“Why?”
“It was beautiful, whole, harmonious, radiant—it was a family I’d have given my left testicle—hell, both of them—to be a daughter or a son to. What a place to have grown up in, secure that you are loved whatever you do, whatever you are, and with all the knowledge and self-assurance it would give you while you decided what that was. But the great lie those people hold out, whether they’re in a commune or a co-op—and this, I suppose, when all is said and done, is why I hate them—even the ones I like, like Audri (who’s my other boss), is: Anyone can have it, be a part of it, bask in its radiance, and be one with the radiating element itself—oh, perhaps not everyone can have it at an address within shoulder-rubbing distance of London Point, but somewhere, someplace, it’s waiting for you ... if not in a family commune, then in a work commune like your theater company, if not in a commune, then at a ... well, a heterophilic co-op; if not at a heterophilic co-op, then at a homophilic one. Somewhere, in your sector or in mine, in this unit or in that one, there it is: pleasure, community, respect—all you have to do is know the kind, and how much of it, and to what extent you want it. That’s all.” He had almost cried coming back to his licensed sector co-op that morning. He almost cried now. “But what happens to those of us who don’t know? What happens to those of us who have problems and don’t know why we have the problems we do? What happens to the ones of us in whom even the part that wants has lost, through atrophy, all connection with articulate reason. Decide what you like and go get it? Well, what about the ones of us who only know what we don’t like? I know I didn’t like your Miriamne friend! I know I didn’t want to work with her. I got her kicked out of her job this morning. I don’t know how any of those things came about. And I don’t want to know. But I don’t regret it, one bit! I maybe have—for a minute—but I don’t now. And I don’t want to.”
“Ah ha!” the Spike said. “I think we have just gotten down to a gritty—or at least a nitty.”
He looked at her white mask sharply. “Why?”
“Your whole tone of voice changed. Your body carriage shifted. Even with your mask, you could see your head jutting forward so, and your shoulders pulled back into position—in the theater, you have to learn a lot about what the body has to say concerning the movements of the emotions—”
“Only I’m not into theater. I’m into metalogics. What about those of us who don’t know what the body has to say about the emotions? Or the paths of the comets? Put it in terms that / know!”
“Well, I’m not into metalogics. But you seem to be using some sort of logical system where, when you get near any explanation, you say: ‘By definition my problem is insoluble. Now that explanation over there would solve it. But since I’ve defined my problem as insoluble, then by definition that solution doesn’t apply.’ I mean, really, if you ... No. Wait. You want me to say what happens in your terms? Well, you hurt, for one thing. Yes, people like me can sit down and map out how you are managing to inflict a good deal of that hurt on yourself. I suspect, at your better moments, you can too—”
“In your terms they’re my better moments. In my terms they’re my worst—because that’s when the hurt seems to be the most hopeless. The rest of the time I can at least come up with a hope, however false, that things will just get better.”
“In your terms, then, you just hurt. And—” She sighed—“from time to time—I mean I know how much Miriamne wanted that job; she’s probably a good number of credit slots below you and me—you hurt other people.”
They were silent for a dozen, rustling steps.
“You were asking me before if being a prostitute had done me any harm. I was just thinking. Your friend Miriamne thought the reason I’d gotten her fired was because she hadn’t been interested when I’d made a pass at her. Well, maybe that’s one bad thing hustling did do to me. You see, the one, degrading thing that happens to you again and again and again in that kind of job is people—the men who employ you as much as the women you’re there to service—is people constantly give everything you do, just because you’re selling it, some sort of sexual motivation. When you’re in the business, you learn to live with it. But it’s the difference between them and you—you get it in jokes, you get it in tips, you get it in jobs you’re shuttled away from. And it never has anything to do with any real reason you might do anything real at all. Ask your friend Windy, he’ll tell you what I mean: when I came out here, I’d heard all about the satellites’ sexual freedom—it’s the golden myth of two worlds. When I left Mars, I promised myself that was something I’d never do to any other person, as long as I lived; it had just been done to me too many times. Well, maybe being a prostitute made me over-sensitive, but when Miriamne seriously said that, to me, this morning—that I’d gotten her canned because she wouldn’t put out—well, it just threw me! It isn’t something you find out here all that frequently, and, yes, that represents an improvement in my life. But when it is done, it doesn’t make it any more pleasant. It’s not something I could possibly do to anyone else. It’s not something I like having done to me ... As much as I dislike her, all the way over here I’ve been feeling sorry for her. But if she is the type who would do that to another person ... hell, do it to me, I wonder if I have the right to feel sorry for her ... You know?”
“On one level,” the Spike said, her voice projecting an expression of seriousness as intricate as the former^ projected smile, “everything you say makes perfect sense. On another, very profound one, I do not understand a single word. Really, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before; and I’ve known a few. Your recounting of everything, from Philip to Miriamne—his women? her men? In fact you didn’t even say the sec—
ond one; I wonder if that’s significant?—just sounds like a vision from another world!”
“I am from another world—a world you’re at war with. And yes, we did things differently there.”
“A world I hope very much we’re not at war with.”
“All right, a world we’re not at war with yet. Do you think my inability to hold on to the fine points is just another example of my Martian confusion?”
“I think your confusion hurts other people.”
He scowled behind the mask. “Then people like me should be exterminated!”
Her masked eyes glittered. “That would be a solution; I thought we were discounting those from the start.”
He kept scowling and was silent.
After a few more steps, the Spike said: “So, now that you know all about me, what will you do with this precious information?”
“Huh? Oh, just because I’ve been carrying on about myself? Well, we’re in the unlicensed sector, aren’t we—”
“I would have called it complaining about your subordinates and bragging about your boss, but never mind.”
“But I do know all about you,” he said. “At least, a lot—you’re the brat of nine, Ganymede ice-farmers; probably as healthy and wholesome an upbringing as you could get in Philip’s crowd—”
“Oh, more wholesome in some ways. Far more neurotic, I’m sure, in others—in my terms.”