Philip Jose Farmer - Traitor to the Living

TRAITOR TO THE LIVING

Philip Jose Farmer

BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

I.

Gordon Carfax moaned.

He was sitting up in bed and reaching out for

Frances.

The blinds were graying with dawn, and Frances had

left with the night.

There were no fowl in the neighborhood, only barking

dogs, but he was sure, at that moment, that he had

faintly heard a crowing. He had read too much, he told

himself later. Hamlet's ghost and all that. But his explanation

was too soft to turn aside the knife of reason.

Out of the dark grayness, Frances had appeared. The

grayness had swirled, as if it were ectoplasm arranging

itself around her. Slowly, silently, she had been gliding

toward him. Her arms were stretched out to him. She

was unmarked, as he remembered her just before the

accident. She was smiling, but behind the smile was

hurt and anger.

"Frances?" he said. "H only I had known..."

And then the cock had crowed somewhere in his

mind, and Frances, also a mental configuration, had

evaporated. She had not just disappeared; she had

seemed to boil away in little gray clouds.

He lay back sighing and with the breath that followed

he sucked in reality. But weren't dreams a part

of reality?

And wasn't it only through dreams that the dead

could return?

Raymond Western had said that that was not so. No,

give the devil--Western--his due. He had made no

claim that the dead could return. He affirmed only that I

2

they could be located and they could talk with the living.

Western could prove his claims with MEDIUM,

which crouched metallic and humming in his house in

Los Angeles.

Carfax was not alone in dreaming of the dead. The

whole world was dreaming of them; the dreams were

troubled or joyous or frightening, just as the conscious

life of the world was troubled or joyous or frightening.

There was little doubt that MEDIUM could be used

to speak with somethings or somebodies. And many accepted

Western's statements that these entities were

dead human beings.

Gordon Carfax had another explanation, and from

this a great uproar had resulted. Sometimes, he wished

he had kept his mouth shut. ^_

Now he was the center of world attention and might

just possibly be involved in a murder. In its aftereffects,

rather.

He closed his eyes and hoped he could go back to

sleep. He also hoped that, if he did sleep, he would not

dream. Or, if he did, he would dream pleasantly. He

had thought he had loved Frances, but when she came

to him in dreams, she scared him.

2.

PROFESSOR SAYS SPOOKS REALLY

SCIENCE-FICTION MONSTERS

Carfax forced himself to read the article under the

headline. Disgusted, he threw the paper down on the

floor with several others.

Trust the yellow dog the National Questioner to give

that turn to his lecture.

Yet, he thought, as he picked up the New York

Times from the pile on the table by his chair, the article

was essentially correct.

He was front-page news. Even the Times's writeup

on him was on the front page. In pre-MEDIUM days,

it would have mentioned him--if at all--some place

deep within its massive body.

"It can't be denied that we are getting communications

from another world, another universe, in fact,"

said Gordon Carfax, Professor of Medieval History at

Traybell University, Bush-is, Illinois. "We need not, however, depend upon the

supernatural for explanation.

Using Occam's razor..."

The National Questioner had defined Occam's razor.

Its editors had supposed, and rightly, that most of its

readers would think, if they thought at all, that

Occam's razor was some sort of barber's tool.

The New York Times had not bothered to explain

the term, leaving it up to their readers to go to the dictionary,

if they needed to do so.

3

4

However, the Times had also used "science-fiction"

in classifying his theory.

Carfax was exasperated by this, but he had to admit

that it was almost impossible to get away from that

word; the temptation was too great for journalists. The

moment you spoke of the "fifth dimension"--reported

as the more familiar "fourth" by the National Questioner--you

invoked science-fiction. And when you

went on to talk of "polarized universes," of "\^rlds at

right angles to ours," and "alien sentients with possibly

sinister designs on our Earth," you ensured that the reporters

would mention science-fiction.

You also ensured that your opponents had a solid

launching base for ridicule.

But even the newsmagazine Time had refrained from

its almost-compulsory policy of sacrificing truth for the

sake of witty sarcasm. At the end of a series of articles

supposed to devastate MEDIUM and Western, Time had admitted that Western

might be right. Shortly after

this. Carfax had presented his theory. Eager for any explanation

other than the supernatural, Time had then

backed Carfax. Once again, it was attacking Western.

Carfax had stated in his lecture that his theory owed

a certain debt to science-fiction. But it did not derive

from that field of literature any more than space travel

or television did. Men, not books or magazines, had

originated these. Carfax was advocating that scientists

consider all theories to explain the entities which

MEDIUM had contacted. The theory to be developed

first would be the simplest one. And this, according to

Carfax, was the theory that the "spirits" were actually

nonhuman inhabitants of a universe occupying the

same space as ours but "at right angles" to ours. And

these entities, for no good reason, were pretending to

be dead human beings.

Western, via a series of news media interviews, had

asked how these entities had gotten such detailed and

valid knowledge about the people they were supposed

to be impersonating.

5

Carfax had replied, also via the news media, that the

entities probably had always had some means of spying

on us. They had not been able to communicate with us

until MEDIUM opened the way. Or, possibly, they

could have communicated at any time but preferred,

for some reason, that we do it first.

Carfax put down the Times and unfolded the local

morning paper, the Busiris Journal-Star. It contained

an article which capsulized, for the dozenth time, his lecture and the "riot" that

followed. Actually, the "riot"

was a fist fight among six men immediately after a man

was knocked down by a huge, heavily weighted purse

swung by a woman.

It all started when Carfax gave the final lecture in

the Roberta J. Blue Memorial Lecture Series. One stipulation

of the memorial was that the final lecture be

given by a member of the Traybell University faculty.

Moreover, the speaker must talk about a subject outside

his/her specialized field.

Carfax had volunteered to speak. He had, in fact,

used his pull with the clean of education, a Wednesday

night poker partner, to get the appointment. Ordinarily,

he would have avoided this as a chore, especially since

it was scheduled for a Thursday night and final examinations

began the following Monday.

But he believed fiercely that there had to be a simpler

and more scientific explanation for Western's findings.

And so he had notified members of the Busirian

press and TV stations of the tenor of his lecture. He

had expected to get only local publicity, but the manager

of a TV station had notified the Chicago Tribune. When Carfax had entered the

lecture room, he had

found, not the usual fifty or so students and faculty but

five hundred people from the university and city.

Moreover, four Chicago reporters and a Chicago TV

team were present. The Tribune reporter had discovered

that Carfax was first cousin to Western, and this

was to be played up in the news media. It had no rele-

6

vance to the issue, but the implications that the dispute

was a family quarrel were pushed by the media.

It did no good for Carfax to explain that he had

never met his cousin.

Carfax gave a lecture much punctuated and, from

his viewpoint, nearly ruined, by both cheers and boos.

Afterward, he answered questions from the audience.

Mrs. Knowlton, tall, angular, middle-aged, possessor

of a very loud and commanding voice, was the first--

and last--inquisitor. She was the sister of the publisher

of the local newspaper, and she had recently lost her

husband, daughter, and grandchild in a boating accident.

She was desperate to believe that they were still

living and that she could talk to them. She was not,

however, hysterical, and her questions were intelligent.

"You keep referring to Western's theory," she said

after Carfax had tried to answer her satisfactorily. "But

it's not theory! It's fact! MEDIUM works just as Mr.

Western says it does, and some of the greatest minds in

the United States agree with him, even though they

were prepared to call him a quack when they started

the investigation!

"Professor Carfax, just who is the quack? You or Mr.

Western? You tell us that the scientists should be using

Occam's razor! I suggest that it's about time you used it

yourself!"

"Cut your throat with it!" a large and hairy student

had yelled.

He was looking at Carfax, so Carfax supposed that

the advice was for him, not Mrs. Knowlton.

Mrs. Knowlton's voice rose high and clear, overriding

the hubbub.

"Professor Carfax, you say that we who believe in

Western do so only because of emotional factors! We're

supposed to be operating on highly subjective factors!

Well, Doctor Carfax, why are you so emotional, so

subjective, in your denial of our beliefs, when all the

evidence is on our side? Isn't the blind emotionalism,

as you call it, all yours?"

7

Carfax had gotten angry then, perhaps, no, undoubtedly,

because her accusation was based on solid

ground. He was not entirely objective; his theory

sprang from a hunch. It was true that hunches often

were the forefathers of hypotheses that later turned out

to be excellent theories and often ended in proof. But

he could not say that in public.

As it turned out, he was not able to say that or anything.

A man leaped up and yelled, "Carfax hates us! He

wants to deny the greatest thing since creation!"

The man was quoting Western's famous phrase. Car-

fax had a reply to it, but the man was knocked forward

by the ten-pound purse (a reporter retrieved it and

weighed it before returning it to the owner just after

she was bailed out).

The noise and melee were not stopped until some

time after the police came. But the furore had not

ceased there. Carfax had become a national figure. As

such, he received many phone calls from all over the

country. The two he was most concerned about at this

time were from Los Angeles.

One was from Raymond Western, who had invited him to fly to California for a

free session with

MEDIUM.

The other was from Patricia Carfax. She was the

daughter of Rufton Carfax, who was the uncle of Western and Gordon Carfax.

Miss Carfax had been somewhat hysterical but evidently

sincere. She believed that Western had murdered

her father so that he could steal the schematics for

MEDIUM.

3.

Gordon Carfax sat in an easy chair in the glassed-in

sun porch and sipped coffee. It was delicious, a blend

of six special South American coffees which he

prepared himself every two weeks. He watched the tiny

wrens diving in and out of the little round entrance to

the tiny wooden house hung from the limb of the big

sycamore tree in his backyard. He enjoyed the red

beauty of the cardinal perched upon the edge of the

white birdbath beside a mulberry tree.

The house was comfortable and quiet, though he often

felt lonely in it. It was in the middle-class Knoll-

woods division on the edge of the middle-sized, mid-Illinois

city of Busiris. Carfax had purchased it shortly

after being hired by Traybell University. It had needed

some repair and much interior decorating. He had finished

the repairing but had not yet gotten around to the

interior by the time he had married Frances. She had

been happy to quit her job as secretary to the clean of

women at Traybell, and to plunge into fixing up the

house according to her excellent tastes.

And then, as she was about done with the decorating

and was looking for another project, she had died.

On that twilit summer evening, Gordon Carfax had

commented that he was out of cigarettes. Frances had

refrained from her usual answer that she wished he

would give up smoking. Instead, she had offered to

drive to the shopping center for him. There she would

also stop in at the book emporium and pick up a paperback

mystery. This had irked him because the

house was full of books, ranging all the way from the

8

9

heaviest of classics to the lightest of murder mysteries.

There must have been at least a score of the latter

which sae had not yet read.

He said something about this, and she had replied

that she wasn't in the mood for any of them. She had

then asked him if he'd like to go along for the ride. It would do him, and her, some

good to get his nose out

of a book.

Somewhat crossly, perhaps because he felt guilty, he

had said that the book was one which he could use for

tomorrow's class in Medieval English History. And if

she was hinting again that he did not talk to her

enough, she should remember that he had taken her

out last night to a show and a few drinks at the Golden

Boar's Head.

Frances had slammed the door hard enough to startle

him. She was justifiably angry, he told himself later,

since they had not talked during the movie, and in the

tavern they had been joined by the head of the English

Department and his wife and so had exchanged only a

few words.

A few minutes after she left, she was dead. An old

man had driven his large, heavy car at fifty kilometers

an hour through a stop sign in a 30-kph zone and

rammed through the door of her German import and

into her.

Frances went underground. Mr. Lincks, a very solid

citizen and very rich, went into the hospital overnight

for observation. He had a cut on his head and a ticket

for going through a stop sign. Lincks claimed he had

not been able to see the stop sign because of an obscuring

bush.

It was true that the city had failed to keep the bush

cropped and that a stranger might have missed it. Car-

fax could, however, prove that the old man had driven

this route many times. The only witness was a seventeen

year old who, it turned out, was drunk and driving

with a suspended license. And he had twice been

charged though not convicted of car stealing. The last

10

car he was supposed to have stolen had been from one

of Mr. Lincks's car lots. It was Lincks's own testimony,

given shortly after the policeman showed up, that

had resulted in the ticket for failure to stop. The claim

that Lincks was doing fifty was based on the youth's

testimony, and nothing he said was likely to be believed.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Lincks had flown to Los Ange- les and purchased three

hours of medium's time. On

returning to Busiris, he had been interviewed by Mrs.

Knowlton of the Journal-Star. Her article had quoted in

full Mr. Lincks's overwhelmingly favorable impression

of Western and MEDIUM. Mr. Lincks had indeed

talked to his late and dearly beloved wife, and now he

looked forward to seeing her "in the great beyond." He

was vague about the details of her description of the afterlife.

He had been mainly concerned in finding out if

she were happy and in assuring her that he would

never be happy until reunited with her and God. He

had also spent much time (at $5,000 per half-hour) in

telling her how well the automobile agency and his investments

were doing. The actual time spent talking to

her was about thirty minutes. It had taken two hours to

locate her and half an hour to establish her identity,

even though he had been sure from the first moment of

contact that it was his wife. The FCC required the

half-hour of identity-establishing if the session were not

free. Even the dead suffered from too much government

interference, Mr. Lincks said.

However, despite the heavy hand of the federal government

on free enterprise, MEDIUM certainly "exposed

the wrongness of those godless atheists who called

Mr. Western a crook and established the etemalness

and true verity of the Good Book."

Mr. Lincks had overlooked the fact that the majority

of Christian sects denied that it had been proved that

MEDIUM could get into contact with the dead.

11

Carfax, after wading the article, had been swept by

fury to the phone. He had called Mr. Lincks at his

main office on Lot No. A-l of the Robert (Bob) Lincks

Easy Credit Automobile Agency, told him who he was,

and then had said, "Why didn't you talk to my wife

and ask her forgiveness for your criminal driving?"

Lincks had sputtered and then had said, "If she'd

been driving an American car instead of that German

tin can, she'd be alive today!" And he had hung up.

Carfax felt ashamed of himself, though he did not

know why.

Now, drinking the coffee and watching the birds, he

thought of Frances. Perhaps the shame had come because

he had always felt that if he had gone with her,

he would have saved her. He would have insisted on

finishing a chapter before they left and that would have

altered the timing, and the old man would have sailed

through the stop sign and struck no one.

Perhaps he opposed Western's claims because he did

not want to believe that it would be possible to talk to

Frances again. Perhaps he feared her reproaches.

He rose and took the empty cup into the kitchen,

bright with the new paint that Frances had applied only

three weeks ago. The wall clock indicated 09:05. Patri-

cia Carfax had said that she would call him back at

eleven this morning, Illinois time. She'd be phoning

from a public booth, as she had done the first time. But

she'd use one that had a viewphone so that he could see

her face and be sure that she really was his cousin. He

could compare her features with the photographs of her

in the family album. The latest showed her at the age

of twelve, but she had not changed so much that he

would not be able to recognize her.

Carfax had proposed that she use the viewphone.

For all he knew. Western had put some girl up to posing

as his cousin so that he could, in some way,

discredit him. Western was, despite all the publicity, an

essentially mysterious person. His vital statistics were

12

available, but the true nature of the man himself eluded

even the most perceptive interviewers.

Western had made a good impression on Carfax

when he had called. His voice was deep and rich and

friendly. His big deep-blue eyes and somewhat aquiline

nose and out-thrust, cleft chin gave him strength and

sincerity.

Carfax knew too well that appearances meant little.

This, plus his prejudice against Western's claims, had

made him very wary. Yet he had ended the conversation

feeling that he had perhaps made a mistake about

the man. Or, at least, he would have to try to be more

objective to ensure against making a mistake.

After the spell had worn off, he regained the feeling

that Western, despite his seeming frankness, was far

from being honest.

Western had not only invited him to come at any

time to his place for a free session. He had offered to

pay Carfax's roundtrip air fare. Carfax had thanked

him and said that he would think about it. He would

reply not later than Saturday.

Why was Western offering all this? He was speeding

along the road to success with no obstacles of any importance

in sight. He had many antagonists but many

more friends. Why should he worry because some obscure

professor of history had happened to get some

publicity about his theory? What could Carfax be to

Western other than a minor nuisance?

Or was Western aware that Patricia Carfax had

phoned him and so was trying to invalidate anything

she might say?

Whatever the real situation, Gordon Carfax had

never meant to say no to Western. He was far too curious

about MEDIUM. He would have to see for himself

what it was all about. And he could never have borrowed

enough money to pay for a three-hour session

with MEDIUM.

He would, however, wait until after Patricia's call

before he called Western. He might even put off phon

13

ing until late. that evening. He did not want to give

Western the impression that he was eager.

To be honest, he told himself, he was somewhat

scared of the idea of sitting down before MEDIUM.

He heard a car draw up before his house. A moment

later, a car door slammed. A few seconds afterward, the door chimes bonged.

Carfax grimaced and strode through the living room

to the front door. Since the lecture, he had been besieged

by phone calls and by visitors. He had changed

his phone number to an unlisted one, and he had tacked

a sign up by the door.

PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB

WRITE IF YOU MUST COMMUNICATE

But many people paid no attention to the notice.

Opening the peephole, he suddenly remembered the

case of the private investigator who had looked through

a keyhole and received a spray of nitric acid. The man

had been a friend of his, and had, in fact, worked on

several cases with him.

Carfax was, however, wearing his spectacles at the

moment, so that any acid would be diverted.

He shook his head and grinned, told himself he was

getting more paranoid every year, and put his eye to

the hole.

The woman was about thirty. She had a pretty face,

though her nose was a trifle too long and there were

spiderleg lines from the corners of her nose to the corners

of her mouth. Her reddish-bronze hair was cut

short and seemed to be naturally curly, though it was

difficult to be sure of that, of course. She was wearing a

Philip Jose Farmer - Traitor to the Living

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