The wind is howling through the trees outside, a cold,
hateful wind. By standing on the bunk I can just barely reach the window. It's
quite dark now, and the stars are brilliant, though they seem terribly far
away. They, at least, are familiar and comforting, a reminder of home.
There is no use pretending that I am not scared. I am in
prison, and I do not think that I shall get out. Oh, I'm not guilty of the
charges against me; I'm not at all what my captors think I am. They know nothing
of my real identity beyond my first name, Elana, and the fact that I seem
surprisingly young to be involved in a sabotage plot. They would be even more
surprised if they knew the truth.
It is very funny, really. They think that I'm a foreign
agent, and I am. Only I'm the agent not of their political enemies but of a
civilization far in advance of theirs, an interstellar federation. I am not a
native of this planet.
If they knew that I wasn't born here on Toris, they would
probably be more certain than ever that I have hostile intentions; and that is
ironic. After all, we of the Federation visit the worlds of Younglings--peoples
who are not yet fully mature--simply to study them; and as an agent of the
Anthropological Service, I am bound by the Oath to hold those peoples' best
interests above all other considerations. Furthermore, I am a prisoner not for
having harmed anyone but because I'm trying to prevent a horrible disaster
that's threatening this world as the result of our presence. What I'm doing may
not work, and if it doesn't--well, if it doesn't, a whole Youngling civilization
may be wiped out. And if it were not for the surveillance camera that is hidden
in the ventilator, I'm sure I would break down and sob, for I have never felt
so alone. I cannot reach any other agent, even telepathically; they are all too
far from me. There is no one to help, and the responsibility is all mine.
My cell is a cubicle no wider than it is high, absolutely
bare of anything but the rigid bunk and the heavily-barred slot of a window
above it. (There is another bunk, but it's folded back against the wall, for I
am in solitary confinement; I see no one except when I am taken out for
questioning. ) The metal door is solid and has an electrically-controlled panel
through which my food is passed--when I'm given food, that is, which isn't
often. In the center of the ceiling is a huge naked bulb that burns day and
night without respite. It doesn't have the intended effect on me any more than
my interrogator's harsh spotlights do, since the sun of my home solar system is
brighter than this one's and my eyes are relatively insensitive to glare. To
see the stars, however, I must cup my hands around my face and press close to
the window.
Out there, out beyond this isolated and sorely troubled
planet, lies a universe of countless worlds: fascinating worlds with their own
civilizations, their own heart-lifting beauties, their own sorts of terrors,
griefs, and joys. I may never visit them again. But they are there, and somehow
knowing that gives me courage. Life is not all evil and ugliness, even
here on the planet Toris! Though the men who have imprisoned me are a rather
sorry lot, they are not really representative of their race, which is, like all
Youngling races, a promising one. And as I stand here looking out at those
glittering stars, I can't help wishing that the Torisian people knew of the
universe that is waiting to be explored. It's harmful to Younglings, of course,
to find out that there are human beings more advanced than themselves; I am
sworn to keep that secret even at the cost of my life. So I cannot tell them
how things are. But what would I say to them, if I were free to speak?
I would tell them that they are a good people, better than
they know. They have a big future ahead of them, a future among the stars,
which I shall not jeopardize by revealing anything to my captors. At least we
of the Service hope they have a future. The disaster I am trying to prevent is
not their only peril; they face a larger danger, and from that we are powerless
to save them. Our science has discovered much that they have not yet dreamed
of; still, we don't have enough knowledge. That is why we have come. If--well,
if things go badly for them (and they look bad now), we hope at least to learn
something that will help to save other worlds.
But our work here may be all for nothing--worse, it may
backfire. If I fail to fool my captors, if they guess that I am not the
saboteur I'm pretending to be, then the Torisians will be in trouble for which
we are to blame. That's a chilling prospect. I can't stop shivering, and it's
not merely because this cell is kept so miserably cold.
They have been trying to make me answer their questions by a
method that, from my study of the ways of Younglings, I judge to be the
traditional one. (There was a time, before I was fully trained, when such
barbarism would have shocked me; I am older and wiser now.) Their failure to
obtain any information is a matter not of heroics on my part but of defenses
they don't know I have. I did tell them that much, because I just couldn't
resist the temptation and I knew that they would not believe me. “You can't force
me to cooperate,” I warned. “The human mind can't be forced. You can't even
hurt me if I decide not to be hurt.” My interrogator laughed and declared that
I would shortly learn otherwise. But he is ignorant; the human mind has all
sorts of powers that he would scoff at. I'm aided by those powers: telepathy
and psychokinesis, plus some other skills that are very useful when it comes to
dealing with pain. What has been done to me so far has been a bit scary, but it
has not posed any serious problem.
However, I think that fairly soon I shall swallow my pride
and start putting on a good act for them. If they were to discover that I really
am impervious to their present techniques, they might experiment further, and I
am not at all eager to have that happen. Up till now they have shown restraint
because they want to keep me in good shape for a public trial. But if they
should abandon that idea, well, there are things they could try that I would
find disconcerting, to say the least. I have some impressive powers, but I'm
not free to use them all. I am sworn; I cannot use any form of self-protection
that would reveal that I am alien.
I try not to think about that. I try not to look ahead at
all, for the thing that frightens me most is the likelihood that if my ruse
succeeds I will be stuck in this prison for years and years, for the rest of my
life, maybe. I know that I shall not tell them anything; I know that they will
not kill me until I do, except perhaps by accident. Even if they do threaten to
kill me, death is something I have faced before. I am experienced in such
matters, and I know that facing it is a kind of terror I can handle. But to be
locked up here forever on a Youngling planet, when I have been trained for the
stars…
Of course, it may not come to that. This planet may be
doomed in any case by the natural laws I was sent to learn about.
There is a small chance that my own people will eventually
be able to help me. They will try. Only they cannot do it if it means harming
any Younglings, either through violence--which is contrary to our principles--or
through disclosure. So I may be in for a long ordeal, and if I am to withstand
it, I must find something to occupy these dismal hours between interrogations.
I shall record the whole story of this ill-fated mission, I think. The only way
open to me is through a rather difficult mental discipline, one in which I was
recently trained; it's a real challenge. (You “store” the words in your
subconscious mind so that you can “read” them back later, quickly, without
thinking them through--a little like memorizing long passages under hypnosis,
except that you have full control over what you're doing.) I need that kind of
a challenge! I need it to keep my mind off other things. Things like the fact
that I may never again see my home or the man I'm to marry … that disaster may
hit Toris at any moment and that if it does, it may be partly my fault … that
my interrogator may come up with some ghastly new tactic tomorrow…
And I have another need. The current game they are playing
is having its effect on me. Confession, they tell me, is the best route to
peace of mind; and that is less ridiculous than most of their assertions,
though I'm certainly not about to buy peace of mind for myself at the cost of
harm to this world. They have an unbelievably far-fetched statement written out
for me to sign; they have shown it to me a number of times, and my laughter has
been not forced but genuine, because the list of my alleged “crimes against
humanity” is hilarious in the light of my true mission. But each time, back in
my cell, that laughter has turned to silent tears. While their ideas about the
human mind are primitive, they are right, I suppose, in their conviction that
everybody feels guilty about something. In my case it is true, anyway.
I tried, not long ago, to do a very dreadful thing. My
attempt did not succeed, but if it had I would have a terrible load on my
conscience; I would deserve whatever punishment fell my way. Yet if by some
miracle it becomes possible, I shall try the thing again, for if it is not
done, the people of Toris will have little chance to survive.
