Read Online The John Varley Reader by John Varley - Free Book Online Page A

why. To be a solitary bull, free to wander where he wished with food as close as the nearest tree branch . . .
    He was still thinking about it when the collection crew came for him.
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He awoke with the vague feeling that something was wrong. He sat up in bed and looked around him. Nothing seemed to be out of place. There was no one in the room with him. He shook his head to clear it.
    It didn’t do any good. There was still something wrong. He tried to remember how he had gotten there, and laughed at himself. His own bedroom! What was so remarkable about that?
    But hadn’t there been a vacation, a weekend trip? He remembered being a lion, eating raw antelope meat, being pushed around within the pride, fighting it out with the other females and losing and retiring to rumble to him/herself.
    Certainly he should have come back to human consciousness in the disneyland medical section. He couldn’t remember it. He reached for his phone, not knowing who he wished to call. His psychist, perhaps, or the Kenya office.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mr. Fingal,” the phone told him. “This line is no longer available for outgoing calls. If you’ll—”
    â€œWhy not?” he asked, irritated and confused. “I paid my bill.”
    â€œThat is of no concern to this department, Mr. Fingal. And please do not interrupt. It’s hard enough to reach you. I’m fading, but the message will be continued if you look to your right.” The voice and the power hum behind it faded. The phone was dead.
    Fingal looked to his right and jerked in surprise. There was a hand, a woman’s hand, writing on his wall. The hand faded out at the wrist.
    â€œMene, Mene . . . ” it wrote, in thin letters of fire. Then the hand waved in irritation and erased that with its thumb. The wall was smudged with soot where the words had been.
    â€œYou’re projecting, Mr. Fingal,” the hand wrote, quickly etching out the words with a manicured nail. “That’s what you expected to see.” The hand underlined the word “expected” three times. “Please cooperate, clear your mind, and see what is there, or we’re not going to get anywhere. Damn, I’ve about exhausted this medium.”
    And indeed it had. The writing had filled the wall and the hand was now down near the floor. The apparition wrote smaller and smaller in an effort to get it all in.
    Fingal had an excellent grasp on reality, according to his psychist. He held tightly onto that evaluation like a talisman as he leaned closer to the wall to read the last sentence.
    â€œLook on your bookshelf,” the hand wrote. “The title is Orientation in your Fantasy World .”
    Fingal knew he had no such book, but could think of nothing better to do.
    His phone didn’t work, and if he was going through a psychotic episode he didn’t think it wise to enter the public corridor until he had some idea of what was going on. The hand faded out, but the writing continued to smolder.
    He found the book easily enough. It was a pamphlet, actually, with a gaudy cover. It was the sort of thing he had seen in the outer offices of the Kenya disneyland, a promotional booklet. At the bottom it said, “Published under the auspices of the Kenya computer; A. Joachim, operator.” He opened it and began to read.
    CHAPTER ONE
    â€œWhere Am I?”
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YOU’RE probably wondering by now where you are. This is an entirely healthy and normal reaction, Mr. Fingal. Anyone would wonder, when beset by what seem to be paranormal manifestations, if his grasp on reality had weakened. Or, in simple language, “Am I nuts, or what?”
    No, Mr. Fingal, you are not nuts. But you are not, as you probably think, sitting on your bed, reading a book. It’s all in your mind. You are still in the Kenya disneyland. More specifically, you are contained in the memory cube we took of you before your weekend on the savanna. You