Free Players at the Game of People by John Brunner Page B

empyrean and beginning to caress his clitoris with sighs and moans

of pleasure. "Who could? Nobody could! It isn't to be bought, is it?"

"But if -- " Gorse ventured obstinately. Godwin cut her short with a

gesture and handed her the clothes she had been wearing when they got

here. He noticed that as she donned each separate garment she looked at

the Peasmarsh label in search of the magical symbols she had just been

told about.

Well, one couldn't expect everybody to grow up at once.

"Let's go," he said finally, and led the way to the street. This being

Sunday, and in Chelsea, poor weather had not prevented crowds of people

from assembling in order to surge back and forth in aimless droves.

As they walked toward where GodwIn knew a taxi would -- of course --

be cruising empty, Gorse's face grew paler and paler.

"I never did anything so awful in my life!" she burst out at last.

"What do you mean?"

"You know damned well!" She bit her lip as though to keep tears away.

"I don't know what came over me!"

"Not to worry," Godwin sighed. "Hugo & Diana has that effect on people.

It's part of the package. Done with what they call pheromones, I gather."

"But what sort of a creature is -- is it?"

"Hermaphrodite, of course. Maybe one of these days you'll meet the surgeon

who performed the transplants. Brilliant man."

"Are you taking me to meet another monster now?"

There was the taxi; Godwin hailed it, and resumed when they were inside.

"We're going to see Ambrose Farr."

"And what's he going to make me do that I don't want to?"

"If you hadn't wanted to do what you did, you wouldn't have done it."

"But I didn't!"

Typical. Typical! Godwin sighed, doing his best to repress an outbreak

of bad temper.

"You want a name to go with Gorse. Ambrose is good at choosing

names. He'll pick one for you."

"And if T don't like it?"

"You will."

The mechanics went on, like cogwheels inexorably turning.

"He will also do a great deal more than pick a name."

"Such as what?"

"Tell you who you are, and who you would be better off being."

"But I know who I am!"

"You may think you do. Ambrose will tell you if you're right."

"And if he thinks I'm wrong?" -- resentfully.

"He'll tell you that, too. Make for Putney, driver! I'll direct you when

we get close."

Improbably interpolated among tall modern buildings: a cottage with

its garden running down to a towpath alongside the Thames. There was an

iron gate, waist-high, set in the fence which bordered tidy twin strips

of bright green lawn converging on the white façade under the red-tiled

roof. Small round flower beds isolated clumps of tulips, hollyhocks and

poppies. Creepers disposed with flawless symmetry ornamented the front

wall's edges to left and right.

Someone lived here who cared about minutiae.

But at a second glance there were reasons why the prospect should be as

it was.

There were adequately few people who understood what kind of a glance

they should give it the second time.

Accordingly there was nobody who paid attention when Godwin marched Gorse

up the path to the bright yellow front door.

Except, naturally, the occupier.

The door opened as usual to Godwin's touch and revealed a narrow hallway

with a flagged floor. The flags, each a meter square, numbered twelve,

and each bore a zodiacal sign, inlaid yellow on a deep red ground. The

walls were divided into panels with dark brown wooden moldings; each panel

displayed a card from the Bembo version of the tarot pack, including

the otherwise lost The Devil and The Tower . Heady and intoxicating

incense loaded the air with dense masses of perfume. Solemn organ music

resounded at the edge of hearing.

At the far end of the hallway a doorway flickered open and shut, and

a fraction later another to the left: the former uttered, the latter

received, a tall fair graceful boy clad only in a white shirt.

Godwin halted on the flag displaying Libra. Following him, nervous,

Gorse found herself on the one