The Jagged Orbit Read online

  Her mouth worked, her hands folded and unfolded in naked terror, and she tried to hop across the soft mat frog-fashion, eyes rolling wildly in search of escape from some unimaginable predicament. Reedeth was half out of his chair. Something must be done about this—the sight of the poor girl’s panic was intolerable!

  But before he could do anything, Dan had shut off his recorder with an angry gesture, closed the gap between himself and Lyla with a single long stride, and slapped her on both cheeks. As though miraculously called back from a million miles away, she became herself again and looked up at him docilely.

  “Was it all right?” she said in her normal voice. “What did I say?”

  THIRTY-THREE

  FOR FUTURE REFERENCE

  At thirteen-seventeen the computer which maintained Flamen’s around-the-clock news monitoring service, ever alert for hints of corruption, maladministration, yielding to blackmail pressure or other juicy scandal, logged the announcement that a large group of X Patriots was demonstrating at Kennedy Airport against the by now 95-minute delay suffered by Morton Lenigo on his way through Customs and Immigration. Police were standing by with riot guns, gas and flamethrowers and Flights 1205, 1219 and 1300 were tentatively scheduled for diversion over the Canadian border.

  At fourteen-thirty it logged an all stations from the South African Broederbond recommending that Lenigo be shot immediately and Detroit be taken out with a suitably sized nuke as necessary preliminaries to the impeachment of President Gaylord.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  IT’S OKAY TO BE A RESPONSIBLE MEMBER OF SOCIETY IF ONLY YOU KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR

  Fuming, Lionel Prior let himself through the elaborate series of barriers which guarded the entrance to his home. It would have been far better to fall in with Flamen’s suggestion and fly to the Ginsberg this afternoon, he told himself, regardless of how angry he had been at that bitter and unjustified gibe about selling out to the Holocosmic directorate. He’d have been spared one of the most embarrassing episodes of his entire life.

  Attracted by the noise as he stowed his fighting gear in its rack, his wife Nora appeared on the internal comweb screen in the hallway. By the look of it she was lying out on the patio at the back of the house catching some sun, but after a first curt glance he turned his back to the camera.

  “Did you have a good exercise, dear?” she asked in the formally polite tone he had grown used to over the past few years.

  “A good exercise?” Prior repeated, his voice shrill. “No, it was a stinking awful exercise!”

  Her manner changing on the instant, Nora said, “Well, you needn’t take out your bad temper on me!”

  “Might as well give you a foretaste of what’s coming,” Prior snapped back. “We’re due for the pariah treatment for the next few weeks, I can assure you of that. Those nice neighbors of ours!”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Let me get a drink.” He slung the last of his gear on its peg and headed for the living-zone; she switched cameras to follow him, looking alarmed.

  “It went like this,” he resumed when he had swigged the first gulp of a strong vodka rickey. “And all because I treat my citidef responsibilities seriously compared to some people I could name! You take the kneeblank part today, Phil Gasby says when I show up—you’re good, he says, you’ll sharpen our wits a bit. So I said all right. If he put it like that how could I refuse with them all staring at me? And then he pulled the drop on me. There’s a man from ISM waiting at the junction of Green and Willow, he says. Captain Lorimer. He’ll give you your attack program.”

  Savagely he poured the rest of his drink down his throat.

  “I don’t understand,” Nora said after a pause.

  “Don’t you? Do you know where you are right now on the analog screen? Buried under a pile of smoking rubble, that’s where! Phil’s defense plan that he’s been boasting about so long collapsed like a pricked balloon! I had to take him out three minutes after the start. I mean had to. I stalled as long as I could but the idiot was right there in plain sight and nobody, blank or kneeblank, could have failed to realize he was in charge the way he was shouting and waving. So then Tom Mesner took over and made a stand on the line of Willow Road, and Lorimer told me to go in by way of Orange and that was that. Sixty-eight percent casualties in under an hour and twenty-two houses afire including ours. So then he canceled the exercise and called everyone together and told us off like—like naughty children! Tom and Phil deserved what they got, of course, because lives are at stake in a thing like this and there’s no excuse for carelessness. But you know who’s going to be blamed for them being scolded in public? I am, that’s who!”

  “But I thought we had a good ISM rating here,” Nora said. “That was one of the reasons we decided to move into this district!”

  “I don’t know whether they had a good rating before that bastard Phil Gasby took charge,” Prior grunted. “But we certainly don’t have one now. Listen!” He tugged a folded paper from his pocket and spread it out. “Internal Security Maintenance, exercise report number blah, district citizens’ defense group number blah-blah … Ah, here we are. Rating for Lionel Prior Class Four, rating for group as a whole Class Six, not adjudged competent to maintain order in assigned zone in event of civil disturbance. Remarks: the group—no, I won’t read that out. It’s downright libelous!”

  “At least you got a better rating than the group average,” Nora ventured.

  “Class Four? It’s ridiculous! If I hadn’t tried to do Phil a favor I’d have got at least a Class Two, but Lorimer bawled me out too for not shooting him as soon as I got the chance. Think I’m going to get any credit for that, though? Not in a million years!”

  He threw himself into an inflatable chair and scowled at the big picture-window. Currently it was set for a broad arid stretch of veldt with a herd of antelope browsing in the distance.

  “Has Phil got picture-windows?” he concluded ferociously. “The hell he has! Those poor kids of his could be cut to mincemeat by shards of flying glass!”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Nora said in the self-righteous tone of someone winning an argument through a careless admission by the person on the other side, “And you spent a hundred and fifty thousand on that Lar of yours?”

  For an instant Prior was on the verge of exploding. But instead he gave a sigh. “Okay, I was conned. Every damned thing that could possibly go wrong today has gone wrong. If you bothered to watch Matthew’s show—”

  “I started out to, but the picture went fuzzy and I had to switch to something else,” Nora said.

  “That’s exactly it. That’s what I’ve been trying to get him to show some reaction about! But he doesn’t seem to care any more! Know what the idiot did? He practically came out with the accusation that Holocosmic is trying to get rid of him, and when I tried to pick the pieces up by suggesting we call in an unquestionable expert to study the problem he blew all his fuses and said I was selling out! Damn it, of course we’re being sabotaged, but that’s not something you say in range of a bug without having the evidence lined up! If this is what having a Lar leads to, I’m going to tell them right now what I think of their service!”

  He drained his glass and marched over to the comweb. Nora disappeared, plainly not caring to continue the conversation after having won her point. Prior scowled at the blanked screen where her face had been a moment ago.

  If only he could get her into an asylum—or any place out of earshot …!

  Reaching for the board to punch the code for Lares & Penates Inc., he checked. There was a flag up over the message slot. He jabbed his hand in to retrieve the fax paper, and read it with dismay.

  Eugene Voigt of the PCC needing to get in touch as soon as possible. That old fool! But right now his situation was too precarious to risk offending anyone who might later be of use. Sighing, he put through that call first.

  Waiting for an answer, he looked around at the handsome expe
nsive home he had worked for years to achieve: splendidly furnished, with real hand-painted pictures on the walls, hand-woven rugs on the floor protected by an invisible film of plastic against the scuffing of children’s feet, antique ornaments thirty, forty, even fifty years old …

  “Doesn’t Matthew realize what I stand to lose if he throws his contract away?” he said to the unheeding air.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  A FIASCO IS A BOTTLE IN WHICH ITALIAN WINE IS SOLD

  “Well, that was a fiasco and no mistake!” Dan muttered to Lyla the moment he had the chance to abandon his professional good manners and could speak to her without anyone else overhearing.

  Bewildered, she stared at him. The patients were being shepherded from the room under Ariadne’s supervision; Matthew Flamen, having covered several of them in closeup from near the door to wind up his reel of tape, had doffed his recording equipment and was now engaged in conversation with one of the last of the audience to leave, a singularly lovely girl with her mouth in a sulky pout. The conversation seemed to be completely one-sided.

  “But—but why?” Lyla whispered.

  “The biggest break you’re ever likely to get in your life, Flamen turning up to cover the performance, and how long do you run? Eleven minutes, that’s how long! Think they’re going to be pleased at getting such a short show? You let me down, darl, and that’s all there is to it.”

  She went on staring at him in disbelief for another few seconds. Suddenly, as though the nerve-signals had this moment reached her brain, she put up her fingers to touch her cheeks.

  “Dan, did you slap me out of it?”

  “Had to!”

  “But you know that’s terribly dangerous! You might have—”

  “Did I?”

  “I …” She swallowed enormously and shook her head. “I guess not. I feel pretty much as usual after a session. But why?” The last word peaked into a cry.

  “You’ll find out when you hear the tape.” His eyes flicked past her. “Shut up and look pleasant—Flamen’s coming this way.”

  The girl he had been talking to was leaving with the rest of the patients now, like one more among a herd of two-legged sheep, and Flamen himself was approaching with his face set in a frown.

  “Mr. Flamen!” Dan exclaimed. “I do hope you haven’t been disappointed! I assure you, this is the first time I’ve ever had to cut Lyla short in public.”

  “Had to?” Lyla blazed. “You didn’t have to do anything of the kind! Stop talking as though it’s my fault, or you’ll be out one pythoness. I mean that!”

  “I knew what I was doing,” Dan muttered. “You’re not the first pythoness I’ve macked for.”

  “No, just the first who didn’t have to supplement her earnings by sacking out with strangers!” Lyla blasted back.

  “Mr. Flamen, Lyla’s a bit overwrought, I’m afraid,” Dan said apologetically. “Perhaps we could—”

  “And shouldn’t I be? I might have woken up crazy, don’t you realize that?”

  “Ah, Miss Clay—Mr. Kazer!” Another voice cut in, and there was Ariadne coming to join them. “That was very interesting. I really am impressed! I wonder if you could spare the time to discuss the oracles and see if you can attach them to any of the …” The words died away. Glancing uncertainly from face to face, she asked, “Is something the matter?”

  “I never talk about my oracles,” Lyla said firmly. “Take them or leave them, it’s up to you. I want to go home. I don’t like this place and I can’t stand what it does to people. Give me my rapitrans ticket, Dan.” She held out her hand, but he made no move to comply.

  “That’s very interesting,” Flamen murmured. “I don’t much like what this place does to people, either.” He rounded on Ariadne. “You told me that the only patients being invited to this show were those making a good recovery. But when I tried to talk to Celia just now she’d hardly even exchange a civil hello with me. Is that what your famous boss regards as a decent cure?”

  “We undertake nothing more than to try and help our patients reconstruct their personalities,” Ariadne said stiffly. “If it turns out that some of their previous emotional involvements were manifestations of some deep-lying immaturity or other malfunction, that simply can’t be helped.”

  Flamen’s face went milk-white and every muscle visible on his body tightened like an overwound clock-spring. Ariadne took half a pace back, as though driven by the sheer vehemence of his glare.

  “I said I don’t like what you’ve done to Celia, doctor! As far as I can see, if she stays here any longer she won’t have a mind left to be mended—she’s just being drained!”

  “If you disapprove of Dr. Mogshack’s methods, you’re at liberty to transfer her into someone else’s care,” Ariadne snapped, scarcely seeming to realize whom she was talking to. Her eyes were darting to Lyla every few seconds, then away again as though she were afraid of being rebuked for staring.

  “I’ll take that as an invitation!” Flamen said icily. “Good afternoon! By the way, Miss Clay, I’m heading back to the city by skimmer—perhaps I can give you a ride somewhere?”

  “The fastest route out of here is the one I take,” Lyla said. “Yes, please.”

  “But, Lyla—!” Dan reached out to take hold of her arm. In the same instant Ariadne said anxiously, “Miss Clay, is it wise to—?”

  “But nothing,” Lyla cut in. “You blamed me for giving a short performance, then you admitted that you slapped me awake ahead of time. You come home at all, you come crawling. Do you understand?”

  THIRTY-SIX

  AN OBLIGATION IS LIKE A MUSCLE: WHEN YOU CONTRACT IT IT GETS BIGGER AND HARDER

  Three faces, not just one, appeared in Prior’s comweb screen, split by a half and two quarters. Voigt occupied the half, naturally; Prior noticed he’d invested in some new ears. He, and the blank occupying the upper quarter on the other side, had sound and vision links working, but the remaining caller—a scowling kneeblank—seemed as yet not to be spliced into the circuit.

  “Mr. Prior!” Voigt said with professional cordiality. “We haven’t spoken in far too long. Nonetheless, I should apologize for disturbing you at your home.”

  Prior mouthed a conventional rejoinder.

  “Let me introduce Mr. Frederick Campbell, of the Bureau of State and Federal Relations,” Voigt went on. “He’s appealed to me for some assistance, and I think the best thing I can do is refer him to you. Mr. Campbell, suppose you brief Mr. Prior yourself.”

  “With pleasure,” Campbell said, his tone contradicting the words. “Well, perhaps I should start by explaining that my work is concerned with the negotiation of city tax contracts, and this morning I had to visit Blackbury and discuss their purchases of water and power for the coming year. And just as I was leaving I—uh … Well, I had a rather awkward problem dumped in my lap.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Prior said sourly. “The dinge there.” He pointed at the remaining corner of the screen. “Well, right now I have problems of my own, and the last thing—”

  “I know you have, Mr. Prior,” Voigt cut in. “Do I have to remind you that the PCC monitors the transmissions of all licensed vu-stations? It hasn’t entirely escaped our notice that the incidence of transmission faults affecting the Matthew Flamen show has hit a statistically improbable high. That’s why I thought of bringing our—ah—involuntary visitor to your attention. The name of that dinge, as you termed him, happens to be Pedro Diablo.”

  “What?” Prior jerked like a newly hooked fish. “Are they out of their skulls, parting with a man like that? Why, he’s worth a couple of army corps all by himself!”

  “I understand that’s his own opinion also,” Campbell muttered. “I had the story in not inconsiderable detail after he’d been forced into my skimmer at gunpoint this morning.”

  “But what possessed them?”

  “A visit from Herman Uys,” Campbell said.

  “Uys? In Blackbury? But I wouldn’t have thought he’d be seen dead in �
�” Prior’s voice tailed away in bewilderment. After a pause he added feebly, “Anyhow, I didn’t know he was in the country.”

  “Nor did Diablo,” Campbell said grimly. “Nor—which is far worse—did the Immigration Service.” He wiped his face with a large yellow handkerchief. “The Afrikaners must have developed some wholly new technique for deceiving our computers, I guess. But that’s irrelevant; they’ve tipped their hand and we’ll be on guard in the future. Let’s stick to the point.”

  He tucked away his handkerchief and leaned closer to the camera.

  “Apparently Uys has been conducting heredity checks on all municipal employees. Mayor Black has rashly promised to cut back the non-melanist heredity of the city’s population to twenty-five percent in the next generation, and I need hardly tell you that the rigidity of his attitude is backfiring very satisfactorily. We’ve already had undercover feelers regarding the proposed safe-conduct of surplus population units, chiefly young unmarrieds, to other cities in order to widen the genepool, but I’m pleased to say we can scotch that idea under the Mann Act. However …”

  He hesitated. Suddenly his executive urbanity slipped like a carnival mask on a broken elastic.

  “Frankly, Mr. Prior, we’re engaged in so many ticklish maneuvers right now, with such minuscule computer weightings in our favor, that the dismissal of Pedro Diablo is far from the unalloyed blessing it might appear. I doubt if you’re familiar with the contract between the Federal government and the Blackbury city council, but it just so happens it’s one of the worst anyone ever wrote. Because it’s one of the oldest; it predates the advent of the computers we use nowadays to get rid of dangerous loopholes. Some crazy goddamned idiot thought we could bribe kneeblanks to desert from the enclaves, way back when, and there’s still a provision in the contract which compels us to guarantee equivalent employment and better salary and living conditions to anyone who comes out of the city, whether he defects or gets deported. And Diablo knows all about that. He quoted clause, paragraph and line to me when I was bringing him away this morning. And he is boiling mad.”