"Oh?" The stranger's left eyebrow rose slightly. "Never?"

Larry shook his head. "Or the rest of the City, for that matter." He sighed. "I don't think I'm the City type. I think I'm going to give the whole thing up and go back home. The City isn't for me."

"Have another drink," the stranger said. "Go on—I'll pay. It'll take your mind off your problems."

"There's a capsule that'll do it a lot more efficiently," Larry said. "I don't need bad-tasting drinks to ease my mind."

"You're definitely cashing in your chips, then?"

"What?"

"I mean, you're definitely choosing Koletsky for life, eh?"

Larry paused a while, letting the images of the City filter through his mind again. Finally he nodded. "I think so. I really do."

"Two full days more—and you've made up your mind?" The stranger shook his head. "That'll never do, son. You'll have to think more deeply."

"How deep do I have to think?"

"Tell me what anxiety is," the stranger countered.

Taken aback by the sudden and seemingly irrelevant question, Larry blinked. "Anxiety? Why—worry, isn't it? Fear? Ulcers and headaches?"

The stranger shook his head slowly and dialed another drink. "Anxiety is the feeling that things are too good, that you're riding for a fall," he said carefully. "It's a sense of things about to get worse."

Larry remembered the bubble-vendor and nodded. "But they have to be pretty good to start with, don't they?"

"Right. You've got to have something pretty good—and be worried that you're going to lose it. Then you fight to keep it. Challenge—response. That's anxiety. Fear's something different. Then you creep into the corner and shake. Or you hang onto the side of a wall."

"I think I'll take another drink," Larry said thoughtfully.

"You get what I mean? Anxiety pushes and prods you, but it doesn't make you shrivel. You've got to be strong to stand up under it. That's how our world works."

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