The mind had to operate on itself, but it was seldom a skilled surgeon.
Burton silently cursed Dunaway and wished that there was a hell to which the man could be sent.
Star Spoon lifted a fork of trout to her mouth, chewed while staring out over the gardens below the castle, the jungle river, and the desert beyond. Having swallowed, she said, “I want you to bring in another woman, Dick. One who can take care of your needs. A woman who can laugh and love. I do not mind, I not only do not mind, I would be very pleased.”
“No,” he said. “No. That is most generous of you—also very Chinese. I admire the culture and wisdom of your people, But I am not Chinese.”
“It’s not just Chinese. It’s good common sense. There’s no reason why I should be—what did you say the other day?—a dog in the … ?”
“A dog in the manger. One who owns something he can’t use but won’t let anybody else use it because he’s selfish.”
“A dog in the manger. I am not that. Please, Dick, it would make me less unhappy.”
“But I wouldn’t be happy.”
“If it would embarrass you to have another woman here, put her in an apartment and visit her. Or … I could leave.”
He laughed and said, “Human beings are not androids. I couldn’t just raise a woman and imprison her for my own pleasure. In the first place, she might not like me. In the second, even if she did, she would want the company of others. She’d want to be free, not a caged odalisque.”
She reached across the table and put her hand on his. “It is too bad.”
“What? What we’ve just been talking about?”
“That and much more. Everything.” She waved a hand as if to take in the whole universe. “Bad. AH bad.”
“No, it’s not. Part is bad, part is good. You’ve just had more than your share of the bad. But you have time, a long, long time, to get your share of the good.”
She shook her head. “No. Not for me.”
Burton pushed his plate, still half-full, away. An android silently took the plate away.
“I’ll stay and talk with you, if you like. I have work to do, but it’s not more important than you.”
“I, too, have work,” she said. He rose, went around the solid gold table to her, and kissed her cheek. He was curious about what she was doing with the Computer, but, when he asked her about it, she always said that it was uninteresting and she would prefer to hear about his studies.
However, when they left the castle in the armored flying chairs, she seemed to be excited about the party. She chattered away about some amusing incidents in her childhood, and she even laughed several times. Burton thought that it was no good for her to be alone so much or just with him. Yet when they had gone to the weekly meetings, she had been subdued and withdrawn.
During flight, Burton spoke over the transmitter to Star Spoon. “I tried earlier this morning to call Turpinville. Which I suppose will have another name by now. I got no answer. Apparently, whoe’ver’s running Turpinville now is not taking calls.”
“Why did you call them?”
“I was curious. I wanted to find out if whoever’s in charge intends to be aggressive. It’s possible, you know, that he … they … won’t be content with just ruling Turpinville. He might have some plans for taking over the entire tower.”
“What sense would there be in that?”
“What sense was there in ousting Turpin and grabbing the seat of power? I also called Tom to determine his mood. It was black. Or perhaps scarlet is a better description. He is still vowing vengeance, but he knows that he has no chance of getting that. All they have to do is stay shut up in their world.”
They floated through the doorway into the central area. Burton was surprised by the crowd and the uproar there. Turpin was with Louis Chauvin, Scott Joplin and other musician-friends who had two days ago been in Little St. Louis. Evidently, these had also been hurled out from the little world without anything except the clothes they were wearing. There were also about a hundred other blacks, some of whom he recognized. And something had also happened to Frigate and Lefkowitz and her friends. They were gesticulating angrily and shouting words unintelligible in the great noise. This was added to by the blaring voices from the wall-screens showing each one his or her past.
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150