With massive reluctance Barney nodded.

“They’re your ex-wife’s pots,” Leo said. Her ceramics were selling well; he had seen ads in the homeopapes for them, as retailed by one of New Orleans’ most exclusive art-object shops, and here on the East Coast and in San Francisco. “Will they go over, Barney?” He studied his precog. “Was Miss Fugate right?”

“They’ll never go over; that’s God’s truth.” Barney’s tone, however, was leaden. The wrong tone, Leo decided, for what he was saying; it was too lacking in vitality. “That’s what I foresee,” Barney said doggedly.

“Okay.” Leo nodded. “I’ll accept what you’re saying. But if her pots become a sensation and we don’t have mins of them available for the colonists’ layouts—” He pondered. “You might find your bed-partner also occupying your chair,” he said.

Rising, Barney said, “You’ll instruct Miss Fugate, then, as to the position she should take?” He colored. “I’ll rephrase that,” he murmured, as Leo began to guffaw.

“Okay, Barney. I’ll lower the fnard on her. She’s young; she’ll survive. And you’re aging; you need to keep your dignity, not have anyone disagree with you.” He, too, rose; walking up to Barney, he slapped him on the back. “But listen. Stop eating your heart out; forget that ex-wife of yours. Okay?”

“I’ve forgotten her.”

“There are always more women,” Leo said, thinking of Scotty Sinclair, his mistress at the moment; Scotty right now, frail and blonde but huge in the balcony, hung out at his satellite villa five hundred miles at apogee, waiting for him to knock off work for the week. “There’s an infinite supply; they’re not like early U. S. postage stamps or the truffle skins we use as money.” It occurred to him, then, that he could smooth matters by making available to Barney one of his discarded—but still serviceable—former mistresses. “I tell you what,” he began, but Barney at once cut him off with a savage swipe of his hand. “No?” Leo asked.