Arthur Clarke - Imperial Earth

... it was made of wood; there was no doubt of that, for he could even feel the grain...

... before it dissolved into myriads of separate bristles, each so sharp and distinct that he could feel them prickling his skin...

And there were sensations that he could not even name, some delightful, most neutral, but some so unpleasant that he could scarcely control his revulsion. At last, when within his cupped palms Duncan felt the unique, the incomparable touch of human skin, curiosity and amazement got the better of him. He opened his hands; the silver egg was completely unchanged, though now it felt as if it were carved from soap.

“What in heaven’s name is it?” he cried.

“It’s a tactoid. You haven’t heard of them?”

“No.”

“Fascinating, isn’t it? It doest to the sense of touch what a kaleidoscope does to vision. No, don’t ask me how it works—something to do with controlled electrical stimulation.”

“What’s it used for?”

“Must everything have a purpose? It’s just a toy—a novelty. But I had a very good reason for showing it to you.”

“Oh, I know. ‘The latest from Earth.’ ”

Calindy gave a wistful smile; she recognized that old catch phrase. It brought back vividly to both of them those days together on Titan, a lifetime ago.

“Duncan,” she said, so quietly that he could barely hear the words, “do you think it was all my fault?”

They were now sitting two meters apart on the divan, and he had to twist his body to face her. The woman he saw now was no longer the self-assured executive and impresario he had met on the Titanic , but an unhappy and uncertain girl. He wondered how long the mood of contrition would last, but for the moment it was genuine enough.

“How can I answer that?” he replied. “I’m still completely in the dark. I don’t know what Karl was doing on Earth, or why he came here.”

This was only partially true; Karl’s Minisec had begun to reveal its secrets. But Duncan was not yet prepared to discuss those with anybody, least of all with Calindy.

She looked at him with an air of faint surprise and answered: “Do you mean to say that he never told you—in fifteen years?”

“Told me what? ” said Duncan.

“What happened on that last night aboard Mentor .”

“No,” replied Duncan, with painful slowness. “He never talked about it.” After all these years, that betrayal was still a bitter memory. He knew now, of course, that it was absurd for two young adults like Karl and Calindy, obsessed by their own grief, to have given any thought to the feelings of the boy who adored them both. He could not blame them now; but in his heart he had never forgiven them.

“So you didn’t know that we used a joy machine.”

“Oh, no! ”

“I’m afraid so. It wasn’t my idea. Karl insisted, and I didn’t know any better. But at least I had sense enough not to use it myself. Well, only at very low power...”

“They were illegal even in those days. How did one get aboard Mentor? ”

“There were a lot of things on Mentor that no one ever knew about.”

“I’m sure of that. What happened?”

Calindy got to her feet again and began to pace nervously to and for. She avoided Duncan’s eyes as she continued.

“I don’t like to think about it. Even now, it frightens me, and I can understand why people get hopelessly addicted. I’m sure your fingers have never touched anything as—well, I suppose palpable is the only word—as that tactoid. The joy machine is just the same; it makes real life seem pale and thin—and Karl, remember, used it at full power. I told him not to, but he laughed. He was confident that he could handle it...”

Yes, thought Duncan, that would be just like Karl. Though he had never seen an emotion amplifier, one was kept under proper supervision at the Oasis Central Hospital. It was a very valuable psychiatric tool, but when the simple, portable versions quickly christened ‘joy machines’ had become available around the midcentury, they had spread like a plague over the inhabited worlds. No one would ever know how many immature young minds had been ruined by them. “Brain burning” had been a disease of the sixties, until the epidemic had run its course, leaving behind it hundred of emotional husks. Karl had been lucky to escape...

But, of course, he had not escaped. So this was the truth about his “breakdown,” and the explanation of his changed personality. Duncan began to feel a cold anger toward Calindy. He did not believe her protestation of innocence; she must have known better, even then. But part of his anger was not based on moral judgments. He blamed Calindy because she was alive, while Karl lay frozen in the Aden morgue, like some splendid marble statue defaced by time and carelessly restored. There he must wait until the legal complications involved in the disposal of an extraterrestrial corpse were unraveled. This was another duty that had fallen on Duncan; he had done everything he believed necessary before saying farewell to the friend he had lost before his death.

“I think I see the picture,” continued Duncan, so harshly that Calindy looked at him with sudden surprise. “But tell me the rest—what happened to then?”

“Karl used to send me long, crazy speeches—sealed, special delivery. He said he would never be able to love anyone else. I told him not to be foolish, but to forget about me as quickly as he could, since we’d never be able to meet again. What else could I have said? I didn’t realize how absolutely useless that advice was—like telling a man to stop breathing. I was ashamed to ask, and only discovered years later what a joy machine does to the brain.”

“You see, Duncan, he was telling the literal truth when he said he could never love anyone else. When they reinforce the pleasure circuits, joy machines create a permanent , almost unbreakable pattern of desires. The psychologists call it electroimprinting. I believe there are techniques to modify it now, but there weren’t fifteen years ago, even on Earth. And certainly not on Titan.”

“After a while, I stopped answering; there was nothing I could say. But I still heard from Karl several times a year. He swore that sooner or later, he would get to Earth and see me again. I didn’t take him seriously.”

Perhaps not, thought Duncan; but I am sure you weren’t wholly displeased. It must have been flattering to have held in your hand the soul of someone as talented and beautiful as Karl—even if he had been enslaved accidentally, with the aid of a machine...

He saw very clearly now why all Karl’s later liaisons and marriages had exploded violently. They had been doomed to failure from the start. Always, the image of Calindy would have stood, an unattainable ideal, between Karl and any happiness. How lonely he must have been! And how many misunderstandings might have been averted if the cause of his behavior had been realized in time.

Yet perhaps nothing could have been done, and in any case it was futile to dream about missed opportunities. Who was the old philosopher who had said: “The human race will never know happiness, as long as the words ‘If only...’ can still be spoken?”

“So it must have been a surprise, when he finally did turn up.”

“No. He’d dropped several hints—I’d been half expecting him for a year. Then he called me from Port Van Allen, said he’d just arrived on a special flight, and would be seeing me as soon as he’d completed his gravity reconditioning.”

“It was a Terran Survey supply ship, going back empty—and fast. Even so, it took him fifty days.”

And it couldn’t have been a very comfortable trip, Duncan added to himself—fifty days inside one of those space trucks, with minimal life-support systems. What a contrast to Sirius ! He felt sorry for the officers who had innocently succumbed to Karl’s persuasion, and hoped that the current Court of Inquiry would not damage their careers.