Philip K. Dick - The Game - Players of Titan

VIP免费
2024-12-15 0 0 279.4KB 83 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt
THE GAME-PLAYERS OF TITAN
by PHILIP K. DICK (1963)
I
IT HAD BEEN a bad night, and when he tried to drive home he had a terrible argument with his
car.
"Mr. Garden, you are in no condition to drive. Please use the auto-auto mech and recline in
the rear seat."
Pete Garden sat at the steering tiller and said as distinctly as he could manage, "Look, I
can drive. One drink, in fact several make you more alert. So stop fooling around." He punched the
starter button, but nothing happened. "Start, darn it!"
The auto-auto said, "You have not inserted the key."
"Okay," he said, feeling humiliated. Maybe the car was right. Resignedly, he inserted the
key. The engine started up but the controls were still dead. The Rushmore Effect was still taking
place inside the hood, he knew; it was a losing argument. "All right, I'll let you drive," he said
with as much dignity as possible. "Since you're so eager. You'll probably louse it all up anyhow,
like you always do when I'm -- not feeling well."
He crawled into the back seat, threw himself down, as the car lifted from the pavement and
skimmed through the night sky, its signal lights blinking. God, he felt bad. His head was killing
him.
His thoughts turned, as always, back to The Game.
Why had it gone so badly? Silvanus Angst was responsible. That clown, his brother-in-law or
rather former brother-in-law. That's right, Pete said to himself; I have to remember. I'm not
married to Freya any more. Freya and I lost and so our marriage was dissolved and we're starting
over again with Freya married to Clem Gaines and I'm not married to anybody yet because I haven't
managed to roll a three, yet.
I'll roll a three tomorrow, he told himself. And when I do, they'll have to import a wife for
me; I've used them all up in the group.
His car hummed on, finding its way above the deserted midsection of California, the desolate
lands of abandoned towns.
"Did you know that?" he asked his car. "That I've been married to every woman in the group
now? And I haven't had any luck, yet, so it must be me. Right?"
The car said, "It's you."
"Even if it were me, it wouldn't be my fault; it's the Red Chinese. I hate them." He lay
supine, staring up at the stars through the transparent dome of the car. "I love you, though; I've
had you for years. You're never going to wear out." He felt tears rise up in his eyes. "Is that
right?"
"It depends on the preventative maintenance you faithfully follow."
"I wonder what kind of woman they'll import for me."
"I wonder," the car echoed.
What other group was his group -- Pretty Blue Fox -- in closest contact with? Probably Straw
Man Special, which met in Las Vegas and represented Bindmen from Nevada, Utah and Idaho. Shutting
his eyes, he tried to remember what the women of Straw Man Special looked like.
When I get home to my apartment in Berkeley, Pete said to himself, I'll -- and then he
remembered something dreadful.
He could not go home to Berkeley. Because he had lost Berkeley in The Game, tonight. Walt
Remington had won it from him by calling his bluff on square thirty-six. That was what had made it
such a bad night.
"Change course," he said hoarsely to the auto-auto circuit. He still held title deed to most
of Marin County; he could stay there. "We'll go to San Rafael," he said, sitting up and rubbing
his forehead, groggily.
A male voice said, "Mrs. Gaines?"
Freya, combing her short blonde hair before the mirror, did not look around; absorbed, she
thought, It sounds like that awful Bill Calumine.
"Do you want a ride home?" the voice asked, and then Freya realized that it was her new
husband, Clem Gaines. "You are going home, aren't you?" Clem Gaines, large and overstuffed, with
blue eyes, she thought, like broken glass that had been glued there, and glued slightly awry,
strolled across the Game room toward her. It pleased him, obviously, to be married to her.
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt (1 of 83) [1/19/03 7:58:34 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt
It won't be for long, Freya thought. Unless, she thought suddenly, we have luck.
She continued brushing her hair, paying no attention to him. For a woman one hundred and
forty years old, she decided critically, I look all right. But I can't take responsibility for
it... none of us can.
They were preserved, all of them, by the absence of something, rather than the presence; in
each of them the Hynes Gland had been removed at maturity and so for them the aging process was
now imperceptible.
"I like you, Freya," Clem said. "You're a refreshing person; you make it obvious you don't
like me." He did not seem bothered; oafs like Clem Gaines never were. "Let's go somewhere, Freya,
and find out right away if luckwise you and I--" He broke off, because a vug had come into the
room.
Jean Blau, putting on her coat, groaned, "Look, it wants to be friendly. They always do." She
backed away from it.
Her husband, Jack Blau,, looked about for the group's vug-stick. "I'll poke it a couple of
times and it'll go away," he said.
"No," Freya protested. "It's not doing any harm."
"She's right," Silvanus Angst said; he was at the sideboard, preparing himself a last drink.
"Just pour a little salt on it." He giggled.
The vug seemed to have singled out Clem Gaines. It likes you, Freya thought. Maybe you can go
somewhere with it, instead of me.
But that was not fair to Clem, because none of them consorted with their former adversaries;
it was just not done, despite the efforts by the Titanians to heal the old rift of wartime
dislike. They were a silicon-based life form, rather than carbon-based; their cycle was slow, and
involved methane rather than oxygen as the metabolic catalyst. And they were bisexual... which was
a rather non-B system indeed.
"Poke it," Bill Calumine said to Jack Blau.
With the vug-stick, Jack prodded the jelly-like cytoplasm of the vug. "Go home," he told it
sharply. He grinned at Bill Calumine. "Maybe we can have some fun with it. Let's try to draw it
into conversation. Hey, vuggy. You like make talk-talk?"
At once, eagerly, the Titanian's thoughts came to them, addressed to all the humans in the
condominium apartment. "Any pregnancies reported? If so, our medical facilities are available and
we urge you to--"
"Listen, vuggy," Bill Calumine said, "if we have any luck we'll keep it to ourselves. It's
bad luck to tell you; everybody knows that. How come you don't know that?"
"It knows it," Silvanus Angst said. "It just doesn't like to think about it."
"Well, it's time the vugs faced reality," Jack Blau said. "We don't like them and that's it.
Come on," he said to his wife. "Let's go home." Impatiently, he waved Jean toward him.
The various members of the group filed out of the room and down the front steps of the
building to their parked cars. Freya found herself left with the vug.
"There have been no pregnancies in our group," she told the vug, answering its question.
"Tragic," the vug thought back in response.
"But there will be," Freya said. "I know we'll have luck, soon."
"Why is your particular group so hostile to us?" the vug asked.
Freya said, "Why, we hold you responsible for our sterility; you know that." Especially our
spinner Bill Calumine does, she thought.
"But it was your military weapon," the vug protested.
"No, not ours. The Bed Chinese."
The vug did not grasp the distinction. "In any case we are doing all we can to--"
"I won't want to discuss it," Freya said. "Please."
"Let us help," the vug begged.
She said to it, "Go to hell." And left the apartment, striding down the stairs to the street
and her car.
The cold, dark night air of Carmel, California, revived her; she took a deep breath, glanced
up at the stars, smelled the freshness, the clean new scents. To her car she said, "Open the door;
I want to get in."
"Yes, Mrs. Garden," The car door swung open.
"I'm not Mrs. Garden any more; I'm Mrs. Gaines." She entered, seated herself at the manual
tiller. "Try to keep it straight."
"Yes, Mrs. Gaines." As soon as she put the key in, the motor started up.
"Has Pete Garden already left?" She scanned the gloomy street and did not see Pete's car. "I
guess he has." She felt sad. It would have been nice to sit out here under the stars, so late at
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt (2 of 83) [1/19/03 7:58:34 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt
night, and chat a little. It would be as if they were still married... damn The Game, she thought,
and its spins. Damn luck itself, bad luck; that's all we seem to have, any more. We're a marked
race.
She held her wrist watch to her ear and it said in its tiny voice, "Two-fifteen A.M., Mrs.
Garden."
"Mrs. Gaines," she grated.
"Two-fifteen A.M., Mrs. Gaines."
How many people, she wondered, are alive on the face of Earth at this moment? One million?
Two million? How many groups, playing The Game? Surely no more than a few hundred thousand. And
every time there was a fatal accident, the population decreased irretrievably by one more.
Automatically, she reached into the glove compartment of the car and groped for a neatly-
wrapped strip of rabbit-paper, as it was called. She found a strip -- it was the old kind, not the
new -- and unwrapped it, put it between her teeth and bit.
In the glare of the dome light of the car she examined the strip of rabbit-paper. One dead
rabbit, she thought, recalling the old days (they were before her time) when a rabbit had to die
for this fact in question to be determined. The strip, in the dome light, was white, not green.
She was not pregnant. Crumpling the strip, she dropped it into the disposal chute of the car and
it incinerated instantly. Damn, she thought wretchedly. Well, what did I expect?
The car left the ground, started for her home in Los Angeles.
Too early though to tell about my luck with Clem, she realized. Obviously. That cheered her.
Another week or two and perhaps something.
Poor Pete, she thought. Hasn't even rolled a three, isn't back in The Game, really. Should I
drop by his bind in Marin County? See if he's there? But he was so stewed, so unmanageable. So
bitterly unpleasant, tonight. There is no law or rule, though, that prevents us meeting outside.
The Game. And yet -- what purpose would it serve? We had no luck, she realized, Pete and I. In
spite of our feeling for each other.
The radio of her car came on, suddenly; she heard the call-letters of a group in Ontario,
Canada, broadcasting on all frequencies in great excitement. "This is Pear Book Hovel," the man
declared exultantly. "Tonight at ten P.M. our time we had luck! A woman in our group, Mrs. Don
Palmer, bit her rabbit-paper with no more idea of hoping than she ever did, and--"
Freya shut off the radio.
When he got home to his unlit, unused, former apartment in San Rafael, Pete Garden went at
once to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom to see what medication he could find. I'll never get
to sleep otherwise, he knew. It was an old story with him. Snoozex? It now took three 25mg.
tablets of Snoozex to have any effect on him; he had taken too many for too long. I need something
stronger, he thought. There's always phenobarbital, but it slugs you for the next day. Scopolamine
hydrobromide; I could try that.
Or, he thought, I could try something much stronger. Emphytal.
Three of those, he thought, and I'd never wake up. Not in the strength capsules I've got.
Here... he let the capsules lie on his palm as he stood considering. No one would bother me; no
one would intervene--
The medicine cabinet said, "Mr. Garden, I am establishing contact with Dr. Macy in Salt Lake
City, because of your condition."
"I have no condition," Pete said. He quickly put the Emphytal capsules back in their bottle.
"See?" He waited. "It was just momentary, a gesture." Here he was, pleading with the Rushmore
Effect of his medicine cabinet -- macabre. "Okay?" he asked it hopefully.
A click. The cabinet had shut itself off.
Pete sighed in relief.
The doorbell sounded. What now? he wondered, walking through the faintly musty-smelling
apartment, his mind still on what he could take as a soporific -- without activating the alarm-
circuit of the Rushmore Effect. He opened the door.
There stood his blonde-haired previous wife, Freya. "Hi," she said coolly. She walked into
the apartment, gliding past him, self-possessed, as if it were perfectly natural for her to seek
him out while she was married to Clem Gaines. "What do you have in your fist?" she asked.
"Seven Snoozex tablets," he admitted.
"I'll give you something better than that. It's going the rounds." Freya dug into her leather
mailbag-style purse."A new, new product manufactured in New Jersey by an autofac pharmaceutical
house, there." She held out a large blue spansule. "Nerduwel," she said, and then laughed.
"Ha-ha," Pete said, not amused. It was a gag. Ne'er-do-well. "Is that what you came for?"
Having been his wife, his Bluff partner, for over three months, she of course knew of his chronic
insomnia. "I've got a hangover," he informed her. "And I lost Berkeley to Walt Remington, tonight.
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt (3 of 83) [1/19/03 7:58:34 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt
As you well know. So I'm just not capable of banter, right now."
"Then fix me some coffee," Freya said. She removed her fur-lined jacket and laid it over a
chair. "Or let me fix it for you." With sympathy she said, "You do look bad."
"Berkeley -- why did I put the title deed up, anyhow? I don't even remember. Of all my
holdings -- it must have been a self-destructive impulse." He was silent, and then he said, "On
the way here tonight I picked up an all-points from Ontario."
"I heard it," she said nodding.
"Does their pregnancy elate or depress you?"
"I don't know," Freya said somberly. "I'm glad for them. But--" She roamed about the
apartment, her arms folded.
"It depresses me," Pete said. He put a tea kettle of water on the range in the kitchen.
"Thank you," the tea kettle -- its Rushmore Effect -- piped.
Freya said, "We could have a relationship outside of The Game, you realize. It has been
done."
"It wouldn't be fair to Clem." He felt a camaraderie with Clem Gaines; it overcame his
feelings -- temporarily, anyhow -- for her.
And in any case he was curious about his future wife; sooner or later he would roll a three.
II
PETE GARDEN was awakened the next morning by a sound so wonderfully impossible that he jumped
from the bed and stood rigid, listening. He heard children. They were quarreling, somewhere
outside the window of his San Rafael apartment.
It was a boy and a girl, and Pete thought, So there have been births in this county since I
was last here. And of parents who are non-B, not Bindmen. Without property which would enable them
to play The Game. He could hardly believe it, and he thought, I ought to deed the parents a small
town... San Anselmo or Ross, even both. They deserve an opportunity to play. But maybe they don't
want to.
"You're one," the girl was declaring angrily.
"You're another." The boy's voice, laden with accusation.
"Gimme that." Sounds of a physical scuffle.
He lit a cigarette, then found his clothes and began to dress.
In the corner of the room, leaning against the wall, an MV-3 rifle... he caught sight of it
and paused, remembering in a rush everything that the great old weapon had meant. Once, he had
been prepared to stand off the Red Chinese with this rifle. But it had never seen use because the
Red Chinese had never shown up... at least not in person. Their representatives, in the form of
Hinkel Radiation, had arrived, however, but no amount of MV-3s doled out to California's citizen
army could fight and conquer that. The radiation, from a Wasp-C satellite, had done the job
expected and the United States had lost. But People's China had not won. No one had. Hinkel
Radiation waves, distributed on a worldwide basis, saw to that, god bless'em.
Going over, Pete picked up the MV-3 and held it as he had long ago, in his youth. This gun,
he realized, is one hundred and thirty years old, almost. An antique twice over. Would it still
fire? Who cared... there was no one to kill with it, now. Only a psychotic could find grounds to
kill in the nearly-empty cities of Earth. And even a psychotic might think it over and change his
mind. After all, with fewer than ten thousand people in all California... he set the gun back
down, carefully.
Anyhow the gun had not been primarily an anti-personnel weapon; its tiny A-cartridges had
been intended to penetrate the armor plating of Soviet TL-90 tanks and cripple them. Remembering
the training films they had been shown by Sixth Army brass, Pete thought, I'd like to catch sight
of a "human sea" these days. Chinese or not... we could use it.
I salute you, Bernhardt Hinkel, he thought caustically. The humane inventor of the ultimate
in painless weapons... no, it hadn't hurt; you were correct. We felt nothing, didn't even know.
And then-Removal of the Hynes Gland in as many people as possible had been instigated, and it
hadn't been a waste of effort; because of it there were people alive today. And certain
combinations of male and female were not sterile; it was not an absolute condition but rather a
relative one. We can, in theory, have children; in fact, a few of us do.
The children outside his window, for instance... Along the street a homeostatic maintenance
vehicle swished collecting trash and checking on the growth of lawns, first on one side of the
street and then on the other. The steady whirring of the machine rose above the children's voices.
The empty city is kept tidy, Pete said to himself as the machine halted to send out
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt (4 of 83) [1/19/03 7:58:34 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt
pseudopodia to grope peevishly at a camellia bush. Or rather, virtually empty city -- a dozen or
so non-B people lived here, at least according to the census he had last been shown.
Behind the maintenance vehicle came a second construct, this one even more elaborate; like a
great twenty-legged bug it propelled itself down a driveway, hot on the scent of decay. The repair
vehicle would rebuild whatever had fallen into ruin, Pete knew; it would bind up the wounds of the
city, halt deterioration before it began. And for what? For whom? Good questions. Perhaps the vugs
liked to look down from their observation satellites and see an intact civilization, rather than
mere ruins.
Putting out his cigarette, Pete went into the kitchen, hoping to find food for breakfast. He
had not inhabited this apartment for several years, but nonetheless he opened the vacuum-sealed
refrigerator and found in it bacon and milk and eggs, bread and jam, all in good shape, everything
he needed for breakfast. Antonio Nardi had been Bindman in Residence here before Pete; undoubtedly
he had left these, not knowing that he was going to lose his title in The Game, would never be
coming back.
But there was something more important than breakfast, something Pete had to do first.
Clicking on the vidphone he said, "I'd like Walter Remington in Contra Costa County."
"Yes, Mr. Garden," the vidphone said. And the screen, after a pause, lit up.
"Hi." Walt Remington's dour, elongated features appeared and he gazed dully at Pete. Walt had
not shaved yet this morning; stubble coated his jowls, and his eyes, small and red-rimmed, were
puffy from lack of sleep. "Why so early?" he mumbled. He was still in his pajamas.
Pete said, "Do you remember what happened last night?"
"Oh yeah. Sure." Walt nodded, smoothing his disordered hair in place.
"I lost Berkeley to you. I don't know why I put it up. It's been my bind, my residence, you
know."
"I know," Walt said.
Taking a deep breath, Pete said, "I'll trade you three cities in Marin County for it. Ross,
San Rafael and San Anselmo. I want it back; I want to live there."
Walt pointed out, "You can live in Berkeley. As a non-B resident, of course; not as Bindman."
"I can't live like that," Pete said. "I want to own it, not just be a squatter. Come on,
Walt; you don't intend to live in Berkeley. I know you. It's too cold and foggy for you. You like
the hot valley climate, like Sacramento. Where you are now, in Walnut Creek."
"That's true," Walt said. "But -- I can't trade Berkeley back to you, Pete." The admission
was dragged out of him, then. "I don't have it. When I got home last night a broker was waiting
for me; don't ask me how he knew I'd acquired it from you, but he did. A big wheeler and dealer
from the East, Matt Pendleton Associates." Walt looked glum.
"And you sold Berkeley to them?" Pete could hardly believe it. It meant that someone who was
not part of their group had managed to buy into California. "Why'd you do it?" he demanded.
"They traded me Salt Lake City for it," Walt said, with morose pride. "How could I turn that
down? Now I can join Colonel Kitchener's group; they play in Provo, Utah. Sorry, Pete." He looked
guilty. "I was still a little stewed, I guess. Anyhow it sounded too good to turn down at the
time."
Pete said, "Who'd Pendleton Associates acquire it for?"
"They didn't say."
"And you didn't ask?"
"No," Walt admitted morosely. "I didn't. I guess I should have."
Pete said, "I want Berkeley back. I'm going to track the deed down and get it back, even if I
have to trade off all of Marin County. And in the meantime, I'll be looking forward to beating you
at Game-time; look for me to take away everything you've got -- no matter who your partner is."
Savagely, he clicked off the vidphone. The screen became dark.
How could Walt do it? he asked himself. Turn the title right over to someone outside the
group -- someone from the East.
I've got to know who Pendleton Associates would be representing in a deal like that, he said
to himself.
He had a feeling, acute and ominous, that he knew.
III
IT WAS A very good morning for Mr. Jerome Luckman of New York City. Because -- and it flashed
into his mind the moment he awoke -- today was the first time in his life that he owned Berkeley,
California. Operating through Matt Pendleton Associates he had at last been able to obtain a
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt (5 of 83) [1/19/03 7:58:34 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt
choice piece of California real estate, and this meant that now he could sit in on the Game-
playing of Pretty Blue Fox which met at Carmel each night. And Carmel was almost as nice a town as
Berkeley.
"Sid," he called. "Come into my office." Luckman sat back in his chair, puffed on his after-
breakfast delicado Mexican cigarette.
His secretary, non-Bindman Sid Mosk, opened the office door and put his head in. "Yes, Mr.
Luckman."
"Bring me that pre-cog," Luckman said. "I've finally got a use for him." A use, he thought,
which justifies the risk of disbarment from The Game. "What's his name? Dave Mutreaux or
something." Luckman had a hazy memory of interviewing the pre-cog, but a man of his position saw
so many people every day. And after all, New York City was well-populated; almost fifteen thousand
souls. And many were children, hence new. "Make sure he comes up a back way," Luckman said. "I
don't want anybody to see him." He had his reputation to maintain. And this was a touchy
situation.
It was illegal, of course, to bring a person with Psionic talents to The Game, because Psi,
in terms of Game-playing, represented a form of cheating pure and simple. For years, EEGs,
electroencephalograms, had been given customarily by many groups, but this practice had died out.
At least, Luck-man hoped so. Certainly, it was done no longer in the East, because all the Psi-
people were known, and the East set the style for the whole country, did it not?
One of Luckman's cats, a gray and white short-haired tom, hopped onto his desk; he absently
scratched the cat's chin, thinking to himself, If I can't work that pre-cog into the Pretty Blue
Fox group, I think I'll go myself. True, he hadn't played The Game in a year or more... but he had
been the best player around. How else could he have become the Bindman for Greater New York City?
And there had been strong competition in those days. Competition which Luckman had rendered non-B
single-handedly.
There's no one that can beat me at Bluff, Luckman said to himself. And everybody knows that.
Still, with a pre-cog... it was a sure thing. And he liked the idea of a sure thing because
although he was an expert Bluff player he did not like to gamble. He had not played because he
enjoyed it; he had played to win.
He had, for instance, run the great Game-player Joe Schilling right out of existence. Now Joe
operated a little old phonograph record shop in New Mexico; his Game-playing days were over.
"Remember how I beat Joe Schilling?" he said to Sid. "That last play, it's still in my mind,
every detail. Joe rolled a five with the dice and drew a card from the fifth deck. He looked at it
a long time, much too long. I knew then that he was going to bluff. Finally he moved his piece
eight squares ahead; that put him on a top-win square; you know, that one about inheriting one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars from a dead uncle. That piece of his sat on that square and I
looked at it--" He had, perhaps, a little Psionic talent of his own, because it had seemed to him
that actually he could read Joe Schilling's mind. You drew a six, he had felt with absolute
conviction. Your move eight squares ahead is a bluff.
Aloud, he said that, called Schilling's bluff. At that time,
Joe had been New York City Bindman and could beat anyone at The Game; it was rare for any
player to call one of Joe's moves.
Raising his great shaggy, bearded head, Joe Schilling had eyed him. There was silence. All
the players waited.
"You really want to see the card I drew?" Joe Schilling asked.
"Yes." He waited, unable to breathe; his lungs ached. If he were wrong, if the card really
were an eight, then Joe Schilling had won again and his grip on New York City was even more
secure.
Joe Schilling said quietly, "It was a six." He flipped over the card. Luckman had been right;
it had been a bluff.
And the title deed to Greater New York City was his.
The cat on Luckman's desk yawned, now, hoping for breakfast; Luckman pushed it away and it
hopped to the floor. "Parasite," Luckman said to it, but he felt fond of the cat; he believed
devoutly that cats were lucky. He had had two toms with him in the condominium apartment that
night when he had beaten Joe Schilling; perhaps they had done it, rather than a latent Psionic
talent.
"I have Dave Mutreaux on the vid," his secretary said. "He's standing by. Do you want to
speak to him personally?"
"If he's a genuine pre-cog," Luckman said, "he already knows what I want, so there's no need
for me or anyone else to speak to the zwepp." The paradoxes of pre-cognition always amused and
irked him. "Cut the circuit, Sid, and if he never shows up here it proves he's no good."
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt (6 of 83) [1/19/03 7:58:34 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt
Sid, obediently, cut the circuit; the screen died. "But let me point out," Sid said, "you
never spoke to him, so there never was anything for him to preview. Isn't that right?"
"He can preview the actual interview with me," Luckman answered. "Here in my office. When I
give him his instructions."
"I guess that's right," Sid admitted.
"Berkeley," Luckman said musingly. "I haven't been there in eighty or ninety years." Like
many Bindmen he did not like to enter an area which he did not own; it was a superstitution,
perhaps, but he considered it decidedly bad luck. "I wonder if it's still foggy there. Well, I'll
soon see."
From his desk drawer he brought forth the title deed which the broker had delivered to him.
"Let's see who was Bindman last," he said, reading the deed. "Walter Remington; he's the one who
won it last night and then right away sold it. And before him, a fellow named Peter Garden. I
wouldn't be surprised if this Peter Garden is angry as hell, right now, or will be when he finds
out. He probably figures on winning it back." And he'll never win it back now, Luckman said to
himself. Not from me.
"Are you going to fly out there to the Coast?" Sid asked.
"Right," Luckman said. "As soon as I get packed. I'm going to set up a vacation residence in
Berkeley assuming I like it -- assuming it isn't decayed. One thing I can't stand is a decayed
town; I don't mind them empty, that you expect. But decay." He shuddered. If there was one thing
that was surely bad luck it was a town which had fallen into ruin, as many of the towns in the
South had. In his early days he had been Bindman for several towns in North Carolina. He would
never forget the fshnuger experience.
Sid asked, "Can I be honorary Bindman while you're gone?"
"Sure," Luckman said expansively. "I'll write you out a parchment scroll in gold and seal it
with red wax and ribbon."
"Really?" Sid said, eyeing him uncertainly.
Luckman laughed. "You'd like that, a lot of ceremony. Like Pooh-bah in the Mikado. Lord High
Honorary Bindman of New York City, and tax assessments fixed on the side. Right?"
Flushing, Sid murmured, "I notice you worked hard for darn near sixty-five years to get to be
Bindman for this area."
"That's because of my social plans to improve the milieu," Luckman said. "When I took over
the title deed there were only a few hundred people here. Now look at the population. It's due to
me -- not directly, but because I encouraged non-B people to play The Game, strictly for the
pairing and re-pairing of mates, isn't that a fact?"
"Sure, Mr. Luckman," Sid said. "That's a fact."
"And because of that, a lot of fertile couples were uncovered that otherwise never would have
paired off, right?"
"Yes," Sid said, nodding. "The way you've got this musical chairs you're practically single-
handedly bringing back the human race."
"And don't forget it," Luckman said. Bending, he picked up another of his cats, this one a
black Manx female. "I'll take you along," he told the cat as he petted her. "I'll take maybe six
or seven cats along with me," he decided. "For luck." And also, although he did not say it, for
company. Nobody on the West Coast liked him; he would not have his people, his non-Bs, to say
hello to him every time he ventured forth. Thinking that, he felt sad. But, he thought, after I've
lived there a while I'll have it built up like New York; it won't be an emptiness haunted by the
past.
Ghosts, he thought, of our life the way it was, when our population was splitting the seams
of this planet, spilling over onto Luna and even Mars. Populations on the verge of migration, and
then those stupid jackasses, those Red Chinese, had to use that East German invention of that ex-
Nazi, that -- he could not even think the words that described Bernhardt Hinkel. Too bad Hinkel
isn't still alive, Luckman said to himself. I'd like to have a few minutes alone with him. With no
one else watching.
The only good thing you could say about the Hinkel Radiation was that it had finally reached
East Germany.
There was one person who would know whom Matt Pendleton Associates would be fronting for,
Pete Garden decided as he left the apartment in San Rafael and hurried to his parked car. It's
worth a trip to New Mexico, to Colonel Kitchener's town, Albuquerque. Anyhow I have to go there to
pick up a record.
Two days ago he had received a letter from Joe Schilling, the world's foremost rare
phonograph record dealer; a Tito Schipa disc which Pete had asked for had finally been tracked
down and was waiting for him.
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt (7 of 83) [1/19/03 7:58:34 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt
"Good morning, Mr. Garden," his car said as he unlocked the door with his key.
"Hi," Pete said, preoccupied.
Now, from the driveway of the apartment house across the street, the two children that he had
heard earlier emerged to stare at him.
"Are you the Bindman?" the girl asked. They had made out his insignia, the brilliantly-
colored armband. "We never saw you before, Mr. Bindman," the girl said, awed. She was, Pete
guessed, about eight years old.
He explained, "That's because I haven't been here to Marin County in years." Walking toward
the two of them, he said, "What are your names?"
"I'm Kelly," the boy said. He appeared to be younger than the girl, Pete thought. Perhaps six
at the most. Both of them were sweet-looking kids. He was glad to 'have them in his area. "And my
sister's name is Jessica. And we have an older sister named Mary Anne who isn't here; she's in San
Francisco, in school."
Three children in one family! Impressed, Pete said, "What's your last name?"
"McClain," the girl said. With pride, she said, "My mother and father are the only people in
all California with three children."
He could believe that. "I'd like to meet them," he said.
The girl Jessica pointed. "We live there in that house. It's funny you don't know my father,
since you're the Bindman. It was my father who organized the street-sweeper and maintenance
machines; he talked to the vugs about it and they agreed to send them in."
"You're not afraid of the vugs, are you?" Pete said.
"No." Both children shook their heads.
"We did fight a war with them," he reminded the two children.
"But that was a long time ago," the girl said.
"True," Pete said. "Well, I approve of your attitude." He wished that he shared it.
From the house down the street a slender woman appeared, walking toward them. "Mom!" the girl
Jessica called excitedly. "Look, here's the Bindman."
The woman, dark-haired, attractive, wearing slacks and a brightly checkered cotton shirt,
lithe and youthful-looking, approached. "Welcome to Marin County," she said to Pete.
"We don't see much of you, Mr. Garden." She held out her hand, and they shook.
"I congratulate you," Pete said.
"For having three children?" Mrs. McClain smiled. "As they say, it's luck. Not skill. How
about a cup of coffee before you leave Marin County? After all, you may never be back again."
"I'll be back," Pete said.
"Indeed." The woman did not seem convinced; her handsome smile was tinged with irony. "You
know, you're almost a legend to us non-Bs in this area, Mr. Garden. Gosh, we'll be able to liven
conversations for weeks to come, telling about our meeting you."
For the life of him Pete could not tell if Mrs. McClain was being sardonic; despite her
words, her tone was neutral. She baffled him and he felt confused. "I really will be back," he
said. "I've lost Berkeley, where I--"
"Oh," Mrs. McClain said, nodding. Her effective, commanding smile increased. "I see. Bad luck
at The Game. That's why you're visiting us."
"I'm on my way to New Mexico," Pete said, and got into his car. "Possibly I'll see you later
on." He closed the car door. "Take off," he instructed the auto-auto.
As the car rose the two children waved. Mrs. McClain did not. Why such animosity? Pete
wondered. Or had he only imagined it? Perhaps she resented the existence of the two separate
groups, Band non-B; perhaps she felt it was unfair that so few people had a chance at the Game-
board.
I wouldn't blame her, Pete realized. But she doesn't understand that any moment any one of us
can suddenly become non-B. We have only to recall Joe Schilling... once the greatest Bindman in
the Western World and now non-B, probably for the rest of his life. The division is not as fixed
as all that.
After all, he himself had been non-B once. He had obtained title to real estate the only way
legally possible: he had posted his name and then waited for a Bindman somewhere to die. He had
followed the rules set up by the vugs, had guessed a particular day, month and year. And sure
enough, his guess had been lucky; on May 4, 2143, a Bindman named William Rust Lawrence had died,
killed in an auto accident in Arizona. And Pete had become his heir, inherited his holdings and
entered his Game-playing group.
The vugs, gamblers to the core, liked such chancy systems for inheritance. And they abhorred
cause and effect systems.
He wondered what Mrs. McClain's first name was. Certainly she was pretty, he thought. He had
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt (8 of 83) [1/19/03 7:58:34 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt
liked her despite her peculiar bitter attitude, like the way she looked, carried herself. He
wished he knew more about the McClain family; perhaps they had once" been Bindmen and had been
wiped out. That would explain it.
I could ask around, he thought. After all, if they have three children they're certainly
quite well known. Joe Schilling hears everything. I can ask him.
IV
"SURE," Joseph Schilling said, leading the way through the dusty utter disorder of his record
shop to the living quarters behind. "I know Patricia McClain. How'd you happen to run into her?"
He turned questioningly.
Pete said, "The McClains are living in my bind." He managed to thread a passage among the
piles of records, packing cartons, letters, catalogues and posters from the past. "How do you ever
find anything in this place?" he asked Joe Schilling.
"I have a system," Schilling said vaguely. "I'll tell you why Pat McClain's so bitter. She
used to be a B, but she was barred from The Game."
"Why?"
"Pat's a telepath." Joe Schilling cleared a place at the table in the kitchen and set out two
handle-less teacups. "Ooh long tea?" he asked.
"Ah so," Pete said, nodding.
"I've got your Don Pasquale record," Schilling said as he poured tea from a black ceramic
pot. "The Schipa aria. Da-dum da-da da. A beautiful piece." Humming, he produced lemon and sugar
from the cupboard over the dish-filled sink. Then, in a low voice, he said, "Look, I've got a
customer out front." He winked at Pete and pointed, peering past the dusty, stained curtain which
separated the living quarters from the store. Pete saw a tall, skinny youth was examining a
tattered, ancient record catalogue. "A nut," Schilling said softly. "Eats yogurt and practices
Yoga. And lots of vitamin E -- for potency. I get all kinds."
The youth called in a stammering voice, "Say, do you h-have any Claudia Muzio records, Mr. Sc-
schilling?"
"Just the Letter Scene from Traviata," Schilling said, making no move to rise from the table.
Pete said, "I found Mrs. McClain physically attractive."
"Oh yes. Very vivacious. But not for you. She's what Jung described as an introverted feeling
type; they run deep. They're inclined toward idealism and melancholy. You need a shallow, bright
blonde type of woman, someone to cheer you up. Someone to get you out of your suicidal depressions
that you're always either falling into or out of." Schilling sipped his tea, a few drops
spattering his reddish, thick beard. "Well? Say something. Or are you in a depression right now?"
"No," Pete said.
In the front of the store the tall, skinny youth called, "M-mr. Schilling, can I listen to
this Gigli record of Una Furtiva Lagrima?"
"Sure," Schilling said. He hummed that, absently, scratching his cheek. "Pete," he said, "you
know, rumors get to me. I hear you've lost Berkeley."
"Yes," Pete admitted. "And Matt Pendleton Associates--"
"That would be Lucky Jerome Luckman," Schilling said. "Oy vey, he's a hard man in The Game; I
ought to know. Now he'll be sitting in with your group and pretty soon he'll own all of
California."
"Can't anybody play against Luckman and beat him?"
"Sure." Joe Schilling nodded. "I can."
Pete stared at him. "You're serious? But he wiped you out; you're a classic case!"
"Just bad luck," Schilling said. "If I had had more title deeds to put up, if I had been able
to stay in a little longer--" He smiled a bleak, crooked smile. "Bluff's a fascinating game. Like
poker, it combines chance and skill equally; you can win by either, or lose by either. I lost by
the former, on a single bad run -- actually, on a single lucky guess by Luckman."
"Not skill on his part."
"Hell no! Luckman is to luck as I am to skill; we ought to be called Luckman and Skillman. If
I ever get a stake and can start again..." Joe Schilling abruptly belched. "Sorry."
"I'll stake you," Pete said, suddenly, on impulse.
"You can't afford to. I'm expensive, because I don't start winning right away. It takes time
for my skill-factor to overcome any chance runs... such as the celebrated one by which Luckman
wiped me out."
From the front of the store came the sounds of the superb tenor Gigli singing; Schilling
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt (9 of 83) [1/19/03 7:58:34 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt
paused a moment to listen. Across from the table his huge dingy parrot Eeore shifted about in its
cage, annoyed by the sharp, pure voice. Schilling gave the parrot a reproving glance.
"Thy Tiny Hand Is Frozen," Schilling said. "The first of the two recordings Gigli made of
that, and by far the better. Ever heard the latter of the two? From the complete opera and so bad
as to be unbelievable. Wait." He silenced himself, listening. "A superb record," he said to Pete.
"You should have it in your collection."
"I don't care for Gigli," Pete said. "He sobs."
"A convention," Schilling said irritably. "He was an Italian; it's traditional."
"Schipa didn't."
"Schipa was self-taught," Schilling said.
The tall, skinny youth had approached, carrying the Gigli record. "I'd l-like to buy this,
Mr. Schilling. H-how much?"
"One hundred and twenty-five dollars," Schilling said.
"Wow," the youth said, dismally. But nevertheless he got out his wallet.
"Very few of these survived the war with the vugs,"
Schilling explained, as he took the record and began wrapping it in heavy cardboard.
Two more customers entered the shop, then, a man and woman, both of them short, squat.
Schilling greeted them. "Good morning, Les. Es." To Pete he said, "This is Mr. and Mrs. Sibley;
like yourself vocal addicts. From Portland, Oregon." He indicated Pete. "Bindman Peter Garden."
Pete rose and shook hands with Les Sibley.
"Hi, Mr. Garden," Les Sibley said, in the deferential tone used by a non-B with a B. "Where
do you bind, sir?"
"Berkeley," Pete said, and then remembered. Formerly Berkeley, now Marin County, California."
"How do you doo," Es Sibley said, in an ultra-fawning manner which Pete found -- and always
had found -- objectionable. She held out her hand and when he shook it he found it soft and damp.
"I'll bet you have a really fine collection; I mean, ours isn't anything. Just a few Supervia
records.
"Supervia!" Pete said, interested, "What do you have?"
Joe Schilling said, "You can't eliminate me, Pete. It's an unwritten agreement that my
customers do not trade among themselves. If they do, I stop selling to them. Anyhow, you have all
the Supervia records that Les and Es have, and a couple more besides." He rang up the hundred and
twenty-five dollars from the Gigli sale, and the tall, skinny youth departed.
"What do you consider the finest vocal recording ever made?" Es Sibley asked Pete.
"Aksel Schlitz singing Every Valley," Pete said.
"Amen to that," Les said, nodding in agreement.
After the Sibleys had left, Pete paid for his Schipa record, had Joe Schilling wrap it extra-
carefully, and then he took a deep breath and plunged into the issue at hand. "Joe, can you win
Berkeley back for me?" If Joe Schilling said yes it was good enough for him. I
After a pause, Joe Schilling said, "Possibly. If anybody can, I can. There is a ruling --
little applied -- that two persons of the same sex can play as Bluff-partners. We could see if
Luckman would accept that; we might have to put it to the vug Commissioner in your area for a
ruling."
"That would be a vug which calls itself U.S. Cummings," Pete said. He had had a number of
squabbles with that particular vug; he had found the creature to be particularly trying, in a nit-
picking manner.
"The alternative," Joe Schilling said thoughtfully, "would of course be to temporarily deed
title to some of your remaining areas to me, but as I said before--"
"Aren't you out of practice?" Pete said. "It's been years since you played The Game."
"Possibly," Schilling conceded. "We'd soon find out, I hope, in time. I think--" He glanced
toward the front of the store; another auto-auto had parked outside and a customer was entering.
It was a lovely red-headed girl, and both Pete and Joe temporarily forgot their conversation.
The girl, evidently at a loss in the chaotic, littered store, wandered about aimlessly from stack
to stack.
"I better go help her," Joe Schilling said.
"Do you know her?" Pete asked.
"Never saw her before." Pausing, Joe Schilling straightened his wrinkled, old-fashioned
necktie, smoothed his vest. "Miss," he said, walking toward the girl and smiling, "can I assist
you?"
"Perhaps," the red-headed girl said in a soft shy voice. She seemed self-conscious; glancing
about her, not meeting Schilling's intent gaze, she murmured, "Do you have any records by Nats
Katz?"
file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txt (10 of 83) [1/19/03 7:58:34 PM]
摘要：

file:///F|/rah/Philip%20K.Dick/Philip%20K%20Dick%20-%20The%20Game-Players%20of%20Titan.txtTHEGAME-PLAYERSOFTITANbyPHILIPK.DICK(1963)IITHADBEENabadnight,andwhenhetriedtodrivehomehehadaterribleargumentwithhiscar."Mr.Garden,youareinnoconditiontodrive.Pleaseusetheauto-automechandreclineintherearseat....

展开>> 收起<<
Philip K. Dick - The Game - Players of Titan.pdf

共83页,预览17页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：83 页 大小：279.4KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-15

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 配电装置 动力学连接体 力的合成 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 83
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注