John Brunner - The Whole Man

He looked at Singh, who gave him a big smile half-swamped by beard and moustache. He looked at Deirdre van Osterbeck, who was too busy checking the encephalographs to notice. In both their minds he sensed a conflict between hope and anxiety. The therapy watchdog — a tubby young man with slanted eyes and a fixed mechanical smile, named Pak Chang Mee—settled in his chair next to Howson. He had worked with How-son twice before, and a quick mental scan revealed that he Was extremely confident of success.

And there were all the technicians, their minds clearing as their equipment proved to be working faultlessly. And…

And there was Choong.

“Ready,” Deirdre said curtly. The technicians echoed her, nodding to Singh. At the back of the room near the door Howson sensed Miss Moreno composing herself in a soft chair; he did not see her move, for he had already closed his eyes. “Record now,” he said. Images welled up, the instant he began to relax towards contact. “I’m getting the main pattern — the city, the mountains… I reported winter previously. That’s fading. The scene is being set for some big event. I shall try and go in along fringe path K, the trade and travel path. Caravans come to the city and I have detected at least one schizoid secondary of very high order using that as a background.”

He had probed Choong cautiously a score of times while he was building up his store of information. Now the imaginary world seemed familiar, almost welcoming. Knowledge of the hospital faded, and there was only…

… the rocking motion, like a small boat on a choppy sea, and a smell like no other smell that ever was.

Camels. He opened his eyes. The illusion was absolute, but he had not expected it otherwise. He was dealing, after all, with a brilliant opponent.

By degrees facts sorted themselves out. He was — he was Hao Sen the mercenary, the caravan guard, and he rode negligently on his magnificent she-camel Starlight alongside the motley gang of traders and travellers through the gates of Tiger City. The air was sharp and stimulating; the winter was almost over, and this was the first of the spring caravans to brave the bandits and cross the mountains from the north.

Bandits… The concept brought a sense of weariness and satisfaction, and he remembered. There had been fighting; the bandits had laid an ambush. Signs were all around him — that man was limping, and that one had a bloody bandage on his head. He himself — he tensed his square-set, muscular body—had not a few bruises where his armour of brass plates on leather had turned a sword-cut. But they had won through, and this summer, said the common gossip, the Emperor would raise an army and smoke the bandits out of the hills for good and all.

He yawned cavernously behind his spade-shaped black beard. His hand fell to the familiar hilt of his short, broad sword, and he urged his camel on towards the city gate.

The walls were huge and solid; the black puppet-forms of soldiers tramped back and forth along them. Above the gate itself was a balcony on which were ranged shields bearing the stylized black-and-yellow emblem of a tiger’s head. This was magical protection, wisely chosen; the city was impressive, and deserved that the name of the second most powerful beast in the world be bestowed on it. (Where had he learned that? Who had told him that the ancient Chinese so regarded the tiger? He frowned for a moment, and then had to set the question aside for later consideration.)

Now the populace were coming down to the street inside the gate, cheering and waving, and some tumblers near the head of the procession turned wild handsprings to return the greeting. Hao Sen gave a booming laugh at their antics, and eyed the moon-faced girls as he passed, like any soldier who had spent a long time without women.

There were city guards in squads to direct the caravan and clear its path; there were sharp-nosed merchants closing their houses to get down to the market and snap up bargains. There were touts for local taverns, there were — oh, a myriad different people assembling.

Into the great market-place they poured to the accompaniment of shouts, firecrackers, brazen gongs. Hao Sen rode steadily at walking pace, absorbing all possible information about his environment.

He was shaken by its detail. This was — fantastic!

“You there!” A booming bass voice penetrated his reverie, and an officer of the city guard, splendid in magical black and yellow, came striding towards him. “Dismount at once! It’s not permitted to ride any beast through the market.”

Hao Sen grunted and complied. That was irritating, but he dared not object — it was far too early to start drawing attention to himself. Starlight showed her opinion with the derisory curl of the upper lip which passes for expression among camels, and he failed to repress a grin.

“What’s to be done with my camel, then?” he demanded.

The officer pointed a short distance back down the way he had come.

“You’ll find taverns there, with stables to your liking. I’d hurry if I were you, or all the places will be taken.”

A short time later, on foot, his sword clinking at his side in its leather-and-brass scabbard, he returned to the market-place. It was a scene of tremendous activity now; the loads from the pack-animals of the caravan had been spread out around three sides of the square, for purchasers to inspect, and booths had sprung up everywhere in the centre: barbers importuned passers-by to have their hair trimmed and their noses and ears cleaned out, conjurers, tumblers and jugglers were practising their skills, musicians had taken station and launched into wailing song to the accompaniment of twanging moon-guitars. Among the crowd Hao Sen wandered randomly, a frown etched deep into his forehead.

The fourth side of the square, the one from which the traders had been kept away, was none the less busy. On to it fronted a vast building with twenty pagoda-curved roofs and a flight of probably a hundred steps leading to its main doors. In red-and-gold ideograms on the façade there was spelled out its title: the Temple of Heavenly Favours.

On the steps, a gang of workmen were busily completing a dais for a throne. Hao Sen contemplated them. From the gaudy silk hangings they were draping over their work, a visit from the Emperor was anticipated.

The assumption was confirmed when he noticed that there was a stout man making a circuit of the market, accompanied by armed guards, and pointing out items of specially choice nature for the merchants to hold back from their stock. Some of these items were being collected by grunting youths in grimy white clothing and toted across the square to the foot of the steps before the temple.

The Emperor. Hao Sen contemplated the chance that the obvious focus of his attention was the real ruler. He decided against the possibility; at least one of the reflective personalities involved in this superb imaginary city had had king-and-slave fantasies, and the Emperor was more likely to be a subsidiary than a main personality.

On the other hand, of course—

Hao Sen checked his train of thought with a start. He had just caught sight of a dragon-trainer between two colourful booths across the square.

He shouldered his way towards the spectacle, ignoring the objections of those he pushed aside, and halted at the front of the ring of watchers surrounding the trainer and his beast. They were keeping a respectful distance.

Not that this was much of a dragon. It looked half-starved, and was barely three-quarters grown; moreover, its scales were patched with a mildew-like fungus disease. Its vicious three-inch teeth, none the less, were white and sharp as it bared them in ineffectual snarls. The trainer — a thick-set swarthy man, probably a gipsy from the south — was making it move its legs in a kind of clumsy dance, goading it with a pointed ankh which he heated at intervals in a brazier.