Free Manshape by John Brunner Page B

Glory she would have taken it as such. But here and now everything felt wrong. She tilted back her mask and gazed at the masked face of him who had touched her, and he met her eyes and hastened away.
    It occurred to her that she would not have liked to confront a mirror wearing the look she must have bestowed on him.
    Suddenly disgusted with herself and the pressure of so many people, because it was too like the actualisation of the illusion she had suffered all evening long—the Bridge System as a suffocating brown hoof of fog—she thrust at random among the crowd. She must have exuded some sort of authority; to her surprise she found herself isolated, moments later, at a prime position: atop a little knoll three or four metres wide, commanding a splendid view of the stage down-slope.
    People were crammed together, kneeling, sitting or lolling over the whole of the rest of the grassy ground. Why then should she be privileged—?
    Ah: but she was not alone. Standing in front of her was one extremely tall man in a high fur hat and a sweeping robe of blue embroidered with silver thread.
    Even by his back she recognised him, from the solido recordings she had played. He was the leader of the Azrael delegation, Lancaster Long.
    The shock was fearful. Alida had not yet bracedherself to meet anybody from the deadly world which had cost Chen his life. The encounter was to be pre-arranged, maybe in a week or so, when Moses van Heemskirk had finished the briefing stage and serious negotiations were under way.
    But, at least, he had not noticed her. She was minded to sidle away, when she realised why he was staring down towards the stage with such intensity. The next show was due to begin. And those who had not thought to bring magnifiers—for this amphitheatre, being a duplicate of one on Riger’s, was not equipped with air-lenses or even TV remotes—were bound to rely on unaided vision. She was not going to get such a good view from anywhere else.
    Accordingly she remained, and even took a pace closer to him.
    On stage appeared a man in a brown shirt and loose brown breeches. He took station at the foot of a gilded caduceus twice as high as himself, the eyes of its twined snakes glowing baleful red. Obviously this must be Rungley. He had an untidy light-brown beard and a thick mop of unkempt hair. Behind and to either side stood a choir of children singing in edgy shrill voices. The tune was catchy and rhythmical, though she could not make out the worlds; still, she did not need to.
A priori
it must have to do with the legend she had learned about from the tapes she had played during the past few days. Rungley’s cult was less religious than nationalist, even though religions still existed on Riger’s World; each ceremony was a reenactment of the way their forefathers had overcome the originally dominant species on their new planet, a quasi-reptilian beast which by coincidence expelled jets of poison from its forward end.
    Later, when contact with Earth was reestablished, computers had worked out that in a million years or so that species could well have evolved into intelligence.The same was true for at least five other planets where humans were now dominant. Maybe there was a burden of guilt on the collective soul of Earth which could account for this monstrous depression Alida and so many others were feeling…
    But there was never any way of undoing the past One had to make do with what there was. Perhaps eventually the pantologists would give rise to a more civilised version of humanity—except that most of them cared little about passing on their genes, lived solitary lives whether male or female…
    Was the cream of the race heading down a dead end?
    Close to the stage, staring up at Rungley, were a group of men and women in dark clothing, comfortably seated as though they had taken station well ahead of time. She thought she recognised—though the light was poor—members of the resident staff from Riger’s, come to