And some will survive, and wait, and die waiting because of some remotely extrapolated miscalculation. The beams never reach them; their beams contact nothing. And perhaps a few of these will not die, but will find refuge on some planet to leave a marker that will shock whatever is alive and intelligent a million years hence. Perhaps they will leave more than that. Perhaps there will be a slower, more hazardous planting of humanity in the gulfs.
But fifty-four per cent, the calculations insist, will establish the star-conquering sphere and return.
The weeks went by. A chime: Bark and Barbara. Damn it all, no more of Barbara’s banana cream pie. The filing, the sweeping, the recording, the lights. Marriage recorded.
When a man and woman go Out together, that is marriage. There is another way to be married on Curbstone. There is a touch less speed involved in it than in joined hands pressing down a launching lever. There is not one whit less solemnity. It means what it means because it is not stamped with necessity. Children derive their names from their mothers, wed or not, and there is no distinction. Men and women, as responsible adults, do as they please within limits which are extremely wide. Except.…
By arduous trial and tragic error, humanity has evolved modern marriage. With social pressure removed from the pursuit of a mate, with the end of the ribald persecution of spinsterhood, a marriage ceases to be a rubber stamp upon what people are sure to do, with or without ceremonies. Where men and women are free to seek their own company, as and when they choose, without social penalties, they will not be trapped into hypocrisies with marriage vows. Under such conditions a marriage is entered gravely and with sincerity, and it constitutes a public statement of choice and—with the full implementation of a mature society—of inviolability. The lovely, ancient words “forsaking all others” spell out the nature of modern marriage, with the universally respected adjunct that fidelity is not a command or a restriction, but a chosen path. Divorce is swift and simple, and—almost unheard of. Married people live this way, single people live that way; the lines are drawn and deeply respected. People marry because they intend to live within the limits of marriage. The fact that a marriage exists is complete proof that it is working.
I had a word about marriage with Tween. Ran into her in the Gate corridor. I think she’d been in one of the ships again. If she was pale, her olive skin hid it. If her eyes were bloodshot, the lustrous ruby of her eyes covered it up. Maybe I saw her dragging her feet as she walked, or some such. I took her chin in my hand and tilted her head back. “Any dragons I can kill?”
She gave me a brilliant smile, which lived only on her lips. “I’m wonderful,” she said bravely.
“You are,” I agreed. “Which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the way you feel. I won’t pry, child; but tell me—if you ever ate too many green apples, or stubbed your toe on a cactus, do you know a nice safe something you could hang on to while you cried it out?”
“I do,” she said breathlessly, making the smile just as hard as she could. “Oh, I do.” She patted my cheek. “You’re … listen. Would you tell me something if I asked you?”
“About certificates? No, Tween. Not about anyone else’s certificate. But—all he has to do is complete his final hypnopediae, and he just hasn’t showed up.”
She hated to hear it, but I’d made her laugh, too, a little. “Do you read minds, the way they all say?”
“I do not. And if I could, I wouldn’t. And if I couldn’t help reading ’em, I’d sure never act as if I could. In other words, no. It’s just that I’ve been alive long enough to know what pushes people around. So’s I don’t care much about a person, I can judge pretty well what’s bothering him.
“ ’Course,” I added, “if I do give a damn, I can tell even better. Tween, you’ll be getting married pretty soon, right?”
Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that. She gasped, and for a moment she just stopped making that smile. Then, “Oh, yes,” she said brightly. “Well, not exactly. What I mean is, when we go Out, you see, so we might as well not, and I imagine as soon as Wold gets his certificate, we’ll … we kind of feel going Out is the best … I seem to have gotten something in my eye. I’m s-sor.…”
I let her go. But when I saw Wold next—it was down in the Euphoria Sector—I went up to him very cheerfully. There are ways I feel sometimes that make me real jovial.
I laid my hand on his shoulder. His back bowed a bit and it seemed to me I felt vertebrae grinding together. “Wold, old boy,” I said heartily. “Good to see you. You haven’t been around much recently. Mad?”
He pulled away from me. “A little,” he said sullenly. His hair was too shiny and he had perfect teeth that always reminded me of a keyboard instrument.
“Well, drop around,” I said. “I like to see young folks get ahead. You,” I added with a certain amount of emphasis, “have gone pretty damn far.”
“So have you,” he said with even more emphasis.
“Well, then.” I slapped him on the back. His eyeballs stayed in, which surprised me. “You can top me. You can go farther than I ever can. See you soon, old fellow.”
I walked off, feeling the cold brown points of his gaze.
And as it happened, not ten minutes later I saw that kakumba dance. I don’t see much dancing usually, but there was an animal roar from the dance-chamber that stopped me, and I ducked in to see what had the public so charmed.
The dance had gone through most of its figures, with the caller already worked up into a froth and only three couples left. As I shouldered my way to a vantage point, one of the three couples was bounced, leaving the two best. One was a tall blonde with periwigged hair and subvoltaic bracelets that passed and repassed a clatter of pastel arcs; she was dancing with one of the armor-monkeys from the Curbstone Hull Division, and they were good.
The other couple featured a slender, fluid dark girl in an open tunic of deep brown. She moved so beautifully that I caught my breath, and watched so avidly that it was seconds before I realized it was Flower. The reaction to that made me lose more seconds in realizing that her partner was Judson. Good as the other couple were, they were better. I’d tested Jud’s reflexes, and they were phenomenal, but I’d had no idea he could respond like this to anything.
The caller threw the solo light to the first couple. There was a wild burst of music and the arc-wielding blonde and her arc-wielding boy friend cut loose in an intricate frenzy of disjointed limbs and half-beat stamping. So much happened between those two people so fast that I thought they’d never get separated when the music stopped. But they untangled right with the closing bars, and a roar went up from the people watching them. And then the same blare of music was thrown at Jud and Flower.
Judson simply stood back and folded his arms, walking out a simple figure to indicate that, honest, he was dancing, too. But he gave it all to Flower.
Now I’ll tell you what she did in a single sentence: she knelt before him and slowly stood up with her arms over her head. But words will never describe the process completely. It took her about twelve minutes to get all the way up. At the fourth minute the crowd began to realize that her body was trembling. It wasn’t a wriggle or a shimmy, or anything as crude as that. It was a steady, apparently uncontrollable shiver. At about the eighth minute the audience began to realize it was controlled, and just how completely controlled it was. It was hypnotic, incredible. At the final crescendo she was on her tiptoes with her arms stretched high, and when the music stopped she made no flourish; she simply relaxed and stood still, smiling at Jud. Even from where I stood I could see the moisture on Jud’s face.
A big man standing beside me grunted, a tight, painful sound. I turned to him; it was Clinton. Tension crawled through his jaw-muscles like a rat under a rug. I put my hand on his arm. It was rocky. “Clint.”
“Wh—oh. Hi.”
“Thirsty?”
“No,” he said. He turned back to the dance floor, searched it with his eyes, found Flower.
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�Yes, you are, son.” I said. “Come on.”
“Why don’t you go and—” He got hold of himself. “You’re right. I am thirsty.”
We went to the almost deserted Card Room and dispensed ourselves some methyl-caffeine. I didn’t say anything until we’d found a table. He sat stiffly looking at his drink without seeing it. Then he said, “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“I was about to be real uncivilized in there.”
I just waited.
He said truculently, “Well, damn it, she’s free to do what she wants, isn’t she? She likes to dance—good. Why shouldn’t she? Damn it, what is there to get excited about?”
“Who’s excited?”
“It’s that Judson. What’s he have to be crawling around her all the time for? She hasn’t done a damn thing about getting her certificate since he got here.” He drank his liquor down at a gulp. It had no apparent effect, which meant something.
“What had she done before he got here?” I asked quietly. When he didn’t answer I said, “Jud’s Outbound, Clint. I wouldn’t worry. I can guarantee Flower won’t be with him when he goes, and that will be real soon. Hold on and wait.”
“Wait?” His lip curled. “I’ve been ready to go for weeks. I used to think of … of Flower and me working together, helping each other. I used to make plans for a celebration the day we got certified. I used to look at the stars and think about the net we’d help throw around them, pull ’em down, pack ’em in a basket. Flower and me, back on Earth after six thousand years, watching humanity come into its own, knowing we’d done something to help. I’ve been waiting, and you say wait some more.”
“This,” I said, “is what you call an unstable situation. It can’t stay the way it is and it won’t. Wait, I tell you: wait. There’s got to be a blow-off.”
There was.
In my office the chime sounded. Moira and Bill. Certificates denied to Hester, Elizabeth, Jenks, Mella. Hester back to Earth. Hallowell and Letitia, marriage recorded. Certificates granted to Aaron, Musette, n’Guchi, Mancinelli, Judson.
Judson took the news quietly, glowing. I hadn’t seen much of him recently. Flower took up a lot of his time, and training the rest. After he was certified and I’d gone with him to test the hand-scanner by the gate and give him his final briefing, he cut out on the double, I guess to give Flower the great news. I remember wondering how he’d like her reaction.
When I got back to my office Tween was there. She rose from the foyer couch as I wheezed in off the ramp. I took one look at her and said, “Come inside.” She followed me through the inner door. I waved my hand over the infra-red plate and it closed. Then I put out my arms.
She bleated like a new-born lamb and flew to me. Her tears were scalding, and I don’t think human muscles are built for the wrenching those agonized sobs gave her. People should cry more. They ought to learn how to do it easily, like laughing or sweating. Crying piles up. In people like Tween, who do nothing if they can’t smile and make a habit-pattern of it, it really piles up. With a reservoir like that, and no developed outlet, things get torn when the pressure builds too high.
I just held her tight so she wouldn’t explode. The only thing I said to her was “sh-h-h” once when she tried to talk while she wept. One thing at a time.
It took a while, but when she was finished she was finished. She didn’t taper off. She was weak from all that punishment, but calm. She talked.
“He isn’t a real thing at all,” she said bleakly. “He’s something I made up out of starshine, out of wanting so much to be a part of something as big as this project. I never felt I had anything big about me except that. I wanted to join it with something bigger than I was, and, together, we’d build something so big it would be worthy of Curbstone.
“I thought it was Wold. I made it be Wold. Oh, none of this is his fault. I could have seen what he was, and I just wouldn’t. What I did with him, what I felt for him, was just as crazy as if I’d convinced myself he had wings and then hated him because he wouldn’t fly. He isn’t anything but a h-hero. He struts to the newcomers and the rejected ones pretending he’s a man who will one day give himself to humanity and the stars. He … probably believes that about himself. But he won’t complete his training, and he … now I know, now I can see it—he tried everything he could think of to stop me from being certified. I was no use to him with a certificate. He couldn’t treat me as his pretty slightly stupid little girl, once I was certified. And he couldn’t get his own certificate because if he did he’d have to go Out, one of these days, and that’s something he can’t face.
“He—wants me to leave him. If I will, if it’s my decision, he can wear my memory like a black band on his arm, and delude himself for the rest of his life that his succession of women is just a search for something to replace me. Then he’ll always have an excuse; he’ll never, never have to risk his neck. He’ll be the shattered hero, and women as stupid as I will try to heal the wounds he’s arranged for me to give him.”
“You don’t hate him?” I asked her quietly.
“No. Oh, no, no! I told you, it wasn’t his fault. I—loved something. A man lived in my heart, lived there for years. He had no name and no face. I gave him Wold’s name and Wold’s face and just wouldn’t believe it wasn’t Wold. I did it. Wold didn’t. I don’t hate him. I don’t like him. I just don’t … anything!”
I patted her shoulder. “Good. You’re cured. If you hated him, he’d still be important. What are you going to do?”
“What shall I do?”
“I’d never tell you what to do about a thing like this, Tween. You know that. You’ve got to figure out your own answers. I can advise you to use those new-opened eyes of yours carefully, though. And don’t think that that man who lives in your heart doesn’t exist anywhere else. He does. Right here on this station, maybe. You just haven’t been able to see him before.”
“Who?”
“God, girl, don’t ask me that! Ask Tween next time you see her; no one will ever know for sure but Tween.”
“You’re so wise.…”
“Nah. I’m old enough to have made more mistakes than most people, that’s all, and I have a good memory.”
She rose shakily. I put out a hand and helped her. “You’re played out, Tween. Look—don’t go back yet. Hide out for a few days and get some rest and do some thinking. There’s a suite on this level. No one will bother you, and you’ll find everything there you need, including silence and privacy.”
“That would be good,” she said softly. “Thank you.”
“All right … listen. Mind if I send someone in to talk to you?”
“Talk? Who?”
“Let me play it as it comes.”
The ruby eyes sent a warm wave to me, and she smiled. I thought, I wish I was as confident of myself as she is of me. “It’s 412,” I said, “the third door to your left. Stay there as long as you want to. Come back when you feel like it.”
She came close to me and tried to say something. I thought for a second she was going to kiss me on the mouth. She didn’t; she kissed my hand. “I’ll swat your bottom!” I roared, flustered. “Git, now, dammit!” She laughed … she always had a bit of laughter tucked away in her, no matter what, bless her cotton head.…
As soon as she was gone, I turned to the annunciator and sent out a call for Judson. Hell, I thought, you can try, can’t you? Waiting, I thought about Judson’s hungry upward look, and that hole in his head … that quality of reachableness, and what happened when he was reached by the wrong thing. Lord, responsive people certainly make the worst damn fools of all!
He was there in minutes, looking flushed, excited, happy, and worried all at once. “Was on my way here when your call went out,” he said.
“Sit down, Jud. I have a small project in mind. Maybe you could help.”
He sat. I looked for just the right words to use. I couldn’t say anything about Flower. She had her hooks into him; if I said anything about her, he�
�d defend her. And one of the oldest phenomena in human relations is that we come to be very fond of the thing we find ourselves defending, even if we didn’t like it before. I thought again of the hunger that lived in Jud, and what Tween might see of it with her newly opened eyes.
“Jud—”
“I’m married,” he blurted.
I sat very still. I don’t think my face did anything at all.
“It was the right thing for me to do,” he said, almost angrily. “Don’t you see? You know what my problem is—it was you who found it for me. I was looking for something that should belong to me … or something to belong to.”
“Flower,” I said.
“Of course. Who else? Listen, that girl’s got trouble, too. What do you suppose blocks her from taking her certificate? She doesn’t think she’s worthy of it.”
My, I said. Fortunately, I said it to myself.
Jud said, “No matter what happens, I’ve done the right thing. If I can help her get her certificate, we’ll go Out together, and that’s what we’re here for. If I can’t help her do that, but find that she fills that place in me that’s been so empty for so long, well and good—that’s what I’m here for. We can go back to Earth and be happy.”
“You’re quite sure of all this.”
“Sure I’m sure! Do you think I’d have gone ahead with the marriage if I weren’t sure?”
Sure you would, I thought. I said, “Congratulations, then. You know I wish you the best.”
He stood up uncertainly, started to say something, and apparently couldn’t find it. He went to the door, turned back. “Will you come for dinner tonight?” I hesitated. He said, “Please. I’d appreciate it.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Answer me straight, Jud. Is dinner your idea or Flower’s?”
He laughed embarrassedly. “Damn it, you always see too much. Mine … sort of … I mean, it isn’t that she dislikes you, but … well, hell, I want the two of you to be friends, and I think you’d understand her, and me too, a lot better if you made the effort.”
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