She wasn’t laughing though; she was beaming. “You know—I had the slightest precognition that we just might be heading there.” She leaned toward him con-spiratorially. “I’m afraid I don’t have any money, though. And wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did. I’ve never been near anyplace that ever used it. Windy and Charo went the first night we came—I was busy with company matters—and though I’ve got plenty of credit, I’m afraid they used up the quota of scrip for the three of us.”

He thought fondly: You’d make a lousy whore: that’s the line you use afterwards. But she probably meant it, which made him, momentarily, even more fond. “The evening’s on me—Sam, actually. He’s government. Money? He’s got a limitless supply, and he’s invited us to enjoy ourselves.”

“How very nice of him! Why isn’t he coming with us?”

“Hates the stuff himself.” Bron turned, took her arm. They started down the street. “Won’t touch it. When he’s on the old racial spawning grounds, it’s all rocks and grass and stars for him.”

“I see ...”

“You haven’t been there before, have you?” He halted. “I’ll be honest, it’s my first time ...”

“No, I haven’t. And Windy and Charo were tantaliz-ingly vague in their descriptions.”

“I see ...” He frowned at her silvered hair. “How did you know where we’d be going, though?”

Her laugh (and she started him walking again by the gentlest pressure on their joined arms—as if he were twenty and she from another world) was silvery as her hair. “When you’re in Outer Mongolia, even in this day and age, I suspect they’re just not that many places to go.”

A whispering, which, for seconds, had been on the edge of consciousness, suddenly centered his attention.

Bron looked up.

Something dark crossed the paler dark between the roofs and, humming even louder, returned to hover, then to settle, across the road.

It was sleek, unwinged, about the size of the vehicle he and Sam had ridden in for the last leg of their journey here.

The side opened—let down like a drawbridge on heavy, polished chain, its purple padding held with six-inch purple poms.

“Why,” the Spike exclaimed, “that must be for us! How did thev ever find us, I wonder?”

“I believe it is for us.”—but, with a pressure just firmer than that with which she had started him walking, he held her back from bolting forward. “Someone once told me they worked by sense of smell, but I’ve never reallv understood it. How did your performance go tonight?” Nonchalantly, he maintained their ambling pace. “Was this evening’s fortunate audience appreciative? I gather you’ve been working prettv hard on this one, both from what you said and what Windy—”

At which point the Spike whispered: “Oh—!” because four footmen had come out to stand at the four corners of the lowered platform—four naked, gilded, rather attractive young ... women? Bron felt a moment of disorientation: on Mars, the footmen would have been male, usually themselves prostitutes (or one-time prostitutes), there for the delectation of the ladies paying the bill. But male prostitution was illegal on Earth. The women probably were prostitutes, or had been at one time or another; and were there for his delectation ... Well, yes, he thought, he was, officially, paying—which did not upset him in itself. But the reversal of roles was odd. After all, it was the Spike’s delectation he was concerned with this evening. And,

Charo aside, she had made it clear her lesbian leanings were rather intellectual. He said: “I’d be interested to know what you thought of Earth audiences now that you’ve had another performance.”

“Well, I ...” They reached the platform. “Urn ... good evening!” she blurted to the woman beside her, who smiled, nodded.

Bron smiled too, thinking: She’s talking to them! Which again (he realized, as a whole part of his youth flickered and faded) would be all right if she were paying and had known the young ... lady on a previous occasion ...

They walked across the plush ramp, entered the chamber with its red and coppery cushions, its viewing windows, its several plush hangings, its scarlet-draped walls.

As he guided the Spike to one of the couches, she turned to him. “Isn’t there someplace where you can find out what it all costs?”

Which made him laugh out loud. “Certainly,” he said. “If you’d really like to know.” Again, that youthful moment returned—the client who had first taken him to such a place; his own demand for the same importunate information. “Let me see—sit down. There ....” He sat beside her, on her left, took the arm of the couch and tugged. Nothing. (Is everything on this planet backward? he wondered.) “Excuse me ...” He reached across her, tugged the arm on her right. It came up, revealing on its underside, in a neatly-glassed frame, a card printed in terribly small type, headed: Explication de Tarif.

“You can find out there,” he explained, “about the salary of everyone we will have anything to do with this evening, either in person or by their services, the cost of all the objects we shall see or use, or that are used for us, the cost of their upkeep, and how the prices we shall be charged are computed—I wouldn’t be surprised, considering this is Earth, if it even went into the taxes.”

“Ohhhh ...” she breathed, turning in the comfortable seat to read.

The ramp was hauling closed. The footmen, inside now, took their places.

He looked at her shoulders, hunched in concentration. He suppressed the next chuckle. There was nothing to do: for the duration she simply must be the prostitute, and he must play the client. She was the young, inexperienced hustler, committing all the vulgarities and gaucheries natural to the situation. He must be charmed, be indulgent, assured in his own knowledge of the proper. Otherwise, he thought, I shall never get through the evening without laughing at her outright.

She was, he realized, reading the whole thing—which, frankly, was more like a diligent tourist. The real pleasure, of course, was in the amounts, and those you could get at a glance: they were printed in boldface.

The footmen, at the four corners of the chamber, sat at little tables that folded from the wall. Tables? Sitting? That was bizarre. What, he reflected, was a footman for if he (or she) did not remain on foot?

The chamber rocked. Ripples rained the drapes. He touched the Spike’s arm. “I think we’re on our way ....”

She looked up, looked around, and laughed. They rocked, they jogged. On a view window a darkness, either clouds or mountains, moved. “This thing must date back from when they first got gravity under control!” she exclaimed. “I doubt if I’ve ever been in a piece of transportation as old as this before!” She put her hand on his, squeezed it.

Moments later, they locked course; the jogging stopped. On cue, one of the footmen rose, walked toward them, stepping gingerly among the cushions, stopped before them, and inclined her head: “Would you like a drink before dinner ... ?”

And in one horrifying moment, Bron realized he could not remember the name of that most expensive of drinks! What leapt to his mind was the name of that one, indeed, tastier, but cheaper—and by which one always rated clients Definitely Second Rate (far and above the most usual type) if they ordered it, or even suggested it.

The Spike was reading the Tarif again.

Discomfort concealed—Bron was sure it was concealed—he touched her arm once more. “My dear, the footman would like to know if you wanted anything.”

Her eyes came up. Smiling, she gave an embarrassed little shrug. “Oh, I don’t—well ... really ...”

He’d hope the misremembered name had passed her eyes, that its huge price had caught them.

She blinked at him, still smiling, still confused.