ctually he'd been talking against his own fear and Lorette must have
known it. Anyway, she left. And now he was here alone.

_Alone._

Eric didn't like the sound of that word. Or the absence of sound
behind it. Three other tenants in a ninety-story building. Three other
tenants in a place that had once held three thousand. Why, fifty years
ago, when this place went up, you couldn't buy a vacancy. Where had
the crowds gone to?

He knew the answer, of course. The Leff shots had created the new
generation of Yardsticks, and they lived in their own world. Their
shrunken, dehydrated world of doll-houses and miniatures. They'd
deserted the old-fashioned skyscrapers and cut the big apartment
buildings up into tiny cubicles; two could occupy the space formerly
reserved for one.

That had been the purpose of the Leff shots in the first place--to put
an end to overcrowding and conserve on resources. Well, it had worked
out. Worked out too perfectly for people like Eric Donovan. Eric
Donovan, rental agent for a building nobody wanted any more; a
ninety-storey mausoleum. And nobody could collect rent from ghosts.

_Ghosts._

Eric damned near jumped through the ceiling when the door opened and
this man walked in. He was tall and towheaded. Eric stared; there was
something vaguely familiar about his face. Something about those ears,
that was it, those ears. No, it couldn't be, it wasn't possible--

Eric stood up and held out his hand. "I'm Donovan," he said.

The towheaded man smiled and nodded. "Yes, I know. Don't you remember
me?"

"I thought I knew you from someplace. You wouldn't be--Sam Wolzek?"

The towheaded man's smile became a broad grin. "That's not what you
were going to say, Eric. You were going to say 'Handle-head,' weren't
you? Well, go on, say it. I don't mind. I've been called a lot worse
things since we were kids together."

"I can't believe it," Eric murmured. "It's really you! Old Handle-head
Wolzek! And after all these years, turning up to rent an office from
me. Well, what do you know!"

"I didn't come here to rent an office."

"Oh? Then--"

"It was your name that brought me. I recognized it on the beamings."

"Then this is a social call, eh? Well, that's good. I don't get much
company these days. Sit down, have a reef."

Wolzek sat down but refused the smoke. "I know quite a bit about your
setup," he said. "You and your three tenants. It's tough, Eric."

"Oh, things could be worse." Eric fo