His hurtful insistence made her giggle. "Okay." It was another twenty minutes before one of him walked into the kitchen. He was the Bovey she'd first encountered in his macrostore's bathroom aisle, the one with ebony skin and an aging body. In his biological late middle age he may have been, but he did not shrink from hard work. His wrinkled forehead was smeared with sweat.

"I made some tea," she said, gesturing at the kettle with its cluster of ancient cups. "You look like you need a break."

"I do; my others are younger." He smiled in admiration at the steaming cups and the packet of teacubes. "You really did make it, too, didn't you?"

"Waiting for my culinary unit to arrive," she said with a martyred sigh.

"It's in the next load, I promise," he told her, and picked up a cup. His eyes took in the packets of folded food and the hydrator oven.

"Are you actually living here?"

"Yeah. Not renting saves me a bucketload of money. I mean, what's the point? I've got five apartments, and they're not that bad-the roofs don't leak, and the rest is just aesthetics. I can stick it out for a few months."

"You know, I really admire your attitude. There's not many your age who would take on a project like this."

She batted her eyes. "And what's my age?"

"Honestly? I've no idea. But you come across as a first life."

"I'll own up to that."

"Can I offer you an alternative to hydrated food tonight? There's a nice restaurant I know."

She grinned, her hand curling around her mug of tea. "That would be lovely. Oh, I don't like curry!"

"That's okay; some of mes don't, either."

"Your tastes are different?"

"Sure. Taste is a matter of biochemistry, which is subtly different in every human body. And face it, I have quite a variety to choose from."

"Okay," she said, and dropped her gaze bashfully. "I have to ask. I've never been on a date with a multiple before. Do you all come and sit at the table with me?"

"Nah, I think that would be a little much for you, wouldn't it? Besides, I have the macrostore to run, deliveries to be made, installation, that kind of thing. My life goes on the whole time."

"Oh. Yes." It was a strange notion. Not an objectionable one, though.

"Now, if you were another multiple, it might be different."

"How?"

"We'd book the whole restaurant of romantic tables for two and take over the lot. Yous and mes everywhere having fifty different conversations simultaneously and trying out the entire menu and wine list all at once. It's like speed dating in fast forward."

She laughed. "Have you ever done that?"

"Tell you tonight."

"Right. So which one of you do I get sitting at that romantic table for two?"

"You choose. How many of mes and which ones."

"One, and you'll do just fine."

Araminta took a great deal of thought and care over what to wear and which cosmetic scales to apply. She dressed exactly to plan two hours early, then took a look at herself in the mirror and chucked the whole image. Fifty minutes later all the cases in her bedroom were hanging open. Every outfit she had bought in the last two months was draped over floor and furniture, leaving little space to walk. She had experimented with four different styles of scale membrane. Her hair had been sparkled and then damped, oiled and then fluffed, bejeweled with red scintillators, blue scintillators, green, blue-white...

In the end, with eleven minutes to go, she took an executive decision to go basic. Mr. Bovey was not the kind to concern himselfs with surface image.

His capsule landed on the pad outside, and she took an elevator down to the lobby. The doors opened to a dusty space piled with junk and newly delivered boxes. It was all illuminated by too-bright temporary lighting.

Mr. Bovey was dressed in a simple pale gray toga suit with minimal surface shimmer. He smiled as the doors opened and said: "A lady who is on time; now, that's-oh, wow."

She permitted herself the smallest nod of approval as he stared. In her mind was an image of his customers left unattended, installations stalled, delivery flights landing at the wrong addresses all over town.

"You look"-he swallowed as he tried to regain equilibrium-"fantastic. Absolutely amazing."

"Why, thank you." She held her hands behind her back and presented the side of her face for a formal greeting kiss like some ingenue. It was the right choice, then: a black sleeveless dress of plain silky fabric with a wide cleft down the front, barely held together by a couple of slim black emerald chains, making it look as if she was about to burst out. Her hair glossed pale auburn and brushed with just a couple of waves to hang below her shoulders. No scales other than lips slightly darker than her natural pigmentation and emerald eyelash sparkles on low radiance. Most important was the sly half smile guaranteed to befuddle the male brain totally-all of them.

Mr. Bovey recovered. "Shall we go?"

"Love to."

The restaurant he'd booked was Richard's. It was small but stylish, occupying two floors of an old white stone house in the Udno district. The owner was also the chef, and as Mr. Bovey explained, he had a small boat that he took out down the estuary a couple of times each week to catch fish for the specials.

"So do you date other multiples?" she asked once they had ordered.

"Of course," he told her. "Not that there are a lot of us on Viotia."

"What about marriage? Is that only with multiples?"

"I was married once. A multiple called Mrs. Rion. It was"-he frowned, as if searching for a memory-"pleasant."

"That sounds pretty awful."

"I'm being unfair to her. We had a good time while it lasted. Sex was great." His smile was shameless. "Think on it: thirty of her, thirty of me. All of us at it every night. You singles can't get that close to physical paradise even in an orgy."

"You don't know how good I am in an orgy." As soon as she said it, she could feel her ears burning. But it was the second time she had startled him that evening, and they were not even an hour into the date. Cressida would be proud of me.

"Anyway," he said, "we called time on the marriage after seven years. No hostilities; we're still friends. Thankfully, we didn't merge our businesses as well. Always sign a premarriage contract, no matter what you are."

"Yes. I found that out the hard way."

"You've been married?"

"Yeah. It was a mistake, but you were right: I'm young. My cousin says mistakes are the only way to learn."

"Your cousin is right."

"So are you going to try and convert me tonight?"

"Convert you?"

"Sell the whole multiple idea. I thought you believe multiples are inevitable."

"I do. But I'm not an evangelical. Some of us are," he admitted.

"And you date, uh..."

"Outside the faith? Of course I do. People are interesting no matter what type they are."

"Highers seem quite boring. If that sounds bigoted, I should explain that my ex is currently migrating inward."

"Not a wholly balanced opinion, then."

Araminta raised a glass. "Ozzie, I hope not."

"Going Higher is wrong; it's a technocrat route. We're a humanist solution to immortality and evolution."

"You still rely on technology, though."

"It's a very small reliance. A few gaiamotes to homologize our thoughts. It's a simple procedure."

"Ah, hah! You are trying to convert me."

He grinned. "You're paranoid."

"All divorcees are. So are any of you female?"

"No. Some multiples are multisexual, but that's not for me. Too much like masturbation, I'd imagine."

"I've just thought of something, and you have to answer because it's not fair."

"What's not fair?"

"Well, you can see that I'm not with anyone else this evening-"

"Ah." His smile turned devious. "So in among all the hard work the rest of mes are doing back at the macrostore, is there another of me in a different restaurant chatting to another woman? Right?"

"Yeah," she admitted.

"Why would it have to be a different restaurant?" He gestured around extravagantly. "Be honest. How could you tell if one of them is me?"

The idea made her draw a breath and glance around.

Mr. Bovey was laughing. "But I'm not," he assured her. "All I'm interested in tonight is you and you alone." His gaze dropped to the front of her dress. "How could I not be?"

"That's"-she took another drink of the wine-"very flattering, thank you."

It got the evening back on more or less standard lines.

The mighty creatures fly free amid glorious colored streamers that glow strongly against the infinite dark of the outer reaches. They loop around the great scarlet promontories that extend for light-years, curving and swooping above the mottled webbing of faint cold gas. As they fly, the notions of what was brush against their bodies to tingle their minds as if they were traveling through the memories of another entity. Such a notion is not far from the truth, especially this close to the nucleus of their universe.

This one turns lazily along its major axis, aware of its kindred surrounding it. The flock is spread across millions of kilometers. Over a planetary diameter away, another of its own also is rolling, mountainsize elongated body throwing its vacuum wings wide, tenuous tissues of molecules as large as atmospheric clouds that shimmer delicately in the thin starlight. Somewhere out across the vast gulf it is aware of the whispers of thought arising once more from a solid world. Once more there are individual minds growing strong again, becoming attuned to the fabric of this universe. As it basks in the gentle radiance pouring out of the nebula, it wonders when the minds will have the strength truly to affect reality. Such a time, it agrees with its kindred, is sure to come. Then the flock will depart the great nebula to search out the newcomers and carry their completed lives back to the nucleus, where all life eventually culminates.

It was a pleasurable notion that made Araminta sigh contentedly even though the creature was slipping away into the darkness where it dwelled. Misty starlight gave way to a row of flickering candles. The gossamer breath of nebula dust firmed up into strong fingers sliding along her legs; more hands began to stroke her belly, and then another pair squeezed her breasts. Sweet oil was massaged into her skin with wicked insistence. Tongues licked with intimate sensuality.

"Time to wake up," a voice murmured.

On the other side of her another voice encouraged: "Time to indulge yourself again."

Amid a delicious drowsiness Araminta bent herself in the way the hands were urging. She blinked lazily, seeing the Mr. Bovey she had had dinner with standing beside the vast bed. He smiled down. As she grinned back up at him, she was impaled from behind. She gasped, startled and excited, seeing a look of rapture cross his face. A further set of hands started to explore her buttocks. She opened her mouth to receive the cock of a really young him, which was extremely bad of her.

She did not know how many hims she was accommodating this time. She did not know if it was nearly morning or still the middle of the night. She did not care. Flesh and pleasure was her here and now, her whole universe.

After the meal at Richard's his capsule had brought them back to his place, a large house set above the city's south bank with lawns that reached down to the river. It was not even midnight. Several of hims were in the lounge, a couple were cooking, and three were in the swimming pool. More were resting or sleeping upstairs, he told her.

It was like holding court: her sitting on a broad leather sofa, hims on either side, and more sprawled on cushions at her feet as they chatted away. She took a long time to fight down her instinct that they were all separate people. He enjoyed teasing her, switching speaker midsentence, even arguing among himselfs. But the simultaneous laughter his bodies came out with was endearing. It was a wonderfully languid seduction.

Then the one she had gone to dinner with leaned over and kissed her. By then the wine and the anticipation were making her heart pound and her skin burn.

"You choose," he murmured silkily.

"Choose?"

"How many and which ones."

She glanced around and saw identical expressions of delight and eagerness on each of him. For that long moment every one of him was completely indistinguishable; he could have been clones. That was when she accepted on a subconscious level that he truly was one.

"You, of course," she told her dinner companion. "You did all the hard work getting me back here, after all." Then she pointed. "You." The handsome one. "You." Young and very well muscled-she had seen that when he had climbed out of the pool.

The chosen three led her upstairs. Araminta thought that was daring enough, but the night swiftly evolved into a strenuous sexual adventure as Mr. Bovey began teaching her acts that could be performed only in a group. "Trust me," one of hims said as he opened an aerosol in her face. "It's a booster. It'll amplify your pleasure, sort of even things up between you and mes." Araminta breathed it down. It was potent.

They gathered around her, strong hands supporting her in different positions. She was made to climax with each of hims in turn, with the booster increasing the sensation each time as it gradually saturated her bloodstream. After the third one she flopped back on the mattress in a lovely warm fugue. That was when she saw that more of hims had arrived to wait silent and naked around the bed. She did not protest as they stared down excitedly. "Yes," she told them. In unison the fresh bodies closed in.

More than once that night Araminta swooned from a combination of exhaustion and aerosol-fueled ecstasy. Each time he allowed her a small rest before rousing her again. Those were the occasions when she dreamed her strange dream.

She did not wake up until midmorning. When she did, the details of the night had merged together into a single strand of relentless animal behavior. She had surprised herself by yielding to everything he had demanded from her.

The dinner date Bovey was lying on the bed beside her. He was the only one left in the bedroom. "Good morning," he said with soft politeness.

"Yeah," Araminta said. She still felt hopelessly tired as well as unpleasantly sore. The aerosol had worn off, leaving her skin cool and slightly clammy.

"You look beautiful when you're sleeping. Did you know that?"

"I...no one has told me that before."

"How do you feel?"

"Uh, okay, I suppose."