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.But I didn’t check myself.It was their business.A vidreport had them on Station One, dancing in the null gravity of the big ballroom balloon.Even without Control I was kept abreast of their actions and whereabouts by that host of people who found delight in telling me where my wife and her lover were.And what they were doing.How they looked.What they said.And so forth.Somehow none of it surprised me.I knew Madelon and what she liked.I knew beautiful women.I knew that Mike’s sensatron cubes were passports to immortality for many women.Mike was not the only artist working in the medium, of course, for Leeward and Miflin were both exhibiting and Coe had already done his great “Family.” But it was Mike the women wanted.Presidents and kings sought out Cinardo and Lisa Araminta.Vidstars thought Hampton fashionable.But Mike was the first choice for all the great beauties.I was determined that Mike have the time and privacy to do a sensatron cube of Madelon and I made it mandatory at all my homes, offices, and branches that Mike and Madelon be isolated from the vidhacks and nuts and time wasters as much as possible.It was the purest ego on my part, that lusting toward a sensatron portrait of Madelon.I suppose I wanted the world to know that she was “mine” as much as she could belong to anyone.I realized that all my commissioning of art was, at the bottom, ego.Make no mistake—I enjoyed the art I helped make possible, with a few mistakes that kept me alert.But I enjoyed many kinds and levels and degrees of art.I did not go by present popularity but preferred to find and encourage new artists.You see, I am a businessman.A very rich one, a very talented one, a very famous one, but no one will remember me beyond the memory of my few good friends.I would not even be a footnote in history, except for my association with the arts.But the art I help create will make me live on.I am not unique in that.Some people endow colleges, or create scholarships or build stadiums.Some build great houses, or even cause laws to be passed.These are not always acts of pure egotism, but the ego often enters into it, I’m certain, and especially if it is tax deductible.Over the years I have commissioned Vardi to do the Fates for the Terrace Garden of the General Anomaly complex, my financial base and main corporation.I pressed for Darrin to do the Rocky Mountain sculptures for United Motors.I talked Willoughby into doing his golden beast series at my home in Arizona.Caruthers did his “Man” series of cubes because of a commission from my Manpower company.The panels that are now in the Metropolitan were done for my Tahiti estate by Elinor Ellington.I gave the University of Pennsylvania the money to impregnate those hundreds of sandstone slab carvings on Mars and get them safely to Earth.I subsidized Eklundy for five years before he wrote his Martian Symphony.I sponsored the first air music concert at Sydney.My ego has had a good working out.I received a tape from Madelon the same day I had a call from the Pope, who wanted me to help him convince Mike to do his tomb sculptures.The new Reformed Church was once again involved in art patronage, a 2,500-year-old tradition.But getting a tape from Madelon, instead of a call, where I could reply, hurt me.I suspected I had lost Madelon.My armored layers of sophistication told me glibly that I had asked for it, even had intrigued to achieve it.But my beast-gut told me that I had been a fool.This time I had outsmarted myself.I dropped the tape in the playback.She was recording from a grove of rainbow trees in Trumpet Valley.I had given Tashura the grant that had made the transplants from Mars possible and the feathery splendor of the trees behind her seemed a suitable background for her beauty.“Brian, he’s fantastic.I’ve never met anyone like him.”I died a little and was sad.Others had amused her, or pleased her golden body, or were momentarily mysterious to her, but this time.this time I knew it was different.“He’s going to start the cube next week.In Rome.I’m very excited.” I punched out the tape and got my secretary to track her down.She was in Rome, looking radiant.“How much does he want to do it?” I asked.Sometimes my businessman’s brain likes to keep things orderly and out front, before confusion and misunderstanding sets in.But this time I was abrupt, crass and rather brutal, though my words were delivered in a normal, light tone.But all I had to offer was the wherewithal that could pay for the sensatron cube.“Nothing,” she said.“He’s doing it for nothing.Because he wants to, Brian.”“Nonsense.I commissioned him.Cubes cost money to make.He’s not that rich.”“He told me to tell you he wants to do it without any money.He’s out now, getting new cilli nets.”I felt cheated.I had caused the series of events that would end in the creation of a sensatron portrait of Madelon, but I was going to be cheated of my only contribution, my only connection.I had to salvage something.“It.it should be an extraordinary cube.Would Mike object if I built a structure just for it?”“I thought you wanted to put it in the new house on Battle Mountain.”“I do, but I thought I might make a special small dome of spraystone.On the point, perhaps.Something extra nice for a Cilento masterpiece.”“It sounds like a shrine.” Her face was quiet, her eyes looking into me.“Yes,” I answered slowly, “perhaps it is.” Maybe people shouldn’t get to know you so well that they can read your mind where you cannot.I changed the subject and we talked for a few minutes of various friends.Steve on the Venus probe.A fashionable couturier who was showing a line based on the new Martian tablet finds.A new sculptor working in magnaplastics.Blake Mason’s designs for the Gardens of Babylon.A festival in Rio that Jules and Gina had invited us to.The Pope’s desire for Mike to do his tomb.In short, all the gossip, trivia, and things of importance between friends.I talked of everything except what I wanted to talk about.When we parted Madelon told me with a sad, proud smile that she had never been so happy.I nodded and punched out, then stared sightlessly at the skyline.For a long moment I hated Michael Cilento and he was probably never so near death.But I loved Madelon and she loved Mike, so he must live and be protected.I knew that she loved me, too, but it was and had always been a different kind of love.I went to a science board meeting at Tycho Base and looked at the green-brown-blue white-streaked Earth “overhead” and only paid minimal attention to the speakers.I came down to a petroleum meeting at Hargesisa, in Somalia.I visited a mistress of mine in Samarkand, sold a company, bought an electrosnake for the Louvre, visited Armand in Nardonne, bought a company, commissioned a concerto from a new composer I liked in Ceylon, and donated an early Caruthers to the Prado.I came, I went.I thought about Madelon.I thought about Mike.Then I went back to what I did best: making money, making work, getting things done, making time pass.I had just come from a policy meeting of the North American Continent Ecology Council when Madelon called to say the cube was finished and would be installed in the Battle Mountain house by the end of the week.“How is it?” I asked.She smiled.“See for yourself.”“Smug bitch,” I grinned.“It’s his best one, Brian.The best sensatron in the world.”“I’ll see you Saturday
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