Free Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein Page A

Seldom. He’ll be asleep our next watch. Mmm—”
    “Colleague, I want your answer now . So that I can notify the Skills Board if necessary.”
    “Uh—I’ll stick! I’ll stick as long as you do.”
    “Good. I thought you would.” The Master Chief Technician again reached for the controls. “Intermediate lounge now?”
    “Just a moment. I would like to know you better.”
    “Colleague, if you stick, you’ll know me far too well. I have a sharp tongue.”
    “I meant socially, not professionally.”
    “Well!”
    “You are offended? I’ve come to admire you without ever having seen you. Now I would like to see you. I’m not trying to curry favor.”
    “I believe you. Grant me the respect of believing that I studied your psych scores before I accepted the Board’s choice. No, I’m not offended; I’m flattered. Dinner together sometime, perhaps?”
    “Certainly. But I had more in mind. What would you say to ‘Seven Hours of Ecstasy’?”
    There was a short pause which felt long. The Master Chief Technician said, “Colleague, what sex are you?”
    “Does it matter?”
    “I suppose not. I accept. Now?”
    “If it suits you.”
    “It does. I was simply going to my compartment, read a while, and sleep. Shall we go there?”
    “I was thinking of taking you to Elysium.”
    “No need to. Ecstasy is in the heart. But thank you.”
    “I can afford it. Uh, I’m not dependent on my salary. I can easily afford the best Elysium has to offer.”
    “Perhaps another time, dear colleague. But a resident’s compartment here in the Clinic is quite comfortable and at least an hour closer not counting the time we would waste getting out of isolation armor and dressed to face the public. We’ll go straight to my place, I find I’m eager. Goodness, I haven’t chanced this sort of lark in—far too long.”
    Four minutes later the Master Chief Technician let them into the compartment—large, as promised, and handsome and airy—a “happy” suite. A simulacrum fire blazed merrily in a corner fireplace and cast dancing lights around the lounging room. “You’ll find a guests’ dressing room through that door, ’fresher beyond it. The chute for disposables is on the left, racks for helmets and isolation gear on the right. Need help?”
    “No, thank you, I’m quite limber.”
    “Well, shout if you need anything. Meet me here in front of the fire in ten minutes, say?”
    “Suits.”
    The Associate Tech came out in only a little over ten minutes, free at last of isolation armor and looking even shorter in bare feet and without helmet. The Master Chief Tech looked up from the hearth rug. “Oh, there you are! You’re male! I’m surprised. But pleased.”
    “And you’re female. And I am very pleased. But I don’t believe for an instant that you are surprised. You’ve seen my records.”
    “No, dear,” she denied. “Not your personal dossier, just the brief the Board supplies to a prospective supervisor—and they are meticulously careful to keep name and sex and other irrelevancies out of it; their computer program sees to that. I did not know, and my guess was wrong.”
    “I didn’t try to guess. But I certainly am pleased. I don’t know why I have this special liking for tall women. But I do. Stand up and let me look at you.”
    She squirmed lazily. “What an irrational criterion. All women are the same height—lying down. So come lie down here: it’s very comfortable.”
    “Woman, when I say ‘Stand up!’ I expect action.”
    She giggled. “You’re an atavism. But pretty.” She made a long arm, got him by an ankle, snatched him off balance. He went down. “That’s better. Now we’re the same height.”
     
    COUNTERPOINT
II
    She said. “Would you like a middle-of-the-night lunch? Sleepyhead.”
    He said, “I did doze off, didn’t I? I had reason. Yes, I would. What am I being offered?”
    “Name it, just name it. If I don’t have it, I’ll send for it. I’m feeling very mellow