The Mind-Riders Read online

  He watched me sorting through things, shoving the shards of my personal history into the case. His attitude toward me had changed completely since he’d watched me sparring verbally with Valerian. Last night he’d picked me up like a package, but now he didn’t know what the package contained. He was uneasy with me. He felt like an outsider because he didn’t know what was going on between his boss and me. It dated from before his time.

  He hadn’t said anything while he drove me back, but his hands and mind had been partially occupied then. Now, standing in the doorway watching me, he had nothing to do with himself but think. Curiosity kills cats, and they have nine lives, but most humans still haven’t the sense to steer clear of it.

  “You never met Valerian before last night?” he began, tentatively.

  “I never did,” I said. “But we didn’t need any introductions.”

  “Not many people talk to him that way.”

  “I do,” I said. I carried on carving up the stuff in the lockers and the folding drawers. There wasn’t very much I wanted to take, but I was afraid that there was something I’d regret having left at some time in the unknowable future. I kept hesitating over decisions.

  “What’ve you got against him?” he asked.

  “He could have had me back in the ring eighteen years ago. He didn’t. Also, I don’t like him.”

  “What’s he got against you?”

  “He doesn’t like me either.”

  “Ah, shit,” he said, losing his cool just a little. “Are you going to tell me or aren’t you?”

  I thought of saying no, but then I thought why the hell not?

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “At least, it is the way I tell it. And it hasn’t much of a punch line.”

  He shrugged.

  I sighed. I took two bottles out of the cupboard and gave them to him. I got a couple of glasses, and held them out. “We might as well get rid of the stuff,” I said.

  He poured.

  “It’s still too early,” I said, inspecting the stuff, “but we may as well celebrate my immense good fortune. It’s not every day your lifelong ambition comes true.”

  I sat down on the bed. He leaned against the wall, and eased the door shut behind him.

  “Beginning of story,” I said. “I was a boxer once. In my formative days. I beat Herrera—they were his formative days, too. We were both young, both inexperienced, both learning slowly. Paul, I guess, was learning a little more slowly. Nobody else beat him, so I’m the only one. But that’s just how things fell out. It could have been someone else.”

  He was nodding. He already knew all that.

  “In those days,” I said, “MiMaC wasn’t as big as it is now. It was in use, it was working. But they were still exploring ways to exploit it. Big money men like Velasco Valerian would hold conferences and they would ask one another how they were going to sell this new miracle of science to the world—how best they could employ it to multiply their already-considerable fortunes tenfold.

  “Everybody knew it was the biggest thing since the opposable thumb, and so everyone was very careful. People were anxious about it—about the way it could and might be used. Different interests were anxious for different reasons.

  “Network was putting out E-link programs and B-link commercials, but the whole thing was in an experimental phase. Hardly anyone had actually bought the equipment—Network had to practically give headdresses away in order to explore the possibilities. Nobody knew enough about the marketability of the fake stuff—the new-style acting—that was being put across with the system. It had novelty value but no one could really be sure that it would ultimately become part of the structure of social life.

  “They were slightly more sure of the marketability of the real thing—the live broadcast of the resonance effects of actual emotion. The one thing Network were reasonably sure of was that a whole new dimension could be added to televised sport—competition of all kinds. In a hard, tough game of any kind most men generate enough excitement to hype up an audience, even if they’re only watching the damn thing. When they can actually hook in, identify with their hero all the way down to his emotions, the involvement is much greater and the hype that much better. And games have a recognizable form—the emotion is for a limited period and it builds up to a climax when someone wins and someone else loses. MiMaC provided limitless scope for the marketing of broadcast sport.

  “But it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Switching sport out of physical reality and into a holovisual sim made the process of mind/machine communication involved in handling the sim one with the process of broadcasting ER. But switching sport from the real world to a computer simulation was something which had to be sold to the people. It was an idea many people reacted against. Network stressed the fairness of the new sport and its genuineness as a competition of skill, but the real hook was the E-link—that was their banker bet, the key to the whole thing.

  “Boxing, where one man faces one man and the climax of the contest is often a K.O. was just made for E-link broadcasting. And Paul Herrera was made for it too. He was—and is—good at handling a sim, but the chief thing which made him into a big Network asset was the fact that he was—and is—an extremely powerful broadcaster. The voltage in his brain during a fight is way above norm. He was a man with deep, rich, saleable feelings. He took—and still takes, after all these years—a savage delight in taking his opponents apart.

  “Network took up Herrera and prepared to build a big market campaign on his ability to win and his capacity to glory in winning. He was their pride and joy, their ace in the hole. They needed Herrera—or, at least, they believed that they needed him.

  “Of all the possible uses and applications of MiMaC, the one the men like Valerian—the men with money to invest—staked most upon was fight promotion. Maybe that’s crazy, and an awful lot of people thought so at the time. Maybe it’s just a commentary on human nature and the vagaries of the economic system—and one might add in that context that the government money which poured in to R & D concerned with MiMaC was overwhelmingly dedicated to the military applications. However—there was no shortage of eager fighters, men who’d always wanted to be fighters but were disqualified for physical reasons. Even a couple of real fighters, who were on the way down in the real-life game and saw a chance to apply their know-how in a new field, came to Network. Network financed the fighters, trained them and matched them.

  “They had a monopoly, of course. They were the only ones with the machines, with the programs, the only ones who would put up the cash to present a bout. They had sole governance over the fighters, and they stage-managed the presentation of the game all the way from invention to world championship as if it were a gigantic advertising campaign. And, in a way, it was.

  “It worked. It was a great success. A lot of things all happening together made E-link into a social institution, but boxing was probably one of the most important. The fight game—and Herrera—sold the biggest kick of all, and the kick sold E-link.

  “It was necessary to Network that everything should go smoothly in their grand campaign. They couldn’t afford any slip-ups. And there was just one slight hitch. For the most part, the most successful of their fighters were the men who radiated best. The winners were, for the most part, the guys who needed to win more than the rest, who got a bigger kick themselves out of winning. With all else equal, that’s not really surprising. But it didn’t apply all along the line. Some good broadcasters were lousy fighters. And one or two good fighters were very poor broadcasters.

  “I was a good fighter. But across the B-link, I was rubbish. I fought coldly and methodically. I was skillful and clever, but not emotionally involved. I wanted to win—I always wanted to win—but somehow that wanting didn’t translate itself into the kind of emotion that resonates through the machine-link. I don’t feel in the way that Network wanted me to feel. And they couldn’t afford to include me in their ambitions. I was a poor risk. Most of all, they couldn’t aff
ord to have me challenging for their world title. So they blacked me. They banned me from any participation in sim boxing. They did it less than a week after I beat Herrera and showed them what I might do. They got rid of me.”

  I paused to look at my captive audience, making sure he was still with me. He was, but from his point of view we hadn’t got to the point yet. He still didn’t see what it had to do with Valerian. He started to say so, but I didn’t wait.

  “It was a logical decision,” I said, without bitterness. “They couldn’t take the risk. Network had to put on a series of fights to really blow the minds of the vamps, create a spectacle whose kind had never been experienced before. The atmosphere of the gladiatorial arena multiplied a thousandfold—everything that sport had ever offered to its audiences, and more besides. So who needs a potential disaster? My only qualification for boxing was the fact that I was good. I could win. That wasn’t Network’s top priority. They weren’t interested in that kind of best man winning.

  “Velasco Valerian was in on the decision to have me blacked. With his pull, he could have reversed it, but he didn’t. All for very good and practical reasons, you understand. It was that decision which meant that on the night Herrera won the title the wrong man was facing him in the ring. Instead of the best fighter it was the best feeler—a kid who might give the vamps orgasms but who was never, not in a million years, going to beat Paul Herrera. But what did that matter? Network were putting on a show. And, of course, it was obvious that no one could really get hurt. It could have been lions versus Christians if that had made a better spectacle. Only the sims took the punishment. Only the sims—and the minds that were running them.

  “The kid that fought Herrera for the title died. Not because of what Herrera did, but because of the way he was made inside. And, of course, he died decorously enough, in the hospital, long after the switch was off. He’d done his job. The death wasn’t blamed on Network—how could it be? It didn’t even harm their big advertising job. It was played down that much. The fault was in the fighter, not in the system. So said the coroner. No one was to blame.

  “But the kid that died was Velasco Valerian’s son, and Velasco had his own ideas about blame and justice. He couldn’t accept what the coroner said. He had to hold his own inquiry, inside his mind, and decide according to his own tenets just who was guilty. He started from two basic and inviolable premises: that no possible blame could be attached to his son, and that no possible blame could be attached to himself. That was fundamental to his whole approach.

  “And the high court of Velasco Valerian’s feudal vanity brought back two findings. One: that Paul Herrera was guilty of destroying his son, and two: that Ryan Hart also had to take a portion of the blame. The first was necessary in order to justify the first premise: it wasn’t Franco that cracked up, but Herrera who cracked him. The second was necessary to justify the second premise: it wasn’t Network’s decision about priorities, which was partly Valerian’s, that was responsible for Franco’s being in the ring that night, but the fault of the man who should have been in his place. Velasco blames me for not being able to broadcast, for being the kind of man I am. He has to blame me, in order to avoid taking any of the blame himself.

  “It’s not as clear as that in his mind, of course. He probably hasn’t worked it out. He doesn’t know what he thinks—only what he feels. And what he feels is concentrated hatred for Herrera, diluted hatred for me. Unjust, maybe—but whenever did feelings respect justice?

  “And that, basically, is it. All tied up with a pink ribbon. End of story. Except that near the end the plot sickens. Because Velasco discovers the thing that Ryan Hart knew all along—that the only way Valerian is going to engineer the ritual destruction of Paul Herrera is by matching him with Ryan Hart. A cruel twist of ironic fate, you may say. The innate comic justice of the way the world goes, maybe. Either way, a tangled knot. One that can’t be untied, but only cut. End of story—all except for punch line. But I told you there was no punch line. Not yet. In time—”

  I let it go.

  The silence that fell was limp and haggard. It extended itself slowly, tiredly.

  “You’re crazy,” said Curman, finally, pouring himself another drink.

  “So’s he,” I replied. “Aren’t we all?”

  But of course, we aren’t. Curman wasn’t, for one. He was okay. He knew the way of the world. He cooperated, with the occasional shrug of his shoulders. He let things go on the way they were. He probably never wondered who was to blame for anything.

  I resumed packing, leaving him to think. It probably didn’t make any sense to him. There were probably a lot of things about other people’s actions and motives that didn’t make sense to him. But he always made perfect sense to himself. He had his wants and his needs clearly mapped out in the cosy little space that was his imagination. He led a disciplined life.

  If everyone else were like him, the world would be a much easier place to live in.

  “But why now?” he said, “after so many years.”

  “You were there,” I said. “You heard him.”

  Curman had heard him, but Curman had been unable to comply with the demand for understanding. Curman didn’t understand.

  But I knew. For once in his life Velasco Valerian was having to compromise with the way that chance had stacked the deck. He was having to accept one of the decisions of fate. For him, it was the end of the road. Mortality had got him in the end. You can’t fight the four horsemen. Everyone arrives at his own private apocalypse, someday.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The first ordeal I had to face following my introduction into the Valerian household was breakfast. I didn’t want any, but I didn’t get the option. It was phase one in my adoption program. Valerian wasn’t just hiring me, he was absorbing me into his particular form of life. I think the theory is called “indoctrination by example”. Or something.

  By the time Curman and I got back to the rotting mansion and dumped such of my erstwhile life as was portable it was late—nearly ten. Valerian, a creature of casehardened habit, had eaten at his usual hour. But he stayed to preside.

  The meal, like the house and the fittings and the life Valerian had molded, came out of the past. I guess the aristocrats of finance have always taken advantage of their privilege in separating themselves and their whole personal environment from the turgid present and the ugly world they prey upon. All vultures are graceful flyers.

  So breakfast was a time-machine, a doorway into a myth-world where everything was pretense and pretentiousness. There was an abundance of servants. I saw five. I didn’t know what their official denominations might be, so I thought of them all as waiters. Good servants are so easy to find nowadays—that’s the benefit of labor redeployment planning, the industrial army and the multiple redefinition of work.

  The taste of the food meant nothing to me. It was too foreign. I’d been eating out of plastic packs all my life, and to me, that was real. Eating was a function, not a vice. In times of resource crisis, that’s the way it has to be. But there were no crises inside Valerian’s time machine. It was exempt.

  I ate calmly, maintaining an attitude of careful self-assurance. Valerian watched me. Curman ate with me, as was obviously his habit. He was Valerian’s good right hand, not just a hired gun.

  The table had been originally set for four, and I tried to add that up. Valerian had eaten but the last place remained empty. I figured that if someone in the house was accustomed to eating at any old time instead of sticking to the timetable he or she had to be family. I couldn’t quite work out what family Valerian might have. Franco had been his only child and the old man’s wife had long since given way to the pressure and departed for a kinder existence, or lack of it.

  The coffee was brought in, solemnly and with ceremony. I could hardly conceal my fascination for the way the minutiae of life were so carefully structured.

  “Did you enjoy the meal?” asked Valerian, politely. I could see that he was ready fo
r a sarcastic reply.

  “How much did it cost?” I asked, quite blandly.

  “Does it matter?”

  “I don’t know,” I countered. “Does it?”

  “In nutritional value, of course,” he said, “the food you’re used to is at an advantage. It gives you what you need without any other considerations being taken into account. But this food has aesthetic qualities which you may care to learn to appreciate.”

  “I don’t think I need antique vices,” I said. I didn’t think I could learn them either. I’d been brought up with the idea—carefully nurtured by government propaganda—that food is fuel, that eating is a boring necessity with no more inherent pleasure than elimination or excretion. That’s the attitude which has to be evolved to meet circumstances of supply-limitation. Valerian had lived since the moment of his birth with a different system of values. Neither of us could change, and it was futile for Valerian to be laying down that kind of challenge.

  “Some people,” I pointed out, quite inoffensively, “find self-indulgence rather obscene.”

  “You don’t believe in obscenity,” he said.

  “No,” I conceded, gracefully, “I don’t suppose I do.”

  “I think you’ll adjust to us, Mr. Hart,” he said. I had no difficulty winkling the hidden meaning out of that one. That was the point he’d been trying to make. Was it worth it?

  I realized something that hadn’t been obvious in the gloom of early morning. Velasco Valerian was not a very clever man.

  “I’ll get along,” I assured him. “I’m pretty tolerant.”

  He didn’t say anything more. He’d declared himself and his aims. He was on to a loser. I wasn’t going to change. I wasn’t going to twist myself into something that would fit his script for a futile revenge. I was going to do it my way. There was to be no alliance, no compromise. He owed me eighteen years, and he was going to get nothing in return for what he was giving me now.

  I suspected, though, that the fight against Valerian might be as hard as the fight against Herrera.