lows rippling around your hoofs. But it might look better inverted.
I wonder. Who are you, young officer? _Nichevo_," and he carefully put
the bowl back on its shelf and rolled on.

It's a fact that Doc knows the Art Gallery better than any of us, really
by heart, he being the oldest inhabitant, though he maybe picked a bad
time to show off his knowledge. Erich was going to take out after him,
but I said, "Nix, _Kamerad_, remember gloves and sugar," and he
contented himself with complaining, "That _nichevo_--it's so gloomy and
hopeless, _ungeheuerlich_. I tell you, _Liebchen_, they shouldn't have
Russians working for the Spiders, not even as Entertainers."

I grinned at him and squeezed his hand. "Not much entertainment in Doc
these days, is there?" I agreed.

He grinned back at me a shade sheepishly and his face smoothed and his
blue eyes looked sweet again for a second and he said, "I shouldn't want
to claw out at people that way, Greta, but at times I am just a jealous
old man," which is not entirely true, as he isn't a day over
thirty-three, although his hair is nearly white.

Our lovers had drifted on a few steps until they were almost fading into
the Surgery screen. It was the last spot I would have picked for the
formal preliminaries to a little British smooching, but Lili probably
didn't share my prejudices, though I remembered she'd told me she'd
served a brief hitch in an Arachnoid Field Hospital before being
transferred to the Place.

But she couldn't have had anything like the experience I'd had during my
short and sour career as a Spider nurse, when I'd acquired my best-hated
nightmare and flopped completely (jobwise, but on the floor, too) at
seeing a doctor flick a switch and a being, badly injured but human,
turn into a long cluster of glistening strange fruit--ugh, it always
makes me want to toss my cookies and my buttons. And to think that dear
old Daddy Anton wanted his Greta chile to be a doctor.

* * * * *

Well, I could see this wasn't getting me anywhere I wanted to go, and
after all there was a party going on.

Doc was babbling something at a great rate to Sid--I just hoped Doc
wouldn't get inspired to go into his animal imitations, which sound
pretty fierce and once seriously offended some recuperating ETs.

Maud was demonstrating to Mark a 23rd Century two-step and Beau sat down
at the piano and improvised softly on her rhythm.

As the deep-thrumming re