Electric Forest (20 page)

taste of it. Patently not enough of a taste. But for me the implications, Magda, the misuse, the bloody evil
that could be devised. Not only the usual spy network filth. Individuals buying their way in on it, setting it up
for private mayhem- I could be right or wrong. I was God in that lab, Magda. For ten whole minutes I was God. Then I acted God, and I overrode the analysis system on the computer and erased the data. Five months worth of work, the sonograms, the random series. The answer. Gone.

"And then Christophine walked in.

"There was screaming written all over her face but no scream came out. She'd had a premonition of what I
might do. Just too late. It wasn't that she needed the cash. It was the power she needed. She wants to rule
the galaxy, Magda. I think I mean that literally. She wants us all to run on rails, with her fingers on the keys. Play us like her contrachorda.

₁₃₇

And she looks like an angel. A blue-haired angel, Magda...

"What have you done/ she said. Of course, she knew what I'd done. She knew me very well by then. But I
couldn't resist it, Magda, the temptation was too magnificent. I revealed to her, carefully, that I'd destroyed
the data so no one else could beat us to our shimmering Out-Conclave sale. There were a couple of reels of
plastase, random series with nonsense computations, lying on the desk under the console. Computer games,
nothing more. But I indicated these. 'There's the answer to C.T.,' I said to her. And I watched her
metamorphose, Magda, beautiful
Christophine
metamorphosing into what she really was. Then she took out her pretty ivory delectro and fired into the flexium computer leads. There was a tolerably bloody bang.
When I came to, the sprinklers were on. Christophine had taken the plastase reels and run. The lab was in quite a mess. And I you saw what was left of me, in my capsule.

"Christ, it's getting hard to talk, Magda. Better hurry it up. There was an emergency med-kit in the wall.
The anal-gens numbed the burns sufficiently so that I could get out of the unit, get my car and drive to the
jet-sheds. I realized that I couldn't move anywhere but off the island, if I wanted to go on living. And I did
want to live, Magda. I did, very much. She must have waited for me in my apartment some hours. She'd
reacted hastily. She couldn't be certain I was dead. She hadn't dared fire at me direct, it would have shown
up as a murder but an energy-surge in a malfunctioning lead they occur. In the end, she came back to
the unit, and I wasn't there, and then I suppose she tried out the plastase reels and learned about her big

mistake. She'd made another mistake, too. She'd left the genetic blueprints, hers and mine, behind in the lab.
And I'd taken them with me. The point is, I'd erased the answer to C.T. from the computer, but I'd still read it through beforehand. I carried it in my brain. And she knew that, Magda. And she knew what I'd do next. But not how, or where. Or when.

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'Three years. She must have been on edge every day for this to happen, for you to walk in through her

door. Poor Christa. Perhaps the irony appealed to her somewhat that Td tried to prevent C.T. from ever being used, that she'd forced me to use it."

Claudio's voice had grown slurred. Sometimes his words were mispronounced; at first he would try to correct them, but gradually he stopped trying, since it wasted time.

"Being rich has so many advantages. False I.D. when things are hot. Nice friendly bribes to fan out the

f i
_{res. Enough cash to hole up out of sight. To prepare the capsule, rig the Transfer. Difficult. It}

was-difficult. No help. Everything to be done first hand. And all the while the pain or else so doped with
analgens I could barely remember who I was. But I did it, Magda. And all I had to do after that was
f
i
nd someone like you who'd jump at the chance of a of a new exquisite body. Christophine's exquisite
body. I wanted to
show
her, just how a simulate could be
misused,
Magda," he said. His voice was
suddenly scored by terror. "Can't see you any m
ore. Are you still there, Magda
'

"Yes," she said.

'You'll have noticed she was more thorough with me. Every lead broken. The oxygen cut off. Able to

repair, but not properly. Awash with the fucking slime-green toxic now. Suitable, applicable poison. She had
it ready in her car when she went to Saint Azoro, hunting for me. Handy for her tonight. Magda, are you
there?"

"Yes."

1 knew you'd meet her. Reckoned you'd attempt to kill her no, maybe I didn't. But on this occasion kill
her. She's got the panel. She can get the answer to C.T. from the panel. She may already have no, she
won't go to the unit now. She'll do it tomorrow, front of everyone. Kudos. Kill her, Magda, do you hear

me?"

"Yes."

"Magda, I'm afraid to die. I wish I weren't. Kill her, Magda. Ditch her body. Become Christophine. Then
leave.

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Who'll stop you? You're her. It's easy. Easy if macabre. She's rich. Your prints are hers. Do you hear me, Magda? Kill her for her money. Not for me. Astrads. Do you hear?"

"Claudio," she said.

"Oh God, I'm scared," he said. "I'm scared, Magda."

"Claudio/" she said. She put her arms about him though it hardly mattered, he could neither see her nor feel
her grasp on him.

It was not even Claudio she held. Not truly Claudio.

And then the burned anaesthetized thing in the capsule must have died, for what she held slackened and collapsed inside her arms. There was, of course, no last breath.

Magdala climbed the metal road, between the vast stems of the trees, as the flaring jewel-colors of the
storm bled out of them.

She climbed slowly, exhaustedly. It did not aid her to recall that this body could not, in itself, experience fatigue. She experienced fatigue.

Rose and mauve and cerise and green, the jewels trickled down the stems of the trees. Daffodil, violet and
blue.

Presently, the forest became black. Sheer black.
The .

Nothing is to be relied on. The forest is not real. Its fires are not. Magdala is not. Nor Claudio.
Claudio.

Nothing is to be relied on.
Nothing is what it seems.

After two hours, she reached the columen bungalow, which, like the forest, had reverted to darkness.

Are you asleep,
Christophine
Or awake? You cant keep me out. Your doors are open to me.

The garage accepted the print of her thumb, and let her in. She pressed the elevator. The elevator came

and bore her upward.

She moved into the bungalow, which had no lights, not even a solitary lamp.

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Magdala went softly. To the glazium chimney whose flame had been switched off, to the swinging couch
where Claudio had lain upon her, to the kitchen of knives which she did not touch. The bathroom was

vacant.

She expects me. She understands-somehow-that I may not have died, and that I may seek her.
Or Claudio. She may expect Claudio. As before.

She is in the solarium.

Magdala reached the elevator. The elevator rose. Five seconds. The solarium.

Darkness. Dark glass. Overhead, a mulberry star, a star like green mint-candy. Black paper rustling: plants.

Christophine.

Christophine burst from the dark. Green dazzle, mulberry dazzle on the blade of a knife. The delectro was in the sea. What else but a knife?

The knife slit the air. Magdala caught the wrist with the knife. With her free hand she raised her own

weapon high, and plunged the syringe, one third full of poison, into the neck of Christophine, into the vein which led to the heart of Christophine.

Then stood there as Christophine, sprawled among black paper leaves, kicked, contorted, lay quivering, lay
dead.

And now I am Christophine.

In the garage below was Christophine's car. Tomorrow, she would put the body of Christophine in the car. She would switch the car to robot-drive, and let it drive itself into the coruscating sea.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

I am Christophine.

She went down in the elevator and stepped out into the bungalow. She walked across the large open-plan room to the northern window-wall, and raised the two lids of the contrachorda.

Seated in the dark, and weeping, she began to play Sadres* "Variations on a Theme by Prokofiev."

Post-Screening Sonogram

The Consciousness Transferral Project was begun on Earth ten years ago, and as so often

happens, the ethics of such a venture were not considered until the breakthrough had been

achieved. By this time the Conclav
e was well
aware that several other Federation governments
had under way similar if not identical projects, and that what had begun as a race toward a
medical miracle that would put an end to the savagery of particular types of replacement surgery,
had now become an enterprise of paramount interest to the espionage networks of the Outer
Worlds.

A program of study of the non-medical uses and effects of C.T. was therefore proposed, a project
that was to be code-named Antipholus. As controller of this program, I quickly began to doubt
the validity of any kind of study that was not based on actual living experiment. I was sufficiently

convinced of this to suggest the gargantuan scheme that was, one year later, put into operation on
the E.C. pre-colony planet Indigo Nine.

At first glance, to take an entire world off the map, put it out of bounds to legitimate traffic, and
proceed to utilize it purely as a testing area seems riotously extravagant. And no doubt it is.
However, Indigo Nine, though a lovely world in terms of its appearance, had not yet been
opened up to popular colonization. Small, infertile save in nonedible flora, and lean in mineral
deposits and uranium, without even a natural satellite to facilitate space-docking, Indigo had
little to offer save room and privacy-which two properties were more necessary to Antipholus than

any other thing, The

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erected city and surrounding plants and stations, part of a colony preparation plan but not yet occupied,

proved invaluable. To build up die picture of a logically exploited world was an alarming task, in view of the fact that the total personnel of the Antipholus Program numbered only six hundred.

Having acquired the location, the subject or protagonist -of the experiment was due to be selected. At

this juncture, I caused a furor by proposing myself. There were the usual arguments that my job was to sit
at the helm of the ship, to monitor and to guide but not to become enmeshed. I in turn argued that nobody in
the Antipholus Program could fail to become enmeshed. That with a mere six hundred men and women at
our disposal, no one could very well avoid participation. And, in fact, to his eternal credit, Paul had proved
my point, by combining the role of acting Program Controller in my stead, with that of a chief figure in the
drama itself.

I also contend that I was the best bet as guinea pig, though we had no shortage of volunteers. Live

experiment of such a nature, with a human subject, is a chancy thing. I kept my sanity and I got where I

meant to go, but there were no guarantees at any time. Having invented the rules, I believe I was both

entitled
and obligated to abide by them myself. I wanted to place no other in a position of such danger. That
I survived is largely due to the skill of others, and particularly to my husband, who had the unnerving work of systematically mentally torturing me while striving, of necessity unnoticed, to safeguard my wits. That Claudio, the gentlest and most stable of men, undertook this horrific labor is a miracle in itself. I cannot
commend his efforts too highly. I know that he thought that I had already gone quite mad when I proposed
myself as the experimental subject. He spent three months of Deks attempting to dissuade me. When that
failed, he proposed himself as the co-subject, the essential Pygmalion figure of the drama. And, in one vital way, of course, Claudio was a godsend. Not a scientist

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but an accomplished professional actor, he could carry that taxing and terrifying persona with a genius that elicited the definitive responses. I doubt if anyone else could have supported me under the circumstances. I
probably would have gone mad, and the Program failed. It was Claudio, incidentally, who christened the
project "Antipholus" from the sixteenth Earth-century Shakespearian play
The Comedy of Errors.
Indeed, a suitable title, for the play deals with two sets of doubles, of whom the twin brothers Antipholus
"could not be distinguished but by name."

To describe then the background to the live experiment, its raison d'etre and its modus operandi.

Our information leads us to suppose that the Outer Worlds will seek to remove or simply

upstage certain important men and women in the Conclave, substituting their doubles simulate bodies
motivated by the transferred consciousness of Out-Conclave spies, saboteurs and even assassins. In order
to be prepared against this threat, we need to understand its scope, and its limitations, where the vulnerable
s
pots are to be found, the givea
ways and the emotional levers. We also need, in honesty, to have our own
version of the threat marshaled in readiness. And therefore we have to comprehend what pitfalls our own
people may have to negotiate when transferred to an alien androidous body to all intents and purposes

their own. And crowning perplexity-how they will cope with the possibility of coming face to face with
their own replicates, those they are impersonating: the eternal question of alter-ego, mirror-image and