emoved.
"I'll want the mech for five, possibly ten, hours."

"I'll make out the slip for ten hours, sir. We'll refund any balance due
you. But after ten hours ..."

"I know. You must report the mech missing. But with my body here you
can't lose."

The salesman smiled enigmatically. "We _have_," he said.

Duggan shrugged. He was impatient to be outside, feasting his starved
vision on the stores and parks of the various upper levels. He might
even take a lift to the Outside. It had been fifteen years ago, while
their youngest son was a baby, that they had taken a weekend motor trip
to the great scar that had been Manhattan. He remembered the vastness
and the rawness of the uncontrolled atmosphere. It had been beautiful
but also a bit terrifying. It was a ten years delayed honeymoon....

And now Merle was in the rocket corps and Janith and he were like
strangers.

Duggan zippered shut his gray-checked jacket and left the booth. He
walked slowly, savoring every picture of the crowded passenger strips
beyond the walkway, and of the fairy spans of moving walkways crossing
the travel strips. The soft glow of the level's ceiling, fifty feet
above, illuminated the double rows of apartment and store fronts.

It was good to see again.

Every twelfth section of the level was a park. The greenery was fresher
and brighter than he remembered; the tree boles and the branches were
marvels of grace and strength. He strolled along the paths, impatient to
be moving on, but aching with the emerald beauty around him....

He took the lifts to the upper levels. He rode the swiftest walkways and
travel strips, his eyes drinking in the long-hidden sights. From an
observation dome he looked out over the wooded mountain slopes of
Outside, and saw the telltale ridging of rock and earth that marked the
scores of hidden vehicular tubes linking Appalachia with its sister
cities of Ondack and Smoky.

His five hours stretched into seven, and then, eight. Slowly a
determination to keep these eyes, at whatever cost, was building within
him. Always before he had agreed when Janith decided. He had been so
dependent on her those first terrible weeks. But now, with this money
from the breakthrough pool, he could rent a super mech--live as a man
should live!

* * * * *

Duggan left the employment booth on the 20th Level, a badge on his
jacket and a half-grin on his full super mech's lips.

On the records he was n