Entities: The Selected Novels of Eric Frank Russell (96 page)

Meanwhile their fellows were getting it rough in consequence and his own efforts had been messed up. He did not resent the break, not one little bit. Good luck to them. But if only it had taken place two months earlier or later.

Moodily he finished his dinner, when four guards came for him. “The Commandant wants you at once.” Their manner was edgy and subdued. One wore a narrow bandage around his scaly pate, another had a badly swollen eye.

Just about the worst moment to choose, thought Leeming. The Commandant would be all set to go up like a rocket at first hint of opposition of any kind. You cannot argue with a brasshat in a purple rage; emotion comes uppermost, words are disregarded, logic is treated with contempt. He was going to have a tough job on his hands.

The four marched him along the corridor, two in front, two behind. Left, right, left, right, thud, thud, thud—it made him think of a ceremonial parade to the guillotine. Around the corner in a little triangular yard there should be waiting a priest, a hanging knife, a wicker basket, a wooden box.

Together they tramped into the same room as before. The Commandant was sitting behind his desk but there were no junior officers in attendance. The only other person present was an elderly civilian occupying a chair on the Commandant’s right; he studied the prisoner with a sharp, intent gaze as he entered and took a seat.

“This is Pallam,” introduced the Commandant with amiability so unexpected that it dumbfounded the listener. Showing a touch of awe, he added, “He has been sent here by no less a person than Zangasta himself.”

“A mental specialist, I presume?” invited Leeming, wary of a trap.

“Nothing like that,” said Pallam quietly. “I am especially interested in all aspects of symbiosis.”

Leeming’s back hairs stirred. He did not like the idea of being cross-examined by an expert. Such characters had penetrating, unmilitary minds and a pernicious habit of destroying a good story by exhibiting its own contradictions. This mild-looking civilian, he decided, was definitely a major menace.

“Pallam wishes to ask you a few questions,” informed the Commandant, “but those will come later.” He put on a self-satisfied expression. “For a start I wish to say that I am indebted for the information you gave at our previous interview.”

“You mean that it has proved useful to you?” asked Leeming, hardly believing his ears.

“Very much so in view of this serious and most stupid mutiny. All the guards responsible for Dormitory Fourteen are to be drafted to battle areas where they will be stationed upon spaceports liable to attack. That is their punishment for gross neglect of duty.” He gazed thoughtfully at the other, went on, “My own fate would have been no less had not Zangasta considered the escape a minor matter when compared with the important data I got from you.”

Though taken by surprise, Leeming was swift to cash in. “But when I asked, you saw to it personally that I had better food. Surely you expected some reward?”

“Reward?” The Commandant was taken aback. “I did not think of such a thing.”

“So much the better,” approved Leeming, admiring the other’s magnanimity. “A good deed is trebly good when done with no ulterior motive. Eustace will take careful note of that.”

“You mean,” put in Pallam, “that his code of ethics is identical with your own?” Damn the fellow! Why did he have to put his spoke in? Be careful now! “Similar in some respects but not identical.”

“What is the most outstanding difference?”

“Well,” said Leeming, playing for time, “it’s hard to decide.” He rubbed his brow while his mind whizzed dizzily. “I’d say in the matter of vengeance.”

“Define the difference,” ordered Pallam, sniffing along the trail like a hungry bloodhound.

“From my viewpoint,” informed Leeming, inwardly cursing the other to hell and perdition, “he is unnecessarily sadistic.”

There, that gave needed coverage for any widespread claims it might be desirable to make later on.

“In what way?” persisted Pallam.

“My instinct is to take prompt action, to get things over and done with. His tendency is to prolong the agony.”

“Explain further,” pressed Pallam, making a thorough nuisance of himself.

“If you and I were mortal enemies, if I had a gun and you had not, I would shoot and kill you. But if Eustace had you marked for death he’d make it slower, more gradual.”

“Describe his method.”

“First, he’d let you know that you were doomed. Then he’d do nothing about it until eventually you became obsessed with the notion that it was all an illusion and that nothing ever would be done. At that point he’d remind you with a minor blow. When resulting fear and alarm had worn off he’d strike a harder one. And so on and so on with increasing intensity spread over as long a time as necessary.”

“Necessary for what?”

“Until your doom became plain and the strain of waiting for it became too much to bear.” He thought a moment, added, “No Eustace ever has killed anyone. He uses tactics peculiarly his own. He arranges accidents or he chivvies a victim into dying by his own hand.”

“He drives a victim to suicide?”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve said.”

“And there is no way of avoiding such a fate?”

“Yes there is,” Leeming contradicted. “At any time the victim can gain personal safety and freedom from fear by redressing the wrong he has done to that Eustace’s partner.”

“Such redress immediately terminates the vendetta?”

“That’s right.”

“Whether or not you approve personally?”

“Yes. If my grievance ceases to be real and becomes only imaginary, my Eustace refuses to recognize it or do anything about it.”

“So what it boils down to” said Pallam pointedly, “is that his method provides motive and opportunity for repentance while yours does not?”

“I suppose so.”

“Which means that he has a more balanced sense of justice?”

“He can be darned ruthless,” objected Leeming, momentarily unable to think of a retort less feeble.

“That is beside the point,” snapped Pallam. He lapsed into meditative silence, then remarked to the Commandant, “It seems that the association is not between equals. The invisible component is also the superior one. In effect, it is the master of a material slave but exercises mastery with such cunning that the slave would be the first to deny his own status.”

He shot a provocative glance at Leeming, who set his teeth and said nothing. Crafty old hog, thought Leeming—if he was trying to tempt the prisoner into a heated denial he was going to be disappointed. Let him remain under the delusion that Leeming had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. There is no shame in being defined as inferior to a figment of one’s own imagination.

Now positively foxy, Pallam probed, “When your Eustace takes it upon himself to wreak vengeance he does so because circumstances prevent suitable punishment being administered either by yourself or the Terra community? Is that correct?”

“Near enough,” admitted Leeming cautiously.

“In other words, he functions only when you and the law are impotent?”

“He takes over when the need arises.”

“You are being evasive. We must get this matter straight. If you or your fellows can and do punish someone, does any Eustace also punish him?”

“No,” said Leeming, fidgeting uneasily.

“If you or your fellows cannot or do not punish someone does a Eustace then step in and enforce punishment?”

“Only if a living Terran has suffered unjustly.”

“The sufferer’s Eustace takes action on his partner’s behalf?”

“Yes.”

“Good!” declared Pallam. He leaned forward, watched the other keen-eyed and managed to make his attitude intimidating. “Now let us suppose that your Eustace finds justifiable reason to punish another Terran
—what does the
victim’s
Eustace do about it?”

It was a clever trap based upon the knowledge that questions about factual, familiar, everyday things can be answered automatically, almost without thought. Whereas a liar seeking a supporting lie needs time to create consistency. It should have got Leeming completely foozled. That it did not do so was no credit to his own wits.

While his mind still whirled his mouth opened and the words “Not much” popped out of their own accord. For a mad moment he wondered whether Eustace had arrived and joined the party.

“Why not?”

Encouraged by his tongue’s mastery of the situation, Leeming gave it free rein. “I have told you before and I am telling you again that no Eustace will concern himself for one moment with a grievance that is wholly imaginary. A Terran who is guilty of a crime has no genuine cause for complaint. He has brought vengeance upon himself and the cure lies in his own hands. If he doesn’t enjoy suffering he need only get busy and undo whatever wrong he has done to another.”

“Will his Eustace urge or influence him to take action necessary to avoid punishment?”

“Never having been a criminal myself,” answered Leeming with great virtue, “I am unable to tell you. I suppose it would be near the truth to say that Terrans behave because association with Eustaces compels them to behave. They have little choice about the matter.”

“On the other hand, Terrans have no way of compelling their Eustaces to behave?”

“No compulsion is necessary. A Eustace will always listen to his partner’s reason and act within the limits of common justice.”

“As I told you,” said Pallam in an aside to the Commandant, “the Terran is the lower form of the two.” He returned attention to the prisoner. “All that you have told us is acceptable because it is consistent—as far as it goes.”

“What d’you mean, as far as it goes?”

“Let me take it to the bitter end,” suggested Pallam. “I do not see any rational reason why any criminal’s Eustace should allow his partner to be driven to suicide. Since they are mutually independent of others but mutually dependent upon each other, a Eustace’s inaction is contrary to the basic law of survival.”

“Nobody commits suicide until he has gone off his rocker.”

“Until he has done what?”

“Become insane,” said Leeming. “An insane person is worthless as a material partner. To a Eustace he is already dead, not worth protecting or avenging. Eustaces associate only with the sane.”

Pouncing on that, Pallam said excitedly, “So the benefit they derive is rooted somewhere within Terran minds? It is mental sustenance that they draw from you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does your Eustace ever make you feel tired, exhausted, perhaps a little stupefied?”

“Yes,” said Leeming with emphasis. How true, brother, how true. Right now he’d find pleasure in choking Eustace to death.

“I would like to pursue this phenomenon for months,” Pallam told the Commandant. “It is an absorbing subject. There are no records of symbiotic association among anything higher than the plants and six species of the lower
elames.
To find it among the higher vertebrates, sentient forms, and one of them intangible, is remarkable, truly remarkable.”

The Commandant looked impressed without knowing what the other was talking about.

“Give him your report,” urged Pallam.

“Our liaison officer, Colonel Shomuth, has replied from the Lathian sector,” the Commandant told Leeming. “He is fluent in Cosmoglotta and therefore was able to question many Terran prisoners without the aid of a Lathian interpreter. We sent him a little more information and the result is significant.”

“What else did you expect?” Leeming observed, inwardly consumed with curiosity.

Ignoring that, the Commandant went on, “He reported that most of the prisoners refused to make comment or to admit anything. They maintained determined silence. That is understandable because nothing could shake their belief that they were being tempted to surrender information of military value. They resisted all of Colonel Shomuth’s persuasions and kept their mouths shut.” He sighed at such stubbornness. “But some talked.”

“A few are always willing to blab,” remarked Leeming.

“Certain officers talked, including Cruiser Captain Tompass . . . Tompus ...” “Thomas?”

“Yes, that is the word.” Swiveling around in his chair, the Commandant pressed a wall-button. “This is the beamed interview unscrambled and recorded on tape.” A crackling hiss poured out of a perforated grid set in the wall. It grew louder, died down to a background wash. Voices came out of the grid.

Shomuth: “Captain Thomas, I have been ordered to check certain information now in our possession. You have nothing to lose by giving answers, nothing to gain by refusing them. There are no Lathians present, only the two of us. You may speak freely and what you say will be treated in confidence.”

Thomas: “Mighty leery about the Lathians all of a sudden, aren’t you? You won’t fool me with that gambit. Enemies are enemies no matter what their name or shape. Go trundle your hoop—you’ll get nothing out of me.”

Shomuth, patiently: “I suggest, Captain Thomas, that you hear and consider the questions before you decide whether or not to answer them.”

Thomas, boredly: “All right. What d’you want to know?”

Shomuth: “Whether our Lathian allies really are Nuts.”

Thomas, after a long pause: “You want the blunt truth?”

Shomuth: “We do.”

Thomas, with a trace of sarcasm: “I hate to speak against anyone behind his back, even a lousy Lathian. But there are times when one is compelled to admit that dirt is dirt, sin is sin, and a Lathian is what he is, eh?”

Shomuth: “Please answer my question.”

Thomas: “The Lathians are nuts.”

Shomuth: “And they have the Willies?”

Thomas: “Say, where did you dig up this information?”

Shomuth: “That is our business. Will you be good enough to give me an answer?”

Thomas, belligerently: “Not only have they got the willies but they’ll have a darned sight more of them before we’re through."

Shomuth, puzzled: “How can that be? We have learned that each and every Lathian is unconsciously controlled by a Willy. Therefore the total number of Willies must be limited. It cannot be increased except by the birth of more Lathians.”