Baby Is Three by Theodore Sturgeon Page A

brown. She moved so beautifully that I caught my breath, and watched so avidly that it was seconds before I realized it was Flower. The reaction to that made me lose more seconds in realizing that her partner was Judson. Good as the other couple were, they were better. I’d tested Jud’s reflexes, and they were phenomenal, but I’d had no idea he could respond like this to anything.
    The caller threw the solo light to the first couple. There was a wild burst of music and the arc-wielding blonde and her arc-wielding boy friend cut loose in an intricate frenzy of disjointed limbs and half-beat stamping. So much happened between those two people so fast that I thought they’d never get separated when the music stopped. But they untangled right with the closing bars, and a roar went up from the people watching them. And then the same blare of music was thrown at Jud and Flower.
    Judson simply stood back and folded his arms, walking out a simple figure to indicate that, honest, he was dancing, too. But he gave it all to Flower.
    Now I’ll tell you what she did in a single sentence: she knelt before him and slowly stood up with her arms over her head. But wordswill never describe the process completely. It took her about twelve minutes to get all the way up. At the fourth minute the crowd began to realize that her body was trembling. It wasn’t a wriggle or a shimmy, or anything as crude as that. It was a steady, apparently uncontrollable shiver. At about the eighth minute the audience began to realize it was controlled, and just how completely controlled it was. It was hypnotic, incredible. At the final crescendo she was on her tiptoes with her arms stretched high, and when the music stopped she made no flourish; she simply relaxed and stood still, smiling at Jud. Even from where I stood I could see the moisture on Jud’s face.
    A big man standing beside me grunted, a tight, painful sound. I turned to him; it was Clinton. Tension crawled through his jaw-muscles like a rat under a rug. I put my hand on his arm. It was rocky. “Clint.”
    “Wh—oh. Hi.”
    “Thirsty?”
    “No,” he said. He turned back to the dance floor, searched it with his eyes, found Flower.
    “Yes, you are, son.” I said. “Come on.”
    “Why don’t you go and—” He got hold of himself. “You’re right. I am thirsty.”
    We went to the almost deserted Card Room and dispensed ourselves some methyl-caffeine. I didn’t say anything until we’d found a table. He sat stiffly looking at his drink without seeing it. Then he said, “Thanks.”
    “For what?”
    “I was about to be real uncivilized in there.”
    I just waited.
    He said truculently, “Well, damn it, she’s free to do what she wants, isn’t she? She likes to dance—good. Why shouldn’t she? Damn it, what is there to get excited about?”
    “Who’s excited?”
    “It’s that Judson. What’s he have to be crawling around her all the time for? She hasn’t done a damn thing about getting her certificate since he got here.” He drank his liquor down at a gulp. It had no apparent effect, which meant something.
    “What had she done before he got here?” I asked quietly. When he didn’t answer I said, “Jud’s Outbound, Clint. I wouldn’t worry. I can guarantee Flower won’t be with him when he goes, and that will be real soon. Hold on and wait.”
    “Wait?” His lip curled. “I’ve been ready to go for weeks. I used to think of … of Flower and me working together, helping each other. I used to make plans for a celebration the day we got certified. I used to look at the stars and think about the net we’d help throw around them, pull ’em down, pack ’em in a basket. Flower and me, back on Earth after six thousand years, watching humanity come into its own, knowing we’d done something to help. I’ve been waiting, and you say wait some more.”
    “This,” I said, “is what you call an unstable situation. It can’t stay the way it is and it won’t.