The dear thing blushed. But he seemed very pleased.

I stayed up so late reading that book that the night nurse scolded me. However, nurses need something to scold about now and then. I'm not going to quote from the incredible document... but listen to these subjects:

Title first: The Only Deadly Weapon. Then- Assassination as a Fine Art

Assassination as a Political Tool

Assassination for Profit

Assassins Who Changed History

The Society for Creative Euthanasia

The Canons of the Professional Assassins Guild

Amateur Assassins: Should They Be Exterminated?

Honorable Hatchet Men-Some Case Histories

"Extreme Prejudice"-"Wet Work"-Are Euphemisms Necessary?

Seminar Working Papers: Techniques & Tools

Whew! There was no good reason for my reading all of it. But I did. It had an unholy fascination. Dirty.

I resolved never to mention the possibility of changing tracks and not to bring up retraining again. Let Boss bring it up himself if he wanted to discuss it. I punched the terminal, got Archives, and stated that I needed the classified documents clerk to accept custody of classified item number such-and-such and please bring my receipt. "Right away, Miss Friday," a woman answered.

Notoriety- I waited with considerable unease for that youngster to show up. I

am ashamed to say that this poisonous book had had a most unfortunate effect on me. It was the middle of the night, early morning; the place was dead quiet-and if the dear thing laid a hand on me, I was awfully likely to forget that I was technically an invalid. I needed a chastity girdle with a big padlock.

But it was not he; the sweet youngster had gone off duty. The person who showed up with my receipt was the older woman who had answered me on the terminal. I felt both relief and disappointment-and chagrin that I felt disappointed. Does convalescence make everybody irresponsibly horny? Do hospitals have a discipline problem? I have not been ill often enough to know.

The night clerk swapped my receipt for the book, then surprised me with: "Don't I get a kiss, too?"

"Oh! Were you there?"

"Any warm body, dear; we were awfully short of effectives that night. I'm not the world's greatest but I had basic training like anyone else. Yes, I was there. Wouldn't have missed it."

I said, "Thank you for rescuing me," and kissed her. I tried to make this simply a symbol, but she took charge and controlled what sort of a buss it would be. Rough and rugged, namely. She was telling me clearer than words that anytime I wanted to work the other side of the street, she would be waiting.

What do you do? There seem to be human situations for which there are no established protocols. I had just acknowledged that she had risked her life to save mine-precisely that, as that rescue raid was not the piece of cake that Boss's account made it appear to be. Boss's habitual understatement is such that he would describe the total destruction of Seattle as "a seismic disturbance." Having thanked her for my life how could I snub her?

I could not. I let my half of the kiss answer her wordless message-with my fingers crossed that I would never have to keep the implied promise.

Presently she broke the kiss but remained holding on to me. "Dearie," she said, "want to know something? Do you remember how you told off that slob they called the Major?"

"I remember."

"There is a bootleg piece of tape floating around of that one sequence. What you said to him and how you said it is highly admired by one and all. Especially me."

"That's interesting. Are you the little gremlin who copied that piece of tape?"

"Why, how could you think such a thing?" She grinned. "Do you mind?"

I thought it over for all of three milliseconds. "No. If the people who rescued me enjoy hearing what I told that bastard, I don't mind their listening to it. But I don't talk that way ordinarily."

"Nobody thinks you do." She gave me a quick peck. "But you did so when it was needed and you made every woman in the company proud of you. And our men, too."

She didn't seem disposed to let go of me but the night nurse showed up then and told me firmly to go to bed and she was going to give me a sleepytime shot-I made only the usual formal protest. The clerk said, "Hi, Goldie. Night. Night, dear." She left.

Goldie (not her name-bottle blonde) said, "Want it in your arm? Or in your leg? Don't mind Anna; she's harmless."

"She's all right." It occurred to me that Goldie probably could monitor both sight and sound. Probably? Certainly! "Were you there? At the farm? When the house was burned?"

"Not while the house was burning. I was in an APV, taking you here as fast as we could float it. You were a sad sight, Miss Friday."

"I'll bet I was. Thanks. Goldie? Will you kiss me good-night?"

Her kiss was warm and undemanding.

I found out later that she was one of the four who made the run upstairs to grab me back-one man carrying big bolt cutters, two armed and firing... and Goldie carrying unassisted a stretcher basket. But she never mentioned it, then or later.

I remember that convalescence as the first time in my life-except for vacations in Christchurch-when I was quietly, warmly happy, every day, every night. Why? Because I belonged!

Of course, as anyone could guess from this account, I had passed years earlier. I no longer carried an ID with a big "LA" (or even "AP") printed across it. I could walk into a washroom and not be told to use the end stall. But a phony ID and a fake family tree do not keep you warm; they just keep you from being hassled and discriminated against. You are still aware that there isn't any nation anywhere that considers your sort fit for citizenship and there are lots of places that would deport you or even kill you-or sell you-if your cover-up ever slipped.

An artificial person misses not having a family tree much more than you might think. Where were you born? Well, I wasn't born, exactly; I was designed in Tri-University Life Engineering Laboratory, Detroit. Oh, really? My inception was formulated by Mendelian Associates, Zurich. Wonderful small talk, that! You'll never hear it; it does not stand up well against ancestors on the Mayflower or in the Domesday Book. My records (or one set) show that I was "born" in Seattle, a destroyed city being a swell place for missing records. A great place to lose your next of kin, too.

Since I was never in Seattle I have studied very carefully all the records and pictures I could find; an honest-to-goodness native of Seattle can't trip me. I think. Or not yet.

But what they gave me while I was recovering from that silly rape and the not-so-funny interrogation was not phony at all and I did not have to worry about keeping my lies straight. Not just Goldie and Anna and the youngster (Terence) but over two dozen more before Dr. Krasny discharged me. Those were just the ones I came into contact with. There were more on that raid; I don't know how many. Boss's standing doctrine kept members of his organization from meeting each other save when their duties necessarily brought them together. Just as he firmly snubbed questions. You cannot let slip secrets you do not know, and you cannot betray a person whose very existence is unknown to you.

But Boss did not have rules just for the sake of rules. Once having met a colleague through duty one could continue the contact socially. Boss did not encourage such fraternizing but he was no fool and did not try to forbid it. In consequence Anna often called on me in the late evening just before she went on duty.

She never did try to collect her pound of flesh. There wasn't much opportunity but we could have found one if we had tried. I didn't try to discourage her-hell, no; if she had ever presented the bill for collection, I would not only have paid cheerfully but would have tried to convince her that it was my idea in the first place.