Scudder's Game

by D.G. Compton

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Dystopian; Genetic Engineering

Synopsis

Have a Happy Golden Straub Day! The message floated in the sky for all to read; citizens chanted it to each other, motorists tooted it on their car horns as they drove the uncongested freeways. Earth had become a paradise, courtesy of Cordwainer Hardware International; population dwindling, war a thing of the past, free, untrammelled sex the right of all. But is paradise everything . . .? In this vividly realised novel, S. G. Compton charts the growth of CHI and the bland, idyllic world they engineered. Too idyllic for some; for beneath the surface darker forces were at work. At their heart was Scudder Laznett; brilliant, irascible, uncompromising. Scudder had begun a little game of his own; what that game was, Pete Laznett only discovered by slow degrees. And what he discovered was horrifying.

Release date: November 14, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 176

Sample

HAVE A HAPPY Golden Straub Day!

Pete Laznett, naked and unshaven, stared sourly up at the gigantic letters parading in leisurely undulations across the sky outside his bathroom window. His house was in the best part of town—indeed, in these days just about the only residential part of town—high on a hill above the business district and the old harbor, so that the letters were almost level with his window. He could see the wires linking them one to another, and finally to the graceful solar-powered airship at their head.

Pete Laznett scratched himself and glowered. Whatever impression of innocent enthusiasm the message might possess had quickly been dispelled by the crimson CSI logo—standing for Cordwainer Hardware International—clearly visible on the airship’s slender flank. And, my God, they were starting early, weren’t they? Not yet six o’clock, and already they were at it. … Pete turned disgustedly from the window, ran water in the basin, washed and shaved. He avoided meeting his own eye in the mirror. It was one of those mornings when he preferred to remain anonymous.

For many years now the first Monday in August had been the most popular of all international holidays: Straub Day. It was the great family celebration, the day when everyone visited with their folks, or sent them some special gift. And this August of 2039 was to be even more significant, since it marked the fiftieth anniversary of Conrad Straub’s historic discovery. Thus, Golden Straub Day. And thus, in case anyone might conceivably have forgotten, the airborne Have a Happy Golden Straub Day!

In the normal course of events Pete Laznett had no objection to a little honest commercialism. Neither had he any objection to Conrad Straub’s invention—he used it all the time, had done so throughout his adult life. Straub Day, however, was another matter: he detested it. Officially, according to CH International, the rationale for Straub Day visits was twofold: filial love, which at this late date he didn’t dare pretend to, and filial gratitude for having been parented, which was difficult for him also. It wasn’t that Pete didn’t feel glad to be alive—life was good, and he rejoiced in it. But he saw in that no reason to be grateful to Maudie and Scudder Laznett. Parenthood for them had hardly been a shared and generous decision. They’d had him because they were what they were. The world had moved on and they hadn’t. They were simple people. They could have done no other.

No, his only real cause for gratitude was that they’d stopped at just the one kid, him—all too often their simple sort bred like rabbits. Possibly, since their simplicity was of a Puritanical flavor, they’d been unwilling to face again the necessarily passionate conjunction. For which sad state he was indeed grateful—relationships were complicated enough, even without siblings. So oblique a gratitude, however, would be unworthy grounds for a Straub Day visit.

He had quit home, and his parents, seventeen years before, and hadn’t been back since. In the beginning he had stayed away out of bitterness; later, embarrassment had set in; and, most recently, guilt. And, down all those seventeen years, he had sent only the most nominal of gifts. Straub Day raised unhappy ghosts, therefore, and made him feel bad, and he detested it.

This morning, however, August 6, 2039, Pete Laznett had woken early. He was going, in spite of everything, to visit with his folks. On Straub Day everyone visited with their folks, or sent them some special gift. It was what old man Straub would want.

Pete crossed the landing to his dressing room. He eased the wardrobe door open, sorted very quietly along the rack, and chose a sober city suit. He dressed without a sound. Emma, bless her, was discreetly staying in bed, pretending to be asleep. The truth was, though he hadn’t cared to say so, that he’d have preferred her to spend that particular night over at her own place. He felt edgy enough, without having to endure her tactful support. So he’d tiptoed out of the bedroom that morning, pretending that he didn’t know he’d woken her. And now she was pretending that he hadn’t.

They’d been sharing now for a long time, nearly three years. He was going to be away for a week or so and he knew he’d miss her. The last two Straub Days she’d visited with her folks and he’d gone with her. Emma’s parents lived less than an hour from the city. They were great. Pete’s, on the other hand, lived down the coast, a good four hours’ drive. And they were not great. To be honest, the last time he’d seen his parents, seventeen years ago, he’d found them a pain in the ass.

How flip, at age seventeen, that had been—how dismissive, that pain in the ass. But it had seemed to him at the time a fair enough description. Their crime had been to love him totally, obsessively, and each other not at all. Love? What a stupid word. More like they’d have stomped each other to death for the privilege of eating him up.

So he’d quit. And his bitterness had merged into embarrassment, and his embarrassment into guilt, and he’d stayed quit. But now, after seventeen years, he was going back. He’d stay, he thought, maybe for a week, long enough to disengage himself from them once and for all, and then go on again, a free man.

The decision had been sudden, only five days before, and—surprisingly—nothing to do with Emma. Once he’d made it, though, she’d encouraged him. She said she’d run a rent-a-folks business long enough—it was high time he got some of his own. And a week or so apart would be good for them both. … Neither proposition had seemed to him particularly convincing, but he was going all the same, and mainly on account of his mother’s recent screen-in.

He had to admit it, she had him worried. What she’d said and, more significantly, what she hadn’t. He’d learned to live with his guilt, but genuine concern for his parents was something new. A pain in the ass … he was older and wiser now: did they really deserve such flip dismissiveness?

His mother screened-in quite often nowadays—never his father, Pete had long since ceased to expect it.

Maudie Laznett, sitting bolt upright for the camera, hands folded (clenched?) in her lap, hair scraped back in a bun till it hurt, in the familiar red velvet chair against the familiar background of classy oak paneling and unread calf-bound books, wearing her very best, talk-to-her-sonday clothes. He’d known it all by heart.

“Why does you persist on staying down in that old city, boy?”

He’d known that by heart too. Likewise his reply. “I like it here. I love it.”

And hers. “You can’t. You just can’t, boy. Never in this world.”

Et seq. “Come on, Mother—when were you last here? Twenty years, it must be.”

“Forty, more like. But cities don’t change.”

“People do, though. For one thing, they go away.”

“Them with sense does. Leaving only the crazies—the crazies like you. Walking the empty streets.”

“Walking the uncrowded streets.” He always bothered. He couldn’t think why. “And living in the finest houses. You should see my place, Mother. It’s—”

“We has a fine house too, boy. See all them leather books—real leather, that is. This ain’t just Ferry Lane, this is the Schulman Cottage. You remember the Schulman Cottage.”

He remembered it well. Ten bedrooms, not counting staff quarters. “The city’s great, Mother. There’s restaurants, art galleries, pretty girls, real live theaters—”

“Old man Schulman’s place. You must remember it. A millionaire, he was.”

“I like the city, Mother.”

She paused. “We has pretty girls up here too, you know.”

She knew the script as well as he did. Sometimes she’d seem to have missed a line. But she always picked it up again later.

Now he’d say, “How many girls?”

And she’d say, “Enough,” the word heavily significant.

She’d mean two or three, so that a judgement would be made on his immoral ways, on the world’s immoral ways. Two or three were enough, surely, for any decent-living man. … Which was why for a time he’d tried dodging her screen-ins. Till she took to screening him during the working day.

Still, the script was the script. “How many girls?” he said.

And she didn’t answer, didn’t say “Enough”, didn’t say anything.

Instead she unfolded her hands and picked, astonishingly, at the hem of her sonday best slipover.

Finally, scarcely audible, “Scudder might like it if you come on up.”

“Scudder? Scudder Laznett?” He struggled to adjust to this new departure. Usually the invitation, the reproach, came later. But not involving Scudder. Never involving his father.

“You mean you’d like it?”

“You know I would, boy.”

Far too quick. So the other remained. A mild curiosity, but, at this stage, hardly more.

“Tell me, Mother—how is he?”

“Scudder?” It seemed to need an effort now, even to recognize the name. “I guess he’s out on call. Someone’s terminal, someone’s TV. You know the way things go.”

Perhaps she was getting deaf. “Not where, Mother—how is he?”

“Scudder? Fit as a squirrel. Least, not a word to the contrary.”

As ever, the ingrained indifference of thirty-six years’ unholy wedlock. Not a hair, not a line out of place. Not any more. But she wasn’t getting deaf. And he could read the sub-text as well as the next man. If she hadn’t answered him the first time it was either because she hadn’t wanted to, or she had.

And she must have noticed a change in his father, if there’d been one to notice, and felt at least a token concern, after thirty-six years So maybe Scudder was sick.

“I’ll drive on up.”

“You will?”

“I’ll come up Monday.” With Scudder sick, no more than his duty. “That’s Golden Straub Day, for God’s sake. I’ll come up Monday.”

“And stay the week?”

Scudder sick. Maybe, for all he knew, dying. “And stay the week.”

Maudie went back to her sonday best slipover. “I only asked on account of the room.” She was regretting her eagerness. “Not that there ain’t plenty. But we’ll need to put one in shape.”

“That’ll be great. Really great. …”

His Straub Day duty, no more than that. Arriving at seventeen and seventeen, at a half-way point, at mystical significances, would come later. A nice excuse. Nothing to do with his father sick, maybe dying—just a time to go back, disengage, and then go on again. And seventeen such an odd odd number.

Maudie’s off-handedness increased. “I wouldn’t want to push you, boy. Not if you’ve got work to do.”

“I’ll bring it with me. You do have screen cross-links, don’t you?”

“Ten channel. Trust Scudder for that.”

“See you Monday, then. Round noon.”

“Only, boy, if you’ve nothing better.”

He was out of the house by seven-thirty. He’d eaten breakfast first, and keyed-in his supervisor to tell him where he’d be in case of emergencies. Inevitably he got the Business Games’ answering service, a taped picture of some secretary asking him to leave a message: even the Games shut down on Straub Day—fortunes remained unmade, tax write-offs unwritten-off. Really avid players would have to make do with their home cassettes, but at least those were real-world oriented and to a limited degree self-generating, a huge improvement on the old bang-bangs.

He didn’t go up and say goodbye to Emma. He was still pretending she wasn’t awake, so disturbing her wouldn’t be kind. He hadn’t told her about Scudder, nor about going back to disengage and then go on again. And certainly not about the curious, and to him intriguing, coincidence of this, his first visit in seventeen years. Seventeen and seventeen—he was thirty-four now, and he’d finally quit home a few months after his seventeenth birthday, on Straub Day, 2022. It had been a bitter irony to quit on that particular day, when everyone else was visiting, or sending special gifts. But the irony, thank God, had been unintentional, lost in other, more desperate considerations. …

Seventeen and seventeen, however, a half-way point … it had a rightness about it somehow. But not one he’d have cared to try to tell Emma about. In fact he’d told her very little. Even so, he felt edgy enough, without having to endure her infinitely tactful support.

Anyway, why the production? He wasn’t really doing anything out of the ordinary. Everyone went to visit with their folks on Straub Day, or sent them a special gift. According to CH International, it was what the company’s founder, up on his Hebridean island, would want. Conrad Straub, civilization’s savior. …

For himself, Pete doubted very much if the old man cared a damn either way. Peter wasn’t being cynical, simply realistic. A merchandizing man himself, he reckoned he was screened in to what Conrad Straub’s true motives had been, back in the cutthroat merchandizing eighties. There would have been pride in achievement, certainly. But, far more than that, a passionate desire to be a billionaire before age forty.

Straub Days, the restoration of parenthood from an ungrateful chore to an honorable estate again … none of all that would have entered his head. Nor, to be honest, the saving of civilization. Not then, and probably not even today. Who, for God’s sake, except power-mad lunatics, saw themselves saving civilization? And Conrad Straub was no power-mad lunatic—simply a mild, bespectacled Central European who had seen the need for the product and who, back in August, 1989, had been lucky enough to be working in a small laboratory attached to the Roehampton myo-electric limb center near London, England. Certainly he’d come up with the basic idea, but even then he’d have had a hard time getting it off the ground if he hadn’t, at one of many infinitely boring official cocktail parties, met Sithel Cordwainer and been sufficiently drunk to confide in him.

Professor Cordwainer’s field had been male fertility, and the spermicidal effects of certain hypersonics emitted by electronic machinery. The connection, to them both, was boozily obvious. Straub had the electronic machinery, Cordwainer had the spermicidal effects. There would be no problem, over the martinis, in making the one produce the other. In vino, veritas. …

All the rest was myth. To begin with, inevitably, they’d had their detractors. They called Straub Mr Supersex, and his device the most expensive French Tickler in the world. Male contraception too, in the minds of men, was a no-no. But CH International took care of that. They de-emphasized Cordwainer, who was a lecherous old soul anyway and died shortly afterwards, and they fudged the spermicidal effects, shifting them by careful wording from the delivering organ to the receiving one. And finally they gave Conrad Straub selfless dedication, and years of striving towards the grand ideal. All of which made him, as well as a billionaire before age forty, into civilization’s savior. Which—like all sound merchandizing, like all successful myths—had more than a grain of truth in it. For, French Tickler or not, the Cordwainer-Straub device had saved civilization. But Peter was willing to bet that Straub himself had been a greedy crook then and—up on his Hebridean island—he was one still. And the chances were that he didn’t give a shit for civilization.

Pete slung his bag sourly on the car’s back seat—a week’s clothes, not a day more. For disengagement’s sake, at a half-way point, seven days in which his father could fairly be expected to commit himself, either get better or die.

He drove with the top down, in a careful city suiting. Emma would have suggested he wear something easier—easier, that is, for Scudder and Maudie. But Emma’d gone back to sleep again. So he wore, for his own ease, a careful city suiting. When he set out the sky was uniformly gray, but the forecast promised sun by mid-morning. Half the city, it seemed, was on the road with him, a reminder of the bad old last-century days, before his time, two and three abreast on the turnpike. There was a holiday feeling in the air. The comradely even played “Hap-py Straub Day!” at each other on their motor horns. Pete waved jocosely now and then, and distributed seasonal smiles.

Soon he left the city behind him, entering the wide belt of farmland reclaimed from the long-abandoned suburbs. Graceful fields of corn and barley, set among stands of pleasant young hardwoods. His sourness eased. For a while the road was familiar, full of happy memories. He’d traveled it hundreds of times, going north on winter weekends to the ski slopes. Then the signs took him off to the right, towards the coast, into sadder, half-forgotten country. Seventeen years was a long time.

At the first small town he came to the traffic slowed, stopped, crawled on, stopped again. Music could be heard, a brisk celebratory tooting. Pete stood up, leaned on the windshield. Over the tops of the cars in front he could see a crowd of people parading with banners down the tree-lined street. Others stood in neighborhood groups outside their neat, frame-built houses, while kids pelted in and out on their electric bikes. By now the s. . .