And the first that Krug brought forth was Gamma, and Krug said unto him, Lo, you are sturdy and strong, and you shall do all that is asked of you without protest, and you shall be happy as you work. And Krug loved Gamma so dearly that He made many more of him, so that there was a multitude of him.

The next that Krug brought forth was Beta, and Krug said unto him, Lo, you shall be strong but you shall also have understanding, and you shall be of great value to the world, and your days shall be joyous and good. And Krug loved Beta so dearly that He spared him from the worst of the burdens of the body, and spared him also from the worst of the burdens of the mind, and the life of Beta was as a bright springtime day.

The last that Krug brought forth was Alpha, and Krug said unto him, Lo, the tasks laid upon you shall not be light, for in body you shall exceed the Children of the Womb and in mind you shall be their equal, and they shall lean upon you as though upon a stout staff. And Krug loved Alpha so dearly that he gave him many gifts, so that he might bear himself with pride, and look without fear into the eyes of the Children of the Womb.

“Good evening, good evening, good evening!” the alpha on duty at the New Orleans shunt room said as Manuel Krug and his companions emerged from the transmat. “Mr. Krug, Mr. Ssu-ma, Mr. Guilbert, Mr. Tennyson, Mr. Mishima, Mr. Foster. Good evening. Will you come this way? Your waiting chamber is ready.”

The antechamber of the New Orleans shunt room was a cool tunnel-like structure about a hundred meters long, divided into eight sealed subchambers in which prospective identity-changers could wait while the stasis net was being prepared to receive them. The subchambers, though small, were comfortable: webfoam couches, elegant sensory-drift patterns on the ceiling, music cubes available at the touch of a switch, a decent variety of olfactory and visual channels in the wall, and a number of other contemporary conveniences. The alpha settled each of them in a couch, saying, “Programming time tonight will be approximately ninety minutes. That’s not too bad, is it?”

“Can’t you speed it up?” Manuel said.

“Ah, no, no hope of that. Last night, do you know, we were running four hours behind? Here, Mr. Krug — if you’ll let me clip the electrode in place — thank you. Thank you. And this one? Good. And the matrix-scanner — yes, yes, fine. We’re all set. Mr. Ssu-ma, please?”

The android bustled about the room, hooking them up. It took about a minute to get each one ready. When the job was done, the alpha withdrew. Data began to drain from the six men in the waiting room, The stasis net was taking profiles of their personality contours, so that it could program itself to handle any sudden surge of emotion while the ego shifts were actually going on.

Manuel looked around. He was tense with anticipation, eager to embark on the shifting. These five were his oldest, closest friends; he had known them since childhood. Someone had nicknamed them the Spectrum Group a decade ago, when by coincidence they showed up at the dedication of a new undersea sensorium wearing costumes of the spectral sequence of visible light, Nick Ssu-ma in red, Will Mishima in violet, and the others neatly arranged in between. The nickname had stuck. They were wealthy, though none, of course, was as wealthy as Manuel. They were young and vigorous. All but Cadge Foster and Jed Guilbert had married within the past few years, but this was no bar to their continued friendship. Manuel had shared the pleasure of the shunt room with them on a dozen occasions; they had been planning this visit for over a month.

“I hate this waiting,” Manuel said. “I wish we could plunge into the stasis net the minute we get here.”

“Too dangerous,” said Lloyd Tennyson. He was agile, long-legged, a superb athlete. Three mirror-plates gleamed in his high, broad forehead.

“That’s the point,” Manuel insisted. “The thrill of danger. To jump in boldly, instantly, hazarding everything in one glorious leap.”

“And the preciousness of irreplaceable human life?” asked narrow-eyed, chalky-faced Will Mishima. “It wouldn’t ever be allowed. The risks are well known.”

“Have one of your father’s engineers invent a stasis net that programs itself instantaneously,” Jed Guilbert proposed. “That would eliminate both the danger and the waiting.”

“If they could, they would,” Tennyson pointed out.

“You could bribe an attendant to let you go in without a programming wait,” Nick Ssu-ma suggested slyly.

“Tried it,” Manuel said. “An alpha in the Pittsburgh shunt room three years ago. Offered him thousands; the alpha just smiled. I doubled the offer and he smiled twice as hard. Wasn’t interested in money. I never realized that before: how can you bribe an android?”

“Right,” Mishima said. “You canbuy an android outright — you can buy a whole shunt room, if you like — but bribery’s another matter. The motivations of an android—”

“I might buy a shunt room, then,” Manuel said.

Jed Guilbert peered at him. “Would you really risk going straight into the net?”

“I think so.”

“Knowing that in case of an overload or some transmission error you might never get back inside your own head?”

“What are the chances of that?”

“Finite,” Guilbert said. “You’ve got a century and a half of life coming to you. Does it make sense to—”

“I’m with Manuel,” Cadge Foster said. He was the least glib member of the group, verging on taciturnity, but when he spoke he spoke with conviction. “Risk is essential to life. We need to take chances. We need to venture ourselves.”

“Pointless chances?” Tennyson asked. “The quality of the shunt wouldn’t be any better if we went in immediately. The only difference would be that we’d eliminate the waiting time. I don’t like the odds. To gamble a century in order to save a couple of hours? I’m not that bored by waiting.”

“You might be bored by life itself,” Nick Ssu-ma said. “So weary of it all that you’d stake a century against an hour, just for the sake of diversion. I feel that way sometimes — don’t you? There once was a game played with a hand weapon, a game called — ah — Swedish Roulette — ?”

“Polish,” Lloyd Tennyson corrected.

“Polish Roulette, then. In which they took this weapon, which could be loaded with six or eight separate explosive charges, and loaded it with only one—”

Manuel disliked the trend of the conversation. Breaking in, he said sharply to Cadge Foster, “What’s that thing you’re playing with?”

“I found it in a niche under my couch. It’s some kind of communications device. It says things to you.”

“Let’s see it.”

Foster tossed it over. It was a gray-green plastic rectangle, vaguely cubical, but beveled to a curve at most of the intersections of its faces. Manuel cupped it in his hands and peered into its cloudy depths. Words began to form, making a brilliant red strip across the interior of the object.

YOU HAVE FIFTY MINUTES MORE TO WAIT

“Clever,” Manuel said. He held it out for Nick Ssu-ma to see. When he took it back, the massage had changed.

LIFE IS JOY, JOY IS LIFE. CAN YOU REFUTE THAT SYLLOGISM?

“It isn’t a syllogism,” Manuel said. “Syllogisms take the form, All A is B. No T is A. Therefore, T is not B.”

“What are you babbling about?” Mishima asked.

“I’m giving this machine a logic lesson. You’d think a machine would know—”

IF P IMPLIES Q AND Q IMPLIES R, DOES P IMPLY R?

“I’ve got one too,” Ssu-ma said. “Just to the left of the channel selector. Oh. Oh, my. Look at that!” He showed his cube to Lloyd Tennyson, who emitted a guffaw. Manuel, craning his neck, still could not see the message. Ssu-ma held the cube so that Manuel could read it.