The Status Civilization

Chapter Thirty

Conditioning took over and flung the fighting Barrents backward through subjective time, to those stress points in the past where death had been near, where the temporal life fabric had been weakened, where a predisposition toward death had already been established. Conditioning forced Barrent₂ to re-experience those moments. But this time, the danger was augmented by the full force of the malignant half of his personality—by the murderous informer, Barrent₁.

Barrent₂ stood under glaring lights on the blood-stained sands of the Arena, a sword in his hand. It was the time of the Omegan Games. Coming at him was the Saunus, a heavily armored reptile with the leering face of Barrent₁. Barrent₂ severed the creature’s tail, and it changed into three trichomotreds, rat-sized, Barrent-faced, with the dispositions of rabid wolverines. He killed two, and the third grinned and bit his left hand to the bone. He killed it, and watched Barrent₁’s blood leak into the soggy sand . . . .

Three ragged men sat laughing on a bench, and a girl handed him a small gun. “Luck,” she said. “I hope you know how to use this.” Barrent nodded his thanks before he noticed that the girl was not Moera; she was the skrenning mutant who had predicted his death. Still, he moved into the street and faced the three Hadjis.

Two of the men were mild-faced strangers. The third, Barrent₁, stepped forward and quickly brought his gun into firing position. Barrent₂ flung himself to the ground and pressed the trigger of his unfamiliar weapon. He felt it vibrate in his hand and saw Hadji Barrent’s head and shoulders turn black and begin to crumble. Before he could take aim again, his gun was wrenched violently from his hand. Barrent₁’s dying shot had creased the end of the muzzle.

Desperately he dived for the weapon, and as he rolled toward it he saw the second man, now wearing the Barrent₁ face, take careful aim. Barrent₂ felt pain flash through his arm, already torn by the trichomotred’s teeth. He managed to shoot this Barrent₁, and through a haze of pain faced the third man, now also Barrent₁. His arm was stiffening rapidly, but he forced himself to press the trigger . . . .

You’re playing their game, Barrent₂ told himself. The death-conditioning will wear you down, will kill you. You must see through it, get past it. It isn’t really happening, it’s in your mind . . . .

But there was no time to think. He was in a large, circular, high-ceilinged room of stone in the cellars of the Department of Justice. It was the Trial by Ordeal. Rolling across the floor toward him was a glistening black machine shaped like a half-sphere, standing almost four feet high. It came at him, and in the pattern of red, green, and amber lights he could see the hated face of Barrent₁.

Now his enemy was in its ultimate form: the invariant robot consciousness, as false and stylized as the conditioned dreams of Earth. The Barrent₁ machine extruded a single slender tentacle with a white light winking at the end of it. As it approached, the tentacle withdrew, and in its place appeared a jointed metal arm ending in a knife-edge. Barrent₂ dodged, and heard the knife scrape against the stone.

It isn’t what you think it is, Barrent₂ told himself. It isn’t a machine, and you are not back on Omega. This is only half of yourself you are fighting, this is nothing but a deadly illusion.

But he couldn’t believe it. The Barrent machine was coming at him again, its metal hide glistening with a foul green substance which Barrent₂ recognized immediately as Contact Poison. He broke into a sprint, trying to stay away from the fatal touch.

It isn’t fatal, he told himself.

Neutralizer washed over the metal surface, clearing away the poison. The machine tried to ram him. Barrent tried half-heartedly to push it aside. It crashed into him with stunning force, and he could feel ribs splintering.

It isn’t real! You’re letting a conditioned reflex talk you to death! You aren’t on Omega! You’re on Earth, in your own home, staring into a mirror!

But the pain was real, and the clubbed metal arm felt real as it crashed against his shoulder. Barrent staggered away.

He felt horror, not at dying, but at dying too soon, before he could warn the Omegans of this ultimate danger planted deep in their own minds. There was no one else to warn of the catastrophe that would strike each man as he recovered his own specific memories of Earth. To his best knowledge, no one had experienced this and lived. If he could live through it, countermeasures could be taken, counterconditioning could be set up.

He pulled himself to his feet. Coached since childhood in social responsibility, he thought of it now. He couldn’t allow himself to die when his knowledge was vital to Omega.

This is not a real machine.

He repeated it to himself as the Barrent machine revved up, picked up speed, and hurtled toward him from the far side of the room. He forced himself to see beyond the machine, to see the patient droning lessons of the classroom which had created this monster in his mind.

This is not a real machine.

He believed it . . . .

And swung his fist into the hated face reflected in the metal.

There was a moment of dazzling pain, and then he lost consciousness. When he came to, he was alone in his own home on Earth. His arm and shoulder ached, and several of his ribs seemed to be broken. On his left hand he bore the stigmata of the trichomotred’s bite.

But with his cut and bleeding right hand he had smashed the mirror. He had shattered it and Barrent₁ utterly and forever.