Alan Dean Foster Glory Lane

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general store. You can order via the communicator between the beds.
Please be circumspect. No large jewels or anything like that."
She exhibited some real animation for the first time since Kerwin had seen her
in the back of her boyfriend's van. "Hey, I know how to shop. I mean, like,
it's kind of like my profession. How do I get started?"
"Just speak to the communicator and say 'shopping.' Your purchases will
automatically be credited to the room's account. One other thing. I'm going to
leave Izmir here with you."
The Astarach hovered near the ceiling. It had assumed the shape of a solid
block of black granite lined with glowing white stripes. The blue eye moved
from one side of the block to the other.
"Guard him with your lives." Rail exited rapidly.
"Hey, wait a minute!" But Rail was already gone. Kerwin didn't press the alien
for two reasons. First, he was pretty sure Rail meant it when he said he had
to move fast, and second, he didn't have any idea how to open the door, which
had become part of the wall once again.
"Man, is this a great place or what?" Seeth stood and jumped as high as he
could, landing on his backside on the bed. The thin suspension field caught
him gently as a giant hand.
Eminently practical, Kerwin mused. A field could adapt itself to any shape.
Speaking of adaptability, Miranda had already managed to conjure up a
procession of exotic attire on the holowall. He wondered how the store
representative, be it alien or machine, had managed to figure out her species
and size. No doubt the wall scanned as well as broadcast.
As he stared, a portion of the screen seemed to leap out into the room to
envelop her standing form in glowing red light that molded itself to her body.
For the first time in his life he found himself envying a shaft of light.
A moment later the light fled. Thereafter everything that appeared on the
screen was exactly her size and shape. She was able to try on the various
outfits simply by making a verbal request, whereupon a solid-looking,
projected duplicate of the clothing in question would appear surrounding her
form. The wall would then helpfully become a four-sided mirror, showing her
how she looked in the attire from front, back and sides.
"I wonder if it's okay for her to submit herself to so many projections."
"Hey, leave the girl alone. Can't you see she's died and gone to heaven?"
Seeth rolled on the bed.
Kerwin sat and watched the show for quite a while before commenting. "Uh,
remember what Rail told us. You don't want to go over his limit."
"No sweat. Besides, he never said what the limit was. I bet I can keep
ordering until we hit it and then the screen will just stop offering me
stuff."
She turned to face him. "How about this one?"
He stared. She was wearing what appeared to be a dress fashioned of thinly
sliced rubies held together with ruby thread. The sliced stones varied in
color from blood red at the bottom to a light pink near the neck. All of it no
doubt artificial and whipped up as ordered. Such a dress made of real corundum
would have been unbearably heavy. Kerwin had no doubt that the actual material
was light and comfortable.
Ruby being a semi-transparent stone, each section was like a little red
window.
"Your tongue's going to crawl out of your head." He blinked, saw Seeth leering
at him. "Better watch it. I bet this joint's got individual room cleaning.
Suck your tongue right into the trash. Have one of these."
There was a small container atop the communicator. It held what looked like a
basket of napkins, but as Seeth had discovered they were actually flat white
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containers of a delicious, ice-cold syrupy liquid. Having drained one, he
dumped the empty container on the floor.
The carpet rippled uncertainly for a moment. Then the individual fibers, like
so many hands, began moving the debris to the right. Kerwin had to jump out of
the gar-bage's way, though it probably would have gone around him if he'd held
his ground. When the debris reached the far wall, a hole materialized in the
floorboard. There was a small suctioning whine and the empty container
vanished into the opening.
Kerwin looked uneasily at the substance beneath his feet. Was it some kind of
charged or programmed material, or was it actually alive? The tiny fibers
suddenly looked uncomfortably like green cilia. He walked over to sit down on
the other bed, treading gingerly. The carpet didn't protest.
"Great place to party. Drop any chips and the floor cleans itself up." Seeth
sucked another of the white con-tainers dry and flung the empty aside.
Once again the hundreds of tiny fibers shifted the trash toward the wall.
He jumped off the bed and blocked its path. The carpet hesitated, began
shifting its burden to the left. Again Seeth moved to intercept. Kerwin
watched until he could no longer restrain himself.
"Look, here we are on an alien world no telling how many lightyears from
Earth. We're the first of our kind to experience stuff like this, and all you
can do is tease the carpeting?"
"Whatever's fun, man." He finally stepped aside to let the floor complete its
clean-up work.
In the meantime, boxes that looked like giant, solid-sided baggies had begun
to accumulate beneath an opening in the opposite wall. Kerwin saw the ruby
dress inside one of the transparent containers. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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