This Perfect Day Part 10

"Sunday night at eleven, the same place as last time."

"But no bandage."

"No bandage," she said.

He would see them all, Lilac and all the others. "I've been wondering when the next meeting would be," he said.

"I hear you whooshed through step two like a rocket."

"Stumbled through it, you mean. I wouldn't have made it at all if not for-" Did she know who King really was? Was it all right to speak of it?

"If not for what?"

"If not for King and Lilac," he said. "They came here the night before and prepped me."

"Well of course," she said. "None of us would have made it if not for the capsules and all."

"I wonder where they get them."

"I think one of them works in a medicenter."

"Mm, that would explain it," he said. She didn't know. Or she knew but didn't know that he knew. Suddenly he was annoyed by the need for carefulness that had come between them.

She sat up. "Listen," she said, "it pains me to say this, but don't forget to carry on as usual with your girlfriend. Tomorrow night, I mean."

"She's got someone new," he said. "You're my girlfriend."

"No I'm not," she said. "Not on Sat.u.r.day nights anyway. Our advisers would wonder why we took someone from a different house. I've got a nice normal Bob down the hall from me, and you find a nice normal Yin or Mary. But if you give her more than a little quick one I'll break your neck."

"Tomorrow night I won't even be able to give her that."

"That's all right," she said, "you're still supposed to be recovering." She looked sternly at him. "Really," she said, "you have to remember not to get too pa.s.sionate, except with me. And to keep a contented smile in place between the first chime and the last. And to work hard at your a.s.signment but not too hard. It's just as tricky to stay undertreated as it is to get that way." She lay back down beside him and drew his arm around her. "Hate," she said, "I'd give anything for a smoke now."

"Is it really so enjoyable?"

"Mm-hmm. Especially at times like this."

"I'll have to try it."

They lay talking and caressing each other for a while, and then Snowflake tried to rouse him again-"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," she said-but everything she did proved unavailing. She left around twelve or so. "Sunday at eleven," she said by the door. "Congratulations."

Sat.u.r.day evening in the lounge Chip met a member named Mary KK whose boyfriend had been transferred to Can earlier in the week. The birth-year part of her nameber was 38, making her twenty-four.

They went to a pre-Marxmas sing in Equality Park. As they sat waiting for the amphitheater to fill, Chip looked at Mary closely. Her chin was sharp but otherwise she was normal: tan skin, upslanted brown eyes, clipped black hair, yellow coveralls on her slim spare frame. One of her toenails, half covered by sandal strap, was discolored a bluish purple. She sat smiling, watching the opposite side of the amphitheater.

"Where are you from?" he asked her.

"Rus," she said.

"What's your cla.s.sification?"

"One-forty B."

"What's that?"

"Ophthalmologic technician."

"What do you do?"

She turned to him. "I attach lenses," she said. "In the children's section."

"Do you enjoy it?"

"Of course." She looked uncertainly at him. "Why are you asking me so many questions?" she asked. "And why are you looking at me so-as if you've never seen a member before?"

"I've never seen you before," he said. "I want to know you."

"I'm no different from any other member," she said. "There's nothing unusual about me."

"Your chin is a little sharper than normal."

She drew back, looking hurt and confused.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said. "I just meant to point out that there is something unusual about you, even if it isn't something important."

She looked searchingly at him, then looked away, at the opposite side of the amphitheater again. She shook her head. "I don't understand you," she said.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I was sick until last Tuesday. But my adviser took me to Medicenter Main and they fixed me up fine. I'm getting better now. Don't worry."

"Well that's good," she said. After a moment she turned and smiled cheerfully at him. "I forgive you," she said.

"Thank you," he said, suddenly feeling sad for her.

She looked away again. "I hope we sing 'The Freeing of the Ma.s.ses,'" she said.

"We will," he said.

"I love it," she said, and smiling, began to hum it.

He kept looking at her, trying to do so in a normal-seeming way. What she had said was true: she was no different from any other member. What did a sharp chin or a discolored toenail signify? She was exactly the same as every Mary and Anna and Peace and Yin who had ever been his girlfriend: humble and good, helpful and hard-working. Yet she made him feel sad. Why? And could all the others have done so, had he looked at them as closely as he was looking at her, had he listened as closely to what they said?

He looked at the members on the other side of him, at the scores in the tiers below, the scores in the tiers above. They were all like Mary KK, all smiling and ready to sing their favorite Marxmas songs, and all saddening; everyone in the amphitheater, the hundreds, the thousands, the tens of thousands. Their faces lined the mammoth bowl like tan beads strung away in immeasurable close-laid ovals.

Spotlights struck the gold cross and red sickle at the bowl's center. Four familiar trumpet notes blasted, and everybody sang: One mighty Family, A single perfect breed, Free of all selfishness, Aggressiveness and greed; Each member giving all he has to give And get-ting all he needs to live!

But they weren't a mighty Family, he thought. They were a weak Family, a saddening and pitiable one, dulled by chemicals and dehumanized by bracelets. It was Uni that was mighty.

One mighty Family, A single n.o.ble race, Sending its sons and daughters Bravely into s.p.a.ce . . .

He sang the words automatically, thinking that Lilac had been right: reduced treatments brought new unhappiness.

Sunday night at eleven he met Snowflake between the buildings on Lower Christ Plaza. He held her and kissed her gratefully, glad of her s.e.xuality and humor and pale skin and bitter tobacco taste-all the things that were she and n.o.body else. "Christ and Wei, I'm glad to see you," he said.

She gave him a tighter hug and smiled happily at him. "It gets to be a shut-off being with normals, doesn't it?" she said.

"And how," he said. "I wanted to kick the soccer team instead of the ball this morning."

She laughed.

He had been depressed since the sing; now he felt released and happy and taller. "I found a girlfriend," he said, "and guess what; I f.u.c.ked her without the least bit of trouble."

"Hate."

"Not as extensively or as satisfyingly as we did, but with no trouble at all, not twenty-four hours later."

"I can live without the details."

He grinned and ran his hands down her sides and clasped her hipbones. "I think I might even manage to do it again tonight," he said, teasing her with his thumbs.

"Your ego is growing by leaps and bounds."

"My everything is."

"Come on, brother," she said, prying his hands away and holding onto one, "we'd better get you indoors before you start singing."

They went into the plaza and crossed it diagonally. Flags and sagging Marxmas bunting hung motionless above it, dim in the glow of distant walkways. "Where are we going anyway?" he asked, walking happily. "Where's the secret meeting place of the diseased corrupters of healthy young members?"

"The Pre-U," she said.

"The Museum?"

"That's right. Can you think of a better place for a group of Uni-cheating abnormals? It's exactly where we belong. Easy," she said, tugging at his hand; "don't walk so energetically."

A member was coming into the plaza from the walkway they were going toward. A briefcase or telecomp was in his hand.

Chip walked more normally alongside Snowflake. The member, coming closer-it was a telecomp he had-smiled and nodded. They smiled and nodded in return as they pa.s.sed him.

They went down steps and out of the plaza.

"Besides," Snowflake said, "it's empty from eight to eight and it's an endless source of pipes and funny costumes and unusual beds."

"You take things?"

"We leave the beds," she said. "But we make use of them now and again. Meeting solemnly in the staff conference room was just for your benefit."

"What else do you do?"

"Oh, sit around and complain a little. That's Lilac's and Leopard's department mostly. s.e.x and smoking is enough for me. King does funny versions of some of the TV programs; wait till you find out how much you can laugh."

"The making use of the beds," Chip said; "is it done on a group basis?"

"Only by two's, dear; we're not that pre-U."

"Who did you use them with?"

"Sparrow, obviously. Necessity is the mother of et cetera. Poor girl, I feel sorry for her now."

"Of course you do."

"I do! Oh well, there's an artificial p.e.n.i.s in Nineteenth Century Artifacts. She'll survive."

"King says we should find a man for her."

"We should. It would be a much better situation, having four couples."

"That's what King said."

As they were crossing the ground floor of the museum--lighting their way through the strange-figured dark with a flashlight that Snowflake had produced-another light struck them from the side and a voice nearby said, "h.e.l.lo there!" They started. "I'm sorry," the voice said. "It's me, Leopard."

Snowflake swung her light onto the twentieth-century car, and a flashlight inside it went off. They went over to the glinting metal vehicle. Leopard, sitting behind the steering wheel, was an old round-faced member wearing a hat with an orange plume. There were several dark brown spots on his nose and cheeks. He put his hand, also spotted, through the car's window frame. "Congratulations, Chip," he said. "I'm glad you came through."

Chip shook his hand and thanked him.

"Going for a ride?" Snowflake asked.

"I've been for one," he said. "To j.a.p and back. Volvo's out of fuel now. And thoroughly wet too, come to think of it."

They smiled at him and at each other.

"Fantastic, isn't it?" he said, turning the wheel and working a lever that projected from its shaft. "The driver was in complete control from start to finish, using both hands and both feet."

"It must have been awfully b.u.mpy," Chip said, and Snowflake said, "Not to mention dangerous."

"But fun too," Leopard said. "It must have been an adventure, really; choosing your destination, figuring out which roads to take to get there, gauging your movements in relation to the movements of other cars-"

"Gauging wrong and dying," Snowflake said.

"I don't think that really happened as often as we're told it did," Leopard said. "If it had, they would have made the front parts of the cars much thicker."

Chip said, "But that would have made them heavier and they would have gone even slower."

"Where's Hush?" Snowflake asked.

"Upstairs with Sparrow," Leopard said. He opened the car's door, and coming out of it with a flashlight in his hand, said, "They're setting things up. Some more stuff was put in the room." He cranked the window of the door halfway up and closed the door firmly. A wide brown belt decorated with metal studs was fastened about his coveralls.

"King and Lilac?" Snowflake asked.

"They're around someplace."