Was it pity for him?
He hated it.
Was she searching herself?
What did she have to search for!
Was she considering things to say?
Why didn’t she just say, “yes”?
“All right,” she said. “Yes. I’ll go with you this evening. After our last performance.”
He nearly dropped her hand. Why didn’t she just say—
“Is that all right,” she asked, with that slight, familiar smile, “with you?”
He nodded, abruptly wondering: Where would they go? Back to his guesthouse? To her place? No—he had to take her somewhere. First. And he was a hundred million kilometers from anywhere he knew.
“Meet me here,” she said. “At nine. How’s that? It should be just about half an hour after sunset, if I remember correctly.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“And we’ll go out somewhere.”
He nodded.
“Good.” She pulled her hand away, glanced at him again, hesitated: “Till nine then?” She pushed open the door. “I’ll meet you here.”
“That’s awfully nice of you ...” he remembered to say.
“Not at all,” she said. “It’ll be fun,” and closed the door.
He stood on the narrow sidewalk thinking something was very wrong.
It was not exactly an adventure finding Sam again. But in the hour and a quarter it took him, he decided that whoever had laid out the village must have been certifiably insane. And while there were some jobs that the certifiably insane could do quite well, and while metalogics, as Audri occasionally used to joke at him, was one, city planning was definitely not:
There was a living establishment—the People’s Co-Op—and there, to its left, was some sort of shopping area; and around the corner from that was a small eating place. All fine. Wandering through the small streets, he found another collection of small shops: Was there an eating place around the corner to its right? No. Was there a living establishment—of any sort—to its left? No! He had been quite prepared to find the urban units arranged differently from those on Tethys, as Tethys’s were different from the units of Lux, or Bellona. (Indeed, Tethys employed seven different types of urban units—though for practical purposes you only had to be familiar with two of them to find anything you wanted in most of the city—and Bellona reputedlv, though only one was common, employed nine.) After half an hour it began to dawn that there was no arrangement to this city’s urban units. Half an hour more, and he began to wonder if this city had urban units. The onlv logic he could impute to the layout at all—after having walked up some streets many times and been unable to find others at all that he knew he’d passed—was that most of the shops and eating places seemed to be in one area, within three or four streets of the central square. For the rest, it was catch-as-catch-can.
He found the street with the stone steps just by accident.
In the backvard of the guesthouse, Sam sat at a white enameled table, by his elbow a tall glass of something orange with a straw in it and green leaves sticking out the top. He was looking into a portable reader, his thumb again and again clicking the skimming lever.
“Sam, what is there to do around here at night?”
Click. “Look at the stars, smell the clear air, wander out along the wild hills and meadows.” Click-click—
188 Samuel R.Delany click. “That’s what I’m planning to do, anyway. If you’re stuck in the far reaches of Outer Mongolia, even in this day and age, there isn’t much to do, except figure out more and more interesting ways to relax.” Click-click.
“Do with somebody. I have to take someone out tonight.”
Click; Sam reached for his drink, missed it, got it, and maneuvered the straw into his mouth. Click-click. “The woman you went running after, after breakfast?” He put the drink back on the table (Click); the edge of the glass was just over the side.
Bron narrowed an eye, wondering if he should move it. “I said I would take her someplace exciting. Tonight.”
“I can’t think of anyplace you could—” Sam looked up, frowning. “Wait a second.” He moved the glass back on the table.
Bron breathed.
Sam dug among the rack of pockets down the side of his toga, pulled out a square sheaf of colored paper, which he opened into a rectangle.
Knowing full well what it was, Bron said: “What’s that?”
“Money,” Sam said. “Ever use it?”
“Sure.” There were quite a few places on Mars that still took it.
Sam counted through the sheaf. “There’s a place I’ve been to a couple of times when I’ve passed through here—about seventy-five miles to the north.” He flipped up more bills. “There, that should be enough to take you, your friend, and half her theater commune.” While Sam separated the bills, Bron wondered how Sam knew she was in the theater. But then, maybe he’d found out at breakfast. And Sam was saying: “It’s a restaurant—where they still take this stuff. Some people consider it mildly elegant. Maybe your friend would enjoy it. If nothing else, it’s a giggle.” Sam held out the bills.
“Oh.” Bron took them.
“That’ll cover it, if I remember things right. It’s quite an old place. Dates all the way back to People’s Capitalist China.”
Bron frowned. “I thought that only lasted ten years or so?”
“Six. Anyway, it’s something to take a gawk at, if you’re in the neighborhood. It’s called Swan’s Craw—which I always wondered about. But that’s Capitalist China for you.”
“You say it’s seventy-five miles? I don’t remember quite how much a mile is, but I suspect it’s too far to walk.” Bron folded the bills again and wondered where to put them.
“By a bit. I’ll tell the landlady to make you a reservation. They’ll send a transport for you—you know about tipping and all that sort of thing?”
“In the circles I moved in as a youth, you picked up the etiquette of money along with your monthly checkup for arcane and sundry venereal diseases.” The bill showing was a thousand something—which he knew was as likely to be very little as it was to be a lot. “What is the tipping rate here?” he thought to ask. “Fifteen percent? Twenty?”
“Fifteen is what I was told the first time I went; nobody looked unhappy when I left.”
“Fine.” Bron had no pockets in this particular outfit, so he folded the money again, put it in his other hand, then transferred it back. “You weren’t planning to go there, were you? I mean, if you needed this for yourself ... ?”
“I was planning definitely not to go,” Sam said. “I’ve been half a dozen times before. I really do prefer the open rocks and grass, the night, the stars. I brought the scrip specifically to get you off my neck for at least one evening while we were here, hopefully at something you’d enjoy.”
“Oh,” Bron said. “Well ... thanks.” He looked for a pocket or purse again, again remembered he had none. “Eh ... Where do we go to pick up the transport?”
“Don’t worry,” Sam smiled slightly. “They pick you up.”
“Ah-ha!” Bron said, and felt knowing—“It’s that kind of place—” because there were no such places in the satellites.
“Elegant,” Sam repeated, putting his eyes back down to the reader. Click-click-click. “Hope you enjoy yourself.” Click.
In the room, Bron sat on the bed and wondered what to do till nine o’clock. Minutes into his wonder-ings, the landlady came in, carrying a tray on which was a tall glass filled with something orange, a straw, and leaves.
“You are going to the Craw this evening, with a friend? It is very nice there. You will enjoy it. The reservations have all been made. Worry about nothing more. If you, or your friend, wish to go in period dress, just let me know ... ? Many people enjoy that.”