”
Another giggle, locus indiscernible. For some reason, he didn’t know why, Linhouse turned to look sharply at the secretary-doll, if only because this was what she looked like, a ventriloquist’s vis-a-vis, this one warm and breathing, but with the same little tucked-in, stationary smile which could be talked up into half a dozen different comic imbroglios. In any caste society, women notoriously were the first to step over the stile. But this little cipher, in her starched wimple, didn’t look the kind to; she certainly didn’t fit his image of those women who might after all exist only in his head—the elite. As he heard his own name pronounced, a little ear of caution unfolded, within it a gray, grayling echo. Neither had Janice.
“Yes, sir?” he said.
“I’m afraid perhaps this goes beyond the bounds, normal bounds of a memorial service.” Naughton looked about him, for seconding. Not a head turned. “Wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, sir.” I’ll take ten lashes, sir. Norms are norms.
“Could you perhaps enlighten us, beyond that letter you read us—”
“As to what, sir?”
“As to what that gizmo—as to, ah, er—where it came from.”
“’Fraid I can’t, sir.” It was never so hard to appear ingenuous as when one was. Try American. He turned up his palms. “Search me.” And then found himself patting pockets with real concern—had he dropped her letter at the loo? He found it. “All I have is the rest of the directions. They call for—” He checked it. “One interval, halfway through, where the large television screen is to be switched on.”
“These unsolicited—bequests.” The provost sighed. That he could clap his hands together now with prebendary firmness was one of the reasons he had his job. “Well, then— De mortals, of course. But I think I should say, without any disrespect, that our time has been sufficiently preempted, wouldn’t you say, eh. Let us disband.”
Someone spoke, from next to Anders. “But what if—what if it’s meant to tell us what happened to her? What if she’s still somewhere, and there’s a message?”
This voice, almost a wail, was Lila’s. Linhouse stood absently, paper in his hand. Lila’s as he had always known it, silly-motherly, borne along on the ever-ready gush of her “views.” And there she was; he could see her. But it was also quite definitely the voice—if one felined it a bit, rubbed its fur the wrong way, for a few sexual sparks—of the woman he had overheard this morning in the coffee shop. And Meyer, her husband, had a sociologist’s organ tone, real ruby-throated Wurlitzer. “Honey, honey,” she had said. But the man with her hadn’t been Meyer.
There was an interested murmur of assent, dissent.
“Well, then—let’s say that those who wish to leave are at liberty to—Or perhaps Mr. Linhouse would prefer a show of hands. All who feel that we ought to hear this out—”
All the women. Several of the men had not voted, but now two or three were getting up to leave, when Anders, still standing, spoke up again. “Naughton—”
“Yes, Tippy? Oh, if you’ve recalled some reason your name might have been injected here, or on that lab incident, perhaps you’d better come priv—”
“As to that lab thing—at the time, I had an idea that it coincided with certain arrivals here—but never mind that—” As Anders stopped short, Sir Harry opened his eyes as if from an alert sleep, and very quietly, quite without show or reference to anybody speaking, got up, walked down the aisle past the few rows intervening between him and the stage, his profile toward the object, his body negligently toward them all.
Anders’s great white booby head, flushed pale yellow by a light in the ceiling just above him, moved totally, as it always did, to observe him; none of his features ever seemed to make use of themselves separately; perhaps this helped give power to the brain. “It’s not my beckyar-r-d. But just
Another giggle, locus indiscernible. For some reason, he didn’t know why, Linhouse turned to look sharply at the secretary-doll, if only because this was what she looked like, a ventriloquist’s vis-a-vis, this one warm and breathing, but with the same little tucked-in, stationary smile which could be talked up into half a dozen different comic imbroglios. In any caste society, women notoriously were the first to step over the stile. But this little cipher, in her starched wimple, didn’t look the kind to; she certainly didn’t fit his image of those women who might after all exist only in his head—the elite. As he heard his own name pronounced, a little ear of caution unfolded, within it a gray, grayling echo. Neither had Janice.
“Yes, sir?” he said.
“I’m afraid perhaps this goes beyond the bounds, normal bounds of a memorial service.” Naughton looked about him, for seconding. Not a head turned. “Wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes, sir.” I’ll take ten lashes, sir. Norms are norms.
“Could you perhaps enlighten us, beyond that letter you read us—”
“As to what, sir?”
“As to what that gizmo—as to, ah, er—where it came from.”
“’Fraid I can’t, sir.” It was never so hard to appear ingenuous as when one was. Try American. He turned up his palms. “Search me.” And then found himself patting pockets with real concern—had he dropped her letter at the loo? He found it. “All I have is the rest of the directions. They call for—” He checked it. “One interval, halfway through, where the large television screen is to be switched on.”
“These unsolicited—bequests.” The provost sighed. That he could clap his hands together now with prebendary firmness was one of the reasons he had his job. “Well, then— De mortals, of course. But I think I should say, without any disrespect, that our time has been sufficiently preempted, wouldn’t you say, eh. Let us disband.”
Someone spoke, from next to Anders. “But what if—what if it’s meant to tell us what happened to her? What if she’s still somewhere, and there’s a message?”
This voice, almost a wail, was Lila’s. Linhouse stood absently, paper in his hand. Lila’s as he had always known it, silly-motherly, borne along on the ever-ready gush of her “views.” And there she was; he could see her. But it was also quite definitely the voice—if one felined it a bit, rubbed its fur the wrong way, for a few sexual sparks—of the woman he had overheard this morning in the coffee shop. And Meyer, her husband, had a sociologist’s organ tone, real ruby-throated Wurlitzer. “Honey, honey,” she had said. But the man with her hadn’t been Meyer.
There was an interested murmur of assent, dissent.
“Well, then—let’s say that those who wish to leave are at liberty to—Or perhaps Mr. Linhouse would prefer a show of hands. All who feel that we ought to hear this out—”
All the women. Several of the men had not voted, but now two or three were getting up to leave, when Anders, still standing, spoke up again. “Naughton—”
“Yes, Tippy? Oh, if you’ve recalled some reason your name might have been injected here, or on that lab incident, perhaps you’d better come priv—”
“As to that lab thing—at the time, I had an idea that it coincided with certain arrivals here—but never mind that—” As Anders stopped short, Sir Harry opened his eyes as if from an alert sleep, and very quietly, quite without show or reference to anybody speaking, got up, walked down the aisle past the few rows intervening between him and the stage, his profile toward the object, his body negligently toward them all.
Anders’s great white booby head, flushed pale yellow by a light in the ceiling just above him, moved totally, as it always did, to observe him; none of his features ever seemed to make use of themselves separately; perhaps this helped give power to the brain. “It’s not my beckyar-r-d. But just
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