on me, a few coins, no more. I couldn’t go and sit in a restaurant. And I had to get out of the cold, somehow, I couldn’t stand it anymore. My hands had no feeling, or my feet. Perhaps I’d broken all my toes as I ran and just couldn’t feel it yet—My eyes were burning. And they’d say, You’re frozen, you want to go home—why won’t you, if you’ve got nothing to hide, and no robots stashed there?
“I’m not going home,” I blurted out.
“Why not, Jane?”
“I’m going to see Egyptia.”
“Oh.” Both their faces fell. I’d scored, and I wasn’t sure how and then, “You mean that utterly abysmal moronic play she’s in.”
“She kept saying,” said Medea, “Jane’s got to come to my first night. Jane’s got to be there, or I’ll die. How could she abandon me like this?” Medea frowned slightly. “But you aren’t.”
It sounded very like Egyptia when Medea said it, only without Egyptia’s beautiful voice. And in the midst of panic I felt a stab of guilt. Egyptia had been wonderful to me, and I’d never called her to tell her she was wonderful, and that she would be safe. Hoping she’d now lost all interest in me and in him, my love who was her gadget, I’d shut her from my mind, as if to make it happen by sympathetic magic. But she’d shown me no malice. She’d been gloriously, sweetly kind. And tonight was her first night as Antektra, asking the peacock about brothers and dust. Through my own sick fear, I could just visualize her agonies.
“Oh, well,” said Jason, “we’d better go with you. We thought of going, actually. At least over to The Island first.”
We were walking, the three of us. Their policodes glinted, his on a necklet, and hers on a bangle, and I wished there were no such things and I could kill them. The tremor sites had snow on them. The sky was snowing out stars. Silver! Silver!
Egyptia, I’m sorry, but if I get the chance to get away from these creatures, I don’t care about you—Oh, God, give me the chance—
“We’ll go over to South Arbor and take the flyer,” said Jason.
The Asteroid rose over the broken buildings. In the icy air, it seemed larger than ever, and touched the faces of my escort with a green-blue glaze, but probably it was an optical illusion.
We walked. They didn’t speak to me any more. Now and then they said things to each other, sometimes about me.
“Actors are awfully stupid.”
“Yes, it will be a revolting night. But if Jane wants to.”
“Isn’t she thin now? Not right for her bone structure.”
“Wonder what Mother would say.”
They knew they were my jailers. But they’d still failed, so far. They hadn’t been led to my home. I’d provided a legitimate excuse for not going there, and so they couldn’t be certain I was shielding anyone, or anything, from them. Not
We got to the flyer platform in time to catch the four-thirty P.M. As they clambered and clambered me into the lighted pumpkin, I tried halfheartedly to fall back, but they wouldn’t let me.
“Come on, Jane.”
“I just remembered, I haven’t got the fare.”
Jason hesitated. They’re very mean, despite their riches and their thievery, and I wondered for a second if they’d abandon me after all. But then he said to Medea, “You can pay for her, can’t you?”
And Medea, expressionless and hateful, said: “Yes, I’ll pay. I’ll pay for her on the ferry, too. Jane’s one of the poor, now.”
“Do you remember,” said Jason, “when she offered to pay our bill in Jagged’s, and then didn’t, and they got on to Daddy and asked him for it? That was ever so funny.”
We sat down. The flyer, a golden champagne bubble, drifted forward into the city sky, and I could have wept, from the pain of my thawing fingers, and from despair.
Silver would be expecting me. The streets were dangerous. I had no policode. Would he, even though he couldn’t seem to be afraid for himself, be afraid for me?
“Don’t the buildings look interesting from here?” said Jason. “Just imagine, if we had some little bombs we could drop on them. Bang. Bang.”
“They’d look more interesting then,” said Medea complacently. “On fire.”
Damn the pair of them. I wish there were a hell, and they could be there forever, screaming and screaming—
No, I don’t wish that either. That wouldn’t make any difference, now.
There was a crowd waiting for the reservoir ferry, and Jason held my arm. He’s scarcely taller than me. I thought of trying to push him in the water off the pier. But he’d only swim back.
The ferry came and we got on it. It curved through the water and around the trees to The Island.
“The play doesn’t start until midnight,” lamented Jason. “But Jane knows that. Over six hours of listening to Egyptia carrying on.”
“Do you think,” said Medea, “we could do something to make Egyptia amused? Like putting some small creepy insects in her makeup boxes?”
“Ssh,” said Jason. “If you tell Jane, Jane will tell Egyptia. And that would ruin the surprise.”
“Or we could put glue into her stockings.”
“What an intimate idea. I wonder what it’s like to be intimate with Egyptia?”
“Oh, Jason,” moaned Medea, “please kiss my little toe—it’s ecstasy, and it makes me feel like a woman.”
I stood by the rail, the water coiling by, not really listening. Somehow I recollect all they said. But it’s irrelevant. And presently we reached The Island pier, the landscaped gardens, and got off and walked up to the lift, and rose in it to Egyptia’s apartment.
It was deadlock until then.
By the time Jason spoke to Egyptia’s door, saying he and Medea were there, and not mentioning me, I was feeling violently nauseated and no longer really cared.
All around the dead pot-plants pointed at us with their petrified claws. The night was strange and glistening and terrible. I recalled how I’d come here last and bit my tongue, the only way I could keep any control over myself. It seemed to me that if Lord came to the door again, it would be the end.
When the door opened, no one was there but ourselves reflected in the mirrors as we trooped inside. It was also very silent, though I could smell incense and cigarines and the warm resinous scent of Egyptia’s entirely convincing pine-cone fire.
No one seemed to be in the vast salon, either, though yellow candles were burning everywhere. It looked so cozy, so beautiful, so sumptuously welcoming, my illness began inadvertently to lift. Then I almost screamed.
The fire had been put in the middle of the floor, and in one of the big shadowy chairs, three-quarters onto it, a head turned, and the flames outlined a crimson halo along dark red hair. It was Silver. It was—
“If you stole anything from the hall on your way in,” said Clovis, “please replace it. This advice is for your own sakes. Egyptia, who is putting the finishing touches to her makeup this very minute, is liable to return in the person of Antektra, or—worse—in hysterics yet again. And much as I’d love to see someone murder the two of you—Good God Almighty!”
I swallowed.
“Hallo, Clovis.”
Having turned elegantly and slowly, caught sight of me and leapt to his feet, he was now transfixed, and I could see why I’d made the mistake. Clovis’s curling hair had been grown to shoulder length and lightly tinted red. To
“Jane. That is you? I mean, under that blond wig and the silver skin?”
“It isn’t a wig. It’s my natural unmolecularized color. Yes, it’s me.” I felt blazingly hot now, and unfastened the cloak and held it drooping away from me.
“My God. Let me look at you.”
He came across the room, stopped about a yard from me, gazed at me and said, “Jane, you’ve lost about
