"You mean way back?" I reflect deeply as far back as I can go, all the way to the food mines and Sylvia. I laugh out loud. "You know something, Sigfrid? It's funny, but I can hardly remember what Sylvia looked like -- oh, wait a minute. No. Now I remember. She used to pluck her eyebrows almost altogether away, and then pencil them in. The reason I know is one time when we were in bed together we drew pictures on each other with her eyebrow pencil."

I can almost hear him sigh. "The cars," he says, pecking at another bright bit. "How would you describe them?"

"Like any railroad train. Long. Narrow. Moving pretty fast through the tunnel."

"Long and narrow, moving through a tunnel, Rob?"

I lose my patience at that. He is so fucking transparent! "Come on, Sigfrid! You don't get away with any corny penis symbols with me."

"I'm not trying to get away with anything, Rob."

"Well, you're being an asshole about this whole dream, I swear you are. There's nothing in it. The train was just a train. I don't know who the women were. And listen, while we're on the subject, I really hate this goddamned couch. For the kind of money my insurance is paying you, you can do a lot better than this!"

He has really got me angry now. He keeps trying to get back to the dream, but I am determined to get a fair shake from him for the insurance company's money, and by the time I leave he has promised to redecorate before my next visit.

As I go out that day I feel pretty pleased with myself. He is really doing me a lot of good. I suppose it is because I am getting the courage to stand up to him, and perhaps all this nonsense has been helpful to me in that way, or in some way, even if it is true that some of his ideas are pretty crazy.

14

I struggled out of my sling to get out of the way of Klara's knee and bumped into Sam Kahane's elbow. "Sorry," he said, not even looking around to see who he was sorry about. His hand was still on the go-teat, although we were ten minutes on our way. He was studying the flickering colors on the Heechee instrument board, and the only time he looked away was when he glanced at the viewsereen overhead.

I sat up, feeling very queasy. It had taken me weeks to get used to Gateway's virtual absence of gravity. The fluctuating G forces in the capsule were something else. They were very light, but they didn't stay the same for more than a minute at a time, and my inner ear was complaining.