For several minutes after the girl had disappeared, TRH-247 lingered near the entry to the building, reluctant to leave. Excitement made his skin prickle and tighten sensitively. Ann, he thought. Her voice was soft, light, musical, her wrist so slim his fingers had overlapped when he'd held it. Shadows enlarged her eyes, and fear, too. She was afraid, but she would meet him. She wanted to.

Across the way from the Research Center there was a sidewalk vender with a cluster of tables. He charged a cup of coffee, showing his identity disc to the machine to be photographed, and sat at one of the small tables.

Why had he been attracted to her so quickly? Why this keen anticipation? Was it just because she was pretty? He didn't think so. And it was not the simple need of sex. Organization knows, RED-498 was willing enough, and the once-a-week hour they were allotted in one of the PIB's had always seemed satisfactory.

But only that, he corrected himself. A habit, a routine like the discussion forums and the sports and the therapy hours. Satisfactory, but never exciting.

Perhaps it was the fact that he had found the girl in red himself. RED-498 had been selected for him almost a year before by the Marital Contract Computer. His complete dossier had been fed into the computer. The process of choosing an appropriate partner for the contract from all the women available in City No. 9 of the proper age, size, intelligence, and personality traits, weighing also such factors of compatibility as the size of the tax debt carried by the woman and the man, had taken the computer exactly thirty-two seconds.

It surprised Hendley a little to realize that he felt no guilt, no sense of betrayal of RED-498. The reason was simple. There was no emotional involvement between them—only a comfortable arrangement. She was passive by nature, casually accepting their impending contract. The computer had selected them for each other, and it would never have occurred to her to question or approve its judgment. With a feeling of chagrin, Hendley realized that, were he to disappear, his Assigned would experience no more than a brief period of concern, which would end as soon as the computer selected a more dependable partner for her.

There ought to be more between a man and a woman, he thought—something more than the body's casual hunger, more than good will, more than the careful balance of factors weighed by a computer.

And maybe he had found it.

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