The Fourth Vocation of George Gustaf Read online

  The Fourth Vocation of George Gustaf

  David Brin

  The Fourth Vocation of George Gustaf

  by David Brin

  1

  Another damn ritual club was holding a parade through Trafalgar Square when the floater-cab carrying Dan AnMan and Hamilton Smith entered the traffic circle. Hamilton stared gloomily at the parade as the robot taxi changed lanes, neatly dodging the brightly clad celebrants.

  “Bloody damn boring ritual clubs,” Hamilton muttered to himself. This one seemed to have a Middle Eastern theme, the marchers stepping along to recorded tambourines. Banners hung limply and the participants seemed scarcely more aroused than the onlookers. He couldn’t make out which club this was, though he recognized several individuals as frequent customers at the bank where he worked.

  Hamilton remembered that his ritual club, the Loyal Order of Rockers, was supposed to hold a parade of their own next month. He wasn’t looking forward to getting into his twentieth-century motorcycle-gang attire, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. A ritual hobby was one of the six avocations required by law for every citizen.

  Hamilton looked at his assistant, the AnMan, who stared back with an android’s fixed, translucent smile.

  “You’re sure this fellow we’re going to interview fits the criteria I set? I’ve only got a few hours this week to spend on my sociology avocation, Dan. I don’t want to waste it interviewing someone who’s just a statistical fluke.”

  The AnMan’s voicebox buzzed reassuringly. He opened his valise. “If you wish, I can go over the data again, Hamilton. Of our random sampling, this man Farrell Cooper shows a level of satisfaction with his ritual club that is two standard deviations above average. I feel certain he fits the criteria.”

  Hamilton was still uneasy. Although he was a fully licensed amateur sociologist, he didn’t like invading people’s homes to interview them. What if he interrupted this Cooper fellow while he was busy at one of his avocations? Or worse, at work on his Vocation?

  No one liked having his Vocation interrupted… the few hours a week one got to do something that had “professional” status. Hamilton always hated it when some amateur bothered him during his precious hours as a real, honest-to-god banker. He would much rather be at the bank now, being a professional, than pursuing this silly sociology hobby. But android labor had made real work for humans a rationed commodity. To use up the rest of the time, the law required that every citizen take up a half-dozen pastimes. Though as an amateur sociologist he understood the need for such a law, Hamilton sometimes found himself hating it.

  The floater swept by Buckingham Museum, past dusty statues of heroes from the time of the Social Amalgamation. Picnickers lounged on the wide lawn, filling the time each had allotted to Idle Socializing or to Hobby Daydreaming. Everywhere Hamilton saw signs of the same lackadaisical wrongness that had been evident in the ritual parade.

  He wished he had never started this amateur study of his. The deeper he and Dan AnMan dug, the more depressed he got. He had never intended to find out about a moral dryrot at the heart of the World State. He had only wanted something mildly interesting to help pass the time.

  The AnMan spoke again.

  “I can tell you are nervous, Hamilton. Don’t be. This is the beginning of your vindication. All of those who said you lacked a proper enthusiasm for amateur sociology will be refuted when your Loyalty Index theory is demonstrated!”

  “You really think so?” Then Hamilton frowned. “Who said I lacked enthusiasm?”

  Dan was a sophisticated model, free to choose which question to answer.

  “Yes, I do think so, Hamilton. Your discovery appears to be a major one. I find it interesting that the professional sociologists have published so little about the rising tide of disenchantment, or on how the surrogate passion of the ritual clubs seems not to be satisfying the average citizen.”

  It felt odd hearing his own terminology come out of the AnMan so smoothly. It made Hamilton feel proud, and just a little embarrassed. Before he could reply, the android looked up.

  “We are here,” Dan announced. The taxi came to a smooth halt in front of a handsome row of townhouses that had obviously been designed by a professional, rather than an amateur, architect.

  Hamilton checked his notes again. “This fellow, his name is…”

  “Farrell Cooper.”

  “Yes. And the name of his ritual club…?”

  “The Bath and Garter Society, Hamilton.”

  “Yeah, right. Bath and Garter. Sounds kind of kinky. Group-sex clubs usually don’t work well in the ritual category. I wonder what’s so unusual about this one.”

  For fifteen hours each week Farrell Cooper did service to society in his Vocation, as a veterinarian’s assistant at the New Hampstead Riding Stables. His artistic avocation was leather-working—a suspiciously large number of the pieces on display in his home were saddles and other equestrian tack. It was no surprise, then, that Cooper’s Athletic Hobby was riding.

  His registered Altruism Hobby consisted of five hours a week helping at a local Robot Free Clinic, “caring for our modern serfs, who have given us this banquet of free time,” as he put it, rather stiffly.

  Cooper was a tall, stooped, hawk-faced man with pursed lips and a dour expression. He welcomed Dan and Hamilton without enthusiasm, and accepted their amateur-researcher credentials with barely a glance. After showing them his work and study rooms he led them into the parlor.

  Hamilton sat on the tooled-leather sofa and opened his notebook. “Well, Mr. Cooper, we’ve seen examples of your art skill, and your other avocations. What we’d really like to know more about is your ritual club. Our survey shows that you spend the maximum time allowed—a full twenty hours a week—working for this… Bath and Garter Society. Yet the group seems to have full-scale meetings only a few times a year. Just what is your function in the club?”

  Cooper fidgeted. For a moment he looked as if he were actually considering refusing to answer. Hamilton felt a thrill. One didn’t run into criminal acts every day.

  But the man sighed at last and answered. “I have the honor and privilege of serving as a parttime valet to His Grace.”

  Hamilton suppressed a groan. They might be here all day, tracing the relationship between the “Grand Imperial Poobah” and the “Master Gzork”—or whatever titles they used in this ritual club.

  “Could you please define the function of a… a ‘valet,’ Mr. Cooper?”

  Cooper enunciated slowly, with a queerly old-fashioned accent. “A valet is one who serves another as a personal aide, bodyguard, attendant, emissary… it is an honor to so serve one of the Blood.”

  Hamilton caught Dan AnMan’s eye. Was that bemusement on the android’s usually passive face?

  Hamilton cleared his throat. “You say that as a ‘valet’ you ‘serve’ this…” He referred to his notes. “This person you call His Grace.’ Is this person a dancer?”

  “No.”

  “Hmmm. Well, does he have any other titles in your club?”

  Cooper’s eyes seemed to focus on something very far away. “His other titles are almost innumerable, Mr. Smith. They are all legitimate and have never been secret, though we’ve always avoided publicity. Now, I suppose, His Grace will have to decide what to do next.”

  Hamilton had finally decided that Cooper was that rare commodity, a genuine lunatic. He wondered if there were still bounties offered for citizens who referred sick people to therapy.

  “Well, since the titles aren’t secret, could you tell us a few of them?”

  “All right.” Cooper bowed slightly. “His name is George Gustaf Charles Ferdinand Louis Jaro Taisho�
� Well, he’ll tell you the others if he wishes. You will find him at Islington Robot Hospital, where he is chief professional psychiatrist. As for his titles, they include the Crowns of Holland, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Japan, China, Russia, Britain, large parts of Africa and the Americas—”

  “Hold it!” Hamilton raised his hand.’ “Mr. Cooper, just what is meant by this term ‘Crown’?”

  Cooper smiled for the first time. “Why, it means that in all of those lands His Majesty is, by the grace of God and by sovereign right, king.”

  Cooper leaned forward and looked at Hamilton benignly.

  “He is your king too, you know.”

  2

  The nameplate read:

  DR. GEORGE GUSTAF

  CHIEF PROFESSIONAL

  ROBOT AND ANDROID PSYCHOLOGY

  Hamilton stopped before the door and adjusted the amateur researcher credential on his lapel. He wished he had kept Dan with him instead of sending him off to the library.

  At first he had expected to find out that Gustaf was as crazy as his ‘valet.’ But the man’s public dossier was impeccable. In his productive Vocation he was one of the most respected robo-psychiatrists in Europe. His intellectual avocations included law and history, in each of which he had been awarded honorary professional status, a rare encomium. Everyone envied a person who won Vocation in more than one area. Gustaf had three professions!

  He knocked on the door. After a moment it was opened by a dark-haired young man of above medium height, who smiled broadly and offered his hand.

  “Mr. Smith? Please come in and have a seat. I’ll be right with you.”

  Hamilton found himself a chair across from a broad, hand-carved mahogany desk. Dr. Gustaf passed through a side door into a treatment room. Hamilton could hear him giving firm advice to a Drone Class robot. The machine’s answers were a series of clicks and beeps that Hamilton couldn’t begin to interpret.

  He looked at the items on display on the wall of the office. There were diplomas, of course, and trophies from athletic competitions. He noted that few of the works of art had that look that said they had come from somebody’s hobby. Most appeared to be quite old.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Smith.” Gustaf came in, closing the door behind him. He hung his lab coat on a hanger, then took a seat across from Hamilton.

  “Now, I suppose this is about the old Bath and Garter, isn’t it? Farrell told me about your visit yesterday. It was all right for him to do that, wasn’t it? He said you didn’t ask for confidentiality.”

  “Oh, sure. That’s fine.” Hamilton waved nonchalantly. Actually, he had intended to ask Cooper to respect the convention, but he had been running late for basketball practice and afterward a round of committed pleasure reading, and he had forgotten.

  Today he had uncharacteristically rushed through his work at the bank and left early.

  “Now, about your ritual club. Mr. Cooper makes some claims about its antiquity that are, frankly, hard to believe. Lying to a credentialed researcher is a crime, you know. Perhaps you can explain his extravagant story?”

  Gustaf nodded seriously. “Oh, I’m sure Farrell meant no harm. Perhaps he got a little carried away and misinterpreted some of the facts.

  “You see, Mr. Smith, the Bath and Garter has been registered as a ritual club for nearly three hundred years. That’s about the same age as our Total Social World State.”

  “I see. So your members are justifiably proud to be part of one of the oldest clubs. Perhaps that explains Cooper’s flights of fancy.” Actually, Hamilton was a little disappointed. He had hoped for something more unusual.

  Gustaf nodded. “Of course, the precursors of the society go back several thousand years before the Amalgamation. There were the English Knights of the Bath, of course, and the Fujiwara clan, which held the curtain to the Chrysanthemum throne…”

  Gustaf’s fingers formed a bridge and he tilted back in his chair. “Do you see that ancient fan, Mr. Smith? The one in that case? It is the patent granted by the last ethnic Chinese emperor to his infant son. It was ratified by townsmen and elders up and down the Yangtze before the Manchu invaders arrived. The secret society that hid that child and his descendants is one of those that merged into the Bath and Garter hundreds of years ago. The child they protected was one of my ancestors.”

  Hamilton blinked. “Then Cooper’s claims that you are this… this king’…”

  Gustaf shrugged. “It’s all well documented, Mr. Smith. By all the old laws of inheritance I am the heir of the merged royal families of Europe, Asia, and large parts of the rest of the world.”

  The robo-psychiatrist laughed when he saw Hamilton’s expression.

  “Oh, you needn’t look so stunned, Mr. Smith. You are looking at no madman. I’m a perfectly modern and productive member of society—a society of which I approve in most parts. I don’t claim any of the privileges once due someone with my unique genetic heritage. That would be absurd. I’m merely the hereditary head of a ritual club—perfectly legal. Along with a few thousand others I take pleasure in maintaining a spiritual link with the past.”

  Hamilton checked his recorder to make sure it was operating. He couldn’t believe this. “And members of your club, are they also…?”

  “Hereditary? Well, yes, to a degree. Certainly new members are welcome, and the increase has been rather great of late. But patrilineal families have been our mainstay… families with names like Hsien, Orange, Stuart, Fujiwara…”

  Gustaf spread his hands. “You must try to understand how things were just after the Amalgamation, Mr. Smith. Neosocialism was not, in those days, the pervasive, mostly benign set of assumptions it is today, but a powerfully emotional and violent movement. Among the scapegoats of that era was anyone who claimed distinction based on heredity or family name… although such things once had their purposes.

  “The royal houses had divested themselves of real power long beforehand, so they weren’t scrutinized as much as they might have been. Their withdrawal from public affairs was generally accomplished with goodwill and careful attention to legal niceties.”

  “Fascinating,” Hamilton said. “I thought that kings and queens and such were already gone back in the days of sailing ships and hang gliders.”

  “Not quite. But they kept a very low profile for survival’s sake. I suppose that reticence has become a habit that’s outlived its original purpose.”

  Hamilton nodded agreeably, but he wasn’t fooled for an instant. Dr. Gustaf might be a thoroughly modern gentleman, but Hamilton had seen that look in Farrell Cooper’s eyes! And the membership was mostly hereditary! How quaint!

  Hamilton had to contain his pleasure. He might have stumbled across an actual tribe! It might be the first tribe found since those—what were they called?—yes, Marxists—were the talk of all the sociology journals twenty years ago. That pathetic little group had been secretly maintaining some delusion of world conquest for centuries. After the initial publicity the members had all moved to different continents in embarrassment.

  Hamilton smiled and listened as Dr. Gustaf talked on.

  But already he was thinking about the abstract for his paper.

  He hoped the Bath and Garter would last longer than the Marxists had.

  His first article in Amateur Sociologists’ Weekly was reprinted as far away as Mars and Titan. Hamilton was afraid for a time that he would lose control when the professional sociologists took notice. But with Dan AnMan’s help he was able to get a statistopsychic study ready before anyone else. That did it. They were invited to do the lead article for the next issue of Popular Sociology.

  “That is wonderful news, Hamilton,” his android assistant buzzed. “You should get honorary professional status for this. It is a terrific honor to be granted a second profession at so young an age.”

  Hamilton grinned and sat back with his feet up on his desk. In a world that valued competent eclecticism over anything else, all the vocations guarded their professional status jealously
. Hamilton had himself served on juries of professional bankers, screening hundreds of amateur financiers every year… each trying to convince the judges to award him the “second hat.”

  And now Hamilton had almost certainly won one of his own. Dr. George Gustaf wasn’t the only man talented enough to attain more than one vocation!

  He had to admit that the Gustaf fellow had class. The man was taking the growing public attention with remarkable calm. He had even invited Hamilton to a special meeting of the Bath and Garter, somehow leaving Hamilton with the feeling that he had been done a great honor.

  Clan leaders from all over the world had flown in for the meeting. Many of the men and women were clearly skilled professionals, and most were obviously worried about the growing notoriety. But Gustaf had appeared unconcerned, radiating an assurance that soon calmed the others.

  Hamilton had been disappointed in the ritualistic aspects of the meeting. There weren’t even any of the funny hats or arcane symbols of his own Loyal Order. There was some mild bowing and an occasional sheepish “my lord”… but nothing kinky at all.

  Still, underlying it all were subtleties that Hamilton took note of… attitudinal cues he carefully recorded. Something very unusual was going on here. The members of this group took it all quite a bit more seriously than participants in a normal ritual club. He had left the gathering with more than just a pile of notes.

  “I’ve transcribed my impressions of the meeting,” he told the android. “Have you finished your historical survey?”

  Dan’s translucent head bobbed in assent. “I have, Hamilton. And I think the history will make an ideal introduction to our book. I will try to write up a lucid description of what a monarchy was. A lot of people who never took up the right avocations won’t have heard of it.”

  “Good idea.” That would save Hamilton a lot of time. Already the members of his basketball team were complaining because he was neglecting his athletic hobby. Success was commendable, they reminded him quite rightly, but obsession was illegal.