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longer!”
    â€œOne enjoys being able to see one’s feet again, yes,” Mamelon says.
    â€œIs it very uncomfortable, being pregnant?”
    â€œThere are annoyances.”
    â€œThe stretching? How can you puff up that way and stand it? The skin like going to burst any minute.” Aurea shudders. “And everything getting pushed around inside your body. Your kidneys rammed up into your lungs, that’s how I always think of it. Pardon me. I guess I’m exaggerating. I mean, I don’t really know.”
    â€œIt’s not that bad,” says Mamelon. “Though of course it’s strange and a little bothersome. Yet there are positive aspects. The moment of birth itself—”
    â€œDoes it hurt terribly?” Aurea asks. “I imagine it would. Something that big, ripping through your body, popping right out of your—”
    â€œGloriously blessful. One’s entire nervous system awakens. A baby coming out is like a man going in, only twenty times as thrilling. It’s impossible to describe the sensation. You must experience it for yourself.”
    â€œI wish I could,” says Aurea, downcast, groping for the last shreds of her high. She slips a hand into the maintenance slot to touch Mamelon’s child. A quick burst of ions purifies her skin before she makes contact with little Persephone’s downy cheek. Aurea says, “God bless, I want to do my duty! The medics say there’s nothing wrong with either of us. But—”
    â€œYou must be patient, love.” Mamelon embraces Aurea lightly. “Bless god, your moment will come.”
    Aurea is skeptical. For twenty months she has surveyed her flat belly, waiting for it to begin to bulge. It is blessed to create life, she knows. If everyone were as sterile as she, who would fill the urbmons? She has a sudden terrifying vision of the colossal towers nearly empty, whole cities sealed off, power failing, walls cracking, just a few shriveled old womenshuffling through halls once thronged with happy multitudes.
    Her one obsession has led her to the other one, and she turns to Siegmund, breaking into the conversation of the men to say, “Siegmund, is it true that they’ll be opening Urbmon 158 soon?”
    â€œSo I hear, yes.”
    â€œWhat will it be like?”
    â€œVery much like 116, I imagine. A thousand floors, the usual services. I suppose seventy families per floor, at first, maybe 250,000 people altogether, but it won’t take long to bring it up to par.”
    Aurea clamps her palms together. “How many people will be sent there from here, Siegmund?”
    â€œI’m sure I don’t know that.”
    â€œThere’ll be some, won’t there?”
    Memnon says mildly, “Aurea, why don’t we talk about something pleasant.”
    â€œSome people will be sent there from here,” she persists. “Come on, Siegmund. You’re up in Louisville with the bosses all the time.
How many?
”
    Siegmund laughs. “You’ve really got an exaggerated idea of my significance in this place, Aurea. Nobody’s said a word to me about how Urbmon 158 will be stocked.”
    â€œYou know the theory of these things, though. You can project the data.”
    â€œWell, yes.” Siegmund is quite cool; this subject has a purely impersonal interest for him. He seems unaware of the source of Aurea’s agitation. “Naturally, if we’re going to do our duty to god by creating life, we’ve also got to be sure that there’s aplace for everyone to live,” he says. Hand flicks a vagrant lock of hair into place. Eyes glow; Siegmund loves to lecture. “So we go on building urban monads, and, naturally, whenever a new urbmon is added to the Chipitts constellation, it has to be stocked from the other Chipitts buildings. That makes good genetic sense. Even though each urbmon is big enough to provide an adequate gene-mix, our tendency to