Valhalla, page 18
‘That’s okay,’ Howard replied. ‘Even if I had a pyramid, I wouldn’t try to sell it to you.’
‘But not fighting—’ The enemy soldier looked confused to the point of panic. ‘I don’t know how you do that. I mean, what would you do instead?’
‘Any number of things,’ Howard replied confidently. ‘The number of things you can do that don’t involve fighting is so incredibly vast it’d take me forever just to list the category headings. My guess is, it’s just been so long since you did anything except fight that you’ve forgotten how. Is that more or less right?’
The other man nodded. ‘What the hell,’ he said. ‘I’ll try anything once. What d’you think—?’
He didn’t get any further than that; because Howard, who’d been gradually inching forward, had got close enough to the axe to be able to dive, grab hold of it and swing it round at shoulder height, burying the blade in the other man’s head.
‘Damn,’ Howard said.
He let go of the axe and sat down dejectedly on the casing of an unexploded bomb. Goddamn rotten bloody instinct; he’d been this close to a breakthrough, almost close enough to convince himself that it was feasible. But then he’d seen the axe, just lying there in the mud with its handle sticking up, and it was as if someone had pulled the strings or pressed the remote control, jerking him into immediate and unexpected action. And in consequence, a man lay dead.
Yeah. Think about that.
As a humane and civilised alternative to butchery and slaughter, obviously a non-starter. Still, he’d invented the technique now, and there was no doubt about it, there was potential for a really neat and efficient way of taking out sentries and snipers. Pity to waste it. After all, a new way of making dynamite cheaper and better was no less valid just because you stumbled across it by accident while trying to invent a new breakfast cereal.
‘Cheat,’ said the corpse accusingly.
Howard’s eyebrows closed ranks. ‘All’s fair in love and war,’ he replied, rather half-heartedly. ‘And I was utterly sincere at the time. It was just seeing the axe there, and thinking how nice it’d look between your eyes. Instinct, I guess. Or a programmed response, like—dammit, what’s the name of the pudding person who did the dogs?’
‘Pavlov,’ replied the corpse. ‘Now what kind of crummy excuse is that? “I was only obeying impulses.” Slicing a person’s skull like a boiled egg’s hardly just a nervous tic, now is it?’
‘In Valhalla,’ Howard replied thoughtfully, ‘it might just be. But I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. I mean, it’ll all be all right in the morning, won’t it?’
‘True,’ the corpse replied grudgingly. ‘But according to the forecast it’s going to be windy and wet with low pressure coming in from the north and east all day tomorrow, and today’s supposed to be sunny and mild, with temperatures around twenty degrees centigrade (that’s seventy degrees Fahrenheit).’
All Howard could think of to say to that was ‘Oh well,’ so he said it. Then he added, ‘I expect you’ll get your revenge in a day or so.’
‘Doubt it,’ the corpse grumbled. ‘I haven’t killed you for months, whereas this is the second time this week you’ve snuffed me. You know, a person could get a complex.’
Howard left him to welter irritably in his steaming gore and wandered off, not paying much attention to the shells and bullets that were buzzing all around like drowsy bees in summer. There was, he’d noticed, precious little correlation between the amount of care and attention he took and how long he lasted each day; if there was a statistical relationship, it was probably in the opposite direction - the less trouble taken, the longer he lasted. He was, in fact, musing on this very point when a shadowy figure slipped out of the ruins of an alleyway, crept up behind him, and—
Curioser and curioser. Sure, people creeping up behind you was as much a part of life here as crossing the road at a zebra crossing was back home. What up-creepers didn’t do here was put their hands over your eyes and call out ‘Guess who!’ in a melodious feminine voice.
Some devilish new Ninja ploy? Perhaps, but he wasn’t interested in the finer points of the martial arts. Quickly and efficiently he grabbed his assailant’s arm, slung her over his shoulder and closed in for the kill, bayonet drawn—
‘Lisa?’
‘Nyuk,’ replied Lisa From Internal Audit, wiping mud out of her mouth and eyes.
‘Lisa? What in God’s name are you doing here?’
He’d never found out her second name; he’d never had a pretext for asking. About all he knew of her backstory was that she was happily married to a large, volatile man who worked at the abattoir, and who by all accounts regarded his work as more of a vocation than a mere job. In consequence, Howard had always sought to keep a degree of distance between himself and Lisa From Internal Audit, a state of affairs that more or less suited him. True, she was a fascinating, not to say awesome sight, if you like six-foot white-blonde Aryans; but gorgeousness isn’t everything, and his observations tended to suggest that she had the friendly, happy-go-lucky disposition of an unguarded chainsaw. Also - not that he was in any way prudish, but anyone that size and shape who came in to work wearing those sorts of clothes was likely to constitute a health hazard, and why people wasted their time and energy protesting about nuclear power and acid rain when there was Lisa From Internal Audit wandering around the place in what was either a very short skirt or a wideish belt, he couldn’t say.
(Which reminded him; nothing he could remember in their working relationship had ever put them on the sort of terms where A creeps up behind B, puts her hands over his eyes and says ‘Guess who!’ in an alluringly girlish voice. Something like that would have stuck in his mind come what might, for all that his brains had spent more time out of his skull than in it over the last few months.)
‘That wasn’t very friendly,’ she said, scrambling to her feet. ‘I was just saying hello.’
Someone across the street fired at her with a high velocity rifle. She caught the bullet in her left hand without even looking, squashed it into a ball and threw it into the gutter. ‘Hello,’ Howard said. ‘Lisa, what are you doing here? This is—’ Even though he’d long since resigned himself to the fact that it was actually happening and not all a convenient dream to explain why he’d been out of the series for nine months, he couldn’t quite bring himself to say the word Valhalla. He didn’t have to.
‘Valhalla,’ she said. ‘Yes, I know. Settling in all right, are you?’
‘What do you mean, settling—Get down!’ Even as he said the words, he realised that there simply wasn’t enough time for her to react; he’d have to do it for her. He threw himself through the air, landing on top of her in the mud, while the space her head had been occupying a moment before was torn apart by the slipstream of a couple of hundred machine-gun bullets.
‘This is cosy,’ Lisa said. ‘Though it’d be nice if you’d take your elbow out of my face.’
‘What? Oh, sorry. There was someone shooting at us with a machine-gun, you see, so I—’
Lisa grinned at him. ‘Nice try,’ she said. ‘Never heard that one before. Nonetheless—’
She drew back her left hand and gave him such a smack across the face that when he opened his eyes he fully expected to be looking directly at the small of his own back. ‘Sexual harassment,’ she went on. ‘I could sue you for thousands.’
That was just about as much as Howard could take. He rolled over and slithered to his feet, somehow managing to ignore exactly what it was he’d just been slithering in. ‘It was not,’ he shouted. ‘No way. Lisa, quite apart from I don’t do that sort of thing, I wouldn’t sexually harass you if you were the last woman in the world.’
Lisa looked at him, and suddenly he felt like a male black widow spider must feel when his girlfriend starts talking about honeymoon plans. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘it’s funny you should put it like that.’
‘Huh? Like what?’
‘The last woman in the world,’ Lisa replied. ‘You see, it so happens—’
Valkyries, Odin had explained; the choosers of the slain. And how can you make a choice unless you hold an audition first?
‘Get this bum outa here,’ said the usual voice. ‘I don’t know, goddamn time-wasters.’
‘But listen,’ Kortright yelled. ‘Of course I can be Lin Kortright, I don’t need any goddamn audition. I am Lin Kortright.’
Sniggering in the darkness. ‘Guy says he’s Lin-fucking-Kortright. Hey, buddy, if you’re really Lin Kortright, where you been all these years? You been kidnapped by aliens, huh? You been up there in that spaceship with the little green guys and Elvis and JFK, talking to people back here on Planet Earth through their microwaves? Save it for the National Enquirer, pal, this is a serious audition.’
‘You don’t understand. I - am—Lin—KORTRIGHT!’
A sigh drifted out of the black void beyond the spotlight. ‘Goddamn method actors,’ it murmured. ‘Hey, you. You sure you ain’t really Dustin Hoffman?’
Kortright gritted his teeth and walked off the stage. All his life he’d been Lin Kortright; he’d been a wonderful Lin Kortright, the definitive Lin Kortright, he’d brought to the part a depth of feeling and compassion unequalled since Barrymore - no, wait. He was Lin Kortright.
Had been Lin Kortright.
Maybe, he reflected despairingly, this is what it’s like for Hamlet. To judge by what he’d read, there was no way Hamlet would ever get to play Hamlet, except maybe in some crummy touring company driving round Arkansas in a beat-up old Volkswagen van. The real Hamlet had been some illiterate Viking princeling who didn’t even have the balls to kill the bastard who iced his old man.
Is that it? I had my chance to be Lin Kortright and I blew it, and now the part’s being played by Mel-fucking-Gibson? Puh-lease!
‘Dad?’
All other considerations, including pain and fear of not being good enough to be himself, evaporated from his mind. ‘Carol? Is that you? I can’t see too good.’
‘Dad? You look awful. Here.’ And someone he couldn’t see took his arm and led him out of the line of fire. ‘Dad, why were they being so rude to you?’
‘Because I’m a lousy Lin Kortright,’ Kortright replied.
‘I always said you’re better off sticking to character parts. What the hell were you doing up there in the first place?’
‘It’s a long story, honey.’ With the heel of his hand he massaged his eyelids and cautiously opened his eyes. ‘Carol, it’s you,’ he said. ‘Really you. Are you all right?’
‘Apart from being dead, you mean? Yeah, I’m fine. Dad, what are you doing down here? You aren’t dead too, are you?’
Kortright nodded. ‘I guess so. And hey, it ain’t so bad.’
Carol looked dubious. ‘It’s terribly unhealthy,’ she said.
‘Probably no worse for you than smoking cigars,’ Kortright replied. ‘And that never did me no harm.’
‘How do you know? Maybe that’s what killed you.’
Kortright shook his head. ‘Nah. I got in a fight in a bar.’
‘In a bar.’ Carol stared at him. ‘Dad, you never ever go in bars. You were always telling me it isn’t safe.’
‘Yeah. Well, now maybe you’ll believe me.’
He sat down on a wicker laundry basket, letting his feet swing against the side, waiting for the surge of relief, joy, whatever, to hit him. It was there inside him, burgeoning, getting ready; but there was some small thing, like a minor procedural glitch in a legal transaction or a speck of dust in a carburettor jet, that was holding everything back. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew there was something.
‘Carol,’ he said, ‘how did you get here? What happened to you?’
‘Does it matter? I’m here now.’
‘It matters.’ He’d said the words almost before he’d acknowledged the thought in his own mind. ‘I really want to know.’
‘Dad.’ She had on that pained expression, that ‘Why have I got to tidy my room, I like it this way’ face he’d known ever since she was a tiny baby. ‘We haven’t seen each other, called each other even, for years. Can’t you think of anything more interesting to talk about than some nasty accident I had? I really don’t want to discuss it, Dad, it upsets me. Okay?’
Valkyries. Be careful what you wish for. This is Valhalla, where all your dreams come true. ‘Sure, honey,’ he said. ‘I’m just curious, that’s all. Interested. I mean, dying is an important time in a person’s life. What kind of a father would I be if I didn’t give a damn?’
‘Of course it’s an important moment,’ Carol said, and her voice was a little colder and more distant. ‘I knew it had to be an important moment, because you weren’t there. Same as you weren’t there for any of the other important moments in my life. I expect,’ she added bitterly, ‘you were having to work late at the office again.’
On reflex and without thinking, Kortright said, ‘Give me a break, honey. People rely on me, you know?’
‘I know,’ Carol said angrily. ‘A whole bunch of gods rely on you. They believe in you, Dad. They’re the only ones who do. I gave up trusting anything you told me when I was six years old.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘But there,’ she said, ‘I’m not a god.’
‘You sure about that, honey?’ Kortright murmured.
Carol stared at him. ‘Dad, what in hell are you talking about?’ she said.
‘Don’t “Dad” me,’ Kortright answered, standing up. ‘You aren’t Carol, you’re some goddamn lousy god who’s playing games with my head, pretending to be my daughter.’ He stopped, frowned, then snapped his fingers. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘how dumb can you get? You’re Odin.’
Carol sagged, and stopped being Carol. ‘How did you guess?’ he asked.
‘Easy,’ Kortright said, half turning his back; then he spun round with remarkable agility for a man his size and shape and punched Odin on the point of the jaw, sending him sprawling on the ground. ‘I knew you weren’t Carol. Carol’d never have said anything hurtful and cruel, like you just said. Not to mention the continuity error; Odin always comes out to meet me when I get off stage, but this time he isn’t there and you are.’ Odin tried to get up, but Kortright was standing on his hand. ‘You asshole, Odin. And you’re stupid, too. You really think I can be around gods ever since before there were gods, and not know one when I see one?’
‘Get off my hand.’
‘Oh yeah? Give me one good reason.’
‘Because if you don’t,’ Odin said, ‘I’ll blow you into so many bits, people on five continents will inhale bits of you every time they breathe.’
Kortright scowled horribly but lifted his foot. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘so you’re bigger than me. You know what that makes you?’
‘A god.’
‘A bully.’
Odin shrugged. ‘Inevitably there’s a degree of common ground between the two,’ he said. ‘Now then, don’t get all uptight with me, I’m just trying to be nice. Granting you your heart’s desire; it’s all part of the Valhalla package. Of course, it isn’t real, but then, what is? If only you’d given me a chance, I could have been Carol for you, I could have walked like her, talked like her - dammit, I had her backstory off pat, didn’t I? Oh, and by the way,’ he added, with a big grin, ‘that stuff about the real Carol not saying hurtful stuff about her old man? Bullshit. You forget, I’ve had her here under close scrutiny, I’ve compiled an in-depth psychological study, character profiles, brain algorithm analyses, the lot. You got the right answer, Lyndon, but for the wrong reason.’
Kortright tried to grab him by the throat, but Odin was too quick; before Kortright’s hand was anywhere near making contact, he’d moved ten feet out of the way and launched a bolt of sizzling blue light that picked Kortright up and dumped him in the corner of the room like a garbage sack flung into a skip.
‘You should have taken what you were offered,’ he said sadly, as Kortright struggled to get up. ‘That way, you’d have had what you think you want, and I could have laughed myself stupid thinking about what a dumb-ass mistake you were making. Then I’d have had my heart’s desire too, and we’d both have been in seventh heaven.’
Kortright growled, grabbed a three-legged stool and hurled it. The stool stopped a foot or so from Odin’s nose, turned back, hovered for a moment directly over Kortright’s head, turned into six pounds of mushroom-growers’ delight, and dropped. While Kortright was still trying to maul the filthy stuff out of his eyes, Odin seized him by the collar and jerked him to his feet.
‘Come along,’ he said, ‘you’re on. Can’t keep the producer waiting.’
Kortright had no choice but to stumble into the folds of the curtain, groping for the opening. Before he allowed himself to be pushed through, however, he rooted himself to the spot for a moment.
‘Odin,’ he said. ‘Just answer me one thing. Those guys out there. The ones that hate me so bad.’
‘The talent spotters. Yes?’
‘Who are they?’
Odin smirked. ‘I’d have thought you’d have worked that out for yourself by now. Take a close look. You’ll see.’
And he did, in the short period of time before his vision blurred over with mashed rotten vegetable. They were all basically the same person; some of them at ages twenty, twenty-five and on up to thirty; some of them early forties, mid-forties, early fifties; some so old they were hardly recognisable, until you perceived the trend and looked carefully, in which case you could see the distinctive shape of the nose, ears and chin, stranded among the wrinkles and drooping folds of skin like the spires of Gothic churches sticking up out of a landscape of office blocks, traffic islands and shopping malls. They were all various ages and stages of one man.
Everyone’s a critic, Kortright thought, gazing at them in disgust.
They were, of course, all Lin Kortright.
‘If I were you, my friend,’ said Vinnie to the pilot of the helicopter that had yanked him to safety from a watery grave a few minutes earlier, ‘I’d find somewhere safe to put this thing down. Immediately.’
