Players at the Game of People

by John Brunner

  "No," he said after a momentary hesitation. "No, I couldn't possibly."

  "Why not?"

  "I didn't . . . " He licked his lips. "I didn't have a vocabulary for it."

  She urged -- no, coaxed -- him to the chair she had formerly sat in, and reversed their roles, sitting down at his feet and staring at him with fascination. She kept hold of his hand, and he detected that her skin was moist with the cold sweat of fear. Yet she was compelling herself to remain.

  "So what the hell is it like?" she said at last, having made herself comfortable. "I mean, you've shown me a bit of what's possible for you. But I want to know -- I want to believe -- that . . . Oh, shit !" She gave her thigh an angry slap. "I want to believe that what you've done to Dora isn't bad!"

  "You want to believe I didn't sell her soul?" he gibed.

  "Wouldn't anybody want to believe that?"

  "Me," he said with a shrug, "I never knew what a soul was or even whether there was such a thing."

  "Me neither, after I fought free of the Catholic chains they put my mind in," she said, fishing out a cigarette and finding matches on a nearby table which Godwin was unaware of. The alarming thought crossed his mind that perhaps she knew his home better -- already! -- than he did.

  But after so many hundred versions . . .

  Against the impulse he said fiercely, "Well, I tell you one thing straight! I never sold my soul, or hers, or anybody's! I know what goes on, and sometimes I think I'm the only one!"

  Very softly, turning so she could lean on his knee and gaze persuasively up toward his face, she said, "Then explain.

  But it had so little to do with words it defied his first attempt . . . although he was at least relieved to find that when he did try he was not instantly afflicted with the pangs of punishment.

  Sensing his frustration, she suggested, "Well, how did it start?"

  He was on the verge of saying, "I don't recall . . ." -- when he realized he did, although indistinctly and as though at a great distance. A shiver ran down his spine. He had a momentary vision of Irma removing other traces of the past from him -- from his brain as well as from his body -- and was seized by a brief spasm of pure rage. But getting angry was pointless. Remembering, and in detail, and talking about what he remembered: that was urgent.

  How could he possibly have wondered whether he had counterparts who also undertook recruiting? How could he have let recollection of his own recruitment slide so far to the edge of awareness that months, maybe years could wear away without him thinking of the subject?

  That too got in the way. He said harshly, "There was a woman called Eunice. Lived in St. John's Wood, in a tiny but exquisite house built by some Victorian businessman for his mistress. She painted her face too much because it was the fashion, but her body was incredible. She used to say she'd been a ballerina, but once she admitted she was actually a circus acrobat, and I believed that much more readily. She could twist into positions you wouldn't believe. She was incredibly vain and got her charge from keeping a string of adoring teenage lovers. There must have been dozens of them. I don't know what she saw in me -- I mean, the first time we met I was throwing up in the gutter outside a pub -- but I was the lucky one. She used to take me to Le Touquet and Deauville, and Cannes in the winter -- all the smartest places. And she introduced me to ballet and the theater, good food, good drink when and where it was safe . . . Of course that meant at her place or our friends' places. I wouldn't dare drink so much as a half of bitter anywhere else. Even now." He repressed a shudder, gazing into the past.

  "Christ, it was incredible, being exposed to a world like that. I couldn't drive, of course, and I wanted to, so she got me taught by a friend who used to race Alfas. Then I wanted to fly, and she arranged that too -- I used to go to Croydon or Stag Lane practically every day, met all the people who were making headlines with speed records and long-distance flights . . . It was marvelous. That's the only word for it: downright bloody marvelous ."

  "And this is the same kind of thing you're doing for Dora?" Barbara said after a pause.

  "Well . . . Well, not me, exactly. But all of us."

  "It sounds as though the magic can wear thin."

  "I was doing fine until you walked into my life!" he snapped.

  "My fault now, is it? The hell with that idea!" She had regained her self-confidence completely; it was impossible to see in her the person who had panted in terror before the door, begging him to let her out. "If you're so convinced that what's happened to Dora is the best thing in the world, why are you at such pains to try and convince me? Just because I'm her mother? You don't give the impression of being a family-minded type."

  He felt the need to justify himself at all costs. It was true that sometimes he had wondered whether he had made the right decision; however, every time he had come to the conclusion that there had been no better choice. His life would otherwise have been a disaster: the brief and hideous existence of a drunken tramp. He should have been invulnerable to this sort of attack.

  But it offended him dreadfully that this woman, who was (how?) the counterpart of the little fair girl in the Blitz, should accuse him of evil. How could what he did be evil? Gorse herself -- Dora -- could have wound up on every possible kind of dope in a year or two, selling her body for no more than the next shot of heroin!

  He wanted desperately to say so, yet he was afraid she might close her ears against him. Instead he muttered, "Because you said I sold her soul, and it's not like that !"

  "For the second time of asking," she countered, "what is it like?"

  "Mostly it's like -- well, more like a rescue operation, you might say . . ."

  He made a helpless gesture, groping in the air for words he had never expected to need. The possibility of explaining himself to a stranger had never crossed his mind; it was not specifically forbidden, but without such prompting as she was giving him it would automatically have been dismissed from consciousness. The whole pattern of his existence had for so long been dictated by the need to avoid being noticed.

  An argument offered itself. He said, "Well, for Gorse it's like being inducted into a secret society which really does have secrets, and they work."

  "I see," she said slowly. She was studying his face intently, seeking clues beyond words from his expression. "But is that -- well, is that the truth?"

  "Maybe it's part of the truth." A reminiscent smile quirked one corner of his mouth. "Hugo & Diana wouldn't agree."

  "Who?"

  "Hugo & Diana Peasmarsh. Fashion designer."

  "I'm sorry, the name means nothing to me."

  "Come to think of it, I'm not surprised. He gets mentioned in the papers now and then, but she has a very exclusive clientele. Anyhow, for what it's worth, he puts it all down to her just reward for initiative and application. Anybody could get where he is, in her view. There's something unworldly about Hugo & Diana."

  "I'm getting a bit confused," Barbara said after a pause. "There are other people who have the kind of -- of luxury life you do? And these are the ones you're talking about?"

  "That's right. Except that most of them, in fact to my knowledge all of them, don't want to know what's really going on. They prefer to disguise the truth from themselves."

  "How?"

  "Well . . . Well, Luke Powers, for instance: he thinks all he does is meditate when -- Oh, I suppose that's something I ought to warn you about." He looked anywhere but at her; the steady gaze of those penetrating eyes was becoming hard to bear. "You may accidentally run across Gorse and find she doesn't recognize you. Don't worry. It's quite normal."

  "Normal, not to recognize your own mother?"

  "It's . . . It's the price. We all find a way of being able not to mind." He started to speak more quickly, almost gabbling. "I was trying to tell you. Ambrose, for example: he thinks of it as communion with the infinite. He's a student of the arcane sciences, and of course for him they actually work, because that's what he wanted. You can consult him about any sort o
f crap -- astrology, numerology, whatever -- and you'll get a fair and honest answer. Lots of people do. But he's been getting deeper and deeper into black magic recently, and I'm not happy about that. He was a disciple of Aleister Crowley, you see, so his capacity for self-deception is tremendous."

  Before Barbara could interrupt, he rushed on. "Irma's pretty much like him. She's a beautician, and she can work what anyone else would think of as miracles with the most unpromising raw material. She's terribly proud of the way the Top People come to her, even if they're only pop groups with a hit single. She thinks it's because she has guidance from the spirit world. So she goes into retreat now and then. Whereas with Hermann -- he's a psychiatrist -- it's all very scientific. For him it's a question of learning to tap the resources of the collective unconscious; when you get the hang of that, you can do anything. But it doesn't really make any difference, you see, how you think about it." He was halfway to gabbling by now. "Take Wilf Burgess! Did I mention him to you? I think I may have. For him it's all part of the romantic life of a jazzman to go on a blinder occasionally, to get so drunk or stoned that you can't remember what you've been doing when you wake up after three or four days completely out of touch. And of course because he is such a fabulous trumpeter nobody can argue with him. He always has stand-ins, anyhow, to keep the tourists happy. And Bill Harvey -- that's Gorse's landlord at the moment -- he believes in luck charms, spells and cantrips and amulets. He wins every bet he places. That's his special pleasure, even though he's been banned from every betting shop and racecourse and football pool in the country. He just loves to be right. Doesn't care about the money. Why should he? Like me, he has everything he wants without needing the money to buy it." Godwin finally ran out of breath.

  "But you mentioned payment," Barbara pressed.

  He surrendered entirely, giving a nod as his shoulders slumped.

  "Now and then you -- " He hesitated. "You do things you don't know about. I mean, it isn't you who does them. Not very often, mind! Usually it's more often near the beginning, like once or twice a month for two or three days together. Later on it may be only two or three times a year, and just for a day. And of course you get a reward which makes it worthwhile."

  "What do you mean, a reward?"

  "Well . . . Well, being a success at what you most want to do. The trimmings don't really count, not for most of us, though it is fun to have -- oh -- a car like mine, or a place like this to live." He waved to indicate the apartment. "But some people, I suspect, didn't know how to get what they wanted until it happened. Maybe this answers your question about Gorse and her lack of talent!" he added with rising enthusiasm. "For instance, I just told you about Hermann. He's right at the top of his tree, and he owes it to . . . Oh, I suppose you'd say a partner. A creature. Nothing like you ever saw in your life. And Irma loves growing things. She has the most extraordinary flowers you can imagine; they walk about by themselves! But all this is . . ." He checked and swallowed, having decided not to mention Hugo & Diana again.

  "All this is secondary ," he achieved at last. "What really matters is that every time you -- you sort of lend yourself, you get paid back with a special experience. I can't vouch for the others, but what I always wish for is the chance to remember doing something I can be proud of."

  He thought the words fumbling and inaccurate; however, she seemed to perceive their full implications without further ado.

  "Like rescuing me," she said.

  "Yes. Yes, that's exactly it!" Hastily he made sure she did completely understand. "That's why I didn't forge my newspaper cutting. There's always -- not always, but pretty often -- something you can keep as a souvenir. That's what I got, that time. That and the medal, of course."

  "Possession," she said.

  He blinked incomprehension.

  "Possession," she said again, and started to stride up and down, giving him an occasional nervous glance. "You must know the term! I never thought I'd literally meet someone who was possessed of the devil, but it all fits, and -- you know something? I never met anybody in my life who scared me half as much as you do. Because you're so damnably matter-of-fact about it!"

  "Devils have nothing to do with it!" he exploded. But honesty forced him to add, "I suppose at one time that may have been how people regarded it, but -- No, it's silly."

  "You've told me about all these friends of yours who have what you call wrong ideas about what happens, communing with the infinite and astral planes and the rest of it. What's your view? You must have one!"

  He sat statue-still for at least a quarter of a minute while conflicting possibilities churned in his head. It wasn't too late, even now, to use the flex on her, to wipe her memory clean of all save tantalizing glimpses of what she had learned, elusive as the remnants of a dream. He could scarcely believe that he had been able to tell her as much as he had; every passing moment made him more afraid of the pangs of punishment, even perhaps to the ultimate degree inflicted on Hamish.

  Paradoxically, though, thinking about Hamish made him more, not less, eager to talk. That death had somehow offended him. And he had already been offended, by the fact that his "proof" of having a right to his George Medal was no proof at all, and even someone as uneducated as Bill Harvey had seen through the pretense. Moreover, recollection of the time when he had been abandoned rankled in his mind. It had been like all his worst nightmares combined, without hope of an ending until it came.

  His faith, in short, had been undermined. He had been let down by those in whom he reposed his ultimate trust. He had witnessed an aspect of them which he had never suspected and which he had been led to believe did not exist.

  He did not take kindly to being cheated.

  Accordingly, heedless of the risk of being punished, he headed for the bar and poured himself a stiff whisky. The effects of what he had drunk with his Hawaiian lunch were wearing off, and he needed Dutch courage.

  His back to Barbara, carefully screwing the top back on the bottle, he said, "Pets. That's what we are. Irma and Bill and Luke and Ambrose and Hermann and everybody else I know. Gorse as well, of course."

  He turned to face her and said it again: " Pets!"

  For a long moment she stared at him, seeming baffled, and then she gave a harsh laugh.

  "Really? And who exactly do you belong to?"

  He gave a shrug, returning to his chair. "I just think of them as the owners," he muttered. "I don't know very much about them. You see, you never remember much about the times when -- well, when you lend yourself, as I said. Though now and then you wake up with a sort of recorded message in your head: go to such a place, when you get there do this and that. That's how I met Gorse, except that she thought I'd already met her."

  "What?"

  "It's too bloody complicated to explain!" he snapped. "And it never makes any difference in the long run."

  "I see. Part of the deal, isn't that what you'd call it?"

  "Yes, I suppose so." He gulped his whisky, welcoming its harsh taste.

  "But the police traced you here for me," Barbara said after a brief pause. "And in Hawaii you were worried about my not having a passport. Why isn't immunity from police and officialdom included, too? I asked before and you didn't answer."

  "In a way it is," Godwin sighed. "You can always use the flex."

  "The -- ?"

  "I don't know why it's called that. I'm not even sure all of us use the same name. It's what I did to Roadstone and his buddies, to make them disremember me. It takes a lot of effort, though. I was too hungry and unwell to work it on you too, or you wouldn't be here."

  "I'm thankful for small mercies, she said with a wry smile that came nowhere near her eyes. "But isn't it very difficult in a complex society like ours to keep from attracting attention?"

  "It gets worse," he admitted. "But . . . Well, I have the impression the owners don't understand much about people. Oh, they know which of our buttons to press -- they give us food and drink and clothes and sex and all the rest. But I don'
t think they understand about things like laws and taxes and so on -- probably not even about money, since it obviously doesn't matter to them. Frankly I don't think they care. At any rate they seem to shy away from people with real responsibilities in the world."

  He was enjoying this. He hadn't known how many private thoughts and reflections had accumulated in his mind; he was listening to himself with a kind of astonishment.

  "At least I don't know any of -- well, the 'owned' who are in positions of actual power. No politicians, no big-company bosses, nobody like that. A doctor, a psychiatrist, a musician, a couple of hoteliers, a beautician, a fashion designer, a professional gambler . . . Me, a gentleman of leisure!" He tossed back the rest of his drink and threw the glass inaccurately at a wastebasket; it failed to break and rolled on the carpet, spilling a last clear trace of its contents.

  "What do you think the owners get out of it?"