Guardedly, Sal Heim said, 'What makes you think Jim Briskin has any bones to pick with the

Golden Door, Thisbe ? Has he ever actually said anything to that effect ?' As far as he knew,

Jim's opinions on that topic had not been made public; at least he had tried to keep them under wraps.

'We know these things, Sal,' Thisbe said, 'I think you'd better go inside and talk with George

Walt about it; they're down on level C, in their office. They have a few things to say to you, Sal.

I know because they've been discussing it.'

Annoyed, Sal said, 'I didn't come here - ' But what was the use ? If the owners of the Golden

Door satellite wanted to see him, it was undoubtedly advisable for him to come around. 'Okay,'

he said, and followed Thisbe in the direction of the elevator.

It always distressed him - despite his efforts to the contrary - to find himself engaged in conversation with George Walt. They were a mutation of a special sort; he had never seen anything quite like them. Nonetheless, although handicapped, George Walt had risen to great economic power in this society. The Golden Door Moments of Bliss satellite, it was rumored, was only one of their holdings; they were spread extensively over the financial map of the modern world. They were a form of mutated twinning, joined at the base of the skull so that a single cephalic structure served both separate bodies. Evidently the personality George inhabited one hemisphere of the brain, made use of one eye: the right, as he recalled. And the personality

Walt existed on the other side, distinct with its own idiosyncrasies, views and drives - and its own eye from which to view the outside universe.