This Perfect Day

"Come on, brother," she said, prying his hands away and holding onto one, "we'd better get you indoors before you start singing."

They went into the plaza and crossed it diagonally. Flags and sagging Marxmas bunting hung motionless above it, dim in the glow of distant walkways. "Where are we going anyway?" he asked, walking happily. "Where's the secret meeting place of the diseased corrupters of healthy young members?"

"The Pre-U," she said.

"The Museum?"

"That's right. Can you think of a better place for a group of Uni-cheating abnormals? It's exactly where we belong.

Easy," she said, tugging at his hand; "don't walk so energetically."

A member was coming into the plaza from the walkway they were going toward. A briefcase or telecomp was in his hand.

Chip walked more normally alongside Snowflake. The member, coming closer—it was a telecomp he had—smiled and nodded. They smiled and nodded in return as they passed him.

They went down steps and out of the plaza.

"Besides," Snowflake said, "it's empty from eight to eight and it's an endless source of pipes and funny costumes and unusual beds."

"You take things?"

"We leave the beds," she said. "But we make use of them now and again. Meeting solemnly in the staff conference room was just for your benefit."

"What else do you do?"

"Oh, sit around and complain a little. That's Lilac's and Leopard's department mostly. Sex and smoking is enough for me. King does funny versions of some of the TV programs; wait till you find out how much you can laugh."

"The making use of the beds," Chip said; "is it done on a group basis?"

"Only by two's, dear; we're not that pre-U."

"Who did you use them with?"

"Sparrow, obviously. Necessity is the mother of et cetera. Poor girl, I feel sorry for her now."

"Of course you do."

"I do! Oh well, there's an artificial penis in Nineteenth Century Artifacts. She'll survive."

"King says we should find a man for her."

"We should. It would be a much better situation, having four couples."

"That's what King said."

As they were crossing the ground floor of the museum-lighting their way through the strange-figured dark with a flashlight that Snowflake had produced—another light struck them from the side and a voice nearby said, "Hello there!" They started. "I'm sorry," the voice said. "It's me, Leopard."

Snowflake swung her light onto the twentieth-century car, and a flashlight inside it went off. They went over to the glinting metal vehicle. Leopard, sitting behind the steering wheel, was an old round-faced member wearing a hat with an orange plume. There were several dark brown spots on his nose and cheeks. He put his hand, also spotted, through the car's window frame. "Congratulations, Chip," he said. "I'm glad you came through." Chip shook his hand and thanked him. "Going for a ride?" Snowflake asked.

"I've been for one," he said. "To Jap and back. Volvo's out of fuel now. And thoroughly wet too, come to think of it." They smiled at him and at each other.

"Fantastic, isn't it?" he said, turning the wheel and working a lever that projected from its shaft. "The driver was in complete control from start to finish, using both hands and both feet."

"It must have been awfully bumpy," Chip said, and Snow-flake said, "Not to mention dangerous."

"But fun too," Leopard said. "It must have been an adventure, really; choosing your destination, figuring out which roads to take to get there, gauging your movements in relation to the movements of other cars—"

"Gauging wrong and dying," Snowflake said.

"I don't think that really happened as often as we're told it did," Leopard said. "If it had, they would have made the front parts of the cars much thicker."

Chip said, "But that would have made them heavier and they would have gone even slower."

"Where's Hush?" Snowflake asked.

"Upstairs with Sparrow," Leopard said. He opened the car's door, and coming out of it with a flashlight in his hand, said, "They're setting things up. Some more stuff was put in the room." He cranked the window of the door halfway up and closed the door firmly. A wide brown belt decorated with metal studs was fastened about his coveralls. "King and Lilac?" Snowflake asked. "They're around someplace."

Chip thought, Making use of one of the beds—as the three of them went on through the museum. He had thought about King and Lilac a good deal since seeing King and seeing how old he was—fifty-two or -three or even more. He had thought about the difference between the ages of the two—thirty years, surely, at the very least—and about the way King had told him to stay away from Lilac; and about Lilac's large less-slanted-than-normal eyes and her hands that had rested small and warm on his knees as she crouched before him urging him toward greater life and awareness.