Virtual Unrealities, The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (12 page)

They brought the lucky Judith Field to the Odeon. She was a tall, dark girl with cropped curly hair and lovely tennis legs. Halsyon took her hand. The World Procurer tiptoed out.

“Hello, darling,” Halsyon murmured.

Judith looked at him with loathing. Her eyes were wet, her face bruised from weeping.

“Hello, darling,” Halsyon repeated.

“If you touch me, Jeff,” Judith said in a strangled voice, “I’ll kill you.”

“Judy!”

“That disgusting man explained everything to me. He didn’t seem to understand when I tried to explain to him… . I was praying you’d be dead before it was my turn.”

“But this is marriage, Judy.”

“I’d rather die than be married to you.”

“I don’t believe you. We’ve been in love for—”

“For God’s sake, Jeff, love’s over for you. Don’t you understand? Those women cry because they hate you. I hate you. The world loathes you. You’re disgusting.”

Halsyon stared at the girl and saw the truth in her face. In an excess of rage, he tried to seize her. She fought him bitterly. They careened around the huge living room of the suite, overturning furniture, their breath hissing, their fury mounting. Halsyon struck Judith Field with his big fist to end the struggle once and for all. She reeled back, clutched at a drape, smashed through a French window and fell fourteen floors to the street like a gyrating doll.

Halsyon looked down in horror. A crowd gathered around the smashed body. Faces upturned. Fists shook. An ominous growl began. The World Procurer dashed into the suite.

“My old! My blue!” he cried. “What have you done?
Per conto
. It is a spark that will ignite savagery. You are in very grave danger. God damn.”

“Is it true they all hate me?”

“
Hélas
, then you have discovered the truth? That indiscreet girl. I warned her.
Oui
. You are loathed.”

“But you told me I was loved. The new Adam. Father of the new world.”

“
Oui
. You are the father, but what child does not hate its father? You are also a legal rapist. What woman does not hate being forced to embrace a man … even by necessity for survival? Come quickly, my rock and rye.
Passim
. You are in great danger.”

He dragged Halsyon to a back elevator and took him down to the Odeon cellar.

“The army will get you out. We take you to Turkey at once and effect a compromise.”

Halsyon was transferred to the custody of a tall, gaunt, bitter army colonel who rushed him through underground passages to a side street where a staff car was waiting. The colonel thrust Halsyon inside.

“
Jacta alea est
,” he said to the driver. “Speed, my corporal. Protect old faithful. To the airport
Alors!
”

“God damn, sir,” the corporal replied. He saluted and started the car. As it twisted through the streets at breakneck speed, Halsyon glanced at him. He was a tall, gaunt man, sprightly but bitter.

“
Kulturkampf der Menschheit
,” the corporal muttered. “Jeez!”

A giant barricade had been built across the street, improvised of ash barrels, furniture, overturned cars, traffic stanchions. The corporal was forced to brake the car. As he slowed for a U-turn, a mob of women appeared from doorways, cellars, stores. They were screaming. Some of them brandished improvised clubs.

“Excelsior!” the corporal cried. “God damn.” He tried to pull his service gun out of its holster. The women yanked open the car doors and tore Halsyon and the corporal out. Halsyon broke free, struggled through the wild clubbing mob, dashed to the sidewalk, stumbled and dropped with a sickening yaw through an open coal chute. He shot down and spilled out into an endless black space. His head whirled. A stream of stars sailed before his eyes …

And he drifted alone in space, a martyr, misunderstood, a victim of cruel injustice.

He was still chained to what had once been the wall of Cell 5, Block 27, Tier 100, Wing 9 of the Callisto Penitentiary until that unexpected gamma explosion had torn the vast fortress dungeon—vaster than the Château d’If—apart. That explosion, he realized, had been detonated by the Grssh.

His assets were his convict clothes, a helmet, one cylinder of O
₂
, his grim fury at the injustice that had been done him, and his knowledge of the secret of how the Grssh could be defeated in their maniacal quest for solar domination.

The Grssh, ghastly marauders from Omicron Ceti, space-degenerates, space-imperialists, cold-blooded, roachlike, depending for their food upon the psychotic horrors which they engendered in man through mental control and upon which they fed, were rapidly conquering the galaxy. They were irresistible, for they possessed the power of simul-kinesis—the ability to be in two places at the same time.

Against the vault of space, a dot of light moved slowly, like a stricken meteor. It was a rescue ship, Halsyon realized, combing space for survivors of the explosion. He wondered whether the light of Jupiter, flooding him with rusty radiation, would make him visible to the rescuers. He wondered whether he wanted to be rescued at all.

“It will be the same thing again,” Halsyon grated. “Falsely accused by Balorsen’s robot… . Falsely convicted by Judith’s father… . Repudiated by Judith herself… . Jailed again … and finally destroyed by the Grssh as they destroy the last strongholds of Terra. Why not die now?”

But even as he spoke he realized he lied. He was the one man with the one secret that could save the earth and the very galaxy itself. He must survive. He must fight.

With indomitable will, Halsyon struggled to his feet, fighting the constricting chains. With the steely strength he had developed as a penal laborer in the Grssh mines, he waved and shouted. The spot of light did not alter its slow course away from him. Then he saw the metal link of one of his chains strike a brilliant spark from the flinty rock. He resolved on a desperate expedient to signal the rescue ship.

He detached the plasti-hose of the O
₂
tank from his plasti-helmet, and permitted the stream of life-giving oxygen to spurt into space. With trembling hands, he gathered the links of his leg chain and dashed them against the rock under the oxygen. A spark glowed. The oxygen caught fire. A brilliant geyser of white flame spurted for half a mile into space.

Husbanding the last oxygen in his plasti-helmet, Halsyon twisted the cylinder slowly, sweeping the fan of flame back and forth in a last desperate bid for rescue. The atmosphere in his plasti-helmet grew foul and acrid. His ears roared. His sight flickered. At last his senses failed… .

When he recovered consciousness he was in a plasti-cot in the cabin of a starship. The high frequency whine told him they were in overdrive. He opened his eyes. Balorsen stood before the plasti-cot, and Balorsen’s robot and High Judge Field, and his daughter Judith. Judith was weeping. The robot was in magnetic plasti-clamps and winced as General Balorsen lashed him again and again with a nuclear plasti-whip.

“
Parbleu!
God damn!” the robot grated. “It is true I framed Jeff Halsyon. Ouch!
Flux de bouche
. I was the space-pirate who space-hijacked the space-freighter. God damn. Ouch! The space-bartender in the Spaceman’s Saloon was my accomplice. When Jackson wrecked the space-cab I went to the space-garage and X-beamed the sonic
before
Tantial murdered O’Leary.
Aux armes
. Jeez. Ouch!”

“There you have the confession, Halsyon,” General Balorsen grated. He was tall, gaunt, bitter. “By God.
Ars est celare artem
. You are innocent.”

“I falsely condemned you, old faithful,” Judge Field grated. He was tall, gaunt, bitter. “Can you forgive this God damn fool? We apologize.”

“We wronged you, Jeff,” Judith whispered. “How can you ever forgive us? Say you forgive us.”

“You’re sorry for the way you treated me,” Halsyon grated. “But it’s only because on account of a mysterious mutant strain in my makeup which makes me different, I’m the one man with the one secret that can save the galaxy from the Grssh.”

“No, no, no, old gin and tonic,” General Balorsen pleaded. “God damn. Don’t hold grudges. Save us from the Grssh.”

“Save us,
faute de mieux
, save us, Jeff,” Judge Field put in.

“Oh please, Jeff, please,” Judith whispered. “The Grssh are everywhere and coming closer. We’re taking you to the U.N. You must tell the council how to stop the Grssh from being in two places at the same time.”

“The starship came out of overdrive and landed on Governor’s Island where a delegation of world dignitaries met the ship and rushed Halsyon to the General Assembly room of the U.N. They drove down the strangely rounded streets lined with strangely rounded buildings which had all been altered when it was discovered that the Grssh always appeared in corners. There was not a corner or an angle left on all Terra.

The General Assembly was filled when Halsyon entered. Hundreds of tall, gaunt, bitter diplomats applauded as he made his way to the podium, still dressed in convict plasti-clothes. Halsyon looked around resentfully.

“Yes,” he grated. “You all applaud. You all revere me now; but where were you when I was framed, convicted, and jailed … an innocent man? Where were you then?”

“Halsyon, forgive us. God damn!” they shouted.

“I will not forgive you, I suffered for seventeen years in the Grssh mines. Now it’s your turn to suffer.”

“Please, Halsyon!”

“Where are your experts? Your professors? Your specialists? Where are your electronic calculators? Your super thinking machines? Let them solve the mystery of the Grssh.”

“They can’t, old whiskey and soda.
Entre nous
. They’re stopped cold. Save us, Halsyon.
Auf Wiedersehen
.”

Judith took his arm. “Not for my sake, Jeff,” she whispered. “I know you’ll never forgive me for the injustice I did you. But for the sake of all the other girls in the Galaxy who love and are loved.”

“I still love you, Judy.”

“I’ve always loved you, Jeff.”

“Okay. I didn’t want to tell them but you talked me into it. Halsyon raised his hand for silence. In the ensuing hush he spoke softly. “The secret is this, gentlemen. Your calculators have assembled data to ferret out the secret weakness of the Grssh. They have not been able to find any. Consequently you have assumed that the Grssh have no secret weakness.
That was a wrong assumption
.”

The General Assembly held its breath.

“Here is the secret.
You should have assumed there was something wrong with the calculators
.”

“God damn!” the General Assembly cried. “Why didn’t we think of that? God damn!”

“And I know what’s wrong!”

There was a deathlike hush.

The door of the General Assembly burst open. Professor Deathhush, tall, gaunt, bitter, tottered in. “Eureka!” he cried. “I’ve found it. God damn. Something wrong with the thinking machines. Three comes
after
two, not before.”

The General Assembly broke into cheers. Professor Deathhush was seized and pummeled happily. Bottles were opened. His health was drunk. Several medals were pinned on him. He beamed.

“Hey!” Halsyon called. “That was my secret. I’m the one man who on account of a mysterious mutant strain in my—”

The ticker tape began pounding: ATTENTION. ATTENTION. HUSHENKOV IN MOSCOW REPORTS DEFECT IN CALCULATORS. 3 COMES AFTER 2 AND NOT BEFORE. REPEAT: AFTER (UNDERSCORE) NOT BEFORE.

A postman ran in. “Special Delivery from Doctor Lifehush at Caltech. Says something’s wrong with the thinking machines. Three comes after two, not before.”

A telegraph boy delivered a wire: THINKING MACHINE WRONG STOP TWO COMES BEFORE THREE STOP NOT AFTER STOP. VON DREAMHUSH, HEIDELBERG.

A bottle was thrown through the window. It crashed on the floor revealing a bit of paper on which was scrawled:
Did you ever stop to thine that maibe the nomber 3 comes after 2 insted of in front? Down with the Grish. Mr. Hush-Hush
.

Halsyon buttonholed Judge Field. “What the hell is this?” he demanded. “I thought I was the one man in the world with that secret.”

“HimmelHerrGott!”
Judge Field replied impatiently. “You are all alike. You dream you are the one man with a secret, the one man with a wrong, the one man with an injustice, with a girl, without a girl, with or without anything. God damn. You bore me, you one-man dreamers. Get lost.”

Judge Field shouldered him aside. General Balorsen shoved him back. Judith Field ignored him. Balorsen’s robot sneakily tripped him into a corner of the crowd where a Grssh, also in a crowded corner on Neptune, appeared, did something unspeakable to Halsyon, and disappeared with him, screaming, jerking and sobbing, into a horror that was a delicious meal for the Grssh but a plasti-nightmare for Halsyon… .

From which his mother awakened him and said, “This’ll teach you not to sneak peanut-butter sandwiches in the middle of the night, Jeffrey.”

“Mama?”

“Yes. It’s time to get up, dear. You’ll be late for school.”

She left the room. He looked around. He looked at himself. It was true. True! The glorious realization came upon him. His dream had come true. He was ten years old again, in the flesh that was his ten-year-old body, in the home that was his boyhood home, in the life that had been his life in his school days. And within his head was the knowledge, the experience, the sophistication of a man of thirty-three.

“Oh joy!” he cried. “It’ll be a triumph. A triumph!”

He would be the school genius. He would astonish his parents, amaze his teachers, confound the experts. He would win scholarships. He would settle the hash of that kid Rennahan who used to bully him. He would hire a typewriter and write all the successful plays and stories and novels he remembered. He would cash in on that lost opportunity with Judy Field behind the memorial in Isham Park. He would steal inventions and discoveries, get in on the ground floor of new industries, make bets, play the stock market. He would own the world by the time he caught up with himself.