Stanislaw Lem - The Chain of Chance

“Assuming your facts are correct, then it would seem to be an expanding series. Three in the first set, eight in the second. Well, well… I see you weren’t acting as a decoy only in Italy.”

“Meaning?”

“That you’ve been trying to bait me, too. And I have to admit it’s tempting! Your version makes everything seem crystal dear. The pattern is all too obvious. But the fact that it has everybody stumped leads me to believe there’s more to it than meets the eye. Although the more one hears of the case histories, the more one begins to suspect some form of unmotivated insanity. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes. On that point there’s general agreement. Otherwise they wouldn’t have called off the investigation.”

“So why should there be any doubt that a crime has been committed?”

“How should I put it… it’s like looking at a photo—I’m thinking now of a halftone. The naked eye can make out the general outline but not the details. A magnifying glass will make some things stand out more clearly, but the image will remain blurred. If we take it to the microscope we find the picture gets lost, that it disintegrates into tiny dots. Each dot is something distinct; they no longer combine to a meaningful picture.”

“Are you suggesting that once you’ve accepted the hypothesis of a random series of poisonings, the more detailed the examination the flimsier the hypothesis?”

“Precisely.”

“And the same thing applies if you assume the existence of a culprit?”

“The same thing applies. The conclusion is almost always the same: not one of the victims was poisoned by someone else, and not one of them had the means to do it himself. But the fact still remains…”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“So then why do you always insist on its being either a crime or a coincidence?”

“What alternative is there?”

“Maybe there is one.” He picked up a copy of France-Soir from his desk. “Have you read today’s papers?”

He showed me the headlines in bold print: BOMB EXPLODES IN THE LABYRINTH—MASSACRE ON THE STEPS—TEEN-AGED GIRL RESCUED BY UNIDENTIFIED MAN.

“Yes,” I replied. “I’m familiar with what happened,”

“There you have it. The classic example of a modem crime. Premeditated and at the same time accidental. Anyone standing in the vicinity automatically became a victim.”

“But that’s not quite the same thing!”

“Granted, it’s not. The victims in Naples were predestined for death because of certain personality traits, but not those at the airport. Fair enough. But what about the case of that man Adams who wrote his wife about the possibility of a random crime, and who compared it to covering a road with nails. Obviously it was a crude analogy. But it’s just as obvious that whoever’s behind these deaths is anxious to create the impression he doesn’t exist.”

I withheld comment. Barth gave me a quick glance, stood up, paced around the room, then sat down again and asked:

“What’s your own personal opinion?”

“I can only tell you what struck me most. Suppose the cause of death was poisoning; wouldn’t you expect the symptoms to be the same in every case?”

“Well, weren’t they? I was of the impression they all followed a pattern. First the phase of excitement and aggression, then the hallucinating phase, most often associated with a persecution mania, and finally the withdrawal phase—withdrawal either from Naples or from life itself. Either they tried to escape by car, plane, or on foot, or they resorted to a piece of glass, a razor blade, a cord, a bullet in the mouth, a bottle of iodine…”

I had the suspicion he was trying to impress me with the power of his memory.

“I’ll admit they were similar. But when you start looking into the backgrounds…”

“Go on.”

“Well, as a rule, the manner of death has nothing to do with the personality of the deceased. Whether a person dies of pneumonia, cancer, or in a car accident is not something determined by his personality. Of course there are exceptions, as in the case of a test pilot’s occupational death, but as a rule there’s no correlation between the way a person dies and the way he lives.”

“In short, death is unrelated to personality type. Go on.”

“But here it is related.”

“Ah, now you’re feeding me demonology! Just what are you implying?”

“Exactly what I said. A champion swimmer dies in a drowning accident. A mountain climber falls to his death. A car fiend gets killed in a head-on collision.”

“Hold on! Which one was the car fiend—Titz?”

“Yes. He owned three cars, two of them sports cars. To continue: a coward is killed while running away…”

“Who was that?”

“Osborn. The one who abandoned his car and was taken for a member of the road gang.”

“You didn’t mention anything about his being a coward.”

“I’m sorry. The version I gave you left out many details. Osborn was in the insurance business, was heavily insured himself, and was known as a man who avoided taking any risks. The first time he felt threatened he sat down and wrote a letter to the police, then lost his nerve and took off. Adams, the eccentric, died as he lived—in an unconventional manner. The heroic reporter stuck it out till the end and then shot himself…”

“Wasn’t he trying to escape, too?”

“I don’t think so. He had orders to fly to London. He suffered a momentary breakdown, tried to slash his wrists, then patched himself up and flew off on his new assignment. When he saw he wasn’t up to it, he shot himself. He must have been a very proud man. I have no idea how Swift would have died. As a young man he was known for being wishy-washy, a typical prodigal son, a dreamer, always in need of someone stronger than himself. A wife, a friend. It was the same way in Naples.”

Barth sat there with wrinkled brow, tapping his chin, and stared absently into space.

“Well, that’s easy enough to explain. A case of regression, of reversion to an earlier time period… I’m not a specialist in this area, but I believe that some hallucinogens… What was the consensus of the toxicologists? Of the psychiatrists?”

“Certain symptomatic analogies with LSD, except that LSD does not have such individualized effects. Pharmacology has no record of such a drug. The deeper I delved into their individual backgrounds, the more I saw that not one of them had acted contrary to his nature—quite the opposite, that each had revealed it in grotesquely exaggerated form. A man who’s careful with money becomes a penny pincher. A pedant—I’m referring now to the rare-book dealer—spends the whole day cutting up a trunkful of papers into little strips. Examples abound. If I could leave you the files, you’d see for yourself.”

“By all means. So this factor X would have to be something on the order of a ‘personality drug.’ Right… But such an approach won’t bring us any closer to a solution. Psychological analysis can tell us how the factor behaves, but not how it infiltrates the victim.”

He was leaning forward in his chair, his head lowered and his eyes fixed on his hands, which were cupped around his knees. Suddenly he looked me straight in the eye.

“I’d like to ask you a personal question. May I?”

I nodded.

“What was it like during the simulation? Were you confident the whole time?”

“No. It was altogether an awkward situation, not at all as I had imagined it would be. Not because I was using a dead man’s things—I got used to that in a very short time. Because of my profession, I was considered tailor-made for the mission.”

“Is that so?” His eyebrows shot up.

“The public imagines it to be fascinating, but except for a few brief moments of excitement it’s all routine—boring and monotonous routine.”