PLAYERS AT THE GAME OF PEOPLE by John Brunner
Page 19
And what sensation would be most fascinating to the owner of a human, who stood in the same relationship?
Acts of slow self-destruction, obviously. Drug addiction. Drunkenness. The stress of driving at the limit of one’s reflexes, tight-bellied, dry-mouthed, moist-palmed, with a heart going like a crazy hammer. Long hours and late nights in the hive of a great city. Plus acts of strange private significance involving more than one participant. How much would an immortal care about the pleasure of the reproductive act? But he might very well be curious…
It all came plain to God in the tick of a clock, and along with it another, yet more terrible understanding.
After any given pet had yielded the full range of sensations of which he or she was capable, there must always remain one other, necessarily fascinating to immortal beings.
Death.
And ideally it should be death in full knowledge of what was being done.
His right foot stamped—no: was stamped—so hard on the Urraco’s accelerator he felt a tendon tearing.
The car leaped forward like a pouncing lion.
Until it was too late the gang in ambush assumed that like every other vehicle on the road this one would stop beneath the muzzles of their guns, or maybe swing around and head illegally the other way, giving them sport in pursuit.
When it was too late they screamed and tried to scatter, but it plowed among them at a hundred miles an hour, smashing their lamps and flares, felling the flag-post like a giant axe, killing nine in a single scythe-sweep as it twisted broadside and turned their bodies into greasy lubrication for its final skid. Then it rolled and rolled and rolled and came crashing to a halt against the V-shaped point of the dividing barriers where lines of traffic were to separate. And then caught fire.
There was no pain, even though his body was crushed and twisted and he knew he could never draw another breath because his lungs were already too full of blood. He had the impression that it was being greedily drawn off—sucked away—by the creature which possessed him.
The flames were like the flames of the Blitz. They showed him Barbara’s face, tilted to an impossible angle on her neck but quite unmarked except for a smear of blood at the corner of her mouth. Her expression was flawlessly calm, and all the marks of age had gone from it. She looked so like the ten-year-old he had rescued, he believed she was fora moment and wondered why he could not carry her to safety.
There were noises: shouts, screams, moans, curses, and the roaring of fire.
It didn’t matter. The fact that he was dying didn’t matter, either. Perhaps Barbara’s death mattered, but not to him; why should it? He had seen what he had made of his life, and as a result he despised himself. That was a good enough reason to make an end. In a remote, passionless way he was rather glad.
There was a sort of hesitation. Then he felt the great gray wispy presence slither away from him, leaving behind a sensation as of disappointment and another trace of its presence which was foul as sputum.
Pain happened.
Then finally he was allowed to close his eyes. With the last consciousness remaining to his ruined brain, he wondered what would now become of Gorse.
And did not know whether to pity or envy her, with life before her.