The Jagged Orbit (9 page)

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. Priori" 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 Black-bury 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 gene-pool, 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."

"So it occurred to me," Voigt put in, "that the services of one of (he most brilliant talents ever to handle the visual media might not inappropriately be engaged by the nearest surviving counterpart on blank-run channels of the programs he has been accustomed to prepare in his—ah—former environment. Especially since our computer analyses, Mr. Prior, indicate that some time around now your principal's temperament is liable to get him into a certain amount of trouble with the Holocosmic directorate."

The sly old fox! Prior shook his head in reluctant admiration. The PCC might be a dead letter, but Eugene Voigt certainly was not. There were so many possibilities inherent in the proposal just made to him that his head was spinning. If worse came to worst and Flamen stupidly involved himself in a quarrel with Holocosmic, it would be a marvelous lifeline to be associated with Diablo; talent like his would remain salable indefinitely. In point of fact, however, it seemed unlikely things would come to such a pass. Assuming Diablo really was as angry with his former boss as Campbell believed, why shouldn't a joint Flamen-Diablo show become the only program which could tackle knee scandals as well as blank ones?
That
would bring the audience rushing back by the tens of millions—people like Nora, for instance, and his neighbors, half-fascinated and half-repelled by the walking talking aliens against whose depredations they had to be on guard night and day. . . .

And with a prospect like that before them, the Holocosmic directorate would change their minds instantly about trying to squeeze the Flamen show off the beams.

But Prior retained his professional presence of mind. Aloud he said, "Well, naturally, Mr. Voigt, it's always a privilege to cooperate with a request from a governmental agency. However, you'll understand that I can't commit myself to anything without consulting my principal, and I'll certainly need a rundown on the legal situation before I—"

"If you need computer time," Campbell interrupted, "just ask. Candidly, Mr. Prior, we want to get Diablo off our backs
fast—
I mean, of course, we want to see him settled into a slot where no court in the world could deny that he was being offered the sort of opportunities to pursue his profession which the wording of the Blackbury contract might have led him to expect. Salary is no problem; if we had to, we could cheerfully pension the entire population of all the enclaves at the income level they can currently command. But as I told you, it's not just a matter of salary."

Prior swallowed hard. He had a vaguely dream-like sensation, as though he had inadvertently imbibed a very small dose of a hallucinogen.

He tossed caution to the winds and came straight out with the nub of his problem.

"Mr. Voigt, Matthew thinks that Holocosmic is—uh—
conniving
at the interference with our show because they'd like to have another all-advertising slot in its place and would welcome a chance to break the contract they have with us. I wonder whether this offer of Federal computer time might extend to assisting us in our attempts to evaluate the trouble?"

"Why, by all means, Mr. Prior," Voigt said blandly. "To exceed their present advertising schedule would be to infringe the Planetary Communications Charter, and that we could not possibly permit."

Exultantly Prior made a private promise to buy Voigt his next pair of ears.

"It's a deal," he said aloud. "Yes, sir—it is most
definitely
a deal."

THIRTY-SEVEN
MANNERED SCRIPT, FOUND ON A BOTTLE

Active Ingredient

Rx 250 mg. per capsule di-psycho-coca-3,2-parabufote-nine tartrate hexitol complex in an anhydrous buffering medium and neutral gelatin shells

THIRTY-EIGHT
IF YOU'RE STUCK WITH A FIASCO YOU MIGHT AS WELL MAKE SPECTACLES OF YOURSELVES SO THAT AT LEAST YOU'LL HAVE SOME GLASSES TO POUR THE CONTENTS INTO

Following the departure of Lyla and Flamen there was a dejected silence. Eventually Dan said, with a desperate air of salving what he could from a wreck, "Well, Dr. Spoelstra, I can only assume it was the special conditions of working in a mental hospital which threw Lyla out of her regular orbit. I hope you won't judge—"

"Hello! Why such long faces? I thought the show was a tremendous success!"

They all turned to see who had spoken. Reedeth had appeared in the doorway and was advancing with fingers bunched to blow a kiss at Ariadne.

"What more could you ask of a pythoness," he went on, "than oracles so clear you don't have to crack your skull over them? You must be Dan Kazer, I guess—the mackero? Glad to meet you. My name's James Reedeth and I work here. I gather your young lady friend was a big hit with Matthew Flamen, hm? Seeing that they left together, I forecast a personal appearance on three-vee, planetwide exposure, and as a result—"

"Jim, you're manic!" Ariadne exclaimed. "What's got into you? Freeze it! I'm not in the mood."

"Wrong. You think you're not, but actually you arc. I should have guessed that myself but it took a pythoness to show me the truth. Regardless of whether Ariadne is in touch with you again, Mr. Kazer, I assure you I will be."

"Jim, shut up!" Ariadne cried.

"I will not. It's your own fault. You forbade me to attend the session in person, didn't you? If you'd allowed me to join in you might have found out something as revealing about me as I did about you. Tell me, though, Mr. Kazer, why did you slap her face and bring her out of trance?"

Horribly embarrassed because it was obvious from Ariadne's expression how upset she was by Reedeth's behavior, Dan said uncertainly, "Well—ah . . . Well, you noticed how after the first couple of oracles she lapsed into a recurrent cycle: 'as I was doing such and such I met a man who this and that'? That's what they call an echo-trap. You can't let that kind of thing go on. I've heard of pythonesses who got stuck in one of those and never came out again."

"I
see," Reedeth nodded. "Funny—I'd never thought of pythonesses being subject to professional hazards before. But then, I guess I never took them very seriously. After today, though, I assure you I won't underestimate them again."

Dan gave a wan smile of appreciation. There was a pause. When it was clear nothing further was going to be said, he gathered up his recorder and addressed Ariadne.

"I take it the fee for—"

"It'll be forwarded as arranged," Ariadne snapped.

"Well . . . Well, then that's all, I guess. Good afternoon."

The moment he had disappeared, Ariadne spun to face Reedeth. "And what's got into you?" she blazed. "Don't I have enough problems without you acting like a fool? Flamen just threatened to take his wife away!"

"Why should that bother you? She's here under private contract, isn't she? So we'd make a fat profit on the deal. Besides, any man who genuinely cared about his wife would feel the same way after she'd had a few months of treatment here."

"Jim!" Horrified, she went white. "Dr. Mogshack may be listening!"

"Not to what we're saying, he isn't. I had Harry Madison in to repair my desketary this morning, and he's fixed it up with some interesting new gimmicks. Go on —get it off your chest without worrying. There's no one to hear you but me."

She stared at him for long moments, mouth ajar. When he put out his hand to take hers and lead her away, she followed him like a trusting child.