Kronk

CHAPTER NINE

Gabriel and Camilla were walking hand in hand through the long summer twilight in Epping Forest. Surprisingly, in the confusion that followed the setting off of the fire alarm, they had managed to escape from St. Paul’s Cathedral without encountering either priests or procs. Gabriel did not know whether his frenzied button-jabbing had affected any other autoconfession booths; but from the babel they had left behind them, it seemed possible. He relished the thought.

As soon as they were clear of the cathedral area, Gabriel and Camilla had taken the first vacant auto-cab they found. City auto-cabs could be controlled manually or programmed to drive automatically to a number of well-known landmarks and tourist attractions. Gabriel had programmed for Epping Forest simply because it was well away from the scene of the crime.

Also, he was of the opinion that a half-hour stroll through quiet woodland would be conducive to constructive thought and good for the nerves.

Events were to prove him wrong.

“All right,” said Camilla, “you may now say it.”

“All right, I will,” said Gabriel. “I told you so. The God Machines are rigged.

“Not rigged,” Camilla objected. “Just difficult… Did you really mean what you said in the

“About what?”

“About loving me.”

“I suppose so… I don’t suppose it is exclusive, though. It is merely that I haven’t found

“My situation, too.” She giggled. “Besides, we do have a little something in common, don’t we?”

They had reached a clearing in the forest. Gabriel became aware of a noise throbbing in the sky. He looked up. There was a chopper somewhere fairly close, but he could not see it.

Probably a proc chopper on routine patrol. These days, the procs kept most lonely places under regular surveillance. They had to. The crime curve had jumped right off the top of the graph.

“Good evening, gentlefolk,” said a pleasant, male voice. “How nice to encounter young romantics at such a time in such a solitary glade.”

Gabriel and Camilla spun round. Two or three paces behind them was a tall, bearded man of perhaps fifty. He wore an ancient solar helmet, a monocle, a caftan and sandals. He also carried a jump wand, but he was clearly not a proc.

“Good evening,” said Gabriel warily, “we were just about to rejoin our friends.”

“How sad,” murmured the sudent, “I had hoped that we might converse a little. Also, I do not perceive your friends. However, allow me to remedy the loss by summoning friends of my own.” He whistled.

Four other students came into the clearing, one from each side. They walked slowly and purposefully towards Gabriel and Camilla.

“Are you sure you will not stay and converse?” enquired the bearded individual. “I am sure we will do our best to entertain you — after our fashion.”

The proc chopper — if it was a proc chopper — sounded much nearer. Gabriel glanced up, but there was still nothing to be seen. Rot the procs! Never there when you need them. Always there when you don’t.

The advancing students were mature men in their thirties and forties, each as incongruously dressed as the one who was evidently their leader. One of them sported a Rommel cap, a pirate patch, and an antique Salvation Army tunic. Another wore a Sikh turban with purple blouse and Lederhosen. They were all decidedly picturesque. And sinister.

Gabriel could still hear the chopper. It must either be circling or hovering somewhere. He searched the patch of sky frantically; but there was nothing to be seen, and little hope of help descending from the heavens.

The man in the solar helmet followed Gabriel’s gaze. “The good people upstairs seem to be somewhat coy,” he observed. “I fear we do not interest them. Never mind. The encounter will be all the more valued for being more intimate.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have much money,” said Gabriel desperately. “Perhaps if we give you what we have…”

“I am desolated,” said the solar helmet, “we are all desolated by your temporary lack of means. On behalf of my comrades, I would like to make you a small gift. How much shall we say — ten pounds, twenty? One hates to think of a bright boyo being short of funds when in the company of such an attractive damosel.”

Gabriel could just see the chopper now. It was at an altitude of perhaps five hundred metres, hovering above the tree line not more than about two hundred metres away.

“I don’t want any money, thank you.” The presence of the helicopter made him feel a little more secure. “I really think we should be going.”

“He really thinks they should be going,” observed the Lederhosen.

“Discourteous,” pronounced the Rommel cap.

“Brothers, brothers!” said the solar helmet. “Let us not be uncharitable. Perhaps the young gentleman does not clearly understand the rules of hospitality.” He turned to Gabriel. “We offered you a trifling gift, which it was your pleasure to reject. Surely — nay, reasonably, even -

it is fitting that you should offer us something in return.”

Gabriel walked into the trap. “But I have nothing you could want.”

“He is too modest,” said the solar helmet, glancing significantly at Camilla.

“Thoughtless, even,” added a hitherto silent man, wearing a Mao tunic.

“Unchivalrous, withal,” decided Rommel cap.

Camilla sighed. “It’s no use, Gabriel. They are going to have their fun whatever you say or do… Just don’t get yourself hurt, that’s all.”

“Ah, the practicality of the feminine mind,” enthused the Lederhosen. He smiled benignly at Gabriel. “You see, brother, there really is something you have that we need. As a Christian gentleman, it behoves you to share your good fortune.”

Gabriel prayed for the goddam chopper to move in. It didn’t. It hung in the sky as if suspended from a wire.

“Eeeny meeny miny mo, catch a coloured person by his toe,” remarked the solar helmet. “I think we may interpret our young friend’s silence as shy acceptance of the situation. Now, which of us should enjoy the damosel’s tender attentions first? As your unworthy leader, I believe I claim precedence. But there is an additional qualification. I was a dropout in experimental biology… Many moons ago, of course.”

There was nothing to do, thought Gabriel dully. But, hell and Shakespeare, one could not just do nothing. He made the mistake of doing something. He flung himself bodily at the bearded man in the solar helmet.

He never reached target. Somebody grabbed an arm. Somebody dived at his legs. He went down with a bump on his face, with two students sitting heavily on his back. With an effort he raised his head. He could just see Camilla’s legs. And those of the bearded student. Close.

There was no sound for a few dreadful moments. Then there was the sound of tearing.

Camilla’s shift fell round her ankles. The bra came next. Then she was pushed bodily down to the grass.

The bearded student did not bother to remove her tights. He merely tore them in the appropriate place. Then he took off his solar helmet, hitched up his caftan and proceeded to rape her.

Camilla was frightened, and the grass was uncomfortable, and the student was heavy and energetic and smelt of garlic. But the experience, she was interested to discover, was not altogether terrifying nor unbearably repulsive. She had got off to a cold and slightly painful start. But soon she was amazed to find that her body, at least, was beginning to respond with restrained enthusiasm.

She could not see Gabriel. She could only see close-ups of hairy face and intermittent patches of sky. But she knew Gabriel was being forced to watch. She felt dreadfully sorry for him — in an oddly maternal sort of way.

But her capacity for independent thought began to cloud over as the student got into top gear. He was no great shakes as a lover, but he knew what to do to a woman’s body to achieve a modicum of efficient sexuality… If you can’t resist ’em, join ’em and get it over with.

Camilla’s tongue popped out and her eyes rolled, and she even forgot to wish she wasn’t in the prommy phase.

“Struggle a bit,” whispered the student into her ear. “Blast your sweet buttocks, struggle a bit.”

“I can’t,” she panted, “you’re too damn heavy.”

“I’ll take some of the weight off,” he panted, “but — if — if you don’t — put on a decent show -

I — I’ll — start biting.”

But he didn’t have time to start biting, because a blank look came over his face and his body tensed and throbbed, tensed and throbbed for obvious biological reasons.

Greatly to her surprise, Camilla arrived at the same time. She thought obscurely that it was just like two strangers bumping into each other in a fog.

The sudent collected his wits, removed himself and picked up his solar helmet. He didn’t seem inclined to say anything more. Perhaps there was nothing more to say.

Camilla did not attempt to get up. Clearly, there was little point in making the effort. But in the few seconds it took for the man with the Rommel cap to loosen his Salvation Army gear, she managed to roll over so that she could see Gabriel and give him an encouraging smile.

“Don’t take it to heart, love,” she gasped, making the effort to smile. “I was introduced to this sort of thing before I was sixteen.”

Gabriel had stopped struggling. It wasn’t getting him anywhere. There was an agonized expression on his face that was oddly comical. Camilla thought that he looked as if he had tooth-ache. He was trying to say something; but the students on his back bounced about a little, and the only sound that emerged was a painful wheeze.

“I believe,” said rapist number two, removing his Rommel cap with a flourish, “that the next dance is mine.”

He looked down at Camilla almost benignly for a moment, then he flung himself upon her.

He was, if anything, more energetic than the man with the solar helmet. Camilla was tired and depressed and more unhappy for Gabriel than for herself; but her body did not seem to care about such matters. The million-year programming was more potent than fatigue or unhappiness, more potent even than prejudice or conceptual thought. Its frenzied response took her personality once more into a cloud of unbeing. Her breasts and thighs strained, her eyes widened, becoming briefly vacant, and she was aware that, a long way away, somebody was saying something to her. Something about struggling. But it didn’t matter because she was struggling. She was struggling to avoid drowning. And then, again, there was the mindless crisis, the locked jerky movements of automata. And then the tension went, the hardness dissolved, the weight lifted and it was all over.

She didn’t want to look at Gabriel this time. She didn’t want to do anything but lie there, legs and arms spread out, listening to her heart-beats, feeling the sweat roll down her face, getting her breath.

She didn’t even bother to look who the next one was. It didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered was that, incredibly, her body seemed willing to participate in the big bad joke all over again.

Democratically, as the students took turn to rape Camilla, they also took turns to sit heavily on Gabriel. He, too, was feeling the strain.

While the last student indulged himself, Camilla blissfully went to sleep or fainted. Or both. He slapped her face briskly until she opened her eyes. Clearly he was not at all enchanted with the notion of going it alone. She knew when he had finished by the fact that a bouncing hundred-kilo weight had been removed from her body, that her legs, breasts, arms, lips could ache without compulsion or interference, that she could try to breathe normally once more and listen with detached interest to the drumming in her head.

There was also a roaring, a strange powerful roaring, and a delicious tornado that seemed to blow life into her. Unhappily, the roaring stopped.

The chopper had landed.

As Camilla realized she was no longer being ravished, Gabriel discovered that he was no longer being sat on. He heard the chopper coming down and tried to stand up; but there was no strength left in his limbs, and he fell down again, cursing and gasping and feeling needles of pain in his muscles.

Presently, he was aware of someone turning him over and helping him to sit up. It was a beautiful girl wearing a short white chemise. She gave him something to drink. He drank greedily. And pain dissolved, and fire and energy surged through his limbs. Camilla also was sitting up, being given something to drink by a girl in a white chemise.

Gabriel smiled gratefully at Camilla. She smiled gratefully back. Each was grateful that the other was alive and reasonably well.

Then Gabriel looked at the chopper which, though it had arrived too late to prevent, had at least arrived not too late to cure.

It wasn’t a proc chopper. It wasn’t even a medic chopper. It was a NaTel chopper.

The penny dropped.

Gabriel jumped to his feet, his head exploding with notions of mass-murder. Unfortunately, his muscles were not equal to his intentions, and he fell in a heap once more. Unfortunately also, it only took seconds for the massive dose of booster-tranquilizer he had been given to take effect.

“Relax, honey,” said the NaTel nurse, “everything is going to be fine. You both get lead fees, hazard allowance, physical injury compensation, mental agony percentage and another fifty per cent of lead fee for Eurovision transmission. The same, too, for any Stateside deal.

Lover boy, you’re both in rich red clover. Altogether, it can’t be less than five thousand. And for repeats, you—”

“Stupid, transistorized cow,” said Gabriel, gently smiling, struggling hopelessly against the tranquillizer. “Black-hearted female gitt. Goggle bitch. Frugging frigid fish.”

The NaTel nurse stroked his forehead gently. “There, darling. It’s all over. The shooting’s stopped. The little lady lives. And soon it will be raining folding money all over you both.

Ride with the tide, sweetie. Ride with the tide.”

Almost apologetically, Gabriel pushed the NaTel nurse to one side and crawled on all fours to Camilla. She was naked and just about to struggle into a new set of clothes provided by NaTel. He kissed her gently. He kissed the bruised breasts, the scratched shoulders, the haggard cheeks. Then very carefully he helped her dress.

“You know?” he asked.

She nodded, gazing without expression towards the chopper. The producer or somesuch was paying off the students, the camera laddies were smoking and pinching the bottoms of scurrying NaTel hostesses. A portable table and chairs had been brought out of the chopper, glasses and canapés also had materialized, magnums of champagne were cooling in large vulgar buckets. There was even a butane filled candelabrum.

Suddenly, Camilla began to laugh. She laughed loudly and helplessly.

A big bronzed man in a dinner jacket and with a long thin cigar stuck in his face turned and gazed at her curiously. Then he walked towards her. Gabriel helped Camilla to stand up. She was still laughing and swaying perceptibly.

“Dennis Progg, This Is Your World.” His face blossomed behind the cigar into a vast plastic smile. “Baby, you were great. We got thirteen minutes of chair glue. With intros, reactions and post-mortem, we got twenty-five minutes of compulsion at peak spot for fifteen, twenty mill U.K. God knows how many Eurovision, Stateside, etc. You got to make a mark, acknowledge cheque for six thousand five each, sign injury and mental distress waiver, then we all hit champers and cavvy. Howzat?”

“Tell me something,” said Gabriel softly, unable even to feel angry that a great volcano of hatred and blood-lust had been plugged by tranquillizer, “why? What the hell is it all about?”

“You were great, too, fella,” said Dennis Progg. “Really great, I mean that. You were both just great… Ever take in This Is Your World?”

“Thank God, never.”

Dennis Progg sighed. “You’re losing something. This Is Your World is a ’gramme designed to make mature, responsible, feeling people alive to the realities of life. It opens dimensions of experience. You are there when it happens. You are involved.” He turned to Camilla. “The students weren’t just raping you, darling. They’re going to rape X million women. Nothing but good can come. The menfolk aren’t going to forget it. They’ll want to get proc strength boosted so that girlies can go out at night again. They’re going to pressure parliament for more effective psych action. They’re—”

“We get six thousand five hundred each?” interrupted Camilla.

“Yes.”

“How much did the students get?” She glanced towards them. Having received payment, they were now fading back into Epping Forest. The man in the solar helmet turned and waved gaily.

“A hundred each… Sorry we had to use trash, darling. But authenticity and all that. We had pop-guns on them, and we made it clear — no payment if you were damaged.”

Again Camilla began to laugh. She turned to Gabriel. “Darling love, what a scream! What a splendid scream! Remember the last thing the God Machine said? And now this. The decision has been made for us…”

Gabriel did indeed remember. He remembered vividly. He looked at Camilla with a solemn expression on his face. “And then there were seven,” he said.

And suddenly, he, too, was laughing. He flung his arms round Camilla, holding her close, both of them laughing and crying at the greatest, cleanest, funniest, dirtiest joke in the world.

Dennis Progg stared at them. Trauma, he decided. Relief. Joy at six thousand five. Some people!

He looked at the supper table, an oasis of sanity in the crazy wilderness of Epping. It would be a pity to let the champers get warm.