And Now the News by Theodore Sturgeon Page B

business wait until you know us, Bril? I tell you now, there is no centralized Government here, almost no government at all; we of the Senate are advisory. I tell you, too, that to speak to one Senator is to speak to all, and that you may do it now, this minute, or a year from now—whenever you like. I am telling you the truth and you may accept it or you may spend months, years, traveling this planet and checking up on me; you’ll always come out with the same answer.”
    Noncommittally, Bril said, “How do I know that what I tell you is accurately relayed to the others?”
    â€œIt isn’t relayed,” said Tan frankly. “We all hear it simultaneously.”
    â€œSome sort of radio?”
    Tan hesitated, then nodded. “Some sort of radio.”
    â€œI won’t learn your language,” Bril said abruptly. “I can’t live as you do. If you can accept those conditions, I will stay a short while.”
    â€œAccept? We
insist!
” Tanyne bounded cheerfully to the niche where the goblet stood and held his palm up. A large, opaque sheet of a shining white material rolled down and stopped. “Draw with your finger,” he said.
    â€œDraw? Draw what?”
    â€œA place of your own. How you would like to live, eat, sleep, everything.”
    â€œI don’t require very much. None of us on Kit Carson do.”
    He pointed the finger of his gauntlet like a weapon, made a couple of dabs in the corner of the screen to test the line, and then dashed off a very credible parallelepiped. “Talking my height as one unit, I’d want this one-and-a-half long, one-and-a-quarter high. Slit vents at eye level, one at each end, two on each side, screened against insects—”
    â€œWe have no preying insects,” said Tanyne.
    â€œScreened anyway, and with as near an unbreakable mesh as you have. Here a hook suitable for hanging a garment. Here a bed, flat, hard, with firm padding as thick as my hand, one-and-one-eighth units long, one-third wide. All sides under the bed enclosed and equipped as a locker, impregnable, and to which only I have the key or combination. Here a shelf one-third by one-quarter units, one-half unit off the floor, suitable for eating from a seated posture.
    â€œOne of—those, if it’s self-contained and reliable,” he said edgily, casting a thumb at the boulderlike convenience. “The whole structure to be separate from all others on high ground and overhung by nothing—no trees, no cliffs, with approaches clear and visible from all sides; as strong as speed permits; and equipped with a light I can turn off and a door that only I can unlock.”
    â€œVery well,” said Tanyne easily. “Temperature?”
    â€œThe same as this spot now.”
    â€œAnything else? Music? Pictures? We have some fine moving—”
    Bril, from the top of his dignity, snorted his most eloquent snort. “Water, if you can manage it. As to those other things, this is a dwelling, not a pleasure palace.”
    â€œI hope you will be comfortable in this—in it,” said Tanyne, with barely a trace of sarcasm.
    â€œIt is precisely what I am used to,” Bril answered loftily.
    â€œCome, then.”
    â€œWhat?”
    The big man waved him on and passed through the arbor. Bril, blinking in the late pink sunlight, followed him.
    On the gentle slope above the house, halfway between it and the mountaintop beyond, was a meadow of the red grass Bril had noticed on his way from the waterfall. In the center of this meadow was a crowd of people, bustling like moths around a light, their flimsy, colorful clothes flashing and gleaming in a thousand shades. And in the middle of the crowd lay a coffin-shaped object.
    Bril could not believe his eyes, then stubbornly would not, and at last, as they came near, yielded and admitted to himself: this was thestructure he had just sketched.
    He walked more and more slowly as the wonder