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house and said, ‘Gladys, you’re going to be a writer!’ I was so happy, I was only six — ”
    “Six?” I said.
    “That’s when we’re tested, and it’s just the right age. When you’re six you want to be so many things. What a relief it was not to worry about the future. It makes adolescence so nice.”
    “A perpetual adolescence if you ask me.”
    She nudged me playfully with her elbow. “What’s so wrong with that? But I forget. Work is sacred on the Reservation.”
    “Individualism is sacred. We pick our own jobs. Why, I was a rancher and a storekeeper before I went into police work.”
    “What a wasteful method. Here at the age of six 1 you would have entered an L. and O. elementary school.”
    The street was now clear. We passed a shopping center where thousands of people in easy chairs sat around a circular rotating window full of goods and gadgets. Now and then they jotted down an order on the pads in their hands. “Perpetual adolescence!” I said. “Two hours’ work, two hours’ window-shopping, and the rest of the day for pleasure.”
    “And what have you got, my darling ploughboy? Twelve hours work, no windowshopping, and a frantic grab in bed before you collapse from sheer exhaustion.” She patted my hand. “What you people need is a five-year plan 2 .”
    When we checked into our hotel — The Hotel Pompadour on the left bank of the Seine — she danced across the living room and sang. “Paris, Paris, the city of Love.”
    “I guess I’ll never understand you people,” I said quietly. “Here it is June 24th and exactly ten days left before the 4th — ”
    “What can’t we do in ten days?” she smiled. “The fields of love, ploughboy!”
    It was pointless talking to her. I headed for the door, and ten minutes later I was at L. and O. Headquarters on the Rue de la Paix. The Commissioner was waiting for me. He had left Washington by Coastal Rocket a few hours after me but arrived two hours sooner. The first thing I asked him about was Gladys Ellsberg.
    “My dear Crockett,” he broke in on me. “A man operates best when his emotional needs are satisfied. Here we have provided you with all the comforts of home — ”
    “In the atmosphere of a whore house!” I finished for him. “I don’t like it! I’m kept in the dark about this St. Ewagiow convention while this woman knows everything.”
    “That’s Their doing, Crockett. You’re not an alien but still you aren’t one of us. The Board is suspicious of you. Please be reasonable! I’ve gone against the Board to bring you into the country. If you fail I’ll be out of my job.”
    “We’ll all be out of our jobs. We’ll all be dead.”
    “Let’s not put the hearse before the horse. We hope this St. Ewagiow show will attract Barnum Fly.”
    “Is that what the Board predicts?”
    “It’s what our agents in the St. Ewagiow predict. If our man comes to town the probabilities are 9.74 x: y that he’ll see his daughter. Let me brief you on Cleo Fly. She’s twenty-four years old, born in 1995. And very beautiful. So beautiful she required only minor treatment at the Garden of Eden Salons. She was lengthened by two inches and a tendency to excessive thinness was corrected.” He paused and shook his head as if considering some astonishing facts. Then he said, “There is no record of any men in her life. It’s her job of course. She’s one of the attendants at Atomic Amusement Park.”
    “Her job?”
    “Most of the employees there are indifferent to sex. It’s occuptional with them.”
    “I don’t understand, Elvis.”
    “These thrill jobs! How can I make you understand? It’s like being loved by a giant. The public has a nickname for the Atomic attendants. Fission-proof virgins,” he smiled faintly. “And this is where you come in, Crockett. You’re to make her acquaintance. At least it can begin as an acquaintance.”
    I stared at him with disgust. His blond, insipid face hardened for a second. “The