On his second day he talked to Petryk’s editor at the state publishing house, an amiable man named Truro, who took him to lunch and gave him a handsomely bound copy of Petryk’s Collected Poems.
During lunch—lake trout, apparently as much a delicacy here as it was in North America—Truro drew him out about his academic background, his publications, his plans for the future. “We would certainly like to publish your book about Eleanor,” he said. “In fact, if it were possible, we would be even happier to publish it here first.”
Selby explained his arrangements with Macmillan Schuster. Truro said, “But there’s no contract yet?”
Selby, intrigued by the direction the conversation was taking, admitted that there was none.
“Well, let’s see how things turn out,” said Truro. Back in the office, he showed Selby photos of Petryk taken after the famous one, the only one that had appeared on Earth. She was a thin-faced woman, fragile-looking. Her hair was a little grayer, the face more lined—sadder, perhaps.
“Is there any unpublished work?” Selby asked.
“None that she wanted to preserve. She was very selective, and of course her poems sold quite well here—not as much as on Earth, but she made a comfortable living.”
“What about the silence—the last ten years?”
“It was her choice. She no longer wanted to write poems. She turned to sculpture instead—wood carvings, mostly. You’ll see when you go out to the Cottage.”
Afterward Truro arranged for him to see Potter Hargrove, Petryk’s divorced husband. Hargrove was in his seventies, white-haired and red-faced. He was the official in charge of what they called the New Lands Program: satellite cities were being built by teams of young volunteers—the ground cleared and sterilized, terrestrial plantings made. Hargrove had a great deal to say about this.
With some difficulty, Selby turned the conversation to Eleanor Petryk.
“How did she happen to get permission to live on Paradise, Mr. Hargrove? I’ve always been curious.”
“It’s been our policy to admit occasional immigrants, when we think they have something we lack. Very occasional. We don’t publicize it. I’m sure you understand.”
“Yes, of course.” Selby collected his thoughts. “What was she like, those last ten years?”
“I don’t know. We were divorced five years before that. I remarried. Afterward, Eleanor became rather isolated.”
When Selby stood up to leave, Hargrove said, “Have you an hour or so? I’d like to show you something.”
They got into a comfortable four-seat runabout and drove north, through the commercial district, then suburban streets. Hargrove parked the runabout, and they walked down a dirt road past a cluster of farm buildings. The sky was an innocent blue; the sun was warm. An insect buzzed past Selby’s ear; he turned and saw that it was a honeybee. Ahead was a field of corn.
The waves of green rolled away from them to the horizon, rippling in the wind. Every stalk, every leaf, was perfect.
“No weeds,” said Selby. Hargrove smiled with satisfaction. “That’s the beautiful part,” he said. “No weeds, because any Earth plant poisons the soil for them. Not only that, but no pests, rusts, blights. The native organisms are incompatible. We can’t eat them, and they can’t eat us.”
“It seems very antiseptic,” Selby said.
“Well, that may seem strange to you, but the word comes from the Greek sepsis, which means ‘putrid’. I don’t think we have to apologize for being against putrefaction. We came here without bringing any Earth diseases or parasites with us, and that means there is nothing that can attack us. It will take hundreds of thousands of years for the local organisms to adapt to us, if they ever do.”
“And then?”
Hargrove shrugged. “Maybe we’ll find another planet.”
“What if there aren’t any other suitable planets within reach? Wasn’t it just luck that you found this one?”
“Not luck. It was God’s will, Mr. Selby.”
Hargrove had given him the names of four old friend of Petryk’s who were still alive. After some parleying on the holo, Selby arranged to meet them together in the home of Mark Andrevon, a novelist well known on Paradise in the sixties. (The present year, by Paradisan reckoning, was A.L. 91.) The others were Theodore Bonwait, a painter; Alice Orr, a poet and ceramicist; and Ruth-Joan Wellman, another poet.
At the beginning of the evening, Andrevon was pugnacious about what he termed his neglect in the English-Speaking Union; he told Selby in considerable detail about his literary honors and the editions of his works. This was familiar talk to Selby; he gathered that Andrevon was now little read even here. He managed to soothe the disgruntled author and turn the conversation to Petryk’s early years on Paradise.
“Poets don’t actually like each other much, I’m sure you know that, Mr. Selby,” said Ruth-Joan Wellman. “We got along fairly well, though—we were all young and unheard of then, and we used to get together and cook spaghetti, that sort of thing. Then Ellie got married, and…”
“Mr. Hargrove didn’t care for her friends?”
“Something like that,” said Theodore Bonwait. “Well, there were more demands on her time, too. It was a rather strong attachment at first. We saw them occasionally, at parties and openings, that sort of thing.”
“What was she like then, can you tell me? What was your impression?”
They thought about it. Talented, they agreed, a little vague about practical matters (“which was why it seemed so lucky for her to marry Potter,” said Alice Orr, “but it didn’t work out”), very charming sometimes, but a sharp-tongued critic. Selby took notes. He got them to tell him where they had all lived, where they had met, in what years. Three of them admitted that they had some of Petryk’s letters, and promised to send him copies.
After another day or so, Truro called him and asked him to come to the office. Selby felt that something was in the wind.
“Mr. Selby,” Truro said, “you know visitors like yourself are so rare that we feel we have to take as much advantage of them as we can. This is a young world, we haven’t paid as much attention as we might to literary and artistic matters. I wonder if you have ever thought of staying with us?”
Selby’s heart gave a jolt. “Do you mean permanently?” he said. “I didn’t think there was any chance—”
“Well, I’ve been talking to Potter Hargrove, and he thinks something might be arranged. This is all in confidence, of course, and I don’t want you to make up your mind hurriedly. Think it over.”
“I really don’t know what to say. I’m surprised—I mean, I was sure I had offended Mr. Hargrove.”
“Oh, no, he was favorably impressed. He likes your spice.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Don’t you have that expression? Your, how shall I say it, ability to stand up for yourself. He’s the older generation, you know—son of a pioneer. They respect someone who speaks his mind.”
Selby, out on the street, felt an incredulous joy. Of all the billions on Earth, how many would ever be offered such a prize?
Later, with Helga Sonnstein, he visited an elementary school. “Did you ever have a cold?” a serious eight-year-old girl asked him.
“Yes, many times.”
“What was it like?”
“Well, your nose runs, you cough and sneeze a lot, and your head feels stuffy. Sometimes you have a little fever, and your bones ache.”
“That’s awful,” she said, and her small face expressed something between commiseration and disbelief.
Well, it was awful, and a cold was the least of it—“no worse than a bad cold,” people used to say about syphilis. Thank God she had not asked about that.