Forrester nodded thoughtfully and sat down. “I believe I’ll have that drink now, Adne,” he said. He realized, with a certain amount of pride, that he was perfectly calm.
The reason was that Forrester had come to a decision while Heinzlichen was talking: he had decided to go along with the gag. True, it wasn’t really a gag. True, when this man said he intended to cause Forrester a lot of pain and bring about his ultimate death, he meant every word of it. But you could not spend your life in weighing consequences. You had to pretend that the chips were only plastic and did not represent real currency of any sort, otherwise you would lose the game out of nerves and panic.
The very fact that the stakes were so important to Forrester was a good reason for pretending they were only make-believe.
He accepted a glass from Adne and said reasonably, “Now, let’s get this straight. Did I understand you right? You talked to a lawyer before you tried to kill me?”
“Nah! Wake up, will you? All I did den was file de papers.”
“But you just said—”
“Listen, why don’t you? De papers was so I could kill you—all de usual stuff, bonds to cover de DR business, guaranties against damaging de brain, and like dat. Den de lawyer was just yesterday, when I got de idea maybe I could kill you and save, all de bond and guaranty money.”
“Excuse me. I didn’t understand that part.” Forrester nodded pleasantly, thinking hard. It began to make a certain amount of sense. The thing you had to remember was that death, to these people, was not a terminal event but only an intermission.
He said, “As I understand it—I mean, if I understand it—the legal part of this business means you have to guarantee to pay my freezer costs if you kill me.”
“Nah! Not ‘if.’ Odder wise you got it.”
“So I don’t have anything to say about it. The law lets you kill me, and I’m stuck with it.”
“Dat’s right.”
Forrester said thoughtfully, “But it doesn’t sound fair to me, everything considered.”
“Fair? Of course it’s fair! Dat’s de whole idea of de guaranties.”
“Yes, of course—if the circumstances are normal. But in this case, with death-reversal out of the question . . .”
The Martian snorted angrily. “Are you crazy?”
“No, really,” Forrester persisted. “You said you were going to try to get out of paying my expenses. You know more about it than I do. Suppose you succeed?”
“Oh, boy! Den you have to pay dem yourself.”
Forrester said politely. “But you see, I can’t. I don’t have any money to pay them with. Ask Adne.”
The Martian turned to Adne with a look of unbelieving anger, but she said, “As a matter of fact, Heinzie, Charles is telling you the truth. I didn’t think of it, but it’s so. I mean, I haven’t checked his balance . . . but it can’t be much.”
“De hell with his balance! What de sweat do I care about his balance? I just want to kill him!”
“You see, Jura, if you kill me—”
“Shut up, you!”
“But the way things are—”
“Dog sweat!” The Martian’s face was working angrily under the mask of beard. He was confused, and that made him mad: “What’s de matter with you, Forrester? Why didn’t you get a job?”
“Well, I will. As soon as I can.”
“Sweat! You want to chicken out, dat’s all!”
“I simply didn’t understand my money situation. I didn’t plan it this way. I’m sorry, Jura, I really am, but—”
“Shut up!” barked the Martian. “Look, I got no more time for dis talk. I have to go to de rehearsal hall; we’re doing de Schumannlieder, and I’m de soloist. Answer de question. Do you want to chicken out?”
“Well,” said Forrester, fiddling with his glass and casting a sidelong glance at Adne, “yes.”
“Fink! Dogsweat fink!”
“I know how you feel. I guess I’d feel the same way.”
“De hell with how you’d feel. All right, look. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll talk to de lawyer again and see where de hell we stand. Meanwhile, you get a job, hear?”
Forrester showed the Martian out. For some reason that he could not quite analyze, he was feeling elated.
He stood thoughtfully at the door, testing the feeling. For a man who had just discovered he was a pauper, who had reinforced the dislike of an enemy who proposed to kill him, Forrester was feeling pretty good. Probably it was all an illusion, he thought fatalistically.
Adne was curled up on the couch, studying him. She had been doing something with the lights again; now they were misty blue, and her skin gleamed through the lacy strands of her coverall. Perhaps she had been doing something with that, too; it seemed to be showing more of Adne than it had earlier. Forrester excused himself and went into the little lavatory room to splash cold water on his face. And then he realized the cause of his elation.
He had managed to win a point.
He was not a bit sure it was a worthwhile point; he wasn’t even quite sure of what he had won. But, for better or for worse, he had gained a small victory over Heinzlichen Jura de Syrtis Major. For days Forrester had been a cork bobbing to the thrust of every passerby; now he was thrusting back. He came smiling back into the room and cried, “I want a drink!”
Adne was still on the couch, murmuring into her joymaker. “—And be sure you’re locked up,” she was saying. “Don’t forget your prophylaxis and say good night, Mim.” She put it down and looked up at him. Her expression was sulky but entertained.
“The kids?” She nodded. “My God, is it that late?” He had forgotten the passage of time. “I’m sorry. I mean, what about their dinners and all?”
She looked slightly less sulky, slightly more entertained. “Oh, Charles! You weren’t thinking I had to boil oatmeal or peel potatoes? They’ve had their dinners, of course.”
“Oh. Well. I guess we should be thinking about ours. . . .”
“Not yet.”
Forrester said, reorienting his thinking very quickly, “All right. Then what about that drink?”
“I’m not thirsty, you fool. Sit down.” She lifted her joymaker, looked him over with narrowed eyes, kissed the soft spot at the base of his throat, and touched it with the joymaker.
Forrester felt a sudden surge inside him. It was like a mild electric shock, like a whiff of mingled oxygen and musk.
Adne studied him critically, then leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.
A moment later he said, “Do that again.”
She did. Then she lay back against him with her head on his shoulder.
“Dear Charles,” she said, “you’re such a nut.”
He stroked her and kissed her hair. The parallel-strand fabric did not feel coarse or wiry; he could hardly tell it was there.
“I don’t know if you did the right thing with Heinzie,” she said meditatively. “It’s kind of—you know. Almost chicken . . .” Then she turned inside his arm and kissed his ear. “I know it embarrasses you when I talk biology, but—well, the reason I’m natural-flow, you see, is that I’m a natural type of girl. Do you understand?”
“Sure,” he lied, only vaguely hearing her.
“I mean, if you want to you can take the pills and use the chemosimulants, and it’s just about the same. But I don’t do that, because, if you’re going to do that, you might just as well go all the way and use the joy machine.”
“I can see that, all right,” he said, but she fended him off and added, “Still, one doesn’t have to be rigid. Sometimes you’re at a low point, and something special happens, and you’d like to be at a high point. Then you can take a pill if you want to, do you see?”