The Jagged Orbit by John Brunner Read Free Book Online Page A

paranoid about this trouble we're having on the show. While I concede"—switch to reasonable concession-making tone—"it's debatable whether Holocosmic can be said to have afforded us maximal cooperation in our attempts to eliminate the interference fouling up our transmissions, it's something else altogether to associate that with failures of our internal comweb here at the Etchmark." Back to stern, fatherly manner, though he was only three years Flamen's senior: the standard role of the knowledgeable worldly manager protecting the admirably idealistic star of the show from his own lack of cynicism.
    "So I suggest," he concluded, "you authorize me to call in an outside expert to substantiate these suspicions of yours. They're far too grave to be allowed to pass unchallenged."
    Flamen stared at him incredulously. Outside expert? Had Prior taken leave of his senses? What "outside expert" could outfox Holocosmic's own computers—what court could anyone persuade to believe in the fantastic notion of a major network sabotaging its own transmissions? Only one explanation occurred to him for Prior's extraordinary behavior, and before he had time to think it over the pressure of anger had driven him to blurt it out.
    "What happened to put you on Holocosmic's side all of a sudden? Did one of the brass take you out of bugging range and make you a proposition? No matter what kind of a minefield I'm driven into, I can't jump clear! I have bugs keeping watch on my bugs!"
    He was distantly aware that the look on Prior's face had shifted from smugness to pure horror, but he plunged on anyway. "And if I could afford bugging to that standard, you're the first person I'd sic 'em on! Not wanting to go visit your own sister when she's in the hospital!"
    He cut the circuit with a trembling hand before he said anything more damaging to his prospects. If that particular exchange ever came up in court, he reflected bitterly, he'd be hard put to it to argue that concern for Celia had motivated his temporary loss of control. The suggestion of calling on her this afternoon had been strictly a spur-of-the-moment improvisation so that he could talk to Prior out of eavesdropping range.
    But it would have to be done now, of course. Scowling, he headed for the door.
    Almost immediately, to his horror and dismay, he realized just how over-hasty his reaction to Prior had been, but he put off facing the consequences as long as he could.

SEVENTEEN IF "MEDIA" IS THE PLURAL OF "MEDIUM" THE QUESTION IS: HOW MANY OF THEM ARE FRAUDULENT?
     
    "Have I ever watched a pythoness perform?" repeated Xavier Conroy, over the border up Canada way. This was a crummy run-down poverty-stricken sort of a college, but living far enough in the past not to mind that his reputation was a horse-drawn hearse for his career. "No, I never have. But the phenomenon is interesting, and well worth discussing. How do you view it?"
    The boy who had asked the question stumbletongued. "I—I guess I don't really know."
    "You ought to have formed at least a tentative conclusion, though. It's a subject which fans out with all kinds of stimulating and provocative implications. Come to think of it, there's one place at which it touches directly on what I've been saying recently about the increasing reluctance of people to commit themselves to anything without a watertight contract, preferably computerized. So we could do worse than make it the class assignment for the week. I'll give you a few guidelines first." Conroy combed his grizzled beard with his fingers and corrugated his brow deeply.
    "One might well start by considering the nineteenth-century cult of spiritualism, table-rapping and table-turning, attempts to commune with the dead and the readiness of the public to go on believing in patently charlatanous mediums. Now that was effectively conditioned by the rigid propriety of Victorian society. What started off as a perfectly proper and indeed quite scientific investigation of certain