Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut [10]
"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.
"Nine!—" said Bobby Denton. "Do you bear false witness against thy neighbor?"
"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.
"Eight!—" said Bobby Denton. "Do you steal?"
"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.
"Seven!—" said Bobby Denton. "Do you commit adultery?"
"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.
"Six!—" said Bobby Denton. "Do you kill?"
"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.
"Five!—" said Bobby Denton. "Do you honor thy father and thy mother?"
"Yes!" cried the Love Crusaders.
"Four!—" said Bobby Denton. "Do you remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy?"
"Yes!" cried the Love Crusaders.
"Three!—" said Bobby Denton. "Do you take the name of the Lord thy God in vain?"
"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.
"Two!—" said Bobby Denton. "Do you make any graven images?"
"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.
"One!—" cried Bobby Denton. "Do you put any gods before the one true Lord thy God?"
"No!" cried the Love Crusaders.
"Blast off!" shouted Bobby Denton joyfully. "Paradise, here we come! Blast off, children, and Amen!"
"Well—" murmured Malachi Constant, there in the chimneylike room under the staircase in Newport, "it looks like the messenger is finally going to be used."
"What was that?" said Rumfoord.
"My name—it means faithful messenger," said Constant. "What’s the message?"
"Sorry," said Rumfoord, "I know nothing about any message." He cocked his head quizzically. "Somebody said something to you about a message?"
Constant turned his palms upward. "I mean—what am I going to go to all this trouble to get to Triton for?"
"Titan," Rumfoord corrected him.
"Titan, Triton," said Constant. "What the blast would I go there for?" Blast was a weak, prissy, Eagle-Scoutish word for Constant to use—and it took him a moment to realize why he had used it. Blast was what space cadets on television said when a meteorite carried away a control surface, or the navigator turned out to be a space pirate from the planet Zircon. He stood. "Why the hell should I go there?"
"You do—I promise you," said Rumfoord.
Constant went over to the window, some of his arrogant strength returning. "I tell you right now," he said, "I’m not going."
"Sorry to hear that," said Rumfoord.
"I’m supposed to do something for you when I get there?" said Constant.
"No," said Rumfoord.
"Then why are you sorry?" said Constant. "What’s it to you?"
"Nothing," said Rumfoord. "I’m only sorry for you. You’ll really be missing something."
"Like what?" said Constant.
"Well—the most pleasant climate imaginable, for one thing," said Rumfoord.
"Climate!" said Constant contemptuously. "With houses in Hollywood, the Vale of Kashmir, Acapulco, Manitoba, Tahiti, Paris, Bermuda, Rome, New York, and Capetown, I should leave Earth in search of happier climes?"
"There’s more to Titan than just climate," said Rumfoord. "The women, for instance, are the most beautiful creatures between the Sun and Betelgeuse."
Constant guffawed bitterly. "Women!" he said. "You think I’m having trouble getting beautiful women? You think I’m love-starved, and the only way I’ll ever get close to a beautiful woman is to climb on a rocket ship and head for one of Saturn’s moons? Are you kidding? I’ve had women so beautiful, anybody between the Sun and Betelgeuse would sit down and cry if the women said as much as hello to ’em!"
He took out his billfold, and slipped from it a photograph of his most recent conquest. There was no question about it—the girl in the photograph was staggeringly beautiful. She was Miss Canal Zone, a runner-up in the Miss Universe Contest—and in fact far more beautiful than the winner of the contest. Her beauty had frightened the judges.
Constant handed Rumfoord the photograph. "They got anything like that on Titan?" he said.
Rumfoord studied the photograph respectfully, handed it back. "No—" he said, "nothing like that on Titan. "
"O.K.," said Constant, feeling very much in control of his own destiny again, "climate, beautiful women— what else?"
"Nothing else," said Rumfoord mildly. He shrugged. "Oh—art objects, if you like art."
"I’ve got the biggest