Fugitives of Chaos

senate and left in peace by the spies of Caesar. Un-less you want to talk about the plays we read, also? All the Shakespeare comedies end in mass marriages. So don't tell me men don't think about marriage. What is the first thing Romeo and Juliet did?'

'Achilles chose a short and glorious life rather than a long one. He was a hero.'

Victor said in a saturnine voice, 'Among all your heroes and demigods, Amelia, you seem to forget that Odysseus was doing nothing but trying to get home to his wife and kid, and Aeneas was trying to find a new home for himself and his people. And they were men, heroes, some would say, more heroic than Achilles, by a long shot. The whole poem was about nothing but his lack of self-control.'

'So what is your goal in life, really, Victor?'

'All living organisms desire to reproduce. It is programmed into us at a fundamental level. Likewise, thoughts form 'memes' or self-replicating mental viruses. They desire to be passed on also. A stable environment, a family, in fact, is the only way to pass one's memes and genes along.'

'That sounds sooo romantic. A robot factory manufacturing another robot factory.'

'What is your goal?'

'I have found my calling in life. It is to spend as much time in a Jacuzzi as possible. Like Socrates, I want to live a life of reflection and virtue. I just want to be warm and wet while I am doing it.'

'Very Epicurean of you. You have another two days of such a life. I assume you have thought beyond that point?'

Actually, I hadn't. Why does Victor always make me feel so stupid?

'Two days… ?' I said.

'Well,' he said sardonically, 'this trip is a reckless expense, and we are almost drained of the absurd amount of money Mr. ap Cymru gave you. I did not know it at the time when Vanity picked this boat to hitch a hike on; I would have objected. We should have found a tramp steamer.'

'What's wrong with this boat?'

'Nothing, were we not paupers. I am sure our enemies have not found us simply because their brains would not accept the idea that the first thing we would do with the only real money we have ever had in our lives is blow it all on one pleasure cruise.'

'Are we out of money? Nearly out or all out?'

Victor let out a loud laugh when I asked that. He actually slapped his knee and laughed.

I said, 'What is so funny!'

Victor pressed his lips together to smother his laugh, but his eyes still twinkled. 'Yes, Amelia, we are nearly out of money.'

'Was I supposed to know that? You are the one keeping the envelope in your jacket!'

'Actually, I altered my skin to make a watertight pocket, like a marsupial. I am keeping the envelope in my pouch. And yes, you were supposed to know that. I assumed you could do math.'

'What are we going to do?' I asked, eyes wide.

He smiled. 'Get jobs.'

'Jobs?'

'I am afraid that something as glamorous as the film actress career Vanity has her heart set on might attract the attention of the enemy. It is, of course, her risk to take. I was experimenting last night with using a molecular sieve method to collect gold out of seawater. That might tide us over until I can find a more promising career.'

I said, 'I don't think you can own gold in America. Franklin Roosevelt took it all away, or something.'

'Hmph. And it advertises itself as a free country. It is supposed to be this great paragon of the free market. The subjects there cannot own money?'

'They have paper money.'

'An oxymoron. Paper is IOUs never intended to be repaid. Only metal is money. Well, I will have to find something else to do.'

'Like what?'

'Dig ditches. Draw water. Chop wood. Tote barges. Lift bales. You know: work. The capacity to move mass over distance. Work.'

'Hmmm… Doesn't sound very appealing. Is there any job I can get that does not require moving out of the Jacuzzi?'

'I can think of two, playwright and Playboy model, depending on whether you are willing to have people photograph you in the water as you bathe. Come on, Amelia. We are not really British. We do not have to look down our noses at honest labor.'

'Digging ditches is not my idea of a bright future.'

'Those who work are free. There are only three categories of nonproductive people: babies, beggars, robbers.'

'I still do not want to dig ditches.'

'What do you want, then?'

'I want to be the first girl on Mars.'

'Without moving out of the Jacuzzi? That will be a feat'