"Yes," he agreed. He walked up to her, hesitated, and then seated himself beside her. He was glad, more so than he could say, to see her.

Carol said, "Have you any idea what she could have done to us, if she were malevolent? I'll tell you, Pete; she could have whisked the baby out from inside me. Do you realize that?"

He had not; he was sorry, now, to even hear about it. "True," he admitted, his heart becoming cold with fear again.

"Don't be afraid," Carol said. "She's not going to do it. Any more than you go about running people down and killing them with your car. After all, you could do it. And as a Bindman you might even get away with it." She smiled at him. "Mary Anne isn't a danger to either of us. In many ways, Pete, she's more sensible than we are. More reasonable and mature. I've had a lot of time to think this out, sitting here. It seems like years."

He patted her on the shoulder, then bent and kissed her.

Carol said, "I hope you can win Berkeley back. I guess Dotty Luckman owns it, now. You should be able to. She's not such a good player."

"I guess Dotty could spare it," Pete said. "She's got all the East Coast titles that Lucky left her."

"Do you think we'll be able to keep Mary Anne in the group?"

"No," he said.

"That's a shame." Carol looked around her, at the huge old eucalyptus grove. "It's nice, here in Berkeley. I can see why you were so unhappy at losing it. And Luckman didn't really enjoy it for itself; he just wanted it as a base for playing and winning." She paused. "Pete, I wonder if the birthrate will return to normal, now. Since we beat them."

"God help us," he said, "if it doesn't."

"It will," Carol said. "I know it will. I'm the first of many women. Call it a Psionic talent, pre-cognition on my part, but I'm positive of it. What'll we call our child?"

"In my opinion, it depends on whether it's a boy or a girl." Carol smiled. "Maybe it'll be both."

"Then," he said, "Freya would be right, in her schizoid jibe when she said she hoped it was a baby, implying she wasn't convinced of it."

"I mean of course one of each. Twins. When was the last pair of twins born?"

He knew the answer by heart. "Forty-two years ago. In Cleveland. To a Mr. and Mrs. Toby Perata."

"And we could be the next," Carol said.

"It's not likely."

"But we won," Carol said softly. "Remember?"

"I remember," Pete Garden said. And put his arms around his wife.

Stumbling in the darkness, over what appeared to be a curb, David Mutreaux reached the main street of the small Kansas country town in which he found himself. Ahead, he saw lights; he sighed with relief and hurried.

What he needed was a car; he did not even bother to call his own. God knew where it was and how long he would have to wait for its arrival, assuming he could contact it. Instead, he strode up the single main street of the town—Fernley, it was called—until he came to a homeostatic car-rental agency.

There, he rented a car, drove it away at once and then parked at the curb and sat, by himself, getting his courage together.

To the Rushmore Effect of the car, Mutreaux said, "Listen, am I a vug or a Terran?"

"Let's see," the car said, "you're a Mr. David Mutreaux of Kansas City." Briskly, the Rushmore continued, "You are a Terran, Mr. Mutreaux. Does that answer your question?"

"Thank god," Mutreaux said. "Yes, that answers my question."

He started up the car then, and headed by air toward the West Coast and Carmel, California.

It's safe for me to go back to them, he said to himself. Safe in regards to them, safe period. Because I've thrown off the Titanian authority. Doctor Philipson is on Titan, Nats Katz was destroyed by the psychokinetic girl Mary Anne McClain, and the organization—which was subverted from the start—has been obliterated. I have nothing to fear. In fact I helped win; I played my part well in The Game.

He previewed his reception. There they would be, the members of Pretty Blue Fox, trickling in one by one from the various points on Earth at which the Titanians had

summarily deposited them. The group reformed, everyone back together; they would open a bottle of Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey and a bottle of Canadian whiskey—

As he piloted his car toward California he could taste it, hear the voices, see the members of the group, now.

The celebration. Of their victory ."Everyone was there.

Or was it everyone? Almost everyone, anyhow. That was good enough for him.

Tramping across the sand, the wasteland which was the Nevada Desert, Freya Garden Gaines knew that it would be a long time before she got back to the condominium apartment in Carmel.

And anyway, she thought to herself, what did it matter? What did she have to look forward to? The thoughts she had had as she floundered in the intermediate regions into which the Titanian Game-players had hurled them... I don't repudiate those thoughts, she said to herself with envenomed bitterness. Pete has his pregnant mare, his wife Carol; he'll never notice me again as long as I live.

In her pocket she found a strip of rabbit-paper; getting it out, she removed the wrapper and bit it. With the light cast by her cigarette lighter she examined it and then crumpled it up and violently flung it away from her. Nothing, she realized. And it'll always be like this for me. It's Pete's fault; if he made it with that Carol Holt creature he could have made it with me. God knows we tried it enough times; it must have been several thousand. Evidently he just didn't want to succeed.

Twin lights flashed ahead of her. She halted, cautiously, gasping for, breath. Wondering what she had arrived at.

A car lowered itself warily to the surface of the desert, its signal lights flashing on and off. It landed, stopped.

The door opened.

"Mrs. Gaines!" a cheerful voice called.

Peering, Freya walked toward the car.

Behind the wheel sat a balding, friendly-looking elderly man. "I'm glad I found you," the elderly man said. "Get in and we'll drive out of this dreadful desert-area. Where exactly do you want to go?" He chuckled. "Carmel?"

"No," Freya said. "Not Carmel." Never again, she thought.

"Where, then? What about Pocatello, Idaho?"

"Why Pocatello?" Freya demanded. But she got into the car; it was better than continuing to wander aimlessly across the desert, alone in the darkness, with no one—certainly none of the group—to help her. To give a damn about what happened to her.

The elderly man, as he started up the car, said pleasantly, "I'm Doctor E. G. Philipson."

She stared at him. She knew—she was positive she knew —who he was. Or rather, who it was.

"Do you want to get out?" Doctor Philipson asked her. "I could, if you wish, set you back down there again where I found you."

"N-no," Freya murmured. She sat back in her seat, scrutinized him thoroughly, thinking to herself many thoughts.

Doctor E. G. Philipson said to her, "Mrs. Gaines, how would you like to work for UK, for a change?" He glanced her way, smiling, a smile without warmth or humor. A smile utterly cold.

Freya said, "It's an interesting proposal. But I'd have to think it over. I couldn't decide just like that, right now." Very interesting indeed, she thought.

"You'll have time," Doctor Philipson said. "We're patient. You'll have all the time in the world." His eyes twinkled.

Freya smiled back.

Humming confidently to himself, Doctor Philipson drove the car toward Idaho, skimming across the dark night sky of Earth.