'That scares me,' Deirdre said.
'Me too,' Chip said.
She kept stroking his back. 'It took me two months to cool down,' she said.
'Is that how you thought of it?' he said. 'Cooling down?'
'Yes,' she said. 'And growing up. Facing reality.'
'So why does it feel like giving in?' Chip said.
'Lie down,' Deirdre said.
He put out his cigarette, put the ashtray on the night table, and turned to her, lying down. They held each other and kissed. 'Truly,' she said. 'It's best for everybody, in the long run. We'll improve things gradually, working in our own councils.'
They kissed and caressed each other, and then they kicked down the sheet and she threw her leg over Chip's hip and his hardness slipped easily into her.
He was sitting in the library one morning when a hand took his shoulder. He looked around, startled, and Wei was there. He bent, pushing Chip aside, and put his face down to the viewer hood.
After a moment he said, 'Well, you've gone to the right man.' He kept his face at the hood another moment, and then stood up and let go of Chip's shoulder and smiled at him. 'Read Liebman too,' he said. 'And Okida and Marcuse. I'll make a list of titles and give it to you in the garden this evening. Will you be there?'
Chip nodded.
His days fell into a routine: mornings at the library, afternoons at the Council. He studied construction methods and environment planning; examined factory flow charts and circulation patterns of residential buildings. Madhir and Sylvie showed him drawings of buildings under construction and buildings planned for the future, of cities as they existed and (plastic overlay) cities as they might some day be modified. He was the eighth member of the Council; of the other seven, three were inclined to challenge Uni's designs and change them, and four, including Madhir, were inclined to accept them without question. Formal meetings were held on Friday afternoons; at other times seldom more than four or five of the members were in the offices. Once only Chip and Gri-gri were there, and they wound up locked together on Madhir's sofa.
After Council, Chip used the gym and the pool. He ate with Deirdre and Dover and Dover's woman-of-the- day and whoever else joined them—sometimes Karl, on the Transportation Council and resigned to wine. One day in February, Chip asked Dover if it was possible to get in touch with whoever had replaced him on Liberty and find out if Lilac and Jan were all right and whether Julia was providing for them as she had said she would. 'Sure,' Dover said. 'No problem at all.'
'Would you do it then?' Chip said. 'I'd appreciate it.'
A few days later Dover found Chip in the library. 'All's well,' he said. 'Lilac is staying home and buying food and paying rent, so Julia must be coming through.'
'Thanks, Dover,' Chip said. 'I was worried.'
'The man there'll keep an eye on her,' Dover said. 'If she needs anything, money can come in the mail.'
'That's fine,' Chip said. 'Wei told me.' He smiled. 'Poor Julia,' he said, 'supporting all those families when it isn't really necessary. If she knew she'd have a fit.'
Dover smiled. 'She would,' he said. 'Of course, everyone who set out didn't get here, so in some cases it is necessary.'
'That's right,' Chip said. 'I wasn't thinking.'
'See you at lunch,' Dover said. 'Right,' Chip said. 'Thanks.'
Dover went, and Chip turned to the viewer and bent his face to the hood. He put his finger on the next-page button and, after a moment, pressed it.
He began to speak up at Council meetings and to ask fewer questions at Wei's discussions. A petition was circulated for the reduction of cake days to one a month; he hesitated but signed it. He went from Deirdre to Blackie to Nina and back to Deirdre; listened in the smaller lounges to sex gossip and jokes about High Council members; followed crazes for paper-airplane making and speaking in pre-U languages ('Francais' was pronounced 'Fransay,' he learned).
One morning he woke up early and went to the gym. Wei was there, jumping astride and swinging dumbbells, shining with sweat, slab-muscled, slim-hipped; in a black supporter and something white tied around his neck. 'Another early bird, good morning,' he said, jumping his legs out and in, out and in, swinging the dumbbells out and together over his white-wisped head.
'Good morning,' Chip said. He went to the side of the gym and took off his robe and hung it on a hook. Another robe, blue, hung a few hooks away.
'You weren't at the discussion last night,' Wei said.
Chip turned. 'There was a party,' he said, toeing off his sandals. 'Patya's birthday.'
'It's all right,' Wei said, jumping, swinging the dumbbells. 'I just mentioned it.'
Chip walked onto a mat and began trotting in place. The white thing around Wei's neck was a band of silk, tightly knotted.
Wei stopped jumping and tossed down the dumbbells and took a towel from one of the parallel bars. 'Madhir's afraid you're going to be a radical,' he said, smiling.
'He doesn't know the half of it,' Chip said.
Wei watched him, still smiling, wiping the towel over his big-muscled shoulders and under his arms.
'Do you work out every morning?' Chip asked.
'No, only once or twice a week,' Wei said. 'I'm not athletic by nature.' He rubbed the towel behind him.
Chip stopped trotting. 'Wei, there's something I'd like to speak to you about,' he said.
'Yes?' Wei said. 'What is it?'
Chip took a step toward him. 'When I first came here,' he said, 'and we had lunch together—'
'Yes?' Wei said.
Chip cleared his throat and said, 'You said that if I wanted to I could have my eye replaced. Rosen said so too.'
'Yes, of course,' Wei said. 'Do you want to have it done?'
Chip looked at him uncertainly. 'I don't know, it seems like such—vanity,' he said. 'But I've always been aware of it— '
'It's not vanity to correct a flaw,' Wei said. 'It's negligence not to.'
'Can't I get a lens put on?' Chip said. 'A brown lens?'
'Yes, you can,' Wei said, 'if you want to cover it and not correct it.'
Chip looked away and then back at him. 'All right,' he said, 'I'd like to do it, have it done.'
'Good,' Wei said, and smiled. 'I've had eye changes twice,' he said. 'There's blurriness for a few days, that's all. Go down to the medicenter this morning. Ill tell Rosen to do it himself, as soon as possible.'
'Thank you,' Chip said.
Wei put his towel around his white-banded neck, turned to the parallel bars, and lifted himself straight- armed onto them. 'Keep quiet about it,' he said, hand-walking between the bars, 'or the children will start pestering you.'
It was done, and he looked in his mirror and both his eyes were brown. He smiled, and stepped back, and stepped close again. He looked at himself from one side and the other, smiling.
When he had dressed he looked again.
Deirdre, in the lounge, said, 'It's a tremendous improvement! You look wonderful! Karl, Gri-gri, look at Chip's eye!'
Members helped them into heavy green coats, thickly quilted and hooded. They closed them and put on thick green gloves, and a member pulled open the door. The two of them, Wei and Chip, went in.
They walked together along an aisle between steel walls of memory banks, their breath clouding from their nostrils.
Wei spoke of the banks' internal temperature and of the weight and number of them. They turned into a narrower aisle where the steel walls stretched ahead of them convergingly to a faraway crosswall.
'I was in here when I was a child,' Chip said.
'Dover told me,' Wei said.
'It frightened me then,' Chip said. 'But it has a kind of—majesty to it; the order and precision...'
