the colors wheeling in rhythm across their grinning faces.

Suddenly three young women converged on the group, having spied Sethos from inside.

"Oh, Sethos!" one cried. "How wonderful you're here!"

"Are you still composing that magnificent diphonic music?" asked another breathlessly.

Grimly, he realized he was trapped again. Every party brought on something like this. How could he explain to these well-meaning girls that he was trying to forget the past, that it bored him, that his music was trite and his painting insipid? Still they would clamor for it.

"Excuse me," muttered Sethos, walking away. His ears rang with their adulation, but it always sickened him. Efforts he considered nothing at all were worshiped by the others. It was demoralizing.

Following the path around the corner, he descended from the noise of the house, opening his mouth and inhaling the cool night air as though to cleanse his lungs. He was growing extremely weary of the people at parties.

From here he could see the town laid out below, the four directions of it, and he tried to guess how many times he had walked each street one end to the other, then turned around and walked back, simply because no one ever considered going straight on.

At that moment a tall, lean man approached him. He was a stranger, with a bearing Sethos did not recognize.

"How do you do, Sethos," he said softly. "I understand you are the most accomplished of your group. May I ask a few questions?"

Someone from across town, obviously. He knew the type—they traveled between the cliques, learning of new trends and ideas to pirate. He had done it once himself.

"I'm sorry. I don't have any new goodies for your side of town. Why don't you go in and pester Brin? He's always easy to tap."

"You misjudge me. I'm not interested in stealing ideas."

"I know, I know. But I'm not for sale anyway."

Angered, Sethos turned and strode down the hill. The nerve of these apprentices, he thought. Some day they'll ask for autographed samples.

He stopped. A small autocar had caught his attention. On a wild impulse, he opened the door. "Good evening, little servant," he said gently.

The desire to move came on him more strongly now. Stooping, he got in, the seat cushions adjusting automatically to his posture, and a voice somewhere in the drive panel said, "Direction, please."

Yes—where to? He didn't know. But he had to get away.

"Straight ahead," he ordered, hoping the machine would make the best of it.

As he rode, he wondered desperately what was wrong with him. He was easily the most talented of men, yet he was unhappy. Perhaps it was because they all treated him so adoringly that he was tired of them. He saw nowhere that drive which was so strong in him, the urge to go on to bigger things. He had sought it in his friends many times before, but gave up when no one knew what he meant. Even as a child his elders said he should have been born a mechanoid. It was a jest that was deathly true.

Trees flashed by, but as Sethos watched, they slowed in their flight, and he realized the car was stopping.

"I'm sorry, this is zone," said the car. "I can go no further. Redirection, or shall I cruise at random?"

He started to affirm, but something stopped him.

Barely visible ahead were the first low, dark buildings of the mechanoid world.

"No," he answered. "I'm getting out here."

He left the car, walking forward rapidly until the headlights no longer lighted his path. The trees began to thin out, and his feet struck concrete. He knew he was beyond the general limits of human activity.

Fear came, now that he was in that land where men never walked. The buildings loomed around him, forbidding and dark. Further down the street the lights began, spaced at intervals on the walls.

"Your attention, please," said a voice at his shoulder. He recoiled, noticing for the first time a small yellow mechanoid