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job.” Patricia smiled back.
    “How’s the wife
and kids, George?” Scratchon wasn’t smiling.
    “Fine.
Actually, Margaret is one of the reasons I dropped by. She got a tree-house seed—a
Laurel, I think—in the mail
with a Burpee’s catalog, and she wanted me
to get an idea of what the floor plan would be like.”
    “My God! You,
too? Don’t you realize the danger to the economy that the damned things
represent?”
    “Come off it,
Burt. Quit trying to make your job into a holy war. Anyway, the kids planted
the damned thing on our property along Lake George. On An O-8’s pay I
couldn’t afford to build a house up there, so planting a tree house won’t set
the economy back any.”
    “But in the long
run—”
    “In the long run
we’ll all be dead. For right now, there are more important things to worry
about.”
    “Like what? Is
there something going on that they don’t tell us civilians?” Patricia
said.
    “Nothing that
you don’t read in the papers. But the human race is outgrowing this little
planet, and there is no place else to go,” Hastings said.
    “But I heard
that the moon project and L-Five were going all right.”
    “There are less
than ten thousand people up there. What’s that to the ten billion people on
Earth? Don’t get me wrong. I support those projects. But they won’t help us out
much down here,” Hastings said.
    “And you think
that these tree houses will?” Scratchon asked.
    “They might, Burt.
They just might.”
    “I wish that
you could have gotten here ten minutes sooner,” Patricia said. “Dr.
Guibedo could have used some encouragement.”
    “Guibedo was
here?” Hastings said. “I’m sorry that I missed him. But how
did you meet him? I’d heard that he was something of a recluse.”
    “A news girl
gets around. Actually, I met him through a friend of his nephew, Heinrich
Copernick.”
    “The same guy
who raised the stink about rejuvenation a few years back?” Scratchon
asked.
    “Oh, yes.
Genius often runs in a family.” Patricia steered the conversation to a topic
that she knew something about. “Take the Bach family, for example…”
     
    Seven months later,
the fashions demanded that women wear a padded turtleneck bra with wide transparent sleeves. Keeping
to the letter of the decree, Patricia’s midriff was bare to three inches below her
belly button, where a black bikini bottom and transparent pantaloons began.
    “This is
Patricia Cambridge with The World at Large. We’re on location
today in Forest Hills, Queens, doing a follow-up on an experiment initiated a year
ago on this program.
    “The huge tree
house you see behind me is Laurel, grown incredibly from the potted plant we
saw in Dr. Guibedo’s window just a year ago.
    “Mr. Burt
Scratchon has been living here for six months, and he will be giving us the grand
tour. Tell me, Mr. Scratchon, what is living in a tree house really like?”
    “Ms. Cambridge,
it’s pure hell. Only my sense of duty to the American public has kept me living in
this green slum. I’ll be happy when this experiment is over and I can move back into
my solid brick home.
    “Look at that phone line. Tight as a
guitar string. What with its incredible
growth, this ‘house’ has ripped off
its own telephone wire twice since I’ve been here!”
    “It can’t be all
that serious, Mr. Scratchon.” Patricia led the way into the house.
    “Serious enough
when you are trying to run a business. And look at this damned stuff!”
His face reddened. Control, man! Mustn’t alienate the public. Sell!
    “Uh, this is
being taped, Mr. Scratchon. The technicians have all night to edit out anything
improper. Just go on,” said Patricia.
    “This flooring material, for
example.” Scratchon kicked loose a
piece of the carpeting. “Totally unsanitary. It can’t be cleaned. My housekeeper filled four vacuum bags on
the hall floor alone before she gave up. A bachelor has a hard enough time keeping good help without