“I’ve never seen you before,” he said. “I want to know you.”
“I’m no different from any other member,” she said. “There’s nothing unusual about me.”
“Your chin is a little sharper than normal.”
She drew back, looking hurt and confused.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said. “I just meant to point out that there is something unusual about you, even if it isn’t something important.”
She looked searchingly at him, then looked away, at the opposite side of the amphitheater again. She shook her head. “I don’t understand you,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was sick until last Tuesday. But my adviser took me to Medicenter Main and they fixed me up fine. I’m getting better now. Don’t worry.”
“Well that’s good,” she said. After a moment she turned and smiled cheerfully at him. “I forgive you,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said, suddenly feeling sad for her.
She looked away again. “I hope we sing ‘The Freeing of the Masses,’” she said.
“We will,” he said.
“I love it,” she said, and smiling, began to hum it.
He kept looking at her, trying to do so in a normal-seeming way. What she had said was true: she was no different from any other member. What did a sharp chin or a discolored toenail signify? She was exactly the same as every Mary and Anna and Peace and Yin who had ever been his girlfriend: humble and good, helpful and hard-working. Yet she made him feel sad. Why? And could all the others have done so, had he looked at them as closely as he was looking at her, had he listened as closely to what they said?
He looked at the members on the other side of him, at the scores in the tiers below, the scores in the tiers above. They were all like Mary KK, all smiling and ready to sing their favorite Marxmas songs, and all saddening; everyone in the amphitheater, the hundreds, the thousands, the tens of thousands. Their faces lined the mammoth bowl like tan beads strung away in immeasurable close-laid ovals.
Spotlights struck the gold cross and red sickle at the bowl’s center. Four familiar trumpet notes blasted, and everybody sang:
But they weren’t a mighty Family, he thought. They were a weak Family, a saddening and pitiable one, dulled by chemicals and dehumanized by bracelets. It was Uni that was mighty.
He sang the words automatically, thinking that Lilac had been right: reduced treatments brought new unhappiness.
Sunday night at eleven he met Snowflake between the buildings on Lower Christ Plaza. He held her and kissed her gratefully, glad of her sexuality and humor and pale skin and bitter tobacco taste—all the things that were she and nobody else. “Christ and Wei, I’m glad to see you,” he said.
She gave him a tighter hug and smiled happily at him. “It gets to be a shut-off being with normals, doesn’t it?” she said.
“And how,” he said. “I wanted to kick the soccer team instead of the ball this morning.”
She laughed.
He had been depressed since the sing; now he felt released and happy and taller. “I found a girlfriend,” he said, “and guess what; I fucked her without the least bit of trouble.”
“Hate.”
“Not as extensively or as satisfyingly as we did, but with no trouble at all, not twenty-four hours later.”
“I can live without the details.”
He grinned and ran his hands down her sides and clasped her hipbones. “I think I might even manage to do it again tonight,” he said, teasing her with his thumbs.
“Your ego is growing by leaps and bounds.”
“My everything is.”
“Come on, brother,” she said, prying his hands away and holding onto one, “we’d better get you indoors before you start singing.”
They went into the plaza and crossed it diagonally. Flags and sagging Marxmas bunting hung motionless above it, dim in the glow of distant walkways. “Where are we going anyway?” he asked, walking happily. “Where’s the secret meeting place of the diseased corrupters of healthy young members?”
“The Pre-U,” she said.
“The Museum?”
“That’s right. Can you think of a better place for a group of Uni-cheating abnormals? It’s exactly where we belong. Easy,” she said, tugging at his hand; “don’t walk so energetically.”
A member was coming into the plaza from the walkway they were going toward. A briefcase or telecomp was in his hand.
Chip walked more normally alongside Snowflake. The member, coming closer—it was a telecomp he had—smiled and nodded. They smiled and nodded in return as they passed him.
They went down steps and out of the plaza.
“Besides,” Snowflake said, “it’s empty from eight to eight and it’s an endless source of pipes and funny costumes and unusual beds.”
“You take things?”
“We leave the beds,” she said. “But we make use of them now and again. Meeting solemnly in the staff conference room was just for your benefit.”
“What else do you do?”
“Oh, sit around and complain a little. That’s Lilac’s and Leopard’s department mostly. Sex and smoking is enough for me. King does funny versions of some of the TV programs; wait till you find out how much you can laugh.”
“The making use of the beds,” Chip said; “is it done on a group basis?”
“Only by two’s, dear; we’re not that pre-U.”
“Who did you use them with?”
“Sparrow, obviously. Necessity is the mother of et cetera. Poor girl, I feel sorry for her now.”
“Of course you do.”
“I do! Oh well, there’s an artificial penis in Nineteenth Century Artifacts. She’ll survive.”
“King says we should find a man for her.”
“We should. It would be a much better situation, having four couples.”
“That’s what King said.”
As they were crossing the ground floor of the museum-—lighting their way through the strange-figured dark with a flashlight that Snowflake had produced—another light struck them from the side and a voice nearby said, “Hello there!” They started. “I’m sorry,” the voice said. “It’s me, Leopard.”
Snowflake swung her light onto the twentieth-century car, and a flashlight inside it went off. They went over to the glinting metal vehicle. Leopard, sitting behind the steering wheel, was an old round-faced member wearing a hat with an orange plume. There were several dark brown spots on his nose and cheeks. He put his hand, also spotted, through the car’s window frame. “Congratulations, Chip,” he said. “I’m glad you came through.”
Chip shook his hand and thanked him.
“Going for a ride?” Snowflake asked.
“I’ve been for one,” he said. “To Jap and back. Volvo’s out of fuel now. And thoroughly wet too, come to think of it.”
They smiled at him and at each other.
“Fantastic, isn’t it?” he said, turning the wheel and working a lever that projected from its shaft. “The driver was in complete control from start to finish, using both hands and both feet.”