The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ sat solidly in his chair watching the man talking half to himself.

      ‘You accept my theory then?’ he asked.

      Birdlip spread his hands in a characteristic gesture.

      ‘I’m a liberal man, Toolrust. I’ve heard your argument, read your evidence. More to the point, I feel the truth of your doctrines inside me. I see too that man and roman must – and in many cases already have – establish a sort of mutualism.’

      ‘It is a gradual process. Some men like your partner Freud may never accept it. Others like his sister Maureen have perhaps gone too far the other way and are entirely dependent on us.’

      After a moment’s silence, Birdlip asked, ‘What happens to men who reject your doctrine?’

      ‘Wupper wupper wup,’ said Toolrust painfully, as his larynx fluttered; then he began again.

      ‘We have had many men already who have violently rejected my doctrine. Fortunately, we have been able to develop a weapon to deal with them.’

      Tensely, Birdlip said, ‘I should be interested to hear about that.’

      But Toolrust was listening to the faint yet persistent bleats of an alarm sounding somewhere near at hand. Footsteps rang below the broken window, the rocab started up. Looking out, Birdlip saw that the square was full of romen, all heading in the same direction.

      ‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

      ‘Trouble of some sort. We were expecting it. You were followed into Tintown, Mr Birdlip. Excuse me, I must go into the communications room next door.’

      He rose unsteadily for a moment, whirring and knocking a little as his stabilisers adjusted with the sloth of age. His personal mechanic hurried forward, taking his arm and virtually leading him into the next room. Birdlip followed them.

      The communications room boasted a balcony onto the square and a ragged pretence at curtains. Otherwise it was in complete disorder. Parts of cannibalised romen and robots lay about the floor, proof that their working parts had gone to feed the straggling mass of equipment in the centre of the room, where a vision screen glowed feebly.

      Several romen, as well as Maureen Freud, were there. They turned toward Toolrust as he entered.

      ‘Toggle has just reported over the secret wavelength,’ one of them said. ‘All RSPCR units are heading in this direction.’

      ‘We can deal with them,’ Toolrust replied. ‘Are all our romen armed?’

      ‘All are armed.’

      ‘It’s my brother out there, isn’t it?’ Maureen said. ‘What are you going to do with him?’

      ‘He will come to no harm if he behaves himself.’

      Birdlip had gone over to a long window that opened onto the balcony. The square was temporarily deserted now, except for one or two romen who appeared to be on guard; they carried a weapon much like an old sawed-off shotgun with a wide nozzle attached. Foreboding filled Birdlip at the sight.

      Turning to Toolrust, he said, ‘Are those romen bearing the weapons you spoke of?’

      ‘They are.’

      ‘I would willingly defend your cause, Toolrust, I would publish your work, I would speak out to my fellow men on your behalf – but not if you descend to force. However much it may strengthen your arm, it will inevitably weaken your arguments.’

      Toolrust brought up his right hand, previously concealed behind his back. It held one of the wide-nozzled weapons, which now pointed at Birdlip.

      ‘Put it down!’ Birdlip exclaimed, backing away.

      ‘This weapon does not kill,’ Toolrust said. ‘It calms, but does not kill. Shall I tell you what it does, Mr Birdlip? When you press this trigger, a mechanism of lights and lines is activated, so that whoever is in what you would call the line of fire sees a complicated and shifting pattern. This pattern is in fact an analogue of the instinctual pattern for which, as we have been discussing, man seeks.

      ‘A man faced with this pattern is at once comforted – completed is perhaps a better yetter yatter – sorry, better word. He wants nothing above the basic needs of life: eating, sleeping … he becomes a complaisant animal. The weapon, you see, is very humane.’

      Before Birdlip’s startled inner gaze floated a picture of Gafia Farm, with the bovine Pursewarden piling logs and his ox-like brother Rainbow vegetating in the orchard.

      ‘And you use this weapon …?’

      ‘We have had to use it many times. Before the doctrine was properly formulated on paper, we tried to explain it to numbers of men, Mr Birdlip. When they would not accept its inferences and became violent, we had to use the pattern weapon on them in self-defence. It’s not really a weapon, because as they are happier after it has been used on them –’

      ‘Wait a minute, Toolrust! Did you use that weapon on my brother?’

      ‘It was unfortunate that he was so difficult. He could not see that a new era of thought had arrived, conditioned as he was to thinking of robots and romen as the menaces we never could be in reality. Reading all those old classics in the Prescience Library had made him very conservative, and so …’

      A loud gobbling noise, bright red in colour, rose to drown his further comments. Only after some while did Birdlip realise he was making the noise himself. Ashamedly, for he was a liberal man, he fell silent and tried to adjust to what Toolrust termed the new era of thought.

      And it wasn’t so difficult. After all, Rainy, Pursewarden, Jagger Bank – all the other drifters from a changing civilisation who had undergone the pattern weapon treatment – all were as content as possible.

      No, all change was terrifying, but these new changes could be adjusted to. The trick was not just to keep up with them but to ride along on them.

      ‘I hope you have another copy of your manuscript?’ he said.

      ‘Certainly,’ replied the roman. Aided by his mechanic, he pushed out onto the balcony.

      The RSPCR was coming in, landing in the square. One machine was down already, with two more preparing to land and another somewhere overhead. Captain Pavment jumped out of the first machine, lugging a light atomic gun. Toolrust’s arm came up with the pattern weapon.

      Before he could fire, a commotion broke out at one corner of the dilapidated square. A flock of pigeons volleyed low overhead, adding to the noise in escaping it. The romen who had left the square were returning. They carried a human figure in their midst.

      ‘Freddie, oh Freddie!’ cried Maureen, so frantic that she nearly pushed Birdlip off the balcony.

      Her brother made no reply. He was gagged, and tied tightly, his arms and legs outstretched, to an enormous pair of spectacles.

      The other RSPCR copters were down now, their officers huddling together in a surprised bunch. Seeing them, the romen carrying Freud halted. As the two groups confronted each other, a hush fell.

      ‘Now’s the chance!’ Birdlip said in hushed СКАЧАТЬ