“Our trip to Mars,” she explained, 6iis sort of open-ended. When push comes to shove, thev’re a good deal more liberal there, especially in things like cultural exchange. And, from reports, the audiences have slightly more catholic tastes. I admit, I’m looking forward to it.”
“I wish I were going,” he said.
They rounded another corner.
She said: “This is where we’re staying.” The building was low, large, and shoddilv whitewashed. “The People’s Cultural Co-Operative. The diggers have most of it, but we have four rooms on the top floor.”
“You’re always getting stuck in someone’s cellar, or off in the attic.” Memories of concert halls, transport compartments, a verdigrized drain in a fouled cement floor, crystal gaming pieces on boards that were neither go nor vlet. “I still just can’t get over the coincidence, no matter how small or large it is, of—could I come in a while?” because she had stopped at the wooden door, painted yelllow and noticeably askew in its frame.
She smiled. “Really, I’ve got a lot of work to do this morning. Right after lunch I have to have interlocking part rehearsals planned out for the new work. Tt’s one of our most ambitious, and at least four seconds of it are still pretty loose.”
“I ... I ... wish I could see it!”
She smiled again. “It’s too bad you didn’t catch the last performance of the MacLow cycle last nieht. They were open to passers-by. It would be nice to do this one for you, but really it’s more or less understood as part of the conditions of our being here that we do everything we possibly can for the locals. Except for the MacLows, we haven’t even had any of the kids from the dig for audience. We’re trying to keep it to the indigenous inhabitants.”
Save the man at the shack and the woman at the guesthouse, Bron wasn’t sure he’d seen any indigenous inhabitants. “Well, I guess that’s ...” He shrugged, smiled, and felt desperate.
She offered her hand. “Good-bye then. Even if I don’t see you—”
“Could I see you again!” he blurted, taking her hand in both his. “I mean ... maybe tonight. Later, after your performance. We’ll go somewhere. We’ll ... do something! Something nice. Please. I ... I do want to!”
She regarded him.
The desperation he felt was heady and violent. He started to release her hand, then squeezed it harder. Movement happened behind the skin of her face.
Was it pity for him?
He hated it.
Was she searching herself?
What did she have to search for!
Was she considering things to say?
Why didn’t she just say, “yes”?
“All right,” she said. “Yes. I’ll go with you this evening. After our last performance.”
He nearly dropped her hand. Why didn’t she just say—
“Is that all right,” she asked, with that slight, familiar smile, “with you?”
He nodded, abruptly wondering: Where would they go? Back to his guesthouse? To her place? No—he had to take her somewhere. First. And he was a hundred million kilometers from anywhere he knew.
“Meet me here,” she said. “At nine. How’s that? It should be just about half an hour after sunset, if I remember correctly.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“And we’ll go out somewhere.”
He nodded.
“Good.” She pulled her hand away, glanced at him again, hesitated: “Till nine then?” She pushed open the door. “I’ll meet you here.”
“That’s awfully nice of you ...” he remembered to say.
“Not at all,” she said. “It’ll be fun,” and closed the door.
He stood on the narrow sidewalk thinking something was very wrong.
It was not exactly an adventure finding Sam again. But in the hour and a quarter it took him, he decided that whoever had laid out the village must have been certifiably insane. And while there were some jobs that the certifiably insane could do quite well, and while metalogics, as Audri occasionally used to joke at him, was one, city planning was definitely not:
There was a living establishment—the People’s Co-Op—and there, to its left, was some sort of shopping area; and around the corner from that was a small eating place. All fine. Wandering through the small streets, he found another collection of small shops: Was there an eating place around the corner to its right? No. Was there a living establishment—of any sort—to its left? No! He had been quite prepared to find the urban units arranged differently from those on Tethys, as Tethys’s were different from the units of Lux, or Bellona. (Indeed, Tethys employed seven different types of urban units—though for practical purposes you only had to be familiar with two of them to find anything you wanted in most of the city—and Bellona reputedlv, though only one was common, employed nine.) After half an hour it began to dawn that there was no arrangement to this city’s urban units. Half an hour more, and he began to wonder if this city had urban units. The onlv logic he could impute to the layout at all—after having walked up some streets many times and been unable to find others at all that he knew he’d passed—was that most of the shops and eating places seemed to be in one area, within three or four streets of the central square. For the rest, it was catch-as-catch-can.
He found the street with the stone steps just by accident.
In the backvard of the guesthouse, Sam sat at a white enameled table, by his elbow a tall glass of something orange with a straw in it and green leaves sticking out the top. He was looking into a portable reader, his thumb again and again clicking the skimming lever.
“Sam, what is there to do around here at night?”
Click. “Look at the stars, smell the clear air, wander out along the wild hills and meadows.” Click-click—
188 Samuel R.Delany click. “That’s what I’m planning to do, anyway. If you’re stuck in the far reaches of Outer Mongolia, even in this day and age, there isn’t much to do, except figure out more and more interesting ways to relax.” Click-click.
“Do with somebody. I have to take someone out tonight.”
Click; Sam reached for his drink, missed it, got it, and maneuvered the straw into his mouth. Click-click. “The woman you went running after, after breakfast?” He put the drink back on the table (Click); the edge of the glass was just over the side.
Bron narrowed an eye, wondering if he should move it. “I said I would take her someplace exciting. Tonight.”
“I can’t think of anyplace you could—” Sam looked up, frowning. “Wait a second.” He moved the glass back on the table.
Bron breathed.
Sam dug among the rack of pockets down the side of his toga, pulled out a square sheaf of colored paper, which he opened into a rectangle.
Knowing full well what it was, Bron said: “What’s that?”
“Money,” Sam said. “Ever use it?”
“Sure.” There were quite a few places on Mars that still took it.
Sam counted through the sheaf. “There’s a place I’ve been to a couple of times when I’ve passed through here—about seventy-five miles to the north.” He flipped up more bills. “There, that should be enough to take you, your friend, and half her theater commune.” While Sam separated the bills, Bron wondered how Sam knew she was in the theater. But then, maybe he’d found out at breakfast. And Sam was saying: “It’s a restaurant—where they still take this stuff. Some people consider it mildly elegant. Maybe your friend would enjoy it. If nothing else, it’s a giggle.” Sam held out the bills.
“Oh.” Bron took them.
“That’ll cover it, if I remember things right. It’s quite an old place. Dates all the way back to People’s Capitalist China.”
Bron frowned. “I thought that only lasted ten years or so?”
“Six. Anyway, it’s something to take a gawk at, if you’re in the neighborhood. It’s called Swan’s Craw—which I always wondered about. But that’s Capitalist China for you.”