He could not bear to be disloyal to Pyoter. He had tried, for weeks, to keep things the same between them. It was impossible. Pyoter wasn't a fool, and Josif watched him getting more and more hurt as it became clearer and clearer that Josif no longer belonged to him as he had. And finally Pyoter said, Why didn't you just leave at once, instead of tearing me up bit by bit like this?

This time, Josif thought, this time I must leave. Before I destroy Kyaren, Because this boy I cannot resist, and sooner or later the change will come, if he's here often. Sooner or later it will not be Kyaren I come to with my thoughts and my feelings; or, even if the boy never becomes my friend, it will get to a point where I will be so obsessed by him, as I was obsessed by Bant, that I cannot bear to be with Kyaren anymore.

The duffle lay at his feet, half full. Why don't I go? Josif asked himself. Why am I still here? I know what I have to do, I know why, it's the way I am and the only way to stop myself is to stop everything, and yet here I sit and I haven't packed and I'm not leaving and why not?

The answer stood in the door, her face surprised, uncomprehending.

. What are you doing? Kyaren asked.

Packing, Josif answered, but he knew even then that he would not leave. He had never been able to leave Pyoter or Bant willingly; he would not be able to leave Kyaren either. I am not in control of myself, Josif realized. I gave myself to her, and I can't just decide to take myself back.

Why? Kyaren asked, already hurt because she could not comprehend what he was doing.

If I stay, I'll destroy her as I destroyed Pyoter.

We'll still be friends, Josif answered.

What brought this on? Why now, at three o'clock in the morning? What did I do?

Ansset, Josif said.

She misunderstood. How can yon possibly be jealous of him? He's only fifteen! They give them drugs in the Songhouse, he's sterile, puberty is put off for years-he hardly even has a sex, Josif--

I'm not jealous of him, Josif answered.

She stood regarding him for a while, and then realized what he meant.

Still the old sixty-two percent, is it? she asked.

No, he answered, I just see the potential, I want to avoid it.

There is no potential, she said.

You don't understand.

Damn right I don't. You mean that all this time, I've just been filling your bed until you could find a beautiful boy to fill it?

Maybe postponing it would have been better, Josif thought. Postponing is definitely better. I can't do this tonight. Because Ansset is only potential, and Kyaren is real, Kyaren I love now, and I can't bear the hurt and anger in her voice. No, he said softly, fervently. Kyaren, you don't understand. I didn't choose you. I didn't choose Bant. Things like this happen. They just happen, and I don't have any control over it.

You mean that in just one evening you suddenly forget that you love me-

No! he cried out, in agony. No! Kyaren, I just know that it's possible, it's possible and I don't want it to happen, don't you see?

"I don't, she said. If you love me, you love me.

Josif got up, walked to her, knocking over the duffel in the process. Kyaren, I don't want to leave you.

Then don't,

It's because I love you that I want to leave.

If you love me, you'll stay, she said.

He had known it, from the moment she appeared in the door. He couldn't leave her. When the change came, it would come, and then it would be irreversible, and then he would leave because he loved someone else and there was something in him that made it impossible for him to love two people at once. But now the one person was Kyaren, and he could not leave her because she wanted him to stay.

I'll hurt you, he said.

You could not hurt me worse than leaving me now, for no reason.

He wondered if she was right, or if it was easier for no reason than for the reason that there would be in the future. Surely it was. Surely it was easier to bear if you didn't have to know who it was who took your lover's heart from you. But maybe not; she was a woman, and Josif did not understand women. Maybe she was right, and it would be better this way.

Besides, Josif, what makes you think Ansset would ever have you? He didn't have two emperors, you know.

She was right. She was right and he knew it and he went to the duffel and unpacked it and put the clothing away. He never will, Josif said. I was a fool. I'm just tired. And he undressed and got into the bed.

They made love in silence, and several times Kyaren seemed surprised by the force of his passion tonight. She did not realize that in spite of his best efforts he kept seeing the curls clinging to Ansset's neck, the soft cheek that he had not touched except in his mind but that was all the softer because of that. He tried to take Ansset's face out of his mind. And failed.

Kyaren sighed contentedly afterward, and kissed him. She thinks it's all better now, Josif thought bitterly. She thinks she's kept me. She would have kept me better if she had let me go now.

And when her breathing became heavy and regular, he leaned up on his arm and looked at her face, which she always turned away from him in sleep. He stroked her cheek softly; her mouth moved, almost like the sucking instinct of a baby.

I warned you, he said softly, so softly that perhaps the words did not even find voice. I warned you.

And he gave up and lay back and tried to steep, sour at heart because he had tried to control his life just once and could not do it after all.

Kyaren was not asleep, however, or she had been wakened by his touch. Josif, she said. I'm going to have your baby.

No, he said softly.

Please, she said. And because he was tired and not disposed to deny her anything, and because he knew that soon enough he would deny her everything, he let himself cool, and they made love again. And sometime in the next week she conceived, and when Josif saw how happy it made her and how concerned for her it made him, he began to think that maybe he had been wrong, that maybe Ansset would mean nothing to him.

For the child's sake, and because he wanted to bind himself to Kyaren even tighter, Josif insisted and they married. Now I will never let go of you in my heart, Josif thought. I will love you forever, he thought.

I am lying, he thought, and this time he was right.

9

The tour was Ansset's idea. Riktors had just returned from his tour of the prefects, and the results had been splendid. Well, why not me? Ansset asked, and the more he talked about it, the better his advisers liked it. There are always differences from region to region on a planet, Ansset said, and most planets develop dialects, some even languages. But Earth has nations. If it makes sense for the emperor to have contact with every prefect, it makes sense for the manager of Earth to have contact with every nation.

To Kyaren he also explained, The statistics and figures you and the others play with all the time, they mean nothing to me. I can't think that way. You tell me what you've concluded and I don't understand why. But when I meet them, when I hear them speak, when I hear the songs of the people and their leaders, I'll be able to understand better.

Better?

Than I do now. And in some ways, better than you understand them, for all that the computers even keep track of the number of old fleskets returned to the pots for scrap.

And so they took the tour, and Ansset brought all his top advisers with him, and allowed them to bring their spouses, those who had contracts. And that was why Josif came along, though he was not an adviser to the manager. And that was why Ansset's term as manager of Earth ended early, along with Kyaren's happiness and Josif's life.