David Brin - The Fourth Vocation of George Gustaf

Another damn ritual club was holding a parade through Trafalgar Square when the floater-cab carrying Dan AnMan and Hamilton Smith entered the traffic circle. Hamilton stared gloomily at the parade as the robot taxi changed lanes, neatly dodging the brightly clad celebrants.

“Bloody damn boring ritual clubs,” Hamilton muttered to himself. This one seemed to have a Middle Eastern theme, the marchers stepping along to recorded tambourines. Banners hung limply and the participants seemed scarcely more aroused than the onlookers. He couldn’t make out which club this was, though he recognized several individuals as frequent customers at the bank where he worked.

Hamilton remembered that his ritual club, the Loyal Order of Rockers, was supposed to hold a parade of their own next month. He wasn’t looking forward to getting into his twentieth-century motorcycle-gang attire, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. A ritual hobby was one of the six avocations required by law for every citizen.

Hamilton looked at his assistant, the AnMan, who stared back with an android’s fixed, translucent smile.

“You’re sure this fellow we’re going to interview fits the criteria I set? I’ve only got a few hours this week to spend on my sociology avocation, Dan. I don’t want to waste it interviewing someone who’s just a statistical fluke.”

The AnMan’s voicebox buzzed reassuringly. He opened his valise. “If you wish, I can go over the data again, Hamilton. Of our random sampling, this man Farrell Cooper shows a level of satisfaction with his ritual club that is two standard deviations above average. I feel certain he fits the criteria.”

Hamilton was still uneasy. Although he was a fully licensed amateur sociologist, he didn’t like invading people’s homes to interview them. What if he interrupted this Cooper fellow while he was busy at one of his avocations? Or worse, at work on his Vocation?

No one liked having his Vocation interrupted… the few hours a week one got to do something that had “professional” status. Hamilton always hated it when some amateur bothered him during his precious hours as a real, honest-to-god banker. He would much rather be at the bank now, being a professional, than pursuing this silly sociology hobby. But android labor had made real work for humans a rationed commodity. To use up the rest of the time, the law required that every citizen take up a half-dozen pastimes. Though as an amateur sociologist he understood the need for such a law, Hamilton sometimes found himself hating it.

The floater swept by Buckingham Museum, past dusty statues of heroes from the time of the Social Amalgamation. Picnickers lounged on the wide lawn, filling the time each had allotted to Idle Socializing or to Hobby Daydreaming. Everywhere Hamilton saw signs of the same lackadaisical wrongness that had been evident in the ritual parade.

He wished he had never started this amateur study of his. The deeper he and Dan AnMan dug, the more depressed he got. He had never intended to find out about a moral dryrot at the heart of the World State. He had only wanted something mildly interesting to help pass the time.

The AnMan spoke again.

“I can tell you are nervous, Hamilton. Don’t be. This is the beginning of your vindication. All of those who said you lacked a proper enthusiasm for amateur sociology will be refuted when your Loyalty Index theory is demonstrated!”

“You really think so?” Then Hamilton frowned. “Who said I lacked enthusiasm?”

Dan was a sophisticated model, free to choose which question to answer.

“Yes, I do think so, Hamilton. Your discovery appears to be a major one. I find it interesting that the professional sociologists have published so little about the rising tide of disenchantment, or on how the surrogate passion of the ritual clubs seems not to be satisfying the average citizen.”

It felt odd hearing his own terminology come out of the AnMan so smoothly. It made Hamilton feel proud, and just a little embarrassed. Before he could reply, the android looked up.

“We are here,” Dan announced. The taxi came to a smooth halt in front of a handsome row of townhouses that had obviously been designed by a professional, rather than an amateur, architect.

Hamilton checked his notes again. “This fellow, his name is…”

“Farrell Cooper.”

“Yes. And the name of his ritual club…?”

“The Bath and Garter Society, Hamilton.”

“Yeah, right. Bath and Garter. Sounds kind of kinky. Group-sex clubs usually don’t work well in the ritual category. I wonder what’s so unusual about this one.”

For fifteen hours each week Farrell Cooper did service to society in his Vocation, as a veterinarian’s assistant at the New Hampstead Riding Stables. His artistic avocation was leather-working—a suspiciously large number of the pieces on display in his home were saddles and other equestrian tack. It was no surprise, then, that Cooper’s Athletic Hobby was riding.

His registered Altruism Hobby consisted of five hours a week helping at a local Robot Free Clinic, “caring for our modern serfs, who have given us this banquet of free time,” as he put it, rather stiffly.

Cooper was a tall, stooped, hawk-faced man with pursed lips and a dour expression. He welcomed Dan and Hamilton without enthusiasm, and accepted their amateur-researcher credentials with barely a glance. After showing them his work and study rooms he led them into the parlor.

Hamilton sat on the tooled-leather sofa and opened his notebook. “Well, Mr. Cooper, we’ve seen examples of your art skill, and your other avocations. What we’d really like to know more about is your ritual club. Our survey shows that you spend the maximum time allowed—a full twenty hours a week—working for this… Bath and Garter Society. Yet the group seems to have full-scale meetings only a few times a year. Just what is your function in the club?”

Cooper fidgeted. For a moment he looked as if he were actually considering refusing to answer. Hamilton felt a thrill. One didn’t run into criminal acts every day.

But the man sighed at last and answered. “I have the honor and privilege of serving as a parttime valet to His Grace.”

Hamilton suppressed a groan. They might be here all day, tracing the relationship between the “Grand Imperial Poobah” and the “Master Gzork”—or whatever titles they used in this ritual club.

“Could you please define the function of a… a ‘valet,’ Mr. Cooper?”

Cooper enunciated slowly, with a queerly old-fashioned accent. “A valet is one who serves another as a personal aide, bodyguard, attendant, emissary… it is an honor to so serve one of the Blood.”

Hamilton caught Dan AnMan’s eye. Was that bemusement on the android’s usually passive face?

Hamilton cleared his throat. “You say that as a ‘valet’ you ‘serve’ this…” He referred to his notes. “This person you call His Grace.’ Is this person a dancer?”

“No.”

“Hmmm. Well, does he have any other titles in your club?”

Cooper’s eyes seemed to focus on something very far away. “His other titles are almost innumerable, Mr. Smith. They are all legitimate and have never been secret, though we’ve always avoided publicity. Now, I suppose, His Grace will have to decide what to do next.”

Hamilton had finally decided that Cooper was that rare commodity, a genuine lunatic. He wondered if there were still bounties offered for citizens who referred sick people to therapy.

“Well, since the titles aren’t secret, could you tell us a few of them?”

“All right.” Cooper bowed slightly. “His name is George Gustaf Charles Ferdinand Louis Jaro Taisho… Well, he’ll tell you the others if he wishes. You will find him at Islington Robot Hospital, where he is chief professional psychiatrist. As for his titles, they include the Crowns of Holland, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Japan, China, Russia, Britain, large parts of Africa and the Americas—”