The Analogues
by Damon Knight
THE CREATURE was like an eye, a globular eye that could see in all directions, encysted in the gray, cloudy mind that called itself Alfie Strunk. In that dimness thoughts squirmed, like dark fish darting; and the eye followed them without pity.
It knew Alfie, knew the evil in Alfie; the tangled skein of impotence and hatred and desire; the equation: Love equals death. The roots of that evil were beyond its reach; it was only an eye. But now it was changing. Deep in its own center, little electric tingles came and went. Energy found a new gradient, and flowed.
A thought shone in the gray cloud that was Alfie -- only half-formed, but unmistakable. And a channel opened. Instantly, the eye thrust a filament of itself into that passage.
Now it was free. Now it could act.
The man on the couch stirred and moaned. The doctor, who had been whispering into his ear, drew back and watched his face. At the other end of the couch, the technician glanced alertly at the patient, then turned again to his meters.
The patient's head was covered to the ears by an ovoid shell of metal. A broad strap of webbing, buckled under his jaw, held it securely. The heads of screw-clamps protruded in three circles around the shell's girth, and a thick bundle of insulated wires led from it to the control board at the foot of the couch.
The man's gross body was restrained by a rubber sheet, the back of his head resting in the trough of a rubber block.
"No!" he shouted suddenly. He mumbled, his loose features contorting. Then, "I wasn't gonna -- No! Don't -- " He muttered again, trying to move his body; the tendons in his neck were sharply outlined. "Please," he said. Tears glittered in his eyes.
The doctor leaned forward and whispered. "You're going away from there. You're going away. It's five minutes later."
The patient relaxed and seemed to be asleep. A teardrop spilled over and ran slowly down his cheek.
The doctor stood up and nodded to the technician, who slowly moved his rheostat to zero before he cut the switches. "A good run," the doctor mouthed silently. The technician nodded and grinned. He scribbled on a pad, "Test him this aft.?" The doctor wrote, "Yes. Can't tell till then, but think we got him solid."
Alfie Strunk sat in the hard chair and chewed rhythmically, staring at nothing. His brother had told him to wait here, while he went down the hall to see the doctor. It seemed to Alfie that he had been gone a long time.
Silence flowed around him. The room was almost bare -- the chair he sat in, the naked walls and floor, a couple of little tables with books on them. There were two doors; one, open, led into the long bare hall outside. There were other doors in the hall, but they were all closed and their bumpy-glass windows were dark. At the end of the hall was a door, and that was closed, too. Alfie had heard his brother close it behind him, with a solid snick, when he left. He felt very safe and alone.
He heard something, a faint echo of movement, and turned his head swiftly. The noise came from beyond the second door in the room, the one that was just slightly ajar. He heard it again.
He stood up cautiously, not making a sound. He tiptoed to the door, looked through the crack. At first he saw nothing, then the footsteps came again and he saw a flash of color: a blue print skirt, a white sweater, a glimpse of coppery hair.
Alfie widened the crack, very carefully. His heart was pounding and his breath was coming faster. Now he could see the far end of the room. A couch, and the girl sitting on it, opening a book. She was about eleven, slender and dainty. A reading lamp by the couch gave the only light. She was alone.
Alfie's blunt fingers went into his trousers pocket and clutched futilely. They had taken his knife away.
Then he glanced at the little table beside the door, and his breath caught. There it was, his own switchblade knife, lying beside the books. His brother must have left it there and forgotten to tell him.
He reached for it --
"ALFIE!"
He whirled, cringing. His mother stood there, towering twice his height, with wrath in her staring gray eyes; every line of her so sharp and real that he couldn't doubt her, though he had seen her buried fifteen years ago.
She had a willow switch in her hand.
"No!" gasped Alfie, retreating to the wall. "Don't -- I wasn't gonna do nothing."
She raised the switch. "You're no good, no good, no good," she spat. "You've got the devil in you, and it's just got to be whipped out."
"Don't, please -- " said Alfie. Tears leaked out of his eyes.
"Get away from that girl," she said, advancing. "Get clean away and don't ever come back. Go on -- "
Alfie turned and ran, sobbing in his throat.
In the next room, the girl went on reading until a voice said, "Okay, Rita. That's all."
She looked up. "Is that all? Well, I didn't do much."
"You did enough," said the voice. "We'll explain to you what it's all about some day. Come on, let's go."
She smiled, stood up -- and vanished as she moved out of range of the mirrors in the room below.
The two rooms where Alfie had been tested were empty. Alfie's mother was already gone -- gone with Alfie, inside his mind where he could never escape her again, as long as he lived.
Martyn's long, cool fingers gently pressed the highball glass. The glass accepted the pressure, a very little; the liquid rose almost imperceptibly in it. This glass would not break, he knew; it had no sharp edges and if thrown it would not hurt anybody much.
The music of the five-piece combo down at the end of the room was the same -- muted, gentle, accommodating. And the alcohol content of the whisky in his drink was twenty-four point five per cent.
But men still got drunk, and men still reached for a weapon to kill.
And, incredibly, there were worse things that could happen. The cure was sometimes worse than the disease. We're witch doctors, he thought. We don't realize it yet, most of us, but that's what we are. The doctor who only heals is a servant; the doctor who controls life and death is a tyrant.
The dark little man across the table had to be made to understand that. Martyn thought he could do it. The man had power -- the power of millions of readers, of friends in high places -- but he was a genuine, not a professional, lover of democracy.
Now the little man raised his glass, tilted it in a quick, automatic gesture. Martyn saw his throat pulse, like the knotting of a fist. He set the glass down, and the soft rosy light from the bar made dragons' eyes of his spectacles.
"Well, Dr. Martyn?" His voice was sharp and rapid, but amiable. This man lived with tension; he was acclimated to it, like a swimmer in swift waters.
Martyn gestured with his glass, a slow, controlled movement. "I want you to see something before we talk. I had two reasons for asking you here. One is that it's an out-of-the-way place, and, as you'll understand, I have to be careful. If Dr. Kusko should learn I'm talking to you, and why -- " Martyn moistened his lips. "I'm not ashamed to say I'm afraid of that man. He's a paranoid -- capable of anything. But more about that later.
"The other reason has to do with a man who comes here every night. His name is Ernest Fox; he's a machinist, when he works. Over there at the bar. The big man in the checked jacket. See him?"
The other flicked a glance that way; he did not turn his head. "Yeah. The one with the snootful?"
"Yes. You're right, he's very drunk. I don't think it'll take much longer."
"How come they serve him?"
"You'll see in a minute," Martyn said.
Ernest Fox was swaying slightly on the bar stool. His choleric face was flushed, and his nostrils widened visibly with each breath he took. His eyes were narrowed, staring at the man to his left -- a wizened little fellow in a big fedora.
Suddenly he straightened and slammed his glass down on the bar. Liquid spread over the surface in a glittering flood. The wizened looked up at him nervously.