Hunt Collins
Tomorrow’s World
This is for my wife and our boys.
Chapter 1
Van Brant pulled Pelazi’s review out of the communication, read it quickly, and then sat back to enjoy a quiet chuckle. He held the review out at arm’s length, read it over again, and nearly choked laughing. It was getting so that Brant could predict just what Pelazi was going to say even before the latest paperback hit the stands. He pulled his chair closer to the desk and punched Lizbeth’s buzzer.
“Yes, sir?” Her voice was soft, well-modulated.
“Honey,” he said, “see if you can get Clark for me, will you?”
“Yes, sir.” She clicked off, and he leaned back, still smiling. He thought of something else and buzzed her again. “Sir?”
“And see if you can get me copies of all the papers carrying reviews of Stolen Desire, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
He sat back again, and shook his head in wonder at Dino Pelazi and all the other Realists. They’d never learn; they’d sit in their high porcelain bathtubs until the Vicarion tide reached up past their nostrils and drowned them. Clark Talbot’s book had been a masterpiece of Vicarion literature. So Pelazi had dipped his pen deep in Realist blood and tom it to pieces with archaic language. Typical. Typical, and doomed, because the Vikes were...
The buzzer sounded and he clicked on. “Yes?”
“I have Mr. Talbot for you, sir. On five.”
“Thanks, Liz.”
He swung his chair around and snapped on five, focusing the picture that blotted the screen. Clark was still in his pajamas, and there was the flabby look of sleep on his rough-hewn features.
He blinked his eyes, and then passed his hand over his face. “Oh, good morning, Van,” he said dully.
Van grinned and Clark winced, licked his lips with a thick tongue, and stared into the screen.
“You see what Pelazi brewed on Stolen?” Van asked.
“No. Is it out yet?” Clark’s face became interested, and the sleep began to flee from his eyes.
“Hit the stands this morning; got it right here.”
“Let me see it,” Clark said. Then he shook his head and put one hand over his eyes. “No, read it to me instead.”
“Big night?”
“Herro-coke. You ever try it?”
“I never mix, Clark.”
“I was blind, Van. It’s really destruction. You should try...” He stopped short, blinked his eyes and asked, “You mean you never mix? Never?”
“My habit is short and straight, and needs no mate.”
Clark shook his head. “Mister, you’re a Ree in disguise. What’d Pelazi chop about?”
“The usual. Pull up a chair.”
“Will I need one?”
“Hell, no. Every sad review Pelazi gives is another million in the bank. You should pray he doesn’t honeymoon you.”
“Fat chance of that. The day Pelazi gives one of my pabacks a favorable review, I’ll eat the book — glue and all.”
“You want to hear this?”
“Chop away, father.”
“There’s the usual heading: title, scribe, pub, and price. You don’t want to hear that.”
“No, go on.”
“Here’s what he says. Quote: ‘Clark Talbot, chief purveyor of vicarious filth in the paperbacks, is represented on the pocket-size stands this morning with a lewd, lascivious, obscene, and pornographic document titled...’ ”
“How was that again?”
“Lewd, lascivious, obscene, and pornographic. Shall I go on?”
“Fire away.”
“Still quoting: ‘...pornographic document titled Stolen Desire. As with all Vicarian literature, and with the entire Vicarian Movement in general, this alleged novel seeks to arouse and to excitate...’ ”
“Excitate?”
“So the man said.”
Clark shrugged. “Excitate,” he said dully. “More, Van.”
“ ‘...to excitate the body, to stimulate the diseased mind, to fabricate an existence completely alien to that surrounding us. Realistically...’ ”
“Oops, here comes the Ree pitch again.”
“ ‘...Realistically, it serves no purpose. It is a symposium of smut, as narcotic as the more tangible drugs the Vicarion Movement has...’ ”
“Stop! Enough. I gather he didn’t care much for it. Wouldn’t you say so, Van?”
“Well, I think he was mildly goofed by it, yes.”
“Yeah,” Clark mumbled.
Brant clicked off before he could say more, and the picture faded. He thought about Pelazi’s review for a few moments, and then he buzzed Lizbeth again. When she came on, he said, “Did you round up those papers, honey?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bring them in, will you?”
“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”
He waited for a few seconds until the door slid open and Lizbeth stepped through. She was a small blonde, and the dailies she carried fairly hid her head. She staggered over to the desk, dropped the pile onto its polished top, and then backed away.
She was wearing one of the new see-thru skirts, but in the light she stood in, it was opaque. The skirt was belted around her waist with a narrow red sash. Above the skirt, her flesh was firm and taut, her breasts high. Van stared at them for a moment and asked, “That’s new, isn’t it?”
She looked down at her bare breasts. “Do you like it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“It’s a new shade. It changes with the light, too, the way the skirt does.”
Van walked to the window and pressed the button in the wide sill. The blinds slanted downward quickly, spilling, sunlight into the room, bathing Lizbeth in a warm glow. It caught the skirt in its molten web, turning the material to a thin transparent stuff through which he saw the outline of her legs, the tops of her stockings taut against her thighs. Her breasts had suddenly shifted shades, their undersides shimmering in dazzling silver, their sloping tops a pale fuchsia.
“Do you like it?” she asked again.
“Yes, I think so. It’s effective.” Van turned away and began thumbing through the dailies. As he’d suspected, the Ree columnists had all blasted Clark’s book. That was good; that was fine.
“Honey, I want you to have bigs made out of Pelazi’s Com review, and a few stereos, too. We’ll use the bigs in our regular ad space; and try to get us some time for the stereoshows. The sooner the better. Call Sterling at Triple Press and tell him what we plan. Hint that I’d like him to split the cost. If he sounds goofed, forget it. But try to convince him, Liz; hell, he’ll be sharing in the profits.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You might give him a full view of yourself when you call. Stand in the light.” He looked at the skirt again. “That’s a very effective gizmo.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Has Walt called in yet?”
“No, sir.”
“Put him through as soon as he does, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Had your morning fix?”
“No, sir.”
“Neither have I. What’s your pleasure?”
“Opaine.”
“Another mixer.” Van shook his head. “You’re trading your womb for a tomb, Liz.”
Lizbeth shrugged, and the sudden shift of light turned her breasts a deep blue. “It’s no fix without the tricks, father.”
“Well spoke, but a big joke. Want to join me?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Bring your kit in.”
“There’s someone waiting to see you, sir.”
“Bring your kit in. He can wait.”
“It’s a she, sir.”
“So, she can wait, too.”
“I’m honored, father,” Liz said, smiling.
“Come on, mother, it’s later than you think.”
She turned and walked toward the door, and her skirt turned opaque again, hiding the long curve of her legs. The door slid open as she reached it; Van looked through to the reception room and saw a tall redhead sitting on the couch, her legs crossed. The door slid closed, hiding her from view, and Van walked to the bar and took out his kit. He unsnapped the leather case, opened it, and selected one of the silver vials inside. The chronometer set in the case’s lid told him it was nine twenty-five — and nine-thirty was happy time.