Virtual Unrealities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester

by Alfred Bester

  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?”

  THE DEVIL WITHOUT GLASSES

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

  Sleep 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.

  “Granville, you must listen to us. You must listen and act as instructed. You are unique because you are unaware of your hidden potential.”

  In the dream labyrinth Charles Granville listens indifferently to the voices pecking at his mind. “I beg your pardon. Most amazing thing. Did someone mention my name? I’m Granville. Dr. Charles Granville.” He giggles insipidly at a pointless dream joke. “Wanted in surgery to diagnose two-headed patient.”

  Starr persists, “You can’t hang between two spaces, Granville. Join us. Come to our obverse.”

  Steps falter through clotted mist and fog that sound like electricity. The voices call in living echoes, like articulate road signs. This is fizzy electric cream with goldfish that repeat your name.

  “But why are the fish talking?” Granville considers the problem. “Swimming? That’s okay. In the nature of things. Quite right.” His mute voice sings without sound. “Fish got to swim. Birds got to fly. Swell idea for a song. I’m a real-life composer.”

  “He’s reaching for his own lunatic reality, Starr.”

  “It doesn’t matter if it gets him through to us. Will one of you check Coven for reverse interference?”

  In vasty deeps a bell beats slowly.

  “Do you hear that?”

  “The bell?”

  “Yes. It’s Coven.”

  Starr calls urgently, “Granville, this way. Stay with us in the obverse.”

  The bell beats faster, soaring upwards. The voices mount and blend. “Granville, listen to us. Don’t try to wake up. Hold on to your dream a little longer because your dream is your reality.”

  A hand shaking his shoulder.

  A single bell clattering.

  A single voice repeating, “Granville! Granville! Wake up, will you, Charlie? That’s emergency you’re hearing.”

  Granville stirred in the cot, trying to plunge back into sleeping and dreaming his own reality. He muttered, “Keep the goldfish quiet.”

  The redheaded young man in T-shirt and white ducks exclaimed, “Jerusalem! I never saw a guy pound his ear like you, Charlie. That’s emergency hollering. This is County Hospital. It’s your turn to ride the wagon. Will you wake up!”

  Granville opened his eyes to a bleak whitewashed dormitory room. “Okay, Gardner. The body is conscious.”

  “Try and look it.”

  “Kill that bell, will you? What time is it?”

  Gardner looked at him dubiously, then stepped to the wall switch and cut the bell circuit. “Six A.M.”

  “Six? Oh! Murder!”

  “No, auto a
ccident. Corner of Broad and Grove. Come on. Come on. Get dressed. The wagon’s waiting. Get that epicene look off your face, Doctor.”

  “That’s bewilderdom, Doctor. I was having a demented dream when you woke me. I was hanging between two spaces, only I was in a fishbowl and the goldfish were fighting for me.”

  “Put both shoes on.”

  “And I wrote a hit song that went—I forget. But anyway, there were rivals with nudnick names who wanted me to join them in the starry space they controlled. Starry? Why starry? There weren’t any stars.”

  Gardner waved his hand irritably. “Will you get the lead out, Charlie? Some poor character just got smashed under a truck.”

  Granville hunted for his kit with gummy eyes. “Where’s my bag?”

  “Right here.”

  “Why’d they call us instead of Memorial or St. Augustine? Was he one of our patients?”

  “No, but the cop who called in said he asked for us and I checked. Name of Coven. No record with us.”

  Granville stopped short. “Coven!”

  “Why the take? Friend of yours?”

  “No, but I think it’s somebody from my nightmare.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “No way, but I swear I heard the goldfish arguing and warning and bad-mouthing a character named Coven.”

  “Who very kindly got himself smashed by a truck to make your cockeyed dream come true. You probably heard me mention the name when I took the call.” Gardner opened the dormitory door and shoved Granville through. “Will you get going, Florence Nightingale? You can ask Mr. Coven why he walked out of your nightmare into a truck.”

  The garage was bleak and silent. Granville’s heels made sharp echoes above the grumbling ambulance motor. Eddie, the driver, glared as the intern sprinted in.

  “Come on, Doc. Come on. I been waitin’ a whole five minutes. A guy could write the New Testament in five minutes.”

  “Sorry, Eddie. Got held up.”

  The ambulance roared and took off with a lurch. Eddie displayed his hacksaw profile and continued the conversation casually. “Get yourself held up by what, could I ask?”

  “A dream.”

  “Now, Doc!”