"I'm not complaining, mind you," Malia said. "I love you, too. But I think, if you don't mind my saying so, today's one of your down days."

"You were faking your orgasms?"

"Never! I don't fake!"

"Well, I'm sorry. I must be off my feed or my biorhythm or something."

"I forgive you, although there's really nothing I have to forgive," Malia said. "Don't worry about it."

They went to the bathroom, Dunski thinking that she should not have complained if she thought it unimportant. They found Jan Markus Wells and Rupert there. While washing, Dunski tried to catch Rupert's eye so that he could sign to her that he wanted to speak privately to her. She was too occupied in douching to see him.

They returned to the living room, where they had to wait four minutes for the other couple. This time, chance did its best for Dunski. When he spun the bottle, it stopped with its opened end pointing at Rupert. Sighing quietly with relief, he went hand in hand with her to another bedroom. It reeked of sexual scents, and the bedclothes were sweat-soaked. He, Dunski, was accustomed to this, but Tingle, looking over his shoulder, and Caird, looking over Tingle's shoulder, might have caused his slight revulsion.

Rupert lay down on the bed and stretched out, her hands behind her head, her back arched, her perfectly conical breasts staring nipplewise at the ceiling. He sat down by her, took her hand, and said, "Let's skip the lovemaking, Rupert. I ... we're in trouble. We have to talk about it."

She sat up and said, "Deep trouble?"

He nodded and squeezed her hand. After sketching the last two days, he said, "So, you see, we have to figure out what to do today. We'll have to omit much of what we usually do. But we can't attract attention."

She shuddered

"This Castor ... it seems impossible ... what a monster!"

"He has to be found and stopped. And I have to find out where Snick is and get the truth out of her."

"And if she's a danger to us?"

"I don't like it, but she'll have to be stoned and hidden away."

"Better her than us, right?"

"I suppose so."

"Won't that make us no better than she?"

"Damn it," he said. "I'll wrestle with the ethics when I have to. First, I have to find her. I'll have to go to my contact. He's probably gotten the word by now, though, and he'll probably call me."

"How are you going to question Snick? You can't let her recognize you. If you do, you have to stone her no matter what she's doing here. She is an organic."

"She'll be in deep chemicogenic hypnosis. She won't remember me when she comes out of it."

"Poor Ozma," Rupert said. "She died because she was your wife."

"I'm sorry I had to tell you about her. I've never said anything about the other days unless it was immer business."

"That's all right," she said. She released his hand and hugged her knees. "I've always wondered about your other lives. Especially the women."

"Those women are not mine, not Jim Dunski's. Dunski isn't a stranger to those other men, but he knows them as slight acquaintances."

That was not entirely true. He did not wish, however, to talk about them. The less she knew, the better for her and for him.

Rupert got off the bed and hugged him closely. "I'm scared."

"So am I. Wary, anyway. Listen. If I tell you at the gym that I have to leave, you'll know that I got word about Castor or Snick. I won't be keying-out because I don't want the Credits Bureau to know that I was even at work. I'll lose today's credits, but it can't be helped. I've got overtime credit anyway. That'll help."

"Why work at all?"

"Because I want something to do to take my mind off this, keep me from worrying. Also, my superior will expect to contact me there. And I don't want to miss out on any more practice than I have to. Got to keep in shape, you know."

Rupert asked him to describe Castor so that she would know him if she saw him. Dunski listed in detail Castor's physical characteristics and his clothing. Then he said, "He thinks he's God. And he thinks I'm Satan. In a way, that's to our advantage. If he was just slightly insane and wanted to destroy us immers, he'd just turn us in to the government. You know what that means."

She shivered again and said, "Would you take the cyanide?"

"I hope so. I swore an oath. You did, too. We all did."

"It's the only thing to do. The only logical and honorable thing, I mean. But ..

There was a knock on the door. Malia called, "You going to stay in there forever?"

Dunski told her that they would be out in a minute. He said to Rupert, "I'm getting fed up with this group marriage thing. I'm just not the type to integrate well with it. I need more privacy, and I resent all the demands made on me."

Rupert's eyes widened.

"You really feel that way?"

"Would I say it if I didn't?"

"No. It was just a rhetorical question. To tell the truth, Jim, I'm pretty irked sometimes. And I do get a little jealous, though I know I shouldn't."

"As soon as this business is cleared up, let's quit. Declare the contract null and void. If we're lucky, we can do it today. This is just not working out for me and, obviously, not for you. I'm basically a monogamist."

She smiled and said, "Yes. Only one wife for you. One for each day, that is."

"When I created the persona of Jim Dunski, I did it with group marriage in mind. Dunski was the type of person who would fit right in with it. But I failed. Or I'm being too much influenced by my other personae. I don't know what in hell's wrong, but I just can't take this anymore."

"We'll talk about it later," she said. "We'd better get going."

"Meanwhile, no deviation from the routine."

Which meant that there would be no bottle-spinning the third time because this coupling had been determined by the previous two. Jannie White was Dunski's next. He went with her into the bedroom and did no better than with Malia. No better was satisfactory but not a cause for ringing bells, blowing whistles, and setting off firecrackers.

"You'd better get more sleep before tonight," Jannie said. "I usually take a nap before supper."

Dunski grunted and headed for the bathroom. He went to bed by himself, after telling the others that he had had trouble with insomnia and was going to use the deep-sleep-wave machine. He crawled into the wall niche, attached the electrodes to his head, and lay down on his back. Before turning the device on, he thought about Castor. The man had probably long ago made provisions for daybreaking. That required fake ID star-discs and also the knowledge of how to implant false records in the data bank. The latter could be learned, however; it was not a data banker monopoly.

Castor could hide in the ancient subway system, part of which still existed, and he could steal or rob food. But that would bring the organics in. They would be looking for him anyway, and they might figure out that he was the thief. Then they would search the area in depth. He would not have much chance of escaping the odor sniffers and heat and sound detectors.

After trying to think of where Castor could be hiding out, Jim Dunski came to the same conclusion as before. He had no way of finding out. He would find Castor when Castor found him. The madman had attacked him once and would try again.

The alarm woke him. He went through the routine of eating breakfast, always a noisy ritual, of washing, then helping to get the children off to school. He and Rupert walked into the ten o'clock heat and were sweating before they got to the building, which had once housed New York University students. Their pupils were waiting in the air-conditioned gymnasium, their padded sensor-packed uniforms on and holding masks and foils. The two greeted them, and work started. At another time, Dunski would have been eager to instruct, especially one of them, a long-armed lithe youth who had the makings of a champion. Try hard though Dunski did, he could not keep Castor and Snick out of his mind. The youth scored twice on him, the bells clamoring and orange lights flashing on a wall strip as the sensors transmitted the exact point of thrust.