Edward Llewellyn - Prelude to Chaos

I was not as surprised as she expected. I had become used to the paradox that as the educational level of prisoners rose so did the prevalence of superstition. Among us were a Baptist minister, an Episcopal priest (both female), a Rabbi, a Jesuit, and a Suffi Mullah (all male). How this collection of ecclesiarchs came to finish up in the Pen I couldn’t imagine, though I knew why they chose to stay. They were fanatics who refused to surrender their sacred memories and would not desert the little flocks each had gathered around her or him. They practiced a kind of applied ecumenism in that they did not raid each other’s congregations for converts and presented a solid religious front to the prison administration. I suspected they were all hankering after the crown of martyrdom.

In addition to these representatives of established religion there were numerous other clusters of people who gathered for prayer and meditation. The “Believers” were one such group and I knew that their “Teacher” was a revivalist having some success cm the outside, although I did not know which particular superstition he was reviving. Anyway, he led the kind of “back to land” movement which appeals to people who have never had to live off the land, and had established rural Settlements to which his followers could flee from the wrath to come.” Much the same program as was being sold by many of the other gurus who were flourishing in the lush economy of the Affluence. Although to have converted a surgeon like Judith and a first-class intellect like Greta he must be offering something more nourishing than the pabulum his rivals were dishing out.

So when Judith admitted she was one of his followers I only nodded. “How did that help you learn about this sea-burial stuff?”

“We Believers have—well—certain restrictions on how we should be buried. A funeral pyre is best. An earth burial is worst. A sea burial is acceptable.”

“You have a kind of theological ecology?”

She ignored my remark. “When Greta was dying she grew frantic. She’d been a Presbyterian, and when she was sent here she’d asked to be buried in her family vault. Now she was horrified at the prospect of being parked among the decaying bones of her ancestors. Doctor Shore promised her that she’d be buried at sea. His promise let Greta go to the Bridge happy.”

“The Bridge?”

“The Chinvat Bridge. The bridge the soul crosses on its way to the judgment. The Teacher uses certain Zoroastrian revelations in his exegesis of Good and Evil, Light and Darkness.”

In other words he’d lifted picturesque metaphors from established superstitions to construct his own brand of revelation, “So the Doc was trying to reassure Greta that she wouldn’t be food for earthworms. And I’m sure the Doc would he to make a dying patient happy.”

“I was at Greta’s bedside with him. And he didn’t want me to think him a liar. Later he told me that some prisoners, after they had died, were buried at sea. Greta’s going to be one of them.”

After thinking about it for a while I saw the rationale. “Not just Greta,” I said slowly. “All of us. We were all declared officially dead when they sent us here. They wouldn’t want to have our bodies turning up outside, years later. So the answer’s obvious—dump us with the garbage!”

“Not with the garbage. Like the garbage. Do you believe me now?”

I nodded.

“And what about my plan?”

“Judith, it’s the best I’ve heard. But it still founders on those damned transponders.”

“I’m a surgeon. I can take yours out.”

“And we’ll be isolated and hauled off for mind-wipe within minutes. Those things stop transmitting the moment you get them free. They’re powered by the myopotentials of the muscles they’re in.”

“I know how the transponders work!” she said, with a trace of impatience. “They have a pair of fine wires running among the muscle fibers. The wires act as both power pickups and antennae. If you hold them firmly between your fingers they’ll go on transmitting well enough to satisfy the central surveillance computer.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve helped at autopsies. Taken transponders out and tested them. I managed to implant Greta’s into a rabbit. The computer tried to insist that Greta was alive and in the animal colony!”

“If you fool around with those things—”

“I wasn’t fooling around. I was finding a way of keeping ours going after we’ve gone.” Her whisper became intense. “I can take out yours, plant it in a rabbit—”

“A rabbit? What rabbit?” Prisoners weren’t allowed to keep pets.

“Rabbits from the test colony. We use them for bioassays. When there are a couple under test over a weekend they let me keep them in my cell for observation. It saves having to come and escort me down to the colony on a Saturday and Sunday just to take a rabbit’s temperature. I’ve set it up so that I’ll have a pair trader test starting Friday night. The surveillance center will go on reporting we’re in my cell, and maybe they won’t interrupt us for half the morning.”

“Us? You’ve only switched mine. How are you going to switch yours?”

“I won’t. You will!”

“Me? Impossible! I’ve seen the mess amateur surgeons have made of each other’s backs trying to dig those damned things out.”

“I’ll show you how. I’ve already got a surgical kit, local anesthetics, everything needed, stashed away in my cell. We i ;in rig mirrors so you can watch me take out yours. Then I’ll 1'iiide you while you take out mine.”

“You’d really let me cut into your back?”

“I’d let you do it without anesthetic if that was the only way to avoid mind-wipe. Gavin, are you game?”

“It’s the only game there is.”

“I want one promise from you before we start to play.” “What’s that?”

“You’re not desperate to get out of the Pen just to get out of the Pen. You’ve been programmed to kill somebody!” “Programmed? Me? What the hell do you mean?”

“You’re no murderer. In fact I’d call you cautious, sympathetic, and sensitive.” That was the first time for many years that anybody had called me sympathetic or sensitive. Before I could deny the charge she had gone on, “But when you talk of escape you go glazed. You’re not a hater, but you hate someone. You’ve had a defined hatred planted in you.”

“That’s a lot of bull!”

“I don’t think so.” She shrugged. “I’m betting everything on this escape because there’s something I’ve got to do. It’s not particularly dangerous, but I’ll need help. So before we agree to go together I want your word that you’ll help me with my task before you start on yours. After that, I’ll help you.”

“I won’t need anybody’s help.” I brought myself under control. The face of Futrell had risen in my mind and set me shaking. “But I promise to help you first—if we get out.” “Good.” She sat up and patted her Titian hair. “Then we’d better ask for permission to cohabit Friday.”

“Why not tonight? So we can plan some more?”

She eyed me. “Gavin—you’re not planning on planning tonight! But sure—we can ask. The old hen on duty won’t let us. She’ll tell me to think it over and come back when I’m sure I want to commit myself.”

Judith was right When we went to the interview booth and asked the Controller on duty if I could spend the night in Judith’s cell, the elderly woman on the screen smiled benignly, gave us a brief lecture on human relationships, and advised Judith to consider a little longer before she gave herself to me. “Ask again tomorrow, after you’ve had time to think.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Judith. I grunted.