Tony Ballantyne - CAPACITY

Judy smiled. It looked sinister on her black-and-white face.

“Good, Peter, good. You see, I’m trying to get a picture of whether or not you are a user of the Private Network. I don’t think you are, you know. I think you were on that ship for other reasons. Go on, tell me. What were they?”

Peter waved his hand around his apartment.

“For this. I like nice things. That takes money.”

Judy frowned. “But everyone can have nice things, Peter. You know that.”

Peter shook his head. He was trembling now. Trembling with something that almost felt like righteousness.

“But these are the originals. There aren’t that many of them left. A copy isn’t good enough. That mirror on the wall, it’s an original Lebec.”

Judy looked at it. She looked back at Peter.

“But it isn’t, Peter. Remember where you are…”

He shook his head violently.

“You don’t understand, Judy. It may just be a shadow of the Lebec that was made in the atomic world, but that doesn’t matter . What matters is that shadow Lebec is owned by Peter Onethirteen. Only he had the taste and the money to buy it.”

Helen was so engrossed in watching Peter’s suddenly animated face, she didn’t realize for a moment that Judy had turned to stare at her. When Helen did, she flinched, but Judy appeared not to notice.

“There you are, Helen,” she said calmly. “It always comes back to this: possession. Because possession disturbs the ideal of equality by making one object subordinate to another. Remember that.”

She turned back to face Peter.

“So, Peter, you operated beyond the law on those flights in order to get the money to acquire nice things. Is that the only reason?”

“No,” said Peter, “there was another reason, and you know it. I can feel the recognition in you. This pill is helping, isn’t it?” He seemed to be gaining confidence. He had found a confidante, a kindred spirit. “Yes, you feel it, too.” He nodded, pleased. “We both know what it’s like, knowing that you’re the best at something.”

Judy’s face remained impassive. Peter held her gaze.

“Don’t deny it, Judy. You know you’re the best at what you do, and you do what you do because you’re the best.”

“I don’t deny it, Peter.”

“Then you know what I mean.”

Helen shifted uneasily on the coffee table. She wasn’t sure what she had expected in the course of an MTPH session. Certainly not this. She sensed that something extra was being exchanged between Peter and Judy, something she was not part of. Peter seemed to be becoming more self-confident, and something told her he should not be. Judy was setting him up.

“Do you recognize this woman?” Judy said suddenly.

With a start, Helen realized that Judy was pointing at her.

“No,” Peter said.

“Her name is Helen. She was one of the commodity personalities you transferred into the processing space before launching it on its way across the solar system.”

Peter was examining Helen now, his expression one of morbid fascination. He rubbed a finger across his upper lip. He was sweating again.

“I never saw the personalities. I wasn’t that interested in what went on inside the PS. It’s not my sort of thing. Honestly.”

“I told you, I believe you.” Judy’s voice was a gentle monotone. Peter relaxed a little. “But in some ways,” continued Judy, “that makes your actions worse. I think your claim that you were uninterested is intended to imply that you were disinterested , and I don’t think that, as a human being, you can be allowed to make that claim.”

Silence.

“I don’t understand you,” said Peter.

“Yes, you do. Look at Helen. If I told you to, would you force her into your bedroom and then hold her down while she was raped repeatedly?”

Helen caught the edge of excitement that fluttered briefly inside him at the thought.

“You bastard!” she yelled, standing up and clenching her fist to strike at him. But then she hesitated. Judy was doing something to Peter, sending waves of emotion crashing down upon him, and Helen was feeling their reflection. Suddenly she saw herself as Judy was making Peter see her: as a real person, crying in pain and humiliation, biting her lip and wishing that it would just stop, and she could…

“No!” Peter shouted, dragging himself back to the real world.

“Yes,” Judy said calmly, “imagine this…”

The northern edge of the arboretum rose towards a dull grey moor. Purple heather rippled in a cold wind around the artificially crashed spaceship, its hull cracked open like an egg, a tangle of silver-grey venumbs spilling out from inside, and across the bleak landscape. Helen walked briskly along the wet grass, by the little stream into which a silver venumb dipped its branches. Despite the cold, she found she was sweating under her simple white shift. A single drop of sweat ran down between her breasts… .

“Do you like that, Peter?” Judy asked, still kneeling before him.

“Why?” Peter said, on his guard.

“Don’t be so defensive. It’s natural to have at least some interest in what it feels like to inhabit the body of the opposite sex.”

…and Helen rubbed a sleeve across her forehead. The fuchsias she had wound so carefully into her hair like a crown were tickling her. The grass gave way to wide brown expanses of peat. A series of pale blue duckboards led across the cold mud towards the cracked spaceship. She walked across them, feeling them give slightly beneath her feet. The sweat dried cold on her face as she skipped from duckboard to duckboard. One of them slipped to the side and she tumbled forward. Her legs sank into the rich mud with a sucking sound .

“ Shit !” The mud smelled; now she was filthy. She sank a little deeper, her white shift riding up around her waist on the black mire. Lightly, she pressed a hand on its surface. It was no use trying to push her way out; she would only force her arms down into the cold bog. She turned and tried to catch hold of the duckboards, but they were too far away. This was embarrassing. She was going to have to ask for help. She gave a sigh and reached for her console .

It wasn’t there .

“Are you all right, Peter?” Judy asked.

“Yes.” But he wasn’t. Helen could feel the sudden stab of panic that he had felt when he realized the console was missing. He was gasping for breath, one hand to his heart.

Judy lowered her head for a moment, pondering. She came to a decision.

“This isn’t one of the violent scenarios, you know, Peter. It is more of a…a connoisseur’s choice, you might say. They used to run…well, let us call them competitions, with the various PCs. Helen here was used in what you might call the first-division categories.”

“What?” Helen said. Judy waved at her, did something to calm her down.

“Oh, yes,” Judy continued, “Helen has a strong personality. To break it requires some skill. To break it without resorting to the stock properties-”

“The stock properties?” Helen said. There was rage inside her. She could feel Judy was pushing it down, somehow.

“Oh, yes, stock properties: rape, murder, mutilation. The products of a limited mind, an average intelligence. It takes some skill to bring about a mental breakdown without resort to the clichés.”

Helen snarled.

“Calm down please, Helen,” Judy said, mildly. “This is about Peter, not you.”

Her console was gone. She forced her hands into the mud, feeling for the belt around her waist that was her console’s usual form. It wasn’t there. The shock of its absence was so unsettling that she found herself panting, gasping out little breaths while her heart pounded. Keep calm. If she began to panic now, she would never stop. Concentrate on being calm. She could see the grey sky high above, feel the soft grip of the mud. She could move in it, slide her legs up and down, wriggle her body. She just couldn’t press down with her arms to force her way up. Newton’s Law: action and reaction. Everyone knew that if you were sinking in mud, you should relax. Don’t fight it, just relax and wait for the natural buoyancy of your body to float you up. But that was easily said when you were sitting safe on firm ground. Not so easy to imagine when you could feel yourself slipping deeper and deeper down. Feel the mud pressing up on your breasts, each precious breath filled with that rich earthy smell. Still, relax, lay your arms out on the mud and relax…