by Bob Shaw
“Jehovah’s jockstrap!” Urquhart lurched drunkenly against Philp’s workdesk and the pink cigar popped into existence above his head.
“Hello,” it chirped. “I am an intercontinental ballistic missile….”
“Try to be a bit more careful,” Philp said reprovingly, setting his cofftea down and going to the desk. He touched a button and the cigar vanished, shrinking through spurious perspectives.
“You’ve made me ill,” Urquhart accused. “What is this nonsense about dragons and hunting with a rifle?”
“Crowley has created another reality, and that’s it. I occasionally get a few details from Professor Isaacs, who was one of the first that Crowley sucked into his own orbit. The information is very sparse because Crowley keeps him pretty well occupied.”
“Then Crowley is mad. If this leaks out the company’s finished. We’ve got to get a psychiatrist here in secret, in the middle of the night, and have him talk to Crowley on the general address system.”
“I thought of that. It’s no use. The GA signals we put into the matrix reach Crowley all right, but he doesn’t want to hear anything which conflicts with his fantasy existence, so he shunts them on past him. Turns a deaf ear. We all do it to a certain extent.”
Urquhart felt his lower lip begin to tremble. He walked to one of the simulated windows and stood looking out. His distant hill glowed in afternoon sunshine, looking softer and more inviting than ever before. “A friend once told me I should read The Golden Bough because it has a message for me. So I read it—and all I can remember is a ghastly passage about young men cutting off their testicles and throwing them through people’s windows.”
“Really?” Philp sounded unsympathetic. “Are you going to try it?”
“If I thought it would …’ Urquhart turned to Philp who was draining his cofftea. “You almost seem to be enjoying this, Bryan—for a man who’s facing ruin you seem rather unconcerned.”
“Ruin?” Philp grinned broadly. “It’s a little early to speak in those terms, old son. I may be able to bring Crowley back.”
Urquhart felt his jaw sag but was unable to prevent it. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”
“Well, there’s just one thing.”
“Which is?”
“I want to be managing director of Biosyn.”
‘But I’m the managing director.”
“You’re also chairman—and one of those posts should be enough for anybody.”
Urquhart brought his jaw under control and made an attempt to square it. “I’m not going to be blackmailed.”
“The board of Bristol University are coming here next week in person to pay a visit to Professor Isaacs. I’ll see if he can get down from his dragon long enough to speak to them.”
“I’d forgotten about Isaacs.” Urquhart sat down and covered his face with his hands. “All right, Bryan—managing director it is. Now what are you going to do about Crowley?”
“Thank you, John.” Philp began striding about his office. “It’s nice to get a little promotion now and then. As for Colonel Crowley—I’ve been studying his career profile and I think the best weapon we can use against him is the cocktail party effect.”
A rum on the resultant reality vector:
The Right Hon. Harold Wilson, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, lit his pipe and puffed out a luxuriant cloud of blue smoke which billowed across the spaceship’s control room.
Vaulter looked at him with six critical eyes. “Now there’s something I’d overlooked,” he said aloud.
“You surprise me,” Mr. Wilson murmured. “At this stage? What is it?”
“The smoke you puffed out was blue, but when a human being exhales the smoke which comes out is grey—moisture in the lungs condenses on the carbon particles and changes the wave-length of the light they reflect.”
“Nobody on Earth is going to notice a thing like that,” Mr. Wilson protested hastily.
Vaulter silenced him with an upraised tentacle. “Never neglect even the minutest detail—that is the recipe for success on this type of mission. I’m going to fit a water sac in your chest cavity. Please take off your clothes.”
Mr. Wilson tapped out his pipe on a glowing control panel, leaving a small heap of ash among the switches, and began removing his tweed suit, muttering angrily all the while.
“What was that?” Vaulter said.
“Nothing, nothing.”
“I thought I heard you say something about Tory misrule.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Mr Wilson snapped. He stepped out of his underpants and stood to attention while Vaulter put a tentacle on each nipple and pushed outwards. The pale flesh split easily down the line of the plastic sternum and Vaulter went to work inside the thorax. There was a long period of silence inside the spaceship, interrupted only by the faint rattling of tools and an occasional soft chiming note from the isntrument panels. Finally Vaulter began to gather up the shining implements and fit them carefully into a case.
“You may get dressed now,” he said. “Then begin smoking again—I want to check the result. If necessary I’ll fit an atomiser to vaporise the water.”
“Surely that won’t be necessary.”
“I repeat, attention to detail is necessary. The orbiting telepathic field boosters will not give you absolute control of the population of Earth—all we can guarantee is that they will generate a firm belief in the principles of Benign Socialism. If you make a mistake and people begin to suspect your origins, dangerous conflicts will be created. These people are not yet ready for full membership of the Galactic Socialist Congress, so they must believe you are a product of their world.”
Mr. Wilson re-lit his pipe and blue smoke curled upwards from the bowl. “You think they’ll swallow reincarnation? After all, the original Harold Wilson has been dead for a hundred of their years.” He breathed out and his eyes followed the smoke which ascended from his mouth, noting with evident relief that it was a satisfactory grey.
“For your information, this technique has worked on every other Grade C world. There is a strong possibility that an element of religion will assert itself, especially as the broadcasts we’ve been monitoring make frequent references to Mr. Wilson walking on water.”
‘But those broadcasts are more than a hundred years out of date! Why couldn’t I have been modelled on a 21st Century Earth politician?”
There was a silence while Vaulter crossed two of his eye-stalks, his equivalent of a sigh of exasperation. I’m sorry, Harold—I keep forgetting that your mind programme is based almost entirely on that of the original Mr. Wilson. I’ll explain the astronomical background once more. The only GCG station in this region of the galaxy which is capable of building a being like you is 800 light years from Earth, and even our best ships take fifty years to cover that distance.
“So when our observers gathered enough data to enable them to predict the abrupt decline of the native variety of Benign Socialism it took them fifty years to warn the Congress, and it has taken another fifty years to transport you to the trouble spot. Clear?”
“I don’t feel as if I’ve been travelling that length of time.”
‘Because I didn’t activate you until a few days ago, stupid! I’m sorry, Harold. My nerves are a little strained, and I sometimes find it difficult to adjust to the many … ah … variegated forms of Benign Socialist leader that have sprung into existence across the galaxy.”
“It’s all right. Am I to assume that we’re close to Earth?”
“We’re in Earth orbit.” Vaulter flowed across to the instrument panels. “I’m tuning in to the orbiting telepathic field boosters now. The population of Earth has increased alarmingly in the last century, but luckily human brain dissipates only about ten watts so we still have ample power reserves. You will be able to blanket the entire planet with Wilsonian thinking.”
A faint smile puckered Mr. Wilson’s lips as he sucked noisily on the stem of his pipe.
> Vaulter adjusted a series of verniers with a delicate tendril. “I’ll give the hook-up a final inspection at close range before you take over. Everything seems to be functioning smoothly with our transmitter network. Good! Now, I’ll just make sure that … No! No!” Vaulter hit a master switch with a convulsive movement of his puce-coloured body and rippled to the centre of the control room.
Mr. Wilson looked concerned. “What has happened?”
“The egotistical fools,” Vaulter said in a shocked whisper.
“What’s going on?”
“There has been an awkward development, I’m afraid. Earth technology has reached the level of the fairly complex computer, and they’ve been misusing the techniques to try immortalising selected individuals.”
“How does that affect me? I mean, us.”
“The computerised identities operate at vastly higher voltages than they did in the biological state and we can’t influence them. They will create huge pockets of resistance to your telepathic control.”
Mr. Wilson’s face darkened. “That’s bad.”
“There’s worse to follow. One of the identities appears to have screened out all local data inputs which normally render any sentient being insensible to telepathic probing. I made direct two-way contact with him for an instant. I’m afraid, Harold, that he may be on to us.”
Mr. Wilson’s pipe fell from his mouth and bounced on the floor, creating further little heaps of ash. “I knew it was too good to be true,” he said bitterly. “I just knew it.”
Vaulter remained motionless for a second, and when he spoke his voice was firm. “We aren’t giving up so easily. Benign Socialism deplores the use of violence, but technically speaking these individuals are already dead. I don’t think I would be violating the code of the Galactic Congress if I destroyed the computer installations at once, before any alarm can be raised.”
“I too deplore violence, naturally,” Mr. Wilson grated. ‘But I do see what you mean.”
A cognac on the computer reality vector:
Colonel Mason Crowley unsheathed his bolt rifle and climbed down from the huge dragon’s back. He had been riding hard for two days and his thigh muscles were aching from the effort of retaining his seat while Shalazzar bounded over the broken, ochreous landscapes of Tal. Now his quarry was trapped and the hunt was almost over.
“Do we rest here?” Professor Chan Isaacs, his lieutenant, wiped his face with a rag as he reined in his mount on the rocky ridge where Crowley had stopped.
Crowley pointed at the rag and issued a sharp command. “No textiles!”
‘But how do I get rid of this filthy dust?”
“You don’t—not till we reach water.”
For a moment Isaacs looked as though he might rebel, then he held out the stained scrap of red cloth and let it fall. It fluttered downwards slowly and vanished before touching the ground. The coating of saffron dust reappeared on Isaac’s round face, turning it into an Oriental mask.
“That’s better,” Crowley said, checking the fuel cell output of his rifle. “Just remember—no wool-bearing fauna, no fibrous plants, therefore no textiles.”
Isaacs looked tired. “How about artificial fibres?”
“There is no plastics industry,” Crowley reminded him. “Tal is still in an early agrarian phase of its development.”
“Then, for Christ’s sake, how can you have that fancy rifle?”
Isaacs’ angry words ripped into Crowley’s consciousness, and the distant ramparts of the Mountains of Morida swam like reflections on the surface of a lake. You’re dead, a cold grey voice told him. You’re dead, and your soul is trapped in a black box. Queen Elanos does not exist…. He took a deep shuddering breath and pointed at Isaacs, who had dismounted from his dragon.
“Isaacs,” he said harshly. “You had a fall yesterday. Your left arm is dislocated at the elbow.”
Isaacs’ face twisted in sudden pain as the dark mounds of bruises appeared on his arm. “No! There was no fall. My arm is all right.”
“Then heal it.”
Black smears of dried blood changed their shape beneath the coating of dust on the swollen arm as the wills of the two men clashed, but after a few seconds Isaacs submitted. “My arm is out of joint,” he muttered. “And it hurts like hell.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Crowley said. “We’ll put a bandage on it as soon as we’ve dealt with Browne.”
“Thank you, Colonel.”
Crowley walked to the southern side of the ridge and shaded his eyes from the lowering sun. The plateau sloped away gently for less than a kilometre, then there was a sheer drop of a thousand metres to the Cythian Plain. Browne, the rebel, was trapped somewhere in the triangular area of rocks and stunted trees, and his dragon was too exhausted to make a successful break past the hunters.
“I’ll go forward alone on foot. Queen Elanos has given me personal responsibility in this matter, and I want it ended before dark.” Crowley signalled his dragon to rest and the huge beast settled on its haunches, electric-green and magenta scales clicking as the sack-like belly flattened out on the ground.
“Good luck,” Isaacs said drily.
Ignoring him, Crowley set the bolt rifle for maximum charge and moved downwards into the triangle. He had discarded all clothing except for a breech clout of fine leather, and the heat of the rocks seared through his skin at every contact. The hunt had taken more out of him than he liked to admit, but he had the consolation of knowing that Browne must be in worse condition. Browne was tenacious, but he had no experience in this type of country which was remarkably similar to Crowley’s native Losane. Losane? Repetition of the name caused an obscure flickering pain far back in Crowley’s mind. That can’t be right. I was born in Perigore, in the castle of Rembold the Bright, and I was called to Tal from afar by Queen Elanos to defend her against …
Something moved in the rocks and scrub a hundred paces to Crowley’s right. He instinctively dropped into a crouch, and levelled the rifle as the figure of an almost naked man appeared from behind a dessicated tree. It was Browne—but unarmed, and without his dragon.
“Crowley!” The man’s voice was faint. “I want to talk to you.”
Crowley straightened up, still aiming the rifle. “Here I am, traitor, and I advise you not to try any of your tricks.”
“No tricks—I simply want to speak to you.”
“Do you acknowledge the sovereignty of Queen Elanos?”
“That’s what I want to talk about.” Browne scrambled upwards until he was face-to-face with Crowley. Sweat had traced red rivers in the dust on his face. He was about fifty years old and had the flabby build of someone who ate too much and exercised too little, but his eyes shone with an uncompromising hardness.
“Do you acknowledge our Queen?” Crowley demanded.
“Let’s consider Queen Elanos for a moment,” Browne said calmly. “I’ve been thinking about her name. E-L-A-N-O-S. Don’t you notice something peculiar there?”
“Peculiar?” Crowley’s voice shook with anger. “Peculiar?”
“Yes. Don’t you see it? Elanos is an anagram of Losane—the name of the country you carved out of Rhodesia almost single-handed in what, for lack of a better term, I call your previous life.”
“I’m warning you,” Crowley said as the distant Cythian Plain momentarily reversed its colours, split into horizontal lines and reassembled itself.
“This whole fantasy in which you have embroiled us is a reenactment of your political career, Colonel Crowley. Queen Elanos is a personification of Losane—the first fragment of Africa which, thanks to you, opted to return to Imperial rule….”
“Silence—or you die now.”
“You’re a dyed-in-the-wool Colonialist, Crowley. This Queen Elanos of yours—she looks very like a former Queen of England, right? But not Elizabeth II, because she wouldn’t suit the role. Elanos resembles Victoria, doesn’t she?”
The cloudless sky above the Kingdom of Tal turned grey and a charcoal
sketch of a strangely familiar, bespectacled man’s face appeared in it for an instant, stretching from jagged horizon to zenith. A voice like the echoes of far-off thunder issued from the insubstantial grainy lips. ‘… preliminary reports indicate that an unidentified spaceship has entered Earth orbit. The immense size of the vessel suggests that it is not of human origin….”
“What was that?” Crowley said, looking upwards into the sky.
“I didn’t notice anything,” Browne replied impatiently. “And consider my name, even my personal appearance. Why do you think you cast me as a villain of the piece? George Brown was a prominent member of the British Labour Government in the last century, just at the time of the final dissolution of the old British Empire, and there’s no doubt that this coincidence of nomenclature is a major …’