Free The Parallel Man by Richard Purtill Page B

join the small, disciplined world of Argo . But before I abandoned the world I remembered to try to see what I could make of this new one, I wanted to know how and why I had lost my old world. I had a feeling that Mortifer might know, and Mortifer, according to the “fax” which Benton had given me, was not in this city of Thom.
    If it were not for my frozen emotions, I might have stormed my way into Mortifer’s presence and demanded an explanation. But in the cold light of reason, without emotion to influence me, I saw that the better course was to learn everything I could before trying to confront Mortifer. Most of the city was strange to me, but the castle which loomed above the city on its rocky crag was at least outwardly familiar. I decided to make it my first goal.
    Benton had given gifts of clothing to me when I left his lodge. During the voyage I had simply pulled on whatever garments came to hand, but now I looked through Benton’s gifts and did my best to find garments that would not have looked wildly out of place at my father’s court. At the sally port I was given a little circular patch of black which seemed to have a star gleaming in its center. “Most of us wear them over our C and C chip,” said the duty officer. “Marks us as starcrew and it’s no business of the planetaries how much credit we have, since we pay in ecus anyway. Captain said to treat you as crew, so I’ll give you the same advice as I’d give a new crewman. Stay in the port area until you come out of freeze; planetaries are often scared of starcrew or hostile to them. They don’t understand freeze and they have strange ideas about it. If you’re anxious to get out of freeze as quickly as possible, don’t fool around with the so-called emotional therapists; go to a blackout.”
    At my look of incomprehension, he explained, “They’re plays, short and pretty melodramatic. But somehow all that stage emotion seems to unfreeze your own emotions. See a good blackout and get a good night’s sleep and by tomorrow morning you may begin to feel human. If not, repeat treatment. We were two days on GE drive that’s two days out of Q. Cutting it a little fine, but you kept active in Q and that helps.”
    I hesitated, then decided to take his advice. Much as grudged the time, I realized that a man in emotional freeze was conspicuous and I did not want to be conspicuous when I set out to find what I could about Mortifer and about what had happened to me.
    There was certainly nothing recognizable and almost nothing Carpathian about the area around the starport. The men and women who filled the taverns and wandered the streets in various stages of emotional freeze were the same strange mixture of faces as I had encountered aboard Argo , along with others even stranger; lithe, brown creatures who seemed to slither rather than walk, and exotically plumed beings who almost seemed to float along.
    It was easy enough to find a blackout; there were several theaters near the starport gates. The first surprise was that the play featured both humans and the sealed lizard-like creatures I had learned to call Szilara. There were four players, a male and female Szilar, a man and a woman.
    The plot, looking back on it, was thin enough stuff; a tale of danger and hairsbreadth escapes with the Szilara as villains, the woman as victim and the man as rescuing hero. But it was well written and well acted. At first it seemed merely interesting, then it became absorbing. At a tense moment in the plot I found myself gripping the arms of my seat and realized that my emotions were returning. By the end of the play I was joining in the catcalls which greeted the appearance of the villains and shouting myself hoarse to cheer on the hero.
    The play ended abruptly with the lights turned out at a high point of tension; the “blackout” from which the plays took their name. As the lights went on again and the audience filed out, I exchanged sheepish smiles with other