The Fanciers & Realizers MEGAPACK

by Phyllis Ann Karr

  “I see ... I think. Well enough, at all events, for application to my own limited uses. But suppose it did not matter so much whether an accidental recipient read the message, provided the sender’s identity remained hidden?”

  “Oh. Oh, yeah, that’s done, I guess. But it’s like spreading gossip. You don’t do stuff like that unless you’re a real bloodygutser.”

  “That’s a very colorful term. I assume it means a blaggard?”

  “I guess. It’s a ... well, somebody who doesn’t give a darn about anybody else’s privacy. Is that what a blaggard is?”

  M. Poe smiled. “Not quite. ‘Blaggard’ means a rascally knave. But since a gossipmonger is a rascally knave, a bloodygutser might class as a subspecies of blaggard. So it would be possible, at least in theory, to put information into a databank, for a specific recipient, without identifying oneself?”

  “Yeah, sure. But spies and people like that wouldn’t ever do it in real life because what’s the good of keeping yourself secret if your message isn’t? You could put it in code—your message, I mean, like cryptograms and cipher codes—but the counterspies’d just break it right away with their computers. So who’d do it?”

  “I think I have heard, or perhaps seen on a screenshow, that anonymous stool pigeons sometimes leave messages for the police that way.”

  “Yeah? ... Yeah, I guess they could, couldn’t they?”

  “Which the police tend to disregard as the work of cranks and disgruntled troublemakers,” M. Poe added.

  “Yeah, it’d be even worse than feeding in gossip, wouldn’t it? Somebody might even want to sue you, if they ever found out you fingered them like that.” Cunningham noticed that the grownup was looking at him hard, like someone staring at a math problem that wasn’t screening out right. It made him think about Princeps Cage. “M. Poe, did you ever—okay to change the subject?”

  “Why not? Yes, I believe we can move on.”

  “When you were a kid, did you ever get called to the princeps’ sanctum after school?”

  M. Poe nodded. “On occasion.”

  “How did you ... What was it like?”

  “Ah!” M. Poe smiled, kind of dreamy. “Rather more somber, I imagine, to me than it was to standard reality perception.”

  “Uh ... What did the princeps do to you?”

  “Meted out penalties which I am confident would have appalled them had they known what they were in my world.” He chuckled. It sounded out of place, but sort of comforting.

  “Because I’ve got to go to the princeps’ sanctum after school tonight.”

  M. Poe looked back at him. “Why? Surely not for a little overzealousness in classroom conversation?”

  The boy shook his head. “No. Because of Friday night. But my being rude to you that way isn’t going to make it any better.”

  “Might it help if I explained to M. Cage that I felt your interest as a compliment?”

  After a moment, Cunningham shook his head again. “No. It might make it even worse. He might think I was trying to shy out, scared to take it. Anyway, he gave me the directive before you came in. Uh ... what kind of penalties, anyway? The ones you got, I mean.”

  “Minor ones, I’m quite sure. I survived. No one save myself could so much as detect the wounds, at least before I had described them. A reality perceiver like you ought to weather it nicely.”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t very minor, trying to camp out in the school overnight.”

  “Mmm. Probably true. Nonetheless ...”

  “Some of the kids who’ve been in there say Princeps Cage has a detention cell beneath his sanctum desk. Filled with stinging ants or spiders or something.”

  “It sounds as if their worlds are somewhat akin to mine. You’ve never seen any such horror yourself?”

  “I’ve never gotten called all the way back to the sanctum before.”

  “In that case, you should be safe enough,” said M. Poe. “First offence. Probably it’ll bring you little more than a stern admonition.”

  “Admonition?”

  “Warning.”

  “Oh. Yeah. But why call a kid all the way back to the sanctum just for a warning?”

  “Effect. And privacy. But chiefly, I imagine, for effect. The element of the unknown. You’ve read ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’?”

  “That’s that story about the guy in the dungeon, with the rats and swinging ax? Not in school. Woodstock—my dad—read it to me a long time ago, to teach me about rotten Establishments.”

  “Indeed?” said M. Poe. “I’m not sure I ever thought of quite that interpretation. My point was that the pit terrifies largely because the Venerable Edgar never defines what, exactly, lurks within it, leaving that to his readers’ own imaginations.”

  “You think that’s all? Princeps Cage is just trying to scare me? But maybe he doesn’t even remember it’s my first time. What about your first time? The princeps just give you a warning?”

  M. Poe closed his eyes and looked like he was thinking. Then he started to laugh. “You’re asking the wrong fancier. It could well have been a mere warning. Ah, what I could do with a simple visit to my good dentist!”

  “Yeah? I like going to the dentist. She’s got all that zippy equipment, and she gives you real nuts and apples and stuff.”

  “Another great tradition gone.” M. Poe’s sigh sounded real. “Dentistry has been painless for so long that only a few such fantasy perceivers as myself still understand the old jokes and allusions.”

  “Some of the big kids even say he’s got hooks in his closet for hanging you up by your thumbs. You really think that’s all just fancy-class rumors?”

  “We fanciers are capable of some monumental popular romances. But as a rather close observer of gruesome curiosities, I very strongly doubt that poor M. Cage has either hooks for hanging humanity or holes filled with spiders. I was in his sanctum myself this morning for several moments—as a respected resource guest, it is true. Nevertheless, my reality perception was at its peak for most of that time, and, speaking as a realizer, I can assure you that I saw no evidence of any such lurid equipment. Judged as a room, it is both lavishly appointed and quite comfortable.”

  The boy breathed a little easier. “Thanks. Only, why do you want to go back to your own world, if it means you get hurt at the dentist’s and stuff like that? Do you mind me asking?”

  “Not at all. The scenes of beauty more than compensate. Besides, my fiancee informs me that I also enjoy the scenes of pain. I suspect that may have something to do with a deep knowledge that whatever is happening is generally far less drastic than I perceive it.”

  “That sounds pretty silly.”

  “It probably is,” M. Poe said without getting angry.

  Chapter 23

  “Fighting?” The princeps’ watery blue eyes glanced back and forth between Dutois at one end of the sanctum and Badderley at the other. Dave Click couldn’t quite gauge his expression, but it looked something like he was watching a tennis game played with a ball that might or might not contain a mild explosive. He lowered his voice in a confidential aside to the policeman, “Uh, fighting, you say, in one of the, er, groves?”

  “Clearwater Group A.” Click kept his voice confidential, too. “Look, in all fairness, it wasn’t Badderley’s fault.”

  Badger was standing on the east end, by the closet door, huddling into himself as he stared around the room. Except that he had pretty clearly never been here before, he looked about the way Click felt on contemplating what his senior partner’s reaction would be to all this. Dutois, on the other hand, leaned insolently on the west end’s stained-glass window, putting on the front of an old pro.

  “Nevertheless, er, if he was involved, he ought to, uh, take his correction. Er, how would it look if he did not?”

  “Example, huh?”

  “Example, er, yes, ex
ample.”

  “Well—” Click caught himself before an “uh” slipped out—”at least go easier on him. Dutois is the one who should get the brunt of it. Here, he attacked Badderley with this. Exhibit A.”

  Cage squinted at the glassy fragment. “Eh? Could you turn it a little ...” He reached out as if hardly able to keep from touching Click’s hand. “Oh, er, that does look wicked, doesn’t it? May I?”

  Click dropped it into Cage’s palm.

  “Oh, my, dear, yes, that does, er, look wicked.”

  “Broken watch crystal.”

  “Er, yes, yes, I suppose it could be. Yes, of course.” The princeps shook his head. “Stealing a fellow student’s watch, too ...”

  “He claims he found it. Just the broken crystal.”

  “Does he? Er, where?”

  Click looked across at Big D. “All right, Dutois, repeat where you picked up your cute little handweapon.”

  Dutois studied his fingernails and spotted one to clean. “I found it right outside the school office. Want to know when?”

  “Don’t worry, Sergeant,” the princeps assured Click. “I shall, er, get it out of him. I’ll see that whoever he stole it from is, uh, reimbursed in full.”

  “Good thing I picked it up, huh?” Dutois continued in a louder voice. “Could’ve cut the floor up a little if M. Pinesweep swept it cross-eyed, huh?”

  “That will be all for the moment, Dutois,” said Princeps Cage. “You’ll have your chance to speak soon enough.”

  “Guess old M. Pinesweep’s falling down on the job, huh?” Big D went on. “Guess his poor old eyes’re getting too fuzzy—”

  “That will be all, Dutois,” the princeps repeated, and this time the boy shut up. Cage lowered his voice again. “Of course, er, I’ll have to keep this, M. Click. As, uh, school evidence, identification when the watch’s owner is, er, found.”

  Click waved his hand once and Cage pocketed the crystal.

  “Now, then,” the princeps said aloud. “Badderley, come forward to my desk.”

  Badger made a hesitant start. Big D grunted derisively and transferred his attention to the nails on his other hand. Badger looked at the older boy, adjusted his glasses, and stepped forward more steadily to stand in front of the princeps’ desk. This desk alone would have been a tight fit in Clearwater A; the whole sanctum was ten times the size of the grove.

  “Well, Badderley,” the princeps went on, frowning at him, “this officer informs me that you were not primarily responsible for the fracas. You were, of course, secondarily responsible.”

  “Yes, M., sir,” the boy mumbled.

  Click cleared his throat. “I guess I didn’t explain it very well, Princeps. Sometimes you have to defend yourself. Badderley’s only other option would have been to lie down and let himself get pulped.”

  “Oh. Well, er, thank you for clearing it up, Sergeant. Very well, Badderley, this time I will let you off with witnessing the other offender’s chastisement. Let it be a wholesome warning to you.”

  “If I could make a suggestion,” said Click, “remand Badderley into my custody instead. Let me have him for the rest of the hour. I’m sure he’s ready to give me some nice, cooperative answers.”

  “Oh? Oh, er, well, then, Sergeant, ask them now.”

  Click wanted to get at least the younger boy off by himself, but he had already skirted close to undermining the authority of a fellow adult in front of his own charges. And when the polly thought about it, he could find only one question. “Okay, Badderley, why was your pal in the school plant Friday night?”

  Badger blinked up at him and said low but clear, “On a bet, sir. M. Wallace Dutois bet him three tridols he couldn’t stay in the school building all night alone.”

  “Ah?” said the princeps. “Well, well, Sergeant, it, er, seems we’ve uncovered another offense for which Dutois must, er, answer. Whose idea was this bet in the first place, Badderley?”

  Peering around the policeman as if to reassure himself that Big D was not overhearing, Badger replied, “M. Dutois’s, sir. That is, M. Cunningham just said something about a story Dame Swanneck read us, about a thane who stayed overnight in a haunted castle, and M. Dutois said we wouldn’t even have the guts to spend a night here in Owlsfane Garber whether it was haunted or not. But M. Cunningham said, of course we would. That was when M. Dutois bet him three tridols he couldn’t, not alone, not all night. So it really was M. Dutois’s fault, sir. Cunningham wouldn’t have done it if M. Dutois hadn’t thrown the bet at him first.”

  “Ah. Well, Badderley,” said Cage, “so you think Owlsfane Garber Middle College is haunted?”

  “No, sir. Of course we don’t. M. Dutois just said whether it was or not. As if we wouldn’t be able to stay overnight alone in any large building.”

  “Ah, I see. Well, then, Badderley, you may return to your corner for the moment. Sergeant, I think you can, er, go on about your own, uh, business now.”

  “Maybe you’d like me to stay for a few minutes, in case Dutois gives you any trouble.”

  “He won’t, Sergeant. I’ve disciplined him before. No, they never give me trouble.” The princeps stood and crossed to the closet. Badger sort of melted to one side out of the way as Cage slid open the door and brought out a half-meter switch that looked like something out of one of Corwin Poe’s milder perceptions. “Dutois!” Cage went on. “You should remember the procedure.”

  Maintaining his sneer, Big D swaggered to the desk and took an arched stance with his hands braced on its front edge.

  “I regret the necessity more than you will,” Cage recited at him.

  “Then why not leave it till after school, like usual?” Dutois came back.

  “Oh, no. Not today. No, not this time. For once, young man, you’ll take it now.”

  “I’ll be all welted,” Dutois challenged. “I won’t be able to sit down for the rest of the day. My profs won’t like it.”

  “They’ll prefer it to your continued insolence, Dutois. And it will be a good example to the rest of the school.” Stroking his switch, Cage murmured to Click, “How did the old principals keep order in that, er, anarchic period when physical correction was disallowed?”

  Click shrugged, partly envious but slightly sickened. The reaction that had brought limited corporal punishment back into schools about the turn of the century had never extended to police procedures except in the popular imagination that here and there persisted even in spite of picture windows for a full street view of police interrogation rooms. If the inspectors ever found anything half as fancy as Cage’s switch tucked away in a basement closet of a police station, the outcry would be too big for a few news printouts—it’d hit the screenshows. Pollies had a tough enough time keeping permission to use a few mild truth drugs now and then in spite of protests from right-to-privacy types. Click might even be in hot water for his verbal techniques this past hour, unless his senior agreed to erase the chip.

  Princeps Cage probably could handle the situation alone now. Funny, the way his ums and ers disappeared when he was authoritizing it over his students.

  Chapter 24

  “A drug on society?” M. Poe was saying mildly. “Or a wholesome balance? It is fantasy perceivers and proto-fanciers who have kept alive the abacus, slide rule, potter’s wheel, kitchen gardens, folk dancing to the music of archaic instruments, the Latin language, et cetera, et cetera. Without the influence of the fancy class, travel for its own sake would have vanished—we would have no more ocean liners, airships, sightseeing buses or overland trains. Only our utilitarian transport from one station to the next, shot through gray tunnels at a thousand miles an hour. Round clock faces would be as great a mystery as the ancient Mycenean tongue, and the skill of mathematical computation without calculator would have died away last century.”

  “Yeah, but what good is most of that stuff, really?” said Cun
ningham, trying hard to keep his mind on their debate. “You really think all our calculators are going to blackout one of these days?”

  “Probably not. Indeed, let us devoutly hope not. But without these cultural anchors, our entire past would become incomprehensible every eighty years or so. Each generation would be required to create its own culture virtually out of whole cloth, as though the race suffered intervals of periodic amnesia.”

  “Well, maybe.” Cunningham heard a shrug in his own voice.

  The grownup went on, “Suppose you were to awaken every year in a different house, in a new city, with only the foggiest recollections of how you had come there, and with no certainty that the parents you now found beneath the same roof with yourself were the same set you had before?”

  “Yeah, but if it hadn’t been for the fancy class, we could be halfway to Alpha Centauri by now.”

  “On the contrary, had it not been for the fancy class, we might still be talking about the first probes to our own moon. Fanciers and proto-fanciers of the futuristic persuasion have always been in the forefront of the space drive, striving against such hard-bitten reality perceivers as those who allowed our earliest space stations to fall for lack of upkeep and who vetoed the Halley’s Comet probe of the Nineteen Eighties because to their perception it would have been financial waste.”

  “Yeah, but ...” Cunningham looked out the open grove door, and there was Senior Sergeant Lestrade at the vending machine. For a second he was scared she might be a fancy, so he stood up and almost shouted (but you didn’t really shout anywhere in school except the Phex area), “Sergeant Lestrade!”

  She nodded to him, got a cola, and came into their grove. It turned out she already knew M. Poe, so maybe Cunningham hadn’t imagined M. Poe was thinking about more than old movies and stuff with the “Holmes and Watson” code. They all sat down together, and Sergeant Lestrade drank her cola off in one tilt.