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  Doppelgangers

  H. F. Heard

  MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM

  Contents

  I. THE DIVE

  II. THE MISSION

  III. THE AMBUSH

  IV. ALPHA’S APOLOGY

  V. ALPHA’S ALTAR

  VI. THE ROLE EXCHANGE

  VII. ROMANTIC REACTION

  VIII. SKYSCRAPER’S VIEW

  IX. THE UP-TURNING OF THE MOLE

  X. THE NEW CIRCUIT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  “He who meets his Going Double must go himself.”

  OLD GERMAN PROVERB

  I

  THE DIVE

  “You would do anything?”

  “Anything.” It was the drill answer, but he gave it with conviction.

  “Then read this.” In the silence could just be heard the faint fluttering sound of paper being handled. There followed a click and a fine pencil of rays formed a small spotlight that tracked to and fro for some dozen passes and then, with another click, vanished.

  There was, a pause. Then the first voice continued, “You said, ‘Anything,’ and you have taken the active-service oath. Now you have seen your instructions, and I gather from the impression that they have made on you that you will not forget them. I will now, therefore, burn this small memo.”

  There was a short silence but no flame appeared.

  The first voice again was audible: “I am also taking for granted your consent, for you know that anyone who sees an instruction is not open to change his mind.” Another pause. “That’s obvious,” the first voice went on; “there can’t be people going about who have seen a specific direction with which they have declined to co-operate.”

  “But living clay, living clay.”

  “Well, it’s an apt term. There’s nothing to be gained by being imprecise in brief instructions. You’re being more highly trusted than any of the front line. You are to be given the one undetectable weapon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You won’t have to wait long. We’ve succeeded. And now it’s straightaway for you.”

  A match spurted, but its light was under a table. The concealed flame wavered a moment or two and then sank. A chair was pushed back. After a moment another rasped on the stone floor. In the dark a narrow oblong of light began to glimmer.

  Now sunk to a whisper, the first voice said, “At corner 45.67.23 at 21:15.”

  Two blurs of darkness appeared on the oblong. The footsteps died away up a flight of stairs.

  In the street the man under orders stopped. He was by himself and would be for long enough to be able to think. There were a couple of hours until the time given for the assignation. He was to have had a meal, but that was out of the question now. There was no way out, of course. But why should he be pitched on in this way? When he’d first joined—the cubs, they were called—they used to see if they could raise gooseflesh on each other by running through the different kinds of executions and beatings-up an agent might expect. He’d been good at the test; perhaps that was why they’d picked him now. But being killed can’t last too long, and beatings-up and the whole sadistic box of tricks was different from this. They’d been taught the way “to hold yourself in.”—Oh yes, the underground had its defenses, and they were pretty good. They’d been scientific, without a doubt. They’d all been drilled in the air-locks, the special twists of internal muscles, even with the tongue swallow, so they could go out when they felt they were near breaking. And, as far as was known, none of the boys had broken, though about half must have been killed already.

  Yes, the central Mole, as they called him, no doubt had a brain and was always one step in front of the silly brutes that swaggered and stamped on the surface. They had a cliché joke, “Talpa can always cap Alpha.” But one never thought that basic brain would think up this. Well, that was the curse of a big one; it always had a surprise up its sleeve. And no one had ever accused the Mole of mercy or of endangering the cause by showing any consideration for any agent. One couldn’t help wondering whether that big brain had thought up this as a real ruse for undermining the enemy overhead, or simply as a new way of testing-training, just to see what the boys who could stand any of the standard stuff, and were proud of it, would do if met by something that just picked the stuffing out of them. It wouldn’t be unlike him, after all. He was always getting a finer edge on his most edged tools. He was always looking for that last little hold of self-respect to cut it out as a dentist cuts nearer and nearer the nerve to be certain the last piece of soft decay has gone—and then builds up a defense, a front that won’t break, harder than the original tooth. But that simile wouldn’t do—too close to what the truth, the nauseating truth, seemed to be—though, again, you never could be sure. That was, at the start, the excitement of the assignment. But in the end one began to wear. One could be sure of one thing, that if you failed you were got. The trampling Bull above might be clumsy with his goring. The Mole below never missed his bite. But if you obeyed you weren’t treated with any more leniency than if you revolted.

  That proposition ran in his mind. What were they living for? Of course, for the future when the shadow would be gone and they’d all come out into the light, and, more, those who had gone deepest would be most on top and those who had been most in the mud and horror would be names in everyone’s mouth and seen everywhere. But it had gone on a long while. True, they had become more and more skilled, but somehow their strokes, brilliant as they were, had never gone right home. True, they were so well planned that always it was possible to try again. Nothing was ever given away, and certainly Alpha and his tribe were kept in a state of quite unhealthy misgiving as to the ground under their every step. But as long as he and his mouthpiece kept the public ear he had an immense advantage.

  You couldn’t be a realist—and any sentimental hopefulness was a major disqualification for the Agency—and say it was just a clever coup d’état of a few scoundrels. The people may not have been behind it at the start, but they were now. Alpha could count on popular support if any government could. And that was his main defense, that great open country or belt of land, the good will and so-called patriotism of the people. That had to be crossed before you actually came up against the more scientific and specific defenses. What fools the people were!

  But, again—if you were to have that cold mind that you had to have—were they such fools? Alpha gave them a good time, and, damn it, they were healthier and cheerier than they used to be. He’d not only put on monster shows and given them good food—panem et circenses—but he’d given them the vivid clothes and ranks and badges they’d always wanted to wear but which respectable democracy had said was in bad taste. Democracy’s a gentleman’s delusion, a preanthropological pretense.

  And this newest of the dictators had learnt everything the others could teach and added a lot more. The elite could be virile but the people could just have a good time. The nonsense of inhibition for which the old totalitarians had fallen, this shrewd mind had seen through. A sour smile twisted the agent’s face as he thought of that day long ago in Cuba when they were going to get the temporary tyrant out but he side-stepped them when the mob was ready to rush his guards by giving the cinemas a mass of pornographic films. The stalls filled, the streets emptied, and peace reigned in the capital. Of course, Alpha had improved on such crude inspirations of the moment. He didn’t offend the churches by being too frank with the maximum lure. Indeed he was said to be increasingly interested in synthesizing or at least syncretizing Religion. And he’d had the biggest film men to help him. They knew the knife-edge on which to work.

  The agent had been walking aimlessly and, like moth to candle, found his feet had taken him to one of the big, brilliantly lit parks in which one of the free cabaret shows was being put on. Troops of people were streaming across the grass to the seats, people as gaily and brightly dressed as if they were performers, too. And weren’t they marionettes? He looked at his watch, yes, there was plenty of time before he need be at the corner, and the show might divert him. The shows were always first rate. Authority knew they had to be, and paid top prices for this, the first line of defense, the line of distraction. There was nothing about patriotism in them. That was stale—it was all fun and fooling.

  As they all converged, a brightly costumed girl turned and smiled at him. You couldn’t say she looked oppressed, unhappy, inhibited, nervous of tyranny or interference—the reverse, quite the reverse. Will we be able to make people as happy? he thought. Will good sense and freedom and responsibility make them as gay and carefree? He remembered the phrase common among his branch of the Agency: castrated animals grow fat. Yes, but these people weren’t castrated—they were full of life but not of querulous questions. Surely something had been cut out from them! They were a pollarded people.

  The phrase of the old standard psychologist sheldon came into his mind, Anemectomized—the soul cut out. But what was a soul? Could you cut it out? Has the Mole a soul? The jingle had been quite frankly repeated among his fellow agents. Certainly no one felt it was disloyal to doubt if the central brain had a conscience—how could it, considering what it was always having to do, in lying, killing, yes, and torturing? For their counterattack had two edges: there were the agents like himself, more or less above ground, real men taking the fighting, and there were—others. You couldn’t be long in and not know that, though that wa
s never talked about. Perhaps every now and then one of the toughest of the tough, in a moment of hard exultation, when perhaps he’d just picked off one of the fairly high-ups on the other side, would, with a sort of sham modesty, allow that he had his uses but that he was a clumsy fool beside the real workers, the men really near the Mole, the men who, when you did succeed in bringing back your game alive, really praised you for not killing. Because with a live one in their hands they could always make him speak.

  “We never split or bend, we just die in their hands as dumb as a log. But when we catch one of them and bring him home alive, in the end he always squeaks and speaks, whole volumes. Oh, yes, the Mole may have no soul, but, by the powers of the ultimate underground, he has a brain, twice that of anyone above. That’s why we’ll win.”

  Yes, that was the favorite argument why they must win and why, no doubt, the Mole, who certainly didn’t seem to be one who cared a rap for flattery but cared a whole hecatomb for obedience, let this kind of jest run about among the agents. Suddenly a thought ran through his mind. Maybe it was because of something that a captured official of the other side had let slip that he himself, Agent numbering this week 6.X51.L. (your number was changed every month or so, so you had no identity) had been given those instructions which, though now ash, still gave him, when he recalled them, that shock of disgrace, the gooseflesh that pimpled his skin as he’d read that phrase, “living clay.” He shuddered, and the girl, who had now, because of what she took to be his assumed indifference, taken his arm, laughed.

  “That’s a good opening and quite refreshing. I can’t remember when the last man I picked up shuddered when I touched him. This is going to be better than the usual run. You’re what we used to call an innocent.”

  She was perfectly natural and frank. There was no coquetry, still less harlotry. She was not an animal, but she was a woman with a child’s mind. The people were that now, adults who were let go back to childhood, not expected to have good taste, high views, noble ideals, grit and heroism, but fun and foolishness and enjoyment. That’s what they wanted, you couldn’t doubt. Carniave, not Carnivale. Carnivale meant farewell to the flesh, a last wild wave of the hand before repentance engulfed you. Now the flesh was being welcomed back. “Io saturnalia!” but no frenzy, for there was no hurry. There was plenty of time; and sugar and skilled gluttony were just as much fun as sex and skilled pornography. While—so he’d heard—as you got on, you needn’t get sour. The arts eased you out until they, too, modulated into religion and you found yourself ushered soothingly and in the best taste into Nirvana. She had drawn him down to a seat and laced her fingers through his; but as soon as they were settled and she had cuddled up to him she was engrossed by the show. Like all these cabaret acts, it only lasted for about twenty minutes and then the people—all the younger ones—got up to dance, and the others to eat or play at one of the games provided.

  “Shall we meet again?” she said. “I don’t usually, because new people are so exciting, but somehow perhaps one could take two bites at you. You’re slower than most are. Nobody has any mysteries now, and usually I don’t care for that kind of stuff. It’s all making oneself out to be important, I believe. But I suppose there is some difference between one handsome face and another, or one wouldn’t keep on changing, would one? So if you’re different I’d like to know why.”

  She spoke as frankly about herself as about him. That was, of course, common enough. But what he found catching in his mind was the thought—the thought he didn’t want to hold—that she was under no fear, she didn’t seem aware that the whole of this thing that suited her and these thousands and millions so well, was all based on force and fraud and fear and violence, cruelty and treachery—fought by cruelty and treachery; that this was a flower garden of rather garish flowers, where underneath, in the rich beds, centipede, ferret, rat, and mole, dug and bit, writhed and struggled. She was kindly, too, in an unsentimental way.

  “Why not let yourself unbend? I’m not much, but quite a good sort. I don’t hold onto men—and that’s always an advantage, I think. You know where you are with me, and I shan’t fool you. When we’re not enjoying ourselves, well, we’ll quit quickly, and not spoil the first fun. But there’s no point in not getting that, for fear it won’t last, is there?”

  Was there? He said something noncommittal—that if he were free he’d be there the same time next day. She didn’t press; she smiled and waved her hand and was lost in the crowd. He felt curiously lonely then, and what was ahead looked even darker. Why had he gone to the park? He should have stayed somewhere quietly. Why shouldn’t he come tomorrow night? Tomorrow night where would he be, what would he be? Somehow, having been with that bright, careless human being made his life look insane. Weren’t they right? Hadn’t life always to be happy and careless or full of confusion and struggle, always leading to greater complexities and horrors? Could all the men who were above ground and who managed this life for the careless, carefree masses, be calculating brutes? Did they know any more of what the system was based in, than the youngest, rawest activity-agent, who joined last week with adventure and heroism filling his callow mind, knew of the Mole and those round the Mole. Lord, what thoughts! Of course he wouldn’t be killed for them—oh, no; but if in the dormitory they even came out in the random runnings of dream speech and were recorded in the microphone which was said to be in every one of the bunk-burrows, he’d be in for treatment, and treatment, whether it was the pentathol or electric shock, always meant that you were never the same. For one thing, in a little time they found you needed it again and then at more frequent intervals until you became—an old term from the old prisons—a trusty, a creature who always said yes and would do anything. It was said that such trusties were used by the other side especially when attempting “extractions” from the Mole’s losses. It was said that such trusties were used when extractions were being made from a captured officer from the other side.

  His mind had slipped again. He made an effort and suddenly something broke, skidded in the opposite direction from which he’d meant to pull it out. Suddenly he knew, he couldn’t go on. Once or twice he’d felt such twinges, but, thank his stars, always when with others. They were never allowed to drink alcohol, but they had their synthetic-seltzer, as they called it, one of those chemists’ brews that fizzed; after you’d taken it you could be sure your black mood was out, though your “trigger-finger” was as steady as ever. But of course no drugstore here on the surface had his medicine. He’d have to ride the storm alone.

  But why? Why not stay on the surface? Living was easy. One could always get a job or relief. The old suspicious official attitude had gone, had been carefully smoothed over—on the surface. Everything, everything hard, the government and the opposition, was now underground; on the surface everything was bright, easy, generous, and apparently open. He felt cool. He’d think it out. What was the reason for going on? He’d gone in from high motives, courage, and the wish to revenge certain horrid wrongs of which he knew. He’d gone on asking questions till he’d dug up some horrible-smelling stuff, and he’d resolved, romantic young sprig, that he’d dig right to the roots and make the whole of the earth, right down to the subsoil and the deepest graves, smell as sweetly as the hay and the flowers on the surface in June. They’d soon knocked that out of him, and it was, of course, indefensible rot. There was always decay and muck underneath, and flowers and grass grew from that and went back to that. Then what had he been fighting for, ever more foully? For fear they’d get him if he turned back? Well, he’d been no coward when he started. When had he become one? Was it mere habit? They’d always said an agent’s no use that can’t think for himself. But he’d never really been alone; now he was—really alone.

  The pull of the world to which he had come to belong, the world of the Mole, was now exactly, at this moment, matched by the pull of the surface world of the Bull, Alpha. He’d dismissed that surface pull by calling it debauched, mean, sham, cruel. And his world, of dark shadow, as brave, true, real, clean. But surely that was simply the most snatchy judgment that sentimentality could make. There was none of that boasted detachment and objectivity they were taught to prize, in such a notion. But if not, why go on? There was no answer.