The girl said, "No." She shook her head, turned her ice-chip blue eyes back to the programming console that almost filled her work cubicle. "Have some sense, Gus."
"We could live with my family for a while—"
"You're already one over legal. And if you think I'd crowd in with that whole bunch—"
"Only until I get my next step-increase!"
Her fingers were already flickering over the keys. "See my side, Gus. Mel Fundy's offered me a five-year contract—with an option."
"Contract!"
"It's better than no marriage at all!"
"Marriage! That's just a lousy business proposition!"
"Not so lousy. I'm accepting. It'll mean a class B flat for just the two of us—and class B rations."
"You—and that dried-up. . . ." Gus pictured her with Fundy's crab-claws touching her.
"Better get back to your slot, Gus," she dismissed him. "You've still got a job to hold down."
He turned away. A small, balding man with a large face and a curved back was coming along the two-foot aisle, darting sharp looks into the cubicles. His eyes turned hot when he saw Gus.
"You're docked half a unit, Addison! If I find you out of your position again, there'll be charges!"
"It won't happen again," Gus muttered. "Ever."
The shift-end buzzer went at 8 A.M. Gus pushed along the exit lane into car 98, stood packed in with the other workers while it rocketed along the horizontal track, halting every twelve seconds to discharge passengers, then shot upward three-quarters of a mile to his flat-level. In the two-foot wide corridor, a banner poster showed a Colonization Service Officer looking stern, and the slogan: FILL YOUR BLOCK QUOTA! Gus keyed the door and stepped into the familiar odor of Home: a heavy, dirt-sweet smell of human sweat and excrement and sex that seemed to settle over him like an oily patina.
"Augustus." From the food-prep ledge at the far end of the living aisle his mother's collapsed, sagging face caressed him like a damp hand. "I have a surprise for you! Mock giblets and a custard!"
"I'm not hungry."
"Evening, Son." His father's head poked from the study cubicle. "Since you don't care for your custard, mind if I have it? Stomach's been a little feisty lately." As if to prove it he belched, grimaced.
Three feet from Gus's face, the curtains of the dressing alcove twitched. Through a gap, a pale, oversized buttock showed. It moved sensuously, and Gus saw the curve of a full breast, the soft, pink nipple peering like a blind eye past the edge of the curtain. Desire washed up through him like sewage in a plugged manhole. He turned his eyes away and saw a narrow, rabbity face glaring at him in feeble ferocity from the washing nook.
"What are you staring at, you young—"
"Tell her to keep the curtains shut, Uncle Fred," Gus grated.
"You young degenerate! Your own aunt!"
"Gus didn't do anything," an uncertain voice said behind him. "She's done the same thing to me."
Gus turned to his brother, a spindle-armed, ribby-chested lad with a bad complexion. "Thanks, Len. But they can think what they like. I'm leaving. I just came to say good-by."
Lenny's mouth opened. "You're. . . . going?"
Gus didn't look at Lenny's face. He knew the expression he would see there: admiration, love, dismay. And there was nothing he could give in return.
The silence was broken by a squeak from Mother. "Augustus." She spoke quickly, in a false-bright voice, as though nothing had been said. "I've been thinking, this evening you and your father might go to see Mr. Geyer about a recommendation for class C testing—"
Father cleared his throat. "Now, Ada, you know we've been all over that—"
"There may have been a change—"
"There's never a change," Gus cut her off harshly. "I'll never get a better job, never get a flat of my own, never get married. There just isn't room."
Father frowned, the corners of his mouth drawing down in an unwittingly comic expression. "Now, see here, Son," he started.
"Never mind," Gus said. "I'll be out of here in a minute, and leave the whole thing to you—custard and all."
"Oh, God!" Gus saw his mother's face crumple into a red-blotched mask of grief, a repellent expression of weak, smothering, useless mother love.
"Say something to him, George," she whimpered. "He's going—out there!"
"You mean. . . ." Father elaborated a frown. "You mean the colonies?"
"Sure, that's what he means," Lenny burst out. "Gus, you're going to Alpha!"
"Catch me volunteering for anything," Uncle Fred shook his head. "Stories I've heard. . . ."
"Augustus, I've been thinking," Mother began babbling. "We'll leave the whole flat to you, this lovely apartment, and we'll go into Barracks, just visit you here on Sundays, just come and bring you a nice casserole or soup, you know how fond you are of my lichen soup, and—"
"I've got to go," Gus backed a step.
"After all we've done for you!" Mother keened suddenly. "All the years we've scraped and saved, so we could give you the best of everything. . . ."
"Now, Son, better think it over," Father mumbled. "Remember, there's no turning back if you volunteer. You'll never see your home again—or your mother. . . ." His voice trailed off. Even to his ears the prospect sounded attractive.
"Good luck, Gus," Lenny caught his hand. "I'll. . . . see you."
"Sure, Lenny."
"He's going!" Mother wailed. "Stop him, George!"
Gus looked back at the faces staring at him, tried and failed to summon a twinge of regret at leaving them.
"It isn't fair," Mother moaned. Gus pressed the button and the door slid back.
"Say, if that custard isn't cold," Father was saying as the panel closed behind Gus.