We hung there for half an hour or so, until it began to look as though we were seeing the same things again, and then we fluttered up to the hatch, hung up the wings, and sat down for a cigarette break in a wide place in the tunnel outside the museum.

Two women I recognized vaguely as Corporation maintenance crews came by, carrying rolled-up strap-on wings. "Hi, Klara," one of them greeted her. "Been inside?"

Klara nodded. "It was beautiful," she said.

"Enjoy it while you can," said the other one. "Next week it'll cost you a hundred dollars. We're putting in a P-phone taped lecture system tomorrow, and they'll have the grand opening before the next tourists show up."

"It's worth it," Klara said, but then she looked at me.

I became aware that, in spite of everything, I was smoking one of her cigarettes. At five dollars a pack I couldn't afford very much of that, but I made up my mind to buy at least one pack out of that day's allowance, and to make sure she took as many from me as I took from her.

"Want to walk some more?" she asked.

"Maybe a little later," I said. I was wondering how many men and women had died to take the pretty pictures we had been watching, because I was facing one more time the fact that sooner or later I would have to submit myself again to the lethal lottery of the Heechee ships, or give up. I wondered if the new information Metchnikov had given me was going to make a real difference. Everyone was talking about it now; the Corporation had scheduled an all-phone announcement for the next day.

"That reminds me," I said. "Did you say you'd seen Metchnikov?"

"I wondered when you'd ask me about that," she said. "Sure. He called and told me he'd shown the color-coding stuff to you. So?"

I stubbed out the cigarette. "I think everybody in Gateway's going to be fighting for the good launches, that's what I think."

"But maybe Dane knows something. He's been working with the Corporation."

"I don't doubt he does." I stretched and leaned back, rocking against the low gravity, considering. "He's not that nice a guy, Klara. Maybe he'd tell us if there's something good coming up, you know, that he knows something special about. But he'll want something for it."

Klara grinned. "He'd tell me."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, he calls me once in a while. Wants a date."

"Oh, shit, Klara." I was feeling pretty irritated by then. Not just at Klara, and not just about Dane. About money. About the fact that if I wanted to go back into the surround room next week it would cost me half my credit balance. About the dark, shadowed image looming up ahead in time, and not very far ahead, when I would once again have to make up my mind to do what I was scared silly to do again. "I wouldn't trust that son of a bitch as far as--"