He said to the man nearest Inga: "Take her into the next room and leave the door wide open." So that was it and I knew the deal was lost, as I'd known it must be.
She moved before the man could touch her, and looked into my face as she passed me. I said, "Don't worry. "The door to her bedroom was opened by the guard there.
The sweat began.
I told Oktober: "You'll lose."
He spoke through the doorway. "Unclothe her."
I knew that he wouldn't have started the thing in this way if Fabian hadn't convinced him on the subject of my libido. They didn't have to undress her to do what they were going to do, but I was to be put under a double strain: the pity for a fellow-human who suffered pain, and the outrage of the male animal whose mate is its possession.
She made a sound, something like anger. She had moved into the bedroom before the guard could touch her; therefore she would probably elect to undress without his help. I could hear the fabric against her skin, as I had heard it a few hours ago, now with different feelings.
I said: "The position is this." I waited until he looked at me. "If I can't stand it, and talk, there can't be any half-measures. I'd have to talk totally. That's obvious. If I talk, it'll mean putting my Control right into your hands: the local base, names of operators, communication system, the whole lot. Do you for a moment imagine I'd do that?" The sweat was on my face now and he was watching it gather. The body was giving away the mind, and the mind would have to compensate for its own exposure, and say what it had to say with utter conviction. "There's not much pity in people like us. We're like doctors. We can't do the job if we let pity into it. You know that. So you're going to lose. I'm not talking. Not one word. Not one word. Do what you like to her, kill her off slowly, let me listen to her dying in there, and take your time, make it last and watch me sweat it out. You won't get a word. Not one word. And when that's failed, you can start on me and do the same with me, the fingernails, the thumbs, the urethra, the eyeballs, give me the full treatment, give me the lot. But you won't get a word. Not a word."
He said to the man in there: "Switch on the other lights. All of them."
Faint shadows came against the wall. In here, only the Chinese-moon lamp was burning, a glow. The lights in the bedroom were brighter. I saw the shadow of the man stoop over the bed.
"Begin," Oktober said.
I thought: she's arrived in a death-camp at last. It doesn't have to be second-hand any more. Now she'll know.
The shadow was moving. I folded my arms and stood with my head turned to watch the shadow, so that Oktober could see I was watching it. He knew also that I was listening. He watched my face.
I hadn't convinced him. Even if I had, I knew he'd go on with this thing, for the pleasure of it. He was on the borderline between reason and the lusts of the psyche, the line that is crossed sometimes by the schoolmaster who begins caning a boy to discipline him and ends by drawing blood.
I should say something to her, but there was nothing to be said.
The shadows moved suddenly and the man gave a grunt and his arm came up and she cried out and he stood still again. There would be blood on his face from her nails. In there, in the room with the silk sheets and the pile rug and the decorative lamps, was the jungle.
I watched the shadows because Oktober wanted me to. On the Dutch frontier there had been a selection camp that I remembered too well. Those who waited in line had been made to watch those who went before them; but there had been a rough screen made from a tablecloth (I remember the half-circular stain on it, made by a wine-glass) and rigged up on a broomstick so that those who waited could see only the jerk of the rope above the screen and the jerk of the feet below it. Because the imagination, once let loose, can be more searing than the shape of the thing witnessed; and this was known and exploited.
There is a typicality to this breed of men that stamps them: the way they will stand with their hands behind their backs to speak death into the faces of the weak, the way they will take quick offence, like schoolgirls, and announce a slight as ‘unforgivable’, the way they will show you only half of horror so that your imagination can run riot and bring you to self-made madness. Thus I was to watch only shadows.
"No, don't!" And of course, to listen.
I could feel the blood draining from my face. It was a moment before I could place a new sound. The click of a closing manacle. She was no longer free.
She began wailing softly.
Oktober watched me.
We are not gentlemen. We are trained, though, to respect the rights of the citizen in whatever country. If we need transport urgently we are trained to get it in whatever way we can that doesn't encroach on the rights of the citizen: we don't simply steal a parked car even knowing that we shall return it after use. London is very finicky on this kind of thing. Nor do we intentionally involve members of the public in our affairs.
I had transgressed. I had involved Inga. Not intentionally, but London would decree that it had been intentional by negligence: I had known she was a defector from Phoenix and therefore connected with the subject of my mission, however negatively, and should have kept away from her. I was directly responsible for this. I must therefore do what I could about it.
I must not stand by and let her suffer pain that would send her mad before she died. I must not give my Control and its purpose and its lives into enemy hands.
Normal resources were unavailable to me. There was no hope of getting out of here and running for it, so. That they would leave her alone. There was no hope of reaching her without being restrained by their weight of numbers. I could say nothing to Oktober that would save her, without costing the lives of Control operators and defeating the Bureau's purpose, which was to safeguard human life on a larger scale against the risks of a resurgence of Nazi militarism and its war potential.
Of a dozen possible actions, two alone were worth the consideration, and one of those was denied me. It was the first time I had ever regretted my insistence on travelling light, unencumbered by the bric-a-brac for which some agents have a fondness – guns, code-books, death-pills, so forth. It would be the complete answer to this situation a death-pill. Five seconds, and there'd be proof at Oktober's feet that nothing they could do to her would make me talk. I carried no pill.
The shadows moved and I watched them and heard the sound in her throat and knew it was something like the word please and that it was said to me and not to them because they couldn't help her and she thought that I might.
Oktober watched me. He called through the doorway:
"Increase treatment."
She made another sound and I did the one thing that held out any hope.
15: BLACKOUT
I fainted.
The last conscious memory was of Oktober reaching out to save my hitting the floor. It was probably instinctive. I was able, before blacking-out, to note that he must be ignorant of the processes of syncope, or he wouldn't try to keep me upright. The longer I remained upright the longer I would remain blacked-out.