This Perfect Day

He rinsed his mouthpiece and, stretching, hung it in its place on the rack. "Jesus was talking," he said. "Jesus DV. During play."

"About what? Your eye?

"No, not my eye. Nobody says anything about my eye."

"Then what?"

He shrugged. "Members who—get sick and—leave the Family. Run away and take off their bracelets."

His mother looked at him nervously. "Incurables," she said.

He nodded, her manner and her knowing the name making him more uneasy. "It's true?" he said.

"No," she said. "No, it isn't. No. I'm going to call Bob. He'll explain it to you." She turned and hurried from the room, slipping past Peace, who was coming in closing her pajamas.

In the living room Chip's father said, "Two more minutes. Are they in bed?"

Chip's mother said, "One of the children told Chip about the incurables."

"Hate," his father said.

"I'm calling Bob," his mother said, going to the phone.

"It's after eight."

"He'll come," she said. She touched her bracelet to the phone's plate and read out the nameber red-printed on a card tucked under the screen rim: "Bob NE20G3018." She waited, rubbing the heels of her palms tightly together. "I knew something was bothering him," she said. "He didn't say a single word all evening."

Chip's father got up from his chair. "I'll go talk to him," he said, going.

"Let Bob do it!" Chip's mother called. "Get Peace into bed; she's still in the bathroom!"

Bob came twenty minutes later. "He's in his room," Chip's mother said.

"You two watch the program," Bob said. "Go on, sit down and watch." He smiled at them. "There's nothing to worry about," he said. "Really. It happens every day."

"Still?" Chip's father said.

"Of course," Bob said. "And it'll happen a hundred years from now. Kids are kids."

He was the youngest adviser they had ever had—twenty-one, and barely a year out of the Academy. There was nothing diffident or unsure about him though; on the contrary, he was more relaxed and confident than advisers of fifty or fifty-five. They were pleased with him.

He went to Chip's room and looked in. Chip was in bed, lying on an elbow with his head in his hand, a comic book spread open before him. "Hi, Li," Bob said. Chip said, "Hi, Bob."

Bob went in and sat down on the side of the bed. He put his telecomp on the floor between his feet, felt Chip's forehead and ruffled his hair. "Whatcha readin'?" he said.

"Wood's Struggle" Chip said, showing Bob the cover of the comic book. He let it drop closed on the bed and, with his forefinger, began tracing the wide yellow W of "Wood's." Bob said, "I hear somebody's been giving you some cloth about incurables."

"Is that what it is?" Chip asked, not looking up from his moving finger.

"That's what it is, Li," Bob said. "It used to be true, a long, long time ago, but not any more; now it's just cloth." Chip was silent, retracing the W.

"We didn't always know as much about medicine and chemistry as we do today," Bob said, watching him, "and until fifty years or so after the Unification, members used to get sick sometimes, a very few of them, and feel that they weren't members. Some of them ran away and lived by themselves in places the Family wasn't using, barren islands and mountain peaks and so forth."

"And they took off their bracelets?"

"I suppose they did," Bob said. "Bracelets wouldn't have been much use to them in places like that, would they, with no scanners to put them to?"

"Jesus said they did something called 'fighting.'"

Bob looked away and then back again. " 'Acting aggressively' is a nicer way of putting it," he said. "Yes, they did that."

Chip looked up at him. "But they're dead now?" he said.

"Yes, all dead," Bob said. "Every last one of them." He smoothed Chip's hair. "It was a long, long time ago," he said.

"Nobody gets that way today."

Chip said, "We know more about medicine and chemistry today. Treatments work."

"Right you are," Bob said. "And don't forget there were five separate computers in those days. Once one of those sick members had left his home continent, he was completely unconnected."

"My grandfather helped build UniComp."

"I know he did, Li. So next time anyone tells you about the incurables, you remember two things: one, treatments are much more effective today than they were a long time ago; and two, we've got UniComp looking out for us everywhere on Earth. Okay?"

"Okay," Chip said, and smiled.

"Let's see what it says about you" Bob said, picking up his telecomp and opening it on his knees.

Chip sat up and moved close, pushing his pajama sleeve clear of his bracelet. "Do you think I'll get an extra treatment?" he asked.

"If you need one," Bob said. "Do you want to turn it on?"

"Me?" Chip said. "May I?"

"Sure," Bob said.

Chip put his thumb and forefinger cautiously to the tele-comp's on-off switch. He clicked it over, and small lights came on—blue, amber, amber. He smiled at them.

Bob, watching him, smiled and said, "Touch."

Chip touched his bracelet to the scanner plate, and the blue light beside it turned red.