"But it didn't happen that way--"

"No, Ab, you don't. You don't understand. Understand at all." Her voice cracked. "This woman lying on the bed beside you-- this is Batta B. This is the woman who turned away from her parents and didn't fulfil her commitment--"

"Dammit, Batta, listen to reason--"

"I have no memory of helping them. They suddenly-- end. I walked out on them--"

"No you didn't!"

"In my own mind I did, Ab, and that's where I have to live! You tell me I helped them but I can't remember it and so it isn't true! That choice-- that was the choice that the real Batta made, staying with them. And so the real Batta was shaped by that experience. The real Batta suffered through those years, even if they were awful."

"Batta, they were worse than awful! They destroyed you!"

"But it was me they destroyed! Me! The Batta who chooses to do what she believes she ought to!"

"What is this, the old-time religion? You have a chance to be spared the consequences of your own suicidal sense of right and wrong! You have a chance to be happy, dammit! What difference does it make which Batta is which? I love you, and you love me, lady, and that's the truth, too!"

"But Ab, how can I be anything but what I am?"

"Listen. You agreed. Instantly. You agreed to let me erase those years, to wake you up and have you live with me as if that agony had never happened. It was voluntary!"

She didn't answer. Only asked, "Did they tape me when they put me under somec? Did they record the way I really am?"

"Yes," he said, knowing what was coming.

"Then put me under again and wake me up with that tape. Send me to a colony."

He stared at her. He got up from the bed and stared at her incredulously and laughed. "Do you realize what you're saying? You're saying, please take me out of heaven, God, and send me to hell."

"I know it," she said, and she began trembling.

"You're insane. This is insane, Batta. Do you know what I've risked, what I've gone through to bring you here? I've broken every law concerning the use of somec that there is--"

"You rule the world, don't you?"

Was she sneering?

"I pull all the strings, but if I make a mistake I could fall anytime. I've deliberately made mistakes for you--"

"And so I owe you something. But what about me? Don't I owe me?"

He was exasperated. He hit the wall with his hand. "Of course you do! You owe yourself a life with a man who loves you more than he loves his life's work! You owe yourself a chance to be pampered, to be coddled, to be cared for--"

"I owe me myself." And she trembled more and more. "Ab. I haven't. I haven't been happy."

Silence.

"Ab, please believe me, because this is the hardest thing I've had to say. Since the moment I woke up, something was wrong. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. I had made the wrong choice. I hadn't gone back to my parents. I have felt wrong. Everything has been colored by that. It's wrong. I wouldn't choose to live with you, and so everything about it is wrong!" She spoke softly, but her voice was intense.

"I would not be here," she said.

"You are here."

"I can't live a lie. I can't live with the contradiction. I must live my own life, bitter or not. Every moment I stay here is pain. It couldn't be worse. Nothing I suffered in my real life could be worse than the agony of living falsely. I must have the memory of having done what I knew was right. Without that memory, I can't keep my sanity. I've been feeling it slip away. Ab--"

And he held her closely, felt her tremble in his arms. "Whatever you want," he whispered. "I didn't know. I thought the somec could-- make things over."

"It can't stop me from being who I--"

"Who you are, I know that, I know it now. But Batta, don't you realize-- if I use that other tape, you won't remember this, you won't remember these days we had together--"

And she began to sob. And he thought of something else.

"You'll-- the last thing you'll remember is my having told you I could erase all the pain. And you saying yes, yes, do it, erase it-- and then you'll wake up with those memories and you'll think that I lied."

She shook her head.

"No," he said. "That's what you'll believe. You'll hate me for having promised you happiness and then not giving it to you. You won't remember this."

"I can't help it," she said, and they held each other and wept together and comforted each other and made love one last time and then he took her to the tape-and-tap where the past was washed away and a crueler life would be restored to her.

"What, is she a criminal?" asked the attendant as Abner Doon substituted the tapes-- for only criminals had their minds wiped and an old tape used to erase all memory of the crime.

"Yes," said Doon, to keep things simple. And so her body was enclosed in the coffin that would satisfy her few needs as her body slowed down to a crawl through the years until he awakened her.

She would awaken on a colony. But one of my choosing, Abner vowed. A kind one, where she might have a chance of making something of her life. And who knows? Maybe hating me will make it all easier for her to bear.

Easier for her. But what about me?

I will not, he decided, spend any more of myself on her. I will close her from my mind. I will-- I will forgetf?

Nonsense.

I will merely devote my life to fulfilling other, older, colder dreams.

Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood: so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.

-Proverbs 30:33

Herman Nuber's feet were asleep, and every time he shifted his weight they tingled unbearably.

"My feet are asleep," he complained to the sleeproom attendant.

"Happens all the time," answered the attendant, reassuringly.

"I was under for three years," Herman pointed out. "Was the circulation to my feet cut off all that time?"

"It's the somec, Mr. Nuber," said the attendant. "It makes your feet feel that way. But your circulation was never cut off."

Herman grunted and went back to reading the lists on the wall. His feet tingled a little less, and now he began to shift his weight back and forth. The newsheet was boring. Same list of victories for the Empire, victories that half the time left the enemy in possession of the star system with a few Empire ships able to limp home. The gossip sheets were almost as boring. All the big-name lifeloopers screwing their way to fame and fortune. One looper committed suicide-- a novelty, since people who wanted to take themselves out of circulation usually just signed up for the colonies.

The list he studied was, of course, the game sheet. He skimmed down to the International Games list, and there was the notice.

"Europe 1914d, now in G1979. Biggest news this week is that Herman 'Italy' Nuber is up on Thursday, so all non-Italy players, watch out!"

Very flattering, of course, to be named by the waking lists. But it was to be expected. The International Games had been around for years, dating back to well before somec. But there had never been a player like Herman Nuber.

He left the sleeproom, pausing, almost as an afterthought, to dress. This waking would be for only six months-- last time he had won more money than usual on the sidebets, which were strictly illegal but a very safe, pleasant investment. No one gave long odds against him-- when he placed bets on himself the rate of return was only 17 percent. But that was better than a savings bank or government bonds.

"Herman," said a quiet man, even shorter than Herman Nuber.

"Hi, Grey," Nuber said.

"Good waking?"

"Of course." Grey Glamorgan was a good business manager. He always remembered that even though he was something of a financial genius, with many good connections, he was not in business for himself. Trustworthy. A born underling. Herman liked to surround himself with men who were shorter than himself.