The Jagged Orbit by John Brunner Page B

five-times-weekly spool-pigeon show on the Holocosmic network. He's asked permission to record this afternoon's performance by Lyla Clay for possible eventual transmission on his show, but naturally I must ask whether anyone here objects to—"
    The sound dropped suddenly and the desketary said, "Dr. Mogshack is canvassing the staff also to see if they have any objections. Do you, Dr. Reedeth?"
    Reedeth hesitated. "No objection," he said after a pause. It was the safest course. If Mogshack had already consented there was no point in starting an argument.
    Evidently no one else registered an objection either, for the next thing that happened was that Lyla Clay said something very softly to Ariadne, fingering her yash, and Ariadne glanced at two or three of the patients, seemed to debate a point with herself, and finally shrugged. Lyla tossed the yash aside with what appeared to Reedeth to be a moue of distaste, and stood revealed in nothing but a pair of abbreviated Nix.
    "Hmmm . . . !" Reedeth muttered. "That mackero of hers is a very lucky man!"
    Several of the male patients, and two lesbian ones, fidgeted in their chairs in a way that suggested they were equally impressed.
    The next thing that happened, however, was merely that Lyla set off on a tour of the room in total silence, briefly studying each of the people present—including, to his obvious dismay, Flamen. She seemed nervous, Reedeth judged, and took a long time about her task.
    His mind wandered off down a side alley when she reached Madison. Perhaps the answer would be to get in touch with the IBM directorate and tell them there was somebody in the Ginsberg who displayed an absolutely unbelievable gift for servicing complex automatic circuitry?
    No, that wasn't the solution either. As well as hiring far too many neo-puritans, Inorganic Brain Manufacturers Inc. were notorious for having rid themselves of all their kneeblank employees, down to humble sales reps.
    Could he become a Gottschalk? The arms traders were among the nation's largest consumers of high-order automatics, and no doubt they would find knee repairmen handy in their dealings with the black enclaves.
    On reflection, however, Reedeth doubted whether that would be suitable employment for Madison. His Army experiences had been successfully brought under control in his mind, but it was a matter of record that his period in combat had thrown him completely off his gyros, and who could say that exposure to close contact with modern armaments would not trigger a renewal of his trouble?
    How convenient it would be, he thought, if Flamen were to take up the Madison case, make a grand fuss about the plight of a knee stuck in a hospital long after he had qualified for discharge. . . . Come to think of it, it might be possible to leak the story to one of Flamen's knee counterparts, who enjoyed far bigger audiences and what was more mainly overseas.
    Reedeth brightened, and made a mental note to see if he could locate a tendril of the grapevine leading to, say, Pedro Diablo. It would have to be done discreetly, but properly handled it might very well result in someone volunteering to act as his legal guardian and enabling him to get out at long last.
    But there was no time now to follow that up. Lyla had completed her survey of the audience and returned to the edge of the mat they had spread out for her. She nodded at Dan, who was standing by with his recorder poised, and reached for the hip pocket of her Nix. Producing a small flat bottle which Reedeth only caught a glimpse of, she shook from it a little red capsule. Flamen tongued the switchbar of his cameras to a closeup setting and captured her swallowing the pill.
    Whatever it was. Reedeth hadn't realized that pythonesses took anything to help them go into trance. Was that a commercial product, or something alchemically home-cooked from a cut-and-try formula? Once more he consulted his desketary, and this time what he learned made him stare at Lyla's