Part 3

Yet, in spite of his eagerness to get better acquainted with Maria, Walther was reluctant to leave. There was so much more he wanted to ask, to learn. And deep beneath the surface of his thoughts a bold idea was beginning to form.

As if reading his mind, Willy said:

"We have no performance tomorrow afternoon. Come and see me at our hotel--we'll talk further! Meanwhile--" Willy's blue eyes sparkled again, "Meanwhile, for the young, the evening is still young. It should be an interesting challenge!"

* * * * *

Maria said nothing until they had left the apartment building and started across the street to the monorail station. Then she stopped, drew a long breath of the wintry air, and shook her head.

"Whtrblvng!" she exclaimed.

She smiled at his puzzled expression and tucked her arm through his. When they were inside the station, he handed her his Manual. She flipped through the pages, but could not find the exact translation of her remark. Finally, she picked out parts of three phrases. Put together, they read:

"What a terrible evening!"

After the first shock of her words, Walther realized he could expect her to feel no differently. She was a product of her culture, and evidently this had been her first visit to Willy's Bohemia.

It was past midnight when they boarded the monorail, and they were alone in the car. Fumbling in her purse for a coin, Maria pointed to the small screen on the back of the seat in front of them. Walther offered a handful of coins. She put one into the slot beside the screen. A comedy sequence appeared, lasting for approximately thirty seconds. Much of it was lost to Walther, because he couldn't understand the dialogue. But Maria laughed gaily. The tension lines, the outward evidences of inner emotional control, began to smooth away. Her cheeks flushed; her dark eyes began to sparkle. This was the Maria Walther felt he could learn to know.

When the television screen went dark, Maria promptly put another coin into a slot beside a small grid. A full-scale orchestra sounded what might have been the first chord of a symphony, but the piece was over before Walther could identify it. A third coin, dropped into the arm of the seat, produced a small two-page magazine, which seemed to consist chiefly of pictures. One of the pictures showed Maria herself, in operatic costume. She studied it critically, then tossed the magazine into a handy receptacle under the seat. A fourth coin brought out a game from the side of the monorail car. It vaguely resembled a checker-board, except that there were only six squares and two magnetized checkers. Maria guided his hand while he made two moves. As she completed her last move, the board automatically folded back into the side of the car. A fifth coin summoned a miniature keyboard from just beneath the television screen. Maria touched the keys, producing tinkling noises that sounded like a tiny celeste. Then the keyboard zipped back into its enclosure.

Maria reached for a sixth coin. Walther closed his hand over hers, and made a motion to indicate that his head was already in a whirl. She laughed, but didn't try to remove her hand. A moment later the monorail stopped in front of their hotel.

As they crossed the lobby, Walther pointed inquiringly toward the cocktail lounge. Maria smiled and nodded gaily.

A servo-robot waiter seated them at a small chrome table beside a tiny dance floor. Maria ordered their drinks, and the waiter was back with them in a matter of seconds. The glasses seemed extremely small to Walther, compared to the huge mugs and steins he was accustomed to on Neustadt. The liquor tasted rather bland, more like a sweet wine than a whiskey.

The servo-robot presented a bill with the drinks. Money had never meant anything to Walther, but he could scarcely repress a start when he deciphered the amount of the bill. By any standard of wealth or exchange, the drinks were fantastically expensive.

A scattering of applause announced the return of the orchestra. Maria held out her hand in an invitation to Walther. With some misgivings, he led her out on the dance floor. She turned and came into his arms so naturally and suddenly that she almost took his breath away. She danced very close to him. Her cheek was warm, and the faint perfume from the tip of her ear was something he would have liked to explore more thoroughly. But the moment was over before it began. The music stopped, the orchestra leader bowed and led his men from the stage.

Back at the table, Walther lifted his glass to suggest another drink. She shook her head, explaining,

"Olndrptd."

Spelled out with his Manual, her explanation was:

"Only one drink is permitted."

And, after Willy's brief orientation, this was understandable: Nothing could disrupt the perpetual entertainment cycles more easily than excessive drinking. A tipsy person was not a good customer for other leisure-time activities. Therefore, permit only one drink to a person, and charge enough for it so that the liquor monopoly would get its fair share of the entertainment expenditure. As Willy would say, it was just good business.

Maria touched his hand to signify it was time to leave. Walther took her up to her room on the 32nd floor, and they watched two musical comedies en route on the elevator pay-as-you-see television screen.

In front of her door, Maria lightly touched the back of his hand with her fingertips. She said,

"Thyfrwrdrftm."

Walther knew she was thanking him, but from force of newly-acquired habit he reached for his Manual.

She laughed, shook her head and translated her own words by raising up on tiptoe and brushing his lips with her own.

Their lips were together so briefly that Walther wasn't sure whether he had really kissed her. He reached out to take her in his arms and make sure of it.

Deftly, she turned away and closed her door behind her.

* * * * *

Many thoughts interfered with Walther's second night of sleep on Earth, and they weren't only of Maria. In fact, as his idea took form, even the scent of her perfume and the moth-like touch of her lips were forced temporarily into the background of his consciousness.

The next morning he waited impatiently for an hour after breakfast, then went up to Willy's room. Willy came to the door in his dressing robe, holding his glasses in one hand and a sheet of music in the other. He waved aside Walther's apology for not waiting until afternoon.

"Nein ... nein!" he said. "I ordered an extra pot of coffee--because I didn't think you could wait!"

Willy led Walther into his sitting room and poured him some coffee.

"Maria was already here," he chuckled. "She came to ... ah ... pick up music ... and to ask what I know about you. I told her nothing good, and nothing bad!"

He settled himself in his easy chair with a luxurious sigh. His bristling white hair and cherubic cheeks gave him the appearance of a benign old innkeeper, brought to life from a canvas by Holbein.

"All right, tell me what you've been thinking about all night!"

Walther shifted tensely to the edge of his chair. He spilled a little coffee in setting his cup down.

"I would like to buy copies," he said, "of everything your Digester friends have ever smuggled out of the vaults!"

"That's a large order, my young friend."

"I'll pay ... whatever it costs!"

"So would I--if I could afford it! But I fear it's not that simple. Take, for example, the chapter of Don Quixote you heard last evening. The World Government representative from England sent the Digester's notes to an aunt in Liverpool. She'll read them to her Bohemian friends tonight, and tomorrow they may be in Buenos Aires or Istanbul--who knows?"

"But what happens to them eventually? Aren't they kept in some central place?"

Willy spread his short, pudgy fingers in a gesture of hopelessness.

"That would mean organization--and we're not organized. We wouldn't dare to be! I've never stopped to think what finally happens to these things. Perhaps they end up among the papers of some old dreamer like myself. It's enough that they have brought their mellow moments of happiness!"

"It's not enough!" Walther protested fiercely. "It's a great waste! How will you ever improve things that way?"

"Who's trying to improve anything? The people of Earth are content--and those of us who are not entirely so--well, we have our little underworlds of pleasure."

"Is that all you want?"

"Is there more?"

Walther jumped up angrily.

"I believe there is--and I think you do, too!" he said harshly. "If you don't, why did you take me to that meeting last night and invite me here today? Why did you send me off alone with Maria?"

Willy only smiled, but under his silk robe his round belly shook with silent laughter.

"You are a foolish young man ... and sometimes not so foolish! Sit down. Sit down...."

He leaned forward in his easy chair, and his manner became grave.

"Perhaps it's difficult for an old man to come near the end of life fearing that the beauty he loves will never escape from its tomb. Perhaps it's also difficult for an old maestro who cherishes the talent and loveliness of a young woman to know that she may never understand what her gift really means. Perhaps an old man can still dream some dreams that a young man could not comprehend...."

The tight knot in Walther's stomach slowly unwound itself.

"Then you will help me," he said quietly.

"Yes, I will help you ... if I can ... and you will help me!"

At Willy's suggestion, they decided to talk first to the Digester who had smuggled out the Don Quixote chapter.

"He's been most successful of all of our friends," said Willy. "He might be willing to organize a group of Digesters who could bring out things to be duplicated, and return them, I question, though, that you could duplicate many things here on Earth."

"Then we'll ship them away from Earth! The outermost world of this galaxy--at least to my knowledge--is Alden IV; it's technically well-developed and is a contact with our own galaxy."

Willy called the bald little Digester, and he came over right after lunch. But his reaction to Walther's proposal was not what they had expected.

"This ... this is a terrible mistake!" he stammered. "It's ... it's too big--much too big! Now--by being cautious--we can enjoy our little evenings together. But if we anger the Happy Time, Ltd. people we'll lose everything!"

Willy snapped his fingers impatiently.

"What have we to lose? A chance to be tea-cup rebels! This young man is giving us an opportunity to do something about what we profess to believe!"

The Digester looked pained.

"We are already doing something," he protested. "Did I not bring Chapter IX of Don Quixote...."

"You did, and we enjoyed it! But what if we could inspire a rebirth of art as big as a whole galaxy instead of entertaining each other with our little flings at Bohemia?"

The little Digester struggled with the thought for a moment, then dismissed it with a shudder.

"It's too big," he repeated miserably. "Please forget about it, Willy--our own way is best." He glared at Walther, and his distress turned to rage: "I warn you, young man ... don't start trouble for us! If you can't accept the ways of Earth, go back where you belong!"

He held out a trembling hand to Willy.

"Goodby, Willy ... I go now." He hesitated, then added with the wistful air of a small boy waiting to be praised: "In two weeks I will bring another whole chapter to read!"

When Willy only shrugged, the little Digester turned away and sadly left the room.

During the next two days, Willy contacted several other Digester friends. In varying degrees, he met with refusals from each. By the end of the week, only two of the younger Digesters in the Bohemian set had agreed to cooperate and even they were careful not to promise too much.

"At this rate," Walther pointed out glumly, "it will take years to collect any real quantity of material--and I have only six months! Is there no other source?"

Willy shook his head.

"None that I know of."

"There must be!" Walther insisted. "Do you mean to tell me that in all the homes of Earth there are no treasured heirlooms of the past? No books? No paintings? No recordings?"

"Oh, I'm sure they are," Willy agreed. "But how to reach them? We can hardly advertise."

He paused, hesitated, then snapped his fingers.

"Wait--there may be a way--even more illegal than your first suggestion, but still a way...."

"What is it?"

"I used the word 'underworld' in speaking of our Bohemian group last night, but actually there is an underworld, of a sort ... trafficking mostly in liquor. The cartel's one-drink restriction has never been too enforceable." Willy lifted the seat of his piano bench and took out a bottle. "If you can afford it, you can always buy a bootleg supply."

"What's liquor got to do with art?"

"For a price--the underworld may be willing to traffic in art, literature and music ... in addition to alcohol!"

Willy sent out word through a bootlegger who supplied some of the opera singers with their favorite beverages. The next night, after final curtain, a greying, bespectacled and very distinguished looking gentleman in formal dress met Willy and Walther in a vacant dressing room backstage. He spoke tersely, and Willy translated:

"He says he has friends who could be interested in your proposition, if there's money enough in it."

"Tell him there's money enough," Walther replied grimly.

Willy digested this, and their visitor smiled his scepticism.

Not accustomed to having his financial standing questioned, Walther faced the man himself and demanded:

"How much money do you want?"

The man understood Walther's tone, if not his words. After a brief calculation, he named a price that shocked Willy, who turned to Walther with dismay:

"Ten thousand credits for every usable piece of art that can be bought outright. An additional deposit of ten thousand if it has to be sent away from Earth to be duplicated. You are to pay all shipping costs, as well as legal expenses if any of their men are arrested."

Walther accepted the terms with a nod.

Their underworld contact stared respectfully at Walther, took off his suede gloves and proceeded to get down to business. It was soon arranged for Walther to set up letters of credit in banks of all major cities. Shipments of "tools and machinery" would be billed against these credits, after bills of lading had been inspected by Walther or a designated representative. From the level of the discussion, they might have been transacting legal business on a corporation scale.

Their visitor shook hands with each of them, doffed his top hat and left with a courteous bow.

Willy wiped shining beads of sweat from his forehead.

"High finance," he gasped, "is not a part of my daily routine!"

He dug into a wardrobe trunk, brought out a bottle and poured two drinks. Raising his glass high in the air, he toasted:

"To art ... and crime! I hope we don't have to pay too much for either!"

* * * * *

"How are you getting along with Maria?" Willy asked a few days later.

"Just what do you expect to accomplish by throwing the two of us together so much," Walther asked bluntly. "Oh, I enjoy it, mind you--but, really, we're worlds apart. When I go back...."

"With the young everything is possible--even the impossible," Willy answered evasively.

"Well, tell me something more about her. Where does she come from? Has she ever been engaged? Married?"

Willy filtered a cloud of smoke through his nostrils.

"Maria's the only talented offspring ever produced by a rather poor family in Naples. She still supports them--or rather, makes it possible for them to be good Happy Time consumers. As for her talent ... well, it was discovered by her first school teacher--and from then on her education was taken over by the opera monopoly! Engaged? Nothing serious that I know of. Married?" Willy frowned. "I shudder to think of her marriage to one of our mechanical young rabbits!"

Walther blinked.

"Do you mind explaining that one?"

Willy grimaced.

"I might as well. You see, sex per se is encouraged, with or without the formality of marriage. Large numbers of offspring are good for society! We have the technology to provide for them, and the more there are, the more potential Happy Time consumers! But the arts of sex ... the refinements of love.... Can't you imagine by this time what takes place in the boudoirs of Earth? Sex is something to be accommodated between pay-as-you see television programs! Besides, you've encountered a couple of our young men, do you consider them physically capable of prolonged amour?"

Walther was finding it heavy going to picture some of the things Willy was describing for him. But the mention of the two young men he had met outside the opera that first night brought up a question he'd been waiting to ask:

"What was wrong with them? I barely touched them!"

"Participation sports--physical activity of any kind is discouraged as interfering with the mass entertainment media. The few gifted boys are trained to be professionals. The others scarcely develop enough muscle to walk against a strong wind. In fact, they don't walk any more than is necessary!"

Willy paced agitatedly around his room, and stopped in front of Walther's chair. He held out his hands pleadingly:

"Be patient with Maria," he begged. "You promised to help me, too ... and this is all I ask of you!"

Walther didn't find it unpleasant to comply with Willy's request. He had nothing to do while waiting for the first shipment to be assembled, and so was able to attend rehearsals as well as the performances of the operas.

At rehearsals, he saw a serious Maria, a perfectionist devoted to her art, a superb technician. After rehearsals and the opera itself, he saw a Maria who was a product of the alien leisure-time culture he had found on Earth--a Maria who flitted with tireless zest from one activity to another, who naturally and enthusiastically accepted the innumerable forms of entertainment offered by the Happy Time cartel.

With growing despair, Walther tried to find some activity they could share. He had always enjoyed sports, so he took her to all the attractions at the Uniport arenas. Each was a new disappointment. What was billed as a fight for the world's heavyweight title ended with a one-round decision. A basketball game was exciting--for three furiously-contested minutes. The professional tennis match consisted of each player serving four balls, which the other attempted to return.

While traveling to and from the various attractions, there were always the diversions offered on the monorail and stratoway cars. Private transportation, Walther learned after hopefully exploring this possibility, had been eliminated for the obvious reason that it was restricted in the number of recreational opportunities it permitted, and might lead to over-indulgence in sex--from the point of view of the time involved, rather than promiscuity. And while walking was not strictly illegal, those who tended to over-indulge were advised to curtail their eccentricity.

After much thought, Walther did hit upon a possibility: It was prompted by his recollection that the natural beauty of such places as the Vienna woods had not been obscured. Since Maria was not required to be at rehearsals until two in the afternoon, they could spend the morning visiting some distant beauty spots he had read or heard about back on Neustadt. Perhaps in some of these places the pace of leisure would be slowed.

Maria happily accepted his initial invitation to spend a morning in the South Sea Islands. They boarded a stratoway car immediately after breakfasting together at the hotel, and soon had exchanged chilly Uniport for languorous Tahiti.

The island village, the natives and their costumes, the wet fragrance of the jungle and the soft rippling of the surf were all as Walther had pictured them since his first reading of Stevenson's voyages to the South Seas.

However, suspecting that the Happy Time cartel had probably made its presence felt in the village itself, Walther steered Maria around it, toward a path that wound invitingly between the tall palms and growths of bread fruit trees.

Maria's hand fell easily, naturally into his own, and she pressed a little closer to him, as if awed by the unaccustomed stillness.

She smiled up at him, started to say something, but Walther put his finger over her lips and shook his head. Maria looked puzzled, then took out of her handbag a miniaturized, self-powered television set, with its own tiny coin meter. She popped in a coin, flicked the dial, and the image of an actor appeared on the screen. Walther covered it with his hand. He took the set away from her, and dropped it into the pocket of his coat. Then he pointed to her, to the shadowed trees around them--and spread his hands as if to ask what more anyone could possibly want.

He wasn't sure she understood, but he put his arm around her waist and she rested her head against his shoulder. They continued a dozen steps down the path, until it ended at a silvery lagoon. Here, she touched the radio button of her wristwatch--rented on a weekly basis--and the rhythm of a jazz band filled the tropical air.

Walther took her wrist, shut off the radio. He turned her toward him and held her face tightly between the palms of his hands.

"No television," he said firmly, "No radio--no nothing--except this...."

She yielded with a faint smile. Her eyes closed, but their lips had scarcely touched when she tried to draw back.

"Not that way," Walther told her. "This way...."

He held her face firmly teaching her the kind of kisses that were used in a frontier world where people had time to make love. She struggled away from the unnaturalness of his kissing, then slowly she ceased to struggle.

Suddenly, the lagoon was lighted by a brilliant spotlight, and a servo-robot stepped out of the shadows. It said pleasantly:

"Since only tourists come to this spot, it is presumed that you come from some distant planet. Therefore, let me point out that all couples are limited to two minutes by the lagoon. If you hurry, you can catch a native dance number before the next stratoway leaves."

In the same pleasant tone, the servo-robot began to repeat these words in the other ancient languages of Earth.

Maria's breath came in short, trembling gasps. Her lips were still apart, and she touched them with the tip of her tongue.

"_Weil nur Touristen nach diesem Fleckchen Erde kommen_ ..." the servo-robot droned along in its pleasing voice.

"Oh, shut up!" Walther growled.

He took Maria by the arm and led her back up the path.

"Somehow," he promised her fervently, "Somewhere--we're going to finish that."

"Dthgn," she whispered in breathless wonder.

* * * * *

The first shipment of "tools and machinery" had been assembled at the Uniport landing. Walther received a formal notice to this effect from the local Exchange Bank. The same evening, in a backstage dressing room, he and Willy Fritsh received a rather more informative report from the gentleman who was their contact with the bootleg underworld. Every item in the shipment was listed and described with meticulous care. By reference to a leather-bound pocket notebook, the contact managed to furnish additional details.