Roller Coaster World

by Kenneth Bulmer

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Space Opera

Synopsis

Parsloe's Planet was in its death throes. A world of mobile cities, the populace had moved frantically from radiation site to radiation site - for without this life-giving radiation the inevitable result would be insanity and death. Now the radiation was failing. Soon it would be no more. The planet was going to die. But into the chaos and agony of the dying planet comes Douglas Marsden: an outcast, a renegade - and the only man who can save the stricken world.

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 176

Sample

He thought he could get in a couple of hours sleep before they removed the last of the city. Sleep wasn’t too important; but it was as well not to neglect it. He stood for a moment by the bed making up his mind which Dream to programme, unable to choose between the offerings on the catalogues of Dream-a-Scheme and Snooze-a-matic, finally deciding on one of the old faithfuls from Dial-a-Dream.

He put in the call himself, disdaining to use a robot, signing the name he put to checks—D. Q. Z. Marsden. The Q. Z. meant nothing. He dialed something less urgent, soft and comfortable, with a hint of sunshine-drenched lawns, the distant tinkle of water, the hum of insects, the pervasive feeling of content and well-being. The Dream would take care of his psychic needs for the cataloguing and selection of experience and deliver him whole and sound when he awoke.

He flopped on the low bed and his personal call screen lit up. He cursed, momentarily wondering if he could ignore it. The buzzer urged his attention. Reluctantly he answered and saw the image of Flora Valdesey. He thumbed to open the valve and Flora walked into his apartment radiating charm. With her came a man whose face, hard and heavy and set with knowing lines, was familiar to Marsden, although they had never met.

Flora flung a greeting over her shoulder, crossed at once to the picture window in the west wall and thumbed a chair from the floor. She settled herself with a little squirm of her shoulders, throwing back her gold-on-azure stellular jacket. She stared out eagerly.

“I missed the last time Loaden was removed.”

“Be my guest.”

A gesture encompassed the bed. “Beds are designed for sex, Doug, not sleeping.”

“It’s not for another two hours yet, Flora.”

The floor lurched.

“They decided to take it early.” The man glanced at Flora at the window and back to Marsden. “As Flora is about to be preoccupied, I’d better introduce myself. I’m Mason Wormleigh.”

They shook hands. There were many strange rumors about Mason Wormleigh. A confidant of R, he moved in circles outside those frequented by Marsden, whose athletic interests must be well known to Wormleigh.

The floor moved again and a tumbler fell from a table by the bed.

“The crews seem to get worse every time.” Wormleigh smiled. He was making polite conversation. Marsden offered him a drink, went to stand at Flora’s shoulder. He could not understand why this man s unexpected presence disturbed him. The room moved again, pictures on the walls tilting outwards and flapping back with annoying smacks. Flora giggled.

“You’re walking about like an old bearded crab,” she said to Marsden. “Why did you choose to live in Haylett Village, Doug?”

“It’s my home.”

Wormleigh walked over and the three looked through the window as the remainder of the city rose into the air.

Haylett Village and its neighbor, Chipping Hamlet, were the last of Loaden to be removed. The High Street and park sailed off against the early sun. light splintered from Exisensi aerials and pinnacles, became diffused through Spanish Moss draping the neatly planted trees. A few people stood about on the pavements. They tottered as the High Street swayed, and gripped onto lamp posts and store fronts and to one another. Flora laughed again. She was enjoying the spectacle.

As the building moved beneath their feet and surged up to take its place in line, Wormleigh said politely: “I saw the epée championships on tv. You were very good, Marsden. There must be immense satisfaction in such a power.”

Marsden looked surprised. “I didn’t think anyone looked at tv any more.”

“Very few do. It is a dying medium.”

“Why bother with it?” asked Flora, craning her head to look up against reflected light where the transportation crews hung in their antigrav control units. “Excess is so much more fun.”

“News and current affairs are regarded as ephemeral. When R returns to power,” commented Wormleigh, his face composed, “there will be many changes.”

“Politics!” said Flora, dismissingly. “Oh, look! I’m sure they haven’t caught that garage properly.”

Two skimmers clipped over the edge of the apron as the garage canted. Empty and uncontrolled, they plummeted to the ground, vanishing silently into the undergrowth that grew rampantly on the outskirts of the city. Leaves and branches shivered and sprang back into position. There was no sign of the skimmers at all.

“Carelessness.” Wormleigh clearly despised the men at the transportation controls.

The garage winched back to a level. Sedately, Haylett Village and Chipping Hamlet, two jumbled collections of buildings of indeterminate age, sailed through the morning air, argosies of masonry and brick.

This man Wormleigh both fascinated and repelled Marsden. “I understood R subscribed to the views of Hobbes,” he said, probing. “As Leviathan says, one must subsume the rights of individuals into the right of the sovereign—if I have that right.”

Wormleigh faced him. “R is developing a philosophy of government. We await from day to day fresh resolutions. All pre-atomic and pre-googologic systems are in decay.”

Marsden was forced to accept this. “Multi-values have changed society,” he said, his voice light. He would not forget the contempt in Wormleigh. “Although Tom Paine remains a clear voice for all time. But here on Parsloe’s Planet as much as on Earth men remain men.”

At the name of Earth Flora turned from surveying the flying city. “Earth,” she said. “Mason tells me no one will be able to leave Parsloe for some time. The galaxy is in trouble.” She sniffed. “The galaxy is always in trouble, it seems to me.”

“No transports or starliners can be spared for sightseeing trips at present.” Wormleigh spoke with detached cold conviction. “We here on Parsloe’s Planet are very much on our own at present.”

“Oh, we all know outworlders are slow!” Flora spoke animatedly. “They’re dullards all. Until they’ve been on Parsloe for ages they’re laughable. Even my cousin Polly acted like the village idiot at first—but some of their cultures are fascinating—they have permissive societies—”

“Parsloe squashed all that.” Wormleigh spoke firmly.

From the window the fleeing shadow shape of the city could be seen flitting over open countryside. Occasionally they passed over patterned farms where the robots worked tirelessly, never looking up. They passed over a silent area where the rank vegetation sprawled across the abandoned site where once a city had risen. Wormleigh, who gave the impression of knowing everything before everyone else, fidgeted with his neck-latch, the leather tags glittering with gold bullion.

One day, so the whispers went in restaurants and sports clubs and around the Spartaniski circuits, R would just take over. Mason Wormleigh was dedicated to that. Marsden had never cared to embroil himself in practical politics. His own phenomenal memory simply enabled him to reproduce suitable quotes in whatever company he found himself. He was not proud of his gift He merely accepted it as a part of the person he was.

“It would be an excellent idea for you to have an interview with R,” said Wormleigh abruptly. “I believe I can arrange it.”

“Yes,” said Marsden, taken aback. “Certainly.”

Soon the flight time elapsed and the transportation control engineers began to align the High Street with its new habitat. The garage, evidently causing some concern, was lowered first. They dropped a couple of drug stores, a heli-park and a self-service center neatly into position, following them with the library and park. The rest of the city made up from its component villages and municipal complexes extended for five miles. Marsden had been fortunate to secure a good position. His earnings as a successful athlete enabled him to live well in this society.

“Thanks for the joyride and the view, Doug.” Flora was gathering herself together, putting down her empty glass, primping before a mirror. “Mason is taking me to the party honoring Melville. See you there?”

There was no malice in the remark. Flora, who had been a good friend to his mother before she died, was an empty-headed flibbertigibbet. She possessed no depths to comprehend how she struck a dart of dark despair into Marsden.

“I’m unable to attend.”

Wormleigh took her arm. “You forget, Flora. Melville beat Marsden in the final.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right.” Flora nodded brightly. “Still, you’ll win at something else, Doug. You do so many things so well.”

Marsden turned away from them. Who was Flora Valdesey? A woman who sipped at the edges of life, flitting from man to man, laughing most of the time, light-weight, unimportant, a friend. Disorientation confused Marsden. He turned back.

“I do, don’t I, Flora? Maybe one day IH do one thing well enough—”

Wormleigh interrupted, urbane, massive, moving so that his bulk hovered protectively over Flora. “I swear I can feel the difference already. The berries is very good on this site.”

“Oh, Tony found it—and you know how clever he is!” Flora gushed her way to the door. “The berries is always good on a Mandrake site. He showed me a fascinating horoscope at the Miflinn’s party. Although Astrolore doesn’t seem the same anymore….”

Marsden thumbed the doorvalve open for them. He wanted to crush them both, to squeeze them in his hands. He wanted to grind them between his fingers. He experienced a vivid mental shot of the pair of them, dripping crimson through his fingers, stickily.

“Nice of you to stop by,” he called as they left. “See you.”

“See you!” They stepped into their tethered flier, cast off, soared up against the sun.

Of course Wormleigh had not been able to feel the increase in Parsloe’s Radiation. The effects were too subtle. Marsden knew Wormleigh had been talking popular cant. Everyone jostled for the best sites. Everyone claimed a private gimmick to tell when Papa’s Rad was beating strongly into them. If they did poorly at anything they’d say: “The berries must have been weak.” He remembered he’d said something of the kind when Melville had beaten him in the epee final. That had been to cover up what he wanted to say.

All his friends and acquaintances took Douglas Marsden for a nice healthy athletic young man, superbly gifted in physical form and prowess, expert at any sport, easy-going, naive, one of the world’s non-worriers—a nice young man to be imposed on without a second thought As far as he knew no one except Paula suspected the turmoil in him, the deep desires, the frustrations, the reactions of sheer despair to his own estimation of himself.

He’d planned to call Paula as soon as he’d slept and Dreamed, facing the doubts that had been growing lately, and invite her over for the city removal, half dreading and half expecting her to refuse. Now that Loaden had been re-sited on a prepared plateau where Parsloe’s Radiation pulsed firm and strong from the ground, his reluctance became acute. Just lately he had been shunning as many social contacts as he could, obsessed with the desires he at first would not face. He had a good life. He knew he was envied. Life on Parsloe’s Planet at the other end of the galaxy could be good for anyone with money, with a gift, with the facility of living life as life was meant to be lived. While that may have been true for any planet so far inhabited by human beings in the galaxy, and for old Earth herself in any time, there were reasons why this planet should be uniquely satisfying.

Why did Wormleigh want him to see R? Disquiet unsettled Marsden who liked to skirt around the edges of crises and stomach-upsetting scenes and problems. He had to live with this only half-acknowledged problem of his own, central to who and what he was, he had to contend with all the implications, without worrying about R and Wormleigh and others like them.

And, of course, there was Paula.

He wouldn’t sleep now without speaking to her. That summed up their relationship—at least, he considered it did so—collapsing normal values into a disreputable pit of passion. They fed on each other and they were both aware of their gnawing possession and, helpless in that insatiable grip, were swept away together.

That permissive society of which Flora had prated would scarcely comprehend the nuances on which his life style was based.

She did not activate her screen when he called and so he spoke to a faceless voice.

“Douggie?” Her name for him had once made him laugh, indulgently. “Douggie? I’ve been waiting for you to call me. Why didn’t you ring me before? It’s Glen—I’m sure he bought me the new flier deliberately—and now he’s gone off to Borostatz.” Paula’s voice rose. “I’m all alone—he’s gone to see that mousey little blonde from the Actuary’s office in Capital City, I’m sure of it.”

“Hey, hey,” said Marsden. “Easy, darling, easy.” Without vision on his face remained wearing its dribbled away expression. “Glen doesn’t know—”

“The flier’s an Expresson Vertigo—what a perfectly foul thing to do.”

“That’s one of the best models this year. Mach three. I’ll say this for Glen, he doesn’t stint on presents.”

“I’ve got to see you, Douggie, darling. I cant live without you. I’m in such ‘a state—that’s why visions off. Come over right away.”

‘But,” began Marsden.

“Why did you call, then? Oh, Douggie, don’t be beastly!”

“I’ll be over right away, darling. See you.”

“You still love me?”

“You know I do.”

After a few moments he broke the connection. He looked at the bed and the ready-dialed Dream and remembered what Flora had said, then he picked up h. . .