one minute.”
I took a deep breath.
“Olaf, you are trying to make a fool of me. You know what I meant. I meant that people can live without it…”
“I should think they can! Indeed, yes!”
“Wait. They can live, and even if it is as you say, that they have stopped flying because of betrization, still, was it worth it, was it right to pay such a price — that is the question before us, my friend.”
“Is it? And suppose you marry. Why do you make a face? You can’t get married? You can. I’m telling you, you can. And you will have children. And you will carry them to be betrizated with a song on your lips. Well?”
“Not with a song. But what could I do? I can’t war against the whole world.…”
“Well, then, the blessing of the firmament upon you,” he said. “And now, if you like, we can go to the city.”
“Fine,” I said. “Lunch will be in two and a half hours. We can make it.”
“And if we don’t make it, they won’t give us anything to eat?”
“They will, but…”
I turned red. Pretending not to notice, he brushed the sand off his bare feet. We went upstairs, changed, and took the car to Clavestra. The traffic on the road was heavy. For the first time I saw colored gleeders, pink and pastel-lemon. We found a service station. I fancied I saw surprise in the glass eyes of the robot that examined the damage. We left the car there and returned on foot. It turned out that there were two Clavestras, an old and a new; in the old city was the local industrial center, where I had been the previous day with Marger. The new part was a fashionable summer resort, and there were people everywhere, almost exclusively young, teen-agers. In their gaudy, glittering outfits the boys looked dressed up as Roman soldiers, since the materials caught the sun like the half armor of that period. A lot of girls, most of them attractive, often in bathing suits more daring than anything I had seen so far. Walking with Olaf, I felt the eyes of the whole street on me. Colorful groups stopped under the palms at the sight of us. We were taller than anyone there, people stood and exchanged looks, it was extremely embarrassing.
When at last we got to the highway and turned south across the fields, in the direction of the house, Olaf wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. I was sweating a little, too.
“Damn them,” he said.
“Save it for a better occasion… .”
He gave a sour smile.
“Hal!”
“What?”
“You know what it was like? A set in a movie studio. Romans, courtesans, and gladiators.”
“We were the gladiators?”
“Exactly.”
“Shall we run?” I said.
“Let’s go.”
We went over the fields. It was about eight kilometers. But we ended up too far to the right and had to double back a little. Even so, we had time to take a bath before lunch.
FIVE
I knocked on Olaf’s door.
“If I know you, come on in,” I heard him call.
He stood naked in the middle of the room and was spraying himself, from the flask that he held, with a pale yellow fluid that immediately set to form a fluffy mass.
“Liquid underwear?” I said. “How can you?”
“I didn’t bring a spare shirt,” he muttered. “You don’t care for it?”
“No. You do?”
“My shirt got torn.”
At my look of surprise, he added with a grimace:
“The guy who grinned.”
I did not say another word. He put on his old trousers — I remembered them, from the
“There will be four of us,” I addressed the white robot.
“No, sir. Mr. Marger has gone. The lady, yourself, and Mr. Staave make three. Shall I serve, or wait for the lady?”
“We’ll wait,” Olaf replied carelessly.
A terrific fellow. Just then, the girl entered. She had on the same skirt as the day before; her hair was a little damp, as if she had come from the water. I introduced Olaf to her; he was calm and dignified. I had never managed to be that dignified.
We talked a little. She said that every week her husband had to go away for three days in connection with his work, and that the water in the pool was not so warm as it could have been, despite the sun. But the conversation quickly died, and, try as I might, I could think of nothing to say. I ate in silence, with their sharply contrasting profiles before me. I noticed that Olaf was studying her, but only when I spoke to her and she looked in my direction. His face was without expression. As if he was thinking the whole time of something else.
Toward the end of the meal, the white robot approached and said that the water in the pool would be heated for the evening, in accordance with Mrs. Marger’s wishes. Mrs. Marger thanked it and went to her room. The two of us were alone. Olaf looked at me, and again I reddened terribly.
“How is it,” he said, putting to his lips the cigarette I had given him, “that a customer who could crawl into that stinking hole on Kereneia, an old space dog — an old rhinoceros, rather, a hundred and fifty — now starts to… ?”
“Please,” I muttered, “if you really want to know, I’d crawl in there again…”
I didn’t finish.
“All right. I’ll stop. Word of honor. But, Hal, I have to say this: I understand you. And I’ll bet you don’t even know why…”
I pointed my head in the direction in which she had gone.
“Why her?”
“Yes. Do you know?”
“No. And neither do you.”
“But I do. Shall I tell you?”
“Yes. But without your jokes.”
“You really have gone crazy!” exclaimed Olaf. “It is very simple. But you always did have that fault — you didn’t see what was under your nose, only what was far removed, those Cantors, Corbasileuses…”
“Don’t preen.”
“The style is sophomoric, I know, but our development was halted when they put those six hundred and eighty screws on us.”
“Go on.”
“She is exactly like a girl from our time. Doesn’t have that red rubbish in her nose or those plates on her ears, and no shining cotton on her head; she doesn’t drip with gold; she’s a girl you could have met in Ceberto or Apprenous. I remember some just like her. That’s all.”
“I’ll be damned,” I said quietly. “Yes. Yes, but there is one difference.”
“Well?”
“I told you already. At the very beginning. I never behaved like this before. And, to be perfectly honest, I never imagined myself… I thought I was the quiet type.”
