The Pollinators of Eden Read Online Free PDF Page A

self-conscious silence, more from wonder at herself than from the ribaldry of the tune. Rarely had she felt so exuberant, and her happiness disturbed her.
    A moment’s analysis told her what prompted the caroling: an afterimage of the Caron tulip was casting a golden light through her mind. “A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” somebody had said, and for the past quarter hour the saying had proved to be true.
    As she prepared her toilet, spending less than five minutes on her makeup, the laughter of the tulip kept returning to her, pleasantly at first. After she slipped into her green cocktail dress and stretched on her bed to relax a few minutes, the memory of its laughter touched her with sadness. She submitted her changed reaction to analysis: when Polino had met her at the spaceport, she was anxious about Paul and disappointed over his absence. When she laughed at the male tulips wolf whistle, her laughter had been a release of tension as well as a reflection of merriment. This afternoon all the anxiety had been filtered from the tulip’s imitation, and she had heard herself laughing as a child, as she had before her parents had divorced. She had not laughed with such spontaneity since she was ten, and her sadness had been a nostalgia for the lost innocence of childhood.
    She had tidied her emotional closets when Hal called for her in the afterglow of sunset, and she could appreciate the sincerity in his voice when he said, “In your dress of green with your hair of gold, Doctor, you’re as fetching as a Caron tulip.”
    She smiled in spite of herself and said, “Save your apple-polishing for the señoritas in Old Town. Here, hold my wrap!”
    “May I call you Freda, Doctor Caron, because I didn’t come prepared for a formal dinner?”
    She didn’t approve of first names between department heads and graduate students, although the practice was general, but she didn’t wish for him to be inhibited tonight. She preferred that he behave around her in much the same manner as he acted with Paul. “You may call me ‘Freda’ after we get off the station. And I’m glad you’re not prepared for formalities tonight, because I have some heavy labor for you. Well stop by the greenhouse and hang the female tulip I am fluorographing.”
    As they walked along the flagstone path to her office, he said, “I was able to get reservations at the Napoli.”
    “The Napoli!” Indeed he had chosen a restaurant where they would not be seen by station personnel—it was too expensive.
    “Twenty dollars won’t cover the tip at the Napoli, Hal. We’ll go dutch.”
    “No, ma’am,” he said firmly. “There was once a kitty in the students’ dorm. For three years it sat there, growing with each quarter of the school year, waiting for the first student to take you out on a date. Tonight I walked off with it.”
    “You have won a bet on me?”
    “Not without an argument. Some claimed unfair tactics, since they knew you wanted to hear about Paul—Doctor Theaston—but I convinced them it was my Italian charm. However, there were bylaws adopted when the pool was formed. The winner had to promise a blow-by-blow description of his night with you in a motel.”
    “You know very well there’ll be no motel.”
    “Right,” he agreed. “But they’ll get the description they paid for. So, as long as your reputation’s ruined anyway, you may as well relax and enjoy the whole evening.”
    As he opened the door for her, she said with feigned indignation, “You’re not trapping me with your specious logic… Look, Hal!”
    He had flipped on the lights, and her first glance revealed that the female tulip was dead. It had fallen toward the fluoro screen, spewing its seeds as it fell. Some had struck the fluoro screen, but most of the tiny black seeds trailed across the white linoleum.
    “It fell dead,” Hal said.
    “Gather the seeds, Hal, and put the corpse in the freezer. I want to look at the fluoro prints.”
    “Done in by