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sobering pills.
He gulped down a pill, and looked around again. Now Vito and
Merit, who was lively again, seemed to be getting ready to leave, and Ray was
seated at a piano beside the stage. Adam recalled suddenly that there had
almost always been beautiful music, live or recorded, to be heard at any time
somewhere in Doc Nowell's enormous house. And it would be like a Jovian, Adam
thought, to play fine music now, in a place like this, amid such noise that no
one else would be able to hear it.
It struck Adam that the drunken uproar was noticeably diminished. In the
vicinity of the stage, a circle of heads were now turning toward the piano.
The ring of quiet polarization widened. Now, even where he stood at the wall,
Adam could hear some of the piano notes. And now he could hear more.
Ray's music flowed out to where the night sky of Golden was curved around the
bubble windows.
I've never heard this
, Adam thought.
What can you call this kind of music? What is it
? He moved forward into the room again, until he stood gripping the back of
someone's chair.
He can do this, too
, Adam thought.
They can do this
.
Now the vast room, or most of it, was almost quiet, expect for the music that
Ray Kedro played. Somewhere at the far side of the room, among the distant
trees and rocks, one person sobbed, loudly and drunkenly. Then a door opened
in the wall near
Adam, and a fat man in evening dress came hurrying out, as if the silence had
alarmed him. Then the fat man too stood quietly listening.
Experience this
, said the music.
Feel this you can almost
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touch it now. This is what life is about
.
No. Adam turned away, heading again toward the elevators.
How would you know, Ray, what human life is like?
Adam's mind felt blurred. The alcohol and the sobering pill were fighting it
out in his bloodstream.
The elevator door closed on him, shutting him in, cutting off the golden
sounds. He was alone in the car going down. I usually am alone, he thought.
You stupid drunk, he told himself, why don't you go off somewhere and cry?
There were only a few people in the hotel lobby when he reached it. Adam
looked at his timepiece. It was two in the morning. He hadn't realized that it
was so late.
He stepped out of the lobby onto the black and dully gleaming slideway. His
head was full of vague thoughts, none of which really demanded his attention.
The slideway shot him back toward Stem City, carrying him past observation
platforms and alcoves. In one of these large recesses eight or ten young
people were dancing to some music of their own. They had set up a screen on
which the image of some retchsinger was contorting itself in three dimensions
and unnatural color. No, at second glance it appeared that the screen was
attached to a built-in, coin operated video that they were playing. Something
new here every day.
The rest of the observation niches were empty as Adam glided past them. There
were only a few people on the slideway, most of them riding in what looked
like a grim hurry on the faster center strips.
Far ahead of Adam, going in the same direction as he was but on the slowest
outer strip, a man and a woman moved along arm in arm. At a distance they
looked like Merit and Vito; they were certainly dressed the same. But how
could Merit and Vito possibly have got ahead of him?
Just as the couple were passing one of the observation alcoves,
four figures erupted from concealment inside it. Like a pack of wild teeners,
swinging fists and weapons, the four charged the couple from behind. The man
and woman were both knocked down. Already they were being dragged off the
slideway and back into the alcove.
The cold combat computer had flicked on automatically, and
Adam was already hurtling forward, running in a curved path over slower and
slower strips toward the alcove. He pounded off the slowest strip just in time
to see the top of one pigtailed head vanish down through a utility trapdoor at
the rear of the bubble-walled enclosure. The attackers were gone.
Vito Ling lay on the deck of the observation platform, twitching, wide-eyed,
dead. His face and head were covered with his blood.
A few meters away& Merit&
Adam turned her over, to lie face up. She was unconscious, but she was alive,
with no injury that his frantic examination could discover. A pulse throbbed
in her wrist as Adam's shaky fingers held it.
He looked away for a moment, toward the closed trapdoor.
Would he have a chance of catching anyone? But no, he had better stay with
Merit. He looked back at her.
Adam screamed, as his legs thrust him erect, away from the figure on the deck.
His hands came slapping up to hide the world from his eyes.
Instead of Merit, he had seen Alice on the deck, pregnant and butchered and
dead.
Behind his closed eyes, his mind scrambled for truth, some kind of truth that
he could cling to. Fearfully he uncovered his eyes, looking toward the place
where Vito
Had been. Vito's body was now gone. There were no bloodstains there on the
deck now. Nothing.
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Numbly Adam looked around. No Merit on the floor. No Alice either, of course
not Alice. And no Vito Ling. No pigtailed attackers. Adam Mann was alone in
the alcove, breathing hard and trembling.
A couple of people shot by on the fast strip of the slideway, paying him no
attention.
Hallucination. Forcing himself to think, to act, Adam walked to the rear of
the alcove and examined the trapdoor closely. It was locked shut, and a thin
film of unmarked dust lay around it and over it, along with a little windblown
litter. It looked as if no one had used the door for days at least.
Hallucination. He stumbled out onto the slide-way and resumed his journey. He
was shaken, hardly aware of what was going on around him. To think that he
sometimes envied others their parapsych powers&
But what could have brought on this experience? He had never had anything like
it in his life before. Probably his feelings for
Merit relating her to Alice but of course it might have been genuine
precognition, which would mean that some time in the future, Merit and Vito
would travel this way, and would be attacked.
Shock hit Adam again. Merit had said something like: "I don't mind a place
like this about once a .year." It wasn't likely that she and Vito would be on
Golden that long. It wasn't likely, Adam thought, that they would return to
the Pioneer Hotel before they left. Tonight it was going to be, of course,
tonight.
In a slow unthinking way Adam had moved again out to the rapid strip; now he
spun around and raced back for the immobile utility walk along the outer edge
of the slideway. He had to get back to that alcove or might the attack be
going to take place at a different one?
Looking down the long slideway toward the Pioneer Hotel, he could now see
Merit and Vito in the distance, approaching arm in arm, gliding toward him
along the slow outer strip.
Adam reached the utility walk and sprinted back toward them. Now his view of
them was blocked by vending machines on the walk ahead of him. How far was it
to that alcove? God, it mustn't be far, the attack and killing took only a few
seconds.
A lone man went by on the slideway, turning his head to watch
Adam run, then turning away with determination, minding his own business.
Adam ran.
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