Virtual Unrealities, The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (49 page)

“I’ll go through the motions only to get rid of you.”

Manwright smiled at Galatea as he turned the girl around. “Just a gesture, love. You’ll have your dignity back in a moment, and I swear you’ll never lose it ag—”

His words were cut off as if by a guillotine. In the ultralight from the glowing pool there was no mistaking the dark pregnancy band across Galatea’s face, similar to the banded mask of a raccoon. He took a slow deep breath and answered the confusion in her eyes by placing a hand over her mouth.

“Go, Valera. This is now a family affair.”

“I demand an answer. I won’t leave until I know who it was. Your half-wit hunchback, Igor, probably. I can picture them in bed: the slobbering idiot and the—”

Manwright’s interruption was an explosion. He hurled Galatea into Claudia’s arms, drove a knee into Larson’s groin, tore the laser away from the convulsed man, whipped Valera across the neck with the barrel, and held the staggering chairman over the edge of the pool.

“The piranhas are starving,” he murmured. “Do you go in or get out?”

After the syndicate had left, not without dire promises, Manwright turned up the house lights and extinguished the pool ultralight and, with that, the pregnancy stigma banding Galatea’s face. In a strange way they were all relieved.

“Not to play district attorney,” he said, “but I must know how it happened.”

“How what happened?” Galatea demanded.

“Sweetheart, you
are
pregnant.”

“No, no, no!”

“I know it can’t be anyone in this house. Claudia, has she been promiscuous outside?”

NO

“How can you ask such questions!”

“Has Galatea been alone with a man in a possibly intimate situation?”

“You’re hateful!”

NO

“Reg, we all know that. We’ve chaperoned Gaily every moment outside, you, me, Claudia.”

“Not every moment, Charles. It could have happened with this innocent in five minutes.”

“But nothing ever happened with a man! Nothing! Ever!”

“Dear love, you
are
pregnant.”

“I can’t be.”

“You are, undeniably. Charles?”

“Gaily, I adore you, no matter what, but Reg is right. The pregnancy band is undeniable.”

“But I’m a virgin.”

“Claudia?”

HR MNS HV STOPT

“Her what have stopped?”

Corque sighed. “Her menses, Reg.”

“Ah so.”

“I’m a virgin, you wicked, detestable men. A virgin!”

Manwright took her frantic face in his hands. “Sweetheart, no recriminations, no punishments, no Coventry, but I must know where I slipped up, how it happened. Who were you with, where and when?”

“I’ve never been with any man, anywhere or anywhen.”

“Never?”

“Never … except in my dreams.”

“Dreams?” Manwright smiled. “All girls have them. That’s not what I mean, dear.”

R MAB U SHD MN

“Maybe I should mean what, Claudia?”

LT HR TL U HR D R M S

“Let her tell me her dreams? Why?”

JST LSN

“All right, I’ll listen. Tell me about your dreams, love.

“No. They’re private property.”

“Claudia wants me to hear them.”

“She’s the only one I’ve ever told. I’m ashamed of them.” Claudia fingerwagged, “Tell him, Gaily. You don’t know how important they are.”

“No!”

“Galatea Galante, are you going to disobey your nanny? I am ordering you to tell your dreams.”

“Please, nanny. No. They’re erotic.”

“I know, dear. That’s why they’re important. You must tell.”

At length, Galatea whispered, “Put out the lights, please.”

The fascinated Corque obliged.

In the darkness, she began, “They’re erotic. They’re disgusting. I’m so ashamed. They’re always the same … and I’m always ashamed … but I can’t stop… .

“There’s a man, a pale man, a moonlight man, and I … I want him. I want him to … to handle me and ravish me into ecstasy, b-but he doesn’t want me, so he runs, and I chase him. And I catch him. Th-there are some sort of friends who help me catch him and tie him up. And then they go away and leave me alone with the moonlight man, and I … and I do to him what I wanted him to do to me… .”

They could hear her trembling and rustling in her chair.

Very carefully, Manwright asked, “Who is this moonlight man, Galatea?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you’re drawn to him?”

“Oh yes. Yes! I always want him.”

“Just him alone, or are there other moonlight men?”

“Only him. He’s all I ever want.”

“But you don’t know who he is. In the dreams do you know who you are?”

“Me. Just me.”

“As you are in real life?”

“Yes, except that I’m dressed different.”

“Different? How?”

“Beads and … and buckskin with fringe.”

They all heard Manwright gasp.

“Perhaps like … like a Red Indian, Galatea?”

“I never thought of that. Yes. I’m an Indian, an Indian squaw up in the mountains, and I make love to the paleface every night.”

“Oh. My. God.” The words were squeezed out of Manwright. “They’re no dreams.” Suddenly he roared, “Light! Give me light, Charles! Igor! Light!”

The brilliant lights revealed him standing and shaking, moonlight pale in shock. “Oh my God, my God, my God!” He was almost incoherent. “Dear God, what have I created?”

“Mahth-ter!”

“Reg!”

“Don’t you understand? I know Claudia suspected; that’s why she made Galatea tell me her dreams.”

“B-but they’re only dirty dreams,” Galatea wailed. “What could possibly be the harm?”

“Damn you and damn me! They were
not
dreams. They were reality in disguise. That’s the harm. That’s how your dreams lock in with my nightmares, which were reality, too. Christ! I’ve generated a monster!”

“Now calm yourself, Reg, and do try to make sense.”

“I can’t. There’s no sense in it. There’s nothing but that lunatic drop of acid I promised Valera.”

“The mystery surprise in her?”

“You kept wondering what it was, Charles. Well, now you know, if you can interpret the evidence.”

“What evidence?”

Manwright forced himself into a sort of thunderous control. “I dreamed I was pursued and caught by Red Indians, tied up, and ravished by a sexy squaw. I told you. Yes?”

“Yes. Interminably.”

“Galatea dreams she’s a Red Indian squaw, pursuing, capturing, and ravishing a paleface she desires. You heard her?”

“I heard her.”

“Did she know about my dreams?”

“No.”

“Did I know about hers?”

“No.”

“Coincidence?”

“Possibly.”

“Would you care to bet on that possibility?”

“No.”

“And there you have it. Those ‘dreams’ were sleep versions or distortions of what was really happening; something which neither of us could face awake. Galatea’s been coming into my bed every night and we’ve been making love.”

“Impossible!”

“Is she pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“And
I’m
Valera’s lover-boy, the stud responsible. My God! My God!”

“Reg, this is outlandish. Claudia, has Gaily ever left her bed nights?”

NO

“There!”

“Damn it, I’m not talking about a conventional, human woman. I didn’t generate one. I’m talking about an otherworld creature whose psyche is as physically real as her body, can materialize out of it, accomplish its desires, and amalgamate again. An emotional double as real as the flesh. You’ve pestered me about the deliberate unexpected in my programming. Well, here’s the
Galatea’s a succubus.”

“A what?”

“A succubus. A sexy female demon. Perfectly human by day. Completely conformist. But with the spectral power to come, like a carnal cloud, to men in their sleep, nights, and seduce them.”

“No!” Galatea cried in despair. “I’m not that. I can’t be.”

“And she doesn’t even know it. She’s an unconscious demon. The laugh’s on me, Charles,” Manwright said ruefully. “By God, when I do glitch it’s a beauty. I knock myself out programming the Perfect Popsy with an engram for Valera, and she ruins everything by switching her passion to me.”

“No surprise. You’re very much alike.”

“I’m in no mood for jokes. And then Galatea turns out to be a succubus who doesn’t know it and has her will of me in our sleep every night.”

“No, no! They were dreams. Dreams!”

“Were they? Were they?” Manwright was having difficulty controlling his impatience with her damned obtuseness. “How else did you get yourself pregnant, eh;
enceinte, gravida
, knocked up? Don’t you dare argue with me, you impudent red saucebox! You know,” he reflected, “there should have been a smidgen of Margaret Sanger in the programming. Never occurred to me.”

He was back to his familiar impossible self, and everybody relaxed.

“What now, Reg?”

“Oh, I’ll marry the snip, of course. Can’t let a dangerous creature like Galatea out of the house.”

“Out of your life, you mean.”

“Never!” Galatea shouted. “Never! Marry you, you dreadful, impossible, conceited, bullying, know-it-all, wicked man? Never! If I’m a demon, what are you? Come, Claudia.”

The two women went very quickly upstairs.

“Are you serious about marrying Gaily, Reg?”

“Certainly, Charles. I’m no Valera. I don’t want a relationship with a popsy, no matter how perfect.”

“But do you love her?”

“I love all my creations.”

“Answer the question. Do you love Gaily, as a man loves a woman?”

“That sexy succubus? That naïve demon? Love her? Absurd! No, all I want is the legal right to tie
her
to a stake every night, when I’m awake. Ha!”

Corque laughed. “I see you do, and I’m very happy for you both. But, you know you’ll have to court her.”

“What! Court? That impertinent red brat?”

“My dear Reg, can’t you grasp that she isn’t a child anymore? She’s a grown young woman with character and pride.”

“Yes, she’s had you in thrall since the moment she was poured,” Manwright growled. Then he sighed and accepted defeat. “But I suppose you’re right. My dear Igor!”

“Here, mahth-ter.”

“Please set up that table again. Fresh service, candles, flowers, and see if you can salvage the monsters you created for the dinner. White gloves.”

“No brainth, mahth-ter?”

“Not this evening. I see the Mouton Rothschild’s been smashed. Another bottle, please. And then my compliments to Ms. Galatea Galante, and will she have the forgiveness to dine,
à deux
, with a most contrite suitor. Present her with a corsage from me … something orchidy. This will be a fun necromance, Charles,” he mused. “Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme,
alevai
. Man and Demon. Our boys will be devils, sorcery says, and the girls witches. But aren’t they all?”

Editor’s note: This story was found among Bester’s papers after his death, and is published for the first time in this collection
.

S
leep is a preview of death; and as all men must die in the end, all men taste that death in sleep each night, a tiny bitter fragment. It happens to all of us. First there is night and darkness. We lie in bed, tired and relaxing, welcoming our portion of death because we know there will be an awakening. We think a little, reviewing the events of the day, drowse, settle into the pillow.

The queer lights that flash in our closed eyes dance in familiar gyrations, and as we try to follow them we topple over the brink into the anesthesia of slumber. Eventually we dream. It has been suggested that dreaming is nature’s device to clear the mind and ready it for the next day’s turmoils and crises. Perhaps.

There is sound that matches the gyrating lights we watched as we fell asleep. There is space that is far from empty, it swarms with atomic and subatomic particles. And most difficult to comprehend, there are two spaces, obverse and reverse, like the faces of a coin. From one of these come voices that sound alien. There is an identity calling himself Starr, speaking in muffled, distorted tones, “Charles. Charles Granville.” The words shatter into filigree. “Clear transmission, please. There is reverse interference.”

The blurring distorts, then clears.

“Granville. Charles Granville. Can you hear me?” The identity called Starr pauses. “Will some of you get him to listen.”

“No response?”

“None. He’s the rare type who cannot commit himself to anything because he cannot believe in a reality which exists independent of ideas concerning it. And so he hangs midway between obverse and reverse.”

“Then why bother with him? Let him hang.”

“Because he has thirty years of frenzy, of the violent excitement of mania buried deep inside him. When it emerges, as it must sooner or later, he will begin to preach, but for or against our obverse universe? We must persuade him.