If shown on holo, it could be done in real time with only minor props." I mulled it over. Why had the restaurant staff been so quick, so precise, in covering it up? Why had I not felt that tap on the shoulder? "Gwen, I'll take you up on that offer. If the proctors want me, they'll find me. But I would like to discuss this with you in greater detail than we can manage here, no matter how carefully we keep our voices down."

            "Good." She stood up. "I won't be long, dear." She headed for the lounges.

            As I stood up Morris handed me my stick and I leaned on it as I followed her toward the lounges. I don't actually have to use a cane-I can even dance, as you know-but using a cane keeps my bad leg from getting too tired.

            When I came out of the gentlemen's lounge, I placed myself in the foyer, and waited.

            And waited.

            Having waited long past what is reasonable I sought out the maitre d'h6tel. 'Tony, could you please have some female member of your staff check the ladies' lounge for Mistress Novak? I think that it is possible that she may have become ill, or be in some difficulty."

            "Your guest. Dr. Ames?"

            "Yes."

            "But she left twenty minutes ago. I ushered her out myself."

            "So? I must have misunderstood her. Thank you, and good night."

            "Good night. Doctor. We look forward to serving you again."

            I left Rainbow's End, stood for a moment in the public corridor outside it-ring thirty, half-gravity level, just clockwise from radius two-seventy at Petticoat Lane, a busy neighborhood even at one in the morning. I checked for proctors waiting for me, halfway expecting to find Gwen already in custody.

            Nothing of the son. A steady flow of people, mostly groundhogs on holiday by their dress and behavior, plus pullers for grimp shops, guides and ganders, pickpockets and priests. Golden Rule habitat is known system wide as the place where anything is for sale and Petticoat Lane helps to support that reputation insofar as fleshpots are concerned. For more sober enterprises you need only go clockwise ninety degrees to Threadneedle Street.

            No sign of proctors, no sign of Gwen.

            She had promised to meet me at the exit. Or had she? No, not quite. Her exact words were, "I won't be long, dear." I had inferred that she expected to find me at the restaurant's exit to the street.

            I've heard all the old chestnuts about women and weather, La donna e mobile, and so forth-I believe none of them. Gwen had not suddenly changed her mind. For some reason- some good reason-she had gone on without me and now would expect me to join her at her home.  Or so I told myself.

            If she had taken a scooter, she was there already; if she had walked, she would be there soon-Tony had said, 'Twenty minutes ago." There is a scooter booth at the intersection of ring thirty and Petticoat Lane. I found an empty, punched in ring one-oh-five, radius one-thirty-five, six-tenths gravity, which would take me as close as one can get by public scooter to Gwen's compartment.

            Gwen lives in Gretna Green, just off Appian Way where it crosses the Yellow Brick Road-which means nothing to anyone who has never visited Golden Rule habitat. Some public relations "expert" had decided that habitants would feel more at home if surrounded by place names familiar from dirtside. There is even (don't retch) a "House at Pooh Comer." What I punched in were coordinates of the main cylinder: 105, 135, 0.6.

            The scooter's brain, off somewhere near ring ten, accepted those coordinates and waited; I punched in my credit code and took position, crouched against acceleration pads.

            That idiot brain took an insultingly long time to decide that my credit was good-then placed a web around me, tightened it, closed the capsule and whuff'! bing! barn! we were on our way... then a fast float for three kilometers from ring thirty to ring one-oh-five, then barn! bing! whuff! I was in Gretna Green. The scooter opened.

            For me such service is well worth the fare. But the Manager had been warning us the past two years that the system does not pay its way; either use it more or pay more per trip, or the hardware will be salvaged and the space rented out. I hope they work out a solution; some people need this service. (Yes, I know; Laffer theory will always give two solutions to such a problem, a high and a low-except where the theory states that both solutions are the same... and imaginary.