Level Eight ignited its bulb, and he hit the “Stasis” button. The panel slid aside to reveal a compartment even more like a subway stop. Two sets of tracks passed the central shaft, and beside them stood several four-wheeled carts. He determined from the placement of the sidings that the track on his right was for travel forward, in relation to his random orientation, and the one on his left was for motion in the opposite direction. Which was Compartment 19?
He didn’t let it worry him. He climbed into a cart and secured himself in the sturdy seat, looking for the motor controls. There were none; it was an empty husk, as though it had been jettisoned in orbit. There was a simple mechanical brake set against one wheel.
Ivo shrugged and released the brake. The cart began to move, angling in to intercept the main track, and he realized that it was gravity-powered. Evidently the track tilted down, or outward, allowing the carts to roll until braked. Beautiful; what better mode of transportation, in a torus where power was probably expensive?
He saw the numbers now: 96, 95, 94, each no doubt representing an apartment or office. Those on the right were marked P, those on his left S. Port and Starboard, presumably. Starboard being right, he must be heading for the stern.
Of a torus? Exactly where were bow and stern in a hollow doughnut spinning in space? He must be halfway around it by now, but headed in the proper direction, since the numbers were decreasing.
Except that the levels were level, while the track was tilted. More precisely, the shells were curved to match the onionlike circumference of the station, while the track had a larger arc. An obtuse arc? Thus he was headed for the right number — but on the wrong level. Already he was halfway down to the ninth.
Well, one problem at a time. He had declined Groton’s assistance, and now would muddle through in his own fashion, as was usually the case. One had to live with the liabilities of one’s independence.
There was a vertical shaft between numbers seventeen and sixteen, and he guided the cart onto the siding by judicious manipulation of the brake. The track became elevated here, neatly slowing the vehicle so that only minimal braking was necessary.
He was on the eleventh shell. It occurred to him that what he had actually done was to drift from a tight orbit to a looser one, except that he had gained velocity instead of losing it. Or had he? At any rate, he now weighed a little more than normal, if his estimate could be relied upon.
The shaft was bipart: one side up, the other down. Probably the capsules were looped together, counterbalancing each other, in the interest of further economy of power. He ascended to the eighth level, then walked along the interior mall to apartment Nineteen Starboard.
The name on the door-panel was BRADLEY CARPENTER, as he had expected. No one else could have prepared the particular summons entrusted to Groton. He slid the section aside and stepped in.
A young man turned at the sound: tall, brown of hair and eye, muscularly handsome. Sharp intelligence animated his features. “Ivo!”
“Brad!” They leaped to embrace each other, punching arms and tousling hair in a fury of reacquaintance, two subtly similar adolescents roughhousing companionably. Then both sobered into young adults.
“God, I’m glad you could make it,” Brad said, hooking up a hammock and flopping into it. He indicated another for the guest. “Just seeing you brings back my boyhood.”
“How could I help it? You sent your boar oinking after me,” Ivo complained cheerfully. It was good to postpone the serious ramifications for a while. He set up the hammock and got the swing of it.
“All part of the trade, swine.” Both laughed.
“But I have one crucially important question—”
“To wit: which way is Stern?”
Ivo nodded. “That is the question.”
“I’m surprised at you, den brother. Haven’t you learned yet that your stern is behind your stem?”
“My mind is insufficiently pornographic to make that association.”
“Take your bow. It’s inevitable.”
Ivo smiled amiably, realizing that it was his turn to miss a pun of some sort. He would catch on in due course.
Brad bounced to his feet. “Come on — have to show you the femme. Business before pleasure.”
“Femme?” Ivo followed him into the hall, somewhat bewildered still.
Brad halted him momentarily outside the girl’s room. “She has a certified IQ of one fifty-five. I told her I was one sixty, okay?”
“Is that the proper mentality for liaison?”
“I’m infatuated with her. What do you expect me to do, humble clay that I am?”
Ivo shrugged. “Clay with the feet of a god.”
Brad smiled knowingly and touched the bell. In a moment the panel slid aside, inviting entry.
Here the furnishings were distinctively feminine. Frilly curtains decorated the air-conditioning vents, and the walls were pastel pink. Brushes and creams lined the surface of the standard desk, and a mirror hung behind it to convert the whole into something like a vanity.
Here, Ivo thought, was the residence of someone who wanted the entire station to know there was a Lady present. Someone who wasn’t certain of herself, otherwise?
How many women were here aboard the macroscope station? What was their status, whatever their official capacity? There was something ambivalent about Brad’s attitude toward this one.
She appeared from the adjoining compartment She stood a trifle above medium height, slender of neck, waist, ankle; statuesque of hip and bosom. A starlet type, Ivo thought, embarrassed for Brad’s superficiality. Her hair was shoulder-length and quite red, and her eyes as she looked up were contrastingly blue.
“Afra, this is Ivo Archer, my old friend from the neighboring project.”
Ivo grinned, feeling awkward for no reason he could say. What was this piece, to him?
“Ivo, this is Afra Glynn Summerfield.”
She smiled. Sunrise over the marsh.
Brad went on talking, but Ivo did not hear the words. In a single photographic flash the whole of her had been imprinted upon his ambition.
Afra Glynn Summerfield: prior impressions, prior liaisons — these were nothing. She wore a dress of slightly archaic flavor, with silvery highlights, and her shoes were white slippers.
The lines of her:
Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and curl.
As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl.
Afra: inward and outward, firm sweet limbs, hair the color of the Georgia sunset. Glynn: silver-wrought friend of his friend. Summerfield: his fancy lingered and curled.
Afra Glynn Summerfield: at this glance, beloved of Ivo.
He had thought himself practical about romance, with disciplined dreams. He had accepted the fact that love was not feasible for a person in his unique situation.
Feasibility had been preempted by reality.
“Hey, moonstruck — wake up!” Brad exclaimed cheerfully. “She hits everyone like that, the first time. Must be that polished-copper hair she flaunts.” He turned to Afra. “I’d better get him out of here till he recovers. He gets tongue-tied around beautiful girls. See you in an hour, okay?”
She nodded and breathed him a kiss.
Ivo trailed him back into the hall, hardly aware. He was shy with girls, but this was of a different magnitude. Never before had he been so utterly devastated.
“Come on. The ’scope will settle your stomach.”
Somehow they were already on the first level. They donned light pressure-suits and entered what Ivo took to be an airlock. It was a tall cylinder less than four feet in diameter set pointing toward the center of the doughnut, but at an angle, and it terminated in a bubblelike ceiling.