It occurred to her (it always had before, too, but she didn’t know it) that she must have done this same thing twenty-two times before, because she had used somec that many times. But since the somec wiped clean all the brain activities during the sleep, including memory, she could never remember anything that happened to her after the taping. Funny. They could have her make love to all the attendants in the Sleeproom, and she’d never know it.

  But no, she realized as the sweet and deferent men and women soothingly wheeled the table to a place where monitoring instruments waited for her, no, that could never happen. The Sleeproom is the one place where no jokes are played, where nothing surprising or outrageous is ever done. Something in the world must be secure.

  Then she giggled. Until my next waking, that is. And then the Sleeproom will be open to all the billions of poor suckers in the Empire who never get a chance at the somec, who have to live out their measly hundred years all in a row, while sleepers skip through the centuries like stones on a lake, touching down only every few years.

  And then the sweet young man with the darling cleft chin (pretty enough to be an actor, Arran noticed) pushed a needle gently into her arm, apologizing softly for the pain.

  “That’s all right,” Arran started to say, but then she felt a sharp pain in her arm, that spread quick as a fire to every part of her body; a terrible agony of heat that made her sweat leap from her pores. She cried out in pain and surprise—what was happening? Were they killing her? Who could want her to die?

  And then the somec penetrated to her brain, and ended all consciousness, and all memory. Including the memory of the pain that she had just felt.

  And when she woke again she would remember nothing of the agony of the somec. It would always and forever be a surprise.

  Triuff got the seven thousand eight hundred copies of the latest loop finished—most of them edited versions that cut out all sleeping hours and bodily functions other than eating and sex, the small minority full loops that truly dedicated (and rich) Arran Handully fans could view in small, private, seventeen-day-long showings. There were fans (crazy people, Triuff had long since decided, but thank Mother for them) who actually leased private copies of the unedited loops and watched them twice through on a single waking. That was one hell of a dedicated fan.

  Once the loops were turned over to the distributors (and the advance money was paid into the Arran Handully Corporation credit accounts) Triuff went to the Sleeproom herself. It was the price of being a manager—up weeks before the star, back under somec weeks after. Triuff would die centuries before Arran. But Triuff was very philosophical about it. After all, she kept reminding herself, she might have been a schoolteacher and never had somec at all.

  Arran woke sweating. Like every other sleeper, she believed that the perspiration was caused by the wake-up drugs, never suspecting that she was in that discomfort for the five years of sleep that had just passed.

  Her memories were intact, having been played back into her head only a few moments before. And she immediately realized that something was fastened to her right thigh—the loop recorder. She was already being taped, along with the room around her. For a brief moment she rebelled, regretting her decision to go along with the scheme. How could she bear to stay in character for the whole three weeks?

  But the one unbreakable rule among lifeloop actors was “The loop never stops.” No matter what you do, it’s being looped, and there was no way to edit a loop. If there was one thing—one tiny thing—that had to be edited out (other than sleep), the loop could simply be thrown away. The fans wouldn’t stand for a loop that jumped from one scene to another—they were always sure that something juicy was being left out.

  And so, almost by reflex, she composed herself into the tragically beautiful, sweet-souled yet bitter-tongued Arran Handully that all the fans knew and loved and paid money to watch. She sighed, and the sigh was seductive. She shuddered from the cold air passing across her sweating body, and turned the shiver into an excuse to open her eyes, blinking them delicately (seductively) against the dazzling lights.

  And then she got up slowly, looked around. One of the ubiquitous attendants was standing nearby with a robe; Arran let him help her put it on, moving her shoulder just so in a way that made her breast rise just that much (never let it jiggle, nothing uglier than jiggling flesh, she reminded herself); and then she stepped to the newsboards. A quick flash through interplanetary news, and then a close study of Capitol events for the last five years, updating herself on who had done what to whom. And then she glanced at the game reports. Usually she only flipped a few pages and read virtually nothing—the games bored her—but this time she looked at it carefully for several minutes, pursing her lips and making a point of seeming to be dismayed or excited about individual game outcomes.

  Actually, of course, she was reading the schedule for the next twenty-one days. Some of the names were new to her, of course—actors and actresses who were just reaching a level where they could afford to pay to be in an Arran Handully loop. And there were other names that she was quite familiar with, characters her fans would be expecting: Doret, her close friend and roommate seven loops ago, who still came back now and then to catch up on the news; Twern, that seven-year-old boy, now nearly fifteen, one of the youngest people ever to go on somec; old lovers and old friends, and a few leftovers from feuds on ancient loops. Which ones would be catty, and which ones would want to make up? Ah, well, she told herself. Plenty of chances to find that out.

  A name far down the list leaped out at her. Hamilton Ferlock! Involuntarily she smiled—caught herself in the sincere reaction and then decided that it would do no harm—the Arran Handully character might smile in just that way over a particular victory in a game. Hamilton Ferlock. Probably the only male actor on Capitol who could be considered to be in her class. They had started out at the same time, too, and he had been her lover in her first five loops, back when she only had a few months on somec between wakings. And now he was going to be in this loop!

  She thought a silent blessing for her manager. Triuff had actually done something thoughtful.

  And then it was time to dress and leave the Sleeproom and walk the long corridors to her flat. She noticed as she walked along that the corridor had been redecorated, to give the illusion that somehow even the halls she walked along had class. She touched one of the new panels. Plastic. She refrained from grimacing. Oh well, the audience will never know it isn’t really wood, and it keeps the overhead down.

  She opened the door of her flat, and Doret screamed in delight and ran to embrace her. Arran decided that this time she should act a little put out at Doret for some imagined slight. Doret looked a little surprised, backed away, and then, like the consummate actress that she was (Arran didn’t mind admitting the talents of her coworkers), she took Arran’s quite subtle cue and turned it into a beautiful scene, Doret weeping out a confession that she had stolen a lover away from Arran several wakings ago, and Arran at first seeming to punish her, then forgiving. They ended the scene tearfully in each other’s arms, and then paused a moment. Dammit, Arran thought, Triuff is at it again. Nobody entered to break the scene. They had to go on after the climax, which meant building it to an even bigger climax within the next three hours.

  Arran was exhausted when Doret finally left. They had a wrestling match, in which they had ripped each other’s clothes to shreds, and finally Doret had pulled a knife on Arran. It was not until Arran managed to get the weapon away from her that Doret finally left, and Arran had a chance to relax for a moment.

  Twenty-one days without a break, Arran reminded herself. And Triuff forcing me into exhaustion the first day. I’ll fire the bitch, she vowed.

  It was the twentieth day, and Arran was sick of the whole thing. Five parties, a couple of orgies, and sleeping with someone new every night can pall rather quickly, and she had run the gamut of emotion several times. Each time she wept, she tried to put a different edge on it—tried to improvise new things to say to lovers, to shout in an argument, to use to insult a condescending visitor.

  Most of her guests this time had been talented, and Arran certainly hadn’t had to pull the full weight all by herself. But it was grueling, all the same.

  And the buzzer sounded, and Arran had to get up to answer the door.

  Hamilton Ferlock stood there, looking a little unsure of himself. Five centuries of acting, Arran thought to herself, and he still hasn’t lost that ingenuous, boyish manner. She cried out his name (seductively, in character) and threw her arms around him.

  “Ham,” she said, “oh, Ham, you wouldn’t believe this waking! I’m so tired.”

  “Arran,” he said softly, and Arran noticed with surprise that he was starting out sounding as if he loved her. Oh no, she thought. Didn’t we part with a quarrel the last time? No, no, that was Ryden. Ham left because, because—oh, yes. Because he was feeling unfulfilled.

  “Well, did you find what you were looking for?”

  Ham raised an eyebrow. “Looking for?”

  “You said you had to do something important with your life. That living with me was turning you into a lovesick shadow.” Good phrase, Arran congratulated herself.

  “Lovesick shadow. Well, you see, that was true enough,” Ham answered. “But I’ve discovered that shadows only exist where there is light. You’re my light, Arran, and only when I’m near you do I really exist.”

  No wonder he’s so highly paid, Arran thought. The line was a bit gooey, but it’s men like him who keep the women watching.

  “Am I a light?” Arran said. “To think you’ve come back to me after so long.”

  “Like a moth to a flame.”

  And then, as was obligatory in all happy reunion scenes (have I already done a happy reunion in this waking? No) they slowly undressed each other and made love slowly, the kind of copulation that was not so much arousing as emotional, the kind that made both men and women cry and hold each other’s hands in the theater. He was so gentle this time, and the lovemaking was so right, that Arran felt hard-pressed to stay in character. I’m tired, she told herself. How can he carry it off so perfectly? He’s a better actor than I remembered.

  Afterward, he held her in his arms as they talked softly—he was always willing to talk afterward, unlike most actors, who thought they had to become surly after sex in order to maintain their macho image with the fans.

  “That was beautiful,” Arran said, and she noticed with alarm that she wasn’t acting. Watch yourself, woman. Don’t screw up the loop after you’ve already invested twenty damned days.

  “Was it?” Ham asked.

  “Didn’t you notice?”

  He smiled. “After all these years, Arran, and I was right. There’s no woman in the world worth loving with you around.”

  She giggled softly and ducked her head away from him in embarrassment. It was in character, and therefore seductive.

  “Then why haven’t you come back before?” Arran asked.

  And Hamilton rolled over and lay on his back. Because he was silent for a few moments, she rubbed her fingers up and down his stomach. He smiled. “I stayed away, Arran, because I loved you too much.”

  “Love is never a reason to stay away,” she said. Ha. Let the fans quote that piece of crap for a couple of years.

  “It is,” Ham said, “when it’s real.”

  “Even more reason to stay with me!” Arran put on a pout. “You left me, and now you pretend you loved me.”

  And suddenly Hamilton swung over and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Damn!” he said. “Forget the stupid act, will you?”

  “Act?” she asked.

  “The damn Arran Handully character you’re wearing for fun and profit! I know you Arran, and I’m telling you—I’m telling you, not some actor, me—I’m telling you that I love you! Not for the audiences! Not for the loop! For you—I love you!”

  And with a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach Arran realized that somehow, that stinking Triuff had gotten Ham to be a dirty trick after all. It was the one outspoken rule in the business—you never, never, never mention the fact that you’re acting. For any reason. And now, the ultimate challenge—admitting to the audience that you’re an actress and making them still believe you.

  “Not for the loop!” she echoed back, struggling to think of some kind of answer.

  “I said not for the loop!” He stood up and walked away from her, then turned back, pointed at her. “All these stupid affairs, all the phony relationships. Haven’t you had enough?”

  “Enough? This is life and I’ll never have enough of life.”

  But Ham was determined not to play fair.

  “If this is life, Capitol’s an asteroid.” A clumsy line, not like him. “Do you know what life is Arran? Life is centuries of playing loop after loop, as I’ve done, screwing every actress who can raise a fee, all so I can make enough money to buy somec and the luxuries of life. And all of a sudden a few years ago, I realized that the luxuries didn’t mean a damn thing, and what did I care if I lived forever? Life was so utterly meaningless, just a succession of high-paid tarts!”

  Arran managed to squeeze out some tears of rage. The loop never stops. “Are you calling me a tart!”

  “You?” Ham looked absolutely stricken. The man can act, Arran reminded herself, even as she cursed him for throwing her such a rotten curve. “Not you, Arran, don’t even think it!”

  “What can I think, with you coming here and accusing me of being a phony!”

  “No,” he said, sitting beside her on the bed again, putting his arm around her bare shoulder. She nestled to him again, as she had a dozen times before, years ago. She looked up at his face, and saw that his eyes were filled with tears.

  “Why are you—why are you crying?” she asked, hesitantly.

  “I’m crying for us,” he said. “Why?” she asked. “What do we have to cry over?”

  “All the years we’ve lost.”

  “I don’t know about you, but my years have been pretty full,” she said, laughing, hoping he would laugh, too.

  He didn’t. “We were right for each other. Not just as a team of actors, Arran, but as people. You weren’t very good back then at the beginning—neither was I. I’ve looked at the loops. When we were with other people, we were as phony as two-bit beginners. But those loops still sold, made us rich, gave us a chance to learn the trade. Do you know why?”

  “I don’t agree with your assessment of the past,” Arran said coldly, wondering what the hell he was trying to accomplish by continuing to refer to the loops instead of staying in character properly.

  “We sold those tapes because of each other. Because we actually looked real when we told each other we loved, when we chattered for hours about nothing. We really enjoyed each other’s company.”

  “I wish I were enjoying your company now. Telling me I’m a phony and then saying I have no talent.”

  “Talent! What a joke,” Ham said. He touched her cheek, gently, turning her face so she would look at him. “Of course you have talent, and so have I. We have money, too, and fame, and everything money can buy. Even friends. But tell me, Arran, how long has it been since you really loved anybody? Can you remember?”

  Arran thought back through her most recent lovers. Any she wanted to make Ham’s character jealous over? No. “I don’t think I’ve ever really loved anybody.”

  “That’s not true,” Ham said. “It’s not true, you loved me. Centuries ago, Arran, you truly loved me.”

  “Perhaps,” she said. “But what does it have to do with now?”

  “Don’t you love me now?” Ham asked, and he looked so sincerely concerned that Arran was tempted to break character and laugh with delight, applaud his excellent performance. But the bastard was still making it hard for her, and so she decided to make it hard for him.

  “Love you now?” she asked. “You’re just another pair of eager gonads, my friend.” That’d shock the fans. And, she hoped, completely mess up Ham’s nasty little joke.

  But Ham stayed right in character. He looked hurt, pulled away from her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I was wrong.” And to Arran’s shock he began to dress.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Leaving,” he said.

  Leaving, Arran thought with panic. Leaving now? Without letting the scene have a climax? All this buildup, all the shattered traditions, and then leaving without a climax? The man was a monster!

  “You can’t go!”

  “I was wrong. I’m sorry. I’ve embarrassed myself,” he said.

  “No, no, Ham, don’t leave. I haven’t seen you in so long!”

  “You’ve never seen me,” he answered. “Or you wouldn’t have been capable of saying what you just did.”

  Making me pay for throwing a curve back at him, Arran thought. I’d like to kill him. What a fantastic actor, though. “I’m sorry I said it,” Arran said, wearing contrition as if she had been dipped in it. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean it.”

  “You just want me to stay so I won’t ruin your damn scene.”

  Arran gave up in despair. Why am I doing this, anyway? But the realization that breaking character now would wreck the whole loop kept her going. She went and threw herself on the bed. “That’s right!” she said, weeping. “Leave me now, when I want you so much.”

  Silence. She just lay there. Let him react.

  But he said nothing. Just let the pause hang. She couldn’t even hear him move.

  Finally he spoke. “Do you mean it?”