as well as a false I.D. for one's friends."
"I showed the false I.D. to Irlin. He didn't believe I was your sister." "You astound me."
"He wants to take me swimming."
"He wants to fuck you. Interested?"
"What did you say to that girl?" Magdala started to eat. Her fear had already died, and a curious depression was smothering her. Fragments of the books she had read flowed about her mind. She wished she were alone, hidden, asleep.
"I told her she was tedious. She is. She was. Only you are
52
not tedious, my Magdala. You are appallingly, horribly untedious."
Shrieks came from the gold gambling jail above. Someone was winning. Or had lost.
Claudio's suite at Sugar Beach had five rooms and two bathrooms. It was decorated in beige, gold and blue
and cost five hundred and thirty astrads a day. An elevator, exclusive to the suite, negotiated the thirty fl oors into the private subground garage pertaining to the suite. Here the great silver car lay beneath a
transparent dust-shield. Built into the under-chassis of the car was a secondary storage compartment,
excavated on the left-hand side by a concealed corridor, two meters in length, one and a half meters in
circumference.
You got into the elevator and dropped down the thirty floors. You raised the dust-shield. In the flank of the car, a panel (similarly concealed) could be opened, a button pressed. In the under-chassis, the otherwise indiscernible corridor was gradually revealed. A second button, a nd the corridor's burden emerged: the stabilized glazium mummy case, with its contents.
"Have you read any Grotesque Fiction? The Vampire?" Claudio had said. "He could travel nowhere without his coffin. Not only do you have a traveling coffin, Magdala, you have a body to go with it."
He had showed her the storage space and how the cylinder fitted inside, about the same time he showed
her the clothes he had purchased for her from exclusive city stores, and the bizarre forgery of the I.D.
card. Her photo-fix was on the card and the name he had evolved for her, plus her index and thumb
prints no longer, actually, her own, but the body's prints, alien. She did not ask how he had arranged the
I.D.-if his wealth could merely buy E.G. government bureaucracy on Indigo, or if his flamboyant skills had
created the card She asked always little of Claudio. He schooled her in what to wear, what to do, and now
and then
53
in what to say. He did not school her in the gallery of insecurities and mistrusts which clouded her thoughts. He did not teach her how to stave off madness.
She believed he was mad, after all. Her own lapse into hysteria must follow inevitably. It was all an
insanity. Why not?
At five in the morning, she took the elevator and plunged into the ground. Stepping out into the garage area,
she raised the dust-shield of the car, worked the panel and the buttons, and at length stood beside herself.
Sleep was barely necessary, but sleep would have enabled her to escape. Claudio was gone to gamble in the all-night casino or to the room of one of the several women who had presented themselves to him throughout the evening. There had been other men, too, for Magdala, other Irlins, good-looking, mediocre
and unmemorable. The holostet, for some reason, had had more presence for her than these living men. She
could remember the holostet, the red-black hair and red-brown eyes.
She visualized, childishly, the fur cat lying waiting for her in the shut-couch at the Accomat. Her new thumb would no longer activate the lock of her apartment
She forced herself to look into the putty face inside the glazium, wreathed with its wires and its bright head-piece.
The coffin. II
At ten o'clock in the morning, Irlin called,
"It's a wonderful sunny Blue day. The flowers by the pool are turning blue. Not as blue as your eyes,
Magda."
They regarded each other through the medium of the Call-vision-plates. The apartment behind him was not
as
54
large as any
"I showed the false I.D. to Irlin. He didn't believe I was your sister." "You astound me."
"He wants to take me swimming."
"He wants to fuck you. Interested?"
"What did you say to that girl?" Magdala started to eat. Her fear had already died, and a curious depression was smothering her. Fragments of the books she had read flowed about her mind. She wished she were alone, hidden, asleep.
"I told her she was tedious. She is. She was. Only you are
52
not tedious, my Magdala. You are appallingly, horribly untedious."
Shrieks came from the gold gambling jail above. Someone was winning. Or had lost.
Claudio's suite at Sugar Beach had five rooms and two bathrooms. It was decorated in beige, gold and blue
and cost five hundred and thirty astrads a day. An elevator, exclusive to the suite, negotiated the thirty fl oors into the private subground garage pertaining to the suite. Here the great silver car lay beneath a
transparent dust-shield. Built into the under-chassis of the car was a secondary storage compartment,
excavated on the left-hand side by a concealed corridor, two meters in length, one and a half meters in
circumference.
You got into the elevator and dropped down the thirty floors. You raised the dust-shield. In the flank of the car, a panel (similarly concealed) could be opened, a button pressed. In the under-chassis, the otherwise indiscernible corridor was gradually revealed. A second button, a nd the corridor's burden emerged: the stabilized glazium mummy case, with its contents.
"Have you read any Grotesque Fiction? The Vampire?" Claudio had said. "He could travel nowhere without his coffin. Not only do you have a traveling coffin, Magdala, you have a body to go with it."
He had showed her the storage space and how the cylinder fitted inside, about the same time he showed
her the clothes he had purchased for her from exclusive city stores, and the bizarre forgery of the I.D.
card. Her photo-fix was on the card and the name he had evolved for her, plus her index and thumb
prints no longer, actually, her own, but the body's prints, alien. She did not ask how he had arranged the
I.D.-if his wealth could merely buy E.G. government bureaucracy on Indigo, or if his flamboyant skills had
created the card She asked always little of Claudio. He schooled her in what to wear, what to do, and now
and then
53
in what to say. He did not school her in the gallery of insecurities and mistrusts which clouded her thoughts. He did not teach her how to stave off madness.
She believed he was mad, after all. Her own lapse into hysteria must follow inevitably. It was all an
insanity. Why not?
At five in the morning, she took the elevator and plunged into the ground. Stepping out into the garage area,
she raised the dust-shield of the car, worked the panel and the buttons, and at length stood beside herself.
Sleep was barely necessary, but sleep would have enabled her to escape. Claudio was gone to gamble in the all-night casino or to the room of one of the several women who had presented themselves to him throughout the evening. There had been other men, too, for Magdala, other Irlins, good-looking, mediocre
and unmemorable. The holostet, for some reason, had had more presence for her than these living men. She
could remember the holostet, the red-black hair and red-brown eyes.
She visualized, childishly, the fur cat lying waiting for her in the shut-couch at the Accomat. Her new thumb would no longer activate the lock of her apartment
She forced herself to look into the putty face inside the glazium, wreathed with its wires and its bright head-piece.
The coffin. II
At ten o'clock in the morning, Irlin called,
"It's a wonderful sunny Blue day. The flowers by the pool are turning blue. Not as blue as your eyes,
Magda."
They regarded each other through the medium of the Call-vision-plates. The apartment behind him was not
as
54
large as any
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