The Paradise Game

by Brian Stableford

  I didn’t see much of him, and he didn’t seek out my company at any time either. He never bothered to thank me for the help that I’d given him on Pharos, and he certainly never thought of rewarding the devoted loyalty I’d shown with money or some relaxation in the terms of my contract. But I knew that it wasn’t any use expecting miracles. He’d probably never been grateful to anyone for anything in his entire life.

  One time that I did see him—briefly—he had some news for me. His eyes were glinting, and he had a distinct look of ‘I told you so’ about him.

  ‘You remember what we found on Rhapsody,’ he said.

  ‘How could I forget?’

  ‘We’ve duplicated the metabolic properties of the worms. In the labs on New Alexandria.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, trying not to sound anything but resigned. ‘You told me that once people knew it existed they’d make it, if they couldn’t have it made for them. You told me that it couldn’t be suppressed. I know. Which city are you going to destroy to test the stuff?’

  ‘None,’ he said.

  ‘Things are really moving for you, aren’t they?’ I said. ‘A new ultimate weapon every month. By the time Caradoc decides on another confrontation, both of you will be able to destroy the whole damn universe in round one.’

  ‘I think that confrontation has been postponed for a while,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think we proved something out on Pharos despite everything,’ he said. ‘We proved that the human race hasn’t got the stranglehold on creation that Caradoc was ready to assume. There are more things to be dealt with than family squabbles.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like Caradoc thinking to me,’ I said.

  ‘It is now,’ he assured me. ‘The war isn’t quite what it used to be, now that our primary weapon is peace. Caradoc people are thinking things out. I believe that they’ll come to the conclusion that greater subtlety is the order of the day. The naked confrontation policy they initiated on Pharos was a terrible failure.’

  ‘It sure as hell wasn’t us who beat them,’ I pointed out. ‘That won’t happen on the next world.’

  Charlot shook his head. ‘It would never have worked,’ he said. ‘Not on the scale Caradoc wanted. One world, maybe two. But it wasn’t a policy for conquering a galaxy. That takes an awful lot more than naked force. Pharos was only one shot in the coming battle. But it’s a shot they won’t be trying again. There are different pieces on the board now.’

  ‘That’s how you see it, is it?’ I asked him. ‘Pieces on a board. A destroyer of cities and the meanest, most underhanded killer that nature’s ever devised. That’s all they are—two more pieces on the board. It’s a game, is it? The whole of civilisation just one big version of the Paradise Game?’

  ‘You can look at it that way,’ Charlot said.

  ‘You can,’ I said. ‘I’m not big enough to play games that rough. I couldn’t even push the pieces. Hell, I’m nothing more than a pawn in the game myself. Your pawn.’

  ‘You could be a lot worse off,’ he told me.

  ‘Yeah? In your hands I’m a king’s pawn—how much more exposed can you get? I’ve almost grown accustomed to having people point guns at me, these last few months. It’s becoming a reflex action to dive out of the way every time I see a flash of light. This isn’t my idea of fun, Titus. It’s not my kind of party, and you know it. I’m a simple man and I like a simple life. You know I don’t like all these little affairs that you dabble your fingers in. You know I don’t give a damn about playing the Paradise Game.

  ‘You care,’ he said.

  ‘Sure I care,’ I said. ‘I care who wins. But nobody wins anymore, and nobody ever will win. Every move we make, we get bigger and bigger pieces on the board. You’re playing with forces that can sweep whole worlds aside, things that are bigger than a billion men. I know you’re a genius, and I know you’re always right, and I know that the Library has civilisation in the palm of its hand, but the toys you’re finding to play with are just too big. They’ll decide the game, not you.’

  ‘So?’ he said.

  ‘So nothing,’ I said. ‘It’s not my empire. I only work here.’

  ‘Grainger,’ he said, ‘men have been playing with forces that are bigger than they are ever since the Chinese invented gunpowder.’

  ‘So?’ I flung his own comment back at him.

  ‘So the practice has done us good,’ he said.

  ‘It didn’t do us much good on Pharos,’ I said, taking a new kind of pleasure in letting vindictiveness into my voice. ‘On Pharos, we lost. There’s one Paradise that won’t become a pawn in the game. And when it comes to the next planet, we won’t be any better off because of what happened on Pharos.’

  Charlot shook his head. He seemed slightly amused. I knew that he was making a mockery of me, but I wasn’t too upset about it. I didn’t think he had the total understanding and the total control that he pretended. A king he might be, in his way, but I was pretty sure that history wouldn’t give him the acclaim he expected, and wanted so badly.

  But he had the last word on Pharos and the events associated with it.

  ‘The Caradoc Company is playing the Paradise Game from the wrong angle,’ he said. ‘The primitive-Earth model of Paradise is no use. That Paradise Game was fought to a standstill a very long time ago. We had our unspoiled Earth once, you know. We had the primitive Garden of Eden. We lived in it. We played the Game to its conclusion then. We know the result. It was Paradise versus civilisation.

  ‘Paradise lost.’

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Brian Stableford was born in Yorkshire in 1948. He taught at the University of Reading for several years, but is now a full-time writer. He has written many science-fiction and fantasy novels, including The Empire of Fear, The Werewolves of London, Year Zero, The Curse of the Coral Bride, The Stones of Camelot, and Prelude to Eternity. Collections of his short stories include a long series of Tales of the Biotech Revolution, and such idiosyncratic items as Sheena and Other Gothic Tales and The Innsmouth Heritage and Other Sequels. He has written numerous nonfiction books, including Scientific Romance in Britain, 1890-1950; Glorious Perversity: The Decline and Fall of Literary Decadence; Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia; and The Devil’s Party: A Brief History of Satanic Abuse. He has contributed hundreds of biographical and critical articles to reference books, and has also translated numerous novels from the French language, including books by Paul Féval, Albert Robida, Maurice Renard, and J. H. Rosny the Elder.