and the treatment reduced. And the next one, on the basis of the examination, would be reduced even further. What wonders of feeling would he be feeling in five, in six weeks' time?
That Friday night, a few minutes after the last chime, Snow-flake came into his room. 'Don't mind me,' she said, taking off her coveralls. 'I'm just putting a note in your mouthpiece.'
She got into bed with him and helped him off with his pajamas. Her body to his hands and lips was smooth, pliant, and more arousing than Peace SK's or anyone else's; and his own, as she stroked and kissed and licked it, was more shudderingly reactive than ever before, more strainingly in want. He eased himself into her—deeply, snugly in—and would have driven them both to immediate orgasm, but she slowed him, stopped him, made him draw out and come in again, putting herself into one strange but effective position and then another. For twenty minutes or more they worked and contrived together, keeping as noiseless as they could because of the members beyond the wall and on the floor below.
When they were done and apart she said, 'Well?'
'Well it was top speed, of course,' he said, 'but frankly, from what you said, I expected even more.'
'Patience, brother,' she said. 'You're still an invalid. The time will come when you'll look back on this as the night we shook hands.' He laughed. 'Shh.'
He held her and kissed her. 'What does it say?' he asked. 'The note in my mouthpiece.'
'Sunday night at eleven, the same place as last time.'
'But no bandage.'
'No bandage,' she said.
He would see them all, Lilac and all the others. 'I've been wondering when the next meeting would be,' he said. 'I hear you whooshed through step two like a rocket.'
'Stumbled through it, you mean. I wouldn't have made it at all if not for—' Did she know who King really was? Was it all right to speak of it? 'If not for what?'
'If not for King and Lilac,' he said. 'They came here the night before and prepped me.'
'Well of course,' she said. 'None of us would have made it if not for the capsules and all.'
'I wonder where they get them.'
'I think one of them works in a medicenter.'
'Mm, that would explain it,' he said. She didn't know. Or she knew but didn't know that he knew. Suddenly he was annoyed by the need for carefulness that had come between them.
She sat up. 'Listen,' she said, 'it pains me to say this, but don't forget to carry on as usual with your girlfriend. Tomorrow night, I mean.'
'She's got someone new,' he said. 'You're my girlfriend.'
'No I'm not,' she said. 'Not on Saturday nights anyway. Our advisers would wonder why we took someone from a different house. I've got a nice normal Bob down the hall from me, and you find a nice normal Yin or Mary. But if you give her more than a little quick one I'll break your neck.'
'Tomorrow night I won't even be able to give her that.'
'That's all right,' she said, 'you're still supposed to be recovering.' She looked sternly at him. 'Really,' she said, 'you have to remember not to get too passionate, except with me. And to keep a contented smile in place between the first chime and the last. And to work hard at your assignment but not too hard. It's just as tricky to stay undertreated as it is to get that way.' She lay back down beside him and drew his arm around her. 'Hate,' she said, 'I'd give anything for a smoke now.'
'Is it really so enjoyable?'
'Mm-hmm. Especially at times like this.' 'I'll have to try it.'
They lay talking and caressing each other for a while, and then Snowflake tried to rouse him again—'Nothing ventured, nothing gained,' she said—but everything she did proved unavailing. She left around twelve or so. 'Sunday at eleven,' she said by the door. 'Congratulations.'
Saturday evening in the lounge Chip met a member named Mary KK whose boyfriend had been transferred to Can earlier in the week. The birth-year part of her nameber was 38, making her twenty-four.
They went to a pre-Marxmas sing in Equality Park. As they sat waiting for the amphitheater to fill, Chip looked at Mary closely. Her chin was sharp but otherwise she was normal: tan skin, upslanted brown eyes, clipped black hair, yellow coveralls on her slim spare frame. One of her toenails, half covered by sandal strap, was discolored a bluish purple. She sat smiling, watching the opposite side of the amphitheater.
'Where are you from?' he asked her.
'Rus,' she said.
'What's your classification?'
'One-forty B.'
'What's that?'
'Ophthalmologic technician.'
'What do you do?'
She turned to him. 'I attach lenses,' she said. 'In the children's section.'
'Do you enjoy it?'
'Of course.' She looked uncertainly at him. 'Why are you asking me so many questions?' she asked. 'And why are you looking at me so—as if you've never seen a member before?'
'I've never seen you before,' he said. 'I want to know you.'
'I'm no different from any other member,' she said. 'There's nothing unusual about me.'
'Your chin is a little sharper than normal.'
She drew back, looking hurt and confused.
'I didn't mean to hurt you,' he said. 'I just meant to point out that there is something unusual about you, even if it isn't something important.'
She looked searchingly at him, then looked away, at the opposite side of the amphitheater again. She shook her head. 'I don't understand you,' she said.
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I was sick until last Tuesday, But my adviser took me to Medicenter Main and they fixed me up fine. I'm getting better now. Don't worry.'
'Well that's good,' she said. After a moment she turned and smiled cheerfully at him. 'I forgive you,' she said.
'Thank you,' he said, suddenly feeling sad for her.
She looked away again. 'I hope we sing 'The Freeing of the Masses,'' she said.
'We will,' he said.
'I love it,' she said, and smiling, began to hum it.
He kept looking at her, trying to do so in a normal-seeming way. What she had said was true: she was no different from any other member. What did a sharp chin or a discolored toenail signify? She was exactly the same as every Mary and Anna and Peace and Yin who had ever been his girlfriend: humble and good, helpful and hard- working. Yet she made him feel sad. Why? And could all the others have done so, had he looked at them as closely as he was looking at her, had he listened as closely to what they said?
He looked at the members on the other side of him, at the scores in the tiers below, the scores in the tiers above. They were all like Mary KK, all smiling and ready to sing their favorite Marxmas songs, and all saddening; everyone in the amphitheater, the hundreds, the thousands, the tens of thousands. Their faces lined the mammoth bowl like tan beads strung away in immeasurable close-laid ovals.
Spotlights struck the gold cross and red sickle at the bowl's center. Four familiar trumpet notes blasted, and everybody sang: One mighty Family, A single perfect breed, Free of all selfishness, Aggressiveness and greed; Each member giving all he has to give And get-ting all he needs to live!
But they weren't a mighty Family, he thought. They were a weak Family, a saddening and pitiable one, dulled by chemicals and dehumanized by bracelets. It was Uni that was mighty.
One mighty Family, A single noble race, Sending its sons and daughters Bravely into space...
He sang the words automatically, thinking that Lilac had been right: reduced treatments brought new unhappiness.
Sunday night at eleven he met Snowflake between the buildings on Lower Christ Plaza. He held her and kissed her gratefully, glad of her sexuality and humor and pale skin and bitter tobacco taste—all the things that were she and nobody else, 'Christ and Wei, I'm glad to see you,' he said.
