"To the desert with your warnings. Drink is pleasure, and pleasure is
all." The familiar Organization slogan came easily to Hendley's lips.
"Bring on the girls! Are you sure this is a good seat?"
"The best. There's a materializer right overhead. And you have a good
view of the main screen over the stage."
Hendley stared at an opaque plastic cylinder suspended from the ceiling
of the great circular auditorium. Less than twenty feet away, the
cylinder was just big enough to contain a grown man. It might have been
a decorative fixture, its smooth surface reflecting a multicolored
flow of light from the auditorium's glowing panels. There were about
two dozen of the cylindrical objects spaced throughout the theater,
overhead for those seated in the balcony, along the sides for the
audience on the main floor. It was difficult to get seats close to
the stage, Nik had explained, unless you arrived very early, but with
the materializers you didn't need front-row seats. The man-sized
cylinders brought the stage to you. Moreover, from a middle distance,
and especially from the balcony, you had a better view of the huge
thought-screen, the giant father of the materializers in shape, mounted
directly over the stage and almost at Hendley's eye level. This huge
screen was also dark.
Drinks arrived on a conveyor belt just as the main lights in the
auditorium began to dim. From his balcony perch Hendley stared down as
the curtain of light obscuring the central stage slowly dissolved. The
stage revealed was in semidarkness.
A spatter of applause broke into thunder as a cone of light slashed
down to sculpture a living bronze--a nude woman standing motionless
on a revolving dais. For an instant the striking figure was enveloped
in brilliant white. Then the light began to change from pink through
rose to a garish red, until at last the figure seemed to be bathed
in blood, unrelieved except for a small white circle lying at the
top of the valley between the woman's red breasts. From the balcony
it was impossible to distinguish the white circle clearly, but on
the materializer, so close to Hendley's seat, it was easy to discern
a thin necklace, the clear outline of a white tag, and the number 1
printed on the tag, which had evidently been treated somehow to reject
the red light. The crimson figure was reproduced slightly larger than
life within the plastic cylinder, and with a breathtaking illusion of
reality, as if she were physically imprisoned there. It was not like
looking at a viewscreen, even a dimensional one. It was as if the
living flesh in its garish costume of light had been transported from
the stage into the plastic cocoon.
A second white cone stabbed down through the darkness, pinning a second
nude figure upon the stage. Again the light changed by degrees to
red. Almost imperceptibly a low, sensuous beat of music had begun to
make itself heard. And with that the audience became more vociferous.
As another and yet another red figure was revealed on the stage, a
persistent murmuring grew. Audible gasps ignited fresh crackles of
applause as each new model appeared. They were all young, shapely,
beautiful. In the brief flash of white light as they were first seen,
their bodies were visibly pale, like Hendley's own, the white sheen of
skin unburned by the sun. When the light changed, they became, in their
bizarre red envelopes, both more vivid and less human. Hendley could
not tear his gaze away as the procession continued. His throat grew
dry, and he drained his glass.
Twelve girls in all took their places in the red spotlights. Hendley
missed seeing the eleventh one closely. He had glanced down at the
stage just before she appeared in closeup on the nearby materializer.
By the time he looked back from the general tableau below to the
intimate revelation on the cylinder, the girl's image was already
fading. And her back was toward him. He had only a glimpse of a
slender, willowy body, narrow-waisted, of long slim legs, and of a
nest of short curls above a graceful neck. She was a red vision from a
dream, but something other than admiration stirred in his mind.
"I missed that one second from the last," he said to Nik.
"A pretty thing," Nik said appraisingly. "Quite well equipped, too."
His hands shaped an imaginary bosom.
"She looked--I'm not sure--familiar."
Nik laughed. "That's not unusual. There's a blue girl--she'll be coming
on shortly--who once reminded me of my mother. I suppose one of your
Morale Investigators would say that was significant. But it's not,
really. A beautiful girl seen in the distance, or not clearly, will
always remind you of someone."
"Only if that someone matters," Hendley said with surprising clarity.
The young Freeman made a mock grimace of pain. "Hmmm," he murmured. "I
should have thought of that."
"What's a blue girl?"
"Same as in your outside world. You see, the showgirls are all
outsiders. Red means a 5-Daygirl. Green a four, blue a three. Obviously
they don't wear their uniforms while they're performing."
Hendley smiled absently. He wished that he had had a clearer view
of the eleventh girl. Even in the distance of the stage, and in the
strangely erotic distortion of the colored spotlight, she seemed
familiar. But whom could she remind him of? There was only....
"What's wrong?" Nik asked. "Feeling dizzy again?"
"No," Hendley said hoarsely. "It's not that."
As if to prove his statement he reached for his glass, only to find
it empty. The resemblance was superficial, he assured himself. That
was all it could be. Ann could not be here. But the nagging impression
that the girl on the stage was enough like her to be a double unnerved
him. He was chagrined to realize how seldom he had thought about her
since his arrival in the Freeman Camp. Perhaps that was understandable
enough--the clockless hours had been full--but this defense did not
dispel a twinge of guilt. Forgetfulness argued a shallow emotion,
undermining the importance he attached to his hours with ABC-331.
"Ah, here come the greens," Nik said. "And I've ordered us a couple
refills on the drinks. Don't take it if you don't think you can handle
it."
Hendley didn't answer. He wanted the drink, and he had a feeling that
he would need it.
The pattern of presenting the showgirls was repeated, except that the
second set were washed with a startling green light. And each girl
wore an identical male face-mask. The slow but insistent beat of the
background music quickened slightly, acquiring a harsher, more driving
rhythm. A perceptible tension of excitement quivered in the air of the
auditorium.
There were twelve girls in green. "They're the males," Nik said
unnecessarily. "You'll be surprised how you get to think of them that
way, the obvious physical evidence to the contrary."
Hendley started to ask what all this was leading up to, but before
he could speak the tempo of the music changed. The twenty-four girls
formed a wide circle near the apron of the stage. Their spotlights
faded until they were only dimly visible. Attention shifted to the
center of the stage. Light panels dropped into place, figuring
suggestively the setting of a pre-Organization city. The technique and
the scene were immediately familiar to Hendley. They were traditional
in the presentation of a Freedom Play.
Quietly a cast of characters appeared. The play was presented in
pantomime, its drama heightened by music and dance. Every move and pose
had its traditional meaning. The all-female cast was also a tradition.
Only the nudity of the performers was different, and that one fact
subtly altered the effect of the play.
Through it all--the early scenes of man's frustrations and drudging
labor, the spectacular fireworks and sound effects of the great war
which climaxed the third act, the final scenes which depicted man's
building of a new world underground and the gradual emergence of
his dream of freedom from something unattainable to an immediate
goal--Hendley's attention kept going back to the line of showgirls
ringing the stage, specifically searching for the one who had seemed
so familiar. He thought he saw her but in the dimmed spotlight could
not be sure. Only in the triumphant dance number climaxing the play did
these showgirls participate, functioning as a dancing chorus in the
background. In the confusion of movement Hendley could not find the one
he sought.
Applause greeted the end of the play. It was loud and warm, but Hendley
had the feeling the audience's enthusiasm was as much for what it knew
was coming as for the performance it had just seen. A steady buzz of
excited comment continued long after the freedom players had exited,
leaving only the original chorus of showgirls on the stage.
"What now?" Hendley asked.
"You'll see," Nik said with a grin. And he added, shoving a glass
toward Hendley, "Here's that refill."
The murmur from the audience grew louder. A computer band, simulating
the sounds of old-fashioned man-played instruments, raised a triumphant
peal. Abruptly a single spotlight speared the center of the stage.
A section of the floor slowly folded back, and into the spotlight
rose a naked woman, aggressively feminine, her legs spread wide, her
magnificent bosom high, her head thrown back to let long hair stream
down over her shoulders. The light turned swiftly to blue, and the
spontaneous audience applause turned into a roar.
Above the noise Nik cried, "Remarkable woman! I won her once!
Tremendous!"