He was occupied in unpicking the stitches along the handle of his traveling bag. It would save the Americustoms the trouble.
Landing on the skimmer-park of the Ginsberg, MatFlamen thought as he glanced up at the tall maxetowers, was like parachuting among the stakes of some Brobdignagian picket fence. To picture human beexisting within those colossal blank pillars was to reduce them to the status of nematodes, burrowing unthe bark of trees in utter ignorance of the greater world outside.
He was taken aback at the violence of the repulsion with which they filled him. On his former visits-few of them, granted, and the last one already months in the past-he had been inclined to envy Dr. Mogshack, wonwhat it felt like to conceive an abstract principle and see it so splendidly interpreted in the form of a building.
Reaching in through the side window of his skimmer, he tapped the dispenser key on the underside of the dash. A small white trank dropped into his waiting palm, and he gulped it down. A nasty sneaking sushad been developing in his mind during the flight out to the hospital. He had jumped on Prior as though accusing him of treachery-as witness that gibe about one of the directorate taking him out of bugging range and making him a proposition-and the idea simdidn’t stand up. Prior had at least as much to lose by the cancellation of the show as he did himself; in one sense he stood to lose even more, for he had children and Flamen didn’t.
So the idea of calling in an independent expert to evaluate the trouble they were having with their incomweb at the Etchmark Tower was in fact a damned good one. The investigation could convincingly be made to lead into a check on Holocosmic’s own cirfor what it was worth, PCC backing could probbe obtained, and.
But it was a pipe-dream anyway, Flamen assured himself. Grant that it could be done-which was defor what “outside expert” could be found to match Holocosmic’s own computers?-grant that he could prove his case, be awarded damages, survive the nine remaining months of his contract. so what? Where else was there for a spoolpigeon to go? He belonged to a dying species. People were too busy minding their own business to care about anyone else’s. They were turning inwards, to the ultimately private entertainment of subjective hallucinatory experience. They were each constructing a maxecurity tower, windowless, unbreach
Maybe Prior wasn’t so wrong after all to have resorted to Lares Penates Inc. In the face of this incomprecomplex modern world where the forces of economics and macroplanning reigned with the imperdetachment of storm and drought, it might well be better for an individual to delude himself into bethat he could cope. Feigning confidence might indeed be superior to merely resigning oneself to one’s own inadequacy.
What sort of a cult would L P dream up for him? One like Prior’s, involving elaborate posturing and ceremoFlamen shook his head. Regardless of whether L P were really a blank-targeted subsidiary of Conjuh Man, there was no doubt they were excellent pragmatic psychologists. For him, therefore, they’d likely suggest a complete contrast: something rather nasty, demanding that he chop the heads off chickens and smear his face with their blood. Doing duty to one’s Lar was supto externalize one’s inward characteristics, and for somebody who had originally established himself in his career by systematically slaughtering reputations there was bound to be an element of sacrifice.
The trank took hold. His mood lightened. But his irdidn’t pass away completely. How much longer was he going to be kept out here in the clammy heat of midsummer? No doubt it was decently cool inside, but here he was suffering the output from the conditioners beneath the skimmer-park, and one could almost have taken the air in one’s hands and wrung it out like a washrag.
Getting into the Ginsberg, apparently, was on a par with getting out of it. There was only one means of access to the interior from this parking lot, and that was guarded by horribly logical automatics. His brief and frustrating dialogue with them had convinced him that they must divide the human race into three categories: staff, patients and potential patients. Short of throwing a crazy-looking fit, he couldn’t see any alternative to staying put until this therapist-what was her name? Oh yes: Dr. Spoelstra-got to a comweb and talked to him.