"Fred. La Boutique."

"Please, Madame! I pointed out to him how unfair that is and found the most wonderful solution!"

"Really?"

"Truly, Madame. Anything you choose to buy, I'll simply charge against my personal account—and you can pay me cash. No trouble, I'll be happy to. My bank doesn't make the least fuss over accepting cash deposits. Really." (Watch it, Boss; he'll expect a fat tip.) (If he can show us something we want, he may get it. Cost is no huhu, Eunice; we can't get rid of the stuff.) (It's the principle of the thing, Boss.) (Forget it and help me spend money.) (All right. But we don't buy unless we like it.)

For the next two hours Joan spent money—and was dazed to discover how expensive women's clothes could be. But she suppressed her early upbringing and paid attention only to an inner voice: (Not that one, twin—it's smart but a man wouldn't like it.) (How about this one, Eunice?) (Maybe. Have her walk it around again, then have her sit down. Show some leg.)

(Here comes ‘Winnie' again. Is that girl a real redhead, Eunice?) (Probably a wig but doesn't matter; she's almost exactly Winnie's size. That would be cute on our Winsome. Twin, see what they have in fancy gee-strings——green, for a redhead. Winnie ought to have at least one outfit intended to be seen by no one but her new boy friend.) (Okay, we'll give ‘Bob' a treat. Who do you think he is, beloved?) (Haven't the faintest—and we don't want to guess. Do we? I just hope he's nicer to her than Paul was.)

"Mr. duValle? Do you have something exotic in a minimum-gee for a redhead? Green, I suppose. And matching cups would be interesting, too. Something nice—an intimate present for a bride." (Bride?) (Well, it might help Winnie become a bride, Eunice—and it steers him away from thinking I'm buying it for my sweetheart.) (Who cares what he thinks?)

"Jeweled perhaps? Emeralds?"

"I wouldn't want a bride to be mugged over a wedding present. Nor do I wish to buy her something more expensive than her bridegroom can afford. Bad taste, I think."

"Ah, but these are synthetic emeralds. Just as lovely but quite reasonable. Yola dear—come with me."

Several thousand dollars later Joan quit. She was getting hungry and knew, from long experience, that being hungry made her unwilling to spend money. Her subconscious equated "hungry" with "poor" in a canalization it had acquired in the 1930's.

She sent Fred to fetch Shorty to help carry while her purchases were being packaged and while she paid the startling sum. (Eunice, where shall we eat?) (There are restaurants inside this compound, Boss.) (Uh, darn it—no, damn it!—Ican't eat through a yashmak. You know what will happen. Somebody who watched video yesterday will recognize us. Then the news snoops will be on us before you can say ‘medium rare.') (Well...how about a picnic?) (Wonderful! Eunice, you win another Brownie point. But—where can we go?—a picnic with grass and trees and ants in the potato salad—but private so I can take off this veil... and yet close enough that we won't starve on the way?)

(I don't know, Boss, but I'll bet Finchley does.)

Finchley did know. Shorty was appointed to buy the lunch at The Hungry Man inside the compound—"Get enough for six, Shorty, and don't look at the prices. Be lavish. But there must be potato salad. And a couple of bottles of wine."

"One is enough, Miss. I don't drink, wine is a mocker, and Finchley never drinks when he is on call to drive."

"Oh₁ think big, Shorty; I may drink a whole bottle myself—you can save my soul tomorrow. Today is special—my first day of freedom!" (Very special, beloved.) (Very, very special, Boss!)

Down into the crosstown chute, up onto Express Route South, out to the unlimited zone, then fifty miles at three hundred feet per second—a speed that Finchley did not use until Joan was protected by full harness plus collision net.

The fifty miles melted away in fifteen minutes and Finchley eased it down and over, ready to exit. They were not shot at, even where Route South skirts the Crater.

"Finchley? Can I get out of this pesky cocoon now?"

"Yes, Miss. But I'd feel easier if you would wear the Swedish belt. Some of these drivers are cowboys."

"All right. But tell me the instant I can take it off." (Eunice, the engineer if-that's-the-word who designed if­-that's-the-word these goddam straps did not have women in mind!) (You've got it rigged for a man, Boss—of course you're pinching a tit. Move the bottom half closer in and shift the upper anchor point after we stop; that's the way they rigged it for me. Some man has used it since the last time I did.) (Jake, probably, sometime when his own car was laid up. Sweetheart, how many things do I have to learn about being a woman before I can avoid tripping over my feet?) (Thousands. But you're doing all right, Boss—and I'm always here to catch you.) (Beloved. Say, this doesn't look like picnic country. I wonder if Finchley is lost.)

They were passing through solid masses of "bedroom" areas—walled enclaves, apartment houses, a few private homes. The trees looked tired and grass scarce, while the car's air-conditioning system still fought smog.

But not for long—Finchley turned into a secondary freight route and shortly they had farms on each side. Joan noticed that one belonged to her—to a subsidiary of Smith Enterprises, she corrected, and reminded herself that she no longer held control.

Nevertheless she noted that the guard at a corner watchtower seemed alert and the steel fence was stout and tall and capped with barbed wire and an alarm stand, all in good maintenance. But they were past without her seeing what was being cropped—no matter; Johann had never tried to manage that slice of conglom, he had known his limitations. (Eunice, what are we raising back there?)

(Joan, I can't see if you don't look—and you never looked.) (Sorry, dearest. Speak up if you don't like the service.) (I Will. I think it was a rotation crop. This soil has been farmed so hard and long that it has to be handled carefully.)

(What happens when the soil no longer responds to management?) (We starve, of course. What do you expect? But before that they'll build on it.)

(Eunice, it's got to stop, somewhere. When I was a boy I was a city kid but I could walk in less than an hour to green fields and uncut woods...woods so private I could play Tarzan in my skin. I wasn't ‘just lucky'—even in New York City a boy with five cents could ride to farms woods in less time than it took me to walk it.)

(Doesn't seem possible, Boss.) (I know. It's taken a fast car and a professional driver to do what I used to do on bare feet—yet this isn't real farm country; these are open-air food factories with foremen and time clocks and shop stewards and payroll deductions and house-organ magazines and you name it. A dug well and a tin dipper would cause a strike—and they'd be justified; those open wells and tin dippers spread diseased Just the same, the tin-dipper era was a good time in this country...and this one isn't. Where do we go from here?)

The inner voice failed to answer. Joan waited. (Eunice?)

(Boss, I don't know!)

(Sorry, just sounding off. Eunice, all my life I did the best I knew how with what I had. I didn't waste—shucks, even that white-elephant house keeps a lot of people off Welfare. But every year things got worse. I used to get sour consolation from knowing that I wasn't going to be around when things fell to pieces. Now it looks like I will be. That's why I say: ‘Where do we go from here?" I don't know the answer, either.)

(Boss?)

(Yes, dearest?)

(I could see it, too. Moving from an Iowa farm to a big city made me see it. And I did have plans, sort of. I knew you were going to die, I couldn't help but know, and I figured that Joe would get tired of me someday—no kids and no prospect of any, and me someday no longer with a fine job that took care of everything Joe needed. I underrated Joe; nevertheless I never forgot that he could hand me a pink slip anytime. So I had plans, and saved my money. The Moon.)