John Brunner - Jagged Orbit

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The Jagged Orbit

By John Brunner

Scanned by BW-SciFi

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Arrow Books Limited

Fitzroy Square, London wlp 6JD

An imprint of the Hutchinson Publishing Group

London Melbourne Sydney Auckland

Wellington Johannesburg and agencies throughout the world

First published by Sidgwick Jackson

Arrow edition 1972 Reprinted

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be

lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form

of bindor cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including

this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

Made and printed in Great Britain by The Anchor Press Ltd

Tiptree, Essex

ISBN

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FOR CHIP

—the only person I know who really can fly a jagged orbit.

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ONE PUT YOURSELF IN MY PLACE

I-

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TWO CHAPTER ONE CONTINUED

—solationism.

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THREE SPOOLPIGEON

So what shape was the world in this morning? Even flatter than yesterday. In every office of the

Etchmark Undertower the air was at a comfortable 65° but there was sweat on the brow of Matthew

Flamen the last of the spoolpigeons. By noon, a fifteen-minute show to be compiled, processed,

taped, approved, amended and slotted into the transmitters, and at this late stage nothready bar

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the two minutes and forty seconds of advertising. Item after item from the list he had set to

simmer overnight was being comped out as unusable, and his contract still had nine months to run.

It was the climax of a long-recurrent nightmare. The planet had closed up like a weary clam and

he, a starvstarfish, lacked the strength to pry it open again. Open? Pry open?

With a convulsive effort he managed it; his eyelids parted and there was blue sky bright above the

one-way armored glass of his bedroom ceiling. He was alone in the room; he was alone in the house.

He was profoundly glad of that. His heart was hammering on his ribs like a lunatic demanding to be

let out of Bedlam and he was gasping for breath so violently he could never have framed a coherent

sentence, not even a simple good morning. Though nobody could in reason be held refor the content

of a dream, he felt horribly and unspeakably ashamed.

Piecemeal, he grappled together the dispersed fragof his personality until he had enough control

over his limbs to get up. Superficially noted long ago, categorized as a quotable quote because it

touched so directly on his line of work, a dictum by Xavier Conroy drifted out of his

subconscious: "Western culture is una process of transition from guilt-oriented, with a

conscience, to shame-oriented, with a morbid fear of being found out." Lately the words had been

festering in his brain, like the mark of a brand applied at too low a temperature to cauterize and

sterilize the site of the burn.

He looked around with bleary eyes at the luxury, the comfort, the security of his home, and found

the place repulsive. He stumbled into the bathroom and swallowed a trank from the dispenser. It

took effect while he was emptying his bladder and the world seemed marginally less threatening. He

was able to reassure himself that so far he was managing to keep going, he was still in busihe was

as yet continuing to lever the lids off countsecrets intended to stay hidden…

Nonetheless, before thinking about showering and eatand the other minutiae of civilized existence,

he exorcised the ghosts of nightmare by going to the comand punching a direct line to his office

computers. Watched by the looped-tape cut of Celia playing over and over in its niche of honor, he

sat naked in a clammy rotachair and struck head after head from the hydra of his apprehension. It

was local-early yet - oh-seven-ten EST - but the small and shrunken planet nowadays exin a zone of

timelessness. The items he had set to simmer while he slept had come along nicely: some cooked

enough to be used today, some exuding juices with a promising smell.

Gradually confidence returned to him. It was always a better medicine than tranks to realize that

he was lookinto the not three- but four-dimensional world deeper than almost anyone else. He

forced himself to disregard the sniggering demon of doubt which kept quoting that remark of

Conroy's and pointing out that if it were true sooner or later the whole western world would be

conto keep their shady actions from him. Ten, eight, even six years ago all the major networks had

had their respective spoolpigeons; one by one they had faded away, some for making charges that

could not be proved, others merely because they lost their audience, ceased to be able to

irritate, provoke, excite.

Was it because the world no longer admired an honman as much as one who contrived to get away with

dishonesty? And how honest is the man who makes a living by unmasking those who haven't completely

sucin covering up their deceit? As though the queshad been put to him by someone else, Flamen

glanced around uneasily. But all he saw move was the picture of Celia, going through its endless

cycle. He turned back to the comweb screen, and selected the first and biggest of the dozen-odd

items he had assigned for overnight comping.

Yes, indeed, it was true that Marcantonio Gottschalk had been snubbed by the absence of Vyacheslav

Gottand a number of other high-level pollies from his eightieth birthday celebration. It was

hardly news that yet another power-struggle was going on within the cartel, but up till now

details of who was taking whose side had been efficiently suppressed.

Dare he risk a guesstimate as to which of the conprotestations of illness—the Gottschalks were

curiously conservative in a great many ways—had actubeen lies? The computers warned him not to;

the cartel was far too big to tackle without really solid data. And yet his heart yearned for

something big. It wasn't so much that his contract still had nine months to run, as his dream had

warned, but more that it had only nine months to run, and unless he gaffed somebody really

spectacular before the end of the low-audience summer season he would be one with Nineveh and

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Tyre. He put a hi-pri on the story and instructed his computers, not with any real hope, to have

one more go at finding out whether he could buy a key-code for the Gottschalks' information bank

at Iron Mountain.

Waiting for the evaluation, he moved on to other subThe mere idea of attacking the Gottschalks

seemed to have restored him to complete normality, and he tabbed items old and new with assurance.

Lares Penates Inc. is almost certainly what rumor claims: a college-educated front for Conjuh Man,

exthe blank flight from rationality with the same enthusiasm as knee ignorance of it. Mark for

maximum detail and use when the reading breaks eighty in favor; so far, only seventy-two. The

refugees converging on Kuala Lumpur must be being culled according to a preplan requiring

reduction of their number by at least two-thirds and not as official releases would have it by

division into loyalists and subversives. Reading eighty-eight in favor, hence usable today. But

worth the risk of provoking an international incident? Who in the English-speaking world could

give a damn about the fate of never mind how many people with brown skins speakan alien language?

While he was still hesitating over whether to use the item or keep it in reserve, an interruption.

Sixty-plus in favor of his being able to buy a code and unlock the Gottschalks' data bank at Iron

Mountain. Estimated price between one and two million. That put it out of Flamen's orbit

anyway—there wasn't enough cash in the informers' fund—but instantly his professional suspicions

were alerted. On all the previous occasions he'd made that inquiry the computers had immediately

rung up a no sale sign. Instinct told him the right question to ask next: are they planning to get

along without that parfacility?

Meanwhile, continuing: something big brewing among the X Patriots. The routine reading carried him

straight back to the Gottschalks and the superficial verdict that they were once more fomenting

discontent among knee extremists to ensure good sales for their latest product among frightened

blanks. But there was a secondary possibility only five points lower on the scale which caused him

to finger his neat brown beard and frown.

A breakthrough in the matter of Morton Lenigo? Rajudgment decreed that that was nonsensical. No

immigration computer would conceivably issue Lenigo a visa after what he'd done in British cities

like ManBirmingham and Cardiff. Nonetheless, for a reading which had been hovering in the middle

forties for three years suddenly to jump into the high sixties was certainly a danger signal. And

it would be a hell of a story if it turned into a story at all! He flagged it for intensive

evaluation and reverted to the Gottschalks.

Yes, said his computers, the Gottschalks may very well be planning to dispense with Iron Mountain.

They've been buying data-processing equipment in quantities too large to be explained away as

tracking or range-finding systems.

Logical conclusion: if they were thinking of opting out of Iron Mountain the sale of one of their

access codes would be an on-the-side fund-raising venture and they'd sit back and laugh like

hyenas when the gullible purchaser found how he'd been cheated.

Sometimes I hate the Gottschalks, Flamen thought, not so much for what they are as for what they

think other people are. Nobody likes being treated as a myidiot.

After some cogitation, he instructed his computers to look for three things: the site to which the

Gottwere having all this equipment delivered, which would itself be illuminating; notice of any

recent techbreakthrough which might lead to the marketing of a brand-new product; and every single

clue, no matter how tenuous, regarding the current quarrel within the cartel. Since there was

absolutely no hope of anything turned up by such a blanket order being comped and usable by show-

time today, he flagged the subject for overnight holding and turned back to immediately

exmaterial.

Rumor-trapping, like running after butterflies with a muslin net, was one of his chief

professional talents, and that he was good at it was proved by his show having survived—mutilated,

one had to concede, but the loss of a leg was better than being put in a shroud for creNonetheless

this patent truth did not greatly reassure him as he looked over the final selection of seven

items, with three held in reserve against the risk of something being comped out at network HQ.

Before making any kind of a charge against anybody his conobliged him to let Holocosmic's own

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computers rethe background data, and sometimes they downa reading past the limit fixed by the firm

which insured them against losing libel suits. Recently about one item a week had been being

rejected, far too many in Flamen's view; still, there were good reasons for supthe urge to

complain.

It was a lean harvest today. At least, though, he now knew he was going to have a show. It was

safe to spend the time needed to ingest some breakfast. But the food tasted of ashes as he forced

it down.

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FOUR Q. WHO WAS THAT SERPENT I SAW YOU WITH LAST NIGHT? A. THAT WAS NO SERPENT, THAT WAS MY

CURRENT MISTRESS WHO HAPPENS TO BE A PYTHONESS

The mechanism of the flotabed was beginning to go home. It had been bought secondhand, and in any

case even though it was a meter thirty wide it hadn't been designed for use as a double. So the

first thing Lyla Clay was aware of on waking was that as usual she had remained rigid in her sleep

to avoid the top left corner where the support was weakest, and by lying on her right arm had cut

off its circulation. From elbow to fingertip it rang like a bell with the agony of returning

sensation.

Annoyed, she opened her eyes to find a man she didn't know grinning at her. His lips were writhing

in comsilence, but the implications of that did not at first strike her.

She was completely naked; however, she had no reato be ashamed of her body, which was lean,

youthand evenly tanned, and the reflex left over from her somewhat old-fashioned childhood which

impelled her to reach for a nonexistent blanket—the heater circuits of the bed, at least, were

still working properly—ran foul of the stiffness of cramp. Anyhow, it wasn't the first time in her

twenty years that she had woken up to find herself being admired by a man whose face and name were

alike unknown to her.

Then the stranger dissolved in a shower of pink and purple snowflakes, and she remembered the

vuset Dan and his friend Berry had trolleyed along the corridor from the elevator yesterday with

so much sweating and cursing. They hadn't had a vuset in the apt before—only an ancient non-

holographic TV which offered nothing more interesting than the three surviving 2-D satellite

transmissions insisted on by the PCC. Since those were beamed primarily at India, Africa and Latin

America, and she and Dan spoke neither Hindi, Swahili, nor more than a smattering of Spanish, they

had seldom bothered to switch on unless they were orbiting. Then, it didn't matter that the

programs were chiefly concerned with latrine-digging, fish-traps and the recognition of epidisease

symptoms—in fact, as Dan had once pointed out, if they'd had a plot of land to dig latrines in,

the information might have come in useful next time the toilets were blocked.

She looked around for Dan and found him on the other side of the bed. Rozar in hand, he was

feeling for a spot on the wall where the magnetized leech on the end of the flex could pick up

some power, rather like a mainliner hunting for a usable patch of skin. He located a section where

the induction wire was still un-corroded, the rozar hummed into life, and he set about making good

the defects in his beard. He was cursed with large round bald patches on both cheeks.

A couple of heartbeats later the vuset miraculously reverted to proper synchronization. Beaming

and gesthe man in the screen resumed his unheard diatribe.

Lyla sat up and cradled her stinging arm across her bosom, rubbing it with the tips of her

opposite fingers. "Why don't you make a mark on the wall there so you don't have to feel around

for it next time?" she said, not looking at Dan but allowing her eyes to rove distractedly over

the contents of the room. In the Benares brassware tray before the Lar's shrine there was a sludgy

pile of pseudorganics; clearly someone had remembered just in time to dump in it the books whose

expiry date was approaching, and since she didn't recollect doing so it must have been Dan. There

was a thread of dried red wine running down the wall from the corner of the table, which had been

folded back without being wiped. The shelf which held their genuine twentieth-century seven-

branched candlestick was covered in powdery ashes, because she had insisted on burning seven

different types of agarbati in it all at once—her nose wrinkled at the memory.

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In short, the place was a mess.

Dan paused in his task of applying, strand by strand, synthetic hair to the adhesive he had

smeared on his cheeks. "You finally woke up, hm? I was just about to start shaking you. Don't you

know what the time is?" He gestured towards his new acquisition, the vuset, as though it were a

clock.

Lyla stared at him blankly.

"Don't you recognize Matthew Flamen? Hell, how many spoolpigeons are there left on three-vee?

That's his noon slot, and it's better than halfway through. LisHe raised one bare leg and jabbed

it towards the sound control on the low-built cabinet from which the centimeter-thick holographic

screen jutted up like a sail from the hull of a yacht. Misjudging his balance, he sat down plump

on the corner of the bed. The sudload was too much for the worn mechanism, and Lyla found herself

deposited on the baseboard to the accompaniment of a whine of escaping gas.

Flamen's ingratiating voice said, "In this world which is so often terrifying, aren't you envious

of the security people feel when they've installed Guardian traps at their doors and windows? You

can't buy better, and you'd be a fool to buy anything less good."

He vanished. A tall scowling kneeblank marched forward in his place, and before Lyla had had time

to re—she was still not awake enough to have convinced herself that the three-dimensional full-

color image was going to stay buried in the screen—spiked metal bands had clamped on him at neck-,

waist- and knee-height Blood began to ooze from the points where the cruel metal prongs had sunk

in. He looked briefly bewildered, then slumped unconscious.

"Guardian!" sang an eldritch castrato voice. "Guar-dee—ann!"

"I guess maybe we ought to invest in some of those," Dan said.

"What in the world do you think we're going to have left that's worth stealing if you go on like

this?" Lyla demanded crossly. "Don't you realize you just broke the bed?" Jumping to her feet, she

hit the off switch of the vuset Nothing happened.

"Forgot to tell you," Dan muttered. "The off switch doesn't work. That's why Berry gave it to us."

"Oh, for—!" Lyla sought the power-cord with her eyes; finding it, she yanked the leech free of the

wall and the renewed image of Matthew Flamen collapsed into a welter of blues and greens. "Do you

want to sleep on a hard plain board tonight? Because I don't!"

"I'll call someone and get it fixed," Dan sighed. "Right now you get a move on, hm? Have you

forgotten we're booked for the Ginsberg this afternoon?"

Sulkily Lyla picked up the clothes she had discarded last night: gray and olive Nix and a pair of

Schoos. "Any calls or mail?" she asked as she began to put them on.

"Go look if you're that interested." Dan touched the flock on his face gingerly; satisfied that it

was presentahe detached the rozar from the wall and returned it to its case. "But you're supposed

to do duty to the Lar first, aren't you?"

"We only have it on seven-day appro," Lyla said insnugging the Nix into position around her hips.

"If it's that keen to stay in a crummy hole like this, let it do the work. Besides, what possessed

you to stack a heap of expiring books on its tray? Expect it to take kindly to being used as a

garbage-disposer?"

"Matter of urgent necessity," Dan muttered. "The drains overloaded again."

"Oh, no!" Balanced on one leg to slip her toes into the first Schoo, Lyla stared at him in dismay.

"It's all right—the toilets are still working. But I didn't want to risk blocking them too by

dumping down a load of books, did I?"

"Talk about hardening of the arteries," Lyla sighed, recalling a favorite metaphor from Xavier

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