Free The Jagged Orbit by John Brunner

J. HODDINOTT, UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION SERVICE OFFICER, ON DUTY AT KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT WHEN MORTON LENIGO ARRIVED
     
    "So the computers must have said it was okay but can't computers sometimes lose their marbles too?"

TWENTY-EIGHT PROOF POSITIVE FOR THE ASSERTION THAT IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE FOR A GUTTER TO RUN AT PENTHOUSE LEVEL
     
    Lyla Clay emerged onto the rapitrans platform, trembling. The tunnels themselves were under low pressure —had to be, or air resistance would have rendered their designed operating speeds impossible. So there was just this one access door, and the space beyond it was constricted, the very roof seeming to lean on her head. She had seen pictures of the Ginsberg, and knew that perhaps as much as two hundred meters of concrete and steel might be directly between her and the open sky. She bit her lip. The talent which had made her a pythoness with a growing reputation had its drawbacks, and excessively vivid imagination was one of them. For an endless moment she pictured herself being trapped here. She couldn't get back into the train compartment and hurtle away with it, for this was as far as her ticket carried her and the tickets for the homeward journey were in the pocket of Dan's breeches. So too was the pass which would get them through the barrier blocking access to the elevator for the upper levels.
    Suppose his compartment had been misrouted? Once in a few million times that did happen, for all the reassuring propaganda to the contrary. He might have been sent to Far Rockaway or somewhere, and she'd have to stay here for hours and hours and ...
    But the door sighed open again and there he was, only a few seconds behind her. With perfect aplomb he marched towards the elevator; glad that her yash concealed her expression of relief, Lyla followed, wondering what it would be like to be thirty instead of twenty. Would she too gain that extra confidence after fifty percent more aware existence?
    Waiting for their pass to be read by the scanners, she felt a desperate need to speak, and seized on the first words which sprang to mind.
    "I don't like the atmosphere of this place," she said.
    Dan glanced at her. "I'm not surprised. The air's probably permeated with the skin-secretions of schizophrenics. I hate the stink of mental hospitals, and I'm not what you'd call a sensitive type. Just put up with it for a while, though, darl. All kinds of things may come of this. According to what Dr. Spoelstra told me, we're setting a very important precedent this afternoon."
    He chuckled. "Never had anyone so eager, know that? She was practically climbing down the comweb line to make sure she got you here today. I hate to think of all the other bookings we're going to have to postpone to accommodate her repeat orders!"
    Other bookings? What other . . . ? Oh. Of course. A typical Dan Kazer con job, no doubt involving the later faking of contracts including penalty clauses and kickbacks to the cooperative acquaintances he'd persuaded to invent bookings purely in order to cancel them. One could easily add fifty percent to the proceeds from an engagement by setting it up that way.
    She shrugged. It worked, and it was no more dishonest than half the "respectable" business deals put through in the course of an average year. Look what it had done for Mikki Baxendale, for example, four years ago when Dan was still macking for gutter poets instead of pythonesses.
    Impulsively she said, "Dan, you never did tell me— what separated you from Michaela?" And, as she recognized the emerging expression on his face, the mask of stony anger colder than arctic ice, she added hastily, "It's my good luck, of course, but—well, I would like to know how I got it."
    There was a pause. During it, the automatics conceded the validity of Dr. Spoelstra's signature on their pass, and the barrier before the elevator car slid aside.
    Not moving to enter, Dan thought for a long moment, and finally spread his hands.
    "Okay, I'll