Child of Fortune

by Norman Spinrad

  15

  By my own adamant choice, my first venture as an experimental subject for the mages of the mental retreats of Ciudad Pallas was also my last, and no argument of Guy’s to the contrary could sway my determination not to submit myself to what I can only call such horrid pleasures again. For while I could not deny his contention that this was a potentially lucrative occupation, I neither trusted in the good intentions of these Hippocratic mercenaries, nor wished to risk my sanity to serve the cause of their profit.

  As for Guy, who had been dosed with the same substance and reported a similar sequence of experiences during the floatcab ride back to the Hotel Pallas, he, au contraire, had found it all quite amusing and was just as adamantly determined to continue his career as a psychonaut.

  “I cannot comprehend your reluctance,” he declared more in genuine amazement than pique. “How can you define the spirit’s transcendence of the limitations of the body’s sensory apparatus as anything but an enhancement, vraiment, how can you define a timeless and endless orgasmic cusp as anything but ultimate ecstasy?”

  “One might say the same for what Void Pilots supposedly declare to be the true ultimate ecstasy of the Jump itself,” I snapped. “Would you then have me famish myself into anorexia, rot my brain with a profusion of crude opiates, dally awhile with the Charge, and spend several years in a mental retreat so that I may then enjoy platform orgasm as a Pilot via congress with the Jump Circuit?”

  The most unwholesome dreamy look insinuated itself onto Guy’s face. “Indeed it is said that in the moment of the Jump the Pilot achieves far more than platform orgasm,” he muttered speculatively, “that via union with the Great and Only Void out of which the dance of matter and energy arises, the spirit achieves ecstatic merger with the atman and transcends thereby the limitations of maya and temporality…”

  I could scarcely credit my ears. “Now you enthusiastically parrot the apocryphal mystical babble of the Void Pilot…?”

  “The Great and Only exists, and the Jump transcends the limitations of the quotidian realm of energy, matter, and time, as witness the fact that we ourselves have so recently traversed light-years in days via its instrumentality, nē,” Guy told me. “Therefore may not the Void Pilots achieve the ultimate state of consciousness of which our species is capable?”

  “Be that as it may,” I pointed out, “the beneficiaries of this transcendent congress with the Void are rendered thereby incapable of enjoying the pleasures of a natural woman, unfit for social intercourse, and expire within a matter of years.”

  “Vraiment,” Guy admitted, “but may not the bargain be worth it? May not that which we fleshly creatures seek in each other’s arms be but a pale shadow of an ultimate bliss which our untimebound spirits remember? And indeed, are not matters of lifespan irrelevant to a spirit which experiences a single moment of transcendent time?”

  “Next you will declare your intention to become a Void Pilot?” I snorted.

  Guy shrugged. “Alas, as you know, that is a path to the ultimate transcendence of maya’s realm which is open to the steps of your gender alone,” he said with tendentious gravity. “Yet here, in the mental retreats of Ciudad Pallas, do they not seek an elixir which will create the biochemical matrix of a consciousness capable of experiencing same in ordinary female brains? May they not therefore at length concoct a potion which will grant such a cusp to the poor masculine likes of myself? Vraiment, is this not the ultimate of the amusement which I so avidly seek? How can I therefore eschew the path spread before me by the mages of Ciudad Pallas out of cowardly trepidations for the state of my mere corpus?”

  At this I was quite literally rendered speechless, nor would I rise to the bait of his babble for the rest of the evening. Nor, alas, would he give it over long enough for a proper passage d’amour before I lapsed into merciful sleep. And on the morrow, he was no more able to comprehend my refusal to accompany him to another mental retreat than I was capable of comprehending his refusal to simply purchase psychotropics of proven ability and effect if he was so set on devoting himself to the contemplation of his own spiritual navel.

  “I seek not realms which others have known, for I know of no man who has yet attained the realm which I seek!” he insisted. “Vraiment,” he said with a leavening trace of his old wry humor, “no doubt that is half the reason I seek it. But how can you style yourself a true Child of Fortune and not wish to avail yourself of spheres of consciousness never previously known to mortal man when a veritable smorgasbord of same is laid out for your delectation?”

  “How can you style yourself a true Child of Fortune and waste your time, not to say risk your spirit, besotting yourself in this wretched city when all the worlds of men are laid out as a veritable smorgasbord of adventure for your delectation, courtesy of your father’s bottomless largesse?”

  “The worlds of men, the worlds of the spirit within this single man, la même chose, nē?”

  “Phagh! Merde! Have you not noticed the denizens of the laboratories and mental retreats? Is that what you wish to become, Guy, a gaunt, hollow-eyed wretch staring vacantly at walls and muttering incomprehensible imprecations to yourself?”

  “Ah, but who is to say what splendors of the spirit, what transcendent heights of amusement, are in fact contained within such seemingly decadent fleshly shells?”

  “A maestro of sophistry?” I suggested archly.

  Und so weiter. In the days to come, when Guy would return to our suite after a sojourn in the mental retreats, at times glassy-eyed and torpid, but more often than not vibrating with ill-focused energy and babbling of incomprehensible wonders, this dialectic would go another round without approaching any closer to synthesis.

  Nor, on the other hand, and to Guy’s considerable moral credit, did he ever intrude pecuniary considerations into our fruitless discourse, though I would have been hard put to counter same. For while he was earning an average of some twenty-five units of credit a day in the mental retreats, I, a pauper dependent upon his largesse for my very bed and board, only occasionally visited a laboratory to earn a pittance, and then only under the pressure of a boredom that became more unbearable every day.

  In the face of his undeniable magnanimity of spirit when it came to matters of finance, I could hardly summon up the meanness of soul to hector him on subjects where he in turn would have been most vulnerable: to wit, that firstly he was entirely responsible for my presence in this ghastly city, and secondly that his puissance as a lover was dwindling away to nullity as his libidinal energies were sucked down the black hole of his solipsistic psychotropic obsession.

  Would I have left Guy Vlad Boca at this point had I possessed sufficient funds to escape Belshazaar on my own? Je ne sais pas, for no such choice was in fact open to my consideration. But mayhap, I still would not have abandoned Guy to the demimonde of the mental retreats, or so I would like to think.

  Certainement, I had discovered to my dismay an unwholesome side to his spirit that was more and more coming to the fore. But it was a generous and open-hearted spirit too, and even his obsessive quest for psychotropic nirvana clearly emanated from a core of passionate if foolhardy courage which I would have had to have been a churl to deny.

  Then too, the more simple fact of it was that Guy had rescued me from penury on Edoku and freely given whatever it was in his power to give. What sort of Child of Fortune, vraiment, what sort of human spirit, would I have been if I had left such a comrade to be pulled down by his demons without at least offering combat to the same to the limits of my power to do so?

  Be such moral conjectures as they may, as karma would justly have it, I lacked the coward’s resources to flee from the field of honor, and at length I was presented with both the dire necessity to act and the pragmatic means to do so.

  While Guy was off pursuing his solipsistic pleasures, I was left to my own devices, and these were limited indeed. I wandered the bleak streets aimlessly, or rather seeking divertissements that were not to be found therein,
namely some analog of the society of the Gypsy Jokers, some promising venue in which to essay a ruespiel, or failing that, at least some opportunity to earn ruegelt as a tantric performer.

  Alas, none of the Children of Fortune of Ciudad Pallas had interest in any enterprise save that of the mental retreats and laboratories, what passed for street crowds depressed me beyond any thought of standing up and spieling, and I had entirely lost the pluck to offer my services as a tantric performer to passing strangers, and certainly to passing strangers as unappetizing as these.

  But on the tenth day, awash in ennui and self-pity, I was trudging with downcast eyes along a street given over to the usual unimaginative facades of shops and streets, when all at once I was confronted with a vision that jolted me out of my funk and set my spirit soaring.

  The entire facade of a libraire had been given over to a bolo display designed to entice custom within. As to whether the generality of the citizenry of Ciudad Pallas might be entranced by this sight, je ne sais pas, but as for me, I stood there dazzled.

  For there on the grim gray streets of Ciudad Pallas was a window into another and grander reality: a holo view of the Bloomenveldt itself.

  Under an azure sky fleeced with passing clouds, a vast meadow stretched away to the horizon, undulating gently in a breeze. Imagine a dense bank of clouds seen from above, soft billowing mounds, not of white or stormy gray, but of a deep and verdant green.

  For what I beheld was the treetop canopy of the Bloomenwald, an aerial rootwork of great interlocking branches from which grew a magically solid veldt of huge leaves, solid enough so that I felt I might step off the street and walk away into wonderland, yet tossing and rolling like foam on the wind. Green and yet not entirely green, for the entire vista of undulating skyland was strewn with a profusion of flowers of every conceivable form and hue, as a desert may be seen to spring into riotous bloom after a day of rain. Flowers whose immense size was revealed by a troupe of tawny-furred bipeds who were to be seen hopping in great soaring bounds among flowers which quite dwarfed them.

  Ah, I could all but feel the “land” rocking beneath my feet, feel the sun on my skin and the wind streaming through my hair, I could almost smell gorgeous floral perfumes wafting to my nostrils upon it.

  Merde, we were utterly demented to remain in this vile city for another instant when such an Enchanted Forest grew on this very planet! No wonder the citizens of Ciudad Pallas and the denizens of the laboratories and mental retreats seemed so unwholesome! No wonder Guy seemed to be fading into babblement before my eyes! For who but a crippled spirit would be content to experience such a natural reality second-hand in vials when the Bloomenwald itself was but a short flight away?

  Surely even Guy would be roused from his psychotropic obsessions by this grand and glorious sight, surely he would be moved to travel forthwith thither, surely the means had been placed in my hands whereby I might save him from himself!

  Without further thought, I entered the libraire and purchased a copy of the holo so that I might display it for Guy at once, utterly indifferent to the fact that this purchase consumed nearly all of the meager credit on my chip, leaving me with only enough to take a floatcab back to the hotel. This final expenditure I also freely made, unwilling to trade time for credits by returning afoot.

  A small pamphlet concerning the Bloomenwald was included in the price of the holo, and this I avidly perused while the floatcab carried me through the streets of Ciudad Pallas, all too eager to ignore the tawdry reality through which I need pass in favor of immersion in the lore of the Enchanted Forest.

  On Belshazaar, I learned, wormlike forms had evolved directly into vertebrates and thence into higher fauna, and insects had never arisen. The flowers of the Bloomenveldt being of such enormous size, the ecological niches occupied on other worlds by insectile forms were here taken over by mammalians of considerable size and cerebral development. As in the more common mode where insects filled these niches, the flowers exuded molecules in their perfumes, pollens, nectars, and fruits designed to effect the motivational metabolisms of their pollinators.

  But since on Belshazaar these pollinators were mammalian forms with developed cerebral cortices, the molecules the flowers evolved to modulate their behaviors also had their effects on man.

  Thus was the economy of Belshazaar based upon the chance evolution of an ecosystem in which higher forms had been adapted to serve as the pollinators of the Enchanted Forest.

  The pamphlet went on to elucidate a few of the finer details of the ecosystem of the treetops, but by the time I had reached this section of the simple dissertation, the floatcab had reached the Hotel Pallas, and I gave over my studies of same in favor of rushing to our suite to confront Guy with the holo.

  I burst into the suite in the full flush of my enthusiasm, and, seeing that Guy reposed on a chaise in the sitting room gazing out over the dismal cityscape provided by the great window, I went directly to the viewer circuited thereto and inserted the holo. The wretched view of the vile city was forthwith replaced by the glorious vision of the Bloomenveldt, as if we were perched in a treehouse above the aerial meadow, looking out on what would soon become our garden of delights.

  “Look, Guy, isn’t it marvelous?” I burbled. “Ah, how—”

  “…so close, vraiment, beyond the dance, rising within me, it is as they say, as Jesu Christo had it, behold, psychonauts of the spirit, you too can walk on water, you must surrender all else to do it, but you can walk on water…”

  Only when he utterly failed to react to this glorious vision did I perceive the metal band around his head, and the wire leads depending therefrom, and the little console to which they were connected. Only then did I realize that he had been addressing himself in an eerie hollow voice at the moment of my arrival. Only then did comprehending rage replace my ignorant joy. For while I had discovered Xochimilco in the treetops, Guy had discovered the Charge.

  I knew little about the Charge in those days save the general lore, and I would have expected Guy Vlad Boca to be far better versed in such matters than I, but what I did know was more than enough to outrage my spirit and send an adrenal tide boiling through my blood which balled my hands into fists.

  The Charge is in essence the electronic amplification of the electrohologram of human consciousness without topological distortion, so that the Charge Addict seems to remain the same personality only more so, an enhanced version of himself, if only in his own eyes. Of course, if as is all too likely, the Charge Addict is a skewed personality to begin with, amplification produces something a good deal less savory than a bodhisatva.

  Worse still, while each increment of Charge achieves an increment of amplification of the electrohologram of consciousness, each increment of Charge also creates an increment of instability in the overall pattern, so that as higher and higher states of consciousness are supposedly achieved, the personality that reaches them grows vaguer and vaguer, until, at least in theory, perfect Enlightenment is reached by a perfect human cipher.

  Without even pausing at the time to think these thoughts, I ripped the wires from the console, and flung the vile thing against the wall with all my strength, smashing it to pieces.

  Guy Vlad Boca at last acknowledged my existence to the point of turning his face in my direction, his eyes blinking in perplexity in the sudden light of relative reason. “How could you do such a thing to yourself, Guy?” I screamed. “Is mental seppuku in slow motion your concept of the perfect amusement?”

  “Mayhap not…perfect…” Guy babbled, staring off into inner space once more, “but mayhap as close as we can approach to the edge…”

  “Merde, this is more than I can countenance,” I exclaimed, and without further rational consideration, I tore the electrode band from his head, and employed the ring of Touch in a manner which I had never before attempted, applying my hand to the base of his skull, and sending a jolt of energy to the centers of his backbrain which should have been sufficient to have a corpse up and tur
ning cartwheels.

  This at least was enough to return him to some semblance of natural awareness.

  “By what right did you do that, who are you to judge another spirit’s quest, I merely toyed with the edge…” he said, regarding me first in righteous anger, and then like a little boy whose mother has caught him with his hand in the pastry bin.

  “What would you have had me do, sit patiently by and watch you slowly erase your consciousness?”

  “I am no sordid Charge Addict, I would never have proceeded to the Up and Out,” he said with a great false show of indignation belied by the queasy expression around the corners of his eyes. “I merely wished to taste the nirvanic joys which the Charge Addicts celebrate, never would such a master psychonaut as Guy Vlad Boca have had the weakness of will to fall victim to terminal addiction.”

  “Indeed? As you have not had the weakness of will to give yourself over to the far less puissant temptations of the mental retreats?”

  “How can it be less than a noble calling to pursue profit and enhance consciousness while serving the cause of medical science at the same time?”

  “Vraiment?” I said, hunkering down beside his chaise. “If your consciousness has become so puissantly enhanced, then why are you entirely oblivious to the glory before your very eyes!”

  He regarded me with a befuddled expression.

  Groaning with exasperation, I seized his jaw in my hand and directed his gaze by main force toward the holo image of the Bloomenveldt which had replaced the unwholesome vista of Ciudad Pallas beyond the window. His eyes widened in surprise and seemed to regain some modicum of their quotidian vitality.

  “Yes, Guy,” I cooed in as seductive a voice as I could muster under the circumstances, “not this wretched city of unnatural experiments and even more unnatural denizens, but the Bloomenveldt of which all herein is but a pale and tortured shadow. Vraiment, and this is but a holo. Ah, can you not imagine us standing there hand in hand in the Enchanted Forest of the treetops, with the warm sun on our skins, and a thousand rich perfumes intoxicating our senses, borne on the same breeze that ruffles our hair and whispers through the branches, and rocks the very ground we stroll upon like transcendent beings along the rolling surface of an arboreal sea…”