The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

Whatever was the truth, she was living with no man anymore, ever again. Jack was the best, and the last was the best, as it should be, but he had not been good enough.

She was on the rebound when she met Fatima, the little sloe-eyed Turk. Fatima, one of the hundreds of concubines of Mohammed IV (ruled Turkey from 1648-1687), had never gone to bed with him. She had, however, not suffered overmuch from lack of sexual satisfaction. There were plenty of fellow prisoners of the Seraglio who preferred their own sex as lovers, either through natural incli­nations or conditioning. She became a favorite of Kosem, Mohammed’s grandmother, though there was nothing overtly homosexual in their relationship.

But Turban, Mohammed’s mother, sought to get control of the government from Kosem, and eventually Kosem was caught by a party of Turban’s assassins and strangled to death with the cords from her own bed curtain. It was Fatima’s bad fortune to be attending Kosem when this happened and so she had to share her fate.

Jill took the sexy little Turk in as hutmate after Fatima had quarreled with her lover, a French ballet danseuse (died 1873). Jill was not in love with her, but she was sexually exciting and, after a while, she became fond of her. Fatima, however, was ignorant and, worse, unteachable. She was selfish and would remain so, was infantile and would remain so. Jill got tired of her after a year. Even so, she was grief-stricken when Fatima was raped and then beaten to death by three drunken Sikeli (born 1000 B.C.?). Her grief was intensified by the knowledge (or belief, since there was no proof) that Fatima was truly dead. Resurrection had apparently stopped. No more would a dead person rise the next day at dawn far, far from the scene of his or her demise.

Before succumbing to her sorrow, however, Jill had put an arrow into each of Fatima’s murderers. They were not going to rise elsewhere either.

Years later, she had heard rumors of the great dirigible that was being built up-River. She did hot know if they were true or not, but there was only one way to find out.

So here she was, though it had taken a long time to get here.

11

From The Daily Leak, a five-page newspaper. owner and owner and publisher: the state of Parolando. Editor: S.C. Bagg. In the upper left-hand corner above the headline is the standard notice:

CAVEAT LECTOR

By law, the reader must place this journal in a public recycl­ing barrel the day after receipt. In case of emergency, it may be used for toilet paper. We recommend the Letters to the Editor page as most appropriate for this purpose. First offense: a public reprimand. Second: confiscation of all booze, tobacco, and dreamgum for a week. Third: perma­nent exile.

Prominent in the Newcomers section:

JILL GULBIRRA

We welcome, in spite of the advice of many, our latest female candidate for citizenship. On Sunday last, this tall drink of water appeared out of the predawn fog and accosted four of our leading public figures. Despite their certain state of inebriation and possibly lecherous thoughts, two condi­tions leading to mental fogginess, the quartet finally com­prehended that their unexpected guest had traveled approxi­mately 32,180 kilometers (or 20,000 miles, for you dum­mies and dodos). She had done this alone and in a canoe (and not been raped or dunked once) and all this odyssey was performed just to make sure that our airship project proceeds on proper lines. While not exactly demanding that she be appointed commander of the dirigible when it is commis­sioned, she did intimate that it would be to everybody’s good if she did obtain this post.

After a few snorts of the divine product of Caledonia, the quartet partially recovered from this onslaught. (One wit­ness thus describes her appearance: “Amazonly, with a demeanor of sheer brass nerves and ironclad guts, unseemly in any woman worthy of the name.”)

The famous four inquired as to her credentials. She fur­nished these, which, if valid, are impressive indeed. A prominent citizen interviewed on the subject by our intrepid reporter, Roger “Nellie” Bligh, affirms that she is indeed what she claims to be. Though never having met her in his Terrestrial existence, he did read about her in various period­icals and once viewed her on television (a mid-twentieth-century invention which your editor did not live long enough to see and from all accounts was fortunate to have missed).