are at war with time; we are enemies of entropy; we seek to snatch back those things that have been taken from us by the years—the childhood toys, the friends and relatives who are gone, the events of the past—everything, we struggle to recapture everything, back to the beginning of creation, out of this need not to let anything slip away. Forgive the philosophizing. I don’t know if Jan or anybody else here would agree with me, and I don’t want to delve. Maybe some of them would say that for them it’s just a job, or a means toward prestige, or a way of passing time, who knows? I really do think that beneath those reasons there has to be something more complicated.
The trouble with a serious, intense discussion, I find, is that it ultimately becomes a little awkward to continue when the people doing the talking don’t know each other too well. In an earnest way we made a stab at talking about Dad’s hostility to my going into archaeology, and likesuch topics, but the atmosphere of earnestness started depressing us. I had to do something. Either make a pass at Jan, which somehow seemed less appropriate than ever after all this solemn palaver, or else get out and pretend I could do something about starting the engine. I got out.
Jan said, “Why try to look chivalrous? You know there’s absolutely nothing you can do to fix it. Unless you can rub your fingers together and spurt some wattage into the battery.”
I grinned sickly at her as I stood in the rain. “We might sit here all week,” I said.
“So? They’ll send out a rescue party. Come back inside.”
I did, and a minute later a military truck appeared. Three soldiers were in it; they stopped when they saw we were stalled, became very attentive indeed when they got a good look at Jan (girls of her contours are extremely rare on this miserable outpost of the Terran Empire), and lewdly suggested that she ride to town with them while I stayed behind to guard the runabout. They looked hurt when Jan vetoed the idea. I drew sour looks of undisguised envy from them; I guess they figured Jan and I had been making feverish love while awaiting help. Let them stew.
They gave us a ride to town, finally.
Sour looks were in style there, too. The first place we went was the communications office, and naturally the TP on duty was Marge Hotchkiss Herself, that radioactively charming seductress. She slouched over to the counter and said, “Yeah? What now?”
“We have a press release to send out. For relay to the nearest Galactic News Service TP pickup.”
“Well, okay.” She consulted a ratebook. “Five hundred credits, thumb to the plate.”
I stared at the computer input on her desk. “I’m not authorized to make charges here.”
“You are a feeb, aren’t you? Why didn’t they send someone whose thumbprint is registered?”
“GNS will accept a collect call from us,” I explained. “It’s already been arranged.”
Hotchkiss grew more sullen. “How do I know?”
“But—”
“You want me to go to the trouble of setting up a hookup just to find out if they’ll take a collect from you. Only what if they say no? I’ve wasted a shot of TP energy. I’m no goddam machine, sonny. You want to make a call, you pay for it.”
And she sneered. Like something out of medieval melodrama. I’ve never been sneered at before. She was an expert sneerer, too. Must have had lots of practice.
Jan was standing to one side during this exchange, obviously sizzling, but unwilling to cut in. This was my show. I’d look pretty spinless if I couldn’t even get the local TP operator to accept a collect call. I wanted to do something virile and forceful, like throw Marge Hotchkiss through the wall. I began to rage and bluster. I told her that my sister was a TP supervisor and would have her fired, a lie for which I hope to be forgiven. I demanded to see her superior. I threatened to report her to the network coordinator. The louder I yelled, the more curdled the
The trouble with a serious, intense discussion, I find, is that it ultimately becomes a little awkward to continue when the people doing the talking don’t know each other too well. In an earnest way we made a stab at talking about Dad’s hostility to my going into archaeology, and likesuch topics, but the atmosphere of earnestness started depressing us. I had to do something. Either make a pass at Jan, which somehow seemed less appropriate than ever after all this solemn palaver, or else get out and pretend I could do something about starting the engine. I got out.
Jan said, “Why try to look chivalrous? You know there’s absolutely nothing you can do to fix it. Unless you can rub your fingers together and spurt some wattage into the battery.”
I grinned sickly at her as I stood in the rain. “We might sit here all week,” I said.
“So? They’ll send out a rescue party. Come back inside.”
I did, and a minute later a military truck appeared. Three soldiers were in it; they stopped when they saw we were stalled, became very attentive indeed when they got a good look at Jan (girls of her contours are extremely rare on this miserable outpost of the Terran Empire), and lewdly suggested that she ride to town with them while I stayed behind to guard the runabout. They looked hurt when Jan vetoed the idea. I drew sour looks of undisguised envy from them; I guess they figured Jan and I had been making feverish love while awaiting help. Let them stew.
They gave us a ride to town, finally.
Sour looks were in style there, too. The first place we went was the communications office, and naturally the TP on duty was Marge Hotchkiss Herself, that radioactively charming seductress. She slouched over to the counter and said, “Yeah? What now?”
“We have a press release to send out. For relay to the nearest Galactic News Service TP pickup.”
“Well, okay.” She consulted a ratebook. “Five hundred credits, thumb to the plate.”
I stared at the computer input on her desk. “I’m not authorized to make charges here.”
“You are a feeb, aren’t you? Why didn’t they send someone whose thumbprint is registered?”
“GNS will accept a collect call from us,” I explained. “It’s already been arranged.”
Hotchkiss grew more sullen. “How do I know?”
“But—”
“You want me to go to the trouble of setting up a hookup just to find out if they’ll take a collect from you. Only what if they say no? I’ve wasted a shot of TP energy. I’m no goddam machine, sonny. You want to make a call, you pay for it.”
And she sneered. Like something out of medieval melodrama. I’ve never been sneered at before. She was an expert sneerer, too. Must have had lots of practice.
Jan was standing to one side during this exchange, obviously sizzling, but unwilling to cut in. This was my show. I’d look pretty spinless if I couldn’t even get the local TP operator to accept a collect call. I wanted to do something virile and forceful, like throw Marge Hotchkiss through the wall. I began to rage and bluster. I told her that my sister was a TP supervisor and would have her fired, a lie for which I hope to be forgiven. I demanded to see her superior. I threatened to report her to the network coordinator. The louder I yelled, the more curdled the
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