The Jagged Orbit Read online

  But, as a mercy, he had been spared the expected siege of cameras and mikes, interviewers and political agents. He might have said, in his first outbreak of fury, things he couldn’t have lived down. And after all it was Uys, the white Afrikaner, who had been at the bottom of his trouble. Venial, power-hungry, oversexed, whatever his faults might be, surely Mayor Black was too intelligent to go on undermining his own position! Sooner or later he was bound to realize that in dispensing with his internationally famous vu-man Pedro Diablo he was throwing away one of his most valuable weapons, and that that must be exactly what Uys had wanted in the first place!

  There was a shrill buzzing sound. He jumped, then made the automatic mental correction. That was the noise a comweb made out here when someone was calling up. Back in Blackbury, of course, the call-sign was the thump of an African speaking drum uttering the Yoruba phrase for “come and listen.” He was going to have to rid himself of a hell of a lot of ingrained reflexes, like a typist changing to a machine with a different keyboard layout. But he would just have to suffer in silence.

  Sighing, he announced that he was ready to accept the call.

  THIRTY

  I AM BECOME AS A GOD, AND SEE ALL THAT PASSES WITH THE EYE OF AN EAGLE

  It was almost surprising that a room large enough to hold an audience of forty for the performance by the pythoness had been incorporated in the design of the hospital. The emphasis Mogshack placed on unbreachable privacy was so intense that there were no assembly halls, open sitting-rooms nor even a gymnasium. Mogshack himself preferred not to deal with his staff face to face; he “retired and regrouped” so frequently that weeks might pass without even his senior assistants encountering him in the flesh.

  However, worried for fear his plans might later need to be altered in the light of experience, the architect had insisted on some areas of the hospital being fitted wititi retractable walls, and taking away half a dozen of these in a sector temporarily not occupied by patients created a space adequate for the performance.

  The audience had already begun to assemble when Reedeth switched on his comweb screen to watch the proceedings. He had never had the least intention of insisting that he be physically present, but he had been unable to resist the chance of making Ariadne blush. He chuckled as he glanced over the green-clad patients entering the room, but his amusement faded the instant he realized that among the first of them was Harry Madison.

  There must be some way to return that man to the outside world! Mogshack ought to have done it months ago; why he hadn’t was hard to understand … unless (and a familiar demon rode the concept, snickering) he was indeed hoarding his patients like a miser. Perhaps one could confront him and argue that having one solitary kneeblank under his care was a potential source of disturbance for his other patients?

  Reedeth sighed. If one were to pursue the implications of the Madison case to their ultimate conclusion, one might far too easily decide that anyone so totally unpredictable must be, by definition, unsuited to ordinary society. Those modifications to the desketary, for instance: could a normal person have done them so deftly and rapidly? Without being an expert, Reedeth was better grounded in cybernetics than the average layman—had to be, since so much of modern psychotherapy depended on computerized insights—and he was prepared to swear that the designer couldn’t have envisaged these changes.

  Additionally: asked to guess whether Madison would be interested in watching a pythoness, he would at once have answered in the negative. All the psychoprofiles ever raised for him had indicated strong opposition to anything that smacked of the unscientific or the supernormal. Yet here he was not only turning up but arriving ahead of time, as though eager.

  So what had persuaded him to accept the invitation—mere boredom? That alas was all too likely. Madison’s impassive demeanor, Reedeth noticed, was a complete contrast to that of the other green-clad patients. They without exception were visibly nervous. It was plain that they were relieved at this breach of their customary isolation, but at the same time alarmed at being in the real-life company of so many other people after weeks, months and in a few cases possibly years of contact via comweb screens.

  Come to think of it, that meant—and Reedeth clapped his hand to his forehead as the point struck him—he was witnessing an event unprecedented since the foundation of the Ginsberg. And it was Ariadne, of all people, who had brought it about.

  “That girl must be a Conroyan at heart!” he said to the air, remembering to add a rider and instruct the desketary not to store the comment.

  So who was this girl Lyla Clay whose reputation had sustained Ariadne through what must have been a long and difficult argument with Mogshack? He had a vague general idea of what pythonesses were supposed to do and why people liked to watch them doing it. One could hardly live in twenty-first century America and not number a handful of pythoness-fans among one’s acquaintances—not to mention hi-psi fans, Lar-worshippers and people even further off the traditional western orbit. But he had never actually watched a pythoness at work, and the name of this particular girl was strange to him even though Ariadne had assured him that she was among the most talented of all. Abandoning the room where she was scheduled to perform, he switched from one to another of the more than three thousand cameras he could pipe into his screen, wondering if he could spot her on the way up.

  Shortly he caught the image of a dark-haired young man riding a pediflow in the right direction, accompanied by a girl in a bullet-proof yash. The pythoness and her mackero, presumably—yes, it must be, for Ariadne herself was coming to greet them at the next intersection in due compliance with Mogshack’s code of good manners. That prescribed condescension from those who were wealthy enough to afford privacy towards those who were not, in such matters as appearing personally to welcome visitors from below the poverty-line.

  In spite of the obscuring yash, it was possible to discern that the pythoness was young and graceful in her movements. Reedeth found himself hoping that she wouldn’t be compelled to keep the yash on in front of the patients.

  THIRTY-ONE

  EXCERPT FROM A RELIABLE GLOSSARY OF TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY USAGE

  Mackero (MAK-uh-roh) [Fr. maquereau mackerel, colloq. pimp; cf. “mack”] Manager, agent (e.g.) for young self-supporting female (photographic model, freelance singer, pythoness, e.g.); specif, male, not derog. unless abbr.

  THIRTY-TWO

  HISS, HERS AND WHOSE?

  “Is everything as you like it, Mr. Kazer?” Ariadne said, unable to stop herself giving occasional nervous glances towards the omnipresent cameras. As well as Reedeth and Mogshack, she suspected that virtually every member of the staff was likely to be watching the show. It had damned well better be a success.

  Dan bent down and felt the wide thick mat which had been spread out to prevent Lyla hurting herself during her convulsive thrashing about. “That looks fine,” he said. “Where can I connect my recorder?”

  “We’ll be recording everything ourselves, naturally,” Ariadne said. “And we have first-class facilities.”

  Dan gave her a brief professional smile. “I’m sure you have. I’d still like to make a tape of my own. Copyright, you know.”

  “Oh. Oh, yes—of course. Well, anywhere on the wall, then.” Once more Ariadne’s eyes flitted around the room. Watching, Reedeth had the distinct impression that she was stalling, delaying the start of the proceedings. Had she had second thoughts about her plan?

  Suddenly she relaxed, and in puzzlement he changed cameras for a more general scan. Just inside the door, which was still sliding closed, was standing a newcomer who looked as though he had three heads. On his shoulders he was wearing a pair of eye-following stereovision cameras like extra skulls of polished metal. And the half-concealed face between them, crossed by a tonguetip-controlled switchbar, belonged to …

  Matthew Flamen! Reedeth jolted forward in his chair. Although he was seldom able to watch the Flamen show, being at work on all the five days when it was transmitte
d at noon, he had met the vu-man twice directly following his wife’s commitment.

  Was she here? Reedeth scanned the audience and at once spotted her familiar casque of dark brown hair, far to the back in an end seat. He saw Flamen wave to her, but she gave him a perfectly blank stare, and after a moment of astonished hesitation he continued towards the front of the room. There Ariadne presented him to the pythoness and her mackero, and words were exchanged which were tantalizingly out of range of the pickups.

  Turning away, Flamen began to discharge self-seeking mikes like so many kids’ balloons, adjusting each to the flotational index of the air so it would maintain a constant height below the ceiling. Was his arrival chance or premeditation? And what did Mogshack think about a spoolpigeon turning up fully loaded with outside broadcasting equipment?

  Reedeth gave a sudden cynical chuckle and asked his desketary both questions. The answers—especially the one concerning the motives which had driven Mogshack to seek the publicity—proved beyond the slightest doubt that Madison had eliminated all the censor-circuits while he was at it.

  He was still chuckling when the dismaying thought crossed his mind that perhaps he wasn’t the only person on the staff whose desketary had been unexpectedly modified by Madison. He asked about that too, and was assured that so far this one was unique. Greatly relieved, he turned his attention back to Ariadne.

  “I hardly need to introduce Mr. Matthew Flamen,” she was saying loudly and clearly; she must have turned the pickups to full gain. “His face and voice are probably familiar to you from his five-times-weekly spoolpigeon show on the Holocosmic network. He’s asked permission to record this afternoon’s performance by Lyla Clay for possible eventual transmission on his show, but naturally I must ask whether anyone here objects to—”

  The sound dropped suddenly and the desketary said, “Dr. Mogshack is canvassing the staff also to see if they have any objections. Do you, Dr. Reedeth?”

  Reedeth hesitated. “No objection,” he said after a pause. It was the safest course. If Mogshack had already consented there was no point in starting an argument.

  Evidently no one else registered an objection either, for the next thing that happened was that Lyla Clay said something very softly to Ariadne, fingering her yash, and Ariadne glanced at two or three of the patients, seemed to debate a point with herself, and finally shrugged. Lyla tossed the yash aside with what appeared to Reedeth to be a moue of distaste, and stood revealed in nothing but a pair of abbreviated Nix.

  “Hmmm …!” Reedeth muttered. “That mackero of hers is a very lucky man!”

  Several of the male patients, and two lesbian ones, fidgeted in their chairs in a way that suggested they were equally impressed.

  The next thing that happened, however, was merely that Lyla set off on a tour of the room in total silence, briefly studying each of the people present—including, to his obvious dismay, Flamen. She seemed nervous, Reedeth judged, and took a long time about her task.

  His mind wandered off down a side alley when she reached Madison. Perhaps the answer would be to get in touch with the IBM directorate and tell them there was somebody in the Ginsberg who displayed an absolutely unbelievable gift for servicing complex automatic circuitry?

  No, that wasn’t the solution either. As well as hiring far too many neo-puritans, Inorganic Brain Manufacturers Inc. were notorious for having rid themselves of all their kneeblank employees, down to humble sales reps.

  Could he become a Gottschalk? The arms traders were among the nation’s largest consumers of high-order automatics, and no doubt they would find knee repairmen handy in their dealings with the black enclaves.

  On reflection, however, Reedeth doubted whether that would be suitable employment for Madison. His Army experiences had been successfully brought under control in his mind, but it was a matter of record that his period in combat had thrown him completely off his gyros, and who could say that exposure to close contact with modern armaments would not trigger a renewal of his trouble?

  How convenient it would be, he thought, if Flamen were to take up the Madison case, make a grand fuss about the plight of a knee stuck in a hospital long after he had qualified for discharge. … Come to think of it, it might be possible to leak the story to one of Flamen’s knee counterparts, who enjoyed far bigger audiences and what was more mainly overseas.

  Reedeth brightened, and made a mental note to see if he could locate a tendril of the grapevine leading to, say, Pedro Diablo. It would have to be done discreetly, but properly handled it might very well result in someone volunteering to act as his legal guardian and enabling him to get out at long last.

  But there was no time now to follow that up. Lyla had completed her survey of the audience and returned to the edge of the mat they had spread out for her. She nodded at Dan, who was standing by with his recorder poised, and reached for the hip pocket of her Nix. Producing a small flat bottle which Reedeth only caught a glimpse of, she shook from it a little red capsule. Flamen tongued the switchbar of his cameras to a closeup setting and captured her swallowing the pill.

  Whatever it was. Reedeth hadn’t realized that pythonesses took anything to help them go into trance. Was that a commercial product, or something alchemically home-cooked from a cut-and-try formula? Once more he consulted his desketary, and this time what he learned made him stare at Lyla’s slender body in sheer incredulity.

  For a moment or two she stood stiffly vertical, eyes closed. A heartbeat later she fell to the mat, writhing. Her back arched as though in orgasm. Spittle leaked from the corners of her mouth as she began to pant and gasp. Her hands contorted into claws and snatched at the air as though fighting off an invisible attacker—slash, slash!

  The watchers, including Reedeth who had been prepared for such an event because the desketary had told him about sibyl-pills, tensed in alarm. The girl’s muscles, contracting more violently than an epileptic’s, seemed likely to tear her apart at the joints; her breasts bobbed on her torso like a pair of buoys on a rough sea. Flamen was continuing to record, but from his expression it was plain he didn’t expect to be able to transmit this footage. If he tried, complaints from neo-puritans would almost certainly get him banned.

  Only Dan Kazer stood by calmly, glancing every few seconds at the watch on his left wrist, his other hand holding the pause switch of his recorder. Flamen turned the cameras on him just in time to catch his look of expectancy as he let the switch go, and almost in the same instant Lyla’s eyes jarred open, two deep wells into the remotest regions of her subconscious mind. From her mouth emerged a dreadful loud forced voice, baritone and masculine.

  “Ghnothe safton!” she boomed.

  “That’s not English,” Reedeth snapped at his desketary. “What is it—Hebrew?”

  “Classical Greek with a Demotic accent,” said the desketary in a faintly patronizing tone; Reedeth had often wanted to get back at the smug bastard who had programmed the linguistic section of their data banks. “It’s the motto from the temple of the Delphic oracle and it means ‘know thyself.’ ”

  Meantime, her muscular frenzy ended, Lyla had risen to a sitting position without using her hands, eyes still very wide and focused on nothing. She crossed her legs, turned by scuffling with her toes against the mat so that she was facing the audience, and placed her palms together before her face in a sketch for the Indian gesture of namasthi.

  There was a pause. Eventually Ariadne said, speaking directly to Dan in a near-whisper but with her head close enough to a wall pickup for Reedeth to catch the words, “Do we have to ask questions now?”

  “You have to with some pythonesses,” Dan responded equally softly. “Not with Lyla, though. I told you when you hired her: this girl is very damned good.”

  Regardless of what she might now say, Reedeth had made his mind up about one thing already. Lyla Clay must be one of the most amazing people in the world, capable of a feat he had never even dreamed of. If what the desketary had said about sibyl-pills was true, she
ought not now to be able to even sit up straight. She ought to be in raving delirium.

  Tension mounted. The moment before it became unbearable, Lyla said in a high clear voice like a child’s, “Mother Superior couldn’t be drearierl Life is oppressive and lonely and dun! Little Miss Celia envied Ophelia—Hamlet ignored her and then there was none! Rat- ta-ta-ta, rat-ta-ta-ta, rat-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta. Penny a look, gobbledegook, you can’t live the life that you read in a book. Pouncing and bouncing hear what I’m announcing—it’s true and you’ll never hide from it. You may think you’re knowing in coming and going but you can’t take the ‘come’ out of ‘comet.’ As I was going down the drains I met a man with seven brains. Every brain had seven lives, every life had seven wives, every wife told seven lies, who will win the liars’ prize?”

  She hesitated. Seizing the chance to take a look at the audience, Reedeth noticed that apart from Dan, who seemed rather pleased, everyone in the room wore a baffled frown.

  “As I was—” Lyla resumed, and checked. “No. Back in—No. As I was rolling round the sphere I met a man who isn’t here. As I was going down the stair I met a man who’s everywhere. Hrr-hum. Back in—”

  Once more she interrupted herself, and a shadow of worry crossed Dan’s face. Her voice grew louder and rather frightened.

  “As I was sitting on the floor I met a man who’s much much more! As I was lying on my bed I kissed a man who wasn’t dead! As I was crying out aloud I met a man who’s not allowed! As I was—as I was …”