Like a rocket whose valves, under remote control, open and close at prearranged moments, Slothrop, at a certain level of his re-entry into sleep, stops breathing through his nose and commences breathing through his mouth. This soon grows to snores that have been known to rattle storm windows, set shutters to swinging and chandeliers into violent tintinnabulation, yes indee-eed. ... At the first of these tonight, Katje wakes up belts him in the head with a pillow.

"None of that."

"Hmm."

"I'm a light sleeper. Every time you snore, you get hit with this," waving the pillow.

No kidding, either. The routine of snore, get belted with pillow, wake up, say hmm, fall back to sleep, goes on well into the morning. "Come on," finally, "cut it out."

"Mouth-breather!" she yells. He grabs his own pillow and swings it at her. She ducks, rolls, hits the deck feinting with her pillow, backing

toward the sideboard where the booze is. He doesn't see what she has in mind till she throws her pillow and picks up the Seltzer bottle.

The what, The Seltzer Bottle? What shit is this, now? What other interesting props have They thought to plant, and what other American reflexes are They after? Where's those banana cream pies, eh?

He dangles two pillows and watches her. "One more step," she giggles. Slothrop dives in goes to hit her across the ass whereupon she lets him have it with the Seltzer bottle, natch. The pillow bursts against one marble hip, moonlight in the room is choked with feathers and down and soon with hanging spray from jets of Seltzer. Slothrop keeps trying to grab the bottle. Slippery girl squirms away, gets behind a chair. Slothrop takes the brandy decanter off of the sideboard, un-stoppers it, and flings a clear, amber, pseudopodded glob across the room twice in and out of moonlight to splash around her neck, between her black-tipped breasts, down her flanks. "Bastard," hitting him with the Seltzer again. Settling feathers cling to their skins as they chase around the bedroom, her dappled body always retreating, often in this light, even at close range, impossible to see. Slothrop keeps falling over the furniture. "Boy, when I get my hands on you!" At which point she opens the door to the sitting room, skips through, slams it again so Slothrop runs right into it, bounces off, sez shit, opens the door to find her waving a big red damask tablecloth at him.

"What's this," inquires Slothrop.

"Magic!" she cries, and tosses the tablecloth over him, precisely wrinkling folds propagating swift as crystal faults, redly through the air. "Watch closely, while I make one American lieutenant disappear."

"Quit fooling," Slothrop flailing around trying to reach the outside again. "How can I watch closely when I'm in here." He can't find an edge anyplace and feels a little panicky.

"That's the idea," suddenly inside, next to him, lips at his nipples, hands fluttering among the hairs at the back of his neck, pulling him slowly to deep carpeting, "My little chickadee."

"Where'd you see that one, hey? Remember when he gets in bed w-with that goat?

"Oh, don't ask ..." This time it is a good-natured coordinated quickie, both kind of drowsy, covered with sticky feathers . . . after coming they lie close together, too liquefied to move, mm, damask and pile, it's so cozy and just as red as a womb in here. . . . Curled holding her feet in his, cock nestled in the warm cusp between her buttocks, Slothrop trying earnestly to breathe through his nose, they drop off to sleep.

Slothrop wakes to morning sunlight off of that Mediterranean, filtered through a palm outside the window, then red through the tablecloth, birds, water running upstairs. For a minute he lies coming awake, no hangover, still belonging Slothropless to some teeming cycle of departure and return. Katje lies, quick and warm, S'd against the S of himself, beginning to stir.

From the next room he hears the unmistakable sound of an Army belt buckle. "Somebody," he observes, catching on quickly, "must be robbing my pants." Feet patter by on the carpet, close to his head. Slothrop can hear his own small change jingling in his pockets. "Thief!" he yells, which wakes up Katje, turning to put her arms around him. Slothrop, managing now to locate the hem he couldn't find last night, scoots from under the tablecloth just in time to see a large foot in a two-tone shoe, Coffee and indigo, vanish out the door. He runs into the bedroom, finds everything else he had on is gone too, down to shoes and skivvies.

"My clothes!" running back out past Katje now emerging from the damask and making a grab for his feet. Slothrop flings open the door, runs out in the hall, recollects that he is naked here, spots a laundry cart and grabs a purple satin bedsheet off of it, drapes it around him in a sort of toga. From the stairway comes a snicker and the pad-pad of crepe soles. "Aha!" cries Slothrop charging down the hall. The slippery sheet will not stay on. It flaps, slides off, gets underfoot. Up the stairs two at a time, only to find at the top another corridor, just as empty. Where is everybody?

From way down the hall, a tiny head appears around a corner, a tiny hand comes out and gives Slothrop the tiny finger. Unpleasant laughter reaches him a split second later, by which time he's sprinting toward it. At the stairs, he hears footsteps heading down. The Great Purple Kite races cursing down three flights, out a door and onto a little terrace, just in time to see somebody hop over a stone balustrade and vanish into the upper half of a thick tree, growing up from somewhere below. "Treed at last!" cries Slothrop.

First you have to get into the tree, then you can climb it easy as a ladder. Once inside, surrounded by pungent leaflight, Slothrop can't see farther than a couple of limbs. The tree is shaking though, so he reckons that that thief is in here someplace. Industriously he climbs on, sheet catching and tearing, skin stuck by needles, scraped by bark. His feet hurt. He's soon out of breath. Gradually the cone of green light narrows, grows brighter. Close to the top, Slothrop notes a saw-cut or something partway through the trunk, but doesn't stop to pon-

der what it might mean till he's reached the very top of the tree and clings swaying, enjoying the fine view of the harbor and headland, paint-blue sea, whitecaps, storm gathering off at the horizon, the tops of people's heads moving around far below. Gee. Down the trunk he hears the sound of wood beginning to crack, and feels vibration here in his slender perch.

"Aw, hey . . ." That sneak. He climbed down the tree, not up! He's down there now, watching! They knew Slothrop would choose up, not down¡ªthey were counting on that damned American reflex all right, bad guy in a chase always heads up¡ªwhy up? and they sawed the trunk nearly through, a-and now¡ª

They? They?

"Well," opines Slothrop, "I had better, uh . . ." About then the point of the tree cracks through, and with a great rustle and whoosh, a whirl of dark branches and needles breaking him up into a few thousand sharp falling pieces, down topples Slothrop, bouncing from limb to limb, trying to hold the purple sheet over his head for a parachute. Oof. Nnhh. About halfway to the ground, terrace-level or so, he happens to look down, and there observes many senior officers in uniform and plump ladies in white batiste frocks and flowered hats. They are playing croquet. It appears Slothrop will land somewhere in their midst. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine a tropical island, a secure room, where this cannot be happening. He opens them about the time he hits the ground. In the silence, before he can even register pain, comes the loud thock of wood hitting wood. A bright-yellow striped ball conies rolling past an inch from Slothrop's nose and on out of sight, followed a second later by a burst of congratulations, ladies enthusiastic, footfalls heading his way. Seems he's, unnhh, wrenched his back a little, but doesn't much feel like moving anyhow. Presently the sky is obscured by faces of some General and Teddy Bloat, gazing curiously down.