Renaissance, p.7
Renaissance, page 7
The effect upon the woman was electrifying. Tears came to her eyes. 'Eighteen years, sir. Oh, please help me.'
Having spoken, she dissolved into a mad crying. Other words gurgled out of her, but Grayson could not identify a single additional meaning. Since it was information he wanted, the tall, gaunt man reached across the desk with probing fingers and took hold of the woman's shoulder. And realized it was already too late. There was something about the way she now held herself, and about the increasing, spasmodic nature of her crying that signaled a message of change coming. She was starting to think again - that was the message. And to realize what she had done. And to be appalled.
Abruptly, the first overt reaction took place. She drew back. 'I beg your pardon,' she half-sobbed, 'I haven't been feeling very well lately.'
What she said was entirely understandable. A progressively anxious Grayson, fearing additional withdrawal before he learned further details, said quickly, 'In that eighteen years, have you been allowed to go to the surface?'
A pair of swollen, slightly bloodshot eyes stared at him. And there was no question: she was regaining control. As he watched, helpless, her lips tightened. 'You must forgive me,' she gulped. 'It is really disgraceful of me to show my unwell condition in public'
She was escaping him. Grayson made one more verbal grab. 'Perhaps I can help you,' he said urgently. 'Tell me what your situation is. Do you live down here?'
She must have had a thought, then. For several moments longer, the original feeling must have come back; the feeling that he might actually be able to do what his words said. For she hesitated.
Into that hesitation, Grayson projected: 'How old were you when you were brought down here? How was it done? What were the circumstances?'
But it was - he saw - too late. The woman's lips tightened.
'Why are you asking me these personal questions?' she said.
'You requested me,' said Grayson, gazing directly into her eyes, 'to help you.'
'I suddenly felt ill,' was the reply.
No question she was recovering rapidly. Grayson said quickly, 'You told me you had been imprisoned down here eighteen years.'
'I don't remember making such a statement.' Her face was tense, anxious now, as if she feared repercussions from her indiscretion.
Grayson had previously withdrawn his outstretched hand, Now, he stepped back, put his hand in his pocket, and pointed the direction finder. While he did so, he made his final effort to capture her. He said, 'At some future time, when you discover that I could have helped you, remember you turned it down. Either you answer me truthfully now, or don't ever expect assistance.'
She was visibly fully recovered. A faint, contemptuous smile crinkled those pale cheeks; in fact, there was even a touch of color in her face, as she said, 'A man help a woman - don't be ridiculous.'
She glanced down at the paper he had handed her. Her contempt deepened. 'Oh,' she said in a ridiculing tone, 'you have an appointment with the Utt Commissioner.' She began to laugh. 'Imagine,' she said scathingly, 'someone that will never be heard from again talking such nonsense.'
Grayson snatched at the opportunity. 'It's only an interview,' he prompted.
'Hah!' she said scornfully.
He had lost his advantage with her. But he decided it was a mistake to have made any threat at all.
'Forget what I said a moment ago—' He spoke gently. 'If you ever need help, and I'm in a position to give it, you can count on me.'
The woman did not reply to those words directly. Her arm and hand had come up, and were pointing. 'Go through that door!' she said.
Without further resistance, Grayson went. His effort to obtain information from her had produced threatening data; but it was better than no data at all. He had a feeling that she had not in all the previous years she had been down here lost her professional calm. Achieving that much from the poor creature was a weak victory, but a victory.
What I've got to do, he thought, is brace myself, and decide about this interview, which will obviously go against me. So, as soon as I'm through that door, I'll—
He was actually opening 'that' door by the time he was formulating his purpose to have a purpose. Firmly, he drew it wide, and stepped forward—
chapter fifteen
Grayson sighed, and turned over on the cot. And, simultaneously, became aware of about eight things.
First impression: he was in a room ten feet square and nine feet high. Impressions second, third, fourth, et al, followed rapidly: Brightly lighted room. At one end was a washbasin. Beside it, standing in the open, a toilet with a seat but no lid. And next to it was a shower stall without a shower curtain.
There was a flat panel indentation behind the washbasin. A small table stood against the wall opposite the bed, and a chair stood at one end of the table.
That was the entire collection of furnishings that he could see. No, one more item: a mirror above the basin.
He was lying fully dressed on a narrow bed against one wall of a room with translucent plastic walls and ceiling. From inside of each wall and from the entire ceiling, the brightness poured out and down into the room. Like a sunlit day; that was the effect. The floor was bare, marble-like, opaque, but it gleamed faintly in the brilliant light from every side.
As his roving gaze snatched first one piece of information and then another from those few visible items, he suddenly realized that for the entire minute or so he had been awake, he had been looking for something that he could not find.
Where's the door?
As he had that thought, he moved. In one awkward leap, he was off the bed. Two strides carried him to the logical place for a door to be: somewhere on the otherwise blank wall opposite the toilet, washbasin, and shower.
It was as he reached that wall, and began to run his fingers over it, searching, that a thought lightly touched the outer edge of his consciousness.
A dim memory—
There was enough emotional energy in that first recollection to soften the hard pressing of his fingers against the walL
Enough memory, presently, to cause him to turn around and, once more, with widened eyes, to survey the little room with its primitive furnishings.
—How did I get here… from there?
There, as he now recalled it, was his act of opening an extremely visible door, which the woman receptionist had indicated: 'Go through that door!'
As remembered the moment, and remembered pushing the door open, and realized that he had no recollection of any kind from then to now, the disturbed energy inside him expanded to a new intensity, and became - outrage.
So that was how an Utt Commissioner interrogated a human being! The sense of indignation was heightened almost to a frenzy by his realization, here and now, that he had been totally taken by surprise. He was still fumbling at the wall by the time he had that realization. But a remote part of his mind accepted that finding the entrance to this room was not going to be easy.
—This is my prison cell, he thought, suddenly grim.
Abruptly, he turned and walked back to the cot, and, as abruptly, sat down. Again, more minutely, he reviewed the events that had led from there to here. This time, he realized that he had, somehow, taken it for granted that the door through which the receptionist had directed him would lead to a corridor; and that he would have time to consider, and to plan, and to brace himself, and to activate those three - of the eleven - plastic inserts which were not automatic.
That thought was his first recollection of the inserts. Hastily, he fumbled at the places where he had put them, and - relief! - they were all still there.
At that instant, with that realization of not having lost everything, he experienced an utterly unexpected feeling:
Admiration for the Utt… It was a feeling he had never had before in his life. And it seemed so irrational that he found himself arguing against it. But it would not go away… What a completely skillful thing they had done; that was the substance of his genuine congratulatory thought.
He presumed that, while he was unconscious, they had questioned him, and extracted what he knew about The Revolution, had gotten a confession of bis affair with Miss Haskett, and of his own private schemes. While he was helpless, everything must have tumbled out of him.
—Know your enemy, he thought with a smile. They did. But he didn't.
Only one thing seemed unexplained: how come they had. left him with his battery of inserts? It smacked of contempt. But, maybe - a hopeful possibility - they simply hadn't taken his defenses seriously. And so had not inquired about what he could do to help himself.
The idea had a certain plausibility, and buoyed him during the minutes that now went by; several of them. He was abruptly, once more, too restless to remain seated.
He tried the toilet. It flushed noisily, giving a stereotyped performance. The faucets in the shower produced an excellent stream of water. The mirror above the washbasin turned out to be the door of a typical bathroom cabinet, complete with toiletry items, including shave cream and razor, comb and brush, and a sparkling-clean glass.
In the same matter-of-fact fashion, Grayson inspected the indented tabletop under the cabinet. It must have a purpose; in a room as small as this, everything would have been designed for practical utility. Persistent, curious, he was reaching across the basin and probing the wall beyond - when he accidentally caught a glimpse of his watch. He drew back, and stared at the timepiece.
Only sixteen minutes after eleven o'clock!
He fumbled his way back to the cot, and for a while his shock grew with each moment. He was - he realized - accepting that it was eleven-sixteen this same daytime. And that in slightly over one hour he had been removed from the planet earth as he knew it. Removed, also, from his fantasy of a victorious male living a peaceful, determined existence. And deposited in a tiny prison in what, in effect, was another universe.
Feeling overwhelmed - and temporarily without admiration - he lay back on the cot.
A thought came. There had to be explanation, he told himself, for his blanking out instantly as he stepped through the door. Not even a bullet in the heart or through the head could knock out a human being - instantly.
Lying there, he considered the various possibilities. He rejected chemicals, because there was really only one way in which consciousness could be blotted out at the speed of light, and that was at the speed of thought: a certain stage of hypnotism.
But - Grayson argued with himself - that way would have required previous contact, and total - but total - trance. The absolute deepest stage: the somnambulistic stage beyond visual and auditory hallucinations.
When, how, under what circumstances could that have been induced?
Slowly, as he reasoned about that, admiration returned. And what was especially convincing about his analysis was that when he triggered the relevant insert, and the counter-hypnotic chemical was injected into his blood, he could feel the freeing response.
At once, he was brighter. An enormous confidence surged, and the thought: —I have no further business in this sub-world.
The problem (he realized) would be to get out of this room. Nothing he could do until that was achieved.
He lay back. And waited.
chapter sixteen
At twelve-thirty sharp, there was a faint sound from the panel above the sink. Grayson sat up, put his feet on the floor, and watched as the panel slid back. At once, he was his usual alert self. Thus, he had a perceptive, fleeting glimpse of an opening. It was visible literally for moments only.
During those moments, three cartons slid onto the mysterious tabletop, which was recessed into the wall behind the sink. Grayson climbed to his feet, went over, and opened the containers. As he had swiftly suspected, they were his lunch: a hot liquid of some kind - tea, it turned out - in one carton, two meat sandwiches in another, and a dish of pudding with a creamer package in the third.
Well - he was resigned - so now he knew how lunch and, most likely, dinner and breakfast were presented to the prisoners on an individual basis, without their ever leaving their rooms. Grayson sniffed at the sandwiches and the tea, and later at the pudding. He decided they were not poisoned, and ate everything. While he did so, he thought again of the problem of escape.
And once more found himself with a single possibility:]
Wait!
He waited all afternoon. At six, a chicken dinner with mashed potatoes, peas, redcurrant jelly, coffee, and a piece of apple pie with ice cream emerged from the panel under the mirror. Four cartons contained the sumptuous repast.
He ate, drank, and sincerely commended the Utt for their comprehension of the human appetite. And then, since there was nothing else to do - back to the bed.
He was still lying there when a hidden bell rang. Grayson rolled over on the cot, saw by his watch that it was seven o'clock, and simultaneously strove to identify where the ringing came from. Unfortunately, locating a sound was one thing he had never been good at. The ringing ceased before he could decide its origin.
Several moments went by, and then a woman's voice said, 'At seven-thirty an exit for your room will be available. If you wish to attend the weekly community meeting, use the exit and follow the arrows to your nearest community room.'
If he wished to attend—
By the time the message completed, Grayson was sitting up, guessing that there was a speaker behind each wall. While he waited for the thirty minutes to pass, he showered, utilized the toiletries in the cabinet above the sink to shave his beard-darkened face, and combed his straight, brown hair. Several minutes before the half-hour, he was sitting on his cot, fully dressed, looking his usual gaunt, plain self. But he was on edge, as tense as he could be, and as spruced up as was possible for him.
Exactly on the half-hour, there was a click. And then—
An opening appeared in the ceiling. Narrow steps folded down through it to the floor. Grayson leaped awkwardly forward and grabbed at the tough, plastic structure. He held on firmly, while he peered up at what seemed to be other walls. What was up there gleamed as if it, also, was lighted from a hidden source. Was it a corridor up there? he wondered.
He climbed hastily, almost missing his footing a couple of times in his eagerness. But he made it. And it was, indeed, a corridor. His entrance to it was protected by a guard rail, which projected a good three feet above the floor.
There was a small sign on the fence. It said in large letters:
REMEMBER
Your Room Number Is 231 in Corridor G
Below that in smaller print were the words'!
Occupant must be back in his quarters by midnight exactly.
Failure to comply involves a penalty.
Grayson wrote the number down. But his thought actually was: I'm not coming back this way. So, goodbye, little room. And he meant little'
He was standing erect now. All along the corridor, he could see other fences, similar to the one that enclosed his little stairway. More entrances, he presumed.
What an amazing prison. It must have cost a fortune to install. But, of course, the Utt government had the whole human economy under its control. And so enough money was available for maintenance of its enforcement system. And, presumably, enough human beings to do all the work of maintaining.
It was, he realized, those human employees of the Utt who interested him… first, above everything else. What was the administrative structure? Who was in charge? How many individuals were involved? Since power and control were at stake, there would be a hierarchy with a strong interest in having the Utt takeover of earth continue indefinitely.
The Utt themselves seemed to be a rather peaceful, well-meaning race. But - Grayson had no doubt - their human underlings would kill to retain their ascendancy.
So - careful! But finding out who they were had to be his initial goal. So it seemed to Grayson.
Even as his mind hardened on that purpose, he discovered that the arrows (which the woman's voice had mentioned) were arrow-shaped lights in the floor. He was briskly following them, when all along the corridor, human heads began to show through the long line of guard rails.
Men came up out of the openings. A few. Then, as he turned a corner, a dozen… many… too numerous to count easily. Scores. Grayson found himself walking half a stride behind a sturdy, pale-faced man of about thirty-five, who did not glance at him, or show awareness of any of the other men. In fact, as far as Grayson could determine, nobody looked at anyone. There was no sign of people recognizing each other. And no one spoke. Except for the clicking of many shoes, it was a long, silent parade that steadily increased in numbers. It seemed to know where it was going. And just about the time that Grayson estimated that he had gone a quarter of a mile, he saw that the men in the distance ahead of him were turning leftward through an open doorway from which a bright light shone.
Grayson, approaching the entrance a minute later, thought: So he now had a partial picture of this underground world. It consisted of men. They were imprisoned all day, and maybe all week, in little ten-by-ten rooms. And once every seven days they emerged to participate in - what?
That, it seemed to him, was something he should find out before he departed this network of human-built caves.
Bare moments after that thought, and that renewed decision, he himself made the left turn, and saw the 'what' that was there with his own eyes.
What he saw was an anteroom, ornately decorated like a theater lobby, and brightly lighted by chandeliers that hung from a surprisingly high-domed ceiling. As in a theater, there were several sets of double doors that - as Grayson entered the anteroom - were all momentarily opening and shutting. What seemed to be a large, darkened room was partly visible through one of the doors as it was opened, in turn, by the next four men, of whom two had been ahead of him, and two behind.
