The Simulacra

  'Who was that? Julie said sleepily. 'Was that Vince?'

  'No. My boss.' Chic put on the coffee water for her.

  'Hi,' he said, walking back into the bedroom and seating himself on the bed beside her. 'How are you?'

  'I forgot my comb,' Julie said, pragmatically.

  'I'll buy you one from the hall dispenser.'

  'Those measly little plastic things.'

  'Um,' he said, feeling fond of her, feeling sentimental. The situation, she in bed, he sitting beside her in his pyjamas -- it was a bittersweet situation, reminding him of his own previous last marriage of four months ago. 'Hi,' he said, patting her on the thigh.

  'Aw god,' Julie said. 'I wish I was dead.' She did not say it accusingly, as if it was his fault, or even as if she meant it passionately; it was as if she were resuming a conversation from the night before. 'What is the purpose of it all, Chic?' she said. 'I like Vince, but he's so goofy; he'll never grow up and really bear down at the business of living. He's always playing his games of being the embodiment of modern organized social life, the estab-man, pure and simple, whereas actually he's not. But he's young.' She sighed. It was a sigh that chilled Chic because it was a cold, cruel, utterly dismissing sigh. She was writing off another human being, severing herself from Vince with as little spilled emotion as if she had returned a book borrowed from the building's library.

  Good grief, Chic thought, this man was your husband.

  You were in love with him. You slept with him, lived with him, knew all there was to know about him -- in fact knew him better than I can, and he's been my brother for longer than you've been alive. Women down underneath, he thought, are tough. Terribly tough.

  'I, uh, have to get to work,' Chic said, nervously.

  'Is that coffee you have on for me, in there?'

  'Oh yeah. Sure!'

  'Bring it here, then, will you, Chic?'

  He went to get the coffee, while she dressed.

  'Did old Kalbfleisch make his speech this morning?' Julie asked.

  'I dunno.' It hadn't occurred to him to turn on the TV, although he had read in the paper last night that the speech was due. He didn't give a damn what the old man had to say, about anything.

  'Do you really have to trot off to your little company and go to work?' She eyed him steadily and he saw, for what perhaps was the first time in his life, that she had lovely natural colour in her eyes, a polished slab texture of rock-smoothness and brilliance that needed the natural daylight for it to be brought out. She had, too, an odd, square jaw and a slightly large mouth with a tendency to turn down, tragedy-mask like, with her lips unnaturally red and lush, drawing attention away from her rather drably-coloured hair. She had a nice figure, rounded, pleasant, and she dressed well; that is, she looked splendid in whatever she wore. Clothes seemed to fit her, even mass-produced cotton dresses that other women would have difficulty with. Now she stood wearing the same olive-coloured dress with round black buttons which she had worn the night before, a cheap dress, really, and yet in it she looked elegant; there was no other word for it. She had an aristocratic carriage and bone-structure. It showed her jaw, her nose, her excellent teeth. She was not German but she was Nordic, perhaps Swedish or Danish. He thought, as he glanced at her, that she looked fine.

  It seemed to him certain that she would hold together well over the years, not deteriorate; she seemed to be unbreakable. He could not imagine her getting sloppy or fat or dull.

  'I'm hungry,' Julie said.

  'You mean you want me to fix breakfast.' He perceived that; no doubt, there.

  'I've fixed all the breakfasts I'm going to fix for any man, you or your dumb kid brother,' Julie said.

  Again he experienced fear. She was being too harsh, too soon; he knew her, knew she was this way -- but couldn't it be glossed over, at least for a while? Was she going to bring to him whatever her last mood with Vince had been? Wasn't there going to be a honeymoon? I think I'm in trouble, he thought to himself. I've got hold of just too much here; I'm not up to it. God, maybe she'll move on; I hope so. It was a childish hope, very regressive, not grown-up, masculine. No real man ever felt this way, he realized that.

  'I'll fix breakfast,' he said, and went into the kitchen to do so. Julie stood at the bedroom mirror, combing her hair.

  Curtly, in his usual brisk tone, Garth McRae said, 'Shut it off.' The Kalbfleisch simulacrum stopped. Its arms struck out rigid in their final gesture, the withered face vacuous. The simulacrum said nothing and automatically the TV cameras also shut off, one by one; there was no longer anything for them to transmit, and the technicians behind them, all of them Ges, knew it. They looked to Garth McRae.

  'We got the message across,' McRae informed Anton Karp.

  'Well done,' Karp said. 'This Bertold Goltz, this Sons of Job man, makes me nervous; I think the speech here now this morning will dispel a little of that, my legitimate fear.'

  He glanced timidly at McRae for confirmation, as did the others in the control room, the simulacrum engineers from the Karp Werke.

  'This is only the start,' McRae said presently.

  'True,' Karp agreed, nodding. 'But a good start.' Walking up to the Kalbfleisch simulacrum he touched it gingerly on the shoulder, as if expecting it, prodded, to resume its activity. It did not.

  McRae laughed.

  'I wish,' Anton Karp said, 'that it had mentioned Adolf Hitler; you know, comparing the Sons of Job to the Nazis more directly, comparing Goltz to Hitler.'

  'But,' McRae said, 'that would not have helped. True as it may be. You're not authentically a political person, Karp; what gives you the idea that 'the truth' is the best story to stick to? If we want to stop Bertold Goltz we don't want to identify him as another Hitler simply because in their secret hearts fifty-one per cent of the local population would like to see another Hitler.' He smiled at Karp, who looked worried, who looked, in fact, tremulous and apprehensive.

  'What I want to know,' Karp said, 'is this: is Kalbfleisch going to be able to handle the Sons of Job? You have von Lessinger equipment; tell me.'

  'No,' McRae said. 'He won't be able to.'

  Karp gaped at him.

  'But,' McRae said, 'Kalbfleisch is going to go. Soon. Within the next month.' He did not say what Karp at once wanted him to say, what Anton and Felix Karp and the entire Karp Werke instinctively inquired into as a first reflex, an immediate query of primary magnitude.

  Will webuild the next simulacrum? Karp would have asked, had he dared, but he was afraid to speak. Karp was, as McRae knew, a coward. His integrity had long ago been emasculated in order that he be capable of functioning properly within the German business community; spiritual -- moral emasculation was a present day prerequisite for participation in the Ge class, in the ruling circles.

  I could tell him, McRae thought. Ease his pain. But why? He did not like Karp, who had built and now maintained the simulacrum, kept it functioning as it had to function -- without even a trace of hesitation. Any failure would have betrayed to the Bes the secret, the Geheimnis, which distinguished the elite, the establishment of the United States of Europe and America; their possession of the one or more secrets made them into Geheimnistrager, bearers of the secret, rather than Befehltrager, mere carry-outer of instructions.

  But all this to McRae was Germanic mysticism; he preferred to think of it in simple practical terms. Karp u.

  Sohnen Werke was capable of building simulacra, had as an example built Kalbfleisch and done a good job of it, as well as a good job of maintaining this der Alte during his reign. However, another firm would construct the next der Alte equally well, and by eradicating the economic ties with Karp, the government cut the vast cartel out of participation in the economic privileges which it now enjoyed ... to the government's loss.

  The next firm which built a simulacrum for the government of the USEA would be a small firm, one which the authorities could control.

  The name which came to McRae's mind was Frauenzimmer Associates, an extremely
small, marginal firm barely surviving in the field of sun-con: simulacra construction for planetary colonization.

  He did not tell Anton Karp this, but he intended to open business discussions with Maurice Frauenzimmer, the head of the firm, any day now. And it would surprise Frauenzimmer, too; he did not know either.

  Karp said thoughtfully, eyeing McRae, 'What do you think Nicole will say?'

  Smiling, McRae said, 'I think she'll be glad. She never really liked old Rudi.'

  'I thought she did.' Karp looked chagrined.

  'The First Lady,' McRae said acidly, 'has never liked a der Alte yet. Why should she? After all ... she's twenty-three and Kalbfleisch was, according to our informational poop-sheets, seventy-eight.'

  Karp bleated, 'But what does she have to do with him? Nothing. Just appear at a reception very seldom, just every now and then!'

  'I think that Nicole in general detests the old, the outworn, the useless,' McRae said, not sparing Anton Karp; he saw the middle-aged businessman wince. 'That is a good shorthand description of your chief product,' he added.

  'But the specifications -- '

  'You could have made it a trifle more -- ' McRae searched for the word, 'fascinating.'

  'Enough,' Karp said, flushing, knowing now that McRae was merely tormenting him, that all this was simply to drive home the point that as large and powerful as it was, Karp u. Sohnen Werke was a servant, only an employee, of the government; it did not really influence it, and even McRae, who was simply an Assistant Secretary of State, could take a stand of this sort with impunity.

  'If you ran things once more,' McRae drawled reflectively, 'how would you alter matters? Go back to hiring concentration camp victims, as Krupp did during the twentieth century? Perhaps you could obtain and use von Lessinger equipment for that ... letting them die even faster, as your employees, than they died at Belsen-Belsen -- '

  Karp turned and strode off. He was trembling.

  Grinning, McRae lit a cigar. An American, not a German-Dutch, variety.

  CHAPTER 4

  EME's top recording technician watched in amazement as Nat Flieger carried the Ampek F-a2 to the 'copter. 'You're going to catch him on that?'

  Jim Planck groaned. 'My god, the F-a2 was obsolete last year!'

  'If you can't operate it -- ' Nat said.

  'I can,' Planck muttered. 'I've run wormies before; I just feel that -- ' He gestured in dismay. 'I suppose you're using an old-tune carbon type mike along with it.'

  'Hardly,' Nat said. Good-naturedly, he spalled Planck on the back; he had known him for years and was used to him.

  'Don't worry. We'll get along fine.'

  'Listen,' Planck said in a low voice, glancing around. 'It is really a fact that Leo's daughter is coming with us on this trip?'

  'It's really a fact.'

  'That Molly Dondoldo always meant complications -- you know what I refer to? Naw, you don't. Nat, I don't have any idea what your relationship to Molly is these days, but -- '

  'You worry about recording Richard Kongrosian,' Nat said shortly.

  'Sure, sure.' Planck shrugged. 'It's your life and job and your project, Nat; I'm just a wage-slave, doing what you tell me.' He ran a nervous, shaky hand through his thinning, slightly shiny black hair. 'Are we ready to go?'

  Molly had already got into the 'copter; she sat reading a book, ignoring the two of them. She wore a brightly coloured cotton blouse and shorts and Nat thought to himself how inappropriate her dress would be for the rain-drenched forests into which they were going. Such a radically different climate; he wondered if Molly had ever been north before. The Oregon-Northern California region had lost much of its population during the fracas of 1980; it had been heavily hit by Red Chinese guided missiles, and of course the clouds of fallout had blanketed it in the subsequent decade. They had in fact not entirely dissipated yet.

  But the level had been pronounced by NASA technicians as lying within the safe tolerance.

  Lush growth, tangled variants created by the fallout ... the forestation had an almost tropical quality now, Nat knew. And the rain virtually never ceased; it had been frequent and heavy before 1990 and now it was torrential.

  'Ready,' he said to Jim Planck.

  An unlit Alta Camina cigar jutting from between his teeth, Planck said, 'Then away we go, us and your pet worm. To record the greatest handless piano player of the century. Hey, I got a joke, Nat. One day Richard Kongrosian is in a pub-trans accident; he's all battered up in the wreck, and when they take the bandages off he's grown hands.'

  Planck chuckled. 'And so he can never play again.'

  Lowering her book, Molly said frigidly, 'Be entertainment, is that what it's going to be on this flight?'

  Planck coloured, bent to fumble with his recording gear, checking it automatically. 'Sorry, Miss Dondoldo,' he said, but he did not sound sorry; he sounded chokingly resentful.

  'Just start up the 'copter,' Molly said. And returned to reading her book. It was, Nat saw, a banned text by the twentieth-century sociologist C. Wright Mills. Molly Dondoldo, he reflected, no more a Ge than he or Jim Planck, had no anxiety over publicly reading an item forbidden to their class. A remarkable woman in many ways, he thought with admiration.

  He said to her, 'Don't be so harsh, Molly.'

  Without glancing up, Molly said, 'I hate Be wit.'

  The 'copter started; guiding it expertly, Jim Planck soon had them in the air. They moved north, over the coastal highway and the Imperial Valley with its criss-crossed endless miles of canals stretching as far as one could see.

  'It's going to be a cosy flight,' Nat said to Molly. 'I can make that out already.'

  Molly murmured, 'Don't you have to sprinkle your worm or something? Frankly I'd prefer to be left alone if you don't mind.'

  'What do you know about the personal tragedy in Kongrosian's life?' Nat asked her.

  She was silent a moment and then she said, 'It has something to do with the fallout of the late '90s. I think it's his son. But no one knows for certain; I have no inside information, Nat. They say, though, that his son is a monster.'

  Once more Nat felt the chill of fear which he had experienced at the idea of visiting Kongrosian's home.

  'Don't let it get you down,' Molly said. 'After all, there've been so many special births since the fallout of the '90s. Don't you see them meandering about all the time? I do. Maybe, though, you prefer not to look.'

  She shut her book, marking the place with a dogear. 'It's the price we pay for our otherwise unblemished lives. My god, Nat, you can adjust to that thing, that Ampek recorder, and that positively gives me the creeps, all shimmering and alive like it is. Perhaps the child's deformation is due to factors derived from his father's Psionic faculty; maybe Kongrosian blames himself, not the fallout. Ask him when you get there.'

  'Ask him!' Nat echoed, appalled.

  'Certainly. Why not?'

  'It's a hell of an idea,' Nat said. And, as frequently in the past in his relations with Molly, it seemed to him that she was an exceptionally harsh and aggressive, almost masculine woman; there was a bluntness in her which did not much appeal to him. And on top of that Molly was far too intellectually oriented; she lacked her father's personal, emotional touch.

  'Why did you want to come on this trip?' he asked her. Certainly not to hear Kongrosian play; that was obvious. Perhaps it had to do with the son, the special child; Molly would be attracted to that. He felt revulsion, but he did not show it; he managed to smile back at her.

  'I enjoy Kongrosian,' Molly said placidly. 'It would be very gratifying to meet him personally and listen to him play.'

  Nat said, 'But I've heard you say there's no market right now for Psionic versions of Brahms and Schumann.'

  'Aren't you able, Nat, to separate your personal life from company business? My own individual tastes run to Kongrosian's style, but that doesn't mean I think he'll sell. You know, Nat, we've done rather well with all sub-types of folk music for the last few years. I'd tend to say
that performers like Kongrosian, however popular they may be at the White House, are anachronisms and we must be highly alert that we don't step backward into economic ruin with them.' She smiled at him, looking lazily for his reaction. 'I'll tell you another reason I wanted to come. You and I can spend a good deal of time together, tormenting each other. Just you and me, on a trip ... we can stay at a motel in Jenner. Did you think of that?' Nat took a deep, unsteady breath.

  Her smile increased. It was as if she were actually laughing at him, he thought. Molly could handle him, make him do what she wanted; they both knew that and it amused her. 'Do you want to marry me?' Molly asked him. 'Are your intentions honourable, in the old twentieth-century sense?'

  Nat said, 'Are yours?'

  She shrugged. 'Maybe I like monsters. I like you, Nat, you and your worm-like F-a2 recording machine that you nourish and pamper, like a wife or a pet or both.'

  'I'd do the same for you,' Nat said. All at once he felt Jim Planck watching him and he concentrated on watching the earth below them. It obviously embarrassed Jim, this exchange. Planck was an engineer, a man who worked with his body -- a mere Be as Molly had called him, but a good man. Talk of this sort was tough on Jim.

  And, Nat thought, on me. The only one of us who really enjoys it is Molly. And she really does; it's not an affectation.

  The autobahn fatigued Chic Strikerock, with its centrally-controlled cars and wheels spinning up invisible runnels in massed procession. In his own individual car he felt as if he were participating in a black-magic ritual -- as if he and the other commuters had put their lives into the hands of a force better left undiscussed. Actually it was a simple homeostatic beam which justified its position by making ceaseless references to all other vehicles and the guide-walls of the road itself, but he was not amused. He sat in his car reading the morning New York Times.