“Hello, lovely. Let’s match. I’m Tom Piper, Tom Piper’s son. You?”
“Please—no,” Lona murmured. She tried to move away. He blocked her, exhaling.
“Matched already? Meeting someone inside?”
“No.”
“Why not me, then? You could do worse.”
“Let me be.” A faint whimper.
He leered. Small eyes boring into her own. “Starman,” he said. “Just in from the outer worlds. We’ll get a table and I’ll tell you all about them. Mustn’t turn a starman down.”
Lona’s forehead furrowed. Starman? Outer worlds? Saturn dancing within its rings, green suns beyond the night, pale creatures with many arms? He was no starman. Space marks the soul. Tom Piper’s son was unmarked. Even Lona could tell that. Even Lona.
“You aren’t,” she said.
“Am. I’ll tell you the stars. Ophiuchus. Rigel. Aldebaran. I’ve been out there. Come on, flower. Come with Tom.”
He was lying. Glamorizing himself to enhance his magnetism. Lona shivered. Past his thick shoulder she saw the lights of the Arcade. He leaned close. His hand descended, found her hip, curled lasciviously over the flat haunch, the lean flank.
“Who knows?” he whispered huskily. “The night could go anywhere. Maybe I’ll give you a baby. I bet you’d like that. You ever had a baby?”
Her nails raked his cheek. He reeled back, surprised, bloodied, and for a moment the banded ornaments beneath his skin glowed brightly even in the artificial light. His eyes were wild. Lona swung around and sidestepped him, losing herself in the throng surging through the vestibule.
Elbows busy, she sliced a path into the Arcade.
Tom, Tom, the piper’s son, give you a baby before he’s done…
“Three hundred and one newly fertilized eggs were maintained in vaseline well preparations and each received one of the following experimental treatments: (i) no pipette puncture and no injection; (ii) puncture of egg but no injection; (iii) injection of 180 micrometers^3 of the solution containing about 5 pg of BGG; (iv) injection of 770 micrometers^3 of the solution containing 20 pg of BGG; or (v) injection of 2730 micrometers^3 of the solution containing 68 pg of BGG.”
The Arcade glittered. Here were all the cheaper pleasures, gathered under one glassy roof. As Lona passed the gate, she thrust her thumb against the toller to register her presence and be billed for her visit. It was not costly to enter. But she had money, she had money. They had seen to that.
She planted her feet squarely and looked up at tier after tier, reaching toward the roof two hundred feet above. Up there snow was falling but not landing; efficient blowers kept it from touching the arching roof, and the flakes fell to a sticky death on the heated pavement.
She saw the gambling tiers where a man could play any game for any stake. The stakes were generally not high. This was a place for the young, for the purse-poor. For the grubby. But with a will a man could lose thickly here, and some had. Up there wheels turned, lights flashed, buttons clicked. Lona did not understand the gambling games.
Farther up, in mazy networks of corridors, flesh could be purchased by those with the need or the inclination. Women for men, men for women, boys for girls, girls for boys, and any conceivable combination. Why not? A human being was free to make disposition of his body in any way that did not directly interfere with the well-being of another. Those who sold were not forced to sell. They could become shopkeepers instead. Lona did not go to the houses of flesh.
Here on the main level of the Arcade were the booths of small merchants. A handful of coins would buy a pocketful of surprises. What about a tiny rope of living light to brighten the dull days? Or a pet from another world, so they said, though in truth the jewel-eyed toads were cultured in the laboratories of Brazil. What of a poetry box to sing you to sleep? Photographs of the great ones, cunningly designed to smile and speak? Lona wandered. Lona stared. Lona did not touch, did not buy.
“Viability of eggs was tested by transplantation into mated inbred albino BALB/c or Cal A recipients which were under anesthesia. The recipients had been induced by hormone injection to ovulate simultaneously with the agouti C3H donors and had been mated with fertile males of their own albino strain.”
Someday my children will come here, Lona told herself. They’ll buy toys. They’ll enjoy themselves. They’ll run through the crowds—
—a crowd all by themselves—
She sensed breath on her nape. A hand caressed her rump. Tom Piper? She turned in panic. No, no, not Tom Piper, just some giraffe of a boy who studiously stared upward at the distant tiers of the fleshmongers. Lona moved away.
“The entire procedure from the time experimental eggs were flushed from the donor oviduct to the time of their transplantation into the recipient infundibulum required 30 to 40 minutes. During this period of maintenance in vitro at room temperature many eggs shrank within their zonae pellucidae.”
Here was the zoo exhibit. Caged things pacing, peering, imploring. Lona went in. The last beasts, here? A world swept free of animals? Here was the giant anteater. Which was the snout, which the tail? A tree sloth lavishly hooked its claws into dead wood. Nervous coati-mundis paced their quarters. The stink of beasts was flogged from the room by whirring pumps beneath the flagstone floor.
“…the shrunken eggs usually survived and were regarded as essentially normal…”
The animals frightened Lona. She moved away, out of the zoo, circling the main gallery of the Arcade once again. She thought she saw Tom Piper pursuing her. She brushed lightly against the rigid belly of the pregnant girl.
“…the number of degenerating embryos and resorption sites was also examined in the autopsied recipients…”
She realized that she did not want to be here at all. Home, safe, warm, alone. She did not know which was more frightening: people in great herds, or one person, singly.
“…a fair number of eggs survive micromanipulation and injection of a foreign substance…”
I want to leave, Lona decided.
Exit. Exit. Where was the exit? Exits were not featured here. They wanted you to stay. Suppose fire broke out? Robots sliding from concealed panels, quenching the blaze. But I want to leave.
“…a useful method is thus provided…”
“…the survival of pronuclear eggs after the various treatments is shown in Table 1…”
“…the fetuses which developed from the microinjected eggs were smaller more frequently than their native littermates, although no other external abnormality was observed…”
Thank you, Dr. Teh Ping Lin of San Francisco.
Lona fled.
She rushed in a frenzied circle around the belly of the bright Arcade. Tom Piper found her again, shouted to her, reached forth his hands. He’s friendly. He means no harm. He’s lonely. Maybe he really is a starman.
Lona fled.
She discovered an exfundibulum and rushed to the street. The sounds of the Arcade dwindled. Out here in the darkness she felt calmer, and the sweat of panic dried on her skin, cooling her. Lona shivered. Looking over her shoulder many times, she hurried toward her building. Clasped to her thigh were anti-molestation weapons that would thwart any rapist: a siren, a screen of smoke, a laser to flash pulsations of blinding light. Yet one never could be certain. That Tom Piper; he could be anywhere and capable of anything.
She reached home. My babies, she thought. I want my babies.
The door closed. The light went on. Sixty or seventy soft images clung to the walls. Lona touched them. Did their diapers need changing? Diapers were an eternal verity. Had they gurgled milk over their rosy cheeks? Should she brush their curly hair? Tender skulls, not yet knit; flexible bones; snub noses. My babies. Lona’s hands caressed the walls. She shed her clothes. A time came when sleep seized her.