Virtual Unrealities, The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (20 page)

Knight and the girl turned to Boyne uncertainly. Boyne smiled and patted the chair alongside him. “Sit down,” he said. “Charmed, I assure you.”

The girl said: “We hate to intrude, but this is the only place in town where you can get genuine Stone ginger beer.”

“Already aware of the fact, Miss Clinton.” To Macy he said: “Bring ginger beer and go. No other guests. These are all I’m expecting.”

Knight and the girl stared at Boyne in astonishment as they sat down slowly. Knight placed a wrapped parcel of books on the table. The girl took a breath and said, “You know me … Mr… . ?”

“Boyne. As in Boyne, Battle of. Yes, of course. You are Miss Jane Clinton. This is Mr. Oliver Wilson Knight. I rented premises particularly to meet you this afternoon.”

“This supposed to be a gag?” Knight asked, a dull flush appearing on his cheeks.

“Ginger beer,” answered Boyne gallantly as Macy arrived, deposited the bottles and glasses, and departed in haste.

“You couldn’t know we were coming here,” Jane said. “We didn’t know ourselves … until a few minutes ago.”

“Sorry to contradict, Miss Clinton,” Boyne smiled. “The probability of your arrival at Longitude 73-58-15 Latitude 40-45-20 was 99.9807 per cent. No one can escape four significant figures.”

“Listen,” Knight began angrily, “if this is your idea of—”

“Kindly drink ginger beer and listen to my idea, Mr. Knight.” Boyne leaned across the table with galvanic intensity. “This hour has been arranged with difficulty and much cost. To whom? No matter. You have placed us in an extremely dangerous position. I have been sent to find a solution.”

“Solution for what?” Knight asked.

Jane tried to rise. “I … I think we’d b-better be go—”

Boyne waved her back, and she sat down like a child. To Knight he said: “This noon you entered premises of J. D. Craig & Co., dealer in printed books. You purchased, through transfer of money, four books. Three do not matter, but the fourth …” He tapped the wrapped parcel emphatically. “That is the crux of this encounter.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Knight exclaimed.

“One bound volume consisting of collected facts and statistics.”

“The almanac?”

“The almanac.”

“What about it?”

“You intended to purchase a 1950 almanac.”

“I bought the ’50 almanac.”

“You did not!” Boyne blazed. “You bought the almanac for 1990.”

“What?”

“The World Almanac for 1990,” Boyne said clearly, “is in this package. Do not ask how. There was a carelessness that has already been disciplined. Now the error must be adjusted. That is why I am here. It is why this meeting was arranged. You cognate?”

Knight burst into laughter and reached for the parcel. Boyne leaned across the table and grasped his wrist. “You must not open it, Mr. Knight.”

“All right.” Knight leaned back in his chair. He grinned at Jane and sipped ginger beer. “What’s the payoff on the gag?”

“I must have the book, Mr. Knight. I would like to walk out of this tavern with the almanac under my arm.”

“You would, eh?”

“I would.”

“The 1990 almanac?”

“Yes.”

“If,” said Knight, “there was such a thing as a 1990 almanac, and if it was in that package, wild horses couldn’t get it away from me.”

“Why, Mr. Knight?”

“Don’t be an idiot. A look into the future? Stock market reports … Horse races … Politics. It’d be money from home. I’d be rich.”

“Indeed yes.” Boyne nodded sharply. “More than rich. Omnipotent. The small mind would use the almanac from the future for small things only. Wagers on the outcome of games and elections. And so on. But the intellect of dimensions …
your
intellect … would not stop there.”

“You tell me,” Knight grinned.

“Deduction. Induction. Inference.” Boyne ticked the points off on his fingers. “Each fact would tell you an entire history. Real estate investment, for example. What lands to buy and sell. Population shifts and census reports would tell you. Transportation. Lists of marine disasters and railroad wrecks would tell you whether rocket travel has replaced the train and ship.”

“Has it?” Knight chuckled.

“Flight records would tell you which company’s stock should be bought. Lists of postal receipts would indicate the cities of the future. The Nobel Prize winners would tell you which scientists and what new inventions to watch. Armament budgets would tell you what factories and industries to control. Cost-of-living reports would tell you how best to protect your wealth against inflation and deflation. Foreign exchange rates, stock exchange reports, bank suspensions, and life insurance indexes would provide the clues to protect you against any and all disasters.”

“That’s the idea,” Knight said. “That’s for me.”

“You really think so?”

“I know so. Money in my pocket. That world in my pocket.”

“Excuse me,” Boyne said keenly, “but you are only repeating the dreams of childhood. You want wealth. Yes. But only won through endeavor … your own endeavor. There is no joy in success as an unearned gift. There is nothing but guilt and unhappiness. You are aware of this already.”

“I disagree,” Knight said.

“Do you? Then why do you work? Why not steal? Rob? Burgle? Cheat others of their money to fill your own pockets?”

“But I—” Knight began, and then stopped.

“The point is well taken, eh?” Boyne waved his hand impatiently. “No, Mr. Knight. Seek a mature argument. You are too ambitious and healthy to wish to steal success.”

“Then I’d just want to know if I would be successful.”

“Ah? Stet. You wish to thumb through the pages looking for your name. You want reassurance. Why? Have you no confidence in yourself? You are a promising young attorney. Yes, I know that. It is part of my data. Has not Miss Clinton confidence in you?”

“Yes,” Jane said in a loud voice. “He doesn’t need reassurance from a book.”

“What else, Mr. Knight?”

Knight hesitated, sobering in the face of Boyne’s overwhelming intensity. Then he said: “Security.”

“There is no such thing. Life is danger. You can only find security in death.”

“You know what I mean,” Knight muttered. “The knowledge that life is worth planning. There’s the atom bomb.”

Boyne nodded quickly. “True. It is a crisis. But then, I’m here. The world will continue. I am proof.”

“If I believe you.”

“And if you do not?” Boyne blazed. “You do not lack security. You lack courage.” He nailed the couple with a contemptuous glare. “There is in this country a legend of pioneer forefathers from whom you are supposed to inherit courage in the face of odds. D. Boone, E. Allen, S. Houston, A. Lincoln, G. Washington and others. Fact?”

“I suppose so,” Knight muttered. “That’s what we keep telling ourselves.”

“And where is the courage in you? Pfui! It is only talk. The unknown terrifies you. Danger does not inspire you to fight, as it did D. Crockett; it makes you whine and reach for the reassurance in this book. Fact?”

“But the atom bomb …”

“It is a danger. Yes. One of many. What of that? Do you cheat at solhand?”

“Solhand?”

“Your pardon.” Boyne reconsidered, impatiently snapping his fingers at the interruption to the white heat of his argument. “It is a game played singly against chance relationships in an arrangement of cards. I forget your noun… .”

“Oh!” Jane’s face brightened. “Solitaire.”

“Quite right. Solitaire. Thank you, Miss Clinton.” Boyne turned his frightening eyes on Knight. “Do you cheat at solitaire?”

“Occasionally.”

“Do you enjoy games won by cheating?”

“Not as a rule.”

“They are thisney, yes? Boring. They are tiresome. Pointless. Null-coordinated. You wish you had won honestly.”

“I suppose so.”

“And you will suppose so after you have looked at this bound book. Through all your pointless life you will wish you had played honestly the game of life. You will verdash that look. You will regret. You will totally recall the pronouncement of our great poet-philosopher Trynbyll who summed it up in one lightning, skazon line.
‘The Future is Tekon,’
said Trynbyll. Mr. Knight, do not cheat. Let me implore you to give me the almanac.”

“Why don’t you take it away from me?”

“It must be a gift. We can rob you of nothing. We can give you nothing.”

“That’s a lie. You paid Macy to rent this back room.”

“Macy was paid, but I gave him nothing. He will think he was cheated, but you will see to it that he is not. All will be adjusted without dislocation.”

“Wait a minute… .”

“It has all been carefully planned. I have gambled on you, Mr. Knight. I am depending on your good sense. Let me have the almanac. I will disband … reorient … and you will never see me again. Vorloss verdash! It will be a bar adventure to narrate for friends. Give me the almanac!”

“Hold the phone,” Knight said. “This is a gag. Remember? I—”

“Is it?” Boyne interrupted. “Is it? Look at me.”

For almost a minute the young couple stared at the bleached white face with its deadly eyes. The half-smile left Knight’s lips, and Jane shuddered involuntarily. There was chill and dismay in the back room.

“My God!” Knight glanced helplessly at Jane. “This can’t be happening. He’s got me believing. You?” Jane nodded jerkily.

“What should we do? If everything he says is true we can refuse and live happily ever after.”

“No,” Jane said in a choked voice. “There may be money and success in that book, but there’s divorce and death, too. Give him the almanac.”

“Take it,” Knight said faintly.

Boyne rose instantly. He picked up the package and went into the phone booth. When he came out he had three books in one hand and a smaller parcel made up of the original wrapping in the other. He placed the books on the table and stood for a moment, holding the parcel and smiling down.

“My gratitude,” he said. “You have eased a precarious situation. It is only fair you should receive something in return. We are forbidden to transfer anything that might divert existing phenomena streams, but at least I can give you one token of the future.”

He backed away, bowed curiously, and said: “My service to you both.” Then he turned and started out of the tavern.

“Hey!” Knight called. “The token?”

“Mr. Macy has it,” Boyne answered and was gone.

The couple sat at the table for a few blank moments like sleepers slowly awakening. Then, as reality began to return, they stared at each other and burst into laughter.

“He really had me scared,” Jane said.

“Talk about Third Avenue characters. What an act. What’d he get out of it?”

“Well … he got your almanac.”

“But it doesn’t make sense.” Knight began to laugh again. “All that business about paying Macy but not giving him anything. And I’m supposed to see that he isn’t cheated. And the mystery token of the future …”

The tavern door burst open and Macy shot through the saloon into the back room. “Where is he?” Macy shouted. “Where’s the thief? Boyne, he calls himself. More likely his name is Dillinger.”

“Why, Mr. Macy!” Jane exclaimed. “What’s the matter?”

“Where is he?” Macy pounded on the door of the men’s room. “Come out, ye blaggard!”

“He’s gone,” Knight said. “He left just before you got back.”

“And you, Mr. Knight!” Macy pointed a trembling finger at the young lawyer. “You, to be party to thievery and racketeers. Shame on you!”

“What’s wrong?” Knight asked.

“He paid me one hundred dollars to rent this back room,” Macy cried in anguish. “One hundred dollars. I took the bill over to Bernie the pawnbroker, being cautious-like, and he found out it’s a forgery. It’s a counterfeit.”

“Oh, no,” Jane laughed. “That’s too much. Counterfeit?”

“Look at this,” Mr. Macy shouted, slamming the bill down on the table.

Knight inspected it closely. Suddenly he turned pale and the laughter drained out of his face. He reached into his inside pocket, withdrew a checkbook and began to write with trembling fingers.

“What on earth are you doing?” Jane asked.

“Making sure that Macy isn’t cheated,” Knight said. “You’ll get your hundred dollars, Mr. Macy.”

“Oliver! Are you insane? Throwing away a hundred dollars …”

“And I won’t be losing anything, either,” Knight answered. “All will be adjusted without dislocation! They’re diabolical. Diabolical!”

“I don’t understand.”

“Look at the bill,” Knight said in a shaky voice. “Look closely.”

It was beautifully engraved and genuine in appearance. Benjamin Franklin’s benign features gazed up at them mildly and authentically; but in the lower right-hand corner was printed: Series 1980 D. And underneath that was signed: Oliver Wilson Knight, Secretary of the Treasury.

Y
ou can’t go back and you can’t catch up. Happy endings are always bittersweet.

There was a man named John Strapp: the most valuable, the most powerful, the most legendary man in a world containing seven hundred planets and seventeen hundred billion people. He was prized for one quality alone. He could make Decisions. Note the capital D. He was one of the few men who could make Major Decisions in a world of incredible complexity, and his Decisions were 87 percent correct. He sold his Decisions for high prices.

There would be an industry named, say, Bruxton Biotics, with plants on Deneb Alpha, Mizar III, Terra, and main offices on Alcor IV. Bruxton’s gross income was Cr. 270 billions. The involutions of Bruxton’s trade relations with consumers and competitors required the specialized services of two hundred company economists, each an expert on one tiny facet of the vast overall picture. No one was big enough to coordinate the entire picture.

Bruxton would need a Major Decision on policy. A research expert named E. T. A. Goland in the Deneb laboratories had discovered a new catalyst for biotic synthesis. It was an embryological hormone that rendered nucleonic molecules as plastic as clay. The clay could be modeled and developed in any direction. Query: Should Bruxton abandon the old culture methods and retool for this new technique? The Decision involved an intricate ramification of interreacting factors: cost, saving, time, supply, demand, training, patents, patent legislation, court actions and so on. There was only one answer: Ask Strapp.