Arthur Clarke: The Parasite

“There is nothing you can do,” said Connolly, “nothing at all. Why did you have to follow me?” He was standing with his back to Pearson, staring out across the calm blue waters that led to Italy. On the left, behind the anchored fishing fleet, the sun was setting in Mediterranean splendor, incarnadining land and sky. But neither man was even remotely aware of the beauty all around us.

Pearson rose to his feet, and came forward out of the little cafe’s shadowed porch, into the slanting sunlight. He joined Connolly by the cliff wall, but was careful not to come too close to him. Even in normal times Connolly disliked being touched: his obsession, whatever it might be, would make him doubly sensitive now.

“Listen, Roy,” Pearson began urgently. “We’ve been friends for twenty years, and you ought to know I wouldn’t let you down this time. Besides . . .”

“I know. You promised Ruth.”

“And why not? After all, she is your wife. She has a right to know what’s happened.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “She’s worried, Roy. Much more worried than if it was only another woman.” He nearly added the word “again,” but decided against it.

Connolly stubbed out his cigarette on the flat-topped granite wall, then flicked the white cylinder out over the sea, so that it fell twisting and turning towards the waters a hundred feet below. He turned to face his friend.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” he said, and for a moment there was a glimpse of the familiar personality which, Pearson knew, must be trapped somewhere within the stranger standing at his side. “I know you’re trying to be helpful, and I appreciate it. But I wish you hadn’t followed me. You’ll only make matters worse.”

“Convince me of that, and I’ll go away.”

Connolly sighed.

“I could no more convince you than that psychiatrist you persuaded me to see. Poor Curtis! He was such a well-meaning fellow. Give him my apologies, will you?”

“I’m not a psychiatrist, and I’m not trying to cure you—whatever that means. If you like it the way you are, that’s your affair. But I think you ought to let us know what’s happened, so that we can make plans accordingly.”

“To get me certified?”

Pearson shrugged his shoulders. He wondered if Connolly could see through his feigned indifference to the real concern he was trying to hide. Now that all other approaches seemed to have failed, the “frankly, I don’t care” attitude was the only one left open to him.

“I wasn’t thinking of that. There are a few practical details to worry about. Do you want to stay here indefinitely? You can't live without money, even on Syrene.”

“I can stay at Clifford Rawnsley’s villa as long as I like. He was a friend of my father’s, you know. It’s empty at the moment except for the servants, and they don’t bother me.”

Connolly turned away from the parapet on which he was resting.

“I’m going up the hill before it’s dark,” he said. The words were abrupt, but Pearson knew that he was not being dismissed. He could follow if he pleased, and the knowledge brought him the first satisfaction he had felt since locating Connolly. It was a small triumph, but he needed it.

They did not speak during the climb; indeed, Pearson scarcely had the breath to do so. Connolly set off at a reckless pace, as if deliberately attempting to exhaust himself. The island fell away beneath them, the white villas gleamed like ghosts in the shadowed valleys, the little fishing boats, their day’s work done, lay at rest in the harbor. And all around was the darkling sea.

When Pearson caught up with his friend, Connolly was sitting in front of the shrine which the devout islanders had built on Syrene’s highest point. In the daytime, there would be tourists here, photographing one another or gaping at the much-advertised beauty spread beneath them: but the place was deserted now.

Connolly was breathing heavily from his exertions, yet his features were relaxed and for the moment he seemed almost at peace. The shadow that lay across his mind had lifted, and he turned to Pearson with a smile that echoed his old, infectious grin.

“He hates exercise, Jack. It always scares him away.”

“And who is he?” asked Pearson. “Remember, you haven’t introduced us yet.”

Connolly smiled at his friend’s attempted humor; then his face suddenly became grave.

“Tell me, Jack,” he began. “Would you say I have an overdeveloped imagination?”

“No; you’re about average. You’re certainly less imaginative than I am.”

Connolly nodded slowly.

“That’s true enough, Jack, and it should help you to believe me. Because I’m certain I could never have invented the creature who’s haunting me. He really exists. I’m not suffering from paranoic hallucinations, or whatever Dr. Curtis would call them.

“You remember Maude White? It all began with her. I met her at one of David Trescott’s parties, about six weeks ago. I’d just quarreled with Ruth and was rather fed up. We were both pretty tight, and as I was staying in town she came back to the flat with me.”

Pearson smiled inwardly. Poor Roy! It was always the same pattern, though he never seemed to realize it. Each affair was different to him, but to no one else. The eternal Don Juan, always seeking—always disappointed, because what he sought could be found only in the cradle or the grave, but never between the two.

“I guess you’ll laugh at what knocked me out—it seems so trivial, though it frightened me more than anything that’s ever happened in my life. I simply went over to the cocktail cabinet and poured out the drinks, as I’ve a hundred times before. It wasn’t until I’d handed one to Maude that I realized I’d filled three glasses. The act was so perfectly natural that at first I didn’t recognize what it meant. Then I looked wildly round the room to see where the other man was—even then I knew, somehow, that it was a man. But, of course, he wasn’t there. He was nowhere at all in the outside world: he was hiding deep down inside my own brain. . . .

The night was very still, the only sound a thin ribbon of music winding up to the stars from some cafe in the village below. The light of the rising moon sparkled on the sea; overhead, the arms of the crucifix were silhouetted against the darkness. A brilliant beacon on the frontiers of twilight, Venus was following the sun into the west.

Pearson waited, letting Connolly take his time. He seemed lucid and rational enough, however strange the story he was telling. His face was quite calm in the moonlight, though it might be the calmness that comes after acceptance of defeat.

“The next thing I remember is lying in bed while Maude sponged my face. She was pretty frightened; I’d passed out and cut my forehead badly as I fell. There was a lot of blood around the place, but that didn’t matter. The thing that really scared me was the thought that I’d gone crazy. That seems funny now that I’m much more scared of being sane.

“ He was still there when I woke up: he’s been there ever since. Somehow I got rid of Maude—it wasn’t easy—and tried to work out what had happened. Tell me, Jack, do you believe in telepathy?”

The abrupt challenge caught Pearson off his guard.

“I’ve never given it much thought, but the evidence seems rather convincing. Do you suggest that someone else is reading your mind?”

“It’s not as simple as that. What I’m telling you now I’ve discovered slowly—usually when I've been dreaming or slightly drunk. You may say that invalidates the evidence, but I don’t think so. At first it was the only way I could break through the barrier that separates me from Omega—I’ll tell you later why I’ve called him that. But now there aren’t any obstacles: I know he’s there all the time, waiting for me to let down my guard. Night and day, drunk or sober, I’m conscious of his presence. At times like this he’s quiescent, watching me out of the corner of his eve. My only hope is that he’ll grow tired of waiting, and go in search of some other victim.”