"Yes?" Almost no one read any more, and the library was heavy with the
smell of dust. Reading represented initiative on the part of Crifer; it
meant that, in the two unoccupied hours before sleep, he went to the
library and listened to the reading machine. Everyone else simply sat
about and talked. That was the custom. Everyone did it.
But if he wasn't reading himself, Rikud usually went to sleep. All the
people ever talked about was what they had done during the day, and it
was always the same.
"Yes," said Crifer. "I found a book about the stars. They're also
called astronomy, I think."
This was a new thought to Rikud, and he propped his head up on one
elbow. "What did you find out?"
"That's about all. They're just called astronomy, I think."
"Well, where's the book?" Rikud would read it tomorrow.
"I left it in the library. You can find several of them under
'astronomy,' with a cross-reference under 'stars.' They're synonymous
terms."
"You know," Rikud said, sitting up now, "the stars in the viewport are
changing."
"Changing?" Crifer questioned the fuzzy concept as much as he
questioned what it might mean in this particular case.
"Yes, there are less of them, and one is bigger and brighter than the
others."
"Astronomy says some stars are variable," Crifer offered, but Rikud
knew his lame-footed companion understood the word no better than he
did.
Over on Rikud's right, Chuls began to dress. "Variability," he told
them, "is a contradictory term. Nothing is variable. It can't be."
"I'm only saying what I read in the book," Crifer protested mildly.
"Well, it's wrong. Variability and change are two words without
meaning."
"People grow old," Rikud suggested.
A buzzer signified that his fifteen minutes under the rays were up, and
Chuls said, "It's almost time for me to eat."
Rikud frowned. Chuls hadn't even seen the connection between the two
concepts, yet it was so clear. Or was it? He had had it a moment ago,
but now it faded, and change and old were just two words.
His own buzzer sounded a moment later, and it was with a strange
feeling of elation that he dressed and made his way back to the
viewport. When he passed the door which led to the women's half of the
world, however, he paused. He wanted to open that door and see a woman.
He had been told about them and he had seen pictures, and he dimly
remembered his childhood among women. But his feelings had changed;
this was different. Again there were inexplicable feelings--strange
channelings of Rikud's energy in new and confusing directions.
He shrugged and reserved the thought for later. He wanted to see the
stars again.
* * * * *
The view had changed, and the strangeness of it made Rikud's pulses
leap with excitement. All the stars were paler now than before, and
where Rikud had seen the one bright central star, he now saw a globe of
light, white with a tinge of blue in it, and so bright that it hurt his
eyes to look.
Yes, hurt! Rikud looked and looked until his eyes teared and he had to
turn away. Here was an unknown factor which the perfect world failed
to control. But how could a star change into a blinking blue-white
globe--if, indeed, that was the star Rikud had seen earlier? There
was that word change again. Didn't it have something to do with age?
Rikud couldn't remember, and he suddenly wished he could read Crifer's
book on astronomy, which meant the same as stars. Except that it was
variable, which was like change, being tied up somehow with age.
Presently Rikud became aware that his eyes were not tearing any longer,
and he turned to look at the viewport. What he saw now was so new that
he couldn't at first accept it. Instead, he blinked and rubbed his
eyes, sure that the ball of blue-white fire somehow had damaged them.
But the new view persisted.
Of stars there were few, and of the blackness, almost nothing. Gone,
too, was the burning globe. Something loomed there in the port, so huge
that it spread out over almost the entire surface. Something big and
round, all grays and greens and browns, and something for which Rikud
had no name.
A few moments more, and Rikud no longer could see the sphere. A section
of it had expanded outward and assumed the rectangular shape of the
viewport, and its size as well. It seemed neatly sheered down the
middle, so that on one side Rikud saw an expanse of brown and green,
and on the other, blue.
Startled, Rikud leaped back. The sullen roar in the rear of the world
had ceased abruptly. Instead an ominous silence, broken at regular
intervals by a sharp booming.