Symbiography (6 page)

“No cause for alarm, Mr. Sondak. I’m Security Agent Justin Sattermeyer.” He pointed to the golden disk on his service belt. “We’re here with Executive Committee authorization. There’s been some concern expressed regarding your whereabouts and the state of your health.”

“Par, I’ve been trying to set up a conference with you for almost a week. Naturally, I grew worried when all I could get out of your computer was that you were incommunicado.”

Sondak shook his head. “How stupid of me. I should have left a message.”

“Have you been dreaming all this time?” There was an anxious note in the Executive’s voice.

“No. Sorry to disappoint you, Omar, but I’ve been conducting a little experiment. Desert exploration, you might call it. I was monitoring someone out there wired-up for D.E.M. transmission.”

“You got to be careful, Mr. Sondak,” Security Agent Sattermeyer said. “I had a friend working for Vicarious Heroics; he was monitoring a D.E.M. of a rocket race when the electron accelerator exploded. The ship went up like a star going nova. The pilot wearing the probe never knew what hit him. My friend never knew what hit him either. His heart couldn’t take it. By the time they got to him it was too late for a transplant.”

“That must have been years ago,” Omar Tarquille said. “Dream-tables nowadays come equipped with an automatic safety cut-off.”

“Yeah, but Mr. Sondak wasn’t using his table, he was locked in there with those receptors strapped on his head.”

“Well, I’m in good shape, as everyone can see,” the Dreamer said, laughing as if he’d made a joke. “What did you want to confer with me about, Omar?”

“It’s in the nature of a private matter …” Tarquille used his eyebrows like daggers but the Agent stood his ground, armored by a bored expression, oblivious to such subtleties. “If both parties are agreed,” he said, “I’ll wait outside. But you better both be alive when you’re finished.”

“Now, now, Mr. Sattermeyer, your profession has infected you with cynicism.” The Dreamer stepped down and gave the Security Agent a friendly shoulder-pat, chuckling good-naturedly. “Omar and I are like Siamese-twins; we depend on each other for survival. I’m sure neither of us has anything to fear from the other.” And Agent Sattermeyer was eased to the door with the nicest of smiles and a soft, wet handshake.

When the two men were alone, the Dreamer’s expression changed. “I’m also certain that your explanation of all this will be amusing, Omar.”

“I don’t think you’ll laugh,” Tarquille replied with a knowing smirk. “Six days ago, the Committee voted to include dreams, hologramatics and D.E.M.s in the frequency-of-use quotas along with other commercial products. Under the terms of the new ruling, Par, all but fifty-seven of your dreams are being recalled from public circulation. I hate to think what your credit rating will look like unless you can come up with something better than your last vague effort.”

“I stand chastened, Omar.” The Dreamer’s mocking smile never varied. “But, as the effort was mine, I can hardly understand the condemnation of a parasite who owes his existence to my toil.” Sondak waved off the Executive’s sputtered retort. This was the first time he had ever seen Omar Tarquille face-to-face, except for projection-booth conferences where the illusion of rural tranquility served to diffuse the hostility they felt toward one another. Here, in the closeness of his studio room, the mirrored walls multiplied their differences a hundred times. In a moment, they would be at each other’s throats. Sondak broke the tension. “Spitting like cats isn’t going to solve our problem. I do appreciate the seriousness of what you’ve told me, Omar.”

“If only you had a new Dream ready to go.”

“I may have considerably better than that. Let me put something interesting on the table for you. Can you spare two hours?”

Par Sondak led the way into the hall, evading the Executive’s questions. He made his guest comfortable on the dream-table and, after consulting with the computer, played the section of the D.E.M. where Buick led the mounted warriors of the Grand Dragon into battle against the renegade Nomads.

The Dreamer waited in his library. Rather than spend the afternoon exchanging inanities with the Agent on the patio, he sent the serving-cart out with a tray of food and drink and retired to the sanctity of his books, leaving the guardian of his security gorging with both trotters in the trough. Reading was of no help; too much was at stake. Sondak sat, listlessly turning the pages of a folio edition of Hogarth’s
Marriage à la Mode,
while the computer played Scarlatti.

When the announcement came that Omar Tarquille had awakened, the Dreamer asked the computer to direct him to the library. Prepared to be stoic in the face of bad news, Sondak was taken off guard by the Executive’s enthusiastic entrance: “Par, it’s incredible! Why, it’s every bit as fantastic as one of your Dreams, with the immediacy of a D.E.M. You’re a genius, Par. How did you ever think of it? I’ll give you a Syndicate pledge for five years of credit … no, make it ten; ten years of credit for the market rights on this.”

Sondak attempted to conceal his elation with a show of indifference. “Well ...I hadn’t thought. It’s hard to set a price …”

“Nonsense! If I were dealt four aces, I’d play the hand, not sit back and admire my cards.”

“All right. In that case, make it fifty years and it’s yours.”

“A little steep, Par, considering you’ll still get your usual percentages; but, I’m willing to gamble. In fact, have your computer get the modes ready for an agreement.”

“How about a drink to seal the bargain? I have some brandy here of which I’m quite proud.”

Two glasses were filled; Omar Tarquille lifted his in salute. “To the incredible Buick,” he said. The chime of touching crystal was echoed by the pealing clock. “I must be off, Par, the trajectory to the City takes at least an hour. To speed things up, why don’t you transfer the Nomad’s signal to the machines in my office. That would leave your studio free for dreaming, if the urge should strike you. In fact, it might be a good idea if you put all the modemat you’ve got on the waves to me right away; the sooner I get it, the sooner we can begin serialization.”

“Don’t you trust me with the mixing?”

“Par, why trouble yourself with technicalities? Leave the busy work to those without imagination. Take some time off and conjure up a good dream. After all, you’ve got fifty years to spare.”

That night, Par Sondak was in no mood for the library. Reading was impossible. He couldn’t concentrate. His mind skipped from line to line until he was skimming pages like a child pretending to be literate. The ticking of the clock drove him from the room. He started on a restless walk through the flower beds only to turn back abruptly to the house before he was gone ten minutes. By giving up his modes, the Dreamer could no longer regard the interlude with Buick in the light of scholarship. It ceased being an experiment the moment he transferred the signal to the City. He could still monitor the Nomad in his studio but he hesitated to admit, even to himself, that the boy had become such an obsession. Only when he began considering the projection-booth as an alternative (holograms, the last refuge of the lonely) did he quit cursing Omar Tarquille for leaving him without an excuse and hurry to his studio.

This time, he made sure to record a message with the computer stating that he was on a two-month dream-holiday and would be unavailable for conferences. The intravenous feeding schedule was programmed and instructions were left with the clinic for his daily inoculations. A man with fifty years’ credit could afford a little self-indulgence. In a few months, he would have to share Buick with a host of paying customers; but, for the time being, the public was uninvited. Par Sondak adjusted elastic straps and electrodes, slipping the crown of probe-receptors tightly onto his bald head before he climbed into the padded studio.

Buick leaned against a window-ledge and stared into the night through wrought iron scrollery that encircled the stars in its tendrils. On the parapet below, a silhouette stood guard by the shadowed disk of a great gong, ready to take up the alarm at the first sound of the watchtower bells. Buick drew the folds of his robe tighter about his chest, shivering in the chill air. He knew that in a very real sense these rooms were a prison; the guard outside was his jailer. In spite of the victory feasts and elegant words of praise, Buick no longer trusted the Grand Dragon. The charm and flattery did little to conceal the manipulations of court politics. His power strengthened Kodak’s position and, for the moment, he was esteemed and honored. But the very nature of his strength made him a potential threat and Buick had heard enough of Brotherhood intrigue to know the fate of those who stood in the way of the Grand Dragon’s ambition.

He must never relax his caution. He slept alone; the light-that-never-dies always ready in his hand. He bolted the heavy door to his rooms at night and was pleased with the thought that the same bars which kept him in also served to keep potential assassins safely out. Tomorrow, the servants who brought his meals would sample the food before he touched it. Kodak had his loyal tasters; why shouldn’t the Firechief be accorded a similar honor? Before the morning was out, the entire Brotherhood would hear the story. What better way to serve the Grand Dragon notice that he was prepared for treachery?

The man lying on the ledge under the taut spread of camouflage netting paid no attention to the sunrise. He was not the sort to be distracted by natural beauty. His mind never strayed from the job at hand. That was the secret of his success. He wore a skin-tight, one-piece survival suit, the kind used in space, and by aquanauts, thousands of feet below the ocean surface. His lithe, muscular build suggested a man of action. In the center of his forehead swelled the slight subcutaneous bulge of an implanted mini-probe.

The man was busy with his equipment. He was a professional and didn’t waste time. He adjusted the image on the portable viewscreen. It showed an empty stretch of road, three kilometers distant. No sign of his client yet. A turret-lens mounted in his orbiting rocketsled kept watch automatically. He checked the road below again through his magnascope. The angle was perfect, thirty-eight degrees. The range was seven-hundred meters. One of the minidisplays on his console showed a six kph increase in wind velocity, coupled with a twelve degree directional change from S-SW toward due South. The man checked these figures with his calculator and a new trajectory was plotted. The calibrated knobs on the telescopic sights were adjusted accordingly. At that moment, the viewscreen showed a lone rider approaching at a fast trot.

The man settled his shoulder comfortably behind the tripod mounted weapon and rested his cheek against the wooden stock, squinting through the 10x scope, but not yet touching the foregrip or the trigger. The strangest thing about this assignment was the weapon: a regular museum-piece. The man believed every assignment was strange in its own way. This was as close as he came to a philosophy. Either it was plastic surgery and play-acting, or he had to do something freakish, like use a knife or even his hands. It didn’t matter. He would use a boomerang if the pay was right.

The antique ballistic weapon had been issued to him along with his instructions, but he took it in stride like a pro and spent two full days practicing on the desert until, at this range, he could put ten rounds cleanly through the center of a target and cover them all with a playing card. A glance at the viewscreen showed the client at the mouth of the canyon and the man double-checked the wind velocity. He rubbed his hands and waited, watching the bend in the road far below.

A rider came into sight. The cross-hairs in the scope centered on the red numbers on his shirt: 66. It was the client. The man inhaled, holding his breath as his finger bent around the trigger. A distant blunderbuss-boom of musketry brought his head up. (“Ambush?”) His client’s horse reared and went down, smoke rising like puffs of steam from the bushes on either side of the road. A viewscreen close-up showed the client thrown free, huddled against the belly of the dead horse, spots of blood beginning to blossom on the white tunic. Then: a dancing ribbon of flame; the boy had a solar-torch set at full power. The bushes along the roadside caught fire. “What kind of circus is this?” the man wondered.

“Never mind,”
said an unfamiliar voice within his head.
“Finish him. “

“What about the other ones?” the man was thinking.

“Forget them, just finish the job.”

The man did as he was told.

There was a moment, sprawled in the dust, hurt and confused, when Par Sondak almost forced himself awake enough to push the disconnect sensor on the studio wall. Buick’s instincts took over; surprise and fear cleared his mind of shock, and he crawled for the cover of the horse, his painful wounds only tinder for his incendiary hatred. Sondak shared the boy’s furious energy and he postponed awakening like a man delaying an orgasm, wanting to taste just a little bit more of the thrill.

How satisfying to spray the underbrush with fire. The agonized screams of his enemies brought on a sensation almost like joy. Buick never heard the distant echoing shot that sent clouds of birds wheeling into flight from the sides of the canyon. A 250-grain, hollow-point bullet caught him under his upraised arm with enough force to flip him over backwards. Sondak felt the blow, saw a final rushing moment of blue sky; but when the body hit the ground, mouth and nostrils spewing a bright froth of lung-blood, the recording modal on the Dream Syndicate machines went blank and the Dreamer lay open-mouthed in his studio, his goggling eyes glassy with death.

The burial platform of Buick the Firechief was a banner-decked wagonwheel set on a mast above the uppermost ramparts of the fortress. And when the vultures finished, the bones were brought down and ceremoniously interred by the Holy Brotherhood beneath the pavingstones of the Klaven Chamber. The Grand Dragon was bed-ridden with arthritis and did not attend these rites. Neither did five badly burned guardsmen, secretly hospitalized in an empty granary. The unrecognizably charred corpses of three renegade assassins hung from the crossbeam of the village gate.