“A moment please,” Iron John said, waiting for the others to leave. When we were alone he touched a button at his side and the tall doors swung silently closed. “A fine song. We all enjoyed it.”
“The Stainless Steel Rats aim only to please,” I said.
“Wonderful.” His smile vanished and he stared at us grimly. “There is one more thing you must do to please me. Your stay here will be a long one and we want you to be happy. You will make us all happy, yourselves included, if you show a certain selection in topics of conversation.”
“What do you mean?” I asked-although I had a good notion of what he was leading up to.
“We are very satisfied here. Adjusted and secure. I do not wish to see that security threatened. You gentlemen come to our land from a very troubled outside world. The galaxy is at peace-or so you say. While ignoring the eternal war without end. The conflict of duality that we are free of here. You are the products of a society that is ego destroying instead of being ego building. You suffer from the negativity that blights lives, weakens cultures, sickens even the strongest. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
Neither Floyd nor Steengo answered so it was up to me. I nodded.
“We do. Although we might quibble with some of your conclusions the object of your attentions is quite clear. I can promise you that while we are enjoying your hospitality, neither I nor my associates will talk to anyone about the other sex. That is girls, women, females. It is a taboo topic. But, since you raised the issue I assume that you can discuss it . . .”
“No.”
“Right, answer enough. We will therefore enjoy your hospitality and not spoil it.”
“You are wise beyond your years, young Jim,” he said, and a trace of a smile returned. “Now you must be tired. You will be shown to your quarters.”
The doors opened, he turned away. End of interview. We strolled out as nonchalantly as we could. Old Goldy led us out as he had led us in, to some pretty luxurious, although still red brick, quarters. He turned on the TV, checked that the faucets worked in the bathroom, raised and lowered the curtains, then bowed himself out and closed the door. I touched my finger to my lips. Floyd and Steengo waited in twitching silence while I used the detector, borrowed from Tremearne, to sweep the room for bugs. After what we had seen on TV I had a great admiration for the electronics in this place.
“Nothing,” I said.
“No women,” Steengo said. “And we can’t even talk about them.”
“I can live with that for awhile,” Floyd cut in. “But who was that singing our number?”
“That,” I said, “was a very nifty example of some first-class electronic dubbing.”
“But where did that joker come from?” Floyd said. “There I am playing right beside him-and I swear that I have never seen him before. Maybe we really did blow baksheesh and this whole planet is a drug-inspired nightmare!”
“Keep cool, keep calm. That guy was nothing but a bunch of electronic bytes and bits. Some really good techs digitalized that entire song, with all of us playing it. Then they animated a computer-generated male singer to follow all of Madonette’s movements. Wrote her image out, wrote his in-then re-recorded the whole thing just as if it were going out live. Only with a him instead of a her.”
“But why?” Steengo asked, dropping wearily into one of the deep lounges.
“Now you have asked the right question. And the answer is obvious. This side of Paradise is for men only. Not only haven’t we seen any women here-but pretty obviously they have been edited out of TV and presumably everything else going. It’s a real man’s world. And don’t say why again because I don’t know. You saw how high that wall is when we were on our way here. And we know from views of the thing from space that the city is on both sides of the wall. So the women-if there are any women-might very well be on the other side.”