"Where do we start?"
"I can't decide what you are to do about anything, but it seems to me that the very first thing to do is to bring you up to date so that you will fit in twenty-eighty-six. It is a rather different world. You must learn a lot of new customs and a century-and-a-half of history and a number of new techniques and so forth. When you are up to date, you can decide for yourself what you want to do—and then you can do anything you want."
"It sounds to me as if I'd be too old to want to do anything by that time."
"No, I don't think so. You can start right away. I've got a number of ideas. In the first place, while I haven't very many useful books in this house, I do have a pretty fair history of the United States and a short world history. Yes, and a dictionary and a fairly recent encyclopedia. Oh and I nearly forgot, an abridged code of customs that I had when I was a kid. Then I am going to call Berkeley and ask for a group of records on a number of subjects that you can play on the televue whenever you like. That will really be your most beneficial and easiest way to learn in a hurry."
"How does it work?"
"It's very simple. You saw my act in the televue tonight. Well, it's just as easy to put a record on it and see and hear anything that you want to that has ever been recorded. If you wanted to, you could see President Berzowski open Congress in 2001 January. Or if you like, you could see any of my dances from records."
"I'll do that first. To hell with history!"
"You'll do nothing of the sort. You will study until you are oriented. If you want to see me dance, I'll dance for you."
"OK, right now."
She stuck out her tongue at him. "Be serious. Besides the records, I'll think over who among my friends can help and I'll get them to come talk with you and explain the things that I can't."
"Why do you take all this trouble about me, Dian'?"
"Why, anybody would, Perry. You were sick and cold and needed help."
"Yes, but now you undertake to educate me and set me on my feet."
"Well, I want to do it. Won't you let me?"
"Well, maybe. But look here, oughtn't I to get out of your house and find some other place to stay?"
"Why, Perry? You're welcome here. Aren't you comfortable?"
"Oh, of course. But how about your reputation? What will people say?"
"I don't see how it could affect my reputation; you don't dance. And what does it matter what people think—all they could think is that we were companions, if they bothered to think about it at all. Besides very few people except my friends will know. It is strictly in the private sphere of action. The custom is quite clear."
"What custom?"
"Why, the custom which says that what people do out of public service or private employment is private as long as it doesn't violate the other customs. Where people go, what they eat, or drink, or wear, or how they entertain themselves, or who they love, or how they play are strictly in the private sphere. So one must not print anything about it or broadcast it, or speak about it in a public place, without specific permission."
"Paging Walter Winchell! What in the world is in your newspapers?"
"Lots of things. Political news and ships' movements and public events and announcements of amusements and most anything about public officials—though their private sphere is much narrower. It's an exception in the custom. And new creations in clothing and architecture and food and new scientific discoveries and lists of new televue records and broadcasts, and new commercial projects. Who's Walter Winchell?"
"Walter Winchell, why he was a—Dian', I don't think you will believe it but he made a lot of money talking almost entirely about things in what you call the private sphere of action."
She wrinkled her nose. "How disgusting!"
"People ate it up. But look, how about your friends? Won't they think it strange?"
"Why should they? It isn't strange. I've entertained lots of them."
"But we aren't chaperoned."
"What's 'chaperoned'? Is it something like married?"
"Oh Lord, I give up. Listen, Dian', just pretend like we never said anything about it. I'll be most happy to stay if you want me to."
"Didn't I say I did?"
They were interrupted by the appearance of a large grey cat who walked out to the middle of the floor, calmly took possession, sat down, curled his tail carefully around him, and mewed loudly. He had only one ear and looked like a hard case. Diana gave him a stern look.
"Where have you been? Do you think this is any time to come home?"
The cat mewed again.
"Oh, so you'll be fed now? So this is just the place where they keep the fish?"
The cat walked over, jumped on the couch, and commenced bumping his head against Diana's side while buzzing loudly.
"All right. All right. Come along. Show me where it is." He jumped down and trotted quickly over toward Demeter, tail straight as a smoke column on a calm day, then sat and looked up expectantly. He mewed again.
"Don't be impatient." Diana held a dish of sardines in the air. "Show me where to put it." The cat trotted over in front of the fire. "All right. Now are you satisfied?" The cat did not answer, being already busy with the fish.
Diana returned to the couch and reached for a cigarette. "That's Captain Kidd. He's an old pirate with no manners and no morals. He owns this place."
"So I gathered. How did he get in?"
"He let himself in. He has a little door of his own that opens up when he mews."
"For Heaven's sakes! Is that standard equipment for cats these days?"
"Oh no. It's just a toy. He can't let himself in my door. It opens only to my voice. But I made a record of the mew he used to let me know he wanted to come in the house and sent it to be analyzed and a lock set to it. Now that lock opens his own little door. I suppose that doors that open to a voice are somewhat marvelous to you, Perry?"
"Well, yes and no. We had such things but they weren't commercially in use. I've seen them work. In fact I believe that I could design one if I had to."
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Really? I had no idea that technical advance was so marked in your day."
"We had a fairly involved technical culture, but unfortunately most of it wasn't used. People couldn't afford to pay for the things that the engineers could build, especially luxuries like automatic doors and television and such."
"Television isn't a luxury. It's a necessity. How else could one keep in touch? Why I would be helpless without it."
"Yes, no doubt you feel that way about it. People were beginning to say that about the telephone in my day. But the fact remains while we knew how to accomplish pretty fair television we didn't because there was no market. People couldn't afford it."
"I don't see why not."
"I don't know how to tell you. Perhaps I don't see either, except in some way I can't explain. But we did have a lot of unused or only partially used mechanical and technical knowledge. The application of any advance in invention or art was limited by whether or not there were people willing and able to pay for it. I served for a couple of years in one of the big aircraft carriers. There were boys in her—enlisted men—who used the most amazing technical devices—mechanical brains that could solve the most involved ballistic problems, problems in calculus using a round dozen variables, problems that would have taken an experienced mathematician days to solve. The machine solved them in a split second and applied the solutions, yet more than half of those boys came from homes that didn't have bathtubs or central heating."
"How awful! How in the world could they stay clean and healthy in such houses?"
"They couldn't. I don't suppose that I can make you realize just what the conditions were in which a lot of people lived. A classmate of mine at the Naval Academy joined the navy because he got tired of walking behind a mule and plowing. So he walked fifteen miles to town barefooted and slept on the doorstep of the post office. When the postmaster arrived in the morning he enlisted. He was selected for the Naval Academy and became one of the most brilliant young officers in the fleet and expert in the use and design of equipment that makes your automatic door seem simple. But his father and mother and brothers and sisters were still living in a one room dirt-floored cabin, dirty and sick from hookworm, anemia, and malnutrition."