gone. He squared his shoulders and faced the mouth of her gun. True to yourself: that was something worth dying for.

He saw a flicker of emotion in the old woman's eyes. Admiration? He couldn't be sure. For at the moment a shot rang out from the end of the corridor; and the Top Director fell back, nursing a hand suddenly bright with blood.

"Let him go." It was Jenny's voice. She was sheltered by a partly open door at the foot of the stairway.

"Don't be a fool," the old woman replied. "He's seen too much."

"It doesn't matter. Who would believe him?"

"You're upset. You don't realize—"

"He's mine and I want him."

"The Directorate will give you a refund of the purchase price."

"You didn't understand me. I don't want one of your pretty automatons; anybody can buy them for a few shares of stock. I want a man—a real man; I want to belong to him."

"He belongs to you; you bought him."

"And that's what's wrong. We really belong to each other."

The old woman glanced at George and he saw the same flicker of feeling in her eyes. And tears, tears of regret. Why? "We have you outnumbered," the old woman said quietly to Jenny.

"I don't care. I have a gun; I'll use it as long as I'm able."

The Morals Squad raised their weapons. The Director shook her head imperiously and they snapped to attention again. "If you take him from us," she called out to Jenny, "you'll be outlawed. We'll hunt you down, if we can."

"I want him," Jenny persisted. "I don't care about the rest of it."

The old woman nodded to George. He couldn't believe that she meant it. The Director was on her home ground, in her headquarters building, backed by an armed squad of stone-faced Amazons. She had no reason to let him go.

She walked beside him as he moved down the hall. When they were twenty feet from the guard, she closed her thin hand on his arm; her eyes swam with tears and she whispered, "There truly is a love potion. Not this 

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