Is That What People Do? Read Free

facet of the Language of Love.
    Soon he was ready for the study of the Apparent Negations. He discovered that for every degree of love, there is a corresponding degree of hate, which is in itself a form of love. He came to understand how valuable hate is, how it gives substance and body to love, and how even indifference and loathing have their place in the nature of love.
    Varris gave him a ten-hour written examination, which Toms passed with superlative marks. He was eager to finish, but Varris noticed that a slight tic had developed in his student’s left eye and that his hands had a tendency to shake.
    “You need a vacation,” the old man informed him.
    Toms had been thinking this himself. “You may be right,” he said, with barely concealed eagerness. “Suppose I go to Cythera V for a few weeks.”
    Varris, who knew Cythera’s reputation, smiled cynically. “Eager to try out your new knowledge?”
    “Well, why not? Knowledge is to be used.”
    “Only after it’s mastered.”
    “But I have mastered it! Couldn’t we call this field work? A thesis, perhaps?”
    “No thesis is necessary,” Varris said.
    “But damn it all,” Toms exploded, “I should do a little experimentation! I should find out for myself how all this works. Especially Approach 33-CV. It sounds fine in theory, but I’ve been wondering how it works out in actual practice. There’s nothing like direct experience, you know, to reinforce—”
    “Did you journey all this way to become a super-seducer?” Varris asked, with evident disgust.
    “Of course not,” Toms said. “But a little experimentation wouldn’t—”
    “Your knowledge of the mechanics of sensation would be barren, unless you understand love, as well. You have progressed too far to be satisfied with mere thrills.”
    Toms, searching his heart, knew this to be true. But he set his jaw stubbornly. “I’d like to find out that for myself, too.”
    “You may go,” Varris said, “but don’t come back. No one will accuse me of loosing a callous scientific seducer upon the galaxy.”
    “Oh, all right. To hell with it. Let’s get back to work.”
    “No. Look at yourself! A little more unrelieved studying, young man, and you will lose the capacity to make love. And wouldn’t that be a sorry state of affairs?”
    Toms agreed that it certainly would be.
    “I know the perfect spot,” Varris told him, “for relaxation from the study of love.”
    They entered the old man’s spaceship and journeyed five days to a small unnamed planetoid. When they landed, the old man took Toms to the bank of a swift flowing river, where the water ran fiery red, with green diamonds of foam. The trees that grew on the banks of that river were stunted and strange, and colored vermilion. Even the grass was unlike grass, for it was orange and blue.
    “How alien!” gasped Toms.
    “It is the least human spot I’ve found in this humdrum corner of the galaxy,” Varris explained. “And believe me, I’ve done some looking.”
    Toms stared at him, wondering if the old man was out of his mind. But soon he understood what Varris meant.
    For months he had been studying human reactions and human feelings, and rounding it all was the now suffocating feeling of soft human fit ii. fie had immersed himself in humanity, studied it, bathed in it, eaten and drunk and dreamed it. It was a relief to be here, where the water ran red and the trees were stunted and strange and vermilion, and the grass was orange and blue, and there was no reminder of Earth.
    Toms and Varris separated, for even each other’s humanity was a nuisance. Toms spent his days wandering along the river edge, marveling at the flowers which moaned when he came near them. At night, three wrinkled moons played tag with each other, and the morning sun was different from the yellow sun of Earth.
    At the end of a week, refreshed and renewed, Toms and Varris returned to G’cel, the Tyanian city dedicated to the study of love.
    Toms was