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corpuscle.”
Talbot giggled.
“Come on,” Victor said wearily. “You’ve had too much to drink, and it’s my fault. Let’s get
this show on the road. You’ll be straight by the time we’re ready...I just hope to God your mite isn’t
cockeyed.”
Naked, they stood him in front of the ground photographic plate. The older of the female
technicians aimed the graser at him, there was a soft sound Talbot took to be some mechanism
locking into position, and then Victor said, “All right, Larry, that’s it.”
He stared at them, expecting more.
“That’s it?”
The technicians seemed very pleased, and amused at his reaction. “All done,” said Victor. It
had been that quick. He hadn’t even seen the graser wave hit and lock in his image. “That’s it?” he
said again. Victor began to laugh. It spread through the lab. The technicians were clinging to their
equipment; tears rolled down Victor’s cheeks; everyone gasped for breath; and Talbot stood in front
of the minute imperfection in the glass and felt like a retard.
“That’s it?” he said again, helplessly.
After a long time, they dried their eyes and Victor moved him away from the huge plate of
glass. “ All done, Larry, and ready to go. Are you cold?”
Talbot’s naked flesh was evenly polka-dotted with goosebumps. One of the technicians
brought him a smock to wear. He stood and watched. Clearly, he was no longer the center of
attention.
Now the alternate graser and the holographic plate ripple in the glass were the focuses of
attention. Now the mood of released tension was past and the lines of serious attention were back in
the faces of the lab staff. Now Victor was wearing an intercom headset, and Talbot heard him say, “
All right, Karl. Bring it up to full power. “
Almost instantly the lab was filled with the sound of generators phasing up. It became
painful and Talbot felt his teeth begin to ache. It went up and up, a whine that climbed till it was
beyond his hearing.
Victor made a hand signal to the younger female technician at the graser behind the glass
plate. She bent to the projector’s sighting mechanism once, quickly, then cut it in. Talbot saw no
light beam, but there was the same locking sound he had heard earlier, and then a soft humming, and
a life-size hologram of himself, standing naked as he had been a few moments before, trembled in
the air where he had stood. He looked at Victor questioningly. Victor nodded, and Talbot walked to
the phantasm, passed his hand through it, stood close and looked into the clear brown eyes, noted
the wide pore patterns in the nose, studied himself more closely than he had ever been able to do in a
mirror. He felt: as if someone had walked over his grave.
Victor was talking to three male technicians, and a moment later they came to examine the
hologram. They moved in with light meters and sensitive instruments that apparently were capable
of gauging the sophistication and clarity of the ghost image. Talbot watched, fascinated and
terrified. It seemed he was about to embark on the great journey of his life; a journey with a much
desired destination: surcease.
One of the technicians signaled Victor.
“It’s pure,” he said to Talbot. Then, to the younger female technician on the second graser
projector, “ All right, Jana, move it out of there.” She started up an engine and the entire projector
apparatus turned on heavy rubber wheels and rolled out of the way. The image of Talbot, naked and
vulnerable, a little sad to Talbot as he watched it fade and vanish like morning mist, had disappeared
when the technician turned off the projector.
“All right, Karl,” Victor was saying, “we’re moving the pedestal in now. Narrow the
