Crystal Express

THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE SUBLIME

First published in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 1986.

May 30, 2070

My dear MacLuhan:

You, my friend, who know so well a lover's troubles, will understand my affair with Leona Hillis.

Since my last letter to you, I have come to know... Leona's soul. Slowly, almost despite myself, I opened those reservoirs of sympathy and feeling that turn a simple liaison into something much deeper. Something that partakes of the sublime.

It is love, my dear MacLuhan. Not the appetite of the body, easily counterfeited with pills. No, it is closer to agape, the soaring spiritual union of the Greeks.

I know the Greeks are out of favor these days, especially Plato with his computerlike urge toward abstract intellect.

Forgive me if my sentiments take this somewhat over-Westernized expression. I can only express what I feel, simply and directly.

In other words, I am free of that sense of evanescence that poisoned my earlier commitments. I feel as if I had always loved Leona; she has a place within my soul that could never be filled by another woman.

I know it was rash of me to leave Seattle. Aksyonov was eager to have me complete the set design for his new drama. But I felt taxed and restless, and dreaded the days of draining creative effort. Inspiration comes from nature, and I had been too long pent in the city.

So, when I received Leona's invitation to her father's birthday gala in the Grand Canyon, the lure was irresistible. It combined the best of both worlds: the companionship of a charming woman, against the background of a natural wonder unrivaled for sublimity.

I left poor Aksyonov only a hasty note over the mailnet, and fled to Arizona.

And what a landscape! Great sweeping mesas, long blasted vistas in purple and rose, great gaudy sunsets reaching ethereal fingers of pure radiance halfway to the zenith! It is the opposite pole to our green, introspective Seattle; a bright yang to the drizzling yin of the Pacific Coast. The air, sharpened by sagebrush and pinyon pine, seems to scrub the brain like a loofah. At once I felt my appetite return, and a new briskness lent itself to my step.

I spoke with several Arizonans about their Global Park. I found them to be sensitive and even noble people, touched to the core by the staggering beauty of their eerie landscape. They are quite modern in their sentiments, despite the large numbers of retirees -- crotchety industrial-age relics. Since the draining of Lake Powell, the former floodplain of the reservoir has been opened to camping, sports, and limited development. This relieves the crowding in the Grand Canyon itself, which, under wise stewardship, is returning to a pristine state of nature.

For Dr. Hillis's celebration, Hillis Industries had hired a modern hogan, perching on the northern canyon rim. It was a broad two-story dome, wrought from native cedar and sandstone, which blended into the landscape with admirable restraint and taste. A wide cedar porch overlooked the river. Behind the dome, white-barked Ponderosa pines bordered a large rock garden.

Freed of its obnoxious twentieth-century dams, the primal Colorado raged gloriously below the cliffsides, leaping and frothing in great silted billows and surges, flinging rocks and driftwood with tigerlike abandon. In the days that followed, its hissing roar would never be far from my thoughts.

The long drowning beneath the man-made lake had added an eerie charm to these upper reaches of the great canyon. Its shale and sandstone walls were stained a viridian green. In gulfs and eddies amid the canyon's sinuous turns, old lake sediments still clung in warping slopes, clotted by the roots of cottonwoods and flowering scrub.

On the hogan porch, overlooking the cliffs, I plugged my wrist-ward into the house system and made my presence known. Also on the porch were a pair of old people. I checked their identities with my newly charged ward. But with the typical callousness of their generation, they had not plugged into the house system, and remained unknown to me.

It was with some relief, then, that I saw our old friend Mari Kuniyoshi emerge from the hogan to greet me. She and I had corresponded faithfully since her return to Osaka; mostly about her fashion business, and the latest gossip in Japanese graphic design.

I confess I never understood the magnetic attraction Mari has for so many men. My interest lies in her talent for design, and in fact I find her romances rather heartless.

My ward identified Mari's companion: her production engineer and chief technician, Claire Berger. Mari was dressed somewhat ahead of the latest taste, in a bright high-throated peach sateen jacket and subtly clinging fluted anklewrap skirt. Claire Berger wore expedition pants, a cotton trek blouse, and hiking boots. It was typical of Mari that she would use this gawky young woman as a foil.

The three of us were soon chastely sipping fruit juice under one of the porch umbrellas and admiring the view. We traded pleasantries while I waited for Mari's obvious aura of trouble to manifest itself.

It emerged that Mari's current companion, a nineteen-year-old model and aspiring actor, had become a source of friction. Also present at the Hillis birthday fete was one of Mari's older flames, the globe-trotting former cosmonaut, Friedrik Solokov. Mari had not expected Fred's appearance, though he had been traveling with Dr. Hillis for some time. Mari's model friend had sensed the rekindled rapport between Mari and Fred Solokov, and he was extravagantly jealous.

"I see," I said. "Well, at some convenient time I can take your young friend aside, for a long talk. He's an actor with ambitions, you say. Our troupe is always looking for new faces."

"My dear Manfred," she sighed, "how well you understand my little problems. You look very dashing today. I admire your ascot. What a charming effect. Did you tie it yourself or have a machine do it?"

"I confess," I said. "This ascot has pre-stressed molecular folds."

"Oh," said Claire Berger distantly. "Really roughing it."

I changed the subject. "How is Leona?"

"Ah. Poor Leona," Mari said. "You know how fond she is of solitude. Well, as the preparations go on, she wanders through these great desolate canyons... climbing crags, staring down into the mists of that fierce river.... Her father is not at all well." She looked at me meaningfully.

"Yes." It was well-known that old Dr. Hillis's eccentricities, even cruelties, had advanced with the years. He never understood the new society his own great work had created. It was one of those ironic strokes you're so fond of, my dear MacLuhan.

However, my Leona had paid for his reactionary stubbornness, so I failed to smile. Poor Leona, the child of the old man's age, had been raised as his industrial princess, expected to master profits and losses and quarterly reports, the blighting discipline of his grisly drudgery. In today's world, the old man might as well have trained her to be a Spanish conquistador. It's a tribute to her spirit that she's done as much for us as she has.

"Someone should be looking after her," Mari said.

"She's wearing her ward," Claire said bluntly. "She'd have to work to get lost."

"Excuse me," I said, rising. "I think it's time I met our host."

I walked into the dome, where the pleasant resinous tang of last night's pine fire still clung to the cold ashes of the hearth. I admired the interior: buffalo hides and vigorous Hopi blankets with the jagged look of old computer graphics. Hexagonal skylights poured light onto a floor of rough masculine sandstone.

Following the ward's lead, I took my bags to a charming interior room on the second floor, with great braced geodesics of rough cedar, and whitewashed walls, hung with quaint agricultural tools.

In the common room downstairs, the old man had gathered with two of his elderly cronies. I was shocked to see how that famous face had aged: Dr. Hillis had become a cadaverous cheek- sucking invalid. He sat within his wheelchair, a buffalo robe over his withered legs. His friends still looked strong enough to be dangerous: crocodilian remnants from a lost age of violence and meat. The two of them had also not registered with the house system, but I tactfully ignored this bit of old-fashioned rudeness.

I joined them. "Good afternoon, Dr. Hillis. A pleasure to share this occasion with you. Thank you for having me."

"This is one of my daughter's friends," Hillis croaked. "Manfred de Kooning, of Seattle. He's an artist."

"Aren't they all," said Crocodile #1.

"If that's so," I said, "we owe our happy estate to Dr. Hillis. So it's a double honor to celebrate with him."

Crocodile #2 reached into his old-fashioned business suit and produced, of all things, a cigarette. He lit it and blew a lungful of cancerous reek among us. Despite myself, I had to take half a step back. "I'm sure we'll meet again," I said. "In the meantime I should greet our hostess."

"Leona?" said Dr. Hillis, scowling. "She's not here. She's out on a private walk. With her fiance." I felt a sudden icy pang at this. But I could not believe that Leona had deceived me in Seattle; if she'd had a formal liaison, she would have told me. "A sudden proposal?" I hedged. "They were carried away by passion?"

Crocodile #1 smirked sourly, and I realized that I'd touched a sore spot. "Damn it," Hillis snapped, "it's not some overblown modern claptrap with ridiculous breast-beating and hair- tearing. Leona's a sensible girl with old-fashioned standards. And Dr. Somps certainly fulfills those in every degree." He glared at me as if daring me to contradict him.

Of course I did no such thing. Dr. Hillis was gravely ill; it would have been cruelty to upset a man with such a leaden look. I murmured a few noncommittal pleasantries and excused myself.

Once outside again, I quickly consulted my ward. It gave me the biographical data that Dr. Somps had placed in the house system, for the use of guests.

My rival was a man of impressive accomplishments. He had been a child prodigy possessed of profound mathematical gifts. He was now twenty-nine, two years younger than myself, and a professor of aeronautical engineering at the Tsiolkovsky Institute in Boulder, Colorado. He had spent two years in space, as a guest in the Russian station. He was the author of a textbook on wing kinematics. He was an unsurpassed expert on wind-tunnel computer simulations, as performed by the Hillis Massively Parallel Processor.

You can imagine my profound agitation at learning this, my dear MacLuhan. I imagined Leona leaning her ringleted head on the shoulder of this suave spaceman. For a moment I succumbed to rage.

Then I checked my ward, and realized that the old man had lied. The ward's locator told me that Dr. Somps was on a plateau to the west, and his companion was not Leona but his fellow cosmonaut, Fred Solokov. Leona was alone, exploring an arroyo two miles upstream, to the east!

My heart told me to rush to her side, and as always in such matters, I obeyed it.

It was a bracing hike, skirting declines and rockslides, with the sullen roar of the mighty Colorado to my right. Occasional boatloads of daredevils, paddling with might and main, appeared amid the river's surges, but the trails were almost deserted.

Leona had climbed a fanglike promontory, overlooking the river. She was hidden from ground level, but my ward helped me find her. Filled with ardor, I ignored the trail and scrambled straight up the slope. At the cost of a few cactus spines, I had the pleasure of appearing suddenly, almost at her side.

I swept my broad-brimmed hat from my head. "My dear Ms. Hillis!"

Leona sat on a paisley groundcloth; she wore a loose bush jacket over a lace blouse, its white intricacy complemented by the simple lines of a calf-length Serengeti skirt. Her blue-green eyes, whose very faint protuberance seems to multiply her other charms, were red-rimmed from weeping. "Manfred!" she said, raising one hand to her lips. "You've found me despite myself."

I was puzzled. "You asked me to come. Did you imagine I'd refuse you anything?"

She smiled briefly at my galanterie, then turned to stare moodily over the savage river. "I meant this to be a simple celebration. Something to get Father out of his black mood... Instead, my troubles have multiplied. Oh, Manfred, if only you knew."

I sat on a corner of the groundcloth and offered her my canteen of Apollinaris water. "You must tell me everything."

"How can I presume on our friendship?" she asked. "A kiss or two stolen backstage, a few kind words -- what recompense is that? It would be best if you left me to my fate."

I had to smile at this. The poor girl equated our level of physical intimacy with my sense of obligation; as if mere physical favors could account for my devotion. She was oddly old- fashioned in that sense, with the old industrial mentality of things bought and sold. "Nonsense," I said. "I'm resolved not to leave your side until your mind is eased."

"You know I am affianced?"

"I heard the rumor," I said.

"I hate him," she said, to my vast relief. "I agreed to it in a moment of weakness. My father was so furious, and so set on the idea, that I did it for his sake, to spare him pain. He's very ill, and the chemotherapy has made him worse than ever. He's written a book -- full of terrible, hateful things. It's to be released under specific conditions -- upon proof of his suicide. He threatens to kill himself, to shame the family publicly."

"How horrible," I said. "And what about the gentleman?"

"Oh, Marvin Somps has been one of Father's proteges for years. Flight simulations were one of the first uses of Artificial Intelligence. It's a field that's dear to Father's heart, and Dr. Somps is brilliant at it."

"I suppose Somps worries about his funding," I said. I was never a devotee of the physical sciences, especially in their current shrunken state, but I could well imagine the agitation of Somps should his ready pool of capital dry up. Except for eccentrics like Hillis, there were few people willing to pay expensive human beings to think about such things.

"Yes, I suppose he worries," she said morosely. "After all, science is his life. He's at the airfield, up on the mesa, now. Testing some wretched machine."

For a moment I felt sorry for Somps, but I thrust the feeling aside. The man was my rival; this was love and war! I checked my ward. "I think a word with Dr. Somps is in order."

"You mustn't! Father will be furious."

I smiled. "I have every respect for your father's genius. But I'm not afraid of him." I donned my hat and smoothed the brim with a quick snap of my hand. "I'll be as polite as I can, but if he needs his eyes opened, then I am the man to do it."

"Don't!" she cried, seizing my hand. "He'll disinherit me."

"What's mere pelf in the modern age?" I demanded. "Fame, glory -- the beautiful and the sublime -- now those are goals worth striving for!" I took her shoulders in both my hands. "Leona, your father trained you to manage his abstract riches. But you're too soulful, too much a full human being for such a mummified life."

"I like to think so," she said, her upturned eyes full of pain. "But Manfred, I don't have your talent, or the sophistication of your friends. They tolerate me for my wealth. What else do I have to offer? I haven't the taste or grace or wit of a Mari Kuniyoshi."

I felt the open ache of her exposed insecurities. It was perhaps at that moment, my dear MacLuhan, that I truly fell in love. It is easy to admire someone of grace and elegance, to have one's eye caught by the sleek drape of a skirt or by a sidelong glance across the room. In certain circles it is possible to live through an entire affair which is composed of nothing more than brittle witticisms. But the love of the spirit comes when the dark yin of the soul is exposed in the lover's sight; vanities, insecurities, those tender crevices that hold the potential of real pain.

"Nonsense," I said gently. "Even the best art is only a symptom of an inner greatness of soul. The purest art is silent appreciation of beauty. Later, calculation spoils the inner bloom to give an outer mask of sophisticated taste. But I flatter myself that I can see deeper than that."

After this, things progressed rapidly. The physical intimacies which followed were only a corollary of our inner rapport. Removing only selected articles of clothing, we followed the delightful practice of carezza, those embraces that enflame the mind and body, but do not spoil things with a full satisfaction.

But there was a specter at our love feast: Dr. Somps. Leona insisted that our liaison be kept secret; so I tore myself away, before others could track us with their wards and draw unwelcome conclusions.

Having arrived as an admirer, I left as a lover, determined that nothing should spoil Leona's happiness. Once on the trail again, I examined my ward. Dr. Somps was still on the tall mesa, west of the hogan.

I turned my steps in that direction, but before I had gone more than a mile I had a sudden unexpected encounter. From overhead, I heard the loud riffling of fabric wings.

I consulted my ward and looked up. It was Mari Kuniyoshi's current escort, the young model and actor, Percival Darrow. He was riding a hang glider; the machine soared with cybernetic smoothness across the banded cliff-face. He turned, spilling air, and landed on the trail before me, with an athletic bound. He stood waiting.

By the time I reached him the glider had folded itself, its pre-stressed folds popping and flapping into a neat orange backpack. Darrow leaned against the sun-warmed rock with a teenager's false nonchalance. He wore a sleek cream-colored flyer's jumpsuit, its elastic sleeves pushed up to reveal the brawny arms of a gymnast. His eyes were hidden by rose-colored flyer's goggles.

I was polite. "Good afternoon, Mr. Darrow. Fresh from the airfield?"

"Not that fresh," he said, a sneer wrinkling his too-perfect features. "I was floating over you half an hour ago. The two of you never noticed."

"I see," I said coldly, and walked on. He hurried after me.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Up to the airfield, if its any of your business," I said.

"Solokov and Somps are up there." Darrow looked suddenly desperate. "Look, I'm sorry I mentioned seeing you with Ms. Hillis. It was a bad gambit. But we both have rivals, Mr. de Kooning. And they're together. So you and I should also have an understanding. Don't you think so?"

I slowed my pace a bit. My shoes were better than his; Darrow winced as he hopped over rocks in his thin flight slippers. "What exactly do you want from me, Mr. Darrow?"

Darrow said nothing; a slow flush built up under his tanned cheeks. "Nothing from you," he said. "Everything from Mari Kuniyoshi."

I cleared my throat. "Don't say it," Darrow said, raising a hand. "I've heard it all; I've been warned away from her a dozen times. You think I'm a fool. Well, perhaps I am. But I went into this with my eyes open. And I'm not a man to stand aside politely while a rival tramples my happiness."

I knew it was rash to involve myself with Darrow, who lacked discretion. But I admired his spirit. "Percival, you're a man of my own heart," I confessed. "I like the boldness of a man who'll face even longer odds than my own." I offered my hand.

We shook like comrades. "You'll help me, then?" he said.

"Together we'll think of something," I said. "Truth to tell, I was just going to the airfield to scout out our opposition. They're formidable foes, and an ally's welcome. In the meantime it's best that we not be seen together."

"All right," Darrow said, nodding. "I already have a plan. Shall we meet tonight and discuss it?"

We agreed to meet at eight o'clock at the lodge, to plot confusion to cosmonauts. I continued down the trail, while Darrow climbed an escarpment to find a spot to launch himself.

I stopped at the hogan again to refill my canteen and enjoy a light tea. A cold shower and quick pill relieved the stresses of carezza. The excitement, the adventure, were doing me good. The cobwebs of sustained creative effort had been swept from my brain. You may smile, my dear MacLuhan; but I assure you that art is predicated on living, and I was now in the very thick of real life.

I was soon on my way, refreshed and groomed. An afternoon's hike and a long climb brought me to the glider grounds, an airfield atop a long-drowned mesa now known as the Throne of Adonis. Reborn from the depths of Lake Powell, it was named in consonance with the various Osirises, Vishnus, and Shivas within Grand Canyon Global Park. The hard sandstone caprock had been cleaned of sediment and leveled near one edge, with a tastefully unobtrusive light aircraft hangar, a fiberglass control tower, changing rooms, and a modest teahouse. There were perhaps three dozen flyers there, chatting and renting gliders and powered ultralights. Only two of them, Somps and Solokov, were from our party.

Solokov was his usual urbane, stocky self. He had lost some hair since I'd last seen him. Somps was a surprise. Tall, stooped, gangling, with a bladelike nose, he had coarse windblown hair and long flopping hands. They both wore flightsuits; Solokov's was of modish brown corduroy, but Somps's was wrinkled day-wear from the Kosmograd space station, a garish orange with grease-stained cuffs and frayed Cyrillic mission patches.

They were muttering together over a small experimental aircraft. I stepped into sight. Solokov recognized me and nodded; Somps checked his ward and smiled briefly and distractedly.

We studied the aircraft together. It was a bizarre advanced ultralight, with four flat, paired wings, like a dragonfly's. The translucent wings were long and thin, made of gleaming lightweight film over netted struts of tough plastic. A cagelike padded rack beneath the wings would cradle the pilot, who would grip a pair of joysticks to control the flight. Behind the wings, a thick torso and long counterbalancing tail held the craft's engine.

The wings were meant to flap. It was a one-man powered ornithopter. I had never seen its like. Despite myself, I was impressed by the elegance of its design. It needed a paint job, and the wiring had the frazzled look of a prototype, but the basic structure was delightful.

"Where's the pilot?" I said.

Solokov shrugged. "I am he," he said. "My longest flight being twenty seconds."

"Why so brief?" I said, looking around. "I'm sure you'd have no lack of volunteers. I'd like a spin in it myself."

"No avionics," Somps mumbled.

Solokov smiled. "My colleague is saying that the Dragonfly has no computer on board, Mr. de Kooning." He waved one arm at the other ultralights. "These other craft are highly intelligent, which is why anyone can fly them. They are user-friendly, as they used to say. They have sonar, updraft and downdraft detection, aerofoil control, warpage control, and so forth and so forth. They almost fly themselves. The Dragonfly is different. She is seat-of-the-pants."

As you may imagine, my dear MacLuhan, this news amazed and intrigued me. To attempt to fly without a computer! One might as well eat without a plate. It then occurred to me that the effort was surely very hazardous.

"Why?" I said. "What happened to its controls?"

Somps grinned for the first time, exposing long, narrow teeth. "They haven't been invented yet. I mean, there aren't algorithms for its wing kinematics. Four wings flapping -- it generates lift through vortex-dominated flow fields. You've seen dragonflies."

"Yes?" I hedged.

Solokov spread his hands. "It is a breakthrough. Machines fly through calculation of simple, fixed wings. A computer can fly any kind of traditional aircraft. But, you see, the mathematics that determine the interactions of the four moving wings -- no machine can deal with such. No such programs exist. The machines cannot write them because they do not know the mathematics." Solokov tapped his head. "Only Marvin Somps knows them."

"Dragonflies use perturbations in the flow field," Somps said. "Steady-state aerodynamic theory simply can't account for dragonfly lift values. I mean, consider its major flight modes: stationary hovering, slow hovering in any direction, high-speed upward and downward flight, as well as gliding. Classic aerodynamic design can't match that." He narrowed his eyes. "The secret is unsteady separated lift flows."

"Oh," I said. I turned to Solokov. "I didn't know you grasped the mathematics, Fred."

Solokov chuckled. "No. But I took cosmonaut's pilot training, years ago. A few times we flew the primitive craft, without avionics. By feel, like riding the bicycle! The brain does not have to know, to fly. The nervous system, it has a feel. Computers fly by thinking, but they feel nothing!"

I felt a growing sense of excitement. Somps and Solokov were playing from the central truism of the modern age. Feeling -- perception, emotion, intuition, and taste -- these are the indefinable elements that separate humanity from the shallow logic of our modern-day intelligent environment. Intelligence is cheap, but the thrill of innate mastery is precious. Flying the Dragonfly was not a science, but an art!

I turned to Somps. "Have you tried it?"

Somps blinked and resumed his normal hangdog expression. "I don't like heights."

I made a mental note of this, and smiled. "How can you resist? I was thinking of renting a common glider here, but having seen this contraption, I feel cheated!"

Somps nodded. "My thinking exactly. Moderns... they like novelty. Glitter and glamour. It ought to do well if we can get it into production. Commercially, I mean." His tone wavered from resignation to defiance. I nodded encouragingly as a number of choice epithets ran through my head: money-grubbing poltroon, miserly vivisectionist, and so forth....

The basic idea seemed sound. Anything with the innate elegance of Somps's aircraft had definite appeal for today's leisure society. However, it would have to be designed and promoted properly, and Somps, who struck me as something of an idiot savant, was certainly not the man for the job. You could tell just from the way he mooned over it that the machine was, in its own odd way, a labor of love. The fresh grease on his cuffs showed that Somps had spent precious hours up on the plateau, fiddling with his knobs and switches, while his bride-to-be despaired.

Such technician's dedication might have passed muster in the days of the steam engine. But in today's more humane age Somps's behavior seemed close to criminal. This head-in-the-clouds deadbeat saw my poor Leona as a convenient way to finance his pointless intellectual curiosity.

My encounter with the two ex-cosmonauts gave me much to ponder. I withdrew with polite compliments and rented one of the local hang gliders. I circled the Throne of Adonis a few times to establish my bona fides, and then flew back to the hogan.

The effect was enchanting. Cradled by the machine's slow and careful swoops and glides, one felt the majesty of an archangel. Yet I found myself wondering what it would be like without the protective shroud of computer piloting. It would be cold sweat and naked risk and a rush of adrenalin, in which the shadowed crevices far beneath one's feet would be, not an awesome panorama, but a sheer drop!

I admit I was glad to send the machine back to the mesa on its own.

Inside the hogan I enjoyed the buffet supper, carefully avoiding the reeking plates of scorched beef served to the elders. ("Barbecue," they called it. I call it murder.) I sat at a long table with Claire Berger, Percival Darrow, and several of Leona's West Coast friends. Mari herself did not make an appearance.

Leona arrived later, when machines had cleared the meal away and the younger guests had gathered round the fire. Leona and I pretended to avoid one another, but traded stolen glances in the firelight. Under the influence of the mellow light and the landscape, the talk drifted to those poles of the modern existence: the beautiful and the sublime. We made lists: the land is beautiful, the sea is sublime; day is beautiful, night is sublime; craft is beautiful, art is sublime, and so forth.

The postulate that the male is beautiful while the female is sublime provoked much heated comment. While the discussion raged, Darrow and I unstrapped our wards and left them in the common room. Anyone checking our location would see our signals there, while we actually conspired among the machines in the kitchen.

Darrow revealed his plan. He meant to accuse Solokov of cowardice, and seize his rival's glory by testing the Dragonfly himself. If necessary, he would steal the machine. Solokov had done nothing more than take a few fluttering efforts around the top of the mesa. Darrow, on the contrary, meant to fling himself into space and break the machine to his will.

"I don't think you realize the danger involved," I said.

"I've been flying since I was a kid," Darrow sneered. "Don't tell me you're spooked too."

"Those were computer-guided," I said. "This is a blind machine. It could kill you."

"Out on Big Sur we used to rig them," Darrow said. "We'd cut out the autopilot on a dare. It's simple if you find the main sensor thingamajig. It's illegal, but I've done it. Anyway, it makes it easy for you, right? If I break my neck, your Somps will look like a criminal, won't he? He'll be discredited."

"This is outrageous!" I said, but was unable to restrain a smile of admiration. There was a day when my blood ran as hot as Darrow's, and, if I no longer wore my heart on my sleeve, I could still admire the grand gesture.

"I'm going to do it anyway," Darrow insisted. "You needn't worry on my account. You're not my keeper, and it's my decision."

I thought it over. Clearly he could not be argued out of it. I could inform against him, but such a squalid betrayal was completely beneath me. "Very well," I said, clapping him on the shoulder. "How can I help?"

Our plans progressed rapidly. We then returned to the gathering and quietly resumed our wrist-wards and our places near the hearth. To my delight, I found that Leona had left a private note on my ward. We had a midnight assignation.

After the party broke up I waited in my room for her arrival. At last the welcome glow of lamplight came down the corridor. I eased the door open silently.

She wore a long nightgown, which she did not remove, but otherwise we spared ourselves nothing, except for the final sating pleasure. When she left an hour later, with a last tender whisper, my nerves were singing like synthesizers. I forced myself to take two pills and waited for the ache to subside. For hours, unable to sleep, I stared at the geodesic cedar beams of the ceiling, thinking of spending days, weeks, years, with this delightful woman.

Darrow and I were up early next morning, our minds grainy and sharp with lack of sleep and a lover's adrenalin. We lurked in ambush for the unwitting Solokov as he returned from his morning jog.

We mousetrapped him badly as he prepared to go in for a much-needed shower. I stopped him, enthusing about my glider flight. Darrow then joined our conversation "accidentally" and made a number of sharp comments. Solokov was genial and evasive at first, shrugging off Darrow's insinuations. But my loud, innocent questions made things worse for poor Fred. He did his best to explain Somps's cautious testing program for the Dragonfly. But when he was forced to admit that he had only been in the air twenty seconds, the gathering crowd tittered audibly.

Things became hectic with the arrival of Crocodile #1. I had since been informed that this obnoxious old man was Craig Deakin, a medical doctor. He had been treating Dr. Hillis! Small wonder that Leona's father was near death.

Frankly, I've always had a morbid fear of doctors. The last time I was touched by an actual human doctor was when I was a small child, and I can still remember his probing fingers and cold eyes. Imagine it, my dear MacLuhan -- putting your health, your very life, into the charge of a fallible human being, who may be drunk, or forgetful, or even corrupt! Thank God that medical expert-systems have made the profession almost obsolete.

Deakin entered the fray with a cutting remark toward Darrow. By now my blood was up, and I lost all patience with this sour old relic. To make things short, we created a scene, and Darrow and I got the best of it. Darrow's fiery rhetoric and my icy sarcasm made an ideal combination, and poor Solokov, gravely puzzled and embarrassed, was unwilling to fight back. As for Dr. Deakin, he simply disgraced himself. It took no skill to show him up for what he was -- an arrogant, tasteless old fraud, completely out of touch with the modern world.

Solokov finally fled to the showers, and we carried the day.

Deakin, still leaking venom, tottered off shortly thereafter. I smiled at the reaction of our small eavesdropping audience. They hustled out of Deakin's way as if afraid of his touch. And small wonder! Imagine it, MacLuhan -- probing diseased flesh, for money! It gives you a chill. Flushed with success, we now sought out the unsuspecting Marvin Somps.

To our surprise, our wards located Somps, with Mari Kuniyoshi and her ever-present foil, Claire Berger. The three of them were watching the preparations for the evening's festivities: projection screens and an address system were being erected in the rock garden behind the hogan.

I met them first while Darrow hung back in the trees. I greeted Somps with civil indifference, then gently detached Mari from the other two. "Have you seen your Mr. Darrow recently?" I murmured.

"Why, no," she said, and smiled. "Your doing, yes?"

I shrugged modestly. "I trust things have gone well with Fred. What's he doing here, anyway?"

"Oh," she said, "old Hillis asked him to help Somps. Somps has invented some dangerous machine that no one can control. Except for Fred, of course."

I was skeptical. "Word inside was that the thing has scarcely left the ground. I had no idea Fred was the pilot. Such timidity certainly doesn't seem his style."

"He was a cosmonaut!" Mari said hotly.

"So was he," I said, lifting an eyebrow at Somps. In the gentle breeze Somps's lank hair was flying all over his head. He and Claire Berger were in some animated technician's shoptalk about nuts and bolts, and Somps's long hands flopped like a puppet's. In his rumpled, tasteless business suit, Somps looked the very opposite of spacefaring heroism. I smiled reassuringly. "It's not that I doubt Fred's bravery for a moment, of course. He probably distrusts Somps's design."

Mari narrowed her eyes and looked sidelong at Somps. "You think so?"

I shrugged. "They say in camp that flights have only lasted ten seconds. People were laughing about it. But it's all right. I don't think anyone knows it was Fred."

Man's eyes flashed. She advanced on Somps. I lifted my hat and smoothed my hair, a signal to the lurking Darrow.

Somps was only too happy to discuss his obsession. "Ten seconds? Oh, no, it was twenty. I timed it myself."

Mari laughed scornfully. "Twenty? What's wrong with it?"

"We're in preliminary test mode. These are novel methods of lift production. It's a whole new class of fluid dynamic uses," Somps droned. "The testing's slow, but that's our methodical risk avoidance." He yanked an ink-stained composition book from inside his rumpled jacket. "I have some stroke cycle summaries here...."

Mari looked stunned. I broke in casually. "I heard that the go-slow approach was your pilot's decision."

"What? Fred? Oh, no, he's fine. I mean, he follows orders."

Darrow ambled forward, his hands in his pockets. He was looking at almost everything except the four of us. He was so elaborately casual that I feared Mari would surely catch on. But that remark about public laughter had stung Mari's Japanese soul. "Follows orders?" she told Somps tightly. "People are laughing. You are crushing your test pilot's face."

I took her arm. "For heaven's sake, Mari. This is a commercial development. You can't expect Dr. Somps to put his plane into the hands of a daredevil."

Somps smiled gratefully. Suddenly Claire Berger burst out in his defense. "You need training and discipline for the Dragonfly. You can't just jump in and pop off like bread from a toaster! There are no computers on Marvin's flyer."

I signaled Darrow. He closed in. "Flyer?" he ad-libbed. "You're heading for the airfield, too?"

"We were just discussing Dr. Somps's aircraft," I said artlessly.

"Oh, the Ten-Second Wonder?" Darrow said, grinning. He crossed his muscular arms. "I'd certainly like a shot at that. I hear it has no computer and has to be flown by feel! Quite a challenge, eh?"

I frowned. "Don't be a fool, Percival. It's far too risky for an amateur. Besides, it's Fred Solokov's job."

"It's not his job," Somps mumbled. "He's doing a favor."

But Darrow overrode him. "Sounds to me like it's a bit beyond the old man. You need someone with split-second reflexes, Dr. Somps. I've flown by feel before; quite often in fact. If you want someone to take it to the limit, I'm your man."

Somps looked wretched. "You'd crash it. I need a technician, not a daredevil."

"Oh," said Darrow with withering scorn. "A technician. Sorry. I had the idea you needed a flyer."

"It's expensive," Somps said pitifully. "Dr. Hillis owns it. He financed it."

"I see," Darrow said. "A question of money." He rolled up his sleeves. "Well, if anyone needs me, I'll be on the Throne of Adonis. Or better yet, aloft." He left.

We watched him swagger off. "Perhaps you should give him a shot," I advised Somps. "We've flown together, and he really is quite good."

Somps flushed dully. On some level, I believe he suspected that he had been had. "It's not one of your glamour toys," he mumbled bitterly. "Not yet, anyway. It's my experiment and I'm doing aeronautic science. I'm not an entertainer and I'm not doing sideshow stunts for your benefit, Mr. de Kooning."

I stared at him. "No need to snap," I said coolly. "I sympathize completely. I know things would be different if you were your own man." I touched my hat. "Ladies, good day."

I rejoined Darrow, out of sight, down the trail. "You said you could talk him into it," Darrow said.

I shrugged. "It was worth a try. He was weakening for a moment there. I didn't think he'd be such a stick-in-the-mud."

"Well, now we do things my way," Darrow said. "We have to steal it." He stripped off his ward, set it on top of a handy sandstone ledge, and whacked it with a fist-sized rock. The ward whined, and its screen flared into static. "I think my ward broke," Darrow observed. "Take it in for me and plug me out of the house system, won't you? I wouldn't want anyone to try locating me with my broken ward. That would be rude."

"I still advise against stealing it," I said. "We've made both our rivals look like idiots. There's no need for high drama."

"Don't be petty, Manfred," Darrow said. "High drama is the only way to live!"

I ask you, my dear MacLuhan -- who could resist a gesture like that?

That afternoon crawled by. As the celebration started in earnest, wine was served. I was nervous, so I had a glass. But after a few sips I regretted it and set it aside. Alcohol is such a sledgehammer drug. And to think that people used to drink it by the barrel and case!

Dusk arrived. There was still no sign of Darrow, though I kept checking the skies. As preparations for the outdoor banquet neared completion, corporate helicopters began arriving, disgorging their cargos of aging bigwigs. This was, after all, a company affair; and whole hordes of retirees and cybernetic pioneers were arriving to pay tribute to Hillis.

Since they lacked the relaxed politesse of us moderns, their idea of a tribute was harried and brief. They would pack down their plates of scorched meat, swill far too much hard liquor, and listen to speeches... then they would check their pacemakers and leave.

A ghastly air of stuffiness descended over the hogan and its surroundings. Leona's contingent of beautiful people was soon outnumbered; pressed on all sides, they flocked together like birds surrounded by stegosaurs.

After a brief delay, a retrospective tribute to Dr. Hillis flashed onto the rock-garden's screen. We watched it politely. There were the familiar scenes, part of the folklore of our century. Young Hillis at MIT, poring over the work of Marvin Minsky and the cognitive psychologists. Hillis at Tsukuba Science City, becoming the heart and soul of the Sixth Generation Project. Hillis, the Man with a Mission, incorporating in Singapore and turning silicon to gold with a touch.

And then all that cornucopia of riches that came with making intelligence into a utility. It's so easy to forget, MacLuhan, that there was once a time when the ability to reason was not something that comes through wires just like electricity. When "factory" meant a place where the "blue-collar" caste went to work!

Of course Hillis was only one of a mighty host of pioneers. But as the Nobel Prize winner and the author of Structured Intelligent Multiple Processing he has always been a figurehead for the industry. No, more than that; a figurehead for the age itself. There was a time, before he turned his back on the modern world, when people spoke the name Hillis in the same breath with Edison, Watt, and Marconi.

It was not at all a bad film, of its sort. It didn't tell the whole truth, of course; it was conspicuously quiet about Hillis's regrettable involvement in politics during the '40s, the EEC bribery scandal, and that bizarre episode at the Tyuratam Launch Center. But one can read about those things anywhere. Actually, I confess that I felt the loss of those glory days, which we now see, in hindsight, as the last sunset glow of the Western analytic method. Those lost battalions of scientists, technicians, engineers!

Of course, to the modern temperament, this lopsided emphasis on rational thought seems stifling. Admittedly, machine intelligence has its limits; it's not capable of those human bursts of insight that once advanced scientific knowledge by leaps and bounds. The march of science is now the methodical crawling of robots.

But who misses it? We finally have a stable global society that accommodates man's higher feelings. A world of plenty, peace, and leisure, where the beautiful and the sublime reign supreme. If the film caused me a qualm, it was a credit to our modern mastery of propaganda and public relations. Soft intuitive arts, maybe; the dark yin to the bright yang of the scientific method. But powerful arts, and, like it or not, the ones that shape our modern age.

We had advanced from soup to fish when I caught my first glimpse of Darrow. The Dragonfly emerged from the depths of the canyon in a brief frenzied arc, its four wings thrashing in the twilit air. Strangely, my first impression was not of a struggling pilot but of a poisoned bug. The thing vanished almost at once.

I must have turned pale, for I noticed Mari Kuniyoshi watching me strangely. But I held my peace.

Crocodile #2 took the podium. This gentleman was another artifact of the vanished age. He'd been some kind of military bigwig, a "Pentagon chief of staff" I think they called him. Now he was Hillis Industries' "Chief of Security," as if they needed one in this day and age. It was clear that he'd been drinking heavily. He gave a long lachrymose introduction to Hillis, droning on and on about "air force" this and "space launch" that, and Hillis's contribution to the "defense industry." I noticed then that Fred Solokov, resplendent in tie and tails, began to look noticeably offended. And who could blame him?

Hillis at last took the podium, standing erect with the help of a cane. He was applauded loudly; we were overjoyed to see Crocodile #2 go. It isn't often that you see someone with the bad taste to mention atomic weapons in public. As if sensing the scotched nerves of our Soviet friend, Hillis departed from his prepared speech and began rambling about his "latest project."

Imagine, my dear MacLuhan, the exquisite embarrassment of the moment. For as Hillis spoke, his "latest project" appeared on the fringes of camp. Darrow had mastered the machine, caught an up-draft from the depths of the canyon, and was now fluttering slowly around us. Murmurs began spreading among the crowd; people began to point.

Hillis, not a gifted speaker, was painfully slow to catch on. He kept talking about the "heroic pilot" and how his Dragonfly would be airborne "sooner than we knew." The audience thought poor Hillis was making some elaborate joke, and they began laughing. Most people thought it was clever publicity. In the meantime, Darrow swooped nearer. Sensing with a model's intuition that he was the cynosure of all eyes, he began stunting.

Still avoiding the crowd, he threw the aircraft into a hover. The wings hummed audibly, their tips flapping in complex loops and circles. Slowly, he began flying backward, the craft's long tail waggling in barely controlled instability. The crowd was amazed; they cheered aloud. Hillis, frowning, squinted across the table, his drone dying into a mumble. Then he realized the truth and cried out. Crocodile #2 took his arm, and Hillis tottered backward into his nearby chair.

Dr. Somps, his long face livid, scrambled to the podium. He flung out an arm, pointing. "Stop that man!" he screeched. This provoked hysterical laughter, shading close to authentic hysteria when Darrow spun the craft twice tailfirst and caught himself at the last moment, the wings kicking up clouds of dust over the rear of the crowd. Diners, shrieking, leapt from their chairs and fled for cover. Darrow fought for height, throwing full power into the wings and blowing two tables over with a crash and spatter of tureens and cutlery. The Dragonfly shot up like a child's toy rocket.

Darrow regained control almost at once, but it was clear that the sudden lurch upward had strained one of the wings. Three of them beat smoothly at the twilit air, but the fourth, the left rear one, was out of sync. Darrow began to fall, sliding out of the sky, listing backward to his left.

He tried to throw more power into the wings again, but we all heard the painful flopping and rasping as the injured wing refused to function. At the end the craft spun about again a few feet from earth, hit a pine at the edge of our rock garden, and crashed.

That effectively ended the festivities. The crowd was horrified. A number of the more active attendees rushed to the crash site while others babbled in shock. Crocodile #2 took the microphone and began yelling for order, but he was of course ignored. Hillis, his face twisted, was hustled inside in his chair.

Darrow was pale and bloodied, still strapped into the bent ribs of the pilot's cage. He had a few scrapes, and he had managed to break his ankle. We fished him out. The Dragonfly did not look badly damaged. "The wing gave out," Darrow kept muttering stubbornly. "It was equipment failure. I was doing fine!"

Two husky sorts formed an arm-cradle for Darrow and lugged him back to the hogan. Mari Kuniyoshi hurried after him, her face pale, her hands fluttering in shock. She had a dramatic, paralyzed look.

Lights blazed from the hogan, along with the excited babbling of the crowd. The outside floodlights in the rock garden dimmed suddenly. From the clearings around us, corporate helicopters began to lift, whirring almost silently into the fragrant Arizona night.

The crowd dispersed around the damaged craft. Soon I noticed that there were only three of us left; myself, Dr. Somps, and Claire Berger. Claire shook her head. "God, it's so sad," she said.

"I'm sure he'll recover," I said.

"What, that thief?" she said. "I hope not."

"Oh. Right," I said. I examined the Dragonfly critically. "She's just a little bent, that's all. Nothing broken. She only needs a few biffs with a lug-wrench or what-have-you."

Somps glared at me. "Don't you understand? Dr. Hillis has been humiliated. And my work was the cause of it. I'd be ashamed to speak to him now, much less ask for his support."

"You still have his daughter," Claire Berger said bluntly. We both looked at her in surprise. She looked back boldly, her arms stiff at her sides.

"Right," Somps said at last. "I've been neglecting Leona. And she's so devoted to her father... I think I'd better go to her. Talk to her. Do whatever I can to make this up."

"Plenty of time for that later, when things calm down," I said. "You can't just leave the Dragonfly here! The morning dew will soak her. And you don't want gawkers out here tonight -- poking at her, maybe laughing. Tell you what -- I'll help you carry her up to the airfield."

Somps hesitated. It did not take long, for his devotion to his machine burst all bounds. With her long wings hinged back, the Dragonfly was easy to carry. Somps and I hoisted the heavy torso to our shoulders, and Claire Berger took the tail. All the way to the mesa Somps kept up a steady monologue of self-pity and disaster. Claire did her clumsy best to cheer him up, but the man was crushed. Clearly a lifetime of silent spleen had built up, requiring just such a calamity to uncork it. Even though he sensed that I was a rival and meant him ill, he could not entirely choke back his need for sympathy.

We found some flyers at the base of the Throne of Adonis. They were curious and eager to help, so I returned to camp. Once he had the Dragonfly in her hangar and his tools at hand, I was sure that Somps would be gone for hours.

I found the camp in uproar. With amazing crassness, Crocodile #2, Hillis's security man, wanted to arrest Darrow. A furious argument broke out, for it was brutally unfair to treat Darrow as a common thief when his only crime had been a daring gesture.

To his credit, Darrow rose above this ugly allegation. He rested in a wicker peacock chair, his bandaged ankle propped on a leather hassock and his pale blond hair swept back from a bruised forehead. The craft was brilliantly designed, he said; it was only the shoddy workmanship of Hillis Industries that had put his life into danger. At various dramatic cruxes, he would lean back with a faint shudder of pain and grasp the adoring hand of Mari Kuniyoshi. No jury in the world would have touched him. All the world loves a lover, MacLuhan.

Old Dr. Hillis had retired to his rooms, shattered by the day's events. Finally, Leona broke in and settled things. She scolded Darrow and threw him out, and Mari Kuniyoshi, swearing not to leave his side, went with him. Most of the modern contingent left as well, partly as a gesture of solidarity with Darrow, partly to escape the source of embarrassment and transmute it, somewhere else, into endlessly entertaining gossip.

Poor Fred Solokov, made into the butt of jokes through absolutely no fault of his own, also stormed off. I was with the small crowd as he threw his bags into a robot chopper at midnight. "They do not treat me like this," he insisted loudly. "Hillis is mad. I thought so ever since Tyuratam. Why people admire such young vandals as Darrow these days I do not know."

Truly, I felt sorry for him. I went out of my way to shake his hand. "Sorry to see you go, Fred. I'm sure we'll meet again under better circumstances."

"Never trust women," Fred told me darkly. He paused on the running board to belt his trenchcoat, then stepped in and slammed the vacuum-sealed door. Off he went with a whir of wings. A fine man and a pleasure to know, MacLuhan. I shall have to give some thought to making things up to him.

I then hurried back to my room. With so many gone, it would now be easier for Leona and me to carry on our assignation. Unfortunately I had not had time to arrange the final details with her. And I had a lover's anxiety that she might not even arrive. The day had been a trying one, after all, and carezza is not a practice for harried nerves.

Still, I waited, knowing it would be a lover's crime should she arrive and find me sleeping.

At half past one I was rewarded by a dim flicker of lamplight under the door. But it passed me.

I eased the door open silently. A figure in a white nightgown was creeping barefoot around the dome's circular hall. She was too short and squat for the willowy Leona, and her trailing, loosened hair was not blonde, but an unremarkable brown. It was Claire Berger.

I tied my pajamas and shuffled after her with the stealth of a medieval assassin.

She stopped, and scratched at a door with one coy forefinger. I did not need my ward to tell me this was the room of Dr. Somps. The door opened at once, and I ducked back just in time to avoid Claire's quick glance up and down the hall.

I gave the poor devils fifteen minutes. I retired to my room, wrote a note, and returned to Somps's door. It was locked, of course, but I scratched lightly and slid my note under it.

The door opened after a hurried conclave of whispers. I slipped inside. Claire was glowering, her face flushed. Somps's fists were clenched. "All right," he grated. "You have us. What is it you want?"

"What does any man want?" I said gently. "A little companionship, some open sympathy, the support of a soul mate. I want Leona."

"I thought that was it," Somps said, trembling. "She's been so different since Seattle. She never liked me, but she didn't hate me, before. I knew there was someone after her. Well, I have a surprise for you, Mr. de Kooning. Leona doesn't know this, but I've talked to Hillis and I know. He's almost bankrupt! His firm is riddled with debts!"

"Oh?" I said, interested. "So?"

"He's thrown it all away, trying to bring back the past," Somps said, the words tumbling out of him. "He's paid huge salaries to his old hangers-on and backed a hundred dud ideas. He was depending on my success to restore his fortunes. So without me, without the Dragonfly, his whole empire falls apart!" He glared at me defiantly.

"Really?" I said. "That's terrific! I always said Leona was enslaved by this nonsense. Empire indeed; why, the whole thing's a paper tiger. Why, the old fraud!" I laughed aloud. "Very well, Marvin. We're going to have it out with him right now!"

"What?" Somps said, paling.

I gave him a bracing whack on the shoulder. "Why carry on the pretense? You don't want Leona; I do. So there's a few shreds of money involved. We're talking about love, man! Our very happiness! You want some old fool to come between you and Claire?"

Somps flushed. "We were only talking."

"I know Claire better than that," I said gallantly. "She's Mari Kuniyoshi's friend. She wouldn't have stayed here just to trade technical notes."

Claire looked up, her eyes reddened. "You think that's funny? Don't ruin it for us. Please," she begged. "Don't ruin Marvin's hopes. We have enough against us as it is."

I dragged Somps out the door by main force and closed it behind me. He wrenched free and looked ready to hit me. "Listen," I hissed. "That woman is devoted to you. How dare you trample her finer feelings? Have you no sympathy, no intuition? She puts your plans above her own happiness."

Somps looked torn. He stared at the door behind him with the aspect of a man poleaxed by infatuation. "I never had time for this. I... I never knew it could be like this."

"Damn it, Somps, be a man!" I said. "We're having it out with the old dragon right now."

We hustled downstairs to Hillis's suite. I tried the double doors; they were open.

Groaning came from the bedroom.

My dear MacLuhan. You are my oldest and closest friend. Often we have been one another's confessors. You remember the ancient pact we swore, as mere schoolchildren, never to tell each other's mischiefs, and to hold each other's secrets silent to the grave. The pact has served us well, and many times it has eased us both. In twenty years of friendship we have never given each other cause to doubt. However, we are now adults, men steeped in life and its complications; and I'm afraid that you must bear the silent burden of my larger mischiefs with me.

I know you will not fail me, for the happiness of many people rests on your discretion. But someone must be told.

The bedroom door was locked. Somps, with an engineer's directness, knocked out its hinge pins. We rushed inside.

Dr. Hillis had fallen off the bed. A deadly litter on the bedside table told the awful truth at once. Hillis, who had been treating himself with the aid of the servile human doctor, had access to the dangerous drugs normally safely stored in machines. Using an old hand-powered hypodermic, he had injected himself with a fatally large dose of painkiller.

We tugged his frail body back into the bed. "Let me die," the old man croaked. "Nothing to live for."

"Where's his doctor?" I said.

Somps was sweating freely in his striped cotton pajamas. "I saw him leave earlier. The old man threw him out, I think."

"All bloodsuckers," Hillis said, his eyes glazed. "You can't help me. I saw to that. Let me die, I deserve to."

"We can keep him moving, maybe," Somps said. "I saw it in an old film once." It seemed a good suggestion, with our limited knowledge of medicine.

"Ignorant," Hillis muttered, as the two of us pulled his limp arms over our shoulders. "Slaves to machines! Those wards-handcuffs! I invented all that... I killed the scientific tradition." He began weeping freely "Twenty-six hundred years since Socrates and then, me. He glared and his head rolled like a flower on a stalk. "Take your hands off me, you decadent weasels!"

"We're trying to help you, Doctor," Somps said, frightened and exasperated.

"Not a cent out of me, Somps," the old man raved weakly. "It's all in the book."

I then remembered what Leona had told me about the old man's book, to be published on his suicide. "Oh, no," I said. "He's going to disgrace us all and disgrace himself."

"Not a penny, Somps. You failed me. You and your stupid toys."

We dropped him back onto the bed. "It's horrible," Somps said, trembling. "We're ruined."

It was typical of Somps that he should think of himself at a moment like that. Anyone of spirit would have considered the greater interests of society. It was unthinkable that this titan of the age should die in such squalid circumstances. It would give no one happiness, and would cause pain and disillusion to uncounted millions I pride myself that I rose to the challenge. My brain roared with sudden inspiration. It was the most sublime moment of my life.

Somps and I had a brief, fierce argument. Perhaps logic was not on my side, but I ground him down with the sheer passion of my conscience. By the time I had returned with our clothes and shoes, Somps had fixed the door and disposed of the evidence of drugs. We dressed with frantic haste.

By now the old man's lips were bluish and his limbs were like wax. We hustled him into his wheelchair, wedging him in with his buffalo robe. I ran ahead, checking that we were not seen, while Somps wheeled the dying man along behind me. Luckily there was a moon out. It helped us on the trail to the Throne of Adonis. It was a long exhausting climb, but Somps and I were men possessed.

Roseate summer dawn was touching the horizon by the time we had the Dragonfly ready and the old man strapped in. He was still breathing shallowly, and his eyelids fluttered. We wrapped his gnarled hands around the joysticks.

When the first golden rim of the sunlight touched the horizon, Somps flicked on the engine. I jammed the aircraft's narrow tail beneath my arm, braced like a lance. Then I ran forward and shoved her off into the cold air of dawn!

MacLuhan, I'm almost sure that the rushing chilly air of the descent revived him briefly. As the aircraft fell toward the roiling waters below, she began to pitch and buck like a live thing. I feel in my heart that Hillis, that seminal genius of our age, revived and fought for life in his last instants. I think he went like a hero. Some campers below saw him hit. They, too, swore he was fighting to the last.

The rest you know. They found the wreckage miles downstream, in the Global Park, next day. You may have seen Somps and myself on television. I assure you, my tears were not feigned; they came from the heart.

Our story told it as it should have happened. The insistence of Dr. Hillis that he pilot the craft, that he restore the fair name of his industries. We helped him unwillingly, but we could not refuse the great man's wishes.

I admit the hint of scandal. His grave illness was common knowledge, and the autopsy machines showed the drugs in his body. Luckily, his doctor admitted that Hillis had been using them for months to fight the pain.

I think there is little doubt in most people's minds that he meant to crash. But it is all in the spirit of the age, my dear MacLuhan. People are generous to the sublime gesture. Dr. Hillis went down fighting, struggling with a machine on the cutting edge of science. He went down defending his good name.

As for Somps and myself, the response has been noble. The mailnet has been full of messages. Some condemn me for giving in to the old man. But most thank me for helping to make his last moments beautiful.

I last saw poor Somps as he and Claire Berger were departing for Osaka. I'm afraid he still feels some bitterness. "Maybe it was best," he told me grudgingly as we shook hands. "People keep telling me so. But I'll never forget the horror of those last moments."

"I'm sorry about the aircraft," I said. "When the notoriety wears off, I'm sure it will be a great success."

"I'll have to find another backer," he said. "And then put it into production. It won't be easy. Probably take years."

"It's the yin and yang," I told him. "Once poets labored in garrets while engineers had the run of the land. Things change, that's all. If one goes against the grain, one pays the price."

My words, meant to cheer him, seemed to scald him instead. "You're so damned smug," he almost snarled. "Damn it, Claire and I build things, we shape the world, we try for real understanding! We don't just do each other's nails and hold hands in the moonlight!"

He is a stubborn man. Maybe the pendulum will one day swing his way again, if he lives as long as Dr. Hillis did. In the meantime he has a woman to stand by him and assure him that he is persecuted. So maybe he will find, in the good fight, some narrow kind of sublimity.

So, my dear MacLuhan, love has triumphed. Leona and I will shortly return to my beloved Seattle, where she will rent the suite next to my own. I feel that very soon we will take the great step of abandoning carezza and confronting true physical satisfaction. If all goes well then, I will propose marriage! And then, perhaps, even children.

In any case, I promise you, you will be the first to know.

Yours as always, de K.