On the
very next occasion that he could arrange to have a couple of days off work, he
made his way in the early morning to Dranl Central Station.
He
went to the ticket counter, opened his wallet and said:
“A
return to Thilpar, please. On the Continental Express.”
That was the only way. Buy the ticket and enter the train.
Wait until it began to pull out from the station, whereupon he would know that
the matter was out of his hands. So he went ahead, and so it proved: out of
Dranl and into the sunlit landscape of the Gonesh Plains, the Express began to
accelerate along the first stage of its route to the capital of Larmonn,
ratcheting his whole life forward – although of course in theory he still could change his mind at the other end.
Yes,
he could simply take the return train
and accept that he had wasted two days and the price of a ticket. But he knew
for a certainty, that after splurging money on that ticket he was not going to
lose face with himself by turning back from his purpose. So as the
bullet-shaped locomotive picked up further speed, drawing the world’s fastest
train along the world’s most famous route, Midax sensed its forward spurt as
the casting of a die. Each time he had ridden the Continental Express he had goggled
at the onrushing Purple Range, the mountains expanding before his eyes as his
carriage hurtled towards them at two hundred and fifty miles per hour, but this time he revelled in the speed as
never before.
The
train did slow slightly as it entered the Kalbeck Forest which skirted the
Range like a dark green apron. It must have slowed some more on the approach to
the mountain tunnel. Nevertheless the trees and foothills closed in at a
startling rate; and after the darkness and the roar came the emergence onto the
plains beyond, and here the train’s velocity could really open up. Here were no
longer the hummocky and thickly-settled Gonesh Plains but the incomparably
vaster and less populated Taldon Plains stretching all the way to Thilpar at
the heart of the continent. Here, under the open sky of an infinite table-top
the Continental showed what it could do. Steadily it pushed up the velocity to
four hundred miles per hour on its elevated track, accompanied by thinly
screeching winds. For a couple of hours there’d be nothing else to see other
than the plains and some flashing glimpses of white-fenced ranch-houses and
occasional flecks of bloom from irrigated orchards or colourful
crops.
Midax,
settling back from the window, unfolded the morning’s paper.
Knowing
that editors preferred, for reasons best known to themselves, to stick the
celebrity-waffle on page one and tuck the interesting stuff deep inside, he
flipped past “Mezwa and Juf: It’s All Over” and the rather more interesting
“Waretik to Run – Official” (at another time he would have read this, but
today, somehow, it didn’t fit with his mood)… flipped the pages until his eye
caught a curious title amid the centre features-spread.
Good Trains – Bad Planes
It was by author-tycoon Davlr Braze. Midax had known him at school. Good old Davlr! Midax settled down to read. After a while he laid down the article with a reflective smile. Whoever could have guessed that the lad would develop such an aptitude for tossing off thought-provoking articles on economic matters, flavoured with armchair psychology? He looked again at Davlr’s words:
The Dranl-Thilpar Continental Express has
a one-hundred-per-cent safety record [glad
to hear of it], whereas the fledgling Dranl-Thilpar Air Link has already
suffered thirty-four fatalities. Most pundits, I suppose, will argue from these
one-sided statistics that Rail has won its argument over Air hands down,
especially as Rail has maintained its lead over Air in regard to both speed and
expense…
…No doubt about it, technological
progress is turning out lopsided. And I suggest that when we turn a blind or
incurious eye to this anomaly, we do so at our own risk. Why should the biggest
and fastest plane, half a century after the invention of air travel, still
consist of a twelve-seater propeller-driven aircraft easily outstripped by a
train? (Let it also be borne in mind that the movement for global unity and
world government seems to have stalled precisely because of these practical
limits on transportation.) For that matter, how come we don’t have low-priced
commercial flight whereas we do have colour TV? The theoretical base exists
equally for both. Yet the one gets developed whereas the other does not…
…A clue to this imbalance may lie in the
realm of the subconscious. After all, as recently as ten years ago the dead
hand of Boaloism [here we go] was
still channelling most of our spiritual energies into countless futile, tragic,
unrealistic searches for the perfect Other Half; channelling most of our
ingenuity into shoring up marriages which should have been dissolved; shoring
them up in the vain and desperate hope that they were the Ultimate… and for
such psychological aberration we have had to pay a heavy economic price. For
centuries the Boalonian Ideal played the role inside our heads that a
parasitic, idle aristocracy plays in an Old Regime society; lording it over
other inclinations, preventing any concentration of effort in directions which
were likely to dilute its authority – which meant the neglect of any
technological improvement which might give economic unity to the world; the
prevention of any striking achievement which, by shrinking distances and
forcing all peoples into the melting pot of surging economic advance, might
force them into freedom from the old introverted ideal. Which is why, crazy
though it may sound, there is a
definite, provable connection between the excessive superiority of our train
services, the stunted development of air travel, and the prolonged reign –
thank goodness coming to its belated end at last – of the Boalonian Illusion…
Phew, thought Midax after ploughing
through to the end, he’s really gone off
his rocker this time. And yet Davlr’s article was just one more in a long
traditional series of grumbles about Boalo’s effect upon civilization. Davlr,
on reflection, hadn’t “gone off his rocker”, he had merely played a variation
on the hackneyed old theme of the anti-Boalonian tirade.
A
slowing of the train: Midax turned again to the window. It was about time for
Bzenn Bridge. Here the express must cross the last slow river which meanders
down the almost imperceptible eastward slope of the Taldon Plains.
Because
of the deceleration, certain features of the landscape, speed-blurred over most
of the route, now became observable. His eyes could linger on the
road-and-field patterns called Settlement Squares, surveyed and laid out
centuries ago and illustrating, in their partial erasure by overgrowths and
obstructions, the subsequent history of Larmonn from the vantage of the train. All
so deep and real, and yet, in another sense, a mere wavering dream-quilt
tempting from Midax’s lips the lines:
I’m partial to a breakfast on
th’eternal stream,
and sometimes I would stop upon a
world for lunch;
yet what canned life could pack
sufficient punch?
(I dream, I dream, I see the end, I
dream.)
A houseboat is sufficient for
th’eternal stream,
but sometimes binoculars tempt me
to squint
at a bobbing drum whose message is
a manufactured hint
(I dream, I dream, I see the end, I
dream).
Somewhere there’s a jetty for
th’officials of the stream,
and someone may exist who might be
ready to partake
in a survey of this whole fantastic
stage for goodness’ sake
(I dream, I dream, I see the end, I
dream).
Appearing
at last over the horizon, the topmost communications towers of Thilpar rose
into view in the path of the bulleting train. Within a few seconds Midax was
able to see the distinctive outline of the capital’s skyscrapers. Javelins and
spades of concrete and glass, brandished at the sky, drew closer while the
intervening ground sank like a dropped veil to reveal lower levels. Pressure of
deceleration finally pushed Midax back into his seat-cushion, tearing his gaze
from the window. When he looked out again, half a minute later, he was already
well inside the city-centre and the train was drawing to a stop.
This
was going to be the awkward bit, as motion ceased. Now, now, no ‘second
thoughts’ allowed! And although, emerging, he staggered ever so slightly on the
platform, feeling queasy and disoriented, the moment of cowardice passed. Soon
he was strolling, his “A to Z” street-plan-cum-guide-book in hand.
It
was the same well-thumbed guidebook which he had taken on his previous visit
some years ago. He remembered the author’s grumbles at the “architectural
hodge-podge” of Thilpar. This time, as Midax strode through the cityscape, it
struck him how unnecessary such complaints were. How easy it was, if you
preferred buildings of a certain style, to “factor out” the others, so that you
only noticed what you needed to see, and thus eliminated eyesores. For
instance, if you fancied the older buildings, which were all stonier and
squatter than the modern ones, you could “de-select” the recent steel-and-glass
towers from your vision, by regarding them not as buildings but as mere mirrors
to reflect the sky and clouds. Beautifully effective mirrors they were – vying
to present you with a shining backdrop while you went nosing around the heavier
stuff…
Twenty
minutes’ walk in the direction of the most built-up area brought him to where
the throng of pedestrians spilled into a clearing in the forest of skyscrapers:
a square with glass-cliffed sides. Each side differently reflected the one
stone building which crouched at the far end: the squat yet looming bulk of the
Tramboleion.
This
was it: the Western Hemisphere HQ of the Shapers’ College. His destination
stared Midax Rale in the face at last. A moment of some fear; and yet, now that
he had reached this point, he knew what to do with his doubts.
For
he had made his choice, had he not? His purchase of the train ticket this
morning was his expenditure in the currency of freedom.
He
passed through the Tramboleion’s entrance without breaking his stride. Let the
predictable yammer inside his head continue – all the floating thoughts making
their bumpy landings –
He
leaned on the reception desk and gave his name.
The
young receptionist said, “Rmr. Arpaieson will see you in a few minutes. Take a
seat if you like.” Her automatic smile was normal for the busy unconcern of any
big city, and Midax almost did take a seat, as though he were waiting for a
normal interview, but he remained just wary enough to prefer to stand. And he
was glad of it, when he heard purposeful footsteps behind him and turned,
hardly believing, to see the round face of Rmr. Arpaieson himself.
The
Western Hemisphere Director of the Shapers’ College in person was greeting him
warmly, with outstretched hand and a sincere look of welcome. Midax in response
was suddenly upset and confused. Super-fast thoughts rattled through his head. He
wanted the thing he was joining to be prestigious and dignified and great in
the world. To be met at reception by this moon-faced little man seemed somehow
wrong. Though of course a recruit ought to feel honoured… but might it not be
more sad proof of how the College had declined, that the Director was so
desperate to ingratiate himself with anyone still willing to join?
And
yet, cheerful as a sunflower, that face looked “down” at the much taller Midax
as if to affirm, ‘down’ is the direction
I define it to be. I know what I’m doing; don’t you worry! “Rmr. Midax
Rale? Good to see you. We’ll talk in my office first. Follow me.”
They
walked to the lift, Arpaieson remarking over his shoulder, “We sent the
brochure and invitation some time ago. You must have had a long think about
it.”
The
tone remained friendly, but Midax was wary of any implied questioning.
“I
moved house just after sending off my initial inquiry,” he replied carefully. “Your
brochure was redirected. I took action as soon as I got it.”
“Oh,
so actually it was a snap decision?”
They
stepped out of the lift and into a thick-carpeted office comprising the entire
top floor. Great windows gave a breath-taking view on all four sides out into
Thilpar’s gleaming skyscraper-forest. It was quiet up here, far above the sound
of the traffic.
Midax
replied, “Snap decision, yes, when I opened the brochure and saw, contrary to
my expectations, that you had become Director.” Obeying a gesture he sat himself
opposite Arpaieson at the desk. He knew he must speak with frankness. “I was
astonished,” he added, “that you had managed to beat the trendies. It meant
that the outfit was worth joining after all.”
Arpaieson
stared, then laughed.
“You’re
a worrier, Midax! But that’s all right – it’s not much of a criticism, only of
course I’m interested in every detail of character and motive, when anyone
seeks admission. The wrong sort would sink us now, for good… So! You really
were relieved I’d beaten the ‘trendies’, eh? You didn’t think it was a foregone
conclusion?”
“I
thought I needed to worry, when Professor Twick was Director…”
“Acting
Director,” corrected Arpaieson with a shrug. “A stopgap. An unfortunate minor
episode, a chapter now closed, in the College’s history. Mind you, old Twick is
not a bad chap; we get on well personally… And by the way, you’re not telling
me everything.”
I know what he wants to know. It’s
what I’d ask me in his place. Am I here as a genuine recruit or am I simply on
the rebound from something? Playing
for time, Midax asked: “So can I take it that the College is really still true
to itself? Does your appointment mean what I thought it meant – that the
College’s ideals are not after all going to be watered down and made
‘relevant’?”
Arpaieson
leaned forward onto the desk. “So long as I’m at this post, the answer is yes.”
“And
when you go, sir?”
“And
when I’m gone, don’t you worry then either. The College has seen off many
threats such as those of the past few years. Reactionaries such as you and I,”
he grinned, “always win in the end, because sooner or later it always dawns on
our opponents that without our ideals there would be no Shapers’ College, and
although they can never bring themselves to admit this, it does make them
rather lose heart for their struggle to ‘bring it up to date’ – as they call
the process of abandoning everything that defines it. And when they twig this,
they prefer to leave. Now I have answered your question, you must answer mine. Why
are you here?”
Midax
sighed, “This is where I must admit something which will make me look
mind-bogglingly stupid.”
“In
other words, you’re a human being. More – you’re a proud human being, addicted
to perfectionist worry.”
“This
particular human being, I’m sorry to say, has steered himself through life as
follows.” Midax took a deep breath, wondering how he was going to get the next
few sentences out without croaking with shame, and continued: “Having spent my
school years in love with a girl whom I then – out of crazy cowardice – allowed
to drift out of my life (that was about twenty years ago), I almost
continuously ever since have remained true to my memory of her, in true
Boalonian style, not looking at any other woman. I say almost continuously, because just a short while ago I spoiled my
record. Or so I thought. Now here’s the hilarious part. I fell in love with
‘another’ woman who has turned out to be the same one!” Midax scrutinised
Arpaieson’s expression at this point. He could not detect any mirth. “Don’t you
see the absurdity of it? It was the same woman, twenty years older of course;
but despite my supposed twenty-year devotion, I didn’t recognize her for weeks
and weeks. Can anything in the history of this planet have equalled that for a
stupid performance? And as to Boalo’s doctrine, now, I don’t know where I
stand, or what to think. I thought (just
before this shock) that I was being unfaithful to the ideal. Now it turns out
that I was, all the time, unconsciously proving it to be true. There is only one woman for me, but I
mistakenly thought she was two – mistakenly didn’t realize that Boalo was
right; but how, if he’s right, how could I make such a mistake? Can you work it
out? Am I an exemplar of fidelity or not?”
“Tell
me,” said Arpaieson, “how did you find out it was the same woman?”
“A
chance phrase she spoke. It jogged my memory, finally. Belatedly. I suppose
that’s all I can say.”
“So
you were just slow. You did recognize her, after a delay.”
“Some
delay! Weeks! Weeks of seeing Pjerl and talking to her almost every evening. Addressing
her by the familiar form of her name, Jerre, and not even that was enough to
wake me to the truth.”
“Perhaps, though, you did
fall for two different women,” suggested Arpaieson with gimlet-eyed shrewdness,
“in the sense that the Pjerl you knew at school and the Pjerl you met twenty
years later are, effectively, two different people. Don’t look so shocked,” the
Director went on, smiling. “No, I haven’t suddenly gone heretical; I haven’t
joined the trendies. I’m not promoting fickleness. But – personalities do change, even if souls don’t. Boalo
knew this. Only the soul, the inmost qualitative identity, retains continuity. You
know that yourself – or you should. Anyhow, I now understand the motive for
your application to the College. You wish to demonstrate, by means of a
definite recorded commitment, that your era of confusion and vacillation is
over.”
The
Director sharpened his voice as he spoke these words. Midax flinched, looking
away from Arpaieson’s face. Out of the nearest window he preferred to gaze,
into the middle terrace of Thilpar’s forest of skyscrapers. It was as if he
must measure a jump for freedom… but that was nonsense: freedom and commitment
were not opposed. No more than money and purchasing were opposed. The one
existed for the other. He looked back at the Director. Ah, good, the man’s
expression did not match the momentary severity of his tone. And the tone
itself then softened:
“Perhaps,”
Arpaieson went on, “the reason that you, when you were a young man, just out of
school, allowed Pjerl to ‘drift out of your life’, was that you were scared of
putting the ideal to the test of reality.”
“Like
I said, I was a coward, and I suppose that means I didn’t have real faith…”
“You
mean, real faith banishes cowardice? Maybe. But there’s more to it. Maybe you
knew all along that no one could possibly live up in practice to the glory
which you had glimpsed in her, or rather, glimpsed through her.”
“No,”
decided Midax after a moment’s thought, “I can’t make any subtle excuse for
myself. I was a drip, and a coward. But now…”
“Yes?
Now?”
“Nowadays
I am readier to risk a gamble.”
“Ah-hah.”
“By
that I don’t mean,” added Midax hurriedly, “that I view an application to join
this College as a gamble in the sense of having any doubts about the truth of
your teaching. I may not understand where my experiences fit into it, but…”
“Of course, that’s not where the gamble lies,” agreed
Arpaieson. “I expect you, and I, and all College members, have the same general
ideas about Truth; that’s why we’re here. But it is possible for a thing to be
true and yet still not be a particular part of your destiny. You are gambling
with your practical destiny. Shall I
tell you about my own case? About how things turned out for me? I always knew,”
continued the Director reminiscently, “that this College was right for me. At
school I was jeered at because my first name, ‘Rermer’, sounds so much like the
title ‘Rmr.’; so they chanted ‘Rummer Rermer’ at me, but the interesting thing
is, I did not greatly mind; the mockery, while it irritated me, never hurt me;
in fact it played a useful part in my life. It was a sign, a portentous sign,
that my schoolmates should thus chant more truth than they knew.”
Midax
was silent. Arpaieson saw, for the second time, a shocked look on the
applicant’s face.
Quickly
the Director added:
“You
think it trivial to suggest that some silly schoolboy name-calling could
constitute one of the operations of destiny? Not so. Boalo himself was never
naïf about the agencies which destiny can use. Here in the College we aim to
develop a unified causation theory, wherein there is no ultimate distinction
between chance and design. Come, it’s time for you to make your Vow, if you are
going to do it today.”
Surprise
at the Director’s sharp intensification of the pressure was swiftly followed by
acceptance on the part of Midax Rale, for the Director knew that the applicant
at this stage wants to be hurried.
Midax
indeed impatiently desired to get it all over with, to get past the
decision-process. So as the Director rose from his chair, the recruit followed
willingly.
Within
a minute they were down one floor and in a larger room, occupying a wider level
of the building. It felt even emptier than the Director’s office, although
there were a few clerks seated close to the walls.
A
recognizable place. The Hall of the Cascade…
The
last time Midax had seen a depiction of it – in some weekend newspaper
supplement article – the photo had made the place look plain and dreary,
incapable of inspiring awe. By contrast, the reality impressed him. Yet it was
also worse. The silence and emptiness of the real Hall set his nerves shying.
A
sort of psychic smell, as of the site of a disaster, where a crowd of ghosts
kept vigil. The tomb of idealism, perhaps. Antiquated ideals, buried in this
giant museum.
The
floor was level, yet somehow made one think of a four-sided amphitheatre with
its circular pedestal down in the central pit where, in the old days, the
applicant was supposed to stand as he spoke his vows to the massed audience of
Shapers.
No
massed audience today. Little of the old procedure had survived into the modern
age. Midax must speak his few words into a humdrum recording machine, witnessed
by the Director and four clerks, and that was all.
And what about
the original College headquarters in Serorn, the one Boalo himself set up? It,
nowadays, is in truth a museum and only a museum, emptier than this. And
won’t this one go the same way? Before many more years have passed? Am I not
about to pledge my word to a lost cause?
Pledge my word to the grandeur that
was Serorn, the Middle Continent, the cradle of mankind; and to Boalo its
greatest intellect. And to all the rest of its ancient glory, packaged and
powerless and dead. And to Serorn’s capital P’Arlcena, where Boalo’s original
College was built, a College which, so far from Shaping the world’s ideas any
longer, now subsists from tourism. Rich people drop in during their skiing
holidays… ‘dude philosophers’…
“You’re
worried,” said a nudging voice beside him, the voice of Rermer Arpaieson again,
the experienced guesser of applicants’ thoughts. “Worried that the world may
not take much notice of us. Well, yes, but it will never take none. And always, silently, it will have
to admit – by the way it respects those who keep the Vow – that we are right to
say what we do. Now you stand here. Take this sheet of paper. I’ve filled your
name in. Read the text, press the switch and say the words…”
“…I,
Midax Rale, vow always to aver, in conduct and in word, that for every human
being there is one true love per life, and the decision of romance is final.”
Click – and the voiceprint record was
sent along branching wires, copied and copied again, transmitting to every
branch and office of the College in the world, and also to the municipal
offices in Dranl, the words which could never be retracted, putting Midax on
record as declaring his belief in the doctrine that for every man there was one
special woman, for every woman one special man, the destined Other Half,
existing from before the world, perhaps from before the commencement of linear
time itself… One could not but wonder how many who had made this awesome Vow
still really believed it… but I cannot
help but believe, thought Midax. I
have been walloped by this truth.
That, after all, is why I am here.
>>>next chapter>>>