Juxtaposition (11 page)

“Good job,” the male Citizen said. “Forty-five.”

“Just what kind of a person is he in that frame you talk about?” the serf man asked,

“He is what is called an Adept,” the Computer answered. “That means he is a powerful magician.”

“Funny to hear a computer say that,” the man said. “But I sort of go for that fantasy bit, even if it is all a story.
 
Forty-two.”

Stile’s hope was sailing. These were amazingly favorable responses. He was averaging 44. It would take a rating of 25 by the last panelist to bring him down to par with Rue.
 
The lady Citizen seemed too perceptive for that—but she had surprised him before. He felt his hands getting sweaty as he waited for her answer.

“This mischief of love,” she said. “Is this person concerned about the feelings of the lady robot who loves him?”

“He may not answer,” the Computer reminded her. “We must divine that answer from his poem.”

“I wonder whether in fact it is his own personal reckoning he is most concerned with,” she said. “He says they must be civil, because what will be, will be. I am not sure I can accept that answer.”

Stile quailed. This woman had downgraded Rue’s verse for cruelty; was she about to do the same for his?
 

“Since he has a wife in the other frame, he really does not need a woman of any kind in this frame,” she continued. “It is unfair to keep her in doubt.”

“We may approve or disapprove the poet’s personal life,” the male Citizen said. “But we are here to judge only the merit of the poem. For what it’s worth, I see several indications that he recognizes the possibility of fundamental change. A bitch turns noble, defeat becomes victory, ice merges with flame, serf becomes Citizen, the fate of dragons and roaches is linked. Perhaps he is preparing his philosophy for the recognition that a living creature may merge with a machine. If this is the way fate decrees, he will accept it.”

She nodded. “Yes, the implication is there. The author of this poem, I think, is unlikely to be deliberately cruel.
 
He is in a difficult situation, he is bound, he is civil. It is an example more of us might follow. I rate this work forty four.”

Stile’s knees almost gave way. She had not torpedoed him; his total score would be 82, comfortably ahead of Rue’s total.

“Do any wish to change their votes on either aspect of either poem?” the Computer inquired. “Your votes are not binding until confirmed.”

The panelists exchanged glances. Stile got tense again. It could still come apart!

“Yes, I do,” the serf woman said. Stile saw Rue tense; this was the one who had given her 50 on content. If she revised her grade on Stile’s poem downward—

“I believe I overreacted on that fifty score,” she said.

“Let’s call it forty-five for Cruel Lover.” Again Stile’s knees turned to goo. She had come down on his side!

“Final score eighty-two to seventy-seven in favor of Stile’s poem,” the Computer said after a pause. “He is the winner of this Tourney.”

Now there was applause from the hidden public address system. So quickly, so simply, he had won!
 
But he saw Rue, standing isolated, eyes downcast. On impulse he went to her. “It was a good game,” he said.
 
“You could easily have won it.”

“I still have life tenure,” she said, half choked with disappointment. Then, as an afterthought, she added:

“Sir.”

Stile felt awkward. “If you ever need a favor—“

“I did not direct my poem at you. Not consciously. I was thinking of someone who threw me over. Sir.” But now the crowd was closing in, and Stile’s attention was necessarily diverted.

“By the authority vested in me by the Council of Citizens of Planet Proton,” the Game Computer said, its voice emerging from every speaker under its control throughout the Game Annex, “I now declare that the serf Stile, having won the Tourney, is acquitted of serf status and endowed with Citizenship and all appurtenances and privileges pertaining thereto, from this instant forward.”

The applause swelled massively. The panelists joined in, serfs and Citizens alike.

A robot hastened forward with an ornate robe. “Sir, I belong to your transition estate. It is your privilege to wear any apparel or none. Yet to avoid confusion—“

Stile had thought he was braced for this, but the repeated appellation “sir” startled him. For a lifetime he had called others sir; now he had comprehensive conditioning to unlearn. “Thank you,” he said, leaching for the robe.
 
The robot skittered to the side.

“Allow me, sir,” it said, and Stile realized it wanted to put the robe on him. It did not behoove a Citizen to serve himself, though he could if he wanted to. Stile suffered himself to be dressed, holding a mental picture of a horse being saddled.

“Thank, you,” he repeated awkwardly.

The machine moved dose, getting the robe on and adjusted. “A Citizen need not thank a machine—or anyone,” it murmured discreetly in Stile’s ear.

“Oh. Yes. Thank—uh, yes.”

“Quite all right, sir,” the machine said smoothly.

Now a lady Citizen approached. It was Stile’s employer.
 
Former employer, he reminded himself. “I am gratified, Stile,” she said. “You have made me a winner too.”

“Thank you, sir.” Then Stile bit his tongue.
 

She smiled. “Thank you, sir.” And she leaned forward to kiss him on the right eyebrow. “I profited a fantastic amount on your success. But more than that is the satisfaction of sponsoring a Tourney winner. You will find me appreciative.” She walked away.

Now the Citizen known as the Rifleman approached. “I know exactly how you feel,” he said. That was no exaggeration; the Rifleman had won his own Tourney fifteen years before. Stile had encountered him in the first Round of this Tourney and barely pulled out the victory. The Rifleman had been an excellent loser.

“Accept some private advice. Citizen: get away from the public for several days and drill yourself in the new reality. That will cure you of embarrassing slips. And get yourself someone to explain the ropes in nontechnical terms—the extent of your vested estate, the figures, the prerogatives. There’s a hell of a lot to learn fast, if you don’t want to be victimized by predatory Citizens.”

“But aren’t all Citizens—that is, don’t they respect the estates of other Citizens?”

“Your minimum share of the Protonite harvest can not be impinged upon—but only your luck and competence and determination can establish your place in the Citizen heirarchy. This is a new game. Stile—oh, yes. Citizens have names; we are merely anonymous to the serfs. You may wish to select a new name for yourself—“

“No need.”

“It is a game more intricate and far-reaching than any within the Tourney. Make a point to master its nuances, Stile—soon.” And the Rifleman gave him a meaningful glance.

The audience was dissipating as the novelty of the new Citizen wore off. Stile signaled Sheen. “Can your friends provide me with a mentor conversant with the nuances of Citizen behavior?”

“They can, sir,” she said. “Or they could program me—“

“Excellent! Get yourself programmed. They’ll know what I need. And do it soon.”

Sheen left. Stile found it incongruous that she should remain naked while he was now clothed. Yet of course she remained a serf—an imitation serf—now in his employ; she would remain naked the rest of her life.
 
Her life? Stile smiled, a trifle grimly. He was forgetting that she had no life. Yet she was his best friend in this frame.

Stile turned to the robot who had brought his robe.

“Take me to my estate,” he ordered it.

The machine hesitated. “Sir, you have none.”

“None? But I thought all Citizens—“

“Each Citizen has a standard share of the Protonite mines. All else follows.”

“I see.” It seemed there was much that was not handed to a Citizen on a platter. He needed that manual of Citizenship! Where was Sheen? Her programming should have been quick.

Then she appeared. “I have it, sir,” she said.
 

“Excellent. Take me to an appropriate and private place, and deliver.”

“Don’t I always—sir?” She led the way out of the Game Annex.

The place turned out to be a temporary roinidome set up on the desert. Its generator tapped an underground power cable, so as to form the force field that prevented the thin, polluted outside atmosphere from penetrating. A portable unit filled the dome with pleasant, properly cooled air. Sheen set up a table for two, put out crackers, cheese, and mock wine, adjusted the field to turn opaque, and planted a spy-disrupter device on the ground. “Now we are private, sir,” she said.

“You don’t have to say sir to me,” he protested.

“Yes, I do, sir. You are a Citizen and I am a naked serf.
 
We violate this convention at our peril.”

“But you’ve been my friend all along!”

“And once more than that, sir,” she reminded him. She had come to him as guardian and mistress, and had been good in both capacities. His marriage to the Lady Blue had deleted the second. Sheen, a machine supposedly without any human emotion not programmed into her, had tried to commit suicide—self-destruction. She had become reconciled after meeting the Lady Blue. Sheen still loved him, and for that Stile felt guilty.

“It occurs to me that, as a Citizen, I could have you reprogrammed to have no personal feeling toward me,” he said.

“This is true, sir.”

“Do you wish it?”

“No, sir.”

“Sheen, I value you greatly. I do not want you to suffer.
 
That poem of Rue’s—I am absolutely opposed to giving you cause to feel that way. Is there anything within my present power I can do to make you happy?”

“There is, sir. But you would not.”

She was uncompromising. She wanted his love again, physically if not emotionally, and that he could not give.
 
“Aside from that.”

“Nothing, sir.”

“But I may be able to make your friends happy. As Citizen, I can facilitate their recognition as sapient entities.” Her friends were the self-willed machines of Proton who, like Sheen herself, had helped him survive Citizen displeasure in the past. He had sworn never to act against their interests so long as they did not act against the interests of man, and both parties honored that oath. Stile did not regard their desire to achieve serf status as contrary to the oath; he agreed they should have it. But such status was not easy to achieve; the Citizens were devoted to the status quo,

“All in good time, sir. Now shall we review the appurtenances and privileges of Citizenship?”

“By all means.”

Rapidly, in simple language, she acquainted him with his situation. He was entitled to use the proceeds from his share of the mines to purchase or construct a physical estate, to staff it with serfs, robots, androids, cyborgs, or anything else, and to indulge in any hobbies he wished.
 
The amount of credit available from his share was sufficient to enable him to construct a moderate palace, hire perhaps twenty-five serfs, and buy six robots of Sheen’s type. Expensive hobbies like exotic horse breeding or duplicating the Hanging Gardens of Babylon would have to wait until the palace was complete. The income of a Citizen was not limitless; it only seemed that way to serfs.
 
It was possible, however, to increase one’s resources by making and winning large wagers with other Citizens. Bets of a year’s income were not uncommon. However, if a Citizen got two years in arrears, further wagers would not be honored until he caught up. It was never permitted for a Citizen to become destitute; a basic lifestyle had to be maintained. Appearance was vital.

“I’ll have no problems there,” he said. “I’m not a gambling man, outside the Game. I shall be a very conservative Citizen and live well within my income. Most of the time I won’t even be here, as you know.”

She nodded sadly. “Yes, sir. There’s a note in the program from my friends. They warn it is not safe for you to stand pat. Forces are building rapidly. To protect yourself you must soon develop your estate to a hundred times its original magnitude. Within six months.”

“A hundred times!” he exclaimed. “In six months!”

“And you must unravel the mystery that is associated with your lasering, sir. Who sent me to protect you? My friends have disturbing new evidence that this is not an isolated event. Someone or something is interfering with your life, and my friends can’t discover who.”

“Yes. And in Phaze, someone set the Red Adept against me on a false alarm.” He had had an extraordinary amount of trouble in that connection, ending in the banishment of the Red Adept from both Phaze and Proton.
 
The Oracle had said Blue would destroy Red, and that had proved correct—but none of that mischief would have occurred if someone had not started the rumor that Blue intended to attack Red.

“And there was that earthquake, sir, which you believe is connected to events in Phaze,” she continued. “Another portent, perhaps.”

“Definitely. The Platinum Elves informed me that I would be involved in important developments, after my honeymoon.” Ooops—he had not meant to mention the honeymoon to Sheen. He continued rapidly. “I’m not sure I like the implication. I don’t know what the linkages between frames might be, but since a number of people can cross, there can be interactions, perhaps quite serious ones.” He breathed deeply. “I was psychologically prepared for banishment from Proton when I got eliminated from the Tourney. I’m not so certain about how to proceed now that I have permanent tenure. I don’t feel comfortable here in clothing.”