formed, his lines of force pulsing slowly. Was he sure he liked this?
"Mouth," he said, in small quiverings, "and chin and Adam's apple, and the collarbones. How the words come back to me." They appeared on the form.
Brock said, "I haven't thought of them for hundreds of billions of years. Why have you reminded me? Why?"
Ames was momentarily lost in his thoughts, "Something else. Organs to hear with; something for the sound waves. Ears! Where do they go? I don't remember where to put them!"
Brock cried out, "Leave it alone! Ears and all else! Don't remember!"
Ames said, uncertainly, "What is wrong with remembering?"
"Because the outside wasn't rough and cold like that but smooth and warm. Because the eyes were tender and alive and the lips of the mouth trembled and were soft on mine." Brock's lines of force beat and wavered, beat and wavered.
Ames said, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
"You're reminding me that once I was a woman and knew love; that eyes do more than see and I have none to do it for me."
With violence, she added matter to the rough-hewn head and said, "Then let them do it" and turned and fled.
And Ames saw and remembered, too, that once he had been a man. The force of his vortex split the head in two and he fled back across the galaxies on the energy-track of Brock - back to the endless doom of life.
And the eyes of the shattered head of Matter still glistened with the moisture that Brock had placed there to represent tears. The head of Matter did that which the energy-beings could do no longer and it wept for all humanity, and for the fragile beauty of the bodies they had once given up, a trillion years ago.
The Martian Way
1
From the doorway of the short corridor between the only two, rooms in the travel-head of the spaceship, Mario Esteban Rioz watched sourly as Ted Long adjusted the video dials painstakingly. Long tried a touch clockwise, then a touch counter. The picture was lousy.
Rioz knew it would stay lousy. They were too far from Earth and at a bad position facing the Sun. But then Long would not be expected to know that. Rioz remained standing in the doorway for an additional moment, head bent to clear the upper lintel, body turned half sidewise to fit the narrow opening. Then he jerked into the galley like a cork popping out of a bottle.
"What are you after?" he asked.
"I thought I'd get Hilder," said Long.
Rioz propped his rump on the corner of a table shelf. He lifted a conical can of milk from the companion shelf just above his head. Its point popped under pressure. He swirled it gently as he waited for it to warm.
"What for?" he said. He upended the cone and sucked noisily.
"Thought I'd listen."
"I think it's a waste of power."
Long looked up, frowning. "It's customary to allow free use of personal video sets."
"Within reason," retorted Rioz.
Their eyes met challengingly. Rioz had the rangy body, the gaunt, cheek-sunken face that was almost the hallmark of the Martian Scavenger, those Spacers who patiently haunted the space routes between Earth and Mars Pcrte blue eyes were set keenly in the brown, lined face which, in turn, stood darkly out against the white surrounding syntho-fur that lined the upturned collar of his leathtic space jacket.
Long was altogether paler and softer. He bore some of the marks of the Grounder, although no second-generation Martian could be a Grounder in the sense that Earthmen were. His own collar was thrown back and his dark brown hair freely exposed.
"What do you call within reason?" demanded Long.
Rioz's thin lips grew thinner. He said, "Considering that we're not even going to make expenses this trip, the way it looks, any power drain at all is outside reason."
Long said, "If we're losing money, hadn't you better get back to your post? It's your watch."
Rioz grunted and ran a thumb and forefinger over the stubble on his chin. He got up and trudged to the door, his soft, heavy boots muting the sound of his steps. He paused to look at the thermostat, then turned with a flare of fury.
"I thought it was bot. Where do you think you are?"
Long said, "Forty degrees isn't excessive."
"For you it isn't, maybe. But this is space, not a heated office at the iron mines." Rioz swung the thermostat control down to minimum with a quick thumb movement. "Sun's warm enough."