John Brunner – Jagged Orbit

And with a prospect like that before them, the Holodirectorate 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 governagency. However, you’ll understand that I can’t commit myself to anything without consulting my prinand 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 opporto 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 atto 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 defia deal.”

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

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 speconditions 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.”

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