The Pleasure Tube Read online

  "Scanning. And limiting circuits for blood pressure, pulse rate. But it's a freewill choice; there's the risk, part of it is the risk,"

  I run my hand along the brown velvet arm of the sofa and ask her if she's tried it, what it's like.

  "Twice," she tells me. "It's scary, but... I felt as if I were... toasted; it was incredible and frightening, too, I felt obliterated. I was sick for a week. But God. I couldn't begin to do it justice."

  "Though if people die..."

  "You know," she says thoughtfully, "they say the deaths have something to do with population control. The managers don't care, they say it's up to Medex. It happens more than they say it does. I think you have to be really healthy, your dosages have to be right, and the scanning... That's what's important. Then it's not a problem, it's just... a special kind of trauma. You never want to come back." She grins. "It's so incredible, your mind is filled with the most exciting things, they seem to grow in there and pile up, and then you feel them in every cell of your body...."

  "Where imagination is immediately translated into full spectrum sensation," the black man is saying again on the screen.

  "Not for everyone...." His twin smiles. "But..."

  "But riding thePleasureTube without a trip to the sun is like climbing a mountain and not reaching its peak."

  "Like leaping from a cliff and never reaching the sea," the woman says.

  "Twenty units for twenty-four hours," the man says. "Thirty-five units for two days. The option that is extra but extraordinary. Come with us to the sun."

  "Come with me." The woman shows her teeth, she touches them with her tongue. "Come with me to the sun."

  What follows is a preview to the hologram, the videon spectacular itself. Collette feeds me two capsules while the screen shows a test pattern. I sit watching; slowly the pattern—dome geometry, hexagons—is becoming holographic, shimmers, then my head, the top of my head, takes off. The images recombine and expand into vivid, electric swaths of pure color.... Intense, lush sounds surround me and something happens to the air: the odor of crushed grapes. I do not know, this has happened in moments, where my consciousness ends and hallucinations begin. In the end—I do not leave the cabin, I am certain, but I feel I have expended enormous amounts of energy—I finally close my eyes and count visions, I lose consciousness, fall asleep.

  Awake, I chew cola nuts which Collette slices finely— plum-sized, white and washed red nuts, tart and effervescent on the tongue —she stabilizes my metabolism with another two capsules. Now I am bored, though oddly enough I feel well rested. The videon is showing the most recent WorldBowl clips split-screen. They are playing NewBali now, the game that has replaced almost all others. Sixty players, two soccer balls, fifteen referees—each side of the screen is following one of the balls, the violence is considerable—men kicking at the ball carrier, grabbing at receivers, satellite fights between offense men and defense men. The goal I watch seems to come on a fluke. A powerful kick grazes off a Red NoEast defense man; it was headed out of bounds. NoEast is running away with the game nonetheless; they lead at the half 9-3.

  Collette asks me if I will try the hologram. I say of course. I have decided to look into the tolerances myself—enter control that way at the input and see what I can take. Each thing seems worth trying, if only once, if only to see. I wonder if I will ever be here or any place like this again.

  Collette tells me that it is possible to pair on the hologram, that the effect is synergistic, but she has never tried it.

  "Do you want to?"

  She nods slowly, grins. "With a flier? Yes indeed," she says.

  For a long moment we both sit there, oddly embarrassed, I think, staring at the WorldBowl violence. A Yellow SoCal player has just been kicked in the mouth, blood running through the fingers he holds up to his face. The camera is following him in close-up as he walks, hunched, toward the sidelines; no foul is being called.

  "But this," I say. "Well, I can take only so much of this."

  "Yes," Collette says. "It's too much."

  We sit in silence for a while again. Now Yellow is driving behind a wedge, but they don't have the weight to punch through a bearish Red defense.

  "Yes," Collette says, shutting down the audio. "I want to. The time I've spent with you has been good. That's an understatement—I mean, it's somewhere under the truth, the truth is a larger thing. That speaks well for the truth," she finally concludes, grinning at her logic.

  "I didn't think you were so interested in the truth," I tell her with a smile.

  "Not in the same way you are. Maybe that's what I like about you. I mean, it speaks well for you," she says, her grin really spreading.

  Collette wants to show me something, something we are not programmed to see until eight in the evening. She says I have to leave the room, so I indulge myself in a long, relaxing shower. I feel deeply satisfied already; I cannot imagine more. What I do have to imagine, the hologram, does not interest me now. It will be something to tell Werhner about, but what he would not understand pleases me even more—Collette's openness, her warmth. I wish I could show her some skill of mine, some ability—to take a ship, perhaps, through a dazzling array of weather. I want to do something of that sort so badly it aches inside me—or is it my vanity? I find myself studying my shape before the mirror. No middle sag. I laugh. I left earth eighty years ago, earth time. Young forever.

  What Collette has to show me is yet another transformation of the videon, different from anything we've seen before: the screen displays full-sized the interior of another cabin; this can't be a shipwide program. Its occupants are familiar.

  The naked back of a tall, thin man, his buttocks pinched together, standing facing a recliner, the roundish, flushed face of—by God, it is-—Erica, she is unmistakable—soft, wide mouth, blonde hair in thick curls down to her neck. She is seated on the recliner, just behind him. Cards lie on a small cubic table before her, she flips a card over, something happens with Tonio— impossible to tell precisely what, his back is to us, but I can see his leg muscles tense.

  "Tape?" I say.

  "Live."

  I look at Collette; she is watching intently with a smile. I look back again, look at Collette.

  "Do they know? Good God," I say, "doesn't this make you feel—I mean, aren't we invading their privacy?"

  "No," she laughs. "If we were on another kind of ship—but not here. We're free here. We can do anything."

  I watch, Erica's hands are up, Tonio leans over. "You're right." I grin. "I feel free here. I've never felt so free before. It's amazing."

  What I can't do justice to is the next stage in the transformation. After we watch for a time, Collette becomes anxious about something. I am aroused, but she will not let me touch her. "It's better to wait," she says. Yet she is anxious.

  Wait for what?

  She punches up the console inlaid in the table—Erica and Tonio turn toward us as if on signal, and—the screen tracks apart from its middle; the cabin doubles; Erica and Tonio stand before us, not holographically, but in their perfumed, perspiring flesh. The fantasy co-op: a moving wall. My disorientation is given another turn, Collette is hugging Erica, they know one another.

  Erica turns out to be Tonio's service, Tonio a videon producer; he's anxious to know how I liked the day's show! I'm anxious to get my hands on Erica. I do. We all do, and on one another. This goes on through dinner.

  Whenever dinner is. Tonio is directing Collette in a masturbation sequence he is videotaping; he says she inspires him. Erica and I are in the kitchen/bar, Erica has begun to microwave coquilles Saint-Jacques, I had to help her set the unit. She has located a steel can of whipping cream and has laid a line of it around my midsection; she licks it slowly, holding my legs and pressing her large breasts against my thighs—the effect is extraordinary. I can watch Collette through the divider. Erica is a fleshy woman, moans with me in her mouth, Tonio's "Now lean farther, Collette" behind her.

  The window/wall is a mirror an
d Tonio has Collette alongside it moving her hands over her body, leaning back, leaning down, leaning back as she moves in time to Jamaican music. She is leaning down as Erica and I come in with the food—Tonio is masturbating. I cannot resist entering Collette from behind. After a minute we tumble to the rug and Erica is somehow beneath Collette and Collette begins licking Erica's breasts, running circles around the nipples, taking them full into her mouth. Finally I roll from Collette and as Tonio enters her I enter Erica from above. By the time we finish, the scallops need reheating, but they are delicious, the wine has gone flat, but Collette, gorgeous woman, has found some champagne.

  It is much later. We have all taken waferlike dosages of D-Pharmacon. I am on the recliner with Erica, Tonio is fixing a snack.

  Collette comes to the recliner. "Room for me?' she says.

  Erica shifts over, slips away to Tonio.

  Collette takes my face in her warm hands and kisses me with a wide mouth and a flashing tongue. "You luscious man, you," she whispers. "Mountain climber. Why don't you just program yourself on a continuous circuit here, ride with me all the time?"

  "And what if I get bored?" I say.

  Collette kisses me again. "Do I bore you?'

  I laugh.

  "No," she says, "you're right. We ought to go alpine climbing together, to the Andes."

  "Or sign on for the next research ship, fly to the stars. You could be my aide."

  "What a dream," she giggles. "I thought of something else I like about you. You don't hold your breath. Watch Tonio, he does. You don't, you just breathe when it happens. You know how to fly."

  "That's something I've missed, flying. This ship rides like a barge."

  "What's it really like?"

  "Like this," I say, cupping her breast in my hand. "Like this," I say, kissing her nipple, sliding my hand up her thigh.

  When I wake the next morning, Erica is preparing breakfast in the kitchen/bar, has an accident with the range, that's what wakes me.

  "I wish Collette were here," I hear her saying. "She knows how to run this mother-fucking thing."

  I look around the cabin, stretch, and yawn. I see Tonio isn't here, either; the cabin, my cabin, has been tidied up— the videon again a window/wall, now showing suborbital flight, though we are still quite a distance from the planet. "She'll be back," I say.

  "No, she won't," I think I hear.

  "What?"

  "She won't be back," Erica says very clearly; now she is leaning around the divider. "She's been transferred."

  "What?"

  "Transferred. They came for her last night. You were out like a stone; she was, too, really. Well, nobody wanted to wake you."

  "Tonio?" I say.

  "No, no," Erica is saying, she's almost laughing. "Tonic's switched to male service for LasVenus. No, I'm going to take care of you."

  She brings the tray and sets it down on the coffee table, strokes my chest. "Your coun is a love root, my couillon its flower," she says. Apropos of what? "Wait and you'll see," she tells me. "Eat."

  "How can she be transferred? That isn't the understanding I had."

  "It happens," Erica mutters through a fistful of pills she is taking one at a time. "I think she may have gotten herself in a little bit of trouble, but it can't be serious. Not where to, but whom to, and how should I know?" She is downing pills one after the other, she must have five more left in her hand.

  I ask her why the drugs.

  "We're on a downangle already, I just know it. I can't stand landing or taking off."

  The coffee boils over in the kitchen, Erica lurches up. "Goddammit."

  "Can you find out?"

  "What?"

  "Where she went, whom she was transferred to."

  "You know, you'd better watch your step," Erica says from the kitchen/bar. "One of the security men last night said there was a tracer out on you."

  I feel blood rush to my neck, my heart beginning to pound.

  "Whom to, Erica?" She says nothing. "If you don't tell me, I'm going to find out for myself."

  "Shit," she says. "Look at this mess. I'm on your side, lover, but you're not going to get anywhere on this one. Steiner," she says. "Steiner, Eva B. That's who."

  I reach Giroti on audio—he has been awake for hours, he encourages me to pack all of my clothes. The next three days we will spend at LasVenus, he wants to show me something he's had flown in.

  I tell him my service has been transferred, I want her back. Is there anything he can do?

  "Ahhh," he says. "Did she do something special? Tell me about it."

  "I'm not sure that's it, Massimo, it's more complicated."

  "A man as young as you, don't get attached," he tells me. "You must be part Italian."

  "I want to find out why," I tell him. "And I want her back. Is there a way I can make an inquiry?'

  "Ahhh, passion, to be so young. In the circuits of the ship—well, a man like you can find out almost anything. But to get her back... No, if I were you I'd give it some serious thinking. Since it wasn't your request, it was handled from the outside. That's very unusual."

  "Then you know nothing about it?'

  "Nooo, I heard nothing. You didn't mention this, my friend."

  It could have been his woman, I think. Massimo and I will talk later, after disembarkation. At the moment I need to make a computer search before we land; the landing could change everything. I ask one more question.

  "Who runs the ship, Massimo? I mean, what organization?"

  "The corporation," Massimo says. "Which is controlled by EnergyWest. Which is controlled by NoAm Congress. From that you could say SciCom, but with SciCom, who knows?"

  "SciCom? Did you say SciCom?"

  "Ah, but who knows with them, whether they run anything or not?"

  "SciCom."

  "Rawley, my friend, good luck. Until we see one another—LasVenus, ah, fantastico. Ciao, my friend, ciao. Drink to poor Italy."

  "Patching in."

  "This is traffic. How did you..."

  "Do you have an open line?"

  "Iden, please." Another voice crackles: "He can use 363." First voice: "I'll need an authorization figure, or do you want this through control? I can give you a circuit in the console dome."

  "No, patch me through this terminal, identify as deadheading. What you can do instead of an authorization figure is give me a line through Guam SciCom."

  "That's like Sunday at the zoo—uh, look, use 363, it'll be open. How long do you want it?"

  "Indef. Let's say a ten-day parameter."

  "It's yours. I'll just vacate. That's a big ship—you've got a downangle, LasVenus arrival in less than an hour. Look, when you touch down, you're going to have to loop the channel through ground."

  "Affirmative. And in the meantime, how about a sixty-second display on PT/coord. 1427-82, location map LASVENUS, then sixty more, personnel write on Steiner, Eva B., codex 1819-79, passenger PT class one."

  "Eva Steiner? The EnergyWest VP, a Director, that one?"

  "Eva B."

  "Roger and out. Traffic series 300."

  PART II:

  SCHWARZCHILD SOLUTION [=df special solution to general relativity which describes the distance between event horizon and naked singularity.]

  Chapter 5

  Welcome to

  LasVenus

  I sit at the oblong window of this pale green cushiony room, my head throbbing. I am watching the ships being serviced on concrete pads and the light traffic on the trans-port runways. Shuttles sail in on the long glide path on seagull wings past this thick, tinted glass; I watch yet another offload then towed to a pad for dismemberment into units by the cranes. Behind me the wall screen displays the single readout I have been able to punch through. Even with my sign key, every query I make comes to the same thing, the computer's wink for computation and the identical display I have been sitting with for more than two hours. The pale green figures pain my eyes. I can't shake a strange feeling that I've sat here before, wait
ing, just this way, waiting.

  LasVenus DataBase Information Service/7

  Current DataBase Information//

  Voorst, Rawley//

  your local residence is ------------

  SectorGold Casa del Sol 202//Suite 3

  your local program instructs you to -------

  YOU ARE RESTRICTED

  PLEASE REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE

  PLEASE REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE

  PLEASE REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE

  Program LasVenus DataBase//"We serve your need to know"// thePleasureTube corp.

  And so I sit staring in the other direction, wondering what part of my headache I owe to this morning, what part to last night, watching one ship in particular, which could only be our ship. Massive, dull silver, wings barely wings in retraction, its fuselage apart in sections now, sections from which units protrude for service, the area a forest of cranes and hydraulics. How similar and much simpler by comparison the Daedalus was—an even larger ship, but one whose mass was formed by the circular clarity of a single propulsion system, one hull to these three, each dome a dragonfly's eye—and how much simpler it was to fly straight out.

  Something nibbles at the edge of my mind, that sense of having been here before. I want to get in touch with Werhner, I know that is my right.

  The shock of seeing Taylor clears my head. In the past week I've been surprised more than once, but I had not prepared myself to see him here, his bushy eyebrows rising as I enter this cold conference room, the air sweet with the odor of his pipe tobacco. My chemistry had been shifting back to Guam, and this settles it. Sitting at the far edge of the long, transparent table, his elbows on its surface, his hands resting on amber SciCom files, Taylor nods, smiles at another man I only now notice standing by the other door. He is someone I have never seen, a brown-haired man with a farmer's build. Taylor rises from his chair and points the stem of his pipe at a seat midway down the table, says to me, "That's quite a chase you led us on."