Every time Constant visited her, she read aloud her latest additions to the manuscript.
She was reading out loud now, sitting in Rumfoord’s old contour chair while Constant puttered about the courtyard. She was wearing a pink and white chenille bedspread that had come with the palace. Worked into the tufts of the bedspread was the message, God does not care.
It had been Rumfoord’s own personal bedspread.
On and on Beatrice read, spinning arguments against the importance of the forces of Tralfamadore.
Constant did not listen attentively. He simply enjoyed Beatrice’s voice, which was strong and triumphant. He was down in a manhole by the pool, turning a valve that would drain the water out. The water of the pool had been turned into something like cream of pea soup by Titanic algae. Every time Constant visited Beatrice he fought a losing battle against the prolific green murk.
“‘I would be the last to deny,'” said Beatrice, reading her own work out loud, “‘that the forces of Tralfamadore have had something to do with the affairs of Earth. However, those persons who have served the interests of Tralfamadore have served them in such highly personalized ways that Tralfamadore can be said to have had practically nothing to do with the case.'”
Constant, down in the manhole, put his ear to the valve be had opened. From the sound of it, the water was draining slowly.
Constant swore. One of the vital pieces of information that had disappeared with Rumfoord and died with Salo was how they had managed, in their time, to keep the pool so crystal clean. Ever since Constant had taken over maintenance of the pool, the algae had been building up. The pool’s bottoms and sides were lined with a blanket of viscid slime, and the three statues in the middle, the three Sirens of Titan, were under a mucilaginous hump.
Constant knew of the significance of the three sirens in his life. He had read about it — both in the Pocket History of Mars and The Winston Niles Rumfoord Authorized Revised Bible. The three great beauties didn’t mean so much to him now, really, except to remind him that sex had once bothered him.
Constant climbed out of the manhole. “Drains slower every time,” he said to Beatrice. “I don’t guess I can put off digging up the pipes much longer.”
“That so?” said Beatrice, looking up from her writing.
“That’s so,” said Constant.
“Well — you do whatever needs to be done,” said Beatrice.
“That’s the story of my life,” said Constant.
“I just had an idea that ought to go in the book,” said Beatrice, “if I can just keep it from getting away.”
“I’ll hit it with a shovel, if it comes this way,” said Constant.
“Don’t say anything for a minute,” said Beatrice. “Just let me get it straight in my head.” She stood, and went into the entry of the palace to escape the distractions of Constant and the rings of Saturn.
She looked long at a large oil painting hanging on the entry wall. It was the only painting in the palace. Constant had had it brought all the way from Newport.
It was a painting of an immaculate little girl in white, holding the reins of a white pony all her own.
Beatrice knew who the little girl was. The painting was labeled with a brass plate that said, Beatrice Rumfoord as a Young Girl.
It was quite a contrast — between the little girl in white and the old lady looking at her.
Beatrice suddenly turned her back on the painting, walked out into the courtyard again. The idea she wanted to add to her book was straight in her mind now.
“The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody,” she said, “would be to not be used for anything by anybody.”
The thought relaxed her. She lay- down on Rumfoord’s old contour chair, looked up at the appallingly beautiful rings of Saturn — at Rumfoord’s Rainbow.
“Thank you for using me,” she said to Constant, “even though I didn’t want to be used by anybody.”
“You’re welcome,” said Constant.
He began to sweep the courtyard. The litter he was sweeping was a mixture of sand, which had blown in from the outside, daisy-seed hulls, Earthling peanut hulls, empty cans of boned chicken, and discarded wads of manuscript paper. Beatrice subsisted mostly on daisy seeds, peanuts, and boned chicken because she didn’t have to cook them, because she didn’t even have to interrupt her writing in order to eat them.