This Perfect Day

King took out his lighter and thumbed it open. "It's possible," he said. "It's very possible. It never even crossed my mind. Members live to sixty-two; it used to be less, some day it'll be more; we have two eyes, two ears, one nose. Established facts." He lit the lighter and put the flame to his pipe.

"It must be true," Lilac said. "It's the final logical end of Wood's and Wei's thinking. Control everyone's life and you eventually get around to controlling everyone's death."

"It's awful," Sparrow said. "I'm glad Leopard's not here. Can you imagine how he'd feel? Not only Hush, but he himself any day now. We mustn't say anything to him; let him think it's going to happen naturally." Snowflake looked bleakly at Chip. "What did you have to tell us for?" she said. King said, "So that we can experience a happy kind of sadness. Or was it a sad kind of happiness, Chip?"

"I thought you would want to know," he said.

"Why?" Snowflake said. "What can we do about it? Complain to our advisers?"

"I'll tell you one thing we can do," Chip said. "Start getting more members into this group."

"Yes!" Lilac said.

"And where do we find them?" King said. "We can't just grab any Karl or Mary off the walkways, you know."

Chip said, "Do you mean to say that in your assignment you can't pull a print-out on local members with abnormal tendencies?"

"Not without giving Uni a good reason, I can't," King said. "One fuzzy move, brother, and the doctors will be examining me. Which would also mean, incidentally, that they'd be reexamining you."

"Other abnormals are around," Sparrow said. "Somebody writes Tight Uni' on the backs of buildings."

"We've got to figure out a way to get them to find us," Chip said. "A signal of some kind."

"And then what?" King said. "What do we do when we're twenty or thirty strong? Claim a group visit and blow Uni to pieces?"

"The idea has occurred to me," Chip said.

"Chip!" Snowflake said. Lilac stared at him.

"First of all," King said, smiling, "it's impregnable. And second of all, most of us have already been there, so we wouldn't be granted another visit. Or would we walk from here to Eur? And what would we do with the world once everything was uncontrolled—once the factories were clogged and the cars had crashed and the chimes had all stopped chiming—get really pre-U and say a prayer for it?"

"If we could find members who know computer and microwave theory," Chip said, "members who know Uni, maybe we could work out a way to change its programming."

"If we could find those members," King said. "If we could get them with us. If we could get to EUR-zip-one. Don't you see what you're asking for? The impossible, that's all. This is why I told you not to waste time with those books. There's nothing we can do about anything. This is Uni's world, will you get that through your head? It was handed over to it fifty years ago, and it's going to do its assignment—spread the fighting Family through the fighting universe—and we're going to do our assignments, including dying at sixty-two and not missing TV. This is it right here, brother: all the freedom we can hope for—a pipe and a few jokes and some extra fucking. Let's not lose what we've got, all right?"

"But if we get other—"

"Sing a song, Sparrow," King said.

"I don't want to," she said.

"Sing a song!"

"All right, I will."

Chip glared at King and got up and strode from the room. He strode into the dark exhibit hall, banged his hip against hardness, and strode on, cursing. He went far from the passageway and the storeroom; stood rubbing his forehead and rocking on the balls of his feet before the jewel-glinting kings and queens, mute darker-than-darkness watchers. "King," he said. "Thinks he really is, the brother-fighting..."

Sparrow's singing came faintly, and the string-tinkle of her pre-U instrument. And footsteps, coming closer. "Chip?" It was Snowflake. He didn't turn. His arm was touched. "Come on back," she said.

"Leave me alone, will you?" he said. "Just leave me alone for a couple of minutes."

"Come on," she said. "You're being childish."

"Look," he said, turning to her. "Go listen to Sparrow, will you? Go smoke your pipe."

She was silent, and then said, "All right," and went away.

He turned back to the kings and queens, breathing deeply. His hip hurt and he rubbed it. It was infuriating the way King cut off his every idea, made everyone do exactly as he-She was coming back. He started to tell her to get the hate away but checked himself. He took a clenched-teeth breath and turned around.

It was King coming toward him, his gray hair and coveralls catching the dim glow from the passageway. He came close and stopped. They looked at each other, and King said, "I didn't intend to speak quite that sharply."

"How come you haven't taken one of these crowns?" Chip asked. "And a robe. Just that medallion—hate, that's not enough for a real pre-U king."

King stayed silent for a moment, and then said, "My apologies."