City

"This one is really good."

It was. It went down smooth and it had a strange, half metallic, half ecstatic taste.

Webster pulled another chair close to Sara's, sat down and looked at her.

"You have such a nice place here," said Sara. "Randall did it, didn't he?"

Webster nodded. "He had more fun than a circus, I had to beat him off with a club. And those robots of his! They're crazier than he is."

"But he does wonderful things. He did a Martian room for Quentin and it's simply unworldly. "

"I know," said Webster. "Was set on a deep-space one for here. Said it would be just the place to sit and think. Got sore at me when I wouldn't let him do it."

He rubbed the back of his left hand with his right thumb, staring off at the blue haze above the ocean. Sara leaned forward, pulled his thumb away.

"You still have the warts," she said,

He gri

She released the thumb and he went back to rubbing the warts absent-mindedly.

"You've been busy," she said. "Haven't seen you around much. How is the book coming?"

"Ready to write," said Webster. "Outlining it by chapters now. Checked on the last thing today. Have to make sure, you know. Place way down under the old Solar Administration Building. Some sort of a defence set-up. Control room. You push a lever and-"

"And what?"

"I don't know," said 'Webster. "Something effective, I suppose. Should try to find out, but can't find the heart to do it. Been digging around in too much dust these last twenty years to face any more."

"You sound discouraged, Jon. Tired. You shouldn't get tired. There's no reason for it. You should get around. Have another drink?"

He shook his head. "No, Sara, thanks. Not in the mood, I guess. I'm afraid, Sara – afraid."

"Afraid?"

"This room," said Webster. "Illusion. Mirrors that give an illusion of distance. Fans that blow the air through a salt spray, pumps that stir up the waves. A synthetic sun. And if I don't like the sun, all I have to do is snap a switch and I have a moon."

"Illusion," said Sara.

"That's it," said Webster. "That is all we have. No real work, no real job. Nothing that we're working for, no place we're going. I've worked for twenty years and I'll write a book and not a soul will read it. All they'd have to do would be spend the time to read it, but they won't take the time. They won't care. All they'd have to do would be come and ask me for a copy – and if they didn't want to do that I'd be so glad someone was going to read it that I'd take it to them. But no one will. It will go on the shelves with all the other books that have been written. And what do I get out of it? Wait... I'll tell you. Twenty years of work, twenty years of fooling myself, twenty years of sanity."

"I know," said Sara softly. "I know, Jon. The last three paintings-"

He looked up quickly. "But, Sara-"

She shook her head. "No, Jon. No one wanted them. They're out of style. Naturalistic stuff is pass . Impressionalism now.' Daubs-"

"We are too rich," said Webster. "We have too much. Everything was left for us – everything and nothing. When Mankind went out to Jupiter the few that were left behind inherited the Earth and it was too big for them. They couldn't handle it. They couldn't manage it. They thought they owned it, but they were the ones that were owned. Owned and dominated and awed by the things that had gone before."

She reached out a hand and touched his arm.

"Poor Jon," she said.

"We can't flinch away from it," be said. "Some day some of us must face the truth, must start over again – from scratch."

"I..."

"Yes, what is it, Sara?"

"I came here to say good-bye."

"Good– bye?"

"I'm going to take the Sleep."

He came to his feet, swiftly, horrified. "No, Sara!"

She laughed and the laugh was strained. "Why don't you come with me, Jon. A few hundred years. Maybe it will all be different when we awake."

"Just because no one wants your canvases. Just because-"

"Because of what you said just a while ago. Illusion, Jon. I knew it, felt it, but I couldn't think it out."

"But the Sleep is illusion, too."

"I know. But you don't know it's illusion. You think it's real. You have no inhibitions and you have no fears except the fears that are pla

"And when you awake?"

"You're adjusted. Adjusted to whatever life is like in whatever era you awake. Almost as if you belonged, even from the first. And it might be better. Who knows? It might be better."

"It won't be," Jon told her grimly. "Until, or unless, someone does something about it. And a people that run to the Sleep to hide are not going to bestir themselves." She shrank back in the chair and suddenly he felt ashamed. "I'm sorry, Sara. I didn't mean you. Nor any one person. Just the lot of us."

The palms whispered harshly, fronds rasping. Little pools of water, left by the surging tide, sparkled in the sun.

"I won't try to dissuade you," Webster said. "You've thought it out, you know what it is you want."

It hadn't always been like that with the human race, he thought. There would have been a day, a thousand years ago, when a man would have argued about a thing like this. But Juwainism had ended all the petty quarrels. Juwainism had ended a lot of things.

" I've always thought," Sara told him softly, "if we could have stayed together-"

He made a gesture of impatience. "It's just another thing we've lost, another thing that the human race let loose. Come to think it over, we lost a lot of things. Family ties and business, work and purpose."

He turned to face her squarely. "If you want to come back, Sara-"

She shook her head. "It wouldn't work, Jon. It's been too many years."

He nodded. There was no use denying it.

She rose and held out her hand. "If you ever decide to take the Sleep, find out my date. I'll have them reserve a place right next to me."

"I don't think I ever shall," he told her.

"All right, then. Good-bye, Jon."

"Wait a second, Sara. You haven't said a word: about our son. I used to see him often, but-"

She laughed brightly. "Tom's almost a grown man now, Jon. And it's the strangest thing. He-"

"I haven't seen him for so long," Webster said again.

"No wonder. He's scarcely in the city. It's his hobby. Something he inherited from you, I guess. Pioneering in a way. I don't know what else you'd call it."

"You mean some new research. Something unusual."

"Unusual, yes, but not research. Just goes out in the woods and lives by himself. He and a few of his friends. A bag of salt, a bow and arrows Yes, it's queer," Sara admitted, "but he has 'a lot of fun. Claims he's learning something. And he does look healthy. Like a wolf. Strong and lean and a look about his eyes."

She swung around and moved away.

"I'll see you to the door," said Webster.

She shook her head. "No. I'd rather that you wouldn't."