Radwick concealed a smile as one of them materialized inside the ship. She balanced on the cabin table and fell towards me, whispering sounds that almost made words. The sensation was one of almost-solid and yet a yielding that gave way to the touch. There was a wetness and a warmness with just the suggestion of glossy, mist hair, dainty-brushing, lip-kissing. She formed herself around my body and nibbled my ear and teased me to open my pores and admit her.
"I don't know how!" I gasped, almost overwhelmed by the not-quite-solidity of her.
"And never will," laughed Radwick. "You aren't sex-oriented or you would be at the end of your run on the Overdrive right this moment, spirited away into the ideal of orgiastic perfection. The Company loses a lot of men to these mists and they go drifting in love forever, but she can't hurt you."
Then the delicious mist got mad and slapped my face and floated daintily off. Then came the jarring sensation and we were back in the daylight of our own time and heading again towards the next layer of blue time. Only by then I could marvel no more.
I saw Kelly on Scolaris while they were loading the ship with duronium. In exchange the Scolarians got various earth chemicals which were used for alien purposes beyond our knowing. Scolaris was a planet of a great star; it was also a city. It was a fine city but by no means different from New York. In fact it could've been New York done on an idealistic scale. The people of Scolaris, the Star-beings, were engaged in some terrific struggle which I couldn't quite understand.
"Back on earth," said Kelly as we sat in his sidewalk apartment, "there were a lot of things that went on I didn't like. If you loved someone, there was hate mixed with it. If you liked some idea—freedom, equal rights, the dignity of man, there was always some person or some institution around that spoiled it. You were always striving for some perfection and yet you knew you could never reach it. But listen, Al, they got it here—perfection." He leaned back with a sigh.
His red-headed Ideal of the Thousand Lights in New York was there. Her name was Valda and she smiled at me and asked if I had shot any more Ideals lately. I grinned a negative and accepted the drink of Scolaris that she mixed. It was perfect.
"The Scolarians are at war with a group from another galaxy, the Philosters," said Kelly. "These star-beings are people like us engaged in a great struggle with the Philosterian forces. But there isn't any stupidity on our side. The Scolarians are all fine people, generous, loving, determined. They respect one another; they never let you down. The women of Scolaris that we call Ideals, once they fall for a man, Scolarian or earth-like, are forever faithful and one hundred per cent in love with you. To me the whole race is perfect good fighting the perfect evil of the Philosterians. I want to join that fight, Al. Only here on the Stardust Overdrive do the true whites and blacks of good and evil exist."
"But you hated Valda back on earth," I pointed out. "Back in the Thousand Lights that night."