come in." She rose from the desk and went around the end of it to open the high wrought-gold gate and hold it wide for him. "You're a little early. I'll take you down to the Board Room." Eager willingness to help was apparent in her every gesture.

"Thanks, I know the way," he informed her, brushing past.

She followed him, however, across the patio-like reception room, with its exotically gardened borders and splashing fountain, down the long corridor past glowing murals of men and women swimming, dancing and playing tennis, past tapestry shielded doorways to the great bright arch at the end. Before he went through, she caught his sleeve.

"I should be pleased to steno for you today, if you need me."

He turned and looked at her as if he had not known she was behind him. "Thanks, but I sha'n't need one. It'll be a short meeting." He smiled down and patted her cheek. "But if I'm not entirely satisfied with the proceedings, maybe I can dictate a little afterward."

She laughed as if that were a special joke between them and retreated rapidly down the corridor before he had time to turn and miss the splendor of her graceful carriage.

His eyebrows were still raised and the corners of his mouth curved in appreciation when he passed through the arch and into the vast room under the clear bubble of a tremendous skydome.

  girl was sitting there, her back to him, looking out over the simmering city streets to the cool rise of mountains beyond. He recognized at once the slight figure, the sheen of the long curling auburn bob, the poise of her head and slim hand resting on the arm of the chair.

"Babs!"

She turned half around. "Hello, Rod."

He grinned and sank down in the next chair. "Here we are again."

"Knocked out by your own skunk oil?" she asked pointedly.

"No. Company copter man got me leaving Jeery Wade's. What happened to you? I thought you were walled up neatly for the declining years."

"The cosmetic man ambushed me in the hall. But I've got another fifty years to figure out something better ... if I still need it."

"What do you mean if you still need it? Are you changing your mind about rejuvenation?"

She smiled. "Well, you know it's always fun at first. But I'm having my lawyer come to this meeting. I've got an idea we can change the articles of agreement so that the process can finally become public property at the end of another fifty years instead of only after our deaths. Then if we want to go on and die, nobody" (she waved her hand around the great room at the little group of athletic men and glamorous, expensively gowned women moving in through the arch) "nobody will have any financial interest in rejuvenating us. Then, too, our own fat incomes will lapse; and since that's the reason we set up the articles the way they are—so we'd never be in danger of starving, that is—we'd have the more interesting choice of whether to die off or get young again and go back to work. Would you sign a fifty-year termination, Rod?"

"Would you marry me for the fifty years, Babs?" His voice was gentle, pleading.

"Honest to goodness, now, aren't you really pretty tired of me?" she asked earnestly, turning to face him.

"No, I can't say I am. You're pretty special, doctor, and you're special pretty." It was a ritual.

"You know you're the only man. I'll marry you. Will you sign?"

"Of course I'll sign. I would have anyhow when I knew you wanted me to. And Babs—maybe we could get some sort of jobs now—sort of to get in practice. I'll bet we could rent a lab somewhere and do commercial analyses for a while until we got hit by another idea for research."

"Rod, that's the best idea you've had in the last hundred and fifty years. But we could have a honeymoon first, couldn't we?"

"That's your best suggestion