Search the Sky by Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth

Author:Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth [Pohl, Frederik & Kornbluth, C. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

8

“STUPID old bat,” Ross muttered. They were walking aimlessly down Fifteen Street, the nicely-landscaped machine tool works behind them.

Helena said timidly: “You really shouldn’t talk that way, Ross. She is older than you, after all. Old heads are——“ «——wisest,” he wearily agreed. “Also the most conservative. Also the most rigidly inflexible; also the most firmly closed to the reception of new ideas. With one exception.” ‘ .

She reeled under the triple blasphemy and then faintly asked: “What’s the exception?”

Ross became aware that they were not alone. Their very manner of walking, he a little ahead, obviously leading the way, was drawing unfavorable attention from passers-by. Nothing organized or even definite—just looks ranging ‘ from puzzled distaste to anger. He said, “Somebody named Haarland. Never mind,” and in a lower voice: “Straighten op. Step out a little ahead of me. Scowl.”

She managed it all except the scowl. The expression on her face got some stupefied looks from other pedestrians, , but nothing worse.

Helena said loudly and plaintively: “I don t like it here Fafter all, Ross. Can’t we get away from all these women.’ Should the impulse seize you, placard ancient Brooklyn with twenty-four sheets proclaiming the Dodgers to be cellar-dwelling bums. Mount a detergent box and inform a crowd of Altairians that they are degenerate slith-fondlers if you must. Announce in a crowded Cephean bar room that Sadkia Revall is no better than she should be. From these situations you have some chance of emerging intact. But never, never pronounce the word “women” as Helena pronounced it on Fifteen Street, Novj Grad, Azor.

The mob took only seconds to form.

Ross and Helena found themselves with their backs to the glass doors of a food store. The handful of women who had actually heard the remark were all talking to them simultaneously, with fist-shaking. Behind them stood as many as a dozen women who knew only that something had happened and that there were comfortably outnumbered victims available. The noise was deafening, and Helena began to cry. Ross first wondered if he could bring himself to knock down a woman; then realized after studying the hulking virago in their foreground that he might bring himself to try but probably would not succeed.

She seemed to be accusing Helena of masquerading, of advocating equality, of uttering obscenely antisocial statements in the public road, to the affront of all decent-minded girls.

There was violence in the air. Ross was on the point of blocking a roundhouse right when the glass doors opened behind them. The small diversion distracted the imbecile collective brain of the mob.

“What’s going on here?” a suety voice demanded. “Ladies, may I please get through?”

It was a man trying to emerge from the food shop with a double armful of cartons. He was a great fat slob, quite hairless, and smelling powerfully of kitchen. He wore the gravy-spotted whites of any cook anywhere. - The virago said to him, “Keep out of this, Willie. This fellow here’s a masquerader. The thing I heard him say———!”

“I’m not,” Helena wept.

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