placidly for the silken contacts to close somewhere in the depths of the earth. Cassiday had never been a violent man. He was calm. He knew how to wait.
The machine told him that Beryl Fraser Cassiday Mellon lived in Boston Urban District. The machine told him that Lureen Holstein Cassiday lived in New York Urban District. The machine told him that Mirabel Gunryk Cassiday Milman Reed lived in San Francisco Urban District.
The names awakened memories: warmth of flesh, scent of hair, touch of hand, sound of voice. Whispers of passion. Snarls of contempt. Gasps of love.
Cassiday, restored to life, went to see his ex-wives.
We find one now:
Beryl Fraser Cassiday Mellon’s eyes were milky in the pupil, greenish where they should have been white. She had lost weight in the last ten years, and now her face was parchment stretched over bone, an eroded face, the cheekbones pressing from within against the taut skin and likely to snap through at any moment. Cassiday had been married to her for sixteen months when he was twenty-four. They had separated after she insisted on taking the Sterility Pledge. He had not particularly wanted children, but he was offended by her maneuver all the same. Now she lay in a soothing cradle of webfoam, trying to smile at him without cracking her lips.
“They said you’d been killed,” she told him.
“I escaped. How have you been, Beryl?”
“You can see that. I’m taking the cure.”
“Cure?”
“I was a triline addict. Can’t you see? My eyes, my face? It melted me away. But it was peaceful. Like disconnecting your soul. Only it would have killed me, another year of it. Now I’m on the cure. They tapered me off last month. They’re building up my system with prosthetics. I’m full of plastic now. But I’ll live.”
“You’ve remarried?” Cassiday asked.
“He split long ago. I’ve been alone five years. Just me and the triline. But now I’m off that stuff.” Beryl blinked, laboriously. “You look so relaxed, Dick. But you always were. So calm, so sure of yourself.
He touched the withered claw. He felt the warmth coming from her, the need for love. Great throbbing waves came galloping into him, low-frequency pulses of yearning that filtered through him and went booming onward to the watchers far away.
“You once loved me,” Beryl said. “Then we were both silly. Love me again. Help me get back on my feet. I need your strength.”
“Of course I’ll help you,” Cassiday said.
He left her apartment and purchased three cubes of triline. Returning, he activated one of them and pressed it into Beryl’s hand. The green-and-milky eyes roiled in terror.
“No,” she whimpered.
The pain flooding from her shattered soul was exquisite in its intensity. Cassiday accepted the full flood of it. Then she clenched her fist, and the drug entered her metabolism, and she grew peaceful once more.
Observe the next one:
The annunciator said, “Mr. Cassiday is here.”
“Let him enter,” replied Mirabel Gunryk Cassiday Milman Reed.
The door-sphincter irised open and Cassiday stepped through, into onyx and marble splendor. Beams of auburn palisander formed a polished wooden framework on which Mirabel lay, and it was obvious that she reveled in the sensation of hard wood against plump flesh. A cascade of crystal-colored hair tumbled to her shoulders. She had been Cassiday’s for eight months in 2346, and she had been a slender, timid girl then, but now he could barely detect the outlines of that girl in this pampered mound.
“You’ve married well,” he observed.
“Third time lucky,” Mirabel said. “Sit down? Drink? Shall I adjust the environment?”
“It’s fine.” He remained standing. “You always wanted a mansion, Mirabel. My most intellectual wife, you were, but you had this love of comfort. You’re comfortable now.”
“Very.”
“Happy?”
“I’m comfortable,” Mirabel said. “I don’t read much any more, but I’m comfortable.”
Cassiday noticed what seemed to be a blanket crumpled in her lap—purple with golden threads, soft, idle, clinging close. It had several eyes. Mirabel kept her hands spread out over it.
“From Ganymede?” he asked. “A pet?”
“Yes. My husband bought it for me last year. It’s very precious to me.”
“Very precious to anybody. I understand they’re expensive.”
“But lovable,” said Mirabel. “Almost human. Quite devoted. I suppose you’ll think I’m silly, but it’s the most important thing in my life now. More than my husband, even. I love it, you see. I’m accustomed to having others love me, but there aren’t many things that I’ve been able to love.”
“May I see it?” Cassiday said mildly.
“Be careful.”
“Certainly.” He gathered up the Ganymedean creature. Its texture was extraordinary, the softest he had ever encountered. Something fluttered apprehensively within the flat body of the animal. Cassiday detected a parallel wariness coming from Mirabel as he handled her pet. He stroked the creature. It throbbed appreciatively. Bands of iridescence shimmered as it contracted in his hands.
She said, “What are you doing now, Dick? Still working for the spaceline?”
He ignored the question. “Tell me the line from Shakespeare Mirabel. About the flies. The flies and wanton boys.”
Furrows sprouted in her pale brow. “It’s from
“That’s the one,” Cassiday said. His big hands knotted quickly about the blanket-like being from Ganymede. It turned a dull gray, and reedy fibres popped from its ruptured surface. Cassiday dropped it to the floor. The surge of horror and pain and loss that welled from Mirabel nearly stunned him, but he accepted it and transmitted it.
“Flies,” he explained. “Wanton boys. My sport, Mirabel. I’m a god now, did you know that?” His voice was calm and cheerful. “Good-bye. Thank you.”
One more awaits the visit:
Lureen Holstein Cassiday, who was thirty-one years old, dark-haired, large-eyed and seven months pregnant, was the only one of his wives who had not remarried. Her room in New York was small and austere. She had been a chubby girl when she had been Cassiday’s two-month wife five years ago, and she was even more chubby now, but how much of the access of new meat was the result of the pregnancy Cassiday did not know.
“Will you marry now?” he asked.
Smiling, she shook her head. “I’ve got money, and I value my independence. I wouldn’t let myself get into another deal like the one we had. Not with anyone.”
“And the baby? You’ll have it?”
She nodded savagely. “I worked hard to get it! You think it’s easy? Two years of inseminations! A fortune in fees! Machines poking around in me—all the fertility boosters—oh no, you’ve got the picture wrong. This isn’t an unwanted baby. This is a baby I sweated to have.”
“That’s interesting,” said Cassiday. “I visited Mirabel and Beryl, too, and they each had their babies, too. Of sorts. Mirabel had a little beast from Ganymede. Beryl had a triline addiction that she was very proud of shaking.
