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Authors: Robert Silverberg
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all young. And lots of births.â
She laughs. âGood. I hate an empty house.â
The quickboatâs voice says, âWe now will turn to the southeast, and on the left to the rear you can catch a last glimpse of Urbmon 116.â
Her fellow passengers strain to see. Aurea does not make the effort. Urbmon 116 has ceased to concern her.
THREE · 3
They are playing tonight in Rome, in the spishy new sonic center on the 530th level. Dillon Chrimes hasnât been that far up in the building in weeks. Lately he and the group have been doing the grime stint: Reykjavik, Prague, Warsaw, down among the grubbos. Well, theyâre entitled to some entertainment too. Dillon lives in San Francisco, not so lofty himself. The 370th floor; the heart of the cultural ghetto. But he doesnât mind that. He isnât deprived of variety. He gets around, everywhere from the bottom to the top in the course of a year, and itâs only a statistical anomaly that itâs been nothing but bottoms up for a while. The odds are heâll be blowing Shanghai, Chicago, Edinburgh, that crowd, in the month to come. With all those clean long-limbed lovelies to spread for him after the show.
Dillon is seventeen. More than middle height, with silken blond hair to his shoulders. Traditional, the old Orpheus bit. Crystalline blue eyes.He loves staring at them in a round of polymirrors, seeing the icy spheres intersect. Happily married, and three littles already, god bless! His wifeâs name is Electra. She paints psychedelic tapestries. Sometimes she accompanies him when heâs touring with the group, but not often. Not now. He has met only one woman who lights him nearly as much. A Shanghai slicko, wife of some Louisville-bound headknocker. Mamelon Kluver, her name. The other girls of the urbmon are just so many slots, Dillon often thinks, but Mamelon connects. He has never told Electra about her. Jealousy sterilizes.
He plays the vibrastar in a cosmos group. That makes him valuable personnel. âIâm unique, like a flow-sculpture,â he sometimes boasts. Actually thereâs another vibrastar man in the building, but to be one out of merely two is still a decent accomplishment. There are only two cosmos groups in Urbmon 116; the building canât really afford much redundancy in its entertainers. Dillon doesnât think highly of the rival group, though his opinion is based more on prejudice than familiarityâheâs heard them three times, is all. Thereâs been talk of getting both groups together for an all-out headblaster of a joint concert, perhaps in Louisville, but no one takes such teasers seriously. Meanwhile they go their separately programed ways, moving up and down through the urbmon as the spiritual weather dictates. The usual gig is five nights in a city. That allows everybody in, say, Bombay, who stones on cosmos groups to see them the same week, thereby providing conversation fodder for the general sharing. Then they move along, and, counting nights off, they theoretically can make the circuit of the whole building every six months. But sometimes gigs are extended. Do the lower levels need excesses of breadand circuses? The group may be handed fourteen nights running in Warsaw, then. Do the upper levels need psychic deconstipation in a big way? A twelve-night run in Chicago, maybe. Or the group itself may go sour and have to get its filters reamed, necessitating a layoff of two weeks or more. Allowing for all of these factors, there have to be two groups roaming the urbmon if every city is going to get a crack at a cosmos show at least once a year. Right now, Dillon thinks, the other operation is playing Boston for the third week. Some kind of problem with sexual turnoffs there, of all wildnesses!
He wakes at noon. Electra loyally beside him; the littles long gone to school, except for the baby, gurgling in its maintenance slot. Artists and performers keep their own hours. Her lips
She laughs. âGood. I hate an empty house.â
The quickboatâs voice says, âWe now will turn to the southeast, and on the left to the rear you can catch a last glimpse of Urbmon 116.â
Her fellow passengers strain to see. Aurea does not make the effort. Urbmon 116 has ceased to concern her.
THREE · 3
They are playing tonight in Rome, in the spishy new sonic center on the 530th level. Dillon Chrimes hasnât been that far up in the building in weeks. Lately he and the group have been doing the grime stint: Reykjavik, Prague, Warsaw, down among the grubbos. Well, theyâre entitled to some entertainment too. Dillon lives in San Francisco, not so lofty himself. The 370th floor; the heart of the cultural ghetto. But he doesnât mind that. He isnât deprived of variety. He gets around, everywhere from the bottom to the top in the course of a year, and itâs only a statistical anomaly that itâs been nothing but bottoms up for a while. The odds are heâll be blowing Shanghai, Chicago, Edinburgh, that crowd, in the month to come. With all those clean long-limbed lovelies to spread for him after the show.
Dillon is seventeen. More than middle height, with silken blond hair to his shoulders. Traditional, the old Orpheus bit. Crystalline blue eyes.He loves staring at them in a round of polymirrors, seeing the icy spheres intersect. Happily married, and three littles already, god bless! His wifeâs name is Electra. She paints psychedelic tapestries. Sometimes she accompanies him when heâs touring with the group, but not often. Not now. He has met only one woman who lights him nearly as much. A Shanghai slicko, wife of some Louisville-bound headknocker. Mamelon Kluver, her name. The other girls of the urbmon are just so many slots, Dillon often thinks, but Mamelon connects. He has never told Electra about her. Jealousy sterilizes.
He plays the vibrastar in a cosmos group. That makes him valuable personnel. âIâm unique, like a flow-sculpture,â he sometimes boasts. Actually thereâs another vibrastar man in the building, but to be one out of merely two is still a decent accomplishment. There are only two cosmos groups in Urbmon 116; the building canât really afford much redundancy in its entertainers. Dillon doesnât think highly of the rival group, though his opinion is based more on prejudice than familiarityâheâs heard them three times, is all. Thereâs been talk of getting both groups together for an all-out headblaster of a joint concert, perhaps in Louisville, but no one takes such teasers seriously. Meanwhile they go their separately programed ways, moving up and down through the urbmon as the spiritual weather dictates. The usual gig is five nights in a city. That allows everybody in, say, Bombay, who stones on cosmos groups to see them the same week, thereby providing conversation fodder for the general sharing. Then they move along, and, counting nights off, they theoretically can make the circuit of the whole building every six months. But sometimes gigs are extended. Do the lower levels need excesses of breadand circuses? The group may be handed fourteen nights running in Warsaw, then. Do the upper levels need psychic deconstipation in a big way? A twelve-night run in Chicago, maybe. Or the group itself may go sour and have to get its filters reamed, necessitating a layoff of two weeks or more. Allowing for all of these factors, there have to be two groups roaming the urbmon if every city is going to get a crack at a cosmos show at least once a year. Right now, Dillon thinks, the other operation is playing Boston for the third week. Some kind of problem with sexual turnoffs there, of all wildnesses!
He wakes at noon. Electra loyally beside him; the littles long gone to school, except for the baby, gurgling in its maintenance slot. Artists and performers keep their own hours. Her lips
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