Harlan Ellison - Approaching Oblivion - Road Signs On the Treadmill Toward Tomorrow

The side-boys numbered three this time. Sometimes Lady Effim had six, sometimes eight, sometimes a squad. Never less than three. This time there were three.

One was obviously a twinkle: fishtailed hair parted in the middle, tinted blue-black like the barrel of a weapon, giving off the warm odor of musk and jasmine. Very slim; hands delicate and skin of the hands so pale Neil could see the calligraphy of blue veins clearly outlined; large nostrils that scooped air so the twinkle’s chest rose and fell noticeably; skintight weskit suit with metal conchos and leather thongs down both sides; heavy on the jewelry.

“Neil, I’d like you to meet Cuusadou…”

The second was some kind of professional student: his like were to be found in the patiently seated waiting lines of the career bureaus, always ready to file for some obscure and pointless occupation-numismatist, dressage instructor, Neurospora geneticist, epitaphologist, worm rancher. His face was long and horsy; his tongue was long and he could bend its tip back on itself; he wore the current fashion, velvet jodhpurs, boots rhodium manacles with jeweled locks, dark wraparound glasses. He had bad skin and his fingernails were long, but the quicks were bitten and bloody down around the moons.

“…and Fill…”

The third was a killer. He made no movement. His eyes stared straight ahead and Neil perceived the psychotic glaze. Hedid not look at the third man for more than a second. It was painful.

“…and Mr. Robert Mossman.”

She invited him to join them, and Neil took the empty formfit where the domo had set his chin-chin. He settled into the chair and crossed his legs. “How've you been?”

Lady Effim smiled a long, thin smile of memories and expectations. “Warm. And you?”

“All right, I suppose.”

“How is your father?”

“Excellent. He sends his best.”

“That was unnecessary.”

Neil laughed. “Less than an hour ago I said the same thing to someone. Excuse me; I'm a little cranky tonight.”

She waved away his apology with a friendly, imperious gesture. “Has the city changed much?”

“Since when?”

“Last time.” That had been six years earlier.

“Some. They turned the entire fourteenth level into crystal cultures. Beautiful. Peculiar. Waste of space. Helluva controversy, lot of people making speeches, the screens were full of it. I went off to the Hebrides.”

She laughed. The crepe texture of her facial skin made it an exercise in origami. Neil gave it a moment's thought: having sex with this creature, this power, this force of nature. It was more than wealth that kept three such as these with this woman. Neil began to understand the attraction. The cheekbones, the timbre of her voice, ice.

“Still vanishing, Neil?” She said it with amusement. “You're playing with me.”

“Only a little. I have a great affection for you, darling. You know that. You amuse me.”

“How are things in Australia?”

Lady Effim turned to Fill. For the answer.

“Cattle production is up two hundred percent, trawling acreage is yielding half a million barrels of lettuce a month, tithes are up point three three over last year at this time, and Standard & Poor's Index closed up eight points today.”

Neil smiled. “What about all the standard poor bastards who were wiped out when the tsunami hit two weeks ago?”

Everyone stopped smiling. Lady Effim sat straighter and her left hand-which had been dangling a gold-link chain and baited fish-hook in her jeroboam snifter of brandy in an attempt to snag the Antarean piranha before it bellied-up-the hand made a convulsive clenching movement. The killer's eyes came off dead center and snapped onto the thief with an almost audible click: the sound of armaments locked into firing position. Neil held his breath.

“Mr. Mossman,” Lady Effim said, slowly, “no.”

The air began to scintillate around Neil.

“Neil,” said Lady Effim.

He stopped. The air settled. Mr. Robert Mossman went back to rigidity.

Lady Effim smiled. It reminded the thief of an open wound. “You've grown suicidal in six years, Neil darling. Something unpleasant is happening to you; you're not the sweet, dashing lad I used to know. Death-wish?”

Neil smiled back, it seemed the thing to do. “Getting reckless in my declining years. I'm going to have to come visit your continent one of these days, m'Lady.”

She turned to the twinkle. “Cuusadou, what are we doing for the company peasants who were affected by the disaster?”

The twinkle leaned forward and, with relish, said, “ An absolutely splendid advertising campaign, Lady Effim: squawk, solids, car-cards, wandering evangelists, rumors, and in three days a major holo extravaganza. Our people have been on it since almost before the tide went out. Morale is very high. We've established competition between the cities, the one that mounts the most memorable mass burial ceremony gets a new sports arena. Morale is very high.” He looked pleased.

“Thank you, darling,” she said. She turned back to Neil. “I am a kind and benevolent ruler.”

Neil smiled and spread his hands. “Your pardon.”

It went that way for the better part of an hour.

Finally, Lady Effim said to Fill, “Darling, would you secure the area, please.” The professional student fiddled with the jeweled lock on the right-wrist manacle, and a sliding panel in the manacle opened to reveal a row of tiny dials under a fingernail-sized meter readout window. He turned the dials and a needle in the meter window moved steadily from one side to the other. When it had snugged up against the far side, he nodded obsequiously to Lady Effim.

“Good. We're alone. I gather you've been up to some nasty tricks, Neil darling. You haven't been teleporting illegally when you were off-shift, have you?” She wore a nasty smile that should have been on display in a museum.

“I have something you want,” Neil said, ignoring the chop. She knew he was breaking the regs at this very moment:

“I have to go out for a while.”

His father looks up. Their eyes meet.

“No. Nothing like that,” he lies. His father looks away.

He rubs and rubs till his palm is bloody. Then he vanishes, illegally.

“I'm sure you do, Neil mon cher. You always do. But what could I possibly have that would interest you? If you want something you go to the cornucopia and you punch it up and those cunning little atoms are rearranged cunningly and there you have it. Isn't that the way it's done?”

“There are things one can't get…”

“But those are illegal, darling. So illegal. And it seems foolish to want one of the few things you can't have in a world that permits virtually everything.”

“There are still taboos.”

“I can't conceive of such a thing, Neil dear.”

“Force yourself.”

“I'm a woman of very simple tastes.”

“The radiant.”

It was only the most imperceptible of movements, but Neil Leipzig knew the blood had stopped pumping in Lady Effim's body. Beneath her chalky powder she went white. He saw the thinnest line of the biting edges of her teeth.

“So you did it.”

Now the smile was Neil Leipzig's.

“A thief in a time of plenty. So you did it. You clever lad.”

Her eyes closed and she was thinking of the illegal Antarean drug. Here was a thrill she had never had. Farewell to ennui. She would, of course, have it, at any cost. Even a continent. It was a seller's market.

“What do you want?”

She would have it at any cost. Human lives: these three, his own. His father's.

His mother's.

“What do you want, Neil?”