POLLONY UNDIVERTED By SYDNEY VAN SCYOC Illustrated by R. D. Francis [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] With the whole world at her doorstep, what she wanted was completely out of reach! Pollony's dream formed around a glare of light, a tang of men's lotion. Then she was awake to Brendel poking her. "I'm hungry." She struggled to burrow back into sleep. "I'm starving, kid. I can't sleep." She bleared at the timespot. It was three a.m. "Go 'way." "Aw, gimme an omelette." Brendel ate a lot lately. His features were coarsening from it; his body was plumpening. She argued and protested and whined, and he hit her. But it didn't make her feel good any more when he hit her. Kitchen Central was inop for the night. She punched Storage. Dried ingredients materialized on the cookgrid, a flat metal sheet set into the countertop. Later, as she took the omelette up, she heard Brendel setting the opera tapes. She scowled. But when opera shattered their live she dropped the skillet and cried, "Oh! Do we have to listen to that trash?" Her voice was more weary than shrill. The opera routine was getting old. "What you calling trash?" He twitched his plump shoulders. "It makes me sick!" He spat profanity. It wasn't a good fight. He knew something was wrong and he hit her too hard. She slugged back, hurt her hand, cursed, ran and locked herself into the sleep. She was asleep when he came pounding. She woke and pointed the lock open. She glared. He said nothing. He ordered his smaller collections--his miniature horses, his ballpoint pens and his old-time cereal box missiles--on to his storeshelf before mounting his sleepshelf and pointing out the light. She could hear him not sleeping. Finally he muttered, "Too damn much cheese but it was okay." She said nothing. She didn't almost cry as she might have a month before. * * * * * Brendel had appeared on their grid a year before, a dark, pugnacious young man, jittering and nervous. "Clare Webster around?" "Mother isn't here." Her mother collected men. She met them at drinking clubs or collector meets. She gave them her grid card and took theirs, making them promise to come see her. If a man came, she tacked his card on her bulletin board. If he came twice or three times, she marked his card with colored pencil. Brendel twitched his shoulders. "I got the evening. Wanta have dinner, kid?" She was seventeen and tired of collecting china roosters and peach-can labels. She was tired of seeing the same stupid people every day. Somewhere there was someone handsome and perfect, and she had to find him and become perfect too. She couldn't waste all her life being stupid like her mother.