Read Online Players at the Game of People by John Brunner - Free Book Online

do you live here?" Gorse demanded.

"Anywhere is as good as anywhere else," Godwin sighed, closing the door

of the cab and announcing their destination. He was getting bored with

her inability to see what to him was plain as pikestaffs.

At least she took the hint and held her tongue for the duration of

the journey.

The taxi dropped them in the Sunday vacancy of Wimpole Street. Gray

stone façades frowned down as they made their way to the house where --

as reported by a discreet, well-polished brass plate -- Dr. Hermann

Klosterberg maintained his consultancy.

"I wish I knew why you'd brought me here," Gorse complained as she

followed reluctantly in Godwin's wake.

"I already told you" was his sour reply. But his mood was already changing,

precisely as he had expected, and it took no more than a glance to inform

him that hers was also.

Set between ranked wrought-iron railings, the richly colored teak door

opened to his touch. There was time to glimpse a high-ceilinged hallway

with a fine Persian carpet on the floor and several eighteenth-century

landscapes in thickly gilded frames before he ushered her into the first

room on the right.

This too was high-ceilinged, but nonetheless it was dark. The walls were

papered with a somber pattern; the furniture was of an old-fashioned

solidity; the curtains were of dark green velvet, held back with tasseled

ropes of old gold, while the carpet was of a deep wine-red and seemed to

absorb not only footfalls but every sound from the outside world. There

was a couch stuffed with horsehair and covered in black oilcloth over

which a rug was thrown, occupying a prominent position, while the only

decorations consisted in three oil paintings: portraits of Freud, Jung

and Ernest Jones.

At a rolltop bureau, from which he turned in a swivel chair to greet them,

they found Dr. Klosterberg himself. He was a round-headed man of medium

build, his hair close-cropped and graying, wearing an unremarkable dark

suit with a dark blue tie. He affected pince-nez, behind which his pale

eyes gleamed. He exuded an air of grave authority. Altogether he was an

archetype of the psychiatrist rôle.

Beside the couch, looking as though a four-foot fir cone had been

carved out of anthracite, then flattened like a cowering hedgehog,

lay Adirondinatarigo. Godwin bent to pat it on the tapered end and

was rewarded by a protuberation that disconcertingly exposed a band

of mucous membrane as softly glossy as the inside of a human cheek,

but yellowish-green and ever so slightly luminous. The mood improved

further as more pheromones escaped into the air.

Simultaneously he said, "Hermann, nice to see you again. This is Gorse.

Just Gorse at the moment. She's trying to decide on a surname to go

with it."

"Then she should consult Ambrose, as you and I did," Hermann murmured.

"Some of his opinions may be questionable, but of his ability to sense

the overtones of nomenclature there is no doubt . . . How do you do,

Gorse?" he added, extending his hand with a beaming smile.

She shook with him absently, staring at the scaly black mass beside the

couch. "What on earth is that?" she demanded. "I could swear I saw it

move when God touched it."

"Oh, that's Canaptarosigapatruleeva," Hermann said dismissively. "No need

to worry about it. Just forget it's there. For the time being, that is.

Later on, you can get properly acquainted with it." He bent slightly

and touched one of the thick, dull-shiny, overlapping scales; it rose a

centimeter and exposed another patch of membrane, this time of a fir-tree

green. "Do sit down," he added. "And what seems to be the trouble?"

The atmosphere conduced to openness. Almost before she had sunk into the

chair which Hermann indicated for her, Gorse had begun to pour out her

life story, far more truthfully than to Godwin last night. His back to

the bureau, his elbows on the arms of his swivel chair, his fingertips

arched together, Hermann listened with