and ready to burst.
“Surely you don’t sit in that?” Roseroar said.
“Wouldn’t be much use for anything else. Like to try
it?”
“Ah couldn’t,” the tigress protested. “Ah’d bust it as
well as mah tail end.”
– “Maybe not,” said the kangaroo with quiet confidence.
Reluctantly, Roseroar accepted the challenge, turning to
set herself gently into the chair. The soap bubbles gave
under her weight but did not break, nor did the thin metal
frame. And the bubbles kept moving, massaging the chair’s
new occupant with a gentle sliding motion. A rich throbbing
purr filled the room.
“How much?” Roseroar inquired.
“Sorry. That’s a demo model. Not for sale.”
“Come on, Roseroar,” Jon-Tom told her. “That’s not
what we came for.” She abandoned the caressing chair
sadly.
As they crossed the room, Jon-Tom had time to notice a
circular recording device, a heatless stove, and a number
THE DAY OF THE DISSONANCE
257
of utterly alien machines scattered among the familiar.
Snooth led them through another doorway barred by opaque
ceramic strips that hung in midair and into a back store
room filled with broken, jumbled goods. A bathroom was
visible off to the left.
A second suspended curtain admitted them to the store.
Jon-Tom’s brain went blank. He heard Roseroar hiss
next to him and even the always voluble Mudge was at a
loss for words. Drom inhaled sharply in surprise.
As near as they could tell, the shop filled the whole
inside of the mountain.
XV
Ahead of them was an aisle flanked by long metal shelves.
The multiple shelving rose halfway to the forty-foot-high