"John Edward Haley, you have been sentenced for Execution. Now hear these final words of the State as directed by Presidential order from Responsibility Official in the City of Greater New Denver, this night." He took two small steps toward the man in the chair. He held out the red rose, put it in the hand of the other. Then he stepped back two steps until his toes were just touching a small plaque built into the floor. He looked down, read from the plaque: "The giving of this rose. A symbol for the red of the blood of your brothers that you have let by treason and/or treachery. A symbol that as the rose is red, so are the unclean acts of your own hand, of your own mind. The State has so spoken." He looked up. A nice way to kiss a guy off. Might as well tell him he bit his brother's finger, too, when he was a kid. "Have you anything to say?" he asked. The man's nervous tongue worked again. He said quickly: "Yeah. Look, guy, just one thing. Just one favor. I don't give a damn what happens to me. Sure, I'm guilty. So you caught me, and so I take it. So what? A guy expects that. But the wife...." Tony's teeth came together hard. "... But the wife, see? She's down in _Portal Waiting_. Been there for three nights now. I don't want her to witness this. I don't want her to look into that Master Screen down there and see it. That's all I'm asking, guy, and it ain't much. Just a flick of a switch is all I'm asking. It ain't much. It ain't, is it?" _It ain't, hey? By God!_ "When the hood comes down, she'll see it. She's bound to," the thin man went on fast. "She'll see the flash in the Screen and she'll know it's me, and she's never done anything to deserve that. That's all I'm asking, guy. That's all I'm asking." The silence in the cell was a thick thing. Tony could feel the sweat rolling down his back again. But a different kind of a sweat now--not a sweat for himself, a sweat for somebody else. Just one finger touch on that visi-lok matswitch would do it. Just one finger, and the small woman downstairs in _Portal Waiting_ wouldn't know, would have one more instant of waiting, of hoping against hope. Of suspense. Of breathing in the air we all breathe in, of being alive, sentient; and knowing that her man, the thin fellow with the tousled, curly hair, was still sentient, too. "Well, guy?" Tony wet his lips. "Sorry, Haley. Petition refused." The hood came down. The Master Screen up on the wall blazed into life. * * * * * Tony sat at his black desk with his hands folded, fingers laced. That's Executions for you. And this is war. There's a war on. Don't forget that. He looked down at his hands, sighed. Then he reached out and touched the Supplies and Control button. "Hell-hips!" he growled. He looked at the screen. It wasn't hell-hips. It was a blonde. Not a young blonde, a scarecrow blonde. An old wretched piece of living mechanism like himself. "Where's Clacker?" he asked.