And there were the Anderson Spoors which had riddled half a state with disease before the Bio-Chem Warfare people had been able to check their own stray experiment.
And, of course, there were the twisted things the AC labs produced (their failures), which were sent away to rot in unlighted rooms under the glossy heading of 'perpetual professional care.' Anyway, I turned the radio off.
And thought about Child.
And knew I should never have taken the job.
And knew that I wouldn't quit
IV
At home, in the warmth of the den, with my books and my paintings to protect me, I took the dust jacket off the book so I wouldn't accidentally see her face, and I began reading Lily. It was a mystery novel, and a mystery of a novel. The prose was not spectacular, actually intended for the average reader seeking a few hours of escape.
Still, I was fascinated. Through the chapters, between the lines of marching black words, a face seen at a party weeks before kept drifting through my mind. A face which I had been fighting to forget
Amber hair, long and straight.
'See that woman? Over there? That's Marcus Aurelius. Writes those semi-pornographic books, like Lily and Bodies in Darkness, those.'
Her face was sculpted, smooth planes and milky flesh.
Her eyes were green, wider than eyes should be, though not the eyes of a mutant.
Her body was graceful, provocatively in vogue.
Her…
I ignored what he was saying about her, all the foul things he suggested, and studied amber hair, cat's eyes, fast fingers touching that hair, clasping a glass of gin, jabbing the air for emphasis in conversation
When I was finished with the book, I went and made myself some Scotch and water. I am not a good bartender.
I drank it and pretended I was about sleepy enough for bed. I stood on the patio, which is slung over the side of the small mountain which I own, and I watched the snow.
I got cold and went inside. Undressing, I went to bed, nestled down in the covers, and thought about ice floes and blizzards and piling drifts, letting myself find sleep.
I said, 'Damn!' and got up and got more Scotch and went to the phone, where I should have gone as soon as I finished the last page of the novel.
I could not understand the logic of what I was doing, but there are times when the physical overrides the cerebral, no matter what the proponents of civilized society might say about it.
Punching out the numbers for directory assistance, I asked for Marcus Aurelius' number. The operator refused to give me her real name and number, but I esped out and saw it as she looked at the directory in front of her:
MARCUS AURELIUS Or MELINDA THAUSER; 22-223-296787/ UNLISTED.
So I said sorry and hung up and dialed the number I had just stolen.
'Hello?'
It was a competent, businesslike voice. Yet there was a sultriness in it that could not be ignored.
'Miss Thauser?'
'Yes?'
I told her my name and said she would probably know it and then sounded pleased when she did. It was all as if someone were possessing me, directing my tongue against the will of the screaming particle of me that demanded I hang up, run away, hide.
'I've followed your exploits,' she said. 'In the papers.'
'I've read your books.'
She waited.
'I think it's time I had my biography done,' I said.
'I've been approached before, but I've always been against it. Maybe like the primitive tribesmen who feel a photograph locks their soul away inside it. But with you, maybe it would be different. I like your work.'
There was a bit more said, and it ended with me and with this: 'Fine. Then I'll expect you here for dinner tomorrow night at seven.'
I had suggested escorting her to dinner somewhere, but she had said that was not necessary. I insisted. She had said that restaurants were too noisy to discuss business. In the course of the floundering planning, I had mentioned my cook. And now she was coming here.
I went out and swallowed half a glass of Scotch on the rocks (as a change from the Scotch and water), which solved the problems I had just acquired upon hanging the phone on its hook: a dry mouth and a bad case of the chills.
It was stupid. Why be so afraid of meeting a woman? I had met quite famous and sophisticated ladies, wives of men of state and some of them statesmen themselves.
Yes, I told myself. But they were different. They were not young and beautiful. That was where the core of my terror lay, though that seemed just as unfathomable as anything else.
At two in the morning, unable to sleep, I got heavily out of bed and walked through the many rooms of my dark house. It is a fine place, with its own theater and gaming rooms, a shooting range, and other luxuries. But there was no solace in seeing all I possessed.
I went into the den and closed the door, looked around without turning on the lights. The machine stood in the corner, silent, monstrous. It was what I had gotten up for in the first place, though I had needed a few minutes to admit it.
The headrest was ominous, a bulky electrode-strung pad that curved to encompass the skull.
But my nerves demanded soothing.
The chair that folded into the machine was like the tongue of some mythical beast, some man-eater and stealer of souls.
I could see the hollow compartment which would swallow me with a single lick, and it terrified me. But I needed soothing. My hands twitched, and a tic had begun in the corner of my mouth. I reminded myself that other generations never had the advantage of a Porter-Rainey SolidState Psychiatrist and that many people, even these days, could not afford one even when modern technology made it possible. I forced myself to forget the emptiness that would take me later. For the moment comfort was enough. And a few explanations
I sat down in the chair.
My head touched the pad.
The world swiveled up and away, while darkness descended, while fingers probed where they should not be, while my soul was split open like a nut and the meat of my fractured personality was drawn forth for a close examination (in search of worms?).
Proteus Mother taking a thousand shapes, but never to be caught and held to tell the future
The life spark flickering, then holding steady as a frozen flame. And a very vague awareness even in the womb, where plastic walls were soft and sophisticated thermostatic computers maintained a succor-filled environment. Where plastic walls were giving-but somehow unresponsive
He looked up into the lights overhead and sensed a man named Edison. He sensed filaments even as his own filament was disconnected from the womb
And there were metal hands to comfort him
And? and? there? and
SAY IT WITHOUT HESITATION! The voice was everywhere about me, was booming, was reassuring in its depth of passion.
And there were simu-flesh breasts to feed him
