The Demolished Man part 6: Demolition

Ben Reich is on top of the worlds. He has eliminated his biggest business rival, Craye D'Courtney, and is in a position to absorb D'Courtney's company; he has waged an intricate chess game against the telepathic detective investigating the crime; and he has just learned that he has won:  the police have closed the case against him.

Oh yes, he still has a few problems: he still has nightmares about a menacing Man With No Face And there's the small issue of somebody trying to kill him. But all that pales before the realization that he is finally in the clear.


Ben Reich has gotten away with murder.

Lincoln Powell, 1st Class Esper and Prefect of the Police Psychotic Division has persuaded the Esper Guild Council to hold an emergency meeting. Although he does not have enough Objective (that is, non-psionic) Evidence to build a court case, he knows that Reich is guilty of murder. What's more, he has come to the realization that Reich not just a murderer, but a threat to the Esper community, and to humanity as a whole.

We have already seen that Reich has been simultaneously supporting a smear campaign to stir up anti-Esper feelings in the non-Esper populations as well as financially backing the League of Esper Patriots, a self-interested splinter group opposed to some of the Esper Guild's policies. Either of these by themselves could severely damage the Guild as a political entity and the Esper community as a whole. But the danger Reich poses goes beyond that.

Reich is about to become a Galactic focal point ... A crucial link between the positive past and the potential future. Powell argues. Reich has the money, power and force of personality to shape the pattern of human culture. And he is a sociopath.

Look at Reich's position in time and space. Will not his beliefs become the world's belief? Will not his reality become the world's reality? Is he not, in his critical position of power, energy, and intellect, a sure road to utter destruction?

To stop Reich, Powell proposes a measure called Mass Cathexis, a dangerous technique which has never been successfully accomplished. Guild President T'sung is reluctant to authorize the attempt. "You're too valuable to be destroyed, Powell." But Powell is willing to take the risk. The fate of humanity may hang in the balance. He insists on a vote, and the Guild grants his request.

Powell returns home and tells Mary Noyes what he's resolved to do. "There's a chance it won't kill me. Oh ... One reminder. Lab wants a brain autopsy soon as I'm dead ... if I die." But before he goes, he needs to see Barbara one last time.

Barbara D'Courtney has almost completed the regression therapy the doctors instituted to heal the psychic trauma of witnessing her father's murder. As her subconscious has been slowly recovering, Her conscious mind was regressed to that of an infant and allowed to develop back to maturity. Her mind is currently that of an adolescent and is trying to come to grips with her feelings about Powell. "Do you feel like a father to me? Because I don't feel like a daughter to you."

Complicating the matter further, Powell is in love with her. He's been trying to avoid having to deal with this situation; that was a big reason why he recruited his friend Mary to help babysit. Now there's no more avoiding it.

Mary telepathically urges him to admit the truth. "She's a woman and she's in love with you. You're in love with her. Please, Linc, give yourself a chance." Powell reminds her that the Guild won't allow him to marry a normal; the best he can offer Barbara -- provided he survives -- is an extramarital affair. "She'll settle for that. She'll be grateful to settle for that. Ask me. I know." Mary also loves Powell and would have liked to marry him; but as much as he likes her, Powell would not consent to a loveless marriage. Now Mary pleads with him to consider a marriageless love, for Barbara's sake.

Except that Powell expects to die very shortly. Despite his bravado, he knows his chances of surviving the Mass Cathexis are very slim. He doesn't want to leave Barbara with "Nothing but a half a memory of half a love."

Next to his telepathic talent, Powell's greatest asset is his ability to lie with the utmost sincerity; the part of his personality he calls "Dishonest Abe". And so he does. "Baby! Baby! Baby! What makes you think I'm in love with you that way? I'm not. I've never been."

"No!" Barbara bursts into tears. "Your face is lying. It's ... It's hateful! ... Oh go away. Why don't you go away?"

Mary takes Barbara off in a cab to the Hospital. As he watches them leave, he senses the Mass Cathaxis beginning. As he requested, every esper in the city is feeding their latent psychic energy into his brain.

The energy came in torrents now. From each Esper in the city, a trickle of latent power that merged into a stream, a river, a swirling sea of Mass Cathexis directed toward Powell, tuned to Powell. He opened all blocks and absorbed it all. His nervous system superheterodyned and screamed and a turbine in his mind wirled faster and faster with a mounting intolerable whine. 

... 

...So Powell fought to absorb that fearful torrent, to Capitalize that latent energy, to Cathectize and direct it toward the Demolition of Reich before it was too late, too late, too late, too late, too late...

Reich wakes up from another dream. Not a nightmare this time, a strange dream full of mathematical symbols and commands; a dream so compelling that in waking up he feels like he has fallen asleep again; that the dream was the reality.

Duffy Wyg& is with him, the blonde flirt who wrote the deathless "Tenser, Said the Tensor" jingle. She found him lying unconscious in front of the police station and brought him home. "How could I pass up the opportunity? It's the only way I can get you into my bed."

Reich is starting to get a handle on his thoughts again. Where was he? Yes, he was on top of the world. "Drunk? Sure, I'm drunk... Why shouldn't I be drunk? I've licked D'Courtney. I've licked Powell. I'm forty years old. I've got sixty years of owning the whole world ahead of me. Yes, Duffy ... the whole damned world!" He goes into a joyous, intoxicated rant. "How'd you like to start a dynasty with me, Duffy?" He's going to take over D'Courtney's company; then he'll take over all the other smaller corporations. He'll devour them all. He throws open the window and shouts at the city skyline.

"You out there!" Reich roared. "Can you hear me? All of you... sleeping and dreaming. You'll dream my dreams from now on! You'll --"

Then he notices. There are no stars in the sky.

"Where are the stars?" he demands. "Where are the what?" Duffy replies. She doesn't know what he's talking about.

He runs into the street and looks up in the sky. He can see the moon, a brilliant point of light which must be Mars, and another one which must be Jupiter. But when he asks people on passing by where the stars went, they act like he's crazy. The sky's always looked like that.

A friendly cabbie suggests that maybe he just imagined that there used to be stars in the sky, and recommends visiting the Kingston Hospital. Reich tries to get a grip on himself. He has been under a lot of stress... "Maybe... Maybe you're right." He regains his confidence. "What the hell do I care about the stars! ... I've got the world!"

He goes to his office and calls a meeting. He announces that he intends to commence the acquisition of D'Courtney Cartel's holdings on Mars. His staff look at him like he has two heads. They've never heard of the cartel, or of Mars.

He goes to the company's records. The files contain no reference to any other planets. He goes to Wikipedia; (okay, not Wikipedia, but a computerized library database) and asks about the universe. The computer tells him that the Universe consists of the Earth and the Sun. But what about the planets? "There is the earth," the computer answers. And the moon? "There is no moon."

"Reich took a deep trembling breath. "We'll try it again. Go back to the sun." 

The sun appeared again in the crystal. "The sun is the largest collection of matter known to astronomers," the canned voice began. Suddenly it stopped. Click-pause-click. The picture of the sun began to fade slowly. The voice spoke. "There is no sun."

Now Reich is growing frantic. Bit by bit, his world is disappearing. He tries to buy tickets to Paris. There is no Paris. He goes to the police, but they've never heard of D'Courtney or Powell or anything. He goes to Maria Beaumont's home, the place where he committed the murder, but he sees nothing but barren desolation where the mansion once stood. Piece by piece, reality slips away from him until there is only Reich...

...and the Man With No Face.

And at last, he looks deeply into that face which he has been fleeing from for so long and sees... his own.

And D'Courtney's.

Both faces, merged together, blending into one.

It is his father.

The man tells Reich that it has all been a test. The entire universe of his experience has been an illusion, a puzzle for him to solve, a Cosmic Game. Which he lost.

"I conquered it. I owned it."
"And you failed to solve it. We'll never know that the solution is, but it's not theft, terror, hatred, lust, murder, rapine. You failed , and it's all been abolished, disbanded..."

For him it ends, and there is nothing.

Except...

Reich and Powell are found the next morning; Reich curled up in a fetal position and Powell gripping on to him, barely alive. He survived the Mass Cathexis. As the Guild's best esper doctors take care of Powell, Reich is taken to Kingston Hospital.

A week later, Powell is feeling well enough to visit his boss, the Police Commissioner. Reich has been tried, found guilty and scheduled for Demolition. Old Man Mose, the Prosecuting Computer, was right all along. Reich's motive in killing D'Courtney never was profit. D'Courtney was secretly Reich's father. That's why D'Courtney had terrible feelings of unresolved guilt; not about his daughter, but about his unacknowledged son. That's why D'Courtney truly did want to reconcile with Reich. Subconsciously, Reich knew this and hated his father for it. That was why he wanted to kill D'Courtney. And yet, a part of his self-conscious rebelled against his murderous impulses. That was who the Man With No Name really was; Reich's own conscience. And when Reich succeeded in killing his father, his subconscious tried to punish himself by planting the bombs while Reich was asleep. Reich's true motivations were so deeply buried, that he could not even admit them to himself.   That was why he misinterpreted D'Courtney's coded message.

The only way Powell could get to that truth was to create an intensely realistic illusion in Reich's mind and strip it down, layer by layer, until there was nothing left but Reich and his guilt; The Man With No Face.

The Commissioner is impressed. "You've done a phenomenal job, Powell. Really phenomenal. ... It must be a wonderful thing to be an Esper."

Powell paused at the door and looked at Crabbe. "Would you be happy to live your life in a hospital, Commissioner?" 

"A hospital?" 

"That's where we live ... All of us. In the psychiatric ward. Without escape ... without refuge. Be grateful you're not a peeper, sir. Be grateful that you only see the outward man. Be grateful that you never see the passions, the hatreds, the jealousies, the malice, the sickness ... Be grateful you rarely see the frightening truth in people. The world will be a wonderful place when everyone's a peeper and everyone's adjusted ... But until then, be grateful you're blind."

He goes to visit Barbara at the hospital. She's an adult now; her treatment is complete and her inner and outer minds are once again in synch. She still loves him. She's aware that he can never marry her, but she doesn't care. She's willing to settle for being his mistress. My, how they tiptoe around this! But she's willing.

Powell laughs, and tells her she won't have to settle for anything. He reminds her of the night of the murder, when she came to her father because she heard him calling out to her. Except her father was incapable of calling! He was sick and had advanced throat cancer; he could barely whisper. Barbara must have sensed his desperate thoughts telepathically. She is a latent peeper, and therefore Powell is free to marry her. Okay, this seems like an awfully convenient happy ending; but Bester did plant the clues ahead of time: her actions on the night of the murder; the intensity of the shock she experienced; her ability to recognize when Powell was lying to her.

While he is at the hospital, Powell runs into Reich one last time; a screaming, twitching mockery of a human. He is undergoing Demolition. His brain is slowly being chemically erased, much as Powell did with the illusion of the stars, until it is a blank slate. The process is a long one; the doctor supervising him says he will be ready for rebirth in a year. This is the punishment the State metes against its worst offenders; horrifying an ghastly. And yet...

"Three or four hundred years ago, cops used to catch people like Reich just to kill them. Capital punishment, they called it." 

"You're kidding." 

"Scout's honor." 

"But it doesn't make sense. If a man's got the talent and the guts to buck society, he's obviously above average. You want to hold on to him. You straighten him out and turn him into a plus value. Why throw him away? Do that enough and all you've got left are the sheep." 

"I don't know. Maybe in those days they wanted sheep."

I still find Reich's rehabilitation to be disturbing. Is it really better than the alternative? I'm just not comfortable with the State having the power to erase a man's mind like that. But maybe, if Powell's dream came true and everybody was a peeper, it would bring a level of transparency to government that would actually make it trustworthy.

If I had written the novel, I think I'd be tempted to end it with Reich in a straitjacket, sitting in a padded cell and humming "Tenser, said the tensor..." But despite the Demolition, despite the terrifying identity-loss Reich must endure, Bester's view of this world is on the whole optimistic.

The line Powell fed the Commissioner earlier about peepers being trapped in the psycho ward, was another of Dishonest Abe's lies, calculated to gain the Commissioners sympathy and ease some of the tension between the two men. Now as he gives Reich a small gift and receives in return a confused glimpse of thanks in Reich's chaotic mind, Powell reacts with joy.

"Listen," he cried in exaltation. "Listen, normals! You must learn what it is. You must learn how it is. You must tear the barriers down. You must tear the veils away. We see the truth you cannot see ... That there is noting in man but love and faith, courage and kindness, generosity and sacrifice. All else is only the barrier of your blindness. One day we'll all be mind to mind and heart to heart..."

The Demolished Man part 5: Reich Victorious

Continuing our look at Alfred Bester's space noir crime novel, The Demolished Man

As any mystery buff will tell you, a criminal investigation rests on three things: Means, Motive and Opportunity. Telepathic detective Lincoln Powell can prove that industrialist Ben Reich had the means and the opprtunity to kill his business rival, Craye D'Courtney. He thought he could prove the motive as well, but the coded message from D'Courtney to Reich believed to carry a rejection of Reich's murder offer was actually an acceptance. Reich had every reason, financially, to keep D'Courtney alive; and so the computer in the D.A.'s office which authorizes all prosecutions has thrown out the whole case. Has Reich successfully avoided Demolition?

The dreams won't stop.

He has killed his arch-enemy and rival, he has avoided the police at every turn, but still Ben Reich finds himself pursued in his nightmares by the relentless Man With No Face. He thought that the Man represented D'Courtney, but D'Courtney's dead; why does the Man still chase him?

He just returning to New York from Spaceland. Awakened from another of his nightmares, he goes into the shower of his stateroom to wash up before disembarking. He's just starting up the auto-massage when on a whim he ducks out of the alcove to call room service for a cup of coffee. That whim saves his life as an explosion rips through the sauna. Someone has taken the Detonation Bulbs he carries with him out of his luggage and planted them in the heads of the automatic massage unit.

Why would he carry mini-grenades with him? For self-defense, since guns seem unknown? As a JIC if he should need to kill another witness? We aren't told; just that; he always carried them. After all, even paranoids have enemies; and it seems that Ben Reich has one too.

When he arrives at his office, he calls his Chief of Espionage, 2nd Class Esper Ellery West. If someone is trying to assassinate him, Reich will need an esper to help him. Ellery is packing his desk. It seems that the Esper's Guild has decided that using telepathy to conduct corporate espionage is a violation of it's Ethical Code, and so West must resign. Reich offers to put West on private retainer, like his personal physician; but he learns that the Guild has ruled against exclusive practices as well. "It limits the service of peepers. We've got to be dedicated to the most good for the most people."

Reich is sure that Powell arranged this somehow, but West assures him this is not the case. The astute reader might even recall a hint this might happen in the cascading conversation at Powell's cocktail party before the murder.

Reich tries calling his accomplice, Gus Tate and gets a notice of disconnection. Tate is dead, killed by one of the goons sent by Keno Quizzard to eliminate Powell. Next he goes to his safe and once again narrowly escapes being caught in the explosion of a bomb.

He grabs "the malignant steel flower", the collapsible knife/pistol he used to murder D'Courtney, from the wreckage of his safe as well as the neuron scrambler he had taken from Chooka Frood's bodyguard, and another handful of Detonation Bulbs from his desk. Handy things to have. Ignoring the stares of his staff at his shredded clothing and the bleeding lacerations on his skin, he goes down to the basement garage to get a jumper. But as he turns the key in the car door, he hears the sound of another booby trap and dives for cover as the bomb in the jumper goes off, rupturing the fuel tank and spewing fuel over the garage.

Three assassination attempts in less than a day. Reich is not about to wait for more. He hails a cab for Chooka Frood's Rainbow House. He barges in, clobbers Chooka's bodyguard -- (Chooka really needs a better bodyguard; this is the second time Reich's mopped the floor with her) -- and accuses her of setting the booby traps.

"I beat the hell out of your girl-friend and I beat the hell out of you. So you got frabbed off and set those traps, right? ... It has to be you, Chooka. You're the only one with a gripe and the only one who hires gimpsters. That adds up to you, so let's get it squared off." He slapped the safety off the scrambler. "I've got no time for a two-bit hater with coffin-queer friends."

Chooka denies knowing anything about the bombs. She suggests it might be Quizzard, or Jerry Church; or maybe a peeper got the combination to his safe...

Reich makes the obvious connection. "My God... Oh my God... Yes," he says. "The cop. Powell. Yes. Mr. Holy Lincoln Powell." It all makes sense.

Immediately Reich comes up with a plan. He's getting good at improvisational murder. He has Chooka summon Powell on a pretext. While Powell is on his way to the Rainbow House, Reich scoots over to Powell's place to set a trap of his own. Encountering Mary Noyes in the garden, he paralyzes her with the neural scrambler. He carries Mary inside, deciding to kill her in the house, plant detonation bulbs on her body, and wait for Powell to find her. But before he can carry out the plan, he realizes he's being watched.

She was at the head of the stairs, kneeling and peeping through the banisters like a child. She was dressed like a child in tight little leotards with her hair drawn back and tied with ribbon. She looked at him with the droll, mischievous expression of a child. Barbara D'Courtney. 

"Hello," she said. 

Reich began to shake. 

"I'm Baba," she sad. 

Reich motioned to her faintly. 

She arose at once and came down the stairs, holding on to the banister carefully.  "I'm not s'posed to," she said.  "Are you Papa's friend?" 

He's face to face with the daughter of the man he killed and the only witness to the crime. And she doesn't know it. Her conscious mind has been regressed to that of a child as part of the therapy to help her cope with the psychic trauma of seeing her father's death. The "Papa" she's referring to, and whom she says is coming back soon, is Powell, who has been caring for her and is the only father her conscious mind currently remembers. Reich thinks she means her real father and that this is all part of some elaborate mind game.

He grabs Barbara roughly. As she struggles with him, Powell returns. Partway to Chooka's place he realized her call was a trick and hurried home; now he's back just in time to beat the living snot out of Reich.

Then Powell tells Reich that he's a free man. "Notice I said free. Not innocent." The case against him is closed. He explains how they had everything they needed to convict him except for the Objective Motive. "Of course I could throw this breaking and entering with deadly intent at you ... but it's too small a charge. Like shooting a popgun after you misfire with a cannon. You could probably beat it too."

Reich refuses to believe it and accuses Powell of planting the booby traps in the stateroom, in the safe and in the jumper. Powell has no idea what he's talking about, and so peeps into Reich's mind. What he sees shocks him.

"My God!" ... "That's it. ... That explains it ... And Old Man Mose was right. Passion motive, and we thought he was kittenish ... and Barbara's Siamese Twin Imge ... And D'Courtney's guilt ... No wonder Reich couldn't kill us at Chooka's ..." But he sees something else in Reich's mind that makes him realize that Reich isn't just a criminal who needs to be brought to justice; he poses an even greater threat to all of society.

At this point, we are as confused as Reich is; Powell does not explain what he peeped or how that led him to this conclusion. It takes a moment for Powell to regain his composure, and when he does he tells Reich flat out why the case against him collapsed. The coded message D'Courtney sent to Reich was an agreement to a merger; so Reich had no reason to want him dead.

Reich doesn't believe him. "The bastard refused." But Powell goes on.

"I'm not the man who's trying to murder you. That man is trying to kill you because he knows you're safe from Demolition. He's always known what I've just discovered ... that you're the deadly enemy of our entire future. ...He's your ancient enemy, Reich ... A man you'll never escape. ... The Man With No Face."

Reich runs out into the night, frantically trying to sort it all out: the nightmares, the assassination attempts, D'Courtney's message -- he's sure the message said "refused"! -- all mixed up with his relentless mantra: "Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun!"

In this feverish state he runs into someone we'd forgotten about: Galen Chevril, the young esper who tried to crash Maria Beaumont's party the night of the murder. Reich had warned the kid off to keep him from peeping his murder plan. As far as Chevril knows, Reich did him a favor that night and he's happy to help him out.

Reich takes Chevril to see the Police Commissioner. "I was almost murdered three times today."

Commissioner Crabbe is aghast. "Murdered! ... Of Course. That Powell is a fool. I should never have listened to him. The men who killed D'Courtney is trying to kill you." And he tells Reich how the D.A.'s computer had vindicated him.

Chevil confirms the truth of what the Commissioner says. "The Prosecution Computer has declined to authorize any action against you for the D'Courtney murder. Mr. Powell has been forced to abandon the case and ... well ... his career is very much in jeopardy."

This is the best possible news for Reich. He leaves the Commissioner's office laughing in triumph. He's beaten the murder rap, he's in a position to take over D'Courtney's empire; he has everything.

"And I'll own you!" he shouted, raising his arms to engulf the universe. "I'll won you all! Bodies, passions, and souls!"

That's when he catches glimpse of a tall, ominous, familiar figure on the street... A Man With No Face.
And then everything goes black.

NEXT:  Powell takes the ultimate risk; Mass Cathexis; Reich's triumph. And then all the stars go out. Demolition.

The Demolished Man part 3: Girl Hunt

Continuing our look at Alfred Bester's SF crime novel, The Demolished Man.

He's done it. The die is cast. Mega-millionaire Ben Reich has murdered his arch-rival, Craye D'Courtney; theoretically an impossible crime in a world where telepaths exist in most levels of society. The police have set their best detective on the case, Lincoln Powell, a 1st Class esper. Powell knows that Reich is guilty, but he will have a hard time proving it. Reich has covered all his bases. There's only one loose end. There was this girl...

Lincoln Powell meets with his staff. He is certain that Reich is guilty of D'Courtney's murder, but he needs to prove it. Esper testimony is inadmissible in court without the subject's consent. He needs to build a case that will satisfy the Mosaic Multiplex Prosecution Computer ("Old Man Mose" as Powell and his staff call it, or "that confounded adding machine" as the Police Commissioner prefers), the computer that serves as grand jury.

The Commissioner is a little leery of going after someone as powerful as Reich. He's rich and he has connections. He also once contributed to the Commissioner's campaign for District Attorney once. Powell wants to go all out to nail Reich and wants to know if the Commissioner will back him. When pressed, he says he will; but Powell notes: "But with strong reservations... He's scared to death of Reich... so am I."

Powell plans a full scale blitz on two levels:

"...we're going to pull the Rough & Smooth on Reich. You know the method. We'll assign a clumsy operative and a slick one to every subject. The cluck won't know the smoothie is on the job. Neither will the subject. After he's shaken the Rough Tail he'll imagine he's clear."

He outlines several lines of investigation: the party game that gave Reich the opportunity; the annoying jingle that kept low-level espers from sensing his murderous intent; the "Visual Purple Ionizer" which knocked out the guards; the business relationship between Reich and D'Courtney...

Then there's the girl. Craye D'Courtney's daughter, Barbara, was also at the Beaumont mansion that night and fled. She undoubtedly witnessed the murder. Powell needs to find that girl and promises a promotion of five grades in rank to the officer who finds her. Normally regulations forbid elevation of more than three ranks at a time; "To hell with Regulations... I've got to get that girl."

Powell also visits the Esper Guild Institute, headquarters of the Esper Guild where young and recently-identified Espers are trained to develop their telepathic talents. We get a couple glimpses of the screening process for potential espers, a classroom full of beginners ("Think, class. Think. Words are not necessary. Think. Remember to break the speech relfex. Repeat the first rule after me..."), and another classroom where more advanced students are practicing weaving threads of thought into simple patterns. Powell pauses to read the Esper Pledge, engraved on a golden plaque on the wall: a formal oath, modeled after the Hippocratic Oath. Powell, we have seen, takes this oath very seriously. Some other espers we have seen, not so much.

Powell's purpose is to speak with the T'Sung H'sai, President of the Guild, who is in the process of dictating an angry letter to the League of Esper Patriots, a splinter group within the Guild which seeks to reduce the Guild's taxes and eliminate its education programs in order to maintain their own power and position in society. You might call them the "One Percent." T'sung calls them "a gang of selfish, self-seeking reactionaries."

As he shouts at his secretary, T'sung engages in telepathic small talk with Powell, ("...have you found the peeper of your dreams yet?" "Not yet, sir.") before referring him to another staff member. Powell wants to send a message through the esper grapevine. He gives her a photo and official police description of Barbara D'Courtney and promises that the esper who locates her will have his Guild taxes remitted for a year. Since the Esper Guild levys a 90% tax on its members, (one reason why the League of Esper Patriots makes such a big stink about it), this is a big deal. Powell is important enough in the Guild that he thinks he can persuade the Guild Council to approve the reward.

Meanwhile, Ben Reich has been working on his own plans. He contacts Jerry Church, the disgraced esper who was booted out of the Guild for participating in an underhanded scheme with Reich some years before, and who gave Reich the weapon he used to kill D'Courtney. Now Reich promises to get Jerry reinstated in the Guild in return for his services. For some time now, Reich has been bankrolling the League of Esper Patriots and believes they'll do what he wants. He also tells Jerry to set up a meeting with Keno Quizzard.
Earlier I have described the world of The Demolished Man as "a crime-free society." That of course is an overstatement. Premeditated murder is virtually unknown, but there are all sorts of crime and vice. Keno Quizzard, the blind croupier of Quizzard's Casino deals in many of them. Reich hires Quizzard to find Barbara D'Courtney.

"Check every bawdy house, bagnio, Blind Tiger, and frab-joint in the city. Pass the word down the grapevine. I'm willing to pay. I don't want any fuss. I just want the girl Understand?"

Here's another place where Bester excels. Slang drips from his characters' dialogue in musical cascades; sometimes incomprehensible, and yet the sense comes through. I think he does a better job at imagining a future dialect than Heinlein does in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. The slang, the jargon, the idioms and catchphrases in Bester's work just flow better and each one carries with it a glimpse of one facet of the culture. At his best, Heinlein does this too; but here Bester immerses us in his world.

The next week becomes a chess game between Powell and Reich. We witness it through the memos Gus Tate, Reich's esper accomplice, sends to him, and the memos Powell sends to his staff. The police seem to be following blind alleys, but Reich isn't taking any chances.

Reich sets up a couple more schemes to find the D'Courtney girl. He tells the advertising staff promoting a new Jumper his company is selling he wants a girl to be the product's spokesmodel. He describes the type girl that would make the idea model -- coincidentally just like the D'Courtney girl -- and tells his staff to find her. Elsewhere he announces the funding of a new string of homeless shelters. Ostensibly a public relations gimmick, these shelters are the type of place where the girl might turn up. And so he also instructs his director of corporate espionage to have photos taken of everyone who comes to the shelter.

He also arranges for Wilson Jordan, the technician who developed the Rhodopsin Ionizer Reich used to knock out the guards, to "inherit" an estate on Callisto. When the police come to interview him, he is already gone.

Move and counter-move; step and counter-step; Reich and Powell play their game of cat and mouse. All the while, both men are furiously trying to find the girl who witnessed the crime.

She turns up in the establishment of Chooka Frood, the landlady of a labyrinthine warehouse catering to all manners of vice, who runs a fortune-telling racket on the side. A low-rent con artist staying at Chooka's place spots the girl and doesn't think anything of it; but the information in his mind is peeped, first by Jerry Church, when the guy comes to his pawn shop begging for cash, and then by an esper security man at the bank where he tries to pull an unsuccessful con. Both Reich and Powell receive the information at nearly the same time. Now it becomes a race to get the girl.

Chooka's Rainbow House was at one time a ceramics factory before it was bombed during a war the previous century. The bombing caused the various glazes, metals, glasses and plastics in the factory to become fused to the basement walls, resulting in a psychedelic riot of color. This is where Chooka stages her fortune-telling act, and this is where Powell goes first.

He is unimpressed by Chooka's act, until he realizes that she is also a peeper; an untrained one who never joined the Guild. That any esper would deliberately avoid joining the Esper Community frankly boggles Powell, but he doesn't have time to chat about it. Peeping her mind and those of her customers, he sees that Chooka has been using the D'Courtney girl in her act; and that the girl is presently upstairs.

Reich is just entering the building. Quizzard was supposed to meet him. He hears Chooka screaming "Get out of here, you goddam cop!" from downstairs and realizes he has to hurry. Audacity, Bravery and Confidence. He has a head start on Powell and gets to the upper level of the building first, the labyrinth of rooms Chooka lets out and where she has her own residence. He finds the room where the D'Courtney girl was staying, but the girl is not there. He does find the murder weapon she ran off with the night of the fatal party.

He finds a small chamber with a crystal floor overlooking the lower level, the level between the cellar and the labyrinth, occupied by Chooka's other business, the bordello. This is a Voyeur Chamber, and though the transparent floor, Reich can see a boudoir beneath where Quizzard sits fondling the D'Courtney girl on his lap. But the girl stares blankly, seemingly oblivious to what is going on.
Reich is carrying a scrambler, a neural weapon he seized from Chooka's bodyguard on the way in. He now aims it at Quizzard.

Which is when Powell bursts on the scene. Powell knocks out Quizzard and the other woman in the room with a psychic blast.

There was no doubt that Powell had accomplished this on a TP level, and for the first time in their war, Reich was afraid of Powell ... physically afraid. Again he aimed the scrambler, this time at Powell's head as the peeper walked to the chair.

Then something unexpected happens. Powell asks if the girl needs any help. At the word "help", the girl seems to come awake. She darts around, and then starts screaming, "Father! ... For God's sake! Father!"
Reich realizes that the girl is reliving -- and re-enacting -- the night of her father's murder. She collapses in a heap and Powell picks her up. There they are, the cop who wants to catch him and the witness who can incriminate him, beneath him like sitting ducks. They can't see him; they don't know 'there. He has the scrambler at its most lethal setting. All he has to do is pull the trigger...

Powell looks up. "Go ahead," Powell called. "Here we are. An easy shot. One for the both of us. Go ahead!"

Reich doesn't. And Powell takes the docile girl out of the building.

Reich is halfway to Demolition.


NEXT:  Powell has his witness, but can she testify? The @kins Method; Powell needs a chaperone, and sets a trap. Like Yogi Berra said, it's Déjà Èprouvé all over again!

The Demolished Man part 2: Party Games

Last week we met Ben Reich, a man who has everything except peace of mind; a man tormented by dreams of a Faceless Man and bedeviled by a business rival, Craye D'Courtney. Reich has come to the conclusion that his rival must die. But how can he kill his enemy in a world where telepaths are present in every level of society and where there hasn't been a successful murder in nearly a century?

Reich has persuaded another esper, a 1st Class named Gus Tate, to act as his accomplice, gathering information and running interference against other mind-readers. The Esper Guild has a very strict ethical code, and if Tate's role in the crime is discovered, it will ruin him; but Tate is also very, very greedy. Tate has picked up information about D'Courtney at a cocktail party hosted by Lincoln Powell, another prominent 1st Class who is a high-ranking police detective.

D'Courtney is on his way from Mars and will be arriving on Earth in a couple days. He will be staying secretly for one night at the townhouse of Maria Beaumont, a high society type known for her lavish and lascivious parties. Tate doesn't know D'Courtney's plans, other than that he seems to be planning some drastic action.

"Against me!" Reich growls. He has already sent a coded peace offering, suggesting a merger between the two companies, but the offer was rejected.

So Reich works on plans of his own. He recalls seeing an antique old-fashioned book, the kind with pages that they used to read in the old days, of party games in a fancy shop. He goes to the shop in order to purchase a gift "for a friend I've neglected." He pretends to come across the book he wants by chance and purchases it.

He then takes it home and systematically vandalizes each and every page except one, with burns, stains, scissors, etc.; so that only one game in the entire book is completely readable: the game that fits with his plan. As he mutilates the book, he fantasizes about doing the same to D'Courtney. Yes, he is one sick puppy. He has the book gift-wrapped and sent to Maria. The plan is that Maria will then play the legible party game at one of her soirees, and Reich will use that as cover for his murder. Which always seemed to me like a rather improbable plan, but as it turns out, it works.

Her reply comes quickly:

"Darling! Darling! I thot you'd forgotten little ol sexy me. How 2 divine. Come to Beaumont House tonite. We're having a party. We'll play games from your sweet gifft."

Yes, Bester also predicted netspeak, although I suppose a version of it was current in the advertising of his day. Reich begs off on tonight, but says he can come on Wednesday, the day he knows D'Courtney will be there.

He picks up a useful gadget from his company's R&D department, a Rhodopsin Ionizer, "visual knockout capsules" which flash a frequency of light which not only blinds the subject but abolishes the subject's sense of time and space, rendering him unconscious.

Next Reich visits Duffy Wyg&, a girl he knows who works as a songwriter and who had written some effective propaganda jingles to help break a strike at his company some time back. (That was not a typo; several of the characters have typographic puns in their names; just pronounce it "Duffy Wygand." She's a clever girl, and Reich considers her "the epitome of the modern career girl -- the virgin seductress. She flirts with Reich relentlessly as he commissions another behavior-modifying jingle before he casually shifts the subject to the real purpose of his visit. He asks her what was the most persistent song she's ever written, the kind of song you just can't get out of your head.

"Oh. Pepsis, we call 'em." 

"Why?" 

"Dunno. They say the first one was written centuries ago by a character named Pepsi."

She tells him about a theme song she wrote for a flop sitcom about a wacky mathematician. (Gee, sounds like comedy gold to me!). The song was so annoying, that the show was cancelled just because of the crazy theme. The song is titled "Tenser said the Tensor" and at his urging and despite her warning, she plays it for him. She's right; it's a stupid, monotonous little earworm, "Guaranteed to obsess you for a month. It haunted me for a year."

Last of all, Reich needs a weapon; and for that he goes to a pawn shop run by Jerry Church, a 2nd Class Esper who once worked for him and whom Riech once talked into helping with a shady deal. Church was caught breaking the Esper Code and booted out of the Esper Guild. Now he is an exile, ostracized by his own kind and forced to interact with other humans solely through spoken words and unable to share another esper's thoughts. He is a bitter and broken man, and he hates Reich. But he sells Reich a gun. Firearms are practically unknown in this society. Since espers have made murder all but impossible, guns have ceased to be an effective means of violence. (You may argue whether this is believable or not; the story establishes it as a given). Reich buys a small pistol from Church, a collapsible gadget, easily concealable and with a built-in stiletto. He tells Church that he wants it as a gift for Gus Tate. The mental static from the jingle running through Reich's brain ("Tenser, said the tensor...") prevents Church from reading exactly what his true intentions are.

Madame Maria Beaumont lives in a lavish mansion modeled after the old Pennsylvania Station in New York City. Her "thousand most intimate enemies" know her as "the Gilt Corpse." That's how Reich thinks of her: "...the painted figurehead of a pornographic ship." This hedonistic hostess is known for her sybaritic parties and for the nude portraits of herself that she gives to friends.

Reich comes to the Wednesday night party, accompanied by Tate. As a rule, Maria does not invited espers to her parties, but Reich's invitation is for himself and a guest. I suspect that this lack of espers is the reason why D'Courtney is staying at her place; for the privacy. Maria does employ a couple esper secretaries, who are welcoming and screening the guests. "Your murder's showing," Tate warns Reich as they approach. Reich had been letting his thoughts wander to his plans. He switches to thinking about the jingle: ("Eight, sir; seven sir...").

He schmoozes a bit with Maria under the ever-changing lights of the hall. Many of the guests are wearing clothing with ultraviolet panels which turn transparent under UV light. Reich isn't. He doesn't seem to have a huge interest in sex and a certain disdain for those who do; as with Miss Wyg&, he keeps his relationship with Maria strictly on the level of insincere banter.

One of the secretaries informs Maria of a gate-crasher: a young man named Chervil who has snuck in on a bet. He's cute, and Maria considers letting him stay and having some fun with him.

Tate is worried. Chervil is a 2nd Class esper and their plan depends on no one being able to read Reich's mind. "Reich, I can block the social secretaries. They're only 3rds. But I can't guarantee to handle them and a 2nd too ... even if he is only a kid. He's young. He may be too nervous to do any clever peeping. But I can't promise."

Reich refuses to back down. This may be his only chance to kill D'Courtney. He trusts to the principles outlined by his ancestor's murder file: "Be audacious; be brave; be confident." Reich goes directly to Chervil; he tells the boy he's been discovered and warns that he'd better leave right away. Preoccupied by his own illicit activities and distracted by the damn pepsi running through Reich's head, ("Tension, apprehension...") Chervil gratefully follows Reich's advice. Maria is miffed with him when she discovers Reich has frightened off her new chew toy, but the plan can proceed.

Tate has located where in the mansion D'Courtney is hiding and identified the security: two bodyguards. "@kins was right. He's dangerously sick." But Reich remains undeterred. The games are starting, and as promised, Maria has announced the game he maneuvered her into selecting: "Sardine", a type of hide-and-seek played in the dark. (Of course, Maria has to include a kinky twist of her own; she strips as the lights go out and she tells her guests to get naked). The only thing that matters to Reich is that for the next half hour or so the entire house will be dark and he'll be able to slip out of the party without being seen.

Following Tate's directions, he finds the suite where D'Courtney is spending the night. He uses the Rodopsin Ionizer to incapacitate the bodyguards and enters the room.

He has never seen D'Courtney before. The man is old. He is withered and decrepit. For a moment Reich has the horrible suspicion that the man might already be dead and that he has been cheated of his murder. D'Courtney can barely speak, but incredibly he seems happy to see Reich and even attempts to hug him. He seems genuinely bewildered by Reich's hostile reaction.

"You know why I'm here. What are you trying to do? Make love to me?" Reich laughed. "You crafty old pimp. Am I supposed to turn soft for your chewing?" His hand lashed out. The old man reeled back from the slap into an orchid chair that looked like a wound. 

... 

"... Last week I gave you one last chance to wash in decency. Me. Ben Reich. I asked for armistice. Begged for peace. Merger. I begged like a screaming woman. My father would spit on me if he were alive. Every fighting Reich would blacken my face with contempt. But I asked for peace, didn't I? Eh? Didn't I" Reich prodded D'Courtney savagely. "Answer me." 

D'Cournety's face was blanched and staring. Finally he whispered: "Yes. You asked ... I accepted."

Bester suckered us. When Reich sent the merger offer to D'Courtney back in chapter one, we got to see a page from the code book he used; and like most readers, I'm sure, when I first read that part I skimmed over the code. Later on, Reich received the coded reply, WWHG and took Reich's word that it meant "Offer rejected." Riech was wrong; D'Courtney had accepted the offer and had come to Earth to cement the peace negotiations.

Reich won't believe it. "Liar. Clumsy old liar." He pulls out the weapon and shoves it into the old man's mouth to kill him.

And that's when the girl comes in.

Reich thought D'Courtney would be alone. Even Tate thought he'd be alone. Neither one suspected that the old man was travelling with his daughter. She struggles with him. He shoots and kills D'Courtney, but the girl manages to grab his weapon and runs off with it.

He doesn't have time to chase her. Reich returns to the party in time to catch the end of the game. The lights come back on and Reich, as the only one not "tagged" in the game, is the loser. He's a good sport about it, because he wasn't playing the stupid game anyway; (although Maria scolds him for not stripping naked like everyone else). Then Maria notices the blood on his sleeve, and screams.

Lincoln Powell, Prefect of the Psychotic Crimes Division and 1st Class Esper is summoned to the Beaumont mansion. The regular police are already there and they've quickly realized that they're dealing with a Triple-A Felony, a crime which hasn't been successfully committed in nearly a century. The police inspector on the scene, a 2nd Class esper named Jackson Beck, mentally fills him in, and they agree to do a Good Cop/Bad Cop routine on the assembled guests.

He meets a late arrival: a 2nd Class esper attorney named Jo 1/4maine (geddit? Quarter-maine? Sheesh, you guys are squares.). 1/4maine has been summoned by his client, Ben Reich. Powell finds this suspicious, but there's nothing illegal about it. Under the law, evidence obtained through mind-reading is inadmissible in court unless the subject agrees to be read. 1/4maine is here to protect his client and make sure the police espers don't overstep their authority. Powell questions Reich under 1/4maine's supervision and finds he likes the guy. Reich has a natural charisma and charm. It doesn't stop him from suspecting Reich, though.

Powell sets up a little psycho-drama for the benefit of the assembled suspects. He tries to persuade the innocent guests to volunteer to be peeped in order to identify the not-so-innocent by elimination. Unfortunately, if they were innocent, they wouldn't be attending parties thrown by Maria Beaumont; they all have secrets to hide and all refuse to be scanned. But the farce does distract people enough to allow Powell to peep a few unguarded thoughts from Reich. It's not evidence he can use in court, but he is morally certain now that Reich is his killer.

Powell has another conversation with Reich; this one private without his lawyer. Without either of them admitting anything, the two men lay their cards on the table.

"You're two men, Reich. One of them's fine; and the other's rotten. If you were all killer, it wouldn't be so bad. But there's half louse and half saint in you and that makes it worse." 

"I knew it was going to be bad when you winked," Riech grinned. "You're really tricky, Powell. You really scare me. I never can tell when the punch is coming or which way to duck." 

"Then for God's sake stop ducking and get it over with," Powell said. His voice burned. His eyes burned. Once again he terrified Reich with his intensity. "I'm going to lick you on this one, Ben. I'm going to strangle the lousy killer in you, because I admire the saint. This is the beginning of the end, for you. You know it. Why don't you make it easier for yourself?" 

For an instant, Reich wavered on the verge of surrender. Then he mustered himself to meet the attack. "And give up the best fight of my life? No. Never in a million years, Linc. We're going to slug this out straight down to the finish."

The two men shake hands grimly.

"I lost a great partner in you," Riech said. 

"You lost a great man in yourself, Ben." 

"Enemies?" 

"Enemies." 

It was the beginning of Demolition.

NEXT: The game of cat and mouse begins. Powell knows Reich is guilty, but can he prove it? Can Reich stay one step ahead of the combined forces of the police and the Espers Guild? And what happened to D'Courtney's daughter?

The Demolished Man part 1: Man Without a Face

Alfred Bester was a supernova in the field of science fiction. He wrote a spate of short stories in the 1950s and two novels, and then withdrew from science fiction to return to the more lucrative field of writing for travel magazines. But the stories he wrote in that brief blaze of creativity were packed full of invention and ideas. Some critics consider him a precursor to the "New Wave" science fiction of the '60s, and the Cyberpunk movement of the '80s. The character of Bester, the Psi-cop in Babylon 5 was named after him. His experimentation with the very text can be seen in his two great novels, The Stars My Destination and the one we're going to be discussing for the next few weeks: The Demolished Man.

Ben Reich is one of the richest men in the Solar System. His company, Monarch Utilities & Resources, has holdings on three planets and six satellites. He's handsome and charismatic; "I wouldn't change looks with the devil. I wouldn't change places with God," he tells himself, and it's not a boast. "I'm not afraid!... I'm never afraid!"

And yet nearly every night he wakes up screaming.

Reich is haunted by nightmares in which he is pursued by a Man With No Face. The dreams are gnawing at him; obsessing him. He has an esper psychiatrist on call 24/7, but his doctor can't help him. "There's a limit to my ability, Mr. Reich." The doctor is a 2nd Class Esper, capable of reading pre-conscious thought, but not of digging down into the subconscious. He believes that Reich knows the identity of the Faceless Man from his dreams, but refuses to admit it to himself.

"E for Esper," he muttered. "Esper for Extra Sensory Perception... For Telepaths, Mind Readers, Brain Peepers. You'd think a mind-reading doctor could stop the screaming. You'd think an Esper M.D. would earn his money and peep inside your head and stop the screaming. Those damned mindreaders are supposed to be the gretest advance since Homo sapiens evolved. E for Evolution. Bastards! E for Exploitation!"

But his doctor's proddings do suggest the answer. Reich has an enemy; a nemisis, rather; a business rival named Craye D'Courtney who owns a major Martian transportation conglomerate. He hates D'Courtney, and realizes that he wants to kill him; no, he needs to kill him.

Thinking things over, he decides to give D'Courtney one last chance. He sends his rival a coded message, suggesting a merger between their two companies. But deep down, he's certain he'll have to kill his enemy. All through the day he keeps coming up against reminders of their personal war: Reich sees his stock dip a point and D'Courtney's rise; his Chief of Personnel tells him that D'Courtney is hiring away all the top quality espers and that he needs to hire a Class 1 to manage his staff.

Reich has a casual conversation with West, his company's "Recreation Director", actually in charge of corporate espionage. He knows he'll need the help of an esper if he wants to go through with murder, and West is a Class 2. But West doesn't want to know whatever Reich is planning. All Espers are members of the Espers' Guild and bound by a strict ethical code. The price of breaking those rules is ostracism by the rest of the Esper community; and nothing Reich can offer is worth that price.

Reich goes to his office and digs some papers out of his vault; confidential and highly valuable information. Among them is a dossier written by his ancestor, Geoffrey Reich, who originally founded the company: an outline of four methods for committing the Perfect Murder. Well, that's over-stating things. The plans are over a century old and hopelessly outdated. After all, with the proliferation of espers in the police departments and in most professions, there hasn't been a successful murder in over seventy years. Still, Ben finds them inspirational reading:

"Caution: The essence of murder never changes. In every era it remains the conflict of the killer against society with the victim as the prize. And the ABC of conflict with society remains constant. Be audacious, be brave, be confident and you will not fail. Against these assets society can have no defense."

As he turns over ideas in his mind, D'Courtney's response arrives: a one-word coded reply: "WWHG", Offer Refused. "All right, D'Courtney. If you won't let it be merger, then I'll make it murder."

Reich has information on a number of corrupt, eminently bribable persons; and one of these is a Class 1 esper named Augustus Tate. Tate belongs to a faction within the Espers Guild that opposes the Guild's policy of increasing the number of espers through controlled breeding, in order to preserve the power and income of top-tier peepers. Reich confronts Tate directly and lays out his offer: help him kill D'Courtney, and Reich will put his fortune into breaking the Guild so that Tate and his friends can be on top.

It's a hell of a risk. Ten years ago, Reich persuaded a 2nd Level named Jerry Church to participate in a scam which led to Church being booted out of the Guild. Here the stakes are even higher; if caught, both men face Demolition. (We are not immediately told what that is; but it can't be good). But Tate is a corrupt and greedy man. Reich assures him that he will only be needed to gain intelligence and to run interference with other espers. Being a Class 1, Tate has exceptionally strong mind-blocks which only another Class 1 can penetrate.

Reich knows that D'Courntney is on his way to Earth. The first step will be for Tate to learn where D'Courtney will be.

Next we meet Lincoln Powell, a Class 1 esper who has been mentioned before. He is a detective with the police Psychotic Division. The name of his department tells you how crime is regarded in this society. He is also highly-regarded in the Esper's Guild and would be an obvious candidate for the next Guild president if he were not unmarried; the Espers Guild requires all its members to marry before the age of forty in order to increase the Next Generation of Espers. He is handsome, easy-going, and with perhaps a too highly-developed sense of humor. He is having several Espers over to his house for a party.

The first guest is Mary Noyes, a close friend who is helping organize the party. They flirt a bit -- she's deeply in love with him -- but although he will tell her "I love you", he won't think it. He likes her as a friend, but cannot give her more.

He took her shoulders firmly, held her close and looked deep into her eyes. "You're a 2nd. Read me as deeply as you can. What's in my mind? What's in my heart? What's the answer?" 

He removed all blocks. The thundering plunging depths of his mind cascaded over her in a warm, frightening torrent ... terrifying, yet magnetic and desirable; but ... "Snow. Mint. Tulips. Taffeta," she said wearily. "Go meet your guests, Mr. Powell. I'll make your canapes. It's all I'm good for."

Here we have one of those virtuoso passages which must have driven the typesetters crazy. Bester has the espers speaking to each other telepathically, but instead of simply rendering ordinary dialogue in italics, he plays games with the presentation to give a sense that more information is being carried than just the naked words. A couple of the espers have names that are typographic puns, like @kins. Words are folded into sentences to show associated ideas. In a couple places we have sentences cascading, intersecting and overlapping with each other, so that in places the same word is used in criss-crossing lines of conversation.

Augustus Tate is there, discreetly trying to pick up information about D'Courtney. Powell senses he's up to something, but cannot tell what. Jerry Church is also present, hanging around outside the building, trying to eavesdrop on what fragments of telepathic conversation. Unlike Tate, he's not looking for anything; he just desperately misses the contact of other minds. Powell comes out later and offers him a drink. He offers to try rescinding Jerry's ostracism; but Church is in no mood to accept pity; especially from the cop who brought him down in the first place.

NEXT:  Reich goes to see a gal about an earworm; buys a book of party games, and puts his plan into effect. Tension, apprehension and dissension will begin.