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diabolical majesty !'
    Devereaux wears a white silk suit, Italian cut, long-lapelled. He moves from group to group with ease and grace. He converses knowledgeably with politicians and film stars, scientists and karque-hunters alike. His reputation as a polymath precedes him; intellectuals queue to fox him, in vain, with the latest conundrums of the age. He seems to have an intimate understanding of every philosophy and theory under the three hundred-and-counting suns of the Expansion.
    Many guests, hoping that they might fathom the mystery of the man, find after a few minute's conversation that he is an enigma too deep to plumb. A paradox, also. He talks about everything, everything , but his art. The implication is that his art speaks for itself. Guests speculate that his pre-show ritual of socialisation — a bestowing upon them of his brilliance — is a ploy to point up the disparity between the urbanity of the man and the barbarity of his act, thereby commenting on the dichotomy inherent in the human condition. At least, this is the theory of those who have never before witnessed his performances. The guests who have followed his act from planet to planet around the Expansion know not to make such naive assumptions: his art is more complicated than that, they say, or alternatively more simple. One guest alone, beneath the arching crystal dome, speculates that his creations are nothing more than a catharsis, a blowing-out of the intense psychological pressures within his tortured psyche.
    "By the way," Devereaux quips, almost as an afterthought, to each clique, "this will be my very last public performance."
    He registers their surprise, their shock, and then the dawning realisation that they will witness tonight that pinnacle of performance arts, the ultimate act.
    Devereaux moves from the marbled patio, up three steps to the bar. As he pours himself a cognac, he disengages from his Augmentation — that part of him he calls the Spider, which he employs in conversation with his guests — and descends to the biological. The descent is a merciful relief. He leaves behind the constant white noise of guilt which fills the Spider with despair. As he settles himself into his biological sensorium, he can tolerate the remorse: it simmers in his subconscious, emerging only occasionally in berserker fits of rage and self-loathing. He downs the cognac in one.
    Devereaux turns to the guests gathered below and experiences a wave of hatred and disgust. He despises their ignorance. More, he despises their lack of understanding, their easy acceptance that what he lays before them is the epitome of fine art. He tells himself that he should not submit to such anger. Their very presence, at one thousand units a head, more than subsidises the cost of his therapy.
    Across the crowded patio he catches sight of a familiar figure, and wonders if he is the exception. He did not invite Daniel Carrington; he came as the friend of a guest. Carrington stands in conversation with a Terraform scientist. He is tall and dark-haired. The perfection of his face is marred by a deep scar which runs down his forehead, between his eyes, over the bridge of his nose and across his left cheek. He was attacked six months ago by an irate subscriber to Venus-Satellite Vid-Vision, on which he hosts the most watched, though at the same time most hated, prime-time show. Carrington films suicides in the act of taking their lives. He employs an empath to locate potential subjects, and a swoop-team of camera-people and engineers. He films the death and follows it up with an in-depth psychological profile of the individual's life and their reasons for ending it. Wherever he is in the Expansion, Devereaux makes a point of watching the show. There is no doubting Carrington's sincerity, his humanitarianism, and yet although the programme is watched by everyone , he is universally reviled: it is as if his viewers, needing to transfer their guilt at their voyeurism, find in