Robert Silverberg - Multiples.pdf - Robert Silverberg - margozap

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MULTIPLES

By Robert Silverberg

There were mirrors everywhere, making the place a crazy house of dizzying refraction: mirrors on the

ceiling, mirrors on the walls, mirrors in the angles where the walls met, the ceiling and the floor, even

little eddies of mirror dust periodically blown on gusts of air through the room so that all the bizarre

distortions, fracturings, and dislocations of image that were bouncing around the place would from time

to time coalesce in a shimmering haze of chaos right before your eyes. Colored globes spun round and

round overhead, creating patterns of ricocheting light. It was exactly the way Cleo had expected a

multiples club to look.

She had walked up and down the whole Fillmore Street strip, from Union to Chestnut and back again,

for half an hour, peering at this club and that before finding the courage to go inside one that called itself

Skits. Though she had been planning this night for

months, she found herself paralyzed by fear at the last minute: afraid they would spot her as a fraud the

moment she walked in, afraid they would drive her out with jeers and curses and cold, mocking laughter.

But now that she was within, she felt fine-calm, confident, ready for the time of her life.

There were more women than men in the club, something like a seven-to-three ratio. Hardly anyone

seemed to be talking to anyone else. Most stood alone in the middle of the floor, staring into the mirrors

as though in trance.

Their eyes were slits, their jaws were slack, their shoulders slumped forward, their arms dangled. Now

and then, as some combination of reflections sluiced across their consciousnesses with particular impact,

they would go taut and jerk and wince as if they had been struck. Their faces would flush, their lips

would pull back, their eyes would roll, they would mutter and whisper to themselves; then after a

moment they would slip back into stillness.

Cleo knew what they were doing. They were switching and doubling. Maybe some of the adepts were

tripling.

Her heart rate picked up. Her throat was very dry. What was the routine here? she wondered. Did you

just walk right out onto the floor and plug into the light patterns, or were you supposed to go to the bar

first for a shot or a snort?

She looked toward the bar. A dozen or so customers were sitting there, mostly men, a couple of them

openly studying her, giving her that new-girl-intown stare. Cleo returned their gaze evenly, coolly,

blankly. Standard-looking men, reasonably attractive, thirtyish or early fortyish, business suits,

conventional hairstyles: young lawyers, executives, maybe stockbrokers - successful sorts out for a

night's fun, the kind of men you might run into anywhere. Look at that one-tall, athletic, curly hair,

glasses. Faint, ironic smile, easy, inquiring eyes. Almost professional. And yet, and yet-behind that

smooth, intelligent forehead, what strangenesses must teem and boil! How many hidden souls must lurk

and jostle! Scary. Tempting.

Irresistible.

Cleo resisted. Take it slow, take it slow. Instead of going to the bar, she moved out serenely among the

switchers on the floor, found an open space, centered herself, looked toward the mirrors on the far side

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of the room. Legs apart, feet planted flat, shoulders forward. A turning globe splashed waves of red and

violet light, splintered a thousand times over into her upturned face.

Go. Go. Go. Go. You are Cleo. You are Judy. You are Vixen. You are Lisa. Go. Go. Go. Go. Cascades

of iridescence sweeping over the rim of her soul, battering at the walls of her identity. Come, enter,

drown me, split me, switch me. You are Cleo and Judy. You are Vixen and Lisa. You are Cleo and Judy

and Vixen and Lisa. Go. Go. Go.

Her head was spinning. Her eyes were blurring. The room gyrated around her.

Was this it? Was she splitting? Was she switching? Maybe so. Maybe the capacity was there in

everyone, even her, and all that it would take was the lights, the mirrors, the right ambience, the will.

I am many. I am multiple. I am Cleo switching to

Vixen. I am Judy, and I am -

No. I am Cleo.

I am Cleo.

I am very dizzy, and I am getting sick, and I am Cleo and only Cleo, as I have always been. I am Cleo

and only Cleo, and I am going to fall down.

"Easy," he said. "You okay?"

"Steadying up, I think. Whew!"

"Out-of-towner, eh?"

"Sacramento. How'd you know?"

"Too quick on the floor. Locals all know better. This place has the fastest mirrors in the west. They'll

blow you away if you're not careful. You can't just go out there and grab for the big one - you've got to

phase yourself in slowly. You sure you're going to be okay?"

"I think so."

He was the tall man from the bar, the athletic, professorial one. She supposed he had caught her before

she had actually fallen, since she felt no bruises.

His hand rested easily now against her right elbow as he lightly steered her toward a table along the wall.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Judy."

"I'm Van."

"Hello, Van."

"How about a brandy? Steady you up a little more."

"I don't drink."

"Never?"

"Vixen does the drinking," she said.

"Ah. The old story. She gets the bubbles, you get her hangovers. I have one like that too, only with him

it's human food. He absolutely doesn't give a damn what lobster in hot and sour sauce does to my

digestive system. I hope you pay her back the way she deserves."

Cleo smiled and said nothing.

He was watching her closely. Was he interested, or just being polite to someone who was obviously out

of her depth in a strange milieu? Interested, she decided. He seemed to have accepted that Vixen stuff at

face value.

Be careful now, Cleo warned herself. Trying to pile on convincing-sounding details when you don't

really know what you're talking about is a sure way to give yourself away sooner or later.

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The thing to do, she knew, was to establish her credentials without working too hard at it; sit back,

listen, learn how things really operate among these people.

"What do you do up there in Sacramento?"

"Nothing fascinating."

"Poor Judy. Real-estate broker?"

"How'd you guess?"

"Every other woman I meet is a real-estate broker these days. What's Vixen?"

"A lush."

"Not much of a livelihood in that."

Cleo shrugged. "She doesn't need one. The rest of us support her."

"Real estate and what else?"

She hadn't been sure that multiples etiquette included talking about one's alternate selves. But she had

come prepared. "Lisa's a landscape architect. Cleo's into software. We all keep busy."

"Lisa ought to meet Chuck. He's a demon horticulturalist. Partner in a plant-rental outfit-you know, huge

dracaenas and philodendrons for offices, so much per month, take them away when they start looking

sickly. Lisa and Chuck could talk palms and bromelaids and cacti all night."

"We should introduce them."

"We should, yes."

"But first we have to introduce Van and Judy."

"And then maybe Van and Cleo," he said.

She felt a tremor of fear. Had he found her out so soon? "Why Van and Cleo? Cleo's not here right now.

This is Judy you're talking to."

"Easy. Easy!"

But she was unable to halt. "I can't deliver Cleo to you just like that, you know. She does as she pleases."

"Easy," he said. "All I meant was, Van and Cleo have something in common. Van's into software, too."

Cleo relaxed. With a little laugh she said, "Oh, not you, too! Isn't everybody nowadays? But I thought

you were something in the academic world. A university professor or something like that."

"I am. At Cal."

"Software?"

"In a manner of speaking. Linguistics. Metalinguistics, actually. My field is the language of language-

the basic subsets, the neural coordinates of communication, the underlying programs our brains use, the

operating systems. Mind as computer, computer as mind. I can get very boring about it."

"I don't find the mind a boring subject."

"I don't find real estate a boring subject. Talk to me about second mortgages and triple-net leases."

"Talk to me about Chomsky and Benjamin Whorf," she said.

His eyes widened. "You've heard of Benjamin Whorf?"

"I majored in comparative linguistics. That was before real estate."

"Just my lousy luck," he said. "I get a chance to find out what's hot in the shopping-center market and

she wants to talk about Whorf and Chomsky."

"I thought every other woman you met these days was a real-estate broker. Talk to them about shopping

centers."

"They all want to talk about Whorf and Chomsky. More intellectual."

"Poor Van."

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"Yes. Poor Van." Then he leaned forward and said, his tone softening, "You know, I shouldn't have

made that crack about Van meeting Cleo. That was very tacky of me."

"It's okay, Van. I didn't take it seriously."

"You seemed to. You were very upset."

"Well, maybe at first. But then I saw you were just horsing around."

"I still shouldn't have said it. You were absolutely right: This is Judy's time now. Cleo's not here, and

that's just fine. It's Judy I want to get to know."

"You will," she said. "But you can meet Cleo, too, and Lisa and Vixen. I'll introduce you to the whole

crew. I don't mind."

"You're sure of that?"

"Sure."

"Some of us are very secretive about our alters."

"Are you?" Cleo asked.

"Sometimes. Sometimes not."

"I don't mind. Maybe you'll meet some of mine tonight." She glanced toward the center of the floor. "I

think I've steadied up now. I'd like to try the mirrors again."

"Switching?"

"Doubling," she said. "I'd like to bring Vixen up. She can do the drinking, and I can do the talking. Will

it bother you if she's here, too?"

"Won't bother me unless she's a sloppy drunk. Or a mean one."

"I can keep control of her when we're doubling. Come on, take me through the mirrors."

"You be careful now. San Francisco mirrors aren't like Sacramento ones. You've already discovered

that."

"I'll watch my step this time. Shall we go out there?"

"Sure," he said.

As they began to move out onto the floor a slender, T shirted man of about thirty came toward them.

Shaven scalp, bushy mustache, medallions, boots. Very San Francisco, very gay. He frowned at Cleo

and stared straightforwardly at Van.

"Ned?"

Van scowled and shook his head. "No. Not now."

"Sorry. Very sorry. I should have realized." The shaven-headed man flushed and hurried away.

"Let's go," Van said to Cleo.

This time she found it easier to keep her. balance. Knowing that he was nearby helped. But still the

waves of refracted light came pounding in, pounding in, pounding in. The assault was total: remorseless,

implacable, overwhelming. She had to struggle against the throbbing in her chest, the hammering in her

temples, the wobbliness of her knees. And this was pleasure for them? This was a supreme delight?

But they were multiples, and she was only Cleo, and that, she knew, made all the difference. She seemed

to be able to fake it well enough. She could make up a Judy, a Lisa, a Vixen, assign little corners of her

personality to each, give them voices of their own, facial expressions, individual identities. Standing

before her mirror at home, she had managed to convince herself. She might even be able to convince

him. But as the swirling lights careened off the infinities of interlocking mirrors and came slaloming into

the gateways of her reeling soul, the dismal fear began to rise in her that she could never truly be one of

these people after all, however skillfully she imitated them in their intricacies.

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Was it so? Was she doomed always to stand outside their irresistible world, hopelessly peering in? Too

soon to tell-much too soon, she thought, to admit defeat.

At least she didn't fall down. She took the punishment of the mirrors as long as she could stand it, and

then, not waiting for him to leave the floor, she made her way-carefully, carefully, walking a tightrope

over an abyss-to the bar. When her head had begun

to stop spinning she ordered a drink, and she sipped it cautiously. She could feel the alcohol extending

itself inch by inch into her bloodstream. It calmed her. On the floor Van stood in trance, occasionally

quivering in a sudden, convulsive way for a fraction of a second. He was doubling, she knew: bringing

up one of his other identities. That was the main thing that multiples came to these clubs to do. No

longer were all their various identities forced to dwell in rigorously separated compartments of their

minds. With the aid of the mirrors and lights the skilled ones were able to briefly to fuse two or even

three of their selves into something more complex. When he comes back here, she thought, he will be

Van plus X. And I must pretend to be Judy plus Vixen.

She readied herself for that. Judy was easy. Judy was mostly the real Cleo, the real-estate woman from

Sacramento, with Cleo's notion of what it was like to be a multiple added in. And Vixen? Cleo imagined

her to be about twenty-three, a Los Angeles girl, a one-time child tennis star who had broken her ankle

in a dumb prank and had never recovered her game afterward, and who had taken up drinking to ease the

pain and loss. Uninhibited, unpredictable, untidy, fiery, fierce: all the things that Cleo was not. Could

she be Vixen? She took a deep gulp of her drink and put on the Vixen face: eyes hard and glittering;

cheek muscles clenched.

Van was leaving the floor now. His way of moving seemed to have changed: He was stiff, almost

awkward, his shoulders held high, his elbows jutting oddly. He looked so different that she wondered

whether he was still Van at all.

"You didn't switch, did you?"

"Doubled. Paul's with me now."

"Paul?"

"Paul's from Texas. Geologist, terrific poker game, plays the guitar." Van smiled, and it was like a

shifting of gears. In a deeper, broader voice he said, "And I sing real good too, ma'am. Van's jealous of

that, because he can't sing worth beans. Are you ready for a refill?"

"You bet," Cleo said, sounding sloppy, sounding Vixenish.

His apartment was nearby, a cheerful, airy, sprawling place in the Marina district. The segmented nature

of his life was immediately obvious: The prints and paintings on the walls looked as though they had

been chosen by four or five different people, one of whom ran heavily toward vivid scenes of sunrise

over the Grand Canyon, another to Picasso and Miro, someone else to delicate, impressionist views of

Parisian street scenes and flower markets. A sun room contained the biggest and healthiest houseplants

Cleo had ever seen. Another room was stacked with technical books and scholarly journals, a third was

equipped with three or four gleaming exercise machines. Some of the rooms were fastidiously tidy,

some impossibly chaotic. Some of the furniture was stark and austere; some was floppy and overstuffed.

She kept expecting to find roommates wandering around. But there was no one here but Van. And Paul.

Paul fixed the drinks, played soft guitar music, told

her gaudy tales of prospecting on the West Texas mesas. Paul sang something bawdy sounding in

Spanish, and Cleo, putting on her Vixen voice, chimed in on the choruses, deliberately off-key. But then

Paul went away, and it was Van who sat close beside her on the couch. He wanted to know things about

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