‘That’s not true,” I said.
“That is true!” said Matia. “Don’t start a debate with me! You are eternally debating!… Be quiet, Oscar. It’s my turn to talk. I am asking you, Ivan, what is the worth of your version? What do you propose to do? But be concrete, please! Be concrete!”
“Concretely…” I faltered.
True enough, my version did not suit them.
They probably didn’t even consider it a version.
For them it was just philosophizing. They were men, so to say, of resolute action, knights of immediate decisive measures., They let nothing slide. They cut through knots and demounted Damocles’ swords. They made rapid decisions, and having made them, they no longer doubted. They didn’t know how to be otherwise. That was their world-view — and I was the only one to consider that their time had passed. Patience, I thought. I am going to need an awful lot of patience. Suddenly, I understood that life’s logic was again ripping me away from my best comrades, and that now it would be especially hard for me, since the resolution of this argument would take a long time, a very long time…. They were both looking at me.
“Concretely,” I repeated. “Concretely I suggest a plan for the development and spread of a humanistic viewpoint in this country.”
Oscar grimaced with distaste, and Matia said biliously:
“Nah! I am talking seriously.”
“So am I. What we need is not detectives, nor squads armed with machine pistols.”
“We need a decision!” said Matia, “not conversations, but decisions!”
‘That’s precisely what I am proposing — a decision.”
Matia reddened
“We have to save people,” he said. “Souls we can save after we save the people…. Don’t annoy me, Ivan!”
“While you are restructuring world-views,” said Oscar, “people will be dying or turning into idiots.”
I didn’t want to argue, but said anyway, “As long as world-views are not restructured, people will be dying and turning into idiots, and no squads will help. Remember Rimeyer!”
“Rimeyer forgot his duty,” raged Matia.
“Exactly,” said I.
Matia slammed his mouth shut and, tearing off his glasses, was silent for a while, his eyes rotating angrily. He was, without a doubt, a man of iron; you could actually watch turn drive his rage inward. In a minute he was entirely calm and smiling placidly.
“Yes,” he said. “It seems that I am forced to admit that intelligence as a social institution has regressed to the piteous end. Apparently we destroyed the last of the true operatives in the time of the last putsches. “Knife” — Dannziger; “Bamboo” — Savada; “Doll” — Grover; “Ram” — Boas… True, they were bought and they were sold, they had no country, they were scum, lumpens, but they worked! “Sirius” — Haram… worked for four intelligences and was a scoundrel. He was a filthy animal. But if he gave information, it was real information, clear, precise, and timely. I can recollect ordering him hung without the slightest pity, but when I look at my current co-workers, I can understand what a loss
that was…. Granted, a man can fail in the end and become a drug addict, as “Bamboo” Savada did finally. But why write lying reports? Rather resign, excuse yourself, don’t write any reports at all…. I arrive in this town in the profound conviction that I know it through and through, because I have had here for ten years an experienced, proved, resident agent. And suddenly I determine that I know precisely nothing. Every local kid knows who the Fishers are. But I don’t know. I know only that the KVS Society which occupied itself with about the same things as the Fishers was disbanded and outlawed three years ago. I know this from the reports of the resident. But at the local police I am informed that the VAL Society was formed two years ago, which I did not learn from the resident’s reports. I am employing a simplified example, since I really don’t give a damn about the Fishers, but this becomes transformed into a general style of work. Reports are delayed, reports lie, reports misinform… in the end reports are simply invented. One man openly resigns from the Council and doesn’t consider it incumbent upon him to so inform his superior. He has enough, you see; he had intentions to communicate but somehow couldn’t find the time…. Another, instead of fighting the drug problem, becomes an addict himself…. And the third philosophizes.”
He nodded at me with regretful bitterness.
“Understand me correctly, Ivan,” he continued. “I am not opposed to philosophy. But philosophy is one thing and our work altogether another. Judge for yourself, Ivan. If there is no secret headquarters, if we are faced with a deluge of do-it-yourself enterprise, then why all the secretiveness? All this conspiratorial atmosphere? Why is slug enveloped in such mystery? I allow that Rimeyer is silent because of pangs of conscience in general and specifically on your account, Ivan. But the rest? Slug is not illegal; everyone knows about it and yet everyone keeps it a secret. Oscar, here, doesn’t philosophize; he postulates that the inhabitants are simply terrorized. I can understand that. And what do you postulate, Ivan?”
“In your pocket,” I said, “there is a slug. Go in the bathroom. There’s Devon on the shelf — one tablet orally, four in the water. There’s some whiskey in the medicine chest. Oscar and I will wait. And then you can tell us aloud, so we can hear, we your comrades in work and your underlings, about your sensations and experiences. And we — better it should be Oscar — should listen, but as for me, I think I’ll leave.”
Matia put on his glasses and stared at me.
“You are implying that I won’t tell? You propose that I, too, will be derelict in my duty?”
“What you will learn will have no relation whatsoever to your duty. That you will renege on subsequently. As did Rimeyer. Comrades, this is slug. It’s a cute device, which awakens fantasy and directs it where it will, particularly where you yourself subconsciously — and I mean subconsciously — would like to direct it. The further you are removed from the animal, the more inoffensive would slug be, but the closer to the animal, the more you would be impelled to adhere to the conspiratorial way. The animals themselves are altogether silent. They just know how to press the lever.”
“What lever?”
I explained about the rats to them.
“Did you try it yourself?” asked Matia.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“As you can see, I tend to silence.”
Matia sibilated for some time and then said, “Well, I am no nearer to the animal than you are. How do you put it in?”
I loaded the radio and handed it to him. Oscar was following all this with interest.
“God be with me,” said Matia, “Where is your bath? I’ll wash after my trip while I’m at it.”
He locked himself in, and we could hear him dropping things.
“Strange affair,” said Oscar.
“It’s really not an affair,” I contradicted. “It’s a piece of history, Oscar, and you would like to fit it into a file and tie it with a ribbon. But this is no gangster business. It should be obvious to a hedgehog, as Yurkovsky used to say.”
“Who?”
“Yurkovsky, Vladimir Sergeyevitch. There was such a renowned planetologist. I worked with him.”
“Aah,” said Oscar, “By the way, on the plaza by the Hotel Olympic there is a monument to a Yurkovsky.”
“The very same man.”
“Really?” said Oscar. “On the other hand, it’s quite possible. However, the monument was not put up because he was a renowned planetologist. It’s simply that for the first time in the history of the city, he broke the electronic roulette bank. It was decided to immortalize such a feat.”
“I expected something of the sort,” I murmured. I felt depressed.
The shower began to hiss in the bathroom, and there was a frightful roar from Matia, At first, I decided that he turned on ice water instead of warm, but he kept yelling and then began to curse in the most horrendous terms. Oscar and I exchanged glances. He was generally calm, interpreting this as the typical action of slug, and his face exhibited a compassionate expression. The latch rattled wildly, the door flew open with a crash. Bare heels slapped in the bedroom, and a naked Matia rolled into the study.
“Are you some kind of an idiot?” he bellowed at me. “What sort of filthy trick is this?”
I went numb. Matia resembled a grotesque zebra. His well-fed body was covered with poison-green vertical stripes. He reared and stamped his feet, spraying emerald drops. When we regained our composure and investigated the site of the accident, we learned that the shower head had been stuffed with a sponge saturated with a green dye. I remembered Len’s note and guessed that Vousi was the culprit. It took a long while to restore a normal atmosphere. Matia viewed the incident as a boorish joke and an inadmissible disregard of subordinate discipline and behavior. Oscar horselaughed. I scrubbed Matia with a brush and explained. Then Matia announced that from now on he wouldn’t trust anyone and would try out slug when he got home. He dressed and went into conference with Oscar on the plans for blockading the city.