Too, Too Solid Flesh
Page 33
“There isn’t much to see until the show.” Hamlet glanced quickly around the stage with a trace of his old impatience. “And that may be a week. We have no set, no blocking—all we have is a play.” He added apologetically, “We have to replace so many cast members, including Horatio.” He winced. “And our funding is tight now.”
Horatio looked around a final time. “I’d better go.”
Hamlet called out, “Come back and see the play.”
“Thanks, I might.” The last human actor on earth walked to the lobby door for the last time.
Someone was leaning on the outside door, silhouetted in the sunlight. “I shouldn’t let you leave at all, darling.”
“What?” He wondered, his stomach tightening, if this were an aftereffect of one of Goode’s organic matrices and he were dreaming as he died. He put a hand on the door.
It swung free. He fell forward into her arms. “Paulette.”
“No.” She swatted his arm lightly. “Say, ‘Paulette, I’m sorry.’”
“Paulette. I’m sorry.” He grabbed her as tightly as he could. “For everything.”
He dropped his head onto her shoulder. “Where have you been?”
“Where have you? I came back to tell you all is forgiven. God knows what tawdry hole you’ve been hiding in.” She stroked his head. “All is forgiven.”
That was his first clue. He said into her shoulder, “And your acting career?”
“Career? Now there’s a laugh. Darling, where would I go? Even if I could star here, where would I go next?”
That was his second clue. “Where do we go next?”
She paused. “Home. My place. I have things to show you.” She ran a finger down the bridge of his nose. “My one extravagance, for instance.”
He ran a finger around the edge of her ear, dropping casually behind her scalp. Before she said, “That tickles, you bastard,” he felt the plastic-rimmed slot.
Hamlet had said that he had made a surprise. Joey had said that the making of Ophelia had delayed a rush job.
And Horatio had given Hamlet the Access codes to Simula National, where Thibodeaux had made Paulette’s simula. Horatio said, “Do you remember the past few days?”
“The readings, the evenings. God, it’s been chaos.” She stood with her hands on her hips. “Is memory important?”
“Not individual memories, no. The capacity is very important.” He took her arm, and they walked down the aisle, marching slowly as the actors had in the first performance Horatio had been in.
A few memories might be quite important. Horatio had no way of being sure, so he asked in her ear, “Do you know anything about ‘The Cloud-capp’d tow’rs?’”
Paulette said as softly, “I’ll tell you outside.” She kissed him. “I’m short a few memories, but not of that.”
Of course she wasn’t. Hamlet had used the master password and extracted all the scans of Paulette, then copied Thibodeaux’s simula of her using Horatio’s Access codes, assembled them using Will, and created a body. He had also given her the files on Thanatos and its purpose.
Since the lab biochem records were already hopelessly unbalanced by the creation of Mary and the destruction of Freddy, Hamlet’s creation of Paulette would be untraceable. Since the police had never believed she was missing, she didn’t need to explain her reappearance. Paulette was vague about her recent past. It was as though her murder had never happened.
Except for Horatio’s heart. “Are you all right?”
“Actually,” she said, “I’m wonderful. What else would I be?”
“Silly me. Let me help you.”
She swatted his arm again. “I don’t need help.”
“We all do.” He had told Hamlet he needed help. Whatever Hamlet had downloaded after they used the final password, Hamlet had given Horatio the help he wanted most.
* * * * *
The new Hamlet watched them go, feeling more loss than he should at the departure of strangers. Folding his arms tight against himself as though cold, he said to Horatio’s back, “Good night, sweet human prince.”
* * * * *
Outside, Horatio held Paulette tightly, though it wasn’t cold. They looked at the livethatch, at the simula Tudor timber, at the banner that announced the Globe Hamlet Troupe to passers-by who would never ask for or get tickets.
He thought of what was probably in Paulette’s memory about the Globe project, and that her father was one of the most powerful men in America. He thought of how tired he was of secrets, of how much he had loved Paulette, and how wrong it felt now that she wasn’t human, and how he probably would still love her anyway.
There was too much to do. Mary was still out there. Thibodeaux would be back to see if his daughter had found out anything. Billy, if he were alive, needed help.
If they wanted, he and Paulette could run away, set up a stage somewhere, and revive, briefly at least, live theater.
He said softly, “The conscience of the king.”
“Now what are you mumbling, darling?”
“Nothing much.” He held her arm. “We’d better talk.”
They walked toward the train in a world which, for Horatio, was now one vast Free Zone.
Acknowledgements
I owe more people than I can say.
The idea for this book came four years ago, the book contract two. Since then a stream of people have argued, sympathized, and encouraged.
Thanks to Jane Bradley (drama/fiction), who told me to stick to my vision of this book no matter what pressure I faced, and to Pat McGilligan (editor), who would kill Jane for that if he knew her, and who spent a long year patiently reworking with me.
Susan Morehouse (essayist) and David Sparrer (engineer) gave me the respect, support, and encouragement I needed badly; Eric Nelson (poet) made suggestions about the language; Ruth Salvaggio, Minrose Gwin, and Louis Gwin (critic, critic, critic) listened and encouraged.
Thanks to my parents and my brother, Kit, for their sympathy and support by phone, and to my in-laws and my siblings-in-law: Pat and Brian, Bob and Ann, and Marie and Del, for tea, beer, and sympathy.
Thanks also to Sandy Hintz (agent) for many years of patient help and encouragement.
I don’t even know how to thank my wife: what she could do, other than write the book herself, she did. Dedications shouldn’t be love letters, so enough of that; Lynn Anne Evans (vet, spouse) took time she did not have to be everything I’ve ever needed.
Lastly, thanks to Walter Kerner, Diane Kerner, and Rachel Kerner, who fed me, housed me, helped me, and put me up for New York visits for this book—and to whom this book is dedicated, with thanks for a lasting and wonderful friendship.
People who say writing is lonely don’t have friends and family like mine.
About the Author
A native Iowan, Nick O’Donohoe has surveyed, jackhammered, and supervised warehouses , and all three of the bestselling DRAGONLANCE® Tales collections included one of his short stories. Nowadays he writes Nathan Phillips detective novels (three to date, including April Snow, Wind Chill, and Open Season), works as a technical writer in Cranston, Rhode Island, and, incidently, brews beer. He has acted in plays, musicals, and small film, but hasn’t auditioned for simulas.
Table of Contents
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Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright
TOO, TOO SOLID FLESH
®Copyright 1989 Nick O’Donohoe
Cover art by Jeff Easley
All Rights Reserved.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of TSR, Inc.
Distributed to the book trade in the United States by Random House, Inc. and in Canada by Random House of Canada, Ltd.
Distributed in the United Kingdom by TSR UK Ltd.
Distributed to the toy and hobby trade by regional distributors.
DRAGONLANCE is a registered trademark owned by TSR, Inc. FORGOTTEN REALMS is a trademark owned by TSR, Inc. TM designates other trademarks owned by TSR, Inc.
First Printing, October, 1989
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:
88-51731
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 0-88038-767-X
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
TSR, Inc.
PO. Box 756
Lake Geneva, W1 53147
U.S.A.
TSR Ltd.
120 Church End, Cherry Hinton
Cambridge CBi 3LB
United Kingdom
Anticopyright
Title: Too, Too Solid Flesh
Author: Nick O'Donohoe
Genre: science fiction
Source: TSR, Inc. paperback edition, published October, 1989
Process: Scanned, OCR'd and proofed.
Date of e-text: October 3, 2013
Prepared by: Antwerp
Comments: As far as I know, this is the only existing e-text of this book.
Notes about scanning:
I'm hardly an expert, but for what it's worth here's what I've learned so far:
1. The hardest part of scanning a book is steeling yourself to unbind your book. It may help to remember that standard mass-market paperbacks were never made to last. If your bookshelf is anything like mine, paperbacks more than ten years old are already showing signs of age. At fifteen to twenty years, the pages are yellowing and the binding is starting to crack and loosen. They won't last much longer as a readable book, and may no longer be available in any format.
Sometimes you really do have to destroy the village in order to save it.
2. The trick to unbinding a standard paperback is heat (even if you're careful, cutting can damage the text, especially with an old cheap paperback). A heavy cast-iron skillet works well. Pre-heat the skillet to "medium". Place just the binding edge on the surface of the skillet for a couple of seconds. The pages should start to loosen enough to gently pull free. Be careful not to over-heat - you only want to soften the binding glue, not liquefy or vapourise it. I don't know the flash-point of binding glue or what it's made of, but it's probably not something you want to breathe. Carefully separate out the individual pages, re-heating the binding edge as needed. Don't neatly re-stack the pages, leave them in a loose pile until they've fully cooled. Watch out for glue strings and blobs.
3. Make sure your scanner will do at least 600dpi. I know all the OCR guides say 300 dpi, but the text in paperbacks is pretty small and you have contend with cheap fibrous paper and background discolouration, not to mention tea stains and such. 600 dpi gives you and your software something to work with. I find that scanning in Photo mode, greyscale, dark (underexposed), at high contrast seems to get the best results. Play around with your scanner's settings until you get something that works for your OCR program.
4. "Obtain" a real OCR program, not Acrobat's built-in ocr or some freeware app. No offence intended - I use lots of freeware and shareware myself - but OCR is something that requires a high-end program to get the job done right.
5. Proofing is a tedious pain in the ass, but it's really the most important part. To avoid burning out, I suggest limiting yourself to scanning-and-proofing 50 or so pages a day. It'll take around a week per book, but it's worth taking the time to do the job right. Remember, yours may well be the only e-copy of your favourite book that will ever be made. Proof responsibly.
Anticopyright 2013. All rights reversed.