Manus modules had no practical function, no more than had Sameki verses. They were attractive, of a psychologically satisfying size and shape, and could be held in the hands, set on a table, or installed in a module niche of any wall.
Naturally Freddy became very rich. Ildefonsa Impala, the most beautiful woman in the city, was always interested in newly rich men. She came to see Freddy about eight-thirty. People made up their minds fast, and Ildefonsa had hers made up when she came. Freddy made his own up quickly and divorced Judy Fixico in Small Claims Court. Freddy and Ildefonsa went honeymooning to Paraiso Dorado, a resort.
It was wonderful. All of Ildy's marriages were. There was the wonderful floodlighted scenery. The recirculated water of the famous falls was tinted gold; the immediate rocks had been done by Rambles; and the hills had been contoured by Spall. The beach was a perfect copy of that at Merevale, and the popular drink that first part of the night was blue absinthe.
But scenery— whether seen for the first time or revisited after an interval— is striking for the sudden intense view of it. It is not meant to be lingered over. Food, selected and prepared instantly, is eaten with swift enjoyment; and blue absinthe lasts no longer than its own novelty. Loving, for Ildefonsa and her paramours, was quick and consuming; and repetition would have been pointless to her. Besides, Ildefonsa and Freddy had taken only the one-hour luxury honeymoon.
Freddy wished to continue the relationship, but Ildefonsa glanced at a trend indicator. The manus module would hold its popularity for only the first third of the night. Already it had been discarded by people who mattered. And Freddy Fixico was not one of the regular successes. He enjoyed a full career only about one night a week.
They were back in the city and divorced in Small Claims Court by nine thirty-five. The stock of manus modules was remandered, and the last of it would be disposed to bargain hunters among the Dawners, who will buy anything.
"Whom shall I marry next?" Ildefonsa asked herself. "It looks like a slow night."
"Bagelbaker is buying," ran the word through Money Market, but Bagelbaker was selling again before the word had made its rounds. Basil Bagelbaker enjoyed making money, and it was a pleasure to watch him work as he dominated the floor of the Market and assembled runners and a competent staff out of the corner of his mouth. Helpers stripped the panhandler rags off him and wrapped him in a tycoon toga. He sent one runner to pay back twentyfold the young couple who had advanced him a thousand dollars. He sent another with a more substantial gift to Ildefonsa Impala, for Basil cherished their relationship. Basil acquired title to the Trend Indication Complex and had certain falsifications set into it. He caused to collapse certain industrial empires that had grown up within the last two hours, and made a good thing of recombining their wreckage. He had been the richest man in the world for some minutes now. He became so money-heavy that he could not maneuver with the agility he had shown an hour before. He became a great fat buck, and the pack of expert wolves circled him to bring him down.
Very soon he would lose that first fortune of the evening. The secret of Basil Bagelbaker is that he enjoyed losing money spectacularly after he was full of it to the bursting point.
A thoughtful man named Maxwell Mouser had just produced a work of actinic philosophy. It took him seven minutes to write it. To write works of philosophy one used the flexible outlines and the idea indexes; one set the activator for such a wordage in each subsection; an adept would use the paradox feed-in, and the striking-analogy blender; one calibrated the particular-slant and the personality-signature. It had to come out a good work, for excellence had become the automatic minimum for such productions.
"I will scatter a few nuts on the frosting," said Maxwell, and he pushed the lever for that. This sifted handfuls of words like chthonic and heuristic and prozymeides through the thing so that nobody could doubt it was a work of philosophy.
Maxwell Mouser sent the work out to publishers, and received it back each time in about three minutes. An analysis of it and reason for rejection was always given— mostly that the thing had been done before and better. Maxwell received it back ten times in thirty minutes, and was discouraged. Then there was a break.
Ladion's work had become a hit within the last ten minutes, and it was now recognized that Mouser's monograph was both an answer and a supplement to it. It was accepted and published in less than a minute after this break. The reviews of the first five minutes were cautious ones; then real enthusiasm was shown. This was truly one of the greatest works of philosophy to appear during the early and medium hours of the night. There were those who said it might be one of the enduring works and even have a holdover appeal to the Dawners the next morning.
Naturally Maxwell became very rich, and naturally Ildefonsa came to see him about midnight. Being a revolutionary philosopher, Maxwell thought that they might-make some free arrangement, but Ildefonsa insisted it must be marriage. So Maxwell divorced Judy Mouser in Small Claims Court and went off with Ildefonsa.
This Judy herself, though not so beautiful as Ildefonsa, was the fastest taker in the city. She only wanted the men of the moment for a moment, and she was always there before even Ildefonsa. Ildefonsa believed that she took the men away from Judy; Judy said that Ildy had her leavings and nothing else.
"I had him first," Judy would always mock as she raced through Small Claims Court.
"Oh that damned urchin!" Ildefonsa would moan. "She wears my very hair before I do."
Maxwell Mouser and Ildefonsa Impala went honeymooning to Musicbox Mountain, a resort. It was wonderful. The peaks were done with green snow by Dunbar and Fittle. (Back at Money Market, Basil Bagelbaker was putting together his third and greatest fortune of the night, which might surpass in magnitude even his fourth fortune of the Thursday before.) The chalets were Switzier than the real Swiss and had live goats in every room. (And Stanley Skuldugger was emerging as the top Actor-Imago of the middle hours of the night.) The popular drink for that middle part of the night was Glotzenglubber, Eve Cheese and Rhine wine over pink ice. (And back in the city the leading Nyctalops were taking their midnight break at the Toppers' Club.)
Of course it was wonderful, as were all of Ildefonsa's. But she had never been really up on philosophy, so she had scheduled only the special thirty-five-minute honeymoon. She looked at the trend indicator to be sure. She found that her current husband had been obsoleted, and his opus was now referred to sneeringly as Mouser's Mouse. They went back to the city and were divorced in Small Claims Court.
The membership of the Toppers' Club varied. Success was the requisite of membership. Basil Bagelbaker might be accepted as a member, elevated to the presidency, and expelled from it as a dirty pauper from three to six times a night. But only important persons could belong to it, or those enjoying brief moments of importance.
"I believe I will sleep during the Dawner period in the morning," Overcall said. "I may go up to this new place, Koimopolis, for an hour of it. They're said to be good. Where will you sleep, Basil?"
"Flop house."
"I believe I will sleep an hour by the Midian Method," said Burnbanner. "They have a fine new clinic. And perhaps I'll sleep an hour by the Prasenka Process, and an hour by the Dormidio."
"Crackle has been sleeping an hour every period by the natural method," said Overcall.
"I did that for half an hour not long since," said Burnbanner. "I believe an hour is too long to give it. Have you tried the natural method, Basil?"
"Always. Natural method and a bottle of red-eye."
Stanley Skuldugger had become the most meteoric actor-imago for a week. Naturally he became very rich, and Ildefonsa Impala went to see him about three A.M.
"I had him first!" rang the mocking voice of Judy Skuldugger as she skipped through her divorce in Small Claims Court. And Ildefonsa and Stanley-boy went off honeymooning. It is always fun to finish up a period with an actor-imago who is the hottest property in the business. There is something so adolescent and boorish about them.
Besides, there was the publicity, and Ildefonsa liked that. The rumor-mills ground. Would it last ten minutes? Thirty? An hour? Would it be one of those rare Nyctalops marriages that lasted through the rest of the night and into the daylight off-hours? Would it even last into the next night as some had been known to do?
Actually it lasted nearly forty minutes, which was almost to the end of the period.
It had been a slow Tuesday night. A few hundred new products had run their course on the markets. There had been a score of dramatic hits, three-minute and five-minute capsule dramas, and several of the six-minute long-play affairs. Night Street Nine— a solidly sordid offering— seemed to be in as the drama of the night unless there should be a late hit.
Hundred-storied buildings had been erected, occupied, obsoleted, and demolished again to make room for more contemporary structures. Only the mediocre would use a building that had been left over from the Day Fliers or the Dawners, or even the Nyctalops of the night before. The city was rebuilt pretty completely at least three times during an eight-hour period.
The period drew near its end. Basil Bagelbaker, the richest man in the world, the reigning president of the Toppers' Club, was enjoying himself with his cronies. His fourth fortune of the night was a paper pyramid that had risen to incredible heights; but Basil laughed to himself as he savored the manipulation it was founded on.
Three ushers of the Toppers' Club came in with firm step.
"Get out of here, you dirty bum!" they told Basil savagely. They tore the tycoon's toga off him and then tossed him his seedy panhandler's rags with a three-man sneer.
"All gone?" Basil asked. "I gave it another five minutes."
"All gone," said a messenger from Money Market. "Nine billion gone in five minutes, and it really pulled some others down with it."
"Pitch the busted bum out!" howled Overcall and Burnbanner and the other cronies.
"Wait, Basil," said Overcall. "Turn in the President's Crosier before we kick you downstairs. After all, you'll have it several times again tomorrow night."
The period was over. The Nyctalops drifted off to sleep clinics or leisure-hour hideouts to pass their ebb time. The Auroreans, the Dawners, took over the vital stuff.
Now you would see some action! Those Dawners really made fast decisions. You wouldn't catch them wasting a full minute setting up a business.
A sleepy panhandler met Ildefonsa Impala on the way.
"Preserve us this morning, Ildy," he said, "and will you marry me the coming night?"
"Likely I will, Basil," she told him. "Did you marry Judy during the night past?"
"I'm not sure. Could you let me have two dollars, Ildy?"
"Out of the question. I believe a Judy Bagelbaker was named one of the ten best-dressed women during the frou-frou fashion period about two o'clock. Why do you need two dollars?"
"A dollar for a bed and a dollar for red-eye. After all, I sent you two million out of my second."
"I keep my two sorts of accounts separate. Here's a dollar, Basil. Now be off! I can't be seen talking to a dirty panhandler."
"Thank you, Ildy. I'll get the red-eye and sleep in an alley. Preserve us this morning."
Bagelbaker shuffled off whistling "Slow Tuesday Night."
And already the Dawners had set Wednesday morning to jumping.
Aye, and Gomorrah
SAMUEL R. DELANY
Samuel R. Delany was widely acknowledged during the sixties as one of the two most important and influential American SF writers of that decade (the other being Roger Zelazny). He won the Nebula Award in 1966 for Babel 17, won two more Nebulas in 1967 for The Einstein Intersection and for his first short story, "Aye, and Gomorrah," and his 1968 novella "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones," won both the Nebula and Hugo awards. By 1969, critic Algis Budrys was hailing him as "the best science-fiction writer in the world" —an opinion it would have been possible to find a great deal of support for, at least on the American side of the Atlantic; he is still regarded by many critics as one of our greatest living authors. His monumental novel Nova was, in my opinion, one of the very best SF novels of the sixties, and its influence on everything from the Shaper/Mechanist stories of Bruce Sterling, on through William Gibson and Michael Swanwick, and on to the work of nineties' authors such as Paul J. McAuley and Alastair Reynolds, is impossible to overestimate.
Delany only ever wrote a handful of short stories— unlike Zelazny, he made his biggest impact on the field with his novels— but they deserve to be numbered among the best short work of the sixties. Aside from the stories already named, they include the marvelous novella "The Star Pit," the ornately titled "We, In Some Strange Power's Employ, Move On A Rigorous Line," "Corona," and "Dog in a Fisherman's Net." Almost all of his short fiction was assembled in the landmark collection Drift-glass. Which contains the elegant, tight, and poetically intense story that follows, an early look at the posthuman condition, as science makes the boundary lines of race, class, and even sex, obsolete, in favor of sharply drawn new boundaries.…
After Nova, Delany fell silent for seven years, and when he did return, it was with work that no longer had as broad an appeal within the genre, like the immense, surreal Dhalgren— which did, however, become a bestseller outside of the usual genre boundaries, and help to gain him wide, new audiences. Although he did publish two more science-fiction novels, Triton and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, most of his work throughout the decades that followed took him beyond the boundaries of the genre as they are usually drawn, first with a series of ornate and somewhat abstract intellectual fantasy works such as Flight from Neveryon, The Bridge of Lost Desire, and Tales of Neveryon, and then on into mainstream works such as Atlantis: Three Tales and The Mad Men; he has also created a large body of criticism and nonfiction writing, including Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, 1984, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, Starboard Wine, The Straits of Messina, The American Shore, The Motion of Light in Water, Heavenly Breakfast, and Silent Interviews: on Languages, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics. Delany's other books include the novels The Jewels of Aptor, The Fall of the Towers, The Ballad of Beta-2, and Empire Star.
*
And came down in Paris:
Where we raced along the Rue de Médicis with Bo and Lou and Muse inside the fence, Kelly and me outside, making faces through the bars, making noise, making the Luxembourg Gardens roar at two in the morning. Then climbed out, and down to the square in front of St. Sulpice where Bo tried to knock me into the fountain.
At which point Kelly noticed what was going on around us, got an ashcan cover, and ran into the pissoir, banging the walls. Five guys scooted out; even a big pissoir only holds four.
A very blond young man put his hand on my arm and smiled. "Don't you think, Spacer, that you… people should leave?"
I looked at his hand on my blue uniform. "Est-ce que tu es un frelk?"
His eyebrows rose, then he shook his head. "Une frelk," he corrected. "No. I am not. Sadly for me. You look as though you may once have been a man. But now…" He smiled. "You have nothing for me now. The police." He nodded across the street where I noticed the gendarmerie for the first time. "They don't bother us. You are strangers, though…"
But Muse was already yelling, "Hey, come on! Let's get out of here, huh?" And left. And went up again.
And came down in Houston:
"God damn!" Muse said. "Gemini Flight Control— you mean this is where it all started? Let's get out of here, please!"
So took a bus out through Pasadena, then the monoline to Galveston, and were going to take it down the Gulf, but Lou found a couple with a pickup truck—
"Glad to give you a ride, Spacers. You people up there on them planets and things, doing all that good work for the government."
—who were going south, them and the baby, so we rode in the back for two hundred and fifty miles of sun and wind.
"You think they're frelks?" Lou asked, elbowing me. "I bet they're frel
ks. They're just waiting for us to give 'em the come-on."
"Cut it out. They're a nice, stupid pair of country kids."
"That don't mean they ain't frelks!"
"You don't trust anybody, do you?"
"No."
And finally a bus again that rattled us through Brownsville and across the border into Matamoros where we staggered down the steps into the dust and the scorched evening with a lot of Mexicans and chickens and Texas Gulf shrimp fishermen— who smelled worst— and we shouted the loudest. Forty-three whores— I counted— had turned out for the shrimp fishermen, and by the time we had broken two of the windows in the bus station, they were all laughing. The shrimp fishermen said they wouldn't buy us no food but would get us drunk if we wanted, 'cause that was the custom with shrimp fishermen. But we yelled, broke another window; then, while I was lying on my back on the telegraph-office steps, singing, a woman with dark lips bent over and put her hands on my cheeks. "You are very sweet." Her rough hair fell forward. "But the men, they are standing around and watching you. And that is taking up time. Sadly, their time is our money. Spacer, do you not think you… people should leave?"
I grabbed her wrist. "Usted!" I whispered. "Usted es una frelka?"
"Frelko in español." She smiled and patted the sunburst that hung from my belt buckle. "Sorry. But you have nothing that… would be useful to me. It is too bad, for you look like you were once a woman, no? And I like women, too…"
I rolled off the porch.
"Is this a drag, or is this a drag!" Muse was shouting. "Come on! Let's go!"
We managed to get back to Houston before dawn, somehow. And went up.
And came down in Istanbul:
That morning it rained in Istanbul.
At the commissary we drank our tea from pear-shaped glasses, looking out across the Bosphorus. The Princes Islands lay like trash heaps before the prickly city.
"Who knows their way in this town?" Kelly asked.
Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future Page 6