Brian Aldiss - The Complete Short Stories - The 1950s

He could not recall a time when he had not been in a hurry. Everyone in the seventeenth A-century was in a hurry: that was the inevitable result of a competitive way of living. Laurie’s one man illusion-repair outfit was a pretty hand-to-mouth job, allowing no time for relaxation.

He scythed forward now, cutting through Stratum 20. There was romance for you! Stratum 20 had been the old pre-muon age London, when people had had to build on the ground. Then intrapenetrability had been discovered, and progress had really gone ahead. The old existing thoroughfares (built for their quaint old automobiles and railways) had been filled in with new buildings; nothing and nobody could get anywhere without a muon screen – but power was reasonably cheap and everyone had them. After that the erection of new layers above and below the city began. London expanded like a self-fertilizing bun. The result was a capital worthy of a galactic race.

Not that that concerned Laurie particularly at present. He was too intent on finding his way down to Strata 29, where a client, Granville Esmond, awaited his services. An autobeam stopped him at 28 – that would be more upcoming traffic – and then he filtered the fly down and sent it clicking along to the appropriate square in which Mr. Esmond lived.

As soon as he arrived, Laurie dialled Esmond’s number. It came up, interlocked, and the muon screen was safely released. Laurie climbed out, glancing at once over his little vehicle with its proud sign: ‘ Roberts’ Radiopsi Repairs. I’ll Mend Your Illusions.’ The new paint had been slightly scratched, presumably by a proton shower which had sneaked through his screen; the port projector needed retuning, and Laurie made a mental note to attend to it in the morning.

Mr. Esmond’s materialising hall was as small as the statues of the realm would allow. The tiny autofly filled it. Which was all you could expect if you knew this end of Strata 29; it was decidedly a shabby-genteel neighbourhood.

Mr. Esmond himself stood at the inner, muon-proof door. Although he was a complete stranger to Laurie, his type was familiar.

He wore green flannel shorts, a trylon sneaking-jacket and leather shirt with twill plugging pieces. His boots were aluminium retreads equipped with the standard speakers, leakers and signature keys. His hair, greying now, was worn in a snood. It was, in fact, a thoroughly old-fashioned outfit.

‘Please come in, Mr. Roberts,’ Esmond said in a sad voice. ‘Although I’m afraid you’ll find the flat rather untidy. I’ve had to manage by myself ever since my wife died.’

Laurie surveyed the old man’s face with interest. He hardly looked the type who would marry; the lines of his mouth were prim and ascetic; his face was the face of a self-denier.

There was a green fleck to his withered flesh which Laurie could not account for until he saw the rest of the house. Then he had Esmond placed: he was a retired Venusian civil servant. About him and his home was the air, at once conservative and eccentric, of one who has travelled far and got nowhere.

In the middle of a light years’ wide sphere of civilisation, incorrigible Venus lay, a frontier planet after sixteen centuries of more or less continuous occupation. The transformation of planetary atmosphere had never been a success and the hardy natives – who survived in any atmosphere – were difficult to rule. Venusian jurisdiction could point to thousands of men like Granville Esmond, who spent the greater part of their lives keeping order in remote provinces, far from their own kind.

The walls of Esmond’s poor little living room were covered with framed stereos, the cheap, motionless kind: views of the desolate land, the subterranean villages, groups of local Earthmen in sports kit, a close up of Mrs. Esmond in a sixties hat, looking strangely like her husband. And there were other mementos, a smogwood carving, a chunk of venustone, a native weave rug on the floor.

‘I spent twenty-nine years on our sister planet,’ Esmond said proudly, seeing Laurie’s glance.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.’

‘Oh, don’t apologise, it’s nice to have someone to see my – ah, trophies: I’m very much alone.’ The words seemed wrenched out of him; he immediately covered the confession by adding, ‘My illusion room’s through here, if you’d come, please.’

He gestured to a door and then said hurriedly, ‘I’m afraid it’s rather worn … The upkeep’s very expensive, you know. But I couldn’t bear to be without it: it helps remind me of happier times.’

He stood there as if barring the door, smiling in a weak, apologetic way.

‘I’ll put it right if I can,’ Laurie said, and pushed gently past him into the room.

The sky was a tawny overcast, moving slowly like curdled milk. A line of smogtress, part of an afforestation scheme, stretched from the horizon until the boughs of the nearest ones waved overhead. A large cabin dwelling with ‘ District Commissioner ’ over the door stood close beside a series of monolithic slabs. Laurie recognised the slabs as entrances to the warrenlike villages of the Venusians.

On the verandah of the cabin a middle-aged man sat smoking his pipe. He was lean and alert, his face tanned green by the perpetual breezes. It was Commissioner Esmond.

Through him, through the trees, through the sky, through the bleak land, the shadowy walls of the illusion room were visible. The recording was indeed worn.

‘As I explained to you on the pscreen,’ the present Esmond said, coming up from behind a tree, ‘the illusions keep changing without my switching them over. I’ve only got three illusions, but they keep changing …’

‘It happens sometimes on old circuits,’ Laurie said, hefting his repair kit. ‘I’ll soon fix it. The activator keys probably need rebuilding.’

‘They’ve been flickering a lot lately. It’s very disconcerting. But it probably won’t happen now you’re here.’

But even as Esmond spoke, there was a rush of ghostly figures into the Venusian clearing. The monoliths and trees faded and the two men were standing in a crowded club room. There were trophies on the wall, and flags, and bright flowers in vases, and somewhere a piano was being autoplayed.

People moved to and fro, talking, men and women in gay clothes. To one end of the room there was dancing. The hostess, glorious in yards of white extanza, was followed by a retinue of young men; one of the eager faces was twenty-year-old Granville Esmond.

‘The year is 1629 A-C,’ said old Esmond in a tremulous voice. ‘What a summer that was! Everything still before me … Do you see I was just growing my very first moustache? To be so very young … You’ll see my wife-to-be in a moment; she comes in that green door at the end, and I don’t notice her for some time. Shall we go and stand there and wait for her?’

He stepped forward to let a phantom pass and caught the look in Laurie’s eyes. He dropped his own.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Your time’s money, son. You’d better go and switch the illusions off and see what’s gone wrong with them. I don’t mind.’

Feeling callow and hard-hearted, Laurie made his way to the master switch. As he bent down to it, a girl with the palest countenance hurried towards him from a shadowy green doorway; her eyes, dark and dedicated, looked nervously through him, and for a second their lips seemed to touch: then the switch went over. The ghosts died.

‘That was my wife! That was Muriel!’ Esmond said. He stood in the middle of a bare chamber, his gesticulating hands drawing mirages; then he stuffed them in the pockets of his sneaking-jacket.

Pulling out a magnetic key, Laurie knelt and opened the illusion hood. This was an old model, probably acquired secondhand, and the interior looked vastly complicated to a layman, although it presented no special difficulties to Laurie. The illusion unit was bigger than a small refrigerator: current ones were the size of a small suitcase.