“It was either get by with some such dodge or be reduced to stealing—difficult in a culture in which one is not sophisticated in the local customs. Still, I would have risked it save that I had a wife and three small children. That hobbled me, Ira; a family man should not take risks that a bachelor finds acceptable.
“So I sat there till my tailbone wore through the cobblestones, recounting everything from Grimm’s fairy tales to Shakespeare’s plays, and not letting my wife spend money on anything but food until we saved enough to buy that work permit plus the customary cumshaw. Then I clobbered ‘em, Ira.”
“How, Lazarus?”
“Slowly but thoroughly. Those months in the marketplace had given me a degree of sophistication in the ‘Who: Whom’ of that society and what its sacred cows were. Then I stayed on for years—no choice. But first I was baptised into the local religion, gaining a more acceptable name in the process, and memorized the Qur‘an. Not quite the same Qur’an I had known some centuries earlier, but it was worth the effort.
“I’ll skip over how I got into the Tinkers’ Guild and got my first job repairing television receivers—had my pay docked to cover my contribution to the guild, that is, with a private arrangement to the Grand Master Tinker, not too expensive. This society was retarded in technology; its customs didn’t encourage progress, and they had slipped behind what they had fetched from Earth about five centuries earlier. That made me a wizard, Ira, and could have got me hanged had I not been careful to be a faithful—and openhanded—son of the church. So once I got into position for it, I peddled fresh electronics and stale astrology—using knowledge they didn’t have for one and a free imagination for the other.
“Eventually I was chief stooge to the very official who had confiscated my ship and trade goods years earlier, and I was helping him get richer while getting rich myself. If he recognized me, he never said so—a beard changes my looks quite a lot. Unfortunately he fell into disfavor and I wound up with his job.”
“How did you work that, Lazarus? Without being caught, I mean?”
“Now, now, Ira! He was my benefactor. It said so in my contract and I always addressed him as such. Allah’s ways are mysterious. I cast a horoscope for him, warning him that his stars were in bad shape. And so they were. That system is one of the few I know of with two usable planets around the same star, both colonized and with trade between them. Artifacts and slaves—”
“ ‘Slaves,’ Lazarus? While I am aware of such a practice on Supreme, I didn’t think that vice was very common. Not economic.”
The old man closed his eyes, kept them closed so long I thought he had fallen asleep (he often did during the early days of these talks). Then he opened them and spoke very grimly:
“Ira, this vice is far more common than historians usually mention. Uneconomic, yes—a slave society can’t compete with a free one. But with the Galaxy as wide as it is, there is usually no such competition. Slavery can and does exist many times and places, whenever the laws are rigged to permit it.
“I said that I would do almost anything to support my wives and kids—and I have; I have shoveled human excrement for a pittance, standing in it up to my knees, rather than let a child go hungry. But this I will not touch. Nor is it because I was once a slave myself; I have always felt this way. Call it a ‘belief’ or dignify it as a deep moral conviction. Whatever it is, for me it is beyond argument. If the human animal has any value at all, he is too valuable to be property. If he has any inner dignity, he is much too proud to own other men. I don’t give a damn how scrubbed and perfumed he may be, a slaveowner is subhuman.
“But this does not mean that I’ll cut my throat when I run into it, or I would not have lived through my first century. For there is another bad thing about slavery, Ira; it is impossible to free slaves, they have to free themselves.”
Lazarus scowled. “You’ve got me preaching again and about matters I can’t possibly prove. Once I got my hands on my ship, I had it fumigated and checked it over myself and had it loaded with items I thought I could sell and had food and water taken on for the human cargo it had been refitted for, and sent the captain and crew on a week’s leave, and notified the Protector of Servants—the state slave factor, that is—that we would load as soon as the skipper and purser were back.
“Then I took my family on a holiday inspection of the ship. Somehow the Protector of Servants was suspicious; he insisted on touring the ship with us. So we had to take him along when we took off from there, very suddenly, shortly after my family was aboard. Right out of that system and never went back. But before we put down on a civilized planet, me and my boys—two almost grown by then—removed any sign that she had ever been a slaver, even though it mean jettisoning stuff I could have sold.”
“What about the Protector of Servants?” I asked. “Wasn’t he some trouble to you?”
“Wondered if you would notice that. I spaced the bastard! Alive. He went thataway, eyes popped out and peeing blood. What did you expect me to do? Kiss him?”
COUNTERPOINT
III
Once they reached the privacy of a transport Galahad said to Ishtar, “Were you serious in your proposal to the Senior? To have progeny by him?”
“How could I be joking?—in the presence of two witnesses, one of them the Chairman Pro Tem himself.”
“I didn’t see how you could be. But why, Ishtar?”
“Because I’m a sentimental atavist!”
“Do you have to snap at me?”
She put an arm around his shoulders, took his hand with her free hand. “I’m sorry, dear. It has been a long day . . and not much sleep last night, sweet as it was. I’m worried about several things—and the subject you brought up is not one I can be unemotional about.”
“I should not have asked. An invasion of privacy—I don’t know what’s got into me. Shall we wipe the matter? Please?”
“Dear, dear! I do know what got into me . . and that’s part of why I am so unprofessionally emotional. Let me put it this way: If you were female, wouldn’t you jump at a chance to make such a proposal? To him?”
“I’m not female.”
“I know you’re not, you’re delightfully male. But try for a moment to be as logical as a female. Try!”
“Males are not necessarily illogical; that’s a female myth.”
“Sorry. I must take a tranquilizer the minute we are home —something I haven’t needed in years. But do try to think about it as if you were female. Please? Twenty seconds.”
“I don’t need twenty seconds.” He lifted her hand, kissed it. “If I were female, I would jump at the chance, too. The best proved genetic pattern one can offer a child? Of course.”
“Not that at all!”
He blinked. “Perhaps I don’t know what you mean by logic.”
“Uh . . does it matter? Since we arrived at the same answer?” The car swerved and stopped in a loading pocket; she stood up. “So let’s wipe it. We’re home, dear.”
“You are. I’m not. I think—”
“Men don’t think.”
“I think you need a night’s rest, Ishtar.”
“You sealed this onto me; now you’ll have to undress me.”
“So? Then you’ll insist on feeding me and you won’t get that long night of sleep after all. Besides, you can peel it over your head, just the way I did it for you at decontam.”
She sighed. “Galahad—if I picked the right name for you —do I have to offer you a cohabitation contract merely because I might invite you to stay overnight again? It’s likely that neither of us will get any sleep tonight.”
“That’s what I was saying.”
“Not quite. Because we may work all night. Even if you choose to spend three minutes to our mutual pleasure.”
“ ‘Three minutes’? I wasn’t that hasty even the first time.”
“Well—Five minutes?”
“Am I offered twenty minutes. . plus an apology?”
“Men! Thirty minutes
, darling, and no apology.”
“Accepted.” He stood up.
“Five of which you’ve wasted arguing about it. So come along—exasperating darling.”
He followed her out into her foyer. “What’s this about ‘work all night’?”
“And tomorrow, too. I’ll know when I check what’s in my phone. If there’s nothing, I’ll have to call the Chairman Pro Tem, much as I hate to. I’ve got to look over this rooftop cabin or whatever it is, and see what arrangements can be made to take care of him there. Then both of us will move him; I can’t delegate that. Then—”
“Ishtar! Are you going to agree to that? Nonsterile habitat, no emergency equipment, and so forth?”
“Darling .. you are impressed by my rank; Mr. Weatheral is not. And the Senior isn’t even impressed by Mr. Weatheral’s authority; the Senior is the Senior. I kept hoping that Mr. Chairman Pro Tem would find some way to wheedle him into postponing such a move. But he did not. So now I have two choices: Do it his way—or withdraw completely. As the Director did. Which I won’t do. Which leaves me no choice. So tonight I’ll inspect his new quarters and see what can be done between now and tomorrow midmorning. Even though it’s hopeless to make such a place sterile, perhaps it can be made more nearly suitable before he sees it.”
“And emergency equipment, don’t forget that, Ishtar.”
“As if I would, stupid darling. Now help me out of this damned thing—I mean ‘this pretty dress you designed for me and which the Senior clearly liked.’ Please?”
“So stand still and hold still and shut up.”
“Don’t tickle! Oh, drat, there’s the phone signal! Get it off me, dear—hurry!”
VARIATIONS ON A THEME
IV
Love
Lazarus lounged in his hammock and scratched his chest. “Hamadryad,” he said, “that’s not an easy question. At seventeen I was certain I was in love. But it was merely excess hormones and self-delusion. It was most of a thousand years later before I experienced the real thing—and didn’t recognize the condition for years, as I had quit using that word.”
Ira Weatheral’s “pretty daughter” looked puzzled, while Lazarus thought again that Ira had been wrong: Hamadryad was not pretty; she was so startling beautiful that she would have fetched top premium prices at auction on Fatima, with hard-eyed Iskandrian factors outbidding each other in the belief that she was a sound speculation. If the Protector of the Faith had not preempted her for himself—
Hamadryad did not seem to know that her appearance was exceptional. But Ishtar did. The first ten days that Ira’s daughter had been part of Lazarus’ “family” (so he thought of them—a good enough term as Ira, Hamadryad, Ishtar, and Galahad were all his descendants and now privileged to call him “Grandfather” as long as they did not overdo it)—those first days Ishtar had shown a childish tendency to try to place herself between Hamadryad and Lazarus, and also between Hamadryad and Galahad, even when this required being two places at once.
Lazarus had watched this barnyard dance with amusement and had wondered if Ishtar knew that she was doing it. Probably not, he decided. His rejuvenation supervisor was all duty and no sense of humor and would have been shocked had she known that she had reverted to adolescence.
But it did not last. It was impossible not to like Hamadryad because she remained quietly friendly no matter what. Lazarus wondered if it was a behavior pattern consciously developed to protect herself against her less-endowed sisters—or was it simply her nature? He had not tried to find out. But Ishtar now tended to sit by Hamadryad, or even to make room between herself and Galahad for Hamadryad, and let her help in serving meals and such—assistant “housewife” de facto.
“If I must wait a thousand years to understand that word,” Hamadryad replied, “then I probably never will. Minerva says that it cannot be defined in Galacta and even when I speak Classic English, I find that I think in Galacta, which means that I do not really grasp English. Since the word ‘love’ occurs so frequently in ancient English literature, I thought my failure to understand that word might be the block that keeps me from thinking in English.”
“Well, let’s shift to Galacta and take a swing at it. In the first place, very little thinking was ever done in English; it is not a language suited to logical thought. Instead, it’s an emotive lingo beautifully adapted to concealing fallacies. A rationalizing language, not a rational one. But most people who spoke English had no more idea of the meaning of the word ‘love’ than you have, even though they used it all the time.”
Lazarus added, “Minerva! We’re going to take another hack at the word ‘love.’ Want to join in? If so, shift to your personal mode.”
“Thank you, Lazarus. Hello, Ira-Ishtar-Hamadryad-Galahad,” the disembodied contralto voice answered. “I am and have been in personal mode, and usually am, now that you have given me permission to use my judgment. You’re looking well, Lazarus—younger every day.”
“I feel younger. But, dear, when you go to personal mode, you should tell us.”
“I’m sorry, Grandfather!”
“Don’t sound so humble. Just say, ‘Howdy, I’m here,‘ that’s all. If you could manage to tell me, or Ira, just once, to go tc hell, it ’ud be good for you. Clean your circuits.”
“But I have no wish to say that to either of you.”
“That’s what’s wrong. If you hang around Dora, you’ll learn to. Have you spoken to her today?”
“I’m speaking with Dora now, Lazarus. We’re playing fairy chess in five dimensions, and she’s teaching me songs you taught her. She teaches me a song, then I sing a tenor lead while she harmonizes in soprano. We’re doing this in real time because we’re outing through the speakers in your control room and listening to ourselves. Right now we’re singing the story of One-Ball Riley. Would you care to hear us?”
Lazarus flinched. “No, no, not that one.”
“We’ve practiced several others. ‘Rangy Lil’ and ‘The Ballad of Yukon Jake’ and ‘Barnacle Bill’—I sing the story on that one while Dora does soprano and bass. Or perhaps ‘Four Whores Came Down from Canada’—that one is fun.”
"No, Minerva. I’m sorry, Ira; my computer is corrupting your computer.” Lazarus sighed. ”I didn’t plan it that way; I just wanted Minerva to baby-sit for me. Since I’ve got the only retarded ship in this sector.”
“Lazarus,” Minerva said reproachfully, “I don’t think it is correct to say that Dora is retarded. She’s quite intelligent, I think. I do not understand why you say that she is corrupting me.”
Ira had been lying on the grass, sunbathing with a kerchief over his eyes. He rolled to one elbow. “Nor I, Lazarus. That last one I’d like to hear. I recall where Canada is-was. North of the country you were born in.”
Lazarus counted silently, then said, “Ira, I know I have prejudices ridiculous to a civilized modern man such as yourself. I can’t help it; I’m canalized by early childhood, imprinted like a baby duckling. If you want to hear bawdy songs from a barbaric era, please listen to them in your apartments—not up here. Minerva, Dora doesn’t understand those songs; to her they are nursery rhymes.”
“Nor do I understand them, sir, other than theoretically. But they are jolly, and I have enjoyed being taught to sing.”
“Well—All right. Has Dora been behaving herself otherwise?”
“She’s been a good girl, Grandfather Lazarus, and I think she is contented with my company. She pouted a little at not having her bedtime story last night. But I told her that you were very tired and already asleep, and told her a story myself.”
“But—Ishtar! Did I miss a day?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Surgery? I didn’t notice any new healed places.”
The Master Chief Technician hesitated. “Grandfather, I will discuss procedures only if you insist. It does a client no good to be reminded of such things. I hope that you will not insist. I do hope so, sir.”
“Um. All right, all right. But next
time you chop out a day—or a week, or whatever—warn me. So that I can leave a bedtime story on file with Minerva. No, that won’t do; you don’t want me to know. Okay, I’ll keep stories on file with Minerva and you warn her, instead.”
“I will, Grandfather. It does help when the client cooperates, especially by paying as little attention to what we do as possible.” Ishtar smiled briefly. “The client we dread is another rejuvenator. Worries and tries to run things.”
“Small wonder. I know, dear, I have that horrid habit of trying to run things myself. The only way I can keep from it is by staying out of the control room. So when I get too nosy, tell me to shut up. But how are we doing? How much longer do I have to go?”
Ishtar answered hesitantly, “Perhaps this is a time when I should tell you to . . ‘shut up.’ ”
“That’s it! But firmer, dear. ‘Get out of my control room, you custard-headed dolt, and stay out!’ Make him realize that, if he doesn’t jump, you’ll toss him into the brig. Now try it again.”
Ishtar grinned widely. “Grandfather, you’re an old fraud.”
“So I’ve long suspected. I was hoping it didn’t show. All right, the subject is ‘love’ Minerva, the Hamadarling says you told her that it can’t be defined in Galacta. Got anything to add to that?”
“Tentatively yes, Lazarus. May I reserve my answer until the others speak?”
“Suit yourself. Galahad, you talk less and listen more than anybody else in the family. Want to try it?”
“Well, sir, I hadn’t realized that there was any mystery about ‘love’ until I heard Hamadryad ask about it. But I’m still learning English. By the naturalistic method the way a child learns his milk language. No grammar, no syntax, no dictionary—just listen and talk and read it. Acquire new words by context. By that method I acquired a feeling that ‘love’ means the shared ecstasy that can be attained through sex. Is that right?”