Friday (41 page)

Location was that house’s sole virtue, maybe, but to me it was a fairy-tale honeymoon cottage with roses over the door. It had no roses and was ugly and the only thing modern in it was a limited service terminal. But for the first time in my life I had a home of my own and was a “housewife.” My home in Christchurch had never truly been mine; I certainly was never mistress of that household, and I had been steadily reminded in various ways that I was a guest rather than a permanent fixture.

Do you know what fun it is to buy a saucepan for your very own kitchen?

I was a housewife at once as Goldie was called on that very day and went on watch at twenty-three hundred to work all night to oh-seven hundred. The following day I cooked my first dinner while Goldie slept…and burned the potatoes beyond salvage and cried, which is, I understand, a bride’s privilege. If so, I’ve used mine up against the day when I’m really a bride if ever—and not a phony bride as in Christchurch.

I was a proper housewife; I even bought sweet-pea seeds and planted them in lieu of that missing climbing rose over the door—and discovered that gardening has more to it than sticking seeds in the ground; those seeds did not germinate. So I consulted the Las Vegas library and bought a book, a real book with looseleaf pages and pictures of what the compleat gardener should do. I studied it. I memorized it.

One thing I did not do. Although enormously tempted I did not get a kitten. Goldie might ship out any day; she warned me that, if I was out of the house, she might be gone without saying good-bye (as I had warned Georges—and did do).

Were I to get a kitten I would be honor-bound to keep it. A courier can’t carry a kitten everywhere in a travel case; that’s no way to bring up a baby. Someday I would ship out. So I did not adopt a kitten.

Aside from that I enjoyed all the warm delights of being a housewife…including ants in the sugar and a waste pipe line that broke in the night, two delights that I don’t care to repeat. It was a very happy time. Goldie slowly got my cooking straightened out—I had thought I knew how to cook; now I
do
know how. And I learned to stir a martini exactly the way she preferred it: Beefeater gin three-point-six to one of Noilly Prat dry vermouth, a twist, no bitters—while I took Bristol Cream on rocks. Martinis are too rugged for me but I can see why a nurse with tired feet would want one the minute she is home.

So help me, had Goldie been male, I would have had my sterility reversed and happily have raised children and sweet peas and cats.

Burt and Anna left for Alabama early in this period and we all made careful arrangements not to lose track of each other. They did not intend to live there but Anna felt that she owed her daughter a visit (and owed herself, I think, a chance to show off her new husband). Thereafter they intended to sign up with a military or quasi-military, one that would take both of them and contract to keep them together. In combat. Yes. Both were tired of desk work; both were willing to take a bust in grade to leave staff and join a combat team. “Better one crowded hour of life than a cycle of Cathay.” Maybe so. It was their life.

I kept in touch at the Labor Mart because the day was coming when I not only would want to ship out but would have to ship out. Goldie was working quite steadily and she tried to insist on paying all the household expenses. I laid my ears back and insisted on paying half right down the middle. Since I was keeping track of every buck, I knew exactly what it cost to live in Las Vegas. Too much, even in a crackerbox. When Goldie left, I could live there a few months, then I would be broke.

But I would not do so. A honeymoon cottage is a no-good place to live alone.

I continued to try to reach Georges and Ian and Janet, and Betty and Freddie, but I limited myself to twice a month; the terminal charges were considerable.

Twice a week I spent half a day at the Labor Mart, checking everything. I no longer expected to find a courier job even half as good as the one I had had with Boss but I still checked the multinationals—who did indeed use experienced couriers. And I checked all other job opportunities, looking for something, anything, to match my decidedly odd talents. Boss had hinted that I was some sort of a superman—if so, I can testify that there is very little demand for supermen.

I considered going to school to become a croupier or dealer—then moved that possibility to the bottom of the pile. A skilled dealer or stick man or wheel man can work for many years at good wages but to me it would be a treadmill. A way to stay alive but not a life. Better to join up as a private and buck for field rank.

But there were other possibilities I had never thought about. Consider these:

Host Mother—Unlimited License, Bonded by TransAmerica and/or Lloyd’s—no extra charge for multiple births up to quadruplets. Fee by arrangement. Standard interview fee with physical examination by your-choice physiometricist.

BABIES UNLIMITED, Inc.

LV 7962M 4/3

I could try to sign with Babies Unlimited or I could freelance. My conditional sterility would be a selling point, as the thing customers of host mothers are most leery of is the host mother who slips one over on the client—gets pregnant on her own just before submitting herself for hosting. Sterility is no handicap as bringing down an ovum is not the purpose; the technologist simply manipulates to change the body chemistry to make the field ripe for implantation. Ovulation is simply a nuisance.

Having babies for other people could be only a stopgap—but a possible one; it paid well.

WANTED: 90-day wife for off-planet vacation.
All expenses, luxury 9 +, guild bonus scale. Phys. range S/W, temperament sanguine 8, amativeness scale 7 or above.
Client holds procreation license Chicago Imperium, will surrender it to holiday wife if she becomes pregnant or both will undergo 120-day sterilization, her choice.

See Amelia Trent, Licensed Sex Broker,

#18/20 New Cortez Mezzanine.

Not a bad deal for someone who wanted a three-months’ vacation and enjoyed Russian roulette. To me, pregnancy was no danger and my horny scale rating is higher than seven—much! But the doxy bonus scale in the Free State is not high enough to make the accumulated pay enough to justify losing chances at more permanent work—and that faceless client was almost certainly a crashing bore or he wouldn’t consider hiring a stranger for his holiday bed.

URGENTLY NEEDED—Two Time-Space Engineers, any sex, experienced in
n
-dimensional design. Must be willing to risk nonreversible temporal dislocation.

Participation—Amenities—Assurance

Terms to be negotiated

Babcock and Wilcox, Ltd.

Care
Wall Street Journal
, LV Lbr Mrt

The above is exactly the sort of job I wanted. The only hitch was that I was in no slightest degree qualified.

The First Plasmite Church (“In the Beginning was Plasma, without form and void”) off the Mall had a sign advertising times of services. A smaller notice with movable letters included in it caught my eye: “The Next Virgin Will Be Sacrificed at 0251 Oct 22”

That looked like a permanent position but again not one for which I was qualified. It fascinated me. While I was gawking, a man came out and changed the sign and I realized that I had missed last night’s sacrament and the next altar sacrifice was two weeks away, which left me undismayed. But my curiosity got me, as usual. I asked him: “Do you actually sacrifice virgins?”

He answered, “Not me. I’m just an acolyte. But—Well, no, they don’t actually have to be virgins. But they do have to look like virgins.” He looked me up and down. “I think you could make it. Want to come in and talk to the priest?”

“Uh, no. Do you mean that he actually sacrifices them?”

He looked at me again. “You’re a stranger here, aren’t you?”

I admitted it. “Well, it’s like this,” he went on. “If you were to advertise that you were casting for a snuff film, you could cast every part by noon and not one of ’em would ask if they were actually going to be snuffed. It’s that kind of a town.”

Maybe so. More likely I’m a yokel come to town. Or both.

There were lots of ads for off-planet jobs or concerning off-planet matters. I did not expect to hire out for an off-planet job because I did expect to go off planet as a colonist so lavishly subsidized that I would have free choice of any colony, from Proxima, almost in our laps, to The Realm, so far away that both cargo and people went by
n
-ship—except that the late word on The Realm was that The First Citizen had closed it to migrants at any price, except certain artists and scientists by individual negotiation. Not that I wanted to go to The Realm, rich as it is reputed to be. Too far! But the Proximates are our close neighbors; from South Island their sun is right overhead, a big bright star. Friendly.

But I read all the ads:

Transuranics Golden Division on Golden around Procyon-B wanted experienced mining engineers to supervise kobolds, five-year renewable, bonuses, perks. The ad did not mention that on Golden an unmodified human person seldom lives five years.

HyperSpace Lines was hiring for the run to The Realm via Proxima, Outpost, Fiddler’s Green, Forest, Botany Bay, Halcyon, and Midway. Four months round trip from Stationary Station, one month paid leave Earthside or Luna, and repeat. I skipped over the requirements and pay for ultra-astrogator and warp engineer and supercargo and communicator and medical officer but looked at the other ratings:

Waiter, room steward, maintenance carpenter, electrician, plumber, electronicist, electronicist (computer), plumber, cook, baker, sous chef, pantryman, chef, specialty cook, bartender, croupier/dealer, social director, holographer/photographer, dental assistant, singer, dance instructor, games supervisor, companion-secretary-maid/valet, cruise director’s assistant, art instructor, cards instructor, cruise hostess, swimming instructor, hospital nurse, children’s nurse, master-at-arms (armed), master-at-arms (unarmed), director/bandmaster, theatrical director, musician (twenty-three instruments named but doubling on two or more required), cosmetician, barber, masseur, stores clerk, retail sales clerk, sales manager, excursion escort—

—and that’s just a sample. In general, if they do it on the ground, they do it or something like it in the sky. Some of the jobs concerned uniquely with spaceship matters I can’t even translate—what in the world (or out of it) is an “over kippsman 2/c”?

One profession not listed is “doxy” despite the fact that HyperSpace Lines is an Equal Opportunity Employer. By word of mouth I learned how very equal this is. If you want to be hired for any of the not so very technical jobs, it helps enormously to be young, handsome/pretty, healthy, horny, bisexual, money-hungry, and open to any reasonable proposition.

The Port Captain himself has two left feet and was purser of the old
Newton
, up from room steward. In his sky-voyaging days he made certain that his first-class passengers got
anything
they wanted—and that they paid well for it. As Port Captain this is still his purpose. He is said to favor married couples or equivalent over any single if they can work as a team both in and out of bed. I heard a story around the Mall of one gigolo/doxy team who made themselves rich in only four trips—dance instructors in the morning, swimming instructors in the afternoon, dancing host and hostess before and after dinner, a singing and comedy act, then private entertainment singly or as a team at night—four voyages and ready to retire…and had to retire because they were fired, as they were no longer very attractive, no longer brimming with vitality; they had maintained this impossible pace on uppers and downers.

I don’t think money can tempt me that much. I’ll stay awake all night most anytime I’m asked but I do want to catch up on sleep the next day.

I wondered how it was that HyperSpace Lines, with only four passenger liners, was apparently hiring all their many ratings all the time. The line’s assistant hiring agent said to me, “You really don’t know?”

I told her I did not.

“At each of three of the stops it takes lots and lots of what makes the world go round to buy your way in. Three more are not cheap although some skills are accepted in lieu of contribution. Only one is a bounty planet. So desertion is a major problem. Fiddler’s Green is so desirable a place that the first officer of the
Dirac
jumped ship there a few years back. The company does not have too much trouble with crew recruited here…but suppose your home was Rangoon or Bangkok or Canton and you were working cargo on Halcyon and the pusher took his eyes off you just long enough. What would you do?”

She shrugged and went on, “I’m telling you no secrets. Anybody who thinks about it knows that the only possible way for most people to get off Earth—even to Luna—is to sign on as crew of a spaceship, then jump ship. I’d do it myself if I could.”

“Why don’t you?” I asked.

“Because I have a six-year-old son.”

(I should learn to mind my own business!)

Some of the ads stirred my imagination; this was one:

New Planet Just Opening—Type T-8
Guaranteed Maximum Danger

Couples or Groups Only
Augmented Survival Plan
Churchill and Son, Realtors
Las Vegas Labor Mart 96/98

I remembered something Georges had said, that anything above Terran scale eight called for a big bonus or bounty. But I knew more about that scale now; eight was Earth’s own basic rating. Most of this planet wasn’t too easy to tame. Most of it had to be worked over, rebuilt. This very land I stood on had been fit only for gila monsters and desert crawlies until it had been treated with tons of money and many, many tons of water.

I wondered about that “maximum danger.” Was it something that called for the talents of a woman who was fast on her feet when triggered? I really didn’t yearn to be a platoon leader of Amazons because some of my girls would get killed and I wouldn’t like that. But I wouldn’t mind tackling a saber-toothed tiger or equivalent because I felt certain that I could move in, clobber him, and back off while he was still finding out that something was up.