he had left.
An orange-coveralled member came and waited by the scanner.
He turned back to the waiting room. It was nearly empty. Two members who had been on the plane with him, a woman holding a sleeping infant and a man carrying two kits, put their wrists and the infant's wrist to the scanner at the door to the carport—yes, it greened three times—and went out. An orange-coveralled member, on his knees by a water fountain, unscrewed a plate at its base; another pushed a floor polisher to the side of the waiting room, touched a scanner—yes—and pushed the polisher out through a swing-door.
He thought for a moment, watching the member working at the fountain, and then he crossed the waiting room, touched the carport-door scanner—yes—and went out. A car for '71334 was waiting, three members in it. He touched the scanner-yes—and got into the car, apologizing to the members for having kept them waiting. The door closed and the car started. He sat with his kit in his lap, thinking.
When he got to his parents' apartment he went in quietly, shaved, and then woke them. They were pleased, even happy, to see him.
The three of them talked and ate breakfast and talked more. They claimed a call to Peace, in Eur, and it was granted; they talked with her and her Karl, her ten-year-old Bob and her eight-year-old Yin. Then, at his suggestion, they went to the Museum of the Family's Achievements.
After lunch he slept for three hours and then they railed to the Amusement Gardens. His father joined a volleyball game, and he and his mother sat on a bench and watched. 'Are you sick again?' she asked him.
He looked at her. 'No,' he said. 'Of course not. I'm fine.'
She looked closely at him. She was fifty-seven now, gray-haired, her tan skin wrinkled. 'You've been thinking about something,' she said. 'All day.'
'I'm well,' he said. 'Please. You're my mother; believe me.'
She looked into his eyes with concern.
'I'm well,' he said.
After a moment she said, 'All right, Chip.'
Love for her suddenly filled him; love, and gratitude, and a boylike feeling of oneness with her. He clasped her shoulder and kissed her cheek. 'I love you, Suzu,' he said.
She laughed. 'Christ and Wei,' she said, 'what a memory you have!'
'That's because I'm healthy,' he said. 'Remember that, will you? I'm healthy and happy. I want you to remember that.'
'Why?'
'Because,' he said.
He told them that his plane left at eight. 'We'll say good-by at the carport,' he said. 'The airport will be too crowded.'
His father wanted to come along anyway, but his mother said no, they would stay in '334; she was tired.
At seven-thirty he kissed them good-by—his father and then his mother, saying in her ear, 'Remember'—and got on line for a car to the '71330 airport. The scanner, when he touched it, said yes.
The waiting room was even more crowded than he had hoped it would be. Members in white and yellow and pale blue walked and stood and sat and waited in line, some with kits and some without. A few members in orange moved among them.
He looked at the signboard; the 8:20 flight for '14510 would load from lane two. Members were in line there, and beyond the glass, a plane was swinging into place against a rising escalator. Its door opened and a member came out, another behind him.
Chip made his way through the crowd to the swing-door at the side of the room, false-touched its scanner, and pushed through: into a depot area where crates and cartons stood ranked under white light, like Uni's memory banks. He un-slung his kit and jammed it between a carton and the wall.
He walked ahead normally. A cart of steel containers crossed his path, pushed by an orange-coveralled member who glanced at him and nodded.
He nodded back, kept walking, and watched the member push the cart out through a large open portal onto the floodlit field.
He went in the direction from which the member had come, into an area where members in orange were putting steel containers on the conveyor of a washing machine and filling other containers with coke and steaming tea from the taps of giant drums. He kept walking.
He false-touched a scanner and went into a room where coveralls, ordinary ones, hung on hooks, and two members were taking off orange ones. 'Hello,' he said.
'Hello,' they both said.
He went to a closet door and slid it open; a floor polisher and bottles of green liquid were inside. 'Where are the cuvs?' he asked.
'In there,' one of the members said, nodding at another closet.
He went to it and opened it. Orange coveralls were on shelves; orange toeguards, pairs of heavy orange gloves.
'Where did you come from?' the member asked.
'RUS50937,' he said, taking a pair of coveralls and a pair of toeguards. 'We kept the cuvs in there.'
'They're supposed to be in there' the member said, closing white coveralls.
'I've been in Rus,' the other member, a woman, said. 'I had two assignments there; first four years and then three years.'
He took his time putting on the toeguards, finishing as the two members chuted their orange coveralls and went out.
He pulled the orange coveralls on over his white ones and closed them all the way to his throat. They were heavier than ordinary coveralls and had extra pockets.
He looked in other closets, found a wrench and a good-sized piece of yellow paplon.
He went back to where he had left his kit, got it out, and wrapped the paplon around it. The swing-door bumped him.
'Sorry,' a member said, coming in. 'Did I hurt you?'
'No,' he said, holding the wrapped kit.
The orange-coveralled member went on.
He waited for a moment, watching him, and then he tucked the kit under his left arm and got the wrench from his pocket. He gripped it in his right hand, in a way that he hoped looked natural.
He followed after the member, then turned and went to the portal that opened onto the field.
The escalator leaning against the flank of the lane-two plane was empty. A cart, probably the one he had seen pushed out, stood at the foot of it, beside the scanner.
Another escalator was sinking into the ground, and the plane it had served was on its way toward the runways. There was an 8:10 flight to Chi, he recalled.
He crouched on one knee, put his kit and the wrench down on concrete, and pretended to have trouble with his toeguard. Everyone in the waiting room would be watching the plane for Chi when it lifted; that was when he would go onto the escalator. Orange legs rustled past him, a member walking toward the hangars. He took off his toeguard and put it back on, watching the plane pivot...
It raced forward. He gathered his kit and the wrench, stood up, and walked normally. The brightness of the floodlights unnerved him, but he told himself that no one was watching him, everyone was watching the plane. He walked to the escalator, false-touched the scanner—the cart beside it helped, justifying his awkwardness—and stepped onto the upgoing stairs. He clutched his paplon-wrapped kit and the damp-handled wrench as he rose quickly toward the open plane door. He stepped off the escalator and into the plane.
Two members in orange were busy at the dispensers. They looked at him and he nodded. They nodded back. He went down the aisle toward the bathroom.
He went into the bathroom, leaving the door open, and put his kit on the floor. He turned to a sink, worked its faucets, and tapped them with the wrench. He got down on his knees and tapped the drainpipe. He opened the jaws of the wrench and put them around the pipe.
He heard the escalator stop, and then start again. He leaned over and looked out the door. The members
