Dangerous Visions (21 page)

About half an hour, the way I like it. After dinner, when I clean up, the macerator will take care of the bones and teeth. (And gall-stones once, believe it or not.) I dial a few drinks to sharpen my appetite, and get out my knife and fork—genuine antiques, cost me a lot, from the days when people ate real meat.

Rich and steaming, brown on the outside and oozing juice. My stomach rumbles in delight. I take my first delicious bite.

Aagh! What in the name of all—What was wrong with her? She must have been in one of those far-out poison-fancier teenster gangs! An awful pain shot right through me. I doubled up. I don't remember screaming, but they tell me they heard me clear out on the speedway, and somebody finally broke in and found me.

They flew me to the hospital, and I had to have half my stomach replaced.

And of course they found her too.

"Extremely interesting," said the visiting criminologist from the African Union. He and the warden, sitting in the warden's office, watched on the wide screen as the techs removed the brain probes and, flanked by the roboguards, led out the four men and the woman—or was that last one a woman too? it was hard to tell—dazed and shuffling, to the rest cubicles. "You mean this is done every day?"

"Every single day of their term. Most of them have life sentences."

"And is it done with all prisoners? Or just all felons?"

The warden laughed.

"Not even all felons," he answered. "Only what we call Class 1 homicide, rape, and mayhem. It would hardly be advisable to let a pro burglar live daily through his latest burglary—he'd just note the weak points and educate himself to make a better job of the next one after he got out!"

"And does it act as a deterrent?"

"If it didn't, we couldn't use it. We have a provision, you know, in the Inter-American Union, against 'cruel and unusual punishment.' This is no longer unusual, and our Supreme Court and the Appeals Court of the Terrestrial Regions have both ruled that it is not cruel. It is therapeutic."

"I meant deterrent to other would-be criminals on the outside."

"All I can say is that every secondary school in the Union includes a course in elementary penology, with a dozen screen-viewings of this procedure. We've had a lot of publicity. I've been interviewed often. And out of two thousand inmates of this institution, which is of average size, those five are the only present subjects for this treatment. Our homicide rate in this Union has gone down from the highest to the lowest on Earth in the ten years since we began."

"Ah, yes, I was aware of that, of course. It is why I was delegated to investigate, to see whether it might be desirable for us too. I understand I am only the latest of such visitors."

"Quite true. The East Asian Union is considering it now, and several other Unions are hoping to put it on their agenda."

"But in the other sense of deterrence, as it affects the people themselves? How does that work out? Of course I know they couldn't continue their criminal careers at present, but what is the psychological effect on them here and now?"

"The principle," said the warden, "was defined by Lachim Malley, our noted penologist—"

"Indeed yes, one of the very great."

"We think so. His idea came originally from a very minor and banal bit of folk history. Back in the old days, when they had privately owned stores and people were paid wages to work in them, it used to be the custom, in shops that sold pastries and confectionery and such delicacies, which the young particularly crave—and also, I believe, in breweries and wineries—to allow new employees to eat or drink their fill. It was found that soon they became satiated, and then actually averse to the very thing they had so much craved—which of course saved a good deal of money in the long run.

"It occurred to Malley that if an atrocious criminal should be obliged to relive constantly the episode which led to his incarceration—have it stuffed into him daily, so to speak, the incessant repetition would have a similar effect on him. Since we can now activate any part of the brain painlessly by electric probes in exact areas, the experiment was feasible. We here in this prison were the first to put it into practice."

"And does it so affect them?"

"At first some of the most vicious—that mass cannibal you saw, or the child molester, for example—seem actually to revel in the reliving of their crimes. The less deteriorated dread and shrink from it from the beginning. And even the worst—those two are only at the beginning of their terms—gradually become first bored, then sated, and eventually, in time, completely alienated from their former impulses. Terribly remorseful, too, some of them; I've had hardened criminals get down on their knees and beg me to let them forget. But of course I can't."

"And after they have served their time? For I suppose, as in our Union, a life sentence really means not more than fifteen years."

"About twelve, with us, on the average. But some of these—that last case, for instance—can never be safely released. They become reconciled, on the whole. For, apart from that daily ordeal, their lives aren't bad here. They live comfortably, they have every opportunity for education and recreation, where possible we arrange for conjugal visits, and many of them pursue useful careers as if they were not imprisoned."

"But what of those who
are
freed? Have any of them reverted to crime? Have you had any recidivists among them?"

The warden looked embarrassed.

"No, we've never had any subject of the Malley System come back here," he said reluctantly. "In fact, I feel it my duty to tell you that there is one slight disadvantage in the System.

"So far, we've never had one subject who could be released to the general community when his term was over. Every one of them up to now has had to be transferred instead to a mental hospital."

The African criminologist was silent. Then his eyes strayed around the office in which he sat. For the first time he noticed the armor-plated walls, the shatterproof glass, the electronic weapons trained on the door and ready to be activated by pressure on a button on the warden's desk.

The warden followed his glance, and flushed.

"I'm afraid I'm just chicken," he said defensively. "Actually, the subjects are kept under strict surveillance and the roboguards have orders to shoot to kill. But I keep remembering my predecessor's experience, when he and Lachim Malley—"

"I know, naturally," said the African, "that Malley died suddenly while he was visiting this prison. A heart attack, I understand."

"My predecessor was a little too careless," remarked the warden with a grim smile. "He had complete faith in Malley's System, and he didn't even have roboguards to back up the techs, or have the subjects frisked for shivs before their daily recapitulation. There were more subjects then, too—at least fourteen that day. So when they simultaneously overpowered the techs, with the probes already in place, and broke for this office—

"Oh yes, Malley died of a heart attack. So did my predecessor. Right through the heart, in both cases."

Afterword:

Since fact crime and mystery shorts make up a major part of my writing, it is natural that even in science fiction the subject should appeal to me. This particular extrapolation came to me suddenly out of the blue, as much of my science fiction does. Murders are committed by people in a highly emotional state, even if the emotion is only rabid thrill-seeking; and that being so, what worse punishment could be inflicted than to force a repetition of the experience until the murderer is either wildly remorseful or (as seems more likely, and as I indicated) reduced to complete psychic breakdown.

Granted that mankind
has
a future, and that we somehow catch up socially and psychologically with our technical achievements, some such penological gambit might well suggest itself to future criminologists. Whether it would be any more of a deterrent to others than the chance of execution is today, is another question. And despite my disclaimer, I am not at all sure that the highest court of appeals of the time would not decide that the punishment was even crueler than the crime.

What follows is, in the purest sense, the end-result of literary feedback. Recently the story editor of a prime-time television series, pressed for a script to shoot, sat down and wrote one himself rather than wait for the vagaries of a free-lance scenarist's schedule and dalliance. When he had completed the script, which was to go before the cameras in a matter of days, he sent it as a matter of form to the legal department of the studio. For the clearance of names, etc. Later that day the legal department called him back in a frenzy. Almost scene-for-scene and word-for-word (including the title), the non-s-f story editor had copied a well-known science fiction short story. When it was pointed out to him, the story editor blanched and recalled he had indeed read that story, some fifteen years before. Hurriedly, the story rights were purchased from the well-known fantasy writer who had originally conceived the idea. I hasten to add that I accept the veracity of the story editor when he swears he had no conscious knowledge of imitating the story. I believe him because this sort of unconscious plagiarism is common-place in the world of the writer. It is inevitable that much of the mass of reading a writer does will stick with him somehow, in vague concepts, snatches of scenes, snippets of characterization, and it will turn up later, in the writer's own work; altered, transmogrified, but still a direct result of another writer's work. It is by no means "plagiarism." It is part of the answer to the question asked by idiots of authors at cocktail parties: "Where do you get your ideas?"

Poul Anderson dropped me a note several months ago explaining that he had just written a story he was about to send out to market when he realized it paralleled the theme of a story he had read at a writers' conference we had both attended, just a month or so before. He added that his story was only vaguely similar to mine, but he wanted to apprise me of the resemblance so there would be no question later. It was a rhetorical letter: I'm arrogant, but not arrogant enough to think Poul Anderson needs to crib from me. Similarly, at the World Science Fiction Convention held last year in Cleveland, the well-known German fan Tom Schlück and I were introduced. (Tom had been brought over by the fans as Fan Guest of Honor, an exchange tradition in fandom perpetuated by the TransAtlantic Fan Fund.) The first thing he did after we shook hands was to hand me a German science fiction paperback. I had some difficulty understanding why he had given me the gift. Tom opened the book—a collection of stories pseudonymously written by top German s-f fan/pro Walter Ernsting. The flyleaf said: "To Harlan Ellison with thanks and compliments." I still didn't understand. Then Tom turned to the first story, which was titled "
Die Sonnenbombe
." Under the title it said: (
Nach einer Idee von Harlan Ellison
). I wrinkled my brow. I still didn't understand. I recognized my own name, which looks the same in all languages save Russian, Chinese, Hebrew or Sanskrit, but I don't read German, and I'm afraid I stood there like a clot. Tom explained that the basic idea of a story I had written in 1957—"Run for the Stars"—had inspired Ernsting to write "
Die Sonnenbombe
." It was the literary feedback, halfway across the world. I was deeply touched, and even more, it was a feeling of justification. Every writer save the meanest hack hopes his words will live after he goes down the hole, that his thoughts will influence people. It isn't the primary purpose of the writing, of course, but it's the sort of secret wish that parallels the Average Man having babies, so his name doesn't die with him. And here, in my hands, was the visible proof that something my mind had conjured up had reached out and ensnared another man's imagination. It was obviously the sincerest form of flattery, and by no means "plagiarism." It was the literary feedback. The instances of this actionreaction among writers are numberless, and some of them are legend. It is the reason for writers' seminars, workshops, conferences and the endless exchange of letters among writers. What has all of this—or any of it—to do with Robert Bloch, the author of the story that follows? Everything.

In 1943 Robert Bloch had published a story titled "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper." The number of times it has been reprinted, antholo-gized, translated into radio and TV scripts, and most of all plagiarized, are staggering. I read it in 1953, and the story stuck with me always. When I
heard
its dramatization on the Molle Mystery Theater, it became a recurring favorite memory. The story idea was simply that Jack the Ripper, by killing at specific times, made his peace with the dark gods and was thus allowed to live forever. Jack was immortal, and Bloch traced with cold methodical logic a trail of similar Ripper-style murders in almost every major city of the world, over a period of fifty or sixty years. The concept of Jack—who was never apprehended—living on, from era to era, caught my imagination. When it came time to put this anthology together, I called Robert Bloch and suggested that if Jack were, in fact, immortal, why then he would have to go on into the future. The image of a creature of Whitechapel fog and filth, the dark figure of Leather Apron, skulking through a sterile and automated city of the future, was an anachronism that fascinated me. Bob agreed, and said he would set to work at once. When his story came in, it was (pardon the word) a delight, and I bought it at once. But the concept of Jack in the future would not release my thoughts. I dwelled on it with almost morbid fascination. Finally I asked Bob if he minded my doing a story for this book that took up where his left off. He said he thought it would be all right. It was, as I've said, in the purest sense, the act of literary feedback. And again, the sincerest form of flattery. Bloch had literally triggered the creative process in another writer.

The story that follows Robert Bloch's story is the product of that feedback. Mr. Bloch has kindly and graciously agreed to write the introduction to
my
story, in an effort to gain revenge for this introduction to
his
story. Tied in a knot, the two introductions, the two stories and the two afterwords seem to have melded into a unified whole that demonstrates more admirably than any million words of literary critiques what it is that one writer obtains from another.