The Complete Dangerous Visions Page 23

  Meanwhile, the Absolute Benefactor droned on.

  Snuff. The package contained snuff. Countless tiny black grains, like gunpowder, which sent up an interesting aromatic to tickle his nose. The title of the particular blend was Princes Special, he discovered. And very pleasing, he decided. At one time he had taken snuff—smoked tobacco for a time having been illegal for reasons of health—back during his student days at Peking U; it had been the fad, especially the amatory mixes prepared in Chungking, made from god knew what. Was this that? Almost any aromatic could be added to snuff, from essence of orange to pulverized babycrap . . . or so some seemed, especially an English mixture called High Dry Toast which had in itself more or less put an end to his yearning for nasal, inhaled tobacco.

  On the TV screen the Absolute Benefactor rumbled monotonously on as Chien sniffed cautiously at the powder, read the claims—it cured everything from being late to work to falling in love with a woman of dubious political background. Interesting. But typical of claims—

  His doorbell rang.

  Rising, he walked to the door, opened it with full knowledge of what he would find. There, sure enough, stood Mou Kuei, the Building Warden, small and hard-eyed and alert to his task; he had his armband and metal helmet on, showing that he meant business. “Mr. Chien, comrade Party worker. I received a call from the television authority. You are failing to watch your screen and are instead fiddling with a packet of doubtful content.” He produced a clipboard and ballpoint pen. “Two red marks, and hithertonow you are summarily ordered to repose yourself in a comfortable, stress-free posture before your screen and give the Leader your unexcelled attention. His words, this evening, are directed particularly to you, sir; to you.”

  “I doubt that,” Chien heard himself say.

  Blinking, Kuei said, “What do you mean?”

  “The Leader rules eight billion comrades. He isn’t going to single me out.” He felt wrathful; the punctuality of the warden’s reprimand irked him.

  Kuei said, “But I distinctly heard with my own ears. You were mentioned.”

  Going over to the TV set, Chien turned the volume up. “But now he’s talking about crop failures in People’s India; that’s of no relevance to me.”

  “Whatever the Leader expostulates is relevant.” Mou Kuei scratched a mark on his clipboard sheet, bowed formally, turned away. “My call to come up here to confront you with your slackness originated at Central. Obviously they regard your attention as important; I must order you to set in motion your automatic transmission recording circuit and replay the earlier portions of the Leader’s speech.”

  Chien farted. And shut the door.

  Back to the TV set, he said to himself. Where our leisure hours are spent. And there lay the two student examination papers; he had that weighing him down, too. And all on my own time, he thought savagely. The hell with them. Up theirs. He strode to the TV set, started to shut it off; at once a red warning light winked on, informing him that he did not have permission to shut off the set—could not in fact end its tirade and image even if he unplugged it. Mandatory speeches, he thought, will kill us all, bury us; if I could be free of the noise of speeches, free of the din of the Party baying as it hounds mankind . . .

  There was no known ordinance, however, preventing him from taking snuff while he watched the Leader. So, opening the small gray packet, he shook out a mound of the black granules onto the back of his left hand. He then, professionally, raised his hand to his nostrils and deeply inhaled, drawing the snuff well up into his sinus cavities. Imagine the old superstition, he thought to himself. That the sinus cavities are connected to the brain, and hence an inhalation of snuff directly affects the cerebral cortex. He smiled, seated himself once more, fixed his gaze on the TV screen and the gesticulating individual known so utterly to them all.

  The face dwindled away, disappeared. The sound ceased. He faced an emptiness, a vacuum. The screen, white and blank, confronted him and from the speaker a faint hiss sounded.

  The frigging snuff, he said to himself. And inhaled greedily at the remainder of the powder on his hand, drawing it up avidly into his nose, his sinuses, and, or so it felt, into his brain; he plunged into the snuff, absorbing it elatedly.

  The screen remained blank and then, by degrees, an image once more formed and established itself. It was not the Leader. Not the Absolute Benefactor of the People, in point of fact not a human figure at all.

  He faced a dead mechanical construct, made of solid state circuits, of swiveling pseudopodia, lenses and a squawk-box. And the box began, in a droning din, to harangue him.

  Staring fixedly, he thought, What is this? Reality? Hallucination, he thought. The peddler came across some of the psychedelic drugs used during the War of Liberation—he’s selling the stuff and I’ve taken some, taken a whole lot!

  Making his way unsteadily to the vidphone he dialed the Secpol station nearest his building. “I wish to report a pusher of hallucinogenic drugs,” he said into the receiver.

  “Your name, sir, and conapt location?” Efficient, brisk and impersonal bureaucrat of the police.

  He gave them the information, then haltingly made it back to his simulated-leather easy chair, once again to witness the apparition on the TV screen. This is lethal, he said to himself. It must be some preparation developed in Washington, D.C., or London—stronger and stranger than the LSD-25 which they dumped so effectively into our reservoirs. And I thought it was going to relieve me of the burden of the Leader’s speeches . . . this is far worse, this electronic, sputtering, swiveling, metal and plastic monstrosity yammering away—this is terrifying.

  To have to face this the remainder of my life—

  It took ten minutes for the Secpol two-man team to come rapping at his door. And by then, in a deteriorating set of stages, the familiar image of the Leader had seeped back into focus on the screen, had supplanted the horrible artificial construct which waved its ‘podia and squalled on and on. He let the two cops in shakily, led them to the table on which he had left the remains of the snuff in its packet.

  “Psychedelic toxin,” he said thickly. “Of short duration. Absorbed into the blood stream directly, through nasal capillaries. I’ll give you details as to where I got it, from whom, all that.” He took a deep shaky breath; the presence of the police was comforting.

  Ballpoint pens ready, the two officers waited. And all the time, in the background, the Leader rattled out his endless speech. As he had done a thousand evenings before in the life of Tung Chien. But, he thought, it’ll never be the same again, at least not for me. Not after inhaling that near-toxic snuff.

  He wondered, Is that what they intended?

  It seemed odd to him, thinking of a they. Peculiar—but somehow correct. For an instant he hesitated, not giving out the details, not telling the police enough to find the man. A peddler, he started to say. I don’t know where; can’t remember. But he did; he remembered the exact street intersection. So, with unexplainable reluctance, he told them.

  “Thank you, Comrade Chien.” The boss of the team of police carefully gathered up the remaining snuff—most of it remained—and placed it in his uniform—smart, sharp uniform—pocket. “We’ll have it analyzed at the first available moment,” the cop said, “and inform you immediately in case counter medical measures are indicated for you. Some of the old wartime psychedelics were eventually fatal, as you have no doubt read.”

  “I’ve read,” he agreed. That had been specifically what he had been thinking.

  “Good luck and thanks for notifying us,” both cops said, and departed. The affair, for all their efficiency, did not seem to shake them; obviously such a complaint was routine.

  The lab report came swiftly—surprisingly so, in view of the vast state bureaucracy. It reached him by vidphone before the Leader had finished his TV speech.

  “It’s not a hallucinogen,” the Secpol lab technician informed him.

  “No?” he said, puzzled and, strangely, not relieved. Not at all. />
  “On the contrary. It’s a phenothiazine, which as you doubtless know is anti-hallucinogenic. A strong dose per gram of admixture, but harmless. Might lower your blood pressure or make you sleepy. Probably stolen from a wartime cache of medical supplies. Left by the retreating barbarians. I wouldn’t worry.”

  Pondering, Chien hung up the vidphone in slow motion. And then walked to the window of his conapt—the window with the fine view of other Hanoi high-rise conapts—to think.

  The doorbell rang. Feeling as if he were in a trance, he crossed the carpeted living room to answer it.

  The girl standing there, in a tan raincoat with a babushka over her dark, shiny, and very long hair, said in a timid little voice, “Um, Comrade Chien? Tung Chien? Of the Ministry of—”

  He led her in, reflexively, and shut the door after her. “You’ve been monitoring my vidphone,” he told her; it was a shot in darkness, but something in him, an unvoiced certitude, told him that she had.

  “Did—they take the rest of the snuff?” She glanced about. “Oh, I hope not; it’s so hard to get these days.”

  “Snuff,” he said, “is easy to get. Phenothiazine isn’t. Is that what you mean?”

  The girl raised her head, studied him with large, moon-darkened eyes. “Yes. Mr. Chien—” She hesitated, obviously as uncertain as the Secpol cops had been assured. “Tell me what you saw; it’s of great importance for us to be certain.”

  “I had a choice?” he said acutely.

  “Y-yes, very much so. That’s what confuses us; that’s what is not as we planned. We don’t understand; it fits nobody’s theory.” Her eyes even darker and deeper, she said, “Was it the aquatic horror shape? The thing with slime and teeth, the extraterrestrial life form? Please tell me; we have to know.” She breathed irregularly, with effort, the tan raincoat rising and falling; he found himself watching its rhythm.

  “A machine,” he said.

  “Oh!” She ducked her head, nodding vigorously. “Yes, I understand; a mechanical organism in no way resembling a human. Not a simulacrum, something constructed to resemble a man.”

  He said, “This did not look like a man.” He added to himself, And it failed—did not try—to talk like a man.

  “You understand that it was not a hallucination.”

  “I’ve been officially told that what I took was a phenothiazine. That’s all I know.” He said as little as possible; he did not want to talk but to hear. Hear what the girl had to say.

  “Well, Mr. Chien—” She took a deep, unstable breath. “If it was not a hallucination, then what was it? What does that leave? What is called ‘extra-consciousness’—could that be it?”

  He did not answer; turning his back, he leisurely picked up the two student test papers, glanced over them, ignoring her. Waiting for her next attempt.

  At his shoulder she appeared, smelling of spring rain, smelling of sweetness and agitation, beautiful in the way she smelled, and looked, and, he thought, speaks. So different from the harsh plateau speech patterns we hear on the TV—have heard since I was a baby.

  “Some of them,” she said huskily, “who take the stelazine—it was stelazine you got, Mr. Chien—see one apparition, some another. But distinct categories have emerged; there is not an infinite variety. Some see what you saw; we call it the Clanker. Some the aquatic horror; that’s the Gulper. And then there’s the Bird, and the Climbing Tube, and—” She broke off. “But other reactions tell you very little. Tell us very little.” She hesitated, then plunged on. “Now that this has happened to you, Mr. Chien, we would like you to join our gathering. Join your particular group, those who see what you see. Group Red. We want to know what it really is, and—” She gestured with tapered, wax-smooth fingers. “It can’t be all those manifestations.” Her tone was poignant, naively so. He felt his caution relax—a trifle.

  He said, “What do you see? You in particular?”

  “I’m a part of Group Yellow. I see—a storm. A whining, vicious whirlwind. That roots everything up, crushes condominium apartments built to last a century.” She smiled wanly. “The Crusher. Twelve groups in all, Mr. Chien. Twelve absolutely different experiences, all from the same phenothiazines, all of the Leader as he speaks over TV. As it speaks, rather.” She smiled up at him, lashes long—probably protracted artificially—and gaze engaging, even trusting. As if she thought he knew something or could do something.

  “I should make a citizen’s arrest of you,” he said presently.

  “There is no law, not about this. We studied Soviet juridical writings before we—found people to distribute the stelazine. We don’t have much of it; we have to be very careful whom we give it to. It seemed to us that you constituted a likely choice . . . a well-known, postwar, dedicated young career man on his way up.” From his fingers she took the examination papers. “They’re having you pol-read?” she asked.

  “‘Pol-read’?” He did not know the term.

  “Study something said or written to see if it fits the Party’s current world view. You in the hierarchy merely call it ‘read,’ don’t you?” Again she smiled. “When you rise one step higher, up with Mr. Tsopin, you will know that expression.” She added somberly, “And with Mr. Pethel. He’s very far up. Mr. Chien, there is no ideological school in San Fernando; these are forged exam papers, designed to read back to them a thorough analysis of your political ideology. And have you been able to distinguish which paper is orthodox and which is heretical?” Her voice was pixie-like, taunting with amused malice. “Choose the wrong one and your budding career stops dead, cold, in its tracks. Choose the proper one—”

  “Do you know which is which?” he demanded.

  “Yes.” She nodded soberly. “We have listening devices in Mr. Tso-pin’s inner offices; we monitored his conversation with Mr. Pethel—who is not Mr. Pethel but the Higher Secpol Inspector Judd Craine. You have possibly heard mention of him; he acted as chief assistant to Judge Vorlawsky at the ‘98 war crimes trial in Zurich.”

  With difficulty he said, “I—see.” Well, that explained that.

  The girl said, “My name is Tanya Lee.”

  He said nothing; he merely nodded, too stunned for any cerebration.

  “Technically, I am a minor clerk,” Miss Lee said, “at your Ministry. You have never run into me, however, that I can at least recall. We try to hold posts wherever we can. As far up as possible. My own boss—”

  “Should you be telling me this?” He gestured at the TV set, which remained on. “Aren’t they picking this up?”

  Tanya Lee said, “We introduced a noise factor in the reception of both vid and aud material from this apartment building; it will take them almost an hour to locate the sheathing. So we have”—she examined the tiny wristwatch on her slender wrist—“fifteen more minutes. And still be safe.”

  “Tell me,” he said, “which paper is orthodox.”

  “Is that what you care about? Really?”

  “What,” he said, “should I care about?”

  “Don’t you see, Mr. Chien? You’ve learned something. The Leader is not the Leader; he is something else, but we can’t tell what. Not yet. Mr. Chien, with all due respect, have you ever had your drinking water analyzed? I know it sounds paranoiac, but have you?”

  “No,” he said. “Of course not.” Knowing what she was going to say.

  Miss Lee said briskly, “Our tests show that it’s saturated with hallucinogens. It is, has been, will continue to be. Not the ones used during the war; not the disorienting ones, but a synthetic quasi-ergot derivative called Datrox-3. You drink it here in the building from the time you get up; you drink it in restaurants and other apartments that you visit. You drink it at the Ministry; it’s all piped from a central, common source.” Her tone was bleak and ferocious. “We solved that problem; we knew, as soon as we discovered it, that any good phenothiazine would counter it. What we did not know, of course, was this—a variety of authentic experiences; that makes no sense, rationally. It’s the hallucination which
should differ from person to person, and the reality experience which should be ubiquitous—it’s all turned around. We can’t even construct an ad hoc theory which accounts for that, and god knows we’ve tried. Twelve mutually exclusive hallucinations—that would be easily understood. But not one hallucination and twelve realities.” She ceased talking, then, and studied the two test papers, her forehead wrinkling. “The one with the Arabic poem is orthodox,” she stated. “If you tell them that they’ll trust you and give you a higher post. You’ll be another notch up in the hierarchy of Party officialdom.” Smiling—her teeth were perfect and lovely—she finished, “Look what you received back for your investment this morning. Your career is underwritten for a time. And by us.”

  He said, “I don’t believe you.” Instinctively, his caution operated within him, always, the caution of a lifetime lived among the hatchet men of the Hanoi branch of the CP East. They knew an infinitude of ways by which to ax a rival out of contention—some of which he himself had employed; some of which he had seen done to himself and to others. This could be a novel way, one unfamiliar to him. It could always be.

  “Tonight,” Miss Lee said, “in the speech the Leader singled you out. Didn’t this strike you as strange? You, of all people? A minor officeholder in a meager ministry—”

  “Admitted,” he said. “It struck me that way; yes.”

  “That was legitimate. His Greatness is grooming an elite cadre of younger men, postwar men, he hopes will infuse new life into the hidebound, moribund hierarchy of old fogies and Party hacks. His Greatness singled you out for the same reason that we singled you out; if pursued properly, your career could lead you all the way to the top. At least for a time . . . as we know. That’s how it goes.”

  He thought, So virtually everyone has faith in me. Except myself; and certainly not after this, the experience with the anti-hallucinatory snuff. It had shaken years of confidence, and no doubt rightly so. However, he was beginning to regain his poise; he felt it seeping back, a little at first, then with a rush.