Lanigan nodded, and the doctor went on.
"So, we know that a thing exists because our senses tell us it exists. How do we check the accuracy of our observations? By comparing them with the sensory impressions of other men. We know that our senses don't lie when other men's senses agree upon the existence of the thing in question."
Lanigan thought about this, then said, "Therefore, the real world is simply what most men think it is."
Sampson twisted his mouth and said, "I told you that metaphysics was not my forte. Still, I think it is an acceptable demonstration."
"Yes ... But, Doc, suppose all of those observers are wrong? For example, suppose there are many worlds and many realities, not just one? Suppose this is simply one arbitrary existence out of an infinity of existences? Or suppose that the" nature of reality itself is capable of change, and that somehow I am able to perceive that change?"
Sampson sighed, found a little green bat fluttering inside his jacket and absentmindedly crushed it with a ruler.
"There you are," he said. "I can't disprove a single one of your suppositions. I think, Tom, that we had better run through the entire dream."
Lanigan grimaced. "I really would rather not. I have a feeling ..."
"I know you do," Sampson said, smiling faintly. "But this will prove or disprove it once and for all, won't it?"
"I guess so," Lanigan said. He took courage — unwisely — and said, "Well, the way it begins, the way my dream starts—"
Even as he spoke the horror came over him. He felt dizzy, sick, terrified. He tried to rise from the couch. The doctor's face ballooned over him. He saw the glint of metal, heard Sampson saying, "Just try to relax ... brief seizure ... try to think of something pleasant."
Then either Lanigan or the world or both passed out.
Lanigan and/or the world came back to consciousness. Time may or may not have passed. Anything might or might not have happened. Lanigan sat up and looked at Sampson.
"How do you feel now?" Sampson asked.
"I'm all right," Lanigan said. "What happened?"
"You had a bad moment. Take it easy for a bit."
Lanigan leaned back and tried to calm himself. The doctor was sitting at his desk, writing notes. Lanigan counted to twenty with his eyes closed, then opened them
cautiously. Sampson was still writing notes.
Lanigan looked around the room, counted the five pictures on the wall, recounted them, looked at the green carpet, frowned at it, closed his eyes again. This time he counted to fifty.
"Well, care to talk about it?" Sampson asked, closing a notebook.
"No, not just now," Lanigan said. (Five paintings, green carpet.)
"Just as you please," the doctor said. "I think our time is just about up. But if you would like to lie down in the anteroom..."
"No thanks, I'll go home," Lanigan said.
He stood up, walked across the green carpet to the door, looked back at the five paintings and at the doctor, who smiled at him encouragingly. Then Lanigan went through the door and into the anteroom, through the anteroom to the outer door, and through that and down the corridor to the stairs and down the stairs to the street.
He walked and looked at the trees, on which green leaves moved faintly and predictably in a faint breeze. There was traffic, which moved soberly down one side of the street and up the other. The sky was an unchanging blue and had obviously been so for quite some time.
Dream? He pinched himself; a dream pinch? He did not awaken. He shouted; an imaginary shout? He did not waken.
He was in the familiar territory of his nightmare. But it had lasted far longer than any of the others. Ergo, it was no longer a dream. (A dream is the shorter life, a life is the longer dream.) Lanigan had made the transition; or the transition had made Lanigan. The impossible had happened by the simple expedient of happening.
The pavement never once yielded beneath his feet. Over there was the First National City Bank; it had been there yesterday, it would be there tomorrow. Grotesquely devoid of possibilities, it would never become a tomb, an aeroplane, or the bones of a prehistoric monster. Sullenly it would remain, a building of concrete and steel, madly persisting in its fixity until men with tools came and tediously tore it down.
Lanigan walked through this petrified world, under a blue sky that oozed a coy white around the edges, promising something it could never deliver. Traffic moved to the right, people crossed at crossings, clocks were within minutes of agreement.
Somewhere beyond the town lay the countryside; but Lanigan knew that the grass did not grow under one's feet; it simply lay there, growing no doubt, but imperceptibly, unusable to the senses. And the mountains were still black and tall, but they were giants stopped in mid-stride, destined never to march against a golden (or purple or green) sky.
This was the frozen world. This was the slow-motion world of preordination, routine, habituation. This was the world in which the eerie quality of boredom" was not only possible; it was inevitable. This was the world in which change, that quicksilver substance, had been reduced to a sluggish and reluctant glue.
Because of this, the magic of the phenomenal world was no longer possible. And without magic, no one could live.
Lanigan screamed. He screamed while people gathered around and looked at him (but didn't do anything or become anything), and then a policeman came, as he was supposed to (but the sun didn't change shape once), and then an ambulance rushed down the invariable street (but without trumpets, minus strumpets, on four wheels instead of a pleasing three or twenty-five) and the ambulance men took him to a building which was exactly where they expected to find it, and there was a great deal of talk by people who stood, untransformed and untransformable, asking him questions in a room with relentlessly white walls.
They prescribed rest, quiet, sedation. This, horribly enough, was the very poison which Lanigan had been trying to throw out of his system. Naturally they gave him an overdose.
He didn't die; it wasn't that good a poison. Instead, he became completely insane. He was discharged three weeks later, a model patient and a model cure.
Now he walks around and believes that change is impossible. He has become a masochist; he revels in the insolent regularity of things. He has become a sadist; he preaches to others the divine mechanical order of things.
He has completely assimilated his insanity or the world's, in all ways except one. He is not happy. Order and happiness are contradictions which the universe has not succeeded in reconciling as yet.
Diplomatic Immunity
"Come right in, gentlemen," the Ambassador waved them into the very special suite the State Department had given him. "Please be seated."
Colonel Cercy accepted a chair, trying to size up the individual who had all Washington chewing its fingernails. The Ambassador hardly looked like a menace. He was of medium height and slight build, dressed in a conservative brown tweed suit that the State Department had given him. His face was intelligent, finely moulded and aloof.
As human as a human, Cercy thought, studying the alien with bleak, impersonal eyes.
"How may I serve you?" the Ambassador asked, smiling.
"The President has put me in charge of your case," Cercy said. "I've studied Professor Darrig's reports" — he nodded at the scientist beside him — "but I'd like to hear the whole thing for myself."
"Of course," the alien said, lighting a cigarette. He seemed genuinely pleased to be asked; which was interesting, Cercy thought. In the week since he had landed, every important scientist in the country had been at him.