Quickies have no choice in the matter, don't you see? We have to marry whoever comes along. My last wife--"

"As a Quickie, you're not supposed to talk about her."

The Counselor blanched at what had almost amounted to a sin. "Thank you," he said, and waited in silence for the pneumotube.

Finally, it came, popping out of the wall slot and alighting on the desk. The Counselor removed Simon's papers and unrolled them, revealing a set of similar papers rolled tightly within. These he opened and spread on the desk, beckoning Simon to come around behind him and take a look.

The first thing Simon saw was the snapshot, in the latest trivision process. The girl looked pretty enough, with a pale, heart-shaped face set off against short-cropped, shining black hair. She had enormous, child-like eyes.

"How do you do?" the picture said. "I am Jane-Marie Paige. I miss you."

"See," said the Counselor, "she has a lovely voice."

Simon nodded, picked up the trivision snapshot and held it under his nose, sniffing delicately. He liked the scent of Jane-Marie's perfume--not too musky, not too flowery, but that ideal compromise which indicated she would be neither too sultry nor too fragile.

The Counselor wrote in Simon's name on her papers, printing "approx. 3 wks" under the column for time, and handed both rolls to Simon. "Her address is in the second column," he said. "Visit us again on your next trip to New York, Mr. Grover. And good luck."

By the time Simon took the tubeway out to the suburban Long Island community in which Jane-Marie Paige lived, the bright spring afternoon was fading into dusk, tinting the western sky with bands of color ranging from deep blue and purple through mauve to delicate, dusty pink. The smell of spring was in the air, but with the coming of night the lingering chill of winter was still apparent. It would be great, coming home again to a new wife, to a drink and an excellent home-cooked dinner, to a cozy fire perhaps--especially when you could have all that and still retain the pulse-quickening feeling of adventure.

Whistling, Simon found Maple Lane and walked by the rows of spherical houses which could rotate with the sun from equinox to solstice and back again. Simon could tell it was a development of newlywed homes by their small size, by the absence of baby 

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