He met her in the bar.
"Why, if it isn't Buster!" she said, as though they met there often.
He sat on the stool beside her.
"That week is almost up," he said.
She nodded. "We've been watching you. You're standing up real well."
"You tried to tell me."
"Forget it," said the girl. "Just a mistake of mine. It's a waste of time telling any of them. But you looked intelligent and not quite dry behind the ears. I took pity on you."
She looked at him over the rim of her glass.
"I shouldn't have," she said.
"I should have listened."
"They never do," said Maxine.
"There's another thing," he said. "Why hasn't it leaked out? Oh, sure, I have written letters, too. I didn't admit what it was like. Neither did you. Nor the man next to you. But someone, in all the years we've been here - "
"We are all alike," she said. "Alike as peas in the pod. We are the anointed, the hand-picked, stubborn, vanity-stricken, scared. All of us got here. In spite of hell and high water we got here. We let nothing stand in our way and we made it. We beat the others out. They're waiting back there on Earth - the ones that we beat out. They'll never be quite the same again. Don't you understand? They had pride, too, and it was hurt. There's nothing they would like better than to know what it's really like. That's what all of us think of when we sit down to write a letter. We think of the belly laughs by those other thousands. The quiet smirks. We think of ourselves skulking, making ourselves small so no one will notice us -
She balled a fist and rapped against his shirt front.
"That's the answer, Buster. That's why we never write the truth. That's why we don't go back."
"But it's been going on for years. For almost a hundred years. In all that time someone should have cracked - "
"And lost all this?" she asked. "Lost the easy living. The good drinking. The fellowship of lost souls. And the hope. Don't forget that. Always the hope that Kimon can be cracked."
"Can it?"
"I don't know. But if I were you, Buster, I wouldn't count on it."
"But it's no kind of a life for decent - "
"Don't say it. We aren't decent people. We are scared and weak, every one of us. And with good reason."
"But the life - "
"You don't lead a decent life, if that was what you were about to say. There's no stability in us. Children? A Few of us have children and it's not so bad for the children as it is for us, because they know nothing else. A child who is born a slave is better off, mentally, than a man who once knew freedom."
"We aren't slaves," said Bishop.
"Of course not," Maxine said. "We can leave any time we want to. All we got to do is walk up to a native and say "I want to go back to Earth." That's all you need to do. Any single one of them could send you back - swish - just like they send the letters, just like they whisk you to your work or to your room."
"But no one has gone back."
"Of course no one has," she said.
They sat there, sipping at their drinks.
"Remember what I told you," she said. "Don't think. That's the way to beat it. Never think about it. You got it good. You never had it so good. Soft living. Easy living. Nothing to worry about. The best kind of life there is."
"Sure," said Bishop. "Sure, that's the way to do it."
She slanted her eyes at him.
"You're catching on," she said.
They had another round.
Over in the corner a group had gotten together and was doing some impromptu singing. A couple were quarreling a stood or two away.
"It's too noisy in this place," Maxine said. "Want to see my paintings?"
"Your paintings?"
"The way I make my living. They are pretty bad, but no one knows the difference."
"I'd like to see them."
"Grab hold, then."
"Grab - "
"My mind, you know. Nothing physical about it. No use riding elevators."
He gaped at her.
"You pick it up," said Maxine. "You never get too good. But you pick up a trick or two."
"But how do I go about it?"
"Just let loose," she said. "Dangle. Mentally, that is. Try to reach out to me. Don't try to help. You can't."
He dangled and reached out, wondering if he was doing it the way it should be done.
The universe collapsed and then came back together.
They were standing in another room.
"That was a silly thing for me to do," Maxine said. "Some day I'll slip a cog and get stuck in a wall or something."
Bishop drew a deep breath.
"Monty could read me just a little," he said. "Said you picked it up - just at the fringes."
"You never get too good," said Maxine. "Humans aren't... well, aren't ripe for it, I guess. It takes millennia to develop it."
He looked around him and whistled.
"Quite a place," he said.
It was all of that.
It didn't seem to be a room at all, although it had furniture. The walls were hazed in distance and to the west were mountains, peaked with snow, and to the east a very sylvan river, and there were flowers and flowering bushes everywhere, growing from the floor. A deep blue dusk filled the room and somewhere off in the distance there was an orchestra.
A cabinet-voice said, "Anything, madam?"
"Drinks," said Maxine. "Not too strong. We've been hitting the bottle."
"Not too strong," said the cabinet. "Just a moment, madam."
"Illusion," Maxine said. "Every bit of it. But a nice illusion. Want a beach? It's waiting for you, if you just think of it. Or a polar cap. Or a desert. Or an old chateau. It's waiting in the wings."
"Your painting must pay off," he said.
"Not my painting. My irritation. Better start getting irritated, Buster. Get down in the dumps. Start thinking about suicide. That's a surefire way to do it. Presto, you're kicked upstairs to a better suite of rooms. Anything to keep you happy."
"You mean the Kimonians automatically shift you?"
"Sure. You're a sucker to stay down there where you are."
"I like my layout," he told her. "But this - "
She laughed at him. "You'll catch on," she said.
The drinks arrived.
"Sit down," Maxine said. "Want a moon?"
There was a moon.
"Could have two or three," she said, "but that would be overdoing it. One moon seems more like Earth. Seems more comfortable."
"There must be a limit somewhere," Bishop said. "They can't keep on kicking you upstairs indefinitely. There must come a time when even the Kimonians can't come up with anything that is new and novel."
"You wouldn't live long enough," she told him, "for that to come about. That's the way with all you new ones. You underestimate the Kimonians. You think of them as people, as Earth people who know just a little more. They aren't that, at all. They're alien. They're as alien as a spider-man, despite their human form. They conform to keep contact with us."
"But why do they want to keep contact with us? Why - "
"Buster," she said, " that's the question that we never ask. That's the one that can drive you crazy."