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.This drawback was partially offset by the budgeter of each septigamoklan’s having a seat on the Commission Board of Financial Planners, as well as by the judicious appeal to market-forecasting computers.Down on Level 3 with Sanders and Melanie, Zoe’s quarterly allotments—only a day or two after the future-secure printout chit arrived—had been eaten up like nutmeg-sprinkled oatmeal.The Nobles garnisheed the entire value of the chit, without even so much as a countersignature, for granting Zoe the privilege of living with them.Only the coming of their child and the prospect of a lump-sum reward from the commission had induced them to hand Zoe over.Just like a prisoner-exchange, or the sale of a decrepit and recalcitrant slave.Yessir, Zoe thought: Sold down the river.But a river out of which it was possible to fly like a sleek bird, dripping light as if it were water.An old bird, Zoe was; a bird of fire being reborn in the Lethe of Sanders and Melanie’s forgetfulness and neglect.“A pox on self-pity,” Zoe said aloud, surprising herself.Overhead, the torchlit girder-car had almost reached the acme of the dome.Well, what else? What else? Lots of things.She had met members of other septigamoklans, the O’Possums and the Cadillacs and the Graypanthers and oh! all the others, too.There’d been a party one Saturday night in the garden, with food and music and silly paper decorations.Hostel attendants had closed the patio windows and pulled the acoustical draperies in the intensive-care rooms, and everyone else had gone to town.Young Mr.Leland, at their invitation, had been there, and nobody but Paul of all the Phoenix went to bed before 4 a.m.Sometime after midnight Toodles led everybody in a joyful, cacophonous version of “Ef Ya Gotta Zotta.”Then there were Sunday afternoons, alone with Paul or Luther or maybe, just maybe, one of the girls.During the week, field trips to the Atlanta Museum of Arts (“Boring as hell,” said Paul) and Consolidated Rich’s and the pedestrian-park flea markets.Two different excursions to the new theatre-in-the-round opera house, where they had watched a couple of interesting, council-sanctioned hologramic movies.They were OK, sort of plotless and artsy, but OK.Back in their own fourth-floor suite, though, they could show old-fashioned, two-dimensional movies; and just since Zoe had been there, the Phoenix had held a Rock Hudson festival and a mock seminar in the “Aesthetic of Late Twentieth-century X-rated Cinema,” during which Jerry had turned off the sound tracks and lectured to quite humorous effect with the aid of a stop-action button and a pointer.After one such lecture, when the rooftop was theirs, Luther and Zoe had laid out a croquet course; and, except for Jerry, in 23° C.weather (the internal meteorologists had given them one or two cold days, though) they had all played without their clothes! Nude, as Helen said.And that had been one of those rare occasions not requiring meticulous attention to detail—quilting, putting away dishes, keeping books—when Helen wore her goggle-bin-oculars.And, not counting the pulse-cued bracelet, only the goggle-binoculars.The idea, lifted from an old book of short stories, had been Toodles’, but Paul had given it a vigorous seconding.And so Zoe, like a girl going skinny-dipping in the before-the-dome countryside, shed her paper gown, her underthings, her inhibitions, and let the temperate air swaddle her sensitive flesh and her every self-conscious movement.Much merriment.And no repugnance for their blotched and lignifying bodies; instead, a strange tenderness bubbling under the surface merriment.What, after all, did the bunions, and the varicosities, and the fleshy folds signify? Zoe could answer that: the onset of age and their emphatic peoplehood, male and female alike.Finally, that day, she forgot the sensuous stirrings of the dome winds, lost herself in the game, and became extremely angry when Parthena sent her ball careening off into an unplayable position.Yessir, that had been an all-fun day.And what else? Well, the Phoenix had given her a still camera, and for the first time in ten or fifteen years she had begun taking pictures again [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]