Worlds by Joe Haldeman

Author:Joe Haldeman [Haldeman, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction, Adventure, Dystopian, Space Opera
ISBN: 9780575111486
Amazon: B00PI184NQ
Publisher: Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Published: 2014-12-01T22:00:00+00:00

31

London bridge

When we got off the tube in London I was set to immerse myself in History and Culture—but the first sight was a weird combination of anatomy and abnormal psychology. The Lambs of the Eternal Eye.

There were about a dozen Lambs in a line, begging, as we got off the train. They wore saffron robes and made soft music with finger-cymbals and sticks. Their skulls had been surgically removed from the eyebrows up, replaced with clear plastic, a sight presumably more pleasing to God’s eye than to mine.

They had stationed themselves wisely, as their tin plate full of foreign coins and currency showed. A blinker-card economy is hard on beggars; they had to get to foreigners before the Bank of England did, or on their way home.

One of them carried a sign saying THE BRITISH RAIL SYSTEM DOES NOT ENDORSE THIS ACTIVITY.

London taxis have human drivers. Eight of us squeezed into a cavernous black vehicle; Jeff told him the name of our hotel. We emerged from underground into bright morning sunlight and blue sky—garish after months of New York’s perpetual cloud.

The driver had an impenetrable accent (Cockney, I later learned), and chattered constantly. We drove down the Thames and sped by Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park—the Albert Memorial was almost majestic in its ugliness—and finally down into Kensington, where our hotel was. One man was trying to follow our progress on a map, and remarked that we were being taken for a ride in American idiom as well as British fact. I think the driver said this was the fastest route for this time of day.

When we got to the hotel and it was time to pay, I had to take over, as the only one used to blinker cards. The bill was twenty-one pounds; I tipped him three pounds, more for easy arithmetic than service. Inserted my card and punched it up, then passed my card around while the driver unloaded the luggage, telling everybody to punch three pounds, put the obvious end of their card into the obvious end of my card (all very sexy) and push the NOCODE button. One person gave me thirty pounds by mistake, and it took a while to sort that out.

The other two cabloads of people were already there, but presumably had not had as comprehensive a tour. The rooms had been arranged for in advance, but who was with whom had not been. Mr. Eppingworth, our director, noted that we had thirteen women and eleven men, and all of the rooms were doubles, and rather primly asked whether there were a lady and gentleman who would not mind? I thought about Jeff, maybe hesitating because of last night’s dream, but another couple shot their hands up with the speed of lust Jeff had glanced my way, not too surreptitiously, and that set off an obvious chain of thought:

I liked Jeff, but was more in need of a friend right now than a lover. He was too American to

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