The Happy Unfortunate

from laughing at me, but you're sticking to it. I don't want any of it, hear me? Get away.'

She stepped back a pace. 'You ugly, clumsy clown. You ape!' Tears began to spoil the flawless mask of her face. Blinded with anger, he grabbed roughly for her arm, but she broke away and dashed back inside.

She was trying to collect me, he thought. Her hobby: interesting dates. She wanted to add me to her collection. An Experience. Calmly he walked to the end of the veranda and stared off into the night, choking his rage. He watched the moon making its dead ride across the sky, and stared at the sprinkling of stars. The night was empty and cold, he thought, finally. But not more so than I.

He turned and looked back through the half-opened window. He saw a girl who looked almost like her, but was not tall enough and wore a different dress. Then he spotted her. She was dancing with one of the Conforms, a frail-looking man a few inches shorter than she, with regular, handsome features. She laughed at some sly joke, and he laughed with her.

Rolf watched the moon for a moment more, thinking of Laney's warning. They just want to make fun of you. Look at the big ape, they'll say.

He knew he had to get out of there immediately. He was a Spacer, and they were Earthers, and he scorned them for being contemptuous little dolls, and they laughed at him for being a hulking ape. He was not a member of their species; he was not part of their world.

He went inside. Kal Quinton came rushing up to him.

'I'm going,' Rolf said.

'What? You don't mean that,' the little man said. 'Why, the party's scarcely gotten under way, and there are dozens of people who want to meet you. And you'll miss the big show if you don't stay.'

'I've already seen the big show,' Rolf told him. 'I want out. Now.'

'You can't leave now,' Quinton said. Rolf thought he saw tears in the corners of the little man's eyes. 'Please don't leave. I've told everyone you'd be here—you'll disgrace me.'

'What do I care? Let me out of here.' Rolf started to move toward the door. Quinton attempted to push him back.

'Just a minute, Rolf. Please!'

'I have to get out,' he said. He knocked Quinton out of his way with a backhand swipe of his arm and dashed down the hall frantically, looking for the elevator.

Laney and Kanaday were sitting up waiting for him when he got back, early in the morning. He slung himself into a pneumochair and unsealed his boots, releasing his cramped, tired feet.

'Well,' Laney asked. 'How was the party?'

'You have fun among the Earthers, Rolf?'

He said nothing.

'It couldn't have been that bad,' Laney said.

Rolf looked up at her. 'I'm leaving space. I'm going to go to a surgeon and have him turn me into an Earther. I hate this filthy life!'

'He's drunk,' Kanaday said.

'No, I'm not drunk,' Rolf retorted. 'I don't want to be an ape any more.'

'Is that what you are? If you're an ape, what are they to you? Monkeys?' Kanaday laughed harshly.

'Are they really so wonderful?' Laney asked. 'Does the life appeal to you so much that you'll give up space for it? Do you admire the Earthers so much?'

She's got me, Rolf thought. I hate Spacertown, but will I like Yawk any better? Do I really want to become one of those little puppets? But there's nothing left in space for me. At least the Earthers are happy.

I wish she wouldn't look at me that way. 'Leave me alone,' he snarled. 'I'll do whatever I want to do.' Laney was staring at him, trying to poke behind his mask of anger. He looked at her wide shoulders, her muscular frame, her unbeautiful hair and rugged face, and compared it with Jonne's clinging grace, her flowing gold hair.

He picked up his boots and stumped up to bed.

The surgeon's name was Goldring, and he was a wiry, intense man who had prevailed on one of his colleagues to give him a tiny slit of a mouth. He sat behind a shining plastiline desk, waiting patiently until Rolf finished talking.

'It can't be done,' he said at last. 'Plastic surgeons can do almost anything, but I can't turn you into an Earther. It's not just a matter of chopping eight or ten inches out of your legs; I'd have to alter your entire bone structure or you'd be a hideous misproportioned monstrosity. And it can't be done. I can't build you a whole new body from scratch, and if I could do it you wouldn't be able to afford it.'

Rolf stamped his foot impatiently. 'You're the third surgeon who's given me the same line. What is this—a conspiracy? I see what you can do. If you can graft a third arm onto somebody, you can turn me into an Earther.'

'Please, Mr. Dekker. I've told you I can't. But I don't understand why you want such a change. Hardly a week goes by without some Yawk boy coming to me and asking to be turned into a Spacer, and I have to refuse him for the same reasons I'm refusing you! That's the usual course of events—the romantic Earther boy wanting to go to space, and not being able to.'

An idea hit Rolf. 'Was one of them Kal Quinton?'

'I'm sorry, Mr. Dekker. I just can't divulge any such information.'

Rolf shot his arm across the desk and grasped the surgeon by the throat. 'Answer me!'

'Yes,' the surgeon gasped. 'Quinton asked me for such an operation. Almost everyone wants one.'

'And you can't do it?' Rolf asked.

'Of course not. I've told you: the amount of work needed to turn Earther into Spacer or Spacer into Earther is inconceivable. It'll never be done.'

'I guess that's definite, then,' Rolf said, slumping a little in disappointment. 'But there's nothing to prevent you from giving me a new face—from taking away this face and replacing it with something people can look at without shuddering.'

'I don't understand you, Mr. Dekker,' the surgeon said.

'I know that! Can't you see it—I'm ugly! Why? Why should I look this way?'

'Please calm down, Mr. Dekker. You don't seem to realize that you're a perfectly normal-looking Spacer. You were bred to look this way. It's your genetic heritage. Space is not a thing for everyone; only men with extraordinary bone structure can withstand acceleration. The first men were carefully selected and bred. You see the result of five centuries of this sort of breeding. The sturdy, heavy-boned Spacers— you, Mr. Dekker, and your friends—are the only ones who are fit to travel in space. The others, the weaklings like myself, the little people, resort to plastic surgery to compensate for their deficiency. For a while the trend was to have everyone conform to a certain standard of beauty; if we couldn't be strong, we could at least be handsome. Lately a new theory of individualism has sprung up, and now we strive for original forms in our bodies. This is all because size and strength has been bred out of us and given to you.'

'I know all this,' Rolf said. 'Why can't you—'

'Why can't I peel away your natural face and make you look like an Earther? There's no reason why; it would be a simple operation. But who would you fool? Why can't you be grateful for what you are? You can go to Mars, while we can merely look at it. If I gave you a new face, it would cut you off from both sides. The Earthers would still know you were a Spacer, and I'm sure the other Spacers would immediately cease to associate with you.'

'Who are you to say? You're not supposed to pass judgment on whether an operation should be performed, or you wouldn't pull out people's eyes and stick diamonds in!'

'It's not that, Mr. Dekker.' The surgeon folded and unfolded his hands in impatience. 'You must realize that you are what you are. Your appearance is a social norm, and for acceptance in your social environment you must continue to appear, well, perhaps, shall I say apelike?'

It was as bad a word as the surgeon could have chosen.

'Ape! Ape, am I! I'll show you who's an ape!' Rolf yelled, all the accumulated frustration of the last two days suddenly bursting loose. He leaped up and overturned the desk. Dr. Goldring hastily jumped backwards as the heavy desk crashed to the floor. A startled nurse dashed into the office, saw the situation, and immediately ran out.

'Give me your instruments! I'll operate on myself!' He knocked Goldring against the wall, pulled down a