worlds such as the third planet of that sick little yellow sun she'd just left behind. Who would want to leave the comfort and the euphoria and the bliss of eternal love? She had not closed the communications circuit. And a machine, the huge, eternal central computer said, They did. And her mind was filled with a series of outward movements, the first swing into space in quaint, accident-prone chemical vehicles, the first leap to a near star, the vast enthusiasm of exploration and the zesty battles of conquest as one segment of the empire fought another for domination. They did. Ancient barbarians. Who built an empire which covers vast distances, a starfield of glory and achievement. Achievement? You're programmed for the past. We'll have to see about changing your mode. I am programmed for all contingencies which would affect the well-being of the race. The well-being of the race is Trang. And love. We do not need to go out to the stars anymore. Why do we need more planets ? Yes. With Trang we have reached the highest limits of racial fulfillment. The empire was projected into her mind, far-flung systems peopled by the race, all beautiful, all Trangized, scattered widely, isolated in pairs in splendid structures on a thousand thousand worlds. Exactly, she sent. Would you want it differently? I am not programmed for emotions. But she was shown vast autosystems lying idle. Sections capable of directing the landing and takeoff of one ship per heartbeat from a million ports were idle. Fleets of ships were stationary on the ground. Vast places for the making of a million things were silent. I don't care. What right have you, a mere machine, to chide me, a member of the race? Angered, she broke off. She paced the spacious room. She was dressed in a close-fitting singlet which showed her beautiful form to perfection and there was no one to see. She, the most desirable woman on the old, home planet, perhaps in the original system, was alone. With only a sub-being within countless light years. But the sub-being was a male. Once, when she committed with a male from an outlying planet, she was told of an ancient custom. Women of the planet, in the early days of the lovely Trang euphoria, in order to experience the completeness of sexual love, had, said the male, experimented with a form of animal life, an upright animal covered with hair. At the time it had seemed deliciously funny. A woman couple with an animal? Now she was to be isolated on a ship of the line for long, long revolutions with a sub-being. If members of the race had once coupled with animals. It could be amusing, in a revolting sort of way. She stood before him, radiant in a tightly fitted one-piece thing which clung to rounded curves. She had had to wait for the machines to finish with him. Now he had been examined, rated, cataloged. She was not interested in that. She was alone. She was bored. It would be a long, long time before she was back on A-l and it would be in the middle of a commitment period and she would have to join in the conference regarding these sub-beings from Section G-1034876 and, meanwhile, he was looking at her with a stupid, wide-eyed stare, making sounds with his mouth like an animal. An animal. She would pretend that he was one of the hairy, upright beasts of the outlying planets. I am—her mind spread out—Blaze. He made sounds with his mouth. He fell to his knees and held his hands clasped in front of him. She projected the idea she had in mind in all its sweet possibilities. He made noises with his mouth. She moved toward him in a graceful, floating, sensuous walk. She was, to him, eye-burningly beautiful. He'd never seen so perfect a woman before. And, although heaven was, apparently, a thing of metals and other materials he didn't know with machines which probed and searched him and machines which fed and watched him, she was divine, an angel sent from God. Blaze—wants you. Blaze—soft and warm and willing—will make things so nice for you. He cringed away from her. She couldn't read him. Inside his head were the usual arrangements of