if you could call that odd, purring thing a desk. There was that peculiar squirmy couch that—
She caught her breath. A young woman was lying on the couch, one of those horrible bald-headed women they had here.
“Excuse me,” Mary Ann said in one fast breath. “I had no idea—I didn’t mean to—”
“That’s perfectly all right,” the young woman said, still apparently staring up at the ceiling. “You’re not intruding. I just dropped in on Gygyo myself. Have a seat.”
The floor shot up a section of itself under Mary Ann and, when she was securely cradled in it, lowered itself slowly to sitting height.
“You must be that twentieth century—” the young woman paused, then amended rapidly, “the
visitor
whom Gygyo has been seeing lately. My name’s Flureet. I’m just an old childhood friend—way back from Responsibility Group Three.”
Mary Ann nodded primly. “How nice, I’m sure. My name is Mary Ann Carthington. And really, if in any way I’m—”
“I told you it’s all right. Gygyo and I don’t mean a thing to each other. This Temporal Embassy work has dulled his taste for the everyday female; they’ve either got to be atavisms or precursors. I’m awaiting transformation—
major
transformation—so you couldn’t expect very strong feelings from my side, now could you? So let’s just say hello and go on from there.”
F lureet flexed her arm in what Mary Ann recognized disdainfully as the standard greeting gesture. Such women! It made them look like a man showing off his muscle.
“The ceiling said,” Mary Ann began uncertainly, “that Gyg—Mr. Rablin isn’t at size at the moment. Is that like what we call not being at home?”
“In a sense,” said the bald girl. “He’s in this room, but he’s hardly large enough to talk to. Gygyo’s size right now is—let me think, what did he say he was setting it for?—oh, yes, 35 microns. He’s inside a drop of water in the field of that microscope to your left.”
Mary Ann swung around and considered the spherical black object resting on a table against the wall. Outside of the two eyepieces set flush with the surface, it had little in common with pictures of microscopes she had seen in magazines.
“In—in
there
? What’s he doing in there?”
“He’s on a micro-hunt. You should know your Gygyo by now. An absolutely incurable romantic. Who goes on micro-hunts any more? And in a culture of intestinal amebae, of all things. Killing the beasties by hand instead of by routine psycho- or even chemo-therapy appeals to his dashing soul. ‘Grow up, Gygyo,’ I said to him. ‘These games are for children and for Responsibility Group Four children at that.’ Well, that hurt his pride and he said he was going in with a fifteen-minute lock. A fifteen-minute
lock!
When I heard that, I decided to come here and watch the battle, just in case.”
“Why? Is a fifteen-minute lock dangerous?” Mary Ann asked. Her face was tightly set, however; she was still thinking of that “you should know your Gygyo” remark. That was another thing about this world she didn’t like. With all their talk of privacy and the sacred rights of the individual, men like Gygyo didn’t think twice of telling the most intimate matters about people to—to other people.
“Figure it out for yourself. Gygyo’s set himself for 35 microns. That’s about twice the size of most of the intestinal parasites he’ll have to fight—amebae like
Endolimax nana, lodamoeba butschlii
and
Dientamoeba fragilis
. But suppose he runs into a crowd of
Endamoeba colii
, to say nothing of our tropical dysentery friend,
Endamoeba hystolytica
—what then?”
“What then?” the blonde girl echoed. She had not the slightest idea. One did not face problems like this in San Francisco.
“Trouble, that’s what. Serious trouble. The
colii
might be as large as he is, and
hystolyticae
run even bigger—36, 37 microns, sometimes more. Now the most important factor on a micro-hunt is
She caught her breath. A young woman was lying on the couch, one of those horrible bald-headed women they had here.
“Excuse me,” Mary Ann said in one fast breath. “I had no idea—I didn’t mean to—”
“That’s perfectly all right,” the young woman said, still apparently staring up at the ceiling. “You’re not intruding. I just dropped in on Gygyo myself. Have a seat.”
The floor shot up a section of itself under Mary Ann and, when she was securely cradled in it, lowered itself slowly to sitting height.
“You must be that twentieth century—” the young woman paused, then amended rapidly, “the
visitor
whom Gygyo has been seeing lately. My name’s Flureet. I’m just an old childhood friend—way back from Responsibility Group Three.”
Mary Ann nodded primly. “How nice, I’m sure. My name is Mary Ann Carthington. And really, if in any way I’m—”
“I told you it’s all right. Gygyo and I don’t mean a thing to each other. This Temporal Embassy work has dulled his taste for the everyday female; they’ve either got to be atavisms or precursors. I’m awaiting transformation—
major
transformation—so you couldn’t expect very strong feelings from my side, now could you? So let’s just say hello and go on from there.”
F lureet flexed her arm in what Mary Ann recognized disdainfully as the standard greeting gesture. Such women! It made them look like a man showing off his muscle.
“The ceiling said,” Mary Ann began uncertainly, “that Gyg—Mr. Rablin isn’t at size at the moment. Is that like what we call not being at home?”
“In a sense,” said the bald girl. “He’s in this room, but he’s hardly large enough to talk to. Gygyo’s size right now is—let me think, what did he say he was setting it for?—oh, yes, 35 microns. He’s inside a drop of water in the field of that microscope to your left.”
Mary Ann swung around and considered the spherical black object resting on a table against the wall. Outside of the two eyepieces set flush with the surface, it had little in common with pictures of microscopes she had seen in magazines.
“In—in
there
? What’s he doing in there?”
“He’s on a micro-hunt. You should know your Gygyo by now. An absolutely incurable romantic. Who goes on micro-hunts any more? And in a culture of intestinal amebae, of all things. Killing the beasties by hand instead of by routine psycho- or even chemo-therapy appeals to his dashing soul. ‘Grow up, Gygyo,’ I said to him. ‘These games are for children and for Responsibility Group Four children at that.’ Well, that hurt his pride and he said he was going in with a fifteen-minute lock. A fifteen-minute
lock!
When I heard that, I decided to come here and watch the battle, just in case.”
“Why? Is a fifteen-minute lock dangerous?” Mary Ann asked. Her face was tightly set, however; she was still thinking of that “you should know your Gygyo” remark. That was another thing about this world she didn’t like. With all their talk of privacy and the sacred rights of the individual, men like Gygyo didn’t think twice of telling the most intimate matters about people to—to other people.
“Figure it out for yourself. Gygyo’s set himself for 35 microns. That’s about twice the size of most of the intestinal parasites he’ll have to fight—amebae like
Endolimax nana, lodamoeba butschlii
and
Dientamoeba fragilis
. But suppose he runs into a crowd of
Endamoeba colii
, to say nothing of our tropical dysentery friend,
Endamoeba hystolytica
—what then?”
“What then?” the blonde girl echoed. She had not the slightest idea. One did not face problems like this in San Francisco.
“Trouble, that’s what. Serious trouble. The
colii
might be as large as he is, and
hystolyticae
run even bigger—36, 37 microns, sometimes more. Now the most important factor on a micro-hunt is
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