About then he woke up in sweat so copious he could not be certain it wasn't urine, and remembered that gonorrhea was not the worst of the venereal diseases.

It was Monday, the beginning of his four-day working week. Prior was a parking lot surveyor—the reason he had been so put out about being ticketed himself. He used a laser theodolite to resurvey parking lots and make sure their dimensions were within tolerance. Unscrupulous operators—and that meant all of them—tried to shave the size of individual spaces and the access lanes, and could get ugly when called to account. The worse the offense, the uglier they got. Some threatened him, not realizing that one of the spare lenses he carried was in fact a laser pistol. Some offered him money, not realizing that his theodolite was irrevocably bugged; they were soon out of business, and he was permitted to keep the money as a gratuity for his cooperation. He liked getting bribed, except when they used counterfeit bills. Others sent attractive young sexy parking attendants to reason with him in some remarkably convenient bedroom-like office—not realizing that his penis was less than four inches long, erect, and he was sensitive about exposing it before strangers. As his bastard boss well knew; that was why Prior had been hired over more qualified applicants for the position. Some liabilities tended to make men honest...

All week, as he measured and noted and punched out deficiency reports and accepted bribes and fended off solicitous sex-pots, his mind was on his penis. It probably required the deficiency report, and no bribe could add two inches to its length, but it was the only one he had. Every time he took a leak he watched for pus and fancied he felt the beginning irritation. And there was irritation—but only because he washed it six times a day now and the tissues were being bleached. In the middle of some intricate measurement the little soldier would stand up, stiff as a metal spike despite its brevity, and he would wonder whether this were the first gonhorrheal priapism while he tried to conceal the bulge behind his theodolite.