"All right."
"Sweetheart, you know I don't want to go. But I have to. We all have to." Bob waved toward the house. "Do you want to give that up? You want to go back to the old ways?"
"No." Joan moved away from the car. "All right, Bob. I'll see you in a day or two then?"
"I hope so. This trouble should be over soon. Most of the New York groups are being called. The Berlin and Oslo groups are already there. It shouldn't take long."
"Good luck."
"Thanks." Bob closed the door. The motor started up automatically. "Say goodbye to Tommy for me."
The car drove off, gaining speed, the automatic control board guiding it expertly into the main stream of traffic flowing down the highway. Joan watched until the car blended with the endless tide of flashing metal hulls, racing across the countryside in a bright ribbon toward the distant city. Then she went slowly back inside the house.
Bob never came back from Mars, so in a manner of speaking, Tommy became the man of the house. Joan got a release from school for him and after a while he began work as a lab technician at the Government Research Project a few miles down the road.
Bryan Erickson, the Sector Organizer, stopped one evening to see how they were getting along. "Nice little place you have here," Erickson said, wandering around.
Tommy swelled with pride. "Sure is, isn't it? Sit down and make yourself comfortable."
"Thanks." Erickson peered into the kitchen. The kitchen was in the process of putting out a meal for the evening dinner. "Quite a kitchen."
Tommy came up beside him. "See that unit there on top of the stove?"
"What's it do?"
"It's a selector on the kitchen. It sets up a new combination every day. We don't have to figure out what to eat."
"Amazing." Erickson glanced at Tommy. "You seem to be doing all right."
Joan looked up from the vidscreen. "As well as could be expected." Her voice was toneless, flat.
Erickson grunted. He walked back into the living-room. "Well, I guess I'll be running along."
"What did you come for?" Joan asked.
"Nothing in particular, Mrs Clarke." Erickson hesitated by the door, a big man, red-faced, in his late thirties. "Oh, there was one thing."
"What is it?" Her voice was emotionless.
"Tom, have you made out your Sector Unit card?"
"My Sector Unit card!"
"According to law you're supposed to be registered as part of this sector --my sector." He reached in his pocket. "I have a few blank cards with me."
"Gee!" Tommy said, a little frightened. "So soon? I thought it wasn't until I got to be eighteen."
"They've changed the ruling. We took quite a beating on Mars. Some of the sectors can't fill their quotas. Have to dig deeper from now on." Erickson grinned good-naturedly. "This is a good sector, you know. We have a lot of fun drilling and trying out the new equipment. I finally got Washington to consign us a whole squadron of the new double-jet small fighters. Each man in my sector gets the use of a
us a whole squadron of the new double-jet small fighters. Each man in my sector gets the use of a
Tommy's eyes lit up. "Really?"
"In fact the user gets to bring the fighter home over the weekend. You can park it on your lawn."
"No kidding?" Tommy sat down at the desk. He filled the Unit card out happily.
"Yes, we have a pretty good time," Erickson murmured.
"Between wars," Joan said quietly.
"What's that, Mrs Clarke?"
"Nothing."
Erickson accepted the filled-out card. He put it away in his wallet. "By the way," he said.
Tommy and Joan turned toward him.
"I guess you've been seeing the gleco-war on the vidscreen. I guess you know all about that."
"The gleco-war?"
"We get all our gleco from Callisto. It's made from the hides of some kind of animal. Well, there's been a little trouble with the natives. They claim --"
"What is a gleco?" Joan said tightly.
"That's the stuff that makes your front door open for you only. It's sensitive to your pressure pattern. Gleco is made from these animals."
There was silence, the kind you can cut with a knife.
"I guess I'll be going." Erickson moved toward the door. "We'll see you the next training session, Tom. Right?" He opened the door.
"Right," Tommy murmured.
"Goodnight." Erickson left, closing the door after him.
"But I have to go!" Tommy exclaimed.
"Why?"
"The whole sector is going. It's required."
Joan stared out the window. "It isn't right."
"But if I don't go we'll lose Callisto. And if we lose Callisto..."
"I know. Then we'll have to go back to carrying door keys. Like our grandfathers did."
"That's right." Tommy stuck out his chest, turning from side to side. "How do I look?"
Joan said nothing.
"How do I look? Do I look all right?"
Tommy looked fine in his deep green uniform. He was slim and straight, much better looking than Bob. Bob had been gaining weight. His hair had been thinning. Tommy's hair was thick and black. His cheeks were flushed with excitement, his blue eyes flashing. He pulled his helmet in place, snapping the strap.
"Okay?" he demanded.
Joan nodded. "Fine."
"Kiss me goodbye. I'm off to Callisto. I'll be back in a couple of days."
"Goodbye."
"You don't sound very happy."
"I'm not," Joan said. "I'm not very happy."
Tommy came back from Callisto all right but during the trektone-war on Europa something went wrong with his double-jet small fighter and the Sector Unit came back without him.
"Trektone," Bryan Erickson explained, "is used in vidscreen tubes. It's very important, Joan."
"I see."
"You know what the vidscreen means. Our whole education and information come over it. The kids learn from it. They get their schooling. And in the evening we use the pleasure-channels for entertainment. You don't want us to have to go back to --"
"No, no -- of course not. I'm sorry." Joan waved a signal and the coffee table slid into the living-room, bearing a pot of steaming coffee. "Cream? Sugar?"
"No, no -- of course not. I'm sorry." Joan waved a signal and the coffee table slid into the living-room, bearing a pot of steaming coffee. "Cream? Sugar?"
"Any news from the various fronts?" Joan asked after a while, leaning back and smoothing down her skirt.
"The fronts?" Erickson considered. "Well, some new developments in the iderium-war."
"Where is that?"
"Neptune. We get our iderium from Neptune."
"What is iderium used for?" Joan's voice was thin and remote as if she were a long way off. Her face had a pinched look, a kind of strained whiteness. As if a mask had settled into place and remained, a mask through which she looked from a great distance.
"All the newspaper machines require iderium," Erickson explained. "Iderium lining makes it possible for them to detect events as they occur and flash them over the vidscreen. Without iderium we'd have to go back to reporting news and writing it up by hand. That would introduce the personal bias. Slanted news. The iderium news machines are impartial."
Joan nodded. "Any other news?"
"Not much more. They say some trouble might be going to break out on Mercury."
"What do we get from Mercury?"
"That's where our ambroline comes from. We use ambroline in all kinds of selector units. In your kitchen -- the selector you have in there. The meal selector that sets up the food combinations. That's an ambroline unit."