Killing Time

CHAPTER 42

Malcolm's quarters in the compound were even more spartan than his cabin aboard the ship, offering, it seemed to me, few comforts that could not have been found on the sparsely populated Hirta of two hundred years earlier. In the far wall a bay window similar to the one in my room looked out over another rocky, mysterious stretch of oceanfront, and before this window Malcolm sat in his wheelchair, bathed in the soft sunlight of St. Kilda and watching the hundreds of seabirds on the rocks with the same simple enthusiasm I'd seen in his features several times before. It was a vivid reminder that the young boy who had entered that hellish hospital all those years ago had not been completely destroyed by the experience; yet, paradoxically, the very youthfulness of the look should have been enough to remind me of the extent to which Malcolm depended on Larissa and to convince me that any notion of his approving of my running off with her was absurd.

He sensed my presence but made no move to face me. "Gideon," he said in a voice that seemed not so much strong as an attempt at strength. He paused for a moment, during which I prepared to make my case to him; but before I could speak he asked, "Are the materials for your Washington plan still in place?"

The question caught me with my jaw already open; and now that mandible seemed to actually fall to the floor. "I beg your pardon?" I mumbled.

"Your Washington plan," he repeated, still watching the birds. "How soon can you be ready to implement it?"

I somehow managed to collect my wits enough to say, "You're not serious."

Still not turning, Malcolm nodded as if he'd expected just such an answer. "You think that what happened in Moscow means that we should suspend our work. You think it may happen again."

At that instant every ounce of self-delusion somehow drained out of me like so much blood. I took a few shaky steps toward a straight-backed mahogany chair, falling into it as I suddenly realized the folly of my recent plans as well as the extent of Malcolm's commitment to his undertaking. Emotional protests and declarations seemed pointless, given the situation, so I answered him in a voice that was as rational and grave as I could make it: "Malcolm — you yourself have said that there are terrible problems inherent in what you're doing."

"What I said," Malcolm answered, quietly but pointedly, "was that we've done our job too well. Dov Eshkol proved that."

It was an almost incredible statement. "Yes. I'd say that he certainly did."

"And so we learn and go on." He still seemed unprepared to look me in the eye. "As you and I have already discussed, we must make sure that all future projects will be exposed in a reasonable amount of time. We'll plant hints — more than hints, obvious flaws — so that even the most obtuse—"

"Malcolm?" I interrupted, too shocked to go on listening to him but still trying to speak in a straightforward, calm manner. "Malcolm, I can't go on being part of this. What you're doing, it's more than just subversive, it's unimaginably dangerous. Surely even you see that now." He gave no answer, and my head began to grow feverish with incredulity. "Is it possible — are you really going to try to deny it? This business, this game of yours, it may seem manageable to you, but there are millions of people out there who have to make sense of thousands of pieces of bizarre new information every day, and they don't have the time or the tools to sort out what's real from what's blatant fabrication. The world's gone too far — people's minds have been stretched too far — and we have no idea what will set the next lunatic off. What'll you do if we carry out this latest plan, and some anticorporate, antigovernment lunatic in the States — and there are plenty of them — uses it as a rationalization to blow up yet another federal building? Or something even bigger?" I paused and then shifted gears, trying to direct the discussion away from the kind of moral and political dialectic of which he was a master and focus it instead on my very real concern for him and the others: "Besides, how long can you really hope to get away with it? Look at how narrow our escape was this time and what it cost us. You've got to consider something else, this isn't—"

I cut myself short when I saw his hand go up slowly. "All right," he said, in a voice choked with sorrow and regret. "All right, Gideon." He finally wheeled his chair around, his head drooping so low that his chin nearly rested on his chest. When he glanced up again, he still wouldn't connect with my gaze; but the grief in his features was apparent and pitiful to behold. "I would have done anything to prevent what happened to Leon," he said softly. "But every one of us knows the risks—"

" 'Knows the risks'? Malcolm, this isn't a war, for God's sake!"

At last those hypnotic yet unsettling blue eyes met my own hard stare. "Isn't it?" he asked. He began to reach around for the crutches that were clipped to the back of his chair. "You think," he went on, his voice getting stronger, "that this method of addressing the problem doesn't work." He fought hard to get to his feet, and though I felt more of a desire to help than I ever had before, I once again refrained. "You think that the world's illness is beyond this sort of treatment. Fine." He took a few steps in my direction. "What would you prescribe instead?"

I simply could not engage him on this level, and I made that fact plain: "Malcolm, this isn't about 'illnesses' and 'prescriptions.' Civilization is going to do whatever it's going to do, and if you keep trying to stand in the way you'll just create more disasters. Maybe you're right, maybe this information society is taking us into a high-tech dark age. But maybe it isn't. Maybe we just don't understand it. Maybe Julien's wrong, and this isn't a 'threshold moment,' and maybe there were people like us sitting in some scientifically advanced horse and carriage when Gutenberg ran off his first Bible screaming, 'That's it! It's all over!' I don't know. But the point is, neither do you. The only thing we do know is that you can't stop change and you won't stop technology. There's nothing in the past to suggest that it's possible."

As I was speaking, Malcolm turned, almost with the slowness of a clock, to look out at the birds again. "That's true," he murmured.

Ready as I was to argue on, his statement came as a complete surprise. "It is?" I said a bit dimly.

Malcolm nodded. "Yes. There's nothing in the past to suggest that it's possible—yet."

As he roamed back over to the window, I followed, suddenly feeling very nervous. "What do you mean, 'in the past, yet'? Malcolm, you're not making sense."

As he attempted to explain himself, Malcolm seemed to grow increasingly unaware of who I was or even that there was anyone in the room with him; and the vacant brilliance that his eyes took on as they stared at the similarly dazzling blue of the sky above the ocean offered the first hint of real mental imbalance. "Suppose I were to tell you," he said, "that through that room" — he indicated an adjacent chamber in the direction of his lab—"and behind a certain very thick door you'll find a device that may be able to redefine, even destroy, both history and time, at least as we currently understand them. That in a very short while it will be possible to move through our temporal continuum and alter the past, so that 'history' will no longer be an unalterable chronological record but a living laboratory in which we will conduct experiments to improve the present condition of our planet and our species."

Had it even occurred to me to take this statement seriously, I might well have fallen over; as it was, I only became steadily more convinced that the man's mind had snapped. "Listen, Malcolm," I said, putting a hand to his shoulder. "Try to understand — as a doctor it's incumbent on me to tell you that you've suffered a breakdown. A potentially severe one. And given what we've all been through, I'm not surprised. You have friends in Edinburgh, and no doubt they'll know of hospital facilities we can use quietly. If you let me run some tests and suggest a course of treatment—"

"You haven't answered my question yet, Gideon," Malcolm said, his voice still betraying no emotion.

"Your question?" I said. "Your question about roaming back and forth through time, that question?"

He shook his head slowly. "Not back and forth. No one seriously believes that we can create closed timelike curves that could allow a subject to move in one direction and then return to the exact point from which he or she started. At this point it's just not feasible."

"Oh, but going one way is?"

Malcolm ignored my sarcasm. "The physical problem isn't particularly exotic or complex," he said. "Like most things it's really just a question of power — electromagnetic power. And the only conceivable way of generating such power—"

"Would be superconductors," I said with a sudden shudder, vaguely remembering an article I'd read on the subject some months earlier. I looked to the floor, still in a state of disbelief but for some reason quite shaky all the same. "Highly miniaturized superconductors," I added, real apprehension beginning to belie my dismissal of his words.

"Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" Malcolm had increasing difficulty controlling his emotions as he went on: "Imagine not being forced to accept the present that's been handed down to us. Having instead the ability to engineer a different set of historical determinants. You say that the contemporary world can't be helped by the work we're doing now, Gideon, that it's beyond such remedies. Well, the same thought began to occur to me over a year ago. But the answer, I saw, wasn't to suspend what we were doing. We needed to adjust the work, certainly — that was part of the reason we brought you in. But we had and have to keep at it until the day comes when we can change the actual circumstances of our present reality by modifying the past." He put a hand to his head, obviously feeling the effects of the controlled but no less extreme passion with which he had told me his tale. "That day isn't far off, Gideon — not far off at all."

I sat back down in my chair. The worst insanities often come in ostensibly rational forms; and I told myself that such was the reason I had been momentarily uneasy, even credulous. I also acknowledged that there was no way I could force him into the kind of serious program of rest, medication, and psychotherapy that he clearly needed; nevertheless, I made one final, weary attempt to reach him:

"Malcolm, I wonder if you realize the language you're using. And if it doesn't suggest something to you." He didn't answer, which I took as a sign that he was willing to listen to what I had to say. "You talk of 'engineering the past,' " I went on. "Don't those words strike you as awfully loaded, given your personal history? I don't doubt that you'd like to change the present that was 'handed' to you — you have every conceivable reason. But you need to hear this—" I stood up and walked to him. "You can use the tools your father developed to try to destroy the world he helped build. You can bury society in confusion, deceive the public into believing your version of history, even watch people and cities be destroyed, and you can tell yourself all the while that it's a necessary and noble crusade. But in the end you're still going to be the man you are — you're still going to be ill, you're still going to need those crutches and that chair, and you're still going to be consumed by heartbreak and anger. You don't want to change the past, Malcolm — you want to change your past."

For several long minutes neither of us spoke; then Malcolm's glittering eyes went narrow and he nodded once or twice, making his way back to his chair. He got himself into it slowly, then looked up at me and asked:

"Do you have anything to offer, Gideon, other than the utterly obvious?"

Insults from patients with grandiose delusions were certainly nothing new to me; but this one, I must admit, stung. "Can you really call it obvious," I answered, trying to sound unfazed, "and still go on with what you're doing?"

He let out a disdainful hiss. "Gideon," he said, shaking his head in evident disappointment. "Do you imagine I haven't been over all this? And through the kinds of programs you're suggesting? In my youth I tried them all: psychotherapy, electroshock, drug treatments, everything — with the exception of further gene therapy, of course, which I think I can be excused for ruling out. And yes, I learned what drives me, how deep the anger inside me runs, how personal as well as philosophical my motives are. But in the end I'll say to you what I said to every doctor I saw." Some of the manic gleam went out of his eyes, to be replaced by undiluted sadness. "It doesn't really change anything, does it?"

"Doesn't really change anything?" I echoed in astonishment. "My God, Malcolm, if you know that you're acting out of personal prejudices and unresolved feelings—"

"Oh, they're resolved, Gideon," he answered. "I'm resolved that I hate the world that my father and his kind built — a world where men and women tamper with the genetic structure of their children simply to improve their intelligence quotients so that they can grow up to devise better and more convenient ways to satisfy the public's petty appetites. A world where intelligence is measured by the ability to amass information that has no context or purpose save its own propagation but is nonetheless serviced slavishly by humanity. And do you know the hard truth of why information has come to dominate our species, Gideon? Because the human brain adores it — it plays with the bits of information it receives, arranging them and storing them like a delighted child. But it loathes examining them deeply, doing the hard work of assembling them into integrated systems of understanding. Yet that work is what produces knowledge, Gideon. The rest is simply—recreation."

"And how," I asked, making no attempt to hide my weariness with his tirade, "does this relate to your awareness of your personal motivations?"

Again shaking his head, he replied, "Gideon — these are my personal motivations now. I understand that you think I need treatment, but I've traveled that road — and shall I tell you something? It's led directly back to the point where it started. Admittedly, having made the trip, one knows just where that point is and what surrounds it. But one is still there. So what do you want people to do, Gideon, when they discover their personal motivations? Abdicate? Stop playing a role in the world? What person in history was not driven by his own personal motivations? And how could there have been any development without those drives?"

"That's not the point," I countered. "If you're genuinely self-aware, then your behavior can change."

"Ah, the mantra of the psychologist!" Malcolm's voice was rising disturbingly. "Yes, Gideon, it can indeed change, but change to what? Shall we be Christlike and turn the other cheek to avarice, exploitation, and ruination? Shall we watch the world burn down because we fear that our motives might not be strictly impersonal? I tell you, I'd hurl myself into that sea first! Because you're not talking about change, Gideon — you're talking about paralysis!"

"No," I said, "I'm talking about addressing those problems in ways that don't end up killing millions of people."

"I did not destroy that city!" he shouted, and by the way his body had begun to tremble I could see trouble coming; yet, much as it shames me to admit it, I was too appalled by what he was saying to do anything about it. "I didn't train Dov Eshkol," he went on, "and I didn't turn him loose on the world. Nor did I create a society so obsessed with commerce that it refuses to effectively regulate even the most dangerous forms of trade! But I'll tell you what I did do. I suffered through a set of experiences that gave me a unique perspective from which to view — and perhaps affect — that same society. Should I refuse to do so because my motives have a personal dimension that worries people like you? Take my advice, Gideon — worry about the purity of your own motives, and let mine be." He spun his chair around toward the window, raising one fist. "I know why I am what I am — but I will not let those who made me this way enjoy the final triumph of my acquiescence in their effort to make the world a massive hive, one in which human beings play with information endlessly for the profit of hidden masters — and in the process learn nothing."

Far more than the conversation, it seemed to me, had ended with that last fateful word. I offered no argument, for there was no point in arguing with such profound psychosis. Some of what he'd said was doubtless true, though I couldn't say how much. All I knew for certain were the same two things I'd been sure of when I'd entered the room: that I could no longer stay on that island or participate in Malcolm's schemes, and that when I left I wanted Larissa to go with me. My uneasiness about telling Malcolm these things had vanished in the face of his mad monologue, and I blurted it all out in a fairly arch manner; yet as soon as I did, his features began to draw into an expression of defiant threat that made me regret my boldness.

"I'm not sure I like the idea of you roaming loose, Gideon," he said in a measured tone, "now that you know all our secrets. And do you honestly think that Larissa would go with you?"

"If you didn't stand in her way," I replied, as bravely as I could. "And as far as your secrets go, what are you worried about? I'm a criminal, remember, I'm in no rush to go to any authorities. And even if I was, who in the world would believe me?"

Malcolm cocked his head, considering it. "Perhaps…"

Suddenly he sucked in a rush of air, and his hands fairly flew to his temples. I made a move to help him, but he waved me off. "No!" he said, gritting his teeth and fumbling in his pocket for his injector. "No, Gideon. This — is no longer your affair. Take your tender conscience — and leave — now!"

What was there to do but comply? Farewells would have been inappropriate, even grotesque, in light of all we'd been through and said to each other. I simply crossed over to the door and opened it, all anger gone, all compassion numbed. As I stepped out I turned once, to see Malcolm sitting there, huddled with the injector at a vein in his hand, murmuring something to himself through his still-clenched teeth.

I found myself thinking that it was a pity that all his talk of time travel had been so obviously delusional; for when all was said and done there really was very little in the present for such a man.