The Second Science Fiction MEGAPACK®. Robert Silverberg

the door.

      “You’ll need your tunic,” Al called. “And it’s chilly; take my tan coat.”

      “But…” Sally turned. “But I won’t be…”

      “Don’t worry about returning it,” Al said, “It’s the least I can do.”

      She put on the tunic, and took the coat.

      Al sat alone on the couch until very late that night, not really thinking, but simply missing her.

      * * * *

      At the end of the first week his apartment was a mess, worse than ever—he had become accustomed to leaving things around for her to put away, and it took awhile to break the habit.

      By the end of the second week the place was spotless again; he had gotten fed up with his own slovenliness and, as a sort of tribute to her, had thoroughly cleaned the entire apartment.

      He was wavering about whether to keep it that way—specifically, whether to carry his used coffee mug back to the kitchen or just let it sit—when the doorbell rang.

      If he was going to have to get up anyway, he might as well take the mug, he decided. He picked it up as he rose, and carried it with him to the door.

      He almost dropped it.

      She was wearing a black suede jacket, a pleated black skirt, and a broad-brimmed black hat with an ostrich plume on one side—the effect was startling.

      She cocked her head to one side. “We don’t exactly blend in, regardless of how we dress,” she said, “so why not have fun?” She held out an arm; his tan coat was draped across it. “I brought your jacket.”

      “Come in!” he said, gathering his wits, “Come in!”

      She did.

      She draped his coat on the back of the sofa and looked around, and he thought he saw a trace of disappointment flash across her face.

      “I’m glad you came,” he said. “I’ve wanted to know how you’ve been doing. I’ve been watching the news reports, of course, but they don’t get very specific.”

      She nodded. “You’ve kept the place neat, I see,” she said.

      “I try,” he said, suddenly reminded of the coffee mug in his hand. “Listen, can I get you something to drink?” He headed for the kitchen. “There’s all the usual stuff.”

      “A glass of milk would be nice,” she said.

      He put the mug in the sink and got her milk.

      When he returned to the living room she had doffed her hat, which now adorned an end table, and unbuttoned her jacket, revealing the familiar red tunic beneath. She took the milk with the odd half-grin that was the closest her fox-like mouth could come to a smile.

      “So what’s been happening?” he asked, settling on the couch beside her.

      “It’s been pretty awful,” she said. “They’ve been talking about plastic surgery and hormone treatments and things, to make us all look more normal, and they don’t seem to listen when most of us say we don’t want to look normal, we like the way we look. They say it’s just the conditioning we got from NGC, but even if that’s true, so what? It doesn’t make it any less real.”

      “Hormone treatments?”

      “For the fur,” she explained. “To make it fall out.”

      “Oh, that would…what a waste!”

      She nodded. “And they want to cut off our tails. But I’m keeping mine—they can’t make us.”

      “Of course not!”

      “They talk about us as if it’s our fault, sometimes—I heard someone say that at least the problem’s not permanent, since we’re all sterile we’ll all die off in a generation. I don’t see why we have to be a problem like that.”

      “You don’t,” Al began, but she interrupted him.

      “And there are the stories the others tell about their old owners—torture, and beatings, and abuse—I knew I liked you, and everything, but I didn’t realize how lucky I was that you’d won me, instead of my being sold to some rich, sadistic furvert.”

      “People can be thoughtless,” he said feebly.

      She shook her head. “They weren’t thoughtless,” she said. “They did it on purpose.”

      He didn’t argue.

      She looked around the room again and asked, “So, have you been seeing someone?”

      “No,” he said.

      “Oh. I thought you might have been lonely, with me…I mean, living alone again.”

      “I am,” he said. “But it’s okay.”

      “I’ve been living in a hotel,” she said. “With three other anthropomorphs. They put us all up there until we could find places of our own. And we’re all entitled to welfare, as well as a share of the NGC settlement—that could be about sixty thousand dollars apiece, they think.”

      He nodded. “So what are you planning to do?”

      “I don’t know,” she said. She looked around the room again, a little desperately. “I was sort of hoping I could…could maybe work cleaning people’s homes.”

      “You’re good at it,” he said, “but it’s not a very good job.”

      “I know,” she admitted. “I always hated it.”

      “You did?” That was the first thing she had said that had really surprised him. He sat up straight and stared at her.

      “Of course I did!”

      “Then why did you do it?”

      She stared at him as if he was obviously insane. “Because I had to, of course! It’s what a household companion is for!”

      “Well, if you’d ever told me you didn’t like it, maybe I would have done some of the cleaning myself, but I thought you liked it! I thought it had been programmed into you, or it was something foxes did, or something.”

      “No! I was trained for it, but I never liked it!”

      “Well, did I ask you to keep the place so spotless?”

      “No, but I thought you liked it!”

      “I did like it, but if you didn’t like doing it, it wasn’t important.”

      “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

      “You never asked!”

      She stared at him.

      He stared back, and in a much calmer, quieter voice he added, “There were a lot of things I never told you.”

      “Like what?”

      “That I love you.”

      * * * *

      An hour later they lay together on the floor, naked; he stroked her furry back, and she brushed her tail along his thigh.

      “Only an idiot would want to make your fur fall out,” he said. “Or cut off your tail.”

      She nipped gently at his nose. “I love you, Mas…I mean, Al.”

      “You can call me anything you like, in private,” he said.

      “And I can stay?”

      “As long as you like.”

      “That might be a long, long time—I’m really not sure.”

      “Whatever.”

      “I’m glad to be back. Except…”

      “Except what?”