"Why does man so zealously guard his dead? Is it because this is the monumentally democratic way of immortalization, the ultimate affirmation of the power to hurt-that is to say, life—and the desire that it continue on forever? Unamuno has suggested that this is the case. If it is, then a greater percentage of the population actively sought immortality last year than ever before in history..."
Tch-tchg, tchga-tchg!
"Do you think they're really people?"
"Naw, they're too good."
The evening was starglint and soda over ice. Render wound the S-7 into the cold sub-subcellar, found his parking place, nosed into it.
There was a damp chill that emerged from the concrete to gnaw like rats' teeth at their flesh. Render guided her toward the left, their breath preceding them in dissolving clouds.
"A bit of a chill in the air," he noted.
She nodded, biting her lip.
Inside the lift, he sighed, unwound his scarf, lit a cigarette.
"Give me one, please," she requested, smelling the tobacco.
He did.
They rose slowly, and Render leaned against the wall, puffing a mixture of smoke and crystalized moisture.
"I met another mutie shep," he recalled, "in Switzerland. Big as Sigmund. A hunter though, and as Prussian as they come." He grinned.
"Sigmund likes to hunt, too," she observed. "Twice every year we go up to the North Woods and I turn him loose. He's gone for days at a time, and he's always quite happy when he returns. Never says what he's done, but he's never hungry. Back when I got him I guessed that he would need vacations from humanity to stay stable. I think I was right."
The lift stopped, the door opened, and they walked out into the hall, Render guiding her again.
Inside his office, he poked at the thermostat and warm air sighed through the room. He hung their coats in the inner office and brought the great egg out from its nest behind the wall. He connected it to an outlet and moved to convert his desk into a control panel.
"How long do you think it will take?" she asked, running her fingertips over the smooth, cold curves of the egg. "The whole thing, I mean. The entire adaptation to seeing."
He wondered.
"I have no idea," he said, "no idea whatsoever, yet. We got off to a good start, but there's still a lot of work to be done. I think I'll be able to make a good guess in another three months."
She nodded wistfully, moved to his desk, explored the controls with fingerstrokes like ten feathers.
"Careful you don't push any of those."
"I won't. How long do you think it will take me to learn to operate one?"
"Three months to learn it. Six, to actually become pro-
ficient enough to use it on anyone; and an additional six under close supervision before you can be trusted on your own. About a year altogether." "Uh-huh." She chose a chair.
Render touched the seasons to life, and the phases of day and night, the breath of the country, the city, the elements that raced naked through the skies, and all the dozens of dancing cues he used to build worlds. He smashed the clock of time and tasted the seven or so ages of man.
"Okay,"—he turned—"everything is ready."
It came quickly, and with a minimum of suggestion on
Render's part. One moment there was grayness. Then a
dead-white fog. Then it broke itself apart, as though a
quick wind had arisen, although he heard nor felt a wind.
He stood beside the willow tree beside the lake, and she stood half-hidden among the branches and the lattices of shadow. The sun was slanting its way into evening.
"We have come back," she said, stepping out, leaves in her hair. "For a time I was afraid it had never happened, but I see it all again, and I remember now."
"Good," he said. "Behold yourself." And she looked into the lake.
"I have not changed," she said. "I haven't changed..."
"No."
"But you have," she continued, looking up at him. "You are taller, and there is something different..."
"No," he answered.
"I am mistaken," she said quickly, "I don't understand everything I see yet.
"I will though."
"Of course."
"What are we going to do?"
"Watch," he instructed her.
Along a flat, no-colored river of road she just then noticed beyond the trees, came the car. It came from the farthest quarter of the sky, skipping over the mountains, buzzing down the hills, circling through the glades, and splashing them with the colors of its voice—the gray and the
silver of synchronized potency—and the lake shivered from its sounds, and the car stopped a hundred feet away, masked by the shrubberies; it waited. It was the S-7.
"Come with me," he said, taking her hand. "We're going for a ride."
They walked among the trees and rounded the final cluster of bushes. She touched the sleek cocoon, its antennae, its tires, its windows—and the windows transpared as she did so. She stared through them at the inside of the car, and she nodded,
"It is your Spinner."
"Yes." He held the door for her. "Get in. We'll return to the club. The time is now. The memories are fresh, and they should be reasonbly pleasant, or neutral."
"Pleasant," she said, getting in.
He closed the door, then circled the car and entered. She watched as he punched imaginary coordinates. The car leapt ahead and he kept a steady stream of trees flowing by them. He could feel the rising tension, so he did not vary the scenery. She swiveled her seat and studied the interior of the car.
"Yes," she finally said, "I can perceive what everything is."
She stared out the window again. She looked at the rushing trees. Render stared out and looked upon rushing anxiety patterns. He opaqued the windows.
"Good," she said, "thank you. Suddenly it was too much to see—all of it, moving past like a ..."
"Of course," said Render, maintaining the sensations of forward motion. "I'd anticipated that. You're getting tougher, though."
After a. moment, "Relax," he said, "relax now," and somewhere a button was pushed; and she relaxed, and they drove on, and on and on, and finally the car began to slow, and Render said, "Just for one nice, slow glimpse now, look out your window."
She did.
He drew upon every stimulus in the bank which could promote sensations of pleasure and relaxation, and he
dropped the city around the car, and the windows became transparent, and she looked out upon the profiles of towers and a block of monolithic apartments, and then she saw three rapid cafeterias, an entertainment palace, a drugstore, a medical center of yellow brick with an aluminum caduceus set above its archway, and a glassed-in high school, now emptied of its pupils, a fifty-pump gas station, another drugstore, and many more cars, parked or roaring by them, and people, people moving in and out of the doorways and walking before the buildings and getting into the cars and getting out of the cars; and it was summer, and the light of late afternoon filtered down upon the colors of the city and the colors of the garments the people wore as they moved along the boulevard, as they loafed upon the terraces, as they crossed the balconies, leaned on balustrades and windowsills, emerged from a corner kiosk, entered one, stood talking to one another; a woman walking a poodle rounded a corner; rockets went to and fro in the high sky. The world fell apart then and Render caught the pieces. He maintained an absolute blackness, blanketing every sensation but that of their movement forward.
After a time a dim light occurred, and they were still seated in the Spinner, windows blanked again, and the air as they breathed it became a soothing unguent.
"Lord," she said, "the world is so filled. Did I really see all of that?"
"I wasn't going to do that tonight, but you wanted me to. You seemed ready."