"Yes. I hated her because she could be perfect and I knew I couldn't be—I hated my own imperfection. I'm learning. I'm going to stay here and learn to be a Scolarian. In other words, reach perfection of an integrated, happy body and mind, engaged in a worthwhile struggle, dedicated to the forces of good forever."
I leaned back seeing how much we were brothers, feeling how good it was to be on Scolaris. There was a knock on the door and a dark-haired woman came in.
"This is Sandy," said Valda, smiling at me.
I felt better than ever because I had met my Ideal.
"There's one human agony worse than all," said Radwick. We were in the Thousand Lights dining-bar back in New York. "It is to conceive an ideal and then continually fall short of it. That's why the company loses men out in space. On Scolaris a human can be his ideal. It ruins him for earth. His body may be in New York, but his being is out on the Stardust Overdrive, fighting the good fight, living for ideals, experiencing total commitment."
I didn't pay much attention. I already knew what he meant. All of my life I had yearned for things greater than life. An ideal job, an ideal wife, an ideal struggle to fight and win. It wasn't on earth. It was out on the Drive. Kelly, Radwick and I were fools on earth, cut off from the sensible ones, hating the imperfections. The people for their part rightly hated those ideal men and women of Scolaris.
I watched Sandy coming across the room. The earth people drew back in hate. On earth I felt some of that hate, but I couldn't escape her. She had a body that was delectable—because I had created the thought of it for her to wear. Her face was the face of my dreams because I had dreamed it so. She looked a little like me as an ideal always must. But the red lips, the cream skin, the silken hips and trim ankles, the glorious spun gloss of her dark hair and penetrating beauty of gray-green eyes—these were less than the total appeal.
She wanted me no matter whether or not I wanted her. The ideal love—realizing that she couldn't possibly escape me, no matter how harshly I mistreated her. No matter what I did, she only smiled and came back for more. She followed me like a dog, worried about me, crept into my bed at night to warm my body, left me alone when I wanted to be alone.
She stood at the table. She was my ideal. But you have to test and retest an ideal. That's why, half in anger half in fear, I stood up and struck her across the face, watching the imprint of my hand in red on the smooth, young cheek. She had the look they all have of patience, of humor, of some exasperation.