Judith Merril - The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 7

Mercer saw his hand tremble as he reached for the cap.

His fingers touched the girl’s soft hair through the cap. As he tried to get his thumb under the edge of the cap, in order to pull it off, he realized that this was the loveliest girl he had ever touched. He felt that he had always loved her, that he always would. Her cap came off. She stood erect, staggering a little before she found a chair to hold to. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

“Just a minute,” she said in her normal voice. “I’ll be with you in just a minute. The only time I can get a jolt of this is when one of you visitors gets a dose to get over the skin trouble.”

She turned to the room mirror to adjust her hair. Speaking with her back to him, she said, “I hope I didn’t say anything about downstairs.”

Mercer still had the cap on. He loved this beautiful girl who had put it on him. He was ready to weep at the thought that she had had the same kind of pleasure which he still enjoyed. Not for the world would he say anything which could hurt her feelings. He was sure she wanted to be told that she had not said anything about “downstairs”—probably shop talk for the surface of Shayol — so he assured her warmly, “You said nothing. Nothing at all.”.

She came over to the bed, leaned, kissed him on the lips. The kiss was as far away as the pain; he felt nothing; the Niagara of throbbing pleasure which poured through his head left no room for more sensation. But he liked the friendliness of it. A grim, sane corner of his mind whispered to him that this was probably the last time he would ever kiss a woman, but it did not seem to matter.

With skilled fingers she adjusted the cap on his head. “There, now. You’re a sweet guy. I’m going to pretend-forget and leave the cap on you till the doctor comes.”

With a bright smile she squeezed his shoulder.

She hastened out of the room.

The white of her skirt flashed prettily as she went out the door. He saw that she had very shapely legs indeed.

She was nice, but the cap… ah, it was the cap that mattered! He closed his eyes and let the cap go on stimulating the pleasure centers of his brain. The pain in his skin was still there, but it did not matter any more than did the chair standing in the corner. The pain was just something that happened to be in the room.

A firm touch on his arm made him open his eyes.

The older, authoritative-looking man was standing beside the bed, looking down at him with a quizzical smile.

“She did it again,” said the old man.

Mercer shook his head, trying to indicate that the young nurse had done nothing wrong.

“I’m Doctor Vomact,” said the older man, “and I am going to take this cap off you. You will then experience the pain again, but I think it will not be so bad. You can have the cap several more times before you leave here.”

With a swift, firm gesture he snatched the cap off Mercer’s head.

Mercer promptly doubled up with the inrush of fire from his skin. He started to scream and then saw that Doctor Vomact was watching him calmly.

Mercer gasped, “It is — easier now.”

“I knew it would be,” said the doctor. “I had to take the cap off to talk to you. You have a few choices to make.”

“Yes, Doctor,” gasped Mercer.

“You have committed a serious crime and you are going down to the surface of Shayol.”

“Yes,” said Mercer.

“Do you want to tell me your crime?”

Mercer thought of the white palace walls in perpetual sunlight, and the soft mewing of the little things when he reached them. He tightened his arms, legs, back and jaw. “No,” he said, “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s the crime without a name. Against the Imperial family… “

“Fine,” said the doctor, “that’s a healthy attitude. The crime is past. Your future is ahead. Now, I can destroy your mind before you go down — if you want me to.”

“That’s against the law,” said Mercer.

Doctor Vomact smiled warmly and confidently. “Of course it is. A lot of things are against human law. But there are laws of science, too. Your body, down on Shayol, is going to serve science. It doesn’t matter to me whether that body has Mercer’s mind or the mind of a low-grade shellfish. I have to leave enough mind in you to keep the body going, but I can wipe out the historic you and give your body a better chance of being happy. It’s your choice, Mercer. Do you want to be you or not?”

Mercer shook his head back and forth, “I don’t know.”

“I’m taking a chance,” said Doctor Vomact, “in giving you this much leeway. I’d have it done if I were in your position. It’s pretty bad down there.”

Mercer looked at the full, broad face. He did not trust the comfortable smile. Perhaps this was a trick to increase his punishment. The cruelty of the Emperor was proverbial. Look at what he had done to the widow of his predecessor, the Dowager Lady Da. She was younger than the Emperor himself, and he had sent her to a place worse than death. If he had been sentenced to Shayol, why was this doctor trying to interfere with the rules? Maybe the doctor himself had been conditioned, and did not know what he was offering.

Doctor Vomact read Mercer’s face. “All right. You refuse. You want to take your mind down with you. It’s all right with me. I don’t have you on my conscience. I suppose you’ll refuse the next offer too. Do you want me to take your eyes out before you go down? You’ll be much more comfortable without vision. I know that, from the voices that we record for the warning broadcasts. I can sear the optic nerves so that there will be no chance of your getting vision again.”

Mercer rocked back and forth. The fiery pain had become a universal itch, but the soreness of his spirit was greater than the discomfort of his skin.

“You refuse that, too?” said the doctor. “I suppose so,” said Mercer.

“Then all I have to do is to get ready. You can have the cap for a while, if you want.”.

Mercer said, “Before I put the cap on, can you tell me what happens down there?”

“Some of it,” said the doctor. “There is an attendant. He is a man, but not a human being. He is a homunculus fashioned out of cattle material. He is intelligent and very conscientious. You specimens are turned loose on the surface of Shayol. The dromozoa are a special life-form there. When they settle in your body, B’dikkat — that’s the attendant — carves them out with an anesthetic and sends them up here. We freeze the tissue cultures, and they are compatible with almost any kind of oxygen-based life. Half the surgical repair you see in the whole universe comes out of buds that we ship from here. Shayol is a very healthy place, so far as survival is concerned. You won’t die.”

“You mean,” said Mercer, “that I am getting perpetual punishment.”

“I didn’t say that,” said Doctor Vomact. “Or if I did, I was wrong. You won’t die soon. I don’t know how long you will live down there. Remember, no matter how uncomfortable you get, the samples which B’dikkat sends up will help thousands of people in all the inhabited worlds. Now take the cap.”

“I’d rather talk,” said Mercer. “It may be my last chance.”

The doctor looked at him strangely. “If you can stand that pain, go ahead and talk.”

“Can I commit suicide down there?”

“I don’t know,” said the doctor. “It’s never happened. And to judge by the voices, you’d think they wanted to.”

“Has anybody ever come back from Shayol?”

“Not since it was put off limits about four hundred years ago.”

“Can I talk to other people down there?”

“Yes,” said the doctor.

“Who punishes me down there?”