The fat man floated behind a guard of sullen rude boys, his mad little eyes dark with inner furies. A thin string of saliva clung to one corner of his mouth, waving slightly as he talked. “How do you like my angelheaded little girls?
Lovely, aren’t they?”
“They’re certainly something,” Wyeth said. “What have you done to them?” Behind him, the women snapped his bonds and then Rebel’s. There were two pairs of rings by Wismon’s ankles, and the guards knelt within them,crouching at his feet. He reached out to clumsily pat one on the head, and she arched her back in pleasure.
“I’ve increased their intelligence—they’re quite as smart as am I. Ah, don’t turn pale. I’ve also deprived them of language. They have no symbolic structure at all. They cannot make plans, cannot reason complexly, cannot lie.
All they know is what instructions I’ve programmed into them. Isn’t that marvelous? They’re perfectly innocent.
They act by instinct alone.”
“They’re grotesque,” Rebel said.
“They are very beautiful animals,” Wismon said reprovingly. “One of their instincts is to bring me anything out of the ordinary. Anything interesting. Are you still interesting, mentor?”
“I’ve always wondered what sort of society you would create,” Wyeth said.
“Oh, piffle. I’m just having a little fun. I only have three days before we reach Mars, isn’t that right? And then I’ll have to put my toys back in the box and return to a gentlemanly life of quiet contemplation. The pity is that so much time was wasted dealing with factions of petty criminals that might more profitably have been used for my researches.”
“You’re going to restore everyone you’ve forcibly programmed?” Wyeth sounded skeptical.
“Oh, absolutely. Except for my rude boys, of course. I had them before all this began. And I think I’ll keep my beautiful little girls, how could I ever bring myself to give them up? And there are a few more that might prove useful in the future—but enough of that! I mentioned my researches? Well, I flatter myself that I’ve made some small progress. I have created a garden—no, a menagerie of new minds. Perhaps you’d care for a brief tour of the highlights?”
“No.”
“A pity. I remember a time when you were not so scornful of scientific endeavor.”
“I was young then.”
“Wait,” Rebel said impulsively. “I’d like to see what you’ve done.” Wyeth turned to her, astonished.
“Well! An original thought—you charm me, Ms.
Mudlark. I will deny you nothing.” Wismon extended his arms and the cat women stood under them, each stretching a supporting arm across the immensity of his back. “Where’s my zookeeper? Call him to me.”
A sullen rude boy ducked into an archway. A moment later he returned, followed by a young man painted for wetware research.
“Maxwell!” Rebel cried.
“I knew you’d have a spy in my organization,” Wyeth said with a touch of sadness. “Did you buy him or just reprogram him?”
“Oh, I assure you he acted not for any ignoble reasons, but purely out of love. You do love me, don’t you, Maxie?”
Maxwell nodded eagerly, face rapt. His expression was at once so ardent and so familiar that Rebel had to look away. “Lead us to your charges,” Wismon said. “I grow bored.”
The party floated out of the court. Maxwell led, followed by Wismon and his cat women. They eased him along with feather-light kicks and grabs against the walls and ropes.
Rebel and Wyeth came next, escorted by a guard of rude boys. They came to a confluence of passages and halted.
“What shall I show you? I’ve arranged my creations by type. Would you care to go down the tunnel of fear? The straight and narrow way of discipline? Or perhaps you two lovebirds would enjoy a kick and stroll down lovers’ lane.”
They said nothing, and Wismon flapped a bloated pink hand at one passage. “We’ll go the way of delusion, then. Ihave something I’m especially eager for my dear mentor to see.”
They went up the red rope to a nondescript court. At a word from Wismon, Maxwell led them within. It was quiet there. A man sat in the doorway of his hutch, eyes downcast as if lost in thought. He was hooked into a small transcorder unit. “Cousin!” Wismon cried. “Sam Pepys!”
The man scrambled to his feet, bracing himself within the frame. “My Lord!” he said. “You do me honor, coming to Seething Lane.” He swept a hand at an imaginary table.
“I was just now working on your accounts.”
To Wyeth, the fat man said, “Samuel Pepys was a clerk of the British navy on Earth in the seventeenth century. A
ludicrous little man, but able enough in his way. A bit of a diarist. The transcorder feeds him a wafer of background sensation. His only connection with the real world is through myself. He takes me to be his relative, Edward Montagu, Earl of Sandwich. Isn’t that right, Samuel?”
The man smiled gravely and bowed, obviously pleased.
“Your Lordship gives me too great a credit. Will you stay to dine? Mr. Spong has sent over a barrel of pickled oysters, I’ll have the girl fetch it. Jane! Where is that lazy slut?” He looked fretfully over one shoulder, setting the transcorder leads swinging.
“It’s a simple enough delusional system,” Rebel said.
“Rich people have been known to spend good money for two weeks of that kind of delusion. I’ve arranged for a few such vacations myself.” That had been during Eucrasia’s internship, she recalled. It had been dull work, cookie-cutter programming, but (because legally dubious)
lucrative.
“Ah, but always under sensory deprivation, eh?
Otherwise small incongruities creep in from the real world.” A cat woman was exploring the court. She sniffed curiously at Pepys’ crotch. He didn’t notice. “Right in the middle of the battle of Thermopylae, a city cannistereclipses the sun. On virgin Arctic snow, a lone papaya glows with otherworldly light. Little by little your dream world crumbles into paranoia and nightmare. But the beauty of this system is its flexibility. It can justify any amount of incongruity. Samuel, I have noticed a great number of brontosauri in the streets of London this past week.”
Pepys frowned. “Brontosauri, my Lord? The… ah, large, ancient lizards, you mean?”
“Aye, Samuel, three in Whitechapel alone, and two more by the ’Change. Down by Saint Paul’s the streets are filthy with their spoor. What make you of that, Cousin?”
“Why, that it will be a mightily cold winter,” Pepys said.
“The brutes never venture out in such numbers be the coming weather fair and clement.”
“I fail to see the point of this,” Wyeth said stiffly.
“Patience. Samuel, poke up the fire, would you?” Pepys obliged, seizing an imaginary poker and stirring up the logs and embers of a fireplace that was not there. The mime was so perfect that Rebel could almost see his stuffy little room and feel its monotonously heavy gravity.
Suddenly Wismon shouted, “Samuel! A coal has landed on the back of your hand. It’s burning the flesh!”
With a shriek of pain, Pepys tumbled over backwards, waving his hand. Spinning slowly in the air, he put hand to mouth and sucked on it. At a gesture from Wismon, two rude boys steadied him.
“Here, Cuz. Show me your hand.”
Pepys extended a hand trembling with pain. An angry red circle swelled on its back. Even as they watched, puss-white blisters bubbled up on the inflamed spot.
Wismon laughed. “Belief! Belief alone burned that hand.
Think on it. It rather puts some starch into the ancient notion that all we experience is illusion to begin with, doesn’t it?” He stroked the hand lovingly, breaking theblisters. “But Samuel doesn’t perceive our illusions, only those that are pumped into him. All that stands between him and reality is one thin wafer of electronic London.
Let’s see what happens when we remove that final veil.”
Maxwell held up the transcorder for Wismon, who daintily took the wafer’s pull-ring between thumb and forefinger. “Samuel?”
“My Lord?”
“Tell me what you see.” He yanked the wafer.
Pepys stiffened, and his eyes jerked open wide.