Frederik Pohl - The Coming of the Quantum Cats

So we walked, and I showed her how they were loading tractor parts and case after case of data cards for our memory stores in exchange for the produce we sold. And she told me about her work at the museum. It wasn't skilled work, she said at once, a little belligerently, but it was good work. "Fortunately," she said, "they were building a new wing when the war wiped them out, so a lot of the best stuff was stored carefully and it's in pretty good shape. But the stuff that was on public view! Especially the paintings! I can't restore them, none of us really can very well, but we're spraying them to kill the mold, and drying them, and trying to save all the little flakes of paint that fell off onto the floor. I think someday somebody will be able to put a lot of them together."

"I didn't know you were interested in art," I said, steering her into the restaurant. The smells were marvelous; of course, the restaurant was right there at the market, so they got their pick of the first and freshest stuff that came in.

"I guess," she said objectively, not meanly, "you didn't know much about me at all, did you? And maybe I wanted it that way. So you'd be more scared of me."

I let that pass. We got a table and ordered. We started with avocados stuffed with crabmeat; the crab came right out of the Hudson River, but the avocados were our own, no more than five hours in the city, and absolutely perfect.

"That is a good job," I said, "although I guess there isn't much of a need to get it all done right now, is there? I mean, the paintings, sure. But the other stuff—I saw that Cleopatra's needle thing as we came by. Nothing much is going to happen to it that hasn't happened already." The obelisk had been flat on the ground, and in several pieces, broken as it fell. It had lasted for thousands of years in Egypt, but a few decades of New York City's freeze-and-thaw had knocked it over.

She looked up from scraping the last of the meat out of the avocado shell. "So?" she asked.

"So I wondered if you might be interested in another job. Not in your specialty, of course—there's not much in the secret-police line around here. How would you like to conduct an orchestra?"

She put down her fork. "To con— An orch— Shit, Nicky, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Call me Dominic, all right?" I had forgotten she was such a potty-mouth. Probably she'd get over it, though; most of the people seemed to.

"Dominic, then. What do you mean? I've never conducted an orchestra!"

"Didn't you tell me you once wanted to play the violin?"

"I did play the violin!" But she put her hands on her lap instinctively.

"You can't now, right," I nodded. "I understand that. That wouldn't stop you from leading other musicians, would it?"

"What other musicians?"

I grinned. "They call themselves the Palm Springs Philharmonic. Actually, they're amateurs. Not bad, though. It's part-time stuff for them; they all work on the collective."

"What collective?"

"I'm head financial officer for the Desert Agricultural Consort," I told her. "It's like a kibbutz, only we don't call it that because most of us aren't Jewish. We're going to have a good orchestra someday. Right now— Well, you'd have time for a couple of other jobs, at first."

"What couple of other jobs?"

"Well, one, teaching music to the kids. And any grown-ups who wanted to learn. We don't have a music teacher."

She pursed her lips. The rabbit stew had arrived and she sniffed it approvingly. "And?" she asked, dipping a spoon to taste.

"Well, the other thing isn't a job exactly. I mean, I thought you might like to marry me."

I don't think I had ever surprised her before. I'm not really sure I'd surprised very much of anybody very often before. Not even myself. She stared at me, while the rabbit stew got cold—hers did. Mine I dipped into. I was starving, and besides it was delicious.

"What about Greta What's-her-name? The stewardess?"

I shrugged. "I asked her, you know? Made my one-minute commercial? She said no." I began to grin, because it was kind of funny, when I thought about it in retrospect. "I got this Dear John holocard, you know?" And I'd taken it back to my room when the senator was out and played it, and there she was, pretty as ever. I didn't quite cry. But nearly. "She said, 'You're a sweet man, Nicky, but you're nothing but trouble. I don't need trouble. I just want to get on with my life.'"

Nyla laughed too. For the same reason. At the notion of me being too excitingly troublesome for anyone. "Well, you are a sweet man, Nicky," she acknowledged.

"Dominic."

"Dominic, then."

"So that's what about Greta. What about Moe?"

She gave me a startled, almost angry look. "That ape? What the fuck do you think I am, Ni—Dominic?" Then she tasted her stew and mellowed. "Anyway," she said, "he's gone gay. He and the other two Moes—they found each other, all three of them, and they'd never been gay before, but— I guess they couldn't resist having lovers who knew all about them. I mean, you know, knew exactly what everything would feel like." She hesitated, looking at me. "Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, knowing exactly how to do, well, everything, so that—"

"I know what you mean," I said firmly. "What about it?"

"You mean, what about getting married?" She ate industriously for a moment, frowning. She was frowning over the idea, not the stew, which was perfect—I thought I'd try to get the recipe to take back to our own cooks. She finished the last spoonful and looked around for coffee. I waved to the waiter to make it come.

"Well," she said doubtfully, "it's always nice to be asked."

"I did ask. Now what happens is, you answer."

"I know that, Dom," she said. "I'm trying. Only I'm not sure about— Well, what about me? I'm not exactly what you could call a virgin bride, you know, and no offense, uh, Dominic, but you always struck me as a pretty tight-ass type about that kind of thing."

I said, "Nyla, we've both got some kind of a past that doesn't do us a lot of credit. As you say, no offense. You were as mean as a snake. I was a wimp. Past tense, Nyla. We didn't have to be that way— no, wait a minute," I said, as the waiter brought the coffee and the check, "I want to say this just right. Let me start over. In a way, we did have to be what we were, because of the world we lived in. 'Have to' might be too strong, because some of it was our fault—we took easy ways. There were better ways, even in our own time. But it wasn't all our fault, and we could have been a lot better. Look at our duplicates! The senator, and the scientist, and Nyla Bowquist. We could have been like them! And we still can be, honey."

I hadn't planned to use that word. I'd thought it, but it just slipped out without my intending it. She heard it. I could see her examining the taste of it in her mouth, a new flavor. It didn't seem to repel her. I hurried on: "The senator's running the administration of the whole west side of this city now. Nyla's pregnant. They had to change their lives. We can change ours."

She sipped the coffee, studying me over the rim of the cup. "That's what you're talking about, isn't it, Dom? Not just marriage but kids? A little house in the country, with roses growing over the veranda and hot coffee among the flowers every morning?"

I grinned. "I can't promise the coffee, because the consort isn't that rich yet. But the rest of it—yes. Even the roses, if you like roses."

She weakened. I could see her weakening. "Shit," she said, "I love roses."

"Does that mean yes or no?" I pressed.

"Well, there's no law says we can't try it," she said. She put down her cup and looked at me. "So, yes. Do you want to kiss your fiancee?"