"Hundreds," said Baley. "Did you ever view scenes on Earth in a book-film? Or view a novel with an Earth setting?"
"We don't have many of those, but I've viewed novels set on the other Outer Worlds where seeing goes on all the time. It's different in a novel. It just seems like a multiview."
"Do people ever kiss in novels?"
She flushed painfully. "I don't read that kind."
"Never?"
"Well - there are always a few dirty films around, you know, and sometimes, just out of curiosity - It's sickening, really."
"Is it?"
She said with sudden animation, "But Earth is so different. So many people. When you walk, Elijah, I suppose you even t-touch people. I mean, by accident."
Baley half smiled. "You even knock them down by accident." He thought of the crowds on the Expressways, tugging and shoving, bounding up and down the strips, and for a moment, inevitably, he felt the pang of homesickness.
Gladia said, "You don't have to stay way out there."
"Would it be all right if I came closer?"
"I think so. I'll tell you when I'd rather you wouldn't any more." Stepwise Baley drew closer, while Gladia watched him, wide eyed.
She said suddenly, "Would you like to see some of my field colorings?"
Baley was six feet away. He stopped and looked at her. She seemed small and fragile. He tried to visualize her, something in her hand (what?), swinging furiously at the skull of her husband. He tried to picture her, mad with rage, homicidal with hate and anger.
He had to admit it could be done. Even a hundred and five pounds of woman could crush a skull if she had the proper weapon and were wild enough. And Baley had known murderesses (on Earth, of course) who, in repose, were bunny rabbits.
He said, "What are field colorings, Gladia?"
"An art form," she said.
Baley remembered Leebig's reference to Gladia's art. He nodded. "I'd like to see some."
"Follow me, then."
Baley maintained a careful six-foot distance between them. At that, it was less than a third the distance Kiorissa had demanded.
They entered a room that burst with light. It glowed in every corner and every color.
Gladia looked pleased, proprietary. She looked up at Baley, eyes anticipating.
Baley's response must have been what she expected, though he said nothing. He turned slowly, trying to make out what he saw, for it was light only, no material object at all.
The gobbets of light sat on embracing pedestals. They were living geometry, lines and curves of color, entwined into a coalescing whole yet maintaining distinct identities. No two. specimens were even remotely alike.
Baley groped for appropriate words and said, "Is it supposed to mean anything?"
Gladia laughed in her pleasant contralto. "It means whatever you like it to mean. They're just light-forms that might make you feel angry or happy or curious or whatever I felt when I constructed one. I could make one for you, a kind of portrait. It might not be very good, though, because I would just be improvising quickly."
"Would you? I would be very interested."
"All right," she said, and half-ran to a light-figure in one corner, passing within inches of him as she did so. She did not seem to notice.
She touched something on the pedestal of the light-figure and the glory above died without a flicker.
Baley gasped and said, "Don't do that."
"It's all right. I was tired of it, anyway. I'll just fade the others temporarily so they don't distract me." She opened a panel along one featureless wall and moved a rheostat. The colors faded to something scarcely visible.
Baley said, "Don't you have a robot to do this? Closing contacts?"
"Shush, now," she said impatiently. "I don't keep robots in here. This is - me." She looked at him, frowning. "I don't know you well enough. That's the trouble."
She wasn't looking at the pedestal, but her fingers rested lightly on its smooth upper surface. All ten fingers were curved, tense, waiting.
One finger moved, describing a half curve over smoothness. A bar of deep yellow light grew and slanted obliquely across the air above. The finger inched backward a fraction and the light grew slightly less deep in shade.
She looked at it momentarily. "I suppose that's it. A kind of strength without weight."
"Jehoshaphat," said Baley.
"Are you offended?" Her fingers lifted and the yellow slant of light remained solitary and stationary.
"No, not at all. But what is it? How do you do it?"
"That's hard to explain," said Gladia, looking at the pedestal
thoughtfully, "considering I don't really understand it myself. It's a kind of optical illusion, I've been told. We set up force-fields at different energy levels. They're extrusions of hyperspace, really, and don't have the properties of ordinary space at all. Depending on the energy level, the human eye sees light of different shades. The shapes and colors are controlled by the warmth of my fingers against appropriate spots on the pedestal. There are all sorts of controls inside each pedestal."
"You mean if I were to put my finger there - " Baley advanced and Gladia made way for him. He put a hesitant forefinger down upon the pedestal and felt a soft throbbing.
"Go ahead. Move your finger, Elijah," said Gladia.
Baley did so and a dirty-gray jag of light lifted upward, skewing the yellow light. Baley withdrew his finger sharply and Gladia laughed and then was instantly contrite.
"I shouldn't laugh," she said. "It's really very hard to do, even for people who've tried a long time." Her own hand moved lightly and too quickly for Baley to follow and the monstrosity he had set up disappeared, leaving the yellow light in isolation again.