Clans of the Alphane Moon (7 page)

Blowing vapors from its rear the ship settled to the ground a hundred yards to their right. It was a large ship, Ignatz perceived. The largest he had ever seen. He, too, felt fright, but as always he managed to control
it; many years had passed since phobia had been a factor for him to deal with. Sarah, however, looked palpably terror-stricken as she watched the ship tremble to a halt, saw the hatch slide open as the occupants prepared to excrete themselves from the great tubular organism of metal and base plastic.

“Have them approach us,” Omar Diamond said, his eyes once again squeezed shut. “Have them recognize our existence. We will force them to take note of us and honor us.” Ignatz joined him instantly, and after a pause so did frightened Sarah Apostoles, to the extent possible for her.

A ramp descended from the hatch of the ship. Two figures appeared, then lowered themselves step by step to the ground.

Ignatz said hopefully to Diamond, “Shall we produce miracles?”

Eyeing him, Diamond said with doubt, “Such as? I—do not customarily work magic.”

Sarah said, “Together Ignatz and I can accomplish this.” To Ignatz she said, “Why don’t we transfigure them with the specter of the world-spider as it spins its web of determination for all life?”

“Agreed,” Ignatz said, and turned his attention to the chore of summoning the world-spider… or, as Elsie would say, the
moon
-spider.

Before the two figures from the ship, blocking their way, appeared a glistening manifold of web-strands, a hastily erected structure by the never-ceasing toils of the spider. The figures froze.

One of them said something unutterable.

Sarah laughed.

“If you let them amuse you,” Omar Diamond said severely, “we will lose the power which we hold over them.”

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said, still laughing. But it was already too late; the heap of shimmering web-fragments dissolved. And, Ignatz saw to his dismay, so did Omar Diamond and Sarah; he found himself seated alone. Their triumvirate had been extinguished by one instant of weakness. Nor did he still sit on the field of grass; he sat instead on a heap of junk in his own front yard in the center of Gandhitown.

The invading macro-organisms had regained control of their actions. Had managed to revert to their own plans.

Rising, Ignatz walked toward the two figures from the ship, who now stood uncertainly looking around them. Beneath Ignatz’s feet his cats romped and raced; he tripped, almost sprawled; cursing to himself he pushed the cats aside, trying to retain a measure of gravity, of dignified countenance before these invaders. However this was impossible. Because behind him the door of the shack had opened and Elsie had come out; she had spoiled even this last-ditch stand on his part.

“Who are they?” she yelled.

Irritably Ignatz said, “I don’t know. I’m going to find out.”

“Tell them to get the hell out of here,” Elsie said, her hands on her hips. She had been a Mans for several years and she still retained the arrogant hostility learned at Da Vinci Heights. Without knowing what she was up against she was prepared to do battle… perhaps, he thought, with a can opener and a skillet. That amused him and he began to laugh; once he started he could not stop, and it was in this condition that he came up face to face with the two invaders.

“What’s so funny?” one of them, a female, inquired.

Ignatz, wiping his eyes, said, “Do you remember
landing twice? Do you remember the world-spiders? You don’t.” It was too funny; the invaders did not even recall the efforts of the triadic unnaturally-gifted saints. For them it had not even happened; it had not even been a delusion, and yet into it had gone all the efforts possible on the part of Ignatz Ledebur, Sarah Apostoles and the Skitz, Omar Diamond. He laughed on and on, and meanwhile the two invaders were joined by a third and then a fourth.

One of them, a male, sighed as he looked around. “Lord, what a rundown dump this place is. You think it’s all this way?”

“But you can help us,” Ignatz said. He managed to gain control of himself; pointing to the rusting hulk of the autonomic tractor on which the children played, he said, “Could you put yourself out to the extent of lending a hand to repair my farming equipment? If I had a little help—”

“Sure, sure,” one of the men said. “We’ll help clean up this place.” He wrinkled his nose in disgust; evidently he had smelled or seen something that offended him.

“Come inside,” Ignatz said. “And have coffee.” He turned toward the shack; after a pause the three men and the woman reluctantly followed. “I have to apologize for the smallness of the place,” Ignatz said, “and the condition it’s in—” He pushed open the door and this time most of the cats managed to squirm into the shack; bending, he picked up one after another, tossed them back outdoors. The four invaders uncertainly entered, stood about looking acutely unhappy.

“Sit down,” Elsie said, summoning a modicum of politeness; she put the teakettle on the stove, lit the burner. “Just clear off that bench,” she directed. “Push the stuff anywhere; on the floor if you want.”

The four invaders reluctantly—with tangible aversion—pushed the mass of children’s soiled clothing onto the floor, seated themselves. Each had a vague, stunned expression and Ignatz wondered why.

The woman, haltingly, said, “Couldn’t you—clean up your home here? I mean, how do you live in such—” She gestured, unable to continue.

Ignatz felt apologetic. But after all… there were so many more important matters and so little time. Neither he nor Elsie could seem to find the opportunity to straighten things up; it was wrong, of course, to let the shack get like this, but—he shrugged. Sometime soon, perhaps. And the invaders could possibly help here, too; they might have a work-sim that could pitch in. The Manses had them, but they charged too much. Possibly the invaders would loan him a work-sim
free.

A rat, from its hole behind the icebox, scuttled across the floor. The woman invader, seeing the clumsy little weapon which it carried, shut her eyes and moaned.

Ignatz, as he fixed the coffee, giggled. Well, no one had asked them to come here; if they didn’t like Gandhitown they could leave.

From the bedroom several of the children appeared, gaped in silence at the four invaders. The invaders sat rigidly, saying nothing, waiting in pain for their coffee, ignoring the blank, staring eyes of the children.

   In the large council room at Adolfville the Heeb rep, Jacob Simion, spoke up suddenly. “They’ve landed. At Gandhitown. They’re with Ignatz Ledebur.”

Furious, Howard Straw said, “While we sit here talking. Enough of this time-wasting gabble; let’s wipe them out. They have no business on our world—don’t you agree?” He poked Gabriel Baines.

“I agree,” Baines said, and moved a trifle further away from the Mans delegate. “How did you know?” he asked Jacob Simion.

The Heeb snickered. “Didn’t you see them here in the room? The asteral bodies? It was Ignatz who came here—you don’t remember that; he came and took Omar Diamond with him, but you’ve forgotten that because it never happened; the invaders made it unhappen by dividing the three into one and two.”

Staring hopelessly at the floor the Dep said, “So already it’s too late; they’ve landed.”

Howard Straw barked a sharp, cold laugh. “But only in Gandhitown. Who cares about that? It
ought
to be mopped up; personally I’d be glad if they pulverized it out of existence—it’s a cesspool and everybody living in it stinks.”

Shrinking back as if struck, Jacob Simion murmured, “At least we Heebs, we’re not cruel.” He blinked back helpless tears; at that, Howard Straw grinned with relish and nudged Gabriel Baines.

“Don’t you have spectacular weapons at Da Vinci Heights?” Gabriel Baines asked him. He had a deep intuition, then, that the Mans’ write-off of Gandhitown was indicative; the Manses probably intended to make no stand until their own settlement was endangered. They would not lend the inventiveness of their hyperactive minds for the general defense.

Gabriel Baines’ long-time suspicions of Straw were now being justified.

Frowning with worry Annette Golding said, “We can’t let Gandhitown go down the drain.”

“‘Down the drain,’” Straw echoed. “Appropriate! Yes we certainly can. Listen;
we have the weapons.
They’ve never been put to use—they can wipe out any invading armada. We’ll trot them out—when we feel
like it.” He glanced around the table at the other delegates, enjoying the power of his position, his mastery; they were all dependent on him.

“I knew you’d behave like this as soon as a crisis arose,” Gabriel Baines said bitterly. God, how he hated the Manses. How unreliable morally they were, so egocentric and superior; they simply could not work for the common good. Thinking this he made himself a promise right on the spot. If his opportunity to get back at Straw ever came he would take it. Fully. In fact, he realized, if the opportunity came to pay back the whole bunch of them, the entire Mans settlement—it was a hope worth living for. The Manses held the advantage now, but it wouldn’t last.

In fact, Gabriel Baines thought, it would almost be worth going to the invaders and making a pact with them on behalf of Adolfville; the invaders and ourselves against Da Vinci Heights.

The more he thought of it the more the idea appealed to him.

Annette Golding, eyeing him, said, “Do you have something to offer us, Gabe? You look as if you’ve thought of something valuable.” Like all Polys she had acute perceptions; she had correctly read the changing expressions on his face.

Gabe chose to lie. Obviously he had to. “I think,” he said aloud, “we can sacrifice Gandhitown. We’re going to have to give it to them, let them colonize in that area, set up a base or whatever they want to do; we may not like it but—” He shrugged. What else could they do?

Miserably, Jacob Simion stammered, “Y-you people don’t care about us just because we’re—not so cleanly as you all. I’m going back to Gandhitown and join my clan; if they’re going to perish I’ll perish with them.”
He rose to his feet, pushing his chair over with a discordant crash. “Betrayers,” he added as he shambled, Heebwise, toward the door. The other delegates watched him go, displaying various shades of indifference; even Annette Golding, who generally cared about everything and everyone, did not seem perturbed.

And yet—fleetingly—Gabriel Baines felt grief. Because for the whole lot of them, here went their potential fate; every now and then a full Pare or Poly or Skitz or even Mans drifted by insidious, imperceptible degrees into Heebhood. So it could still come about. Any time.

And now, Baines realized, if that happens to any of us
there will be no place to go.
What became of a Heeb without Gandhitown? A good question; it frightened him.

Aloud he said, “Wait.”

At the door the shambling, unshaven, sloppy figure of Jacob Simion paused; in the sunken Heeb eyes a flicker of hope manifested itself.

Gabriel Baines said, “Come back.” Addressing himself to the others, especially arrogant Howard Straw, he said, “We have to act in concert. Today it’s Gandhitown; tomorrow it’ll be Hamlet Hamlet or ourselves or the Skitzes—the invaders will nab us bit by bit. Until only Da Vinci Heights remains.” His antagonism toward Straw made his voice grate with envenomed harshness; in his own ears it was scarcely recognizable. “I vote formally that we employ all our resources in an effort to reconquer Gandhitown. We should make our stand there.” Right in the middle of the heaps of garbage, animal manure and rusting machinery, he said to himself, and winced.

After a pause Annette said, “I—second the motion.”

The vote was taken. Only Howard Straw voted against it. So the motion carried.

“Straw,” Annette said briskly, “you’re instructed to produce these miracle weapons you’ve been bragging about. Since you Manses are so militant we’ll let you lead the attack to retake Gandhitown.” To Gabriel Baines she said, “And you Pares can organize it.” She seemed quite calm, now that it had all been decided.

Softly, Ingred Hibbler said to Straw, “I might point out that if the war is fought near and in Gandhitown, damage will not occur to the other settlements. Had you thought of that?”

“Imagine fighting in Gandhitown,” Straw muttered. “Wading around waist-deep in—” He broke off. To Jacob Simion and Omar Diamond he said, “We’ll need all the Skitz and Heeb saints, visionaries, miracle-workers and just plain Psis we can get; will your settlements produce them and let us employ them?”

“I think so,” Diamond said. Simion nodded.

“Between the miracle weapons from Da Vinci Heights and the talents of the Heeb and Skitz saints,” Annette said, “we should be able to offer more than token resistance.”

Miss Hibbler said, “If we could get the full names of the invaders we could cast numerological charts of them, discover their weak points. Or if we had their exact birthdates—”

“I think,” Annette interrupted, “that the weapons of the Manses, plus the organizing powers of the Pares, in conjunction with the Heeb and Skitz unnaturals, will be somewhat more useful.”

“Thank you,” Jacob Simion said, “for not sacrificing Gandhitown.” He gazed in mute appreciation at Gabriel Baines.

For the first time in months, perhaps even years,
Baines felt his defenses melt; he enjoyed—briefly—a sense of relaxation, of near-euphoria. Someone liked him. And even if it was only a Heeb it meant a lot.

It reminded him of his childhood. Before he had found the Pare solution.

Walking along the muddy, rubbish-heaped central street of Gandhitown, Dr. Mary Rittersdorf said, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. Clinically it’s mad. These people must all be hebephrenics. Terribly, terribly deteriorated.” Inside her something cried at her to
get out
, to leave this place and never return. To get back to Terra and her profession as marriage counselor and forget she had ever seen this.

And the idea of attempting psychotherapy with these people—

She shuddered. Even drug-therapy and electroshock would be of little use, here. This was the tail-end of mental illness, the point of no return.

Beside her the young CIA agent, Dan Mageboom, said, “Your diagnosis, then, is hebephrenia? I can report that back officially?” Taking her by the arm he assisted her over the remains of some major animal carcass; in the mid-day sun the ribs stuck up like tines of a great curved fork.

Mary said, “Yes, it’s obvious. Did you see the pieces of dead rat lying strewn around the door of that shack? I’m sick; I’m actually sick to my stomach. No one lives that way now. Not even in India and China. It’s like going back four thousand years; that’s the
way Sinanthropus and Neanderthal must have lived. Only without the rusted machinery.”

“At the ship,” Mageboom said, “we can have a drink.”

“No drink is going to help me,” Mary said. “You know what this awful place reminds me of? The horrible shoddy old conapt my husband moved into when we separated.”

Beside her Mageboom started, blinked.

“You knew I was married,” Mary said. “I told you.” She wondered why her remark had surprised him, so; on the trip she had freely discussed her marital problems with him, finding him a good listener.

“I can’t believe your comparison is accurate,” Mageboom said. “The conditions here are symptoms of a group psychosis; your husband never lived like that— he had no mental disorder.” He glared at her.

Mary halting, said, “How do you know? You never met him. Chuck was—still is—sick. What I said is so; he has a latent streak of hebephrenia in him… he always shrank from socio-sexual responsibility; I told you about all my attempts to get him to seek employment that guaranteed a reasonable return.” But of course Mageboom himself was an employee of the CIA; she could hardly expect to obtain sympathy from him on that issue. Better, perhaps, to drop the whole topic. Things were depressing enough without having to rehash her life with Chuck.

On both sides of her Heebs—that was what they called themselves, a corruption of the obviously accurate diagnostic category hebephrenic—gazed with vacuous silliness, grinning without comprehension, even without real curiosity. A white goat wandered by ahead of her; she and Dan Mageboom stopped warily, neither of them familiar with goats. It passed on.

At least, she thought, these people are harmless. Hebephrenics, at all their stages of deterioration, lacked the capacity to act out aggression; there were other far more ominous derangement-syndromes to be on the lookout for. It was inevitable that, very shortly, they would begin to turn up. She was thinking in particular of the manic-depressives, who, in their manic phase, could be highly destructive.

But there was an even more sinister category which she was steeling herself against. The destructiveness of the manics would be limited to impulse; at the worst it would have a tantrum-like aspect, temporary orgies of breaking and hitting which ultimately would subside. However, with the acute paranoid a systemized and permanent hostility could be anticipated; it would not abate in time but on the contrary would become more elaborate. The paranoid possessed an analytical, calculating quality; he had a good reason for his actions, and each move fitted in as part of the scheme. His hostility might be less conspicuously violent… but in the long run its durability posed deeper implications as far as therapy went. Because with these people, the advanced paranoids, cure or even temporary insight was virtually impossible. Like the hebephrenic, the paranoid had found a stable and permanent maladaptation.

And, unlike the manic-depressive and the hebephrenic, or the simple catatonic schizophrenic, the paranoid
seemed
rational. The formal pattern of logical reasoning appeared undisturbed. Underneath, however, the paranoid suffered from the greatest mental disfigurement possible for a human being. He was incapable of empathy, unable to imagine himself in another person’s role. Hence for him others did not actually exist—except as objects in motion that did or
did not affect his well-being. For decades it had been fashionable to say that paranoids were incapable of loving. This was not so. The paranoid experienced love fully, both as something given to him by others and as a feeling on his part toward them. But there was a slight catch to this.

The paranoid experienced it as a variety of hate.

To Dan Mageboom she said, “According to my theory the several sub-types of mental illness should be functioning on this world as classes somewhat like those of ancient India. These people here, the hebephrenics, would be equivalent to the untouchables. The manics would be the warrior class, without fear; one of the highest.”

“Samurai,” Mageboom said. “As in Japan.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “The paranoids—actually paranoiac schizophrenics—would function as the statesman class; they’d be in charge of developing political ideology and social programs—they’d have the overall world view. The simple schizophrenics…” She pondered. “They’d correspond to the poet class, although some of them would be religious visionaries—as would be some of the Heebs. The Heebs, however, would be inclined to produce ascetic saints, whereas the schizophrenics would produce dogmatists. Those with polymorphic schizophrenia simplex would be the creative members of the society, producing the new ideas.” She tried to remember what other categories might exist. “There could be some with over-valent ideas, psychotic disorders that were advanced forms of milder obsessive-compulsive neurosis, the so-called diencephalic disturbances. Those people would be the clerks and office holders of the society, the ritualistic functionaries, with no original ideas. Their conservatism would balance the radical quality of the polymorphic
schizophrenics and give the society stability.”

Mageboom said, “So one would think the whole affair would work.” He gestured. “How would it differ from our own society on Terra?”

For a time she considered the question; it was a good one.

“No answer?” Mageboom said.

“I have an answer. Leadership in this society here would naturally fall to the paranoids, they’d be superior individuals in terms of initiative, intelligence and just plain innate ability. Of course they’d have trouble keeping the manics from staging a coup… there’d always be tension between the two classes. But you see, with paranoids establishing the ideology, the dominant emotional theme would be hate. Actually hate going in two directions; the leadership would hate everyone outside its enclave and also would take for granted that everyone hated it in return. Therefore their entire so-called foreign policy would be to establish mechanisms by which this supposed hatred directed at them could be fought. And this would involve the entire society in an illusory struggle, a battle against foes that didn’t exist for a victory over nothing.”

“Why is that so bad?”

“Because,” she said, “no matter how it came out, the results would be the same. Total isolation for these people. That would be the ultimate effect of their entire group activity: to progressively cut themselves off from all other living entities.”

“Is that so bad? To be self-sufficient—”

“No,” Mary said. “It wouldn’t be self-sufficiency; it would be something entirely different, something you and I really can’t imagine. Remember the old experiments
made with people in absolute isolation? Back in the mid-twentieth century, when they anticipated space travel, the possibility of a man being entirely alone for days, weeks on end, with fewer and fewer stimuli… remember the results they obtained when they placed a man in a chamber from which no stimuli at all reached him?”

“Of course,” Mageboom said. “It’s what now is called
the buggies.
The result of stimulus-deprivation is acute hallucinosis.”

She nodded. “Auditory, visual, tactile and olfactory hallucinosis, replacing the missing stimuli. And, in intensity, hallucinosis can exceed the force of reality; in its vividness, its impact, the effect aroused by it… for example, states of terror. Drug-induced hallucinations can bring on states of terror which no experience with the real world can produce.”

“Why?”

“Because they have an absolute quality. They’re generated within the sense-receptor system and constitute a feedback emanating not from a distant point but from within a person’s own nervous system. He can’t obtain detachment from it. And he knows it. There’s no retreat possible.”

Mageboom said, “And how’s that going to act here? You don’t seem able to say.”

“I can say, but it’s not simple. First, I don’t know yet how far this society is advanced along the lines of isolating itself and the individuals who make it up. We’ll know soon by their attitude toward us. The Heebs we’re seeing here—” She indicated the hovels on both sides of the muddy road. “Their attitude is no index. However, when we run into our first paranoids or manics—let’s say this: undoubtedly some measure of hallucination, of psychological projection, exists as
a component of their world view. In other words, we have to assume they’re already partly hallucinating. But they still retain some sense of objective reality as such. Our presence here will accelerate the hallucinating tendency; we have to face that and be prepared. And the hallucination will take the form of seeing us as elements of dire menace; we, our ship, will literally be viewed—I don’t mean interpreted, I mean actually perceived—as threatening. What they undoubtedly will see in us is an invading spearhead that intends to overthrow their society, make it a satellite of our own.”

“But that’s true. We intend to take the leadership out of their hands, place them back where they were twenty-five years ago. Patients in enforced hospitalization circumstances—in other words, captivity.”

It was a good point. But not quite good enough. She said, “There is a distinction you’re not making; it’s a slender one, but vital. We will be attempting therapy of these people, trying to put them actually in the position which, by accident, they now improperly hold. If our program is successful they
will
govern themselves, as legitimate settlers on this moon, eventually. First a few, then more and more of them. This is not a form of captivity—
even if they imagine it is.
The moment any person on this moon is free of psychosis, is capable of viewing reality without the distortion of projection—”

“Do you think it’ll be possible to persuade these people voluntarily to resume their hospitalized status?”

“No,” Mary said. “We’ll have to bring force to bear on them; with the possible exception of a few Heebs we’re going to have to take out commitment papers for an entire planet.” She corrected herself, “Or rather moon.”

“Just think,” Mageboom said. “If you hadn’t changed that to ‘moon’ I’d have grounds for committing you.”

Startled, she glanced at him. He did not appear to be joking; his youthful face was grim.

“It was just a slip,” she said.

“A slip,” he agreed, “but a revealing one. A symptom.” He smiled, and it was a cold smile. It made her shiver in bewilderment and unease; what did Mageboom have against her? Or was she becoming just a little bit paranoid? Perhaps so… but she felt enormous hostility directed her way from the man, and she barely knew him.

And she had felt this hostility throughout the trip. And strangely, from the very beginning; it had started the moment they met.

   Putting the Daniel Mageboom simulacrum on homeostasis, Chuck Rittersdorf switched himself out of the circuit, rose stiffly from the seat before the control panel and lit a cigarette. It was nine
P.M.
local time.

On Alpha III M2 the sim would go about its business, functioning in an adequate manner; if any crisis came up Petri could take over. In the meantime he himself had other problems. It was time for him to produce his first script for the TV comic Bunny Hentman, his other employer.

He had, now, a supply of stimulants; the slime mold from Ganymede had presented them to him as he had started from his conapt that morning. So evidently he could count on working all night.

But first there was a little matter of dinner.

For what it was worth he paused at the public vidphone booth in the lobby of the CIA building and put in a call to Joan Trieste’s conapt.

“Hi,” she said when she saw who it was. “Listen,
Mr. Hentman called here, trying to get hold of you. So you better get in touch with him. He said he tried to reach you at the CIA building in S.F. but they said they never heard of you.”

“Policy,” Chuck said. “Okay. I’ll call him.” He asked her, then, about dinner.

“I don’t believe you’ll be able to have dinner, with or without me,” Joan answered. “From what Mr. Hentman told me. He’s got some idea he wants you to listen to; he says when he springs it on you you’ll drop.”

Chuck said, “That wouldn’t come as a surprise.” He felt resigned; obviously this was how the entire relationship with Hentman would function.

Temporarily forgetting any further efforts in Joan’s direction he called the vidphone number which the Hentman organization had provided him.

“Rittersdorf!” Hentman exclaimed, as soon as the contact was established. “Where are you? Get right over here; I’m in my Florida apt—take an express rocket; I’ll pay the fare. Listen, Rittersdorf; your test is showing up right now—this’ll tell if you’re any good or not.”

It was a long leap from the vacuous dump-like settlement of the Heebs on Alpha III M2 to Bunny Hentman’s energetic schemes. The transition was going to be hard; perhaps it could be accomplished on the flight back East. He could eat, too, on the ship, but that left out Joan Trieste; already his job was undermining his personal life.