admit that despite all the debates that had raged about it, the phrase was a accurate description of Titan's social life.
"One of the chief problems of entertaining off-worlders like yourself," said Washington somewhat ruefully, "is that I find myself explaining at great length things that they know perfectly well, but are too polite to admit. A couple of years ago I took a statistician from Tranquility along this road, and gave him a brilliant lecture on the population changes here in the Washington-Virginia region over the last three hundred years. I thought he'd he interested, and he was. If I'd done my homework properly — which I
usually do, but for some reason had neglected in this case — I'd have found that he'd written the standard work on the subject. After he'd left, he sent me a copy, with a very nice inscription."
Duncan wondered how much ‘homework’ George had done on him; doubtless a good deal.
"You can assume my total ignorance in these matters. Still, I should have realized that fusor
technology would be almost as important on Earth as off it."
"It's not my field, but you're probably right. When it was cheaper and simpler to melt a home
underground than to build it above — and to fit it with viewscreens that were better than any conceivable window — it’s not surprising that the surface lost many of its attractions. Not all, though." He gestured toward the left-hand side of the parkway.
They were approaching a small access road, which merged gently into the main traffic lane. It led
into a wood about a kilometer away, and through the trees Duncan could glimpse at least a dozen houses.
They were all of different design, yet had common features so that they formed a harmonious group.
Every one had steeply gabled roofs, large windows, gray stone walls — and even chimneys. These were
certainly not functional, but many of them served to support complicated structures of metal rods.
"Fake antique," said Washington with some disapproval. "Mid-twentieth-century TV antennas. Oh well, there's no accounting for tastes."
The road was plunging downhill now, and was about to pass under a graceful bridge carrying a road
much wider than the parkway. It was also carrying considerably more traffic, moving at a leisurely
twenty or thirty kilometers an hour.
"Enjoying the good weather," said Washington. "You only see a few madmen there in the winter.
Any you may not believe this, but there was a time when the motorways were the wide roads. They had
to be when there was a hundred times as much traffic — and no automatic steering." He shuddered at the thought. "More people were killed on these roads than ever died in warfare — did you know that? And of course they still get killed, up there on the bikeways. No one's ever discovered a way to stop cyclists from wobbling; that's another reason why the road's so wide."
As they dived under the bridge, a colorful group of young riders waved down at them, and
Washington replied with a cheerful salute.
"When I was thirty years younger," he said wistfully, "a gang of us set off for California on the Transcontinental Bikeway. No electrocycles allowed, either. Well, we were unlucky — ran into terrible
weather in Kansas. Some of us made it, but I wasn't one of them. I've still got a twelve-speed Diamond Special — all carbon fiber and beryllium; you can lift it with one finger. Even now, I could do a hundred klicks on it, if I were fool enough to try."
The big car was slowing down, its computer brain sensing an exit ahead. Presently it peeled off from
the parkway, then speeded up again along a narrow road whose surface rapidly disintegrated into a barely visible grass-covered track. Washington took the steering lever just a second before the END AUTO
warning light started to flash on the control panel.
"I'm taking you to the farm for several reasons," he said. "Life will soon get hectic for both of us, as more visitors start arriving. This may be the last opportunity we have to go through your program in
peace and quiet. Also, out-worlders can learn a lot about Earth very quickly in a place like this. But to be honest — the truth is that I'm proud of the place, and like showing it off."
They were now approaching a high stone wall, running for hundreds of meters in both directions.
Duncan tried to calculate how much labor it represented, if all those oddly shaped blocks were assembled by hand — as surely they must have been. The figure was so incredible that he couldn't believe it.
And that huge gate was made of — genuine wood, for it was unpainted and he could see the grain. As
it swung automatically open, Duncan read the nameplate, and turned to the Professor in surprise.
"But I thought—" he began.
George Washington looked slightly embarrassed.
"That's my private joke," he admitted. "The real Mount Vernon is fifty kilometers southeast of here.
You mustn't miss it."
That last phrase, Duncan guessed, was going to become all too familiar in the months ahead — right
up to the day when he reembarked for Titan.