'Yes.'
'On time.'
Chip, having turned away, turned back and said, 'Beg pardon?'
'On time next week,' Bob said.
'Oh,' Chip said. 'Yes.' He turned and went out of the cubicle.
He thought he had done it well but there was no way of knowing, and as his treatment came nearer he grew increasingly anxious. The thought of a significant rise in sensation became more intriguing by the hour, and Snowflake, King, Lilac, and the others became more attractive and admirable. So what if they smoked tobacco? They were happy and healthy members—no, people, not members!—who had found an escape from sterility and sameness and universal mechanical efficiency. He wanted to see them and be with them. He wanted to kiss and embrace Snowflake's unique lightness; to talk with King as an equal, friend to friend; to hear more of Lilac's strange but provocative ideas. 'Your body is yours, not Uni's'—what a disturbing pre-U thing to say! If there were any basis for it, it could have implications that might lead him to—he couldn't think what; a jolting change of some sort in his attitude toward everything!
That was the night before his treatment. He lay awake for hours, then climbed with bandaged hands up a snow-covered mountaintop, smoked tobacco pleasurably under the guidance of a friendly smiling King, opened Snowflake's coveralls and found her snow-white with a throat-to-groin red cross, drove an early wheel-steered car through the hallways of a huge Genetic Suffocation Center, and had a new bracelet inscribed Chip and a window in his room through which he watched a lovely nude girl watering a lilac bush. She beckoned impatiently and he went to her—and woke feeling fresh and energetic and cheerful, despite those dreams, more vivid and convincing than any of the five or six he had had in the past.
That morning, a Friday, he had his treatment. The tickle-buzz-sting seemed to last a fraction of a second less than usual, and when he left the unit, pushing down his sleeve, he still felt good and himself, a dreamer of vivid dreams, a cohort of unusual people, an outwitter of Family and Uni. He walked falsely-slowly to the Center. It struck him that this of all times was when he should go on with the slowdown, to justify the even greater reduction that step two, whatever it was and whenever he took it, would be aimed at achieving. He was pleased with himself for having realized this, and wondered why King and the others hadn't suggested it. Perhaps they had thought he wouldn't be able to do anything after his treat ment. Those other two members had apparently fallen apart completely, unlucky brothers. He made a good small mistake that afternoon, started to type a report with the mike held wrong-side up while another 663B was looking. He felt a bit guilty about doing it, but he did it anyway.
That evening, to his surprise, he really dozed off during TV, although it was something fairly interesting, a tour of a new radio telescope in Isr. And later, during the house photography club meeting, he could hardly keep his eyes open. He excused himself early and went to his room. He undressed without bothering to chute his used coveralls, got into bed without putting on pajamas, and tapped out the light. He wondered what dreams he would have. He woke feeling frightened, suspecting that he was sick and in need of help. What was wrong? Had he done something he shouldn't have?
It came to him, and he shook his head, scarcely able to believe it. Was it real? Was it possible? Had he been so—so contaminated by that group of pitiably sick members that he had purposely made mistakes, had tried to deceive Bob RO (and maybe succeeded!), had thought thoughts hostile to his entire loving Family? Oh, Christ, Marx, Wood, and Wei!
He thought of what the young one, 'Lilac,' had told him: to remember that it was a chemical that was making him think he was sick, a chemical that had been infused into him without his consent. His consent! As if consent had anything to do with a treatment given to preserve one's health and well-being, an integral part of the health and well-being of the entire Family! Even before the Unification, even in the chaos and madness of the twentieth century, a member's consent wasn't asked before he was treated against typhic or typho or whatever it was. Consent! And he had listened without challenging her!
The first chime sounded and he jumped from his bed, anxious to make up for his unthinkable wrongs. He chuted the day before's coveralls, urined, washed, cleaned his teeth, evened up his hair, put on fresh coveralls, made his bed. He went to the dining hall and claimed his cake and tea, sat among other members and wanted to help them, to give them something, to demonstrate that he was loyal and loving, not the sick offender he had been the day before. The member on his left ate the last of his cake. 'Would you like some of mine?' Chip asked. The member looked embarrassed. 'No, of course not,' he said. 'But thanks, you're very kind.'
'No I'm not,' Chip said, but he was glad the member had said he was.
He hurried to the Center and got there eight minutes early. He drew a sample from his own section of the IC box, not somebody else's, and took it into his own microscope; put on his glasses the right way and followed the OMP to the letter. He drew data from Uni respectfully (Forgive my offenses, Uni who knows everything) and fed it new data humbly (Here is exact and truthful information about gene sample NF5049). The section head looked in. 'How's it going?' he asked. 'Very well, Bob.'
'Good.'
At midday he felt worse, though. What about them, those sick ones? Was he to leave them to their sickness, their tobacco, their reduced treatments, their pre-U thoughts? He had no choice. They had bandaged his eyes. There was no way of finding them.
But that wasn't so; there was a way. Snowflake had shown him her face. How many almost-white members, women of her age, could there be in the city? Three? Four? Five? Uni, if Bob RO asked it, could output their namebers in an instant. And when she was found and properly treated, she would give the namebers of some of the others; and they, the namebers of the ones remaining. The whole group could be found and helped within a day or two. The way he had helped Karl.
That stopped him. He had helped Karl and felt guilt—guilt he had clung to for years and years, and now it persisted, a part of him. Oh Jesus Christ and Wei Li Chun, how sick beyond imagining he was! 'Are you all right, brother?' It was the member across the table, an elderly woman. 'Yes,' he said, 'I'm fine,' and smiled and put his cake to his lips.
'You looked so troubled for a second,' she said.
'I'm fine,' he said. 'I thought of something I forgot to do.'
'Ah,' she said.
To help them or not to help them? Which was wrong, which was right? He knew which was wrong: not to help them, to abandon them as if he weren't his brother's keeper at all.
But he wasn't sure that helping them wasn't wrong too, and how could both be wrong?
He worked less zealously in the afternoon, but well and without mistakes, everything done properly. At the end of the day he went back to his room and lay on his back on his bed, the heels of his hands pressing into his shut eyes and making pulsing auroras there. He heard the voices of the sick ones, saw himself taking the sample from the wrong section of the box and cheating the Family of time and energy and equipment. The supper chime sounded but he stayed as he was, too tangled in himself for eating.
Later Peace SK called. 'I'm in the lounge,' she said. 'It's ten of eight. I've been waiting twenty minutes.'
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'll be right down.'
They went to a concert and then to her room.
'What's the matter?' she said.
'I don't know,' he said. 'I've been—upset the last few days.'
She shook her head and plied his slack penis more briskly. 'It doesn't make sense,' she said. 'Didn't you tell your adviser? I told mine.'
'Yes, I did. Look'—he took her hand away—'a whole group of new members came in on sixteen the other day. Why don't you go to the lounge and find somebody else?'
She looked unhappy. 'Well I think I ought to,' she said.
'I do too,' he said. 'Go ahead.'
'It just doesn't make any sense,' she said, getting up from the bed.
He dressed and went back to his room and undressed again. He thought he would have trouble falling asleep but he didn't.
On Sunday he felt even worse. He began to hope that Bob would call, would see that he wasn't well and draw the truth out of him. That way there would be no guilt or responsibility, only relief. He stayed in his room, watching the phone screen. Someone on the soccer team called; he said he wasn't feeling well.
