Robert Sheckley - Diplomatic Immunity

In ten minutes the room looked like an abattoir.

But by then the Ambassador had tired of the spectacle and was reclining on his bed, reading.

'I give up,' Malley said. 'That was my last bright idea.'

Cercy stared at the floor, not answering. Harrison was seated in the corner, getting quietly drunk.

The telephone rang.

'Yeah?' Cercy said.

'I've got it!' Darrig's voice shouted over the line. 'I really think this is it. Look, I'm taking a cab right down. Tell Harrison to find some helpers.'

'What is it?' Cercy asked. y

"The Chaos underneath!' Darrig replied, and hung up.

They paced the floor, waiting for him to show up. Half an hour passed, then an hour. Finally, three hours after he had called, Darrig strolled in.

'Hello,' he said casually.

'Hello, hell!' Cercy growled. 'What kept you?'

'On the way over,' Darrig said, 'I read the Ambassador's philosophy. It's quite a work.'

'Is that what took you so long?'

'Yes. I had the driver take me around the park a few times while I was reading it.'

'Skip it. How about—'

'I can't skip it,' Darrig said in a strange, tight voice. 'I'm afraid we were wrong. About the aliens, I mean. It's perfectly right and proper that they should rule us. As a matter of fact, I wish they'd hurry up and get here.'

But Darrig didn't look certain. His voice shook and perspiration poured from his face. He twisted his hands together, as though in agony.

'It's Kird to explain,' he said. 'Everything became clear as soon as I started reading it. I saw how stupid we were, trying to be independent in this interdependent universe. I saw - oh, look, Cercy. Let's stop all this foolishness and accept the Ambassador as our friend.'

'Calm down!' Cercy shouted at the perfectly calm physicist. 'You don't know what you're saying.'

'It's strange,' Darrig said. 'I know how I felt -1 just don't feel that way any more. I think. Anyhow, I know your trouble. You haven't read the philosophy. You'll see what I mean once you've read it.' He handed Cercy the pile of papers. Cercy promptly ignited them with his cigarette lighter.

'It doesn't matter,' Darrig said. 'I've got it memorized. Just listen. Axiom one. All peoples—'

Cercy hit him, a short, clean blow, and Darrig slumped to the floor.

'Those words must be semantically keyed,' Malley said. 'They're designed to set off certain reactions in us, I suppose. All the Ambassador does is alter the philosophy to suit the peoples he's dealing with.'

'Look, Malley,' Cercy said. 'This is your job now. Darrig knows, or thought he knew, the answer. You have to get that out of him.'

'That won't be easy,' Malley said. 'He's feel that he was betraying everything he believes in if he were to tell us.'

'I don't care how you get it;' Cercy said. 'Just get it.'

'Even if it kills him?' Malley asked.

'Even if it kills you.'

'Help me get him to my lab,' Malley said.

That night Cercy and Harrison kept watch on the Ambassador from the control room. Cercy found his thoughts were racing in circles.

What had killed Alfern in space? Could it be duplicated on Earth? What was the regularizing principle? What was the 'Chaos underneath'?

What in hell am I doing here? he asked himself. But he couldn't start that sort of thing.

'What do you figure the Ambassador is?' he asked Harrison. 'Is he a man?'

'Looks like one,' Harrison said drowsily.

'But he doesn't act like one. I wonder if this is his true shape?'

Harrison shook his head, and lighted his pipe.

'What is there of him?' Cercy asked. 'He looks like a man, but he can change into anything else. You can't attack him; he adapts. He's like water, taking the shape of any vessel he's poured into.'

'You can't boil water,' Harrison yawned.

'Sure. Water hasn't any shape, has it? Or has it? What's basic?'

With an effort, Harrison tried to focus on Cercy's words. 'Molecular pattern? The matrix?'

'Matrix.' Cercy repeated, yawning himself. 'Pattern. Must be something like that. A pattern is abstract, isn't it?'

'Sure. A pattern can be impressed on anything. What did I say?'

'Let's see,' Cercy said. 'Pattern. Matrix. Everything about the Ambassador is capable of change. There must be some unifying force that retains his personality. Something that doesn't change, no matter what contortions he goes through.'

'Like a piece of string,' Harrison murmured with his eyes closed.

'Sure. Tie it in knots, weave a rope out of it, wind it around your finger; it's still string.'

'Yeah.'

'But how do you attack a pattern?' Cercy asked. And why couldn't he get some sleep? To hell with the Ambassador and his hordes of colonists, he was going to close his eyes for a moment...

'Wake up, Colonel!'

Cercy pried his eyes open and looked up at Malley. Beside h'm, Harrison was snoring deeply. 'Did you get anything?'

'Not a thing,' Malley confessed. 'The philosophy must've had quite an effect on him. But it didn't work all the way. Darrig knew that he had wanted to kill the Ambassador, and for good and sufficient reasons. Although he felt differently now, he still had the feeling that he was betraying us. On the one hand, he couldn't hurt the Ambassador; on the other, he wouldn't hurt us.'

'Won't he tell anything?'

'I'm afraid it's not that simple,' Malley said. 'You know, if you have an insurmountable obstacle that must be surmounted ... and also, I think the philosophy had an injurious effect on his mind.'

'What are you trying to say?' Cercy got to his feet.

'I'm sorry,' Malley apologized, 'there wasn't a damned thing I could do. Darrig fought the whole thing out in his mind, and when he couldn't fight any longer, he - retreated. I'm afraid he's hopelessly insane.'

'Let's see him.'

They walked down the corridor to Malley's laboratory. Darrig was relaxed on a couch, his eyes glazed and staring.

'Is there any way of curing him?' Cercy asked.

'Shock therapy, maybe.' Malley was dubious. 'It'll take a long time. And he'll probably block out everything that had to do with producing this.'

Cercy turned away, feeling sick. Even if Darrig could be cured, it would be too late. The aliens must have picked up the Ambassador's message by now and were undoubtedly heading for Earth.

'What's this?' Cercy asked, picking up a piece of paper that lay by Darrig's hand.

'Oh. he was doodling,' Malley said. 'Is there anything written on it?'

Cercy read aloud: '"Upon further consideration, I can see that Chaos and the Gorgon Medusa are closely related."'

'What does that mean?' Malley asked.

'I don't know,' Cercy puzzled. 'He was always interested in folklore.'

'Sounds schizophrenic,' the psychiatrist said.

Cercy read it again. ' "Upon further consideration, I can see that Chaos and the Gorgon Medusa are closely related." ' He stared at it. 'Isn't it possible,' he asked Malley, 'that he was trying to give us a clue? Trying to trick himself into giving and not giving at the same time?'

'It's possible,' Malley agreed. 'An unsuccessful compromise - but what could it mean?'

'Chaos.' Cercy remembered Darrig's mentioning that word in his telephone call. 'That was the original state of the universe in Greek myth, wasn't it? The formlessness out of which everything came?'

'Something like that,' Malley said. 'And Medusa was one of those three sisters with the horrible faces.'

Cercy stood for a moment, staring at the paper. Chaos ... Medusa ... and organizing principle! Of course!

'I think—' He turned and ran from the room. Malley looked at him; then loaded a hypodermic and followed.

In the control room, Cercy shouted Harrison into consciousness.

'Listen,' he said, 'I want you to build something, quick. Do you hear me?'