Read Online Soma Blues by Robert Sheckley - Free Book Online Page B

blew across the hilltop near San Jose where Peter lived. Inside Peter’s house the Japanese motif was further accentuated by the polished hardwood floors, the sparseness of furnishing, the complete lack of clutter, and the bamboo separators that divided room from room and could be taken down to provide larger spaces. Peter Two could afford this affectation of simplicity. The Zen sand garden Hob passed on the way from the driveway to the main building was even more artfully simple: three perfectly placed stones in twenty square yards of raked sand. Hob liked the sight of it very much. Though he couldn’t afford to build one himself. Nor did he have the time or manpower to rake the sand every day and take from it every leaf and twig that had blown into it overnight. Hob’s own finca was a clutter of objects, and so he always appreciated the luxurious simplicity of Peter’s place.
    When Hob came to call that morning, no one seemed to be about. Hob hallooed the house, as was customary when making an unexpected call, and, receiving no answer, but noticing that both Peter’s and Devi’s cars were parked in the front, he came on through to the back. There he found Devi, her masses of dark hair pinned up, wearing a mauve sari, stirring up a batch of zucchini bread for lunch.
    “Hi, Hob.”
    “I called but no one answered.”
    “I can’t hear a thing when I’m in back here. I’ve told Peter he should put in an intercom system, but Mr. Back To Nature won’t hear of it.”
    “Is the master about?”
    “The lord is in the drying shed, communing with his spirits.”
    “I wouldn’t want to bother him.”
    “Go right on back. It’s time Peter and his spirits had someone new to talk to.”
    Devi was small and lovely, with black hair that showed hennaed red highlights. She was an exotic even on an island of exotics, daughter of a British dam builder on contract to the government of Rajaspur and a light-skinned princess of the Rajputs, or so she claimed. It was difficult to know the truth about anyone’s background on Ibiza, since people made up stories that suited their fantasies about themselves.
    Hob followed the stone steps that led through the bamboo grove and around the small frog pond to the drying shed in the rear of the property. Here was where the Ibicencos had stored their algorobos , and where Peter stored his marijuana, his incomparable homegrown stuff. Peter Two was a dope dealer by occupation and a connoisseur of dope as a hobby.
    He looked up now when Hob came in. He had been pruning one of his large potted marijuana plants with embroidery scissors, and he had a nice little pile of golden-green leaves on a clean silk cloth. There was another man with him, a very tall young man with a dark café au lait skin whom Hob had met sometime before at a party. He was from Brazil and was reputed to be wealthy, or at least to have a wealthy father, and had been going with Annabelle, who lived somewhere in Ibiza City.
    Hob had come by to ask if Peter was planning to start the class in Buddhist meditation that he had been sponsoring. In Ibiza, a place without telephones except in commercial businesses at that time, if you wanted to find something out, you drove to where you could ask the question in person, unless you wanted to wait until you ran across the person at some coffee shop or restaurant or on one of the beaches. This could take quite a long time, however, so if you really wanted an answer within a week or so, you drove to where the person lived.
    “I’m going to have to delay again,” Peter said. “Sunny Jim agreed to teach the course, but he’s off in Barcelona getting motorcycle parts for his shop.”
    “Okay,” Hob said. “I’d appreciate if you’d get word to me when it does begin.”
    “Count on it,” Peter said.
    “I wanted to ask you,” Hob said. “Have you ever heard of a drug called soma?”
    “Of course I’ve heard of it,” Peter said. “It was a classical drug of ancient India.