"Maybe you're right. I still say it's noisy. Let's go to dinner."
"Good idea. Say-you've got a new nail tint. I like it."
Monroe-Alpha spread his fingers. "It is smart, isn't it? Mauve Iridescent it's called. Care to try some?"
"No, thank you. I'm too dark for it, I'm afraid. But it goes well with your skin."
They ate in the pay-restaurant Hamilton had discovered. Monroe-Alpha automatically asked for a private room when they entered; Hamilton, at the same moment, demanded a table in the ring. They compromised on a balcony booth, semi-private, from which Hamilton could amuse himself by staring down at the crowd in the ring.
Hamilton had ordered the meal earlier in the day, which was the point which had caused his friend to consent to venture out. It was served promptly. "What is it?" Monroe-Alpha demanded suspiciously.
"Bouillabaisse. It's halfway between a soup and a stew. More than a dozen kinds of fish, white wine, and the Great Egg alone knows how many sorts of herbs and spices. All natural foods."
"It must be terribly expensive."
"It's a creative art and it's a pleasure to pay for it. Don't worry about it. You know I can't help making money." "Yes, I know. I never could understand why you take so much interest in games. Of course, it pays well."
"You don't understand me. I'm not interested in games. Have you ever seen me waste a slug or a credit on one of my own gadgets-or any other? I haven't played a game since I was a boy. For me, it is already well established that one horse can run faster than mother, that the ball falls either on red or on black, and that three of a kind beats two pair. It's that I can't see the silly toys that people play with without thinking of one a little more complicated and mysterious. If I am bored with nothing better to do, I may sketch one and dispatch it to my agent. Presently in comes some more money." He shrugged.
"What are you interested in?" "People. Eat your soup."
Monroe-Alpha tasted the mess cautiously, looked surprised, and really went to work on it. Hamilton looked pleased, and undertook to catch up. "Felix-"
"Yes, Cliff."
"Why did you group me in the ninety-eight?"
"The ninety-eight? Oh, you mean the sourpuss survey. Shucks, pal, you rated it. If you are gay and merry-merry be-behind that death mask, you conceal it well."
"I've nothing to be unhappy about." "No, not to my knowledge. But you don't look happy." They ate in silence for a few minutes more. Monroe-Alpha spoke again. 'It's true, you know. I'm not."
"Not what?"
"Not happy."
"So? Mmmm... why not?"
"I don't know. If I did I could do something about it. My family psychiatrist doesn't seem to be able to find the reason."
"You're on the wrong frequency. A psychiatrist is the last man to see about a thing like that. They know everything about a man, except what he is and what makes him tick. Besides, did you ever see a worry-doctor that was sane himself? There aren't two in the country who can count their own fingers and get the same answer twice running."
"It's true that he hasn't been able to help me much."
"Of course not. Why? Because he will start with the assumption that there is something wrong with you. He can't find it, so he's stuck. It doesn't occur to him that there might be nothing wrong with you and that might be what was wrong."
The other man looked weary. "I don't understand you. But he does claim to be following a clue."
"What sort?"
"Well... I'm a deviant, you know."
"Yes, I know, " Hamilton answered shortly. He was reasonably familiar with his friend's genetic background, but disliked to hear him mention it. Some contrary strain in Hamilton rebelled against the idea that a man was necessarily and irrevocably the gene pattern handed to him by his genetic planners. Furthermore he was not convinced that Monroe-Alpha should be considered a deviant.
"Deviant" is a question-begging term. When the human zygote resulting from the combination of two carefully selected gametes is different from what the geneticists had predicted but not so different as to be classified with certainty as a mutation that zygote is termed a deviant. It is not, as is generally believed, a specific term for a recognized phenomenon, but a catch-all to cover a lack of complete knowledge.
Monroe-Alpha (this particular Monroe-Alpha-Clifford, 32-847-106 B62) had been an attempt to converge two lines of the original Monroe-Alpha to recapture and reinforce the mathematical genius of his famous ancestor. But mathematical genius is not one gene, nor does it appear to be anything as simple as a particular group of genes. Rather, it is thought to be a complex of genes arranged in a particular order.
Unfortunately this gene complex appears to be close-linked in the Monroe-Alpha line to a neurotic contrasurvival characteristic, exact nature undetermined and not assigned to any set of genes. That it is not necessarily so linked appears to be established, and the genetic technicians who had selected the particular gametes which were to produce Monroe-Alpha Clifford believed that they had eliminated the undesired strain.
Monroe-Alpha Clifford did not think so.
Hamilton fixed him with a finger. "The trouble with you, my fine foolish friend, is that you are bothering your head with things you don't understand. Your planners told you that they had done their level best to eliminate from you the thing which caused your great grandfather Whiffenpoof to raise garter snakes in his hat. There is a long chance that they failed, but why assume that they did?"
"My great grandfathers did nothing of the sort. A slight strain of anhedonism, a tendency to-"
"Then why act like they had to be walked on a leash? You make me tired. You've got a cleaner pedigree than ninety-nine out of a hundred, and a chromosome chart that's as neat and orderly as a checker board. Yet you're yiping about it. How would you like to be a control natural? How would you like to have to wear lenses against your eyeballs? How would you like to be subject to a dozen filthy diseases? Or have your teeth fall out, and have to chew your meals with false choppers?"
"Of course, nobody would want to be a control natural, " Monroe-Alpha said reflectively, 'but the ones I've known seemed to be happy enough."
"All the more reason for you to snap out of your funk. What do you know of pain and sickness? You can't appreciate it any more than a fish appreciates water. You have three times the income you can spend, a respected position, and work of your own choosing. What more do you want out of life?"
"I don't know, Felix. I don't know, but I know I'm not getting it. Don't ride me about it."
"Sorry. Eat your dinner."
The fish stew contained several large crab legs; Hamilton ladled one into his guest's trencher. Monroe-Alpha stared at it uneasily. "Don't be so suspicious, " Hamilton advised. "Go ahead. Eat it."
"How?"
"Pick it up in your fingers, and crack the shell." Monroe-Alpha attempted to comply, somewhat clumsily, but the greasy, hard surface skidded between his fingers. He attempted to recover and knocked it over the edge of the balcony rail at his elbow.
He started to rise; Hamilton put a hand on his forearm. "My fault, " he said. "I will repair it." He stood up and looked down at the table directly beneath their booth.
He did not see the stray bit of seafood at once, but he had no difficulty in telling approximately where it had landed. Seated at the table was a party of eight. Two of them were elderly men who wore the brassards-of-peace. Four women alternated with the males around the table. One of them, quite young and pretty, was dabbing at something which seemed to have stained her gown. The wayward crab leg was floating in a crystal bell of purple liquid directly in front of her; cause and effect were easy to infer.