"You're improving enormously," Dunski said after he took his mask off. "And I'm off my feed. Not that you.wouldn't have gotten me, anyway."

He was relieved, instead of tensing up, when he saw a man and a woman enter the gymnasium. Though he had never seen them before, he knew that they were immers. Their smiles were strained, and their eyes fastened upon him as if they were radar beams. He said, "Excuse me," to the youth and walked in what he hoped was a casual manner to the two. One was a gaunt man with a big nose, light skin, and pale-wheat hair. He looked as if he was about forty-five subyears old. The woman was young and pretty and obviously had many Asiatic Indian ancestors.

The man made no effort to introduce himself. "We're to take you there at once," he said. The right hands of the two strangers were fisted, the thumb held under the first two fingers. Dunski closed his hand quickly in the identification sign, held it long enough for them to see it, and opened his hand.

"Be with you just as soon as I change," he said. He walked toward the locker room, and they followed him. When they were in front of the locker that held Thursday's clothes, he voice-activated the strip on the inside of the door. Channel 52 blared current hit number four of the juvenile "pizza" music, "I'm Alone on a Bicycle Built for Two." The man grimaced and said, "Is that necessary?"

"To cover up our voices, yes," Dunski said. While he was removing his fencing clothes, he said, "Has she been destoned yet?"

"I don't know. Let's wait and see."

"Silence is the word, then?"

The two nodded. Two minutes later, they left the building. Dunski felt dirty and self-conscious because he had not showered, but he knew that he could not waste the time for that. Nevertheless, he thought that under the circumstances, the couple could have been more polite. They did not have to walk so far away from him. He shrugged and muttered, "Ah, well."

Though the air was even hotter, dark clouds were massing in the west. The meteorologist on the public news strip on a street-corner post foretold a drop in the temperature and a heavy rain by seven that evening. Dunski thought briefly of the melting Arctic icecap and the rising waters along the seawalls surrounding Manhattan Island. Thousands were working on them now in the searing sun, adding another foot to the height so that Manhattan would be safe from inundation for another ten obyears.

The three walked west on Bleecker Street, turned north at the house where-he tried not to think of it-Ozma Wang had been murdered and mutilated, and walked along the side of the canal. At the man's whispered direction, Dunski turned left and crossed the West Fourth Street bridge. He turned left again at Jones Street and stopped midway in front of the block building. The man stepped ahead of him, punched a button by the wide green door, and waited. Whoever was inside, seeing them on the slanting strip above the door, was satisfied that they had business there. The door swung open, and a blonde woman with blue eyes and very dark skin waved them in. She looked as if she was about thirty subyears old. Dunski thought that she had had an optic pigmentation removal, all the rage then and not only in Thursday. The government was trying to make Homo sapiens one brown species, but the people, as usual, had found ways to bypass official policy. "Pigchange," as it was called on this day, was not illegal if the government was notified of it.

They went silently down a hall and stopped halfway before a door bearing a plaque with the names of the seven days' occupants. Thursday's were Karl Marx Martin, M.D., Ph.D., and Wilson Tupi Bunbiossom, Ph.D. The blonde inserted an ID tip into the hole and pushed the door open. They entered an apartment like most, a hall running the width of the building with rooms on either side and the kitchen at the end. While they were going down the hall, the blonde said, "This isn't my place. Martin and Bunblossom are on vacation in L.A. They have nothing to do with us. They don't know we're using their apartment."

"Then you'll have to get Snick out of here before midnight," Dunski said.

"Of course."

The apartment looked drab and unused because the decorative wall strips had not been switched on. They passed the stoner room, where Dunski counted nineteen cylinders. Fourteen adults and five children. The faces were those of statues; the eyes did not know that they were staring at criminals.

The blonde opened the door to the personal possessions closet, pushed aside a rack of clothes and said, "Bring her out."

The gaunt man and the dark woman pulled out Snick, huddled in a near fetal position. Dunski bent over to look at her.

The bruise where Castor had struck her was a dark red. Her eyes were closed, which, for some reason, made him feel relieved. Their hands around her head, they dragged her to an empty stoner and shoved her inside. The gaunt man closed the cylinder door; the dark woman went to the wall and opened a panel. "Not yet," the gaunt man said.

Chapter 16

The gaunt man bent down to reach into his shoulderbag, which he had put on the floor. He straightened up with a gun in his hand. Holding it out to Dunski, he said, "Do you want it back?"

Dunski took it and said, "Thanks. As long as Castor is alive, I want it."

The man nodded and said, "We're still looking for him. Now, we've been told about your situation, but I'd like to hear it from you. We don't have all the details; we have to evaluate the situation."

"It's more than a situation, it's a predicament."

"How about talking over coffee?" the blonde said. "Or isn't this going to take that long?"

"Coffee'd be fine," Dunski said.

They went to the kitchen and all sat down except for the blonde. She inserted her ID tip into the cabinet door marked PP-TH. She swung the door open and said, "I had the ID made when I found out Martin and Bunblossom were going on vacation. I'm a good friend ..

The gaunt man coughed, and he said, "That's enough. The less Oom Dunski knows about us, the better."

"Sorry, Oom Gar-"

The blonde clipped off the rest of his name and looked embarrassed.

"You talk too much, Tante," the gaunt man said.

"I'll watch it," the blonde said. She was silent as she removed two cubes of stoned coffee, put them in the wall, closed the door, pushed a button, opened the door, and removed the coffee in its paper containers. The gaunt man said, "I'll tell you what we know, and then you fill in. We got our data from ... a verbal source. The data lines weren't used, of course, except to transmit to our superior."

While Dunski was talking, the blonde poured coffee for them and silently indicated the cream and sugar containers. By the time that he had drunk two cups, Dunski had given them all that they should know.

There was a long silence after he quit talking. The gaunt man stroked his chin, then said, "We'll have to find out what this Snick knows. Afterwards, we decide."

"Decide what?" Dunski said.

"Whether we kill her before we stone her again or just hide her someplace. If we don't kill her, there's always the chance that she might be found. If she is, then she can talk."

Dunski grunted as if he had been hit in the ribs, and he said, "I know it may be necessary, but ..

"You knew when you took the immer oath that you might have to kill someday," the gaunt man said. His dark brown eyes looked steadily into Dunski's. "You aren't thinking of arguing about this, are you?"

"No, of course not. I don't take the good but dodge the bad. Whatever's in the package, I accept. But killing ... it should be done only if absolutely necessary."

"I know that," the gaunt man said. He tipped his cup, swallowed the last of his coffee, set the cup down, and stood up. He nodded at the blonde. "Tante, you get Snick ready."