A second white cone stabbed down through the darkness, pinning a second nude figure upon the stage. Again the light changed by degrees to red. Almost imperceptibly a low, sensuous beat of music had begun to make itself heard. And with that the audience became more vociferous. As another and yet another red figure was revealed on the stage, a persistent murmuring grew. Audible gasps ignited fresh crackles of applause as each new model appeared. They were all young, shapely, beautiful. In the brief flash of white light as they were first seen, their bodies were visibly pale, like Hendley's own, the white sheen of skin unburned by the sun. When the light changed, they became, in their bizarre red envelopes, both more vivid and less human. Hendley could not tear his gaze away as the procession continued. His throat grew dry, and he drained his glass. Twelve girls in all took their places in the red spotlights. Hendley missed seeing the eleventh one closely. He had glanced down at the stage just before she appeared in closeup on the nearby materializer. By the time he looked back from the general tableau below to the intimate revelation on the cylinder, the girl's image was already fading. And her back was toward him. He had only a glimpse of a slender, willowy body, narrow-waisted, of long slim legs, and of a nest of short curls above a graceful neck. She was a red vision from a dream, but something other than admiration stirred in his mind. "I missed that one second from the last," he said to Nik. "A pretty thing," Nik said appraisingly. "Quite well equipped, too." His hands shaped an imaginary bosom. "She looked--I'm not sure--familiar." Nik laughed. "That's not unusual. There's a blue girl--she'll be coming on shortly--who once reminded me of my mother. I suppose one of your Morale Investigators would say that was significant. But it's not, really. A beautiful girl seen in the distance, or not clearly, will always remind you of someone." "Only if that someone matters," Hendley said with surprising clarity. The young Freeman made a mock grimace of pain. "Hmmm," he murmured. "I should have thought of that." "What's a blue girl?" "Same as in your outside world. You see, the showgirls are all outsiders. Red means a 5-Daygirl. Green a four, blue a three. Obviously they don't wear their uniforms while they're performing." Hendley smiled absently. He wished that he had had a clearer view of the eleventh girl. Even in the distance of the stage, and in the strangely erotic distortion of the colored spotlight, she seemed familiar. But whom could she remind him of? There was only.... "What's wrong?" Nik asked. "Feeling dizzy again?" "No," Hendley said hoarsely. "It's not that."