"You poor thing! Let me help you." Gentle, insistent hands plucked at Hendley's sleeve. Yielding helplessly to the pressure, he rolled over onto his back. A woman's face rocked slowly across the sky of his vision, like a pendulum with painted features. Pale face, capped with wavy hair defined by a row of bangs across a wide forehead. A red mouth smiled. The lips moved. "Dear boy! You need to rest. Do you live near here?" Hendley nodded. The woman's tone was sympathetic, soothing. Her fingers were not demanding. He tried to sit up, and with the woman's help he managed it. Soon he was standing, leaning against her. She was quite short, her head no higher than his shoulder, her body a neat, well-rounded package, compact and strong. A full breast pressed warmly against his arm, but the woman seemed to be oblivious of the contact. "I'll help you," she said. "Is it this way?" Hendley mumbled directions. He felt better now that he was back on his feet and moving. When he reached his room he was prepared to thank the plump-bosomed stranger, but she gave him no chance to speak. "I'm not going to leave you alone until you're safe in bed!" she admonished him firmly, as if talking to a child. He made no protest. Though he wanted only to be left alone, he was grateful for her help. He wasn't sure that he could have made it to his room on his own. The woman led him to his bed. "What a pleasant room!" she murmured. "Just lie down now. No, don't fight me, relax." Deftly, efficiently, it seemed impersonally, she stripped him of his uniform. Hendley was too absorbed in the problem of remaining in place to feel more than mild surprise at her attentions. Then, without his realizing how it had happened, the woman was beside him on the bed, her uniform gone, her warm body an unexpected abundance of sweetly scented, swelling hills and dipping valleys. "He tried to pick you up, didn't he?" she whispered huskily. "I saw him." "What? Oh." Hendley realized obscurely that she was referring to the tall blond Freeman with the red face. "You didn't like him, did you?" "No. Listen, I didn't mean for you to...." His feeble protest trailed off. There was no resistance left in him. "He's always following me," the woman said resentfully. "Trying to take men away from me. But you like me better, don't you?" "You--you know him?" "Oh, yes. We're Contracted." The woman's hands stroked Hendley's weary body. They floated together on the slowly drifting bed. Hendley had a sense of unreality, of existing in the distorted world of a dream. The woman's voice purred in his ear, her breath warm. "I'm glad you like me better. Wait'll I tell him. Won't he be jealous!" She chuckled. "What's your name?" Hendley groped for an answer. He couldn't think. His flesh was betraying him, betraying his weariness, denying his hopeless despair. "You do have a name, don't you?" the woman asked with a low giggle. "You must have a name."