The Productions of Time

by John Brunner

  "Are you crazy?" Constant said, drawing his eyebrows together.

  "God damn it, you idiot! Gerry's got a load of horse in there, and he told me himself that if things went badly he'd overdose himself. You going to stand by while he lies dying?"

  Constant's face paled. He answered by crossing the width of the corridor to stand beside Murray.

  "All right, use your shoulder," Murray said curtly. "Hard as you can. On three -- one, two, three!"

  They hit the door almost together, and the lock ripped jaggedly from the wood of the jamb. There was a long second in which Gerry was turning around from the table on which he had laid out his tackle -- an enamel dish with a syringe in it, a jar of white powder identical to the one he had given Murray for safekeeping, and a tiny spirit lamp. In his hand was a cheap teaspoon with the handle bent at an odd angle; his left shirt-sleeve was rolled back above the elbow and his tie was knotted around his arm to swell the veins.

  Then Murray had snatched at the spoon, spilling the few drops of liquid it held, and was forcing the hysterical man back toward the bed.

  He shrieked and struck out at random until Constant managed to pinion his arms; then Murray slapped him on the cheeks and the fury dimmed in his eyes.

  "So it was going to be your second shot," Murray said after a brief silence. He pointed at a tiny smear of blood already oozing in Gerry's arm.

  "Damn you," Gerry said thinly. "Get out. Both of you, get out."

  "Not yet." Murray turned to the table, picked up the jar of heroin and put its screw cap on. "Constant, look around the room. Make sure there isn't any more of this stuff."

  Constant eyed the jar in his hand. He said, "Isn't that enough? Christ, I've never seen so much of it!"

  "He gave me another jar this size to hide from him. Where there are two, there may be a dozen. Start looking."

  "Damn you," Gerry said again. "Get out of my room." But he was lying back on the cover of the bed now, apparently exhausted. Sweat was running on his white face.

  Constant didn't say anything, but turned and began to open and rummage in drawers. Murray went to the other side of the room and checked every place he could think of. He drew a blank, as did Constant.

  He cast a glance at Gerry, whose eyes were closed now. The first shot had finally hit him, and he would sleep for an hour or so.

  "Okay," he said. "I guess he'll be all right. But let's take this gear in case he's shamming." He picked up the enamel dish with the syringe, and the spoon from the floor, and blew out the spirit lamp.

  Constant nodded, and followed him into the corridor. He seemed to be trying to form words. At length he managed to get them out.

  "Uh -- Murray, I guess I should apologize. I don't honestly see why Delgado was so angry with you. I oughtn't to have jumped down your throat."

  "If I'd not been so taken aback, I'd have jumped down his first," Murray said. "But thanks anyway."

  Constant swallowed hard. His eyes riveted on the jar of powder Murray still held. "I -- uh -- I guess you saved Gerry's life by stopping him from taking a second shot. That right?"

  "I don't know," Murray said uncomfortably. "Possibly." Hefting the jar, he added, "There's enough to kill a regiment in here. He said he was getting it uncut. And you know Rogers killed himself with a shot of uncut horse, when he wasn't used to it."

  "But where did he get the stuff?" Constant demanded. "I swear he couldn't afford that much! Not that I know much about this game, you realize," he added hastily. "But one hears things."

  Murray was on the point of answering but checked himself. He had just spotted something over Constant's shoulder, through the half-open door of room eleven. A book, lying on the bedside table.

  "May I look?" he said, and without waiting for permission went into the room. He set down the things he held and took up the book. He turned to the title page and read aloud.

  "Justine: or the Misfortunes of the Virtuous, by the Marquis de Sade, newly translated into English by -- " He broke off and stared at Constant before resuming. "By Algernon Charles Swinburne. With one hundred illustrations by various hands. London, privately printed, 1892."

  Constant flushed and spoke in a self-excusing tone. "It's not mine -- I found it here when I arrived. I didn't know it existed. Some of the drawings look like Beardsley."

  Murray turned a few of the pages. Then he dropped that book and bent to examine a shelf similar to the one in his own room. Its contents were very different. Juliette was here as well, and The 120 Days of Sodom . Miller's Rosy Crucifixion. A very handsome Fanny Hill. And at least a dozen more be had never heard of, with titles like Flagitiosa and Put it Down to Exqueerience .

  "You're -- uh -- " Constant had to swallow again. "You're welcome to borrow any of them you care to."

  "No thanks." Murray straightened. "I have enough trouble with my own little weakness without acquiring someone else's."

  "Don't be so bloody superior, Murray!" Constant snapped.

  "Sorry." Murray picked up the syringe and the jar of heroin again. "But you were asking how Gerry got his supply of horse. The same way you got those books. He found the stuff in his room. The same way I found enough liquor to tempt a saint when I arrived. You know something, Constant? If you opened up Delgado's skull, I think you'd find he has a sewer instead of a brain."

  XIII

  Very carefully, Murray balanced the enamel dish and the second jar of heroin behind the curtain valance. He still hadn't come up with a better idea. He stood back, letting his hands fall to his sides, and was abruptly aware of great weakness. He discovered an ache in the shoulder with which he had charged the door, and as though the ache were spreading into his very mind the trend of his thoughts grew dark.

  What'll happen? Tomorrow, will one of these damned black-garbed stewards simply take another jar and another syringe and leave them for Gerry to find, without a word?

  He took out a cigarette and began to pace the floor. That must have happened already. What other explanation was there? Gerry couldn't have afforded to buy one such jar of heroin, let alone two. It was on the house.

  He felt sick. There was a calculated nastiness in this affair which he was sure could only have originated with Delgado. "His method of working" -- ugh! What did it really consist in: rubbing the nerves of his actors raw?

  For the first time, he began seriously to consider the chance of contacting someone who had worked on Trois Fois ŕ la Fois .

  And yet . . . some of the cast seemed improbably eager to jump when Delgado cracked his whip. Take the way in which Constant had swallowed the author's nonsense and copied him in blaming Murray for the catastrophe. Granted, Constant had apologized. But it had taken the shock of seeing Gerry in danger to make him think of being ashamed. Otherwise he wouldn't have opened his mouth, except to make a few more snide cracks.

  Even Adrian, the most experienced member of the cast in Murray's view, hadn't contradicted Delgado's ill-tempered attack. Only Ida had done so -- and Heather, but she was irrelevant.

  His thoughts went back to the line he had been following when, down in the theater, he had heard Gerry's door close. He'd been telling himself then that it was as if Heather were merely "on the house" for Ida, like Gerry's drugs, Constant's pornography, the liquor he'd been tempted with.

  It wasn't so silly, that idea. Except -- what was the purpose behind it all?

  Oh, damn Delgado, the temperamental bastard! Murray strode to the bed. There was only one thing he'd been able to do so far to kid himself that he was hitting back. That was his regular routine of stripping the metal embroidery off his mattress. He'd done it automatically every night since making his discovery, and just as automatically when the bed was made during the morning. But every day, either the metal was replaced or a new mattress was found. Today it had happened again -- there was the gleaming tracery of wire under the bolster.

  Murray ripped it off. But this time he didn't stop there. He opened the hinged panel concealing the tape recorder, twisted the spools
off the turrets, and went to the window. Holding the spool which had less tape, he tossed the other out, discus-fashion. It flew a satisfyingly long distance, unreeling a brown tail like a carnival streamer. Then he threw the other one, and slammed the window.

  It made him feel better. But it was still a pretty childish gesture. He stubbed his cigarette and took a grip on himself.

  Unless he made sense out of what Delgado was doing before tomorrow, there was going to be hell to pay. The resentment the rest of the cast felt against Murray -- conjured up on the author's say-so, but fierce enough despite that -- had only started to smolder. If tomorrow's work went as badly as one could expect, the resentment would blaze. It might ruin the entire venture. But Murray had a vague conviction that Delgado wouldn't give a damn.

  Then what was he after? Murray considered the remote possibility that Delgado wasn't interested in putting a play together at all; he was a character out of one of Constant's books, getting his kicks by making people squirm, with enough money behind him from this Argentine billionaire not to mind if thousands of pounds were squandered.

  No, it was too far-fetched. He had made a film which secured critical acclaim. He had made a succčs fou out of the play with Garrigue . . .

  Memory interrupted, in Roger Grady's voice: "Because Garrigue killed himself. Because Léa Martinez went into an asylum. Because Claudette Myrin tried to murder her baby daughter."

  Would Roger be saying to someone else, next year or the year after, "Because Murray Douglas started drinking again. Because Gerry Hoading overdosed himself with horse. Because -- ?"

  No.

  He was sweating, and his hands were shaking. He drove his attention back to immediate problems. Suppose, for instance, he found himself in this same spot without having annoyed Delgado. Suppose he didn't know anything about the tape recorders in the beds or the mysterious additions to the TV sets.

  It didn't figure. It felt wrong. There wasn't any other sane reason why Delgado should have abandoned a play that was going like wildfire on such a specious excuse, except annoyance with the person he attacked. And the only thing Murray had done to upset Delgado was to ask about the tape recorders.

  Murray was going to look further into this. He had no notion what he might learn, but he had to do something, and no alternative offered itself.

  Where to begin? He lit another cigarette and stared toward the wall beyond the TV set, the wall separating his room from number thirteen. The cable was secured now -- he'd tested it -- so he couldn't deliberately repeat his smashing of a pile of equipment in there. And the door was always locked. He'd checked that, too.

  But there was something at the edge of his mind .

  Got it. He went to the window, opened it, and craned out as far as he could. Yes, that was about right. If Gerry's room was over the middle of the seating in the theater and his own room was the end one, over the green rooms, then room thirteen must be directly over the stage.

  He wondered if he could get to the window of room thirteen, but had to abandon the idea at once. There was nothing to give him a grip on the outside wall; the windowsill was a mere ledge, and he could see clearly that the windows were tight shut. You'd need a ladder to get up there. Or a drainpipe? No, there wasn't one within reach.

  He went downstairs.

  He walked across the stage, having put on the auditorium lights, and looked up at the ceiling vaguely. He didn't know what to look for. Between the curtain and the flies the ceiling was in deep shadow, and he had to concentrate hard before he could establish details.

  It looked as though there was some kind of grille over the ceiling proper.

  Glancing about him, he spotted the chairs and tables with which Gerry had been improvising his two-level set. He measured distances with his eye. If he took up one more chair and set it on the highest table, he could easily reach the grille below the ceiling.

  He proceeded to do that.

  Something glinted beyond the grille. Bare wires -- or metal rods, perhaps; they were quite thick. He got out his lighter and by its wan flame peered and poked with his finger between the bars of the grille.

  He recognized nothing. Perhaps it was something akin to the metal embroidery on the mattresses. Curves, straight lines, spirals, all threw light back to him. They wove between the grille and the ceiling over the entire area of the stage, as far as he could make out --

  "What do you find so interesting, Murray?"

  Murray started and almost fell off his high perch, seizing the grille to steady himself. Below him, on the floor of the auditorium, stood Delgado. The sallow face was dark with rage, but the voice had been level enough.

  Murray paused. Then he gathered his wits and snapped, "If you don't know, Delgado, nobody else around here is likely to!"

  Delgado took half a pace back, as though from a physical jolt. He said, "Come down from there, Murray! There's delicate equipment up there, and you've smashed up quite enough already with your damned inquisitiveness!"

  Murray cocked an eyebrow. Having startled Delgado, he felt remarkably self-possessed. "Okay, I'll make a bargain with you," he proposed. "You tell me what this stuff is, and I'll stop prying. But I want the truth this time."

  Delgado's response was to mount the stage and lay one hand on the leg of a table supporting Murray. "If you don't come down, I'll pull this table over and bring you down. Don't think I can't do it."

  Remembering the casual strength with which Delgado had torn hundreds of sheets of paper, Murray recognized the value of the threat. There was no alternative to surrender.

  "Okay," he said resignedly. "I'll come down."

  Delgado stood back. He put his hands on his hips in a curiously womanish gesture as Murray descended.

  "I'm getting very tired of you, Murray," he said. "You seem to enjoy being a nuisance too much to appreciate that you're here, living comfortably, receiving excellent pay, with the chance of partaking in something which will make theatrical history -- "

  "Did you write your speech yourself?" Murray broke in. "Or is it collectively improvised?"

  For the second time in the space of minutes he had the unlooked-for satisfaction of discomforting Delgado. Muscles beneath the sallow skin tautened, and the voice took an edge of shrillness.

  "What were you doing when I interrupted you, Murray? Why have you been destroying things that don't belong to you? Why are you trying to make trouble?"

  "Because you're a very bad liar, Delgado, and an even worse actor." It was heartening to be able to assume command of the situation, and Murray seized the chance. "First lie: your story about sleep-learning wasn't true, so I decided to keep needling you to get at the truth. Second lie: your tantrum this afternoon, your saying that the work we'd done had been ruined by me, was so dishonest that even Ida saw through it. Third lie: all this crap about theatrical history! I don't believe you give a damn about creating a play. I think you're an evil little man with a dirty-minded lust for power, and it means more to you to have people dancing when you pull their strings than to achieve something artistically worthwhile. You may have convinced Sam Blizzard that you're genuine, and you've certainly got talent enough to build a masterpiece out of your material. But I tell you this straight! You won't get me groveling to you either with threats or bribes. You can feed Gerry his heroin and Constant his dirty books and maybe they'll think you're doing them a favor and be grateful. You won't get a hold on me like that. And if you put your mumbo-jumbo trickery in my bed and stuff mysterious gadgets into the TV sets and lie about what the things are for, you won't stop me digging for the truth. Not until you level with me. Do I make myself clear?"

  Delgado had heard him out with unwavering attention, his self-possession seeping back second by second. Now he gave a short laugh, and the sound made Murray's skin crawl.

  "You are a very insecure person, aren't you?" he said. "You have to talk so loudly to reassure yourself. You are afraid that something is going on which you don't understand. You feel that you have missed a c
lue somewhere, and the idea scares you. So you break things. You can't afford to run away, but breaking things gives you a sense of comforting power. And you shift blame to me because you can't face your own inadequacy. Though I'd have thought it was obvious even to you -- after all, it wasn't my fault you drank yourself into the gutter, was it? Still, you have some trace of spirit left. If you did not, I would not hesitate to tell Blizzard to get rid of you."

  "Your technique is showing," Murray said with scorn. "To dodge straight questions, you toss out insults, hoping I'll be distracted by a fit of temper. It won't work. You're doing something for which the play is only an excuse, and just so long as you continue to deny that I'll go on trying to prove it."

  "You're obstinate," Delgado said. "But I know what I'm doing, and you don't. I don't have to wonder which of us will yield first. As you wish, then. You will certainly suffer unnecessarily, especially when it becomes clear to all your colleagues that you are being deliberately obstructive. However, I can afford to throw you and anyone else aside."