The Mind-Riders by Brian Stableford Read Free Book Online

non-functional display. Valerian was not the man to be embarrassed by the aura of such vanities. He probably felt at home here. Maybe he even took the books out now and again to finger the sad quality of the binding.
    He was enveloped by a deep, high-backed chair, wine-dark in the light of a small lamp to the side and set slightly back. His face was mostly in shadow, but he must have been able to see me quite clearly as I stood before him.
    â€œYou’re Ryan Hart,” he said, smoothly, giving it the inflection of a polite question.
    â€œYour handyman would have to be a fool if I wasn’t,” I replied. My voice was too sharp, the comment slightly ridiculous. My hostility was showing but not biting. I felt compelled, though, to make the gesture. Men like Valerian can’t be defied, but you have to act as if they can. I hadn’t come just to lie down and be counted.
    â€œSit down,” he said. His voice was soft. He wasn’t amused or annoyed or impatient—which meant that the fury which had overtaken him as Ray Angeli bit the dust was now perfectly controlled and disciplined.
    I sat down, in a chair that was the twin to his own. There was a small table between us, where a book might be rested temporarily. There was no book. Valerian didn’t go in for that brand of staginess.
    â€œYou sent for me?” I said, injecting a dishonest low-key anger into my voice.
    â€œI have a proposition for you,” he said. Unlike Curman he wasn’t about to beat around the bush in order to see what came running out. Curman had stayed with us, but he was back in one corner of the room, looking at the titles on the spines of the books. He was listening very carefully.
    â€œGo ahead,” I said.
    â€œI’ve followed your career,” he said. “In a casual manner. I’ve retained an interest in your abilities. I think that you’re wasted in your present work. You have talent above and beyond that required for simulation stunt work.”
    He paused, but I didn’t bother to interrupt. I figured that it might as well all come tumbling out, hypocrisy as well. All as scripted. There was no need to slash at the curtain of soft lies. Not yet.
    â€œYou,” he continued, “are one of the few people with a genuine mastery of the active component of mind/machine communication. I think you ought to be involved in it actively, ambitiously. I think you should go back into sport.”
    â€œBoxing?” I asked, ironically.
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œNo,” I replied, flatly.
    The refusal didn’t shock or upset him. He didn’t believe it. He leaned forward just a little, and the dim light caught his white eyebrows. There was sweat glistening on his forehead.
    â€œNo regrets?” he asked.
    â€œNot your kind,” I replied. That was a better one, but it didn’t score. It failed to jerk anything out of him. He settled back into the shadow, to watch me without his own eyes being visible except as the faintest of gleams. His face was a blur.
    â€œI want to back you,” he said. “I should like to help you redeploy your talents more profitably.”
    â€œYou want to make me a star?”
    â€œA champion.”
    â€œYou want me to beat Paul Herrera for you.”
    He made no reply to that, but was content to wait.
    â€œYou know I’m blacked,” I said.
    â€œAnd you know I have the power to set aside that ban,” he said. “Circumstances have changed since that—unfortunate decision.”
    â€œHow?” I said, almost spitting the word at him.
    He wouldn’t answer that, either. I changed the question to, “Why now?”
    â€œHad you—” Here he paused suggestively, then went on, “—given up hope?”
    â€œHope!” Again I spat the word out as if it were poison. “Is that what you think? You think I’ve been wasting my life in hope—waiting for you to come to me and say,