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VIOLATION OF YOUR OATHS OF CELIBACY. BE WARNED."
    They looked at each other, a mixture of guilt and relief on their faces.
    "Maybe I can figure out how to turn off the cameras, someday," Jeff muttered.
    Laura giggled. "If you do, the Village will vibrate itself out of orbit inside of ten minutes."
    Hand in hand, they made their way back onto the greenpath and headed down the tube back toward their dome.
    Halfway home, they saw Brunhilda hurrying toward them, her face florid with unaccustomed exertion as she lumbered along the greenpath.
    "There you are!" She pointed a thick, blunt forefinger at them. "You should both know better. I'm ashamed of you! Curfew time is almost here and you're off in the bushes, making the computer sound warning alarms!"
    Towering over them, Brunhilda separated Jeff from Laura and walked between the two would-be lovers.
    They expected a lecture and grim threats of punishment, but instead Brunhilda was almost mild as she told them, "Just because he is such a hero right now, Ms. McGrath, is no reason to succumb to temptation. And you, Mr. Holman, don't think you're too important to be disciplined."
    Jeff said nothing, and neither did Laura. They had learned that arguments and protests simply made things worse with Brunhilda.
    As they neared the portal to their dome, the giantess said, "If you've got to smooch, at least do it in the privacy of your dorm rooms. If the computer warning had been picked up by one of the Council members instead of just me . . ." She shook her head.
    As they entered their own dome, Bishop Foy himself passed by, heading toward the greenpath they had just come in from. He nodded at them unsmilingly, his thoughts obviously elsewhere as he walked past in his lean, loose-jointed amble.
    Jeff looked up at Brunhilda as Bishop Foy passed. She caught his stare and slowly closed one eye in a solemn wink. Jeff was so startled that he nearly tripped and fell.

    Jeffrey Holman had been born into the Church of Nirvan. His father, director of the leading bank in the Nevada town where they lived, had used the Church as a social and business tool. He Believed, of course; everyone in the town Believed or they moved elsewhere. But Jeff's father expected God to show some faith in Mr. Holman, too. When the town's copper and molybdenum mines closed down in the face of competition from the asteroid mines out in space, Mr. Holman (as everyone in town called him) brought the Church Elders together with the Los Angeles corporation executives who actually owned the bank and arranged a multi-million-dollar deal that turned the town into a "premier residential center" where executives from Los Angeles, Phoenix, and other crime-infested mega-cities could find a safe home for themselves and their families, far out in the desert.
    The town quadrupled in size, the bank prospered, and Mr. Holman was elected mayor—proving that God had faith in him.
    It was Jeff's mother who Believed in the Church of Nirvan with the simple abiding faith that demanded nothing in return. She bore eight children, fulfilling the Church's demand for fruitfulness. Jeff was her oldest son; her first three babies had been daughters.
    Jeff seemed to slide through life as if God had intended him never to stub a toe. He was a happy, plump baby. He never had a sick day in his life. Once he started school, he charmed his teachers with his quiet, modest behavior and his quick, eager mind. He was always first in class, first in anything he chose to do. The only trouble with Jeff was that he chose to do so little. He liked to read, to sit alone and daydream, to think.
    "Some days, Jeffrey, I worry that you're going to turn into a tree stump," his mother often chided him. Jeff would smile at her and offer to help her with the household chores.
    "You've got to show more drive , son!" his father would admonish. "Get out of the house and meet people, make friends, do things."
    Jeff would agree and take a walk down to the town library, to lose