sorry." And it was Bergen's turn to weep.
"Thank God you're my friend," Bergen said at last.
"And you mine," Dal answered.
And then the door opened and a woman walked in carrying a child that couldn't have been a year old. She was startled to see Bergen there. "Company," she said. "Hello. I'm Anda."
"I'm Bergen," Bergen said.
"My friend Bergen," Dal introduced them. "My wife Anda. My son Bergen."
Anda smiled. "He told me you were bright and beautiful, and so our son had to be named after you. He was right."
"You're too kind."
The conversation was good after that, but it was not what Bergen had expected. There couldn't be the banter, the in-jokes, the delightful gutter talk, the insults that Bergen and Dal bad known for years, not with Anda there. And so they parted with friendship in the air-- but a hollow feeling in Bergen's stomach. Dal had refused his gift of the examination fee, and accepted only his freedom. He would share that freedom with Anda. Bergen went back to the sleeproom and used the rest of his new entitlement.
When he awoke the next time, things had changed. With Crove now called Capitol, there was an incredible building boom. And Bergen's companies were deeply involved.
The building was haphazard, and Bergen began to realize that it wasn't enough just to throw buildings into the air. Capitql would be the center of trade and government for hundreds of planets. Billions of people. He could conceive of it eventually becoming one vast city. And so be began to plan accordingly.
He set his architects to planning a structure that would cover a hundred square miles and house fifty million people, heavy industry, light industry, transportation, distribution, and communication. The roof of the building had to be strong enough not only to handle the takeoffs and landings of landing craft, but also to cope with the weight of the huge starships themselves. It would take years to design-- he gave them the obvious deadline of his next waking after five years of sleep.
And then he spent the rest of the year lobbying with the bureaucrats to get his plan, already taking shape, adopted as the master plan for the planet. Every city designed the same way, so that as the population boomed, the cities could link up floor to floor and pipe to pipe and form a continuous, unbroken city with a spaceport for a roof and its roots deep in the bedrock. When his time was up, he had won-- and the contracts almost all went to Bergen Bishop's companies.
He did not forget Dal, however. He found him by his paintings, which were now gaining some note. It was difficult to talk, however.
"Bergen. The rumors are flying."
"Good to see you, Dal."
"They say you're stripping the planet right down to the bedrock and putting steel on top."
"Here and there."
"They say it's all supposed to interlock."
Bergen shrugged it off. "There'll be huge parks. Huge tracts of land untouched."
"Until the population needs it. Right? Always that reservation."
Bergen was hurt. "I came to talk about your painting."
"Here, then," Dal said. "Have a look." And he handed Bergen a painting of a steel monster that was settling like pus onto the countryside.
"This is repulsive," Bergen said.
"It's your city. I took it from the architect's renderings."
"My city isn't this ugly."
"I know. It's an artist's job to make beauty more beautiful and ugliness uglier."
"The Empire has to have a capital somewhere."
"Does there have to be an empire?"
"What's made you so bitter?" Bergen asked, genuinely concerned. "People have been tearing up planets for years. What's getting to you?"
"Nothing's getting to me."
"Where's Anda? Where's your son?"
"Who knows? Who cares?" Dal walked to a painting of a sunset and shoved his fist through it.
"Dal!" Bergen shouted. "Don't do that!"
"I made it. I can destroy it."
"Why'd she leave?"
"I failed the merit test. She had an offer of marriage from a guy who could take her on somec. She accepted."
"How could you fail the merit test?"
"They can't measure my paintings. And when you're twenty-six years old, the requirements are higher. Much, much higher."
"Twenty-six-- but we're only--"
"You're only twenty-one. I'm twenty-six and aging fast." Dal walked to the door and opened it. "Get out of here, Bergen. I'm dying fast. In a couple of your years I'll be an old man who isn't worth a damn so don't bother looking me up anymore. Get on out there and wreck the planet while there's still a profit in it."
Bergen left, hurt and unable to understand why Dal should suddenly