I had no illusions. The stay had been granted, most likely, because my execution was to come before the end of the semester. The Institute was running short on Enemies of Humanity, and there were theses to be completed. Twice a day one of the walls of my cell changed color and began to glow. On the other side of the wall a professor was lecturing a psych class. If I put my face up close I could see ranks of students sitting in the lecture hall. But I quickly tired of looking.

About once a week I was visited by teams of graduate students. They would sit on my sofa and fidget, a series of girls and boys with earnest faces, brows furrowed in concentration. They would interview me for an hour, plainly not knowing what to think of me. At first, I thought up bizarre answers to their questions, but I tired of that, too. Sometimes I just sat there for the whole hour.

My life crawled toward its termination.

Lilo-Alexandr-Calypso sat in her cell and waited for morning. She still had not decided if she could bear to mount those lonely stairs. A year ago, when it hadn't been so goddamn imminent, it had been easy to be brave. Now she could see that her bravado had come from the deep inner conviction that no one would actually kill her. But she had had plenty of time to think.

Gas chamber, gallows. Electric chair, stake, firing squad. Hang by the neck till you're dead, dead, dead, and may God recycle your soul.

Imaginative as those devices had been, they had an extremely simple purpose. They were intended to stop a human heart from beating. Later, the criterion for determining death was brain activity.

That was no longer enough. The sad fact was that it was no longer possible to kill someone and be absolutely sure the person would not show up again. Lilo's execution in the morning was therefore largely symbolic, from the viewpoint of society.