Too, Too Solid Flesh by Nick O'Donohoe

Author:Nick O'Donohoe [O'Donohoe, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 0-88038-767-X
Publisher: TSR, Inc.
Published: 1989-10-01T07:00:00+00:00

Horatio turned to Paulette. He had not known that the gap between them would be so wide even if she knew he was human. She was the daughter of one of the richest men in the world. “You never told me—”

“Why tell you anything?” She ran into the serving area.

Horatio followed. “You could limit them more, keep them from talking back.”

Paulette gestured crazily at the processor. In moments it was three recipes behind. “How could I? If I did, I’d lose Brando in The Wild Ones, Bergman at the end of Gaslight, Bogart in practically everything, and Arkady and Marya in The Colonel is Waiting. They were all rebels, except for Gielgud—and he was an awful, loveless, mean-minded snob.”

A tray slid out of the processor. She took a bite and carried the tray to the window. “Open, God damn you.” It opened, and she tossed the tray. The cries from Poolsider children below indicated that the food hadn’t gone to waste.

“God damn window, God damn shut. My God,” she said bitterly, “They eat like pigs.” She collapsed on a livewood chair and wept brokenly.

Horatio put an arm around her. She shrugged it off. “You’re being nice and I’m being horrible, but just now it would only count if you were real.”

He trembled and took a deep breath. She went on, “And if you were I’d kill myself. I don’t ever, ever want anyone to know what happened here.”

“They won’t,” he heard himself say.

“No one real?”

“No one but me. Could I ask you something?”

“Why not?” She raised her arm, then let it drop. Even now she looked theatrical and false. “Everyone else just goes ahead and tells me.” She glanced at the processor and gestured hastily, cancelling her earlier arm-raise before it conjured up a second dinner.

“Your father is paying for the apartment, too, isn’t he? And the jewelry, and the movie and simula posters, and everything else?” She nodded. “Why is he doing that?”

She burst out, “I don’t know!” She said more quietly, “I don’t know. Honest to God I don’t. I’ve always liked acting, and he’s always hated that. A couple of months ago, he started talking about acting. He’d even listen to me and clap. It was the most time he’d spent with me in years.” She sniffed.

“And he got me simulas, and took a simula of me, and took a lifechip made of my memories for the simula. And we argued every night over dinner in restaurants about simula and stage, which was better. One night he mentioned hearing of the Hamlet Theater, and I had to come to it. And he argued with me, but finally he told me to go do what I want.”

She finished, a ghost of her old sarcasm, “He never told me to do what I wanted before.”

Horatio stroked her short, straight hair with one finger. “I’ll tell you to, I hope. Come lie with me and be my love. If you can’t be, pretend for a moment. It may make you feel better.

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