Virtual Unrealities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester

by Alfred Bester

  “This is pointless,” Migg rapped out. “We have spent three sessions in piffling discussion. I have heard three opposed views re Mr. Odysseus Gaul. Although all are agreed he must be used as a tool, none can agree on the work to which the tool must be set. Bellanby prattles about an Ideal Intellectual Anarchy, Johansen preaches about a Soviet of God, and Hrrdnikkisch has wasted two hours postulating and destroying his own theorems… .”

  “Really, Migg …” Hrrdnikkisch began. Migg waved his hand.

  “Permit me,” Migg continued malevolently, “to reduce this discussion to the kindergarten level. First things first, gentlemen. Before attempting to reach cosmic agreement we must make sure there is a cosmos left for us to agree upon. I refer to the impending war… .

  “Our program, as I see it, must be simple and direct. It is the education of a God or, if Johansen protests, of an angel. Fortunately Gaul is an estimable young man of kindly, honest disposition. I shudder to think what he might have done had he been inherently vicious.”

  “Or what he might do once he learns what he can do,” muttered Bellanby.

  “Precisely. We must begin a careful and rigorous ethical education of the boy, but we haven’t enough time. We can’t educate first, and then explain the truth when he’s safe. We must forestall the war. We need a shortcut.”

  “All right,” Johansen said. “What do you suggest?”

  “Dazzlement,” Migg spat. “Enchantment.”

  “Enchantment?” Hrrdnikkisch chuckled. “A new thienth, Migg?”

  “Why do you think I selected you three of all people for this secret?” Migg snorted. “For your intellects? Nonsense! I can think you all under the table. No. I selected you, gentlemen, for your charm.”

  “It’s an insult,” Bellanby grinned, “and yet I’m flattered.”

  “Gaul is nineteen,” Migg went on. He is at the age when undergraduates are most susceptible to hero worship. I want you gentlemen to charm him. You are not the first brains of the University, but you are the first heroes.”

  “I altho am inthulted and flattered,” said Hrrdnikkisch.

  “I want you to charm him, dazzle him, inspire him with affection and awe … as you’ve done with countless classes of undergraduates.”

  “Aha!” said Johansen. “The chocolate around the pill.”

  “Exactly. When he’s enchanted, you will make him want to stop the war … and then tell him how he can stop it. That will give us breathing space to continue his education. By the time he outgrows his respect for you he will have a sound ethical foundation on which to build. He’ll be safe.”

  “And you, Migg?” Bellanby inquired. “What part do you play?”

  “Now? None,” Migg snarled. “I have no charm, gentlemen. I come later. When he outgrows his respect for you, he’ll begin to acquire respect for me.”

  All of which was frightfully conceited but perfectly true.

  And as events slowly marched toward the final crisis, Oddy Gaul was carefully and quickly enchanted. Bellanby invited him to the twenty-foot crystal globe atop his house … the famous hen roost to which only the favored few were invited. There, Oddy Gaul sunbathed and admired the philosopher’s magnificent iron-hard condition at seventy-three. Admiring Bellanby’s muscles, it was only natural for him to admire Bellanby’s ideas. He returned often to sunbathe, worship the great man, and absorb ethical concepts.

  Meanwhile, Hrrdnikkisch took over Oddy’s evenings. With the mathematician, who puffed and lisped like some flamboyant character out of Rabelais, Oddy was carried to the dizzy heights of the haute cuisine and the complete pagan life. Together they ate and drank incredible foods and liquids and pursued incredible women until Oddy returned to his room each night intoxicated with the magic of the senses and the riotous color of the great Hrrdnikkisch’s glittering ideas.

  And occasionally … not too often, he would find Papa Johansen waiting for him, and then would come the long, quiet talks through the small hours when young men search for the harmonics of life and the meaning of entity. And there was Johansen for Oddy to model himself after … a glowing embodiment of Spiritual Good … a living example of Faith in God and Ethical Sanity.

  The climax came on March 15 … The Ides of March, and they should have taken the date as a sign. After dinner with his three heroes at the Faculty Club, Oddy was ushered into the Foto-Library by the three great men where they were joined, quite casually, by Jesse Migg. There passed a few moments of uneasy tension until Migg made a sign, and Bellanby began.

  “Oddy,” he said, “have you ever had the fantasy that some day you might wake up and discover you were a king?”

  Oddy blushed.

  “I see you have. You know, every man has entertained that dream. It’s called the Mignon Complex. The usual pattern is: You learn your parents have only adopted you and that you are actually and rightfully the King of … of …”

  “Ruritania,” said Hrrdnikkisch, who had made a study of Stone Age Fiction.

  “Yes, sir,” Oddy muttered. “I’ve had that dream.”

  “Well,” Bellanby said quietly, “it’s come true. You are a king.”

  Oddy stared while they explained and explained and explained. First, as a college boy, he was wary and suspicious of a joke. Then, as an idolator, he was almost persuaded by the men he most admired. And finally, as a human animal, he was swept away by the exaltation of security. Not power, not glory, not wealth thrilled him, but security alone. Later he might come to enjoy the trimmings, but now he was released from fear. He need never worry again.

  “Yes,” exclaimed Oddy. “Yes, yes, yes! I understand. I understand what you want me to do.” He surged up excitedly from his chair and circled the illuminated walls, trembling with joy. Then he stopped and turned.

  “And I’m grateful,” he said. “Grateful to all of you for what you’ve been trying to do. It would have been shameful if I’d been selfish … or mean… . Trying to use this for myself. But you’ve shown me the way. It’s to be used for good. Always!”

  Johansen nodded happily.

  “I’ll always listen to you,” Oddy went on. “I don’t want to make any mistakes. Ever!” He paused and blushed again. “That dream about being a king … I had that when I was a kid. But here at the school I’ve had something bigger. I used to wonder what would happen if I was the one man who could run the world. I used to dream about the kind, generous things I’d do… .”

  “Yes,” said Bellanby. “We know, Oddy. We’ve all had that dream too. Every man does.”

  “But it isn’t a dream any more,” Oddy laughed. “It’s reality. I can do it. I can make it happen.”

  “Start with the war,” Migg said sourly.

  “Of course,” said Oddy. “The war first; but then we’ll go on from there, won’t we? I’ll make sure the war never starts, but then we’ll do big things … great things! Just the five of us in private. Nobody’ll know about us. We’ll be ordinary people, but we’ll make life wonderful for everybody. If I’m an angel … like you say … then I’ll spread heaven around me as far as I can reach.”

  “But start with the war,” Migg repeated.

  “The war is the first disaster that must be averted, Oddy,” Bellanby said. “If you don’t want this disaster to happen, it will never happen.”

  “And you want to prevent that tragedy, don’t you?” said Johansen.

  “Yes,” answered Oddy. “I do.”

  On March 20, the war broke. The Comity of Nations and Der Realpolitik aus Terra mobilized and struck. While blow followed shattering counterblow, Oddy Gaul was commissioned subaltern in a line regiment, but gazetted to Intelligence on May 3. On June 24 he was appointed A.D.C. to the Joint Forces Council meeting in the ruins of what had been Australia. On July 11, he was brevetted to command of the wrecked Space Force, being jumped 1,789 grades over regular officers. On September 19 he assumed supreme command in the Battle of the Parsec and won the victory that ended the disastrous solar annihilation called the Six Month War.


  On September 23, Oddy Gaul made the astonishing Peace Offer that was accepted by the remnants of both Welfare States. It required the scrapping of antagonistic economic theories, and amounted to the virtual abandonment of all economic theory with an amalgamation of both States into a Solar Society. On January 1, Oddy Gaul, by unanimous acclaim, was elected Solon of the Solar Society in perpetuity.

  And today … still youthful, still vigorous, still handsome, still sincere, idealistic, charitable, kindly and sympathetic, he lives in the Solar Palace. He is unmarried but a mighty lover; uninhibited, but a charming host and devoted friend; democratic, but the feudal overlord of a bankrupt Family of Planets that suffers misgovernment, oppression, poverty, and confusion with a cheerful joy that sings nothing but Hosannahs to the glory of Oddy Gaul.

  In a last moment of clarity, Jesse Migg communicated his desolate summation of the situation to his friends in the Faculty Club. This was shortly before they made the trip to join Oddy in the palace as his confidential and valued advisors.

  “We were fools,” Migg said bitterly. “We should have killed him. He isn’t an angel. He’s a monster. Civilization and culture … philosophy and ethics … those were only masks Oddy put on; masks that covered the primitive impulses of his subconscious mind.”

  “You mean Oddy was not sincere?” Johansen asked heavily. “He wanted this wreckage … this ruin?”

  “Certainly he was sincere … consciously. He still is. He thinks he desires nothing but the most good for the most men. He’s honest, kind and generous … but only consciously.”

  “Ah! The Id!” said Hrrdnikkisch with an explosion of breath as though he had been punched in the stomach.

  “You understand, Signoid? I see you do. Gentlemen, we were imbeciles. We made the mistake of assuming that Oddy would have conscious control of his power. He does not. The control was and still is below the thinking, reasoning level. The control lies in Oddy’s Id … in that deep, unconscious reservoir of primordial selfishness that lies within every man.”

  “Then he wanted the war,” Bellanby said.

  “His Id wanted the war, Bellanby. It was the quickest route to what his Id desires … to be Lord of the Universe and loved by the Universe … and his Id controls the Power. All of us have that selfish, egocentric Id within us, perpetually searching for satisfaction, timeless, immortal, knowing no logic, no values, no good and evil, no mortality; and that is what controls the Power in Oddy. He will always win, not what he’s been educated to desire but what his Id desires. It’s the inescapable conflict that may be the doom of our system.”

  “But we’ll be there to advise him … counsel him … guide him,” Bellanby protested. “He asked us to come.”

  “And he’ll listen to our advice like the good child that he is,” Migg answered, “agreeing with us, trying to make a heaven for everybody while his Id will be making a hell for everybody. Oddy isn’t unique. We all suffer from the same conflict … but Oddy has the Power.”

  “What can we do?” Johansen groaned. “What can we do?”

  “I don’t know.” Migg bit his lip, then bobbed his head to Papa Johansen in what amounted to apology for him. “Johansen,” he said, “you were right. There must be a God, if only because there must be an opposite to Oddy Gaul, who was most assuredly invented by the Devil.”

  But that was Jesse Migg’s last sane statement. Now, of course, he adores Gaul the Glorious, Gaul the Gauleiter, Gaul the God Eternal who has achieved the savage, selfish satisfaction for which all of us unconsciously yearn from birth, but which only Oddy Gaul has won.

  STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT

  The man in the car was thirty-eight years old. He was tall, slender, and not strong. His cropped hair was prematurely grey. He was afflicted with an education and a sense of humor. He was inspired by a purpose. He was armed with a phone book. He was doomed.

  He drove up Post Avenue, stopped at No. 17 and parked. He consulted the phone book, then got out of the car and entered the house. He examined the mailboxes and then ran up the stairs to apartment 2-F. He rang the bell. While he waited for an answer he got out a small black notebook and a superior silver pencil that wrote in four colors.

  The door opened. To a nondescript middle-aged lady, the man said, “Good evening. Mrs. Buchanan?”

  The lady nodded.

  “My name is Foster. I’m from the Science Institute. We’re trying to check some flying saucer reports. I won’t take a minute.” Mr. Foster insinuated himself into the apartment. He had been in so many that he knew the layout automatically. He marched briskly down the hall to the front parlor, turned, smiled at Mrs. Buchanan, opened the notebook to a blank page, and poised the pencil.

  “Have you ever seen a flying saucer, Mrs. Buchanan?”

  “No. And it’s a lot of bunk, I—”

  “Have your children ever seen them? You do have children?”

  “Yeah, but they—”

  “How many?”

  “Two. Them flying saucers never—”

  “Are either of school age?”

  “What?”

  “School,” Mr. Foster repeated impatiently. “Do they go to school?”

  “The boy’s twenty-eight,” Mrs. Buchanan said. “The girl’s twenty-four. They finished school a long—”

  “I see. Either of them married?”

  “No. About them flying saucers, you scientist doctors ought to—”

  “We are,” Mr. Foster interrupted. He made a tic-tac-toe in the notebook then closed it and slid it into an inside pocket with the pencil. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Buchanan,” he said, turned, and marched out.

  Downstairs, Mr. Foster got into the car, opened the telephone directory, turned to a page and ran his pencil through a name. He examined the name underneath, memorized the address and started the car. He drove to Fort George Avenue and stopped the car in front of No. 800. He entered the house and took the self-service elevator to the fourth floor. He rang the bell of apartment 4-G. While he waited for an answer he got out the small black notebook and the superior pencil.

  The door opened. To a truculent man, Mr. Foster said, “Good evening. Mr. Buchanan?”

  “What about it?” the truculent man said.

  Mr. Foster said, “My name is Davis. I’m from the Association of National Broadcasters. Were preparing a list of names for prize competitors. May I come in? Won’t take a minute.”

  “Mr. Foster/Davis insinuated himself and presently consulted with Mr. Buchanan and his redheaded wife in the living room of their apartment.

  “Have you ever won a prize in radio or television?”

  “No,” Mr. Buchanan said angrily. “We never got a chance. Everybody else does but not us.”

  “All that free money and iceboxes,” Mrs. Buchanan said. “Trips to Paris and planes and—”

  “That’s why we’re making up this list,” Mr. Foster/Davis broke in. “Have any of your relatives won prizes?”

  “No. It’s all a fix. Put-up jobs. They—”

  “Any of your children?”

  “Ain’t got any children.”

  “I see. Thank you very much.” Mr. Foster/Davis played out the tic-tac-toe game in his notebook, closed it and put it away. He released himself from the indignation of the Buchanans, went down to his car, crossed out another name in the phone book, memorized the address of the name underneath and started the car.

  He drove to No. 215 East Sixty-Eighth Street and parked in front of a private brownstone house. He rang the doorbell and was confronted by a maid in uniform.

  “Good evening,” he said. “Is Mr. Buchanan in?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “My name is Hook,” Mr. Foster/Davis said, “I’m conducting an investigation for the Better Business Bureau.”

  The maid disappeared, reappeared and conducted Mr. Foster/Davis/Hook to a small library where a resolute gentleman in dinner clothes stood holding a Limoges demitasse cup and saucer. There were expensive books on the shelves. There
was an expensive fire in the grate.

  “Mr. Hook?”

  “Yes, sir,” the doomed man replied. He did not take out the notebook. “I won’t be a minute, Mr. Buchanan. Just a few questions.”

  “I have great faith in the Better Business Bureau,” Mr. Buchanan pronounced. “Our bulwark against the inroads of—”

  “Thank you, sir,” Mr. Foster/Davis/Hook interrupted. “Have you ever been criminally defrauded by a businessman?”

  “The attempt has been made. I have never succumbed.”

  “And your children? You do have children?”

  “My son is hardly old enough to qualify as a victim.”

  “How old is he, Mr. Buchanan?”

  “Ten.”

  “Perhaps he has been tricked at school? There are crooks who specialize in victimizing children.”

  “Not at my son’s school. He is well protected.”

  “What school is that, sir?”

  “Germanson.”

  “One of the best. Did he ever attend a city public school?”

  “Never.”

  The doomed man took out the notebook and the superior pencil. This time he made a serious entry.

  “Any other children, Mr. Buchanan?”

  “A daughter, seventeen.”

  Mr. Foster/Davis/Hook considered, started to write, changed his mind and closed the notebook. He thanked his host politely and escaped from the house before Mr. Buchanan could ask for his credentials. He was ushered out by the maid, ran down the stoop to his car, opened the door, entered and was felled by a tremendous blow on the side of his head.

  When the doomed man awoke, he thought he was in bed suffering from a hangover. He started to crawl to the bathroom when he realized he was dumped in a chair like a suit for the cleaners. He opened his eyes. He was in what appeared to be an underwater grotto. He blinked frantically. The water receded.

  He was in a small legal office. A stout man who looked like an unfrocked Santa Claus stood before him. To one side, seated on a desk and swinging his legs carelessly, was a thin young man with a lantern jaw and eyes closely set on either side of his nose.