Impatiently, LUH said, “It’s just going to go to waste if you don’t eat it. Come on…”

He turned and looked up at her. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Can’t you come out of this room and spend some time with me?”

“I see you every day.”

She started to reply, then suddenly turned and left the room. THX sat in the relaxer chair, half-turned to watch her as the door slid shut behind her. With a puzzled frown he got up and followed her out into the hall.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing. Come on, I’ll get your dinner from the cooker.”

“Okay. Let’s eat in the holoroom. The news will be finished soon and the comedy shows start next.”

So she sat in the relaxer chair beside him, watching the flesh-colored mannequins cavorting to taped laughter. He looked rather puzzled when she insisted on sitting in the same chair with him, close enough so that their bodies actually touched.

She’s a strange girl, he thought. He kept trying to concentrate on the holoshow, but his eyes drifted to her as she sat beside him, staring straight ahead at the holopicture but obviously not looking at it, eating slowly, her thoughts… where? What was she thinking?

“LUH…”

She turned to face him. “Yes?”

Shaking his head, “Nothing.” He went back to watching the mannequins.

Control sat in his sculptured foamchair, a thin humorless smile on his lips.

The far wall of his spacious office was a holoscreen. At the moment, it seemed as if there was no wall there at all, and the office appeared to look out on half a dozen horseshoe-shaped observer desks, each ringed with fifty monitoring screens and manned by an observer in skullcap and earphones.

“Well?” he asked one of the observers, through the intercom set into the surface of his synthetic wood desk. “What’s your analysis?”

The holopicture zoomed in on one observer. Each of his fifty screens had the same picture of THX and LUH sitting together; the observer saw them the way a mantis must see its prey.