Гарри Гаррисон - To The Stars

“It isn’t. And I don’t expect you to take my word for it. Words are just words. Therefore I have arranged a graphic demonstration for you. Something you cannot argue with.”

Thurgood-Smythe pressed a button on his desk as he talked and the door opened. A uniformed policeman led in a man in gray prison garb, stopped him by the desk, then exited. The man just stood there, staring unseeing into space, the skin of his face limp and hanging, his eyes empty.

“Condemned to death for drug offences,” Thurgood-Smythe said. “A creature like this is useless to society.”

“He’s a man, not a creature.”

“He’s a creature now. Cortical erasure before execution. He has no consciousness, no memory, no personality. Just flesh. Now we remove the flesh.”

Jan gripped the chair arms, unable to speak, as his brother-in-law removed a metal case from his desk drawer. It had an insulated handle and two metal prods on the front. He walked over and stood in front of the prisoner, pressed the prods to the man’s forehead, and thumbed the trigger in the handle.

The man’s limbs jerked once in painful sudden convulsion, then he dropped to the floor.

“Thirty thousand volts,” Thurgood-Smythe said, turning to face Jan. His voice was toneless, empty of expression as he walked across the room and held the electrical device before Jan. “It might just as well have been you. It could be you — right now. Do you still not understand what I am saying?”

Jan looked with horrified fascination at the metal prods just before his face, their ends blackened and pitted. They moved closer and he recoiled involuntarily. At that moment, for the very first time, he was suddenly very frightened for himself. And for this world that he lived in. Up until now he had only been involved in a complicated game. Others could get hurt, he never would. Now the realization struck him that the rules he had always played by didn’t exist. He was no longer playing. Now it was all for real. The games were over.

“Yes,” he said, and his voice was hoarse. “Yes, Mr. Thurgood-Smythe, I understand what you are saying.” He spoke very quietly, barely above a whisper. “This is not an argument or a discussion.” He glanced down at the body sprawled on the floor. “There is something you want to tell me, isn’t there? Something that you want me to do that I am going to do.”

“You are correct.”

Thurgood-Smythe returned to his desk and put the instrument away. The door opened and the same policeman entered and dragged out the corpse. Horribly, by the legs bumping the limp head across the floor. Jan turned his eyes away from it, back to his brother-in-law as he spoke.

“For Elizabeth’s sake, and for that reason alone, I am not going to ask you how deeply you are involved with the resistance — although I know you are. You ignored my advice, now you will obey my instructions. You will leave here and cease any contact, stop any activity. Forever. If you fall under suspicion again, are involved in any way with illegal activity — from that moment onward I will do nothing to you. You will be arrested on the spot, brought here, interrogated, then imprisoned for life. Is that clear?”

“Clear.”

“Louder. I did not hear you.”

“Clear. Yes, clear, I understand.”

As Jan said the words he found a terrible anger driving out the fear. In this moment of absolute humiliation, he realized how loathsome the people in power were, how impossible it would be to live with them in peace after this discovery. He did not want to die — but he knew he would never be able to live in a world where the Thurgood-Smythes were in charge. His shoulders slumped, and he lowered his face. Not in surrender, but only so that his brother-in-law would not see the rage, the anger that he felt.

His hands were thrust deep into his jacket pockets.

He depressed the button on the glow lighter.

The command signal radiated from the small but powerful transmitter inside. This activated the device concealed in the pen, clearly visible in the Security man’s pocket. Upon receipt of this signal the memory bank was emptied and transmitted to the memory in the lighter. It took only microseconds. Jan let go of the button and stood up.

“Is there anything else, or can I go now?”

“It is for your own good, Jan. I gain nothing by this.”

“Smitty, please. Be anything — but don’t be a hypocrite.” Jan couldn’t prevent it; some of the anger leaked through. Thurgood-Smythe must have been expecting it because he only nodded expressionlessly. Jan had a sudden realization.

“And you hate my guts, don’t you?” he said. “And you always have.”

“That is absolutely true.”

“Well — very good. The feeling is absolutely mutual.”

Jan left then, not daring to say another word, afraid that he would go too far. He had no trouble leaving the building. Only when he was driving up the ramp did he realize what this meant.

He had gotten away with it. He had a recording in his pocket of all his brother-in-law’s top Security conversations of the past weeks.

It was like carrying a bomb that could destroy him. What should he do with it? Wipe it clean, then throw the lighter into the Thames and forget forever what he had done. Automatically he turned the car toward the river. If he did anything other than this, it would be the utmost folly, a self-imposed death sentence.

The thoughts chased themselves through his head one after another and he could not think clearly. He almost ran through a red light that he did not see, would have run it if the car’s computer had not caught his dereliction of duty and applied the brakes.

This was the sticking point, he realized. This was the moment when he determined what the rest of his life would be like.

He pulled the car into Savoy Street and braked to a stop, too occupied to drive. Nor could he sit still. He climbed out and locked the car, and started for the river. Then stopped. No, he hadn’t made his mind up yet, that was the worst part. He still didn’t know what he should do. He unlocked the trunk and rummaged in his tool box there until he found a pair of small earphones; he stuffed them into his pocket and turned toward the river.

A raw wind had sprung up and the slush was turning into rutted ice again. Other than a few distant, hurrying figures, he had the Victoria Embankment to himself. He stood at the stone rail, staring unseeingly at the ice floes in the gray water hurrying toward the sea. The lighter was in his hand. All he had to do was pull it out and throw it from him and the indecision would be over. He took it out and looked at it. So small, as tiny as a man’s life.

With his other hand he plugged the earphones into the opening in its base.

He could still throw the thing away. But he had to hear what Thurgood-Smythe said in the security of his office, when talking to others of his kind. He had to know at least that much.

The tiny voices sounded in the privacy of his ear. Incomprehensible for the most part, conversations about matters, names he didn’t know, complicated affairs discussed in a cold and businesslike way. The experts could have a field day with this, would be able to unravel and make sense of all the references and commands. It made hardly any sense at all to Jan. He jumped to the ending and caught some of their own conversation, then jumped back earlier in the day. Nothing of any real interest. Then he froze as the words sounded clearly:

“Yes, that’s right, the Israeli girl. We’ve had enough trouble from her and we are going to finish it tonight. Wait until the meeting in the canal boat is under way and then…”

Sara — in danger!

Jan made the decision — unaware at the moment that he had even decided. He hurried, not running, that would be noticed, back to his car through the growing dusk. This evening — tonight! Could he get there first?