‘What happens to them?
‘In a man you would call it acute anxiety psychosis. They try to fly; their own prime skill leads them to disaster. Naturally, everything they do is wrong and they don’t understand it
Presently they quit trying; a little later they die. Of a broken heart, one might say, poetically.’ He smiled thinly. ‘But Ariel is a genius among birds. He came here as an egg; he invented, unassisted, a whole new school of flying.’ He reached up a finger, offering the bird a new perch, which it accepted
‘That’s enough, Ariel. Fly away home.
The bird started the ‘Bell Song’ from Lakmé
He shook it gently. ‘No, Ariel. Go to bed.
The canary lifted its feet clear of the finger, floated for an instant, then beat its wings savagely for a second or two to set course and pick up speed, and bulleted away whence he bad come, wings folded, feet streamlined under
‘Jimmie’s got something he wants to talk with you about,’ Grimes commenced
‘Delighted,’ Waldo answered lazily, ‘but shan’t we dine first? Have you an appetite, sir?
Waldo full, Stevens decided, might be easier to cope with than Waldo empty. Besides, his own midsection informed him that wrestling with a calorie or two might be pleasant. ‘Yes, I have.
‘Excellent.’ They were served
Stevens was never able to decide whether Waldo had prepared the meal by means of his many namesakes, or whether servants somewhere out of sight had done the actual work. Modern food-preparation methods being what they were, Waldo could have done it alone; he, Stevens, batched it with no difficulty, and so did Gus. But he made a mental note to ask Doc Grimes at the first opportunity what resident staff, if any, Waldo employed. He never remembered to do so
The dinner arrived in a small food chest, propelled to their midst at the end of a long, telescoping, pneumatic tube. It stopped with a soft sigh and held its position. Stevens paid little attention to the food itself – it was adequate and tasty, he knew – for his attention was held by the dishes and serving methods. Waldo let his own steak float in front of him, cut bites from it with curved surgical shears, and conveyed them to his mouth by means of dainty tongs. He made hard work of chewing
‘You can’t get good steaks any more,’ he remarked. ‘This one is tough. God knows I pay enough – and complain enough.
Stevens did not answer. He thought his own steak had been tenderized too much; it almost fell apart. He was managing it with knife and fork, but the knife was superfluous. It appeared that Waldo did not expect his guests to make use of his own admittedly superior methods and utensils. Stevens ate from a platter clamped to his thighs, making a lap for it after Grimes’s example by squatting in mid air. The platter itself had been thoughtfully provided with sharp little prongs on its service side
Liquids were served in small flexible skins, equipped with nipples. Think of a baby’s plastic nursing bottle
The food chest took the utensils away with a dolorous insufflation. ‘Will you smoke, sir?
‘Thank you.’ He saw what a weight-free ashtray necessarily should be: a long tube with a bell-shaped receptacle on its end. A slight suction in the tube, and ashes knocked into the bell were swept away, out of sight and mind
‘About that matter-’ Grimes commenced again. ‘Jimmie here is Chief Engineer for North American Power-Air.
‘What?’ Waldo straightened himself, became rigid; his chest rose and fell. He ignored Stevens entirely. ‘Uncle Gus, do you mean to say that you have introduced an officer of that company into my – home?
‘Don’t get your dander up. Relax. Damn it, I’ve warned you not to do anything to raise your blood pressure.’ Grimes propelled himself closer to his host and took him by the wrist in the age-old fashion of a physician counting pulse. ‘Breathe slower. Whatcha trying to do? Go on an oxygen jag?
Waldo tried to shake himself loose. It was a rather pitiful gesture; the old man had ten times his strength. ‘Uncle Gus, you- ‘Shut up!