"But," Rick interrupted, "for you to have two horses and me none, that violates the whole basic theological and moral structure of Mercerism."

"You have your sheep; hell, you can follow the Ascent in your individual life, and when you grasp the two handles of empathy you approach honorably. Now if you didn't have that old sheep, there, I'd see some logic in your position. Sure, if I had two animals and you didn't have any, I'd be helping deprive you of true fusion with Mercer. But every family in this building — let's see; around fifty: one to every three apts, as I compute it — every one of us has an animal of some sort. Graveson has that chicken over there." He gestured north. "Oakes and his wife have that big red dog that barks in the night." He pondered. "I think Ed Smith has a cat down in his apt; — at least he says so, but no one's ever seen it. Possibly he's just pretending."

Going over to his sheep, Rick bent down, searching in the thick white wool — the fleece at least was genuine — until he found what he was looking for: the concealed control panel of the mechanism. As Barbour watched he snapped open the panel covering, revealing it. "See?" he said to Barbour. "You understand now why I want your colt so badly?"

After an interval Barbour said, "You poor guy. Has it always been this way?"

"No," Rick said, once again closing the panel covering of his electric sheep; he straightened up, turned, and faced his neighbor. "I had a real sheep, originally. My wife's father gave it to us outright when he emigrated. Then, about a year ago, remember that time I took it to the vet — you were up here that morning when I came out and found it lying on its side and it couldn't get up."