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. Perone 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 implicaof the Madison case to their ultimate conclusion, one might far too easily decide that anyone so totally unpredictable must be, by definition, unsuited to ordisociety. 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 lay-had to be, since so much of modern psychodepended 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 superYet here he was not only turning up but arrivahead of time, as though eager.
So what had persuaded him to accept the invitation-mere boredom? That alas was all too likely. Madmpassive demeanor, Reedeth noticed, was a comcontrast 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 foundaof 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 numa handful of pythoness-fans among one’s acquain-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, accomby a girl in a bullet-proof yash. The pythoness and her mackero, presumably-yes, it must be, for Ariherself was coming to greet them at the next inin 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 perto 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.
Mackero (MAK-uh-roh) [Fr. maquereau mackerel, colpimp; cf. “mack”] Manager, agent (e.g.) for young self-supporting female (photographic model, freelance singer, pythoness, e.g.); specif. male, not derog. unless abbr.
“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.