"A call from the top level this morning. I was warned not to attend on the wrong night in the future, and told I was being let off the hook--though they phrased it more politely, of course--because I was engaged to the son of the Secondary Speakster." "Did you--? What did you say? To their call?" Lloyd asked, knotting up inside. Grace folded her arms and leaned back. "I'm no dope, Lloyd. I knew you had my Voteplate, and were bringing it to me last night. That is--" she interjected with chagrin "--I _thought_ you'd be over last night with it. When you didn't come, and I got _this_ call, from top level, I kind of figured you were in dutch, somehow, and played along. I apologized for my error, and promised it wouldn't happen again--I see, by the way you two just let your breaths out, that I did the right thing.... Or _did_ I? I take it Andra was the one who used my plate?" Lloyd nodded, miserably. * * * * * Grace thought this over, watching the two of them, then leaned forward and touched Lloyd's fingers where they curled tightly around the end of the chair arm. "Apparently, I have salvaged everybody's chestnuts. Would it be asking too much if I wondered what the hell my reasons were?" "I'll explain," Lloyd said. "That is, as best I can. My motivations are still a bit obscure even to myself." Grace flicked a glance at Andra, sitting small and lovely and feminine in the chair. "_Are_ they!" she said, a spark of intuition putting her almost with complete accuracy ahead of Lloyd's still-untold tale. "Maybe I can figure them out for you after I hear your story, then." "Okay, Grace," Lloyd said gratefully, missing her inflection. He proceeded to tell her the story, from the time he'd gone to the Temple up until the present moment, eliding only the fact that Andra had spent the night in his room. He used the phrase "up at my Unit" and hoped it wouldn't be proved any deeper than that. When he'd finished, Grace looked dazed. "You mean--You _believe_ all that, Lloyd?" she said. "I used to have great respect for your sanity, but--This thing about no hospitals, about bumping off the Kinsmen to keep the population level down--It's crazy, Lloyd. Look, your father's one jump from the Presidency. Has he ever, in all the years of your life, even _hinted_ such a thing to you?" "No, of course not, but--" "Yet you take the word of a fugitive, an obvious mental case who doesn't know what's good for her--!" "May _I_ say something in my defense?!" Andra protested. "You may not," said Grace, then turned back to Lloyd as though Andra had ceased to exist anymore. "How could a man with your intelligence--"