"What do you want to see, Perry?"
"Gosh, I don't know. Suppose you show me around a bit. If I think of anything, I'll tell you."
"All right." They proceeded along a wide corridor toward the street. The corridor was lined with brightly lighted little studio shops. Perry glanced at the displays as they walked. Most of the items seemed to be handcraft of various sorts, curios and beautiful things, some familiar in conception and use, some unintelligible. The Chinese, Japanese, and Indian shops seemed most familiar. In a few cases prices were marked. These seemed surprisingly high to him. He asked Diana about this.
"Why, naturally they cost a lot, Perry. These things are handmade. They are worth whatever the artist asks for them, if you want them enough to pay his price. A lot of them are queer ducks though. If you appreciate something they have made and you can't afford to buy it, they may just give it to you."
"But how can these hand workers compete with factory production?"
"They don't compete. Their work is for people who appreciate individual creation. The value of the things they make has nothing to do with the cost of the materials or the usefulness of the article. They are aesthetic values, that can't be standardized."
"Suppose people won't pay for an artist's work?"
"In that case he can do as he likes—either go on creating and keep the results or give them away—or stop and do something else."
"I didn't make myself clear. How can he go on creating if people won't buy?"
"He lives on his heritage checks, or he works for pay part of the time and works at his art part of the time."
Perry fell silent. They passed a row of public visiphone booths and came out on Mason Street. Perry had his first view of traffic on the moving ways and was made a little giddy by the sight. The crowds of people in front of him all appeared to be pedestrians but they moved at various speeds, those furthest away moving the fastest. It reminded him of times when, on a dance floor, he had whirled with a light-footed partner and then stopped suddenly. He glanced back at the adjacent building to steady himself. Then he looked back at the street. The movements gradually ordered themselves in his mind. He saw that each moving strip was about eight feet wide. He counted six strips to the middle of the street. The last strip carried a continuous bench on its far side and facing him. People were seated on this bench, reading, talking, and watching the life around them. Between their heads Perry saw flashing past in the opposite direction the heads of the passengers on the other side of the street. Overhead the glass canopy stretched from side to side from the window level of the second story, perhaps twenty feet in the air. On his left a pedestrians foot bridge arched daintily over the ways. From beneath the moving ways came a whisper and purr of machinery. Diana squeezed his hand. "Want to go for a ride?"
"Sure! Baby ride merry-go-round." He started to step on the outer strip.
"No, no, Perry! Face against the motion of the strip. And step on with the foot nearest the strip." Perry safely negotiated the first strip. "Come on, Perry, off the edge of the strip. Get inside the red stripes at once. Otherwise you might interfere with someone changing speeds."
Perry looked down and saw that the center three feet of the strip was bounded by red stripes. Several people within earshot glanced toward them curiously at Diana's words, but turned quickly away, except for one small urchin about six years old who surveyed Perry with a slow dispassionate stare. The next four strips were traversed without trouble and they settled down on the cushions of the bench. Diana smiled at him. "All right?"
"Easy once you get the hang of it. Just Eliza crossing the ice." Diana gurgled. He watched with interest the passengers around him. The urchin who had favored Perry with his attention was now staring at the opposite bound traffic with his nose pressed against the glass backboard which rose above the back cushion of the bench. His mother steadied him with one hand while she talked with another woman. The traffic was fairly heavy and Perry watched them come and go with interest. His eye was caught by a plumpish middle-aged woman in a striking purple and white robe. She carried in her arms a bright-eyed shaggy terrier who wiggled and attempted to get down. The woman was looking back over her shoulder and talking to a companion. She collided with a man moving off the fifth strip, lost her balance and sat down very suddenly on her broad posterior just at the joint between the fourth and fifth strips where she lay, shrieking, while she turned slowly round and around. The terrier bounded away and attained the sixth strip, where he ran up and down barking at the passengers on the bench. As his mistress passed slowly out of sight, several other passengers helped her to her feet and brushed her off. Perry whistled to the dog, who acknowledged the overture by jumping to the bench beside him and applying a warm wet tongue to Perry's chin and neck, "Down, boy, down! That's enough." Perry grabbed his collar. "Now what do we do? We've been joined." He grinned. Diana rubbed the dog's head. Then she got up from the bench.
"Come along and bring your friend." She moved quickly to the fifth strip, Perry close behind, then to the fourth and to the third. She stopped on the second. "We should see her soon." Presently the purple and white robe showed up on the fourth strip. Diana, Perry, and the dog moved to the third and boarded the fourth as the woman came abreast. She swooped down on the dog.
"Chou-chou! Did mama's darling get lost? Was um fwightened?" She kissed its nose and hugged it. The dog wore an air of patient forbearance. "Thank the kind people, Chou-chou. They rescued you." She turned to Perry and Diana. Diana gave him a sidewise glance and tugged his belt. They skipped onto the fifth strip and quickly over to the sixth. Diana sat down and sighed deeply.
"Safe at last." They sat for a while and watched the passing buildings. A few minutes later she pushed an elbow in his ribs. "Look over to your left." She whispered. The purple and white robe was some yards away moving along the strip towards them. "I think she's looking for us. Come along. Here's where we get off." They threaded quickly through the crowd toward the outer strip and were shortly on the stationary walk. "That was close."
"Why was she looking for us?"
"Maybe she wasn't, but I took no chances. I can't stand to be slobbered over."
"What do we do now?" They were standing by the entrance of a large squat building of synthetic marble. Over the entrance Perry read UNITED STATS POST OFIS, Tub Stashon A. Diana followed his glance.
"Want to see how the tubes work?"
"Sure." They went inside, across a broad foyer and mounted a flight of stairs to a mezzanine. Diana led to the far side of the balcony. They leaned over a rail and looked down into a broad deep room whose floor level Perry judged to be below the street. Diana pointed down, and to the right.
"See them coming in there. Then they go on the belt and are sorted." Canisters of various lengths but of a uniform thickness, about eighteen inches, streamed out of a round hole and were deposited one after the other on a conveyor belt. Every few feet a mechanism leaned over the belt. Occasionally relays would click and a broad hook would roll a canister off the belt and pull it onto another belt running crosswise underneath the first. The crosswise belts then carried the canisters off to the right and left...