When first dug, Titanic peat has the consistency of Earthling putty.
After one hour’s exposure to Titan’s light and air, the peat has the strength and hardness of plaster of Paris.
After two hours’ exposure, it is as durable as granite, and must be worked with a cold chisel.
After three hours’ exposure, nothing but a diamond will scratch Titanic peat.
Salo was inspired to make so many statues by the showy ways in which Earthlings behaved. It wasn’t so much what the Earthlings did as the way they did it that inspired Salo.
The Earthlings behaved at all times as though there were a big eye in the sky — as though that big eye were ravenous for entertainment.
The big eye was a glutton for great theater. The big eye was indifferent as to whether the Earthling shows were comedy, tragedy, farce, satire, athletics, or vaudeville. Its demand, which Earthings apparently found as irresistible as gravity, was that the shows be great.
The demand was so powerful that Earthlings did almost nothing but perform for it, night and day — and even in their dreams.
The big eye was the only audience that Earthlings really cared about. The fanciest performances that Salo had seen bad been put on by Earthlings who were terribly alone. The imagined big eye was their only audience.
Salo, with his diamond-hard statues, had tried to preserve some of the mental states of those Earthlings who had put on the most interesting shows for the imagined big eye.
Hardly less surprising than the statues were the Titanic daisies that abounded by the Winston Sea. When Salo arrived on Titan in 203,117 B.C, the blooms of Titanic daisies were tiny, star-like, yellow flowers barely a quarter of an inch across.
Then Salo began to breed them selectively.
When Malachi Constant, Beatrice Rumfoord, and their son Chrono arrived on Titan, the typical Titanic daisy had a stalk four feet in diameter, and a lavender bloom shot with pink and having a mass in excess of a ton.
Salo, having watched the approaching space ship of Malachi Constant, Beatrice Rumfoord, and their son Chrono, inflated his feet to the size of German batballs. He stepped onto the emerald clear waters of the Winston Sea, crossed the waters to Winston Niles Rumfoord’s Taj Mahal.
He entered the walled yard of the palace, let the air out of his feet. The air hissed. The hiss echoed from the walls.
Winston Niles Rumfoord’s lavender contour chair by the pool was empty.
“Skip?” called Salo. He used this most intimate of all possible names for Rumfoord, Rumfoord’s childhood name, in spite of Rumfoord’s resentment of his use of it. He didn’t use the name in order to tease Rumfoord. He used it in order to assert the friendship he felt for Rumfoord — to test the friendship a little, and to watch it endure the test handsomely.
There was a reason for Salo’s putting friendship to such a sophomoric test. He had never seen, never even heard of friendship before he hit the Solar System. It was a fascinating novelty to him. He had to play with it.
“Skip?” Salo called again.
There was an unusual tang in the air. Salo identified it tentatively as ozone. He was unable to account for it.
A cigarette still burned in the ash tray by Rumfoord’s contour chair, so Rumfoord hadn’t been out of his chair long.
“Skip? Kazak?” called Salo. It was unusual for Rumfoord not to be snoozing in his chair, for Kazak not to be snoozing beside it. Man and dog spent most of their time by the pooi, monitoring signals from their other selves through space and time. Rumfoord was usually motionless in his chair, the fingers of one languid, dangling hand buried in Kazak’s coat. Kazak was usually whimpering and twitching dreamingly.
Salo looked down into the water of the rectangular pool. In the bottom of the pooi, in eight feet of water, were the three sirens of Titan, the three beautiful human females who had been offered to the lecherous Malachi Constant so long ago.
They were statues made by Salo of Titanic peat. Of the millions of statues made by Salo, only these three were painted with lifelike colors. It had been necessary to paint them in order to give them importance in the sumptuous, oriental scheme of things in Rumfoord’s palace.