Virginia Roe suddenly noticed something and stood up. It was her first shot being naked alone in front of everyone. "Either time has sped up, or we are living very, very slowly," she said.

She had apparently blossomed into a teenager, seemingly instantaneously!

Something about the Planet Soon is affecting us, Bill Tickton said.

—That's all?

"Oh, no!" Patty Thorne cried out. "No wonder people down there don't wear clothes ... They're all robots!"

"You mean, we've been naked for nothing!" Virginia laughed.

"I wouldn't call it nothing," Richard said.

"How come we didn't know before they're all robots?" Mr. Juda said, patting his belly and pulling on his trousers.

"I've been reading the Guide to the Planet Soon backwards!" Patty laughed, in no hurry to change her status.

—That's all?

Richard Roe set down the Guide to the Planet Soon, opened some place in the middle. "It's not that they're literally robots," he said. "It's more like they're creatures of habit, living out their days through an interconnected interplay of sentimental obligations, emotional routines, and intellectual burdens."

"That's all?" Linda Davis said with some amusement. "Let's see if we can go find some clothes. Will you help me, Richard?" she asked.

"The trouble with trouble is," Richard Roe said, holding a ladder for her, "people expect a sequel."

"I'll go up the ladder first," Linda Davis said, "and you keep an eye on me."

—That's all?

"Are you going to bring the directions with you?" she said, gazing back down under her freckled shoulder.

"I am my own three stooges," Mr. Juda said.

—That's all?