I don't have time to write you a book. Sorry. Here is my autograph, anyhow:
–Cort Myshtigo
P.S. I still dunno if it's art. Go to hell yourself.
That is the gist of it.
Pan?
Machines don't talk that way, do they?
I hope not, anyhow…
The Earth is a wild inhabitation. It is a tough and rocky place. The rubbish will have to be cleared, section by section, before some anti-rubbish can be put up.
Which means work, lots of it. Which means I'll need all the Office facilities as well as the Radpol organization, to begin with.
Right now I'm deciding whether or not to discontinue the ruin-tours. I think I'll let them go on, because for once we'll have something good to show. There is that certain element of human curiosity which demands that one halt in his course and peer through a hole in any fence behind which construction work is going on.
We have money now, and we own our own property again, and that makes a big difference. Maybe even Returnism isn't completely dead. If there is a vital program to revive the Earth, we may draw back some of the ex-pop, may snag some of the new tourists.
Or, if they all want to remain Vegans, they can do that, too. We'd like them, but we don't need them. Our Outbound immigration will be dropping off, I feel, once people know they can get ahead here; and our population will increase more than just geometrically, what with the prolonged fertility period brought on by the now quite expensive S-S series. I intend to socialize S-S completely. I'll do it by putting George in charge of a Public Health program, featuring mainland clinics and offering S-S all over the place.
We'll make out. I'm tired of being a gravekeeper, and I don't really want to spend from now till Easter cutting through the Tree of the World, even if I am a Darkborn with a propensity for trouble. When the bells do ring, I want to be able to say, "Alethos aneste," Risen Indeed, rather than dropping my saw and running (ring-a-ding, the bells, clackety-clack, the hooves, etcetera). Now is the time for all good kallikanzaroi… You know.
So…
Cassandra and I have this villa on the Magic Island. She likes it here. I like it here. She doesn't mind my indeterminate age anymore. Which is fine.
Just this early morning, as we lay on the beach watching the sun chase away stars, I turned to her and mentioned that this is going to be a big, big ulcer-giving job, full of headaches and such.
"No, it isn't," she replied.
"Don't minimize what is imminent," I said. "It makes for incompatibility."
"None of that either."
"You are too optimistic, Cassandra."
"No. I told you that you were heading into danger before, and you were, but you didn't believe me then. This time I feel that things should go well. That's all."
"Granting your accuracy in the past, I still feel you are underestimating that which lies before us."
She rose and stamped her foot.
"You never believe me!"
"Of course I do. It just happens that this time you're wrong, dear."
She swam away then, my mad mermaid, out into the dark waters. After a time she came swimming back.
"Okay," she said, smiling, shaking down gentle rains from her hair. "Sure."
I caught her ankle, pulled her down beside me and began tickling her.
"Stop that!"
"Hey, I believe you, Cassandra! Really! Hear that? Oh, how about that? I really believe you. Damn! You sure are right!"
"You are a smart-alecky kallikanz-Ouch!"
And she was lovely by the seaside, so I held her in the wet, till the day was all around us, feeling good.
Which is a nice place to end a story, sic:.