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Doggedly, Lou tried to find the cheery side of the situation. "Well, anyway, they’ve got the stuff so it tastes a lot less like seaweed and sawdust than it did at first; and they say it’s actually better for us than what we used to eat."

"I felt fine!" said Em fiercely.

Lou shrugged. "Well, you’ve got to realize, the world wouldn’t be able to support twelve billion people if it wasn’t for processed seaweed and sawdust. I mean, it’s a wonderful thing, really. I guess. That’s what they say."

"They say the first thing that pops into their heads," said Em. She closed her eyes. "Golly—remember shopping, Lou? Remember how the stores used to fight to get our folks to buy something? You didn’t have to wait for somebody to die to get a bed or chairs or a stove or anything like that. Just went in— bing!—and bought whatever you wanted. Gee whiz that was nice, before they used up all the raw materials. I was just a little kid then, but I can remember so plain."

Depressed, Lou walked listlessly to the balcony’s edge, and looked up at the clean, cold, bright stars against the black velvet of infinity. "Remember when we used to be bugs on science fiction, Em? Flight seventeen, leaving for Mars, launching ramp twelve. ’Board! All non-technical personnel kindly remain in bunkers. Ten seconds... nine... eight... seven... six ... five... four... three... two... one! Main Stage! Barrrrrroooom!"

"Why worry about what was going on on Earth?" said Em, looking up at the stars with him. "In another few years, we’d all be shooting through space to start life all over again on a new planet."

Lou sighed. "Only it turns out you need something about twice the size of the Empire State Building to get one lousy colonist to Mars. And for another couple of trillion bucks he could take his wife and dog. That’s the way to lick overpopulation—emigrate!"

"Lou—?"

"Hmmm?"

"When’s the Five-Hundred-Mile Speedway Race?"

"Uh—Memorial Day, May thirtieth."

She bit her lip. "Was that awful of me to ask?"

"Not very, I guess. Everybody in the apartment’s looked it up to make sure."

"I don’t want to be awful," said Em, "but you’ve just got to talk over these things now and then, and get them out of your system."

"Sure you do. Feel better?"

"Yes—and I’m not going to lose my temper anymore, and I’m going to be just as nice to him as I know how."

"That’s my Em."

They squared their shoulders, smiled bravely, and went back inside.

Gramps Schwartz, his chin resting on his hands, his hands on the crook of his cane, was staring irascibly at the five-foot television screen that dominated the room. On the screen, a news commentator was summarizing the day’s happenings. Every thirty seconds or so, Gramps would jab the floor with his cane-tip and shout, "Hell! We did that a hundred years ago!"

Emerald and Lou, coming in from the balcony, were obliged to take seats in the back row, behind Lou’s father and mother, brother and sister-in-law, son and daughter-in-law, grandson and wife, granddaughter and husband, great-grandson and wife, nephew and wife, grandnephew and wife, greatgrandniece and husband, great-grandnephew and wife, and, of course, Gramps, who was in front of everybody. All, save Gramps, who was somewhat withered and bent, seemed, by pre-anti-gerasone standards, to be about the same age—to be somewhere in their late twenties or early thirties.

"Meanwhile," the commentator was saying, "Council Bluffs, Iowa, was still threatened by stark tragedy. But two hundred weary rescue workers have refused to give up hope, and continue to dig in an effort to save Elbert Haggedorn, one hundred and eighty-three, who has been wedged for two days in a ..."

"I wish he’d get something more cheerful," Emerald whispered to Lou.

"Silence!" cried Gramps. "Next one shoots off his big bazoo while the TV’s on is gonna find hisself cut off without a dollar—" and here his voice suddenly softened and sweetened—"when they wave that checkered flag at the Indianapolis Speedway, and old Gramps gets ready for the Big Trip Up Yonder." He sniffed sentimentally, while his heirs