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CHAPTER VIII


MEMPHIS: Materializing before Ray too rapidly he waited out the instants of accommodation only hoping that all was not disas­trous; that the man, in his shock and rage would not shoot him. Even before the process of entry has fully shut down he is speak­ing to him. “Don’t do this,” he says, “you must not do it. You cannot understand the consequences, will not live to see them but they will be intolerable. If not for yourself, for your world, then for those who will follow I beg you to go away from here.”

The man holds his rifle in shock, staring. He is a big man who has probably taken one drug compound or another only a little while ago in preparation for the shooting, it has done his reflexes no good but then again it has made him more likely to hear Scop out than would have been so otherwise. His eyes are curiously calm, drifting open. “Who are you?” he says.

“That does not matter. You simply must trust me.”

“Where did you come from? Nobody can get in here; they guaranteed me that and I checked the locks myself—”

“It does not matter,” Scop says hastily, “it does not matter, all that matters is that you understand what I am saying, that you listen to me. If you shoot this man, if you kill him then you will bring about awful things which you cannot now even comprehend.”

The man stares at him sullenly. Assassins are stupid of course; this is something which in his experience has been proven over and again and yet there are certain insights which Scop cannot seem to apprehend emotionally, as fine as his intellectual equip­ment. Maybe he feels a need to sentimentalize their attention, wants to believe that those capable of such great and vicious consequence do so in complete awareness of what they risk and can summon reason to their defense. This is not the case, he knows that well and yet he feels the old wrenching disgust: perhaps none of this would ever have happened if these men had been intelli­gent or failing that at least had had some sense of motive. Now there is neither. Possibly the rumors are true: all of them were hypnotized into doing it and have no independence at all, no volition. That is horrible but it is less horrible than what he sus­pects which is simply that they have no position at all on what they were doing: it makes no impression. “Get out of here,” the man says, “or I’ll shoot you.”

“That would be pointless. You cannot shoot me, I would dematerialize in an instant. No,” Scop says, reaching forward, touch­ing the muzzle of the carefully-prepared rifle and turning it downward, “I ask you to listen to me for a moment, that is all.”

The motion makes the man tremble, he fights to bring the muzzle up but Scop momentarily is stronger and keeps it in place. The man’s hands flutter on the rifle; he is close to panic. “Please,” Scop says, “please.”

The balance is perilous; for a moment he thinks that Ray will move right through the engagement and attempt to solve it by strength, that he will indeed in his eagerness to commit assassi­nation assassinate Scop himself and the paradoxes of that of course are overwhelming to say nothing of the pain. Fortunately the man does not do this, something blunts his level of response even as the rifle is swinging downward again and then, feet spread, eyes staring at the floor he makes no motion, says nothing as Scop speaks to him with the slow, wheedling insistence of the truly monomaniac, the only kind of voice which would ever get through to the assassin anyway. “Anyway it will come to noth­ing,” Scop says having reached a natural strophe in the conver­sation, “as sure as you feel now that you are alerting the course of history I would like to make clear to you that you are not; history will mostly be the same. Only your part of it will be dif­ferent because you will be confined.”

“Ah shit,” the man says. He circumscribes a little figure on the floor. The air conditioner snarls as if devouring one of its belts, then stops with a grumble and only the fine ticking of someone’s watch can be heard in the motel room. “Do you really think that I’m going to believe this stuff? Do you really think that I’m going to take it seriously? Why do I have to believe it anyway? Who are you to me? A man from the future? I don’t believe it.”

“Accept it on faith then,” Scop says. He reaches into his pocket. “Furthermore I can offer you money.”

“Ah,” the assassin says. He moves back. “Now I see it. You’re trying to buy me off.”

“Well of course I’m trying—”

“You’re from the other side. You must be a communist agent. But I’m not going to be your dupe.” The man’s little eyes roll, he seems to be transfigured. “I should have known, damn it,” he says, “I should have known from the moment you came in this room, theway you came in, sneaking that way that you were a com­munist. I won’t be bought off. I’m an American, I’m a real Amer­ican. I’m doing this for my country and there’s no way that you can—”

“Oh come on,” Scop says, “don’t be ridiculous, there’s enough money here to—”

“Nomoney . No damned money. Now get out of here now or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

Scop sees the seriousness of the assassin’s intent. He must have been a fool to have believed that he could reason or bribe the man from intent, now there is nothing left but appeal to conscience and where will that get him. Assassins are utterly without superego. “Your name will be cursed in all the decades to follow,” he says hopelessly, “your name will be synonymous with a curse, none of your descendants will live without blemish, in the years to come all that will be known of you is shame—” He cuts himself off. There is really nothing else to say and Ray’s intent is quite clear. He must have been a fool to think that this would work. “All right,” he says, “all right then. I can’t force you not to do this. It lies outside of me.”

This of course is a lie. Just as he plucked Elaine Kozciouskos from the Grassy Knoll so he could seize Ray from the motel room and take him elsewhere. The abrupt removal of the assassin would, however, merely leave a void in time which would be filled by even more disastrous events; Scop knows enough of the law of the temporals to accept this. If the assassin is to be dissuaded it must be through volition and conscious choice, this would cast the consequences upon him and not the stress-lines of the culture. All of this he calculates almost instantaneously, thinking of the same time in awe and pity of the man who will be killed. Time and again he must remind himself that these are not abstractions with whom he is dealing; these are people and the pain is real. So he must calculate that too into the intricacies of his situation but the effort is too much, it is too much for him: simple Scop, simple workmen, at the root his affect is bland, his intellect lim­ited, his cerebral hemispheres not choked with the rich blood of abstraction; he is merely trying to get through as best as he can and often it is not sufficient. He moves wearily away from the assassin, bitter and yet not as bitter as he might be in these cir­cumstances because there is something comforting about defeat glimpsed whole. Scop begins to understand that defeat explored and taken fully unto himself might not really be as devastating as he had always feared, there is something enormously satisfying in encountering at least a disaster so great that one has no need for excuses anymore. If King is to die so be it; if the century is to turn to waste and disorder because of this sequence of slayings then Thy Will be done. Ultimately there are others who will have to bear these burdens, not him. Not him alone. He goes to the door. “All right,” he says. “All right then, do as you will. Goodbye.”

“Now wait.”

“No,” Scop says his hand on the knob, fingers caressing, “I will not wait. There is nothing more to say.”

The gun is levelled on him now. “Not like that. I want some explanations.”

“There are no explanations.”

“Who are you?”

“I said there are no explanations,” Scop says. The truth of it delights him; pity that he is so afraid of the rifle. Indeed there are no answers at all. Why did nothing make sense? Because there was no sense. He could have glimpsed this a long time ago if he was not so stubborn; he now understands. All was causeless, unmotivated, disconnected. “Goodbye,” he says again and opens the door and steps into the corridor. If Ray shoots him he shoots him, that is all. Death is mere obliteration and besides he will be reconstituted some day; he knows that this is merely a passing instant of temporality which will be succeeded by a more lasting if somewhat less colorful eternity. At least he must believe this at the present moment in order to function; in truth Scop is not really a religious fanatic and religion plays a little role within his calculations. “Goodbye,” he says again and holds his eyes closed and glides into the corridor, glides the door closed, stands there for a moment and then content that there are no sounds of pursuit from within he moves quickly through the bare and sterile halls, his attention elsewhere so that the sound of the shot when it comes as it does merely grazes against the levers of his calcula­tion, making small impact, unhurried rush of the blood as he whisks through the outer doors of the enclosure and is gone.