This Perfect Day Part 4

"Don't be," Mary said. "For once in my life I'm going to have my Christmas decorations up before December twenty-fourth."

Chip went out of the advisory offices and into the treatment room. Only one unit was working, but there were only three members in line. When his turn came, he plunged his arm as deep as he could into the rubber-rimmed opening, and gratefully felt the scanner's contact and the infusion disc's warm nuzzle. He wanted the tickle-buzz-sting to last a long time, curing him completely and forever, but it was even shorter than usual, and he worried that there might have been a break in communication between the unit and Uni or a shortage of chemicals inside the unit itself. On a quiet Sunday morning mightn't it be carelessly serviced?

He stopped worrying, though, and riding up the escalators he felt a lot better about everything-himself, Uni, the Family, the world, the universe.

The first thing he did when he got into the apartment was call Anna VF and thank her.

At fifteen he was cla.s.sified 663D-genetic taxonomist, fourth cla.s.s-and was transferred to RUS41500 and the Academy of the Genetic Sciences. He learned elementary genetics and lab techniques and modulation and transplant theory; he skated and played soccer and went to the Pre-U Museum and the Museum of the Family's Achievements; he had a girlfriend named Anna from j.a.p and then another named Peace from Aus. On Thursday, 18 October 151, he and everyone else in the Academy sat up until four in the morning watching the launching of the Altaira, then slept and loafed through a half-day holiday.

One night his parents called unexpectedly. "We have bad news," his mother said. "Papa Jan died this morning."

A sadness gripped him and must have shown on his face.

"He was sixty-two, Chip," his mother said. "He had his life."

"n.o.body lives forever," Chip's father said.

"Yes," Chip said. "I'd forgot how old he was. How are you? Has Peace been cla.s.sified yet?"

When they were done talking he went out for a walk, even though it was a rain night and almost ten. He went into the park. Everyone was coming out. "Six minutes," a member said, smiling at him.

He didn't care. He wanted to be rained on, to be drenched. He didn't know why but he wanted to.

He sat on a bench and waited. The park was empty; everyone else was gone. He thought of Papa Jan saying things that were the opposite of what he meant, and then saying what he really meant down in the inside of Uni, with a blue blanket wrapped around him.

On the back of the bench across the walk someone had red-chalked a jagged FIGHT UNI. Someone else-or maybe the same sick member, ashamed-had crossed it out with white. The rain began, and started washing it away; white chalk, red chalk, smearing pinkly down the benchback.

Chip turned his face to the sky and held it steady under the rain, trying to feel as if he were so sad he was crying.

4.

EARLY IN HIS THIRD and final year at the Academy, Chip took part in a complicated exchange of dormitory cubicles worked out to put everyone involved closer to his or her girlfriend or boyfriend. In his new location he was two cubicles away from one Yin DW; and across the aisle from him was a shorter-than-normal member named Karl WL, who frequently carried a green-covered sketch pad and who, though he replied to comments readily enough, rarely started a conversation on his own.

This Karl WL had a look of unusual concentration in his eyes, as if he were close on the track of answers to difficult questions. Once Chip noticed him slip out of the lounge after the beginning of the first TV hour and not slip in again till before the end of the second; and one night in the dorm, after the lights had gone out, he saw a dim glow filtering through the blanket of Karl's bed.

One Sat.u.r.day night-early Sunday morning, really-as Chip was coming back quietly from Yin DW's cubicle to his own, he saw Karl sitting in his. He was on the side of the bed in pajamas, holding his pad tilted toward a flashlight on the corner of the desk and working at it with brisk chopping hand movements. The flashlight's lens was masked in some way so that only a small beam of light shone out.

Chip went closer and said, "No girl this week?"

Karl started, and closed the pad. A stick of charcoal was in his hand.

"I'm sorry I surprised you," Chip said.

"That's all right," Karl said, his face only faint glints at chin and cheekbones. "I finished early. Peace KG. Aren't you staying all night with Yin?"

"She's snoring," Chip said.

Karl made an amused sound. "I'm turning in now," he said.

"What are you doing?"

"Just some gene diagrams," Karl said. He turned back the cover of the pad and showed the top page. Chip went close and bent and looked-at cross sections of genes in the B3 locus, carefully drawn and shaded, done with a pen. "I was trying some with charcoal," Karl said, "but it's no good." He closed the pad and put the charcoal on the desk and switched off the flashlight. "Sleep well," he said.

"Thanks," Chip said. "You too."

He went into his own cubicle and groped his way into bed, wondering whether Karl had in fact been drawing gene diagrams, for which charcoal hardly even seemed worth a trial. Probably he should speak to his adviser, Li YB, about Karl's secretiveness and occasional unmemberlike behavior, but he decided to wait awhile, until he was sure that Karl needed help and that he wouldn't be wasting Li YB's time and Karl's and his own. There was no point in being an alarmist.

Wei's Birthday came a few weeks later, and after the parade Chip and a dozen or so other students railed out to the Amus.e.m.e.nt Gardens for the afternoon. They rowed boats for a while and then strolled through the zoo. While they were gathered at a water fountain, Chip saw Karl WL sitting on the railing in front of the horse compound, holding his pad on his knees and drawing. Chip excused himself from the group and went over.

Karl saw him coming and smiled at him, closing his pad. "Wasn't that a great parade?" he said.

"It was really top speed," Chip said. "Are you drawing the horses?"

"Trying to."

"May I see?"

Karl looked him in the eye for a moment and then said, "Sure, why not?" He riffled the bottom of the pad and, opening it partway through, turned back the upper section and let Chip look at a rearing stallion that crammed the page, charcoaled darkly and vigorously. Muscles bulked under its gleaming hide; its eye was wild and rolling; its forelegs quivered. The drawing surprised Chip with its vitality and power. He had never seen a picture of a horse that came anywhere near it. He sought words, and could only come up with, "This is- great, Karl! Top speed!"

"It's not accurate," Karl said.

"It is!"

"No it isn't," Karl said. "If it were accurate I'd be at the Academy of Art."

Chip looked at the real horses in the compound and at Karl's drawing again; at the horses again, and saw the greater thickness of their legs, the lesser width of their chests.

"You're right," he said, looking at the drawing again. "It's not accurate. But it's-it's somehow better than accurate."

"Thanks," Karl said. "That's what I'd like it to be. I'm not finished yet."

Looking at him, Chip said, "Have you done others?"

Karl turned down the preceding page and showed him a seated lion, proud and watchful. In the lower right-hand corner of the page there was an A with a circle around it. "Marvelous!" Chip said. Karl turned down other pages; there were two deer, a monkey, a soaring eagle, two dogs sniffing each other, a crouching leopard.

Chip laughed. "You've got the whole fighting zoo!" he said.

"No I haven't," Karl said.

All the drawings had the A with the circle around it in the comer. "What's that for?" Chip asked.

"Artists used to sign their pictures. To show whose work it was."

"I know," Chip said, "but why an A?"

"Oh," Karl said, and turned the pages back one by one. "It stands for Ashi," he said. "That's what my sister calls me." He came to the horse, added a line of charcoal to its stomach, and looked at the horses in the compound with his look of concentration, which now had an object and a reason.

"I have an extra name too," Chip said. "Chip. My grandfather gave it to me."

"Chip?"

"It means 'chip off the old block.' I'm supposed to be like my grandfather's grandfather." Chip watched Karl sharpen the lines of the horse's rear legs, and then moved from his side. "I'd better get back to the group I'm with," he said. "Those are top speed. It's a shame you weren't cla.s.sified an artist."

Karl looked at him. "I wasn't, though," he said, "so I only draw on Sundays and holidays and during the free hour. I never let it interfere with my work or whatever else I'm supposed to be doing."

"Right," Chip said. "See you at the dorm."

That evening, after TV, Chip came back to his cubicle and found on his desk the drawing of the horse. Karl, in his cubicle, said, "Do you want it?"

"Yes," Chip said. "Thanks. It's great!" The drawing had even more vitality and power than before. An A-in-a-circle was in a corner of it.

Chip tabbed the drawing to the bulletin board behind the desk, and as he finished, Yin DW came in, bringing back a copy of Universe she had borrowed. "Where'd you get that?" she asked.

"Karl WL did it," Chip said.

"That's very nice, Karl," Yin said. "You draw well."

Karl, getting into pajamas, said, "Thanks. I'm glad you like it."

To Chip, Yin whispered, "It's all out of proportion. Keep it there, though. It was kind of you to put it up."

Once in a while, during the free hour, Chip and Karl went to the Pre-U together. Karl made sketches of the mastodon and the bison, the cavemen in their animal hides, the soldiers and sailors in their countless different uniforms. Chip wandered among the early automobiles and dictypes, the safes and handcuffs and TV "sets." He studied the models and pictures of the old buildings: the spired and b.u.t.tressed churches, the turreted castles, the large and small houses with their windows and lock-fitted doors. Windows, he thought, must have had their good points. It would be pleasant, would make one feel bigger, to look out at the world from one's room or working place; and at night, from outside, a house with rows of lighted windows must have been attractive, even beautiful.

One afternoon Karl came into Chip's cubicle and stood beside the desk with his hands fisted at his sides. Chip, looking up at him, thought he had been stricken by a fever or worse; his face was flushed and his eyes were narrowed in a strange stare. But no, it was anger that held him, anger such as Chip had never seen before, anger so intense that, trying to speak, Karl seemed unable to work his lips.

Anxiously Chip said, "What is it?"

"Li," Karl said. "Listen. Will you do me a favor?"

"Sure! Of course!"

Karl leaned close to him and whispered, "Claim a pad for me, will you? I just claimed one and was denied. Five fighting hundred of them, a pile this high, and I had to turn it back in!"

Chip stared at him.

"Claim one, will you?" Karl said. "Anyone can try a little sketching in his spare time, right? Go on down, okay?"

Painfully Chip said, "Karl-"

Karl looked at him, his anger retreated, and he stood up straight. "No," he said. "No, I-I just lost my temper, that's all. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, brother. Forget it." He clapped Chip's shoulder. "I'm okay now," he said. "I'll claim again in a week or so. Been doing too much drawing anyway, I suppose. Uni knows best." He went off down the aisle toward the bathroom.

Chip turned back to the desk and leaned on his elbows and held his head, shaking.

That was Tuesday. Chip's weekly adviser meetings were on Woodsday mornings at 10:40, and this time he would tell Li YB about Karl's sickness. There was no longer any question of being an alarmist; there was faulted responsibility, in fact, in having waited as long as he had. He ought to have said something at the first clear sign, Karl's slipping out of TV (to draw, of course), or even when he had noticed the unusual look in Karl's eyes. Why in hate had he waited? He could hear Li YB gently reproaching him: "You haven't been a very good brother's keeper, Li."

Early on Woodsday morning, though, he decided to pick up some coveralls and the new Geneticist. He went down to the supply center and walked through the aisles. He took a Geneticist and a pack of coveralls and walked some more and came to the art-supplies section. He saw the pile of green-covered sketch pads; there weren't five hundred of them, but there were seventy or eighty and no one seemed in a rush to claim them.

He walked away, thinking that he must be going out of his mind. Yet if Karl were to promise not to draw when he wasn't supposed to . . .

He walked back again-"Anyone can try a little sketching in his spare time, right?"-and took a pad and a packet of charcoal. He went to the shortest check-out line, his heart pounding in his chest, his arms trembling. He drew a deep-as-possible breath; another, and another.

He put his bracelet to the scanner, and the stickers of the coveralls, the Geneticist, the pad, and the charcoal. Everything was yes. He gave way to the next member.

He went back up to the dorm. Karl's cubicle was empty, the bed unmade. He went into his own cubicle and put the coveralls on the shelf and the Geneticist on the desk. On the top page of the pad he wrote, his hand still trembling, Free time only. I want your promise. Then he put the pad and the charcoal on his bed and sat at the desk and looked at the Geneticist.

Karl came, and went into his cubicle and began making his bed. "Are those yours?" Chip asked.

Karl looked at the pad and charcoal on Chip's bed. Chip said, "They're not mine."

"Oh, yes. Thanks," Karl said, and came over and took them. "Thanks a lot," he said.

"You ought to put your nameber on the first page," Chip said, "if you're going to leave it all over like that."

Karl went into his cubicle, opened the pad, and looked at the first page. He looked at Chip, nodded, raised his right hand, and mouthed, "Love of Family."

They rode down to the cla.s.srooms together. "What did you have to waste a page for?" Karl said.

Chip smiled.

"I'm not joking," Karl said. "Didn't you ever hear of writing a note on a piece of sc.r.a.p paper?"

"Christ, Marx, Wood, and Wei," Chip said.

In December of that year, 152, came the appalling news of the Gray Death, sweeping through all the Mars colonies except one and completely wiping them out in nine short days. In the Academy of the Genetic Sciences, as in all the Family's establishments, there was helpless silence, then mourning, and then a ma.s.sive determination to help the Family overcome the staggering setback it had suffered. Everyone worked harder and longer. Free time was halved; there were cla.s.ses on Sundays and only a half-day Christmas holiday. Genetics alone could breed new strengths in the coming generations; everyone was in a hurry to finish his training and get on to his first real a.s.signment. On every wall were the white-on-black posters: MARS AGAIN!

The new spirit lasted several months. Not until Marxmas was there a full day's holiday, and then no one quite knew what to do with it. Chip and Karl and their girlfriends rowed out to one of the islands in the Amus.e.m.e.nt Gardens lake and sunbathed on a large flat rock. Karl drew his girlfriend's picture. It was the first time, as far as Chip knew, that he had drawn a living human being.

In June, Chip claimed another pad for Karl.

Their training ended, five weeks early, and they received their a.s.signments: Chip to a viral genetics research laboratory in USA90058; Karl to the Inst.i.tute of Enzymology in j.a.p50319.

On the evening before they were to leave the Academy they packed their take-along kits. Karl pulled green-covered pads from his desk drawers-a dozen from one drawer, half a dozen from another, more pads from other drawers; he threw them into a pile on his bed. "You're never going to get those all into your kit," Chip said.

"I'm not planning to," Karl said. "They're done; I don't need them." He sat on the bed and leafed through one of the pads, tore out one drawing and another.

"May I have some?" Chip asked.

"Sure," Karl said, and tossed a pad over to him.

It was mostly Pre-U Museum sketches. Chip took out one of a man in chain mail holding a crossbow to his shoulder, and another of an ape scratching himself.