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"All right. I'll see you then."
"Good-bye."
The co
Suddenly, then, at that moment, colors swirled again through her head; and she saw trees—oaks and pines, poplars and sycamores—great, and green and brown, and iron-colored; and she saw wads of fleecy clouds, dipped in paintpots, swabbing a paste! sky; and a burning sun, and a small willow tree, and a lake of a deep, almost violet, blue. She folded her torn handkerchief and put it away.
She pushed a button beside her desk and music filled the office: Scriabin. Then she pushed another button and replayed the tape she had dictated, half-listening to each.
Pierre sniffed suspiciously at the food. The attendant moved away from the tray and stepped out into the hall, locking the door behind him- The enormous salad waited on -the floor. Pierre approached cautiously, snatched a handful of lettuce, gulped it.
He was afraid.
// only the steel would stop crashing and crashing against steel, somewhere in that dark night ... If only ...
Sigmund rose to his feet, yawned, stretched. His hind legs trailed out behind him for a moment, then he snapped to attention and shook himself. She would be coming home soon. Wagging his tail slowly, he glanced up at the human-level clock with the raised numerals, verified his feelings, then crossed the apartment to the teevee. He rose onto his hind legs, rested one paw against the table and used the other to turn on the set.It was nearly time for the weather report and the roads would be icy.
"I have driven through countrywide graveyards," wrote Render, "vast forests of stone that spread further every day.
"Why does man so zealously guard his dead? Is it because this is the monumentally democratic way of immortalization, the ultimate affirmation of the power to hurt—that is to say, life—and the desire that it continue on forever? Unamuno has suggested that this is the case. If it is, then a greater percentage of the population actively sought immortality last year than ever before in history... .*'
Tch-tchg, tchga-tchgt
"Do you think they're really people?"
"Naw, they're too good."
The evening was starglint and soda over ice. Render wound the S-7 into the cold sub-subcellar, found his parking place, nosed into it.
There was a damp chill that emerged from the concrete to gnaw like rats* teeth at their flesh. Render guided her toward the lift, their breath preceding them in dissolving clouds.
"A bit of a chill in the air," he noted.
She nodded, biting her lip.
Inside the lift, he sighed, unwound his scarf, lit a cigarette.
"Give me one, please," she requested, smelling the tobacco.
He did.
They rose slowly, and Render leaned against the wall, puffing a mixture of smoke and crystallized moisture.
"I met another routie shep," he recalled, "in Switzerland. Big as Sigmund. A hunter though, and as Prussian as they come," he gri
"Sigmund likes to hunt, too," she observed. "Twice every year we go up to the North Woods and I turn him loose. He's gone for days at a time, and he's always quitehappy when he returns. Never says what he's done, but he's never hungry. Back when I got him I guessed that he would need vacations from humanity to stay stable. I think I was right."
The lift stopped, the door opened and they walked out into the hall, Render guiding her again.
Inside his office, he poked at the thermostat and warm air sighed through the room. He hung their coats in the i
"How long do you think it will take?" she asked, ru
He wondered.
"I have no idea," he said, "no idea whatsoever, yet. We got off to a good start, but there's still a lot of work to be done. I think I'll be able to make a good guess in another three months."
She nodded wistfully, moved to his desk, explored the controls with finger strokes like ten feathers.
"Careful you don't push any of those."
"I won't. How long do you think it will take me to learn to operate one?" *
"Three months to leam it. Six, to actually become proficient enough to use it on anyone, and an additional six under close supervision before you can be trusted on your own. —About a year altogether."
"Uh-huh." She chose a chair.
Render touched the seasons to life, and the phases of day and night, the breath of the country, the city, the elements that raced naked through the skies, and all the dozens of dancing cues he used to build worlds. He smashed the clock of time and tasted the seven or so ages of man,
"Okay," he turned, "everything is ready."
It came quickly, and with a minimum of suggestion on Render's part. One moment there was grayness. Then a dead-white fog. Then it broke itself apart, as though a quick wind had risen, although he neither heard nor felt a wind.
He stood beside the willow tree beside the lake, and she stood half-hidden among the branches and the lat-tices of shadow. The sun was slanting its way into evening.
"We have come back," she said, stepping out, leaves in her hair. "For a time I was afraid it had never happened, but I see it all again, and I remember now."
"Good," he said. "Behold yourself." And she looked into the lake.
"I have not changed," she said. "I haven't changed... .'*
"No."
"But you have," she continued, looking up at him. "You are taller, and there is something different... ."
"No," he answered.
"I am mistaken," she said quickly, "I don't understand everything I see yet."
"I will, though."
"Of course."
"What are we going to do?"
"Watch," he instructed her.
Along a flat, no-cotored river of road she just then noticed beyond the trees, came the car. It came from the farthest quarter of the sky, skipping over the mountains, buzzing down the hills, circling through the glades, and splashing them with the colors of its voice—the gray and the silver of synchronized potency—and the lake shivered from its sounds, and the car stopped a hundred feet away, masked by the shrubberies; and it waited. It was the S-7.
"Come with me," he said, taking her hand. "We're going for a ride."
They walked among the trees and rounded the final cluster of bushes. She touched the sleek cocoon, its ante
"It is your Spi
"Yes." He held the door for her. "Get in. We'll return to the club. The time is now. The memories are fresh. and they should be reasonably pleasant, or neutral."
"Pleasant," she said, getting in.
He closed the door, then circled the car and entered. She watched as he punched imaginary coordinates. The car leaped ahead and he kept a steady stream of trees flowing by them. He could feel the rising tension, so hedid not vary the scenery. She swiveled her seat and studied the interior of the car.
"Yes," she finally said, "I can perceive what everything is."
She stared out the window again. She looked at the rushing trees. Render stared out and looked upon rushing anxiety patterns. He opaqued the windows.
"Good," she said, "thank you. Suddenly it was too much to see—all of it, moving past like a ..."
"Of course," said Render, maintaining the sensations of forward motion. "I'd anticipated that You're getting tougher, though."
After a moment, "Relax," he said, "relax now," and somewhere a button was pushed, and she relaxed, and they drove on, and on and on, and finally the car began to slow, and Render said, "Just for one nice, slow glimpse now, look out your window."