My mother told me about the dinner, and I tried to hear what she said. Sometimes what she said was very funny and I laughed. I kept beginning to say to her, "I've fallen in love," and preventing myself. I imagined saying: "I'd like to buy a special format robot." Would my mother let me? Generally, I pay for things I want with a credit card that links into my mother's own account, but there was a monthly one thousand I.M.U. limit on the card. This was just so I'd appreciate about not overspending, because my mother always made it quite clear that what was hers was mine. But she wanted me to be sensible. A verisimulated robot would cost thousands. The ionized silver alone would cost thousands. A purchase like that wouldn't seem sensible at all.

In any case, if Egyptia hadn't bought him, someone else had. He belonged tothem . To an Egyptia, or an Austin. Did he enjoy giving joy? What happened tohim when he made love?

After lunch, my mother switched on the news channel of the Vista visual, and took notes. She's a political and sociological essayist and historian, too, but mainly as a hobby. There had been another bad subsidence in the Balkans. Social collapse seemed likely again in Eastern Europe, but reports were garbled. An earthquake had rocked the top off a mountain somewhere. There were subsistence riots in five Western cities. My mother didn't switch to the local news channel, which might have carried something about the Sophisticated Format robots, but when she switched the visual off my throat had closed together with nerves.

Then I realized she'd made a sacrifice to be with me, since generally she watches the visual in her study.

She must guess something was wrong, and I didn't really know how long I could hold out. What would she say if I told her? "Darling, this would be quite all right if you were s.e.xually experienced. But you're a virgin. And to make love, initially, with a nonhuman device, is by no means a good idea. For all sorts of complicated reasons. Firstly, your own psychological needs..." I could just distinguish her voice in my head. And she'd be right. How could I ever hope to have a proper relationship with a man if I began by going to bed with a robot? (Heis a man. No, fool, he isn't. Heis .) I went down to the library and took a book, and sat in the balcony-balloon watching the sky drifting out from the house and fathoming away in a luminous nothingness below me. And eventually I seemed to be hanging by a string over the nothingness, and I had to move from the balcony, and go back to my suite and lie down on the bed. It was the only time I'd ever had vertigo in Chez Stratos, though Clovis won't visit us, saying all the while he's in the house he can feel his groin falling farther and farther away below him.

Finally I called Clovis, not knowing what to say.

"Hallo?" said Austin invisibly. Clovis has never incorporated a video.

"Oh. Hallo. This is Jane."

"James?"

"Jane. Can I speak to-"

"No. He's in the shower."

Austin sounded like a fixture, despite the seance, if a not very happy one.

"Is that awoman ?" Austin demanded.

"It's Jane."

"I thought you said James. Well, look, Jayven, why don't you call later. Like next year?" And he switched off.

As a matter of course, then, I dialed Chloe, but she didn't answer. I looked at Jason and Medea's number, but didn't dial it.

My mother called me on the internal phone.

"I've run your tape, Jane. It's rather vague. What did Clovis do?"

"He had another seance."

"And this disturbed you."

"Only because he plays with people like a cat."

"Cats don't play with people. Cats play with mice. The seance table is rigged, I seem to recall."

"Yes, Mother."

"The spirit world can be reached, under the correct circ.u.mstances," said my mother.

"Oh, you mean ghosts."

"I mean the psychic principle. A soul, Jane. You mustn't be afraid to use the correct terminology. A released soul, unattached to the physical state, and which has lived through many lives and a diversity of bodies may sometimes wish to communicate with the world. There was a great incidence of this at the turn of the century, for example, prior to the Asteroid Disasters. A theologian notes a connection. Clovis shouldn't be meddling with table-tappings."

"No, Mother."

"I've left you some vitamins in the dispenser. Robot three will give them to you when you come down."

"Thank you."

"And now, I must get ready."

Having avoided her for hours in terror of giving away my awful secret, I was now stricken with horror.

"Are you going out?"

"Yes, Jane. You know I am. I'm going upstate for three days. The Phy-Amalgamated Conference."

"I'd-I'd forgotten-Mother-I really must speak to you after all."

"Darling, you've had all day to speak to me."

"Only four hours."

"I really can't stop now."

"It's urgent."

"Then tell me quickly."

"But I can't!"

"Then you should have spoken earlier."

"Oh Mother!" I burst into tears. Where did so many tears come from? A lot of the human body is water.

Did I have any left?

"Jane, I'm going to make an appointment for you with your private doctor."

"I'm not ill. I'm-"

"Jane. I will take half an hour away from my schedule. I will come up to your suite now, and we'll talk this through. Do you agree?"

Panic. Panic.

The door opened, and my mother, already burnished, pomaded, glittering, stepped through. An abyss gaped before me. And behind me. I could no longer think. I'd always, always leaned on my mother. Was anything so perverse, so precarious, so precious I couldn't share it with her, especially now she'd wrecked her schedule for me?

"As precisely as you can, dear," said Demeta, beckoning me into her arms, intoLa Verte , into bliss and anchorage. "Now, does this have anything to do with Clovis?"

"Mother, I'm in love!" I tumbled against her, but not too hard. I could tell her. Icould . "Mother, I'm in love." No, I couldn't. "Mother, I'm in love with Clovis," I shrieked.

"Good Lord," said my mother.

It was almost six P.M. when I did what, of course, I had been bound to do virtually from the start. My mother had at last gone, and I had plunged deep in my lagoon of guilt because I'd lied to her this terribly, and-much worse-made her late. She really is so concerned to do the best for me. It's her grail, or one of them. Luckily, I was able to plaster over my lie very swiftly. "I know Clovis is M-B and will never return my feelings," I'd said, again and again. "It's just a silly crush. I've done what you taught me, and gone through my own psychological motivations. I'm almost over it. But I had to let you know. I always feel better when I tell you things." Oh, how could I cheat her of the facts like that? Why should I have felt so sure I mustn't reveal the truth? Eventually she mixed me a sedative and she left me. The sedative was whipped-strawberry flavor and I was tempted to drink it, but I didn't. Quite suddenly, about ten minutes after I heard the Baxter rumble up out of the roof-hatch, and the Vista had stopped vibrating, what I had said about loving Clovis abruptly struct me as hilarious, and I howled with laughter, rolling all over the couch. It was, possibly, the stupidest thing I could have come up with, even in sheer desperation. One day I might tell him, and Clovis would howl, too.

When I stopped laughing, I keyed the alcohol dispenser and got it to pour me one of the martinis my mother likes. I had another bath, and put on a black dress, and plugged in the hairdresser unit and let it put rollers in my hair. My face in the mirror was white, and my eyes, too dark to be properly green, were almost black I don't like makeup, actually. It feels sticky on my skin and sometimes I forget I'm wearing it and rub my hand over my cheeks and smear my rouge. But there was a lot of mascara left on I hadn't taken off last night or cried of this morning. It's supposed to be runproof, and it partly is I tidied it and added some more, and crayoned my mouth Autumn Beech Leaf. I drank the salty martini, pretending I liked it, and the hairdresser took out the rollers and brushed my hair, and I painted my nails black. All of which, in a way, tells you what I was about to do.

When I dialed the robot operator, my hands and my voice were shaking.

"What number do you require?"

"The number of Electronic Metals Ltd."

"At your service."

The video shook with me, in little lines of light, then cleared. There was a small blank area with a man projected like a cutout on it, in one of those four-piece suits jacket, pants, waistcoat and shirt of a matching pale grey silky material, and tinted gla.s.ses on a cla.s.sic nose. He looked cheerfully at me, his manicured hands holding on tight to each other. A small sign lit up in front of him, which said: SWOHNSON.

"Swohnson of Electronic Metals. How can I help you?"

And he beamed and licked his lips. He was eager. For a sale?

"This is just an inquiry," I said. I pitched my voice over its own cracks and tremors. "Youare the firm that sent those robots out into the city yesterday?"

"Er, yes. Yes. Electronic Metals. That's us."

"The special and the Sophisticated formats?"

"The specials. Twenty-four models. Metal and reinforced plastic. Sophisticated Format line. All-metal.

Nine models. What was your inquiry?"

My white face flamed, but perhaps he couldn't see it.

"I'm interested in the cost of hire."

"Hire not sale. Er. We're thinking of cutting back on that."

"I happen to know one of the Sophisticated line was hired last night."

"Oh, yes. They all were. But that was part of the, ah, the advertising campaign. A one day, one night venture. These robots are really for exhibition only. At the present."

"Not for sale."

"Ah. Sale might be a different matter. Did you have purchase in mind?"

I wouldn't let him upstage me. For some reason, he was as nervous as I was.

"No. I had hire in mind. Let me speak to the Director."

"Ah-just wait a moment-I'm not trying to give a bad impression here." Human employee, a good job, worried about losing it. I felt mean. "Ah. We have a few problems at this end."

"With the robots."

"With, er, transportation."

"Your robots are locomotive. They were walking all over the city like people yesterday. If I hire one, why can't it just walk out of the door with me?"

"Um. Between ourselves, not everyone likes the idea of what these magnificent robots can do. A further threat to the last bastions of human employment potential. You know the sort of thing. Bit of a crowd.

Bit of trouble."

"Trouble?"

"The, ah, the police have arrived. But it's a peaceful demonstration, so far. Until any violence breaks out, the crowd probably can't be moved. And if it does break out-well, we'd rather none of our merchandise was in the thick of it-Ah!" He glanced downward, and his eyes behind the tinted spectacles bulged. A white glow was playing over his chin and through the sign with his name. I realized a message panel must have lit up out of sight on his desk console. The message didn't look as if it was very comforting.

"Um," he said. "I, er, think I said more than I ought. Ha, ha. Look, madam, I'll patch you through to our contact department on relay. Leave your code and number and E.M. can call you tomorrow to discuss your wishes. Just hold, if you will, and I'll put you through."

The video fluttered, and I hit the switch wildly.

And why did I do that? Maybe only because tomorrow was a hundred years away, and would be too late.

And what now?

I walked along the Vista, past all the bubbles of sky, and back again. It was a red dog-end of a sunset tonight. Claret-colored, like Silver's cloak. Like Silver's hair.

I thought about the subsistence riots on the news channel. They say no one can really live on a sub.

check. Sometimes robot circuits were vandalized by the frenzied unemployed, though usually the built- in alarms and defense electric-shock mechanisms deter vandals. But the news channel had reported a machinery warehouse had burned down in one riot. That was thousands of miles away. But suppose the peaceful crowd outside Electronic Metals got out of hand? Not water, but fire. His face, like a wax angel's, dissolving- I ran to the phone and called Clovis again.

"This is Clovis's answering tape. Right now Clovis is committing sodomy. Call back in an hour, when I regret you may still receive the same answer."

(Clovis, actually, leaves this message even if he's gone out to a restaurant, or to the beach for a week.

Davideed, who once got the message over and over for two days, rushed to the New River apartment and shouted at the door, which was locked. And when one of Clovis's discarded, left-behind, just- packing-to-leave lovers opened it, Davideed hit him.) The sunset turned to hot ashes, and then to cold ones. The night would gather in the city and the lights would flower. The crowd waiting outside Electronic Metals would begin to understand how pretty buildings look when they b.u.m in the dark.

I switched on the local news channel. They talked about a new subway to be built, about a gang fight near the Old River, about a rise in cigarine prices due to the heavy crop losses in one of the more earthquake-active zones. Then I heard and saw the crowd, which had gathered in East Arbor around the gates of Electronic Metals Ltd., and they were growing restless. People shouted before the shabby gla.s.s facade. The newscaster told me about robots, how they're important, and why workers hate them. The news didn't seem to have grasped that E.M.'s robots were different. Or perhaps they were just trying not to advertise. The crowd went on shouting. There only appeared to be a couple of hundred people.

Enough to start a fire. But I would be safe. The policode I wore would protect me, with its guaranty that it takes exact body-readings of anyone who a.s.saults the wearer, while instantly summoning the police.

There were police anyway, watching the crowd. I could see their little planes going over and back against the deepening sky of dusk in the screen, and sometimes their lights played on the building and the people.

But if I were there, what would I do? What difference could I make? It was pointless to go, to be there.

If I negotiated the mob, who would open E.M.'s door to me with all that outside? I might be a ringleader determined to force an entry.

I left the news channel on as I walked up and down the Vista. Then someone threw a bottle. The camera followed it. It hit the facade of Electronic Metals and shattered.

Outside, across the Canyon, the seven P.M. flyer would be floating like a moth toward the platform. In fifteen minutes I could be over the Old River, in twenty I could be getting off at South Arbor, running the three blocks to East. The Arbors are a rough area, a big trash can of derelict offices and subsided stories not yet rebuilt after the Asteroid tremors, with, here and there, a nightclub perched like a vulture deliberately on the ruins, or some struggling enterprise starting up in a renovated warehouse, with a frontage of sprayed-on gla.s.s.

If I let the flyer go, there wouldn't be another one until nine P.M. If I dialed a cab, I might have to wait for half an hour.