The Productions of Time

by John Brunner

  "Thank you." She drank thirstily, downing half the juice in one gulp, and leaned back in the chair again. "Yes. Well . . . I thought I might ask you because you've been rather nice to me, and you seem to have more -- Oh, this is ridiculous, but I can't think of any other way to put it! You've got more initiative than the rest have. I mean, everybody but you seems to be so passive, sort of chained to a routine. This isn't what I was expecting. You know? Just work all day, half-hearted gossip all evening, and that's it. I don't feel I've gotten to know anybody. I don't feel that anybody is excited, or even more than vaguely interested in what we're doing -- except you. You've poked around and asked awkward questions and found the tape recorders in the beds and things -- Am I making sense?" She broke off and looked at him with barely veiled fear.

  "All kinds of sense," Murray said grimly. "Go on."

  She emptied her glass and set it down beside her. "You know something? Ever since you showed me that weird gadget in my bed, I've been worrying and worrying. Nobody else seems to care. They just pretend to be bored if you mention it, don't they? But every night when I go to bed I turn down the sheet and -- and I cut a little bit of wire joining the mattress to the tape recorder. With my manicure scissors." She laughed. "Isn't it silly? But the idea of that thing unwinding all night under my head -- it just bothers me. Is something wrong?"

  "No. No, quite the opposite." Murray was staring at the far wall, his eyes unfocused. There was something vitally important at the edge of his mind, triggered by her words. "I do the same, only more so. I keep pulling the wire embroidery off my mattress and throwing it away. It's always put back, but it must be a damned nuisance. Which is why I'm doing it, I guess. I want to make Delgado lose his temper and admit what it's for."

  "You're sure he was lying when he said it was -- ?" She fumbled for the word.

  "Hypnopaedia? Of course I'm sure. Even Lester said so when I showed the stuff to him. But he doesn't take it seriously. Says it's some kind of pseudoscientific magic that Delgado believes in.

  She licked her lips. "Could I have another glass of that fruit juice? I'm still thirsty."

  "Surely." He rose to get it for her, opened a second can, and left it near her.

  "Is the fact that you've turned your television to the wall something else to do with Delgado?" she asked at length.

  "Very clever of you," Murray said dryly. "Lester found some more electronic gadgetry in there. It's permanently on, and you can't turn it off. I have this ridiculous feeling it's watching me. So -- " He grimaced and shrugged.

  "Yes. I know what you mean." Her voice was very serious. "But what's it for? What's the idea? I can't get anybody to help me wonder!"

  "I don't know," Murray said. "All I do know is that Delgado is far more concerned about things of that kind than he is about his play or losing money or anything else straightforward. Was that what you wanted to talk about, by the way?"

  "No." She drained her glass again and reached for the second can. On the verge of pouring from it, she glanced at him. "Oh -- am I taking your whole supply?"

  "Go ahead. Drink all you want. I haven't touched it yet, and somebody might as well use it up."

  "Thanks. It's very good, actually." She filled her glass. "Do you want some?"

  He shook his head. "Go on. It's a relief to find there's someone else worried about the same things as I am."

  "Well -- not entirely," she corrected. The color came back to her cheeks, brighter than when she entered the room. "What I'm desperately trying to decide is whether I shouldn't call it off and leave here. Like I told you, I can't kid myself I'm benefiting from a unique and exciting experience. Not now. I set such store by this, you know! I've been for auditions and I've pulled all the strings I could. Not many, of course, but there were people I got to know at the Gourlay School, and a few people who were in rep with me who'd got to the West End or into films, and I put as much pressure on as I possibly could. And then suddenly this turns up -- a Delgado play, the sort of thing people talk about in the same breath as Beckett or Ionesco, and a part specially written -- well, that was the interpretation I put on the offer when it was made. Did you notice the stars in my eyes when I got here?"

  "I seem to recall I tried to put some of them out," Murray said in a gray voice.

  "It was just as well. I ought to have thanked you for it, really." She sipped and went on sipping at her glass of juice. "If I hadn't had some warning that I was fooling myself, I'd have been much more let down when I worked it out on my own."

  Murray gave her a curious glance. Her words were quickening and the nervousness was going out of her manner, to be replaced by a puzzling uncharacteristic emotionality. Making a wild guess at the reason for it, he said, "You don't just want to ask me whether you should stay or not. If that were all, you probably would decide to stay, for your original reasons. To watch a Delgado play come alive from nothing is a chance a lot of people would like, isn't it?"

  She gave a harsh laugh. Putting down her glass -- empty for the third time now -- she retrieved her unfinished cigarette, straightened it, and lit it with her own match. Something seemed to catch her attention as she did this, and she cocked her head as though considering what it had been, but she gave up after only a few moments.

  Unexpectedly, she giggled. "Oh dear!" she said. "I suppose it isn't at all funny really, and when I came in I was taking it very seriously indeed, but actually it's so silly." She looked alarmed for a second, put her knuckles to her mouth, and failed to repress a loud burp.

  "Goodness, what's come over me?" she demanded of the air. "That stuff must be gassy, I suppose. I didn't think -- oh, never mind."

  Got it. Murray sighed and relaxed a little. The explanation for this odd behavior was so simple he ought to have found it immediately. She's obviously been trying to lubricate her problem with a few drinks before she came to see him. Now they were catching up with her.

  He scowled to himself. Still, he was the last person entitled to read a lecture on temperance -- and not everyone was unfortunate enough to slip from social drinker to lush.

  He said with patience, "Heather, it's no good making me guess what you're talking about."

  She looked surprised. "Haven't I told you yet? I'm sorry. Ida says she's in love with me and wants me to go to bed with her."

  "Weren't you expecting her to?" Murray said blankly. He'd never known Ida to beat about the bush for long; she had a positively masculine impatience with preliminaries. And he'd assumed, too, that Heather was as aware as anyone of the situation. She was young, but she wasn't exactly a convent schoolgirl.

  As her next remark underlined. She giggled again. "Murray, it's impossible to take her seriously, isn't it? I mean, she isn't a bad actress, but when it comes to trying not to act -- you know, saying something she really means -- she doesn't seem to know how any longer. She sounds as if she's still putting on an act -- Oh, God!"

  Her voice changed completely between words. She put down her cigarette not quite in the ashtray, but to one side of it, and when it rolled on the table she didn't pay attention; she was staring straight ahead of her.

  "Murray, I feel dreadfully giddy. I think I'm going to pass out," she said with extreme clarity. "I feel drunk. But how can I possibly be drunk? I haven't had anything all evening except some lager with dinner, and one glass of lager -- Oh, God."

  She tried to pull herself to her feet, her face drained of all its color now.

  "Murray, you couldn't have . . . No, please, you didn't!"

  She was waving her arms as though trying to get a grip on the air and pull her body out of the chair. "Oh, I feel so sick."

  Murray moved quickly, rising to his feet, helping her out of the chair, making her stumble across the room to the washbasin, turning the cold water on so that she could suck at the tap and then bend over the white porcelain, her mouth gaping. He left her struggling to vomit and went to pick up the unfinished can of fruit juice on the table. He sniffed at it, spilled a little into the palm of his han
d, and with a terrible sense of doom tasted it. The tartness of the juice masked it well, but there was no doubt of what the cans had been spiked with. Just possibly an unflavored spirit like vodka, but still more likely raw alcohol.

  Heather would get over it. But if Murray himself had opened one of those cans, he might as well have been drinking cyanide.

  XIX

  For a fearful moment, Murray's mind was crowded with visions of a possible future. If Delgado were so eager to -- well, the phrase was true enough -- poison him, where would he stop? The tins remaining in the cupboard looked as innocuous as those he had opened for Heather; he scrutinized them and saw no hint of tampering.

  What should he do? Take one of the cans and offer it to Blizzard as evidence -- of something which Blizzard might refuse to believe? The cans need not all contain alcohol; he might by chance have selected the only two, because they were placed in front of the others and fell under the hand.

  And where next? In the glass of lime juice and soda brought to him at dinner by Valentine? Running out of the taps over the washbasin? There was no knowing, and therefore Murray felt himself to be in a kind of Dracula's castle, where from now on every shadow would hold a threat.

  And it was shadows he had to contend with. There was a grand absurdity in trying to poison an ex-alcoholic with alcohol. Murray had seen this on Blizzard's face when he was presented with Dr. Cromarty's certificate. To stay and argue things out offered little hope. He would have to run, and the hell with everything. He felt sick with terror.

  Behind him, Heather turned dizzily away from the washbasin; there was a sour smell in the air, and she had left the cold tap running to wash away what she had brought up. He moved to steady her as she went toward the bed.

  "Leave me alone," she said. "Oh God, leave me alone. I mean it."

  "Heather, I didn't spike what you drank," Murray said. "It was meant for me, not you."

  She didn't reply. Possibly she couldn't. If the single taste Murray had taken was any guide, she must have drunk the equivalent of a tumblerful of 100-proof liquor in less than ten minutes, and even if she had vomited back half -- which he doubted -- it would have hit her hard.

  She half fell on the bed, one leg trailing to the floor, her head pillowed on her arms. Her breathing was thick and irregular, and after a few moments she started to moan softly.

  Murray clenched his hands by his sides. Running was only half the answer. He had been so blinded by his own plight that he had forgotten the obvious. Delgado wouldn't be concerned solely with Murray but with the corruption of everyone in his temporary domain. The plainest example was here before his eyes, wasn't it?

  He had to think. He had to plan. Somehow he had to get himself out, and Heather too, and if humanly possible he had to prevent Delgado repeating this --

  Click.

  Paris. Garrigue's suicide. He had been going to call Roger Grady.

  With sweating hands he picked up the phone and told the smooth-voiced steward to try the number again. Then, waiting for the call to go through, he locked the door after a cautious glance both ways along the passage. No one was in sight.

  He came back and sat by the phone, his mind once again itching with a point Heather had suggested by implication. She had said she too broke the connection to the tape recorder under the pillow. . . .

  He gasped, jumping to his feet. As though she were a baby, he lifted her up and turned her bodily around on the bed. She didn't protest. He gently moved aside her feet, so that he could raise the pillows. Yes, the usual had happened. What he had stripped off last night had been duly replaced. It was the merest guess that it might affect the sleeper's head, but it made better sense than any alternative.

  Some sort of -- electric field? Lester compared the pattern of wires to a field antenna --

  The phone rang. He seized it, and could barely speak when he heard Roger's familiar tones.

  "Roger, thank God! Murray here!"

  "Oh, you!" The line was not very good, but he could picture the movement that went with the words -- a kind of drawing together. "What the hell do you want at this time of night? You realize that as a result of your poking Burnett in the jaw last week he's mounting a kind of hate campaign against not just the Delgado play but everything with a spark of intelligence that's -- "

  "Roger, shut up and let me talk. There isn't likely to be a Delgado play the way things are going."

  "I already have that impression," Roger grunted. "I don't know what strings Burnett's been pulling, but they work. You may not get the Margrave after all."

  "The hell with that. Will you listen ? Roger, this man Delgado is a lunatic. I am not exaggerating. Delgado is a certifiable maniac and ought to be in an asylum. In the past week we've had catastrophes enough to last most productions through a year's run. He's had a fit of pique and torn up the first draft and been cooled down by Sam -- "

  "In that case what are you worrying about?"

  "Roger," Murray said in a tight voice, "unless you let me finish, I'll climb down this phone and strangle you with the cord. Gerry Hoading has come within inches of killing himself because Delgado's got him unlimited quantities of uncut heroin. The place is full of all kinds of incomprehensible electronic gadgetry which Lester Harkham says is just a load of mystical rubbish. But I'm not sure, because . . ."

  His voice trailed away. He'd spotted the point he'd almost caught from Heather. Besides himself, she was the only person asking awkward questions about the setup. She was in the habit of disconnecting the tape recorder under her pillow. She, Ida, and Gerry Hoading were the only people apart from Lester to whom he'd directly demonstrated the existence of the gadgets. And, except for Blizzard, these were also the people who seemed least under Delgado's spell, readiest to talk back to him, or to listen to Murray.

  Coincidence?

  "Hello, hello!" Roger was saying irritably. Murray came back to the here and now.

  "Yes -- well, that's not all. There's a girl here who apparently wasn't hired for the play at all -- just to be seduced by Ida. Laid on the same way as Gerry's horse and a library of dirty books for Constant Baines. And topping the lot, as far as I'm concerned, someone -- I don't see it can be anyone else except Delgado -- is trying to get me back on the bottle. I don't mean pressing me openly. I mean spiking cans of fruit juice and leaving them in my room."

  "Murray, is this true?"

  "Do you want to come out here and have it proved? I'd be crazy with relief if someone came and poked around and proved what I suspect. Right now, I -- well, I'm doubting my own sanity half the time."

  "Hmmm . . ." from Roger.

  "Roger, you're keeping something back, damn you! Spit it out. God knows, it's late enough!"

  He was almost panting with impatience when Roger finally made up his mind.

  "Yes, I suppose I am. I mean, I didn't believe it before, but -- did I tell you why Léa Martinez wound up in the bin after the Paris production of Trois Fois?"

  "No. You dropped some heavy hints, and I was too glad to have the offer of a decent job to pick them up. Go on."

  "She claimed that Delgado was persecuting her and trying to drive her insane. If he was, he did a damned good job. Listen, Murray -- you know why I didn't spell this out to you, don't you?"

  "Yes," Murray said bitterly. "It's something I appear to be pretty good at myself."

  "I was afraid you'd say that. So I kept my mouth shut."

  Roger hesitated. "Damn it, though, Murray! If the place is as much of a madhouse as you claim, how come Sam Blizzard -- or Ida and Ade, for that matter -- how come everyone else is putting up with it? Is the gun supposed to be pointing just at your head and no one else's?"

  "No. But -- " Murray checked, biting his lip. How to explain his weird suspicions about Delgado's methods? "Roger, I can't give you details over the phone. I'm going to try and get away. I don't know if I'll be able to -- "

  "What?"

  "I'm still not kidding. 'The grounds are fenced all around -- chain-link fe
ncing with three strands of barbed wire -- and the main gate is locked every night at eleven. I may have to leave the car and sneak out on foot."

  "Murray, I'm beginning not to believe you now."

  "Oh, Jesus!" Murray repressed an urge to throw the phone at the wall. "Well, will this satisfy you? If I get out at all, I'll head for a doctor's place in the nearest village. I met him the other day, and he's a very reasonable guy. Make a note of him, will you? The village is called -- uh -- Bakesford, I think, and the doctor's name is Cromarty. Got that?"

  "Yes."

  "Roger, don't think I'm quitting easily. But I think we're all set for a repeat of what happened with Delgado in Paris, and I don't want to be another Jean-Paul Garrigue."

  "Anybody would think Delgado was a reincarnation of the Marquis de Sade," Roger said heavily. "All right, Murray, I believe you -- mostly. I know how much you wanted that job, and I guess things must have got really bad to make you cry uncle. But you realize that if you quit, you'll be in bad with Sam?"