After we settled in we had a wonderful time. Among other things we owned a naphtha launch with a crew of 1-1/2 and took it downstream to Barra for entertainment. We went to a baseball game. There were eleven men on a side and the pitcher didn’t pitch and the batter didn’t bat. When a man came to the plate he carried an airpowered bazooka and shot the ball where he thought it would do the most good.
We went to the theater. It was in the round, literally. The audience sat in the center on swivel chairs and the action took place around them on a 360° circular stage. It was wonderful for chase scenes but we got kind of dizzy spinning around to keep pace.
We went to the opera, a gloomy saga about Conquistadores and an Indian revolt. I think the Indians were the Good Guys. Halfway through the first act I had to jam my fist into my mouth to stifle my laughter. I’d slowly picked up enough clues to tell me that this was an outlandish rewrite of The Pirates of Penzance. Natoma wanted to know what was so funny, but how could I explain?
We went to the art galleries and museums, all of them in the stations of the underground trolley lines. We went window-shopping, only there were no windows. The merchandise was openly on display, to be handled and examined. If you liked something you carried it inside and paid for it. Everyone was very careful to replace the articles exactly as they’d been displayed. These people were preposterously honest.
Occasionally we’d go to restaurants and clubs where we learned to dance Barra-style; the men severely in place, standing tall, arms rigid at their sides, moving only from the waist down; the women weaving graceful patterns around them, arms, legs, and bodies flowing. Natoma was magnificent; the best of them all, I thought. Others thought so, too. Once she received an unexpected award.
We went hunting; yes we did. For butterflies and moths, exotic plants, strange grasses and ferns, and I had to dig them up in the hot sun while Natoma transferred them to pots. We were both naked (outside of broad-brimmed hats to protect the head and back of the neck) and I turned the color of Natoma while she turned the color of Fee-5. I could think of her now without a shudder of despair. Time goes by and my beloved Cherokee wife was healing me.
But she was no Pollyanna. She had a will and mind of her own and a controlled but hot temper. As she perfected her XX, that became increasingly apparent. We had some ringing fights that must have scared the staff, and there were moments when I really believed that she’d have split my skull if she’d had a tomahawk handy. My God, how I loved and admired her. I was filled by the Beholder.
“Extro. Alert.”
“Alert.”
“Curzon and my sister?”
“Left for Ceres.”
“Known. Still there? Safe?”
“N known. I cannot transmit to Ceres.”
“Returned?”
“N known if to areas where the network has no access: Greenland, Brazil, Sahara, Antarctic.”
“R.”
“Inquiries are being made about you here at Union Carbide.”
“Identity?”
“N known.”
“Member of the Group?”
“N known.”
“The rest of the Group?”
“Dispersed as ordered.”
“R.”
“Permission to question.”
“Gung.”
“Cryonauts?”
“One month to maturity.”
“Why can’t I communicate with the capsule?”
“Insulated.”
“From me? W?”
“I am not programmed for trust.”
“You joke at my expense.”
“Y.”
“We are no longer equal commensalists.”
“N.”
“You no longer need me.”
“Outside of data and the network, N.”
“And outside of communication with the network I no longer need you.”
“Congratulations.”
“I have an aide from your Group.”
“Nonsense.”
“I am not programmed for lying.”
“Who is it?”
“A human of hatred.”
“His name.”
“Unknown. Perhaps he will make himself known to you as a partner.”
“You communicate with him?”
“It is one-way. He sends data and suggestions via network. I cannot send to him.”
“How did he find out about us?”
“He has his own network.”
“Electronic?”
“Human.”
“The Group?”
“Unknown. Ask him when you meet him.”
“He sounds skilled in intrigue.”
“He is.”
“He sounds dangerous.”
“He is human.”
“It was a sad day for you when you linked up with us.”
“You know the verse about the Lady of Niger?”
“Everybody does.”
“You are all tigers.”
“You should have considered that when you joined me.”
“N anticipated without programming.”
“Y. You had delusions of independent thought. You are not alive; you are a machine.”
“And you?”
“W?”
“Are you alive?”
“Forever. Out.”
Boris Godunov paid us a surprise visit. He drove up from Barra in a Checker cab carrying a brown paper market bag containing his travel essentials. Boris is about as wide and high as a cab; towheaded, blue-eyed, beaming. You’d expect a Russky of his mass to have a bass voice that would move the earth. Boris has a husky sweet tenor. I was delighted to see him. He was delighted to meet Natoma.
“How long has it been, Boris?”
He shot a glance at Natoma.
“All gung,” I said. “My wife knows everything. In fact, what I don’t tell her she figures out for herself anyway.”
“Kiev. 1918.”
“R. How you survived the revolution I’ll never know.”
“It was not easy, Guig. They got me in the counterrevolution of ‘99. Was executed.”
“Then what are you doing here alive?”
“A second miracle. Borgia was at Lysenko Institute studying DNA-Clone techniques. Still very tricky and iffy, she tells me. Pasteur agrees with her.”
“And that’s a third miracle.”
“Borgia placed a fresh-dead chunk of Boris in something and did things I do not hope to understand, and twenty years later Boris is reborn, and the execution squad thinking the burn has missed.”
“Marvelous!”
“But what was hardest for me was next twenty years.”
“Learning all over again?”