The Asylum world by John Jakes

Author:John Jakes [Jakes, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
Publisher: Paperback Library
Published: 1969-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

All that afternoon he worked in his suite, preparing his clothes.

Off with the official patches, rrrip. Add a tear here, a tear there. Roll up the tunic and stomp on it. Shove the cape in a corner where less than efficient servomaids had overlooked accumulated dust. A couple of hours before a saffron-tinged twilight settled in, he inspected himself in a mirror and decided that he looked properly scruffy.

He practiced drooling, sticking out his tongue, rolling his eyes. Not bad! Hair riffled down over his eyebrows that way, he looked positively troglodytic. Hunch the shoulders a touch more—perfect! He locked all valuables and cards of identity in the suite’s small personal safe, then rang Lydia’s suite the second time that night, mostly out of tired loyalty.

As before, no one answered. Earlier, her guest light had shown that she’d gone out.

At the window he watched and waited for the appropriate degree of darkness. His glandular upset vis-a-vis the beautiful Miss Veblen had an unaffecting remoteness tonight. The scent of the hunt choked his nose, filled him with mingled excitement and dread. He was very definitely no swashbuckler. The 4-patch colony had long ago deemphasized that sort of thing. And he’d be taking a considerable risk if what he planned succeeded.

They’d driven him to desperation, whoever they were. The hope of finding an answer, any answer, fed him with its own outpouring of adrenaline and masked worry about the risk, if not completely eliminating it.

Just as the dark came on, his vantage point showed him more red beacons crawling along some faraway thoroughfare near that twisting river. Since those vans seemed to be the only vehicles permitted to pass the freeway barriers, he meant to get aboard. The time was now.

He avoided the Nixon-Hilton’s lobby, descending instead to the dusty cavern of boutiques and skimpily furnished shops on Sublevel C. He meant to sneak past the rento office, then dart out the vehicle ramp. His boots made too much racket to suit him as he hurried past the shops. Luckily most of them were closed. He’d turned his cape collar high and was keeping his chin lowered, which accounted for his failing to see the shapely girl in the provocative peekthru.

She emerged in a hurry from the doorway of Guatama Fashiones Ltd., just as the shopowner rolled down water-blotched bamboo-stick blinds. Crash-collide.

Sean jerked his head up. Smelled heavy scent. Caught a glitter of amber-spangle hair as the girl’s parcels spilled. They both exclaimed at once:

“Watch where—” (Him.) “You dreadfully clumsy—” (Her.)

Fearing that her irritation might provoke a scene, he swallowed his temper, jumped to retrieve various small fist-size, gift-wrapped boxes. As he pressed these into her cradled arms he saw her face straight on. Again there was a shock of recognition.

This time, though, it was muddied to uncertainty by heavy makeup. Also, her rubber-faced exasperation kept her features from settling down. She snatched a last little ribboned box, snorted an impoliteness, turned to tick-tacking away into the gloom from which Sean had emerged.

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