The Song of Phaid the Gambler

by Mick Farren

  'Wow! Where the hell did you two spring from?'

  The voice had the shirred, lazy thickness of a heavy duty dog gold user. Phaid started to edge towards the door on the far side of the room.

  'We just landed on the roof and we're passing through on our way to the street.'

  'Is that a fact? You just flew here?'

  Phaid continued his edging.

  'Our arms are real tired.'

  'Think you could teach me to fly?'

  Phaid nodded.

  'You've got to remember to keep your fingers together.'

  'Yeah?'

  'And flap hard.'

  Abrella-Lu had joined in the absurd charade. The dog gold fiend yawned.

  'Is the riot still going on?'

  'Yeah, it's still going on.'

  'Amazing.'

  Phaid was almost to the door.

  'It's been nice talking to you, but we've got to be going.'

  'You have?'

  'I'm afraid so.'

  'That's a pity. You seemed like real interesting people.'

  Phaid opened the door.

  'We'll be seeing you.'

  'Yeah. Right. Come by again.'

  They let themselves out of the apartment and walked to the elevator, doing their best to look like legitimate visitors.

  'Dog gold can make you fucking dumb.'

  They're happy.'

  'I guess so.'

  The elevator came and they rode down to the street in silence. Phaid hoped, as they crossed the lobby, that no security android would come rushing out and start ques­tioning them; In fact, nothing happened and Phaid slowed and carefully opened the door that led to the street.

  'This is going to be the difficult bit.'

  'Are there many cops about?'

  Phaid took a look.

  They seemed to have cleared the street. There's a line of them halfway up the next block, they look like they're holding back quite a crowd, but there's none near here.'

  'You think it's safe to go out?'

  'I think we could take a chance.'

  Phaid and Abrella-Lu slipped out of the building entr­ance and hurried away, going in the opposite direction from the police lines.

  'I wish we'd had some other clothes.'

  'If we'd thought of it, we could have stolen some from those dopey fools upstairs.'

  'If we'd thought of it.'

  Phaid had an idea.

  'We could always split up.'

  'Don't you dare.'

  They covered some six blocks without being noticed. They'd done their best to avoid both cops and rioters. At one point two cops had actually crossed the road and walked straight towards them. Phaid had felt the sweat starting to flow, but just as the cops were about to get within striking distance, a sniper opened up from a nearby roof and everybody in the whole street scattered for cover. The cops raced off to try and get the sniper and Phaid and Abrella-Lu were able to slip away in the confusion.

  Finally, after far too long with fear making a choking lump in the back of his throat, Phaid saw the sign saying Middlemas Hotel shining like a beacon in the distance. He and Abrella-Lu hurried towards it. As they turned into the lobby, he felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

  'We made it.'

  'It looks like it.'

  The android desk clerk greeted them with the usual distant lack of interest. Phaid attempted a brief conversa­tion.

  'It's rough out there.'

  'What-can-you-expect-for-humans?'

  After that remark, there seemed to be little point in continuing. They both retreated into the elevator and rode up to Phaid's room. Phaid took off his jacket and threw it on the bed.

  'So how did you enjoy your little adventure?'

  Abrella-Lu smiled at him. She seemed to have reco­vered completely and was now a picture of calm and collection, albeit a little dishevelled.

  'It was different.'

  'You realise we were almost killed at least three times.'

  'You have to live dangerously if you want to have any fun.'

  'I think I'd rather do without fun and live a little longer.'

  'So why did you want to go on the street? You could have stayed safe inside Roni-Vows' place.'

  Phaid spread his hands.

  'How should I know? Maybe it was the effect of the scholomine.'

  Abrella-Lu's eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared.

  'Scholomine? You had scholomine? How come you didn't give me any, you bastard.'

  'It wasn't mine. Roni-Vows gave it to me.'

  'You still could of got me some.'

  'He wasn't doing take away orders. He just gave me a hit and that was that.'

  'I just love scholomine. I think I might even kill for it.'

  'It turns you blind in the end.'

  'Who cares?'

  Phaid did his best to make up for his lack of drugs.

  'I've got a bottle stashed somewhere.'

  'I want scholomine.'

  Phaid was starting to become bored with the spoiled brat act.

  'We don't have any.'

  'We could get some.'

  'Huh?'

  'We could get some.'

  'You really think I'm about to go into that mess outside to cop you some drugs?'

  'We could send an android.'

  Phaid didn't have an answer to that. He didn't like to admit to Abrella-Lu that his funds were limited. Phaid reluctantly picked up the comset and gave his room number.

  'Do you have an android that could go out on an errand for us?'

  'There-is-a-riot-going-on-outside.'

  'No androids, huh?'

  'They-will-go-but-it-will-cost-extra.'

  Phaid scowled. There was something particularly offen­sive about being gouged by an android.

  'Okay, I'll pay.'

  'What-do-you-require?'

  'A vial of scholomine.'

  Abrella-Lu's voice piped up behind him. 'And a couple of twists of dog gold, and a bottle.'

  There was a pause at the other end of the line.

  'Is there some sort of problem?'

  'We-don't-have-many-requests-for-scholomine. I-will-have-to-check-with-the-bellboy-to-ascertain-if-he-knows-how-to-obtain-it.'

  'I'll hold.'

  Phaid waited. Eventually the android voice came back.

  'The-bellboy-knows-how-to-obtain-the-substance-what-quantity-do-you-require?'

  'Just a single vial.'

  'Are-you-aware-of-the-cost?'

  'I think so, but you'd better tell me anyway.'

  'My-bellhop-informs-me-that-it-will-be-three-hundred-for-a-single-vial.'

  Phaid pulled a face and wondered silently if Abrella-Lu was worth three hundred plus the cost of the bottle. After the journey back to the hotel, he would have been quite happy to curl up in his bed with just the bottle for company. On the other hand, the first hit of scholomine that Roni-Vows had given him had been sufficiently interesting to make him want to try some more.

  'Okay, I guess you better tell him to go get it. We'll be waiting.'

  'Very-well.'

  Phaid broke the connection and, feeling a little weary, he looked at Abrella-Lu, who was sitting on the bed beside him.

  'The scholomine's on the way.'

  She leaned over and pressed her lips to his cheek.

  'Now we can really have some fun.'

  'Let's hope it's less dangerous than the last lot.'

  'What's the matter with you? I thought you were a gambler. Do you always want to be so safe?'

  'Safe? No. Live a few months longer? Yes.'

  'You're impossible.'

  'I just ordered you the scholomine, didn't I?'

  Abrella-Lu grinned.

  'That's true.'

  Her expression changed and she glanced around the small hotel room.

  'Do you have a clean-off booth? I feel kind of grimy after all those streets and rooftops.'

  Phaid indicated the room's only other door.


  'You'll find everything you need.'

  'I doubt I'll find everything I need, but I'll probably get myself freshened up a bit.'

  The statement was accompanied by the hint of a leer, then she gestured towards the entertainment unit.

  'While I'm gone, you could try to find us some music on that thing.'

  Phaid nodded and Abrella-Lu made her exit. Obedient­ly, he squatted down in front of the entertainment unit and fiddled with the controls. On the fourth try he got a rather more restrained version of the kind of music he'd first heard in the ballroom of the marikh line train. With a music programme set up, he finally dimmed the lights and waited for Abrella-Lu to reappear from her toilet.

  He waited for nearly twenty minutes. During that time, the android bellhop delivered the drugs. Phaid paid him and noticed, with some concern, just how big a bite it took out of his rapidly dwindling cash reserves. He knew that cruising on the periphery of the court wasn't making him any money and that he would have to do something to pump up his finances pretty damn soon. He wasn't exactly sure, however, how he was going to do it.

  When Abrella-Lu had finally emerged, she was naked apart from her jewellery and one torn stocking held up by a garter. She immediately pounced on the vial of scholo-mine and greedily dropped the chemical into both eyes. For a while, she lay back gasping as the initial rush hit her, but once the full force of it faded, she turned her attention to Phaid. She led him to the bed and, for the next hour, she demonstrated her extreme versatility.

  There seemed to be something inside Abrella-Lu that simply wouldn't keep still. Directly her mind and body had used up one sensation she immediately wanted to move on to a new one. There was no place in her life for standing still or taking stock. She lived from moment to moment without any apparent thought for either past or future.

  Even though he'd used rather more modest amounts of the drug, Phaid quickly discovered that sex on scholomine was a truly mind wrenching experience. It had spun him at random from pleasure to pain, out on to the furthest reaches of fantasy and jolted him into abrasive reality. Phaid found himself unable to exert any control over what was going on. He had the distinct feeling that Abrella-Lu was playing him like a fish on a line.

  At the end of what seemed like a century, Phaid fell back, half on the bed and half on the floor, totally satiated. After much too short a while, he realised with surprise and some consternation that Abrella-Lu wanted to start on some new game. She lay sprawled on the bed, arms cradling her head, legs spread, one knee raised. Slowly and reflectively, she chewed on a twist of dog gold and stared at the series of hallucinations that rainbowed their way across the ceiling.

  'Why don't we invite another man over?'

  Phaid stopped what he was doing. He'd been less than successfully trying to poor them two more drinks. The combination of booze, dog gold and scholomine had left him unsteady on his feet. His co-ordination was shot and his sense of spacial relationship had packed up and gone home for the duration.

  'So I'm not enough for you?'

  'I thought maybe you and him could do it and I could watch. I like to watch men perform on each other. There's a very special symmetry about it.'

  Phaid shook his head.

  'Symmetry? I don't think I could perform with some other man. Not even for the sake of symmetry.'

  'If you don't want to get another man over, why don't we get another woman up here? Then you could watch us doing it, and afterwards, I could watch you and her. What do you think about that?'

  Phaid sat wearily down on the bed.

  'It sounds better than another man.'

  'You would say that. Who do you think we should get?'

  'How should I know?'

  'The easiest thing would be to tell the bellhop to fetch us a prostitute.'

  Phaid sighed at the thought of another blow to his available cash. He knew that the scholomine had long since peaked and all that he really wanted to do was to fall asleep for a couple of days.

  'Yeah.'

  'Is that all you've got to say?'

  'I think so. I'm kind of tired.'

  Abrella-Lu looked surprised.

  'Tired? You'll soon get over that. If we payed the whore a bit extra, I expect we could get to beat her. Have you ever beaten a woman? I have, men too. Pain is so fashionable at the moment. Of course, to be fair, I had to let a few people do it to me as well. I can't actually put my hand on my heart and say that it was the greatest, but I suppose it was an experience.'

  Phaid didn't have the energy to interrupt Abrella-Lu's flow of words, he wondered if she had sneaked yet another dropper of scholomine while he'd been looking the other way.

  'Of course, the only trouble with hiring a prostitute would be that we don't have enough drugs to get her into the same state as us, but what the hell, she'll be getting paid so it ought to be up to her to fake it. Don't you think so?'

  Phaid felt dizzy. Was there no stopping this woman.

  'Maybe.'

  'On the other hand, we could call up someone we know. That way we wouldn't have to pay anything.'

  'That might be a good idea.'

  'It must be quite a novelty being poor.'

  'Take it from me, it isn't.'

  'Maybe we should call up Edelline-Lan. She's incred­ibly adaptable. She'd probably be a lot better than a whore. She can come up with such brilliant ideas. That's the trouble with whores. They don't have any imagina­tion. All they want to do is work to the script. It's all so tedious and predictable.'

  She rolled over and reached for the comset.

  'Edelline-Lan and hurry up about it.'

  There was a pause.

  'Get Edelline-Lan on the set, will you?'

  Phaid presumed she was talking to Hud-n, Edelline-Lan's android butler.

  'I don't think I'm very popular with Edelline-Lan right at this moment.'

  Abrella-Lu waved away the suggestion.

  'She gets over things pretty quickly.' Her voice abruptly switched tone. 'Hello, darling, it's me, Abrella-Lu.'

  Pause.

  'No, I can't switch on the vision. This is audio only. I'm in this nasty little hotel near the line terminal. I'm playing with Phaid.'

  Pause.

  'That's right, Phaid. Yeah, he's okay except we've just about run out of ideas and we want you to come over and liven things up.'

  Pause.

  'What do you mean, you've just got back from a party? I thought you were a woman who knew how to enjoy yourself.'

  There was a much longer pause.

  'Listen, darling, I know the streets are like a battle ground. I've been out in it all. On foot, even. Phaid had to shoot two cops.'

  Phaid quickly sat up.

  'What the hell are you telling her that for? She could get me arrested and probably killed.'

  Abrella-Lu put her hand over the comset.

  'She'd never do a thing like that.'

  'I wouldn't like to stake my life on it.'

  'Don't be paranoid.' She turned her attention back to Edelline-Lan. 'What's that darling? . . . you aren't com­ing over? . . . that's a pretty poor excuse . . . yes . . . I'll tell him ... all I can say is that I'm very disappointed.'

  She pushed the comset away from her and rolled back to face Phaid.

  'It seems that we have to go back to the prostitute idea. Edelline-Lan says that it's almost impossible to move around the streets. New flare-ups keep breaking out all over the city. A lot of people are saying that it's actually the start of the revolution.

  She tilted her head to one side.

  'Do you think it could be a revolution?'

  'It could be anything.'

  'I think that's rather exciting.'

  'Revolution?'

  'The fact that we're in this cheap little hotel, fucking our brains out and taking drugs while the outside world is falling to pieces. It's awesomely romantic. I think I'll definitely get a prostitute.'

  'Maybe they've all gone off to fight for the revolution.'

&n
bsp; 'Nonsense. Whatever happens, there will always be hookers.'

  For the second time she reached for the comset and started giving detailed instructions.

  The girl who eventually arrived was no great beauty. She had a skinny, washed out look. Her large, dark rimmed and heavily made-up eyes had a dull furtiveness about them that told of too many cheap hustles and too many rough pairs of hands. The colour job on her hair, a garish fluorescent green, was so cheap that it was turning black at the roots. Following a current street fad, a mass of tiny glowing diodes had been threaded into the piled up mass of hair, but even about a third of those had burnt out. Phaid decided the kindest thing would be to pay her and then let her take the rest of the night off.

  Abrella-Lu didn't see it that way, however. She im­mediately went into a huddle with the girl, going into great detail over the sexual scenario that she expected her to follow. The girl listened with attention, but a lethargic lack of emotion. She told them that her name was Chordene, but beyond that she volunteered nothing ex­cept a total, resigned passivity. In a lot of ways, Chordene reminded Phaid of the much more amateur, but equally listless Sarli, with whom he'd connected briefly on the crawler out of Freeport. Phaid felt sorry for her. He wondered who or what had made her go out to turn a trick on this riot-torn night. He also felt sorry for himself. After spending the previous night in similar athletics with Edel­hne-Lan, then going through Roni-Vows' party, the riot and another bout of vigorous sex, Phaid had reached the point of total exhaustion. Abrella-Lu woundn't, however, take no for an answer. She dosed him with more scholo­mine and the bleary, throbbing moist and occasionally painful games started all over again; games that became increasingly complicated now that she had two other people to deal with instead of just one.

  When it was finally over, Phaid lay limp and totally drained. Abrella-Lu, however, was far from through. She picked up the almost empty scholomine vial and dropped even more into her eyes. She offered some to Phaid, but he declined, so instead she gave the last of the drug to Chordene. In the first talkative rush, she came up with yet another plan. She and Chordene should go out and work the streets a twosome for the rest of the night, Chordene for the money and Abrella-Lu for kicks. With a blast of scholomine inside her, Chordene seemed much more eager to go along with Abrella-Lu's crazy plans. They tried to persuade Phaid to join them. This time he couldn't be swayed or bullied. There was nothing, short of a strait-jacket and four burly men to carry him, that would get him down on to the streets again. His final act was to pay off the prostitute and see the two women out the door. Then he dropped on to the rumpled and destroyed bed and almost immediately fell into a deep and thankful sleep.