"Look," I said when she came. "That damned pet has followed the program
back to the cameras from your apartment, and there he is lousing up the
Convention."
"I vote Earth," she told me indifferently.
"That isn't the point, honey. I'll have to bring the diver here, and
quickly."
"You do that, Sol. I'll be at home when you get rid of it."
By the time the diver picked up my thoughts and came flickering into
the room through the walls, Florence had left.
I felt the diver off the back of my head, made my thoughts as kindly as
possible, and went downstairs to the largest, longest bar.
* * * * *
The evening passed profitably because I was invited to join a threesome
of crooks at cards. With the aid of the little diver, I was able to
shorten the odds to a pleasant margin in my favor. But this was doing
nothing about Florence. A not altogether funny remark about teleporting
the cards did, however, suggest the answer.
After the transaction was over, I sent the diver off to a friend on
the faculty of Luke University, where they had a long history of psi
investigation and where the diver could be guaranteed to be kept busy
rolling dice and such. This was easy to fix by a video call. There had
been times in the past when certain services to the Extra-terrestrial
Zoology and Botanical Tanks had made me discreetly popular with the
faculty, and anyway they thought I was doing them a favor. They
promised to keep the little diver busy for an indefinite period.
I reported to Florence, and after a certain amount of feminine
shall-I-shan't-I, she came back to the Asteroid-Central.
This time I did not turn on the television-wall. I lay still. I said
nothing. I hardly thought at all. And after several years compressed
themselves into every minute, my own true honey, Florence, slid open
the communicating door and came into the room.
She walked shyly toward me, hiding modestly within a floating nightgown
as opaque as a very clear soap bubble.
I stood up, held out my arms and she came toward me, smiling--and
stopped to pick up something on the carpet.
"Ooo, Sol! Look! A Jupiter diamond!"
She held up the largest and most expensive diamond I have ever seen.
I was just going to claim credit for this little gift when another
appeared, and another, and a long line marching over the carpet like an
ant trail. They came floating in under the door.
Now love is for vacations, and between my own sweet Florence and a
diamond mine there is no comparison. I put on my dicyanin glasses and
saw the baby diver was back and at work teleporting. I said so, but
this time there were no hysterics from Florence.
"I was just thinking of him," she said, "and wishing you had brought me
a Jupiter diamond instead."
"Well, honey, it looks as if you've got both."
I watched her scrambling on the carpet, gathering handfuls of diamonds
and not in the least interested in me.
On Antimony IX, the little divers switched from one space-time point
to another simultaneously, and the baby diver had come back from the
Solar Party Convention the same way. I thought of it and it came;
Florence had just thought of it and here it was. But now it seemed to
be flitting lightly from Earth to Jupiter and back with diamonds, so
perhaps there was no interplanetary distance to a mind.
This had a future. I could see myself with a winter and a summer planet
of my own, even happily paying Earth, Solar and Galactic taxes.
"Well, honey, don't you worry," I said. "You don't like divers, so I'll
take it back and give you something else. Just leave it to Sol."
"Take your foot off that diamond, Sol Jones! You gave me this dear
little diver and he's mine!"
* * * * *
She sat back on her heels and thought. The evidence of her thinking
immediately came trickling through the door--Venusian opals set in
a gold bracelet half a pound heavy, Martian sleeze furs, spider-web
stockings, platinum belts. The room was beginning to look like a video
fashion center, a Galactic merchandise mart. And after Florence put on
a coat and opened the door, her ideas began to get bigger.
"This is fun!" she cried, teleporting like mad. "Why, I can have
anything in the Galaxy just by thinking about it!"
"Now, honey, think of the benefits to humanity! This is too big to be
used for personal gain. This should be dedicated--"
"This is dedicated to me, Sol Jones, so just you keep your fingers off
it. Why, the cute little thing--look, he's been out to Saturn for me!"
I made a decision. Think wide and grand, Sol Jones, I said. Sacrifice
yourself for the greater good.
"Florence, honey, you know I love you. Will you marry me?"