Bruggil's Bride
by ROBERT F. YOUNG
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Fantastic Universe March 1960.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
She came off the Androids, Inc., production line in September, 2241.She was five feet, seven inches tall, weighed 135 pounds, had flaxenhair and pale blue eyes. Her built-in batteries were guaranteed forten years, her tapes were authentic Kirsten Flagstad, and her name wasIsolde.
She was shipped to New York via strato-freight, and late in Octobershe opened the season at the Metropolitanette in what the hundred orso die-hard enthusiasts still holding the Wagnerian fort, called thebest Tristan ever. Afterwards, she was deactivated and stored away,along with Tristan, Brangane, Melot, King Marke, Kurvenal, the shepherdand the helmsman, and the various knights, soldiers, attendants, andsailors that constituted the rest of the dramatis personae.
At that time the black market in androids was relatively new, and onlystandard measures were taken to guard the Metropolitanette storeroom.Operatic androids were not exactly the kind of merchandise the averagetwenty-third century citizen liked most to find underneath hisChristmas tree, and to a Wagnerian aficionado, the idea of the averagemusic lover stealing one was as preposterous as the idea of a twentiethcentury bobby soxer stealing a Caruso original. But an operaticandroid was potentially capable of doing other things besides singingrecitative and arias—as a number of twenty-third century operators hadbegun to realize some time before the beginning of this history. HansBecker was one of them.
You've seen Hans. You've seen him in bars and on airbusses, in waitingrooms and in automats. He likes to sit in secluded corners and studypeople through his cigar smoke. He has a penchant for ostentatiousblondes and dirty comic films. He has a passion for the quick credit.
You see him now. He is talking to a mousy little man in a decrepit baroff Fifth Avenue. The little man nods every now and then, smiles asatisfied smile every time Hans sets him up a beer. The little man is anight watchman. He is a night watchman in the very building where theMetropolitanette stores its deactivated androids. He is in his fifties,and he too likes ostentatious blondes. But on a night watchman's pay,the only ones he can afford are a little too ostentatious even forhim. He would like them to be a little less ostentatious, and, ifpossible, a little younger. He smiles, nods his head again. He drinksthe fresh beer the bartender sets before him. He licks the froth fromhis lips with the tip of his gray tongue. He pockets the sheaf ofcredits which Hans slips him. He nods again. "Tomorrow night, then," hesays. "At the backdoor. I'll have her ready for you."
Isolde's first stop, after her abduction, was at the house of aconverter Hans knew. The converter's name was Wisprey, and he was anartist in his own right. By the time he finished with Isolde, you neverwould have dreamed—unless you were a Wagnerian devotee—that onceupon a time she had been a bona fide reproduction of an Irish heroinein a German opera. You would have sworn, instead, that she was aSwedish-ty