_There was nothing wrong with
him that a Rider could not cure ...
and the rougher, the better!_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
They would not believe Malloy was alone in there, in the padded cell.
That made it worse.
Malloy was in his month for lying on his stomach to avoid bed sores. He
was walking from Peoria, Illinois, to Detroit, Michigan, currently and
he had just reached Chicago. It was fine to see State Street again, and
the jewelry stores stuck in the alcoves of churches with the handsomely
barred windows.
A man in Army-surplus green with an old library book was asking for
carfare to a hiring hall when they began opening the door.
Malloy rolled over on one elbow. It was peculiar. They hadn't done that
for three years.
Two of them came inside, thick men with disinterested faces.
"Try no sudden moves," one of them advised him.
"We will anticipate you," the other one added.
Malloy went through the unfamiliar process of standing up. He looked
at two men. "I wouldn't try anything against the four of you. I'm not
_that_ crazy."
"Time for an interrogation, Malloy," the orderly said. "Come with us."
Malloy fell in between them and left the padded cell, frowning.
"What kind of an interrogation?" he asked them.
"What other kind?" one countered. "A sanity hearing."
He felt his eyebrows jerk. _His sanity?_ He thought that had been
established long ago. Or his lack of it.
* * * * *
Malloy remembered the doctor. He hadn't had much else to do for several
years.
He was Dr. Heirson, a graying man with starched face and collar. But
the younger man sitting with Heirson behind the broad, translucent desk
was a stranger to Malloy. He seemed to be a comic strip drawing, all in
straight lines.
"Yes, sir."
"Step forward, Michael," Heirson said.
Malloy stepped forward. It had been a long time since he had been
allowed to travel so far.
"Now relax, Michael," the doctor continued, leaning forward and
grinning hideously. "All you have to do is tell me the truth."
"No, I don't, Doctor. I'm under no compulsion to tell you the truth.
I'm perfectly capable of lying if it would do me any good."
"Hush that, Michael. You must not try to make believe you can lie. I
know you tell me only the truth."
"All right," Malloy said, exhaling deeply. "Believe that I speak only
the truth if you like. But remember, I just told you that I'm a liar
and that must be true."
Heirson blinked in watery confusion. He was obviously senile; only the
old man's Rider kept him from coming apart at his mental seams.
The angle-faced man spoke into Heirson's ear. The old doctor continued
to blink for a moment, then faced Malloy, the lines of his face drawn
into an asterisk.
"What? You mean to tell me that you don't have an inner voice that
urges you to tell the truth at all times?"
"No," Malloy explained, "I do not hear voices."
"You don't?"
"Never."
"And there is no inner sense that tells you when somebody is plotting
against you?"
"Absolutely not."
"And when you are in trouble or danger, there is nothing that allows
you to somehow look into the future or read minds or see through walls?"
"I can't do any of those things," Malloy stated.
Heirson threw up his hands. "Complete withdrawal from reality!
Pathological! Why is he here anyway?"
The younger man grasped the withered thin upper arm and whispered
audibly but not understandably. Heirson's face eventually quivered
back in line with Malloy's.
"Michael, do you know what year this is?" the doctor asked.
Malloy thought about that one. He wasn't absolutely certain, but he
made some rapid calculations.
"1978?"
"1979! And what has been the single most important development in human
history in recent times?"
Malloy sighed. He knew what he was expected to say.
"The coming of the Riders."
"And what are Riders?"
"Riders," Malloy recited patiently, "are elements of a symbiotic
life-form. They have united with human beings to make one symbiotic
creature. They have given much more than they have taken. All prominent
religions recognize that they do not interfere with human free will.
They have made us healthier, virtually immortal, and near supermen. The
human race now is so much zoa, and every man is a zoon. Every man but
me. _Damn it, I don't have any Rider!_ I'm not a superman and I cannot
get away with pretending to be one!"
Heirson oscillated his head. "Michael, Michael, your case isn't
unique. There are others who claim that they have no Riders--usually
maintaining that they are naturally superhuman and need no help from
some funny kind of foreigner. They are tolerated the same way, that
B.R., we tolerated people who claimed they possessed psychic auras, or
who got up in cathedrals and yelled that they had no souls. But you,
Michael, are a trouble-maker. You've been rude, vulgar, and reckless
with your life and others in your pretense to be Riderless. Your
pathological retreat from reality leaves us with no choice but to--"
The other man behind the desk shoved a paper in front of Heirson and
tapped it forcefully with an index finger.
* * * * *
Heirson read the paper and his eyebrows went askew. "Yes, yes, we
have discovered that there is a basic difference between you and the
others who maintain they have no Riders. It would seem it _has_ been
established that you really _do not_ have a Rider. Remarkable! Yes.
Well, I have no alternative but to dismiss you from this institution,
Michael Malloy, and to extend to you my personal apology for any
inconvenience your three-and-a-half-years' detainment may have caused
you."
A trick, Malloy thought.
Only what point would there be in tricking him?
The oppressive horror of it crushed down upon him with its full weight.
"Oh no," he said. "No, sir. Take me back to my padded cell. I've got
my rights. I'm not going out there again. Maybe I could have learned to
live with it once, but not now. I can't face up to living with a world
of supermen, people who can do everything better than I can. _Take me
back._ I think I'm going to get violent any minute now!"
He took a swing at the nearest guard, but naturally the guard's Rider
told him what was coming and he dodged deftly, caught Malloy's arm
and twisted it into half-nelson to hold him completely, infuriatingly
helpless. Malloy had to hold back tears of frustration.
"Fortunately," Dr. Heirson croaked, "you can do no harm even if you do
get violent, and I'm sure everyone will want to do everything possible
for a poor unfortunate like yourself. We all will make allowances."
"No, no, no!" Malloy announced with the rhythm of his stomping feet. "I
won't leave here! I _won't_!"
* * * * *
The man beside Heirson favored Malloy with a smile; Malloy wasn't
sure whether it was friendly or mocking. The stranger nodded his head
briefly to the guards.
Malloy was dragged, protesting, down the marble-floored hallway to the
entrance of the mental hospital. His anguished cries echoed across the
ornate ceiling of the old building.
He was shoved out the front door with a parcel in brown paper under his
arms.
Malloy made one desperate attempt to get back inside but the massive
door clanged in his face, and he could hear the reverberations dying
away inside and the steady retreat of footsteps.
Malloy turned away in pain from the unaccustomed brilliance and warmth
of the sun and banged on the door with his fists and demanded to be
readmitted.
He grew hoarser and hoarser and he slid further and further down until
he was squatting on the threshold, his cheek rested against the warm
varnished surface of the door.
Malloy had never been an overly proud or vain man before the Riders had
come. After all, he'd had one of the most menial jobs on Earth; he had
been a magazine editor. But now he felt squashed under the thumb of
humiliation.
The monstrous indignity of it all!
To be thrown out of an asylum!
After a time, Malloy felt a coolness, a wetness on his head.
He dreamed a little dream to himself that he knew was a dream: they
were coming to wrap him in warm sheets again.
But it was only a dream. This wetness wasn't warm--it was chilly. He
finally identified it from his memories. This was rain.
He stirred himself and gathered up the brown bundle that he knew must
contain his suit, papers and a little money.
Malloy trudged down the road toward the town that lay below the
sanitarium, his collar turned up.
He found he didn't mind the rain so much. It tended to settle the dust,
and the walk would be a long one.
* * * * *
Grayson Amery, the iron-haired publisher, greeted Malloy with a firm,
warm, dry handshake.
"Michael, it's certainly good to see you again. You are looking well."
"Yes, the bruises left by the strait jacket straps don't show," said
Malloy.
"A unique miscarriage of justice," Amery said.
"I certainly hope it's unique. I hope there aren't any more poor devils
like me locked away."
Amery offered Malloy a chair with a broad, well-manicured hand. "I'm
confident that there aren't. And you are out now, fortunately."
"You can call it fortune if you like," Malloy said uneasily.
"But you _are_ glad to be out?"
Malloy hesitated. "I'm resigned to it. The flow of time washed some
of the salt out of the wound. Being born is definitely a traumatic
experience."
"How well I remember!" Amery said.
Malloy glanced at him sharply, then eased back in his chair. Of course,
like everybody else, thanks to his Rider, Amery had total recall.
Malloy couldn't even remember his first birthday party.
"Is there any way I can be of help to you, Michael?" Amery went on.
"Sure. I want my job back."
Amery's forehead squeezed into lines of distress. "Yes, I was made
aware of that. But, Michael, there have been a lot of changes in the
publishing business since you were with us. For instance, it would be
difficult for you to proofread a manuscript today."
"I'm hardly the type who can't spell. I haven't forgotten that."
"I know, Michael, but here--have a look at this."
Amery handed over a sheet of paper.
Malloy glanced at it. It seemed a typical sheet of a writer's
manuscript, though a horrible yellowish gray that made the typescript
from the tatters of a ribbon almost illegible. It was also smudged with
jelly-doughnut fingerprints and there were several holes burned in it
by droppings of cigarette ash. Pretty sloppy, but things didn't seem
to have changed much. Not until he read the paper.
--/Cynthia/--/ (walked) toward --/#((him))#/-- jauntily (/).
"'Hi,'" --/she/--# called (out) to ((him)).
"'/Hello/'", 'Sweetstuff', he / said /, ((trying)) to # sound #
(gay) /....
Malloy looked up blankly. "What are all the cockeyed punctuation marks
doing in there?" he asked.
Amery exhaled Havana smoke expansively. "That's the way things are now,
Michael. Those punctuation marks indicate whether the protagonist's
thoughts are self-directed or Rider-directed, or a combination of
both, and which is dominant at the time, human or Rider. They became
absolutely essential with the coming of the Riders."
Malloy covered his lips with his fingers. "Of course, I don't
understand this punctuation now. But I could learn it quickly enough."
The publisher shook his massive head. "No, you couldn't learn it.
You don't have a Rider. You could never understand all the little
subtleties."
"I could fake it."
"Never. It might get past the average reader, but the author and
critics would know right away. All an editor can do is watch for
typographical errors and change them the way the author wanted them
if his fingers hadn't tripped over the wrong keys. As it was, we used
to get a good many complaints from writers about you making changes in
their work."
"Grammar," Malloy explained. "I got kind of a bug about grammar. I used
to fix up manuscripts some."
* * * * *
Rubbing out his fat cigar, Amery leaned across his desk. "This isn't
like the good old days when I started out, Mike. If I had my way today,
I'd get the National Guard ordered out and have those miserable slobs
grind out stories with a bayonet at their backs!" The red gleam dimmed
in Amery's eyes. "Those were the days, by God! Back then you didn't
edit manuscripts with any dinky little blue pencil--you used a razor
blade and a grease stick!"
Amery slumped down in his swivel, his eyes now only embers. "But that
day is over, Mike. Writers have their rights, damn them. You get the
wrong punctuation in one of their private-eye epics, Mike, and one of
them will slap a suit against the company for defacing a Work of Art,
and both of us could land in jail."
"Westerns," Malloy suggested in desperation. "Historical fiction. They
can't employ the new punctuation. I could edit them."
The veteran publisher shook his head again. "No. Cowboys in westerns
today turn your stomach more than ever with their damned nobility and
purity. Heroines in historical novels act just as if deodorants and
Living Bras had been in use back then. And these stories are written as
if the characters _did_ have Riders, with only a few minor concessions."
"Okay." Malloy stood up. "I'll go quietly."
"Maybe you're lucky, Mike," Amery said up at him. "I remember
old-fashioned ideals like privacy and free will and free enterprise.
They don't exist any more. You can't tell me that my free will hasn't
been affected. Why, every business deal I've had since the Coming has
been strictly ethical. You know that isn't like me!"
"No," Malloy admitted thoughtfully.
"I'm even so ethical now that I recognize I owe you something. I know
money can't repay--"
"Hell it can't," Malloy said quickly.
The publisher stripped off a sheaf of bills with deliberation.
Malloy pocketed them. Enough to keep him eating for a couple of months.
After that, there was always the Salvation Army. He didn't have
anything to worry about, really.
"Amery, what would _you_ do if you were in my place?" he heard himself
ask suddenly.
* * * * *
Amery steepled his fingers. "I hesitate to suggest a deception to
anyone, but since you ask me what I would do if I didn't have a Rider,
I will tell you the truth: I would pretend that I did not have a Rider."
"What are you talking about? I _don't_ have a Rider. So far as I myself
personally know, I'm the only person in the whole damned world that
doesn't have one. I'd like to find out why, but I'm no scientist. So I
just have to live with it. Or without it."
"There's a very, very fine difference," Amery pointed out with one
finger. "Semantics is no longer a living science since the Coming, but
I'll try to make myself clear. You must pretend to have to pretend that
you don't have a Rider. Join the Jockey Set."
"Jockey Set," Malloy mumbled, massaging the back of his neck. "I've
been put away for three and a half years. What's the Jockey Set?"
"Jockeys are characters who pretend that they don't have Riders, that
they are self-sufficient human beings. Sometimes they use their Riders'
powers and claim to be natural supermen. Sometimes they leave Rider
power untapped and pretend to be natural, old-type human beings. But
they are all fakes. The Rider in them comes out sooner or later."
"But if they have Riders, will I be able to fool them into thinking I'm
only pretending to be without one?"
Amery lifted his shoulders and drew down the corners of his mouth. "Who
knows? I will tell you this, though--you must be pretty much of a blank
to a Rider. If they won't touch you, it must mean they can't."
Malloy started to ask him how he knew what Riders felt about him, then
thought better of it.
"How would I fake trying to hide the fact that I didn't have a Rider? I
suppose, maybe, by slipping up and letting myself predict the future or
something...."
"That's it!" Amery beamed. "You see? It will be easy!"
"Of course," Malloy said dully.
"I mean, that is to say, any time you don't do something and don't do
it particularly well, the Jockeys will only admire your splendid act."
Malloy nodded thoughtfully. He turned and shook hands with the
publisher. "Well, Amery, thanks for the money--and the advice. You
always were the most devious master of deceit I ever knew."
"Thank you," Amery said with great sincerity.
"There's one more thing. This may sound silly, but they found me out
pretty quick after it happened. What does a Rider look like? Where do
they come from? Where do they fasten onto the brain or body of human
beings?"
Amery leaned across the desk and backhanded Malloy in the mouth.
"Get out!" Amery said.
Malloy left the office, holding a handkerchief to his cut lip.
* * * * *
It was a dump. The name had changed a half dozen times over the last
half century, but the spots in the tablecloths remained the same. The
dump had seen the Lost Generation, the Beat Generation, and now the
Ridden Generation.
Only, Malloy supposed, they called themselves the Riderless Generation.
Well, maybe they were. Maybe they were like him.
He walked in, hanging onto that thought, his stride long. He cut down
his stride. At that rate he would be out in the alley soon.
Self-consciously, Malloy slid into a chair at a vacant table so he
wouldn't draw undue attention.
As he began idly tracing the grease spots on the tablecloths that
looked like the wrappers from a line of cereal boxes, all red
and white checks, he discovered every shaved head in the room was
triangulating him.
He shifted uncomfortably. He was playing it middle-of-the-road. He
had a close crew-cut and wore a plaid flannel shirt and purple velvet
ballet leotards. Maybe he was too far on the conservative side for here.
"Spell it, saddle," the counterman called to him without coming front.
"Cola," he ordered. "With chickory, pecans and honey."
"One sou'easter on the path," the counterman called out tiredly.
"With you're going to sit there, He?" a liquid female voice flowed into
his ear.
"With I'm doing it, She," Malloy said, not turning.
She eased around in front of the table. She was red-haired and built,
wearing black leotards and a coat of black enamel.
"Your pupils are going to wear me away," the redhead said.
"I've only got eyes. How else can I read you?"
"That is Truth. Tru-u-th."
The counterman set out Malloy's drink. "It's waiting for you, saddle.
Don't tease it or it'll bite."
He went for the cola and brought it to the table.
"You came back?" she said.
He pulled up his chair. "I always come back. You can risk money on it.
Saddle up?"
"Saddle before the post, my touchstone."
* * * * *
The girl sat down. Her green eyes were moving, always moving, but
mostly over Malloy, his chair, the table. "You going to keep possession
here long?"
"I don't know any reason why not," said Malloy.
"Of course you don't!" she snapped. "Only--they close at five."
"The billboard gives it two dozen hours a day."
"They trim a little off at five. To sweep the floors and change the
tableshrouds."
"Change 'em from one table to another," Malloy jibed.
"You formed it. Clean ones in front, dirty ones in the shadows. Let's
try breathing air," she suggested.
"Wait'll we gate up. I've got pecans to drink."
The counterman's hawking laugh filled the room. "Let him wait, Mandy. I
might as well wait to later to sweep it in."
Her face caught fire for an instant. "The Board of Health don't go away
just because you can read their dirty minds."
"So take him out," the counterman snarled.
Malloy suddenly decided he had played hard to get long enough. This was
his first chance to get in with the Jockeys. From what he had heard,
they had some kind of underground set-up to help their own in business
and the arts. He needed that help.
"Let's lope," he said, pushing his chair back and leaving silver on the
table for the drink and a tip.
He touched the girl's lacquered arm and steered her toward the door.
Behind him, the floor fell in.
Ripping, tearing, rendering, splintering, crashing, crushing,
reverberating bedlam!
Of course, it couldn't have been the floor caving in, Malloy thought as
he turned to see a great hole where the floor had disappeared.
The hole was where the table and chair he had been using had stood a
moment before.
Flapping at the sides of the cave-in were innumerable thicknesses of
linoleum, and between each one an incredible accumulation of filth and
debris--O. Henry candy bar wrappers, a cover from a _Collier's_, a
booklet on the new Packard ("Ask the Man Who Owns One"), a newspaper
article on Flo Ziegfield's girls (stop thinking in slogans), but mostly
just dirt--dust, webs, lint, filth. There had been no boards under
the table; the ends of the exposed boards weren't freshly broken but
old and rotted porously smooth. Only the linoleum and the dirt had
supported the table for years.
Malloy edged closer and saw some broken sticks lying on a jagged pile
of coke standing out black in the darkness far below.
The redhead pulled him back from the edge, her fingers digging into his
biceps, writhing with a strange passionate intensity, as if she were
trying to knead him into a layer for a pie.
"With you're a REAL Jockey, He, a REAL Jockey, a REAL ONE. _Truth!_
I'm going to take you to the Commissioner, He, the Commissioner in his
saddle."
Somehow, uncertain, yet surely, Malloy was dimly pleased at this.
* * * * *
"Don't say it," the fat man remarked, glancing up for an instant, then
lowering his eyes to the splay of papers on his desk. "No esoteric
jargon, please."
"All right," Malloy said readily. "Shall I sit down?"
"By all means, saddle up." A second chin trembled. "Damn it, there _I_
go. Have a chair."
Malloy took the only chair not piled down with books, or maps, or
correspondence, or manuscripts, or notes. It had a straight back and a
plastic seat, piously uncomfortable.
The big man looked up a second time and folded rows of pink sausages
complacently. "So you want to be a Jockey, eh?"
Malloy thinned his lips and licked the insides of them, making a snap
judgment. "Not really. I don't have a Rider, and I want what help
the Jockeys can give me. I'm not particularly anxious to acquire
introverted slang and a shaved head, but if that goes along with the
help...." He spread his hands eloquently.
"So you don't think you have a Rider?"
Malloy didn't know how to answer that. "I don't think I have a Rider,"
he repeated without inflection.
"I don't think I have a Rider, either--only I know I do," the fat man
said.