Flats, where one was never alone. Official secrecy was easy enough, but any other kind was impossible.
So a part of him lay shut away in his footlocker, under the pile of uniforms his misery had outgrown. Eating, a permitted indiscretion, dulled the pain a little, just as it dulled his features.
There came an unmilitary knock at the door. ‘Algie? Can I see you a minute?’
Fouts snatched up the wrapper and stuffed it through the slotted lid of his security wastebasket. He swallowed the last of the sweetness and unlocked the door to Dr Donagon.
‘What do you want? I’m busy here, you know. Got to check the dossier of this new guy, Shairp…’
‘Please, Algie, you’ve got to let me publish.
Anything
. Just some little hooker, something to get my name on it.’
Fouts swam back to the desk through his own liquid layers.
‘Not my responsibility. Both the Army and National Arse have their reasons for keeping this under wraps. If it was up to me, I’d let all you boobologists print all you wanted in your boobology journals.’
‘Major!’ Donagon flung back a lock of his thin, khaki-colored hair. It fell forward again. ‘I am a bi-o-physicist, and I am also head of research here. I know I’m young, but I think that, urn.’ He brushed back the stray lock. Fouts could see white scars on the man’s wrist. ‘I think: that I am due some respect in that, urn, respect.’
‘Yas, yas. Anyway, things are looking up, kid. The press is going to be invited in on zero-day. You’ll get all the publicity you can eat.’
‘If only I could be sure—that it was the right kind of publicity, Algie. This could mean the Nobel if I handle it right. But I still ought to have published something. Others are at work on it. Otis Korner at Attica, Flaken of Illinois. O God! If they get a man on tape before I do…’
‘If you spent less time iffing…’
Donagon blushed. ‘I’m afraid, if you must know. The press…they garble things…’
‘All right, all right. Make up a prepared handout.’
Donagon brightened noticeably. He left, and Fouts went back to work. On the second Hershey bar.
Billy Koch, breakfasting at his desk on a glass of Slimmix (90 calories), shook out his morning paper and got down to work, marking sermonizable stories.
He circled an article on the current Asian conflict and swiveled around to the typewriter to hunt out: ‘I offer mnt prayer (sil?) for our boys who have won vict, w/ many trag. losses, in (place). But wht vict can compare
&c.’
He put a question mark near MAN SUES GOD FORLOCUST DAMAGE and turned a page. Pickings were poor: CONGRESS APPROVES BUDGET CUTS; SERIA TOTRY FOR 3½ MIN MILE; ROAD TOLL.…
He caught himself humming a pop tune, ‘Ice Cream Blues’, switched to a hymn, then caught his breath again. A small item, buried in the back pages:
COMPUTERIZED MAN?
Washington (AP)—A Pentagon spokesman announced today a joint research project between the Army and National Arsenamid Corporation to ‘investigate the possibility of partly or even completely digitalizing a living man, using genetic, physiological and neurological data’. Further details were not forthcoming, but a reliable source states that a subject has already been selected, and the experiment is said to be under way.
Billy circled this item twice, and doubly exclaimed on the typewriter: ‘You can compute a man—but nt immtl soul!!’
So much for the sermon. He was about to check the financial pages for the inevitable rise of BK Industries, when his secretary announced the arrival of his architect, Ögivaal.
Downstairs from Billy in the Crusade headquarters mail room the first three bags were dumped on the sorting table and the sorters went to it. They dealt first with packages. A box of birdseed addressed to ‘H. Spirit’ went to one of the staff whose mother had a budgerigar. An odiferous box bearing the suspect palindrome ‘A Mr Oops laminates set animal spoor, Ma’ went into the wastebasket unopened,
So a part of him lay shut away in his footlocker, under the pile of uniforms his misery had outgrown. Eating, a permitted indiscretion, dulled the pain a little, just as it dulled his features.
There came an unmilitary knock at the door. ‘Algie? Can I see you a minute?’
Fouts snatched up the wrapper and stuffed it through the slotted lid of his security wastebasket. He swallowed the last of the sweetness and unlocked the door to Dr Donagon.
‘What do you want? I’m busy here, you know. Got to check the dossier of this new guy, Shairp…’
‘Please, Algie, you’ve got to let me publish.
Anything
. Just some little hooker, something to get my name on it.’
Fouts swam back to the desk through his own liquid layers.
‘Not my responsibility. Both the Army and National Arse have their reasons for keeping this under wraps. If it was up to me, I’d let all you boobologists print all you wanted in your boobology journals.’
‘Major!’ Donagon flung back a lock of his thin, khaki-colored hair. It fell forward again. ‘I am a bi-o-physicist, and I am also head of research here. I know I’m young, but I think that, urn.’ He brushed back the stray lock. Fouts could see white scars on the man’s wrist. ‘I think: that I am due some respect in that, urn, respect.’
‘Yas, yas. Anyway, things are looking up, kid. The press is going to be invited in on zero-day. You’ll get all the publicity you can eat.’
‘If only I could be sure—that it was the right kind of publicity, Algie. This could mean the Nobel if I handle it right. But I still ought to have published something. Others are at work on it. Otis Korner at Attica, Flaken of Illinois. O God! If they get a man on tape before I do…’
‘If you spent less time iffing…’
Donagon blushed. ‘I’m afraid, if you must know. The press…they garble things…’
‘All right, all right. Make up a prepared handout.’
Donagon brightened noticeably. He left, and Fouts went back to work. On the second Hershey bar.
Billy Koch, breakfasting at his desk on a glass of Slimmix (90 calories), shook out his morning paper and got down to work, marking sermonizable stories.
He circled an article on the current Asian conflict and swiveled around to the typewriter to hunt out: ‘I offer mnt prayer (sil?) for our boys who have won vict, w/ many trag. losses, in (place). But wht vict can compare
&c.’
He put a question mark near MAN SUES GOD FORLOCUST DAMAGE and turned a page. Pickings were poor: CONGRESS APPROVES BUDGET CUTS; SERIA TOTRY FOR 3½ MIN MILE; ROAD TOLL.…
He caught himself humming a pop tune, ‘Ice Cream Blues’, switched to a hymn, then caught his breath again. A small item, buried in the back pages:
COMPUTERIZED MAN?
Washington (AP)—A Pentagon spokesman announced today a joint research project between the Army and National Arsenamid Corporation to ‘investigate the possibility of partly or even completely digitalizing a living man, using genetic, physiological and neurological data’. Further details were not forthcoming, but a reliable source states that a subject has already been selected, and the experiment is said to be under way.
Billy circled this item twice, and doubly exclaimed on the typewriter: ‘You can compute a man—but nt immtl soul!!’
So much for the sermon. He was about to check the financial pages for the inevitable rise of BK Industries, when his secretary announced the arrival of his architect, Ögivaal.
Downstairs from Billy in the Crusade headquarters mail room the first three bags were dumped on the sorting table and the sorters went to it. They dealt first with packages. A box of birdseed addressed to ‘H. Spirit’ went to one of the staff whose mother had a budgerigar. An odiferous box bearing the suspect palindrome ‘A Mr Oops laminates set animal spoor, Ma’ went into the wastebasket unopened,
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