Manshape Read online

  Later, when contact with Earth was reestablished, computers had worked out that in a million years or so that species could well have evolved into intelligence. The same was true for at least five other planets where humans were now dominant. Maybe there was a burden of guilt on the collective soul of Earth which could account for this monstrous depression Alida and so many others were feeling…

  But there was never any way of undoing the past One had to make do with what there was. Perhaps eventually the pantologists would give rise to a more civilised version of humanity—except that most of them cared little about passing on their genes, lived solitary lives whether male or female…

  Was the cream of the race heading down a dead end?

  Close to the stage, staring up at Rungley, were a group of men and women in dark clothing, comfortably seated as though they had taken station well ahead of time. She thought she recognised—though the light was poor—members of the resident staff from Riger’s, come to see what their fellow-citizen was up to. Some small argument was going on.

  It ended, and a box was handed up from behind them, with gingerly care. Rungley took it in one brawny hand and with the other slapped the lid open. Reaching inside, he produced a long and squirming snake.

  With part of her mind Alida reflected how amazing was the effect such a creature could have on an audience like this, most of whom could never have seen one except in a solido recording. Gawking at animals in cages had ceased to be popular centuries ago; what zoos remained were for educational purposes and research, and access to the wild conservation zones was even more strictly regulated.

  Yet here were modern humans reacting in the way that, primitive scientific accounts reported, their extinct cousins like chimpanzees and gorillas would have done: cringing at the mere shape of it…

  A solid wave of silence seemed to pass through the assembled multitude, like a phonon zone in supercooled helium.

  Rungley bent forward, letting fall the box, and thrust his thick tongue between his teeth. The snake struck.

  By the fangs sunk in his tongue, he drew its head into his mouth. And bit.

  And spat the dead head to the floor, along with a reddish spray of saliva mixed with blood.

  There was an awed pause, punctuated by screams. Then came a thunder of applause, and yells of, “More! More!”

  Alida stood transfixed, almost deafened by the pounding in her ears. Even when a voice she recognised spoke close to her she could not tear her gaze away. She said only, “What do you want?”

  It was Koriot Angoss. And he answered, “To know what I did wrong! I spotted you on the monitor cameras, and I was sure you couldn’t be here by chance—”

  “I am!” she interrupted. “I swear it! Yes, I am!”

  “But why?” Angoss moaned. “Rungley’s a cheap mountebank! He’s planted snakes among the crowd so he can do what you just saw, and it’s a trick that Persian conjurers used to do in pre-atomic times, and on Riger’s we find it too disgusting to be entertaining. And I thought Earthsiders were past the stage where killing animals was thought amusing! Can’t you invoke a conservation law? Even if he brought his own snakes?”

  “You told Jorgen he was safe to be let loose!” Alida countered, turning at last to face Angoss.

  “But I didn’t realise he was going to pull this trick as a crowd-pleaser! Importing snakes can affect the ecology—why didn’t Bella Soong file a complaint?

  And if people on Earth no longer enjoy killing for its own sake, why are they cheering?”

  Alida made to cobble together excuses, more for her colleagues’ sake than her own, but was interrupted. The hawk-faced man in the blue robe had turned to them.

  He said, “This fellow Rungley-one of you is from his home world?”

  “I am!” Angoss admitted.

  “I present myself: Lancaster Long of the planet Azrael. I have been watching this preacher since his show commenced. We do not have snakes on Azrael, but my understanding is that they can sometimes be venomous, and I have seen him bitten three or four times without exhibiting any ill effects. Has he selected non-venomous species, and if so, what is there of interest in his performance?”

  “They aren’t non-venomous,” said Alida; her tongue felt almost too thick to articulate her words. “But he’s immune.”

  A glare of distaste crossed Long’s regal features.

  “Does he know it?”

  “Oh, sure!” said Angoss bitterly. “Do you imagine he’d take the risk if he weren’t?”

  “I see!” Long spoke in a tone like winter wind. “I had hoped that here for once was a person who took life seriously. Instead, it turns out he’s a cynical trickster, and people are glad to be deluded by him. It’s of a piece with everything I’ve seen since I was inveigled into coming here.”

  Nettled by his scornful manner, Alida said, “Explain!”

  “Why do you need an explanation? A man is not poisoned by water; would you go to see a man drink water? That is how you have persuaded me to waste my time!” Sweeping his robe around him, he strode off down the slope. Such was his air of command, people moved aside automatically.

  “Who’s that?” Angoss demanded. Alida told him that she knew of Long and his background in a few short sentences, admiring against her will the way in which people were making way for him as though by the same kind of reflex that dictated their reaction to Rungley’s snakes.

  Angoss got the point before she did, and with a wordless cry started out in Long’s wake. Even then she stood wondering and foolish for a moment before she too understood and hastened down the little hill.

  By the time they attained the stage—people not making way for them as they had for Long—it was too late to interfere. Where all the snakes had come from, Alida didn’t waste time guessing; any computer could no doubt have told her, but nobody had thought to ask the proper question, any more than they had remembered to inquire whether Rungley had the special enzyme which protected him. One could only ask the right questions when one knew most of the answer…

  At all events Long had beaten her and Angoss to the showdown.

  He had arrived at the stage just as yet another magnificent reptile was being passed up for the preacher to play with: a full-grown rattlesnake, its tail louder than its mouth.

  And snatched hold of it. His scorn was magnificent, too. He towered over Rungley, and the preacher quailed as the snake was swung dangling before his face.

  “This is not a man!” Long cried at the top of his voice. “Your Rungley is a charlatan! He knows he is immune to venom! He risks nothing when he allows a snake to strike him! His actions are a lie and a sham!”

  A swell of grumbling complaint at having their fun interrupted disturbed the crowd. He quelled it with a lordly scowl, the snake still hanging from his grasp like the whips which on his world had preceded the death of Jacob Chen.

  “I,” Long said, “do not know whether I’m immune. See this!”

  And he shook his left arm bare of his loose sleeve and offered it to the ready fangs.

  VIII

  Arriving in her office next morning after a sleepless night, Alida was for a long while unable to settle to work. Instead she paced around and around the table with the model city projected beneath its surface, powerless to take her eyes off the representation of Riger’s. Memory kept replaying for her last night’s events in the amphitheatre: the near-panic among the crowd, the arrival of the flying ambulance to carry off Long, the insistence of a handful of trouble-makers that Rungley continue with his act… which, on realising how they regarded him, he had refused to do.

  And that had come close to triggering a riot.

  Damn Angoss for regarding Rungley so lightly! He had apologised over and over, but what use were apologies now? And damn Jorgen too, for having been content to accept the advice of an outworlder instead of doing what he was supposed to: rely on his own judgment.

  Eventually she gave a sudden bitter chuckle and turned to the controls which project
ed captions and symbols upon the image of the city. A few moments’ work supplied seven words in luminous red letters.

  They read: WHY IS A MOUSE WHEN IT SPINS?

  After a while the answer didn’t seem funny any more.

  She compelled herself to sit down at her desk. Not long remained before ten hundred, when Hans Demetrios was due, but she ought at least to call the hospital where they had taken Thorkild. She gave the desk the necessary instructions.

  “What’s the chief therapist’s name?” she added.

  “Dr Lorenzo,” came the sweetly-inflected answer, and she tensed in dismay. How could she not have known? He had given expert evidence at the inquest following Saxena’s suicide; not only had they met face to face but she had taken up an hour of his time afterwards, pestering him for more and better explanations. Later, in the grip of depression, she had thought of consulting him about it, but never quite been driven to that extreme.

  Nonetheless, she should not have forgotten he was in charge of that of all the hospitals in the hemisphere…

  The desk reported that Lorenzo was out of range of a solido circuit but could talk to her on a sound-only connection; would that do? Really, this automatic courtesy sometimes went too far! She snapped a yes, and was instantly annoyed with herself; there was nothing more pointless than losing one’s temper with a machine.

  Almost at once the familiar voice rang out: deep and professionally reassuring.

  “Alida! Let me start by saying how sorry I am that we should renew contact under these unhappy circumstances! I take it you are inquiring after Jorgen?”

  “Yes, of course. Have you made a diagnosis?”

  “Only a tentative one, I’m afraid. I’ve scarcely had a chance to talk to him since he emerged from sedation, but the pattern, at least, is indicative.”

  “What does it point to?”

  “A not uncommon phenomenon. Though that doesn’t mean it’s going to be any easier to treat. Are you familiar with the term acedia?”

  Alida hesitated. At length she said, “I’m afraid I’m not well grounded in psychiatric terminology.”

  “Oh, it far pre-dates the emergence of psychological medicine as an independent discipline.” The tone of Lorenzo’s words was such that Alida could picture the faintly patronising smile which must be on their speaker’s face, and once again she trembled on the brink of rage. “Originally it was a theological concept: sloth, one of the seven deadly sins. Sin… ?”

  “Yes, I know what that means.”

  “You’d be surprised how many people nowadays do not! And a good thing too, in my view. My patients seem to pick up quite enough burden of guilt in the natural course of their lives without being told that it’s all inevitable because a jealous deity wished it on their ancestors. Still, as a referent I find this particular notion useful. Back in late medieval times it became more sophisticated, and was ultimately transformed into what was often called ‘the black night of the soul’—a condition in which one questioned whether existence had any point at all. Naturally this was heretical because the faithful were required to accept a priori that the creation had a purpose even if the creatures could not comprehend it. I speak of a Christian tradition, you realise, which proved excessively infectious. Other religions managed to escape this particular trap.”

  Alida said slowly, “Jorgen’s ancestors were Christians, weren’t they?”

  “Yes indeed. And, if you’ll pardon my remarking on the fact, so were those of virtually everyone in a position of high authority at present. So were Saxena’s, and your own.”

  He waited a moment, as though to let her react if she wanted to. But she said nothing.

  “Not,” he resumed, “that such an influence is essential to the onset of the condition. Within the past couple of decades cases of it have been reported on every continent. The relative fatalism of most other traditions acts as a protective barrier, but that’s by no means a universal guarantee of immunity. An excess of gratification—a lack of challenge—any of several quite minor physiological imbalances affecting the central nervous system—oh, at least a score of stimuli can bring it about in a vulnerable personality. Like fever, it’s one of a rather limited number of available responses which may be provoked by a wide range of inputs.”

  With a trace of impatience Alida said, “Thank you for the lecture! But have you forgotten what my discipline is?”

  “Forgive me! The fault must be mine, for using this particular label with its specialised associations, instead of saying casually—as so many of my colleagues would—that he has sprained his mind. Possibly the physiological analogy is more apt. Even a trained athlete, with muscles in tip-top condition, is vulnerable to a sudden unexpected wrench, as when turning an ankle on a pebble that rolls from under foot. So with the trained mind.”

  “Something that Lancaster Long said?” Alida offered.

  “How did you know that? Have you talked to him since the event? When?”

  “No, of course not! But Moses van Heemskirk was there when it all started, and he told me.”

  And, her mind ran on, last night at Riger’s I would have challenged Long concerning what he’d said—except that he preferred to be bitten by a rattlesnake…

  “I see.” She could practically hear Lorenzo biting his lip as he made inaudible notes. “Well, as I said, it’s far too early for a diagnosis, really, let alone a prognosis. But I assure you we shall all do our best. And I promise to keep you in touch.”

  “I hope you can get him back to us soon. You know that for the first time ever we have two aspirant worlds to negotiate with simultaneously. And attempting to function without a Director of the System—”

  “We’ll do our best,” Lorenzo repeated, and cut the circuit.

  Alida sighed. Strictly, it had been unfair of her to press him so early in the case. But if she didn’t know what was happening to Jorgen—

  Abruptly she realised that in fact she didn’t know much of what was going on anywhere; so far today she had neglected to check the news. She ordered her desk to present items of immediate interest in headline form with backup summaries, and with a trace of relief found almost all of what she read on the screen matching her expectations. The inquiry into Chen’s death was under way. The delegate from Azrael was in hospital and Rungley had explained his collapse as due to lack of faith in… well, whatever the preacher had faith in: S-herpetinase, presumably. Koriot Angoss had made a preliminary statement. Negotiations for an Ipewell Bridge were to proceed as scheduled. Those for an Azrael Bridge were being temporarily postponed pending the verdict on Chen—

  “But Shrigg doesn’t have any right to do that!” Alida exclaimed aloud, reaching for an outside callswitch. In mid-movement she froze. She had had the sudden crazy impression she was looking at a dead man.

  Then the illusion passed. The desk was relaying the image of Hans Demetrios to inform her that he had arrived in the outer office, and the only resemblance was in his look—an inquiring, hungry look which Chen had also worn.

  She had never seen it on anyone’s face except a pantologist’s.

  “Send him in,” she said wearily, and walked around the desk to greet him.

  Shaking hands with her, he nodded at the sign she had inscribed in the depths of the table.

  “I see your point,” he said.

  Gesturing him to a chair, she countered, “What do you mean?”

  “The answer to your question, of course. Isn’t it ’the higher, the fewer’?”

  A smile came unbidden to her face. “That’s right! I hadn’t expected you to know. I hadn’t expected many people at all to know. It must be a very old bit of nonsense.”

  “Twentieth century. And frankly I’m surprised you knew of it. But it is true, isn’t it?”

  She said in a dull voice, “So true that sometimes I find it terrifying.”

  He signified agreement with a nod. After that for a while they sat and looked at one another. Gradually Alida felt her sense of despondency leavin
g her. To know the answer to that ancient question, and to understand why she had been driven to make it her motto, was more than she would have expected from Thorkild, Saxena, anyone else she had ever met. Previously, when she had spoken with Hans, she had taken him for just another pantologist—in other words, someone who was fated to follow a particular route through life, blazed for him by his predecessors and constrained by the demands of the tasks that only a pantologist could undertake. Maybe the age which she concealed so well was getting the better of her. Meeting him again, like this, conveyed to her a powerful sense of his individuality, as though something were winding up behind his eyes to strike at her like a snake—Stop! She must rid herself of the images bequeathed to her by Rungley!

  Rungley?

  No: by Lancaster Long.

  Hastily she said, “You’re bound to go far higher than I ever shall. I wonder whether I should envy you.”

  “What’s to envy? We’re the unfreest of the unfree.” He gave a shrug: since it couldn’t be helped… “But you didn’t invite me here to talk about myself. Is it about Azrael?”

  With an effort she herded her thoughts back into their normal course.

  “Yes, and there’s an additional complication. You saw the news about Minister Shrigg ordering postponement of the Bridge negotiations?”