Baley stood up quickly and walked around the table to her. He noted absently—and with some annoyance—that his legs were trembling and that there was a tic in the muscle of his right thigh.

“Gladia,” he said urgently, “don’t cry.”

“Don’t bother, Elijah,” she whispered. “It will pass.”

He stood helplessly at her side, reaching out to her yet hesitating. “I’m not touching you,” he said. “I don’t think I had better do so, but—”

“Oh, touch me. Touch me. I’m not all that fond of my body, and I won’t catch anything from you. I’m not—what I used to be.”

So Baley reached out and touched her elbow and stroked it very slightly and clumsily with his fingertips. “I’ll do what I can tomorrow, Gladia,” he said. “I’ll give it my very best try.”

She rose at that, turned toward him, and said, “Oh, Elijah.”

Automatically, scarcely knowing what he was doing, Baley held out his arms. And, just as automatically, she walked into them and he was holding her while her head cradled—against his chest.

He held her as lightly as he could, waiting for her to realize that she was embracing an Earthman. (She had undoubtedly embraced a humaniform robot, but he had been no Earthman.)

She sniffed loudly and spoke while her mouth was half obscured in Baley’s shirt.

She said, “It isn’t fair. It’s because I’m a Solarian. No one really cares what happened to Jander and they would if I were an Auroran. It just boils down to prejudice and politics.”

Baley thought: Spacers are people. This is exactly what Jessie would say in a similar situation. And if it were Gremionis who was holding Gladia, he’d say exactly what I’ll say—if I knew what I would say.

And then he said, “That’s not entirely so. I’m sure Dr. Fastolfe cares what happened to Jander.”

“No, he doesn’t. Not really. He just wants to have his way in the Legislature, and that Amadiro wants to have his way, and either one would trade Jander for his way.”

“I promise you, Gladia, I won’t trade Jander for anything.”

“No? If they tell you that you can go back to Earth with your career saved and no penalty for your world, provided you forget all about Jander, what would you do?”

“There’s no use setting up hypothetical situations that can’t possibly come to pass. They’re not going to give me anything in return for abandoning Jander. They’re just going to try to send me back with nothing at all except ruin for me and my world. But, if they were to let me, I would get the man who destroyed Jander and see to it that he was adequately punished.”

“What do you mean if they were to let you? Make them let you!”

Baley smiled bitterly. “If you think Aurorans pay no attention to you because you’re a Solarian, imagine how little you would get if you were from Earth, as I am.”

He held her closer, forgetting he was from Earth, even as he said the word. “But I’ll try, Gladia. It’s no use raising hopes, but I don’t have a completely empty hand. I’ll try—”

His voice trailed off.

“You keep saying, you’ll try.—But how?” She pushed away from him a bit to look up into his face.

Baley said, bewildered, “Why, I may—”

“Find the murderer?”

“Whatever.—Gladia, please, I must sit down.”

He reached out for the table, leaning on it.

She said, “What is it, Elijah?”

“I’ve had a difficult day, obviously, and I haven’t quite recovered, I think.”

“You’d better go to bed, then.”

“To tell the truth, Gladia, I would like to.”

She released him, her face full of concern and with no further room in it for tears. She lifted her arm and made a rapid motion and he was (it seemed to him) surrounded by robots at once.

And when, he was in bed eventually and the last robot had left him, he found himself staring up at darkness.

He could not tell whether it was still raining Outside or whether some feeble lightning flashes were still making their last sleepy sparks, but he knew he heard no thunder.

He drew a deep breath and thought: Now what is it I have promised Gladia? What will happen tomorrow?

Last act: Failure?

And as Baley drifted into the borderland of sleep, he thought of that unbelievable flash of illumination that had come before sleep.

Twice before, it had happened. Once the night before when, as now, he was falling asleep and once earlier this evening when he had slipped into unconsciousness beneath the tree in the storm. Each time, something had occurred to him, some enlightenment that had unmystified the problem as the lightning had undarkened the night.

And it had stayed with him as briefly as the lightning had.

What was it?

Would it come to him again?

This time, he tried consciously to seize it, to catch the elusive truth.—Or was it the elusive illusion? Was it the slipping away of conscious reason and the coming of attractive nonsense that one couldn’t analyze properly in the absence of a properly thinking brain?

The search for whatever it was, however, slid slowly away. It would no more come on call than a unicorn would in a world in which unicorns did not exist.

It was easier to think of Gladia and of how she had felt. There had been the direct touch of the silkiness of her blouse, but beneath it were the small and delicate arms, the smooth back.

Would he have dared to kiss her if his legs had not begun to buckle beneath him? Or would that have been going too far?

He heard his breath exhale in a soft snore and, as always, that embarrassed him. He flogged himself awake and thought of Gladia again. Before he left, surely—but not if he could gam nothing for her in ret—Would that be payment for services then—He heard the soft snore again and cared less this time.

Gladia—He had never thought he would see her again—let alone touch her—let alone hold her—hold her—

And he had no way of telling at what point he passed from thought to dream.

He was holding her again, as before—But there was no blouse—and her skin was warm and soft—and his hand moved slowly down the slope of shoulder blade and down the hidden ridges of her ribs—

There was a total aura of reality about it. All of his senses were engaged. He smelled her hair and his lips tasted the faint, faint salt of her skin—and now somehow they were no longer standing. Had they lain down or were they lying down from the start? And what had happened to the light?

He felt the mattress beneath him and the cover over him darkness—and she was still in his arms and her body was bare.

He was shocked awake. “Gladia?”

Rising inflection—disbelieving—

“Shh, Elijah.” She placed the fingers of one hand gently on his lips. “Don’t say anything.”

She might as well have asked him to stop the current of his blood.

He said, “What are you doing?”

She said, “Don’t you know what I’m doing? I’m in bed with you.”

“But why?”

“Because I want to.” Her body moved against his.

She pinched the top of his night garment and the seam that held it together fell apart.

“Don’t move, Elijah. You’re tired and I don’t want you to wear yourself out further.”

Elijah felt a warmth stirring within him. He decided not to protect Gladia against herself. He said, “I’m not that tired, Gladia.”

“No,” she said sharply. “Rest! I want you to rest. Don’t move.”

Her mouth was on his as though intent on forcing him to keep quiet. He relaxed and the small thought flitted past him that he was following orders that he was tired and was willing to be done to rather than to do. And, tinged with shame, it occurred to him that it rather diluted his guilt. (I couldn’t help it, he heard, himself say. She made me.) Jehoshaphat, how cowardly! How unbearably demeaning!

But those thoughts washed away, too. Somehow there was soft music in the air and the temperature had risen a bit. The cover had vanished and so had his nightclothes. He felt his head moved into the cradle of her arms and pressed against softness.