once."
"What happened to Adelaide?" said Pongpianskul.
Ross shrugged. "Faded."
A faint chill crossed the room. Lindsay changed the subject.
"We're planning a new veranda. Nora needs this one for her
office."
"She needs a bigger place?" said Pongpianskul.
Lindsay nodded. "Tenure. And this is our best discreet. Wake-
field Zaibatsu did the debugging. Otherwise we have to have the
debuggers in again; it'll turn the place upside down."
"Building on credit?" Ross said.
"Of course." Lindsay smiled.
"Too flaming much loose credit in G-T these days," Ross said.
"I don't hold with it."
"Ah, Ross," Vetterling said, "you haven't changed those digs of
yours in eighty years. A man can't turn sideways in those core
ratholes. Take us Vetterlings, now. The bridegroom just delivered us the specs for a new complex of inflatables."
"Jerry-built crap," Ross opined. "G-T's too crowded these days
anyway. Too many young sharks. Things smell good now but
there's crash in the air, I can feel it. When it comes, I'll pull up
stakes and head for the cometaries. Been too long since I last
tested my luck."
Pongpianskul Looked at Lindsay, communicating in the set of
his wrinkled eyelids his amused contempt for Ross's incessant
luck-bragging. Ross had made his big mining strike a century
ago and had never let anyone forget it. Though he incessantly
goaded others on, Ross's own risk-taking was confined almost
entirely to his odd choice of waistcoats.
"I have a Clique candidate," Vetterling said. "Very polite, very
well-spoken. Carl Zeuner."
"The playwright?" said Margaret Juliano. "I don't care for his
work."
"You mean he's not a Detentiste," Vetterling said, "He doesn't
fit your pacifism, Margaret. Mavrides, I believe you know the man."
"We've met," Lindsay said.
"Zeuner's a fascist," said Pongpianskul. The topic galvanized
the elderly doctor; he leaned forward intently, knotting his
hands. "He's Philip Constantine's man. He spent years in the
Republic. A playground for Shaper imperialists."
Vetterling frowned. "Calm yourself, Neville. I know the Con
catenation; I was born there. Constantine's work there should
have been done a hundred years ago."
"You mean fill his garden world with broken-down assassins?"
"To bring a new world into the Shaper community - "
"Nothing but cultural genocide." Pongpianskul had just been
rejuvenated; his lean body quivered with unnatural energy.
Lindsay had never asked what technique he used; it left his skin
smooth but leathery, and of a peculiar dusky color not found in
nature. His knuckles were so heavily wrinkled that they looked
like small rosettes. "The Circumlunar Republic should be left as
a cultural museum. It's good policy. We need variety; not every
society we form can hold together."
"Neville." Sigmund Fetzko spoke heavily. "You are talking as if you were a boy."
Pongpianskul leaned back. "I confess I've heen reading my old
speeches since my last rejuve."
"That's what got you purged," Vetterling said.
"My taste for antiquities? My own speeches are antiques by
now. But the issues are still with us, friends. Community and
anarchy. Politics pulls things together; technology blows them
apart. Little enclaves like the Republic should be preserved
intact. So that if our own tampering strikes us down, there'll be
someone left to pick up the pieces."
"There's the Earth," said Fetzko.
"I draw the line at barbarians," Pongpianskul said. He sipped
his drink, a tranquilizer frappe.
"If you had any guts, Pongpianskul," Ross said, "you'd go to
the Republic and tackle things firsthand."
Pongpianskul sniffed. "I'll wager I could gather damning evidence there."
"Nonsense," said Vetterling.
"A wager?" Ross looked from one to the other. "Let me be
arbiter, then. Doctor, if you could find evidence that would
offend my hardened sensibilities, we would all agree that right is
on your side."
Pongpianskul hesitated. "It's been so long since I ..."
Ross laughed. "Afraid? Better hang back and cultivate your
mystique, then. You need a facade of mystery. Otherwise the
young sharks will have you for breakfast."
"There were breakfasters after the purge," Pongpianskul said.
"They couldn't digest me."
"That was two centuries back," Ross taunted. "I recall a certain episode-what was it-immortality from kelp?"
"What?" Pongpianskul blinked. Then the memory seemed to
ooze up within him, buried under decades. "Kelp," he said.
" 'The earth-ocean wonder plant.'" He was quoting himself.
" 'You wonder, friends, why your catalytic balances vary. . . .
The answer is kelp, the sea-born wonder plant, now genetically
altered to grow and flourish in the primeval brine from which
blood itself derives. . . .' My God, I'd forgotten entirely."
"He sold kelp pills," Ross confided. "Had a little dig in some
inflatable slum, radiation so hard you could poach an egg against the bulkhead."
"Placebos," Pongpianskul said. "Goldreich-Tremaine was full
of old unplanned types then. Miners, refugees cooked by radi-
ation. It was before the Bottle shielded us. If they looked hope-
less I used to slip a little painkiller into the mix."
"You don't get as old as we are without artifice," Lindsay said.
Vetterling snorted. "Don't start reminiscing, Mavrides. I want
to know what my angle is, Ross. What are my winnings once
Pongpianskul fails?"
"My domicile," Pongpianskul said. "In the Fitzgerald Wheel."
Vetterling's eyes widened. "Against?"
"Against your public denunciation of Constantine and Zeuner.
And the expenses of the trip."
"Your beautiful place," Margaret Juliano told Pongpianskul.
"How can you part with it, Neville?"
Pongpianskul shrugged. "If the future belongs to Constantine's
friends then I don't care to live here."
"Don't forget you've just had a treatment," Vetterling said
uncomfortably. "You're acting rashly. I hate to turn a man out
of his digs. We can put the bet off until - "
"Off," Pongpianskul said. "That's our curse; there's always
time for everything. While those younger than ourselves tear
into every year as if there were no yesterday. . . . No, I'm
settled, Regent." He extended his leathery hand to Vetterling.
"Fire!" Vetterling said. He took Pongpianskul's thin hand in
his heavy one. "Sealed, then. The four of you are witnesses."
"I'll take the next ship out," said Pongpianskul. He stood up,
his verdigris-colored eyes gleaming feverishly. "I must make
arrangements. A delightful little fete, Mavrides."
Lindsay was startled. "Oh. Thank you, sir. The robot has your
hat, I think."
"I must thank my hostess." Pongpianskul left.
"He's cracked," Vetterling said. "That new treatment's un-
hinged him. Poor Pongpianskul never was very stable."
"What treatment is he using?" Fetzko wheezed. "He seems so
energetic."
Ross smiled. "An unproven one. He can't afford a registered
treatment. I hear he's made an arrangement with a wealthier
man to serve as test subject; they split the cost."
Lindsay Looked at Ross. Ross hid his expression by biting into
a canape.
"A risk," said Fetzko. "That's why the young ones bear us. So
that we can take their risks. And weed out. Bad treatments.
With our casualties."
"Could've been worse," Ross said. "He could have fallen for
one of those skin-virus scams. He'd be peeling like a snake right now, hah!"