th: you've been true to yourself."

_True to yourself._ George found a strange comfort in the words, and
his fear was gone. He squared his shoulders and faced the mouth of her
gun. _True to yourself_: that was something worth dying for.

He saw a flicker of emotion in the old woman's eyes. Admiration? He
couldn't be sure. For at the moment a shot rang out from the end of
the corridor; and the Top Director fell back, nursing a hand suddenly
bright with blood.

"Let him go." It was Jenny's voice. She was sheltered by a partly open
door at the foot of the stairway.

"Don't be a fool," the old woman replied. "He's seen too much."

"It doesn't matter. Who would believe him?"

"You're upset. You don't realize--"

"He's mine and I want him."

"The Directorate will give you a refund of the purchase price."

"You didn't understand me. I don't want one of your pretty automatons;
anybody can buy them for a few shares of stock. I want a man--a real
man; I want to belong to him."

"He belongs to you; you bought him."

"And that's what's wrong. We really belong to each other."

The old woman glanced at George and he saw the same flicker of feeling
in her eyes. And tears, tears of regret. Why? "We have you
outnumbered," the old woman said quietly to Jenny.

"I don't care. I have a gun; I'll use it as long as I'm able."

The Morals Squad raised their weapons. The Director shook her head
imperiously and they snapped to attention again. "If you take him from
us," she called out to Jenny, "you'll be outlawed. We'll hunt you
down, if we can."

"I want him," Jenny persisted. "I don't care about the rest of it."

The old woman nodded to George. He couldn't believe that she meant it.
The Director was on her home ground, in her headquarters building,
backed by an armed squad of stone-faced Amazons. She had no reason to
let him go.

She walked beside him as he moved down the hall. When they were
twenty feet from the guard, she closed her thin hand on his arm; her
eyes swam with tears and she whispered, "There truly is a love potion.
Not this nonsense we bottle here, but something real and very
worthwhile. You and this girl have found it. I know that, from the way
she talks. She doesn't say anything about ownership, and that's as it
should be. As it has to be, for any of us to be happy. Hold tight to
that all the rest of your life. Don't ever believe in words; don't
fall for any more love stories; believe what you feel deep