The boat surfaced. They flew across the choppy open water. Paula sat back. The other passengers talked in low voices. Tony sat absently licking the hairs of his mustache into his mouth and biting them off. Ahead, the southern end of the New York dome reflected the late sunlight back across the water in a coppery trail. In the western sky, rank with pollution, swirling with smoke, three images of the sun sank toward the horizon. Half the sky was brilliant ruddy orange. The boat yawed in the wind off the seacoast. They sank into the water again. The boatman steered them through the underwater lock and up to the surface of the terminal pond.
Tony helped her down the ramp, steering her by one hand on her arm. They went into the terminal building and took the crowded vertical car to the roof bus stop. Dark was falling. The winking white light of an air bus was coming above the trees. Tony stood beside her, rocking back and forth on his heels.
“Write something down I can show my doctor, so he can take the plug out.”
“I think you ought to go to a doctor who minds his own.”
The bus settled down onto the roof. She went up the steps beside the driver. She hadn’t paid for a bus ride in days; she put a dollar into the box. Tony came after her, crowding her in. The bus was full, all the side benches taken. She went down the aisle to the back.
“Do you like the name Jennie?” Tony asked.
“I like Jennifer better.”
“Jennifer Mendoza sounds terrible.”
She looked up at him, drawn by his earnestness. His eyes were blue, unexpected against his chocolate dark skin. Their baby would not have blue eyes.
“Andrea is a girl’s name.” It was a fad to name babies for their fathers.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” he said.
The bus slowed and settled down on a rooftop, and the lights blinked on and off. “Hobold Building,” the driver called. “Change for crosstown. Next stop the university.”
“What if it’s a boy?” Paula said.
Tony shrugged. “I have no preference in boys’ names.”
The bus flew off in a giddy curve. She clutched the railing to keep from falling. Out the window, beyond the fat woman on the bench, the blue night domelight shone on the surface of the lake. The bus crossed a hilly stretch of trees and lowered again. She slid between Tony and a row of knees toward the back door.
She got off the bus near the turret of the Biochemistry Building. There was an arrow-shaped sign pasted to it: Celestial Mechanics Conference. She went across the campus. Most of the university was underground. On the silo of the Technology Building was another arrow-shaped sign. She liked the phrase, “celestial mechanics.” Maybe she would name the baby that. She went through the park. It was dark under the trees and she stayed in the open. An owl hooted. She stopped and waited but heard nothing more.
The top three stories of her building were above ground. She went in the front door, past the crowds of bicycles, and up to the third floor. In the circular middle room of the commune a small knot of people already waited at the big table for the dinner rice. She stopped at the videone for her messages. There were no messages. She went to her room, in the back hall, threw her bag on the unmade bed, and went next door and knocked.
“Who’s there?”
She opened the door and went into a tiny, crowded room. An Chu was standing at her drawing table sketching. Paula took off her jacket, dropped it on the bed, and stretched herself out on top of it and the other woman’s stacked clean sheets and towels.
“We went to Manhattan. Have you ever been there? The undersea dome.”
An Chu’s beaked Aztec nose was an inch from the paper. “I can’t stand being under water. The job list is there on the bed.”
Like Paula, An Chu was out of work. Paula sat up. She piled the clean laundry up into a single stack against the wall and found the long sheet of paper advertising jobs. Outside in the hall, someone called, “The rice is out.” An Chu took the bowl and went to get their dinner. Paula toed off her shoes. She got up to see the long sleeveless dress An Chu had been drawing. The walls of the little room were papered with sketches of clothes. An Chu brought the nutty fragrance of rice into the room.
“Here’s one,” Paula said, sitting down on the bed again. “Swamper for an all-night bar. Prefer non-drinker.”
An Chu located her cutting board and a knife and began to chop vegetables. “You drink.” A piece of celery sailed into Paula’s lap and she ate it.
“I could quit. What’s a bramante?”
“I think it’s a place in Lisbon.”
“I think it’s a man. I’m glad I can’t type.” Rows and rows of uninteresting jobs required typing. She watched An Chu pile up the green and orange vegetables at the side of the chopping block. An Chu’s skin was golden, her lips full, her long eyes like jet. She swept the vegetables into the pot, where they sizzled.
“I have to get up early tomorrow,” Paula said. “Make sure I wake up, will you?”
“Why?”
“For the oral exam. For the Committee.”
“Oh, lord. You aren’t still doing that?”
“It’s a job. They pay better than anything else except the Martians.”
“If you ask me,” An Chu said, stirring the vegetables, “there’s no difference between the Committee and the Martians. They’re all a power train.”
Paula folded the job sheet and stuck it into a crack in the wall. She sat down on the floor, ready to eat. An Chu was right about the Committee. A worldwide company, it negotiated contracts and ran diplomatic errands for the rest of the Middle Planets. She had applied out of curiosity, and the tests had become a kind of joke; they asked for some training in interplanetary law, which she did not have, and gave aptitude tests in mathematics and science, which she knew she had flunked. It was amusing to answer tongue-in-cheek to all their solemn stupid questions. The other woman spooned up rice and vegetables into a bowl, and Paula reached for it, hungry.
The Committee for the Revolution had its New York office in a gulley between the campus and the lake. The building was one story, with three or four air cars parked on the roof. When Paula got there, the waiting room was already full of people. She crossed through the crowd, conscious of the stares, and read down the schedule on the bulletin board. Her name was third on the list for the oral exam. She could not leave to get her breakfast as she had planned. There was no place to sit. She stood by the wall next to the desk.
She had seen most of the other people at the written examinations. Nearly all were younger than she was by five or six years. They bent over their notebooks studying, or stared into space, book plugs in their ears. They took it all terribly seriously. The room was warm. She could smell her own body. She wondered why she was scheduled so early. Her stomach fluttered. It was easy to be facetious and irreverent to a piece of paper.
The inner door opened, and a tall redheaded girl came out. Behind her was a man in a white cotton pullover with NEW YORK LIBRARY stenciled on it in green. That was Michalski, the Committee secretary. Everybody in the waiting room came to attention. He said, “Carlos Sahedi?” and a boy with pimples left the couch and went in. Michalski shut the door.
The redheaded girl let out her breath in a loud shoosh. “Well, I’m glad that’s over.”
“What did they ask you?” Half the people waiting began to call questions. Paula crossed her arms over her breasts. Someone brought the redheaded girl a paper slip of water.