"Yes. They let you create your own thought-pictures. But that's
private. One, at most two people."
"Much the same concept, though. This is just vastly more
sophisticated--and more effective. It doesn't mirror what's actually
happening on the stage. It reflects the audience's reaction to it. I
don't pretend to know how it's done, but the screen--or the computer
complex directing it--records the impulses of all our thought waves,
selects and synthesizes them. What comes out, though it's often a
montage, is not one viewer's reaction, but the total reaction. Ah! You
see? Those two dancers on the left--see them down on the stage? Now
look at the screen!"
Hendley saw. The tempo of the dance had quickened, the pantomime of
the dancers had become more daring. But the stage performance remained
essentially suggestive. The version of it which appeared on the
thought-screen was a blunt and strangely hideous extension of that
suggestion into the realm of the obscene.
Hendley tore his gaze away from the screen.
"Unbelievable, huh?" Nik murmured. "I've sometimes wondered if it might
all be a hoax." When Hendley glanced at him sharply the young Freeman
shrugged. With an urbane smile he said, "Why not? Whatever it is,
it's a remarkable machine. But it could simply be showing what a very
clever computer _says_ the audience reaction would be. That would be
much the same as showing the actual thoughts, wouldn't it? Who could
tell the difference?"
Hendley closed his eyes. Any pleasure he might have found in the
spectacle had long since vanished. But he could not shut his ears
to the sensual rhythms of the music or erase the lurid images which
danced in the darkness behind his eyelids. In the end he had to open
his eyes--to seek out the willowy girl stained with crimson light, to
torture himself with a glimpse of lips parted in a smile, a fleeting
motion of long slim legs nimbly scissoring, a bobbing nest of short
soft curls, now dyed from gold to red. He knew now why Ann had been
evasive, and why she had run away. He had many answers now. What he
did not know--and what continued to torment him--was whether or not
everything that had happened between them, every sigh, every caress,
had been no more than the dance on the stage--a pantomime of passion.
In the middle of a chord the music crashed to a stop. The dancers were
motionless, frozen in various attitudes of pursuit and withdrawal, like
figures on an urn. The audience, after an initial stir of talk and
restless movement, became hushed, waiting. Slowly the woman in blue
looked over her entourage. Her light-whip rose, whirled above her head,
and struck across the stage. A kneeling figure, stung by the lash,
obediently stood and walked to the center of the stage. She was the
first girl who had appeared--her white tag bore the number 1. Around
her the lights dimmed until there was only a single spotlight, fixing
her in its bright red gaze. In the cylindrical materializer her beauty
was imprisoned with startling realism. Her eyes and her lips smiled.
Her head bent in sweet resignation.
Many times larger than life, the girl's image appeared on the giant
screen directly over the stage. Above her head on the screen a number
suddenly blazed in red light: Z11-3460. It blinked off, then on again.
A woman's soft, caressing voice purred the number over the speaker
system. From somewhere on the main floor came an excited shout. There
were a few cheers, a sprinkling of laughter. But through most of the
audience there rippled a sigh, as of held breath slowly released.
The lights went out briefly. When the spotlights stabbed on again, the
girl in the center of the stage was gone. The dance took up as if it
had never been interrupted. Hendley sank back onto his seat, unaware
until then that he had half-risen. He felt limp, exhausted. And he
could hear--he could feel--a change in the audience. It was quieter,
abnormally still, betraying tense expectancy in the remark unmade, the
weight unshifted, the glass untouched.
Hendley shook his head as if to break the spell. Deliberately he raised
his own glass and drank. He knew he shouldn't. The dizziness had begun
to return. He was passing the point of control. Watching the gyrations
of the dance, the erotic version of it appearing in monstrous detail on
the thought-screen, made his eyes ache, his head whirl. Knowing that
Ann was a part of it brought a sting of anguish....
Crash! The music died, the movement on stage was arrested once more.
Lights dimmed and a second girl took her place at stage center, a tall
girl whose shapely contours were carved in provocative red shadows.
Another ticket number stabbed its crimson message onto the screen above
the stage. Another delighted yelp was heard, another general sigh.
Hendley's eyes sought the familiar outline of Ann's figure. Suddenly,
as the dance resumed, she appeared in the materializer nearby, pausing
with her arms extended in a graceful pose suggesting the beginning of
flight. A green figure bent close to her, his hands reaching out....
Hendley turned to Nik. "Where do they go?" he demanded.
"You mean the winners?" Nik raised an eyebrow. "They're not allowed to
take the girls into the camp, of course. There are some private rooms
behind a wall off the garden--maybe you've noticed them. The girls are
brought there through underground tunnels. To get in, you have to have
a winning ticket. Why? Are you feeling lucky?"
"I have to talk to that one girl--number eleven."
"Plenty of time to talk," Nik grinned. "They stay all night. Well,
you might be a winner at that. It's a long shot, but somebody has to
win. Eleven, did you say? I haven't been paying her enough attention.
Which--oh, yes! Hmmm. Kind of thin for my taste, but--"
"I don't want to be lucky," Hendley said harshly. "How do I get to that
girl?"
Nik did not move and his expression did not seem to alter visibly. Yet
his indolent manner dropped away in some mysterious fashion, as if a
trick mirror which had been reflecting one image had subtly shifted
to present another angle of vision from which the reflected image was
quite different, although the features remained exactly the same.
"That would take some doing," the Freeman said.
"Could it be done?"