Manshape by John Brunner Read Free Book Online Page B

were illusory, due to that shock.
    But she could not help feeling worried about Thorkild. Of late he had grown so—so remote… He no longer even made the routine passes at her which, on his appointment, he had indulged in not so much because he desired her—or so she felt—as because, taking over Saxena’s post, he expected the perquisites which went with the job.
    It was, admittedly, customary for professional colleagues to enjoy sexual contact, and Alida had done so with all the members of the Bridge City Planning Committee, of which she was chairman
ex officio
in her capacity as Supervisor of Inter-world Relations. She was nearly seventy, but she could have passed for thirty by the standards of the pre-galactic age; tall, stately, deep-voiced, with a laser-keen mind, she would ordinarily have been pleased at Thorkild’sattentions. After all, a man appointed to the Directorship at forty must be a very remarkable person.
    If only he were not so obsessed by the mystery of Saxena’s death, as she herself was… if only he had been able to jar her out of it with a convincing explanation…
    She must stop this, and at once! There was business to transact, and the four other members of the committee had fallen silent, as though expecting to be called to order.
    They were in her office in the highest tower over-looking the Bridge City. From the windows it could be seen spread out to the skyline and beyond: the place where forty worlds met face-to-face as this committee was doing. It was the ambition of everyone on Earth, just about, to take a vacation here. It was the grand and public testimonial of the mother planet’s achievement in establishing the web of interstellar linkages. That kilometre-square block was a replica of Platt’s World; in basement bars you could eat crisp sticks of peppertree and wash away the tingling after-taste with minty cordials, while skirling pipe-music like a gale in treetops made your head ring. Over there was a compound imitating Shi-alongtwi, where to the accompaniment of solemn gongs the people paraded with enormous coloured flags whose symbolism recounted the history of their ancestors’ struggles to tame and civilise an alien world. Down by the seashore were the wide-spaced houses typical of Glory, where tonight as usual they would dance on the grass and toss prickaburrs at one another’s clothing, and those who did not want to be caught and partnered would remember that the burrs would not stick on skin. Glory was sometimes fun. Maybe she ought to invite Thorkild to go there with her one night. It could breach the wall that seemed tohave built itself between them. And it was bad for this to happen when people were obliged to work so closely together.
    Why had he not returned her call?
    Effortfully she tore away her gaze from the window. There was no need for her to look at reality to see the city; a computer-generated three-dimensional model of it was projected within the transparent depths of the table around which the committee was seated. It also incorporated their agenda, by projecting little coloured stars varying from red to pale blue according to estimated order of importance on the areas relating to matters they intended to consider. Today was unusual; there were two stars floating in mid-air, indicative of the aspirant worlds not yet represented in the Bridge City.
    So… first things first. She said to Metchel, of the Ways and Means Department, “Are we going to have to make any major re-allotment of ground-space?”
    “Not for quite a while,” Metchel answered, showing over-large front teeth in a rabbity smile. “We can trim the Kayowa section as soon as the cur-rent emigration programme is fulfilled; that’s in three or four months. That should suffice for Ipewell, which I gather is extremely backward, unless there’s a sudden renewed fad for the primitive, and the computer analyses show no sign of one.”
    Once again: evidence that human beings were coming to fit