Ego City sprawled and sprawled. In two decades, what had once been merely a modest new entertainment center had grown to the size of a big city. Already, as many lines of communication homed on it as on the capital.

The residents of go City were mainly concerned in one way or another with the making of play-outs. Play-outs were the art form of the century. Play-outs dominated the entertainment world. Play-outs marked the revolutionary point where show business and medical therapy mingled. Everyone needed play-outs.

In two decades of existence, Ego City had seen a number of real dramas, as well as its countless myriad staged ones. Many fortunes had been made and lost there, many companies swallowed, many corporations run out of business. Behind the vast and smooth-working facades of Ego City ran a private history of boardroom battles, orgies, sumptuous dinners, suicides, courage and compromise every bit as startling as the play-outs.

Current king of the play-out empire was Lee Roger Irnstein, billed in the tabloids as Mr. Dream King. Lee Roger Irnstein was a millionaire many times over. His personal income, it was estimated, rivaled that of any one of the smaller European nations. He had climbed to where he was by being an insomniac, working continuously for fifteen years when all his opponents had had to snatch an occasional nap, and by keeping an unsleeping watch for the weaknesses of his opponents.

Lee Roger Irnstein was not a crook. Nor was he honest; he was simply a single-minded man who never missed any opportunity for advancement through such weaknesses as indecision, compassion or indifference.

Lee Roger Irnstein was tall, wrinkled, totally gray. His age was forty-four. His expression was pleasant enough. But his eyes never blinked, and once their gaze had found an opponent’s face it never left it, so that eventually the opponent was almost glad to yield to defeat and sink away out of sight. Despite this characteristic, there was nothing that visibly marked Lee Roger Irnstein off from the rest of his fellow men. The factor that did that was hidden in secrecy from almost everyone but his current wife, Famagusta Martitia, and his downtrodden twelve-year- old son, Lee Roger.

Those two knew that Lee Roger Irnstein had never taken part in a single play-out.

That vast kingdom over which Lee Roger Irnstein ruled presented a glittering facade to the world. Great triumphal arches, high towers, sky balloons, greeted the millions who poured into town from all over the world for their taste of that shaped reality that was so much better, so much sweeter, so much more vivid than the ordinary reality of everyday.

But at one point, the huge industrial complex had broken down into a chaos of rubbish. The massive functional shapes of play-out technology slumped into an avalanche of waste. This was at Southside, along Gulch Road. Here were the extraordinary dumps of Ego City, a landscape of hills and valleys consisting entirely of all the expensive castoffs of the city, from the largest and glossiest of indestructable packing cases down to once-used dancing slippers, from saloon cars that had been discarded at a drunken whim down to unopened packs of cigarettes thrown away because the cellophane had proved a touch resistant, from private planes that had suddenly ceased to please down to nail-clippers that were too blunt to clip, from monstrous slabs of rusty switch-gear down to still-bright contact lenses.

In this wilderness lived Bernie Burr.

Except for the fact that he never shaved, Bernie Burr looked rather like Lee Roger Irnstein. He too was tall, wrinkled and totally gray. He also was forty-four. His expression was pleasant enough but his gaze — whatever it had once done —now never managed to meet the gaze of another human being. It kept wandering off, as if his eyes were too weak to meet the eyesight of anyone else. This was very unlike the behavior of the eyes of Lee Roger Irnstein, the man who had defeated Bernie Burr.

Bernie lived with a tattered lady of his own age called Barley in a battered blue packing case that had once housed a Patterson’s Piorgium Model “Dandy.” His days were spent scrounging through the enchanted detritus of the Gulch Road dump, his nights telling Barley the story of the great days when he owned half of Ego City. In consequence, Barley spent most of her nights drinking and most of her days asleep with her mouth open on the seat they had pulled out of an old Pullman coach.

It was a curious thing that Bernie Burr should have only that one obsessive topic of conversation. A couple of miles away, in surroundings as luxurious as Bernie’s were dreadful, Roger Lee Irnstein similarly had only one topic of conversation to inflict on Famagusta Martitia and Lee Roger Junior. It was the same topic.

It was a confrontation,” he told them. “A classical confrontation. This Bernie Burr wanted to take us over, and we wanted to take him over. It seemed he had all the power, and he slapped this ultimatum on me. I had to accept his corporation’s terms by the next morning or else. Then he made one false move.”

“I know, he came to see you that evening,” Lee Roger Junior said.

“Who’s telling this? Go away and play if you can’t keep quiet! As I got home that evening, Bernie Burr was waiting in the drive. He caught hold of my jacket and begged me to accept the ultimatum. Said he was having trouble with his directors and he would be thrown out if this deal didn’t go through. I told him he was crazy, but he said if I accepted the terms of the ultimatum, he’d see I was okay. It would solve both our troubles, he said. Now what makes a man be that weak?”

Famagusta Martitia said, “He must have been under a terrible strain, honey!”

“Ker-rist, honey, we all were. But why is it that at such a moment of truth one man shows weak and another strong? I mean, it’s all wrapped up in the enigma of personality, isn’t it? Anyhow, he’d given me his head on a plate. Next morning. I rejected the ultimatum, Bernie Burr got the push just as he said he would, and in the confusion I bought up all his backers piecemeal. Ever since then, nobody’s ever heard of Bernie again and I’ve been boss of Ego City.”

His wife caressed one of his earlobes. “You deserve it, honey, you’ve been real lucky !”

Lee Roger Irnstein pulled away as if she had tweaked his ear. “Lucky, honey! Lucky nothing! That was the most unlucky day of my life, At heat I’m just a dreamer, only I never get time to dream. I could have been a great musician instead of a captain of industry. I’ve been so busy running Ego City, I’ve newer had time to fulfill my personal destiny.”

“Then, honey, why did you knock down Bennie Burr like you did?”

“Became I’m the man I am, and I seize chances. I just never had a chance to be a great musician.

“Then the man. you are isn’t a great musician, honey.“

Lee Roger Irnstein got up and began to pace up and down.

“Nobody knows the man I am except me_ honey”

Famagusta Martitia went over to the drink machine and had it pour them both another drink. “I don’t think that you know the sort of man you are, honey. You ought to go to a play-out. You know, enter one anonymously. It would sort you out tremendously and show you exactly the sort of man you really are.”

“Now you’re talking nonsense, honey! You know I own those things. I don’t have to indulge in them.”

“I think you’re scared, honey.” And that’s how it happened that, a few drinks later, Lee Roger Irnstein was persuaded to enter one of his own play-outs

.

Meanwhile, back at the old blue packing case, Bernie Burr was telling Barley of the crisis that had ruined his life.

“I played it clever. I drove down to this guy Irnstein’s fancy mansion and collared him when he arrived home. I offered him a perfectly foolproof deal to get these guys off my neck who were riding me, with a big cut for him. Next day, us two could have ran Ego City between us.”

“Ah, you couldn’t ran a hot dog stall!” Barley said.

“In those days I could. I had genius then. But that creep Irnstein loused it all up. He double-crossed me next morning, and from then on I was finished.’” Barley hiccupped. “You played into his hands, sounds to me. You got chicken!”

“I was meant to be a big boss, not a bum! It was just I played my hand wrong. All 1 need is another chance to prove it. Just one more chance;”

“Don’t give me that again! Every day I hear the same tune!

Look, Bernie, if you had the same chance again you’d louse it up in the same way, see? Because it’s your destiny to be a bum!”

He rose to his feet, clutching the bottle as he did so.

“Don’t you call me a bum, you old bat! At heart I’m a very responsible man, a captain of industry, a millionaire, a — “

“A bum!” Barley finished, “You’re kidding yourself! If you want to find out the sort of jerk you really are, why don’t you go into a play-out and see for yourself instead of boring me with your load of hogwash?”

He poured her another drink. “I love you. Barley,” he said brokenly, “ ’cause you always know what’s best for me.”

What happened- when you entered one of the play-out theaters was not simple,, but it was. fast. Pleasant machines put you under light hypnosis to remove any surface inhibitions. You then stated roughly what your problem was, or what situation you wanted to amuse yourself with that evening. These reports were flashed to a group of human and computer analysts and coordinated with the reports of everyone else entering the play-cuts at the same time. People with similar ends in view were grouped together. Cast lists were formed, and immense script-writing machines assembled a plot to fit the personalities involved.

While this was going on, and it took only a minute, you were being given the drugs that would most easily enable you to behave as the personality you wished to be. Then the plot came on, was played to you subliminally, and the costuming and make-up departments saw to it that you looked the part. By the time that was done, you had your role effortlessly memorized — though there was always room left for adlibbing.

All over Ego City stood the play-out theaters, many of them of tremendous size — the sexual theaters being the smallest because those who wanted that sort of play-out needed little action in their scripts. After the makeup department had finished with you, you would be conveyed by tube to the appropriate theater, if you were not already there. Many of the theaters specialized in period plays, because it had been found that people could express their basic needs, more freely when out of their own time. No one troubled about historical accuracy. It was the spirit that counted. In the theaters were no audiences, only participants — actors working with other actors, but each isolated in his or her own little ego.

In Theater Fifty-Five, it was a blustery spring day in the sixth or seventh century. Dramatically lit by the only sunbeam to penetrate the cloud overhead, King Petrovich stood with his arms akimbo, looking south towards the mountains, while his wife, Branka, waited behind him, at a respectful distance.

Petrovich was tall, wrinkled, totally gray. His age was forty-four, his expression was not unpleasant. But as he looked toward the valley down which his army must pass on the morrow, a frown creased his forehead.

Behind him, a temple was being built. Behind that stretched his army, resting, cooking their lean rations. Women and children mingled with the men of Petrovich’s army. And behind them were the other followers, the rabble who had followed his triumphant progress for five years across the wildernesses of Eastern Europe.

“You must rest and eat now, O my king, in preparation for the morrow’s march into Illyria,” Branka said, taking his arm timidly.

“Cease, woman! Petrovich cannot rest while the fate of his peoples is at stake.”

“It Is a heavy burden you bear, my lord.”

She was beautiful, tall, pale, red of lip, her hair black and skillfully dressed, hanging down to her waist. Petrovich seized her by the waist and kissed her till her mouth was bruised.

“Aye, the burden of my fate is heavy, woman, as you say. Therefore I go to pray.”

Branka fell back as the king strode forward into the temple. The rude palisade of the temple was decorated in a crude manner with the figures of soldiers and naked maidens. Inside, the roof was red and the walls hung with tapestries. Although the carpenters were still at work on the temple, their mallet-strokes echoing through the interior, the priests were already busy, and the smoke from a burnt offering drew tears in the king’s eyes.

He prostrated himself before his god, a great wooden idol twice his size. It had two bodies and four heads, all of them fearsome. Against one of its massive thighs lay its saddle, bridle and mighty silver sword, which Petrovich alone of all his people was strong enough to wield in battle.

His prostrations were brief. He rose, scattering the priests, and strode into the open towards his great tent of hide which took twenty men to pitch. A scout ran up to him, panting, and bowed.

“Well, varlet?”

“My lord, the King of the Illyrians is in the camp. He desires word with you.”

“King Donikpus? How comes he here?”

“My lord, be comes in peace and even now awaits your gracious permission to speak with you.”

“Have him brought to my tent. ”Striding in through the heavy damask curtain, Petrovich scattered his serving women.

“But you must sustain yourself, O my King!” Branka cried.

“No time for that — get these women from my sight! Bring me good Transylvanian wine. Donikpus, King of Illyria, is here to see me.”

The queen gasped, “But my lord, he is your sworn enemy! Has he not vowed to slay you tomorrow when you march into his lands?”

“There’s villainy afoot. I’ll see that I question him closely.”

“O my King, whispers are abroad that your general Yovan thinks to spread mutiny among your subjects.”

Petrovich stroked his great iron gray beard and raised an eyebrow. “I have no time to waste on the sub-plot now, woman. Stick to the main scripts. Where’s the wine?”

A great oxhorn bound in silver and splashing over with the dark red liquor of Transylvania was brought to him. As he quaffed it back, trumpets sounded without and General Yovan entered with the King of the Illyrians and attendant lords, etc.

Donikpus and Petrovich stared each other in the eye. Donikpus, for all his outlandish garb and armor that aped the Roman, was not unlike his rival though he wore no beard. He was tall, wrinkled and would probably have been fair were he not totally gray. He was forty-four years of age; his expression would have been pleasant were he not scowling now. Branka thrust an oxhorn of wine into his hand, and the tension in the tent somewhat relaxed.

“You realize your head is in jeopardy every moment you remain in my camp?” Petrovich said.

“You do not imagine I enter this pagan place for pleasure?”

“State your business and be gone!”

“Mind I do not go without stating it! Or your corpse, Petrovich, will lie reeking in the dust by tomorrow’s sunset.”

“You dare to threaten me, Donikpus? I’ll ride into battle with your body rolling behind my horse!”

“I’ll have you driven back to the wilds from which you camel”

“I’ll have your entrails strewn through every field between here and Kief!”

General Yovan coughed. “My lords, the script, I pray! Should not the King of the Illyrians state his business?”

“You’re right,” Donikpus said, quaffing his wine. “Petrovich, we are both in mortal danger, I come to offer an alliance.”

“An alliance with you!” boomed Petrovich. “What means this?5’ “Ride with me two leagues to the hills, and I will show you proof of the danger. Unless you are afraid … . ”

Petrovich looked about him, at the anxious face of his wife, the stolid face of Yovan, the stem faces of the attendant lords, etc. He took another great drag at his wine. “I’ll ride with you,” he said. As his wife ran with him weeping to his horse he said to her, “And keep an eagle eye on the dastardly designs of General Yovan.” “Sure, honey,” she said. “So will I, by my troth.”

Entirely unaccompanied, the two kings rode together out of camp. It was sunset now, and all the western sky was a ragged mass of red and gold cloud. The ground beneath them was dark as they spurred their steeds up the side of the hill.

At fast they reined at the summit. The camp lay behind, fires twinkling here and there, an occasional burst of hoarse song rising even to this eminence. South lay the mountains and the somber valley of the Siva River.

“That way you and your host must go tomorrow,” Donikpus said, pointing down the valley. “You will be wiped out from behind. You see that old stone Mithraic temple over there, at the beginning of the valley?”

“It is deserted. My scouts examined it thoroughly this afternoon.”

“Empty it is, Petrovich. But under it are great caves. All this barren mountain is a maze of caves. Those caves are filled with half the Illyrian host. When you have passed, they will burst out and attack you from the rear, while the other half will attack from the front. You will be slaughtered to a man.”

Petrovich turned ius scowling regard to the other, searching that wrinkled face lit by the light of the dying sun.

“You are the Illyrian king, yet you tell me this! How so?”

And Donikpus explained. He was in trouble, particularly with his upstart son, Prince Gorgues, who would lead the ambush, Donikpus wanted to do a deal with Petrovich. He would fix things so that they would have an alliance together, and in the morning, they could unite forces and wipe out Gorgues. “We can probably mop up your General Yovan too,” tie suggested.

Silence fell, and a moon rose in the sky while Petrovich considered these things. A night bird was singing. At last Petrovich spoke.

“You have delivered your whole nation into my hands,” he said. “I shall be prepared for the ambush tomorrow, I shall capture Gorgues and tell him of your deceit, and he will wipe you out. I can then wipe him out in my own good time. You have no courage, and so you are defeated before you start! This is the moment of truth, Donikpus, is it not?”

The Illyrian king’s teeth flashed in a sneer, “You opportunist, Petrovich! Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, I say! Those that live by the sword shall die by the sword! Farewell, false king! I’ll match you yet!”

Setting spur to his palfrey, he galloped down the long slopes towards the forbidding valley that marked the marches of his kingdom, leaving Petrovich to sit and brood on the hill.

A torrent of confused emotion ran through Petrovich. He recalled all he had said to Branka — and all he had not said; he recalled all he had ever done — and all he had not done; he recalled all he hoped to be — and all he hoped not to be.

The sky was free of cloud now. All the stars shone down, and a comet or two appeared.

Suddenly, Petrovich spurred his horse and galloped down into the valley along the path that the Illyrian king had taken. He had come to a decision.

To his surprise, he saw that Donikpus had stopped, turned about and was riding back. Both men, alarmed by the other’s change of plans, drew swords. They charged towards each other at a gallop and met by the rushing Siva River with a clash of metal.

“Halt, then!” cried Donikpus. “It’s too late to change your mind, you braggart king! I want my crown no more. I’m a dreamer at heart, not a ruler, I’m off into the mountains among the simple people. I shall grow a beard and become a wandering musician, singing the ballads of my people.” “You can’t do that!” Petrovich exclaimed. “I’m tired of kingship, too. Besides, I have a better voice than you!”

“You lie! My voice is the finest in all the coastlands of Illyria!” “Pah, that pipsqueak voice! Donikpus, you couldn’t keep a baby awake with your singing, and you must die — ”

But even as he lunged forward with his silver sword, the king of Illyria lunged forward with his gold one. For a moment, the light of the comets flashed along their deadly blades. Both men grunted almost in unison. Silence fell. Then, very slowly, one king toppled off his horse towards the left stirrup and the other towards the right stirrup. Since they were facing each other, they fell on top of each other and rolled together into the rapid stream, where the wavelets, chill from the heights of the mountain, washed over their sightless eyes.

All this time, Gorgues was carousing in a stimulating fashion instate the limestone mountain, while exciting things were happening to General Yovan in the queen’s tent ….

Precautions were taken so that participants in play-outs, when leaving the theaters after their roles were done, did not meet any fellow actors. But since these precautions had been arranged by Bernie Burr in the days when he owned half of Ego City, he had small trouble m circumventing them.

So when Lee Rogers Irnstein came to climb into his self-driven limousine, he found a ragged figure waiting for him in the shadow«.

“Lee?” Bernie asked huskily. “Say, Lee I recognized you in there”

Without thinking, Lee Rogers Irnstein clutched Bernie’s hand. “Bernie! I recognized you — after all these years !”

“Several centuries, hasn’t it keen?” Bernie said dryly.

“Say, I really learnt something about myself in there,” Lee Rogers Irnstein said. “Should have gone long ago, like Famagusta said.”

“You made a swell Illyrian king,” Bernie said. “And you know what I learnt about myself? That I am really happier as I am than as a king or a captain of industry or m any post with responsibility. I could have double-crossed you, but at the last moment I ratted out!”

They both lit Irnstein cigars, and that magnate said, emotion in his voice, “You were a great warrior king, Bernie. I kind of admired that beard of yours. And I liked your Branka, too. Showed good taste.”

He was in an uncharacteristically sentimental mood. His death as Donikpus — stabbed by a prop sword made of a wonderful alloy that disintegrated immediately on touching human flesh— had momentarily softened him. Gazing at Bernie, he said, “Know what I learnt about myself? I’m just not destined to be a wandering minstrel or a great musician or any of that stuff. I may think Iwant to be, but that way spells death for me. In the future, I shall be content with the humbler role of king of the Illyrians. I mean, of course, of Ego City.”

A long silence fell, while they leaned against the car.

“We really got ourselves sorted out in there,” Bernie said. “Wonderful form of entertainment we invented between us.”

“Say, Bernie, I’m not just saying this, but it really has been swell meeting you again. Like the good old days.”

Bernie nodded. Looking cautiously about to see that nobody could overhear them, he said, “Look, Lee, why don’t I come and see you in the morning? I’ve got a little proposition to put to you that could make all the difference to both of us …. ”

— BRIAN W. ALDISS