Selected Stories of Alfred Bester

by Alfred Bester

  Height 5’6”

  Weight 110

  Hair Black

  EyesBlack

  Bust34

  Waist 26

  Hips36

  Size 12

  “I want the name and address of every girl over twenty-one who fits this description,” Strapp would say. “I’ll pay ten credits a name.”

  Twenty-four hours later would come the list, and off Strapp would chase on a possessed search, examining, talking, listening, sometimes making the terrifying pass, always paying off like a gentleman. The procession of tall, jet-haired, inky-eyed, busty girls made Alceste dizzy.

  “He’s got an idee fix,” Alceste told Fisher in the Cygnus Splendide, “and I got it figured this much. He’s looking for a special particular girl and nobody comes up to specifications.”

  “A girl named Kruger?”

  “I don’t know if the Kruger business comes into it.”

  “Is he hard to please?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you. Some of those girls—me, I’d call them sensational. But he don’t pay any mind to them. Just looks and moves on. Others—dogs, practically; he jumps like old Wasteland.”

  “What is it?”

  “I think it’s a kind of test. Something to make the girls react hard and natural. It ain’t that kind of passion with old Wasteland. It’s a cold-blooded trick so he can watch’em in action.”

  “But what’s he looking for?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Alceste said, “but I’m going to find out. I got a little trick figured. It’s taking a chance, but Johnny’s worth it.”

  It happened in the arena where Strapp and Alceste went to watch a pair of gorillas tear each other to pieces inside a glass cage. It was a bloody affair, and both men agreed that gorilla-fighting was no more civilized than cockfighting and left in disgust. Outside, in the empty concrete corridor, a shriveled man loitered. When Alceste signaled to him, he ran up to them like an autograph hound.

  “Frankie!” the shriveled man shouted. “Good old Frankie! Don’t you remember me?”

  Alceste stared.

  “I’m Blooper Davis. We was raised together in the old precinct. Don’t you remember Blooper Davis?”

  “Blooper!” Alceste’s face lit up. “Sure enough. But it was Blooper Davidoff then.”

  “Sure.” The shriveled man laughed. “And it was Frankie Kruger then.”

  “Kruger!” Strapp cried in a thin, screeching voice.

  “That’s right,” Frankie said. “Kruger. I changed my name when I went into the fight game.” He motioned sharply to the shriveled man, who backed against the corridor wall and slid away.

  “You sonofabitch!” Strapp cried. His face was white and twitched hideously. “You goddamned lousy murdering bastard! I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve waited ten years.”

  He whipped a flat gun from his inside pocket and fired. Alceste sidestepped barely in time and the slug ricocheted down the corridor with a high whine. Strapp fired again, and the flame seared Alceste’s cheek. He closed in, caught Strapp’s wrist and paralyzed it with his powerful grip. He pointed the gun away and clinched. Strapp’s breath was hissing. His eyes rolled. Overhead sounded the wild roars of the crowd.

  “All right, I’m Kruger,” Alceste grunted. “Kruger’s the name, Mr. Strapp. So what? What are you going to do about it?”

  “Sonofabitch!” Strapp screamed, struggling like one of the gorillas. “Killer! Murderer! I’ll rip your guts out!”

  “Why me? Why Kruger?” Exerting all his strength, Alceste dragged Strapp to a niche and slammed him into it. He caged him with his huge frame. “What did I ever do to you ten years ago?”

  He got the story in hysterical animal outbursts before Strapp fainted.

  After he put Strapp to bed, Alceste went out into the lush living room of the suite in the Indi Splendide and explained to the Staff.

  “Old Johnny was in love with a girl named Sima Morgan,” he began. “She was in love with him. It was big romantic stuff. They were going to be married. Then Sima Morgan got killed by a guy named Kruger.”

  “Kruger! So that’s the connection. How?”

  “This Kruger was a drunken no-good. Society. He had a bad driving record. They took his license away from him, but that didn’t make any difference to Kruger’s kind of money. He bribed a dealer and bought a hot-rod jet without a license. One day he buzzed a school for the hell of it. He smashed the roof in and killed thirteen children and their teacher... This was on Terra in Berlin.

  “They never got Kruger. He started planet-hopping and he’s still on the lam. The family sends him money. The police can’t find him. Strapp’s looking for him because the schoolteacher was his girl, Sima Morgan.”

  There was a pause, then Fisher asked, “How long ago was this?”

  “Near as I can figure, ten years eight months.”

  Fisher calculated intently. “And ten years three months ago, Strapp first showed he could make decisions. The Big Decisions. Up to then he was nobody. Then came the tragedy, and with it the hysteria and the ability. Don’t tell me one didn’t produce the other.”

  “Nobody’s telling you anything.”

  “So he kills Kruger over and over again,” Fisher said coldly. “Right. Revenge fixation. But what about the girls and the Wasteland business?”

  Alceste smiled sadly. “You ever hear the expression ‘One girl in a million?’”

  “Who hasn’t?”

  “If your girl was one in a million, that means there ought to be nine more like her in a city of ten million, yes?”

  The Strapp staff nodded, wondering.

  “Old Johnny’s working on that idea. He thinks he can find Sima Morgan’s duplicate.”

  “How?”

  “He’s worked it out arithmetic-wise. He’s thinking like so: There’s one chance in sixty-four billion of fingerprints matching. But today there’s seventeen hundred billion people. That means there can be twenty-six with one matching print, and maybe more.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Sure, not necessarily, but there’s the chance and that’s all old Johnny wants. He figures if there’s twenty-six chances of one print matching, there’s an outside chance of one person matching. He thinks he can find Sima Morgan’s duplicate if he just keeps on looking hard enough.”

  “That’s outlandish!”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t, but it’s the only thing that keeps him going. It’s a kind of life preserver made out of numbers. It keeps his head above water—the crazy notion that sooner or later he can pick up where death left him off ten years ago.”

  “Ridiculous!” Fisher snapped.

  “Not to Johnny. He’s still in love.”

  “Impossible.”

  “I wish you could feel it like I feel it,” Alceste answered. “He’s looking . . . looking. He meets girl after girl. He hopes. He talks. He makes the pass. If it’s Sima’s duplicate, he knows she’ll respond just the way he remembers Sima responding ten years ago. ‘Are you Sima?’ he asks himself. ‘No,’ he says and moves on. It hurts, thinking about a lost guy like that. We ought to do something for him.”

  “No,” Fisher said.

  “We ought to help him find his duplicate. We ought to coax him into believing some girl’s the duplicate. We ought to make him fall in love again.”

  “No,” Fisher repeated emphatically.

  “Why no?”

  “Because the moment Strapp finds his girl, he heals himself. He stops being the great John Strapp, the Decider. He turns back into a nobody—a man in love.”

  “What’s he care about being great? He wants to be happy.”

  “Everybody wants to be happy,” Fisher snarled. “Nobody is. Strapp’s no worse off than any other man, but he’s a lot richer. We maintain the status quo.”

  “Don’t you mean you’re a lot richer?”

  “We maintain the status quo,” Fisher repeated. He eyed Alceste coldly. “I think we’d better terminate the contract. We have no
further use for your services.”

  “Mister, we terminated when I handed back the check. You’re talking to Johnny’s friend now.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Alceste, but Strapp won’t have much time for his friends from now on. I’ll let you know when he’ll be free next year.”

  “You’ll never pull it off. I’ll see Johnny when and where I please.”

  “Do you want him for a friend?” Fisher smiled unpleasantly. “Then you’ll see him when and where I please. Either you see him on those terms or Strapp sees the contract we gave you. I still have it in the files, Mr. Alceste. I did not tear it up. I never part with anything. How long do you imagine Strapp will believe in your friendship after he sees the contract you signed?”

  Alceste clenched his fists. Fisher held his ground. For a moment they glared at each other, then Frankie turned away.

  “Poor Johnny,” he muttered. “It’s like a man being run by his tapeworm. I’ll say so long to him. Let me know when you’re ready for me to see him again.”

  He went into the bedroom, where Strapp was just awakening from his attack without the faintest memory, as usual. Alceste sat down on the edge of the bed.

  “Hey, old Johnny.” He grinned.

  “Hey, Frankie.” Strapp smiled.

  They punched each other solemnly, which is the only way that men friends can embrace and kiss.

  “What happened after that gorilla fight?” Strapp asked. “I got fuzzy.”

  “Man, you got plastered. I never saw a guy take on such a load.” Alceste punched Strapp again. “Listen, old Johnny. I got to get back to work. I got a three-picture-a-year contract, and they’re howling.”

  “Why, you took a month off six planets back,” Strapp said in disappointment “I thought you caught up.”

  “Nope. I’ll be pulling out today, Johnny. Be seeing you real soon.”

  “Listen,” Strapp said. “To hell with the pictures. Be my partner. I’ll tell Fisher to draw up an agreement.” He blew his nose. “This is the first time I’ve had laughs in—in a long time.”

  “Maybe later, Johnny. Right now I’m stuck with a contract. Soon as I can get back, I’ll come a-running. Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” Strapp said wistfully.

  Outside the bedroom, Fisher was waiting like a watchdog. Alceste looked at him with disgust.

  “One thing you learn in the fight game,” he said slowly. “It’s never won till the last round. I give you this one, but it isn’t the last.”

  As he left, Alceste said, half to himself, half aloud, “I want him to be happy. I want every man to be happy. Seems like every man could be happy if we’d all just lend a hand.”

  Which is why Frankie Alceste couldn’t help making friends.

  So the Strapp staff settled back into the same old watchful vigilance of the murdering years, and stepped up Strapp’s Decision appointments to two a week. They knew why Strapp had to be watched. They knew why the Krugers had to be protected. But that was the only difference. Their man was miserable, hysteric, almost psychotic; it made no difference. That was a fair price to pay for 1 percent of the world.

  But Frankie Alceste kept his own counsel, and visited the Deneb laboratories of Bruxton Biotics. There he consulted with one E. T. A. Goland, the research genius who had discovered that novel technique for molding life which first brought Strapp to Bruxton, and was indirectly responsible for his friendship with Alceste. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Goland was short, fat, asthmatic and enthusiastic.

  “But yes, yes,” he sputtered when the layman had finally made himself clear to the scientist. “Yes, indeedl A most ingenious notion. Why it never occurred to me, I cannot think. It could be accomplished without any difficulty whatsoever.” He considered. “Except money,” he added.

  “You could duplicate the girl that died ten years ago?” Alceste asked.

  “Without any difficulty, except money.” Goland nodded emphatically.

  “She’d look the same? Act the same? Be the same?”

  “Up to ninety-five percent, plus or minus point nine seven five.”

  “Would that make any difference? I mean, ninety-five percent of a person as against one hundred percent.”

  “Ach! No. It is a most remarkable individual who is aware of more than eighty percent of the total characteristics of another person. Above ninety percent is unheard of.”

  “How would you go about it?”

  “Ach? So. Empirically we have two sources. One: complete psychological pattern of the subject in the Centaurus Master Files. They will TT a transcript upon application and payment of one hundred credits through formal channels. I will apply.”

  “And I’ll pay. Two?”

  “Two: the embalmment process of modern times, which— She is buried, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which is ninety-eight percent perfect. From remains and psychological pattern we re-clone body and psyche by the equation sigma equals the square root of minus two over— We do it without any difficulty, except money.”

  “Me, I’ve got the money,” Frankie Alceste said. “You do the rest.”

  For the sake of his friend, Alceste paid Cr. 100 and expedited the formal application to the Master Files on Centaurus for the transcript of the complete psychological pattern of Sima Morgan, deceased. After it arrived, Alceste returned to Terra and a city called Berlin, where he blackmailed a gimpster named Augenblick into turning grave robber. Augenblick visited the Staats-Gottesacker and removed the porcelain coffin from under the marble headstone that read Sima Morgan. It contained what appeared to be a black-haired, silken-skinned girl in deep sleep. By devious routes, Alceste got the porcelain coffin through four customs barriers to Deneb.

  One aspect of the trip of which Alceste was not aware, but which bewildered various police organizations, was the series of catastrophes that pursued him and never quite caught up. There was the jetliner explosion that destroyed the ship and an acre of docks half an hour after passengers and freight were discharged. There was a hotel holocaust ten minutes after Alceste checked out. There was the shuttle disaster that extinguished the pneumatic train for which Alceste had unexpectedly canceled passage. Despite all this he was able to present the coffin to biochemist Goland.

  “AchI” said Ernst Theodor Amadeus. “A beautiful creature. She is worth re-creating. The rest now is simple, except money.”

  For the sake of his friend, Alceste arranged a leave of absence for Goland, bought him a laboratory and financed an incredibly expensive series of experiments. For the sake of his friend, Alceste poured forth money and patience until at last, eight months later, there emerged from the opaque maturation chamber a black-haired, inky-eyed, silken-skinned creature with long legs and a high bust. She answered to the name of Sima Morgan.

  “I heard the jet coming down toward the school,” Sima said, unaware that she was speaking eleven years later. “Then I heard a crash. What happened?”

  Alceste was jolted. Up to this moment she had been an objective... a goal... unreal, unalive. This was a living woman. There was a curious hesitation in her speech, almost a lisp. Her head had an engaging tilt when she spoke. She arose from the edge of the table, and she was not fluid or graceful as Alceste had expected she would be. She moved boyishly.

  “I’m Frank Alceste,” he said quietly. He took her shoulders. “I want you to look at me and make up your mind whether you can trust me.”

  Their eyes locked in a steady gaze. Sima examined him gravely. Again Alceste was jolted and moved. His hands began to tremble and he released the girl’s shoulders in panic.

  “Yes,” Sima said. “I can trust you.”

  “No matter what I say, you must trust me. No matter what I tell you to do, you must trust me and do it,”

  “Why?”

  “For the sake of Johnny Strapp.”

  Her eyes widened. “Something’s happened to him,” she said quickly. “What is it?”

  “Not to him, Sima. To you. Be patient, honey. I’ll explain. I ha
d it in my mind to explain now, but I can’t I—I’d best wait until tomorrow.”

  They put her to bed and Alceste went out for a wrestling match with himself. The Deneb nights are soft and black as velvet, thick and sweet with romance—or so it seemed to Frankie Alceste that night.

  “You can’t be falling in love with her,” he muttered. ‘It’s crazy.”

  And later, “You saw hundreds like her when Johnny was hunting. Why didn’t you fall for one of them?”

  And last of all, “What are you going to do?”

  He did the only thing an honorable man can do in a situation like that, and tried to turn his desire into friendship. He came into Sima’s room the next morning, wearing tattered old jeans, needing a shave, with his hair standing on end. He hoisted himself up on the foot of her bed, and while she ate the first of the careful meals Goland had prescribed, Frankie chewed on a cigarette and explained to her. When she wept, he did not take her in his arms to console her, but thumped her on the back like a brother.

  He ordered a dress for her. He had ordered the wrong size, and when she showed herself to him in it, she looked so adorable that he wanted to kiss her. Instead he punched her, very gently and very solemnly, and took her out to buy a wardrobe. When she showed herself to him in proper clothes, she looked so enchanting that he had to punch her again. Then they went to a ticket office and booked immediate passage for Ross-Alpha III.

  Alceste had intended delaying a few days to rest the girl, but he was compelled to rush for fear of himself. It was this alone that saved both from the explosion that destroyed the private home and private laboratory of biochemist Goland, and destroyed the biochemist too. Alceste never knew this. He was already on board ship with Sima, frantically fighting temptation.

  One of the things that everybody knows about space travel but never mentions is its aphrodisiac quality. Like the ancient days when travelers crossed oceans on ships, the passengers are isolated in their own tiny world for a week. They’re cut off from reality. A magic mood of freedom from ties and responsibilities pervades the jetliner. Everyone has a fling. There are thousands of jet romances every week—quick, passionate affairs that are enjoyed in complete safety and ended on landing day.