the door swung past it fell open. Queer—his mind thought even in that split second—a door opening the wrong way round. But, queer or no, he was caught in its jaw. He'd be knocked down and go under the hind wheel. He
was
knocked off his feet, but, by some kind of apron or web hanging between the swung-open door and the cab's floor, he was caught, as mail used to be caught from a hanging bag by a grapple net held out from a passing train.

He crashed, but fairly lightly, onto the cab's floor, heard the door snap behind him, and felt hands take hold on him. It was dead dark in the cab but the hold told him all he needed. He knew those holds as well as a fingerprint expert knows the whorls on a glass or the butt of a gun. No one held like that unless he had had one of the basic trainings.