"All right. I'll see you then."

"Good-bye."

The connection was broken.

Suddenly, then, at that moment, colors swirled againthrough her head; and she saw trees—oaks and pines,poplars and sycamores—great, and green and brown,and iron-colored; and she saw wads of fleecy clouds,dipped in paintpots, swabbing a paste! sky; and a burning sun, and a small willow tree, and a lake of a deep,almost violet, blue. She folded her torn handkerchief andput it away.

She pushed a button beside her desk and music filledthe office: Scriabin. Then she pushed another button andreplayed the tape she had dictated, half-listening to each.

Pierre sniffed suspiciously at the food. The attendantmoved away from the tray and stepped out into the hall,locking the door behind him- The enormous salad waitedon -the floor. Pierre approached cautiously, snatched ahandful of lettuce, gulped it.

He was afraid.

// only the steel would stop crashing and crashingagainst steel, somewhere in that dark night ... If only ...

Sigmund rose to his feet, yawned, stretched. His hindlegs trailed out behind him for a moment, then hesnapped to attention and shook himself. She would becoming home soon. Wagging his tail slowly, he glancedup at the human-level clock with the raised numerals,verified his feelings, then crossed the apartment to theteevee. He rose onto his hind legs, rested one paw againstthe table and used the other to turn on the set.It was nearly time for the weather report and the roadswould be icy.

"I have driven through countrywide graveyards," wroteRender, "vast forests of stone that spread further every day.

"Why does man so zealously guard his dead? Is it because this is the monumentally democratic way of immortalization, the ultimate affirmation of the power tohurt—that is to say, life—and the desire that it continueon forever? Unamuno has suggested that this is the case.If it is, then a greater percentage of the population actively sought immortality last year than ever before inhistory... .*'

Tch-tchg, tchga-tchgt

"Do you think they're really people?"

"Naw, they're too good."

The evening was starglint and soda over ice. Renderwound the S-7 into the cold sub-subcellar, found his parking place, nosed into it.

There was a damp chill that emerged from the concrete to gnaw like rats* teeth at their flesh. Render guidedher toward the lift, their breath preceding them in dissolving clouds.

"A bit of a chill in the air," he noted.

She nodded, biting her lip.

Inside the lift, he sighed, unwound his scarf, lit a cigarette.

"Give me one, please," she requested, smelling the tobacco.

He did.

They rose slowly, and Render leaned against the wall,puffing a mixture of smoke and crystallized moisture.

"I met another routie shep," he recalled, "in Switzerland. Big as Sigmund. A hunter though, and as Prussianas they come," he grinned.

"Sigmund likes to hunt, too," she observed. "Twiceevery year we go up to the North Woods and I turn himloose. He's gone for days at a time, and he's always quitehappy when he returns. Never says what he's done, buthe's never hungry. Back when I got him I guessed that hewould need vacations from humanity to stay stable. Ithink I was right."

The lift stopped, the door opened and they walkedout into the hall, Render guiding her again.

Inside his office, he poked at the thermostat and warmair sighed through the room. He hung their coats in theinner office and brought the great egg out from its nestbehind the wall. He connected it to an outlet and movedto convert his desk into a control panel.

"How long do you think it will take?" she asked, running her fingertips over the smooth, cold curves of theegg. "The whole thing, I mean. The entire adaptation toseeing."

He wondered.

"I have no idea," he said, "no idea whatsoever, yet.We got off to a good start, but there's still a lot of work tobe done. I think I'll be able to make a good guess in another three months."

She nodded wistfully, moved to his desk, explored thecontrols with finger strokes like ten feathers.

"Careful you don't push any of those."

"I won't. How long do you think it will take me tolearn to operate one?" *

"Three months to leam it. Six, to actually become proficient enough to use it on anyone, and an additional sixunder close supervision before you can be trusted on yourown. —About a year altogether."

"Uh-huh." She chose a chair.

Render touched the seasons to life, and the phases ofday and night, the breath of the country, the city, theelements that raced naked through the skies, and all thedozens of dancing cues he used to build worlds. Hesmashed the clock of time and tasted the seven or so agesof man,

"Okay," he turned, "everything is ready."

It came quickly, and with a minimum of suggestion onRender's part. One moment there was grayness. Then adead-white fog. Then it broke itself apart, as though aquick wind had risen, although he neither heard nor felt awind.

He stood beside the willow tree beside the lake, andshe stood half-hidden among the branches and the lat-tices of shadow. The sun was slanting its way into evening.

"We have come back," she said, stepping out, leavesin her hair. "For a time I was afraid it had never happened, but I see it all again, and I remember now."

"Good," he said. "Behold yourself." And she lookedinto the lake.

"I have not changed," she said. "I haven'tchanged... .'*

"No."

"But you have," she continued, looking up at him."You are taller, and there is something different... ."

"No," he answered.

"I am mistaken," she said quickly, "I don't understand everything I see yet."

"I will, though."

"Of course."

"What are we going to do?"

"Watch," he instructed her.

Along a flat, no-cotored river of road she just thennoticed beyond the trees, came the car. It came from thefarthest quarter of the sky, skipping over the mountains,buzzing down the hills, circling through the glades, andsplashing them with the colors of its voice—the gray andthe silver of synchronized potency—and the lake shiveredfrom its sounds, and the car stopped a hundred feet away,masked by the shrubberies; and it waited. It was the S-7.

"Come with me," he said, taking her hand. "We'regoing for a ride."

They walked among the trees and rounded the finalcluster of bushes. She touched the sleek cocoon, its antennae, its tires, its windows—and the windows transpared as she did so. She stared through them at theinside of the car, and she nodded.

"It is your Spinner."

"Yes." He held the door for her. "Get in. We'll returnto the club. The time is now. The memories are fresh.and they should be reasonably pleasant, or neutral."

"Pleasant," she said, getting in.

He closed the door, then circled the car and entered.She watched as he punched imaginary coordinates. Thecar leaped ahead and he kept a steady stream of treesflowing by them. He could feel the rising tension, so hedid not vary the scenery. She swiveled her seat andstudied the interior of the car.

"Yes," she finally said, "I can perceive what everything is."

She stared out the window again. She looked at therushing trees. Render stared out and looked upon rushing anxiety patterns. He opaqued the windows.

"Good," she said, "thank you. Suddenly it was toomuch to see—all of it, moving past like a ..."

"Of course," said Render, maintaining the sensationsof forward motion. "I'd anticipated that You're gettingtougher, though."

After a moment, "Relax," he said, "relax now," andsomewhere a button was pushed, and she relaxed, andthey drove on, and on and on, and finally the car beganto slow, and Render said, "Just for one nice, slow glimpsenow, look out your window."