Zardoz Page #2

Morning, Monster. Time for work.

All right, let's stop all the nonsense,

shall we? Where's Arthur Frayn?

Ever hear the expression "if looks

could kill"? Well, here they can.

There's no need to pretend

innocence with me.

I'm in Arthur Frayn's confidence.

I know more than you think.

You're saying nothing.

All right. We'll wait and see.

Don't be sullen.

I'm gonna look after you.

Whenever you're ready to,

just ask me questions.

Anything at all.

This is where you'll be working for me each

morning. Menial tasks. Nothing too taxing.

- Is this your god's house?

- It's God you're seeking, is it?

Well, here we are.

Gods, goddesses, kings and queens.

Take your pick.

- But they're all dead.

- Dead?

Died of boredom.

That's wrong. It's wrong.

It is catalogued

according to your instructions.

I told you to analyse design growth

across all makes of car,

not just a chronological list

from one manufacturer.

A much more complex program.

Shall I seek vortex consent for a longer

program? Shall I seek vortex consent...

- Yes!

- It will take time.

There is a stackup on some circuits.

Well, I've got time, and plenty of it.

Three weeks.

Define three weeks.

21 days, 504 hours,

30,240 minutes,

one million 814,400...

Do you mean he'd never seen

a clock before?

Obviously not.

- Are you not taking food with us, May?

- No.

Come, Zed. This way.

- She's taking her studies very seriously.

- She only has three weeks.

- Do you know yet how the brutal came here?

- No conclusion.

Insufficient data received.

Go in. Go on.

- Look into the ring.

- No retina abnormalities.

Fundus normal.

Disc and retinal vessels normal.

No haemorrhages or exudates.

Macular area clear.

Attention. Continuation of the trial

of George Saden of Vortex 4.

George Saden, accused of transmitting

a negative aura in second level.

This is not so.

I have studied our social, emotional

substructures for 140 years.

These thoughts

are constructive criticisms.

Pyramidical.

I am innocent of psychic violence.

As you examine my face and eyes,

you will see that this is true.

He's lying.

Are you looking for the head, Monster?

It's gone. Off on its endless journey

from vortex to vortex.

Round and round, like me and the bread,

for ever and ever.

- Will he be punished for that?

- Of course.

But you have no police,

no exterminators.

But we discuss it endlessly.

Every little sin and misdemeanour,

raked over and over.

- So what happens to him then?

- He'll get six months at least.

- Prison?

- Ageing.

- Ageing?

- Yes. I'm getting old myself.

Three months here, a year there.

These sentences add up.

So if you're bad

often enough, you'll die.

They make you old,

but they don't let you die.

- So what's to stop you killing yourself?

- I do now and again.

But the eternal tabernacle

simply rebuilds me.

- Would you like to see immortality at work?

- Yes.

Well, get a move on, then.

This is where they live...

the renegades.

They're condemned

to an eternity of senility.

We provide them with food,

but they are shunned.

They're malicious and vicious,

so in and out fast.

I myself feel quite at home in there.

Loamer.

Gray.

I loved this girl once, Monster.

You idle apathetic!

Melancholy sight.

Grayler.

Bone.

Whoa there, boy. Whoa.

You are asked to vote at the termination

of the trial of George Saden.

Final statement from the accused begins.

I confess to the charges,

but plead mitigation.

I try to suppress these thoughts,

but they leak out in second level

through the head wound of my third death.

I was imperfectly repaired.

No. That is not true.

- I think what I think.

- That's more like it.

I'm with you, George.

I hate you all.

I hate you all.

I hate you all.

Especially me.

Vote please. Vote please.

I'm voting for him, Monster.

It won't do any good. Nothing ever does.

Absolute acquittal.

Go on, Monster.

Help yourself.

Didn't Zardoz tell you

about the apathetics?

It's a disease.

And it's slowly creeping

through all the vortexes.

That's why Zardoz made you grow crops.

To feed these people.

We can't support them any more.

Apathetic or renegade...

make your choice.

Yes. A bit frightening, isn't it?

Very good.

Now you're beginning to show yourself.

Final votes. For: Nine.

Against:
586. Undecided: 86.

Sentence:
George Saden

will be aged five years.

Welcome to paradise.

Penic erection was one of the many unsolved

evolutionary mysteries of sexuality.

Every society had an elaborate subculture

devoted to erotic stimulation.

But nobody could quite

determine how this

becomes this.

We all know

the physical process involved,

but not the link

between stimulus and response.

There seems to be a correlation

with violence, with fear.

Many hanged men died with an erection.

You are all more or less aware of our

intensive researches into the subject.

Sexuality declined probably because

we no longer needed to procreate.

Eternals soon discovered that

erection was impossible to achieve.

And we are no longer victims

of this violent, convulsive act,

which so debased women and betrayed men.

This brutal, like other primates

living unselfconscious lives,

is capable of spontaneous

and reflexive erection.

As part of May's studies

of this creature,

we are trying to find once again the link

between erotic stimulation and erection.

This experiment will measure autoerotic

stimulation of the cortex leading to erection.

Play.

The tracer indicates that this image

is not erotically stimulating to the brutal.

Change.

This doesn't seem to affect him either.

Consuella's done the trick herself.

The brutal is now in fourth hour

of unconscious sleep.

It's astonishing that Homo sapiens spends

so much time in this vulnerable condition,

at the mercy of its enemies.

Is there data on sleeping patterns

of primitive people?

- Is that a priority request?

- Yes.

I'm now going to test

its waking response to danger stimuli.

Does it please you to sleep?

Yes.

Why?

I have dreams.

Sleep was necessary for man

when his waking and unconscious

lives were separated.

As eternals achieved

total consciousness,

sleep became obsolete,

and second-level meditation took its place.

Sleep was closely connected with death.

Look at it. It's you.

Your genetic structure. Your life chart.

Look.

You are a mutant.

Second, maybe third generation.

Therefore genetically stable.

Enlarged brain.

Total recall.

Your potential is...

- Your breeding potential...

- Breeding?

Frayn. How did you get into the vortex?

What is your purpose?

I'm just an exterminator.

I know nothing.

You must know that you're mentally

and physically vastly superior

to me or anyone else here.

You could be anything.

Could do anything.

- You must be destroyed.

- Why?

- Because you could destroy us.

- As you destroyed the rest of life?

Can you unknow

what you know now about me?

For the sake of science, I will keep

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