'But someday,' cried Chis, 'I'm going away! I'm going to find a place where I can run on a million, million leaves and no one will even notice!' I hunched there in front of the telaworld and felt myself splintering slowly in all directions into blunt slivers that could never fit together again. This must be what they meant by crazing across. I was immortal, but I must die. And soon, if I couldn't touch the soil I had never touched. I didn't want to touch anywhere, and yet I could still feel a hand enveloping mine and another pressed firmly against my waist. I hated where I was, but sickened to think of change. But change has to come because. it had been noticeable that Dad hadn't withdrawn when his own son touched him. Nothing would be smooth or fitted together again- I creaked tiredly to my feet. Mother quirked an eyebrow at me. 'Only to the perimeter,' I said. 'I want to walk before dimming.' Outside our unit I paused and looked up the endless height of the building-blind, eyeless, but, because it is an older unit, I could still see scars where windows used to be-when windows were desirable. I walked slowly toward the perimeter, automatically reminding myself not to overstep. With Chis already on warning, it wouldn't do for me to be Out of Area after hours. Someday-some long away day-I'd be twenty-one and be able to flip my Ident casually at the Eye and open any area, any hour of the day-well, not the Restricted, of course. Or the Classified. Or the Industrial. Or the-well, I have the list at home. Around me, as up as I could see, were buildings. Around me as far as I could see, were buildings. The Open of our area, ringed about by the breathing greeneries, must have had people coming and going, surely a few, but I didn't see them. I seldom do any more. Of course, you never deliberately look at anyone. That's rude. Nor ever speak in public places except when you absolutely have to. You do murmur to friends you meet. And because you don't look and don't speak, people sort of get lost against the bigness and solidbuiltness of the complexes. So I walked alone in the outer dimming, my pneumonosoles not even whispering against the resilicrete floor of the Open. I found myself counting steps and wondered why. Then I smiled, remembering. Twenty-six paces this direction, then fourteen to the left, four small slides to the front, and a settling of feet slightly the other way, and– I slowly turned my head. Yes, I had remembered my old formula right. I had found the exact spot under the lights. No matter which way I looked, I could see a shadow of me. I was standing in the center of a bouquet of my own shadows! How pleased I used to be with the visual magic. No matter what shadow I saw, it was mine! All of the me's belonging to the one me! How enchanting it had been when I was young. But now the shadows no longer pointed at me –but away. I wasn't being put together any more. I was being pulled apart-thinned to no more substance than my own shadow. I ached. Then I turned back to the unit. All the other me's went somewhere else. I felt drafty and very small at the complex door. That night I lay awake in my slot long after inner dimming. Every time I shut my eyes, I was swinging around the lounge again, with a disturbing sense of nearness. I don't like nearness. It interferes. You have to react, even if you'd rather not. And how can you be near to someone who doesn't even see you but just rubs his eyes past the place where you are? My pillow was hard. The lulltone was off-key. The air exchange was all wrong. And I was dancing again, around and around, farther and farther away from the lounge but nearer and nearer and nearer. 'Engle Faucing! What a gonky name!' I muttered and poked my pillow. Then I was counting. '-Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-one, twentyone. Five is so many years! So many!' I flipped up in bed, hunching automatically to keep from thumping my head on Chis' slot. What was the matter with me? I couldn't be sickening for anything. Our lavcube is standard-we have the immunispray installation, so I couldn't be sickening for anything. I flopped back down and closed my eyes resolutely. And whirled around and around and shadow and one twothree one twothree. At break-time next day I went to the lounge, expecting-I don't know what I was expecting. Engle was dancing with someone, swinging effortlessly around and around. I felt my chest clench on something that wanted to explode. Lellice was waiting for me on our usual bench, clutching two Squelches. 'Too bad,' she said, as I grimaced through my first swallow of the gonky stuff. 'Too bad what?' I asked when I could. 'Too bad he doesn't dance with you again,' Lellice said. 'You sure were brighted.' 'Waltzes always bright me,' I said, wishing Lellice would cut it. 'But just think,' she sighed. 'If Engle had danced with you today, and then tomorrow, you'd have been opted, and he'd have to bid you to the BB-' The BB! I'd forgotten all about the BB. Forlornly I let my Squelch dangle from my lax, hand. 'lfzng never did anything,' I said. 'And nuts to the BB!' I wasn't about to let her think that I'd ever hoped- 'Twixt!' Lellice's eyes got big. 'Such language! Besides, this is the first year you've been eligible to be bid-' 'Fooey on the BB-' I groped for every archaic, lefthanded phrase I could remember. 'Big Blasts are for the birds! Who needs them! And this Squelch! It stinks!' I dropped the container and kicked it viciously. It rolled out onto the dance area, dribbling that gonky chartreuse in a sticky stream across the shining. And Engle-all unsuspecting-circling with his partner, stepped in the sticky stuff. And fell flat. And pulled his partner down. And her skirts flipped. And I just stood there looking and laughing so loudly that everyone in the room became aware of me. And of the two of them because of me. I think I would have died on the spot if the break bell hadn't rung and emptied the lounge with most unusual speed. No one wants to be around a situation. Not even Lellice, though she did hesitate, her mouth open, before she gulped and fled. Engle left last. He looked back over his shoulder, dabbling at his Squelchy sleeve. 'Three left feet!' he said. But he looked at me! He saw me! And, which was the worst of all, he'd remember me-and the Squelch. Everyone was gone. I kicked the dribbling Squelch container with short vicious kicks clear across the deserted floor and all the way down the hall. I picked up the halfempty, battered thing and carried it into my carrel. As I sat in the chair that was molded to me from such long sitting in, the post-break tape was activated. 'Good morning, Twixt,' said the history tutor brightly. 'If you'll dial the year 1960, we'll begin. Good morning, Twixt. If you'll dial the year 1960, we'll begin. Good morning-' I slammed the Squelch container down on the viewer. Then I deliberately poured the Squelch, to its last oozy drop, into every hole and crack and crevice I could find. With set teeth, I pushed every button in sight-by the palmsful. And pulled every lever-handsful at a time! Then right in the middle of the morning and just because I wanted to, I left school! I was so quaked that I could feel my toenails curling. I can't remember a thing about leaving the school complex or how many glides I boarded to what other glides, nor can I remember off-stepping at whatever J-station I off-stepped into. I was too busy to notice anything-too busy arguing in wordless savage gusts with no one. I didn't even hesitate at the J-station, though I had never in all my life boarded a J-line by myself. I didn't look at signs or colors or sizes. I just pushed into the first empty jerkie I saw, actually pushed, taking with me, defiantly and uncaringly, the sight of the shocked eyes of the woman I had touched with no valid excuse. The door slid and I fumbled at the destination controls, not knowing how or where to punch for. Then I was crying with huge gulping sobs sandwiched between thin, tight whinings. I hammered the controls blindly with both fists and was jerked back against the seat in a sodden heap of misery. I have no idea how long it was before I was jerked off the J-line to the destination my fists had chosen. Then I was jerked again. And again, bruisingly, the other way. Then the jerkie glided to a stop. I had thirty seconds to exit before the jerkie would be jerked back to the J-line, but I scrambled out afraid of getting caught half through the door. Snuffling and dabbling at my face, I turned back toward the jerkie, hoping no one would notice. And stopped in mid-turn in blank wonder. Where on earth was I? There was no J-station. No station list, no line color code, only a narrow rail and a slab of some sort of Crete that was cracked across. And greens: Green all around me! Underfoot, ankle deep! Higher than my head, covering the J-line tower completely and the smaller wooden-why, that wasn't a smaller tower! It was a tree! Just like the tapes! I waded through the green, guiltily looking around to find some way to get onto a legal paving. There wasn't any. No paving! Anywhere! I stumbled over to the tree and touched it the brown, unleafed part-the trunk. I guess I fingered the bark too roughly because a piece came loose. I tried hastily to put it back, but I fumbled and it fell. I dropped to my knees to get it, but there were so many pieces on the ground that I couldn't tell which one I had broken. I picked up one piece and shredded it in my fingers. I tasted it. It tasted like-like a tree! Warm and woody and dusty and
