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they sickened by contagion and died themselves. For the Siamese octuplet, ostensibly simple human activities—bathing, eating, swimming, lying down to sleep, boarding a bus––required the skill and total concentration of a dedicated acrobatic troupe. Ben had seen tapes of them group-copulating in a null-gravity room, a sight as lovely as the writhing of a pink sea anemone in the first rush of incoming tides.
    It would almost be a shame to disrupt them.
    But when Lady Hann was distracted, Ben whispered to one of the octuplets: “The man across from you has discovered a means to reverse, for himself, the operation that joined you, and he plans to force the unit to split up, though several of you will die in the process.” The octuplet Ben whispered to wasn’t consciously aware of the whisper; it was projected into him without his quite being aware of it... Within ten minutes an argument sprang up between the joined eight and Ben heard them begin to slap and claw and shriek. But he had turned away. It was time, things were nearly ready, the pot was close to boiling. The crowd was simmering, the primitivists had begun to howl, shouts of frustration rang out above the quickening din.
    â€œIt’s spurious gossip!” declared Lady Hann furiously. “Where is another with a flash-cap like mine?”
    â€œHe wears a hat to disguise it when you’re near; they laugh about it behind your back,” whispered Ben earnestly, sympathetically--subvocally.
    He left her and signaled the bikers. He did not see who it was Fuller slugged, but he heard the sickening crunch as the fist connected.
    Ben stepped through the door of the hallucinogen sauna, holding his breath. The empty mirror-walled cylindrical chamber threw back his reflection in lean distortion. He breathed again, seeing there was no one dazing, the room not in use. The walls looked like brittle glass but would be rubbery, pliant to the touch. His reflection smirked back at him, his small gray eyes shining with berserker energy. He calmed himself and his aristocratic lips slackened, his set jaw relaxed, the chords standing out on his thin neck sank away.
    He ran tapering fingers, each one dyed a separate color, through his curly brown hair and sighed. He had to be utterly calm for what he was about to do. When he was sufficiently relaxed, he pulled a concealed tab behind his collar and his ballooning, floppy pantaloons, glossy with silver and red satin froggings, suddenly tightened up, as snug around his limbs as skin-tight leotards. He withdrew two flat tools from beneath his wide belt, performed a hasty operation on the vent grill on the low ceiling, and replaced the tools. He yanked the grill free, set it quietly on the floor, and pulled himself upward into the shaft. He was thin but strong.
    There was scarcely enough room to wriggle upward. He braced himself against the sides and moved upward and around a corner to the right. The trip was long and arduous and for an undisciplined man the pitch-black shaft would have been too close to maneuver within. But Ben was used to it. He had been a burglar for nine years. He had memorized the route before they set out--their employer had provided the blueprints-- and he hardly thought about it as he negotiated the turns on knees and elbows. He breathed raggedly, occasionally slipping on his own sweat. He was crawling horizontally now; the going was easier.
    As he rounded a corner, the echoing maze of ventilation shafts carried the sounds of the party crowd to him, petulant revelers fast becoming a brawling mob. He heard shrieks of fury, unpent hostility, and what sounded like Fuller’s laughter, cackling above it all.
    Up ahead he saw a slatted light. He wormed forward more urgently. Things were moving along a bit too quickly and he had to hurry to retain his edge. The drones would be distracted by the disruptions; they probably hadn’t discovered that someone had thrown off the euphonium