"No, not ours. The Bed Chinese."

The vug did not grasp the distinction. "In any case we are doing all we can to—"

"I won't want to discuss it," Freya said. "Please."

"Let us help," the vug begged.

She said to it, "Go to hell." And left the apartment, striding down the stairs to the street and her car.

The cold, dark night air of Carmel, California, revived her; she took a deep breath, glanced up at the stars, smelled the freshness, the clean new scents. To her car she said, "Open the door; I want to get in."

"Yes, Mrs. Garden," The car door swung open.

"I'm not Mrs. Garden any more; I'm Mrs. Gaines." She entered, seated herself at the manual tiller. "Try to keep it straight."

"Yes, Mrs. Gaines." As soon as she put the key in, the motor started up.

"Has Pete Garden already left?" She scanned the gloomy street and did not see Pete's car. "I guess he has." She felt sad. It would have been nice to sit out here under the stars, so late at night, and chat a little. It would be as if they were still married... damn The Game, she thought, and its spins. Damn luck itself, bad luck; that's all we seem to have, any more. We're a marked race.

She held her wrist watch to her ear and it said in its tiny voice, "Two-fifteen A.M., Mrs. Garden."

"Mrs. Gaines," she grated.

"Two-fifteen A.M., Mrs. Gaines."

How many people, she wondered, are alive on the face of Earth at this moment? One million? Two million? How many groups, playing The Game? Surely no more than a few hundred thousand. And every time there was a fatal accident, the population decreased irretrievably by one more.

Automatically, she reached into the glove compartment of the car and groped for a neatly-wrapped strip of rabbit-paper, as it was called. She found a strip—it was the old kind, not the new—and unwrapped it, put it between her teeth and bit.