“Why?”
“The excuse is to move a little plastic spheroid from one end of the place to the other.”
“What difference does it make which end it’s on?”
“None, really-but it’s as reasonable as any other game.”
“I don’t get it,” Phyllis decided. “Why should anyone fight unless he wants to kill someone?”
“You have to see it to understand it. It’s exciting. I even found myself shouting.”
“You!”‘
“Uh huh. Me. Old calm-as-a-cat Felix. It’s going to take hold, I tell you. It’s going to be popular. We’ll sell permissions to view it physically and then all sorts of lesser rights-direct pick-up, recording, and so forth. Smith has a lot of ideas about identifying various combinations with cities and organizations and attaching color symbols to them and songs and things. He’s full of ideas-an amazing young man, for a barbarian.”
“He must be.”
“Better let me buy you a piece of it. It’s a pure spec proposition and you can get in cheap-now. It’ll make you rich.”
“What use have I for any more money?”
“I don’t know. You might spend it on me.”
“That’s pretty silly. You’re bloated with credit now.”
“Well, that brings me around to another subject. When we’re married you can really put your mind on helping me spend it.”
“Are you on that subject again?”
“Why not? Times have changed. There is no obstacle anymore. I’ve come around to Mordan’s way of thinking.”
“So Mordan told me.”
“He did? Egg’s Name-everything goes on behind my back! Never mind. When do we stat the contract?”
“What makes you think we are going to?”
“Huh? Wait a minute-I thought that all that stood between us was a difference of opinion about children?”
“You thought too much. What I said was that I would never marry a man who didn’t want children.”
“But I understood you to say — ” He got up and moved nervously around the room. “Say, Phil-don’t you like me?”
“You’re nice enough-in your own horrid way.”
“Then what’s the trouble?”
She did not answer.
Presently he said, “I don’t know whether it makes any difference since you feel that way about it, but I love you-you know that, don’t you?”
“Come here.” He came near to where she was sitting. She took him by the ears and pulled his head down.
“Filthy, you big dope-you should have said that ten minutes ago.” She kissed him.
Sometime later she said dreamily, “Filthy — ”
“Yes, darling?”
“After we have Theobald we’ll have a little girl and then another little boy, and then maybe another little girl.”
“Urn — ”
She sat up. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you pleased at the prospect?” She looked at him closely.
“Sure, sure.”
“Then why are you looking so glum?”
“I was thinking about Cliff. The poor lunk.
“Hasn’t he found any trace of her yet?”
“Nary a trace.”
“Oh, dear!” She put her arms around him and held him.
No sign of her in the Giant Forest, though he had cut the air back to the place. No woman had registered there with the given name of Marion. No one could he find who could identify her by his description. No ship had checked in there registered to such a person. Nor did the owners of the ships that had been there know such a person-several of them knew Marions, but not the Marion-although three of them had responded to the description closely enough to send him charging across country, with wildly beating heart, on errands which cruelly disappointed him.
There remained Johnson-Smith Estaire, at whose town house he had first seen her. He had consulted her at once, after his initial failure to find Marion still at the Park. No, she didn’t recall such a person. “After all, my dear Master Monroe-Alpha, the place was simply mobbed.”
Did she keep a guest list? Yes, of course; what land of a hostess did he think she was? Could he see it? She sent for her social secretary.
There was no Marion on the list.
He went back again. Could she have been mistaken? No, there was no mistake. But people sometimes brought others along to such a party as that-had he thought of that? In that case she would have no record of it. Did she recall any such? No, she couldn’t-it was too much to ask. Would it be too much to ask to copy the guest list? Not at all-anything to oblige.