That Hideous Strength (21 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

     WET AND WINDY NIGHT

     "WELL," said Dimble, " there's no one here."

     "He was here a moment ago," said Denniston.

     "You're sure you did see someone?" said Dimble.

     "Hush! Listen!" said Jane.

     "That's only the old donkey," said Dimble presently, " moving about at the top."

     There was another silence.

     "He seems to have been pretty extravagant with his matches," said Denniston, glancing at the trodden earth in the firelight. "One would expect a tramp---"

     "On the other hand," said Dimble, " one would not expect Merlin to have brought a box of matches with him from the Fifth Century."

     "I'm looking at this mud," said Denniston, who had been stooping and using his torch. Now he suddenly straightened himself. "Look," he said, " there have been several people here. Look. Can't you see, sir?"

     "Aren't they our own footprints?" said Dimble.

     "Some of them are pointing the wrong way. Look at that- and that."

     "Might they be the tramp himself?" said Dimble. "If it was a tramp."

     "He couldn't have walked up that path without our seeing him," said Jane.

     Come," said Dimble. "Let's follow them up to the top.

     As they reached the lip of the hollow, mud changed into grass under foot and the footprints disappeared. It had turned into a fine night: Orion dominated the whole sky.

     The Deputy Director hardly ever slept. When it became necessary for him to do so, he took a drug, but the necessity was rare, for the mode of consciousness he experienced at most hours of day or night had long ceased to be exactly like what other men call waking. The manner and outward attitude which he had adopted half a century ago were now an organisation which functioned almost independently, like a gramophone. While the brain and lips carried on his work, and built up day by day for those around him the vague and formidable personality which they knew so well, his inmost self was free to pursue its own life. A detachment of the spirit not only from the senses but even from the reason was now his.

     Hence he was still, in a sense, awake an hour after Frost had left him. His eyes were not shut. The face had no expression; the real man was far away, suffering, enjoying, or inflicting whatever such souls do suffer, enjoy, or inflict when the cord that binds them to the natural order is stretched out to its utmost. When the telephone rang at his elbow he took up the receiver without a start.

     "This is Stone, sir," came a voice. "We have found the chamber."

     "Yes."

     "It was empty, sir."

     "Are you sure, my dear Mr. Stone, that you have found the right place ? It is possible . . ."

     "Oh yes, sir. Stonework and some Roman brick. And a kind of slab in the middle, like an altar or a bed."

     "And am I to understand there was no one there? No sign of occupation?"

     "Well, sir, it seemed to us to have been recently disturbed."

     "Pray be as explicit as possible, Mr. Stone."

     "Well, sir, there was an exit-I mean a tunnel, leading out of it to the south. We went up this tunnel at once. It comes out about eight hundred yards away, outside the area of the wood. We got out to the open air. But something had been smashed-up there quite recently. It looked as if it had been done by explosives. As if the end of the tunnel had been walled up and had some depth of earth on top of it, and as if someone had recently blasted his way out."

     "Continue, Mr. Stone. What did you do next?"

      "I used the order you had given me, sir, to collect all the police available and have sent off search-parties for the man you described."

     "I see. And how did you describe him to them?"

     "Just as you did, sir: an old man with a long beard, probably in unusual clothes. It occurred to me at the last moment to add that he might have no clothes at all."

     "Why did you add that, Mr. Stone?"

     "Well, sir, I didn't know how long he'd been there, and I'd heard about clothes preserved in a place like that and falling to pieces as soon as the air was admitted. I hope you won't imagine for a moment that I'm trying to find out anything you don't choose to tell me. But I---"

     "You were right, Mr. Stone," said Wither, " in thinking that anything remotely resembling inquisitiveness on your part might have the most disastrous consequences. And what did you instruct your search-parties to do on finding any such-er-person?"

     "Well, sir, I sent my assistant. Father Doyle, with one party, because he knows Latin. And I gave Inspector Wrench the ring you gave me and put him in charge of the second. The best I could do for the third party was to see that it contained someone who knew Welsh."

     "Well, Mr. Stone, I am, on the whole, and with certain inevitable reservations, moderately satisfied with your conduct of this affair. I believe that I may be able to present it in a favourable light to my colleagues. If only I could persuade-say Miss Hardcastle and Mr. Studdock-to share my appreciation of your very real qualities, you would need to have no apprehensions about your career or-ah-your security."

     "But what do you want me to do, sir?"

     "My dear young friend, there are only two errors which would be fatal to one placed in the peculiar situation which certain parts of your previous conduct have unfortunately created for you. On the one hand, anything like a lack of initiative or enterprise would be disastrous. On the other, the slightest approach to unauthorised action might have consequences from which even I could not protect you. But as long as you keep quite clear of these two extremes, there is no reason (speaking unofficially) why you should not be safe." Without waiting for a reply, he hung up the receiver.

     "Oughtn't we to be nearly at the gate we climbed over?" said Dimble.

     It was lighter now that the rain had stopped, but the wind had risen and was roaring about them. The branches of the hedge swayed and dipped and rose again as if they were lashing the bright stars.

     "It's a good deal longer than I remembered," said Denniston.

     "Hullo!" said Jane sharply. "What's this?"

     All listened. Because of the wind, the unidentified noise which they were straining to hear seemed quite distant at one moment, and then, next moment, with shouts of "Look out!"-"Go away you great brute!" and the like, all were shrinking back into the hedge as the plosh-plosh of a horse cantering on soft ground passed close beside them. A cold gobbet of mud struck Denniston in the face.

     "Oh, look! Look!"cried Jane. "Stop him. Quick!"

     "Stop him?" said Denniston, who was trying to clean his face. "What on earth for?"

     "Oh, shout out to him, Dr. Dimble," said Jane, in an agony of impatience. "Come on. Run! Didn't you see?"

     "See what?"

     "There's a man on his back," gasped Jane. She was tired and out of breath and had lost a shoe.

     "A man?" said Denniston: and then, "By God, sir, Jane's right. Look, look there! Against the sky ... to your left."

     "We can't overtake him," said Dimble.

     "Hi! Stop! Come back! Friends-amis-amid," bawled Denniston.

     Dimble was not able to shout for the moment. And while he stood trying to get his breath all the others suddenly cried "Look " : for high among the stars, looking unnaturally large and many legged, the shape of the horse appeared as it leaped a hedge some twenty yards away, and on its back, with some streaming garment blown far out behind him in the wind, the great figure of a man. It seemed to Jane that he was looking back over his shoulder as though he mocked. Then came a splash and thud as the horse alighted on the far side; and then nothing but wind and starlight again.

     "You are in danger," said Frost, when he had finished locking the door of Mark's cell, " but you are also within reach of a great opportunity."

     "I gather," said Mark, "I am at the Institute and not in a police station."

     "Yes. That makes no difference to the danger. The Institute will soon have official powers of liquidation. It has anticipated them. Hingest and Carstairs have both been liquidated."

     "If you are going to kill me," said Mark, " why all this farce of a murder charge?"

     "Before going on," said Frost, "I must ask you to be objective. Resentment and fear are both chemical phenomena. Our reactions to one another are chemical phenomena. You must observe these feelings in yourself in an objective manner. Do not let them distract your attention from the facts."

     "I see," said Mark. He was acting while he said it- trying to sound at once faintly hopeful and slightly sullen, ready to be worked upon. But within, his new insight into Belbury kept him resolved not to believe one word the other said, not to accept (though he might feign acceptance) any offer he made.

     "The murder charge against you and the alternations in your treatment have been part of a programme with a well defined end in view," said Frost. "It is a discipline through which everyone is passed before admission to the Circle."

     Only a few days ago Mark would have swallowed any hook with that bait on it; and even now . . .

     "I don't quite see the purpose of it," he said aloud. "It is to promote objectivity. A circle bound together by subjective feelings of mutual confidence and liking would be useless. Those are chemical phenomena.

     They could all, in principle, be produced by injections. In so far as there must be social feelings between members of the circle it is, perhaps, better that they should be feelings of dislike. There is less risk of their being confused with the real nexus."

     "The circle?" said Studdock, acting a tremulous eagerness. But it was perilously easy for him to act it.

     "Yes," said Frost. "You have been selected as a possible candidate for admission. If you do not gain admission, or if you reject it, it will be necessary to destroy you."

     " it-it seems rather a formidable decision," said Mark.

     "That is merely a proposition about the state of your own body at the moment. If you please, I will go on to give you the necessary information. I must begin by telling you that neither the Deputy Director nor I are responsible for shaping the policy of the Institute."

     "The Head?" said Mark.

     "No. Filostrato and Wilkins are quite deceived about the Head. They have, indeed, carried out a remarkable experiment. But Alcasan's mind is not the mind we are in contact with when the Head speaks."

     "Do you mean Alcasan is really . . . dead?"

     "In the present state of our knowledge," said Frost, " that question has no meaning. But the cortex and vocal organs in Alcasan's head are used by a different mind. And now, attend carefully. You have probably not heard of macrobes."

     "Microbes?" said Mark in bewilderment. "But of course--"

     "I did not say microbes, I said macrobes. The formation of the word explains itself. Below the level of animal life we have long known that there are microscopic organisms. Their actual results on human life have, of course, made up a large part of history."

     "Go on," said Mark. Ravenous curiosity was moving beneath his conscious determination to stand on guard.

     "I have now to inform you that there are similar organisms above the level of animal life. When I say ' above' I am not speaking biologically. I mean that they are more permanent, dispose of more energy, and have greater intelligence."

     "They must be pretty nearly human, then."

     "You have misunderstood me. When I said they transcended the animals, I was including the most efficient animal, Man. The macrobe is more intelligent than Man."

     "But how is it in that case that we have had no communication with them?"

     "It is not certain that we have not. But in primitive times it was opposed by prejudice. But though there has been little intercourse, there has been profound influence. Their effect on human history has been greater than that of the microbes, though equally unrecognised. The real causes of all the principal events are quite unknown to the historians."

     "I think I'll sit down, if you don't mind," said Mark, resuming his seat on the floor.

     "The vocal organs and brain taken from Alcasan," Frost continued, " have become the conductors of a regular intercourse between the macrobes and our own species. The circle to which you may be admitted is the organ of that co-operation between the two species which has created a new situation for humanity. The change is far greater than that which turned the sub-man into the man."

     "These organisms, then," said Mark, “are friendly to humanity?"

     "Friendship is a chemical phenomenon; so is hatred. Both of them presupposes organisms of our own type."

     "I didn't mean ' friendly ' in that sense. I meant, were their aims compatible with our own?"

     "What do you mean by our own aims?"

     "Well-I suppose-the scientific reconstruction of the human race-the elimination of war and poverty-a fuller exploitation of nature-the preservation and extension of our species, in fact."

     "I do not think this pseudo-scientific language really modifies the essentially subjective and instinctive basis of the ethics you are describing."

     "Surely," said Mark, " one requires a large population for the full exploitation of nature, if for nothing else ? And surely war is disgenic and reduces efficiency?"

     "That idea is a survival from conditions which are rapidly being altered. A few centuries ago, a large agricultural population was essential; and war destroyed types which were then useful. But every advance in industry and agriculture reduces the number of work-people required. A large, unintelligent population is now a dead-weight. The importance of scientific war is that scientists have to be reserved. It was not the great technocrats of Koenigsberg or Moscow who supplied the casualties in the siege of Stalingrad. The effect of modern war is to eliminate retrogressive types, while sparing the technocracy and increasing its hold upon public affairs. In the new age, what has hitherto been merely the intellectual nucleus of the race is to become, by gradual stages, the race itself. You are to conceive the species as an animal which has discovered how to simplify nutrition and locomotion to such a point that the old complex organs and the large body which contained them are no longer necessary. The masses are therefore to disappear. The body is to become all head. The human race is to become all Technocracy."