It exploded in my hand, blowing a fair chunk of the tree away and sending me flying to the ground.
Barb had a first aid kit ready and was soon using it competently.
“It blew just when I tried to push the metal cap through the interface where the water was coming out. That was a temporal explosion if I ever saw one,” I said. “So you guys have it so down pat that you can send something to the time and place that you want it, and it’s cheaper to do it that way than to run a water pipe all the way out here. But tell me, do they send a truck of hot water around every few months, or do they just work it all from some central location, somehow?”
“I’m not allowed to say, Tom,” she said as she finished with my hand and started on the wood splinters scattered about my body.
“You know, a few simple answers would have saved me a lot of grief,” I said. “I could have been killed there, and then where would your little game be?”
“You’re not going to die, Tom.” I didn’t know just how she meant that, but she was pretty positive about it.
It was dusk when we returned to the palaces. Ian was in a quiet, smiling mood on the way back. He let me drive, probably so he could hold Ming Po’s hand in the back seat.
“Dinner at my place, Tom?”
Ian’s Taj Mahal was as spectacular, in its own way, as my place, but the thing that grabbed you was his womenfolk.
They were the same racial mix as my crowd—mostly northern European, with a sprinkling of everything else—but every one of them was trying her honest and phony best to act Oriental. It was like they’d all taken a six-week crash course in bowing and groveling.
Barb could not have told them to do this since she had not left my side since I had suggested that Ian’s crew adopt Ming Po’s manners, so—datum: it wasn’t necessary to do something in order to get something done. It was sufficient to merely intend to do something. Only, what would happen if you meant to do something and then didn’t do it?
I hadn’t figured that one out yet.
One odd point about the place was that while much of the furniture was specifically intended for little Ian’s use, the building itself seemed to be designed for someone my size or bigger. Whereas the doorways on my palace were all eight feet high, those in the Taj Mahal looked to be closer to eight and a half. Maybe these people just liked to build palaces with big doorways.
The meal was excellent—about thirty Chinese dishes, half of them on fire when they were brought out, and some Siamese food that wasn’t actually burning, but tasted like it should have been. That last was for my benefit only. Ian, of course, wouldn’t touch it. He was spending all of his time touching Ming Po.
He was soon hinting that Barb and I might want to leave.
I slept with Barb again that night, but the next morning I made full use of the bath girls. When in Rome, eat all the pasta you can get.
Ian invited himself and five of his women over to breakfast, a bit of a crowd for the small breakfast room. I had the meal set up on a big porch that overlooked the ocean. Or that is to say, I moved the party out to the porch and breakfast was waiting for us.
It was another beautiful day. Actually, the weather on San Sebastian was usually great, barring the odd hurricane, and those were fun, too. I knew I couldn’t be hurt. Who would invent all this stuff if I wasn’t here to do it?
“Tom, the girls tell me there are some nine-meter racing yachts in the harbor. My crew and I challenge you and yours to twice around the island. What do you say?”
“Well, sure. Barb’ll line up our four best sailors and we’ll take you on. Care to make a wager on it?”
“A bet, Tom? How? When you have everything possible in a material sense, what significance can there possibly be in winning or losing money?”
“Huh. You got a point there. Okau. My complete Poul Anderson collection up against your Harley. Assuming they’re still in Michigan.”
“Hardly a fair bet, Tom, but then it’s not going to be a fair race. You’ve forgotten that I’m a whiz at fluid dynamics, whereas you’ve never even had a course in it. And what is sailing but simply applied fluid dynamics? I’m going to beat your socks off.”
The twelve of us were walking across the drawbridge in yachting garb when Hasenpfeffer ran up. His bandage was gone and his nose looked as straight as ever.
“What are you gentlemen up to? There’s work to be done!”
“Well then, you better get cracking, son, because you get to handle it all by your lonesome! We’re going to go ride on some sailboats!”
Actually, I’d never been sailing before.
“But don’t you realize our obligations to these people? And what they can do for us?”
“Look, I don’t remember signing any contracts and I like what they’re doing just fine.” I had my arms around Barb and Tammy, and gave them both a squeeze.
“Oh, that, certainly. But look, look here.” Hasenpfeffer was vigorously sticking a pencil into the fingers of his left hand. “That hurts, I tell you. It hurts painfully.”
“Then stop doing it, stupid!”
“No, Tom! He’s telling us that the nerves in his hand have regenerated, that their medical technology is better than ours.”
“So?”
“So then they might be able to get me back my foot and you your hair.”
“Good idea. Somebody make us some doctor appointments for right after the boat ride. And thinking about it, I want to ride horses down to the harbor.”
Two cowgirls promptly rode up with a dozen empty horses. We saddled up and left a frustrated Hasenpfeffer standing in the plaza.
“Tom, maybe we should have invited him along.”
“So send one of the girls back with an invite. But he won’t come. He’s too busy pontificating with the local bureaucrats.”
The palaces were at the north end of the island, and we were a good hour riding to the city. The land between was flat and fertile, with well-tended fields and orchards. We passed one big dairy farm, but mostly it was all in fruit and vegetables.
The few farmers we saw were smiling, well-built fellows, and the one woman I saw driving a Ford tractor was as beautiful as any of the dozen girls in our party.
The city did not have the usual suburban sprawl of single-family homes. The fields stopped where a half mile of parks started, and where the parks ended, high-rise buildings began.
No, that’s not quite true. The parks never actually stopped, but continued right through most of the city. It was a city without streets. Sidewalks, yes, but no provisions were made for motor vehicles unless you drove on the lawns. There weren’t any cars at all.
“Subways,” Ian said. “These buildings all have to be connected with subways. Somebody really spent with a lavish hand. . . .”
“Well, maybe not. Remember what you were saying once about cheap tunneling and underground highways?”
“Hey, yeah.” Ian obviously regretted being on the surface. “We’ll have to explore the things on the way back.”
We were attracting a fair amount of attention. People were leaning out of windows, waving. The park around us was starting to fill up.
“Barb, if we get involved in a ticker-tape parade, I’m turning back. Somehow, tell everybody to just go about their usual business.”
“Yes, Tom,” she said, and glanced at her watch. Without any one individual doing anything unusual, the crowds quickly thinned out.
Most of the city was high rise, but there was a certain eclecticism about it. No two buildings were alike, and there was a cluster of amusement sections, “Old Town,” “China Town” and “Greek Town,” which had a feeling of brand new quaintness, sort of like a world’s fair.
Yet, despite the phoniness of it all, the city of Morrow was truly beautiful, with sweeping modern structures and meticulous copies of every great piece of architecture in the world.
And it had such healthy, happy population! Thinking about it, I saw no one who looked over forty nor any under fifteen.
I turned to Ian. “Hey. They don’t have any old people.”
“Perhaps their medical technology is such that people don’t have to look old.”
“Maybe. They don’t have any kids, either.”
“Good God, you’re right! Ming Po! Where are the children?”
She stared at the pommel of her saddle and was silent.
“Barb?” She just looked away. All twelve of our companions had been chattering a moment before, but suddenly they were silent.