Free The Mammoth Book of 20th Century SF II by David G. Hartwell

hors d’oeuvre of marble chips and now amiably share the pièce de résistance , a battered but rewarding tube of Van Dyke brown.”
    Anna listened to this with widening eyes. Finally she gave a short amazed laugh. “Matt Bell, you really love that life, don’t you?”
    He smiled. “In some ways the creative life is pretty carefree. I’m just a psychiatrist specializing in psychogenetics. I don’t know an arpeggio from a drypoint etching, but I
like to be around people that do.” He bent forward earnestly. “These artists – these golden people – they’re the coming force in society. And you’re one of them,
Anna, whether you know it or like it. You and your kind are going to inherit the earth – only you’d better hurry if you don’t want Martha Jacques and her National Security
scientists to get it first. So the battle lines converge in Renaissance II. Art versus Science. Who dies? Who lives?” He looked thoughtful, lonely. He might have been pursuing an
introspective monologue in the solitude of his own chambers.
    “This Mrs. Jacques,” said Anna. “What’s she like? You asked me to see her tomorrow about her husband, you know.”
    “Darn good looking woman. The most valuable mind in history, some say. And if she really works out something concrete from her Sciomnia equation, I guess there won’t be any doubt
about it. And that’s what makes her potentially the most dangerous human being alive: National Security is fully aware of her value, and they’ll coddle her tiniest whim – at least
until she pulls something tangible out of Sciomnia. Her main whim for the past few years has been her errant husband, Mr. Ruy Jacques.”
    “Do you think she really loves him?”
    “Just between me and you she hates his guts. So naturally she doesn’t want any other woman to get him. She has him watched, of course. The Security Bureau cooperate with alacrity,
because they don’t want foreign agents to approach her through him . There have been ugly rumors of assassinated models . . . But I’m digressing.” He cocked a
quizzical eye at her. “Permit me to repeat the invitation of your unknown admirer. Like you, he’s another true child of the new Renaissance. The two of you should find much in common
– more than you can now guess. I’m very serious about this, Anna. Seek him out immediately – tonight – now. There aren’t any mirrors in the Via.”
    “Please, Matt.”
    “Honey,” he growled, “to a man my age you aren’t ugly. And this man’s the same. If a woman is pretty, he paints her and forgets her. But if she’s some kind of
an artist, he talks to her, and he can get rather endless sometimes. If it’s any help to your self-assurance, he’s about the homeliest creature on the face of the earth. You’ll
look like De Milo alongside him.”
    The woman laughed shortly. “I can’t get mad at you, can I? Is he married?”
    “Sort of.” His eyes twinkled. “But don’t let that concern you. He’s a perfect scoundrel.”
    “Suppose I decide to look him up. Do I simply run up and down the Via paging all homely friends of Dr. Matthew Bell?”
    “Not quite. If I were you I’d start at the entrance – where they have all those queer side-shows and one-man exhibitions. Go on past the vendress of love philters and work down
the street until you find a man in a white suit with polka dots.”
    “How perfectly odd! And then what? How can I introduce myself to a man whose name I don’t know? Oh, Matt, this is so silly, so childish . . .”
    He shook his head in slow denial. “You aren’t going to think about names when you see him. And your name won’t mean a thing to him, anyway. You’ll be lucky if you
aren’t ‘hey you’ by midnight. But it isn’t going to matter.”
    “It isn’t too clear why you don’t offer to escort me.” She studied him calculatingly. “And I think you’re withholding his name because you know I
wouldn’t go if you revealed it.”
    He