The Jagged Orbit Read Free

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 presentable, he 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 indifferently, snugging 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 Conroy's The Senile City. "When it's not the sewers it's the streets, and when it's not the streets it's the comweb. . . . I'll go check our slot anyway. You never know; there might be something interesting."
    She moved to the door and began to strain against the handle of the winch to lift clear the hundred-kilo deadfall block that closed it against intruders overnight.
    "Put your yash on," Dan said, stepping into a pair of green breeches and belting them tight around his waist.
    "Hell, I'm only going to the comweb!"
    "Put it on, I said. You're insured for a quarter-million tealeaves and it says in the policy that you have to."
    "It's all right for you to talk," Lyla countered mutinously. "You don't have to wear the horrible thing." But she reached obediently for the yash where it hung on its peg adjacent to the door.
    Making to slip it over her head, she checked. "Say—uh —I won't have to wear this at the hospital, will I? It'd be awfully hampering while I'm thrashing around."
    "No, not while you're actually performing. Come to think of it, though . . ." Dan bit his lip, eying her doubtfully. "The patients are segregated at the Ginsberg, and the sight of you like that might not be a good thing. Got anything less revealing?"
    "I don't think so. All my February clothes have expired by now, and the March ones are getting pretty shabby. And of course in April I went over to trans-parents."
    "Skip it, then," Dan shrugged. "If they insist, you can ask for something at their expense, can't you? Like a dress, maybe. How long is it since you last had a dress —was it in November?"
    "Yes, the one I bought to go home and see my folks at Thanksgiving. But it was cold then, and right now it's sweltering. . . . Oh, I guess I could put up with it in a good cause. Provided they pay for it—dresses are horribly expensive this season." She ducked into the yash and opened the door. Having made sure with a cautious glance in each