This highly interesting fact had long inured him to the use of Can-D; for him life on Mars had few blessings.
“I think,” Fran said, “you’re tempting me to do wrong.” As she seated herself she looked sad; her eyes, large and dark, fixed futilely on a spot at the center of the layout, near Perky Pat’s enormous wardrobe. Absently, Fran began to fool with a min sable coat, not speaking.
He handed her half of a strip of Can-D, then popped his own portion into his mouth and chewed greedily.
Still looking mournful, Fran also chewed.
He was Walt. He owned a Jaguar XXB sports ship with a flat-out velocity of fifteen thousand miles an hour. His shirts came from Italy and his shoes were made in England. As he opened his eyes he looked for the little G.E. clock TV set by his bed; it would be on automatically, tuned to the morning show of the great newsclown Jim Briskin. In his flaming red wig Briskin was already forming on the screen. Walt sat up, touched a button which swung his bed, altered to support him in a sitting position, and lay back to watch for a moment the program in progress.
“I’m standing here at the corner of Van Ness and Market in downtown San Francisco,” Briskin said pleasantly, “and we’re just about to view the opening of the exciting new subsurface conapt building Sir Francis Drake, the first to be entirely underground. With us, to dedicate the building, standing right by me is that enchanting female of ballad and–”
Walt shut off the TV, rose, and walked barefoot to the window; he drew the shades, saw out then onto the warm, sparkling early-morning San Francisco street, the hills and white houses. This was Saturday morning and he did not have to go to his job down in Palo Alto at Ampex Corporation; instead–and this rang nicely in his mind–he had a date with his girl, Pat Christensen, who had a modern little apt over on Potrero Hill.
It was always Saturday.
In the bathroom he splashed his face with water, then squirted on shave cream, and began to shave. And, while he shaved, staring into the mirror at his familiar features, he saw a note tacked up, in his own hand.
THIS IS AN ILLUSION. YOU ARE SAM REGAN, A
COLONIST ON MARS. MAKE USE OF YOUR TIME OF
TRANSLATION, BUDDY BOY. CALL UP PAT PRONTO!
And the note was signed Sam Regan.
An illusion, he thought, pausing in his shaving. In what way? He tried to think back; Sam Regan and Mars, a dreary colonists’ hovel… yes, he could dimly make the image out, but it seemed remote and vitiated and not convincing. Shrugging, he resumed shaving, puzzled, now, and a little depressed. All right, suppose the note was correct; maybe he did remember that other world, that gloomy quasi-life of involuntary expatriation in an unnatural environment. So what? Why did he have to wreck this? Reaching, he yanked down the note, crumpled it and dropped it into the bathroom disposal chute.
As soon as he had finished shaving he vidphoned Pat.
“Listen,” she said at once, cool and crisp; on the screen her blonde hair shimmered: she had been drying it. “I don’t want to see you, Walt. Please. Because I know what you have in mind and I’m just not interested; do you understand?” Her blue-gray eyes were cold.
“Hmm,” he said, shaken, trying to think of an answer. “But it’s a terrific day–we ought to get outdoors. Visit Golden Gate Park, maybe.”
“It’s going to be too hot to go outdoors.”
“No,” he disagreed, nettled. “That’s later. Hey, we could walk along the beach, splash around in the waves. Okay?”
She wavered, visibly. “But that conversation we had just before–”
“There was no conversation. I haven’t seen you in a week, not since last Saturday.” He made his tone as firm and full of conviction as possible. “I’ll drop by your place in half an hour and pick you up. Wear your swimsuit, you know, the yellow one. The Spanish one that has a halter.”
“Oh,” she said disdainfully, “that’s completely out of fash now. I have a new one from Sweden; you haven’t seen it. I’ll wear that, if it’s permitted. The girl at A & F wasn’t sure.”
“It’s a deal,” he said, and rang off.
A half hour later in his Jaguar he landed on the elevated field of her conapt building.
Pat wore a sweater and slacks; the swimsuit, she explained, was on underneath. Carrying a picnic basket, she followed him up the ramp to his parked ship. Eager and pretty, she hurried ahead of him, pattering along in her sandals. It was all working out as he had hoped; this was going to be a swell day after all, after his initial trepidations had evaporated… as thank God they had.
“Wait until you see this swimsuit,” she said as she slid into the parked ship, the basket on her lap. “It’s really daring; it hardly exists: actually you sort of have to have faith to believe in it.” As he got in beside her she leaned against him. “I’ve been thinking over that conversation we had–let me finish.” She put her fingers against his lips, silencing him. “I know it took place, Walt. But in a way you’re right; in fact basically you have the proper attitude. We should try to obtain as much from this as possible. Our time is short enough as it is… at least so it seems to me.” She smiled wanly. “So drive as fast as you can; I want to get to the ocean.”
Almost at once they were setting down in the parking lot at the edge of the beach.
“It’s going to be hotter,” Pat said soberly. “Every day. Isn’t it? Until finally it’s unbearable.” She tugged off her sweater, then, shifting about on the seat of the ship, managed to struggle out of her slacks. “But we won’t live that long… it’ll be another fifty years before no one can go outside at noon. Like they say, become mad dogs and Englishmen; we’re not that yet.” She opened the door and stepped out in her swimsuit. And she had been correct; it took faith in things unseen to make the suit out at all. It was perfectly satisfactory, to both of them.
Together, he and she plodded along the wet, hardpacked sand, examining jelly fish, shells, and pebbles, the debris tossed up by the waves.
“What year is this?” Pat asked him suddenly, halting. The wind blew her untied hair back; it lifted in a mass of cloudlike yellow, clear and bright and utterly clean, each strand separate.
He said, “Well, I guess it’s–” And then he could not recall; it eluded him. “Damn,” he said crossly.
“Well, it doesn’t matter.” Linking arms with him she trudged on. “Look, there’s that little secluded spot ahead, past those rocks.” She increased her tempo of motion; her body rippled as her strong, taut muscles strained against the wind and the sand and the old, familiar gravity of a world lost long ago. “Am I what’s-her-name–Fran?” she asked suddenly. She stepped past the rocks; foam and water rolled over her feet, her ankles; laughing, she leaped, shivered from the sudden chill. “Or am I Patricia Christensen?” With both hands she smoothed her hair. “This is blonde, so I must be Pat. Perky Pat.” She disappeared beyond the rocks; he quickly followed, scrambling after her. “I used to be Fran,” she said over her shoulder, “but that doesn’t matter now. I could have been anyone before, Fran or Helen or Mary, and it wouldn’t matter now. Right?”
“No,” he disagreed, catching up with her. Panting, he said, “It’s important that you’re Fran. In essence.”
“‘In essence.” She threw herself down on the sand, lay resting on her elbow, drawing by means of a sharp black rock in savage swipes which left deeply gouged lines; almost at once she tossed the rock away, and sat around to face the ocean. “But the accidents… they’re Pat.” She put her hands beneath her breasts, then, languidly lifting them, a puzzled expression on her face. “These,” she said, “are Pat’s. Not mine. Mine are smaller; I remember.”
He seated himself beside her, saying nothing.
“We’re here,” she said presently, “to do what we can’t do back at the hovel. Back where we’ve left our corruptible bodies. As long as we keep our layouts in repair this–” She gestured at the ocean, then once more touched herself, unbelievingly. “It can’t decay, can it? We’ve put on immortality.” All at once she lay back, flat against the sand, and shut her eyes, one arm over her face. “And since we’re here, and we can do things denied us at the hovel, then your theory is we ought to do those things. We ought to take advantage of the opportunity.”