Sentenced to Prism

by Alan Dean Foster

  Another storm was nattering the city as he returned home, but he couldn't see it. He could see only his future expanding before him. A vice-chairmanship perhaps. First company consultant. He might be perceived by some as arrogant (honestly, he would never understand where people acquired such notions!), but that wouldn't slow his climb up the ladder of success. Achievement was what mattered to men like Machoka, and Evan Orgell would deliver. His twenty-five years with the company were coming to a head. All he had to do was locate a problem, propose a solution, and file a simple report.

  What Machoka didn't know was that Evan would have paid him just for the chance to visit a place that promised to be as fascinating as prism.

  He made his way home as rapidly as possible, ignoring the rain. The streets were crowded as usual. Several city employees were working nearby to clear a clogged drain. One wore a suit full of plugs through which he delivered power to two coworkers, whose suits were equipped with repairing and reaming arms.

  He passed a doctor and nurse. They looked like candy canes in their familiar red-and-white-striped medical suits. The red stripes were softly aglow, indicating both were on duty. Their suits contained sufficient medical equipment between the two of them to enable them to perform anything up to medium-difficulty surgery on the spot. A more serious operation would require the addition of specialized suited technicians.

  Evan had once read about something called a "hospital" in an old history text. Apparently the ancients had actually hauled even the severely injured all the way to factorylike buildings for the purpose of treating them, instead of doing the necessary work on the spot. Imagine, subjecting an accident victim to the trauma of movement!

  A civil policeman in his armored pale blue suit stood chatting with a media vendor. The latter's suit boasted several flashing tridee screens, each equipped with a hard­copy printout for those who wanted to purchase. While staring at one screen Evan almost bumped into a woman advertising a forthcoming tridee. The flexible screen she wore from neck to knees wriggled with scenes from the forthcoming play. To ensure that preoccupied passersby looked at the ad, the video playback would disappear at unpredictable intervals and the screen would become completely transparent— but only for a second— before the advertisement resumed.

  Three kids had halted outside a confectionery shop. He noticed them only because they were bawling and crying loud enough to drown out everything else coming over his communicator. The adults hurrying by ignored their cries, for the children were already being attended to— by their suits, which wouldn't tolerate unprogrammed or unnecessary digressions. Only a parent or school administrator could alter that programming, and so the children would have to learn to be satisfied with the fruit juice and milk their clothing would readily provide.

  Such musings reminded Evan that he was hungry himself. He nudged one of the controls set into the left arm of his suit. The small dispenser mounted on the right shoulder slid forward until it was properly positioned. A few cassava chips were followed by a dose of hot Samsteadyon tea, heavily sugared. The snack was more than enough to put spring in his step for the rest of the walk home.

  Naturally he didn't unsuit until he was safe and secure within his apartment. No use courting arrest for outraging public morals.

  The spacious rooms were cluttered and disorganized, in sharp contrast to their occupant's mind. Tapes and chip files were piled in corners, on furniture, even in the kitchen. And the books, of course. Evan's few visitors never failed to remark on the presence of the books. Real books, printed on tree shavings.

  A storage chip might hold a hundred, a thousand times as much information, but there was no pleasure to be gained from holding one in the palm of your hand. A real book provided tactile and visual enjoyment as well as information.

  One of these days he'd have to get the place cleaned up. He'd been telling himself that for ten years. His lady friends tried to do it for him, without success. Possibly his ferocious response that he wouldn't be able to find anything discouraged them from pursuing the long-range excavation necessary to complete the work. Or maybe it was because none of them hung around for more than a few months. Eventually they all drifted off into the company of less brilliant but more amenable men.

  Except Maria. Maria kept coming back. She was a structural designer, and a good one. She was smart enough to understand Evan's profession and hold up her end of a conversation with him. What differentiated her from the others was that she also could see deep enough into his psyche to realize that for all his intelligence he was basically as insecure as everyone else. Their relationship grew slowly and steadily. Each preferred to dance at arm's length from the other, both afraid of commitment while desperately desiring it but wary of making a serious mistake this late in their lives.

  Another year, maybe less, and he'd propose. If nothing else, they were, too practical to continue paying for two homes when they spent so much of their free time in each other's company.

  The depth of their maturing relationship was defined by Evan's kitchen.

  He'd allowed her more leeway than he ever had any of her predecessors in cleaning it up. As a result, it was now possible to use the cooking facilities to prepare a halfway hygienic meal. The bathroom was next on her agenda. When she reached the front door they would get married.

  She deserved to know how the meeting had gone, now that he was comfortably ensconced in his apartment. He used the wall relay to call her. She was quietly pleased for him, recognizing how important the assignment could be to his career and their future. She was also as cautious as ever, identifying potential problems and pitfalls he'd overlooked in his first rush of excitement. There was no yelling and shouting; only quiet discussion and thoughtful analysis. That was something else that set Maria apart from the many women who'd visited Evan's apartment. There's much to be said for youthful passion, but when one reaches his forties it's time to consider more than physical abilities. Living with someone is, after all, very different from loving someone, and requires a good deal more patience and understanding.

  She promised to look after his collection of tropical fish and other personal matters, wished him success and a speedy return without any display of tearful emotion. She told him how very much she would miss him. He felt very warm and secure inside when the monitor in the wall finally winked off. A couple of touches on the controls filled the room with reassuring Mozart and changing pastel patterns on the screen.

  Then he went through the ritual of unsuiting, placing the empty metallic cloth skin in its holding slot in his copious closet and setting the storage unit for a standard clean and check. There were the usual few seconds of discomfort at being unsuited, though of course he was still tightly sealed within the larger inflexible suit that was the apartment. One could buy a bulky life suit, essentially a mobile apartment, but locally they were banned due to the population density of the city. Strictly a novelty for nomads and country folk.

  A check of his console revealed a long list of company­coded information awaiting his attention. Pulling up a chair, he started running them through the decoder.

  He'd only been offworld on two previous occasions. Once to Earth for an important company conference and once to New Riviera for an expensive company-provided vacation. While coordinates for Prism weren't given, time of travel was. It shouldn't have surprised him, not given the dimensions of the Commonwealth, but he was still a bit stunned. It was farther from Samstead than he'd ever expected to travel. He was going to be a long way from home.

  With nothing to worry about, he told himself. Not with that advanced MHW surrounding him.

  As he stared at the monitor he considered going over to Maria's before he left. He wasn't sure she'd be pleased. Neither of them cared much for unexpected surprises. Both of them were planners. It was another reason they got along so well together.

  No, they'd said their good-byes. The next time he spoke to her he would be home, ready to regale her with tales of grand successes on alien worlds
. He would attack Prism as he had every other complex problem the company had handed him, solve the research station's troubles, relax until his pickup ship came for him, and work on the presentation speech he would doubtless be asked to make for Machoka and the board of directors.

  He was already planning how he and Maria would spend his bonus.

  The KK-drive ship which picked him up from the orbital station ran irregular routes. Its passage close to the sun of an unexplored system would cause no comment. His section was heavily populated by company employees being sent hither and yon, to be planted like seeds on this world or that in the hope profit would blossom in their wake.

  He was relaxing in the first-class lounge, watching the antics of the otters and fish in the central tank, when she interrupted his viewing. She was blond, what they called straw blond. Her skin was almost transparent, and her eyes just kissed with blue. As if to belie the delicacy of her coloring she was strappingly built. Feminine for all that, though.

  She wore a mauve dress that covered her from ankles to just below her chin. Garnets sparkled around the hem and neckline, worked into the material in a few simple designs. What made the outfit especially interesting was the intermittently variable opacity of the material. It would change from a solid mauve to a kind of red smokiness that concealed while revealing. Evan was reminded of the advertising girl he'd encountered not long ago. He wondered if the degree of opacity could be varied or if it was a fixed attitude of the material itself.

  She noticed his attention, smiled, and walked straight toward him.

  "Hi." Her voice was surprisingly deep. "First trip out?"

  "No. Third. That's a lovely outfit you almost haven't got on."

  She giggled. That was unexpected and forced him to revise his initial estimate of her age downward. She'd been walking by herself since she'd entered the lounge. Unmarried, no boyfriend traveling with her. Parents?

  Either she read his mind or else his expression was more predatory than he thought. "Don't worry. I'm by myself and I'm of age. You want to see my ident?"

  "Why would I want to?" There. That was sufficiently ambiguous so that she could take it any one of several ways.

  Her reply was equally duplicitous. She sat down next to him and they chatted like old friends. She seemed content merely to flirt and tease. That suited him well enough. The verbal play was welcome, particularly since the rest of the passengers seemed an unusually dull lot. Interesting conversation can be hard to come by when you're a lot smarter than everyone else. Especially if you tend, as Evan did, to spend most of the time talking about yourself and your own achievements.

  The girl, however, seemed more than willing to sit and listen to him for as long as he chose to spin stories of his admirable accomplishments. Her name was Mylith.

  "So you're going all the way to Repler?"

  He laughed. "Nobody goes that far."

  "This ship does."

  "Just some of the cargo."

  "Oh. I hadn't thought of that." In one hand she held half a dozen glass straws. They were fused together. Each was a different color and each contained a different liqueur. She would sip from one straw and then move on to another as he talked.

  The dress never became more than milkily translucent. Never transparent. The guessing game it forced on his eyes was still intriguing.

  "Where are you getting off?" she asked.

  "Inter-Kansastan. Genetics conference."

  She made a face. "Sounds dull."

  "It probably will be. Ours not to reason why, though. Just to do what the company tells us to."

  "I suppose. I'm not quite so enthusiastic." She put a hand on his knee. "Where else have you been? You said this was your third trip out."

  He told her about the conference on Earth and the vacation on New Riviera, and she didn't ask him about his destination again, but for some reason he still felt uncomfortable. No reason to. He was just nervous. Asking a fellow traveler his destination was perfectly normal shipboard conversation.

  Eventually they returned to the subject of her unique attire. With a sophistication that belied her age and which he found slightly offputting, she allowed as how since he found it so interesting, he might like to see the rest of her wardrobe. He thought about the invitation long and hard before explaining that he was really very tired and had a lot of reading to catch up on before retiring. If she was disappointed she didn't show it, but she didn't approach him again. From time to time over the next few days he saw her talking to other passengers and occasionally a crew member. He wondered if she'd made any successful assignations since he'd turned her down.

  By the time she departed on an intersystem shuttle he was mad at himself for having passed on what might have been a memorable opportunity. He'd always been over­cautious. His mind assured him he'd done the right thing. It was not the time for extracurricular involvements. Secrecy and a low profile at all costs. But the rest of his body was pretty upset at the decision.

  The great ship drove on through space-plus, following a course through a region of abstruse mathematics only advanced computers could understand, passengers and crew confident that they would emerge in the right place relative to the rest of the universe when they dropped below light speed and back into normal space. Two more such jumps relieved the ship of all its passengers save one.

  A last jump put them in orbit around an unnamed world.

  The company officer who carne for Evan as he was using his window scanner to examine the cloud-shrouded world below looked like a gnome misplaced in time. A tall gnome. Save for a few lingering brown patches, his hair was pure white. He wore a neatly pointed beard and walked with a slight stoop, further enhancing his fairy­tale appearance. That is an impolite analogy, Evan told himself. There is nothing fairy-tailish about a spinal defect modern medicine couldn't fix.

  He looked to be in his late seventies and his voice was strong and sure. A man accustomed to giving orders. He was polite to Evan but not deferential.

  "So you are the one they selected."

  "Yes, I'm the one they selected. Time to go?"

  The older man nodded. "You've seen the MHW? Fine. Let's get you suited up. I'm not supposed to linger in this vicinity any longer than necessary."

  Evan indicated the light green comfort suit he was wearing. "What about this one and the rest of my personal belongings?"

  "That looks suitable for an interior lining. Light and smooth. We'll see to the rest of your stuff. You won't need what you've got on now inside the MHW, but you'll want to have something more comfortable to wear around the station."

  "Then what I've got on will do. You're sure I won't need anything else down below?"

  The older man grinned. Evan couldn't tell the prosthetic teeth from the real ones. "The suit will take care of all your needs, including those you haven't thought of yet. I've been well briefed on this mission. That's quite a toy you're going to have to play with. I'm Garrett, by the way."

  "First name or last?"

  "Middle."

  Evan smiled back at him. If the company wanted to play coy with a semi-legal visit to a semi-legal project, that was okay by him. He could understand the need.

  Garrett led him back through the ship, past the now deserted passenger lounge with its glowing otter tank, through the communal dining parlor, back into a world of conduits and throbbing machinery.

  They passed though a security door into a small holding area. Two women were swarming over the MHW, passing instruments over and through the hollow shell. Final checkout, Evan mused.

  It was good to see the suit again, an old friend from home. Nearly three meters tall and broad in proportion, it towered above the humans working around it. The flat gray duralloy exterior was unmarred, as was the transparent plexalloy bubble that would allow him a three­hundred-and-sixty-degree range of vision. The entry door in the belly stood open.

  "Something special, isn't she?" The note of pride in Garrett's voice took Evan by surprise.

  "Are
you one of the designers?" The two technicians ignored them, intent on their work.

  "Who, me?" Garrett laughed. "No, I'm just a field rep. I had a chance to do some work with the prototypes for this beauty. It's nice to be in on the first use of the first fully operational model."

  Evan admired the smooth exterior lines. "You have to admit it doesn't look like much."

  "Not from the outside, no," Garrett agreed. "I think the appearance is intentionally deceptive. This suit will take care of you and comfort you, provide for you, and even entertain you in everything from near absolute zero to a few thousand degrees above. I won't list her tolerances for you because you're probably familiar with them already and it would take too long to read them off."

  "They didn't tell me anything on Samstead about maintenance."

  "No need to. The suit can take care of itself for a full year, and you'll be down below a lot less than that."

  "I hope so. Surely it doesn't stock enough food and water for that long?"

  "Power yes, food no. It's packed with concentrates and it can synthesize plenty more. Flavor the stuff, too, I'm told. As for your defense systems, the suit will explain everything to you."

  "So I was told. There wasn't time for much in the way of hands-on instruction."

  "Not needed. A six-year-old could run this suit. Once you get inside and key it, it'll fill you in on anything you need to know. Once keyed it will respond only to your voice and your body's signature. It's damn discerning. Wait till you have a chance to use the chameleonics. Not true invisibility, but the closest we've come."

  Evan nodded absently, took a last look at the interior of the ship. He was anxious to be on his way. Triumph and glory awaited. Well, a commendation and promotion, anyway. The company didn't go in for the flashy stuff.

  "Might as well get on with it."

  Garrett nodded and spoke briefly to the pair of technicians. They lingered over a last check, reluctantly moved aside. Evan stepped up to the ladder which protruded from the belly of the suit.