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Nik was at his side in time to save him from falling off the moving walk. They
were riding the slow strip, but a tumble could have been nasty all the same,
even dangerous. "I say, you're still rocky," trie young Freeman said. "We'd
better get you some place where you can rest."
Hendley shook his head. The spasm of dizziness was passing almost as quickly
as it had come. He tried to breathe deeply, leaning against his friend's
supporting arm. He was a good fellow, Hendley thought. Never should have run
off and left him like that. Funny, the notions that could get into your head.
Not even an idea, really, just a- a feeling.
"My quarters aren't far from here," Nik said. "We can go there. Give you a
chance to recuperate."
"I'm all right," Hendley protested. "Just dizzy for a minute. I'm feeling
better already."
"But you need-"
"No," Hendley said firmly. With an effort he pulled himself erect, disengaging
his friend's
arm. "This is my only night here. If I rest now I'll sleep, and if I sleep I
won't wake up until it's time to leave. You said the show at the hotel was
worth seeing. I'm going to see it."
Nik did not answer, but the exasperation on his face was so transparent, and
so unexpected, that Hendley laughed. "Humor me," he said. "And stick close.
You can catch me if I fall."
He grinned at the young Freeman, and after a moment Nik began to join his
laughter. "I'll be imprisoned if I don't think we'll make a real
pleasure-purist out of you yet!" he exclaimed.
Arm in arm, they leaned against each other, laughing uproariously, as the
moving walk carried them through the central park toward the main Rec Hall on
the hill, a brightly lighted yellow mushroom painted against the night's
endless promise.
* * *
"Tell you what I'm going to do," Hendley said. "All right, name it." "I'm
going to have another drink." Nik chuckled. "Don't say I didn't warn you." "To
the desert with your warnings.
Drink is pleasure, and
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pleasure is all." The familiar Organization slogan came easily to Hendley's
lips.
"Bring'on the girls! Are you sure this is a good seat?"
"The best. There's a materializer right overhead. And you have a good view of
the main screen over the stage."
Hendley stared at an opaque plastic cylinder suspended from the ceiling of the
great circular auditorium. Less than twenty feet away, the cylinder was just
big enough to contain a grown man. It might have been a decorative fixture,
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its smooth surface reflecting a multicolored flow of light from the
auditorium's glowing panels. There were about two dozen of the cylindrical
objects spaced throughout the theater, overhead for those seated in the
balcony, along the sides for the audience on the main floor. It was difficult
to get seats close to the stage, Nik had explained, unless you arrived, very
early, but with the materializers you didn't need front-row seats. The
man-sized cylinders brought the stage to you. Moreover, from a middle
distance, and especially from the balcony, you had a better view of the huge
thought-screen, the giant father of the materializers in shape, mounted
directly over the stage and almost at Hendley's eye level. This huge screen
was also dark.
Drinks arrived on a conveyor belt just as the main lights in the auditorium
began to dim.
From his balcony perch Hendley stared down as the curtain of light obscuring
the central stage slowly dissolved. The stage revealed was in semidarkness.
A spatter of applause broke into thunder as a cone of light slashed down to
sculpture a living bronze-a nude woman standing motionless on a revolving
dais. For an instant the striking figure was enveloped in brilliant white.
Then the light began to change from pink through rose to a garish red, until
at last the figure seemed to be bathed in blood, unrelieved except for a small
white circle lying at the top of the valley between the woman's red breasts.
From the balcony it was impossible to distinguish the white circle clearly,
but on the materializer, so close to Hendley's seat, it was easy to discern a
thin necklace, the clear outline of a white tag, and the number i printed on
the tag, which had evidently been treated somehow to reject the red light. The
crimson figure was reproduced slightly larger than life within the plastic
cylinder, and with a breathtaking illusion of reality, as if she were
physically imprisoned there. It was not like looking at a viewscreen, even a
dimensional one. It was as if the living flesh in its garish costume of light
had been transported from the stage into the plastic cocoon.
A second white cone stabbed down through the darkness, pinning a second nude
figure upon the stage. Again the light
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changed by degrees to red. Almost imperceptibly a low, sensuous beat of music
had begun to make itself heard. And with that the audience became more
vociferous. As another and yet another red figure was revealed on the stage, a
persistent murmuring grew. Audible gasps ignited fresh crackles of applause as
each new model appeared. They were all
young, shapely, beautiful. In the brief flash of white light as they were
first seen, their bodies were visibly pale, like Hendley's own, the white
sheen of skin unburned by the sun. When the light changed, they became, in
their bizarre red envelopes, both more vivid and less human.
Hendley could not tear his gaze away as the procession continued. His throat
grew dry, and he drained his glass.
Twelve girls in all took their places in the red spotlights. Hendley missed
seeing the eleventh one closely. He had glanced down at the stage just before
she appeared in closeup on the nearby materializer. By the time he looked back
from the general tableau below to the intimate revelation on the cylinder, the
girl's image was already fading. And her back was toward him. He had only a
glimpse of a slender, willowy body, narrow-waisted, of long slim legs, and of
a nest of short curls above a graceful neck. She was a red vision from a
dream, but something other than admiration stirred in his mind.
"I missed that one second from the last," he said to Nik.
"A pretty thing," Nik said appraisingly. "Quite well equipped, too." His hands
shaped an imaginary bosom.
"She looked-I'm not sure-familiar."
Nik laughed. "That's not unusual. There's a blue girl- she'll be coming on
shortly-who once reminded me of my mother. I suppose one of your Morale
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Investigators would say that was significant. But it's not, really. A
beautiful girl seen in the distance, or not clearly, will always remind you of
someone." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]