Michael Moorcock - The Black Corridor

Ryan, glancing into the faces of the people about him, could almost believe they were listening seriously. Were they? Or was the presence of the troops and the Patriot Guards preventing them from catcalling or just walking away from this nonsense?

He looked at the faces of the police around the platform. They were staring up at Beesley—brute-faced men listening to him with close attention. Ryan, scarcely able to believe it, realised that Beesley's stories of the hidden invaders was being taken seriously by the majority of the vast crowd. As Beesley went on speaking, describing the hidden marauders, makers of chaos in their midst, the crowd began to murmur in agreement.

'Their bases are somewhere,' Beesley went on. 'We must find them, fellow patriots. We must eliminate them, like wasp nests...'

And there came from the crowd a great hissed susurrus 'Yesssss.'

'We must find the polluters and wipe them out forever. Whether they come from space or are the agents of another Power, we do not know as yet. We must discover where they originate!'

And the crowd like a cold wind through the ruins, answered 'Yessssss.'

He's lost them, thought Ryan sceptically, if he doesn't give them something a bit more concrete than that. He's got to tell them how to pick out these menacing figures they have to destroy.

'Who are they? How do we find them?' asked Beesley. 'How?

How? How indeed?' His tone became divinely reasonable. 'You all know, in your heart of hearts, who they are. They are the men— and women, too, make no mistake, they are women as well—who are different. You know them. You can tell them at a glance. They look different. Their eyes are different. They express doubt where you and I know certainty. They are the men who associate with strangers and people of doubtful character, the men and women who throw suspicion on what we are fighting for. They are the sceptics, the heretics, the mockers. When you meet them they make you doubt everything, even yourself. They laugh a lot, and smile too often. They attempt, by jesting, to throw a poor light on our ideals. They are the people who hang back when plans are suggested for purifying our land. They defend the objects of our patriotic anger. They hang back from duty. Many are drunkards, licentious scoffers. You know these people, friends. You know them—these men who have been sent here to undermine a righteous society.

You have always known them. Now is the time to pluck them out and deal with them as they deserve.'

And, before he had finished speaking, the crowd was in uproar.

There were shouts and screams.

Ryan poked Masterson, who was staring incredulously at the platform, in the ribs. 'Let's get out,' he said. 'There's going to be trouble.'

'Only for the aliens,' said James Henry at his other elbow. 'Come on, Ryan. Let's sniff 'em out and snuff 'em out.'

Ryan looked at Henry in astonishment. Henry's green eyes were ablaze. 'For crying out loud, Henry...'

He turned to his brother John. John looked back vaguely and suddenly, under the gaze of his elder brother, seemed to pull himself together. 'He's right,' said John. 'We'd better think of getting home. This is real mass hysteria. Jesus Christ.'

Henry's mouth hardened. 'I'm staying.'

'Look——' Ryan was jolted by the crowd. Snow fell down his neck.'—Henry! You can't possibly...'

'Do what you like, Ryan. We've heard the call to deal with these aliens—let's deal with them.'

'They wouldn't be likely to come here tonight would they?'

Ryan shouted. Then he stopped, realising that he was beginning to answer in Henry's terms. That was the first step towards being convinced. 'Good God, Henry—this is too classic for words.

We're rational men.'

'Agreed. Which makes our duty even clearer!'

The crowd was pushing the four men backwards and forwards.

The men had to shout to be heard over the roar of the rabble.

'James—come home and talk it over. This isn't the place...'

Ryan insisted, standing his ground with difficulty. From somewhere came the sound of gunfire. Then the gunfire stopped. Ryan found he was shouting into relative silence. 'You won't take that "aliens" nonsense seriously when you've got a drink inside you back at our flat!'

A man put his head over Henry's shoulder. His red face was flushed. 'What was that, friend?' he said to Ryan.

'I wasn't talking to you.'

'Oh no? I heard what you said. That's of interest to everyone here. You're one of them, if you ask me.'

'I didn't.' Ryan looked contemptuously at the sweating face.

'But we're all entitled to our own opinions. If you think it's true, I won't argue with you.'

'Shut up,' Masterson cried, tugging at Ryan's sleeve. 'Shut up and come home.'

'Bloody alien!' the red-faced man shouted. 'A bloody nest of them!'

Instantly, it seemed to Ryan, the crowd was on them. He came rapidly to a decision, keeping his head even in this situation.

'Calm down all of you,' he said in his most commanding voice.

'My point is that we might make mistakes in this situation. The aliens have to be found. But we need to work systematically to find them. Use a scientific approach. Don't you see—the aliens themselves could be stirring things up for us—making us turn on each other.'

The red-faced man frowned. 'It's a point,' he said grudgingly.

'Now I believe that if there are aliens here tonight they are not going to be in the middle of the crowd. They are going to be on the edges, trying to sneak away,' Ryan continued.

'That seems reasonable,' said James Henry. 'Let's get after them.'

Ryan led the way shouting with the rest.

'Aliens! Aliens! Stop the aliens. Get them now. Over there—in the streets!'

Pushing through the crowd was like trying to trudge through a quagmire. Every step, every breath Ryan took was painful.

Ryan led them, pace by pace, through the packed throng, up the steps into the National Gallery and, as the crowd thinned out in the galleries themselves, through a window at the back, through yards, over walls and car parks until they escaped the red-faced man and his friends and were finally in the moving mass of Oxford Street.

Only James Henry didn't seem aware of what Ryan had done.

As they reached Hyde Park he pulled at Ryan's torn coat.

'Hey! What are we supposed to be doing. I thought we were going after the aliens.'

'I know something about the aliens that wasn't mentioned tonight,' Ryan said.

'What?'

'I'll tell you when we get back to my place.'

When they finally reached Ryan's flat they were exhausted.

'What about the aliens, then?' James Henry asked as the door closed behind them.

"The worst aliens are the Patriots,' said Ryan. 'They are the most obvious of the anti-humans.'

Henry was puzzled. 'Surely not...'

Ryan took a deep breath and went to the drinks cabinet, began fixing drinks for them all as they sat panting in the chairs in the living room.

"The Patriots...' murmured Henry. 'I suppose it's just possible...'

Ryan handed him his drink. 'I thought,' he said, 'that the discoveries in Space would give us all a better perspective. Instead it seems that the perspective has been even more narrowed and distorted. Once people only feared other races, other nations, other groups with opposed or different interests. Now they fear everything. It's gone too far, Henry.'

'I'm still not with you,' James Henry said.

'Simply—paranoia. What is paranoia, Henry?'

'Being afraid of things—suspecting plots—all that stuff.'

'It can be defined more closely. It is an irrational fear, an irrational suspicion. Often it is in fact a refusal to face the real cause of one's anxiety, to invent causes because the true cause is either too disturbing, too frightening, too horrible to face or too difficult to cope with. That's what paranoia actually is, Henry.'