The Prayer Machine

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, desperately tried to communicon but of course it was far too late. He couldn’t speak and most of the cortex was plasticized by the time he reached here. He tried to write it down. Amazing business. He dug his foot in a bucket of fire-foam and drew a sort of symbol on the floor with it. I thought it didn’t mean anything at first. But it did.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was a crucifix. You know what that means, of course?’

  Farson said, ‘I thought it was just a totem used by Primitives … “Jesus Christ”.’

  ‘Yes. Christ. The name Krister derives from Christ … Incidentally, I gather Krister is sending you a patient?’

  ‘He does, at times.’

  ‘You’re waiting for this patient nano?’

  ‘Do you care?’

  ‘No, old chap. I don’t care. The Department of Health and Social Security are quite interested, though. I’ve just had a communicon or two with them.’

  — I’ll bet you have, you snivelling great bastard. ‘And what’s their interest in a routine admission?’

  ‘They want his job-number, among other things. They are also dissatisfied about his … origin.’ The consulting-room eyes shot up at Farson, then down again. ‘I said I was confident you would naturally refuse to accept a patient without these formalities.’

  ‘That’s between the DHSS and myself.’

  ‘Of course … Incidentally, the police took a radar fix on … on poor Wels’ mag, last night.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t know exactly. But there’s talk about Narbiton being in line for a posthumous Award.’

  ‘I hope he gets it. His family will be delighted.’

  ‘His family? Does he have a family?’

  Farson said, ‘I’m sure the Regime will find a suitable person to accept the Award on Narbiton’s behalf.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Possibly the son? Do you think? What’s his name? Some brilliant young musician, I believe. Juls. That’s it. We may have to look into the matter of Juls’ status, though.’

  ‘Is it relevant?’

  ‘It will be if it turns out that those who have adopted him are … unsuitable. I should steer clear if I were you, Mr Farson. I feel the DHSS would be more … confident in you if you did.’ Rone glanced calmly through the seethrough on the opposite side of the hall. ‘I note that an ambol has alighted. I think you have some decisions to make. Rather careful decisions. I’ll leave you to it.’

  Rone walked away and disappeared through the crowd. A loudspeaker message echoed throughout the building. Farson couldn’t concentrate on it. He knew he hadn’t got long to run. And even if he did refuse the patient, there was too much on him nano to make that much difference. It was plain the whole business of Clearwater, and the Forenthorics, and his own operations at the IoM — all these were about to be blown wide open.

  Farson’s predominant thought was simply that had the State been as efficient as it made itself out to be, the truth would have been out months ago …

  ‘Are you Mr Prentice? I’m Farson. Follow me. Quickly!’

  He led the way along the main corridor, then took the right-hand subroute to his own office. There he motivated the door before continuing. ‘We’re in trouble.’

  Neil said quickly, ‘Is this room fitted with fono?’

  ‘Not yet. Any moment now, though. I’m for the Screaming Room — except they’ll never get me there.’

  ‘Has something leaked about me?’

  ‘Not just you. Don’t worry. It’s not your fault …’ Farson agitatedly searched his pockets, produced an empty harmfree pack. ‘Mr Prentice, sorry to felon. But do you have any harmfrees?’

  ‘No I don’t sorry.’

  Farson stammered on office interfono, ‘Nurse?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Farson?’ — undisguised contempt in the voice.

  ‘Felon me a pack of harmfrees, will you? I have no tallies for the machine.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Neil said, ‘She sounds hostile.’

  ‘She knows which side her bread is buttered. That’s the only way you can judge your position — by gauging their tone of voice. Central Pool has now become a centre of interest for the secret police. And, of course, there are always the informers.’ He sat there waiting, fiddling infuriatingly with his intermesh by thinking the seethrough up and down. At last an insolent-looking nurse came in. With an articulate shrug she produced the cigarettes. She said nothing, just plonked them on Farson’s desk, and tried to leave.

  Farson shut the doorthrough before she could get out. ‘Nurse? … I want —’

  ‘Mr Farson?’ She just stood there, callously enjoying it.

  ‘No visitors, please.’ Farson’s expression, suddenly naked.

  ‘There’s a man from The Department of Health and Social Security waiting in the Receptor Hall. He wants to see you.’

  ‘Stall him.’

  There’s also a man from Puter House. He intends —’

  ‘I know what he intends. The answer is he can’t wire this room for fono without going through the Registrar.’

  ‘Mr Farson, the Registrar is helping the police with their enquiries. Will there be anything else?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Farson released the doorthrough and watched her go. He was so jumpy he could hardly control the cigarette he so desperately needed. ‘Social Security people,’ he told Neil, ‘aren’t exactly from Dr Barnardo’s Homes … They must have somehow got something tangible out of Narbiton. After he was dead.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Don’t look at me like that. I’m not out of my craze, not yet. It’s a recent process. They can tell from the plasticized brain what the predominant thoughts were immediately prior to death. It’s done by tapping into intermesh … They once exhumed a murdered man. His dead brain told them the name of the murderer … They’ll be preparing the case against all of us, by now. The Samaritans will come off worst — Penta particularly. Kin has told me —’ He broke off. This time the nurse had motivated the doorthrough without formality.

  She said curtly, ‘Your visitors say they can’t wait.’

  ‘They can wait two minutes.’

  ‘They say you are due for a mandatory talkthrough.’

  ‘Tell them … tell them I will be with them in the Receptor Hall in two minutes. Please do that for me? Just that?’

  The nurse nodded brusquely, and left. Farson found his lips so dry he could only lisp. ‘I can stall them another way. I haven’t used blackmail before but …’ He shrugged off the end of the sentence and selected a channel on interfono. ‘Put me through to your chief. Yes. Yes, it is urgent …’ As he waited he said to Neil, ‘Krister has told me what you’ve come here for. Some of it, I mean. The printout. Well, Krister has asked me to help you in any way I can …’ He broke off and said on interfono, ‘If he doesn’t communicon with me immediately, tell him I have, in my desk, a traceback which might be of considerable interest to Social Security … Not at all, you’re welcome.’ He said to Neil, ‘There are things I know which, for reasons of your personal safety, are better not said. But as I seem to be under considerable threat, just remember one thing: I’m not the only IoM person at Central Pool. Register that on your inframind and the tally will drop.’ His voice resumed its cutting edge on interfono. ‘Yes this is indeed Farson speaking. Call off your hounds, nano, or your traceback will go straight to an infopoint … I’m not suggesting you can do it forever. I want a stay of execution. Otherwise that gene we discussed might seem a sight less recessive to the Puter, by the time I’ve finished. Communicon? No, not in five minutes time. Nano. Call Central Pool on multi-fono to all departments and get them to lay off. You have ten seconds from this time … you have eight, seven, six, five —’

  Farson stopped the count. He heard the loudspeakers bark with an announcement which rang throughout the hospital grounds. Sweat was pouring from Farson’s face. His breath came in uneven jerks. Then he met Neil’s eyes. ‘It isn’t death we’re
afraid of here,’ he said. ‘And I’ll tell you how we feel about inverse brainops: when that evil little nurse came in the second time, I bit on my crunch-pill. Nothing happened. It’s a dud. They’re even onto that!’

  ‘You tried to kill yourself?’

  ‘Of course. A mandatory talkthrough for me would mean the Screaming Room. And not just for me, either. Don’t underestimate these people, Mr Prentice. Inverse brainops is the most … sophisticated form of torture ever devised. If you can’t get back to the PONEM in time, slit your throat, wrists, anything. And don’t hang around thinking about it. You won’t have time …’

  *

  The girl said, ‘You call me Oscar.’

  ‘Oscar?’

  Her smile shot a meganode straight through his body. She explained, ‘The phonetic alphanumeric? Communicon? Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta … and all the rest of it. International phonetic code.’

  ‘It’s just that the name Oscar doesn’t seem to go with your body — your trog.’

  ‘Security. We have to be careful about names, around here.’

  Neil said, ‘I’m afraid security isn’t going to last much longer.’

  ‘Communicon. You seem surprised at my trog. Why?’

  The sweetness of her breath seemed to fill the room. ‘If neat beauty is a surprise, then yes, I am surprised. But it’s more than that. It’s a shock. And I intend to survive it! But also I’m a little ashamed. This encounter has been rigged.’

  ‘Everything in the State is rigged. What’s new about that — Puter Entitlements are “rigged”.’

  Neil said, ‘This is double-rigged.’ It was a question.

  She took it as such. ‘Yes. Kin cheated the Puter. He’s quite good at it.’

  ‘What I like the least is that he … prescribed you.’

  ‘Anything wrong with the medicine?’

  ‘I should have found you for myself.’

  ‘That’s egologic.’

  ‘It’s the way I think.’

  Oscar said, ‘You think too much. It complicates things.’

  ‘Are you pretending this situation is simple?’

  ‘I’m saying that however much you may talk, your trog seems to have made up its mind!’

  ‘I think my trog is … startled.’

  ‘What at?’

  ‘At the sort of aroma you create.’

  Somehow he had guided her hand so that it rested on him. ‘You talk,’ she said, ‘so that you remain in control of yourself at all costs. You are like a man who is frightened of crying. But with you, it is fear of loving, as if you’re unsure that you have enough of it to give.’

  ‘I want to give it on my own terms … trap you in some jungle, yet offer you the game of pursuit.’

  She said, ‘You wish to paint pictures. There is me — running away. And there is you, catching me. So you see life as the teleflickers. The reality of actually giving love dismays you when you haven’t written the script.’

  ‘You’re putting me on the defensive.’

  ‘Because it is essential you have a meaningful relationship.’

  ‘The prescription?’

  ‘Not only the prescription. You won’t arouse me, Neil, unless you give me a role in the script-writing that I can accept.’

  ‘Suppose our two scripts are incompatible?’

  ‘Are your own two ways of looking at things incompatible?’

  ‘You’ve talked quite a lot to Kin, evidently.’

  She said, ‘How do you know Kin didn’t prescribe you for me?’

  ‘Well, did he or didn’t he?’

  ‘Don’t get angry. Answer my first question instead.’

  ‘If you’re talking about inter-schizoid reasoning, I can only say that it could never work for someone who wasn’t a Phrenoid — who by definition lives more than one life.’

  ‘And I only live one life?’

  ‘That’s my guess. You’re not what I expected; so now I don’t know what to expect. I can’t see Kin prescribing me for you.’

  ‘What you’re saying is, it wasn’t like this with Ann Marie.’

  Neil said tersely, ‘As Kin has already said.’

  ‘Did he also say that you can’t use a woman as a means of defining where — or rather when — you belong?’

  ‘Is that what I’m doing?’

  ‘You’re asking yourself who is the more real — Ann Marie, or me.’

  ‘That wasn’t uppermost in my mind.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘The fact that you are beautiful.’

  ‘But so was she. No score.’

  He said angrily, ‘Love is a game. If you don’t want to play, say so.’ He hated himself for putting it so crudely.

  ‘Don’t you see what you’re doing, Neil? You’re trying to make me different from Ann Marie … not by noticing that we are two different people, but by treating us differently. With her you were gentle.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I can see you fighting it nano. Like archaic teleflickers, you’re desperately playing the old-fashioned “tough guy”. I know you’re not. I don’t have to get that much from Kin Krister, either.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I try to dominate you, if that’s what my instinct demands?’

  ‘Because you’re not succeeding. You’ve deposited your feelings in some black hole and that’s left you with a stand the size of the Post Office Tower and me as cold as ice. What use is that? You’re a person who cares about people. You came here — to this era — for a purpose, not a quick affair with someone who could supply you with an identity at their expense.’

  ‘Has this place got fono?’

  ‘Yes. In the bedroom nextdoor.’

  The way things are going between us I should think we’re pretty safe from being overheard, in that case.’

  ‘So cynical? I think you’re frightened by the idea of love.’

  ‘It’s just that I’m not used to being challenged in this way.’

  ‘If you think it out I’ll bet you can tell me why.’

  Neil said, ‘Because I’ve either put women on pedestals —’

  ‘— pedestals?’

  ‘Plinths. I’ve either put them on plinths or seduced them without caring.’

  ‘Yes. And, for once, you’re not going to get away with either.’

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t put you on a plinth. You’re too agile.’

  ‘And the other possibility?’

  ‘Doubtful. Despite your physical beauty you’re too discriminating for mere physical contact. And you seem to dislike me.’

  ‘Because I won’t play the role you have written?’

  ‘Because you castrate.’

  ‘I can’t see any evidence of that.’

  ‘Emotionally, then. There’s no emotional communicon.’

  ‘Because you came here determined not to be emotional you argue that I castrate your emotions?’

  ‘You’re certainly doing battle on one level.’

  ‘At least I’m not battling with myself. What “level”, anyway?’

  ‘Despite the clash you’ve chosen the loaded game of analysis.’

  ‘Then what’s to stop you using the same scoreboard? Is it because I don’t exist sufficiently to make an analysis worthwhile?’

  Neil said, with sudden spontaneity, ‘You’re an angel on horseback. You want to be pulled down from the horse and be loved until you are limp. You see my mind as being cramped by loyalty to Ann Marie. You know I must choose and you’re forcing me to do so; because you know that only think-power can ever get you out of the saddle. — No, that’s not quite right.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘No saddle. You ride bareback. But you leave the decisions to the horse. It still dominates you, even though you hold the reins. You scold the horse, and it bolts with you on its back. And although you rein it in, the horse gallops faster.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you want it to. You see, you’re both beautiful and strong. And though you m
ust challenge, neither of us must win. Any sensible horse with even a modicum of horse-sense would know that.’

  Oscar said, ‘But can’t the horse be gentle?’

  ‘It is always gentle — that’s why he doesn’t throw you. And when he’s raced from one end of the moor to the other, and you are both panting, he stops in a hay-field and you relax on the grass … the horse nuzzling you affectionately in the warm sun. You are safe; and the grass is moist and alive … like your pants are now. I’m not the Post Office Tower, I’m a confused person capable of adoring you. And I can feel my metaphor is right. But you’re never at the mercy of anyone you wish to love.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, as with the horse, the position is one of trust. By consent, I play boss, at the end of the race across the moor. You feign obedience and in that sense you allow yourself to be my plaything … I can do what I like, as long as you like it. Is that a better script?’

  ‘Almost perfect.’

  She shushed him as they entered the other room. ‘Fono. Be careful.’ But on the bed she forgot fono for an instant and whispered, ‘How funny: you’re circumsized.’

  ‘Is that unusual?’

  ‘I like it.’

  *

  Neil whispered, ‘If ever you decide to withdraw that consent —’

  ‘I would tell you. Let’s go in the other room and talk.’

  ‘Yes.’ The layout of the suite was clinical in concept, like a hotel designed by a hospital matron. When they resumed conversation in the reception room Neil said how much he loathed hygiene.

  ‘Is that why you weave these stories around the act of love-making?’

  ‘Partly.’

  ‘What’s the other part?’

  ‘I’m probably racing against time.’ He gestured through the window. ‘The axe is about to fall on everything.’

  ‘I realized that.’

  ‘But that isn’t all. I’m a phrenoid and therefore an actor. I’m a man in a play who must have lines to speak.’

  ‘You mean, you don’t know who you are.’

  ‘Does anybody — a hundred per cent? Animals don’t have to. They don’t have the capacity for knowing they exist, so they are spontaneous. But we humans are civilized —’

  ‘You’re over-civilized.’