Страница 32 из 57
Obediently, I stripped and placed my garments in a hopper that debouched from the wall in response to some silent signal. The hopper closed again; I suspected that my clothes would be fumigated and purified while they were in there, and I was correct. I stood naked but for my mask, Everyman reduced to his final prop, as sca
“Hello,” she said. “I’m Esther, and I’m so glad to know you. I’m sure we’re going to be great friends.”
She was wearing a gauzy smock through which I could see the outlines of her slender body. Her hair was red, her eyes were green, her face bore the look of intelligence, and she smiled with a fervor that was not altogether mechanical, I thought. In my i
Esther eyed my body appraisingly, perhaps not so much to judge my masculinity as perhaps to hunt out any medical shortcomings that the sensor system might have overlooked. Yet she managed to transform her glance into something more than a merely clinical one; it was provocative as well. I felt curiously exposed, probably because I am not accustomed to meeting young ladies for the first time under such circumstances. After her quick survey Esther crossed the room and touched her hand to a control at the base of the screen. “We don’t want them peeping at us, do we?” she asked brightly, and the screen darkened. I hazarded a private guess that this was part of the regular routine, by way of convincing the customer that the great staring eye of the computer would not spy on his amours; and I guessed also that despite the conspicuous gesture of turning off the screen, the room was still being monitored and would continue to be under surveillance while I was in it. Surely the designers of this place would not leave the girls wholly at the mercies of any customer with whom they might be sharing a cubicle. I felt queasy about going to bed with someone knowing that my performance was being observed and very likely taped and coded and filed, but I overcame my hesitation, telling myself that I was here purely on a lark. This bordello was clearly no place for an educated man. It invited too much suspicion. But no doubt it suited the needs of those who had such needs.
As the glow of the screen darkened, Esther said, “Shall I turn the room light off?”
“It doesn’t matter to me.”
“I’ll turn it down, then.” She did something to the knob and the room dimmed. In a quick lithe gesture she slipped off her smock. Her body was smooth and pale, with narrow hips and small, girlish breasts whose translucent skin revealed a network of fine blue veins. She reminded me very much of Aster Mikkelsen as Aster had looked on that spy pickup the week before. Aster… Esther… for one moment of dreamy confusion I confounded the two and wondered why a world-famous biochemist would be doubling as a tart. Smiling amiably, Esther stretched out on the bed, lying on her side with her knees drawn up; it was a friendly, conversational posture, nothing blatant about it. I was grateful for that. I had expected a girl in such a place to lie back, part her legs, and say, “Come on, buddy, get aboard,” and I was relieved that Esther did no such thing. It occurred to me that in my interview below, the computer had sized up my personality, marked me as a member of the inhibited academic class, and had passed along to Esther, preparing herself for work, a memorandum to the effect that I was to be treated in a dignified ma
I sat down alongside her.
“Would you like to talk awhile?” she asked. “We have plenty of time.”
“All right. You know, I’ve never been here before.”
“I do know.”
“How?”
“The computer told me. The computer tells us everything.”
“Everything?My name?”
“Oh, no, not your name! I mean, all the personal things.”
I said, “So what do you know about me, Esther?”
“You’ll see in a little while.” Her eyes sparkled mischievously. Then she said, “Did you see the man from the future when you came in?”
“The one called Vornan-19?”
“Yes. He’s supposed to be here today. Just about this time. We got a special notice over the master line. They say he’s awfully handsome. I’ve seen him on the screen. I wish I’d get a chance to meet him.”
“How do you know you aren’t with him right now?”
She laughed. “Oh, no! I know I’m not!”
“But I’m masked. I could be—”
“You aren’t. You’re just teasing me. If I was getting him, they would have notified me.”
“Maybe not. Maybe he prefers secrecy.”
“Well, maybe so, but anyway I know you’re not the man from the future. Mask or no mask, you aren’t fooling me.”
I let my hand roam along the smoothness of her thigh. “What do you think of him, Esther? Do you believe he’s really from the year 2999?”
“Don’t you think so?”
“I’m asking you what you think.”
She shrugged. Taking my hand, she drew it slowly up over her taut belly until it was cupping the small cool mound of her left breast, as though she hoped to deflect my troublesome questions by leading me into the act of passion. Pouting a little, she said, “Well, they all say he’s real. The President and everyone. And they say he’s got special powers. That he can give you a kind of electric shock if he wants.” Esther giggled suddenly. “I wonder if — if he can shock a girl while he’s — you know, while he’s with her.”
“Quite likely. If he’s really what he says he is.”
“Why don’t you believe in him?”
I said, “It all seems phony to me. That a man should drop out of the sky — literally — and claim to come from a thousand years in the future. Where’s the proof? How am I supposed to know he’s telling the truth?”
“Well,” Esther said, “there’s that look in his eyes. And his smile. There’s something strange about him, everyone says. He talks strange too, not with an accent, exactly, but yet his voice comes out peculiar. I believe in him, yes. I’d like to make love with him. I’d do it for free.”
“Perhaps you’ll have the chance,” I said.
She gri