The Prayer Machine

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  Narbiton had heard enough. He could no longer contain himself. He would be a hero of the State, an honoured Party Member — with all the privileges that went with it.

  He reached his mag and put a hand on the door-rail to haul himself up.

  He hesitated for a second, because he couldn’t feel the door rail. His hand had gone numb; and he realized that he’d been gripping the beam-fono so hard that he’d stopped the blood circulating.

  He began to rub the whole of his right arm to bring the circulation back. But the numbness was spreading upward from the hand, and the muscles were getting stiff.

  Irritated by this, he jumped aboard in annoyance and prepared to transmit his news by radio.

  As he did so, he caught sight of his face for a moment in the rear-view mirror.

  At first he only noticed the eyes. There was something wrong with them. They were fixed. Then he found he couldn’t blink them. Then, when he tried to speak on the radio he found difficulty in moving his lips.

  He looked down at the hand.

  For a moment his brain completely stopped functioning. The shock froze every neuron in it.

  And then, through half-closed lips, he began to scream. It was a strange, muted sound, like a child with croup gasping for breath.

  The scream became more internal, until he could only scream on the inside of his trog. By now, his right hand had set solid; and the telltale outer skin of PVC had begun to form. He tried to rip it away with his other hand, but there was no feel in that one, either.

  A terrible ache in the pit of his stomach took over as the scream trailed away into nothing. All he could hear was his heart pumping; and even as he listened it became more and more of a mechanical sound … no longer truly organic, more like machinery.

  He began to writhe, kicking his legs continuously as if in spasm, in the hope that somehow the congealing process would stop, and that his legs would be free to move. But the toes were stiffened, the knee joint locked.

  He must communicon what he had seen! That was all that was left! He must use intermesh and tell them. Maybe this would make him so important that some secret serum might be given to him to cure this monstrous disease.

  He was just about to mentally switch on when he caught sight of his head once more in the mirror.

  The top of his head was plastic. He could not motivate the intermesh and he could not think the magnecraft into moving. In fact, it was hard to think at all. He could only think inwards, just as he could only scream inwards.

  And he thought of the emergency auto-button. If he could get one of his solidified limbs to shift just enough, he might just be able to hit the button that would send the mag automatically back to Central Pool. Wouldn’t they be able to do something for him there — if he was in time? Wasn’t he important enough to command the attention of the top men in the Regime? Would they not know how important it was to extract the information he could no longer communicon?

  He managed, at last, to knock the button with the side of his body. The mag began to move. It turned, and headed East whence he had come.

  And he thought, ‘If I can expose Krister and Penta, once and for all, it will make up for

  8

  Krister said, ‘That was Central Pool. On interfono. And they know something.’ His shrewd eyes were worried eyes as they searched Neil’s. Then he crossed to hand-shut a door that was evidently soundproofed. ‘A precaution against beam-fono. We’re suspects — and that’s official.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ They were in Krister’s flat at Norton. Below them, the great Bowl — recognizable from over a hundred years ago — was now enclosed on three sides by new office blocks built on the fashionable ‘inverted-pinnacle’ style. Each block stood on a base that was coned-down to a fine point, as if they were precariously balanced. It wasn’t clear to Neil how they stood up and he meant to ask Krister. Now was not the time. ‘Who was it on interfono? Anyone I know?’

  Krister said, ‘You’ll know him shortly. A real, dedicated Party man. Dr Stuart Rone. Reading between printouts it’s obvious that something has happened.’

  ‘Narbiton?’

  ‘Possibly. But that isn’t the only problem. I’ve had a report from the IoM. You haven’t got much more time in which to get the data you want to take back with you. The report came from … rather close quarters.’

  To Neil it was now clear that Krister was under emotional duress. The man’s face, usually so bereft of personal torment, had taken on a look of such hatred that it was hard to find words. Neil said quietly, ‘What are you holding down?’

  ‘It’s so damnably dishonest. They don’t say anything. They don’t show you medical reports. They just …’

  ‘You’re talking about Clare?’

  Krister turned his back. ‘Euthanasia … That’s what I mean about Stuart Rone. A real dedicated man, he is. He’s had her killed. For the present, he can’t get at me any other way. So he takes my sister’s life away from her.’ He turned round and faced Neil. ‘Her!’ He struggled for self-control. ‘Penta and I … we decided not to tell you too much about Clare’s work. It was she who discovered the serum against plastic cancer.’

  Neil said shakily, ‘Clare is not Clare to me, Kin.’

  ‘I know exactly what you’re going to say.’

  ‘The interschizoid outcome is inevitable. Somehow, Clare’s death will leak back through the PONKM —’

  ‘— and kill Ann Marie?’

  Neil said, ‘It’s just a question of when.’

  ‘Can’t you look at it the other way: as a matter of history?’

  ‘It isn’t history, Kin. History is about things that had to happen. This needn’t have happened. If I’d worked faster —’

  ‘Neil. Don’t. It may not seem like it, but what you’re indulging at the moment is self-pity. Don’t make it your own private drama. Don’t make yourself the central character in a play. There’s something better for you to do than that. It’s one hell of a risk. But there just might be a way of getting the printouts you want. But if you go sentimental on me it can’t possibly work. You’ll understand when it’s explained to you. But I will give you one hint. There are some things we’ve discussed between us which … aren’t going to come out the same way for both of us. You don’t understand? It’s something I can’t explain quite yet. The only hint I can give you that will eventually make sense is that I am — after all — a psychiatrist. As such, I am treating you.’

  ‘Sorry, you’re not getting through.’

  ‘Shove it on disk-file, for the present. There will come a time when you understand. But you’ve got to do what I tell you from nano onward. Otherwise you’ll never find the courage to go through with it. Neil, you’ve got to be mated.’

  ‘You say that immediately after declaring Ann Marie’s death sentence?’

  ‘Ann Marie was a nun. Celibate.’

  ‘She left the Order.’

  ‘I warned you right from the beginning not to put too much weight on her change of status.’

  ‘I don’t understand you.’

  ‘You do. Why pick a nun — if you want an affair, why choose the impossible mate?’

  ‘I tell you she changed.’

  ‘Overnight. Who else did she convince?’

  ‘That’s not for me to say.’

  ‘Let’s start with you. Did she convince you?’

  ‘You don’t understand. There was no time.’

  ‘You kissed her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She responded?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And like any other normal woman in that situation she went up on the moor with you and made love?’

  ‘Look, we’d only just met. It wasn’t —’

  ‘It wasn’t just sex. It was something grander?’

  ‘Yes, if you like.’

  ‘I don’t like. With Penta and me the sex keeps the grand part running. Have you ever asked yourself if Ann Marie was Phrenoid?’

  Neil retaliated, ‘Or C
lare? Was she schitz?’

  ‘She was celibate — which is my point.’

  ‘Where is this getting us?’

  ‘I’m saying this is no time to put women — dead or alive — up on plinths. I’m prescribing. The medicine is a woman. It’s a form of therapy that some people seem to enjoy.’

  ‘I don’t want my woman procured. We had a word for that, back in my era.’

  ‘We have a word for it nano, Neil, but I’m not a ponce. Besides —’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was Clare’s wish.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘If you weren’t so damn self-centred you’d know. How could she have expected you to find her physically attractive? Don’t you think such people are tormented by their appearance? And how would it have been if you really had met — I mean here and nano, in the flesh, not at the threshold of the PONEM?’

  ‘And now they’ve killed her.’

  ‘Yes. So are you going to give up? Let Forenthoris spread further — just because you can’t have a fantasy about a sinful nun?’

  ‘How do you know this was Clare’s wish?’

  ‘Because she expressed it to someone who’s even more special to me than she was.’ Krister went back to the soundproof door, opened it, called out. ‘Juls! Come in here, will you?’

  The impact of meeting Juls face to face was heightened by the boy’s extraordinary stage presence. Here was someone who knew, from experience, that he could transport an audience in a concert hall. There was a certain audacity — rather than conceit — about his manner. Neil though instantly the boy had the texture and the looks of a classic Italian painting — and wondered whether the palate-knife looks went with creeping Forenthoris. Yet there was no real damage you could identify; if Juls carried with him the impression of age it was really one of agelessness. What shone out was the rare sensitivity that even the 3-D camera hadn’t captured. It wasn’t that he was effete — there was no evidence of Sex-3 in either mannerism or personality. It was, rather, the inescapable feeling that the boy was somehow a work of art, rather than a product of genes and chromosomes — mutated or not.

  Kin said quietly, ‘Tell him, Juls. Tell him what Clare said to you.’ The boy hesitated as if contemplating a piece of sheet music for the first time in order to decide how best to interpret it. ‘Will you understand, Mr Prentice?’

  ‘I shall try.’

  ‘Clare was like the music of Bach — pure, you see. You’re only a Tchaikovsky person. You repeat the same theme and wonder why you can’t end it. Tchaikovsky couldn’t end anything properly, you know. He just had to keep on hammering the tonic chord to tell everyone … well, that they’d soon have to start to clap. See what I mean? It must be hard to understand.’

  Neil said, ‘I think I get the general idea.’

  ‘It’s no good my repeating exactly what she said. She said it to me. She knows my ear for subtle accuracy. It’s an ear trained to … sort-of know the difference between sforzando and a mere crash of cymbals … all that gear, you know, in the March of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth.’

  Neil said, grinning, ‘You seem to have it in for Tchaikovsky.’

  ‘Oh, his violin concerto’s okay. You can’t go all soppy in a violin concerto because virtuoso soloists’ — he clearly meant himself-’don’t like sickly music because it makes them feel like … what was the phrase you would have had? I know! Palm Court.’

  Krister said, ‘You were going to talk about Clare.’

  ‘I’m trying to, Kin.’ He said it as if scolding the brass for constantly drowning the strings. He turned back to Prentice. ‘Pureness doesn’t belong anywhere special. When her trog was pretty good … I mean, you would have gone all gooey-eyed, like all the other men did … But when she was like that she was an athlete. Fr’instance, highboard diving. Zooom! Not even a splash. She entered the water like a fish. Men couldn’t keep up with her even in that — and she made them look pretty stupid — I mean, she didn’t mean to, she couldn’t help it — she made them look square … do you know that word?’

  Neil said straightfaced, ‘I know you’re not talking about geometry.’

  ‘You never know, I’ve never met an Archaic, but anyway they looked awfully square when they tried to talk to her. Wow! — did they fall flat! So of course a lot of people thought she didn’t like men. They were so dumb they wanted to believe it … She was … what’s that word, Kin?’

  ‘Celibate?’

  ‘Yes, like that nun she said she’d known all about —’

  ‘How could she know?’ said Neil. ‘I didn’t mention Ann Marie.’

  ‘Oh, golly. You must see that you were confused about who was who? I guess you don’t. But the PONEM was how she prayed. You see, in a way Clare was immortal. You obviously aren’t.’ Kin exchanged glances with Prentice and they both grinned a bit. Juls went on, ‘She had to give up swimming. Well, that’s obvious. But she wasn’t sorry for herself, not like Tchaikovsky —’

  ‘— or me?’

  Juls ignored the allusion. ‘Or anyone. She got hung up on the idea of a serum against Intraplasta. Rushed through her medical training at a tempo I couldn’t keep up with on the fiddle. Produced the answer like a rabbit out of a hat. You know what happened. We had to hush it up instead of her getting the Thingy Prize.’

  ‘Nobel Prize,’ Krister said.

  ‘Doesn’t matter what you call it. She solved plastic cancer as if she’d worked it out between bouts of water-skiing — and you should have seen her doing that, too. But you know what she said of you? — She said you ought to have been a transistor!’

  Neil said, ‘That would be hard to arrange. What did she mean, do you know?’

  Juls looked exasperated. ‘Everybody knows how a transistor works. It works because of the impurities. The silicon can’t produce positive holes; there have to be crystals of another element. See?’

  Krister said, ‘Juls, don’t be so rude.’

  ‘Sorry. What I mean is, Clare was a saint. She had no impurities. She thought with her soul. Saints always know they’re saints really, you know — even if they don’t say so. Anyway she went on about it. She said about you, why don’t you find yourself a woman? Then you’d be sort of more fixed up … cerebrally, you know — more thinkups and fewer hangups … I see you are watching me very closely, Mr Prentice. Okay, so I might be a Forenthoric myself soon. Don’t try and solve that for me. That’s what she meant. She meant, get on with what you came here to do … And I’m late for rehearsal.’ He dashed across the room to pick up a violin case. ‘Kin’ll tell you the rest.’ He departed at high speed.

  Neil asked Kin: ‘The rest?’

  ‘You’re going to Central Pool, in an ambol. Your arrival there must look like a normal admission. But your contact is Mr Farson. He’s in a dangerous position but nothing like so dangerous as the girl you’re going to meet.’

  ‘What’s Mr Farson’s official job?’

  ‘Intermesh surgeon … The man to avoid is Mr Rone. The most charitable thing I can say about him is that he’s insane. Unfortunately he doesn’t think so. Inverse brainops were his particular brainchild — in every sense of the word.’

  ‘What are inverse brainops?’

  ‘I fervently pray you never find out. As Juls says, don’t forget why you’re here. Communicon? And acquire some impurities.’

  ‘Communicon!’

  *

  Receptor Hall seemed to Mr Farson to be getting busier every day. He knew why well enough. The standard of micro-engineering was getting poorer all the time; so an increasing number of people with intermesh malfunctions were reporting for treatment.

  Nano Farson kept an alert eye on the ambol touchpoint. It was vital that this man Neil Prentice be met by him, and him only. Total lack of intermesh could lead to embarrassing questions. And things were quite tense enough already.

  Farson knew his number was up. For several weeks he had been arriving for duty with the crunchpill ready in his mouth for instant suicide. Anyt
hing was better than inverse brainops. He’d seen victims of it and had cried for them, night after night. He would see to it that his own efforts at fighting the Regime weren’t finally rewarded in the Screaming Room.

  Farson was agile both in body and mind, unusually fit, like a manual jobber or an athlete. The inefficiency and disarray of modern living deeply disturbed him — he hated muddles. There were muddles in the way everything was cross-referenced in the Puter room so that nothing could happen, because each factor was regarded as being an intrinsic part of an overall system … a system that did not and could not work. A climate in which even the Senior Party Members were impotent when it came to bringing about change was, to him, stifling. And here, in the Central Pool complex, nothing ran either. The manual equipment in the Intermesh Deficiency Wing was falling apart already through continual use, as more and more people queued up for treatment and felt useless and redundant. It was difficult to replace things like hand-operated cookers, washing machines you had to load yourself, and even the handles for the special doorthroughs designed for cripples. Pseudomesh black boxes had run out altogether; so that perfectly good citizens suffered the humiliation of feeling utterly useless, often for weeks on end. The rat-race for priority surgery had given rise to a black market, and corruption throughout the Regime was rife. So many privileged cases had been put at the head of the queue for brainops, while people with no such rating faced being held at Central Pool almost indefinitely …

  Farson was still waiting in the crowded hall for the ambol to arrive when Dr Rone came up to him. Rone was wearing his bland, hail-fellow grin — which meant he was up to something. ‘Morrow, Farson. Busy?’

  ‘No. Should I be?’

  ‘Just wondered. Don’t often see you hanging about in the Receptor Hall.’

  Farson said, ‘What are you so cheerful about? Don’t you know about Wels Narbiton?’

  The grin obediently disappeared. ‘Yes. Poor chap. Though he was cracking up, you know.’ Rone stood with his legs apart and leaned back, like an Archaic standing in front of the fireplace. ‘He was onto something, though.’