* * * * *
I turned on the television-wall in the apartment before we left and
instructed the diver to stay around and watch it. They are very curious
creatures, inquisitive, always chasing new ideas, and I thought that
should hold the diver happily for several days. Meanwhile, I had booked
adjoining rooms at the Asteroid-Central.
The Asteroid-Central advertised in the video yellow pages that it
practiced the Most Rigid Discrimination--meaning no telepaths,
clairvoyants, clairaudients or psychometrists. Life was hard on a psi
outside Government circles. But life was much harder on the rest of the
world seeking secluded privacy and discretion. The Asteroid-Central was
so discreet, you could hardly see where you were going. Dim lights,
elegant figures passing in the gloom, singing perfumes of the gentlest
kind, and "Guaranteed Psi-Free" on every bedroom door.
I was humming idly in my room, with one eye on the communicating door
through which, were she but true to her own mind, Florence would
shortly come, and I turned on the television-wall only to see how
less fortunate people were spending their leisure. An idle and most
regrettable gesture.
There was a quiz-game on International Channel 462, dull and just
finishing. All the contestants seemed to know all the answers. In
fact, the man who won the trip around the Rings of Saturn, did so
by answering the question before the Martian quiz-master had really
finished reading it out. When the winner turned sharply on the other
contestants and knocked them down, yelling, "So that's what you think
of my mother, is it?" the wall was blacked out and we were taken
straight to the Solar Party Convention.
The nominee this decade was human. He seemed to be speaking on his
aims, his pure record and altruistic intentions. The stereo cameras
looked over the heads of the delegates. Starting in the row by the main
aisle, each delegate shot to his feet and started booing and jeering.
It rippled down the rows like a falling pack of cards, each delegate in
turn after the man in front of him, and each row picking up where the
back of the previous row left off. It was as if someone were passing a
galvanizing brush along the heads of the delegates, row by row.
Or as if a diver were refreshing the delegates with a clear picture of
their nominee's mind.