Afterward we rolled apart. She looked satisfactorily satisfied; part of the act, I assumed. She indicated the washstand and snapped on the molecular cleanser so that I could be purified of the stains of lust. We still had time left, and she said, “Just for the record: wouldn’t you like to meet Vornan-19? Just to convince yourself that he’s the real thing?”

I debated. Then I said gravely, “Why, yes, I think I would. But I suppose I never shall.”

“It’s exciting to think that he’s right here in this building, isn’t it? Why, he might be right next door! He might be coming here next… if he wants another round.” She crossed the room to me and slipped her arms about me. Large, glossy eyes fastened on my own. “I shouldn’t be talking about him so much. I don’t know how I started. We aren’t supposed to mention other men when — when — listen, did I make you happy?”

“Very much, Esther. I wish I could show—”

“Tipping isn’t allowed,” she said hastily as I fumbled for my credit plate. “But on the way out the computer may ask you for a report on me. They pick one out of ten customers for a sampling. I hope you’ll have a good word for me.”

“You know I will.”

She leaned up and kissed me lightly, passionlessly, on the lips. “I like you,” she said. “Honestly. That isn’t just a standard line. If you ever come back here, I hope you’ll ask for me.”

“If I ever do, I certainly will,” I said, meaning it. “That’s a solemn promise.”

She helped me dress. Then she vanished through her door, disappearing into the depths of the building to perform some rite of purification before taking on her next assignment. The screen came to life again, notifying me that my credit account would be billed at the standard rate, and requesting me to leave by the rear door of my cubicle. I stepped out onto the glidewalk and found myself drawn through a region of misty perfumed loveliness, a vaulted gallery whose high ceiling was festooned with strips of shimmertape; so magical was this realm that I scarcely noticed anything until I discovered that I was descending once more, gliding into a vestibule as large as the one through which I had entered, but at the opposite side of the building.

Vornan? Where was Vornan?

I emerged into the feeble light of a winter afternoon, feeling faintly foolish. The visit had been educational and recreational for me, but it had hardly served the purpose of keeping watch over our unpredictable charge. I paused on the wide plaza, wondering if I should go back inside and search out Vornan. Was it possible to ask the computer for information on a customer? While I hesitated, a voice from behind said, “Leo?”

It was Kralick, sitting in a gray-green limousine from whose hood projected the blunt snouts of a communications rig’s antennae. I walked toward the car.

“Vornan’s still inside,” I said. “I don’t know what—”

“It’s all right. Get in.”

I slipped through the door that the Government man held open for me. To my discomfort I found Aster Mikkelsen in the rear of the car, her head bent low over some sort of data sheets. She smiled briefly at me and went back to what she was analyzing. It troubled me to step directly from the brothel into the company of the pure Aster.

Kralick said, “I’ve got a full pickup running on our friend. It might interest you to know that he’s on his fourth woman now, and shows no sign of running out of pep. Would you like to look?”

“No, thanks,” I told him as he started to activate the screen. “That’s not my kick. Is he making any trouble in there?”

“Not in his usual fashion. He’s just using up a lot of girls. Going down the roster, trying out positions, capering like a goat.” Muscles clenched suddenly in Kralick’s cheeks. He swung about to face me and said, “Leo, you’ve been with this guy for nearly two weeks, now. What’s your opinion? Real or fake?”

“I honestly don’t know, Sandy. There are times when I’m convinced that he’s absolutely authentic. Then I stop and pinch myself and say that nobody can come back in time, that it’s a scientific impossibility, and that in any case Vornan’s just a charlatan.”

“A scientist,” said Kralick heavily, “ought to begin with the evidence and construct a hypothesis around it, leading to a conclusion, right? Not start with a hypothesis and judge the evidence in terms of it.”

“True,” I conceded. “But what do you regard as evidence? I have experimental knowledge of time-reversal phenomena, and I know that you can’t send a particle of matter back half a second without reversing its charge. I have to judge Vornan against that.”

“All right. And the man of A.D. 999 also knew that it was impossible to fly to Mars. We can’t venture to say what’s possible a thousand years on and what isn’t. And it happens that we’ve acquired some new evidence today.”

“Which is?”

Kralick said, “Vornan consented to undergo the standard medical examination in there. The computer got a blood sample from him and a lot of other stuff, and relayed it all to us out here, and Aster’s been going over it. She says he’s got blood of a type she’s never seen before, and that it’s full of weird antibodies unknown to modern science — and that there are fifty other physical anomalies in Vornan’s medical checkout. The computer also picked up traces of unusual electrical activity in his nervous system, the gimmick that he uses to shock people he doesn’t like. He’s built like an electric eel. I don’t think he comes from this century at all, Leo. And I can’t tell you how much it costs me to say a thing like that.”

From the back seat Aster said in her lovely flutelike voice, “It seems strange that we should be doing fundamental research by sending him into a whorehouse, doesn’t it, Leo? But these findings are very odd. Would you like to see the tapes?”

“I wouldn’t be able to interpret them, thanks.”

Kralick swiveled around. “Vornan’s finished with Number Four. He’s requesting a fifth.”

“Can you do me a favor? There’s a girl in there named Esther, a slim pretty little redhead. I’d like you to arrange things with your friend the computer, Sandy. See to it that Esther is his next sweetheart.”

Kralick arranged it. Vornan had requested a tall, curvy brunette for his next romance, but the computer slipped Esther in on him instead, and he accepted the substitution, I suppose, as a forgivable defect in our medieval computer technology. I asked to watch the video pickup, and Kralick switched it on. There was Esther, wide-eyed, timid, her professional poise ragged as she found herself in the presence of the man of her dreams. Vornan spoke to her elegantly, soothing her, calming her. She removed her smock and they moved toward the bed, and I had Kralick cut off the video.

Vornan was with her a long while. His insatiable virility seemed to underline his alien origin. I sat brooding, looking into nowhere, trying to let myself accept the data Kralick had collected today. My mind refused to make the jump. I could not believe, even now, that Vornan-19 was genuine, despite the chill I had felt in Vornan’s presence and all the rest.

“He’s had enough,” Kralick said finally. “He’s coming out. Aster, clean up all the equipment, fast.”

While Aster concealed the monitoring pickups, Kralick sprinted from the car, got Vornan, and led him swiftly across the plaza. In the brutal winter weather there were no disciples about to throw themselves before him, nor any rampaging Apocalyptists, so for once we were able to make a clean, quick exit.

Vornan was beaming. “Your sexual customs are fascinating,” he said, as we drove away. “Fascinating! So wonderfully primitive! So full of vigor and mystery!” He clapped his hands in delight. I felt the odd chill again creeping through my limbs, and it had nothing to do with the weather outside the car. I hope Esther is happy now, I thought. She’ll have something to tell her grandchildren. It was the least I could have done for her.