Child of Fortune

by Norman Spinrad

  Some called it a series of “pseudopersonalities” generated by the random firing of neurons in cerebral memory banks from which the individuality of the previous occupant had been erased. Others contended that species genetic coding kicked up into the vacated electrohologramic level, and that it was the archetypes supposedly stored as the collective unconscious in our gene pool which manifested themselves.

  As for what spoke toward the very end, upon this subject, only the devotees of the Charge themselves would speculate, and as one might expect, they were uniformly of the opinion that the Atman itself merged with their spirits in the actual moment of the Up and Out.

  Small wonder then that there were those who still sought Delphic pronouncements from the lips of such oracles, for alors, were not all the religions of primitive man but the willed belief that by following their precepts, practices, and esoteric rituals, such a living nirvana might be achieved this side of death? Vraiment, have not such psychonauts of thanatopsis always been our shamans?

  And are such shamans, or at any rate pretenders to their throne, really absent in our sophisticated and enlightened Second Starfaring Age? Was not Cort, my psychonaut lover in Nouvelle Orlean, such a one? And Raul? And Imre? And the dying babas of the Bloomenveldt? And most of all, Guy Vlad Boca, who had found the perfect amusement of his short lifelong quest in the Perfumed Garden of his perfect flower.

  But Pater Pan? No amount of exhaustive research could cause me to even imagine how the King of the Gypsies and the Prince of the Jokers could fall victim to the thanatotic seduction of the Charge. Not the Pied Piper of Pan, for whom the goal had always been a journey with no final destination, not he who had sworn to see all the worlds of men and the whole of our species tale or nobly expire in the futile attempt. How could such a man have chosen to end his tale in vicious farce, as a Charge Addict expiring in a small city on a planet of no particular renown?

  I knew not. I understood it not. Yet soon enough I would confront the inescapable reality thereof. Nor would all the powers of my spirit or the desires of my heart in the end prevail against it.

  29

  Florida was a small city built between a wide crescent of beach along a tropical bay and a low range of wooded maritime alps, mere hills if truth be told, which neatly defined its inland boundaries, though as one would expect, many of the most extravagant manses were sited along the haute corniche which ran just below the crestline on the seaside slope. The bay was blue, the sands quite a striking rose, and the foliage of the hillsides tended to pastel tones of reddish-green. The sky was a brilliant azure, and the waters of the bay were sprinkled with a score or more small sandy islands upon which grew no more than sparse clumps of some purplish salt grass.

  Amusement piers and covered pavilions jutted out into the bay here and there and the waters themselves sported all manner of pleasure craft, though sails seemed to be favored, and blue, rose, and white were the dominant tints thereof.

  Indeed to style Florida a small city might be going too far, for in truth it was more of a large town decorating the bay with a fringe of low and deliberately unobtrusive buildings whose precincts could be covered from end to end on a balmy afternoon’s stroll. By unstated agreement, mayhap by legislative fiat, no structure rose more than four stories, and most were done up in white, rose, or blue, so as to harmonize with the color scheme of the landscape. As for fabriks, these were nowhere in evidence, and those edifices given over to commerce were confined to small inns, restaurants, boutiques, tavernas, and the like. Some small open floatcabs were available, but for the most part the populace seemed to favor traveling afoot.

  In short, upon debarking at seaside from the hover which had borne me from Lorienne, I found myself in a scene of bucolic tranquility and benign isolation from the hurly-burly of the centers of the civilized worlds, a venue for vacationers and sportsvolk or for those who preferred a vie of mellow retreat from urban complexities. Strange to say, the ambiance thereof put me in mind of Nouvelle Orlean somehow, after so many weeks of treetop wilderness on the one hand, and the flagrantly ersatz environments of Edoku, Ciudad Pallas, and Void Ships on the other, though certainement Florida was Nouvelle Orlean writ quite small and modest.

  As for locating the venue where Pater Pan was most likely to be found, this was simplicity itself, for even from the beach I could readily enough spy out a sprinkling of varicolored tents set on a shelf of land about three quarters of the way up the slope of an overlooking hillside.

  Eschewing floatcabs, I forthwith set out inland afoot through the streets of the town toward the hillside in question. These were paved, or rather strewn, with a particolored gravel made up of tiny marine shells and the fragments of larger ones which crunched pleasantly enough underfoot as one trod upon them.

  The denizens of the town seemed divided up into two distinct species: somewhat pallid urbanites obviously on holiday, and well-bronzed natives who were clearly in the minority. Breechclouts, shorts, halters, und so weiter were the favored attire, nor were nude bodies lacking, though naturellement the esthetic effect of all this bare flesh was a good deal more pleasing when it came to the handsome natives than when it came to the turistas. Peculiarly enough, though there was a plethora of youth in evidence, and though such a resort community would seem to be ideal for such enterprises, there seemed to be no organized troupes of buskers, hawkers, ruespielers, und so weiter on these promising streets.

  Nevertheless, the sun shone brightly, the town presented a pleasing aspect, the balmy air was redolent with vegetative sweetness and salty sea-tang, and my spirits soared against all knowledgeable trepidations, for it was difficult indeed to credit such a setting as the venue for such dark and urban horrors as Charge Addiction.

  Nor was my mood anything but lightened when, puffing a bit and lightly filmed with sweat, I reached the shelf upon which the caravanserei was situated. While this encampment had nothing of the size and grandeur of that which the Gypsy Jokers had established in Great Edoku, the sight of it filled my heart with a rosy nostalgic glow for the Golden Summer I had enjoyed as a newborn Child of Fortune therein. And though this encampment boasted no more than a score or two tents of various sizes, shapes, and colors, the view therefrom put what I had known in Edoku to shame. From the outskirts of the caravanserei, I looked out over the shaggy shoulders of the hillside, down across the tiny houses of the town and the shining rose-colored beach to a shining azure sea upon which minuscule sails of blue and white and rose drifted in the breezes like a swarm of brightly-colored sea-midges.

  Only when I entered the encampment itself did the spell of peaceful and perfect beauty begin to unravel.

  For one thing, there was a preponderance of scarcely-pubescent Alpans in evidence, obviously hardly of an age to be Children of Fortune of other worlds embarked upon their wanderjahrs, and while some of these wore the Cloth of Many Colors, their scarves and sashes were patched together out of swatches of new cloth rather than being the fairly-won emblems of a wandering vie.

  Moreover, and more disturbing still, there was almost nothing in the way of crafts or finger food or street theater troupes or musicians or even tantric performers to be seen, as if, as I soon found out to be true, this encampment was living primarily on the largesse of not-too-distant parents. The few true Children of Fortune that I spied seemed a rather unwholesome lot, too long in the tooth for the vie, mayhap predators gathered to prey upon the energies, not to say the parental subsidies, of the young Alpans.

  As for the activities which were taking place, these were hardly calculated to cast credit on the mythos. Many young folk were lying about in an obvious state of red-eyed stupefaction. Others could be seen gulping down great drafts of wine or imbibing various toxicants, and what commerce I noted was mainly in these commodities. Here and there couples and groups were engaged in rather feckless tantric exercises of little or no artistry and not much more energy. Scraps of food were scattered everywhere as well as empty flagons attended by small yellow insects, and the
general aroma, if not quite overpowering, reeked more of decaying organic matter and unwashed bodies than of perfumed incenses and cuisinary savors.

  I loathed the ambiance I experienced as I wandered the camp under the indifferent gazes of its inhabitants, which is to say I dreaded what I would discover at its center, for I knew only too well who and what that would be. Nor was I long in seeking out the locus thereof, for near the center of the encampment was the largest tent of all, a closed pavilion sewn together out of Cloth of Many Colors.

  I was accosted at the flap which concealed the interior of the tent by a rather scruffy and bleary-eyed fellow perhaps five years my senior who barred my way and thrust a chip transcriber under my nose. “Four credit units for an audience with the Oracle,” he told me.

  “What? Quelle chose? What is this outrage?”

  “A small price to pay for the true voice of the Up and Out,” he said with lofty diffidence. “Try to obtain the same elsewhere on Alpa at more modest cost if you wish, and see how far it will get you.”

  “Merde!” I muttered angrily, but I handed over my chip rather than haggle over such a pittance with this churl for another moment. After the required credit was transferred, he held open the tent flap and admitted me to the unwholesome inner sanctum.

  The interior of the tent was strewn with dusty and threadbare cushions. Upon these some dozen acolytes sat, reclined, or indeed dozed, in varying degrees of stupefaction, swilling wines and beers, sniffing at toxicants, and focusing various states of befuddled attention upon the figure propped up in a large nest of pillows in the center of the tent like some pathetic pasha.

  Vraiment, it was Pater Pan.

  But alas, not the Pater Pan I had known.

  His Traje de Luces hung in loose folds about his gaunt frame. His golden hair and beard were unkempt and scraggly and streaked with gray. His skin was seamed and sallow, and there were hollows in his cheeks and dark baggy wrinkles under his eyes. His eyes…

  His wonderful blue eyes seemed larger and brighter than before, set off now in deep shadowed sockets, yet vague, and fragile somehow, like balls of shattered blue marble. About his brow was the metallic band of the Charge, wired to a console all but hidden within his throne of pillows.

  A young girl stood before him intently as if receiving wisdom. And Pater Pan was indeed speaking, albeit with eyes that seemed focused on some middle distance, and in a hollow declamatory tone that seemed addressed to no one or everyone in particular.

  “Tarry not in the mean streets of Hamelin town, but follow me into the Magic Mountain…”

  “Does that mean that I should now commence my wanderjahr?”

  “Fear not the Gypsy King, gajo, for we must all one day be stolen from our parents’ houses, and run away to join the circus…”

  “But now you say I must await a sign?”

  “As a ronin, I know no master but honor…”

  “But—”

  “Enough!” said an older girl squatting at the feet of Pater Pan. “You have already had fair value for your four credits!”

  Eagerly, a boy arose from the front ranks and elbowed her aside, “How am I to gain the affection of Krista, Pater Pan?” he demanded.

  “Be not a swinish wage slave of the Pentagon, but embark in the Gold Mountain on the long slow centuries between the stars, and follow the Arkie Spark within you…”

  I stood there in the back of the tent for many minutes, appalled, disgusted, transfixed, and despairing, as one by one paying customers were ushered in and out of the presence to hector Pater Pan with their picayune questions and receive in turn this Delphic babble.

  I had sufficiently steeped myself in the scientific lore to know that what I beheld was a man who had long since gone beyond the point of no return on the path to the Up and Out.

  “The King of the Gypsies is no more, long live the Prince of the Jokers, though of course they are very small mountains…”

  For while the cadences and music of this flow of words had a certain hypnagogic fascination that drew the mind’s ear down into its murky depths, in truth, I knew, these were isolated and fragmented memory-quanta being released in the absence of a sovereign pattern. No Charge Addict who had progressed to this stage had ever returned as a sapient spirit to the worlds of men, for the integrated personality by now was not merely suppressed but erased forever, or so the mages declared, leaving only disconnected cerebral data banks firing off their memories at random.

  “Before the singer, I was the song, which we followed along the Yellow Brick Road from the ancestral trees to trip the life fantastic out among the stars…”

  The Pater Pan whom I had known and loved was gone forever, or so science insisted, and were I to now rip the band from his head against all the efforts of these wretched acolytes to the contrary, all that I would succeed in rescuing would be a halfling creature such as I now beheld who would linger a few years thusly in the care of the Healers of some mental retreat.

  I was too late. That faceless force which had claimed Guy Vlad Boca had somehow indeed contrived to claim even the noble Pater Pan, as if to avenge itself upon me for my singular triumph over it as the Pied Piper of the Bloomenveldt in the most ghastly manner at its disposal.

  Yet if I could truly do nothing, neither could I let it be, for as Wendi would have had it, and as I now understood in a state of rage that transcended reason, now was the time for a futile gesture.

  I strode boldly and forcefully to the front of the tent, superseding those waiting their turn at their oracle before me without demur, for the energy of my passage brooked none such in this company.

  “Pater! It’s Sunshine!” I cried.

  “In the Summer of Love in the city by the bay, we all wore flowers in our hair…”

  His preternaturally bright yet entirely empty eyes seemed to stare right through me, and his babble, for all I could tell, was for the benefit of these callow creatures who hung on every word of it as much as for myself.

  “Merde!” I shouted, fairly trembling with fury. “You are Pater Pan, and I am Sunshine Shasta Leonardo, and once we were friends and lovers in Great Edoku! Do you remember nothing of our time together?”

  “The caravans of the Gypsies and the Tinkers singing the only tale there is to tell in the black forest of the night…”

  “Merde! Caga! Speak to me, Pater, as a natural man, and not as the voice from a cerebral whirlwind!”

  “Cease addressing the master thusly!”

  “You’ve had your four units’ worth!”

  “Give someone else their turn!”

  I whirled on the clamor that had arisen behind me, feeling almost as much true personal puissance in this company as that which I thespically injected into my voice, “Silence, churls!” I commanded, “I am Sunshine Shasta Leonardo, the Pied Piper of the Bloomenveldt, and I would discourse with my old comrade and lover with no further unseemly interruption from the likes of you!”

  While the chance that any of those present had the slightest notion of who or what the Pied Piper of the Bloomenveldt might be was vanishingly slim, so spiritless were these sorry excuses for Children of Fortune that my words, my demeanor, and the force behind them were quite sufficient to cow them. Far from mitigating my ire, the respectful attitudes of obeisance which they then all assumed, even down to the oracle’s timekeeper, only served to arouse my utter contempt, for no true Child of Fortune of my acquaintance would have bowed so meekly to the mere assertion of authority.

  “Remember, Pater, please remember,” I cajoled Pater Pan, imploringly now, seeking to feel with my words for the smallest purchase with which to pry open this shell and reach the natural man within. “Remember when you were the King of the Gypsies and the Prince of the Joker? Remember? Do you not remember a time in a garden atop a waterfall? Do you not remember how I seized hold of your lingam in a shower stall? Do you not remember the Sunshine that you named? Do you not remember the night you told me what was in your heart of hearts?”

  Pater
Pan’s face at last slowly turned in my direction like a leaf following the sun, but still his gaze seemed to stare right through me. “Remember…?” he said. “Remember…? Remember…?”

  “Yes, Pater, remember! Remember Sunshine, oh please, bitte, kudasai, liebchen, remember me!”

  “Remember Sunshine…I remember Sunshine beneath the towering red trees of the great forest…I remember a Sunshine in my arms as we made love on the wing in the long slow centuries between the stars…I remember a Sunshine on Novi Mir…I remember a Sunshine on Edoku…I remember a Sunshine on Elysium…Remember the Sunshine of my life along the Yellow Brick Road…”

  This at last was far more than I could countenance! If the spell that I must counter was that of the electronic mastery of the Charge over the higher centers of his brain, if the power of the Word now failed me, then I must resort to the employment of electronic powers of my own. I must use the ring whose puissance I had not sought to employ for pleasure or gain since it had worse than failed me in the Perfumed Garden. I must resume my erotic career at once, any lack of piquant or quotidian desire to the contrary, for I could see nothing for it but to seize him by that kundalinic root which customarily overrides all cogitative imperatives when gripped by feminine force.

  To wit, I thumbed on my ring of Touch, and to the oohs and gasps of the voyeurs in the tent, grabbed hold through the fabric of his trousers of his flaccid phallus. “If you remember nothing else, mon ami, mayhap you will remember this!”

  Did his glassy eyes widen? Did some human light return thereto? Certainement, though with unseemly slowness, I felt the sap of manhood rise within my grasp. Strange indeed it was to feel the serpent stirring in a lingam once more after my long celibacy in a venue and a moment such as this! Stranger still, and somehow unwholesome, to feel the kundalinic knots uncoil within my own loins in such a pass, to find my natural woman once more via this most unnatural of tantric acts.