On and on along the shore of the ocean they pleasantly careened. At length they turned into a rich garden bower, and stopped in front of a great mansion overlooking the waves. He alighted; the Car departed. Profusely bloomed scarlet and golden and azure flowers, everywhere; succulent and bright was the lavish green. The doors opened, and a Woman received him. She was past child-bearing, motherly, and smiling. He smiled back, and said, "You got one, huh?" "Of course," she answered. He sat down to wait. And while he waited, he almost thought. Meg was good, all right, but why wasn't she enough, sometimes? He tapped his thumb-nail against his teeth in a few moments of near perplexity, and then desisted. Soon a bevy of charming Girls entered the room and paraded for him, laughing and smiling. He settled upon a petite brunette with cherry lips. She stripped him of his clothes, and they went walking in a private garden. In an inner bower they sat down to a rustic table, and were served by robot with a heady aphrodisiac wine. On the grasses and the petals of flowers, overlooking the sea, they entwined their limbs and their bodies, and he nearly enjoyed her. He thought that once he had enjoyed this activity indeed, and wondered whether it were so. He sat looking over the waters, trying to muse. The androids were physically perfect, flesh meeting flesh, clinging to it, thrilling with it. They were warm, they whispered, they strained and cried. They were freely available, for every man and woman. None need be unsatisfied. But he did not know all of this, history and psychology were lost to him and he could never keep a connected train of thought; his being unsatisfied could not penetrate to his consciousness. He did not quite know that flesh cried out for something more than flesh, and had always done so. He did know, more or less, that there was the matter of population, and that real men and real women had, at mysterious intervals, to copulate. That was the way it was. He had once spent some time in a House himself, meeting the requirements of an endless variety of Girls. He supposed that some of them had borne the issue of his seed, though he did not suppose it in these terms. But it was better not to know these things for certain, and not to have anything to do with the rearing of children, after the early mother-feeling was over. The Schools could take care of that better than people could. She snuggled against him. "What say, Man?" she said: "What's eatin yuh?" He did not know how to answer. He tried to talk, tried to break through, to clarify. "What's it, huh?" he nearly pleaded. "All this, I mean. Like what's it for?" She stretched out on the grass and looked at him a moment. "Search me," she ventured. "I guess maybe what you need's a Bed." He guessed she was right. * * * * *