This Perfect Day

"Every five or six years," she said, "a group of people like you—sometimes only two or three, sometimes as many as ten—sets out to destroy UniComp. They go in boats, in submarines that they spend years building; they go on board the barges you just mentioned. They take guns, explosives, gas masks, gas bombs, gadgets; they have plans that they're sure will work. They never come back. I financed the last two parties and am supporting the families of men who were in them, so I speak with authority. I hope you're sober enough to understand, and to spare yourself useless anguish.

Accepting and adjusting is all that's possible. Be grateful for what you have: a lovely wife, a child on the way, and a small amount of freedom that we hope in time will grow larger. I might add that in no circumstances whatsoever will I finance another such party. I am not as rich as certain people think I am."

Chip sat looking at her. She looked back at him with small black eyes above her pale beak of nose.

"They never come back, Chip," Ashi said.

Chip looked at him.

"Maybe they get to shore," Ashi said; "maybe they get to '001. Maybe they even get into the dome. But that's as far as they get, because they're gone, every one of them. And Uni is still working."

Chip looked at Julia. She said, "Men and women exactly like you. As far back as I can remember."

He looked at Lilac, holding his hand. She squeezed it, looking compassionately at him.

He looked at Ashi, who held the cup of coffee toward him.

He blocked the cup and shook his head. "No, I don't want coffee," he said.

He sat motionless, with sudden sweat on his forehead, and then he leaned forward and began vomiting.

He was in bed, and Lilac was lying beside him sleeping. Hassan was snoring on the other side of the curtain. A sour taste was in his mouth, and he remembered vomiting. Christ and Wei! And on carpet—the first he'd seen in half a year!

Then he remembered what had been said to him by that woman, Julia, and by Karl—by Ashi.

He lay still for a while, and then he got up and tiptoed around the curtain and past the sleeping Newmans to the sink.

He got a drink of water, and because he didn't want to go all the way down the hall, urined quietly in the sink and rinsed it out thoroughly.

He got back down beside Lilac and drew the blanket over him. He felt a little drunk again and his head hurt, but he lay on his back with his eyes closed, breathing lightly and slowly, and after a while he felt better.

He kept his eyes closed and thought about things.

After half an hour or so Hassan's alarm clock jangled. Lilac turned. He stroked her head and she sat up. "Are you all right?" she asked.

'Tes, sort of," he said.

The light went on and they winced. They heard Hassan grunting and getting up, yawning, farting. "Get up, Ria," he said. "Gigi? It's time to get up."

Chip stayed on his back with his hand on Lilac's cheek. "I'm sorry, darling," he said. "I'll call him today and apologize."

She took his hand and turned her lips to it. "You couldn't help it," she said. "He understood."

"I'm going to ask him to help me find a better job," Chip said.

Lilac looked at him questioningly.

"It's all out of me," he said. "Like the whiskey. All out. I'm going to be an industrious, optimistic steely. I'm going to accept and adjust. We're going to have a bigger apartment than Ashi some day."

"I don't want that," she said. "I would love to have two rooms, though."

"We will," he said. "In two years. Two rooms in two years; that's a promise."

She smiled at him.

He said, "I think we ought to think about moving to New Madrid where our rich friends are. That man Lars runs a school, did you know that? Maybe you could teach there. And the baby could go there when it's old enough."

"What could I teach?" she said.

"Something," he said. "I don't know." He lowered his hand and stroked her breasts. "How to have beautiful breasts, maybe," he said.

Smiling, she said, "We've got to get dressed."

"Let's skip breakfast," he said, drawing her down. He rolled onto her and they embraced and kissed.

"Lilac?" Ria called. "How was it?"

Lilac freed her mouth. "Tell you later!" she called.

While he was walking down the tunnel into the mine he remembered the tunnel into Uni, Papa Jan's tunnel down which the memory banks had been rolled.

He stopped still.

Down which the real memory banks had been rolled. And above them were the false ones, the pink and orange toys that were reached through the dome and the elevators, and which everyone thought was Uni itself; everyone including—it had to be!—all those men and women who had gone out to fight it in the past. But Uni, the real Uni, was on the levels below, and could be reached through the tunnel, through Papa Jan's tunnel from behind Mount Love.