He could remember Clara's face turned to him in the evening light with an outrageous parody of interest. He could hear himself saying, "You see, the ancients would say we are not sinning because they would disagree with the medicops that you and Helen are two completely different people, or that Conrad and I are not the same person."
Clara kissed him with an air of tentative experimentation. "Mmm, no. I can't say I care for that interpretation."
"You'd rather be sinning?"
"Definitely."
"Well, if the ancients did agree with the medicops that we are distinct from our alters, Helen and Conrad, then they would say we are sinning—but not for the same reasons the Medicorps would give."
"That," asserted Clara, "is where I get lost. If this sinning business is going to be worth anything at all, it has to be something you can identify."
Bill cut his car out of the main stream of traffic and toward the park, without interrupting his memory.
"Well, darling, I don't want to confuse you, but the medicops would say we are sinning only because you are my wife's hypoalter, and I am your husband's hyperalter—in other words, for the very reason the ancients would say we are not sinning. Furthermore, if either of us were with anyone else, the medicops would think it was perfectly all right, and so would Conrad and Helen. Provided, of course, I took a hyperalter and you took a hypoalter only."
"Of course," Clara said, and Bill hurried over the gloomy fact.
"The ancients, on the other hand, would say we are sinning because we are making love to someone we are not married to."