PLAYERS AT THE GAME OF PEOPLE by John Brunner

by Players At The Game Of People (v5. 5) (html)

  And purposefully, despite his limp, began to pad in their direction, purring noisily.

  He looked remarkably like a man in a lion’s skin, rather than a real lion.

  Oh—no!

  Shaw! Androcles who took the thorn out of the lion’s pad! The whole setup was so silly, he couldn’t help bursting into laughter. The laughter spread. First his fellow Christians, whose identity he had no faintest notion of, and then the watchful lanistae and the slaves who surrounded the arena like banderilleros and picadores at a bullfight… and then the crowd at large, and ultimately the emperor himself were caught up in the hysterical mirth.

  Meantime the editor of the games fumed and screamed and struck out insanely at his personal retinue.

  This also ground to a halt eventually.

  Then—

  He was being helped to mount a bad-tempered horse. He felt like a lobster. He was encased in stiff, badly articulated armor bolted on his body over a thick, here and there quilted set of garments designed, apparently, to protect his most vital organs… but which were wholly revolting to the skin. They chafed; they itched abominably.

  He could see very little of the world, for his head was boxed in by a clanging metal sallade and his view was obstructed by its visor.

  Yet some thrilling chord in the depths of his being was touched by this predicament, as though he had proved in the ultimate analysis to be a bondage freak after all.

  A person at the left edge of his field of vision took his left hand, which wore a clumsy plated gauntlet, and forced along his forearm a shield held in position with leather straps. Another person to his right, equally unrecognizable because the helmet acted like blinders, thrust a long, heavy, metal-tipped wooden pole into his grasp.

  A lance? Yes, logically. But not nearly as well balanced as he had always imagined a lance to be. Trying to couch it against the back of his saddle—which itself was by no means a masterpiece—so that the brunt of an impact would be transferred to the greater mass of the horse, he found there was far too much of it still ahead of the pivotal point at which he was constrained to grasp it. It was going to wave about like a ship’s mast in a gale.

  But it was much too late to worry about that kind of thing. His attendants, screaming with terror, were vanishing into the surrounding woodland…

  Woodland?

  As best he could he surveyed the scene. This was a glade in hilly but well-forested country, and there were chiefly birch, ash, and beech trees to be seen. It had recently been raining: the nearby rocks—which looked like granite—were glistening, and the grass underfoot was damp and marshy.

  And a noise was coming from somewhere out of sight which was causing his steed to whinny and back, provoking a reflex jerk on the reins and a jab of both heels into the sides of his poor mount. He was clearly not the finest one could wish for; though he was stocky and broad-hoofed, he was fitter to haul a cart or drag a plow than carry a knight-at-arms into battle. He was half bald, and—

  Battle?

  Still thinking about the horse’s mange-gnawed mane, the rider listened again to the noise, partway between a roar and a howl, which had so upset the beast. This time it provoked a curvet, a caracole and a turnabout, all done without schooling, which bid fair to unseat him. He found himself facing in the opposite direction before he could regain control.

  And there, dead ahead of him, was a nearly naked girl tied to the face of a smooth gray rock. She was overweight for her age—about fifteen—and her hair was hanging in sweaty strands either side of her fat, ill-tempered face, and her fat hands had clawed at the rock until the nails were rimmed with red, and she had shat herself with terror and the thin yellow garment which was all she wore revealed the news to the world only too plainly.

  As it began to crisp around the edges in the blasting-hot breath of a creature waddling toward her on scaly legs with claw-tipped toes like an overgrown cockerel’s, its body patched with lurid yellow and green like an attack of luminescent fungi, its head on a serpentine neck weaving back and forth with its maw not just blood-red as it gaped, but glowing red, and instead of arms or forelegs or forelimbs, a pair of totally unbelievable scarlet wings, as formal as a lady’s fan.

  Half Uccello, half—someone else’s. Confused. But with the ill-assorted mix still identifiable. It did not require him to turn his shield to realize that it would be white with a red cross.

  What were these bastards and sons-of-bitches trying to do to him? This wasn’t funny. This was a mockery!

  And a great welling flood of black, unadulterated fury erupted from the depths of his being. The scene tried to freeze. It didn’t have time (curious that he should think in terms of the scene as autonomous—but since obviously it could never have occurred in reality, perhaps it was so).

  Instead, it melted: each patch of color, like wax, blending into another; like the contrasts of children’s modeling clay rolled into a ball, it ended in a flat brownish-gray mess in the midst of which he was embedded, unable either to move or to reason. He felt that someone’s back had been turned on him: that a Power had offered him the best that was to be had, and he—through stupidity or ill-temper or perverseness—had rejected it.

  He felt, and knew, that he was damned.

  It was very much worse than the pangs of punishment. It divorced him from his body, from his essence, from any semblance of anything he might believe in as reality.

  It went on and on, as though he had been flung aside and then forgotten.

  He came to himself feeling that he had rather been possessed than rewarded. He ached dreadfully; he was very cold; his belly was sour and his head throbbed and he had clenched his hands into suffering fists for so long, his nails felt as though they had begun to grow into his palms. He fought with all his feeble force to avoid thinking of it, but he was inexorably reminded of the days—so far in the past, it was like trying to remember with someone else’s brain, yet simultaneously it was as real as yesterday—when this was his ordinary state on waking.

  He wanted to weep, but his eyes were obstinately dry. Instead he undertook the terrible effort first of unfolding his fingers, then of turning into a sitting position on the edge of the bed to look about him.

  Beyond the window he saw bright sunlight and blue sky with a few scudding clouds. But the room, inactive, looked gray and dingy and neglected. One of the taps over the cracked sink was dripping for want of a new washer, and had left an iron-brown stain on the china. The mirror above was fly-specked with age. A spider had woven a complex web from the towel rail to the corner of the shower cabinet.

  It would have taken only a slight effort to turn the room on again, but he was either too weak or too full of self-loathing to make the necessary decision. He hoped it was only the former. He had been lying still for a long, long while. His face and hands felt positively dusty, paralleling the foulness in his memory.

  Eventually he was able to do something about his predicament. Regardless of complaints from all his muscles, he forced himself to his feet, stripped off his clothes, and stepped into the shower. The water was cold and the soap had turned to a jellied mess in its dish, but he found paradoxical relief in inflicting punishment on himself. He rubbed down with a greasy and overused towel and scrubbed his teeth until his gums bled, but felt he had made some sort of expiation when he turned at last to the wardrobe, planning to dress, get out of here, and find something to eat. He never kept provisions at home, and if he had had any, they would be spoiled by this time, and besides—perhaps for the same indefinable reason he didn’t care to switch on the room—he wanted something plain and dull and crude, like sandwiches of greasy bacon between doorsteps of bread washed down with hot, sweet tea.

  The wardrobe, naturally, was empty. He had nothing to put on except what he had taken off: stylish, lightweight, uncomfortable, designed for a single wearing. In particular the shoes hurt his feet.

  But he had to dress.

  Reluctantly he did so, and slipped out of his room like a cautious
burglar. TV noise came from below, but there was nobody in sight. He made it to the street, though afraid the nausea churning in his belly might provoke a fit of vomiting… if there was anything to vomit.

  Just as he was drawing the front door shut behind him, he noticed the Urraco and remembered with a shock that he had been compelled to park it here instead of at his usual garage. But he had no time to worry about it at present. It looked all right—hadn’t been splashed with paint or acid, or broken into, or had its tires slashed—and that would have to do for the time being. He turned the other way.

  At precisely that moment another car which he had not spotted, or at any rate not paid attention to, pulled to a halt a couple of yards ahead of him and a man with a brown mustache, wearing an old-fashioned khaki raincoat, emerged from it and confronted him. Simultaneously another man, younger, in a blue sweater and jeans, got out by the rear door and warily approached, while the driver muttered something into a hand-held microphone.

  “Chief Inspector Roadstone,” the man in the raincoat said, flashing a warrant card. “I have reason to believe your name is Godfrey Harper and that car there, the Lamborghini, belongs to you. I want to ask you a few questions.”

  For a moment Godwin was at a total loss. His head swam. Of all the times for something like this to happen…! And it had been so long since the last occasion, too, that he had half-forgotten the knack of dealing with such problems.

  Except he hadn’t. Seconds later the flex came back to him, the technique which he had learned from Ambrose Farr longer ago than he could recall. Experience had taught him to avoid it, for it was invariably tiring, but now it seemed he had no alternative. He was out on the open street, and—the message about the intrusion of police having spread like magic—being stared at by half a hundred people, some on the pavement, some leaning out of windows. Besides, insofar as such a person existed at all, he was indeed Godfrey Harper; it was convenient to have an alias when it came to such things as registering a car on which no taxes had ever been paid.

  The question stood, though: was he strong enough in his present state to work the flex?

  Sweating, trembling, he concluded he must find out the hard way.

  Summoning all his remaining resources, fighting the nausea which threatened to overwhelm him at any moment, focusing his attention on all three of the policemen but unable to cope with the bystanders and obliged to leave them to chance, he said in a peculiarly soft, wheedling tone, “There is no such person as Godfrey Harper. I am not Godfrey Harper. Nobody is Godfrey Harper. That car is mine. It belongs to me. It is legitimately mine. You have come here on a wild-goose chase. There was no point in coming here. When you get back to your police station you will enter these facts in your official report. You will go back to the police station right away and report that it was a false alarm that brought you here and it was all a waste of time. You will make an entry in PNC to ensure that in future nobody will waste time checking Godfrey Harper because Godfrey Harper does not exist.”

  His voice was on the edge of breaking, so intense was his concentration, but he recognized the working of the flex: the three men were relaxing, nodding to one another, beginning to smile.

  Eventually Roadstone said with a shrug, “Sorry to have wasted your time, sir. But I’m sure you realize we get these malicious calls occasionally, and we have to investigate. We’ll head straight back to the Yard and make sure no one else bothers you unnecessarily.”

  “That’s quite all right—I understand.”

  “Good morning!”

  “Good morning to you.”

  He forced an affable smile and stood watching while they returned to the car and drove away. Then, and only then, he let go a colossal gasp of relief. His nausea had vanished with the successful deployment of the flex, but now he was so hungry he felt afraid of fainting; also he craved great mugfuls of that sweet and scalding tea he had previously only thought wistfully about. Now it had become like an obsession, and the nearest place he could be sure of finding it was a squalid little caff, stinking of burned fat, within two or three minutes’ fast walk of here. He was poised to take the first step…

  When he realized that watching him from shadow beside what had been the handsome front porch of a house on the far side of the street and was now boarded in to make more or less weatherproof accommodation for stray children the landlord had taken pity on, stood the blond woman he had seen talking to the commissionaire outside the Global Hotel.

  The one he thought he recognized against all odds.

  The one he was certain had recognized him.

  For a frozen second they stared at one another. But this encounter made no more sense than the other. She remained as still as though he had exercised the flex on her. But he had not, and very definitely he now could not; he had squandered all his energy on the three policemen.

  Godwin realized with sick horror that he must do something he had not done for ages.

  Trust to luck.

  Though the sky was bright and the sun was shining, the air today was chill. With violent abruptness he turned up his jacket collar and strode off toward the sanctuary of the caff, not looking back to see what the woman did.

  As he went he found he was shivering more fiercely than the edge on the wind could explain.

  In the entrance of the caff a one-legged man in a greasy black overcoat was standing guard. He had two crutches: with one he kept his balance; with the other—and a volley of curses—he kept at bay the usual horde of lousy and shivering urchins. Now and then he also drove away an adult, if he or she looked particularly dirty, shabby, or sick. He seemed for a moment minded to challenge Godwin, but by the standards of this area he was finely dressed, and despite his unshaven face with dark rings under the eyes he looked in exceptionally good health. Such a one was certain to have enough money to pay for what he ordered, though naturally it was a mystery what he was doing here.

  Relieved, Godwin stepped over the threshold into relative warmth, only to realize with a wrenching shock as he took his place in line at the counter that in fact he did not have any money, or at any rate no cash. He had grown accustomed to tossing change at beggars to disperse them, and his pockets were empty except for his wallet.

  But there were credit-card stickers on the electronic cash register which was the only new and smart thing about the place, and his heart ceased to pound. He ordered the sausage-and-bacon sandwich which he had been craving, and the mug of tea, and proffered his cards like a poker hand, noticing with vague interest that the indicated limit on each had risen to a thousand pounds. He scrawled a signature that more or less matched the one on the card which the weary-faced proprietress selected, and turned away with his laden tray in search of somewhere to sit down.

  The clientèle of the caff was divided into four recognizably separate groups. Nearest the door, where they were most easily got rid of if occasion arose, there were ill-clad elderly men and women with greasy lank gray hair, doing their utmost to make one mug of tea last all day, not speaking among themselves but occasionally passing a precious cigarette. Behind them, sharing a mound of steak-and-kidney pies, sat six or seven flash young street people doubtless blowing the proceeds of a successful dip or mugging, since they could not possibly have afforded so much meat otherwise. Beyond them again were a cluster of respectable clerkly men and women, mostly in early middle age, with the dull look of disillusionment on their faces which characterized out-of-work computer programmers and the like, pretending that it was no more than sensible economy which persuaded them to lunch here off a wedge of cheese, a bread roll, and a glass of water. Two or three had, on cheekbones or wrists, the long-lasting subcutaneous hemorrhages indicative of scurvy.

  The atmosphere of the place, quite apart from the stench of overused frying oil which pervaded it, came close to making Godwin turn back to the counter and ask for his food and drink to be transferred into takeaway packs. But there was a kind of buffer zone at the rear of the caff, beyond the clerkly ones, wh
ere a whole rank of vacant seats divided the mere customers from the permanent occupants: all men, all prosperous-looking, one of them presumably the husband of the tired and snappish woman at the counter, smoking cigars and passing an illegal bottle of whisky—this place had no liquor license. They exuded the calm security of people in control. One of them, recognizing the expensive cut of Godwin’s clothes, deigned to give a curt nod toward the vacant row, according him permission to sit there, as though because from him at least it was improbable he and his companions would contract fleas.

  Grateful, though at a loss, Godwin complied and wolfed down his meal. The men nearby said nothing he could hear, yet it was plain there was communication going on. They appeared to be waiting for something to happen, but in no hurry for it.

  After a while, as the food made a hot mass in his belly, his sluggish mind revived. Little by little he realized with dismay that he had inadvertently done something he had long guarded against. To the best of his belief, now that the flex had taken care of the three policemen, the blond woman across the street was the only person in the world, apart from such as Gorse—about whom, naturally, he had no need to worry—who had reason to connect him with the place where he lived. The neighbors and transients who infested his home street did not count, for that or anything.

  But…

  It was absolutely and completely impossible, he was sure, that he could have recognized her. Yet the congruence between her mature, adult face and the face he so clearly recalled from the setting of the Blitz (the crump of explosions, the rumble of collapsing buildings, the hiss and crackle of flames, the dust so thick in the nostrils of memory it threatened to make him sneeze) was incredibly perfect! Had he seen her somewhere, long ago, and stored up an image which the reward drew from his subconscious to make the experience seem that much more real?