Time Waits for Winthrop Read Online Free

know—
machine
machines and—”
    “Speaking of food machines,” Winthrop perked up, “have you seen my new food phonograph? Latest model. I said I wanted one, and first thing this morning, a brand-new one is delivered to my door. No fuss, no bother, no money. What a world!”
    “But it’s not
your world
, Mr. Winthrop. Even if everything is free, you’re not entitled. You got to
belong
to be entitled.”
    “There’s nothing in their laws about that,” he commented absent-mindedly as he opened the huge egg and peered inside at the collection of dials and switches and spigots. “See, Mrs. Brucks?
Double
volume controls,
double
intensity controls,
triple
vitamin controls. With this one, you can raise the fat content of a meal, say, while reducing its sweetness with that doohickey there—and if you press that switch, you can compress the whole meal so it’s no bigger than a mouthful and you’re still hungry enough to try a couple of other compositions. Want to try it? I got it set for the latest number by Unni Oehele, that new Aldebaranian composer—
Memories of a Martian Soufflé.”
    She shook her head emphatically. “No. By me, a meal is served in plates. I don’t want to try it. Thank you very much.”
    “Believe me, lady, you’re missing something. The first course is a kind of light, fast movement, all herbs from Aldebaran IV mixed with a spicy vinegar from Aldebaran IX. The second course,
Consommé Grand
, is a lot slower and kind of majestic. Oehele bases it all on a broth made from the white
chund
, a kangaroo animal they have on Aldebaran IV. See, he uses only native Aldebaranian foods to
suggest
a Martian dish. Get it? The same thing Kratzmeier did in
A Long, Long Dessert on Deimos and Phobos
, only it’s a lot better. More modern-like, if you know what I mean. Now in the
third
course, Oehele really takes off. He—”
    “Please, Mr. Winthrop!” Mrs. Brucks begged. “Enough!” She glared at him. She’d had her fill of this sort of thing from her son Julius years ago, when he’d been running around with a crazy crowd from City College and been spouting hours of incomprehensible trash at her that he’d picked up from newspaper musical reviews and the printed notes in record albums. One thing she’d learned was how to recognize an art phony.
    W inthrop shrugged. “Okay, okay. But you’d think you’d at least want to try it. The others at least took a bite of classical Kratzmeier or Gura-Hok. They didn’t like it, they spat it out—fine. But you’ve been living on nothing but that damn twentieth-century grub since we arrived. After the first day, you haven’t set foot outside your room. And the way you asked the room to decorate itself—it’s so old-fashioned, it makes me sick! You’re living in the twenty-fifth century, lady! Wake up!”
    “Mr. Winthrop,” she said sternly, “yes or no? You’re going to be nice or not?”
    “You’re in your fifties,” he pointed out. “
Fifties
, Mrs. Brucks. In our time, you can expect to live what? Ten or fifteen more years. Tops. Here, you might see another thirty, maybe forty. Me, I figure I’m good for at least twenty. With the medical machines they got, they can do wonders. And no wars to worry about, no epidemics, no depressions, nothing. Everything free, lots of exciting things to do, Mars, Venus, the stars. Why in hell are you so crazy to go back?”
    Mrs. Brucks’ already half-dissolved self-control gave way completely. “Because it’s my home! Because it’s what I understand! Because I want to be with my husband, my children, my grandchildren! And because I don’t
like
it here, Mr. Winthrop!”
    “So go back!” Winthrop yelled. The room, which for the last few moments had settled into a pale golden yellow, turned rose color again. “There’s not one of you with the guts of a cockroach. Even that young fellow, what’s-his-name, Dave Pollock, I thought
he
had guts. He went out with me for the first week and he tried