Дэймон Найт - Orbit 3

Cassius buried his face in his hands. “Christ, no. Christ.”

After several seconds he raised his head again. At last he was gaining control. “Kagle, you’re a goddamn monster, that’s what you are. What you have in there—it— it’s—” He shivered. No one word could encompass it.

Cynical tolerance tinged Kagle’s lips in the moonlight. “No, Andrews. You’re wrong. It’s only the truth. Death as it really is.”

Cassius swiped at his moist upper lip. “Who was that first one? That smelly old man?”

Dr. Kagle looked quite interested. “Why do you ask?”

“Because—it wasn’t as bad as the rest.”

“Interesting. I found that to be the case myself. That was old Peckham. He used to be the janitor here. I kept him on to do odd jobs. He was eighty-six and nearly senile when he died in the middle of the night one night, of simple old age.”

“That was—just an ordinary death?”

“Yes. Did you find it painful?”

“A little. Not as bad as—the others. Not nearly as bad.”

Dr. Kagle went, “Um. After I’d begun my work, it occurred to me to look into at least one natural, quiet death by way of contrast. Peckham’s latent images were quite weak. But they surprised me. I’ve done a couple of similar analyses since. The so-called quiet, ordinary death has a minimum of pain associated with it, but it’s all quite bearable. So you see, Mr. Andrews, I think that what we really fear is the awful pain of a violent end.” Kagle paused. He peered down sharply. “Or don’t you grasp the significance?”

Hardly hearing, Cassius blurted, “I’ll write about this. Expose this dirty business.”

“Mr. Andrews, I don’t think you will.”

“There’s something indecent about—what did you say? Oh. My promise. Well, I lied to you.”

“I know you did.”

Cassius stared.

“But that’s all right, Andrews. I let you lie to make it seem you were putting something over on me. That you were fooling me into permitting you to see the tracks. When Flange and his toughs came here right after the court order business, he also threatened me, Mr. Andrews. Arrest. A treason trial. You name it. . appeared to be frightened, pliant. I explained my work. I told him I’d let him judge for himself, and if he thought I was a criminal, I would submit to arrest. I let him sit in the same chair you occupied. And then his men, one at a time. Flange hasn’t bothered me since. That’s why I let you see, Andrews. In a way, you and Flange and Wanda are part of the surprising evidence that’s begun to come in. Evidence that it isn’t the long sleep we fear after all but the how that’s our lash and spur. The unknown, potentially horrible how. There is some reason to fear it if we die in bed, but monumental reason if our death turns out to be violent. As you saw.”

Cassius’s mind was still slow. It grabbed at phrases: “Flange? He came here? You bastard.”

Kagle nodded. “Yes. I must say he and his men bore up rather well. So did my sister Wanda. They all endured the tracks to the end.”

“Trying to say I’m a coward?” Cassius choked. “Trying to say—”

“Don’t be belligerent,” Kagle cut in gently. “The only reason you reacted so violently back inside was because of the intensely personal connection. Your brother was dying, not some stranger. The human body, mind, are surprisingly resilient. The endurance is remarkable.” Kagle seemed sad. “Yet isn’t it strange how men and women don’t know their own strength? Think they must protect themselves? Make themselves safe, secure?”

Cassius glowered. “Quit it, Kagle. Weepy expressions don’t fool me. You don’t give a God damn for anybody else.”

Kagle seemed to muse over this. “In a sense perhaps that’s true. Else I wouldn’t be in this peculiar work. Or intending to go ahead with it, as I am. But I am rather sorry for you, Mr. Andrews.”

The “Hah!” from Cassius was short, cackling, grotesque.

“Oh, I realize you don’t believe me, but I truly am sorry in my own way. I shouldn’t have put you through it. I should have been aware of the personal element. Also, I should have avoided it because I’m beginning to see the pattern which I hinted about. In the aftereffects, I mean.”

Suddenly Kagle leaned close to the Aircoupe again. For the first time there was raw, fundamental emotion on his face:

“If it became widely known that I could arrange such experiences I’d have no peace. No, I can’t let you write, Mr. Andrews. For: if they came after me en masse, there’d be no end. Don’t you see what I could offer them? That is to say—” Eyes haunted now. “—if I would, which I won’t, because I know where it would lead?”

“No,” Cassius said, low. “I don’t see.”

“I could say to them, come to me, steel yourself, prepare to endure five minutes of the most agonizing pain on this earth. Live through the most anguished of deaths, the most violent. Then you’ll be free the rest of your life. Free because the worst will be over. Free because, statistically, don’t you see, you and millions like you won’t ever die so violently. You’ll die the lesser death of a Peckham, with only a bit of eminently endurable pain. Nothing near the kind of pain which, say, that criminal endured.”

Cassius snickered. “Who’d fall for that?”

“Many, Mr. Andrews. In fact I believe most. I won’t pretend it’s a riskless proposition, I’d have to say to them. You might, just might, be one of the few in ten millions who will die violently one day. But the risk is infinitesimal. While the reward—well, I could say, if you go through the ultimate, the worst now, think of the years ahead. The years of not having to fear, always fear the unknowable. Dying a Peckham’s death then would be child’s play, don’t you see? And should you lose the gamble—die a violent death after all, I would say—why, then even it might be a whit less terrible. Of course the real benefit, I would say, lies in the years free of fear. If that sounds like a foolish offer, Mr. Andrews, five minutes of hell in exchange for a lifetime of release from the terror dying holds—if it sounds illogical that anyone would accept—if you believe people wouldn’t clamor for it—then I submit, Andrews, that you don’t know a damn thing about the nature of the world you’re living in.”

“No one would want—” Cassius began, unsure.

“Wouldn’t they? Are you aware of the temper of men’s minds over the past eighty years? What do most people desire of life anymore, Mr. Andrews? To be secure against the harms of life. Don’t ask me why. Perhaps we’ll never understand all the complicated reasons lost back in the years. But people want it. The price keeps rising, but they still want it. I could give it to them. At the price of being Butcher Balk for five short minutes. And they can stand it. Wanda stood it. Flange stood it. Afterward, there’d be nothing left to fear. The world is peopled with Peckhams, not Butcher Balks, Mr. Andrews.”

Then, slowly, Kagle sighed. “But I’ll never say any of that, Mr. Andrews. I’ll never say I could pull fear’s fangs, simply because I know they’d want it. They wouldn’t be satisfied with less than everything once they heard. Not until they learned the real price. Not until it was too late. Not until the world’s engine stopped.”

“Yours hasn’t stopped,” Cassius snarled.

“No,” Kagle said, almost sad again. “But then I’ve never permitted myself to experience more than two senses of any subject at any one time.”

His pale hand lifted, in the general direction of the moon high above the world, as if to say the subject was at last exhausted. Flickering on his face were the expressions of two men, one the god, one the assassin of everything.