The Prayer Machine

by Christopher Hodder-Williams

  ‘I know. In bed I wear the invisible clothes of the Emperor.’

  She said, ‘You carry it off magnificently.’

  ‘You’re not what you seem, either. What do they make you do, around here — to justify your existence, I mean?’

  ‘I serve in the canteen.’

  ‘I thought that was all mechanized — conveyor belts, and things.’

  ‘It is. But they still need a sort of hostess.’

  ‘I still think there’s more to it than that.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that the Regime wouldn’t waste your obvious intellect, Oscar.’

  ‘You are clever.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And the Post Office Tower is back on the map already.’

  ‘That’s because I’ve thought of a new game. It’s called “Do what you’re told”.’

  ‘Because I’m a waitress?’

  ‘Yes.’ He said sternly, ‘And you’re late with my order.’

  ‘I promise I won’t be again.’

  ‘I am sending you off to bed.’

  ‘Except that you’re coming with me.’

  ‘All the way.’

  ‘You’re ruining my pants. See how they’re torn?’

  ‘I shall always tear them. Stroke my prick at once.’

  ‘Like this?’

  ‘God’s printout!’

  ‘Why has the Post Office Tower grown so enormous?’

  ‘Because you’re the waitress and I’m the customer.’

  ‘And the customer has decided to lay the waitress?’

  ‘Immediately.’

  ‘If I find you getting interested in any of the other waitresses I’ll stab you with the kitchen knife. Zonk! Like that. And cut off your prick to make sure.’

  ‘It’s a deal. That’s what they do in Japan.’

  ‘What’s Japan?’

  ‘A country.’

  ‘Oh, that Japan. What are you — a walking, talking, fucking history book? It’s part of the Soviet Pacific. I’ll burn your bacon for ignorance. It will lie disgustingly on your platter, the gnarled remains of what might have been delicious short-back.’

  ‘Ugh. Burned bacon. Truly unforgivable. But I’m concerned with the waitress, not the disgraceful cuisine.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Because right in front of everybody I shall put you over my knee.’

  ‘The customers will get very tense.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they know that you’ll then take me behind the serving conveyor and lay me.’

  ‘Like now?’

  ‘Yes please. Better stop the serving conveyor first.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because now we lie on it. There is a danger that it will convey us back into the canteen.’

  ‘This time you are soft and moist, sensual like warm springs hiding under the bracken by the stream.’

  She said, ‘And you are a giant eye, watching me.’

  ‘It’s because I want to see every part of your trog at once.’

  ‘You can, because the water is reflecting it. You are so conscious of my shape I feel disgraced. Look at the reflection! That girl is all bad.’

  ‘Let’s do it this way!’

  ‘Oh … yes.’

  *

  Farson said, ‘We’ll talk in the recreation area.’

  It was dark inside the wards but by contrast the arena was brilliantly lit, though Farson and Prentice talked in the shadows. Neil asked, ‘What are the concrete blocks for?’

  ‘Climbing. Some patients have lost the full use of their limbs, through over-reliance on intermesh.’ He added grimly, ‘The blocks will serve a useful purpose now. If we dodge between them, no one can use beam-fono on us — the sound will be deflected and scrambled by echo. You look a little limp. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My blackmail victim has decided to confess to the Regime.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘So I’ll be up for Menaces. Meanwhile there’s all hell let loose here. I’ve been taken through a preliminary Mandatory Talkthrough — and there’s more to come. Meantime I’ve tried to plant the idea that Narbiton was deluded. The Regime don’t have one shred of concrete evidence. As yet, posthumous brain-record is not legally binding. I tried to stress how tragic it was that Narbiton had gone mad. I said he must have been, to have got out of the mag and invite Intraplasta — death-wish, that sort of deal. So far the Regime is in a cleft stick. On the one hand they dare not follow in the wake of Narbiton’s mag — the radar fix told them exactly where he parked it and therefore where Clearwater is — but on the other hand they have probably reasoned that the Forenthorics must have developed a serum against plastic cancer in order to stay alive. Luckily for us the Puter is in the same sort of paradox; The use of serum is against the rules of statistical logic. It’s non-ethical to upset the deathrate. So if the police used the serum on themselves they’d be liable. Inflexibilities like that are vital to us but they won’t last long.’

  ‘Have you heard from Krister?’

  ‘No. But then I wouldn’t. He must know that all interfono is bugged from nano onward …’ Farson’s eyes flitted for a moment toward the concrete blocks. There, a weakling tried to mount the first level. But it was clear he was stuck and hadn’t the strength in his arms to haul himself up for the next foothold. Nor could he go down because his legs were too weak to stand the impact of a two metre jump. Farson ran across to rescue him, then returned. He went on, ‘Meanwhile they’re focusing attention on young Juls. He was due to give a concert in London but he’s been sent to the Forenthoric Lab for tests. You know what that means. It makes your mission here even more important — if you care about genius.’

  ‘I care about people — genius included.’

  ‘Then you’ll need that printout fast. Juls’ traceback will show the worst. Your people will know what to do — back in your era — if they get the genetic tables in time.’

  ‘In time for over a hundred years later?’

  ‘Don’t lose sight of your own logic just because the Regime are losing sight of theirs. You know what I mean.’

  ‘Looking up the computer records of the last century and comparing them with the false ones that got through.’

  ‘Validated. Oscar’s in trouble. A lot more trouble than you think.’

  Neil recalled Farson’s remark of before … that he wasn’t the only person representing the IoM. So Neil said aloud, ‘She’s IoM?’

  Farson said, ‘If she is, she’ll say so. All I’m prepared to communicon nano is that we cooked the Puter-dating software. Oscar was picked by us — not the Puter. If she decides on her own initiative to help you, let her. But I’m not pushing her into taking further risks. She’s up to her intermesh in trouble already. Meanwhile, I’ve got to try and help the Samaritans. There’s talk of heli-cops bringing them in. The men will wear Biotic face masks which gives them partial protection. They may take the risk. If so, Penta will be for the Screaming Room unless I can hide her somewhere.’

  ‘What are the chances?’

  ‘Slim.’

  *

  Oscar was whimpering on the couch. Neil stroked her hair gently and said, ‘What happened?’

  ‘They’ve been looking for you.’

  ‘But what about you?’

  ‘Two horrible women from party headquarters … They asked questions about you. I wouldn’t answer. One of those bullies was a butch Sex-3. I’ve nothing against Sex-3s but I’ve never known anyone so cruel. In the end she beat me up. Her idea of fun but not mine.’

  ‘It’s my fault.’

  ‘It’s not. I’m not supposed to tell you things. Mr Farson is afraid of any of us knowing too much. But they …’

  ‘They punish. Farson told me.’

  ‘In detail?’ — her eyes almost luminous with terror.

  ‘Never mind that. Are you IoM?’

  ‘I’m a spy for them.’

  ‘So you don’t real
ly work in the canteen?’

  ‘I do. The Regime employs me as a Party spy.’

  ‘How do you get away with that kind of double bluff? Doesn’t your thinkback —’

  ‘My thinkback is faulty.’

  ‘You mean —’

  ‘I mean that Farson deliberately damaged it. Officially I await routine intermesh renewal.’ Her stare was a petrified appeal. ‘But now I’m more likely to get —’

  ‘I know. What can I do to help?’

  ‘Make love to me all you can, while you can. My real name is Celandine. Call me that.’

  He said tenderly, ‘It’s a sweet name. It describes you perfectly. Moist from the dew. I think I could fuck you a hundred times a night …’

  She lay there, sobbing now, but somehow less afraid. ‘You’re giving me your strength, Neil.’

  ‘Yet it makes me feel stronger.’

  She lay there silent, half naked, her gossamer-yellow dress rumpled and revealing the harsh wounds on her trog. She reached out her hand and made him caress them, heal them with that paradoxical combination of possessiveness and lust, as if hurts inflicted by someone else added something to his sensual responsibilities. She said softly, ‘You needn’t inhibit your own brutalness.’

  ‘I feel guilt.’

  ‘It is animal that you should. The lion licks the wounds inflicted on his mate by the jackal. He doesn’t question the impulses dictated by his libido. Why should he? — when he has nothing to hide? You are in paroxysms and that owes itself to the jungle. If ever there was a jungle, Neil, we’re driven to it nano. Never fear yourself …’

  The fear, the reservations dropped away. He let the lust consume him and purge his soul of its self-questioning recriminations. For he knew that the fibrous friction of membrane within membrane was a healing force … not merely for the trog, but for the agony of mind which had tormented him from the day of the writhing rabbit. Sister Ann Marie — he knew now — had been a sister with a little ‘s’; a colleague in the fearful discovery of a second Möbius — a dimension as inaccessible to Braknell as would have been Celandine herself.

  Nano, there was a coolness as they lay. They could have been anywhere. In Neil’s own imagary they were close to some pool: a remote lagoon in the broiling climate of Africa, like Malindi itself, cupped in a landfold in the south of Kenya. And he told her all that hid itself in his imagination … how the two of them must have got there, what they would do next, how each activity in the breathless tropic air would somehow bring out some further aspect of her secret allure, to which there was no finite limit because the permutations of bodily configurations comprised an endless repertoire of patterns and stimuli. So they had escaped far from the jungle now, and were discovering the world that had inspired Rodin, and they melted The Kiss and came close to the ecstacy of the sculptor who had contrived it …

  She whispered, ‘Look there, in the mirror. How did those two find each other, that they could combine with such freshness? See how each limb perfectly complements the other. It is a kind of miracle of the Flesh. Yet Rodin achieved it in granite. You feel proud. I can feel your pride more than any other force. It is wonderfully simple, second only to the pride of a woman in childbirth. That sequel will be denied us, Neil …’

  ‘What’s your official function within the Regime?’

  ‘Yes, we must come back to that. My job — as far as the Regime is concerned — was to have sex with you, then report back exactly what you said.’ Her stare was very frank. ‘I think I might have done … anything to allay their suspicions. Then I saw you and liked you — despite our head-on collision! I couldn’t bring myself to communicon what those two musclewomen wanted to know. When I did communicon via the infopoint it at once registered that I knew things I should have reported. Apparently something has been done to the Puter to compensate for deliberate intermesh damage. So I got a beating … not your sort of lovepats. The real thing. And I hate them for it.’

  ‘Cela. Go to them at once. Be contrite. Say you lapsed because you acted out of ignorance. You didn’t realize that PONEMs were in that sense a heresy. Otherwise God knows what they’ll do to you. You’re not the first person who’s said that their punishments were frightful.’

  ‘It’s too late. I’m due for it.’

  ‘For God’s sake. There must be something we can do!’

  ‘Once it’s on Puter, there’s no hope.’

  ‘Cela. What do they do? Farson mentioned torture —’

  ‘Torture’s just for laughs. What they do is reverse the connections inside your head — on the intermesh thing. The result is permanent agony. All your life. As long as you live.’

  ‘Nobody could do such a thing. No human being could think of anything so horrible.’

  ‘They didn’t conceive it on their own. It was worked out on the Puter. And Neil, you must kill me. Validate? You must find me and you must kill. Without hesitating.’

  ‘But … What about getting someone to straighten out the reversed intermesh? Can’t that be done?’

  ‘No. The brain can’t take the shock a second time. You just go mad. The Samaritans tried it. I know.’

  ‘You could be wrong about the sentence.’

  ‘No. That butch woman wouldn’t have dared touch me if I wasn’t for the high tension. She’s been licking her lips for weeks over me. Started making suggestive remarks, and touching me with her bloated trog … you know. Then tonight she came with a whip. The other cow held me down while she enjoyed herself. She could afford to. I’m finished.’

  ‘I can’t kill you. Not in cold blood. Not while there’s a shred of hope.’

  ‘It won’t be in cold blood. Not when you see what the sentence is really like. I saw it once. That’s when I first doubted the Party. I was brought up in it, you see. Both my parents are honoured Party Members. So I was conditioned. Then I saw what they did to people. I tried to justify it somehow by statistical ethics. I know that must sound very thin. But I did. Then, tonight, something snapped inside me.

  ‘But, Neil. I can find things out for you while I’m still … free. They have to get double-validation before they can give me inverse brainops. I have — maybe — two days. Perhaps three. I know they’re planning against you, against Kin, against Penta … It’ll be a purge when it happens. There’ll be a mass Mandatory Talkthrough. I don’t have to tell you what usually follows.’

  ‘How can you find out anything if you’re under sentence?’

  ‘Because I have total access to the Puter, as a Party member. I have nothing to lose nano. I can ask anything. Anything you want.’ She suddenly ran to him, clutched him, tore her fingernails down his back, just as someone who has slid over the edge of some mountain peak claws at the rope until their arms give out. ‘Neil. Make love to me again. Nano. Quickly. While we still have time.’

  He said, ‘I ache for you but I must think. There has to be a way of stopping them.’

  ‘There isn’t. Do you think I’d throw everything overboard if there was?’ Their eyes made total optical contact to the soul. She cried, ‘Neil I’m so frightened! Don’t you know the only way of stopping me feeling frightened, even if it’s just for a few moments?, if you feel there is a milligram of hope for me let’s talk about it afterwards, not yet, just hold me, and be tender, Neil, they have hurt me badly, I feel a desperate need to be gentled, it will do something to make up for my terror before you have to get hold of a minilaser and kill me.’

  … So he was massaging her vagina and it was true celandine, the moist, yielding sweetness of a meadow flower damp at sunrise. And he raised her dress as if it were petals; and entered her as if nature had offered secret privilege, and though his prick was extended beyond what he thought was his own capacity, the movements were paradoxically slowed, as if each separate thrusting was a complete experience in itself, so that the sensation gained within her was different each time, like fresh penetrations during a succession of frenzied nights, and the throbbing began, and he thought he would die of it, for so
much of his ecstacy had rushed to the nectar of the celandine, pulsing there and then exotically drenching it with spasm after spasm of rhythmic love, over and over, as if his body-lust could never be quenched.

  She sobbed there on the counterpane, as if she too had emoted from photosynthesis, and she felt undamaged again, as if the brutal carelessness of some heathen intruder had been washed away by the rain, so that she was no longer crushed underfoot but reaching out toward the sun.

  *

  Later she said, ‘Tell me exactly what you want to know.’

  9

  ‘You’re not doing anything for a while, are you? My name’s Stuart Rone. As of today I’m Registrar here at Central Pool.’

  To Neil, there was something implicitly obscene about his attitude, as if sex were a preoccupation sponsored by him, on the lines of professional tennis. To Dr Rone, the contestants were pausing at the umpire’s stand, drinking cordials and changing raquets. The better educated knew and sensed that you did not discuss play between sets. Rone wasn’t one of them.

  Neil said, ‘What’s on your mind?’

  ‘Among other things, your welfare … If you’ve got nothing better to do, take a walkthrough with me, will you?’ When it was clear that Neil pointedly hung back he added, ‘I’ll take ten minutes of your time at the most …’

  It was a sort of conducted tour — mindpulsing, because you knew there was some inner purpose that bore on the current situation. Rone was evidently an unconscious sadist, playing the fish partly for the fun of it. Yet a message of a kind was coming across as he strode so possessively through the Complex …

  ‘No nation except the Soviet Pacific has ever had to deal with such vast numbers on so thickly populated an island. It wouldn’t be possible, of course, but for modern technology.’

  Neil realized he had a role to play during this time-out, so he provided the necessary conversational foil. ‘Surely, modern technology created the situation?’

  ‘You mean it increased the survival ratio? Surely you wouldn’t use that as a plank for a mutual thinkup?’

  ‘There are different ways of coping with survival. Communities, when left to themselves, discover the rules of the kibbutz.’