the odd hours instead of the even for the rest of that day. It was bad for a while in the afternoon, when they kept me waiting around the reception desk until 3:14 for a package that was slow in coming, but I got through the day all right.
The night, not so all right. The Moke at five was to celebrate the end of the working day; that was fine. Seven was harder to wait for, but I dragged out eating dinner as long as I could. And then back to the room, and then, dear heaven, nine o’clock was such a long time coming! About a quarter past eight I took a Moke out of the six-pack and held it in my hands. I had the Omni-V on, and it was showing one of those grand old historical epics about the early days of mail-order advertising, but I wasn’t really following it very well. The place my eyes clung to was the clock. Eight eighteen. Eight twenty. Eight twenty-two … by eight fifty my eyes were glazing over, but I made it all the way to the tick of nine before I popped the tab.
I drank it down, enjoying it, and proud of the fact that I’d held out.
And then I faced the fact that it would be six A.M. —nine long hours!—before I could have another.
It was more than I could handle. By the time Charlie Bergholm scratched and yawned his way out of the bed box to make room for me I had killed a whole new six-pack.
Courses began. I made attempts now and then to cut down on the Mokes, but I decided that the important thing was to deal with the rest of my life. And one part of my life was taking on more importance than I had anticipated.
It’s funny. It’s as though a person has just so much love and tenderness to spend. I told myself that the Moke addiction wasn’t that bad, really; didn’t interfere with my work really; certainly didn’t make me worth, really, any less … I didn’t believe it. The lower I fell in my own eyes, the more esteem I had left over, without a good place to invest it. Any more.
The life of a diplomat is full of complicated taboos and vacancies. There we were on Venus, surrounded by eight hundred thousand irreconcilable enemies. There were only a hundred and eight of us diplomats. In such circumstances, what do you do for friendship? More than that, what do you do about—well— love? You have a universe of perhaps fifty op-posite-gender candidates to choose from. Probably a dozen are married—I mean faithfully married—and a dozen or more are too old, and about the same are too young. If you’re lucky there may be as many as ten really eligible lovers in the pool, and what are the odds that even one of those will turn you on, and be turned on in return? Not good. Dips are as inbred as the Bounty survivors on Pitcairn Island. When Mitzi Ku came along I lucked in. We liked each other. We had the same feelings about sex. She was an immense convenience for me and I for her—not just for the physical act of sex, but for all the pair-bonding things that go along with it, like pillow gossip and remembering each other’s birthdays. It was nice having Mitzi there for such things. She was maybe the most valued accessory the Embassy furnished me. I appreciated the convenience. We were most candid and outspoken with each other, but there was a four-letter word neither of us ever spoke to the other. The word was “love.”
And now there wasn’t any good way for me to say it to her. Mitzi had risen as fast as I had fallen. I didn’t even see her from one week to another, except fleeting glimpses. I hadn’t forgotten that she promised to get me on as a copy trainee in Intangibles. But I thought she had —until I brought Val Dambois’s lunch up to him and discovered Mitzi in his office. Not just there. Head to head with him; and when I opened the door they sprang apart. “Damn it, Tarb,” yelled Dambois, “don’t you know enough to knock?”
“Sorry,” I shrugged. I dropped his soyaburger on the desk and turned to go. I had no desire to break up their little cozy time … or, if I did, I
The night, not so all right. The Moke at five was to celebrate the end of the working day; that was fine. Seven was harder to wait for, but I dragged out eating dinner as long as I could. And then back to the room, and then, dear heaven, nine o’clock was such a long time coming! About a quarter past eight I took a Moke out of the six-pack and held it in my hands. I had the Omni-V on, and it was showing one of those grand old historical epics about the early days of mail-order advertising, but I wasn’t really following it very well. The place my eyes clung to was the clock. Eight eighteen. Eight twenty. Eight twenty-two … by eight fifty my eyes were glazing over, but I made it all the way to the tick of nine before I popped the tab.
I drank it down, enjoying it, and proud of the fact that I’d held out.
And then I faced the fact that it would be six A.M. —nine long hours!—before I could have another.
It was more than I could handle. By the time Charlie Bergholm scratched and yawned his way out of the bed box to make room for me I had killed a whole new six-pack.
Courses began. I made attempts now and then to cut down on the Mokes, but I decided that the important thing was to deal with the rest of my life. And one part of my life was taking on more importance than I had anticipated.
It’s funny. It’s as though a person has just so much love and tenderness to spend. I told myself that the Moke addiction wasn’t that bad, really; didn’t interfere with my work really; certainly didn’t make me worth, really, any less … I didn’t believe it. The lower I fell in my own eyes, the more esteem I had left over, without a good place to invest it. Any more.
The life of a diplomat is full of complicated taboos and vacancies. There we were on Venus, surrounded by eight hundred thousand irreconcilable enemies. There were only a hundred and eight of us diplomats. In such circumstances, what do you do for friendship? More than that, what do you do about—well— love? You have a universe of perhaps fifty op-posite-gender candidates to choose from. Probably a dozen are married—I mean faithfully married—and a dozen or more are too old, and about the same are too young. If you’re lucky there may be as many as ten really eligible lovers in the pool, and what are the odds that even one of those will turn you on, and be turned on in return? Not good. Dips are as inbred as the Bounty survivors on Pitcairn Island. When Mitzi Ku came along I lucked in. We liked each other. We had the same feelings about sex. She was an immense convenience for me and I for her—not just for the physical act of sex, but for all the pair-bonding things that go along with it, like pillow gossip and remembering each other’s birthdays. It was nice having Mitzi there for such things. She was maybe the most valued accessory the Embassy furnished me. I appreciated the convenience. We were most candid and outspoken with each other, but there was a four-letter word neither of us ever spoke to the other. The word was “love.”
And now there wasn’t any good way for me to say it to her. Mitzi had risen as fast as I had fallen. I didn’t even see her from one week to another, except fleeting glimpses. I hadn’t forgotten that she promised to get me on as a copy trainee in Intangibles. But I thought she had —until I brought Val Dambois’s lunch up to him and discovered Mitzi in his office. Not just there. Head to head with him; and when I opened the door they sprang apart. “Damn it, Tarb,” yelled Dambois, “don’t you know enough to knock?”
“Sorry,” I shrugged. I dropped his soyaburger on the desk and turned to go. I had no desire to break up their little cozy time … or, if I did, I
Similar Books
