Dayworld

"Maybe I made the wrong decision," he muttered. "Maybe I should have stayed in one day, maybe I should have been only Jeff Caird."

Presently, the faint noises of street-sweeping machines lulled him back to sleep.

Sitting at the breakfast-room table, Caird could see the picket-fenced backyard through the window. In one corner was a utility shed; in another, the garage; in a third, the garden. A small one-room building of transparent plastic, a studio, was in the center. Thirty feet to its east was a large apple tree. It bore fruit, but bypassers who had not heard of Ozma might have wondered what kind of a tree it was. Ozma had painted every apple with a different design, though viewed together the designs made an esthetically pleasing whole. The paint would not wash off easily, but it was edible, and a bowl full of the fruit was on the table now.

Ozma had agreed with Jeff that he could decorate the kitchen. He had arranged the walls so they glowed with four paintings by T'ang Dynasty artists. He liked the Chinese quality, the quiet and eternal look with the human figures always far off, small but important, not the masters but an integrated part of the mountains, the forests, the cataracts.

Though Ozma had more Chinese ancestry than he, she did not particularly care for them. She was an outrй and outrageous Westerner.

She had turned on the recorder in the corner to find out if Wednesday had left any messages. There were none, so it could be assumed that Wednesday had no complaints about the cleanliness or order of the house.

Their breakfast was interrupted by the front doorbell. Ozma, clad in a knee-length robe so thin that she might as well not have worn it, answered the bell. The callers were, as expected, Corporal Hiatt and Private First Class Sangalli. They wore green caps with long black visors, green robes on which were the insignia of the Manhattan State Cleaning Corps and their rank-stripes and good conduct medals, brown sandals, and yellow gloves.

Ozma greeted them, made a face at their boozy breaths, asked them in, and offered them coffee. They refused, and they plunged into the dusting, washing, waxing, and vacuuming. Ozma returned to the table.

"Why can't they come later, while we're gone?"

"Because they have a quota, and because that's the way the bureaucracy set it up."

Jeff went upstairs, brushed his teeth, and rubbed on the whisker-removing cream. The face in the mirror was dark, the long dark hair in a Psyche knot. The hazel eyes brooded under heavy brows. The nose was long and slightly hooked, and the nostrils flared. The jaw was heavy. The chin was round and cleft and stuck out.

"I look like a cop," he muttered. "And I am. But not most of the time."

He also looked like a big dark worrybird. What's to worry about? Besides being caught? Besides Ariel?

He showered, put underarm deodorant on, went into the bedroom, and do

He picked up his over-the-shoulder bag and walked downstairs. A strip by the front door glowed with a message. Ozma wanted him to stop by her studio before he left.

She was inside the transparent one-room building and sitting on a high stool. She put her magnifying glass down on the table when she heard him enter. The grasshopper she had been looking at had been stoned to keep it immobile while she applied paint to it. Its ante

"Jeff, I wanted you to see my latest. How do you like it?"

"The colors don't clash. Not by modern standards, anyway."

"Is that all you can say? Don't you think it'll make a sensation? Doesn't it improve on nature? Isn't it true art?"

"It won't make a sensation," he said. "My God, there must be a thousand painted grasshoppers in Manhattan. Everybody's used to them, and the ecologists are complaining that you're upsetting the balance of nature. Preying insects and birds won't eat them because they look poisonous."

"Art should please or make one think or both," she said. "Sensation is for inferior artists."

"Then why'd you ask me if they'd make a sensation?"

"I didn't mean the sensation of startlement or outrage or just novelty, of course. I meant the sensation of recognition of something esthetic. The feeling that God is in His heaven, but it's the human on Earth that does God one better. Oh, you know what I mean!"

"Sure," he said, smiling. He turned her head and kissed her lips. "When are you going to start on cockroaches? They're so God-ugly. They need beautification."

"Where would I get one in Manhattan? I'd have to go to Brooklyn for them. Think I should?"

He laughed and said, "I don't think the authorities would bless you."

"I could sterilize the roaches before I let them loose again. But, really, are cockroaches ugly? If you adopt another frame of mind, think in a different Category, look at them from the religious point of view, they're beautiful. Maybe, through my art, people would come to know their true beauty. See them as the living jewels they are."

"Ephemeral classics," Caird said. "Short-lived antiques."

She looked up and smiled. "You think you're being sarcastic, but you may be telling the truth. I like those phrases. I may use them in my lecture. Anyway, they're not so ephemeral. I mean, the insects will die, but my name will go on. People are calling them ozmas. Didn't you see the seven o'clock Art Section of the Times? The great Sam Fang himself called them ozmas. He said ..

"You were sitting there with me when we saw it. I'll never forget how you giggled and carried on."

"He's usually a jerk, but sometimes he's right. Oh, I was so ecstatic!"

She bent down to apply the near-microscopic end of her brush. The black paint was over the spiracles, the openings in the exoskeleton which passed air to the tracheae, the breathing tubes that went to the insect's internal organs. A chemist at Columbia University had developed for her the paint that permitted entrance of oxygen to the spiracles.

Caird looked at the stoned praying mantis at one end of the table and said, "Green is quite good enough for it, for God, and for me. Why, as it were, gild the lily?"

Ozma straightened up. Black eyes wide, mouth twisted, she said, "Do you have to spoil it for me? Who gave you a certificate as an art critic, anyway? Can't you just enjoy my joy and keep your ignorant opinions to yourself?"

"Now, now," he said hastily, reaching out to touch her shoulder. "You're the one that says you should always tell the truth, hide nothing, let the emotions be trigger-happy. I am happy because you're happy in your work-"

"Art, not work!"

"Art. And I'm happy that you're getting so much public recognition. I apologize. What do I know?"

"Well, let me tell you something, cop! I've learned a lot from my study of insects. Do you know that the highest forms of insects, the bees, wasps, and ants, are female societies? The male is used only for fertilization."

"Yeah?" he said, gri

"You just watch it, buster! We women may decide that entomology has the key to the future!"

She burst into laughter, squeezed him with one arm, the other hand holding the brush attached to a very thin hose attached to a machine on the table. He kissed her-her anger came and went like heat lightning, nothing permanent or hurtful about it-and went to a strip on the wall. He voice-activated it and asked for their schedule. He probably needed a reminder more than anybody in Tuesday.