Virtual Unrealities, The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (17 page)

“And the danger of projection?”

“It is the danger of believing what is implied. If you live with a psychotic who projects his sickness upon you, there is a danger of falling into his psychotic pattern and becoming virtually psychotic yourself. As, no doubt, is happening to you, Mr. Vandaleur.”

Vandaleur leaped to his feet.

“You are an ass,” Nan Webb went on crisply. She waved the sheets of notes. “This is no exchange student’s writing. It’s the unique cursive of the famous Blenheim. Every scholar in England knows this blind writing. There is no Merton College at London University. That was a miserable guess. Merton is one of the Oxford Colleges. And you, Mr. Vandaleur, are so obviously infected by association with your deranged android … by projection, if you will … that I hesitate between calling the Metropolitan Police and the Hospital for the Criminally Insane.”

I took out the gun and shot her.

Reet!

“Antares II, Alpha Aurigae, Acrux IV, Pollux IX, Rigel Centaurus,” Vandaleur said. “They’re all cold. Cold as a witch’s kiss. Mean temperatures of forty degrees Fahrenheit. Never gets hotter than seventy. We’re in business again. Watch that curve.”

The multiple-aptitude android swung the wheel with its accomplished hands. The car took the curve sweetly and sped on through the northern marshes, the reeds stretching for miles, brown and dry, under the cold English sky. The sun was sinking swiftly. Overhead, a lone flight of bustards flapped clumsily eastward. High above the flight, a lone helicopter drifted toward home and warmth.

“No more warmth for us,” I said. “No more heat. We’re safe when we’re cold. We’ll hole up in Scotland, make a little money, get across to Norway, build a bankroll, and then ship out. We’ll settle on Pollux. We’re safe. We’ve licked it. We can live again.”

There was a startling
bleep
from overhead, and then a ragged roar: “ATTENTION JAMES VANDALEUR AND ANDROID. ATTENTION, JAMES VANDALEUR AND ANDROID!”

Vandaleur started and looked up. The lone helicopter was floating above them. From its belly came amplified commands: “YOU ARE SURROUNDED. THE ROAD IS BLOCKED. YOU ARE TO STOP YOUR CAR AT ONCE AND SUBMIT TO ARREST. STOP AT ONCE!”

I looked at Vandaleur for orders.

“Keep driving,” Vandaleur snapped.

The helicopter dropped lower: “ATTENTION ANDROID. YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF THE VEHICLE. YOU ARE TO STOP AT ONCE. THIS IS A STATE DIRECTIVE SUPERSEDING ALL PRIVATE COMMANDS.”

“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted.

“A state directive supersedes all private commands,” the android answered. “I must point out to you that—”

“Get the hell away from the wheel,” Vandaleur ordered. I clubbed the android, yanked him sideways, and squirmed over him to the wheel. The car veered off the road in that moment and went churning through the frozen mud and dry reeds. Vandaleur regained control and continued westward through the marshes toward a parallel highway five miles distant.

“We’ll beat their goddamned block,” he grunted.

The car pounded and surged. The helicopter dropped even lower. A searchlight blazed from the belly of the plane.

“ATTENTION JAMES VANDALEUR AND ANDROID. SUBMIT TO ARREST. THIS IS A STATE DIRECTIVE SUPERSEDING ALL PRIVATE COMMANDS.”

“He can’t submit,” Vandaleur shouted wildly. “There’s no one to submit to. He can’t and I won’t.”

“Christ!” I muttered. “We’ll beat them yet. We’ll beat the block. We’ll beat the heat. We’ll—”

“I must point out to you,” I said, “that I am required by my prime directive to obey state directives which supersede all private commands. I must submit to arrest.”

“Who says it’s a state directive?” Vandaleur said. “Them? Up in that plane? They’ve got to show credentials. They’ve got to prove it’s state authority before you submit. How d’you know they’re not crooks trying to trick us?”

Holding the wheel with one arm, he reached into his side pocket to make sure the gun was still in place. The car skidded. The tires squealed on frost and reeds. The wheel was wrenched from his grasp and the car yawed up a small hillock and overturned. The motor roared and the wheels screamed. Vandaleur crawled out and dragged the android with him. For the moment we were outside the circle of light boring down from the helicopter. We blundered off into the marsh, into the blackness, into concealment … Vandaleur running with a pounding heart, hauling the android along.

The helicopter circled and soared over the wrecked car, searchlight peering, loudspeaker braying. On the highway we had left, lights appeared as the pursuing and blocking parties gathered and followed radio directions from the plane. Vandaleur and the android continued deeper and deeper into the marsh, working their way toward the parallel road and safety. It was night by now. The sky was a black matte. Not a star showed. The temperature was dropping. A southeast night wind knifed us to the bone.

Far behind there was a dull concussion. Vandaleur turned, gasping. The car’s fuel had exploded. A geyser of flame shot up like a lurid fountain. It subsided into a low crater of burning reeds. Whipped by the wind, the distant hem of flame fanned up into a wall, ten feet high. The wall began marching down on us, crackling fiercely. Above it, a pall of oily smoke surged forward. Behind it, Vandaleur could make out the figures of men … a mass of beaters searching the marsh.

“Christ!” I cried and searched desperately for safety. He ran, dragging me with him, until their feet crunched through the surface ice of a pool. He trampled the ice furiously, then flung himself down in the numbing water, pulling the android with us.

The wall of flame approached. I could hear the crackle and feel the heat. He could see the searchers clearly. Vandaleur reached into his side pocket for the gun. The pocket was torn. The gun was gone. He groaned and shook with cold and terror. The light from the marsh fire was blinding. Overhead, the helicopter floated helplessly to one side, unable to fly through the smoke and flames and aid the searchers who were beating far to the right of us.

“They’ll miss us,” Vandaleur whispered. “Keep quiet. That’s an order. They’ll miss us. We’ll beat them. We’ll beat the fire. We’ll—”

Three distinct shots sounded less than a hundred feet from the fugitives.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
They came from the last three cartridges in my gun as the marsh fire reached it where it had dropped, and exploded the shells. The searchers turned toward the sound and began working directly toward us. Vandaleur cursed hysterically and tried to submerge even deeper to escape the intolerable heat of the fire. The android began to twitch.

The wall of flame surged up to them. Vandaleur took a deep breath and prepared to submerge until the flame passed over them. The android shuddered and burst into an earsplitting scream.

“All reet! All reet!” it shouted. “Be fleet be fleet!”

“Damn you!” I shouted. I tried to drown it.

“Damn you!” I cursed him. I smashed his face.

The android battered Vandaleur, who fought it off until it exploded out of the mud and staggered upright. Before I could return to the attack, the live flames captured it hypnotically. It danced and capered in a lunatic rhumba before the wall of fire. Its legs twisted. Its arms waved. The fingers writhed in a private rumba of their own. It shrieked and sang and ran in a crooked waltz before the embrace of the heat, a muddy monster silhouetted against the brilliant sparkling flare.

The searchers shouted. There were shots. The android spun around twice and then continued its horrid dance before the face of the flames. There was a rising gust of wind. The fire swept around the capering figure and enveloped it for a roaring moment. Then the fire swept on, leaving behind it a sobbing mass of synthetic flesh oozing scarlet blood that would never coagulate.

The thermometer would have registered 1200° wondrously Fahrenheit.

Vandaleur didn’t die. I got away. They missed him while they watched the android caper and die. But I don’t know which of us he is these days. Projection, Wanda warned me. Projection, Nan Webb told him. If you live with a crazy man or a crazy machine long enough, I become crazy too. Reet!

But we know one truth. We know they were wrong. The new robot and Vandaleur know that because the new robot’s started twitching too. Reet! Here on cold Pollux, the robot is twitching and singing. No heat, but my fingers writhe. No heat, but it’s taken the little Talley girl off for a solitary walk. A cheap labor robot. A servomechanism … all I could afford … but it’s twitching and humming and walking alone with the child somewhere and I can’t find them. Christ! Vandaleur can’t find me before it’s too late. Cool and discreet, honey, in the dancing frost while the thermometer registers 10° fondly Fahrenheit.

T
his is a warning to accomplices like you, me and Addyer.

Can you spare price of one cup coffee, honorable sir? I am indigent organism which are hungering
.

By day, Addyer was a statistician. He concerned himself with such matters as Statistical Tables, Averages and Dispersions, Groups That Are Not Homogeneous, and Random Sampling. At night, Addyer plunged into an elaborate escape fantasy divided into two parts. Either he imagined himself moved back in time a hundred years with a double armful of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
, bestsellers, hit plays and gambling records; or else he imagined himself transported forward in time a thousand years to the Golden Age of perfection.

There were other fantasies which Addyer entertained on odd Thursdays, such as (by a fluke) becoming the only man left on earth with a world of passionate beauties to fecundate; such as acquiring the power of invisibility which would enable him to rob banks and right wrongs with impunity; such as possessing the mysterious power of working miracles.

Up to this point you and I and Addyer are identical. Where we part company is in the fact that Addyer was a statistician.

Can you spare cost of one cup coffee, honorable miss? For blessed charitability? I am beholden
.

On Monday, Addyer rushed into his chief’s office, waving a sheaf of papers. “Look here, Mr. Grande,” Addyer sputtered. “I’ve found something fishy. Extremely fishy … In the statistical sense, that is.”

“Oh, hell,” Grande answered. “You’re not supposed to be finding anything. We’re in between statistics until the war’s over.”

“I was leafing through the Interior Department’s reports. D’you know our population’s up?”

“Not after the Atom Bomb it isn’t,” said Grande. “We’ve lost double what our birthrate can replace.” He pointed out the window to the twenty-five-foot stub of the Washington Monument. “There’s your documentation.”

“But our population’s up 3.0915 percent.” Addyer displayed his figures. “What about that, Mr. Grande?”

“Must be a mistake somewhere,” Grande muttered after a moment’s inspection. “You’d better check.”

“Yes, sir,” said Addyer scurrying out of the office. “I knew you’d be interested, sir. You’re the ideal statistician, sir.” He was gone.

“Poop,” said Grande and once again began computing the quantity of bored respirations left to him. It was his personalized anesthesia.

On Tuesday, Addyer discovered that there was no correlation between the mortality-birthrate ratio and the population increase. The war was multiplying mortality and reducing births; yet the population was minutely increasing. Addyer displayed his discovery to Grande, received a pat on the back, and went home to a new fantasy in which he woke up a million years in the future, learned the answer to the enigma, and decided to remain amid snow-capped mountains and snow-capped bosoms, safe under the aegis of a culture saner than Aureomycin.

On Wednesday, Addyer requisitioned the comptometer and file and ran a test check on Washington, D.C. To his dismay, he discovered that the population of the former capital was down 0.0029 per cent. This was distressing, and Addyer went home to escape into a dream about Queen Victoria’s Golden Age when he amazed and confounded the world with his brilliant output of novels, plays, and poetry, all cribbed from Shaw, Galsworthy, and Wilde.

Can you spare price of one coffee, honorable sir? I am distressed individual needful of chariting
.

On Thursday, Addyer tried another check, this time on the city of Philadelphia. He discovered that Philadelphia’s population was up 0.0959 per cent. Very encouraging. He tried a rundown on Little Rock. Population up 1.1329 per cent. He tested St. Louis. Population up 2.0924 per cent … and this despite the complete extinction of Jefferson County owing to one of those military mistakes of an excessive nature.

“My God!” Addyer exclaimed, trembling with excitement. “The closer I get to the center of the country, the greater the increase. But it was the center of the country that took the heaviest punishment in the Buz-Raid. What’s the answer?”

That night he shuttled back and forth between the future and the past in his ferment, and he was down at the shop by seven
A
.
M
. He put a twenty-four-hour claim on the Compo and Files. He followed up his hunch and he came up with a fantastic discovery which he graphed in approved form. On the map of the remains of the United States he drew concentric circles in colors illustrating the areas of population increase. The red, orange, yellow, green and blue circles formed a perfect target around Finney County, Kansas.

“Mr. Grande,” Addyer shouted in a high statistical passion, “Finney County has got to explain this.”

“You go out there and get that explanation,” Grande replied, and Addyer departed.

“Poop,” muttered Grande and began integrating his pulse rate with his eye blink.

Can you spare price of one coffee, dearly madam? I am starveling organism requiring nutritiousment
.