This Perfect Day Part 3

When the call was over, Chip's father said, "What are you trying?"

"Nothing," Chip said.

"You must have meant something," his father said.

Chip shrugged.

Mary CZ asked him too, the next time Chip saw her. "What did you mean when you told your grandfather you were trying?" she said.

"Nothing," Chip said.

"Li," Mary said, and looked at him reproachfully. "You said you were trying. Trying what?"

"Trying not to miss him," he said. "When he was transferred to Usa I told him I would miss him, and he said I should try not to, that members were all the same and anyway he would call whenever he could."

"Oh," Mary said, and went on looking at Chip, now uncertainly. "Why didn't you say so in the first place?" she asked.

Chip shrugged.

"And do you miss him?"

"Just a little," Chip said. "I'm trying not to."

s.e.x began, and that was even better to think about than wanting something. Though he'd been taught that o.r.g.a.s.ms were extremely pleasurable, he had had no idea whatsoever of the all-but-unbearable deliciousness of the gathering sensations, the ecstasy of the coming, and the drained and boneless satisfaction of the moments afterward. n.o.body had had any idea, none of his cla.s.smates; they talked about nothing else and would gladly have devoted themselves to nothing else as well. Chip could hardly think about mathematics and electronics and astronomy, let alone the differences between cla.s.sifications.

After a few months, though, everyone calmed down, and accustomed to the new pleasure, gave it its proper Sat.u.r.day-night place in the week's pattern.

One Sat.u.r.day evening when Chip was fourteen, he bicycled with a group of his friends to a fine white beach a few kilometers north of AFR71680. There they swam-jumped and pushed and splashed in waves made pink-foamed by the foundering sun-and built a fire on the sand and sat around it on blankets and ate their cakes and c.o.kes and crisp sweet pieces of a bashed-open coconut. A boy played songs on a recorder, not very well, and then, the fire crumbling to embers, the group separated into five couples, each on its own blanket.

The girl Chip was with was Anna VF, and after their o.r.g.a.s.m-the best one Chip had ever had, or so it seemed-he was filled with a feeling of tenderness toward her, and wished there were something he could give her as a conveyor of it, like the beautiful sh.e.l.l that Karl GG had given Yin AP, or Li OS's recorder-song, softly cooing now for whichever girl he was lying with. Chip had nothing for Anna, no sh.e.l.l, no song; nothing at all, except, maybe, his thoughts.

"Would you like something interesting to think about?" he asked, lying on his back with his arm about her.

"Mm," she said, and squirmed closer against his side. Her head was on his shoulder, her arm across his chest.

He kissed her forehead. "Think of all the different cla.s.sifications there are-" he said.

"Mm?"

"And try to decide which one you would pick if you had to pick one."

"To pick one?" she said.

"That's right."

"What do you mean?"

"To pick one. To have. To be in. Which cla.s.sification would you like best? Doctor, engineer, adviser . . ."

She propped her head up on her hand and squinted at him. "What do you mean?" she said.

He gave a little sigh and said, "We're going to be cla.s.sified, right?"

"Right."

"Suppose we weren't going to be. Suppose we had to cla.s.sify ourselves."

"That's silly," she said, finger-drawing on his chest.

"It's interesting to think about."

"Let's f.u.c.k again," she said.

"Wait a minute," he said. "Just think about all the different cla.s.sifications. Suppose it were up to us to-"

"I don't want to," she said, stopping drawing. "That's silly. And sick. We get cla.s.sified; there's nothing to think about. Uni knows what we're-"

"Oh, fight Uni," Chip said. "Just pretend for a minute that we're living in-"

Anna flipped away from him and lay on her stomach, stiff and unmoving, the back of her head to him.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I'm sorry," she said. "For you. You're sick."

"No I'm not," he said.

She was silent.

He sat up and looked despairingly at her rigid back. "It just slipped out," he said. "I'm sorry."

She stayed silent.

"It's just a word, Anna," he said.

"You're sick," she said.

"Oh, hate," he said.

"You see what I mean?"

"Anna," he said, "look. Forget it. Forget the whole thing, all right? Just forget it." He tickled between her thighs, but she locked them, barring his hand.

"Ah, Anna," he said. "Ah, come on. I said I was sorry, didn't I? Come on, let's f.u.c.k again. I'll suck you first if you want."

After a while she relaxed her thighs and let him tickle her.

Then she turned over and sat up and looked at him. "Are you sick, Li?" she asked.

"No," he said, and managed to laugh. "Of course I'm not," he said.

"I never heard of such a thing," she said. " 'Cla.s.sify ourselves.' How could we do it? How could we possibly know enough?"

"It's just something I think about once in a while," he said. "Not very often. In fact, hardly ever."

"It's such a-a funny idea," she said. "It sounds- I don't know-pre-U."

"I won't think about it any more," he said, and raised his right hand, the bracelet slipping back. "Love of Family," he said. "Come on, lie down and I'll suck you."

She lay back on the blanket, looking worried.

The next morning at five of ten Mary CZ called Chip and asked him to come see her.

"When?" he asked.

"Now," she said.

"All right," he said. "I'll be right down."

His mother said, "What does she want to see you on a Sunday for?"

"I don't know," Chip said.

But he knew. Anna VF had called her adviser.

He rode the escalators down, down, down, wondering how much Anna had told, and what he should say; and wanting suddenly to cry and tell Mary that he was sick and selfish and a liar. The members on the upgoing escalators were relaxed, smiling, content, in harmony with the cheerful music of the speakers; no one but he was guilty and unhappy.

The advisory offices were strangely still. Members and advisers conferred in a few of the cubicles, but most of them were empty, the desks in order, the chairs waiting. In one cubicle a green-coveralled member leaned over the phone working a screwdriver at it.

Mary was standing on her chair, laying a strip of Christmas bunting along the top of Wei Addressing the Chemotherapists. More bunting was on the desk, a roll of red and a roll of green, and Mary's open telecomp with a container of tea beside it. "Li?" she said, not turning. "That was quick. Sit down."

Chip sat down. Lines of green symbols glowed on the telecomp's screen. The answer b.u.t.ton was held down by a souvenir paperweight from RUS81655.

"Stay," Mary said to the bunting and, watching it, backed down off her chair. It stayed.

She swung her chair around and smiled at Chip as she drew it in to her and sat. She looked at the telecomp's screen, and while she looked, picked up the container of tea and sipped from it. She put it down and looked at Chip and smiled.

"A member says you need help," she said. "The girl you f.u.c.ked last night, Anna"-she glanced at the screen- "VF35H6143."

Chip nodded. "I said a dirty word," he said.

"Two," Mary said, "but that's hardly important. At least not relatively. What is important are some of the other things you said, things about deciding which cla.s.sification you would pick if we didn't have UniComp to do the job."

Chip looked away from Mary, at the rolls of red and green Christmas bunting.

"Is that something you think about often, Li?" Mary asked.

"Just sometimes," Chip said. "In the free hour or at night; never in school or during TV."

"Nighttime counts too," Mary said. "That's when you're supposed to be sleeping."

Chip looked at her and said nothing.

"When did it start?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said, "a few years ago. In Eur."

"Your grandfather," she said.

He nodded.

She looked at the screen, and looked at Chip again, ruefully. "Didn't it ever dawn on you," she said, "that 'deciding' and 'picking' are manifestations of selfishness? Acts of selfishness?"

"I thought, maybe," Chip said, looking at the edge of the desktop, rubbing a fingertip along it.

"Oh, Li," Mary said. "What am I here for? What are advisers here for? To help us, isn't that so?"

He nodded.

"Why didn't you tell me? Or your adviser in Eur? Why did you wait, and lose sleep, and worry this Anna?"

Chip shrugged, watching his fingertip rubbing the desktop, the nail dark. "It was-interesting, sort of," he said.

" 'Interesting, sort of,'" Mary said. "It might also have been interesting, sort of, to think about the kind of pre-U chaos we'd have if we actually did pick our own cla.s.sifications. Did you think about that?"

"No," Chip said.

"Well, do. Think about a hundred million members deciding to be TV actors and not a single one deciding to work in a crematorium."

Chip looked up at her. "Am I very sick?" he asked.

"No," Mary said, "but you might have ended up that way if not for Anna's helpfulness." She took the paperweight from the telecomp's answer b.u.t.ton and the green symbols disappeared from the screen. "Touch," she said.

Chip touched his bracelet to the scanner plate, and Mary began tapping the input keys. "You've been given hundreds of tests since your first day of school," she said, "and UniComp's been fed the results of every last one of them." Her fingers darted over the dozen black keys. "You've had hundreds of adviser meetings," she said, "and UniComp knows about those too. It knows what jobs have to be done and who there is to do them. It knows everything. Now who's going to make the better, more efficient cla.s.sification, you or UniComp?"

"UniComp, Mary," Chip said. "I know that. I didn't really want to do it myself; I was just-just thinking what if, that's all."

Mary finished tapping and pressed the answer b.u.t.ton. Green symbols appeared on the screen. Mary said, "Go to the treatment room."

Chip jumped to his feet. "Thank you," he said.

"Thank Uni," Mary said, switching off the telecomp. She closed its cover and snapped the catches.

Chip hesitated. "I'll be all right?" he asked.

"Perfect," Mary said. She smiled rea.s.suringly.

"I'm sorry I made you come in on a Sunday," Chip said.