A Game of Authors

by Frank Herbert

  “Always glad to further my education,” he said.

  Garson left her at the rear door of the house, sat down on the rough wood bench beside the door. His leg and thigh muscles were beginning to complain after the day on horseback. There was a dull ache behind his eyes that the soggy warmth of the night did nothing to ease.

  For the first time, he began to review the day. It left him with a sense of shaking horror. And the mysterious Olaf loomed over it all like the sinister embodiment of everything evil that could be seen in Raul Separdo.

  What are Luac and Medina planning? Why don’t they draw me into their conference?

  My God! Why did I have to let myself fall for that woman?

  The door beside him opened, closed. Choco Medina joined him on the bench.

  “Why is the Señorita crying?” he asked.

  Crying?

  “I don’t know, Choco. Maybe she’s afraid. The Lord knows I certainly am.”

  “Where did you go on your walk?”

  “A grove of trees over there. The graves of her mother and brother.”

  “Ahh. Perhaps that is it.” Medina nodded. “I came out to tell you how the situation stands.”

  “Black?”

  “Very black, but perhaps not hopeless.”

  “I knew it when Separdo rode up on us that way.”

  “There are some things in our favor. For one, Olaf is in Guatemala. He will not return for several days. For another, Raul sent word to Maria Gomez that she should dope our food tonight to make us sleep.”

  “What’s he planning?”

  “I think he is planning to come across the lake by night and take over control of the hacienda with his men, but thanks to you we are warned.”

  “Thanks to me?”

  “Maria came to us as soon as she received the message. She wants revenge on Raul.”

  “I don’t understand that, Choco. All I had to do was tell her it was Raul who killed her son—and she believed me.”

  “She has been with the Luacs for sixteen years, my friend. She needed only to have someone tell her what her instincts already knew.”

  “Why didn’t he just take us today, Choco?”

  “Raul? I’ve been trying to answer that question. I think it was because the Señorita had the rifle. He knew he’d have to kill her to take it, and he does not want to do that.”

  “He’s a fiend!”

  “The truth. It is also in the nature of this fiend to toy with his victims. He likes to strike fear into the heart. And today he had poor Pánfil to demonstrate his power of life and death.”

  “God! How’d Luac ever get into his power?”

  “He had no choice. One day there was Raul—the new watchdog.”

  “What’re we going to do tonight, Choco?”

  “We have a dozen flares. The moon will give us light for many hours. After that we will use the flares. They cannot cross the lake while we have light to shoot.”

  “The door has a lock on both sides, eh?”

  Medina chuckled. “Sí, and the caribe in the middle.”

  “You’d better give me a gun, Choco.”

  “Or course. But please do not lose this one in the lake.”

  Garson recalled hiding the other revolver under the log. He told Choco Medina about it.

  “You are very wasteful of good firearms, my friend. That one will be useless with rust by this time. But I will go get it tonight.” He put a hand on Garson’s shoulder. “The Señorita likes you.”

  “Oh?”

  Medina squeezed Garson’s shoulder. “I would die for the Señorita, my friend.”

  Garson felt a choking sensation in his throat. “God help me, so would I!” he whispered.

  “I suspected that you had hidden the gun,” said Medina. “But now I know that you trust me. I want you to know that I have trust for you—and after today, a special trust in your gun hand.”

  Should I tell him the truth about that? wondered Garson. That I was aiming to kill Separdo, and missed by the grace of God?

  Medina got to his feet. “I must join Antone. We will be in the front room.”

  He entered the house, closing the door softly.

  Garson stared into the darkness. How long can we hold out? Separdo has an army across the lake.

  Something stirred the leaves in the garden. A twig broke under someone’s foot. Garson tensed.

  Anita Luac came into the faint moonglow of the open area beside the door. “I listened to you and Choco,” she said.

  “How long can we hold out?” he asked.

  “This place is a fortress,” she said.

  “What’s your theory on why Raul held off today?”

  “He’s afraid you’re really from Olaf.”

  “Given time, any fortress can be taken, Nita.”

  She moved closer. “Is that your theory about women?” The faint mocking glint in her eyes was very clear to him.

  Garson had the feeling of being outmaneuvered, trapped. This is what the old man wants! He wants me to be her slave and thus his slave! Why? What can I do for them?

  “What are you thinking?” she asked. “You look so withdrawn.”

  “Maybe I was trying to retreat.”

  “Are all of your defenses gone?” She slipped her arms around his neck, pressed herself against him, lifted her lips.

  Garson stared down into the brown wells of her eyes. They seemed to draw him down . . . down . . . down until their lips met. He felt himself melting with desire.

  She broke away with a violent push against his shoulders, stepped back.

  Bitterness overwhelmed Garson. “Testing your power again?”

  She drew in a shaky breath, spoke in a faint voice. “My willpower.”

  He took her hands, felt them tremble. “Why were you crying?”

  “Perhaps you reminded me of how lonely I’ve been.”

  “Nita, do you care for me at all?” The question came out as though torn from him.

  She jerked her hands free, whirled away. “Why should I care for you? Because you’ve kissed me?”

  He started to put his hands on her shoulders, drew them back. A slave! Begging for favors! Luac knows his man. Here’s the price I can’t refuse.

  The bitterness filled his voice. “Maybe you should care for me because that’s what your father has instructed you to do!”

  She whirled, slapped his face. He staggered backward.

  “You’re a beast!” she hissed.

  “That’s right! A beast in love with you!” He grabbed her arms, pinioned them, crushed her mouth beneath his. She bit his lip, kicked at him in blind fury, then relaxed against him, sobbing.

  He stroked her hair. “I’m sorry, Nita.”

  “No. You have every right to hate me. Please hate me!” She pushed away, ran from him. He heard a door slam.

  That ties it!

  Garson stormed into the house, down the hall to the front room. Luac and Medina stood by the windows, staring at the moonglow on the lake.

  “All right, Luac!” barked Garson. “I want answers!”

  Luac turned slowly. “Ahhh. Young Lochinvar!”

  “You’re asking me to get myself killed!” said Garson. “For what?”

  “Steady,” murmured Medina.

  “For what?” demanded Garson.

  “Perhaps for the story you were so anxious to get.”

  “You’ve never had any intention of letting me do that story!”

  “Now there you’re wrong.”

  Garson was startled into silence. There had been something flatly convincing about Luac’s quiet reply.

  “Why else would I want you to escape?” asked Luac.

  “I have only your word for it that you wanted me to escape! The whole thing could’ve been a put up job!”

  “Including Raul Separdo?”

  Again Garson fell silent. I’m caught in the oldest trap in the world: a prison of my own building! Some of the things that’ve happened I know are real—not make b
elieve.

  He studied Luac in the moonlight: dignity and a kind of cynical amusement. The old man began humming, stopped. “Do you know that song, Mr. Garson?”

  “Why should I?” His voice revealed his resentment and frustration.

  “Because that song is Mexico. Cuatro Caminos! Four roads. There are four roads in a man’s life. Which of the four is best?”

  “You’re talking nonsense!”

  “Oh, no! For each road there is a different price.”

  “Have you offered me the price I can’t refuse? What’s down that road?”

  “That is the big joke, my friend. There is only one thing down all of the roads: death! You merely arrive at it by different routes.”

  “You haven’t answered my question, Luac.”

  “About price? Your question was not clear.”

  “Are you offering your daughter?”

  “You are a fool!”

  “Oh, am I?”

  “My daughter makes her own offers.”

  “And decisions?”

  “Naturally!”

  “Can she make the decision to leave here with me tonight?”

  A bitter laugh shook the old man. “And how do you propose leaving? By flying out on the wings of love?”

  “Maybe I’ll just go over and get Raul Separdo’s permission!”

  “Hah!”

  “Fighting among ourselves will not help us now,” murmured Medina.

  “What about the swamp?” asked Garson.

  Medina shook his head. “There’s no escape that way.”

  Garson stared at him in the gloom. “Choco! What about El Grillo?”

  “What about him?” asked Luac.

  “How do you signal him to come for you?”

  “Don’t be an utter ass! He thinks I killed Eduardo!”

  “All right, Luac! What’s your plan?”

  “Choco will try to get out tonight by working along the edge of the lake in the swamp.”

  “I think it can be done,” said Medina.

  “And what if he does get away?”

  “Although it is a very poor solution and will create a situation that will be very bad for me, he will bring the Guardia Civil,” said Luac.

  “Why will it be bad for you, Luac?”

  “I choose not to answer. If he succeeds, you will learn the answer. If he fails, it will make no difference.”

  “I think you’re both being damned stupid,” said Garson. “A whole armada of canoes could work along the shore on both sides of the peninsula and take us by force.”

  “That is what they will try,” said Luac. “But they reckon without this.” He motioned to something on the shadowy floor beside him.

  Garson moved closer, peering at it.

  “A Lewis gun,” said Luac. “Even Raul didn’t know about it! We buried it beneath the files of my study.”

  “A little memento from the revolution,” said Medina.

  Garson stared at Luac. He hasn’t answered a damned one of my questions! He said,” You’re a bunch of . . .”

  Anita Luac’s perfume wafted past his nostrils.

  Her voice came from the darkness behind him. “We’re a bunch of what darling?”

  She came up beside him, slipped her arm beneath his. For all that her actions betrayed it, the scene in the garden might never have happened.

  “Maybe you’ll tell me, Nita,” said Garson.

  “Tell you what?”

  “What’s the connection between your father and Raul Separdo?”

  She looked at the shadowy figure of her father. “Has he refused to tell you?”

  “You know he has!”

  “Paz y pan,” murmured Anita Luac.

  “Nita!” her father snapped.

  “I make my own decisions, Father, remember?”

  Luac snorted.

  “Paz y pan,” she repeated. “Peace and bread.”

  Garson recalled seeing the slogan stenciled across a hammer and sickle design on the mud walls of a slum quarter in Guadalajara.

  “But now it’s death and blood!” she said.

  “What’s the communist slogan have to do with this?” asked Garson.

  “My beloved father’s supposed to be one of their head propaganda writers for the Western Hemisphere.”

  Luac turned away from them, stared out at the lake.

  Garson absorbed this thought for a moment. He still could not fit the idea to Luac’s personality. “Supposed to be?” he asked. “Is he or isn’t he?”

  “Oh, I think he was once. And he trained others, too. We had a regular school. But that was before mother died.”

  “You’re handling this very badly, Nita!” barked Luac.

  “But I’m doing it my own way, Father.”

  “A propaganda school,” prompted Garson.

  “My father’s so very clever,” she whispered. “His stories are always published. And then they carry subtle little twists for the American market: a sympathetic Russian here—a little race prejudice there—a dirty capitalist or two—a brutal American soldier—an atrocity story with a Yankee setting—stories to make the U.S. Government look bumbling and stupid.”

  “I’ve read them.”

  “Millions of people have, Mr. Garson.” She sighed. “The organization is very far reaching. We have agents in the U.S. who send the stories as their own—write a few themselves.”

  Garson felt the paper under his shirt, recalled the list of names and addresses.

  “What’s he really doing?”

  “I’m not really sure. He says that the surest way to expose a sham and stupidity is to do a caricature of it. He says that fools like Raul can’t understand this.”

  “But Olaf does!” snapped Luac. “That’s really why we’re in this mess.” He sounded petulantly defensive.

  “Nita is explaining this,” said Garson.

  Luac snorted.

  She said, “He means, I believe, that if you overmake a point—lay it on too thickly—then people see through to the weaknesses.”

  “Oh. So he’s really been a double agent—working secretly against his masters.”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “Are you quite finished, Nita?” asked Luac.

  “No, I don’t believe I am, Father.”

  “Was your mother a communist?” asked Garson.

  “Leave her out of this!” barked Luac.

  “Yes, she was a communist,” said Anita Luac.

  Garson felt the dryness of his mouth, swallowed. “And what’re you?”

  “I’m my father’s little joke on our jailers. He taught me to hate them.”

  “You’re a secret salesman for democracy.”

  “Hah!” said Luac.

  “How did they keep you in this jail?”

  “We were never permitted off the hacienda together. Always one as hostage for the other.”

  “What do the trucks bring?”

  “Paper. The mysterious building is a printing plant. They print pamphlets for distribution all over Latin America.”

  “Are any of the people across the lake loyal to your father?”

  “A few of them. But they’re afraid of Raul. You saw what happened to poor Pánfil.”

  Garson looked at the dark figure of Medina in the shadows by the windows. “What about you, Choco?”

  “What do you mean?” He spoke without turning.

  “How do you fit into all this?”

  “Oh, the Patron and I have been together for years.”

  “Father saved Choco’s life during the revolution,” said Anita Luac.

  “Why hasn’t Raul just forced his hand with you, Nita?”

  “Because he had to answer to Olaf for what father writes.”

  “And Raul is afraid of Olaf. One more question: Who’s Olaf?”

  “Latin American director for the Communist International. He was mother’s half-brother.”

  Garson looked at Luac’s back. “You know, Luac. It appears to me that you let you
r emotions trap you just as securely as I did.”

  “Hah!”

  “Stalemate,” said Garson.

  Anita Luac said, “I believe I’ve told him the essentials, Father.”

  Luac turned, looked to Garson. “Which only proves that one’s own blood is not immune from idiocy!”

  “Perhaps an immunity like that is passed down from the parents,” said Garson.

  “Idiocy compounds idiocy,” said Luac. “And there you have the history of the world.”

  “I still find it hard to believe you’re a communist.”

  “There may be hope for you yet, Mr. Garson. I could answer the famous congressional question with all honesty: I am not now, nor have I ever been a communist.”

  “You’ve been writing their propaganda.”

  Antone Luac chuckled. “My little joke.”

  “I’m hysterical!”

  “Hah! Democracy! A legion of fools pushing each other over the edge of nowhere. Good government died with the absolute monarchs.”

  “Long live King Luac!”

  “The government of the United States has a few saving graces,” said Luac. “Vestiges of aristocracy. They’re moving away from it, though, toward . . .”

  “Toward your pals in Red?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. And there we have the ultimate idiocy: the gigantic conglomeration of fools—asses—in full control of their own short destiny. That’s my capsule definition of communism.”

  “But you’ve been helping the . . .”

  “The world of fools is demanding this change, Mr. Garson. I think it is the greatest cosmic joke possible to give them a little peek into their own demise! And the really choice part of the joke is this: All the time I’m pushing, I am telling them precisely what’s wrong with the prison!”

  A silent laugh shook him.

  “For this you put yourself and your daughter into . . . into . . .” Garson waved a hand around him.

  “There were other considerations at the time. Anita’s mother played the game seriously. Communism was a toy to her: a wonderful diversion. It pleased me to let her play with her toy.”

  Anita Luac said, “Father, stop it!”

  “No, my dear. When you opened the conversation with our young friend here, you made my present comments inevitable. When one pulls the stopper out of the tub, one cannot merely wish the water back into it.”

  Garson said, “But you’re trapped here!”

  “Oh, quite.”

  “A blind moron would’ve seen that this situation would become impossible.”