The Seventh Pan Book of Horror Stories Part 12

'Ah, Madame -' And it's not Garder at all. It's the proprietor, resting his feet. He and his family have worked day and night since Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Now they have the weekdays to get over it before the next onslaught of tourists next weekend. Where shall I be next weekend?

I hurry through dinner to set the proprietor free for the evening, then return to my room. It is very quiet. I sit on the bed and stare in front of me. Time pa.s.ses. The room darkens. I cross to the window and look down at the Square, deserted now and cold. Then I see the girl walking, slowly, by herself. A shadow moves alongside one of the buildings, approaches her, walks beside her. Then everything happens so quickly that I have no time to cry out. The shadow turns into a man - a man with familiar broad shoulders, thick neck, heavy jowl. He seizes the girl, flings her to the ground, pinions her arms, holds her down. He rapes her, with fantastic speed and precision. Then he puts his hands round her little neck and strangles her. And then I scream - and scream - and scream - The proprietor comes while I am still screaming from my agonised throat - 'Madame, what has happened?'

'A murder - down there - look -'

He looks out of the window. The Square is quiet and empty.

'Madame was dreaming, I think,' he says, and goes away.

And all I can do is lie on the bed and shake and weep. For now I know who the girl was, or is. I know that there is no hope of returning to the world of childhood, even in the beautiful city of Bruges. For the child is dead. Garder killed her. I cannot bring her back to life again. She was the only part of me that did not belong to Garder, body and soul, and as long as he was alive in the flesh, he could not reach her. I left him sleeping at the end of the garden of that house, sleeping deeply after the cup of coffee which I gave him, the cup with death in it. Hoping to escape from him, I succeeded merely in giving all of myself to him, for the murderer belongs in all eternity to the victim, and the victim to the murderer.

Tomorrow I will go back to that house where Garder, who possesses me, is waiting.

CANNIBALS.

By Martin Waddell.

It was not remarkable that he had killed his wife, but he should not have cooked her.

Siddy Okey, from photographs taken at the time, appears as a slight fragile figure. His flesh hugged his skeleton without pouch or crease. His skin was pale though there was a florid glow in his cheeks. His appearance suggested malnutrition, but the evidence is against this. From first to last Siddy appears to have eaten well, though not always within his income. A first glance at his photograph shows no eyes, but they are there, nestling in skull crevices on either side of a short pointy nose. Whether he wore his rimless gla.s.ses to aid them or conceal them is open to question. They show nothing of the determination of the man. Perhaps his head is a little large as it wobbles on the wings of his collar, for his neck is surely for ornament rather than support.

Before he cooked his wife Siddy was considered a fine man. there seems to be little or no disagreement about that. Neighbours knew him by the strict manner of his dress and the care with which he did the shopping. Meat and vegetables, soups and spices were the marrow of Siddy's existence. It is debatable when Siddy first looked on his wife as a food-stuff, perhaps the thought hovered in the dark dome of his head right from the start... she was a splendid specimen. Siddy could hardly have failed to ponder on the glossy quality of Mirabel's skin; the solid flesh of her shoulder and the plump line of her calf. The fat little veins in her body pumped fresh blood through her; Siddy's own fine feeding plumped her up for the kill.

Strange to relate, it was a love match.

The turning point in Siddy's life came when Mirabel chanced upon him one evening at a Town Hall Dinner Dance. It was an unfortunate social occasion, the brain child of the town's first Socialist Mayor. Mirabel, though Tory to the stay strap, came on the arm of her father, Councillor Larchard. To welcome in the new order she donned a gown of midnight purple and a string of her grandmother's pearls and determined to rub shoulders with allcomers in the knowledge that allcomers would benefit.

At this stage of her life Mirabel was as yet untouched by that weakness of the flesh which was later, much later, to prove her undoing. True, she had been heard to comment discreetly on the girth of Mr Lionel Barrymore's chest, but that was to a servant, and may be discounted. We are a.s.sured that such thoughts were far from her as she quitted her coc.o.o.n and winged her light hearted way toward destiny and Siddy Okey.

It may have been the claret or perhaps for once in his life the spirit of Pan which hailed Siddy through the muted strings of the six piece band. Whatever the cause Siddy certainly excelled himself. The night was alive with music and before the strains of the last waltz died away the Councillor's daughter had become acquainted with an aspect of life about which she had previously heard nothing. How and where Siddy did it has long been the subject of improper speculation. Suffice it to state that Siddy undoubtedly did, and apparently with a degree of success which he was subsequently unable to maintain. A breathless and ecstatic Miss Larchard departed in her father's carriage at the end of the evening minus that with which she had come and a sated Siddy cycled back to his bed on the wrong side of the tracks with his very soul aflame.

Dawn brought a reckoning. Siddy was smitten with a severe chill, which may or may not be indicative of the course of the past evening's events. Whatever the cause he stayed in his bed and a chilly remorse sealed his lips on the subject of his conquest. One did not seduce a Councillor's daughter at a Town Hall Dinner Dance, and Siddy knew it. An uninvited guest, as Siddy had been, was not expected to make away with the daughter of Mr Larchard under that fond parent's very eyes.

The Socialist in Siddy upbraided him for feeling the distinction, but the peasant in his bones knew better. The chill that nestled in his chest did not smother the romantic in him; it was merely m.u.f.fled and laid to rest, somewhere to the east of his watchchain.

The newly blossomed and positively blooming Mirabel was not to be denied.

Mirabel Larchard had settled her course with the single-mindedness which had made her forefathers great. Having taken up the chase she became both determined and ruthless. As time wore on Siddy dithered and dodged as Mirabel darted missives at him day and night. At bay, he stayed indoors with his feet in a basin, and she preyed upon his doorstep in shantung and lace and chipped the blue gnome knocker. At a later and more eventful stage of the chase she wept copious tears upon his shoulder, causing him considerable embarra.s.sment and mussing up his new chintz bedspread at one and the same time. It cannot be said that Siddy Okey actively discouraged her, as he might have done with regard to his station. But it equally cannot be said that he gave her reason to believe that her hopes for him would ever be fulfilled. Mirabel had her memories, and her memories drove her on. At the door of this false optimism must be laid the first blame for the sorry fate that overtook her. Siddy Okey was not fated to cook her, it was thrust upon him by one night of extraordinary prowess.

It was Councillor Larchard himself who finally plucked Siddy from behind the counter of his little cafe on the Slorlip Road and brought him submissively to the alter. Mirabel, somewhat plumper than heretofore, less dewy-eyed and now fully informed on the subject of life's delight and its ultimate consequence, stood shyly looking down on her miniscule groom. Siddy had bought a new collar for the occasion and found a pair of dress trousers which did not slop too far over his ankles. but surely even then Mirabel must have sensed that all was not as it should be? Surely it was not too late for her to abandon her base-born gastronome?

Mirabel married little Siddy Okey, and died regretting it, much later.

Even the honeymoon was not a success. It was spoilt for Mirabel when a strange affliction struck poor Siddy down. He said it was a virus. Whatever it was it did not fall within the scope of the local pract.i.tioner. But its virulence did serve to excuse many things, although it was not a state of affairs that could be expected to last. As it was plump sad Mirabel roamed the lakeside paths and twined daisy chains whilst Siddy relaxed in bed with a good book and a flagon of elderberry wine.

By the time a pale and haggard Siddy was led home on the arm of his bride Mirabel was beginning to dimly appreciate that something of his trouble lay in the mind. She could not know that for Siddy laurels were clearly designed for resting upon, and she had not yet abandoned all hope of finding a cure. Whatever had been could be once more, but for the time at least Mirabel had more important things to consider.

Five months and four days after they left the church at S el-don, Mirabel gave birth, some said prematurely, to little Sidney Rosewater Alfred Okey, the living image of the Councillor. In the general rejoicing Siddy found himself some distance from the centre of affairs, swamped and overwhelmed by the visits of innumerable Larchards and dependents who came to pay their respects. Carriages came and carriages went and Siddy sat in his new office in the catering department and whiled away time with the aid of an excellent cook book from the Regent Stores across the way. Siddy was a mere cipher in the hierarchy of the Town Hall system which had swallowed him whole on the Councillor's recommendation. He, who had loved his work, now came no nearer to a boiling pot or a sizzling pan than his bulk invoices would allow him. He was unhappy.

The birth of young Sidney Rosewater was an event that only involved poor Siddy in the most periphery sense. True, when at last the town hall clock struck out for freedom, Siddy did come slowly home burdened down by fresh blooms from the florist, but these were quickly relegated to the hall and ante-rooms. The inner sanctum, where Mirabel held her mysteries, was disinfected and refurbished by the Councillor and his wife and the result was an exotic cornucopia with which Siddy could not compete.

Councillor Larchard had been against Siddy from the first. Mirabel had always been particularly dear to him and the likeness of her son, Sidney Rosewater, struck him as a triumph for the blood of the Larchard's over the inferior brew of the Okey's. Thus he felt no guilt in debarring Siddy from the inner sanctum. At a loose end Siddy finally took himself down to the kitchens.

The prodigal, surrounded by the pots and pans of his trade, found the old magic was still harboured in his bones. He took to the cook and the kitchen maid as he had never taken to the Councillor and his lady. Kindred spirits, they busied themselves about the kitchen and prepared a fine repast for the upstairs people. Siddy supervised the entire operation himself in an ap.r.o.n and white jacket left over from his old life. There can be no denying that he did an excellent job. Sauce was never so rare, meat so tender, saute potatoes so impeccably saute.

The Larchards greeted his achievement with bewilderment. One did not cook one's dinner. In a Larchard world one hired menials for that. Five Larchards were present at Siddy's finest hour. Five Larchards, the Councillor and his lady, Septimus and Charlie and poor Aunt Nan, found themselves enjoying Siddy Okey's banquet despite themselves. From the sanctum Mirabel was heard to ring for more, and that when she was concerned about regaining her figure.

In short, the meal was a resounding success. The Larchard family were agreed upon that. Siddy could cook. It was an accomplishment which won him a reputation, but little credit. In the eyes of the Councillor and his dependents Siddy was one cook too many.

It is to Mirabel's eternal credit that she seized upon the slight favour her small husband had gained and sought to exploit it in his favour. She knew the unfortunate light in which the family regarded him and she hoped that he might find a way to their hearts through their bellies. Perhaps it was not too late even then for Siddy to have taken his place at the head of the household with young Sidney Rosewater on his lap and Mirabel beside him, but he missed his opportunity. The elder Larchards and dependents deigned to dine, but not to acknowledge Siddy as their equal. It is unfortunate that Siddy regarded this as a proper decision, but he did. The social order was too deeply ingrained in his revolutionary soul. He marched toward the new order, one step forward, two steps back.

Siddy slotted into place where he belonged, with the under-servants. There was no real need to attend the Town Hall and his absence was scarcely noted. True his income ceased, but it had never been more than nominal. Councillor Larchard was only too grateful to hide the red sheep his Mirrie had married deep in the servants' quarters.

Still all could have been well, had it not been for Mirabel Okey, nee Larchard and her well nigh insatiable s.e.xual appet.i.te. Refreshed and positively ignited by the supreme act of womanhood Mirabel stormed back from a brief repose at Bog-nor and summoned her spouse once more to the battlefield of the bed.

It was hardly surprising that Siddy's dreaded virus smote him once more. Some said that it was congenital, others that Siddy should have it seen to; on one memorable occasion Mirabel despatched him to a Health Centre in Birkenhead where a diet of raw carrot was prescribed... but to no avail. The Larchards went without their magnificent dinners for a week or so and Siddy still laboured in vain. The final blow fell when a cousin, Dr Larchard of Middleton Avenue, sent a brief note to Mirabel on her husband's condition.

'Mirrie' it ran I conclude that your husband is in no way physically defective. The complaint of which you speak can therefore only be regarded as the result of some mental reservation on his part. It would appear that Sidney is not disabled, merely disinclined.'

Dr Larchard was not rewarded with a fee. Mirabel never spoke to him again.

Shattered, Mirabel did not know where to turn. Whatever pa.s.sion she had held for Siddy was now a wilting plant. Memory could not sustain her for ever, nor was it in her nature to lavish her affection on little Sidney Rosewater, who saw his Mamma between three and five and was otherwise without existence. Siddy was but a gruesome joke, and Mirabel needed urgent consolation.

Perhaps unfortunately, consolation was not so very far away. Two miles down town in fact, in the little office where Walter Perry handled the affairs of Mirabel's capital sum and admired his big strong self in the mirrors of his gleaming s.h.i.+rt studs.

Whatever Siddy was not, Walter Perry was. Walter was the Conservative candidate. Walter was broad and strong. Walter spoke with a ring of confidence and authority, chortled at his own jokes. Poor Siddy seldom joked, and when he did immediately regretted it. But his jokes were not Walter's attraction. In short Mirabel found that what Siddy had once done well Walter could repeatedly do better without blandishment or rehearsal.

From the date of this discovery Mirabel's att.i.tude to her husband changed abruptly. Where he had become merely a tiresome accessory he was now an active nuisance in her life. Walter was unmarried, unattached and able. Sibby, when she saw him, which was not often, was accompanying the nursemaid to the park with little Sidney Rosewater, or shopping with the undermaid, or beating eggs with the cook.

Siddy was out.

The picture is not entirely complete. We must turn now to the nursemaid, a saucy child with small red b.u.t.tocks and a wayward eye. She did not set out to snare Siddy but something in the lilt of her step and the two-way tilt of her bosom raked a fire in him. One night, when Sidney Rosewater was fast asleep in his cot and Mirabel was at play in Walter Perry's bachelor apartments, Siddy and the nursemaid slipped away to a public house on the edge of the common. They dined a little and wined a lot and in the bushes on the way home Siddy rediscovered an ability he had almost forgotten, greatly to their mutual satisfaction. Siddy, in fact, became quite good at it.

This splendid state of affairs existed for some time, might have gone on for ever in fact had it not been for the intervention of Councillor Larchard.

In the seventh week of Siddy's new calendar (which dated from the bushes) he was warmly wrapped in bed with the redheaded nursemaid when the Councillor appeared as in a puff of smoke. Mirabel was by his side and Walter Perry said soothing things to her as Siddy was upbraided.

The nursemaid was told to pack her bags and leave. Siddy wished to go with her and for a moment Mirabel's eyes gleamed with hope, but the Councillor forbade it. Siddy had no money. Even then he might have made a fight for it but the nursemaid made it clear that he would have found no encouragement. She left Siddy behind her in return for a discreetly worded notice for her next employer and a date with the councillor in his private office.

There would be, the Councillor decreed, no divorce.

Mirabel had come to the end of her tether. She sent Walter Perry to the chemists and that gentleman returned with a white powder. Distilled in Siddy's cocoa it could have been the end of Siddy, but it was not. He was very sick and Mirabel was barely sympathetic. The dose was repeated, and with the same result. Again she tried, but Siddy's agile mind outfoxed her. He fed his cocoa to the cat, and the cat confirmed his suspicions dramatically.

He sat on his bed and considered, absently removing his gla.s.ses and wiping them on the sleeve of his pyjamas. His job was gone, his wife was gone... his last fling had been s.n.a.t.c.hed away from him. His only remaining joy was his kitchen, and now Mirabel and Walter Perry were striking even there with their potions. The family Lanchard had eaten him whole like one of his dinners, chewed him and munched him and swallowed him down. The family Larchard had eaten everything he had.

It was Tuesday evening, and on Tuesday evenings the Larchard's came to dine.

This Tuesday was no different from any other. They rolled through the door, the Councillor and his lady, Septimus and Charlie and poor Aunt Nan. Siddy showed them in himself.

saw them seated, watched the Councillor fit his great white napkin under his collar.

Mirabel was at rest, he said. She'd become overheated in the day.

A rich red wine was served, an original blend of Siddy's own inspiration. It was sweet and thick to the taste buds and poor Aunt Nan declined it, but Charlie and Septimus enjoyed it and the Councillor asked for more.

Siddy was quite inordinately excited. The maid had been excused and the whole serving of the meal had fallen upon him, but he did not seem to mind.

The fine soup which he served was rich with meat, a stock pot of the finest calibre. All manner of vegetables floated in it, many rare delicacies. It was housed in a gigantic tureen that Siddy brought on a trolley, but Siddy did not mean it to overshadow his main course. He served a dainty helping, ensuring that each had a sliver of the tender meat.. removed a fingernail from the edge of the ladle and set it daintily on the side of his dish.

Siddy disappeared below to bring the next course and the family sat and waited, sipping their wine so red and thick that it almost congealed against the gla.s.s.

He was too long. So long in fact that the Councillor retrieved his soup plate from the trolley and sent poor Aunt Nan to ladle him another helping.

The thick brown soup slurped down his gullet. His silver spoon flashed in and out. The delicate meat delighted him.

In the very bottom of his soup plate there nestled a long meat sliver. He supped around it, finally coaxed it onto his spoon, raised it to his lips.

On the joint of the boiled and bloated finger was his daughter's wedding ring.

He plucked it off the spoon, dropped it on his lap, stood up quickly as it rolled down his knee.

Siddy opened the door.

He saw what had happened, was so sorry that he had missed it.

All was not lost.

He raised the cover of the immense serving dish and thrust his long three-p.r.o.nged fork into the live but lightly toasted flesh of Walter Perry... who would have screamed, but for the apple in his mouth.

THE OLD ADAM.

By Martin Waddell.

Adam lived in a bottle on shelf 43Q. He was 23 years old, trilingual and four foot three inches high. They fed him through a straw and spoke to him through a grille in the side of the bottle.

Adam was an original.

There was nothing before Adam and it seemed as though there would be nothing after him, for Adam was sterile. True, he had no Eve, so the point was immaterial. His mother was a rubber tree and his father some unknown donor, Caucasian free and twenty-one, but otherwise a mere card in an index file. Perhaps it was better that way.

Specimen 223367/Qlt/MZ was his formal name, but those who knew him best called him Adam, because it seemed appropriate. 223367/Qlt/MZ did not mind. The plastic brain they had lodged in his rubber skull was possessed of cheerful demeanour. He had an intelligence quotient which, whilst excellent for the son of a rubber tree, was not quite the thing for a Hero of the Soviet Union. For Adam was a Hero ofahe Soviet Union and a Bachelor of the Humanities (Leningrad) to boot. He had well grained neuron skin and the whites of his eyes were manufactured from the intestines of a rroldyheart worm. His bones were a neubron complex specially devised not to warp the leather st.i.tching of his veins where the pig urine flowed freely. A man of many parts, Adam was master of none. He had great difficulty in moving his limbs. In later, more efficient numbers housed on the bright clean shelves of the laboratory, miracles had been performed. Poor Adam was merely a prototype. His shelf was in the public section of the Vitarum building but far from the popular central aisles. Now and then someone would take Adam's card from the Vita register and have him removed from his bottle by a white coated a.s.sistant. Placed on the smooth oileroid folds of the limber table Adam would smile his best smile and sometimes attempt conversation. This was not easy. Although in a burst of initial enthusiasm they had taught him three languages... for political purposes. they had restrained his facility to the level which was immediately required of him. Adam was a good clean Russian numbskull. The Sonic in his bottle was tuned constantly to the Ravery. Noise was a vital part of his life, and the louder the merrier.

That was the root of Adam's trouble.

As a boy of two weeks (four foot three high, trilingual, fed through a straw and spoken to through a grille in the side of the bottle) he had become accustomed to the steady hum of the Ravery through his Sonic tubes. It was his constant lullaby. It formed the background at the height of his popularity when there were men in white coats and members of the Central Committee and television cameras around him, all the paraphernalia that might be expected to surround the first appearances of the first synthetic man. Of course he was precocious, for they had designed him with that in mind. But something somewhere in the rubber membranes was not as it should have been. 223367/Qlt/MZ absorbed information readily, but was unable to retain much of it. In it went, through his florelmghyt eardrums, and out another way. Little lodged in the chamber of his brain which had been specially designed for that purpose. The result was that Adam was subjected to a cram course of perpetual Indoctrolum tapes which were fed through his Sonic, totally obliterating the soothing though frenetic beat of the Ravery to which he was patiently tuned. Naturally 223367/Qlt/MZ did not take kindly to this. On a number of occasions he detached the Sonic plugs from the slots in the folds of his florelmghyt eardrums and dropped them on the floor. In one final undignified scene during an international Ultraview hook-up he removed the vetto s.h.i.+ed from the microphone before him and broadcast to a startled world a few sharp and pungent phrases in Esperanto which sealed his fate, and ultimately, his bottle.

He should not have done it. The Ultraview unit estimated that a third of the World's potential audience had ultrad in on 223367/Qlt/MZ's outburst and of those forty-seven per cent could be a.s.sumed to have an Esperanto A rating and the other fifty-three per cent would at least understand the gestures which had accompanied it. If Adam had known of his little brothers and sisters all grouped together in the synthetic womb he'd left behind him he might have shown some restraint, perhaps in time have come to find the kindly instruction of the Indoctrolum audocrats as pleasing and soothing to the central nervous system as the hourly outpourings of the Ravery units. But Adam did not know of the others. He had been led to believe he was an only child through reading too much of his own publicity put out through the Soviet Department of Humanitarian Affairs. His was the only Supravisual green bottle and he the only Adam in it. So he whipped up the vetto s.h.i.+eld at the right moment and said what he said. His message never reached Alaska or other points on the Eastern hook-up where they had time to expunge it, but where it was least desirous that it should be heard it was, loud and strong, and so another bastion of the East went West.

He was never seen on Ultraview again.

The grille of his green bottle was closed and the Socialiser sealed and he was whisked away through a strict security blackout to the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Vitarum, and shelf 43 Q, in a little cream room.

His tiny brother 223367/Qlt/MZ-2 took his place. MZ-2 had red hair from the tail of a Ukranian squirrel and the Hungarians had contributed a boiler suit in national colours. They called him the Universal Man, and he quickly learned to play chess. Although MZ-2 was more intelligent, he had not Adam's attraction for the scientists.

The little cream room at the end of Cirium Walklin just to the north of the main entrance was frequently visited in those first few months, and now and then Adam's grille slid back for a little conversation. But it was not the good old days. What talk there was was all about his insides, and Adam was soon on the way to becoming a hypochondriac. They fed him little pills of all descriptions at one time almost disintegrating the foam rubber setting of his stomach. Adam came to look on them as an unnecessary interference in his day, and to ignore them accordingly. Mercifully the Indoctrolum Audocrats had ceased to break into the middle of his Ravery Sonics. He sat in his bottle and tapped his finger against the gla.s.s in what he fondly imagined to be time to the music. He took less and less notice of the world around him and, gradually, the world around him took less and less notice of Adam.

From the day of the Ultraview fiasco and his sudden eclipse from the public eye to his twenty-third year Adam sat in his bottle on shelf 43 Q in the little cream room. If he ever yearned for the world outside it cannot have been keenly, for he had seen little of it. An early attempt at cultural weaning had taken the form of a progressive course in the translated works of Thomas Hardy, just then enjoying a Soviet re-patriation as unexpected as it was undeserved. Poor Adam knew more of the wicked wiles of Wess.e.x (then situated somewhere south east of the Urals) than he did of the trouble and strife of his own up-to-date day. It is true that from time to time he toyed with the dial of his sonic and came across strange voices and sentiments which confused him, but by his twenty-third year he had ceased to bother about them.

It was the day of his twenty-third birthday. He was sitting in his bottle singing, as was his wont. It was a cheerful song, though unruly. He had developed a ba.s.s range and a yoodle of considerable potential. He sang both solo and in harmony and on the day of his birthday he was engaged in perfecting a particularly traumatic effect when his grille slipped back, perhaps for the first time in four or five months. He was so taken with his song that he was not at first aware of the pale blue eyes that gleamed through contact lenses at him.

Una had not come to the Vitarum to see Adam.

She was a friendly girl, but of a retiring disposition. She was a student in the Humanities and some chance fancy had taken her from her macrofotex in viewdor above to stroll through the dim lit corridors of the bas.e.m.e.nt where the old exhibits were housed. What led her to the green door with the legend 223367/Qlt/MZ is something we shall never know. She came through it softly, for she had some faint idea that it was a place where she had no right to be with her low videx rating.

Adam's green bottle sat on shelf 43 Q, all on its own. Inside Adam was harmonising l.u.s.tily. He wore the green boiler suit in which he had been conceived and his podgy hands clapped happily against his p.r.o.ne legs. Every nerve on his body was visibly straining to keep up with the frantic beat from the Sonic.

Quite naturally, Una thought that something was wrong. She rushed him from the shelf to the oileroid table and quickly released the catch on his grille, although she lacked the requisite authority to do so. The noise from Adam's Sonic was almost too much for her, accustomed as she was to the silence of the viewdor above. Completely oblivious of what was happening Adam continued with his song.

Una unplugged his Sonic.

It was many years since Adam's bottle had known silence. His voice trailed away. He attempted to adjust the dial, played with the valve, tentatively removed the Sonic plug from his ear-drum and held it before his face, solemnly inspecting it with his grave worm-intestine eyes.

'Are you alright?' a voice said from the grille overhead. It was not an unpleasant voice, but Adam was not used to conversation and resented the break in his concentration, so he did not reply. # The voice repeated its enquiry, more urgently.

Adam looked up. Through the sides of the bottle he could see Una's pale face and her trim figure encased in a sky blue working overall. Her hair was short and neat, extremely functional. She looked as if she was harmless. Her enquiry was well meant and Adam bore no grudge.

All he did was to repeat, in Esperanto, that which had previously removed difficulties from his path. He said it pithily. It may not have been strictly called for, but it was apt.

Una had not lived a particularly secluded life. Her father had been a scientist and she knew that not all Sythons thought before they spoke. At this time she was not aware of Adam's case history and so the repet.i.tion of his words for posterity did not spark off the recognition they might have warranted. (They had, let it not be forgotten, coloured East West relations for more than half a decade.) Una thought him merely neglected, and possibly illbred. But she was kind, and most concerned about the fit which had preceded her unplugging his Sonic, and she was not to be deterred.

'Are you alright?' she demanded again, as though nothing had been said. She managed it with a simple dignity which would have played on the heart strings of another man but on Adam it was wasted, for the one or two which were relevant had already snapped. These things happen to prototypes. The delicate nuance of her speech pa.s.sed him by. Nothing had fitted him for the idea of tone as an implication of meaning. What did filter through to him, as he got used to the idea, was that somebody had come to talk to him who did not require a detailed account of his insides.

He told her all, rapidly, and in some considerable detail. Although his own life had been somewhat restricted he knew enough from the world of song as transmitted by the Ravery Units to realise that other people were colourful, gay and romantic. The digested plots of many thousands of half remembered sentiments slipped from him as his own experiences. which indeed they were. In the sum of his years enough pa.s.sion had brewed in the environs of his green bottle to serve many a mortal in a full-sized world.