CHAPTER II
THE TEMPORALS:—I should have known better, should have known otherwise. I should have known that they lie to us, will always lie if it suits their purposes. They are interested in nothing but the maintenance of their tyranny, their tyranny locked closely to the nature of the times, and they will do anything to keep the status quo unlike the brave if hopeless little revolutionaries like Scop who do what they can, but always against the grain of the system. After he has left me I return to his cubicle. There is nothing else to do. My dress is ragged and my hair is askew; truly I am disgusted by my appearance. They have made me ugly and they say that this was necessary in order to deceive him but they did not have to make me ugly. I know that now. They did it out of spite.
Knowing my ugliness makes me weep and I raise my hands to tear off the huge chunks of plasticene. I do not care what happens to me as long as I can be restored to myself. But with my hands on my cheeks I pause before the first damage has been done to my appearance and find myself staring as if transfixed at the walls considering what I have become, what they have done to me. There is a kind of justice in this; I may even have deserved it but justice or not if I tear off the plasticene I am done for. If he returns to this cubicle and finds me here and understands what has been done not only I but many will die. I am convinced as to the utter sincerity of his passion. So I let my hands fall from my face and sit there for a time, consciously blanking my mind so that I will think of nothing, so that no estimation of the proceedings will come to me; in that way it is as if, momentarily at any rate, I am free and beyond all of them. Then I hear noises in the corridor and when I look up one of the Masters is staring at me. They must have checked me through to here by a monitoring device implanted; either that or they are watching his cubicle at all times. “What happened?” the Temporal says. I have never seen him before, I think, but then again, they all look very much the same to me and I have never been sensitive to individual differences. They all speak to the same interest anyway. “I demand to know what happened,” he says.
“Come in and close the door. Don’t shout in the corridors like a fool; do you want to be heard?”
He looks at me with close interest, then steps inside, robes casting little furls and shadows to the floor, reaches behind him to take the knob and eases the door shut. “Why are you showing defiance?”
“I am not showing defiance. I advised you to come in.”
“You are wholly within our power. You do this assignment on our behalf; you have no rights or conditions in this whatsoever.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“What happened? You are ordered to tell me at once.”
I shrug and say, “I will tell you nothing. You cannot make me.”
“Are you mad?”
“Get out of here. I do not wish to be monitored.”
“His face falls open exposing little blotches and pearls of sweat. “You do not know what you are doing. You have no idea what you are saying.”
“Get out now.”
“You are being as subversive as he. The consequences will be terrible.”
“I don’t care about the consequences,” I say. The interview is stimulating; for the first time since I was beamed to Grassy Knoll I feel alive, utterly engaged with myself. The risks are great but Scop has taught me something about the levels to which one can be pitched. “Ifyou want me to help you will leave at once,” I say. His face rounds. “At once,” I say and he backs in a confused way toward the door. “At once,” I say yet again and he lurches from the room, I am filled with triumph, he is gone from the room and all unbidden a laugh of sheer relief boils from me and I think how easy it is, I should have known it a long time ago, all that it takes is simple defiance and they are defeated, they are not at all conditioned for the mechanisms of defiance, nothing in their training or position has accustomed them to the fact of refusal and I feel better and leap to my feet, whirl around the confined space in a free and laughing way trying little pirouettes and gestures of release but then as I should have known it would—in fact I am not at all surprised—the depression hits me in overwhelming measure and I collapse to the floor where for a long time I sit pondering, my chin in my hand pondering, sit pondering to consider what has happened to me and whether it is possible that there is any way out. I do not think that there is. I am as confined within the measure of my circumstance as Scop. The Temporals to the contrary. Everything to the contrary.