John Brunner – Jagged Orbit

“It wasn’t supposed to end the way it did, with her mackero slapping her face. It was meant to last about half an hour. And I was terrified for a moment. You know about the drug these girls use to go into trance?”

“Yes, the sibyl-pills. I asked my desketary. That girl must have a fantastic metabolism to recover with nothworse than a temper-tantrum. But apparently it’s a well-documented phenomenon. There’s quite a lot about it in the literature. Didn’t you check up beforehand?”

“Of course I did! But-” Ariadne bit her lip. “It’s one thing to be told about it, though, and another to see it happening. That must have shaken me as much as anyand when Flamen complained about his wife’s condition I didn’t exactly give him a civil answer, and then he came out with his threat to take her away. I could just picture Mogshack bawling me out for that, too. And you caught me at that precise moment, when I was wide open. As you very well knew, didn’t you?”

“Yes. But I’m not going to apologize.”

“I didn’t expect you to.” Rising with a shake of her head, she reached for her clothes and began to put them on.

Following Paraguay’s declaration of independence from Spain Dr. Francia, the dictator known as “El Suadopted a simple foreign policy: no one was permitted to enter or leave the country and trade was absolutely forbidden.

“Oh, so that’s your wife!” Lyla exclaimed, her yash trailing on the floor behind her as she crossed Flamen’s living-zone towards the place of honor where a looped-tape cut of Celia endlessly re-cycled. “I recognize her now. It’s an awful shame-she’s lovely!”

“Thank you,” Flamen muttered. “Not quite as sweet-tempered as you might think to look at her, I’m afraid. but of course most of that must have been due to her condition. Never mind. Sit down. Dial a drink, whatyou like.”

He had brought the tape-reels from the cameras he kept in the skimmer; slipping them into the playing sockets, he waited for the faint whine that indicated the mechanism had brought them into synch.

“The stuff’s in real-time order, of course,” he warned. “I’ll skip the beginning and spin forward to the place where you started to prophesy. I-”

The comweb buzzed.

“Damnation! I’m not in!” he snapped at the automa

“Able Baker override!” Prior’s voice countered, and the screen lit to show his face. He was about to say something else when he realized that Flamen wasn’t alone. His jaw dropped.

“Matthew, have you gone crazy today? It could have been one of the Holocosmic directorate calling, or anyelse with the Able Baker rating for your phone. And you’re married, damn it-to my sister!”

“Like all neo-puritans you have a mind like an open drain,” Flamen said wearily. “But since you are piped in, you might as well stay tuned. This is Lyla Clay, the pythoness. She was performing at the Ginsberg and I taped her trance. We’re just going to play it over and see if I can use some of it on the show tomorrow.”

Prior looked instantly alarmed. “Medical ethics?”

“You a registered medical practitioner?” Flamen shot at Lyla. She gave a dumb headshake. “Good. No probthere then. And I have clearances recorded from all the patients and authorization from the staff. Stop worrying. But while I have you here there are two or three things I want to say. First off I owe you an apology for this morning. I didn’t see what you were driving at. I should have known better than to blast off the way I did.”

Instead of being mollified, Prior looked even more disturbed. “Ah-do you think we should discuss private matters with.?”

“With a stranger listening? Lionel, I watched Miss Clay work this afternoon. I tell you straight, there aren’t any secrets when this girl’s around. And anyhow I don’t care. I’ve been making my living for years by dragging skeletons out of people’s closets-it’d be hypocritical for me to try and pretend I haven’t any of my own. So I’m sorry about what I said this morning. All right?”

“That’s mainly what I called up about. I’ve picked up the pieces for you.” A trace of smugness appeared in Prior’s expression. “But that I’m not going to talk about in public, if you don’t mind.”

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