Manalone (13 page)

Where the data-base figures were available, Manalone began patiently to re-check the calculations. The data-bases used by the earlier prognosticators of doom were not on the Archive computer file, and thus could not be verified, but all the current work stood up to the most careful scrutiny.

‘Today’s first paradox was a change in physical parameters which can’t be identified by calculation, yet which must have taken place. Today’s second paradox is an ecological crisis which was inevitable but can be calculated not to have happened. The fact that the MIPS are discouraging investigation into both, suggests the factors are causally related. But how do you relate gravity to pollution, or momentum to protein … or population to teapot handles?’

He looked
up as Maurine van Holt came into his office. She did not speak, but seated herself in a corner chair and watched him steadily. Her naturally sardonic smile had an underlying seriousness which suggested she knew what he was going through.

‘Why don’t you give up, Manalone?’ she asked at last.

‘I can’t. I’m a problem-solving animal, Mau. Everything about life has to be congruent, else I get to fret about the pieces that don’t fit. Right now I have pieces which aren’t even part of a puzzle. What am I supposed to do with them – pretend they don’t exist?’

‘Can’t you at least try it?’

‘You know I can’t.’

‘Then I’m sorry for you. They’re going to give you the full treatment, and I can’t stop them.’

‘And it worries you?’

‘Surely. You’re no revolutionary, and you’re no trouble maker. You’re an intellectual trapped by his own cleverness. That makes you more dangerous than the others. But you’re too damn nice to get hurt that much.’

‘What will they do to me, Mau?’

‘Break you. Destroy your job, your home, your health, your self-respect. Gradually bring you down to a level where you can’t function and you aren’t important. At some point before you hit bottom, you’re going to decide it’s easier to stop. How far down you go before you reach that point is largely up to you.’

‘I didn’t see Paul Raper had much choice in the matter.’

‘Raper wasn’t important. He was a collector of facts, not a constructive thinker. You’ve too valuable a mind for the quick shot in the dark. The way they’ll do it with you will be a lot slower and a lot more painful.’

‘I don’t see why the hell they bother if the end result’s the same. Tell me something, Mau – do
you
know what this thing is I’m looking for?’

‘Frankly, I don’t, Manalone. I don’t even want to know. And I doubt if there’s many MIPS who do know the answer. That sort of thing is left to the Masterthinkers. We merely obey their instructions – because the world will go out with a whimper if we don’t.’

The Masterthinkers! Paul Raper had hinted at the existence of a supranational organization to which even governments were subordinate. Amongst all the other things he had been considering, Manalone had almost forgotten about the Masterthinkers. Now Maurine van Holt had reintroduced the fact of their existence and virtually confirmed that their powers were absolute.

‘But absolute power over what, Manalone? Gravity? Momentum? Pollution? … or just people?’

He had not been able to persuade Maurine to say anything more about them. He rather suspected there was nothing more she knew. The point that stood paramount in his mind was that the Masterthinkers, whoever they might be, certainly knew the nature of the problem he had been trying to define. Suddenly his task had become simpler. Instead of fighting with a thousand random facts, all he had to do was find the Masterthinkers.

This was a decision more easily made than implemented. They were not going to be easy to find. He had no information as to who or where they were, except that Paul had mentioned that they were probably located in England. Asking questions about them would be a sure way of fetching the MIPS down upon him in a most direct way. Given access to Paul’s news-contacts, and sifting rumour from fact, he could probably have come up with a valid estimate of their location – but Paul was dead and that source of information had died with him.

The only other person he could think of who knew of the conspiracy yet who could have no allegiance to the MIPS was Pierce Oman – the unlikely labourer. Manalone could see now that Professor Oman had been through the degradation treatment for which he himself had recently qualified. Reduced to his lowly state, Pierce Oman was still functioning, still digging in an ineffectual way into the few remaining fragments of the actual past. Somewhere on his wretched downward path Oman could have picked up a lot of the information which Manalone needed. Oman would be reticent, but at least it was worth an attempt.

With this
in mind, Manalone that evening turned towards the Elbridge construction site. By now the whole area had been minced and levelled and compacted into a vast, flat plain, and the work of covering the entire territory as far as Chichester with concrete was already far advanced. There were a few gangs of workmen about, and Manalone inspected each of these from a distance before deciding that none of them contained the man for whom he was looking.

The bushes edging the road, on which Oman had been working, had now been cleared away. The only remaining features of the artificial plain were the site compounds housing the barracks, machinery, and stores. Manalone turned towards the barracks. The Civil Auxiliary Labour Force may have been a para-military organization, but he could see no reason why labourers should not receive visitors. A trim guard with a short carbine stopped him at the barrack gates.

‘You have a pass?’

‘I didn’t think a pass was necessary. I merely want to speak with a friend who works here – Pierce Oman.’

‘Not without permission, you don’t. Jet-off, Mister!’

‘If I’m not allowed in, then maybe he can come out and see me.’

The guard’s face assumed a look of incredulity. He moved the carbine menacingly.

‘Any more funny ideas?’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Manalone. ‘The Auxiliary Labour Force aren’t prisoners are they?’

‘Of course they’re not prisoners. They’re here of their own free will. They like it so much that nobody ever wants to leave. They don’t even want to be reminded of what goes on outside.’

Glancing at the shabby array of temporary huts which formed the barrack buildings, Manalone comprehended the irony behind the words. This was not civil engineering accommodation, this was a penal labour camp. Very possibly it was the end of the line for those given the MIPS degradation treatment.

Manalone
said: ‘Sorry!’ and turned to go, suddenly frozen and sick with the shock of the realization. As he did so, a vehicle pulled up behind him. A CALF officer got out and addressed the guard.

‘What does this fellow want?’

‘He’s after visiting a friend who works here.’

‘Is he indeed!’ The officer was amused. ‘Does this friend have a name?’

‘Oman, sir.’

‘Really! The history pedlar.’ The officer turned and surveyed Manalone, a hint of recognition coming into his eyes. ‘Then I think we should accommodate him.’

‘Sir?’

‘Open the gate. I myself will conduct Manalone to see his friend. It’s the least we can do in view of the accident. Indeed, the meeting couldn’t have been better timed.’

‘Accident?’ asked Manalone. His voice sounded high and squeaky, and his brain was racing frenziedly. The officer had called him by his name, yet he had announced his identity to neither of them. He thought of declining the offer and even of taking to his heels and running away, but from the slight noise behind him he knew that the officer had unclipped the covers on his weapon holsters. Compliance with the implied command seemed by far the wisest choice at this juncture.

‘Yes, Pierce Oman had an accident,’ said the officer conversationally as they proceeded through the gates. ‘He was crushed by a machine.’

‘What sort of machine?’ asked Manalone sickly.

‘A political counter-espionage machine.’

Thereafter they walked in silence.

Though they had skirted round the major part of the establishment, Manalone had found ample confirmation of his previous fears. He had seen that many of the windows were barred, and most of the doors had heavy external locks. On patrol between the buildings were a surprising number of guards, all with short carbines readied for immediate use. Manalone seriously doubted whether intending escapees ever managed to reach the outside alive. The whole place was an atrocious prison such as he could scarcely have believed existed. To find it virtually sited on his doorstep in what he had naïvely imagined was a democracy, was something which left him weak with a helpless anger.

Their destination
was a point near to a hut which stood separately from the others. To the rear, built of ugly block-square concrete, was a line of six windowless cells. The officer called an aide out of the adjacent building, and, after a brief conference, the aide opened a cell door and invited Manalone to enter.

Unwillingly, Manalone stood on the threshold, his shoulder braced against the heavy door lest they should try to close it on him. He had already decided he would prefer to be shot down rather than incarcerated in this atrocious place. The officer observed his fears with some amusement, and took the key out of the door and handed it to Manalone.

‘Your friend’s inside, Manalone,’ he said. ‘I think he’ll be pleased to see you before he dies. Indeed he spoke of you just after the accident.’

Fearfully, Manalone stepped into the cell. For many seconds he could see nothing while his eyes sought to adjust to the inadequate light coming in through the door. Finally he could make out the dim form of Professor Oman lying on a bed. As Manalone’s vision cleared he began to perceive the man’s injuries in detail and to wish that he was again unable to see. Nausea and blackness clouded the fringes of his brain. Shock drained the strength from his limbs.

He extended a shaking hand to touch the body, believing the professor to be already dead. As his fingers made contact, the old eyes opened and stared at him curiously through a mask of incredible pain. Then came slow recognition.

‘Manalone … I …’ The voice was a mere breath, the rattle of dry leaves in the wind.

‘Professor Oman – what have they done to you? Why?’

‘Manalone … sorry … I had to tell them about you … had to …’

The effort of speaking completely drained the poor, damaged frame. Oman sank back, his eyes closing involuntarily, the breath rattling unhealthily in his throat. Very shortly he died. The wonder was that he had so long survived the abominable wounds that had been deliberately inflicted upon him.

Physically sick, Manalone turned to the door. Exactly what Oman had told his tormentors about him was not important. What was important was to cry ‘Atrocity!’ from the rooftops and to try to get the memory of those hideous wounds out of his own mind. Emerging from the door he found himself facing the officer’s drawn revolver.

‘That was
inhuman!’ said Manalone. His voice was thick with rage and shock. The back of his neck quivered with a dozen simultaneous emotions. ‘At least give him a decent Christian burial.’

By way of reply the officer regained the key, locked the door– and threw the key away. The sight of the small piece of steel describing a casual arc to fall amongst the ragged grass and windblown litter, was a factor which struck a profound and heavy hopelessness into Manalone’s heart.

His world of yesterday had been too full of people for the woes of individuals to count for much. Calculated inhumanity, however, was something about which he had heard but never actually witnessed. Its translation from an abstraction to a concrete reality damaged his own inner view of the world as savagely as the tortures had damaged Oman’s body. At that moment a great number of things in Manalone died.

‘Intellectual
you may be,’ said the officer, ‘but there’s still a hell of a lot you don’t know.’

‘I’m learning rapidly,’ said Manalone, surprised by the quiet rage which possessed him. ‘What justification could there be for treating an old man like that?’

‘We don’t need justification, we need instant answers. Anyone who stands in the way gets crushed. It has to be that way because we’re running short of tomorrows.’

‘So you broke an old man to make him tell what he’d given me. Was the answer really worth your time or his life?’ Manalone was bitterly critical.

‘That depends on what
you
do with the information he gave you.’

‘I don’t even understand the information.’

‘Then go back and look at it again. And this time remember what it cost Oman.’

‘You mean you’re going to let me go from here – knowing what I know?’

‘I don’t care what you know. You can’t use the fact against us. Anyway I can’t detain you. If I did, the MIPS would chop me into pieces and then chop the pieces into pieces. You’re on their select list of untouchables.’

‘Untouchables?’

‘Surely. But don’t think you’ve escaped me. Most of the other inmates here were untouchables once. They ended here, and one day you will too. I’ll look forward to that, Manalone.’

Shaking like a leaf, Manalone was escorted to the gates. His relief at being allowed to leave was spoilt only by a profound feeling of helplessness. There seemed to be no way in which he could raise effective protest against Oman’s treatment. The CALF authorities, the police – even the politicians – all appeared to be in league with the MIPS in the maintenance of the monstrous conspiracy of which this camp was an integral part. The public information services, also, were controlled and censored, leaving no forum from which a man might broadcast his outrage and despair.

In a totalitarian
state, such things were understandable. Where great, contentious, political dogmas were being forced over the heads of actively dissenting minorities, political militia seemed historically to be the most effective way of silencing the opposition. But here and now, with only marginal doctrinal differences between the rival political parties, and where political dissenters were mainly cranks or bores, the whole affair had a touch of nightmare unreality.