"With proper care she might not have to die in thirty-one years," Abnethe said.

Furuneo nodded, but it was a gesture only for himself.

She wouldn't forgive him any more than the young man returning to an empty yacht could forgive him. And that young man had not died.

I couldn't forgive myself, he thought. The young man I was would never forgive me all those lovely lost years.

"If you're worried," Abnethe said, "about changing the universe or the course of history or any such nonsense, forget it. That's not how it works, f.a.n.n.y Mae tells me. You change a single, isolated situation, no more. The new situation goes off about its business, and everything else remains pretty much the same."

"I see."

"Do you agree to our bargain?" Abnethe asked.

"What?"

"Shall I have f.a.n.n.y Mae pick her up for you?"

"Why bother?" he asked. "I can't agree to such a thing."

"You're joking!"

He turned, stared up at her, saw that she had a small jumpdoor open almost directly over his head. Only her eyes, nose, and mouth could be seen through the opening.

"I am not joking."

Part of her hand became visible as she lifted it, pointed toward the other door. "Look down there at what you're rejecting. Look, I say! Can you honestly tell me you don't want that back?"

He turned.

Mada had gone back to the hammock, snuggled face-down against a pillow. Furuneo recalled that he'd found her like that when he'd returned from the seadome.

"You're not offering me anything," he said.

"But I am! It's true, everything I've told you!"

"You're a fool," he said, "if you can't see the difference between what Mada and I had and what you offer. I pity . . ."

Something fiercely compressive gripped his throat, choked off his words. Furuneo's hands groped in empty air as he was lifted up . . . up . . . He felt his head go through jumpdoor resistance. His neck was precisely within the boundary juncture when the door was closed. His body fell back into the Beachball.

Body jargon and hormone squirts, these begin to get at communication.

-Culture Lag, an unpublished work by Jorj X. McKie

"You fool, Mliss!" Cheo raged. "You utter, complete, senseless fool! If I hadn't come back when I . . ."

"You killed him!" she rasped, backing away from the b.l.o.o.d.y head on the floor of her sitting room. "You . . . you killed him! And just when I'd almost . . ."

"When you'd almost ruined everything," Cheo snarled, thrusting his scarred face close to her. "What do you humans use for brains?"

"But he'd . . ."

"He was ready to call his helpers and tell them everything you'd blurted to him!"

"I won't have you talking to me this way!"

"When it's my neck you're putting on the block, I'll talk to you any way I want."

"You made him suffer!" she accused.

"He didn't feel a thing from what I did. You're the one who made him suffer."

"How can you say that?" She backed away from the PanSpechi face with its frighteningly oversized humanoid features.

"You bleat about being unable to stand suffering," he growled, "but you love it. You cause it all around you! You knew Furuneo wouldn't accept your stupid offer, but you taunted him with it, with what he'd lost. You don't call that suffering?"

"See here, Cheo, if you . . ."

"He suffered right up to the instant I put a stop to it," the PanSpechi said. "And you know it!"

"Stop it!" she screamed. "I didn't! He wasn't!"

"He was and you knew it, every instant of it, you knew it.

She rushed at him, beat her fists against his chest. "You're lying! You're lying! You're lying!"

He grabbed her wrists, forced her to her knees. She lowered her head. Tears ran down her cheeks. "Lies, lies, lies," she muttered.

In a softer, more reasonable tone, he said: "Mliss, hear me. We've no way to know how much longer the Caleban can last. Be sensible. We've a limited number of fixed periods when we can use the S'eye, and we have to make the most of them. You've wasted one of those periods. We can't afford such blunders, Mliss."

She kept her gaze down, refused to look at him.

"You know I don't like to be severe with you, Mliss," he said, "but my way is best -- as you've said yourself many times. We've our own ego-integrity to preserve."

She nodded without looking at him.

"Let's join the others now," he said. "Plouty has devised an amusing new game."

"One thing," she said.

"Yes?"

"Let's save McKie. He'd be an interesting addition to . . ."

"No.

"What harm could it do? He might even be useful. It isn't as though he'd have his precious Bureau or anything to enforce his . . ."