Arthur Clarke - The Parasite

Connolly’s voice, calm until now, suddenly came near to breaking.

“Try and imagine the horror of that discovery—the effect of learning that every act, every thought or desire that flitted through your mind—was being watched and shared by another being. It meant, of course, the end of all normal life for me. I had to leave Ruth and I couldn't tell her why. Then, to make matters worse, Maude came chasing after me. She wouldn’t leave me alone, and bombarded me with letters and phone calls. It was hell: I couldn’t fight both of them, so I ran away. And I thought that on Syrene, of all places, he would find enough to interest him without bothering me.”

“Now I understand,” said Pearson softly. “So that's what he’s after. A kind of telepathic Peeping Tom—no longer content with mere watching. . . .”

“I suppose you’re humoring me,” said Connolly, without resentment. “But I don’t mind, and you've summed it up pretty accurately, as you usually do. It was quite a while before I realized what his game was. Once the first shock had worn off, I tried to analyze the position logically. I thought backwards from that first moment of recognition, and in the end I knew that it wasn’t a sudden invasion of my mind. He’d been with me for years, so well hidden that I’d never guessed it. I expect you'll laugh at this, knowing me as you do. Rut I've never been altogether at ease with a woman, even when I’ve been making love to her—and now I know the reason. Omega has always been there, sharing my emotions, gloating over the passions he can no longer experience in his body.

“The only way I kept any control was by lighting back, trying to come to grips with him and to understand what he was. And in the end I succeeded. He’s a long distance away and there must be some limit to his powers. Perhaps that first contact was an accident, though I’m not sure.

“What I’ve told you already. Jack, must be hard enough for you to believe, but it’s nothing to what I’ve got to say now. Yet remember—you agreed that I’m not an imaginative man, and see if you can find a flaw anywhere in this story.

“I don’t know if you’ve read any of the evidence suggesting that telepathy is somehow independent of time. I know that it is. Omega doesn’t belong to our age; he’s somewhere in the future, immensely far ahead of us. For a while I thought he must be one of the last men—that’s why I gave him his name. But now I’m not sure: perhaps he belongs to an age when there are a myriad different races of man, scattered all over the universe—some still ascending, others sinking into decay. His people, wherever and whenever they may be, have reached the heights and fallen from them into the depths the beasts can never know. There’s a sense of evil about him, Jack—the real evil that most of us never meet in all our lives. Yet sometimes I feel almost sorry for him, because I know what has made him the thing he is.

“Have you ever wondered. Jack, what the human race will do when science has discovered everything, when there are no more worlds to be explored, when all the stars have given up their secrets? Omega is one of the answers: I hope he’s not the only one, for if so everything we’ve striven for is in vain. I hope that he and his race are an isolated cancer in a still healthy universe: but I can never be sure.

“They have pampered their bodies until they are useless, and too late they have discovered their mistake. Perhaps they have thought, as some men have thought, that they could live by intellect alone. And perhaps they are immortal, and that must be their real damnation. Through the ages their minds have been corroding in their feeble bodies, seeking some release from their intolerable boredom. They have found it at last in the only way they can, by sending back their minds to an earlier, more virile age, and becoming parasites on the emotions of others.

“I wonder how many of them there are? Perhaps they explain all cases of what used to he called possession. How they must have ransacked the past to assuage their hunger! Can't you picture them, flocking like carrion crows around the decaying Roman Empire, jostling one another for the minds of Nero and Caligula and Tiberius? Perhaps Omega failed to get those richer prizes. Or perhaps he hasn’t much choice and must take whatever mind he can contact in any age, transferring from that to the next whenever he has the chance.

“It was only slowly, of course, that I worked all this out. I think it adds to his enjoyment to know that I’m aware of his presence. I think he’s deliberately helping—breaking down his side of the barrier. For in the end, I was able to see him.”

Connolly broke off. Looking round, Pearson saw that they were no longer alone on the hilltop. A young couple, hand in hand, was coming up the road towards the crucifix. Each had the physical beauty so common and so cheap among the islanders; they were oblivious to the night around them and to any spectators, and went past without the least sign of recognition. There was a bitter smile on Connolly’s lips as he watched them go.

“I suppose I should be ashamed of this, but I was wishing then that he’d leave me and go after that boy. But he won’t: though I’ve refused to play his game any more, he’s staying to see what happens.”

“You were going to tell me what he’s like,” said Pearson, annoyed at the interruption. Connolly lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply before replying.

“Can you imagine a room without walls? He’s in a kind of hollow, egg-shaped space surrounded by blue mist that always seems to be twisting and turning, but never changes its position. There’s no entrance or exit— and no gravity, unless he’s learned to defy it. Because he floats in the center, and around him is a circle of short, fluted cylinders, turning slowly in the air. I think they must be machines of some kind, obeying his will. And once there was a large oval hanging beside him, with perfectly human, beautifully formed arms coming from it. It could only have been a robot, yet those hands and fingers seemed alive. They were feeding and massaging him, treating him like a baby. It was horrible. . . .

“Have you ever seen a lemur or a spectral tarsier? He’s rather like that—a nightmare travesty of mankind, with huge malevolent eyes. And this is strange—it’s not the way one had imagined evolution going—he’s covered with a fine layer of fur, as blue as the room in which he lives. Every time I’ve seen him he’s been in the same position, half curled up like a sleeping baby. I think his legs have completely atrophied—perhaps his arms as well. Only his brain is still active, hunting up and down the ages for its prey.

“And now you know why there was nothing you or anyone else could do. Your psychiatrists might cure me if I was insane, but the science that can deal with Omega hasn’t been invented yet.”

Connolly paused, then smiled wryly.

“Just because I’m sane, I realize that you can’t be expected to believe me. So there’s no common ground on which we can meet.”

Pearson rose from the boulder on which he had been sitting, and shivered slightly. The night was becoming cold, but that was nothing to the feeling of inner helplessness that had overwhelmed him as Connolly spoke.

“I’ll be frank, Roy,” he began slowly. “Of course I don’t believe you. But insofar as you believe in Omega yourself, he’s real to you, and I’ll accept him on that basis and fight him with you.”

“It may be a dangerous game. How do we know what he can do when he’s cornered?”

“I'll take that chance,” Pearson replied, beginning to walk down the hill. Connolly followed him without argument. “Meanwhile, just what do you propose to do yourself?”