Farmer, Philip José - Traitor to the Living (7 page)

We're afraid that such information might suggest to people that they'll experience these phenomena, and so they will. We do plan on publishing sometime in the future. But only after we have a fairly reasonable theory to account for them. That way, we can reassure people before they sit down at MEDIUM. You must not forget that MEDIUM is new, that only about six hundred people have used it so far. There are many things that we could publish, but we prefer to evaluate these before publication."

Carfax did not find the explanation satisfactory, but he had no definite rebuttals.

"You keep saying we," he said. "I thought that you were the one who made the decisions here."

Western smiled and said, "I am head of the team, yes. And I do own MEDIUM and expect to own it for some time to come. I am keeping its principles and theory of operation a close secret, you know. I haven't even applied for a patent, because I don't want anyone stealing its schematics from the patent office. Believe me, it would be done. This is, as you are no doubt tired of hearing, the greatest thing since creation."

"Which is why you won't be able to keep it to yourself,"

Carfax said.

"We'll see."

"I think I'll go now," Carfax said.

Western put the cup down and said, "Of course. I'd like to talk to you later about this when I have more time. And when you've recovered enough to think about it with the calmness of retrospect. Perhaps you could tell me by tomorrow, though, whether or not you'll be taking up my offer of a second free session."

Carfax felt his skin warming up. Western was hinting that he was afraid. Which, he had to admit to himself, he was. But he certainly was not going to pass up another chance.

"I can tell you now," he said. I'm looking forward to another session. And next time, I won't bolt. At least, I don't think I will."

"Very well," Western said. He seemed to be looking oddly at Carfax, but Carfax told himself that this might be a reflection of his own disturbed state.

"Do you want to make contact with uncle Rufton again?"

Carfax swallowed and then said, "No. I'd like to speak to Frances."

"Your wife."

"The thing that is pretending to be my wife," Carfax said.

Western grinned. He said, "You still cling to your theory that sembs are nonhuman, alien entities. Well, why not? You really haven't seen anything to prove otherwise."

"That's a very fair-minded statement," Carfax said.

"I try to be logical about this. Objectivity isn't easy, since I'm so close to this. But I realize what a scientific proof demands and how little I can really offer. I have demonstrated that a phenomenon does exist, that there is another universe and that sentient entities exist in that universe. There can be no doubt about that; there's no fakery about MEDIUM.

"But, on the other hand, are these entities really the souls, or whatever you wish to call them, really sembs, as I call them? If they're not, how do they succeed in knowing so much about the people they claim to be?

Why are those who claim to be English-speakers able to speak English with the true accent? Could alien sentients reproduce not only the general English accent but the personal? Everyone contacted by someone who knew the dead when he lived has recognized the voice as being genuine. You heard uncle Rufton. There are certain distortions because of our still-primitive electronic means. But you recognized our uncle's voice, didn't you? I certainly did."

"The greater weight of the evidence is on your side," Carfax said. "I'll have to admit that. But it's possible that these sembs, as you call them, have means of learning about human beings and of feeding back information about them--of posing as them. How, I don't know. But you can't deny that that's a possibility."

"No, but I do maintain that it's a very unlikely possibility. And why would they be posing as the spirits of the dead? What could they get out of it? They can't possibly do anything to us!"

Carfax felt irritated, but he recognized its source. Western was being too reasonable, and he was too likable. He certainly did not seem to be the person described by Patricia. He could, of course, be an excellent actor. There was no doubt that he was extremely tactful and that he knew how to go about making friends.

Or, at least, how to act friendly. Carfax wanted to believe that he was lying; he wanted to believe Patricia's story. He was finding it difficult to do so. And this ended in his feeling that he was betraying Patricia and himself.

Western escorted him back to the main office and delivered him into the hands of Mrs. Morris. Carfax had one question before he left. Would the examination by the religious committee be shown on TV?

"If the networks agree not to censor any of it,"

Western said. "I don't want any editing that will give a false impression. You'll notice I didn't say unfavorable. I said false. I just want the truth presented. But there is very powerful resistance to showing this session on TV, you know. You didn't? Oh yes, there are many established religious organizations that have objected to its being put on TV. This, mind you, even though they don't know what the results will be. Or do they suspect the truth and so fight against it? Well, enough of this. See you Thursday at ten."

Western turned away but stopped, hesitated, and turned back to Carfax. He was smiling. "Tell Patricia she can come along if she wants to."

Carfax did not reply. He felt that he was anything but master of the situation. Western had found out that Patricia had flown in on a separate plane from Busiris. In fact, she should be phoning him at his hotel shortly after he got there.

The trip to the hotel on Wilshire did not allow him to think about what had happened. The TV in the cab was set on a news station.

"At 15:35 today, Crawford Goolton, of 6748, Westminster Spiral, apartment 6J, was allegedly killed while selling a Do-It-Yourself Spirit Communication Handypak to Anastasia Rodriguez, 99653, Crewles Castle Towers, apartment 89F. The alleged slayer, Maui Aleakala, of 347A-4D, New Paradise Cabanas, is reported to have attacked Goolton with a knife. He is reported to have been in a rage because a Handypak sold to him by Goolton the week before had, allegedly, failed to perform as claimed..."

How, Carfax wondered, could a person be allegedly killed? Either they were or they weren't. But the news media had to be very careful about how they phrased their reports. The libel and slander suits were clogging the courts now as much as the marijuana cases had a decade ago. The result was that the news media were using some rather peculiarly phrased statements nowadays. In this age, when full nudity was nothing exceptional on daytime TV and sex education films with views of most of the possible positions and group combinations were being shown after 22.00 (when the kiddies were in bed), censorship was steadily cutting down freedom of speech in other areas.

The people of the United States still had not learned that freedom entails responsibility, and it looked as if they would not learn for a long time. The only ones to teach them would have to be themselves, but no one seemed to know how to get the lessons started.

You had to make a choice between the abuses of democracy and those of totalitarianism.

He reminded himself that he had something more immediate to consider. There was nothing he could do to bring about a swift or even a slow change in the world outside. Nothing that made him feel that he was getting results, anyway. But he could--perhaps--deter-mine whether or not Western was right. He could--perhaps--find out whether or not Patricia was right.

"... from now on, the air pollution index should indicate a steady decrease of pollutants. Every day sees at least five hundred vehicles with internal-combustion motors retired, replaced by the battery or fuel-cell vehicles. The BSD is confident that the worst days are over, that the record peak of ..."

That was welcome news, but it wasn't the first time he'd heard its like. Two years ago, electrohydrodynamic generators were to be a household item in a short time. These would revolutionize society and reduce pollution at once. But the devices were still in the experimental stage, and there were a number of disadvantages to their use which had been overlooked when they were first proposed.

The Hotel La Brea occupied two blocks of what had been a dozen omce buildings when Carfax had lived in L.A. It was across the street from the La Brea tar pits.

Carfax decided to look again at the leftover of the Pleistocene.

He walked across the overpass above Wilshire and then walked down to where the corner of Wilshire and Curson had been. Curson had been removed and made part of the park, and the buildings for a block eastward had also been torn down.

He went around the wire fence and stood within a few feet of the two concrete mammoths at the edge of the tar pit. The gigantic father mammoth and the baby mammoth were watching the mother sink into the thick black waters of the pit. The baby was stretching his little trunk out toward his doomed mother as if he could trumpet her out of the tar and back to safety. The great female was struggling vainly against the oily clutch that had killed so many thousands of beasts, large and small.

Many people were surprised and disappointed at the smallness of the pit. Evidently they had expected something covering many acres. But all that was left of the great reaches of tar that had once covered much of Los Angeles in this valley was a pool not as large as a football field. There were several very small pools behind the museum, and these still caught animals, such as gophers and squirrels, even though they had to climb over wire fences to get inside to the pool. If the disappointed tourist walked around the park, however, he would see tar oozing up here and there from the grass.

He would, if he had any imagination, get an uneasy feeling. The liquid bitumen lay beneath the grass and the concrete not too far beneath, and it was waiting.

Someday, that dark ooze said, someday this thin shield will be gone, and I'll be back. And things will be as they were. The mammoths and the dire wolf and the great lion and the saber-tooth and the camel and the giant sloth won't be here. But there will be other animals for me to pull down. And perhaps a man now and then, a man clad in skins, hunting the animals, unwary enough to get trapped.

Carfax did not stand before the pit very long. His eyes stung and watered, and the lining of his nose and throat felt hot. He hurried back to the hotel and entered its triple doors and the comparatively clean and cool air inside. In the evening, the cloud-seeding activities of the day might bring rain, and the air of the metropolis would be breathable for another three days. It was the seeding, which, though expensive and not always fruitful, made life in L.A. possible. It was this that gave it hope and kept the citizens going until the time would come when the electric cars would bring the air back to the 1973 level.

The world was polluted more than it had been ten years ago, but it should be much cleaner in the next ten. The prophets of doom would be wrong.

Carfax ate supper in the hotel dining room. About ten minutes after he got back to his room, his phone rang. He turned it on and saw Patricia in a booth in the Riverside airport.

"Have a good trip?" he said.

"I couldn't relax," she said, but she smiled.

"You don't look tense," he said. "You look quite relaxed. And lovely."

"Thank you. Did you find ... never mind. I'll see you in ... your place. Or do you think it'd be wise to stay in the same place?"

"I'm sure our line isn't tapped," he said. "Not yet, anyway. Sure, come on as planned. I don't really think that... "

She frowned and said, "Think what?"

"Never mind," he said. It would probably anger her if he said that he did not really believe that Western was dangerous. Not dangerous in the sense she meant, anyway, though he might be dangerous to humanity in general. Besides, he shouldn't be making any such statements when he did not have any evidence for them.

"Just come on out," he said. He waited to make sure that she had no other messages, but she said, "All right," and the screen went blank.

Patricia phoned him when she checked in. He told her the voice code to open his door. He had ordered a supper for her but it had not yet arrived. The kitchen supervisor had apologized, saying that the meal had been sent out on the robot "turtle" and had gotten as far as the elevator. Then it had broken down, and it was being repaired by the hotel tech. The other turtles were all in use, but the meal would not be more than half an hour late if the supervisor had to bring it up himself.

The announcer spoke Patricia's open-sesame, and the door opened. She looked lovely in her nina, an outfit consisting of a very short skirt and a stiff triangular fabric suspended from her neck and hanging loosely over her breasts. Both articles looked as if they were fashioned from grass, though they were plastic. They were based on the costume worn by the White Goddess of the Izaga, Nina T—, in the TV series. Trader Horn. Carfax was dressed in a "white explorer's" outfit though he did not wear the pith helmet. Patricia sat down carefully, since she wore nothing under the skirt, and she was careful not to bend over or to turn too suddenly because she would expose her breasts. Carfax thought this modesty ridiculous, since she would appear on the beach in nothing at all. But the mores of clothes wearing were not based on any sort of rationality, though each item of apparel had its own internal system of consistency.

Patricia showed no evidence of self-consciousness, though she surely must have had some thoughts about the very small amount of covering and the insecurity of fastening even that little. He certainly could not keep his mind off it, just as he could never keep from being sexually aroused by the sight of a good-looking girl in a miniskirt. Which meant that he had been in a continual state of excitement for many years.

However, she was his first cousin, and that should cool him off. Should, he thought, but of course it didn't. Especially when you considered that the tabu against incest had been decaying steadily for the past fifteen years. He would do better not to think about such things. Which was like the sea telling itself to pay no attention to the pull of the moon.