Damon Knight - Orbit 18

Baluster was keeping his hands busy arranging the ritual pieces in the sly hall: the 3.05 meter poles, the pairs of mittens, the desperation-philosophy texts, the tin cans and the wires to run between them, the electric helmets with their euphoric vibes, the piles of good-will mottoes.

“What is the new technique, Roger?” Silvester Sureman asked. “Dammit, Roger, can’t you do something about your appearance?”

“I’m sitting out of your line of vision, Silvester,” Roger Baluster said, “and I’m completely swathed, so that not one particle of me can be seen in any case. What do you mean by my appearance?”

“It’s nauseating, you know, and your voice is worse. Well, what is the technique that they’re using on us now?”

“I don’t know, Silvester, but they’re attacking out of a new dimension. I thought they couldn’t hit us with anything else, but they seem to be doing it. We thought we could set up asylums here and there, the sly halls, and make them into worlds of our own. We thought that, in our own circles, we could gradually become less repulsive, to ourselves and to each other, and so regain a measure of self-respect. And we have made progress, very slow progress.”

“Oh, yes. In a thousand years our progress might be seen clearly, to one with sharp eyes,” Silvester Sureman said dismally.

“At least we still have each other, Sharon,” Crispin Babcock wheezed, and he pressed Sharon’s hand.

“Aw, ugh, ugh, ugh,” Sharon said with a complete lack of enthusiasm. “Don’t, Crispin. It’s like being touched by a reptile.”

But it was a pleasantly contrived world that they had made for themselves in the sly hall. The great skylights let the sunlight in during the daylight hours; and there was profuse greenery and striking garden arrangements. Otters played in the stream and in the fountain. The bright weavers were everywhere. Salamanders ran like quicksilver and fire over everything. There were cascades of ivy. Eagles perched on the entrance posts, and there was a certain architecture of pride in the big building and in its people.

“We are all celebrities now, you know,” Conchita Montez mumbled. “People everywhere in the world know us and know who we are. It isn’t much, but it is something. We are valid characters, even if we are only characters for the popular hate-culture.”

“The ultimate pornography, hatred,” Crispin said piously.

“Yes, that’s so,” Silvester agreed. “The Projection Lords are not really superior to ourselves any more than an ax murderer is superior to his victims. But there’s no denying that they have the advantage over us, and it may be the ultimate advantage. You do know why they keep a few of us alive?”

“Oh, it’s necessary for the balance of their system that the people and themselves have something to hate intensely,” Baluster said. “And it’s quite true that hating is fun, that it’s a deep and furious pleasure. But we ourselves can’t hate the Projector Lords, and we can’t hate the populace whom they control. They simply are not programmed to be hated, and the Lords have the control of the programming. But we can hate ourselves and others of the outcasts; we can and we do. It’s the last pleasure left to us. That’s what is behind our scapegoat trick that we have agreed upon. By it, some of us will be saved when our company is stricken. We don’t yet know who our scapegoat will be. Whomever the lightning of our hatred strikes first, that will be the one.”

“They want us out in the open where they can have cleaner shots at hating us,” Conchita said. “Oh well, I guess I want us out in the open too. It’s stifling in here.”

“A three-point-oh-five meter pole, two pairs of mittens, a couple of tin cans, and a length of wire,” said Crispin Babcock. “Who would believe that they would be last-chance things? I don’t know how we will use them yet (it will be given to us in that hour how to use them), but this is the list that comes to my mind for Sharon and myself. And all these things are here among the ritual objects of our own sly hall.”

“It’s remarkable how little hardware they have to use in Person-Projecting,” Silvester Sureman said. “It’s just a combination of coded frequencies to express a displeasure, to contain a person-identification, and to call for an echo, all formed into a wave transmission and set to travel around the world on a common carrier wave. And there is filtering as needed and amplification as needed. And behold! a person is smeared to destruction, forever and to all the world. It’s the Dynasty of Hatred that now obtains in the world.

“And also there is very little software that they have to use in Person-Projecting. A repertoire of hatreds is maintained; it is added to from the residues of broken persons, and it is dispensed freely and rather imaginatively. A person-smear will be manifest to almost every sense including the unorganed intuitive senses. Except smell. Smell is transmitted only by actual physical particles from the smelled object reaching one.

“But could not smell-reminders be triggered electronically? Could not smell be transmitted in some coded fashion? Nothing comes into our minds without a reason, and the sense of strong and murderous smell has just come into my mind. People, is smell the new technique? Is it the attack out of the new dimension? I feel that it is, and I feel that it’s upon us now.”

Wisteria Manford burst into the sly hall. Wisteria had long since fallen into the outcast condition. She had run out of money for her personality maintenance. It is very dangerous to run out of money. And it takes a lot of money to maintain a borderline personality.

“Garden City has fallen!” Wisteria cried. “Exaltation Heights has fallen! Beggar on Horseback has fallen! Snug Harbor and Bright Shores and Citadel and Gold Beach and Pleasant Gardens and Tomorrow Land have all been shattered. All the sly halls are being emptied by this new attack, and we’re next. It’s a stink that they use to split up the people, a killing stink. And it’s coming to us right now.”

Indeed, the first heavy wave of stench had come into the sly hall with Wisteria. They shrank away from her. Through the holes in the walls they shrank away from her. The stench shattered the company, and it changed the sly hall itself completely.

In the light of, in the odor of the new and overpowering stench, the sly hall changed. It does not matter whether the change was subjective or objective. In the new order, there is no difference between the two conditions. The great skylights of the hall—what great skylights?—were sky holes, roof holes. The roof itself was fallen-in and gappy: that’s why there was always sunlight during the daylight hours. The famous greenery of the hall was not so very green. The plants growing there were stinkweed and sick fungus. The otters playing in the stream and the fountain were seen to be rats skulking out of the stagnant water. The bright weavers were uncommon spiders of unusual size and malevolence. The salamanders were snakes. The quicksilver-and-fire was a slimy decay lit up by methane-rot. The ivy was poison ivy. The perched eagles were vultures and buzzards. And the only pride to be found in the hall was the stubborn pride of carrion flesh. The people wanted out of that hateful hall at once. How had they ever gathered in such an offensive place?

With the second heavy wave of stench the people did all burst out of the hall. It was necessary that they get away from their rotten refuge, but it was even more necessary that they get away from each other and the foulness of their former company. The supreme necessity was that they should get away from their stinking selves, but how was that to be accomplished? But Crispin Babcock, in spite of the furious urge to be gone, did pick up certain ritual objects.