The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s. Brian Aldiss

in the world were absolutely nothing against the privilege of not having to bear pain?

      But Parrodyce turned his broad back and went over to a steel cabinet.

      ‘This is my kingdom down here,’ he said abstractedly, rummaging in a drawer. ‘I can do what I like; I am encouraged to do what I like. They are pleased when I do what I like – provided I get information for them. And I generally do get it: by advanced, clinical methods. I sometimes think I was born with a silver hypodermic in my hand.’

      He laughed, and turned. There was a silver hypodermic in his hand.

      Wyvern started to run round the other side of the table. A section of the floor instantly sank eighteen inches; unavoidably, he tripped into the pit so formed, and fell. He barked his shins painfully and – his hands being secured behind his back – caught his head hard on the floor. Parrodyce was upon him before his vision cleared; the needle was sliding into the sinews of his arm.

      ‘There!’ Parrodyce exclaimed. ‘Now get up.’

      Carefully Wyvern stood up. His heart beat furiously as he searched himself for the first indication of harm the drug might produce. He was all right now, and now, but in a minute, in twenty seconds –?

      ‘What have you pumped into me?’ he gasped.

      ‘Oh – I think I will not tell you; it is better your mind should not be at rest. Get on this chair here.’

      He sat in the dentist’s chair, and was secured by steel bands which clamped round his throat and ankles. Parrodyce went back to his cabinets, glancing at his wrist watch as he did so.

      ‘Just wait for that injection to take effect,’ he said ‘and then we’ll start the questioning and see how much of a potential mind-reader you are.’

      Wyvern watched the plump man’s nonchalance, thinking, ‘He’s acting a part to me; here I am helpless, yet he finds it necessary to put up some sort of a front. Is it just to scare me?’

      With the same careful nonchalance, Parrodyce flipped on a slow-moving tape of dance music, an import from Turkey. He sat with his chin in his hands, listening to someone else’s nostalgia.

      ‘What if it’s spring, if you’re not embraceable?

      I feel no joy, joy is untraceable;

      Don’t even hear the birds, hear only your parting words:

      “Life goes on; no one’s Irreplaceable”.’

      Like the drowsy beat of the music, giddiness swept over Wyvern in spasms. He was away from reality now, a mere ball of sensation expanding and contracting rhythmically from infinite size to a pinpoint, each heartbeat a rush to become either an atom or a universe: yet all the while the silent concrete room bellowed in his ears.

      And now the Inquisitor was leaning over him. Wyvern saw him as a fish might see a corpse dangled bulge-eyed over its rippling pool. The corpse’s mouth was opening and shutting; it seemed to be saying ‘Irreplaceable’, but every syllable was followed by the gurgle in Wyvern’s tympanum: ‘Irgugregugplagugcegugagugbull, irgugreguggugplagugcegugagugbull.’

      The human mind, like the body, has its strange, secret reserves. Among the madness and noise there was a split second when Wyvern was entirely in possession of himself. In that moment, he acted upon his earlier decision trap of his mind, pouring out loathing to the utmost of his strength – and was met with a counter-surge of telepathic force!

      On the instant of ego-union between them, Wyvern learnt much; he knew, for instance, as unmistakably as one recognises a brother, that Parrodyce was the drunken telepath he had bumped into years ago in London; and then he dropped deep into unconsciousness.

      III

      Eugene Parrodyce talked rapidly.

      Sweat stood out on his forehead, like grease on a bit of dirty vellum. As he spoke, he held a bitter-tasting beaker of liquid to Wyvern’s lips, letting it slop down his chin while he concentrated on what he was saying. With the sense of urgency harrying him, he had not unlocked the bands round Wyvern’s throat and ankles; but instead of standing over him, he now knelt before him.

      ‘Open up again, Wyvern,’ he whispered. ‘For heaven’s sake open your mind up again, and let me in. Why’re you closed down on me? You know it’s dangerous to be talking to you like this – for all I know, they’ve got secret microphones about the place, although they may be too disorganised to have thought of it yet. But H might come in. He came down here once before. If you’d only open up again for a second, we’d get everything cleared up between us – more than we’ll ever be able to do by talking.’

      ‘Shut up!’ Wyvern said.

      The bitter liquid cleared the fire in his body.

      ‘Release my hands and neck, and let me sit up,’ he said.

      ‘You – you won’t try anything stupid, will you?’

      ‘Keep my ankles locked if you’re afraid I’m going to murder you.’

      Abjectly, muttering apologies, Parrodyce released the chafed wrists and neck from their bands; he left ankles locked, as Wyvern had suggested. And talk burst from him again.

      ‘We must communicate, Wyvern! Be sensible! We’re the only ones who have this gift – this great gift. You must let me in: I’ve so much so say and explain …’

      ‘Shut up!’ Wyvern said. ‘I won’t open my mind to you again. I’d be sick if I did. You’re a walking cess-pit.’

      ‘Oh, it’s easy to insult me now, now you know my secret –’

      ‘Parrodyce – you had me here unconscious. Why didn’t you kill me then?’

      The plump man didn’t answer. He shook his head helplessly, his eyes fixed on Wyvern’s, tears blurring his gaze. He was trying to break through Wyvern’s shield. Wyvern could feel him like a blind man padding behind locked mental doors.

      ‘Stop it!’ he said. ‘You aren’t coming in. I won’t have you. You’re too foul, Parrodyce!’

      ‘Yes, yes, I am foul,’ the other agreed eagerly. ‘But can’t you see we are brothers really in this. You’ve got to help me get out of here. You’ve –’

      ‘Oh no,’ Wyvern said. ‘You’ve got to help me get out of here. And first of all there are several things I want to know.’

      ‘Let’s connect – then you can know everything!’

      ‘Question and answer will do me, you dog! How did you get this job?’

      Parrodyce knelt back wretchedly. He wrung his hands as if he were washing them; Wyvern had read of this gesture but had never before seen it actually performed. On top of everything else he had suffered, this man’s sudden transformation had considerably shaken him. From a torturer, Parrodyce had turned into a sobbing wreck: Wyvern had regained consciousness to find the creature slobbering round his neck.

      ‘A telepath is an ideal inquisitor,’ Parrodyce was saying now. ‘Don’t you see, when I had someone shut up safe in here – so that nobody outside could feel what I was doing – I could explore his mind when he was drugged and read every secret he had. When they came round, even if they were allowed to get away alive, they didn’t know what had happened to them. And – and I always delivered the goods to H. I couldn’t fail. And I didn’t dare fail –’

      ‘But why did you do it?’

      ‘I – I – Let me into your mind! I’ll explain then.’

      ‘You filthy vampire! No, I won’t let you in,’ Wyvern said. And Wyvern had no need for explanation. Their second of ego-union had given him the real truth: Parrodyce was a pathological coward; full of fear himself, he could only exist on the fear