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and none of the low ones."
    "Well," said Ramse, "nobody knows about that for certain except the guards. And they don't discuss it."
    The door was opened by another guard who asked again, "What is wanted?" This time Ramse brought his heels together and rattled off what to Kline seemed clearly a memorized, ritual response. "Having been faithful in all things, we come to see he who is even more faithful than we."
    "That is correct," said the guard. "And what are the three of you?"
    "Two ones," said Gous. "And an eight."
    "Which is the eight?"
    "I am," said Ramse.
    "You may enter," said the guard. "The others may not."
    "But we're here with Kline," said Ramse. "We're bringing Kline to Borchert."
    "Kline?" said the guard. "We've been waiting for him. He can come in, too, the other one will have to wait outside."
    Kline felt something on his shoulder and looked back to see Gous' stump lying there. "A pleasure, Mr. Kline," Gous said. "Don't forget me."
    "I won't," said Kline, confused.
    The guard ushered them through the gate and into a bare, white hall. Before the door closed Kline looked behind him to see Gous on the other side, tilting his head trying to see in.
    This guard, Kline saw, had only one hand, all the fingers on it shaved away except for the thumb and the bottom half of the forefinger.
    The guard led them down the white hall to a door at the end, knocked three times.
    "You're lucky," said Ramse.
    "Lucky?"
    "To come in," said Ramse. "Normally a one wouldn't be allowed. There had to be a special dispensation."
    "I don't feel lucky," said Kline. The guard turned around and looked at him, hard, then turned away, rapped three more times.
    "Don't say that," whispered Ramse. "You don't know how hard it was to convince them to bring you."
    The door came open, another guard pushing his face out. Ramse and Kline watched their guard push his face in and whisper to the other. They whispered back and forth a few times then the other guard nodded, opened the door.
    "Go ahead," said the first guard. "Go through."
    Ramse and Kline passed through the door, the second guard letting them come in and then shutting it behind them. Inside was a stairwell. The guard led them up it to the third floor, led them down a hall, past three doors, stopped to knock on a fourth. When a muffled voice answered from behind, he opened it, ushered them in.
    The room was large, Spartan in furnishing: a bed sitting low to the floor, a low desk, a small bookshelf, a reclining chair. In the latter sat a man wearing a bathrobe. He was missing an arm and a leg, his robe cut away and left open at shoulder and hip to reveal the planed surfaces, hardly stumps at all. The other arm and leg were intact, though the hand was missing all but two of its fingers, the foot all but the big toe. Both ears, too, had been cut off, leaving only a hole and a shiny patch of flesh on either side of the head. One eyelid was open, revealing a piercing eye, the other closed but deflated, the eye under it clearly absent.
    "Ah," said the man. "Mr. Kline, I presume. I had assumed you had refused our invitation several weeks ago."
    "It seems not," said Kline.
    "He's delighted to be here," said Ramse, quickly. "It's a true pleasure for him, as well as for me, sir, to be granted audience with--"
    "I wonder," said Borchert, raising his voice. "Mr. Ramse, isn't it?"
    "Yes," said Ramse, "I'm--"
    "I wonder, Mr. Ramse, if you'd mind waiting outside. Mr. Kline and I have private matters to discuss."
    "Oh," said Ramse, looking crestfallen. "Yes, of course."
    "An eight," said Borchert, once Ramse was gone, "though you wouldn't know it to look at him. What does he mean by wearing shoes in here? Where are his manners?"
    "Do you want me to take my shoes off ?"
    "Are you missing any toes?"
    "No," said Kline.
    "There's no point then, is there?" said Borchert. "But come a little closer and show me your stump."
    Kline went closer. He held his missing hand out; Borchert took it deftly between his remaining