Kenneth Bulmer: Demons' World

“The cat.” said Delia.

Simon looked at her, frowned, smiled, put a hand on her arm. His profession had little need to show him what was needed here. “Oh, Delia. We’d better begin a chart of Stead’s reactions right away. We can teach him what we want him to know, but only he can tell us what we want to know.”

Delia responded easily. “Right, Simon. I’ll open a fresh chart right away.” She glanced down at Stead’s sleeping form which Flora had now clothed in a bright scarlet wrap. “We’d better put him in a proper bed. And I’ll need a whole slew of children’s toys, teaching blocks, the ^whole bag of tricks. He’s going to be a tough pupil, I feel that.”

“But you’ll teach him, Delia.”

“I’ll teach him, all right. Of course, I shall be giving him the education received by a Controller’s child. Perhaps, Simon, he isn’t a Controller. Maybe he’s a Forager or a Hunter, maybe a soldier.”

“That doesn’t matter. We want to know what he is and everything we can give him to make him remember will help. You fill him up, Delia, until he flows over.”

“I’ll teach him,” Delia said again. Her slender finger touched those ripe lips, her tiny secret smile flowered again. “Of course, he’ll fall in love with me during the process. I only hope that doesn’t hurt him too much.”

“The growth of intelligence in a human child is not a steady upward curve; as understanding and knowledge and learning are assimilated, they coalesce and force the native intelligence onward in spurts and starts. Sometimes, when units of information appear to contradict, the child’s brightness wanes; he is called stupid and in clumsy hands much harm may be done by barbarous punishments.” Simon leaned forward, his creased serious face returning Stead’s calm regard. “But you are not physically a baby; your brain has already developed. The cells and synapses and general structure needed for memory and understanding on a higher plane than mere automatic living are already in existence.”

Delia nodded, flipping the page over to a new algebraic problem. “What Simon is saying, Stead, is that you learn so fast because you have superior equipment at hand. But you are still liable to the flux of learning as new factors interact.”

“So that’s why I was so stupid yesterday?”

“Yes, and why you’re so bright today and may be as stupid again tomorrow. The cycles in your case are more rapid and violent, simply because you are an adult. We’ve been pumping you full of information for the past sixty days, two thirds of a quarter, and you are now educationally on a level with the Hunters and Soldiers.”

“But I feel confident in going on.” Stead spoke slowly, using the refined accents of a Controller because that was the way he had been taught the language. “The world is a large and wonderful place and, much as I feel my debt to you, I need to go and know more, to find a place for myself in the world—perhaps find out who I was.”

“I don’t really think you could have been a Forager,” Delia said.

“Why not, Delia?” Stead had given up trying not to look at this girl with her clipped red curls, her face that haunted him, her figure that maddened him in a way he could not understand. She was a woman and he was a man; so far that was all he understood. Frankly, he couldn’t understand why there had to be two sorts of human beings. He felt annoyed that this evolution Simon talked about hadn’t been wise enough to insure just one sort of human being, a man, like himself and Simon. He got on with men. He couldn’t— for some strange and probably absurdly childish reason-feel comfortable in the presence of women, especially of Delia.

“I don’t think you were a Forager, Stead, because you’re rather large. Hunters and Foragers are usually small men and women, relatively speaking. That’s just a quirk of evolution, I expect.”

“Evolution!” said Stead. “Well, if I wasn’t a Forager, what was I. A Soldier?”

“Possibly.” Simon pulled forward a book, angled it on the table so that the electric light fell full on it. The room contained many books in shelves, a table, chairs; a functional room, it was, for the teaching of facts. “Here are pictures of soldiers from other Empires and Federations. You were not, we have found out, a soldier of Archon.”

“Perhaps,” Stead said, taking the book, “I was a worker.”

“Oh, no!” said Delia, and paused.

Stead glanced at her. Her cheeks were flushed. He wondered what was wrong with her, then he bent to the book.

The pictures leaped out at him from the page, colored drawings, black and white photographs, illustrated detail of uniform and weapons. A general similarity ran through the ideas governing what a soldier should be. A helmet, varying in size and complexity; a suit of armor, metal, leather, padded; weapons—guns, arbalests, spears, axes, swords—a whole gamut of lethal hardware. But beneath it all, the same human form stood out—two-armed, two-legged; the same sorts of face stared out—grim and lined, with narrowed eyes and thinned lips, harsh and uncompromising, the faces of men who knew the job to which they had been called and were dedicated in its performance.

Slowly, Stead shook his head. “No,” he said, “no. I don’t think I was a soldier.”

“Well, you can’t be sure of anything yet.” Simon put the book away, revealing the algebraic tract beneath. “Now, this problem—”

“I heard you call those soldiers ‘enemies’.” Stead stayed his hand and flicked back the page to a man wearing uniform and armor that almost—almost, but not quite—paralleled the equipment of Archon’s soldiers. “What makes this man an enemy?”

“But he’s a soldier of the Federation of Trychos!” Delia was astonished. “Of course, you’ve forgotten everything. You could not be from Trychos; we know them too well. We’ve fought six great wars with them and still they raid, stealing our women, stealing our food and raw materials. Why should we not call them enemies!”

Solemnly, Simon nodded. “The same facts apply to all outsiders. Only the Empire of Archon, our empire, has stayed the barbaric hordes. We fight in a noble cause, but these others are power mad.”

Stead took all this in with a growing feeling that if he had to lose his memory then he had been profoundly, gloriously fortunate to be found by men of Archon. “Suppose,” he said on a breath, staring up at Simon, “suppose I’d been found by some Foragers out of Trychos!”

“Don’t fret over it, Stead,” Delia said. “You weren’t.”

“One thing you must remember, Stead,” amplified Simon. “You do not, as far as we know, come from Archon. Certain items were found with you which you will be shown when the time is ready. But you must have come from somewhere.”

“I’m glad I did!” said Stead fervently. “How thankful I am that I’m now in Archon!”

Simon stood up and walked a little way towards the bookshelves. Then he turned to stare back at Stead.

“The Captain has asked to see you, Stead, as soon as you can converse coherently. I think that time has come.”

“The Captain?” Stead felt once again the rushing sense of fresh discoveries opening up, the heady sense of there being worlds of learning behind each new opening door. Life promised so much; there was so much to grasp and understand. “The Captain? Who is he?”

“The Captain is the chief man of the Empire of Archon. It is he who rules and directs—who Controls. There is a hereditary Crew who have only the well-being of Archon at heart. You see, Stead, Archon is the only true civilization on Earth. Our Captain and our Crew are the only true leaders. Try-chos and the other Empires and Federations own their own Captains and Crews, but they are shams, frauds, mere ordinary men built up with their own importance and counterfeit titles. In Archon resides the only truth! We are the depository of the ancient truths!”