“Girls available too?”
“Everything’s available.”
“Just curious—how much for the girl?”
“That depends, sir. Anywhere from three thousand to twelve or more.”
“Jesus,” said Harry.
Later, when he suggested to Jolene that she might like to enjoy a unique experience in space, she said, “Are you serious? After what I went through on that ship, do you think I would go into free fall again one minute sooner than I have to? Grow up, Harry.”
Then she told him she was having dinner with a woman she had met at the hairdresser’s. Harry grabbed a sandwich in the coffee shop and then went to the casino. He played the slots awhile, won a small pot and ended up only about two hundred down. Encouraged, he went to the blackjack table, where two men and a woman were already playing. The woman was a striking blonde in a paper dress. After a while Harry noticed that the robot dealer was paying her about two hands out of three.
Harry caught her eye and said, “Hey, if I buy you a drink, will you tell me how you do that?”
She smiled. “I just play the odds. But you can buy me a drink anyway, lover.”
They cashed in and went to a booth in the casino lounge. Harry was feeling a pleasant excitement. The blonde, who said her name was Caroline, ordered a Tom Collins from the robot waitress; Harry had bourbon. “Are you a tourist, too,” he asked, “or, uh—”
“I’m an employee,” she said. “I was on the construction crew that built this place, and they gave us the option of staying on. The other option was they’d take our earnings to pay for passage home. That’s the way it goes. Everybody has to have some kind of a hustle. I come over here every day or two to pick up some extra cash.”
“Over here?”
“From the other half of the dumbbell. That’s where most of the employees bunk. It’s not as fancy as this.”
“Hey, I’d like to see that.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” She sipped her drink. “What you’d like to see is the docking chamber.”
Harry felt himself flushing. He leaned forward. “Yeah, you’re right about that. Would you be interested?”
“Sure, lover. You’re heavy or you wouldn’t be here, right?”
“Not that heavy. How much?”
She spread out the fingers of both hands on the table. Harry hesitated only a moment. “I haven’t got it in cash,” he said.
“Not to worry. I take credit cards.”
“No, uh—”
“Somebody might see the statement?”
“Yeah, or— Anyway, I’ll get the cash. Who do I pay for the docking whatchacallit?”
“I’ll take care of that. What time are you on? Houston, probably.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, late tonight would be the best.”
“Two o’clock?”
She took a minicom from her purse, tapped buttons, looked at the readout. “Yes, two is okay. Go up the way you came in, take the elevator. And don’t forget your velcro shoes.”
Harry went to the bank and got twenty nice new thousand-dollar bills. That night after the cabaret, taking a chance, he made a tentative move on Jolene; as he expected, she had a headache and took a sleeping pill. At half-past one, when she was snoring, he got up and dressed quietly. He found the velcro shoes in the bureau, put them in his pocket, and let himself out into the hall.
30
In one way it was crazy, but on the other hand it would be crazier not to spend the money and get something for it, after spending so much for nothing. What if he got sick, though? He didn’t think he would. He bought a pill from a dispenser in the lobby, and hoped for the best.
No one was around the elevator. He got in by himself, changed his shoes. The shoes stuck to the velcro floor, but he folded the carpet flaps over them the way the attendants had done, just to make sure.
The street shoes in his pockets made him feel funny, like a kid up to something. He realized that he was having a daydream about running into a cop named Martinez that he hadn’t seen in thirty years, probably dead now. “Up,” he said, and the door closed.
His weight dropped off to nothing at the midpoint; again the car seemed to roll over, and then his weight came back. After another minute the door sighed open. The velcro ramp he had come in on was gone, and now he could see just how big the chamber really was. He weighed maybe a pound or two here; his face was already feeling puffy. There she was, upside down, haloed by lights from somewhere. Beside her, a thick white rope hung from a ring on the floor. She gave him her hand to help him turn himself around and get his feet under him.
Now they were both right side up, and the big empty space was over their heads where it belonged. With part of his brain, Harry was trying to figure out why they hadn’t had to do this upside-down thing when they first came in. The ramp, he. realized—they must have been walking on the underside of the ramp when they came out of the shuttle, so then they were upside down to begin with, only they didn’t know it. That was pretty cute.
She took the envelope he handed her, examined the bills and put them in her purse, then turned and knuckled him lightly up and down the ribs. “Here’s how it works,” she said. “Clothes off here, except for shoes— you’ll need them later. We put our clothes in these bags.”
She undressed quickly. Her breasts were small and high; when she moved, they went every which way. Harry had a painful erection. Ignoring it, she said, “Now grab the rope and just lift one foot off the floor, then the other. That’s it. Now we pull ourselves up to the middle.”
Harry felt himself growing lighter as they ascended. Now they were both floating, head to head, holding on to the rope. At the middle two thin cords with velcro patches at the ends were waving like snakes. Caroline caught one and fastened the velcro around her crossed ankles. “Put the other one on around your waist.” Harry did it, still holding onto the rope, but he could feel himself whirling around, and he was afraid for a minute he was going to be sick.
“Let go,” she said. As they floated away, she pushed herself down along his body, then swung her legs up to encircle him. She pulled herself up again, clasped him with legs and arms, and looked him in the eyes. “Now, lover,” she said.
It was easier to ignore the lack of an up or down than he had expected, because the lights on both of them kept him from seeing the distant walls, but the sex itself was hard to get the hang of. It seemed like her body didn’t weigh anything, because there she was floating in the air, and yet when he moved against her there was a feeling of resistance; then she would start moving away, and when he pulled her back with his hands there was a resistance again. Her boobs and her hair went this way and that way.
After a minute or two he got the rhythm better. She smiled sleepily and let go of him with her arms, laying out in the air in front of him with her hands behind her head. When he came, she drew herself close again and held him.
“Hey,” he said.
“Good boy.” She pulled herself in to the rope by the cord. Harry followed her, and they went hand over hand down to the bottom of the chamber.
“That was something,” he said.
“Sure it was. Get your clothes on fast, or they’ll hit you for another half-hour.”
In the elevator, he said, “You want to have a drink?”
She shrugged. “Sure.”
As they were crossing the park, they passed a young man in a silver jacket, and she made some kind of signal to him.
“Friend of yours?”
“Kind of.”
They sat at a table in a dim cocktail lounge. “Listen, I want to ask you something,” Harry said. “That was the only thing I done here that made any sense to me, and no hard feelings, but I wouldn’t of come all this way for that. What the hell is the point?”