“God,” he said with disgust. “That again. Always the same old gripes. And the ones that’re fantasy—they’re the ones you really hang on to.”

Turning to face him, Heather said earnestly, “You know how you look, even now at the age you are. You’re beautiful. Thirty million people ogle you an hour a week. It’s not your singing they’re interested in … it’s your incurable physical beauty.”

“The same can be said for you,” he said caustically. He felt tired and he yearned for the privacy and seclusion that lay there on the outskirts of Zurich, silently waiting for the two of them to come back once more. And it was as if the house wanted them to stay, not for a night or a week of nights, but forever.

“I don’t show my age,” Heather said.

He glanced at her, then studied her. Volumes of red hair, pale skin with a few freckles, a strong roman nose. Deepset huge violet eyes. She was right; she didn’t show her age. Of course she never tapped into the phone-grid transex network, as he did. But in point of fact he did so very little. So he was not hooked, and there had not been, in his case, brain damage or premature aging.

“You’re a goddamn beautiful-looking person,” he said grudgingly.

“And you?” Heather said.

He could not be shaken by this. He knew that he still had his charisma, the force they had inscribed on the chromosomes forty-two years ago. True, his hair had become mostly gray and he did tint it. And a few wrinkles had appeared here and there. But—.

“As long as I have my voice,” he said, “I’ll be okay. I’ll have what I want. You’re wrong about me—it’s your six aloofness, your cherished so-called individuality. Okay, if you don’t want to fly over to the house in Zurich, where do you want to go? Your place? My place?”

“I want to be married to you,” Heather said. “So then it won’t be my place versus your place but it’ll be our place. And I’ll give up singing and have three children, all of them looking like you.”

“Even the girls?”

Heather said, “They’ll all be boys.”

Leaning over he kissed her on the nose. She smiled, took his hand, patted it warmly. “We can go anywhere tonight,” he said to her in a low, firm, controlled, and highly projected voice, almost a father voice; it generally worked well with Heather, whereas nothing else did. Unless, he thought, I walk off.

She feared that. Sometimes in their quarrels, especially at the house in Zurich, where no one could hear them or interfere, he had seen the fear on her face. The idea of being alone appalled her; he knew it; she knew it; the fear was part of the reality of their joint life. Not their public life; for them, as genuinely professional entertainers, there they had complete, rational control: however angry and estranged they became they would function together in the big worshiping world of viewers, letter writers, noisy fans. Even outright hatred could not change that.

But there could be no hate between them anyhow. They had too much in common. They got so damn much from each other. Even mere physical contact, such as this, sitting together in the Rolls skyfly, made them happy. For as long, anyhow, as it lasted.

Reaching into the inner pocket of his custom-tailored genuine silk suit—one of perhaps ten in the whole world—he brought out a wad of government-certified bills. A great number of them, compressed into a fat little bundle.

“You shouldn’t carry so much cash on you,” Heather said naggingly, in the tone he disliked so much: the opinionated mother tone.

Jason said, “With this”—he displayed the package of bills—“we can buy our way into any—”

“If some unregistered student who has sneaked across from a campus burrow just last night doesn’t chop your hand off at the wrist and run away with it, both your hand and your flashy money. You always have been flashy. Flashy and loud. Look at your tie. Look at it!” She had raised her voice, now; she seemed genuinely angry.

“Life is short,” Jason said. “And prosperity even shorter.” But he placed the package of bills back in his inside coat pocket, smoothed away at the lump it created in his otherwise perfect suit. “I wanted to buy you something with it,” he said. Actually the idea had just come to him now; what he had planned to do with the money was something a little different: he intended to take it to Las Vegas, to the blackjack tables. As a six he could—and did—always win at blackjack; he had the edge over everyone, even the dealer. Even, he thought sleekly, the pit boss.

“You’re lying,” Heather said. “You didn’t intend to get me anything; you never do, you’re so selfish and always thinking about yourself. That’s screwing money; you’re going to buy some big-chested blonde and go to bed together with her. Probably at our place in Zurich, which, you realize, I haven’t seen for four months now. I might as well be pregnant.”

It struck him as odd that she would say that, out of all the possible retorts that might flow up into her conscious, talking mind. But there was a good deal about Heather that he did not understand; with him, as with her fans, she kept many things about her private.

But, over the years, he had learned a lot about her. He knew, for example, that in 1982 she had had an abortion, a well-kept secret, too. He knew that at one time she had been illegally married to a student commune leader, and that for one year she had lived in the rabbit warrens of Columbia University, along with all the smelly, bearded students kept subsurface lifelong by the pols and the nats. The police and the national guard, who ringed every campus, keeping the students from creeping across to society like so many black rats swarming out of a leaky ship.

And he knew that one year ago she had been busted for possession of drugs. Only her wealthy and powerful family had been able to buy her out of that one: her money and her charisma and fame hadn’t worked when confrontation time with the police came.

Heather had been scarred a little by all that had overtaken her, but, he knew, she was all right now. Like all sixes she had enormous recuperative ability. It had been carefully built into each of them. Along with much, much else. Even he, at forty-two years, didn’t know them all. And a lot had happened to him, too. Mostly in the form of dead bodies, the remains of other entertainers he had trampled on his long climb to the top.

“These ‘flashy’ ties—” he began, but then the skyfly’s phone rang. He took it, said hello. Probably it was Al Bliss with the ratings on tonight’s show.

But it was not. A girl’s voice came to him, penetrating sharply, stridently into his ear. “Jason?” the girl said loudly.

“Yeah,” he said. Cupping the mouthpiece of the phone he said to Heather, “It’s Marilyn Mason. Why the hell did I give her my skyfly number?”

“Who the hell is Marilyn Mason?” Heather asked.

“I’ll tell you later.” He uncupped the phone. “Yes, dear; this is Jason for real, in the true reincarnated flesh. What is it? You sound terrible. Are they evicting you again?” He winked at Heather and grinned wryly.

“Get rid of her,” Heather said.

Again cupping the mouthpiece of the phone he said to her, “I will; I’m trying to; can’t you see?” Into the phone he said, “Okay, Marilyn. Spill your guts out to me; that’s what I’m for.”

For two years Marilyn Mason had been his protégée, so to speak. Anyhow, she wanted to be a singer—be famous, rich, loved—like him. One day she had come wandering into the studio, during rehearsal, and he had taken notice of her. Tight little worried face, short legs, skirt far too short—he had, as was his practice, taken it all in at first glance. And, a week later, he had arranged for an audition for her with Columbia Records, their artists and repertoire chief.

A lot had gone on in that week, but it hadn’t had anything to do with singing.

Marilyn said shrilly into his ear, “I have to see you. Otherwise I’ll kill myself and the guilt will be on you. For the rest of your life. And I’ll tell that Heather Hart woman about us sleeping together all the time.”