For Us, The Living

V

"Going to sleep all day, sleepy head?"

Perry stretched and yawned, then grinned up at Diana.

"What time is it?"

"Late enough. Daylight's wasting. Master Cathcart is gone long since. If you want breakfast with me you'd better hurry." Perry jumped up and ducked into the refresher. When he returned ten minutes later, tingling from his shower, Diana was setting near the window a tray from which rose appetizing smells.

"What have we here? Buckwheat cakes. Sausage. Fresh pineapple. Diana, you are a jewel. Will you adopt me and feed me like this every morning?"

"Sit down, silly, and eat." She made a face at him, but her eyes were shining. "Hurry up. We're going places today."

"Where?" The coffee cup poised in the air.

"Round and about. Most any place you want to. The great wide world. What would you like to see?"

"I don't know—yet."

"Well, that's where we'll go."

After breakfast Diana lit a cigarette, then popped the dishes into the fire. She turned to Perry. "Better put these on. Your other things are already in thecar." 'These' were a pair of sandals with zipper fasteners and ornamental straps. He slipped them on and hurried after Diana who had opened the outer door. Perry found himself not outdoors, but in a small reception hall. On his left Diana's shapely legs were disappearing up a flight of steps. He hastened and caught up with her. They emerged in a moderately large hangar, containing at the moment what was obviously an aircraft but reminded Perry of an illustration from some lurid Sunday supplement. It was egg-shaped, about eighteen feet long and twelve feet high. It was supported by three retractable wheels, two at the blunt or forward end, and one at the stern. Mounted at the small end of the egg was a screw propeller with three five-foot blades. At the topmost point of the egg shaped body was a small cylindrical projection from which streamed aft a sheaf of flat blades about fifteen feet long and perhaps eighteen inches wide at the widest point. Perry guessed that this unfolded into a rotor for helicopter flight. He attempted to count the blades in the gloom and decided that there were either five or six. No wings were in evidence but Perry noticed that there were slots about four feet long on each side near the top amidships. Diana confirmed his guess that these housed wings that spread when needed. But search as he might he saw no sign of a control surface; rudder, stabilizer, nor fins.

The body was a dull copper color, except for the front end and the sides back to midships, which were plastic glass. The door was just abaft his enormous view-port on the starboard side. Diana swung it open and they stepped inside. The interior was very roomy, there being nearly five feet of clear floor space thwartships and almost that much abaft the twin pilots' chairs. A lazy bench ran around the outer wall except for the space forward of the chairs, where it was replaced by a belt of instruments with clear glass above and below. Perry saw that the level inner floor plate and the corresponding curved outer hull were largely of glass.

Diana seated herself in the right hand pilot's chair. "Come sit beside me, Perry." He did so and examined the dual controls in front of him. Diana touched a lever control and the car rolled out on the platform. She grasped the joystick and pulled it toward her, thumb pressing a button on the end. Perry heard a soft hum and a slight haze appeared over the car. The rotor had unfolded. The hum grew to a high-pitched whine, then died away. The car trembled and he noticed a slight feeling of heaviness. He glanced down between his feet and watched the mountain with its crags and pine trees drop away. A few minutes later Diana moved the stick forward to the vertical. Perry felt as if he were riding in an express elevator which had just stopped at the top floor. The car hovered about two thousand feet over 'Diana's mountain'. She turned to him. "Now where shall we go?"

"I don't want to go any place until I learn to fly this thing."

"I'm not exactly a flying instructor, but I'll try. You saw me take off. First I started the main motor with this switch turned to 'helicopter.' I pull back the stick to rise straight up. With the stick vertical the car hovers. The stick won't move unless you press the button on the end. Push the stick forward—so—and the car lowers. Then return it to vertical when you are at the altitude you wish. In landing you settle it down slowly with a slight pressure forward."

"Suppose the main motor stops while you're in the helicopter?"

"It settles down on the rotor. The wheels snap out into place. They are held retracted magnetically by a field off the main motor. You settle down pretty hard—It's about like falling ten meters at sea level, a little harder in this thin air. But the carriage takes most of the shock and this pneumatic upholstery soaks up the rest. It is pretty much of a jolt however. Anyone standing in the cabin should lie down quickly on the couch."

"Suppose it fell over water."

"The car will float. If you can start the rotor again, you can even take off again. I've done it with this one from Lake Tahoe. If you can't take off, you can just sit there and wait to be rescued."

"Now tell me how to maneuver this baby."

"Turn the main control switch from 'helix' to 'plane'. The wings come out,"—Sure enough, Perry saw them spread on each side—"and the screw starts. As it gathers speed, it drags more and more current, and the rotor slows down and stops and folds up. If you stop the screw by throwing the switch back, or if something happens to it, the rotor starts. The wings don't retract until the rotor is maintaining lift. See, there goes the rotor." The great vanes passed by, turning more slowly each revolution, finally stopped, folded back on each other like a Japanese fan, and disappeared. "We are flying now. If I pull back on the stick now the speed increases. When the air speed meter shows the speed I want I return the stick to vertical. If I pushed the stick forward the speed slows. If I slow to stalling speed before I reach it the rotor will start."

"How do you change direction?"

"If you push the stick sideways, the car turns in the same direction. When you are on your new course you return the stick to vertical."

"Does that both bank and handle the rudder? Say, I didn't see a rudder nor any other control surfaces. Why should it turn?"

"There aren't any control surfaces. The car is gyro stabilized. We rotate the car around the rigid reference frame of the gyros and let the screw push away in our new direction."

Perry nodded slowly. "That seems all right, except that she must side slip like the very devil on a turn."

"That's right, Perry, but ordinarily it doesn't matter. If you need to prevent it, you can turn past your new course and hold it there until the side slip is killed."

Perry's face cleared. "Yes, I suppose so, but I would hate to try to fly a tight military formation in her."

"You couldn't. This is a family model, for quiet people like me. It isn't very fast and it's as nearly foolproof and automatic as they can make it. They claim that if you can use a knife and fork you can fly a 'Cloud House'."

"What speed does she make?"

"I cruise her at about five hundred kilometers. I could make five hundred and fifty but there's a nasty vibration at that speed. I may need a new propellor."

Perry whistled. "If that is a moderate speed for a family car, what's the record these days?"

"About three thousand. That is with rockets of course. But I don't like a rocket ship. They make me nervous and they are devilish to handle. Give me my old-fashioned electric runabout. I'm in no hurry."

"Which reminds me. I gather this baby must be electric drive, but how?"

"The rotor and the prop are driven by induction motors. The power comes from storage batteries. The gyros each have their own induction windings. They run all the time."

"Storage batteries—I should think they would be too heavy."

"These aren't heavy for the power they store. They call 'em chlorophyll batteries because the principle involved is supposed to be similar to the photosynthesis of plants. But don't ask me why. I'm a dancer, not a physicist. However there are some new models on the market that make their own electricity from coal."

"Directly?"

"I don't know. It doesn't burn if that's what you mean."

Perry slapped his thigh. "Edison was working on that when he died."

"Too bad he didn't perfect it. We've had it only about ten years. See here, Perry, want to try the controls?"

"Yes indeed. Wait a minute though. How do I change altitude when I'm in 'plane' combination. "

"You can get as much as ten degrees dive or climb by changing this setting. It rotates the car about the horizontal gyro axis. You can use that when hovering with the rotor to keep from drifting in the wind, provided the wind isn't more than seventy-five kilometers."

"In that case you could maneuver by rotor if you wanted to, couldn't you."

"Yes, but it's slow of course. Do you know what all your instruments mean?"

"You keep an eye on the instruments. I'll fly by ear for a while." Perry took the car up a couple of thousand feet and cautiously put her through her paces. Presently when he had the feel of the controls he undertook to see what it would do. He soared and dropped, flew straight away and slewed her into sudden turns. He discovered that he could jamb her about one hundred and eighty degrees and stop her dead with the propeller. After this stunt Diana touched his arm:

"Perry, if you knock off the propeller, we'll have to go home on the rotor." He looked crestfallen.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought anything she could do, she could handle."

"That is very nearly true. But my prop may be out of balance, you know. In any case the screw itself is a gyro and you were processing it on a rigid frame."

He set the controls at neutral and turned to her. "Diana, if you are a dancer and no physicist, how do you know so much about mechanics?"

She looked surprised. "Any schoolgirl knows that much."

"I can see education has improved." He returned to the controls and tried new stunts; stalling, changing combinations, maneuvering on the rotor. The flight brought them back near the canyon—'Diana's canyon' as Perry regarded it—and the waterfall caught Perry's eye. He lowered away cautiously and eased the craft slowly over toward the veil of water until they hovered halfway down and a hundred feet from the falls. They both sat in silent contemplation for several minutes until a shift in the wind forced Perry to return to the controls. He rose out of the canyon and settled down in level flight. Then he spoke. His voice was low and fervent. "Boy, but that fall is something!" He turned to Diana. "It's nearly as beautiful as you are, Dian'." She looked up and met his eyes for a moment, then dropped her lids, without replying. They were flying west. Presently Diana spoke.

"Where are we going, Perry?"

"I hadn't thought about it. Where would you suggest?"

"Would you like to see San Francisco?"

"Fine!"

"Then let me set the course."

"I can do it. I know this country." He located the South Fork of the American River and followed it by eye until it joined the Sacramento River. Presently Diana got up and went to the rear of the car. When they were approaching Sacramento she announced lunch. "Can't do," answered Perry. "I'm coming into traffic." She peered over his shoulder.

"I'll set the robot to circle Sacramento and pick up the San Francisco beam. You mustn't fly in traffic until you have qualified in the rules. Now come to lunch."

Hot soup. Stuffed eggs and celery. Oatmeal cookies and grapes. Cold milk. When it was inside Perry felt no desire to move. He lay on his stomach with his head over the edge of the lazy bench and watched the ground slip by the deck port. Diana regarded him lazily. Presently the ground changed to water.

"Coming into San Francisco!" he cried, jumped to his feet and seated himself in the bow.

"Don't touch the controls, Perry," Diana cautioned. "They are on full automatic." Perry didn't answer for they were slicing across the bay bridge.

"Dian', is that the same bridge?"

"I believe so."

Perry looked proud. "They had engineers in my day, too."

"Indeed they did."

"Why, there is the Ferry Building. Don't tell me that has stood all these years."

"No, that is a replica. It's a museum of California history."

"There's Nob Hill! And the Fairmont Hotel."

"You're right, but I don't see how you recognized it. It's only been there ten years."

"I can see how it's not the same building. But it's in the right place." The car changed course and commenced leisurely to circle the city in a clockwise direction. Several other aircraft were in the same circle at the same speed.

"The streets are decked over, aren't they? What's that moving under the glass decks?"

"Those are the streets, with people traveling on them."

"But how? I don't see any automobiles or other vehicles, yet they are going pretty fast."

"The streets move in strips. The strip nearest the buildings goes five kilometers an hour, then next ten and so on to the middle. Those have seats on them and travel forty kilometers."

"How about the end of the line?"

"The end of the line? Oh, they travel in loops. If you stay on one you come back to where you started. The cross traffic is on a lower level, naturally. Shall we land, Perry?"

His brow furrowed. "What do you think? I probably don't know how to behave. Besides I can't go into a city like this, can I?" He indicated his bare condition.

"No real reason why you shouldn't, except to avoid being conspicuous. But the public kit you bought yesterday is by you in the locker under the bench you are sitting on." Diana dug it out, and gave it to him. Perry donned it. It consisted of a kilt of bright blue silk hung on a broad leather belt with pockets and hooks in it. A strap over one shoulder helped to support the belt. Slashes in the kilt were lined with bright silver stuff which glittered as he moved. The belt and strap were black with chromium fittings which matched his sandals. Diana surveyed him.

"There. All set? Then I'll land us." Diana put the car down carefully through a maze of traffic onto a platform on Nob Hill. Before leaving the car she picked up a garment of her own and slipped it on. It was a Grecian tunic of black velvet, caught at the right shoulder with a jeweled silver clip. The right side hung open. The left shoulder and breast were bare. Perry whistled.

"Dian', you look perfectly gorgeous in that outfit, but in my home town they would toss us in jail and throw away the key."

"What for?"

"Indecent exposure."

"How silly. Let's go."

Diana received a check from the parking attendant, and they started for the stairs. It was cold on the platform. Perry felt goose flesh form on his chest and a sharp wind fluttered his kilt. Diana appeared not to mind. But it was warm in the stairway. As they rode to the street level Perry glanced at the other passengers. Apparently he and Diana were sufficiently clad. Most of the women wore as much as Diana, but several of them wore more provocative clothes. Passing the seventh level he noticed leaning in a doorway marked CORECTIV MASAJ a big Scandinavian girl clad only in a bored look. No one seemed to take special note of her. The men's costumes were varied. Many of them wore coveralls of heavy cloth. These Perry judged to be mechanics from the platform. A goodly number were dressed much as Perry was. He noticed one old gentleman in a Roman toga, who read a newspaper as he rode. But in a moment they debarked at the street level and Perry was too busy to worry much about clothes. They were caught in a swirl of foot traffic at the landing which separated him from Diana. He felt a wave of panic as he looked for her and failed to find her. Then a little warm hand slipped into his and he heard her voice. "Let me hold your hand. I nearly got carried away." He looked down at her face and knew that she was being diplomatic, but he didn't care. He held her hand tightly.

"What do you want to see, Perry?"

"Gosh, I don't know. Suppose you show me around a bit. If I think of anything, I'll tell you."

"All right." They proceeded along a wide corridor toward the street. The corridor was lined with brightly lighted little studio shops. Perry glanced at the displays as they walked. Most of the items seemed to be handcraft of various sorts, curios and beautiful things, some familiar in conception and use, some unintelligible. The Chinese, Japanese, and Indian shops seemed most familiar. In a few cases prices were marked. These seemed surprisingly high to him. He asked Diana about this.

"Why, naturally they cost a lot, Perry. These things are handmade. They are worth whatever the artist asks for them, if you want them enough to pay his price. A lot of them are queer ducks though. If you appreciate something they have made and you can't afford to buy it, they may just give it to you."

"But how can these hand workers compete with factory production?"

"They don't compete. Their work is for people who appreciate individual creation. The value of the things they make has nothing to do with the cost of the materials or the usefulness of the article. They are aesthetic values, that can't be standardized."

"Suppose people won't pay for an artist's work?"

"In that case he can do as he likes—either go on creating and keep the results or give them away—or stop and do something else."

"I didn't make myself clear. How can he go on creating if people won't buy?"

"He lives on his heritage checks, or he works for pay part of the time and works at his art part of the time."

Perry fell silent. They passed a row of public visiphone booths and came out on Mason Street. Perry had his first view of traffic on the moving ways and was made a little giddy by the sight. The crowds of people in front of him all appeared to be pedestrians but they moved at various speeds, those furthest away moving the fastest. It reminded him of times when, on a dance floor, he had whirled with a light-footed partner and then stopped suddenly. He glanced back at the adjacent building to steady himself. Then he looked back at the street. The movements gradually ordered themselves in his mind. He saw that each moving strip was about eight feet wide. He counted six strips to the middle of the street. The last strip carried a continuous bench on its far side and facing him. People were seated on this bench, reading, talking, and watching the life around them. Between their heads Perry saw flashing past in the opposite direction the heads of the passengers on the other side of the street. Overhead the glass canopy stretched from side to side from the window level of the second story, perhaps twenty feet in the air. On his left a pedestrians foot bridge arched daintily over the ways. From beneath the moving ways came a whisper and purr of machinery. Diana squeezed his hand. "Want to go for a ride?"

"Sure! Baby ride merry-go-round." He started to step on the outer strip.

"No, no, Perry! Face against the motion of the strip. And step on with the foot nearest the strip." Perry safely negotiated the first strip. "Come on, Perry, off the edge of the strip. Get inside the red stripes at once. Otherwise you might interfere with someone changing speeds."

Perry looked down and saw that the center three feet of the strip was bounded by red stripes. Several people within earshot glanced toward them curiously at Diana's words, but turned quickly away, except for one small urchin about six years old who surveyed Perry with a slow dispassionate stare. The next four strips were traversed without trouble and they settled down on the cushions of the bench. Diana smiled at him. "All right?"

"Easy once you get the hang of it. Just Eliza crossing the ice." Diana gurgled. He watched with interest the passengers around him. The urchin who had favored Perry with his attention was now staring at the opposite bound traffic with his nose pressed against the glass backboard which rose above the back cushion of the bench. His mother steadied him with one hand while she talked with another woman. The traffic was fairly heavy and Perry watched them come and go with interest. His eye was caught by a plumpish middle-aged woman in a striking purple and white robe. She carried in her arms a bright-eyed shaggy terrier who wiggled and attempted to get down. The woman was looking back over her shoulder and talking to a companion. She collided with a man moving off the fifth strip, lost her balance and sat down very suddenly on her broad posterior just at the joint between the fourth and fifth strips where she lay, shrieking, while she turned slowly round and around. The terrier bounded away and attained the sixth strip, where he ran up and down barking at the passengers on the bench. As his mistress passed slowly out of sight, several other passengers helped her to her feet and brushed her off. Perry whistled to the dog, who acknowledged the overture by jumping to the bench beside him and applying a warm wet tongue to Perry's chin and neck, "Down, boy, down! That's enough." Perry grabbed his collar. "Now what do we do? We've been joined." He grinned. Diana rubbed the dog's head. Then she got up from the bench.

"Come along and bring your friend." She moved quickly to the fifth strip, Perry close behind, then to the fourth and to the third. She stopped on the second. "We should see her soon." Presently the purple and white robe showed up on the fourth strip. Diana, Perry, and the dog moved to the third and boarded the fourth as the woman came abreast. She swooped down on the dog.

"Chou-chou! Did mama's darling get lost? Was um fwightened?" She kissed its nose and hugged it. The dog wore an air of patient forbearance. "Thank the kind people, Chou-chou. They rescued you." She turned to Perry and Diana. Diana gave him a sidewise glance and tugged his belt. They skipped onto the fifth strip and quickly over to the sixth. Diana sat down and sighed deeply.

"Safe at last." They sat for a while and watched the passing buildings. A few minutes later she pushed an elbow in his ribs. "Look over to your left." She whispered. The purple and white robe was some yards away moving along the strip towards them. "I think she's looking for us. Come along. Here's where we get off." They threaded quickly through the crowd toward the outer strip and were shortly on the stationary walk. "That was close."

"Why was she looking for us?"

"Maybe she wasn't, but I took no chances. I can't stand to be slobbered over."

"What do we do now?" They were standing by the entrance of a large squat building of synthetic marble. Over the entrance Perry read UNITED STATS POST OFIS, Tub Stashon A. Diana followed his glance.

"Want to see how the tubes work?"

"Sure." They went inside, across a broad foyer and mounted a flight of stairs to a mezzanine. Diana led to the far side of the balcony. They leaned over a rail and looked down into a broad deep room whose floor level Perry judged to be below the street. Diana pointed down, and to the right.

"See them coming in there. Then they go on the belt and are sorted." Canisters of various lengths but of a uniform thickness, about eighteen inches, streamed out of a round hole and were deposited one after the other on a conveyor belt. Every few feet a mechanism leaned over the belt. Occasionally relays would click and a broad hook would roll a canister off the belt and pull it onto another belt running crosswise underneath the first. The crosswise belts then carried the canisters off to the right and left...

"Who operates the selectors?"

"They are automatic. An electric eye scans the destination tag. If the appropriate symbol corresponds, the grabber swings out and hooks off the can. See that first selector that is so busy? The one with three arms? That takes all the San Francisco traffic. Its belts unload in another room about as big as this where they are sorted for the local stations."

"I suppose the tubes run on compressed air."

"Only on short jumps. On the trunk lines they shoot along in a partial vacuum floating in a magnetic field that pulls them along. They make tremendous speeds on the long jumps."

"Suppose I wanted to mail a letter to New York. Would it ride in one of those cans all by itself?"

"Yes, but there isn't much sense in writing a letter when you can call up on the visiphone, or write on the telautograph."

"No, I suppose not. Say, I'd like to take one of those selectors to pieces."

"Perhaps you can if you care to apply for permission. But there is nothing fancy about them. Seen enough?"

"I guess so. What now?"

Diana glanced at a chronometer on the wall. "It's ten minutes past thirteen. We could run out to the rocket port if you like."

"Say, that's fine. Let's go!" They went back to street level and rode the first strip to an intersection where they dropped down one flight to the crosstown shuttle. This they took to a station marked TUB EKSPRES TU ROKET PORT. An attendant sealed them in a cylinder containing heavily cushioned chairs. Diana sat down and laid her head back against a head rest and told Perry to do likewise. A light glowed above them for a few seconds, then cut off. Perry suddenly felt very heavy and was pressed into the cushions. Then he was suddenly normal weight again.

"Brace your feet, Perry." The sudden increase in weight pressed him forward this time. Then normal weight returned and the door opened.

"Where are we?"

"At the port, about fifteen kilometers south of town."

"San Mateo?"

"No, west of there near Pillar Point." They climbed out and proceeded up a ramp to a waiting room, where swarms of people moved about and clustered at the far end. Diana glanced at an illuminated notice board and then at the chronometer beside it. "Hurry, Perry. We are just in time."

"For what?"

"The Antipodes Express. It arrives from New Zealand in four minutes. Hurry." He followed her up a ramp into a gallery with windows facing the field. Several sightseers were already there. Diana turned to one of them, a boy about twelve. "Is she in sight yet?"

"Uh huh, she's circling. See?" He pointed for them. Diana and Perry squinted at the sky.

"I'm afraid I can't make her out."

"She's there all right. There go the field lights. The screens'll be up any minute now."

"What kind of screens?" Perry inquired. The boy looked at him curiously.

"Say, you haven't been around much, have you? These kind of screens." Dark amber glass shutters were settling over the view windows. "You look at a rocket blast with your naked eyes and you'll wish you hadn't."

"Thanks, son. I don't know much about rockets."

"I do. I'm going to be a rocket pilot when I grow up. There she comes. She's the good old Southern Cross. See how pretty she rides? That's old Marko himself. He don't bounce 'em." The ship, a faint silvery sliver, circled toward the earth. She rode with her bow lifted perhaps twenty degrees, and her tail jets streaming behind her.

"Looks as if she were climbing."

"No, no." Superior Knowledge was faintly scornful. "He's riding her in on her tail. Old Marko don't pull out the plug till he's ready." The ship circled again lower down and on a narrower course. The tail jets snuffed out, then a brilliant light flared from her keel. "There goes her belly blast. Oh boy!" The youngster's eyes shone. The blast reached down toward the earth. Soon it splashed around the field. Steadily the ship lowered until the blast was almost point blank and the splash filled the halfmole landing circle and concealed the ship. Then the blast ceased and the ship lay before them. The boy chortled. "Did you see that? Just as steady as a rock on her good old gyros. And he just slid her down like sliding down a rope. Not even a side jet. Not once! What he aims at, he hits. Marko's going to drive one to the Moon someday; you wait and see. And I bet I'll go along, too."

A little cart was rolling out toward the ship and unfurling a long matting as it went. Perry asked the lad about it.

"That's the asbestos rug. You wouldn't want to walk on that field in those sandals after the belly blast hits it. You'd fry. The cart's just the baggage cart." They watched the passengers debark,then strolled about the station for a few minutes.

"Any place else you want to go, Perry?" Diana presently inquired.

"Have you any suggestion?"

"I'm getting a little weary of the crowds. Let's get back." Fifteen minutes later they were on the platform where they had left the Cloud Horse. Diana surrendered her receipt and her car was run out onto the take-off flat. Inside, she shucked off her tunic and tossed it on the bench and had the car in the air before Perry was out of his belt and comfortably settled. Once seated he lit a cigarette and handed it to her. "Where are we going?"

"Would you like to go swimming?"

"Swell. Where?"

"I know a little cove down near Monterey that is sheltered from the wind. The water may be a bit chilly."

"Let's try it."

Diana switched to 'plane' combination and gave it the gun. In fifteen minutes they were over Monterey Bay. Diana continued past Point Pinos for a few miles, circled, changed to helico, and settled down in a little cove which faced southwest. The waves broke gently on a narrow ribbon of beach. On each side shoulders of granite jutted out onto the sea. They opened the door and stepped out. The air was almost still and the afternoon sun beat down on them. The sand was warm underfoot. The sea smell, ripe and tangy, stirred in their nostrils. They walked toward the water but soon the joy of being alive lifted them up and they felt compelled to run. They splashed into the water, yelling and laughing. Perry charged along and dived head first onto the face of a breaker. He came up and dog-paddled in the back wash. Diana's head broke beside him.

"This is swell ." He gasped.

"A little bit chilly. Look out! Duck!" He turned around just in time to catch a wall of green water in the face. He came up blowing, and swam over to where Diana stood laughing at him. His hand struck bottom, he dropped his feet and stood beside her.

"This is grand, Dian'. I wish we could have done this in my day."

"My goodness! Didn't you?"

"Swim raw I mean. We swam but we wore swimming suits."

She looked incredulous. "I've read about it, of course. But it seems so ridiculous—so unsanitary." She shivered a little. "I'm going to dry off, Perry. I'm cold."

"One more dive and I'm with you." She moved off up the beach. When Perry returned he found her by the door of the car, rubbing herself briskly with a big fluffy towel. He picked up a second towel which was lying in the door. "Turn around and I'll rub your back." She turned obediently. When he had finished, she scrubbed away at his back, then stepped away and snapped him with her towel. "Ouch!" He rubbed the spot ruefully. "Was that nice?"

She grinned impishly. "No, but it was fun."

"You ought to be paddled for that."

"You'll have to catch me first." She was off down the beach, hair flying, legs flashing. He took off after her and ran her down. He grabbed her from behind, she struggled, and they fell down together, a laughing disorderly heap. He tussled with her and tried to turn her over into a favorable position for a smacking, but she was lithe as an otter and nearly as slippery. Their contortions brought their faces close to each other. He bent his head down and kissed her on her lips. She became instantly quiet, not relaxed but tense. In sudden alarm he searched her face. Her expression was serious but she did not seem angry. Slowly he bent his head again. She made no move, but did not draw away. His mouth touched hers gently. Her body relaxed and melted into his and her lips parted slightly as her right arm went about his neck. They held still for a long time.

There are kisses and kisses. Some are given in sport and some in passion. There are formal kisses of greeting and departure, and there are perfunctory pecks of accustomed affection. Once in a great while lips meet and two spirits merge for a time and the universe is right and complete and the planets wheel in their proper places. Once in a while the lonely, broken spirit of man is healed and made whole. For a while his quest is over and his questions are answered.

She lay quiet in his arms. "Oh, Perry."

"Dian', Dian'."

Presently she stirred. "Let's go back to the car." They arose and were surprised to find muscles stiff and cold. The warm glow of the interior of the car was welcome. "Shall we go home?" He nodded and she drew back the stick. The shadows on the beach were lengthening and the car's shadow flew out ahead of them to the east. She leveled off and shifted combinations. Presently her hands left the controls. "I've set the robot on Reno. Let's move back." They seated themselves side by side on the cushions.

"Cigarette?"

"Thanks." He lit it for her and one for himself. A long silence. Presently he spoke.

"Dian'."

"Yes, Perry?"

"I didn't say so, but I suppose you know that I love you."

"Yes, I know."

"Well?"

"I love you too, Perry."

Neither spoke for a long time. The quiet whir of the screw and the clicking of the robot marked the growth of time. He kissed her. When their lips parted she left her head on his shoulder. The room filled with their thoughts. In course of time a bell tinkled and a little light flashed on the instrument board. Diana arose hastily. "We're abreast of home. I must take over." Quickly she slid into her pilot's chair and changed course to the right. Five minutes later she spoke. "Look down and see if you can pick out our field."

"I see a light below."

"Work this switch and see if it blinks."

He did so. "It's ours all right."

"Will you land us, Perry?"

"Why, yes, if you wish."

"I want you to."

He set them gently down. A few moments later Captain Kidd was telling them in blasphemous terms what he thought of people who stayed away all day. There seemed to be some mention of inconsiderate, something about no sense of responsibility and a distinct intention of writing to the Times. Diana hastily procured a saucer of milk and one of sardines. He accepted her apology—tentatively.

When Perry came out of the refresher, he found Diana at the food preparer, her hands fairly flying about the place. He called to her.

"Dian'."

"Yes?"

"You've still got your sandals on."

She glanced down and smiled. "So I have. Your supper will be ready the sooner." She placed a few more items on the tray. "Here, set it up." She dived into her refresher and returned in less than five minutes, sandal-less, her hair fluffed out and her body glowing from a quick shower. She slid into her seat. "All ready? Get set. Go!" They ate like starved children for a few minutes. Then their eyes met and they both laughed without knowing why. They finished more slowly and Perry chucked the dishes in the fire. He returned and sat down beside her. The evening passed without much talk. They sat and watched the fire and listened to the music Diana had selected. She read some poetry to him. After that he asked her if she had anything by Rudyard Kipling and she produced a thin volume of his verses. He found what he sought and read aloud The Mary Gloster. Then he kissed a cheek wet with tears and made it damper with his own. A long time later she smothered a yawn. He smiled and spoke. "I'm sleepy, too, but I don't want to go away and leave you."

She looked at him, round eyed and serious.

"You needn't leave me, unless you wish."

"But—See here, darling, I want to marry you, but I don't want to rush you into anything you might regret."

"Regret? I don't understand you. But as far as I am concerned we are married now, if you wish it so."

"I suppose we could run out tomorrow and have the ceremony performed."

"There is no need. These things are in the private sphere. Oh, don't make it complicated." She began to cry.

He hesitated for a moment, then picked her up in his arms and laid her on the widest part of the couch. Then he lay down beside her. A coal in the fire cracked and firelight flickered about the room.