"What are you thinking?" Zina said.

'Better a live dog than a dead prince,' "Manny said. "Who said that?"

"It is simply common sense.

Zina said, What is your meaning?"

"I mean that your enchantment gave him nothing and the real world-"

"The real world," Zina said, "put him in cryonic suspension for ten years. Isn't a beautiful dream better than a cruel reality? Would you rather suffer in actuality than enjoy yourself in the domain of-" She paused.

"Intoxication," he said. "That is what your domain consists of; it is a drunken world. Drunken with dancing and with joy. I say that the quality of realness is more important than any other quality, because once realness departs, there is nothing. A dream is nothing. I disagree with you; I say you cheated Herbert Asher. I say you did a cruel thing to him. I saw his reaction; I measured his dejection. And I will make it up to him."

"You will make the Fox real."

"Is it your wager that I can't?"

"My wager," Zina said, "is that it doesn't matter. Real or not she is worthless; you will have achieved nothing."

"I accept the wager," he said.

'Shake my hand on it." She extended her hand.

They shook, standing there on the Hollywood sidewalk under the glaring artificial light.

As they flew back to Washington, D.C. Zina said, "In my realm many things are different. Perhaps you would like to meet Party Chairman Nicholas Bulkowsky."

Emmanuel said, "Is he not the procurator?"

"The Communist Party has not the world power that you are accustomed to. The term 'Scientific Legate' is not known. Nor is Fulton Statler Harms the chief prelate of the C.I.C., inasmuch as no Christian-Islamic Church exists. He is a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church; he does not control the lives of mil- lions."