In the morning he remembered soberly that not all women were endowed quite as fortunately as Ella, and most were not just twenty-two. One woman's bounce was another's sag. Well, it had been a pleasant vision, nevertheless. Perhaps a curfew of sorts could be set: no woman over twenty-nine permitted on the streets in apfi while light remained, unless accompanied by her daughter.
Zether's first order of business after breakfast was the car. He visited the sole gas-station/garage, a hut perched on the edge of a monstrous level field, and inquired about towing service.
"Sure," the proprietor/mechanic said, looking up from the innards of the wreck he was tinkering with. Several similar vehicles squatted untidily along the perimeter of the field. He was a white-haired man in oily gray coveralls. "You're lucky you made it in, though. It's almost shut season."
"Shut season? What shuts down?"
"You know—the month the roads are closed. August, usually, but it slides about a little from year to year, depending on the weather. Nobody goes through—not by car, anyway."
The date was July 25. Zether felt uneasy. "I'm new here. Would you mind explaining that in a little more detail?"
"No trouble. Schist Crick is a funny town. The Schist Mountains and the Schist River close it off pretty tight, so there's only room for two highways: the winter road and the summer road. The winter road is pretty good until the spring thaw washes it out along about March. The summer road works fine until the heat gets it, 'long about August. They're both out in August, you see, so it's shut season."
Both roads out? "Because the town is shut off from the world?"
"Uh-uh. There's still TV and telephones. We're in touch as much as we need to be."
"Then why—"
The mechanic peered at him from behind a wobbly carburetor. "Because that's when the gals get shut of spinsterhood, or try to. Nowhere the bachelors can go, and those suits—it's getting like a tradition. Last year one of those nudies even sashayed by here, twitching her little round butt the way they do. I squirted oil on her."
"You did what?"
"Some said afterward it wasn't exactly sporting, but it was the handiest thing. Had to show her somehow I wasn't interested."
"Is any bachelor, er, subject to this—"
"Any bachelor without a pressure oil can," he said meaningfully.
It occurred to Zether that a jet of viscous warm fluid from a nozzle, applied so as to inundate a virtually nude female, was not necessarily a signal of masculine uninterest. Probably the mechanic wasn't much for Freudian symbolism, though. "Why didn't you just ignore her, or—"
The man looked at him. "Didn't want to get one leg in," he said. "First one's a teaser. Second—" He did not finish.
Ouch! "Don't you repair the roads?"
"Sure—but we never have enough money for both at once, so we have to take on one at a time. Need about six months to do one up proper, so—"
Zether remembered Ella's remark about the problems of maintaining twenty-mile roads on ten-mile funds. She had neglected to tell him about shut season, however. Conniving female! He already had one leg in, unwittingly. He had a feeling he'd better keep the second out. "So the winter road is out from August through January?"
"Right. Crew generally wraps up in January, so both roads are open February, and there's a month's vacation. But August—"
"I get the picture. In August the crew is still wrapping up the winter road, so the other has to wait an extra month. How come they can do the summer road in only five months—September through January—but take six for the winter?"
"Don't rightly know," the mechanic said. "But that's the way it is. Maybe they hurry a little for the vacation."
"Or maybe they delay a little for shut season?"
"Maybe." The man smiled slowly. "Got to admit, she looked cute in oil. I hosed her off afterward, of course; those suits clean up easily. Wish I was younger. Now, where's your car?"
Zether described the location.
"Reckon the season's started already, then. Have to leave your car there until the crew comes; no sense miring my truck too."
"Till the crew comes—in one to six months?"
"Yep."
Ouch again! "Isn't there anything you can do? It will be a rusted wreck by then."
"I can walk out there and cover it with an apfi tarp. Keep the dust out, protect the tires and engine—"
"Apfi does that?" The silver lining was coming into view. First the clothing market, now the protective cover market. Even shut season might not be too high a price!
"Sure does. Mighty handy fabric, apfi. Don't know how we'd get along without it."
How much profit could be had from such a thing, nationwide? A million dollars? Ten million?
Zether's blisters were hurting despite the thick pads he had applied, and he had to walk extremely carefully and rest often. But in the course of the day he managed to explore a fair sampling of Schist Crick. What he saw took his mind off the problem of getting home, though he knew he couldn't afford to be trapped for shut season.
He discovered farmers stretching apfi over entire silos to enhance the hothouse effect, or whatever it was that went on in silos. Loggers preserved their logs in it, and kept their home-brewed beer cool by suspending it in apfi pouches that sweated very slowly when grotesquely distended. Quarry men used it to enclose dusty compartments and keep the air clean, since only gaseous substances could pass normally. Theoretically apfi would pass liquid if stretched far enough, but the beer pouches demonstrated the impracticality of this for local use. Commercially, however, Zether foresaw monstrous profits. Stretched mechanically, apfi could serve as a variable filter, good for water desalinization, osmotic techniques—the possibilities were rife. And the extremely low coefficient of friction of the single-molecule structure would improve the performance of almost any machinery, since nearly all of it had moving parts. Apfi-coated pistons, perhaps?
Though Ella kept her footing and picked up objects readily enough. Perhaps her coating of apfi even conformed to the whorls of her fingers, restoring much of the friction Probably the material was many times as slick when applied to a polished surface; he'd have to check that out. Ideal, if it eliminated virtually all machine friction while preserving the necessary human friction.
How about sports? Apfi sails would reduce the weight of racing boats and be far easier to handle. There could even be stretched-apfi hulls. It would be like sailing in an invisible craft—a real status symbol. And apfi wings on gliders—why, a man with specially designed apfi wings might be able to fly like an insect. Apfi slides for apfi-bottomed children: two apfi surfaces meeting should be phenomenally slippery. Applications for toys—he had to stop; his head was getting dizzy.
Everywhere, apfi was already in use, in this one town, and its potential market was stupefying. Profits of a hundred million?
There were not, to his relief, women running around in the seminude, though he had no doubt that would come when shut season got well under way. He had just about decided that Ella was the only one so far when he entered the general store for phase two of his survey. The proprietor was a middle-aged man—clad only in apfi, except for swimming trunks. Zether could make out the sheen of the skin-tight material.
He had thought of it only in connection with women—yet why shouldn't men use apfi too? Probably it was considered indoor wear for everyone. Fair enough. He would have to get into someone's house and verify this. In shut season it would become the fashion for outdoor girls as well. There could be a whole social framework for the use of apfi.
Zether bought a sample. It was priced quite reasonably, and came in a loose package marked simply "APFI: 4 sq. ft." This was what he wanted: to handle the stuff himself, find out how it felt. He presumed there were 8 sq. ft. or 10 sq. ft. sizes and up, but the small one would readily serve his purpose. The package weighed no more than a few ounces, and he suspected most of that was in the wrapping. Apfi was only one molecule thick and weighed almost nothing. That was why it was so flexible and transparent.