* * * * *
"There's one human agony worse than all," said Radwick. We were in the
Thousand Lights dining-bar back in New York. "It is to conceive an
ideal and then continually fall short of it. That's why the company
loses men out in space. On Scolaris a human can be his ideal. It ruins
him for earth. His body may be in New York, but his being is out on
the Stardust Overdrive, fighting the good fight, living for ideals,
experiencing total commitment."
I didn't pay much attention. I already knew what he meant. All of my
life I had yearned for things greater than life. An ideal job, an ideal
wife, an ideal struggle to fight and win. It wasn't on earth. It was
out on the Drive. Kelly, Radwick and I were fools on earth, cut off
from the sensible ones, hating the imperfections. The people for their
part rightly hated those ideal men and women of Scolaris.
I watched Sandy coming across the room. The earth people drew back in
hate. On earth I felt some of that hate, but I couldn't escape her. She
had a body that was delectable--because I had created the thought of
it for her to wear. Her face was the face of my dreams because I had
dreamed it so. She looked a little like me as an ideal always must.
But the red lips, the cream skin, the silken hips and trim ankles,
the glorious spun gloss of her dark hair and penetrating beauty of
gray-green eyes--these were less than the total appeal.
She wanted me no matter whether or not I wanted her. The ideal
love--realizing that she couldn't possibly escape me, no matter how
harshly I mistreated her. No matter what I did, she only smiled and
came back for more. She followed me like a dog, worried about me, crept
into my bed at night to warm my body, left me alone when I wanted to
be alone.
She stood at the table. She was my ideal. But you have to test and
retest an ideal. That's why, half in anger half in fear, I stood up and
struck her across the face, watching the imprint of my hand in red on
the smooth, young cheek. She had the look they all have of patience, of
humor, of some exasperation.
"Temper, temper," she said, sitting down with a grin. A near-spaceman
at the bar gave her the ogle and the wink and she frosted him with a
look. No need to worry about losing her.
But Radwick was smiling a curious smile. He was piling up tiny white
sugar cubes on the table. "Ah," he said, "Nothing is greater." Then he
leaned over to me and said, "Observe the girl with her back to us over
there. The Ideal. The one with the brown hair."
Sandy frowned. "Why would he be interested in another Ideal? Naturally
they all come here, as it is one of the few places they are made
welcome in your cold, non-idealistic city."
I looked at the Ideal. There was some hint of familiarity in the lines
of her profile and the way she smiled at the far-spaceman who was with
her.
"She could be Valda," I said. "But they all look much alike."
"She is Valda," said Radwick.
"No," said Sandy, flushing.
"You ask Sandy, Al. She's your ideal and cannot lie to you."
"What about it, Sandy?"
Sandy dropped her wonderful eyes. "Yes," she said. "Valda is somebody
else's ideal now, looking a little different."
"But what about Kelly?" I cried. "I thought an Ideal never changed--"
"Kelly was fighting a war out on Scolaris," said Radwick.
"Kelly--dead?"
"You forgot the war," said Radwick. "The fight against the
Philosterians that Kelly pledged himself to. Apparently he fought and
died for the eternal good."
"But why should she live and go on?" I said in shock. I gripped Sandy's
arm until she winced.
"An ideal can't die," said Sandy. "When we are killed it is only the
person who worshipped us."
Kelly--dead out on the Stardust Overdrive--among the red and blue times
and the ringing ideal bells! It was a little too far off and rich, even
for me.
"I was thinking of going back to Scolaris myself," I said bitterly.
"And maybe fighting."
"You would fight," said Radwick. "You would die. An ideal must always
kill an imperfect man who cannot reach it. Sometimes it is Kelly or the
millions of Kellys physically dead in war. Sometimes it is only a part
of a man that an ideal kills."
Sandy jumped up so fast that she knocked over a water glass.
"Please, Al, please--"
But it was too late. I saw her glorious hair fade into a dull, ordinary
mass. Her arms thickened, her breasts got smaller. Her body shifted
under the dress with realistic imperfections. Her skin coarsened. She
was still attractive now, but no more so than a thousand other women in
New York.
* * * * *
I stood up but she had already made the motion to withdraw. "I will
manage," she said. "We will say goodbye now. Your perspective has
changed and I can no longer stand you."
I said nothing, being too full of new thoughts and feelings. She walked
away towards the bar. As she approached she caught the attention of a
near spaceman and seemed to improve at once. Seemed to regain some of
her lost beauty.
"You see how unsatisfactory the Ideals are," said Radwick.
"And yours--"
Radwick gestured at the sugar cubes that were damp now with the water
Sandy had spilled.
"A far-spaceman did the same for me, Al," he said. On the table was a
circle of sugar cubes which symbolized the ideal, like an "o". Radwick
put his hand in the middle of it and turned his hand, pushing the cubes
in distortion so they became a zero, or "0". He grinned up at me.
"Nothing is greater," he said, "and we must check in tomorrow for the
Overdrive. It's time to go out again."
"I won't be going," I said. "I don't want any more of the Stardust
Overdrive."
"Too bad. There is much to learn out there."
I laughed at him playing with his cubes. "Yeah, there's a lot to
learn--but we've got it right here too, and a better word for it.
Dreams."