The Preserving Machine
Author: Philip K. Dick
Date: 1969-01-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Short Stories; Fiction; Science Fiction Fantasy; Anthologies; Collections; Classics; Speculative Fiction; American
Description: THE WEIRD & WONDERFUL WORLDS OF PHILIP K. DICK Robot psychiatrists activated by $20 coins A war veteran who keeps changing into a blob of organic jelly Business advice from the souls of the departed A machine that turns musical scores into small, furry animals A dog story that recalls Kafka's 'Investigations of a Dog' These are some of the treasures of imagination in this collection of Philip K. Dick's short fiction. They display all the uncanny inventiveness & sad, quirky humanism of his wonderful novels as well as being a testing ground for many of their later themes. Comprising: The Preserv

THE STRANGE IMAGINATION

OF PHILIP K. DICK…

Well known as one of the major science fiction novelists of the decade, Philip K. Dick has concurrently built an almost “underground” reputation for his powerful, unpredictable short stories, novelettes and novellas.

Now, in this first major collection of Dick’s shorter work, you will find:

•    Robot psychiatrists activated by twenty-dollar coins

•    The Veterans of Unnatural Wars

•    Unicephalon 40-D, the computer President of the United States

•    Deceptive “toys” sent to Earth from Ganymede

•  •  • plus time-warps, homeostatic newspapers, “web-foots” and-“crows,” unseen alien creatures among us, half-human mutations: a gallery of sparkling invention in a book you’ll never forget.

PHILIP K. DICK is perhaps best known as the author of THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, which won the Hugo Award as the best science fiction novel of 1962. His many other novels include SOLAR LOTTERY, EYE IN THE SKY, NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR, THE WORLD JONES MADE, MARTIAN TIME-SLIP, THE SIMULACRA and DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

Now in his forties, Dick was born in Chicago but has lived most of his life in the San Francisco area. “Unlike most writers I have done very little traveling, since as soon as we get outside town something vital falls out of our car. Because of my antiwar convictions I dropped out of the University of California (a state-supported college, it required ROTC).” Not long after this, he began to sell his science fiction stories to a wide variety of magazines; THE PRESERVING MACHINE contains the best of his stories written over a period of almost 20 years.

THE PRESERVING MACHINE
by PHILIP K. DICK

AN ACE BOOK

Ace Publishing Corporation

1120 Avenue of the Americas

New York, N.Y. 10036

the preserving machine

Copyright ©, 1969, by Philip K. Dick

An Ace Book. All Rights Reserved.

Printed in U.S.A.

THE PRESERVING MACHINE: Copyright © 1953 by Mercury Publications, Inc. From Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1953.

WAR GAME: Copyright © 1959 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. From Galaxy, December 1959.

UPON THE DULL EARTH: Copyright © 1954 by Quinn Publishing Co., Inc. From Beyond #9,1954.

ROOG: Copyright © 1952 by Mercury Press, Inc. From Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1953.

WAR VETERAN: Copyright © 1955 by Quinn Publishing Co., Inc. From If, March 1955.

TOP STANDBY JOB: Copyright © 1963 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Co., Inc. From Amazing, October 1963 (as Stand-By).

BEYOND LIES THE WUB: Copyright © 1952 by Fiction House, Inc. From Planet Stories, July 1952.

WE CAN REMEMBER IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE: Copyright © 1966 by Mercury Publications, Inc. From Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1966.

CAPTIVE MARKET: Copyright © 1955 by Quinn Publishing Co., Inc. From If, April 1955.

IF THERE WERE NO BENNY CEMOLI: Copyright © 1953 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. From Galaxy, December 1963.

RETREAT SYNDROME: Copyright © 1964 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. From Worlds of Tomorrow, January 1965.

THE CRAWLERS: Copyright © 1954 by Greenleaf Publications, Inc. From Imagination, July 1954.

OH, TO BE A BLOBEL!: Copyright © 1964 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. From Galaxy, February 1964.

WHAT THE DEAD MEN SAY: Copyright © 1964 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. From Worlds of Tomorrow, June 1964.

PAY FOR THE PRINTER: Copyright © 1956 by Renown Publications, Inc. From Satellite, October 1956.

CONTENTS

300

PAY FOR THE PRINTER

THE PRESERVING MACHINE

Doc Labyrinth leaned back in his lawn chair, closing his eyes gloomily. He pulled his blanket up around his knees.

“Well?” I said. I was standing by the barbecue pit, warming my hands. It was a clear cold day. The sunny Los Angeles sky was almost cloud-free. Beyond Labyrinth’s modest house a gently undulating expanse of green stretched off until it reached the mountains—a small forest that gave the illusion of wilderness within the very limits of the city. “Well?” I said. “Then the Machine did work the way you expected?”

Labyrinth did not answer. I turned around. The old man was staring moodily ahead, watching an enormous dun-colored beetle that was slowly climbing the side of his blanket. The beetle rose methodically, its face blank with dignity. It passed over the top and disappeared down the far side. We were alone again.

Labyrinth sighed and looked up at me. “Oh, it worked well enough.”

I looked after the beetle, but it was nowhere to be seen. A faint breeze eddied around me, chill and thin in the fading afternoon twilight. I moved nearer the barbecue pit.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

Doctor Labyrinth, like most people who read a great deal and who have too much time on their hands, had become convinced that our civilization was going the way of Rome. He saw, I think, the same cracks forming that had sundered the ancient world, the world of Greece and Rome; and it was his conviction that presently our world, our society, would pass away as theirs did, and a period of darkness would follow.

Now Labyrinth, having thought this, began to brood over all the fine and lovely things that would be lost in the reshuffling of societies. He thought of the art, the literature, the manners, the music, everything that would be lost. And it seemed to him that of all these grand and noble things, music would probably be the most lost, the quickest forgotten.

Music is the most perishable of things, fragile and delicate, easily destroyed.

Labyrinth worried about this, because he loved music, because he hated the idea that some day there would be no more Brahms and Mozart, no more gentle chamber music that he could dreamily associate with powdered wigs and resined bows, with long, slender candles, melting away in the gloom.

What a dry and unfortunate world it would be, without music! How dusty and unbearable.

This is how he came to think of the Preserving Machine. One evening as he sat in his living-room in his deep chair, the gramophone on low, a vision came to him. He perceived in his mind a strange sight, the last score of a Schubert trio, the last copy, dog-eared, well-thumbed, lying on the floor of some gutted place, probably a museum.

A bomber moved overhead. Bombs fell, bursting the museum to fragments, bringing the walls down in a roar of rubble and plaster. In the debris the last score disappeared, lost in the rubbish, to rot and mold.

And then, in Doc Labyrinth’s vision, he saw the score come burrowing out, like some buried mole. Quite like a mole, in fact, with claws and sharp teeth and a furious energy.

If music had that faculty, the ordinary, everyday instinct of survival which every worm and mole has, how different it would be! If music could be transformed into living creatures, animals with claws and teeth, then music might survive. If only a Machine could be built, a Machine to process musical scores into living forms.

But Doc Labyrinth was no mechanic. He made a few tentative sketches and sent them hopefully around to the research laboratories. Most of them were much too busy with war contracts, of course. But at last he found the people he wanted. A small midwestem university was delighted with his plans, and they were happy to start work on the Machine at once.

Weeks passed. At last Labyrinth received a postcard from the university. The Machine was coming along fine; in fact, it was almost finished. They had given it a trial run, feeding a couple of popular songs into it. The results? Two small mouse-like animals had come scampering out, rushing a-round the laboratory until the cat caught and ate them. But the Machine was a success.

It came to him shortly after, packed carefully in a wood crate, wired together and fully insured. He was quite excited as he set to work, taking the slats from it. Many fleeting notions must have coursed through his mind as he adjusted the controls and made ready for the first transformation. He had selected a priceless score to begin with, the score of the Mozart G Minor Quintet. For a time he turned the pages, lost in thought, his mind far away. At last he carried it to the Machine and dropped it in.

Time passed. Labyrinth stood before it, waiting nervously, apprehensive and not really certain what would greet him when he opened the compartment. He was doing a fine and tragic work, it seemed to him, preserving the music of the great composers for all eternity. What would his thanks be? What would he find? What form would this all take, before it was over?

There were many questions unanswered. The red light of the Machine was glinting, even as he meditated. The process was over, the transformation had already taken place. He opened the door.

“Good Lord!” he said. “This is very odd.”

A bird, not an animal, stepped out. The mozart bird was pretty, small and slender, with the flowing plumage of a peacock. It ran a little way across the room and then walked back to him, curious and friendly. Trembling, Doc Labyrinth bent down, his hand out. The mozart bird came near. Then, all at once, it swooped up into the air.

“Amazing,” he murmured. He coaxed the bird gently, patiently, and at last it fluttered down to him. Labyrinth stroked it for a long time, thinking. What would the rest of them be like? He could not guess. He carefully gathered up the mozart bird and put it into a box.

He was even more surprised the next day when the beethoven beetle came out, stern and dignified. That was the beetle I saw myself, climbing along his red blanket, intent and withdrawn, on some business of its own.

After that came the schubert animal. The schubert animal was silly, an adolescent sheep-creature that ran this way and that, foolish and wanting to play. Labyrinth sat down right then and there and did some heavy thinking.

Just what were survival factors? Was a flowing plume better than claws, better than sharp teeth? Labyrinth was stumped. He had expected an army of stout badger creatures, equipped with claws and scales, digging, fighting, ready to gnaw and kick. Was he getting the right thing? Yet who could say what was good for survival?—the dinosaurs had been well armed, but there were none of them left. In any case the Machine was built; it was too late to turn back, now.

Labyrinth went ahead, feeding the music of many composers into the Preserving Machine, one after another, until the woods behind his house was filled with creeping, bleating things that screamed and crashed in the night. There were many oddities that came out, creations that startled and astonished him. The brahms insect had many legs sticking in all directions, a vast, platter-shaped centipede. It was low and flat, with a coating of uniform fur. The brahms insect liked to be by itself, and it went off promptly, taking great pains to avoid the wagner animal who had come just before.

The wagner animal was large and splashed with deep colors. It seemed to have quite a temper, and Doc Labyrinth was a little afraid of it, as were the bach bugs, the round ball-like creatures, a whole flock of them, some large, some small, that had been obtained for the Forty-Eight Preludes and Fugues. And there was the Stravinsky bird, made up of curious fragments and bits, and many others besides.

So he let them go, off into the woods, and away they went, hopping and rolling and jumping as best they could. But already a sense of failure hung over him. Each time a creature came out he was astonished; he did not seem to have control over the results at all. It was out of his hands, subject to some strong, invisible law that had subtly taken over, and this worried him greatly. The creatures were bending, changing before a deep, impersonal force, a force that Labyrinth could neither see nor understand. And it made him afraid.

Labyrinth stopped talking. I waited for awhile but he did not seem to be going on. I looked around at him. The old man was staring at me in a strange, plaintive way.

“I don’t really know much more,” he said. “I haven’t been back there for a long time, back in the woods. I’m afraid to. I know something is going on, but—”

“Why don’t we both go and take a look?”

He smiled with relief. “You wouldn’t mind, would you? I was hoping you might suggest that. This business is beginning to get me down.” He pushed his blanket aside and stood up, brushing himself off. “Let’s go then.”

We walked around the side of the house and along a narrow path, into the woods. Everything was wild and chaotic, overgrown and matted, an unkempt, unattended sea of green. Doc Labyrinth went first, pushing the branches off the path, stooping and wriggling to get through.

“Quite a place,” I observed. We made our way for a time. The woods were dark and damp; it was almost sunset now, and a light mist was descending on us, drifting down through the leaves above.

“No one comes here.” The Doc stopped suddenly, looking around. “Maybe we’d better go and find my gun. I don’t want anything to happen.”

“You seem certain that things have got out of hand.” I came up beside him and we stood together. “Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”

Labyrinth looked around. He pushed some shrubbery back with his foot. “They’re all around us, everywhere, watching us. Can’t you feel it?”

I nodded absently. “What’s this?” I lifted up a heavy, moldering branch, particles of fungus breaking from it. I pushed it out of the way. A mound lay outstretched, shapeless and indistinct, half buried in the soft ground.

“What is it?” I said again. Labyrinth stared down, his face tight and forlorn. He began to kick at the mound aimlessly. I felt uncomfortable. “What is it, for heaven’s sake?” I said. “Do you know?”

Labyrinth looked slowly up at me. “It’s the schubert animal,” he murmured. “Or it was, once. There isn’t much left of it, any more.”

The schubert animal—that was the one that had rim and leaped like a puppy, silly and wanting to play. I bent down, staring at the mound, pushing a few leaves and twigs from it. It was dead all right. Its mouth was open, its body had been ripped wide. Ants and vermin were already working on it, toiling endlessly away. It had begun to stink.

“But what happened?” Labyrinth said. He shook his head. “What could have done it?”

There was a sound. We turned quickly.

For a moment we saw nothing. Then a bush moved, and for the first time we made out its form. It must have been standing there watching us all the time. The creature was immense, thin and extended, with bright, intense eyes. To me, it looked something like a coyote, but much heavier. Its coat was matted and thick, its muzzle hung partly open as it gazed at us silently, studying us as if astonished to find us there.

“The wagner animal,” Labyrinth said thickly. “But it’s changed. It’s changed. I hardly recognize it.”

The creature sniffed the air, its hackles up. Suddenly it moved back, into the shadows, and a moment later it was gone.

We stood for a while, not saying anything. At last Labyrinth stirred. “So, that’s what it was,” he said. “I can hardly believe it. But why? What—”

“Adaptation,” I said. “When you toss an ordinary house cat out it becomes wild. Or a dog.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “A dog becomes a wolf again, to stay alive. The law of the forest. I should have expected it. It happens to everything.”

I looked down at the corpse on the ground, and then around at the silent bushes. Adaptation—or maybe something worse. An idea was forming in my mind, but I said nothing, not right away.

“I’d like to see some more of them,” I said. “Some of the others. Let’s look around some more.”

He agreed. We began to poke slowly through the grass and weeds, pushing branches and foliage out of the way. I found a stick, but Labyrinth got down on his hands and knees, reaching and feeling, staring near-sightedly down.

“Even children turn into beasts,” I said. “You remember the wolf children of India? No one could believe they had been ordinary children.”

Labyrinth nodded. He was unhappy, and it was not hard to understand why. He had been wrong, mistaken in his original idea, and the consequences of it were just now beginning to become apparent to him. Music would survive as living creatures, but he had forgotten the lesson of the Garden of Eden: that once a thing has been fashioned it begins to exist on its own, and thus ceases to be the property of its creator to mold and direct as he wishes. God, watching man’s development, must have felt the same sadness—and the same humiliation—as Labyrinth, to see His creatures alter and change to meet the needs of survival.

That his musical creatures should survive could mean nothing to him any more, for the very thing he had created them to prevent, the brutalization of beautiful things, was happening in them, before his own eyes. Doc Labyrinth looked up at me suddenly, his face full of misery. He had insured their survival, all right, but in so doing he had erased any meaning, any value in it. I tried to smile a little at him, but he promptly looked away again.

“Don’t worry so much about it,” I said. “It wasn’t much of a change for the wagner animal. Wasn’t it pretty much that way anyhow, rough and temperamental? Didn’t it have a proclivity towards violence—”

I broke off. Doc Labyrinth had leaped back, jerking his hand out of the grass. He clutched his wrist, shuddering with pain.

“What is it?” I hurried over. Trembling, he held his little old hand out to me. “What is it? What happened?”

I turned the hand over. All across the back of it were marks, red cuts that swelled even as I watched. He had been stung, stung or bitten by something in the grass. I looked down, kicking the grass with my foot.

There was a stir. A little golden ball rolled quickly away, back towards the bushes. It was covered with spines like a nettle.

“Catch it!” Labyrinth cried. “Quick!”

I went after it, holding out my handkerchief, trying to avoid the spines. The sphere rolled frantically, trying to get away, but finally I got it into the handkerchief.

Labyrinth stared at the struggling handkerchief as I stood up. “I can hardly believe it,” he said. “We’d better go back to the house.”

“What is it?”

“One of the bach bugs. But it’s changed…”

We made our way back along the path, towards the house, feeling our way through the darkness. I went first, pushing the branches aside, and Labyrinth followed behind, moody and withdrawn, rubbing his hand from time to time.

We entered the yard and went up the back steps of the house, onto the porch. Labyrinth unlocked the door and we went into the kitchen. He snapped on the light and hurried to the sink to bathe his hand.

I took an empty fruit jar from the cupboard and carefully dropped the bach bug into it. The golden ball rolled testily around as I clamped the lid on. I sat down at the table. Neither of us spoke, Labyrinth at the sink, running cold water over his stung hand, I at the table, uncomfortably watching the golden ball in the fruit jar trying to find some way to escape.

“Well?” I said at last.

“There’s no doubt.” Labyrinth came over and sat down opposite me. “It’s undergone some metamorphosis. It certainly didn’t have poisoned spines to start with. You know, it’s a good thing that I played my Noah role carefully.”

“What do you mean?”

“I made them all neuter. They can’t reproduce. There will be no second generation. When these die, that will be the end of it.”

“I must say I’m glad you thought of that.”

“I wonder,” Labyrinth murmured. “I wonder how it would sound, now, this way.”

“What?”

“The sphere, the bach bug. That’s the real test, isn’t it? I could put it back through the Machine. We could see. Do you want to find out?”

“Whatever you say, Doc,” I said. “It’s up to you. But don’t get your hopes up too far.”

He picked up the fruit jar carefully and we walked downstairs, down the steep flights of steps to the cellar. I made out an immense column of dull metal rising up in the comer, by the laundry tubs. A strange feeling went through me. It was the Preserving Machine.

“So this is it,” I said.

“Yes, this is it.” Labyrinth turned the controls on and worked with them for a time. At last he took the jar and held it over the hopper. He removed the lid carefully, and the bach bug dropped reluctantly from the jar, into the Machine. Labyrinth closed the hopper after it.

“Here we go,” he said. He threw the control and the Machine’ began to operate. Labyrinth folded his arms and we waited. Outside the night came on, shutting out the light, squeezing it out of existence. At last an indicator on the face of the Machine blinked red. The Doc turned the control to off and we stood in silence, neither of us wanting to be the one who opened it.

“Well?” I said finally. “Which one of us is going to look?”

Labyrinth stirred. He pushed the slot-piece aside and reached into the Machine. His fingers came out grasping a slim sheet, a score of music. He handed it to me. “This is the result,” he said. “We can go upstairs and play it.”

We went back up, to the music room, Labyrinth sat down before the grand piano and I passed him back the score. He opened it and studied it for a moment, his face blank, without expression. Then he began to play.

I listened to the music. It was hideous. I have never heard anything like it. It was distorted, diabolical, without sense or meaning, except, perhaps, an alien, disconcerting meaning that should never have been there. I could believe only with the greatest effort that it had once been a Bach Fugue, part of a most orderly and respected work.

“That settles it,” Labyrinth said. He stood up, took the score in his hands, and tore it to shreds.

As we made our way down the path to my car I said, “I guess the struggle for survival is a force bigger than any human ethos. It makes our precious morals and manners look a little thin.”

Labyrinth agreed. “Perhaps nothing can be done, then, to save those manners and morals.”

“Only time will tell,” I said. “Even though this method failed, some other may work; something that we can’t foresee or predict now may come along, some day.”

I said good night and got into my car. It was pitch dark; night had fallen completely. I switched on my headlights and moved off down the road, driving into the utter darkness. There were no other cars in sight anywhere. I was alone, and very cold.

At the comer I stopped, slowing down to change gears. Something moved suddenly at the curb, something by the base of a huge sycamore tree, in the darkness. I peered out, trying to see what it was.

At the base of the sycamore tree a huge dun-colored beetle was building something, putting a bit of mud into place on a strange, awkward structure. I watched the beetle for a time, puzzled and curious, until at last it noticed me and stopped. The beetle turned abruptly and entered its building, snapping the door firmly shut behind it.

I drove away.

WAR GAME

In ms office at the Terran Import Bureau of Standards, the tall man gathered up the morning’s memos from their wire basket, and, seating himself at his desk, arranged them for reading. He put on his iris lenses, lit a cigarette.

“Good morning,” the first memo said in its tinny, chattery voice, as Wiseman ran his thumb along the line of pasted tape. Staring off through the open window at the parking lot, he listened to it idly. “Say look, what’s wrong with you people down there? We sent that lot of’—a pause as the speaker, the sales manager of a chain of New York department stores, found his records—“those Ganymedean toys. You realize we have to get them approved in time for die autumn buying plan, so we can get them stocked for Christmas.” Grumbling, the sales manager concluded, “War games are going to be an important item again this year. We intend to buy big.”

Wiseman ran his thumb down to the speaker’s name and title.

“Joe Hauck,” the memo-voice chattered. “Appeley’s Children’s.”

To himself, Wiseman said, “Ah.” He put down the memo, got a blank and prepared to reply. And then he said, half-aloud, “Yes, what about that lot of Ganymedean toys?”

It seemed like a long time that the testing labs had been on them. At least two weeks.

Of course, any Ganymedean products got special attention these days; the Moons had, during the last year, gotten beyond their usual state of economic greed and had begun—according to intelligence circles—mulling overt military action against competitive interests, of which the Inner Three planets could be called the foremost element. But so far nothing had shown up. Exports remained of adequate quality, with no special jokers, no toxic paint to be licked off, no capsules of bacteria.

And yet…

Any group of people as inventive as the Ganymedeans could be expected to show creativity in whatever field they entered. Subversion would be tackled like any other venture—with imagination and a flair for wit.

Wiseman got to his feet and left his office, in the direction of the separate building in which the testing labs operated.

Surrounded by half-disassembled consumers’ products, Pinario looked up to see his boss, Leon Wiseman, shutting the final door of the lab.

“I’m glad you came down,” Pinario said, although actually he was stalling; he knew that he was at least five days behind in his work, and this session was going to mean trouble. “Better put on a prophylaxis suit—don’t want to take risks.” He spoke pleasantly, but Wiseman’s expression remained dour.

“I’m here about those inner-citadel-storming shock troops at six dollars a set,” Wiseman said, strolling among the stacks of many-sized unopened products waiting to be tested and released.

“Oh, that set of Ganymedean toy soldiers,” Pinario said with relief. His conscience was clear on that item; every tester in the labs knew the special instructions handed down by the Cheyenne Government on the Dangers of Contamination from Culture Particles Hostile to Innocent Urban Populations, a typically muddy ukase from officialdom. He could always—legitimately—fall back and cite the number of that directive. “I’ve got them off by themselves,” he said, walking over to accompany Wiseman, “due to the special danger involved.”

“Let’s have a look,” Wiseman said. “Do you believe there’s anything in this caution, or is it more paranoia about ‘alien milieux’?”

Pinario said, “It’s justified, especially where children’s artifacts are concerned.”

A few hand-signals, and a slab of wall exposed a side room.

Propped up in the center was a sight that caused Wiseman to halt. A plastic life-size dummy of a child, perhaps five years in appearance, wearing ordinary clothes, sat surrounded by toys. At this moment, the dummy was saying, “I’m tired of that. Do something else.” It paused a short time, and then repeated, “I’m tired of that. Do something else.”

The toys on the floor, triggered to respond to oral instructions, gave up their various occupations, and started afresh.

“It saves on labor costs,” Pinario explained. “This is a crop of junk that’s got an entire repertoire to go through, before the buyer has his money’s worth. If we stuck around to keep them active, we’d be in here all the time.”

Directly before the dummy was the group of Ganymedean soldiers, plus the citadel which they had been built to storm. They had been sneaking up on it in an elaborate pattern, but, at the dummy’s utterance, they had halted. Now they were regrouping.

“You’re getting this all on tape?” Wiseman asked.

“Oh, yes,” Pinario said.

The model soldiers stood approximately six inches high, made from the almost indestructible thermoplastic compounds that the Ganymedean manufacturers were famous for. Their uniforms were synthetic, a hodgepodge of various military costumes from the Moons and nearby planets. The citadel itself, a block of ominous dark metallike stuff, resembled a legendary fort; peep-holes dotted its upper surfaces, a drawbridge had been drawn up out of sight, and from the top turret a gaudy flag waved.

With a whistling pop, the citadel fired a projectile at its attackers. The projectile exploded in a cloud of harmless smoke and noise, among a cluster of soldiers.

“It fights back,” Wiseman observed.

“But ultimately it loses,” Pinario said. “It has to. Psychologically speaking, it symbolizes the external reality. The dozen soldiers, of course, represent to the child his own efforts to cope. By participating in the storming of the citadel, the child undergoes a sense of adequacy in dealing with the harsh world. Eventually he prevails, but only after a painstaking period of effort and patience.” He added, “Anyhow, that’s what the instruction booklet says.” He handed Wiseman the booklet.

Glancing over the booklet, Wiseman asked, “And their pattern of assault varies each time?”

“We’ve had it running for eight days now. The same pattern hasn’t cropped up twice. Well, you’ve got quite a few units involved.”

The soldiers were sneaking around, gradually nearing the citadel. On the walls, a number of monitoring devices appeared and began tracking the soldiers. Utilizing other toys being tested, the soldiers concealed themselves.

“They can incorporate accidental configurations of terrain,” Pinario explained. “They’re object-tropic; when they see, for example, a dollhouse here for testing, they climb into it like mice. They’ll be all through it.” To prove his point, he picked up a large toy spaceship manufactured by a Uranian company; shaking it, he spilled two soldiers from it.

“How many times do they take the citadel,” Wiseman asked, “on a percentage basis?”

“So far, they’ve been successful one out of nine tries. There’s an adjustment in the back of the citadel. You can set it for a higher yield of successful tries.”

He threaded a path through the advancing soldiers; Wiseman accompanied him, and they bent down to inspect the citadel.

“This is actually the power supply,” Pinario said. “Cunning. Also, the instructions to the soldiers emanate from it. High-frequency transmission, from a shot-box.”

Opening the back of the citadel, he showed his boss the container of shot. Each shot was an instruction iota. For an assault pattern, the shot were tossed up, vibrated, allowed to settle in a new sequence. Randomness was thereby achieved. But since there was a finite number of shot, there had to be a finite number of patterns.

“We’re trying them all,” Pinario said.

“And there’s no way to speed it up?”

“It’ll just have to take time. It may run through a thousand patterns and then—”

“The next one,” Wiseman finished, “may have them make a ninety-degree turn and start firing at die nearest human being.”

Pinario said somberly, “Or worse. There’re a good deal of ergs in that power pack. It’s made to put out for five years. But if it all went into something simultaneously—”

“Keep testing,” Wiseman said.

They looked at each other and then at the citadel. The soldiers had by now almost reached it. Suddenly one wall of the citadel flapped down; a gun-muzzle appeared, and the soldiers had been flattened.

“I never saw that before,” Pinario murmured.

For a moment nothing stirred. And then the lab’s child-dummy, seated among its toys, said, “I’m tired of that. Do something else.”

With a tremor of uneasiness, the two men watched the soldiers pick themselves up and regroup.

Two days later, Wiseman’s superior, a heavyset, short, angry man with popping eyes, appeared in his office. “Listen,” Fowler said, “you get those damn toys out of testing. I’ll give you until tomorrow.” He started back out, but Wiseman stopped him.

“This is too serious,” he said. “Come down to the lab and I’ll show you.”

Arguing all the way, Fowler accompanied him to the lab. “You have no concept of the capital some of these firms have invested in this stuff!” he was saying as they entered. “For every product you’ve got represented here, there’s a ship or a warehouse full on Luna, waiting for official clearance so it can come in!”

Pinario was nowhere in sight. So Wiseman used his key, bypassing the hand-signals that opened up the testing room.

There, surrounded by toys, sat the dummy that the lab men had built. Around it the numerous toys went through their cycles. The racket made Fowler wince.

“This is the item in particular,” Wiseman said, bending down by the citadel. A soldier was in the process of squirming on his belly toward it. “As you can see, there are a dozen soldiers. Given that many, and the energy available to them, plus the complex instruction data—”

Fowler interrupted, “I see only eleven.”

“One’s probably hiding,” Wiseman said.

From behind them, a voice said, “No, he’s right.” Pinario, a rigid expression on his face, appeared. “I’ve been having a search made. One is gone.”

The three men were silent.

“Maybe the citadel destroyed him,” Wiseman finally suggested.

Pinario said, “There’s a law of matter dealing with that. If it ‘destroyed’ him—what did it do with the remainsP”

“Possibly converted him into energy,” Fowler said, examining the citadel and the remaining soldiers.

“We did something ingenious,” Pinario said, “when we realized that a soldier was gone. We weighed the remaining eleven plus the citadel. Their combined weight is exactly equal to that of the original set—the original dozen soldiers and the citadel. So he’s in there somewhere.” He pointed at the citadel, which at the moment was pinpointing the soldiers advancing toward it.

Studying the citadel, Wiseman had a deep intuitive feeling. It had changed. It was, in some manner, different.

“Run your tapes,” Wiseman said.

“What?” asked Pinario, and then he flushed. “Of course.” Going to the child-dummy, he shut it off, opened it, and removed the drum of video recording tape. Shakily, he carried it to the projector.

They sat watching the recording sequences flash by: one assault after another, until the three of them were bleary-eyed. The soldiers advanced, retreated, were fired on, picked themselves up, advanced again…

“Stop the transport,” Wiseman said suddenly.

The last sequence was rerun.

A soldier moved steadily toward the base of the citadel. A missile, fired at him, exploded and for a time obscured him. Meanwhile, the other eleven soldiers scurried in a wild attempt to mount the walls. The soldier emerged from the cloud of dust and continued. He reached the wall. A section slid back.

The soldier, blending with the dingy wall of the citadel, used the end of his rifle as a screwdriver to remove his head, then one arm, then both legs. The disassembled pieces were passed into the aperture of the citadel. When only the arm and rifle remained, that, too, crawled into the citadel, worming blindly, and vanished. The aperture slid out of existence.

After a long time, Fowler said in a hoarse voice, “The presumption by the parent would be that the child had lost or destroyed one of the soldiers. Gradually the set would dwindle—with the child getting the blame.”

Pinario said, “What do you recommend?”

“Keep it in action,” Fowler said, with a nod from Wiseman. “Let it work out* its cycle. But don’t leave it alone.”

“I’ll have somebody in die room with it from now on,” Pinario agreed.

“Better yet, stay with it yourself,” Fowler said.

To himself, Wiseman thought: Maybe we all better stay with it. At least two of us, Pinario and myself.

I wonder what it did with the pieces, he thought.

What did it make?

By the end of the week, the citadel had absorbed four more of the soldiers.

Watching it through a monitor, Wiseman could see in it no visible change. Naturally. The growth would be strictly internal, down out of sight.

On and on the eternal assaults, the soldiers wriggling up, the citadel firing in defense. Meanwhile, he had before him a new series of Ganymedean products. More recent children’s toys to be inspected.

“Now what?” he asked himself.

The first was an apparently simple item: a cowboy costume from the ancient American West. At least, so it was described. But he paid only cursory attention to the brochure: the hell with what the Ganymedeans had to say about it.

Opening the box, he laid out the costume. The fabric had a gray, amorphous quality. What a miserably bad job, he thought. It only vaguely resembled a cowboy suit; the lines seemed unformed, hesitant. And the material stretched out of shape as he handled it. He found that he had pulled an entire section of it into a pocket that hung down.

“I don’t get it,” he said to Pinario. “This won’t sell.”

“Put it on,” Pinario said. “You’ll see.”

With effort, Wiseman managed to squeeze himself into the suit. “Is it safe?” he asked.

“Yes,” Pinario said. “I had it on earlier. This is a more benign idea. But it could be effective. To start it into action, you fantasize.”

“Along what lines?”

“Any lines.”

The suit made Wiseman think of cowboys, and so he imagined to himself that he was back at the ranch, trudging along the gravel road by the field in which black-faced sheep munched hay with that odd, rapid grinding motion of their lower jaws. He had stopped at the fence—barbed wire and occasional upright posts—and watched the sheep. Then, without warning, the sheep lined up and headed off, in the direction of a shaded hillside beyond his range of vision.

He saw trees, Cyprus growing against the skyline. A chicken hawk, far up, flapped its wings in a pumping action .…as if, he thought, it’s filling itself with more air, to rise higher. The hawk glided energetically off, then sailed at a leisurely pace. Wiseman looked for a sign of its prey. Nothing but the dry midsummer fields munched flat by the sheep. Frequent grasshoppers. And, on the road itself, a toad. The toad had burrowed into the loose dirt; only its top part was visible.

As he bent down, trying to get up enough courage to touch the warty top of the toad’s head, a man’s voice said nearby him, “How do you like it?”

“Fine,” Wiseman said. He took a deep breath of the dry grass smell; he filled his lungs. “Hey, how do you tell a female toad from a male toad? By the spots, or what?”

“Why?” asked the man, standing behind him slightly out of sight.

“I’ve got a toad here.”

“Just for the record,” the man said, “can I ask you a couple of questions?”

“Sure,” Wiseman said.

“How old are you?”

That was easy. “Ten years and four months,” he said, with pride.

“Where exactly are you, at this moment?”

“Out in the country, Mr. Gaylord’s ranch, where my dad takes me and my mother every weekend when we can.”

“Turn around and look at me,” the man said. “And tell me if you know me.”

With reluctance, he turned from the half-buried toad to look. He saw an adult with a thin face and a long, somewhat irregular nose. “You’re the man who delivers the butane gas,” he said. “For the butane company.” He glanced around, and sure enough, there was the truck, parked by the butane gate. “My dad says butane is expensive, but there’s no other—”

The man broke in, “Just for the sake of curiosity, what’s the name of the butane company?”

“It’s right on the truck,” Wiseman said, reading the large painted letters. “Pinario Butane Distributors, Petaluma, California. You’re Mr. Pinario.”

“Would you be willing to swear that you’re ten years old, standing in a field near Petaluma, California?” Mr. Pinario asked.

“Sure.” He could see, beyond the field, a range of wooded hills. Now he wanted to investigate them; he was tired of standing around gabbing. “I’ll see you,” he said, starting off. “I have to go get some hiking done.”

He started running, away from Mr. Pinario, down the gravel road. Grasshoppers leaped away, ahead of him. Gasping, he ran faster and faster.

“Leon!” Mr. Pinario called after him. “You might as well give up! Stop running!”

“I’ve got business in those hills,” Wiseman panted, still fogging along. Suddenly something struck him full force; he sprawled on his hands, tried to get back up. In the dry midday air, something shimmered; he felt fear and pulled away from it. A shape formed, a flat wall…

“You won’t get to those hills,” Mr. Pinario said, from behind him. “Better stay in roughly one place. Otherwise you collide with things.”

Wiseman’s hands were damp with blood; he had cut himself falling. In bewilderment, he stared down at the blood…

Pinario helped him out of the cowboy suit, saying, “It’s as unwholesome a toy as you could want. A short period with it on, and the child would be unable to face contemporary reality. Look at you.”

Standing with difficulty, Wiseman inspected the suit; Pinario had forcibly taken it from him.

“Not bad,” he said in a trembling voice. “It obviously stimulates the withdrawal tendencies already present. I know I’ve always had a latent retreat fantasy toward my childhood. That particular period, when we lived in the country.”

“Notice how you incorporated real elements into it,” Pinario said, “to keep the fantasy going as long as possible. If you’d had time, you would have figured a way of incorporating the lab wall into it, possibly as the side of a bam.”

Wiseman admitted, “I—already had started to see the old dairy building, where the farmers brought their market milk.”

“In time,” Pinario said, “it would have been next to impossible to get you out of it.”

To himself, Wiseman thought, If it could do that to an adult, just imagine the effect on a child.

“That other thing you have there,” Pinario said, “that game, it’s a screwball notion. You feel like looking at it now? It can wait.”

“I’m okay,” Wiseman said. He picked up the third item and began to open it.

“A lot like the old game of Monopoly,” Pinario said. “It’s called Syndrome.”

The game consisted of a board, plus play money, dice, pieces to represent the players. And stock certificates.

“You acquire stock,” Pinario said, “same as in all this kind, obviously.” He didn’t even bother to look at the instructions. “Let’s get Fowler down here and play a hand; it takes at least three.”

Shortly, they had the Division Director with them. The three men seated themselves at a table, the game of Syndrome in the center.

“Each player starts out equal with the others,” Pinario explained, “same as all this type, and during the play, their statuses change according to the worth of the stock they acquire in various economic syndromes.”

The syndromes were represented by small, bright plastic objects, much like the archaic hotels and houses of Monopoly.

They threw the dice, moved their counters along the board, bid for and acquired property, paid fines, collected fines, went to the “decontamination chamber” for a period. Meanwhile, behind them, the seven model soldiers crept up on the citadel again and again.

“I’m tired of that,” the child-dummy said. “Do something else.”

The soldiers regrouped. Once more they started out, getting nearer and nearer the citadel.

Restless and irritable, Wiseman said, “I wonder how long that damn thing has to go on before we find out what it’s for.”

“No telling.” Pinario eyed a purple-and-gold share of stock that Fowler had acquired. “I can use that,” he said. “That’s a heavy uranium mine stock on Pluto. What do you want for it?”

“Valuable property,” Fowler murmured, consulting his other stocks. “I might make a trade, though.”

How can I concentrate on a game, Wiseman asked himself, when that thing is getting closer and nearer to—God knows what? To whatever it was built to reach. Its critical mass, he thought.

“Just a second,” he said in a slow, careful voice. He put down his hand of stocks. “Could that citadel be a pile?”

“Pile of what?” Fowler asked, concerned with his hand.

Wiseman said loudly, “Forget this game.”

“An interesting idea,” Pinario said, also putting down his hand. “It’s constructing itself into an atomic bomb, piece by piece. Adding until—” He broke off. “No, we thought of that. There’re no heavy elements present in it. It’s simply a five-year battery, plus a number of small machines controlled by instructions broadcast from the battery itself. You can’t make an atomic pile out of that.”

“In my opinion,” Wiseman said, “we’d be safer getting it out of here.” His experience with the cowboy suit had given him a great deal more respect for the Ganymedean artificers. And if the suit was the benign one…

Fowler, looking past his shoulder, said, “There are only six soldiers now.”

Both Wiseman and Pinario got up instantly. Fowler was right. Only half of the set of soldiers remained. One more had reached the citadel and been incorporated.

“Let’s get a bomb expert from the Military Services in here,” Wiseman said, “and let him check it. This is out of our department.” He turned to his boss, Fowler. “Don’t you agree?”

Fowler said, “Let’s finish this game first.”

“Why?”

“Because we want to be certain about it,” Fowler said. But his rapt interest showed that he had gotten emotionally involved and wanted to play to the end of the game. “What will you give me for this share of Pluto stock? I’m open to offers.”

He and Pinario negotiated a trade. The game continued for another hour. At last, all three of them could see that Fowler was gaining control of the various stocks. He had five mining syndromes, plus two plastics firms, an algae monopoly, and all seven of the retail trading syndromes.

Due to his control of the stock, he had, as a byproduct, gotten most of the money.

“I’m out,” Pinario said. All he had left were minor shares which controlled nothing. “Anybody want to buy these?” With his last remaining money, Wiseman bid for the shares. He got them and resumed playing, this time against Fowler alone.

“It’s clear that this game is a replica of typical interculture economic ventures,” Wiseman said. “The retail trading syndromes are obviously Ganymedean holdings.”

A flicker of excitement stirred in him; he had gotten a couple of good throws with the dice and was in a position to add a share to his meager holdings. “Children playing this would acquire a healthy attitude toward economic realities. It would prepare them for the adult world.”

But a few minutes later, he landed on an enormous tract of Fowler holdings, and the fine wiped out his resources. He had to give up two shares of stock; the end was in sight.

Pinario, watching the soldiers advance toward the citadel, said, “You know, Leon, I’m inclined to agree with you. This thing may be one terminal of a bomb. A receiving station of some kind. When it’s completely wired up, it might bring in a surge of power transmitted from Ganymede.”

“Is such a thing possible?” Fowler asked, stacking his play money into different denominations.

“Who knows what they can do?” Pinario said, wandering around with his hands in his pockets. “Are you almost finished playing?”

“Just about,” Wiseman said.

“The reason I say that,” Pinario said, “is that now there’re only five soldiers. It’s speeding up. It took a week for the first one, and only an hour for the seventh. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest go within the next two hours, all five of them.”

“We’re finished,” Fowler said. He had acquired the last share of stock and the last dollar.

Wiseman arose from the table, leaving Fowler. “I’ll call Military Services to check the citadel. About this game, though, it’s nothing but a steal from our Terran game Monopoly.”

“Possibly they don’t realize that we have the game already,” Fowler said, “under another name.”

A stamp of admissibility was placed on the game of Syndrome and the importer was informed. In his office, Wiseman called Military Services and told them what he wanted.

“A bomb expert will be right over,” the unhurried voice at the other end of the line said. “Probably you should leave the object alone until he arrives.”

Feeling somewhat useless, Wiseman thanked the clerk and hung up. They had failed to dope out the soldiers-and-citadel war game; now it was out of their hands.

The bomb expert was a young man, with close-cropped hair, who smiled friendlily at them as he set down his equipment. He wore ordinary coveralls, with no protective devices.

“My first advice,” he said, after he had looked the citadel over, “is to disconnect the leads from the battery. Or, if you want, we can let the cycle finish out, and then disconnect the leads before any reaction takes place. In other words, allow the last mobile elements to enter the citadel. Then, as soon as they’re inside, we disconnect the leads and open her up and see what’s been taking place.”

“Is it safe?” Wiseman asked.

“I think so,” the bomb expert said. “I don’t detect any sign of radioactivity in it.” He seated himself on the floor, by the rear of the citadel, with a pair of cutting pliers in his hand.

Now only three soldiers remained.

“It shouldn’t be long,” the young man said cheerfully.

Fifteen minutes later, one of the three soldiers crept up to the base of the citadel, removed his head, arm, legs, body, and disappeared piecemeal into the opening provided for him.

“That leaves two,” Fowler said.

Ten minutes later, one of the two remaining soldiers followed the one ahead of him.

The four men looked at each other. “This is almost it,” Pinario said huskily.

The last remaining soldier wove his way toward the citadel. Guns within the citadel fired at him, but he continued to make progress.

“Statistically speaking,” Wiseman said aloud, to break some of the tension, “it should take longer each time, because there are fewer men for it to concentrate on. It should have started out fast, then got more infrequent until finally this last soldier should put in at least a month trying to—”

“Pipe down,” the young bomb expert said in a quiet, reasonable voice. “If you don’t mind.”

The last of the twelve soldiers reached the base of the citadel. Like those before him, he began to disassemble himself.

“Get those pliers ready,” Pinario grated.

The parts of the soldier traveled into the citadel. The opening began to close. From within, a humming became audible, a rising pitch of activity.

“Now, for God’s sake!” Fowler cried.

The young bomb expert reached down his pliers and cut into the positive lead of the battery. A spark flashed from the pliers and the young bomb expert jumped reflexively; the pliers flew from his hands and skidded across the floor. “Jeez!” he said. “I must have been grounded.” Groggily, he groped about for the pliers.

“You were touching the frame of the thing,” Pinario said excitedly. He grabbed the pliers himself and crouched down, fumbling for the lead. “Maybe if I wrap a handkerchief around it,” he muttered, withdrawing the pliers and fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief. “Anybody got anything I can wrap around this? I don’t want to get knocked flat. No telling how many—”

“Give it to me,” Wiseman demanded, snatching the pliers from him. He shoved Pinario aside and closed the jaws of the pliers about the lead.

Fowler said calmly, “Too late.”

Wiseman hardly heard his superior’s voice; he heard the constant tone within his head, and he put up his hands to his ears, futilely trying to shut it out. Now it seemed to pass directly from the citadel through his skull, transmitted by the bone. We stalled around too long, he thought. Now it has us. It won out because there are too many of us; we got to squabbling …

Within his mind, a voice said, “Congratulations. By your fortitude, you have been successful.”

A vast feeling pervaded him then, a sense of accomplishment.

“The odds against you were tremendous,” the voice inside his mind continued. “Anyone else would have failed.”

He knew then that everything was all right. They had been wrong.

“What you have done here,” the voice declared, “you can continue to do all your life. You can always triumph over adversaries. By patience and persistence, you can win out. The universe isn’t such an overwhelming place, after all…” No, he realized with irony, it wasn’t.

“They are just ordinary persons,” the voice soothed. “So even though you’re the only one, an individual against many, you have nothing to fear. Give it time—and don’t worry.”

“I won’t,” he said aloud.

The humming receded. The voice was gone.

After a long pause, Fowler said, “It’s over.”

“I don’t get it,” Pinario said.

“That was what it was supposed to do,” Wiseman said. “It’s a therapeutic toy. Helps give the child confidence. The disassembling of the soldiers”—he grinned—“ends the separation between him and the world. He becomes one with it. And, in doing so, conquers it.”

“Then it’s harmless,” Fowler said.

“All this work for nothing,” Pinario groused. To the bomb expert, he said, “I’m sorry we got you up here for nothing.” The citadel had now opened its gates wide. Twelve soldiers, once more intact, issued forth. The cycle was complete; the assault could begin again.

Suddenly Wiseman said, “I’m not going to release it.”

“What?” Pinario said. “Why not?”

“I don’t trust it,” Wiseman said. “It’s too complicated for what it actually does.”

“Explain,” Fowler demanded.

“There’s nothing to explain,” Wiseman said. “Here’s this immensely intricate gadget, and all it does is take itself apart and then reassemble itself. There must be more, even if we can’t—”

“It’s therapeutic,” Pinario put in.

Fowler said, “I’ll leave it up to you, Leon. If you have doubts, then don’t release it. We can’t be too careful.” .

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Wiseman said, “but I keep thinking to myself: What did they actually build this for? I feel we still don’t know.”

“And the American Cowboy Suit,” Pinario added. “You don’t want to release that either.”

“Only the game,” Wiseman said. “Syndrome, or whatever it’s called.” Bending down, he watched the soldiers as they hustled toward the citadel. Bursts of smoke, again…activity, feigned attacks, careful withdrawals…

“What are you thinking?” Pinario asked, scrutinizing him.

“Maybe it’s a diversion,” Wiseman said. “To keep our minds involved. So we won’t notice something else.” That was his intuition, but he couldn’t pin it down. “A red herring,” he said. “While something else takes place. That’s why it’s so complicated. We were supposed to suspect it. That’s why they built it.”

Baffled, he put his foot down in front of a soldier. The soldier took refuge behind his shoe, hiding from the monitors of the citadel.

“There must be something right before our eyes,” Fowler said, “that we’re not noticing.”

“Yes.” Wiseman wondered if they would ever find it. “Anyhow,” he said, “were keeping it here, where we can observe it.”

Seating himself nearby, he prepared to watch the soldiers. He made himself comfortable for a long, long wait.

At six o’clock that evening, Joe Hauck, the sales manager for Appeley’s Children’s Store, parked his car before his house, got out, and strode up the stairs.

Under his arm he carried a large flat package, a “sample” that he had appropriated.

“Hey!” his two kids, Bobby and Lora, squealed as he let himself in. “You got something for us, Dad?” They crowded around him, blocking his path. In the kitchen, his wife looked up from the table and put down her magazine.

“A new game I picked up for you,” Hauck said. He unwrapped the package, feeling genial. There was no reason why he shouldn’t help himself to one of the new games; he had been on the phone for weeks, getting the stuff through Import Standards—and after all was said and done, only one of the three items had been cleared.

As the kids went off with the game, his wife said in a low voice, “More corruption in high places.” She had always disapproved of his bringing home items from the store’s stock.

“We’ve got thousands of them,” Hauck said. “A warehouse full. Nobody’ll notice one missing.”

At the dinner table, during the meal, the kids scrupulously studied every word of the instructions that accompanied the game. They were aware of nothing else.

“Don’t read at the table,” Mrs, Hauck said reprovingly.

Leaning back in his chair, Joe Hauck continued his account of the day. “And after all that time, what did they release? One lousy item. We’ll be lucky if we can push enough to make a profit. It was that Shock Troop gimmick that would really have paid off. And that’s tied up indefinitely.”

He lit a cigarette and relaxed, feeling the peacefulness of his home, the presence of his wife and children.

His daughter said, “Dad, do you want to play? It says the more who play, the better.”

“Sure,” Joe Hauck said.

While his wife cleared the table, he and his children spread out the board, counters, dice and paper money and shares of stock. Almost at once he was deep in the game, totally involved; his childhood memories of game-playing swam back, and he acquired shares of stock with cunning and originality, until, toward the conclusion of the game, he had cornered most of the syndromes.

He settled back with a sigh of contentment. “That’s that,” he declared to his children. “Afraid I had a head start. After all, I’m not new to this type of game.” Getting hold of the valuable holdings on the board filled him with a powerful sense of satisfaction. “Sorry to have to win, kids.”

His daughter said, “You didn’t win.”

“You lost,” his son said.

“What?” Joe Hauck exclaimed.

“The person who winds up with the most stock loses,” Lora said.

She showed him the instructions. “See? The idea is to get rid of your stocks. Dad, you’re out of the game.”

“The heck with that,” Hauck said, disappointed. “That’s no kind of game.” His satisfaction vanished. “That’s no fun.”

“Now we two have to play out the game,” Bobby said, “to see who finally wins.”

As he got up from the board, Joe Hauck grumbled, “I don’t get it. What would anybody see in a game where the winner winds up with nothing at all?”

Behind him, his two children continued to play. As stock and money changed hands, the children became more and more animated. When the game entered its final stages, the children were in a state of ecstatic concentration.

“They don’t know Monopoly,” Hauck said to himself, “so this screwball game doesn’t seem strange to them.”

Anyhow, the important thing was that the kids enjoyed playing Syndrome; evidently it would sell, and that was what mattered. Already the two youngsters were learning the naturalness of surrendering their holdings. They gave up their stocks and money avidly, with a land of trembling abandon.

Glancing up, her eyes bright, Lora said, “It’s the best educational toy you ever brought home, Dad!”

UPON THE DULL EARTH

Silvia ran laughing through the night brightness, between the roses and cosmos and Shasta daisies, down the gravel paths and beyond the heaps of sweet-tasting grass swept from the lawns. Stars, caught in pools of water, glittered everywhere, as she brushed through them to the slope beyond the brick wall. Cedars supported the sky and ignored the slim shape squeezing past, her brown hair flying, her eyes flashing.

“Wait for me,” Rick complained, as he cautiously threaded his way after her, along the half familiar path. Silvia danced on without stopping. “Slow down!” he shouted angrily.

“Can’t—we’re late.” Without warning, Silvia appeared in front of him, blocking the path. “Empty your pockets,” she gasped, her gray eyes sparkling. “Throw away all metal. You know they can’t stand metal.”

Rick searched his pockets. In his overcoat were two dimes * and a fifty-cent piece. “Do these count?”

“Yes!” Silvia snatched the coins and threw them into the dark heaps of calla lilies. The bits of metal hissed into the moist depths and were gone. “Anything else?” She caught hold of his arm anxiously. “They’re already on their way. Anything else, Rick?”

“Just my watch.” Rick pulled his wrist away as Silvia’s wild fingers snatched for the watch. “That’s not going in the bushes.”

“Then lay it on the sundial—or the wall. Or in a hollow tree.” Silvia raced off again. Her excited, rapturous voice danced back to him. “Throw away your cigarette case. And your keys, your belt buckle—everything metal. You know how they hate metal. Hurry, we’re late!”

Rick followed sullenly after her. “All right, witch.”

Silvia snapped at him furiously from the darkness. “Don’t say that! It isn’t true. You’ve been listening to my sisters and my mother and—”

Her words were drowned out by the sound. Distant flapping, a long way off, like vast leaves rustling in a winter storm. The night sky was alive with the frantic poundings; they were coming very quickly this time. They were too greedy, too desperately eager to wait. Flickers of fear touched the man and he ran to catch up with Silvia.

Silvia was a tiny column of green skirt and blouse in the center of the thrashing mass. She was pushing them away with one arm and trying to manage the faucet with the other. The churning activity of wings and bodies twisted her like a reed. For a time she was lost from sight.

“Rick!” she called faintly. “Come here and help!” She pushed them away and struggled up. “They’re suffocating me!”

Rick fought his way through the wall of flashing white to the edge of the trough. They were drinking greedily at the blood that spilled from the wooden faucet. He pulled Silvia close against him; she was terrified and trembling. He held her tight until some of the violence and fury around them had died down.

“They’re hungry,” Silvia gasped feebly.

“You’re a little cretin for coming ahead. They can sear you to ash!”

“I know. They can do anything.” She shuddered, excited and frightened. “Look at them,” she whispered, her voice husky with awe. “Look at the size of them—their wingspread. And they’re white, Rick. Spotless—perfect. There’s nothing in our world as spotless as that. Great and clean and wonderful.”

“They certainly wanted the lamb’s blood.”

Silvia’s soft hair blew against his face as the wings fluttered on all sides. They were leaving now, roaring up into the sky. Not up, really—away. Back to their own world whence they had scented the blood. But it was not only the blood—they had come because of Silvia. She had attracted them.

The girl’s gray eyes were wide. She reached up towards the rising white creatures. One of them swooped close. Grass and flowers sizzled as blinding white flames roared in a brief - fountain. Rick scrambled away. The flaming figure hovered momentarily over Silvia and then there was a hollow pop. The last of the white-winged giants was gone. The air, the ground, gradually cooled into darkness and silence.

“I’m sorry,” Silvia whispered.

“Don’t do it again,” Rick managed. He was numb with shock. “It isn’t safe.”

“Sometimes I forget. I’m sorry, Rick. I didn’t mean to draw them so close.” She tried to smile. “I haven’t been that careless in months. Not since that other time, when I first brought you out here.” The avid, wild look slid across her face. “Did you see him? Power and flames! And he didn’t even touch us. He just—looked at us. That was all. And everything’s burned up, all around.”

Rick grabbed hold of her. “Listen,” he grated. “You mustn’t call them again. It’s wrong. This isn’t their world.”

“It’s not wrong—it’s beautiful.”

“It’s not safe!” His fingers dug into her flesh until she gasped. “Stop tempting them down here!”

Silvia laughed hysterically. She pulled away from him, out into the blasted circle that the horde of angels had seared behind them as they rose into the sky. “I can’t help it,” she cried. “I belong with them. They’re my family, my people. Generations of them, back into the past.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re my ancestors. And some day I’ll join them.”

“You are a little witch!” Rick shouted furiously.

“No,” Silvia answered. “Not a witch, Rick. Don’t you see? I’m a saint.”

The kitchen was warm and bright. Silvia plugged in the Silex and got a big red can of coffee down from the cupboards over the sink. “You mustn’t listen to them,” she said, as she set out plates and cups and got cream from the refrigerator. “You know they don’t understand. Look at them in there.”

Silvia’s mother and her sisters, Betty Lou and Jean, stood huddled together in the living-room, fearful and alert, watching the young couple in the kitchen. Walter Everett was standing by the fireplace, his face blank, remote.

“Listen to me,” Rick said. “You have this power to attract them. You mean you’re not—isn’t Walter your real father?”

“Oh, yes—of course he is. I’m completely human. Don’t I look human?”

“But you’re the only one who has the power.”

“I’m not physically different,” Silvia said thoughtfully. “I have the ability to see, that’s all. Others have had it before me—saints, martyrs. When I was a child, my mother read to me about St. Bernadette. Remember where her cave was? Near a hospital. They were hovering there and she saw one of them.”

“But the blood! It’s grotesque. There never was anything like that.”

“Oh, yes. The blood draws them, lamb’s blood especially. They hover over battlefields. Valkyries—carrying off the dead to Valhalla. That’s why saints and martyrs cut and mutilate themselves. You know where I got the idea?”

Silvia fastened a little apron around her waist and filled the Silex with coffee. “When I was nine years old, I read of. it in Homer, in the Odyssey. Ulysses dug a trench in the ground and filled it with blood to attract the spirits. The shades from the nether world.”

“That’s right,” Rick admitted reluctantly. “I remember.”

“The ghosts of people who died. They had lived once. Everybody lives here, then dies and goes there.” Her face glowed. “We’re all going to have wings! We’re all going to fly. We’ll all be filled with fire and power. We won’t be worms any more.”

“Worms I That’s what you always call me.”

“Of course you’re a worm. We’re all worms—grubby worms creeping over the crust of the Earth, through dust and dirt.”

“Why should blood bring them?”

“Because it’s life and they’re attracted by life. Blood is uisge beatha — the water of life.”

“Blood means death! A trough of spilled blood…”

“It’s not death. When you see a caterpillar crawl into its cocoon, do you think it’s dying?”

Walter Everett was standing in the doorway. He stood listening to his daughter, his face dark. “One day,” he said hoarsely, “they’re going to grab her and carry her off. She wants to go with them. She’s waiting for that day.”

“You see?” Silvia said to Rick. “He doesn’t understand either.” She shut off the Silex and poured coffee. “Coffee for you?” she asked her father.

“No,” Everett said.

“Silvia,” Rick said, as if speaking to a child, “if you went away with them, you know you couldn’t come back to us.”

“We all have to cross sooner or later. It’s all part of our life.”

“But you’re only nineteen,” Rick pleaded. “You’re young and healthy and beautiful. And our marriage—what about our marriage?” He half rose from the table. “Silvia, you’ve got to stop this!”

“I can’t stop it. I was seven when I saw them first.” Silvia stood by the sink, gripping the Silex, a faraway look in her eyes. “Remember, Daddy? We were living back in Chicago. It was winter. I fell, walking home from school.” She held up a slim arm. “See the scar? I fell and cut myself on the gravel and slush. I came home crying—it was sleeting and the wind was howling around me. My arm was bleeding and my mitten was soaked with blood. And then I looked up and saw them.”

There was silence.

“They want you,” Everett said wretchedly. “They’re flies—bluebottles, hovering around, waiting for you. Calling you to come along with them.”

“Why not?” Silvia’s gray eyes were shining and her cheeks radiated joy and anticipation. “You’ve seen them, Daddy. You know what it means. Transfiguration—from clay into gods!”

Rick left the kitchen. In the living-room, the two sisters stood together, curious and uneasy. Mrs. Everett stood by herself, her face granite-hard, eyes bleak behind her steel-rimmed glasses. She turned away as Rick passed them.

“What happened out there?” Betty Lou asked him in a taut whisper. She was fifteen, skinny and plain, hollow cheeked, with mousy, sand-colored hair. “Silvia never lets us come out with her.”

“Nothing happened,” Rick answered.

Anger stirred the girl’s barren face. “That’s not true. You were both out in the garden, in the dark, and—”

“Don’t talk to him!” her mother snapped. She yanked the two girls away and shot Rick a glare of hatred and misery. Then she turned quickly from him.

Rick opened the door to the basement and switched on the light. He descended slowly into the cold, damp room of concrete and dirt, with its unwinking yellow light hanging from dust-covered wires overhead.

In one comer loomed the big floor furnace with its mammoth hot air pipes. Beside it stood the water heater and discarded bundles, boxes of books, newspapers and old furniture, thick with dust, encrusted with strings of spider webs.

At the far end were the washing machine and spin dryer. And Silvia’s pump and refrigeration system.

From the work bench Rick selected a hammer and two heavy pipe wrenches. He was moving towards the elaborate tanks and pipes when Silvia appeared abruptly at the top of the stairs, her coffee cup in one hand.

She hurried quickly down to him. “What are you doing down here?” she asked, studying him intently. “Why that hammer and those two wrenches?”

Rick dropped the tools back onto the bench. “I thought maybe this could be solved on the spot.”

Silvia moved between him and the tanks. “I thought you understood. They’ve always been a part of my life. When I brought you with me the first time, you seemed to see what—”

“I don’t want to lose you,” Rick said harshly, “to anybody or anything—in this world or any other. I’m not going to give you up.”

“It’s not giving me up!” Her eyes narrowed. “You came down here to destroy and break everything. The moment I’m not looking you’ll smash all this, won’t you?”

“That’s right.”

Fear replaced anger on the girl’s face. “Do you want me to be chained here? I have to go on—I’m through with this part of the journey. I’ve stayed here long enough.”

“Can’t you wait?” Rick demanded furiously. He couldn’t keep the ragged edge of despair out of his voice. “Doesn’t it come soon enough anyhow?”

Silvia shrugged and turned away, her arms folded, her red lips tight together. “You want to be a worm always. A fuzzy, little creeping caterpillar.”

“I want you.”

“You can’t have me!” She whirled angrily. “I don’t have any time to waste with this.”

“You have higher things in mind,” Rick said savagely.

“Of course.” She softened a little. “I’m sorry, Rick. Remember Icarus? You want to fly, too. I know it.”

“In my time.”

“Why not now? Why wait? You’re afraid.” She slid lithely away from him, cunning twisting her red lips. “Rick, I want to show you something. Promise me first—you won’t tell anybody.”

“What is it?”

“Promise?” She put her hand to his mouth. “I have to be careful. It cost a lost of money. Nobody knows about it. It’s what they do in China—everything goes towards it.”

“I’m curious,” Rick said. Uneasiness flicked at him. “Show it to me.”

Trembling with excitement, Silvia disappeared behind the huge lumbering refrigerator, back into the darkness behind the web of frost-hard freezing coils. He could hear her tugging and pulling at something. Scraping sounds, sounds of something large being dragged out.

“See?” Silvia gasped. “Give me a hand, Rick. It’s heavy. Hardwood and brass—and metal lined. It’s hand-stained and polished. And the carving—see the carving! Isn’t it beautiful?”

“What is it?” Rick demanded huskily.

“It’s my cocoon,” Silvia said simply. She settled down in a contented heap on the floor, and rested her head happily against the polished oak coffin.

Rick grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to her feet. “You can’t sit with that coffin, down here in the basement with—” He broke off. “What’s the matter?”

Silvia’s face was twisting with pain. She backed away from him and put her finger quickly to her mouth. “I cut myself—when you pulled me up—on a nail or something.” A thin trickle of blood oozed down her fingers. She groped in her pocket for a handkerchief.

“Let me see it.” He moved towards her, but she avoided him. “Is it bad?” he demanded.

“Stay away from me,” Silvia whispered.

“What’s wrong? Let me see itl”

“Rick,” Silvia said in a low intense voice, “get some water and adhesive tape. As quickly as possible.” She was trying to keep down her rising terror. “I have to stop the bleeding.”

“Upstairs?” He moved awkwardly away. “It doesn’t look too bad. Why don’t you…”

“Hurry.” The girl’s voice was suddenly bleak with fear. “Rick, hurry!”

Confused, he ran a few steps.

Silvia’s terror poured after him. “No, it’s too late,” she called thinly. “Don’t come back—keep away from me. It’s my own fault. I trained them to come. Keep away! I’m sorry, Rick. Oh—” Her voice was lost to him, as the wall of the basement burst and shattered. A cloud of luminous white forced its way through and blazed out into the basement.

It was Silvia they were after. She ran a few hesitant steps towards Rick, halted uncertainly, then the white mass of bodies and wings settled around her. She shrieked once. Then a violent explosion blasted the basement into a shimmering dance of furnace heat.

He was thrown to the floor. The cement was hot and dry—the whole basement crackled with heat. Windows shattered as pulsing white shapes pushed out again. Smoke and flames licked up the walls. The ceiling sagged and rained plaster down.

Rick struggled to his feet. The furious activity was dying away. The basement was a littered chaos. All surfaces were scorched black, seared and crusted with smoking ash. Splintered wood, tom cloth and broken concrete were strewn everywhere. The furnace and washing machine were in ruins. The elaborate pumping and refrigeration system—now a glittering mass of slag. One whole wall had been twisted aside. Plaster was rubbled over everything.

Silvia was a twisted heap, arms and legs doubled grotesquely. Shriveled, carbonized remains of fire-scorched ash, settling in a vague mound. What had been left behind were charred fragments, a brittle burned-out husk.

It was a dark night, cold and intense. A few stars glittered like ice from above his head. A faint, dank wind stirred through the dripping calla lilies and whipped gravel up in a frigid mist along the path between the black roses.

He crouched for a long time, listening and watching. Behind the cedars, the big house loomed against the sky. At the bottom of the slope a few cars slithered along the highway. Otherwise, there was no sound. Ahead of him jutted the squat outline of the porcelain trough and the pipe that had carried blood from the refrigerator in the basement. The trough was empty and dry, except for a few leaves that had fallen in it.

Rick took a deep breath of thin night air and held it. Then he got stiffly to his feet. He scanned the sky, but saw no movement. They were there, though, watching and waiting-dim shadows, echoing into the legendary past, a line of god-figures.

He picked up the heavy gallon drums, dragged them to the trough and poured blood from a New Jersey abattoir, cheap-grade steer refuse, thick and clotted. It splashed against his clothes and he backed away nervously. But nothing stirred in the air above. The garden was silent, drenched with night fog and darkness.

He stood beside the trough, waiting and wondering if they were coming. They had come for Silvia, not merely for the blood. Without her there was no attraction but the raw food. He carried the empty metal cans over to the bushes and kicked them down the slope. He searched his pockets carefully, to make sure there was no metal on him.

Over the years, Silvia had nourished their habit of coming. Now she was on the other side. Did that mean they wouldn’t come? Somewhere in the damp bushes something rustled. An animal or a bird?

In the trough the blood glistened, heavy and dull, like old lead. It was their time to come, but nothing stirred the great trees above. He picked out the rows of nodding black roses, the gravel path down which he and Silvia had run—violently he shut out the recent memory of her flashing eyes and deep red lips. The highway beyond the slope—the empty, deserted garden—the silent house in which her family huddled and waited. After a time, there was a dull, swishing sound. He tensed, but it was only a diesel truck lumbering along the highway, headlights blazing.

He stood grimly, his feet apart, his heels dug into the soft black ground. He wasn’t leaving. He was staying there until they came. He wanted her back—at any cost.

Overhead, foggy webs of moisture drifted across the moon. The sky was a vast barren plain, without life or warmth. The deathly cold of deep space, away from suns and living things. He gazed up until his neck ached. Cold stars, sliding in and out of the matted layer of fog. Was there anything else? Didn’t they want to come, or weren’t they interested in him? It had been Silvia who had interested them—now they had her.

Behind him there was a movement without sound. He sensed it and started to turn, but suddenly, on all sides, the trees and undergrowth shifted. Like cardboard props they wavered and ran together, blending dully in the night shadows. Something moved through them, rapidly, silently, then was gone.

They had come. He could feel them. They had shut off their power and flame. Cold, indifferent statues, rising among the trees, dwarfing the cedars—remote from him and his world, attracted by curiosity and mild habit.

“Silvia,” he said clearly. “Which are you?”

There was no response. Perhaps she wasn’t among them. He felt foolish. A vague flicker of white drifted past the trough, hovered momentarily and then went on without stopping. The air above the trough vibrated, then died into immobility, as another giant inspected briefly and withdrew.

Panic breathed through him. They were leaving again, receding back into their own world. The trough had been rejected; they weren’t interested.

“Wait,” he muttered thickly.

Some of the white shadows lingered. He approached them slowly, wary of their flickering immensity. If one of them touched him, he would sizzle briefly and puff into a dark heap of ash. A few feet away he halted.

“You know what I want,” he said. “I want her back. She shouldn’t have been taken yet.”

Silence.

“You were too greedy,” he said. “You did the wrong thing. She was going to come over to you, eventually. She had it all worked out.”

The dark fog rustled. Among the trees the flickering shapes stirred and pulsed, responsive to his voice. “True,” came a detached impersonal sound. The sound drifted around him, from tree to tree, without location or direction. It was swept off by the night wind to die into dim echoes.

Relief settled over him. They had paused—they were aware of him—listening to what he had to say.

“You think it’s right?” he demanded. “She had a long life here. We were to marry, have children.”

There was no answer, but he was conscious of a growing tension. He listened intently, but he couldn’t make out anything. Presently he realized a struggle was taking place, a conflict among them. The tension grew—more shapes flickered—the clouds, the icy stars, were obscured by the vast presence swelling around him.

“Rick!” A voice spoke close by. Wavering, drifting back into the dim regions of the trees and dripping plants. He could hardly hear it—the words were gone as soon as they were spoken. “Rick—help me get back.”

“Where are you?” He couldn’t locate her. “What can I do?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice was wild with bewilderment and pain. “I don’t understand. Something went wrong. They must have thought I—wanted to come right away. I didn’t/”

“I know,” Rick said. “It was an accident.”

“They were waiting. The cocoon, the trough—but it was too soon.” Her terror came across to him, from the vague distances of another universe. “Rick, I’ve changed my mind. I want to come back.”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“I know. Rick, time is different on this side. I’ve been gone so long—your world seems to creep along. It’s been years, hasn’t it?”

“One week,” Rick said.

“It was their fault. You don’t blame me, do you? They know they did the wrong thing. Those who did it have been punished, but that doesn’t help me.” Misery and panic distorted her voice so he could hardly understand her. “How can I come back?”

“Don’t they know?”

“They say it can’t be done.” Her voice trembled. “They say they destroyed the clay part—it was incinerated. There’s nothing for me to go back to.”

Rick took a deep breath. “Make them find some other way. It’s up to them. Don’t they have the power? They took you over too soon—they must send you back. It’s their responsibility.”

The white shapes shifted uneasily. The conflict rose sharply; they couldn’t agree. Rick warily moved back a few paces.

“They say it’s dangerous.” Silvia’s voice came from no particular spot. “They say it was attempted once.” She tried to control her voice. “The nexus between this world and yours is unstable. There are vast amounts of free-floating energy. The power we—on this side—have isn’t really our own. It’s a universal energy, tapped and controlled.”

“Why can’t they…”

“This is a higher continuum. There’s a natural process of energy from lower to higher regions. But the reverse process is risky. The blood—it’s a sort of guide to follow—a bright marker.”

“Like moths around a light bulb,” Rick said bitterly.

“If they send me back and something goes wrong—” She broke off and then continued, “If they make a mistake, I might be lost between the two regions. I might be absorbed by the free energy. It seems to be partly alive. It’s not understood. Remember Prometheus and the fire…”

“I see,” Rick said, as calmly as he could.

“Darling, if they try to send me back, I’ll have to find some shape to enter. You see, I don’t exactly have a shape any more. There’s no real material form on this side. What you see, the wings and the whiteness, are not really there. If I succeeded in making the trip back to your side…”

“You’d have to mold something,” Rick said.

“I’d have to take something there—something of clay. I’d have to enter it and reshape it. As He did a long time ago, when the original form was put on your world.”

“If they did it once, they can do it again.”

“The One who did that is gone. He passed on upward.” There was unhappy irony in her voice. “There are regions beyond this. The ladder doesn’t stop here. Nobody knows where it ends, it just seems to keep on going up and up. World after world.”

“Who decides about you?” Rick demanded.

“It’s up to me,” Silvia said faintly. “They say, if I want to take the chance, they’ll try it.”

“What do you think you’ll do?” he asked.

“I’m afraid. What if something goes wrong? You haven’t seen it, the region between. The possibilities there are incredible—they terrify me. He was the only one with enough courage. Everyone else has been afraid.”

“It was their fault. They have to take responsibility.”

“They know that.” Silvia hesitated miserably. “Rick, dar- ’ ling, please tell me what to do.”

“Come back!”

Silence. Then her voice, thin and pathetic. “All right, Rick. If you think that’s the right thing.”

“It is,” .he said firmly. He forced his mind not to think, not to picture or imagine anything. He had to have her back. “Tell them to get started now. Tell them—”

A deafening crack of heat burst in front of him. He was lifted up and tossed into a flaming sea of pure energy. They were leaving and the scalding lake of sheer power bellowed and thundered around him. For a split second he thought he glimpsed Silvia, her hands reaching imploringly towards him.

Then the fire cooled and he lay blinded in dripping, night-moistened darkness. Alone in the silence.

Walter Everett was helping him up. “You damn fool!” he was saying, again and again. “You shouldn’t have brought them back. They’ve got enough from us.”

Then he was in the big, warm living-room. Mrs. Everett stood silently in front of him, her face hard and expressionless. The two daughters hovered anxiously around him, fluttering and curious, eyes wide with morbid fascination.

“I’ll be all right,” Rick muttered. His clothing was charred and blacked. He rubbed black ash from his face. Bits of dried grass stuck to his hair—they had seared a circle around him as they’d ascended. He lay back against the couch and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Betty Lou Everett was forcing a glass of water into his hand. “Thanks,” he muttered.

“You should never have gone out there,” Walter Everett repeated. “Why? Why’d you do it? You know what happened to her. You want the same thing to happen to you?”

“I want her back,” Rick said quietly.

“Are you mad? You can’t get her back. She’s gone.” His lips twitched convulsively. “You saw her.”

Betty Lou was gazing at Rick intently. “What happened out there?” she demanded. “They came again, didn’t they?” Rick got heavily to his feet and left the living-room. In the kitchen he emptied the water in the sink and poured himself a drink. While he was leaning warily against the sink, Betty Lou appeared in the doorway.

“What do you want?” Rick demanded.

The girl’s face was flushed an unhealthy red. “I know something happened out there. You were feeding them, weren’t you?” She advanced towards him. “You’re trying to get her back?”

“That’s right,” Rick said.

Betty Lou giggled nervously. “But you can’t. She’s deadlier body’s been cremated—I saw it.” Her face worked excitedly. “Daddy always said that something bad would happen to her, and it did.” She leaned close to Rick. “She was a witch! She got what she deserved!”

“She’s coming back,” Rick said.

“No!” Panic stirred the girl’s drab features. “She can’t come back. She’s dead—like she always said—worm into butterfly—she’s a butterfly!”

“Go inside,” Rick said.

“You can’t order me around,” Betty Lou answered. Her voice rose hysterically. “This is my house. We don’t want you around here any more. Daddy’s going to tell you. He doesn’t want you and I don’t want you and my mother and sister…”

The change came without warning. Like a film gone dead. Betty Lou froze, her mouth half open, one arm raised, her words dead on her tongue. She was suspended, an instantly lifeless thing raised off the floor, as if caught between two slides of glass. A vacant insect, without speech or sound, inert and hollow. Not dead, but abruptly thinned back to primordial inanimacy.

Into the captured shell filtered new potency and being. It settled over her, a rainbow of life that poured into place eagerly—like hot fluid—into every part of her. The girl stumbled and moaned; her body jerked violently and pitched against the wall. A china teacup tumbled from an overhead shelf and smashed on the floor. The girl retreated numbly, one hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with pain and shock.

“Oh!” she gasped. “I cut myself.” She shook her head and-gazed up mutely at him, appealing to him. “On a nail or something.”

“Silvia!” He caught hold of her and dragged her to her feet, away from the wall. It was her arm he gripped, warm and full and mature. Stunned gray eyes, brown hair, quivering breasts—she was now as she had been those last moments in the basment.

“Let’s see it,” he said. He tore her hand from her mouth and shakily examined her finger. There was no cut, only a thin white line rapidly dimming. “It’s all right, honey. You’re all right. There’s nothing wrong with you!”

“Rick, I was over there.” Her voice was husky and faint. “They came and dragged me across with them.” She shuddered violently. “Rick, am I actually back?”

He crushed her tight. “Completely back.”

“It was so long. I was over there a century. Endless ages. I thought—” Suddenly she pulled away. “Rick…”

“What is it?”

Silvia’s face was wild with fear. “There’s something wrong.”

“There’s nothing wrong. You’ve come back home and that’s all that matters.”

Silvia retreated from him. “But they took a living form, didn’t they? Not discarded clay. They don’t have the power, Rick. They altered His work instead.” Her voice rose in panic. “A mistake—they should have known better than to alter the balance. It’s unstable and none of them can control the…”

Rick blocked the doorway. “Stop talking like that!” he said fiercely. “It’s worth it—anything’s worth it. If they set things out of balance, it’s their own fault.”

“We can’t turn it back!” Her voice rose shrilly, thin and hard, like drawn wire. “We’ve set it in motion, started the waves lapping out. The balance He set up is altered,”

“Come on, darling,” Rick said. “Let’s go and sit in the living-room with your family. You’ll feel better. You’ll have to try to recover from this.”

They approached the three seated figures,- two on the couch, one in the straight chair by the fireplace. The figures sat motionless, their faces blank, their bodies limp and waxen, dulled forms that did not respond as the couple entered the room.

Rick halted, uncomprehending. Walter Everett was slumped forward, newspaper in one hand, slippers on his feet; his pipe was still smoking in the deep ashtray on the arm of his chair. Mrs. Everett sat with a lapful of sewing, her face grim and stem, but strangely vague. An unformed face, as if the material were melting and running together.

Jean sat huddled in a shapeless heap, a ball of clay wadded up, more formless each moment.

Abruptly Jean collapsed. Her arms fell loose beside her. Her head sagged. Her body, her arms and legs filled out. Her features altered rapidly. Her clothing changed. Colors flowed in her hair, her eyes, her skin. The waxen pallor was gone.

Pressing her fingers to her lips she gazed up at Rick mutely. She blinked and her eyes focused. “Oh,” she gasped. Her lips moved awkwardly; the voice was faint and uneven, like a poor sound track. She struggled up jerkily, with uncoordinated movements that propelled her stiffly to her feet and towards him—one awkward step at a time—like a wire dummy.

“Rick, I cut myself,” she said. “On a nail or something.”

What had been Mrs. Everett stirred. Shapeless and vague, it made dull sounds and flopped grotesquely. Gradually it hardened and shaped itself. “My finger,” its voice gasped feebly. Like mirror echoes dimming off into darkness, the third figure in the easy chair took up the words. Soon, they were all of them repeating the phrase, four fingers, their lips moving in unison.

“My finger. I cut myself, Rick.”

Parrot reflections, receding mimicries of words and movement. And the settling shapes were familiar in every detail. Again and again, repeated around him, twice on the couch, in the easy chair, close beside him—so close he could hear her breathe and see her trembling lips.

“What is it?” the Silvia beside him asked.

On the couch one Silvia resumed its sewing—she was sewing methodically, absorbed in her work. In the deep chair another took up its newspapers, its pipe and continued reading. One huddled, nervous and afraid. The one beside him followed as he retreated to the door. She was panting with uncertainty, her gray eyes wide, her nostrils flaring.

“Rick…”

He pulled the door open and made his way out onto the dark porch. Machinelike, he felt his way down the steps, through the pools of night collected everywhere, towards the driveway. In the yellow square of light behind him, Silvia was outlined, peering unhappily after him. And behind her, the other figures, identical, pure repetitions, nodding over their tasks.

He found his coupe and pulled out onto the road.

Gloomy trees and houses flashed past. He wondered how far it would go. Lapping waves spreading out—a widening circle as the imbalance spread.

He turned onto the main highway; there were soon more cars around him. He tried to see into them, but they moved too swiftly. The car ahead was a red Plymouth. A heavyset man in a blue business suit was driving, laughing merrily with the woman beside him. He pulled his own coupe up close behind the Plymouth and followed it. The man flashed gold teeth, grinned, waved his plump hands. The girl was dark-haired, pretty. She smiled at the man, adjusted her white gloves, smoothed down her hair, then rolled up the window on her side.

He lost the Plymouth. A heavy diesel truck cut in between them. Desperately he swerved around the truck and nosed in beyond the swift-moving red sedan. Presently it passed him and, for a moment, the two occupants were clearly framed. The girl resembled Silvia. The same delicate line of her small chin—the same deep lips, parting slightly when she smiled—the same slender arms and hands. It was Silvia. The Plymouth turned off and there was no other car ahead of him.

He drove for hours through the heavy night darkness. The gas gauge dropped lower and lower. Ahead of him dismal rolling countryside spread out, blank fields between towns and unwinking stars suspended in the bleak sky. Once, a cluster of red and yellow lights gleamed. An intersection-filling stations and a big neon sign. He drove on past it.

At a single-pump stand, he pulled the car off the highway, onto the oil-soaked gravel. He climbed out, his shoes crunching the stone underfoot, as he grabbed the gas hose and unscrewed the cap of his car’s tank. He had the tank almost full when the door of the drab station building opened and a slim woman in white overalls and navy shirt, with a little cap lost in her brown curls, stepped out.

“Good evening, Rick,” she said quietly.

He put back the gas hose. Then he was driving out on to the highway. Had he screwed the cap back on again? He didn’t remember. He gained speed. He had gone over a hundred miles. He was nearing the state line.

At a little roadside cafe, warm, yellow light glowed in the chill gloom of early morning. He slowed the car down and parked at the edge of the highway in the deserted parking lot. Bleary-eyed he pushed the door open and entered.

Hot, thick smells of cooking ham and black coffee surrounded him, the comfortable sight of people eating. A juke box blared in the corner. He threw himself onto a stool and hunched over, his head in his hands. A thin farmer next to him glanced at him curiously and then returned to his newspaper. Two hard-faced women across from him gazed at him momentarily. A handsome youth in denim jacket and jeans was eating red beans and rice, washing it down with steaming coffee from a heavy mug.

“What’ll it be?” the pert blonde waitress asked, a pencil behind her ear, her hair tied back in a tight bun. “Looks like you’ve got some hangover, mister.”

He ordered coffee and vegetable soup. Soon he was eating, his hands working automatically. He found himself devouring a ham and cheese sandwich; had he ordered it? The juke box blared and people came and went. There was a little town sprawled beside the road, set back in some gradual hills. Gray sunlight, cold and sterile, filtered down as morning came. He ate hot apple pie and sat wiping dully at his mouth with a paper napkin.

The caf£ was silent. Outside nothing stirred. An uneasy calm hung over everything. The juke box had ceased. None of the people at the counter stirred or spoke. An occasional truck roared past, damp and lumbering, windows rolled up tight.

When he looked up, Silvia was standing in front of him. Her arms were folded and she gazed vacantly past him. A bright yellow pencil was behind her ear. Her brown hair was tied back in a hard bun. At the comer others were sitting, other Silvias, dishes in front of them, half dozing or eating, some of them reading. Each the same as the next, except for their clothing.

He made his way back to his parked car. In half an hour he had crossed the state line. Cold, bright sunlight sparkled off dew-moist roofs and pavements as he sped through tiny unfamiliar towns.

Along the shiny morning streets he saw them moving-early risers, on their way to work. In twos and three they walked, their heels echoing in sharp silence. At bus stops he saw groups of them collected together. In the houses, rising from their beds, eating breakfast, bathing, dressing, were more of them—hundreds of them, legions without number. A town of them preparing for the day, resuming their regular tasks, as the circle widened and spread.

He left the town behind. The car slowed under him as his foot slid heavily from the gas pedal. Two of them walked across a level field together. They carried books—children on their way to school. Repetitions, unvarying and identical. A dog circled excitedly after them, unconcerned, his joy untainted.

He drove on. Ahead a city loomed, its stem columns of office buildings sharply outlined against the sky. The streets swarmed with noise and activity as he passed through the main business section. Somewhere, near the center of the city, he overtook the expanding periphery of the circle and emerged beyond. Diversity took the place of the endless figures of Silvia. Gray eyes and brown hair gave way to countless varieties of men and women, children and adults, of all ages and appearances. He increased his speed and raced out on the far side, onto the wide four-lane highway.

He finally slowed down. He was exhausted. He had driven for hours; his body was shaking with fatigue.

Ahead of him a carrot-haired youth was cheerfully thumbing a ride, a thin beanpole in brown slacks and light camel’s-hair sweater. Rick pulled to a halt and opened the front door. “Hop in,” he said.

“Thanks, buddy.” The youth hurried to the car and climbed in as Rick gathered speed. He slammed the door and settled gratefully back against the seat. “It was getting hot, standing there.”

“How far are you going?” Rick demanded.

“All the way to Chicago.” The youth grinned shyly. “Of course, I don’t expect you to drive me that far. Anything at all is appreciated.” He eyed Rick curiously. “Which way you going?”

“Anywhere,” Rick said. “I’ll drive you to Chicago.”

“It’s two hundred miles!”

“Fine,” Rick said. He steered over into the left lane and gained speed. “If you want to go to New York, I’ll drive you there.”

“You feel all right?” The youth moved away uneasily. “I sure appreciate a lift, but…’ .” He hesitated. “I mean, I don’t want to take you out of your way.”

Rick concentrated on the road ahead, his hands gripping hard around the rim of the wheel. “I’m going fast. I’m not slowing down or stopping.”

“You better be careful,” the youth warned, in a troubled voice. “I don’t want to get in an accident.”

“I’ll do the worrying.”

“But it’s dangerous. What if something happens? It’s too risky.”

“You’re wrong,” Rick muttered grimly, eyes on the road. “It’s worth the risk.”

“But if something goes wrong—” The voice broke off uncertainly and then continued, “I might be lost. It would be so easy. It’s all so unstable.” The voice trembled with worry and fear. “Rick, please…”

Rick whirled. “How do you know my name?”

The youth was crouched in a heap against the door. His face had a soft, molten look, as if it were losing its shape and sliding together in an unformed mass. “I want to come back,” he was saying, from within himself, “but I’m afraid. You haven’t seen it—the region between. It’s nothing but energy, Rick. He tapped it a long time ago, but nobody else knows how.”

The voice lightened, became clear and treble. The hair faded to a rich brown. Gray, frightened eyes flickered up at Rick. Hands frozen, he hunched over the wheel and forced himself not to move. Gradually he decreased speed and brought the car over into the right-hand lane.

“Are we stopping?” the shape beside him asked. It was Silvia’s voice now. Like a new insect, driving in the sun, the shape hardened and locked into firm reality. Silvia struggled up on the seat and peered out. “Where are we? We’re between towns.”

He jammed on the brakes, reached past her and threw open the door. “Get out!”

Silvia gazed at him uncomprehendingly. “What do you mean?” she faltered. “Rick, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“Get out!”

“Rick, I don’t’ understand.” She slid over a little. Her toes touched the pavement. “Is there something wrong with the car? I thought everything was all right.”

He gently shoved her out and slammed the door. The car leaped ahead, out into the stream of mid-morning traffic. Behind him the small, dazed figure was pulling itself up, bewildered and injured. He forced his eyes from the rearview mirror and crushed down the gas pedal with all his weight.

The radio buzzed and clicked in vague static when he snapped it briefly on. He turned the dial and, after a time, a big network station came in. A faint, puzzled voice, a woman’s voice. For a time he couldn’t make out the words. Then he recognized it and, with a pang of panic, switched the thing off.

Her voice. Murmuring plaintively. Where was the station? Chicago. The circle had already spread that far.

He slowed down. There was no point hurrying. It had already passed him by and gone on. Kansas farms—sagging stores in little old Mississippi towns—along the bleak streets of New England manufacturing cities swarms of brown-haired gray-eyed women would be hurrying.

It would cross the ocean. Soon it would take in the whole world. Africa would be strange—kraals of white-skinned young women, all exactly alike, going about the primitive chores of hunting and fruit-gathering, mashing grain, skinning animals. Building fires and weaving cloth and carefully shaping razor-sharp knives.

In China…he grinned inanely. She’d look strange there, too. In the austere high-collar suit, the almost monastic robe of the young Communist cadres. Parade marching up the main streets of Peiping. Row after row of slim-legged fullbreasted girls, with heavy Russian-made rifles. Carrying spades, picks, shovels. Columns of cloth-booted soldiers. Fast-moving workers with their precious tools. Reviewed by an identical figure on the elaborate stand overlooking the street, one slender arm raised, her gentle, pretty face expressionless and wooden.

He turned off the highway onto a side road. A moment later he was on his way back, driving slowly, listlessly, the way he had come.

At an intersection a traffic cop waded out through traffic to his car. He sat rigid, hands on the wheel, waiting numbly.

“Rick,” she whispered pleadingly as she reached the window. “Isn’t everything all right?”

“Sure,” he answered dully.

She reached in through the open window and touched him imploringly on the arm. Familiar fingers, red nails, the hand he knew so well. “I want to be with you so badly. Aren’t we together again? Aren’t I back?”

“Sure.”

She shook her head miserably. “I don’t understand,” she repeated. “I thought it was all right again.”

Savagely he put the car into motion and hurtled ahead. The intersection was left behind.

It was afternoon. He was exhausted, riddled with fatigue. He guided the car towards his own town automatically. Along the streets she hurried everywhere, on all sides. She was omnipresent. He came to his apartment building and parked.

The janitor greeted him in the empty hall. Rick indentified him by the greasy rag clutched in one hand, the big push-broom, the bucket of wood shavings. “Please,” she implored, “tell me what it is, Rick. Please tell me.”

He pushed past her, but she caught at him desperately. “Rick, I’m back. Don’t you understand? They took me too soon and then they sent me back again. It was a mistake. I won’t ever call them again—that’s all in the past.” She followed after him, down the hall to the stairs. “I’m never going to call them again.”

He climbed the stairs. Silvia hesitated, then settled down on the bottom step in a wretched, unhappy heap, a tiny figure in thick workman’s clothing and huge cleated boots.

He unlocked his apartment door and entered.

The late afternoon sky was a deep blue beyond the windows. The roofs of nearby apartment buildings sparkled white in the sun.

His body ached. He wandered clumsily into the bathroom—it seemed alien and unfamiliar, a difficult place to find. He filled the bowl with hot water, rolled up his sleeves and washed his face and hands in the swirling hot steam. Briefly, he glanced up.

It was a terrified reflection that showed out of the mirror above the bowl, a face, tear-stained and frantic. The face was difficult to catch—it seemed to waver and slide. Gray eyes, bright with terror. Trembling red mouth, pulse-fluttering throat, soft brown hair. The face gazed out pathetically—and then the girl at the bowl bent to dry herself.

She turned and moved wearily out of the bathroom into the living-room.

Confused, she hesitated, then threw herself onto a chair and closed her eyes, sick with misery and fatigue.

“Rick,” she murmured pleadingly. “Try to help me. I’m back, aren’t I?” She shook her head, bewildered. “Please, Rick, I thought everything was all right.”

ROOG

“Roog!” the dog said. He rested his paws on the top of the fence and looked around him.

The Roog came running into the yard.

It was early morning, and the sun had not really come up yet. The air was cold and gray, and the walls of the house were damp with moisture. The dog opened his jaws a little as he watched, his big black paws clutching the wood of the fence.

The Roog stood by the open gate, looking into the yard. He was a small Roog, thin and white, on wobbly legs. The Roog blinked at the dog, and the dog showed his teeth.

“Roog!” he said again. The sound echoed into the silent half darkness. Nothing moved nor stirred. The dog dropped down and walked back across the yard to the porch steps. He sat down on the bottom step and watched the Roog. The Roog glanced at him. Then he stretched his neck up to the window of the house, just above him. He sniffed at the window.

The dog came flashing across the yard. He hit the fence, and the gate shuddered and groaned. The Roog was walking quickly up the path, hurrying with funny little steps, mincing along. The dog lay down against the slats of the gate, breathing heavily, his red tongue hanging. He watched the Roog disappear.

The dog lay silently, his eyes bright and black. The day was beginning to come. The sky turned a little whiter, and from all around the sounds of people getting up echoed through the morning air. Lights popped on behind shades. In the chilly dawn a window was opened.

The dog did not move. He watched the path.

In the kitchen Mrs. Cardossi poured water into the coffee pot. Steam rose from the water, blinding her. She set the pot down on the edge of the stove and went into the pantry. When she came back Alf was standing at the door of the kitchen. He put his glasses on.

“You bring in the paper?” he said.

“It’s outside.”

Alf Cardossi walked across the kitchen. He threw the bolt on the back door and stepped out onto the porch. He looked into the gray, damp morning. At the fence Boris lay, black and furry, his tongue out.

“Put the tongue in,” Alf said. The dog looked quickly up. His tail beat against the ground. “The tongue,” Alf said. “Put the tongue in.”

The dog and the man looked at one another. The dog whined. His eyes were bright and feverish.

“Roog!” he said softly.

“What?” Alf looked around. “Someone coming? The paperboy come?”

The dog stared at him, his mouth open.

“You certainly upset these days,” Alf said. “You better take it easy. We both getting too old for excitement.”

He went inside the house.

The sun came up. The street became bright and alive with color. The postman went along the sidewalk with his letters and magazines. Some children hurried by, laughing and talking.

About 11:00, Mrs. Cardossi swept the front porch. She sniffed the air, pausing for a moment.

“It smells good today,” she said. “That means it’s going to be warm.”

In the heat of the noonday sun the black dog lay stretched out full length, under the porch. His chest rose and fell. In the cherry tree the birds were playing, squawking and chattering to each other. Once in awhile Boris raised his head and looked at them. Presently he got to his feet and trotted down under the tree.

He was standing under the tree when he saw the two Roogs sitting on the fence, watching him.

“He’s big,” the first Roog said. “Most Guardians aren’t as big as this.”

The other Roog nodded, his head wobbling on his neck. Boris watched them without moving, his body stiff and hard. The Roogs were silent, now, looking at the big dog with his shaggy ruff of white around his neck.

“How is the offering um?” the first Roog said. “Is it almost full?”

“Yes.” The other nodded. “Almost ready.”

“You, there!” th6 first Roog said, raising his voice. “Do you hear me? We’ve decided to accept the offering, this time. So you remember to let us in. No nonsense, now.”

“Don’t forget,” the other added. “It won’t be long.”

Boris said nothing.

The two Roogs leaped off the fence and went over together just beyond the walk. One of them brought out a map and they studied it.

“This area really is none too good for a first trial,” the first Roog said. “Too many Guardians…Now, the north-side area—”

“They decided,” the other Roog said. “There are so many factors—”

“Of course.” They glanced at Boris and moved back farther from the fence. He could not hear the rest of what they were saying.

Presently the Roogs put their map away and went off down the path.

Boris walked over to the fence and sniffed at the boards. He smelled the sickly, rotten odor of Roogs and the hair stood up on his back.

That night when Alf Cardossi came home the dog was standing at the gate, looking up the walk. Alf opened the gate and went into the yard.

“How are you?” he said, thumping the dog’s side. “You stopped worrying? Seems like you been nervous of late. You didn’t used to be that way.”

Boris whined, looking intently up into the man’s face.

“You a good dog, Boris,” Alf said. “You pretty big, too, for a dog. You don’t remember long ago how you used to be only a little bit of a puppy.”

Boris leaned against the man’s leg.

“You a good dog,” Alf murmured. “I sure wish I knew what is on your mind.”

He went inside the house. Mrs. Cardossi was setting the table for dinner. Alf went into the living-room and took his coat and hat off. He set his lunch pail down on the sideboard and came back into the kitchen.

“What’s the matter?” Mrs. Cardossi said.

“That dog got to stop making all that noise, barking. The neighbors going to complain to the police again.”

“I hope we don’t have to give him to your brother,” Mrs. Cardossi said, folding her arms. “But he sure goes crazy, especially on Friday morning, when the garbage men come.”

“Maybe he’ll calm down,” Alf said. He lit his pipe and smoked solemnly. “He didn’t used to be that way. Maybe he’ll get better, like he was.”

“We’ll see,” Mrs. Cardossi said.

The sun came up, cold and ominous. Mist hung over all the trees and in the low places…

It was Friday Morning.

The black dog lay under the porch, listening, his eyes wide and staring. His coat was stiff with hoarfrost and the breath from his nostrils made clouds of steam in the thin air. Suddenly he turned his head and leaped up.

From far off, a long way away, a faint sound came, a kind of crashing sound.

“Roog!” Boris cried, looking around. He hurried to the gate and stood up, his paws on the top of the fence.

In the distance the sound came again, louder now, not as far away as before. It was a crashing, clanging sound, as if something were being rolled back, as if a great door were being opened.

“Roog!” Boris cried. He stared up anxiously at the darkened windows above him. Nothing stirred, nothing And along the street the Roogs came. The Ro( and their truck moved along, bouncing against the rough stones, crashing and whirring.

“Roog!” Boris cried, and he leaped, his eyes blazing. Then he became more calm. He settled himself down on the ground and waited, listening.

Out in front the Roogs stopped their truck. He could hear them opening the doors, stepping down onto the sidewalk. Boris ran around in a little circle. He whined, and his muzzle turned once again toward the house.

Inside the wann, dark bedroom, Mr. Cardossi sat up a little in bed and squinted at the clock.

“That damn dog,” he muttered. “That damn dog.” He turned his face toward the pillow and closed his eyes.

The Roogs were coming down the path, now. The first Roog pushed against the gate and the gate opened. The Roogs came into the yard. The dog backed away from them.

“Roog! Roog!” he cried. The horrid, bitter smell of Roogs came to his nose, and he turned away.

“The offering um,” the first Roog said. “It is full, I think.” He smiled at the rigid, angry dog. “How very good of you,” hp said.

The Roogs came toward the metal can, and one of them took the lid from it.

“Roog! Roog!” Boris cried, huddled against the bottom of the porch steps. His body shook with horror. The Roogs were lifting up the big metal can, turning it on its side. The contents poured out onto the ground, and the Roogs scooped the sacks of bulging, splitting paper together, catching at the orange peels and fragments, the bits of toast and egg shells.

One of the Roogs popped an egg shell into his mouth. His teeth crunched the egg shell.

“Roog!” Boris cried hopelessly, almost to himself. The Roogs were almost finished with their work of gathering up the offering. They stopped for a moment, looking at Boris.

Then, slowly, silently, the Roogs looked up, up the side of the house, along the stucco, to the window, with its brown shade pulled tightly down.

“ROOG!” Boris screamed, and he came toward them, dancing with fury and dismay. Reluctantly, the Roogs turned away from the window. They went out through the gate, closing it behind them.

“Look at him,” the last Roog said with contempt, pulling his comer of the blanket up on his shoulder. Boris strained against the fence, his mouth open, snapping wildly. The biggest Roog began to wave his arms furiously and Boris retreated. He settled down at the bottom of the porch steps, his mouth still open, and from the depths of him an unhappy, terrible moan issued forth, a wail of misery and despair.

“Come on,” the other Roog said to the lingering Roog at the fence.

They walked up the path.

“Well, except for these little places around the Guardians, this area is well cleared,” the biggest Roog said. “I’ll be glad when this particular Guardian is done. He certainly causes us a lot of trouble.”

“Don’t be impatient,” one of the Roogs said. He grinned. “Our truck is full enough as it is. Let’s leave something for next week.”

All the Roogs laughed.

They went on up the path, carrying the offering in the dirty, sagging blanket.

WAR VETERAN

The old man sat on the park bench in the bright hot sunlight and watched the people moving back and forth.

The park was neat and clean; the lawns glittered wetly in the spray piped from a hundred shiny copper tubes. A polished robot gardener crawled here and there, weeding and plucking and gathering waste debris in its disposal slot. Children scampered and shouted. Young couples sat basking sleepily and holding hands. Groups of handsome soldiers, strolled lazily along, hands in their pockets, admiring the tanned, naked girls sunbathing around the pool. Beyond the park the roaring cars and towering needle-spires of New York sparkled and gleamed.

The old man cleared his throat and spat sullenly into the bushes. The bright hot sun annoyed him; it was too yellow and it made perspiration stream through his seedy, ragged coat. It made him conscious of his grizzled chin and missing left eye. And the deep ugly bum-scar that had seared away the flesh of one cheek. He pawed fretfully at the h-loop around his scrawny neck. He unbuttoned his coat and pulled himself upright against the glowing metal slats of the bench. Bored, lonely, bitter, he twisted around and tried to interest himself in the pastoral scene of trees and-grass and happily playing children.

Three blond-faced young soldiers sat down on the bench opposite him and began unrolling picnic lunch-cartons.

The old man’s thin rancid breath caught in his throat. Painfully, his ancient heart thudded, and for the first time in hours he came fully alive. He struggled up from his lethargy and focused his dim sight on the soldiers. The old man got out his handkerchief, mopped his sweat-oozing face, and then spoke to them.

“Nice afternoon.”

The soldiers glanced up briefly. “Yeah,” one said.

“They done a good job.” The old man indicated the yellow sun and the spires of the city. “Looks perfect.”

The soldiers said nothing. They concentrated on their cups of boiling black coffee and apple pie.

“Almost fools you,” the old man went on plaintively. “You boys with the seed teams?” he hazarded.

“No,” one of them said. “We’re rocketeers.”

The old man gripped his aluminum cane and said, “I was in demolition. Back in the old Ba-3 Squad.”

None of the soldiers responded. They were whispering among themselves. The girls on a bench farther down had noticed them.

The old man reached into his coat pocket and brought out something wrapped in gray tom tissue-paper. He unfolded it with shaking fingers and then got to his feet. Unsteadily, he crossed the gravel path to the soldiers. “See this?” He held out the object, a small square of glittering metal. “I won that back in ’87. That was before your time, I guess.”

A flicker of interest momentarily roused the young soldiers. “Hey,” one whistled appreciatively. “That’s a Crystal Disc-first class.” He raised his eyes questioningly. “You won that?” The old man cackled proudly, as he wrapped up the medal and restored it to his coat pocket. “I served under Nathan West, in the Wind Giant, It wasn’t until the final jump they took against us I got mine. But I was out there with my d-squad. You probably remember the day we set off our network, rigged all the way from—”

“Sorry,” one of the soldiers said vaguely. “We don’t go back that far. That must have been before our time.”

“Sure,” the old man agreed eagerly. “That was more than sixty years ago. You heard of Major Perati, haven’t you? How he rammed their covering fleet into a meteor cloud as they were converging for their final attack? And how the Ba-3 was able to hold them back months before they finally slammed us?” He swore bitterly. “We held them off. Until there wasn’t more’n a couple of us left. And then they came in like vultures. And what they found they—”

“Sorry, Pop.” The soldiers had got lithely up, collected their lunches, and were moving toward the bench of girls. The girls glanced at them shyly and giggled in anticipation. “We’ll see you some other time.”

The old man turned and hobbled furiously back to his own bench. Disappointed, muttering under his breath and spitting into the wet bushes, he tried to make himself comfortable. But the sun irritated him; and the noises of people and cars made him sick.

He sat on the park bench, eye half shut, wasted lips twisted in a snarl of bitterness and defeat. Nobody was interested in a decrepit half-blind old man. Nobody wanted to hear his garbled, rambling tales of the battles he had fought and strategies he had witnessed. Nobody seemed to remember the war that still burned like a twisting, corroding fire in the decaying old man’s brain. A war he longed to speak of, if he could only find listeners.

Vachel Patterson jerked his car to a halt and slammed on the emergency brake. “That’s that,” he said over his shoulder. “Make yourselves comfortable. We’re going to have a short wait.”

The scene was familiar. A thousand Earthmen in gray caps and armbands streamed along the street, chanting slogans, waving immense crude banners that were visible for blocks.

NO NEGOTIATION! TALK IS FOR TRAITORS!

ACTION IS FOR MEN! DON’T TELL THEM SHOW

THEM! A STRONG EARTH IS THE BEST

GUARANTEE OF PEACE!

In the back seat of the car Edwin LeMarr put aside his report tapes with a grunt of near-sighted surprise. “Why have we stopped? What is it?”

“Another demonstration,” Evelyn Cutter said distantly.

She leaned back and disgustedly lit a cigarette. “Same as all of them.”

The demonstration was in full swing. Men, women, youths out of school for the afternoon, marched wild-faced, excited and intense, some with signs, some with crude weapons and in partial uniform. Along the sidewalks more and more watching spectators were being tugged along. Blue-clad policemen had halted surface traffic; they stood watching indifferently, waiting for somebody to try to interfere. No-body did, of course. Nobody was that foolish.

“Why doesn’t the Directorate put a stop to this?” LeMarr demanded. “A couple of armored columns would finish this once and for all.”

Beside him, John V-Stephens laughed coldly. “The Directorate finances it, organizes it, gives it free time on the vid-net, even beats up people who complain. Look at those cops standing over there. Waiting for somebody to beat up.”

LeMarr blinked. “Patterson, is that true?”

Rage-distorted faces loomed up beyond the hood of the sleek ’64 Buick. The tramp of feet made the chrome dashboard rattle; Doctor LeMarr tugged his tapes nervously into their metal case and peered around like a frightened turtle.

“What are you worried about?” V-Stephens said harshly. “They wouldn’t touch you—you’re an Earthman. I’m the one who should be sweating.”

“They’re crazy,” LeMarr muttered. “All those morons chanting and marching—”

“They’re not morons,” Patterson answered mildly. “They’re just too trusting. They believe what they’re told, like the rest of us. The only trouble is, what they’re told isn’t true.”

He indicated one of the gigantic banners, a vast 3-D photograph that twisted and turned as it was carried forward. “Blame him. He’s the one who thinks up the lies. He’s the one who puts the pressure on the Directorate, fabricates the hate, and violence—and has the funds to sell it.”

The banner showed a stem-browed white-haired gentleman, clean-shaven and dignified. A scholarly man, heavyset, in his late fifties. Kindly blue eyes, firm jawline, an impressive and respected dignitary. Under his handsome portrait was his personal slogan, coined in a moment of inspiration.

ONLY TRAITORS COMPROMISE!

“That’s Francis Gannet,” V-Stephens said to LeMarr. “Fine figure of a man, isn’t he?” He corrected himself. “Of an Earthman”

“He looks so genteel,” Evelyn Cutter protested. “How could an intelligent-looking man like that have anything to do with this?”

V-Stephens bellowed with taut laughter. “His nice clean white hands are a lot filthier than any of those plumbers and carpenters marching out there.”

“But why—”

“Gannet and his group own Transplan Industries, a holding company that controls most of the export-import business of the inner worlds. If my people and the Martian people are given their independence they’ll start cutting into his trade. They’ll be competition. But as it stands, they’re bottled up in a cold-decked mercantile system.”

The demonstrators had reached an intersection. A group of them dropped their banners and sprouted clubs and rocks. They shouted orders, waved the others on, and then headed grimly for a small modem building that blinked the word color-ad in neon lights.

“Oh, God,” Patterson said. “They’re after the Color-Ad office.” He grabbed at the door handle, but V-Stephen stopped him.

“You can’t do anything,” V-Stephen said. “Anyhow, nobody’s in there. They usually get advance warning.”

The rioters smashed the plate-plastic windows and poured into the swank little store. The police sauntered over, arms folded, enjoying the spectacle. From the rained front office, smashed furniture was tossed out onto the sidewalks. Files, desks, chairs, vidscreens, ashtrays, even gay posters of happy life on the inner worlds. Acrid black fingers of smoke curled up as the store room was ignited by a hot-beam. Presently the rioters came streaming back out, satiated and happy.

Along the sidewalks, people watched with a variety of emotions. Some showed delight. Some a vague curiosity. But most showed fear and dismay. They backed hurriedly away as the wild-faced rioters pushed brutally past them, loaded down with stolen goods.

“See?” Patterson said. “This stuff is done by a few thousand, a Committee Gannet’s financing. Those in front are employees of Gannet’s factories, goon squads on extracurricular duty. They try to sound like Mankind, but they aren’t. They’re a noisy minority, a small bunch of hard-working fanatics.”

The demonstration was breaking up. The Color-Ad office was a dismal fire-gutted ruin; traffic had been stopped; most of downtown New York had seen the lurid slogans and heard the tramp of feet and shouted hate. People began drifting back into offices and shops, back to their daily routine.

And then the rioters saw the Venusian girl, crouched in the locked and bolted doorway.

Patterson gunned the car forward. Bucking and grinding savagely, it hurtled across the street and up on the sidewalk, toward the running knot of dark-faced hoods. The nose of the car caught the first wave of them and tossed them like leaves. The rest collided with the metal hull and tumbled down in a shapeless mass of struggling arms and legs.

The Venusian girl saw the car sliding toward her—and the Earth-people in the front seat. For a moment she crouched in paralyzed terror. Then she turned and scurried off in panic, down the sidewalk and into the milling throng that filled up the street. The rioters regrouped themselves and in an instant were after her in full cry.

“Get the webfoot!”

“Webfoots back to their own planet!”

“Earth for Earthmen!”

And beneath the chanted slogans, the ugly undercurrent of unverbalized lust and hate.

Patterson backed the car up and onto the street. His fist clamped savagely over the hom, he gunned the car after the girl, abreast with the loping rioters and then past them. A rock crashed off the rear-view window and for an instant a hail of rubbish banged and clattered. Ahead, the crowd separated aimlessly, leaving an open path for the car and the ro’-ers. No hand was lifted against the desperately running girl as she raced sobbing and panting between parked cars a-d groups of people. And nobody made a move to help her. Everybody watched dull-eyed and detached. Remote spectators viewing an event in which they had no part.

“III get her,” V-Stephens said. “Pull up in front of her and I’ll head her off.”

Patterson passed the girl and jammed on the brakes. The girl doubled off the street like a terrified hare. V-Stephens was out of the car in a single bound. He sprinted after her as she darted mindlessly back toward the rioters. He swept her up and then plunged back to the car. LeMarr and Evelyn Cutter dragged the two of them in; and Patterson sent the car bucking ahead.

A moment later he turned a comer, snapped a police rope, and passed beyond the danger zone. The roar of people, the flap-flap of feet against the pavement, died down behind them.

“It’s all right,” V-Stephens was saying gently and repeatedly to the girl. “We’re friends. Look, I’m a webfoot, too.”

The girl was huddled against the door of the car, green eyes wide with terror, thin face convulsed, knees pulled up against her stomach. She was perhaps seventeen years old. Her webbed fingers scrabbled aimlessly with the tom collar of her blouse. One shoe was missing. Her face ‘was scratched, dark hair disheveled. From her trembling mouth only vague sounds came.

LeMarr took her pulse. “Her heart’s about to pop out of her,” he muttered. From his coat he took an emergency capsule and shot a narcotic into the girl’s trembling forearm. “That’ll relax her. She’s not harmed—they didn’t get to her.”

“It’s all right,” V-Stephens murmured. “We’re doctors from the City Hospital, all but Miss Cutter, who manages the files and records. Dr. LeMarr is a neurologist, Dr. Patterson is a cancer specialist, I’m a surgeon—see my hand?” He traced the girl’s forehead with his surgeon’s hand. “And I’m a Venusian, like you. We’ll take you to the hospital and keep you there for awhile.”

“Did you see them?” LeMarr sputtered. “Nobody lifted a finger to help her. They just stood there.”

“They were afraid,” Patterson said. “They want to avoid trouble.”

“They can’t,” Evelyn Cutter said flatly. “Nobody can avoid this kind of trouble. They can’t keep standing on the sidelines watching. This isn’t a football game.”

“What’s going to happen?” the girl quavered.

“You better get off Earth,” V-Stephens said gently. “No Venusian is safe here. Get back to your own planet and stay ther” until this thing dies down.”

“Will it?” the girl gasped.

“Eventually.” V-Stephens reached down and passed her Evelyn’s cigarette. “It can’t go on like this. We have to be free.”

“Take it easy,” Evelyn said in a dangerous voice. Her eyes fader! to hostile coals. “I thought you were above all this.”

V-Stephens’ dark green face flushed. “You think I can stand idly by while my people are killed and insulted, and our interests passed over, ignored so paste-faces like Gannet can get rich on blood squeezed from—”

“Paste-face,” LeMarr echoed wonderingly. “What’s that mean Vachel?”

“That’s their word for Earthmen,” Patterson answered. “Can it, V-Stephens. As far as we’re concerned it’s not your people and our people. We’re all the same race. Your ancestors were Earthmen who settled Venus back in the late twentieth century.” (

“The changes are only minor adaptive alterations,” LeMarr assured V-Stephens. “We can still interbreed—that proves we’re the same race.”

“We can,” Evelyn Cutter said thinly. “But who wants to marry a webfoot or a crow?”

Nobody said anything for awhile. The air in the car was tense with hostility as Patterson sped toward the hospital. The Venusian girl sat crouched, smoking silently, her terrified eves on the vibrating floor.

Patterson slowed down at the checkpoint and showed his i.d. tab. The hospital guard signaled the car ahead and he picked up speed. As he put his tab away his fingers touched something clipped to the inside of his pocket. Sudden memory returned.

“Here’s something to take your mind off your troubles,” he said to V-Stephens. He tossed the sealed tube back to the webfoot. “Military fired it back this morning. Clerical error. When you’re through with it hand it over to Evelyn. It’s supposed to go to her, but I got interested.”

V-Stephens slit open the tube and spilled out the contents. It was a routine application for admission to a Government hospital stamped with the number of a war-veteran. Old sweat grimed tapes, papers torn and mutilated throughout the years. Greasy bits of metal foil that had been folded and refolded, stuffed in a shirt pocket, carried next to some filthy, hair-matted chest. “Is this important?” V-Stephens asked impatiently. “Do we have to worry over clerical trifles?”

Patterson halted the car in the hospital parking lot and turned off the motor. “Look at the number of the application,” he said, as he pushed open the car door. “When you have time to examine it you’ll find something unusual. The applicant is carrying around an old veteran’s i.d. card—with a number that hasn’t been issued yet.”

LeMarr, hopelessly baffled, looked from Evelyn Cutter to V-Stephens, but got no explanation.

The old man’s h-loop awoke him from a fitful slumber. “David Unger,” the tinny female voice repeated. “You are wanted back at the hospital. It is requested that you return to the hospital immediately.”

The old man grunted and pulled himself up with an effort. Grabbing his aluminum cane he hobbled away from his sweat-shiny bench, toward the escape ramp of the park. Just when he was getting to sleep, shutting out the too-bright sun and the shrill laughter of children and girls and young soldiers…

At the edge of the park two shapes crept furtively into the bushes. David Unger halted and stood in disbelief, as the shapes glided past him along the path.

His voice surprised him. He was screaming at the top of his lungs, shrieks of rage and revulsion that echoed through the park, among the quiet trees and lawns. “Webfoots!” be wailed. He began to run clumsily after them. “Webfoots and crows I Help! Somebody help!”

Waving his aluminum cane,’ he hobbled after the Martian and Venusian, panting wildly. People appeared, blankfaced with astonishment. A crowd formed, as the old man hurried after the terrified pair. Exhausted, he stumbled against a drinking fountain and half-fell, his cane sliding from his fingers. His shrunken face was livid; the bum-scar stood out sick and ugly against the mottled skin. His good eye was red with hate and fury. From his wasted lips saliva drooled. He waved his skinny claw-like hands futilely, as the two altereds crept into the grove of cedars toward the far end of the park.

“Stop them!” David Unger slobbered. “Don’t let them get away! What’s the matter with you? You bunch of lily-white cowards. What kind of men are you?”

“Take it easy, Pop,” a young soldier said good-naturedly. “They’re not hurting anybody.”

Unger retrieved his cane and whooshed it past the soldier’s head. “You—talker,” he snapped. “What kind of a soldier are you?” A fit of coughing choked off his words; he bent double, struggling to breathe. “In my day,” he managed to gasp, “we poured rocket fuel on them and strung them up. We mutilated them. We cut up the dirty web-foots and crows. We showed them.”

A looming cop had stopped the pair of altereds. “Get going,” he ordered ominously. “You things got no right here.” The two altereds scuttled past him. The cop leisurely raised his stick and cracked the Martian across the eyes. The brittle, thin-shelled head splintered, and the Martian careened on, blinded and in agony.

“That’s more like it,” David Unger gasped, in weak satisfaction.

“You evil dirty old man,” a woman muttered at him, face white with horror. “It’s people like you that make all this trouble.”

“What are you?” Unger snapped. “A crow-lover?”

The crowd melted and broke. Unger, grasping his cane, stumbled toward the exit ramp, muttering curses and abuse, spitting violently into the bushes and shaking his head.

He arrived at the hospital grounds still trembling with rage and resentment. “What do you want?” he demanded, as he came up to the big receiving desk in the center of the main lobby. “I don’t know what’s going on around here. First you wake me out of the first real sleep I’ve had since I got here, and then what do I see but two webfoots walking around in broad daylight, sassy as—”

“Doctor Patterson wants you,” the nurse said patiently. “Room 301.” She nodded to a robot. “Take Mr. Unger down to 301.”

The old man hobbled sullenly after the smoothly-gliding robot. “I thought all you tinmen were used up in the Europa battle of ’88,” he complained. “It don’t make sense, all these lily-white boys in uniforms. Everybody wandering around having a good time, laughing and diddling girls with nothing better to do than lie around on the grass naked. Something’s the matter. Something must be—”

“In here, sir,” the robot said, and the door of 301 slid away.

Vachel Patterson rose slightly as the old man entered and stood fuming and gripping his aluminum cane in front of the work-desk. It was the first time he had seen David Unger face to face. Each of them sized the other up intently; the thin hawk-faced old soldier and the well-dressed young doctor, black thinning hair, hom-rimmed glasses and good-natured face. Beside his desk Evelyn Cutter stood watching and listening impassively, a cigarette between her red lips, blonde hair swept back.

“I’m Doctor Patterson, and this is Miss Cutter.” Patterson toyed with the dog-eared, eroded tape strewn across his desk. “Sit down, Mr. Unger. I want to ask you a couple of questions. Some uncertainty has come up regarding one of your papers. A routine error, probably, but they’ve come back to me.”

Unger seated himself warily. “Questions and red tape. I’ve been here a week and every day it’s something. Maybe I should have just laid there in the street and died.”

“You’ve been here eight days, according to this.”

“I suppose so. If it says so there, must be true.” The old man’s thin sarcasm boiled out viciously. “Couldn’t put it down if it wasn’t true.”

“You were admitted as a war veteran. All costs of care and maintenance are covered by the Directorate.”

Unger bristled. “What’s wrong with that? I earned a little care.” He leaned toward Patterson and jabbed a crabbed finger at him. “I was in the Service when I was sixteen.

Fought and worked for Earth all my life. Would be there yet, if I hadn’t been half killed by that dirty mop-up attack of theirs. Lucky to be alive at all.” He self-consciously rubbed the livid ruin of his face. “Looks like you weren’t even in it Didn’t know there was any place got by.”

Patterson and Evelyn Cutter looked at each other. “How old are you?” Evelyn asked suddenly.

“Don’t it say?” Unger muttered furiously. “Eighty-nine.”

“And the year of your birth?”

“2154. Can’t you figure that?”

Patterson made a faint notation on the metal foil reports. “And your unit?”

At that, Unger broke loose. “The Ba-3, if maybe you’ve heard of it. Although the way things are around here, I wonder if you know there was ever a war.”

“The Ba-3,” Patterson repeated. “And you served with them how long?”

“Fifty years. Then I retired. The first time, I mean. I was sixty-six years old. Usual age. Got my pension and bit of land.”

“And they called you back?”

“Of course they called me back! Don’t you remember how the Ba-3 went back into the line, all us old guys, and damn near stopped them, that last time? You must have been just a kid, but everybody knows what we did.” Unger fumbled out his Crystal Disc first class and slammed it on the desk. “I got that. All us survivors did. All ten of us, out of thirty thousand.” He gathered the medal up with shaking fingers. “I was hurt bad. You see my face. Burned, when Nathan West’s battleship blew up. I was in the military hospital for a couple years. That was when they cracked Earth wide open.” The ancient hands clenched into futile fists. “We had to sit there, watching them turn Earth into a smoking ruin. Nothing but slag and ash, miles of death. No towns, no cities. We sat there, while their C-missiles whizzed by. Finally they got finished—and got us on Luna, too.”

Evelyn Cutter tried to speak, but no words came. At his work-desk Patterson’s face had turned chalk-white. “Continue,” he managed to mutter. “Go on talking.”

“We hung on there, subsurface, down under the Copernicus crater, while they slammed their C-missiles into us. We held out maybe five years. Then they started landing. Me and those still left took off in high-speed attack torpedoes, set up pirate bases among the outer planets.” Unger twitched restlessly. “I hate to talk about that part. Defeat, the end of everything. Why do you ask me? I helped build 3-4-9-5, the best artibase of the lot. Between Uranus and Neptune. Then I retired again. Until the dirty rats slid in and leisurely blew it to bits. Fifty thousand men, women, kids. The whole colony.”

“You escaped?” Evelyn Cutter whispered.

“Of course I escaped! I was on patrol. I got one of those webfoot ships. Shot it down and watched them die. It made me feel a little better. I moved over to 3-6-7-7 for a few years. Until it was attacked. That was early this month. I was fighting with my back to the wall.” The dirty yellow teeth glinted in agony. “No place to escape to, that time. None that I knew of.” The red-rimmed eye surveyed the luxurious office. “Didn’t know about this. You people sure done a good job fixing up your artibase. Looks almost like I remember the real Earth. A little too fast and bright; not so peaceful as Earth really was. But you even got the smell of the air the same.”

There was silence.

“Then you came here after—that colony was destroyed?” Patterson asked hoarsely.

“I guess so.” Unger shrugged wearily. “Last I remember was the bubble shattering and the air and heat and grav leaking out. Crow and webfoot ships landing everywhere. Men dying around me. I was knocked out by the concussion. The next thing I knew I was lying out in the street here, and some people were getting me to my feet, A tinman and one of your doctors took me here.”

Patterson let out a deep shuddering breath. “I see.” His fingers plucked aimlessly at the eroded, sweat-grimed i.d. papers. “Well, that explains this irregularity.”

“Ain’t it all there? Is something missing?”

“All your papers are here. Your tube was hanging around your wrist when they brought you in.”

“Naturally.” Unger’s birdlike chest swelled with pride. “I learned that when I was sixteen. Even when you’re dead you have to have that tube with you. Important to keep the records straight.”

“The records are straight,” Patterson admitted thickly. “You can go back to your room. Or the park. Anywhere.” He waved and the robot calmly escorted the withered old man from the office and out into the hall.

As the door slid shut Evelyn Cutter began swearing slowly and monotonously. She crushed out her cigarette with her sharp heel and paced wildly back and forth. “Good God what have we got ourselves into?”

Patterson snatched up the intervid, dialed outside, and said to the supraplan monitor, “Get me military headquarters. Right away.”

“At Luna, sir?”

“That’s right,” Patterson said. “At the main base on Luna.” On the wall of the office, past the taut, pacing figure of Evelyn Cutter, the calendar read August 4, 2169. If David Unger was bom in 2154 he would be a boy of fifteen. And he had been bom in 2154. It said so on his battered, yellowed, sweat-stained cards. On the i.d. papers carried through a war that hadn’t yet happened.

“He’s a veteran, all right,” Patterson said to V-Stephens. “Of a war that won’t begin for another month. No wonder his application was turned back by the IBM machines.”

V-Stephens licked his dark green lips. “This war will be between Earth and the two colony planets. And Earth will lose?”

“Unger fought through the whole war. He saw it from the start to finish—to the total destruction of Earth.” Patterson paced over to the window and gazed out. “Earth lost the war and the race of Earthmen was wiped out.”

From the window of V-Stephens’ office, Patterson could see the city spread out. Miles of buildings, white and gleaming in the late afternoon sun. Eleven million people. A gigantic center of commerce and industry, the economic hub of the system. And beyond it, a world of cities and farms and highways, three billion men and women. A thriving, healthy planet, the mother world from which the altereds had originally sprung, the ambitious settlers of Venus and Mars. Endless cargo carriers lumbered between Earth and the colonies, weighed down with minerals and ores and produce. And already, survey teams were poking around the outer planets, laying claim in the Directorate’s name to new sources of raw-materials.

“He saw all this go up in radioactive dust,” Patterson said. “He saw the final attack on Earth that broke our defenses. And then they wiped out the Lunar base.”

“You say some brass hats are on their way here from Luna?”

“I gave them enough of the story to start them moving. It usually takes weeks to stir up those fellows.”

“I’d like to see this Unger,” V-Stephens said thoughtfully. “Is there some way I can—”

“You’ve seen him. You revived him, remember? When he was originally found and brought in.”

“Oh,” V-Stephens said softly. “That filthy old man?” His dark eyes flickered. “So that’s Unger…the veteran of the war we’re going to fight.”

“The war you’re going to win. The war Earth is going to lose.” Patterson abruptly left the window. “Unger thinks this is an artificial satellite someplace between Uranus and Neptune. A reconstruction of a small part of New York—a few thousand people and machines under a plastic dome. He has no conception of what’s actually happened to him. Somehow, he must have been hurled back along his time-track.”

“I suppose the release of energy…and maybe his frantic desire to escape. But even so, the whole thing is fantastic. It has a sort of—” V-Stephens groped for the word, “—a sort of mystic ring to it. What the hell is this, a visitation? A prophet from heaven?”

The door opened and V-Rafia slid in. “Oh,” she said, as she ‘aw Patterson. “I didn’t know—”

“That’s all right.” V-Stephens nodded her inside his office. “You remember Patterson. He was with us in the car when we picked you up.”

V-Rafia looked much better than she had a few hours before. Her face was no longer scratched, her hair was back in place, and she had changed to a crisp gray sweater and skirt. Her green skin sparkled as she moved over beside V-Stephens, still nervous and apprehensive. “I’m staying here,” she said defensively to Patterson. “I can’t go back out there, not for awhile.” She darted a quick glance of appeal at V-Stephens.

“She has no family on Earth,” V-Stephens explained. “She came here as a Class-2 biochemist. She’s been working over at a Westinghouse lab outside Chicago. She came to New York on a shopping trip, which was a mistake.”

“Can’t she join the V-colony at Denver?” Patterson asked.

V-Stephens flushed. “You don’t want another webfoot around here?”

“What can she do? Were not an embattled fortress. There’s no reason why we can’t shoot her to Denver in a fast freight rocket. Nobody’ll interfere with that.”

“We can discuss it later,” V-Stephens said irritably. “We’ve got more important things to talk about. You’ve made a check of Unger’s papers? You’re certain they’re not forgeries? I suppose it’s possible this is on the level, but we have to be certain.”

“This has to be kept quiet,” Patterson said urgently, with a glance at V-Rafia. “Nobody on the outside should be brought in.”

“You mean me?” V-Rafia asked hesitantly. “I guess I better leave.”

“Don’t leave,” V-Stephens said, grabbing hold of her arm roughly. “Patterson, you can’t keep this quiet. Unger’s probably told it to fifty people; he sits out there on his park bench all day, buttonholing everybody who passes.”

“What is this?” V-Rafia asked curiously.

“Nothing important,” Patterson said wamingly.

“Nothing important?” V-Stephens echoed. “Just a little war. Programs for sale in advance.” Across his face a spasm of emotion passed, excitement and yearning hunger pouring up from inside him. “Place your bets now. Don’t take chances. Bet on a sure thing, sweetheart. After all, it’s history. Isn’t that right?” He turned toward Patterson, his expression demanding confirmation. “What do you say? I can’t stop it—you can’t stop it. Right?”

Patterson nodded slowly. “I guess you’re right,” he said unhappily. And swung with all his strength.

He caught V-Stephens slightly to one side, as the Venusian scrambled away. V-Stephens’ cold-beam came out; he aimed with shaky fingers. Patterson kicked it from his hands and dragged him to his feet. “It was a mistake, John,” he panted. “I shouldn’t have showed you Unger’s i.d. tube. I shouldn’t have let you know.”

“That’s right,” V-Stephens managed to whisper. His eyes were blank with sorrow as he focused on Patterson. “Now I know. Now we both know. You’re going to lose the war. Even if you lock Unger up in a box and sink him to the center of the Earth it’s too late. Color-Ad will know as soon as I’m out of here.”

“They burned down the Color-Ad office in New York.”

“Then I’ll find the one in Chicago. Or Baltimore. I’ll fly back to Venus, if I have to. I’m going to spread the good news. It’ll be hard and long, but we’ll win. And you can’t do anything about it.”

“I can kill you,” Patterson said. His mind was racing frantically. It wasn’t too late. If V-Stephens were contained, and David Unger turned over to the Military—

“I know what you’re thinking,” V-Stephens gasped. “If Earth doesn’t fight, if you avoid war, you may still have a chance.” His green lips twisted savagely. “You think we’d let you avoid war? Not now! Only traitors compromise, according to you. Now it’s too late!”

“Only too late,” Patterson said, “if you get out of here.” His hand groped on the desk and found a steel paper weight. He drew it to him—and felt the smooth tip of the cold-beam in his ribs.

“I’m not sure how this thing works,” V-Rafia said slowly, “buf I guess there’s only this one button to press.”

“That’s right,” V-Stephens said, with relief. “But don’t press it yet. I want to talk to him a few minutes more. Mavbe he can be brought around to rationality.” He pulled himself gratefully out of Patterson’s grip and moved back a few paces, exploring his cut lip and broken front teeth. “You brought this on yourself,“Vachel.”

“This is insane,” Patterson snapped, his eyes on the snout of the cold-beam as it wavered in V-Rafia’s uncertain fingers. “You expect us to fight a war we know we’re going to lose?”

“You won’t have a choice.” V-Ster>hens’ eyes gleamed. “We’ll make you fight. When we attack your cities you’ll come back at us. It’s—human nature.”

The first blast of the cold-beam missed Patterson. He floundered to one side and grabbed for the girl’s slim wrist. His fingers caught air, and then he was down, as the beam hissed again. V-Rafia retreated, eyes wide with fright and dismay, aiming blindly for his rising body. He leaped up, hands extended for the terrified girl. He saw her fingers twist, saw the snout of the tube darken as the field clicked on. And that was all.

From the kicked-open door, the blue-clad soldiers caught V-Rafia in a crossfire of death. A chill breath mushroomed in Patterson’s face. He collapsed back, arms up frantically, as the frigid whisper glided past him.

V-Rafia’s trembling body danced briefly, as the cloud of absolute cold glowed around her. Then abruptly she halted as rigid as if the tape-track of her life had stopped in the projector. All color drained from her body. The bizarre imitation of a still-standing human figure stood silently, one arm raised, caught in the act of futile defense.

Then the frozen pillar burst. The expanded cells ruptured in a shower of crystalline particles that were hurled sickeningly into every part of the office.

Francis Gannet moved cautiously in behind the troops, red-faced and perspiring. “You’re Patterson?” he demanded. He held out his heavy hand, but Patterson didn’t take it.

“The Military people notified me as a matter of course. Where’s this old man?”

“Somewhere around,” Patterson muttered. “Under guard.” He turned toward V-Stephens and briefly their eyes met. “You see?" he said huskily. “This is what happens. Is this what you really want?”

“Come on, Mr. Patterson,” Francks Gannet boomed impatiently. “I don’t have much time to waste. From your description this sounds like something important.”

“It is,” V-Stephens answered calmly. He wiped at the trickle of mouth-blood with his pocket handkerchief. “It’s worth the trip from Luna. Take my word for it—I know.”

The man who sat on Gannet’s right was a lieutenant. He gazed in mute awe at the vidscreen. His young, handsome blond face was alive with amazement as from the bank of gray haze a huge battleship lumbered, one reactor smashed, its forward turrets crumpled, hull twisted open.

“Good God,” Lieutenant Nathan West said faintly. “That’s the Wind Giant. The biggest battleship we have. Look at it—it’s out of commission. Totally disabled.”

“That will be your ship,” Patterson said. “You’ll be commander of it in ‘87 when it’s destroyed by the combined Venusian and Martian fleets. David Unger will be serving under you. You’ll be killed, but Unger will escape. The few survivors of your ship will watch from Lima as Earth is systematically demolished by C-missiles from Venus and Mars.”

On the screen, the figures leaped and swirled like fish in the bottom of a dirt-saturated tank. A violent maelstrom surged in the center, a vortex of energy that lashed the ships in vast spasms of motion. The silver Earth ships hesitated, then broke. Flashing black Mars battleships swept through the wide breach—and the Earth flank was turned simultaneously by the waiting Venusians. Together, they caught the remnants of the Earth ships in a steel pincers and crunched them out of existence. Brief puffs of light, as the ships winked out of being. In the distance, the solemn blue and green orb that was Earth slowly and majestically revolved.

Already, it showed ugly pocks. Bomb craters from the C-missiles that had penetrated the defense network.

LeMarr snapped off the projector and the screen died.

“That ends that brain-sequence. All we can get are visual fragments like this, brief instants that left strong impressions on him. We can’t get continuity. The next one takes up years later, on one of the artificial satellites.”

The lights came on, and the group of spectators moved stiffly to their feet. Gannet’s face was a sickly putty-gray. “Doctor LeMarr, I want to see that shot again. That one of Earth.” He gestured helplessly. “You know which one I mean.”

The lights dimmed and again the screen came to life. This time it showed only Earth, a receding orb that fell behind as the high-velocity torpedo on which David Unger rode hurtled toward outer space. Unger had placed himself so his dead world would be visible to the last.

Earth was a ruin. Involuntarily, a gasp rose from the group of watching officers. Nothing lived. Nothing moved. Only dead clouds of radioactive ash billowed aimlessly over the crater-pocked surface. What had been a living planet of three billion people was a charred cinder of ash. Nothing remained but heaps of debris, dispersed and blown dismally across vacant seas by the howling, ceaseless wind.

“I suppose some kind of vegetable life will take over,” Evelyn Cutter said harshly, as the screen faded and the overhead lights returned. She shuddered violently and turned away.

“Weeds, maybe,” LeMarr said. “Dark dry weeds poking up through the slag. Maybe some insects, later on. Bacteria, of course. I suppose in time bacterial action will transform the ash into usable soil. And it’ll rain for a billion years.”

“Let’s face it,” Gannet said. “The webfoots and crows will resettle it. They’ll be living here on Earth after we’re all dead.”

“Sleeping in our beds?” LeMarr inquired mildly. “Using our bathrooms and sitting rooms and transports?”

“I don’t understand you,” Gannet answered impatiently. He waved Patterson over. “You’re sure nobody knows but we here in this room?”

“V-Stephens knows,” Patterson said. “But he’s locked up in the psychotic ward. V-Rafia knew. She’s dead.”

Lieutenant West came over to Patterson. “Could we interview him?”

“Yes, where’s Unger?” Gannet demanded. “My staff is eager to meet him face to face.”

“You have all the essential facts,” Patterson answered. “You know how the war is going to come out. You know what’s going to happen to Earth.”

“What do you suggest?” Gannet asked warily.

“Avoid the war.”

Gannet shrugged his plump well-fed body. “After all, you can’t change history. And this is future history. We have no choice but to go ahead and fight.”

“At least we’ll get our share of them,” Evelyn Cutter said icily.

“What are you talking about?” LeMarr stuttered excitedly. “You work in a hospital and you talk like that?”

The woman’s eyes blazed. “You saw what they did to Earth. You saw them cut us to ribbons.”

“We have to stand above this,” LeMarr protested. “If we allow ourselves to get dragged into this hate and violence—” He appealed to Patterson. “Why is V-Stephens locked up? He’s no crazier than she is.”

“True,” Patterson agreed. “But she’s crazy on our side. We don’t lock up that kind of lunatic.”

LeMarr moved away from him. “Are you going out and fight, too? Alongside Gannet and his soldiers?”

“I want to avoid the war,” Patterson said dully.

“Can it be done?” Gannet demanded. An avid glow winked briefly behind his pale, blue eyes and then faded out.

“Maybe it can be done. Why not? Unger coming back here adds a new element.”

“If the future can be changed,” Gannet said slowly, “then maybe we have a choice of various possibilities. If there’re two possible futures there may be an infinite number. Each branching off at a different point.” A granite mask slid over his face. “We can use Unger’s knowledge of the battles.”

“Let me talk to him,” Lieutenant West interrupted excitedly. “Maybe we can get a clear idea of the webfoot battle-strategy. He’s probably gone over the battles in his mind a thousand times.”

“He’d recognize you,” Gannet said. “After all, he served under your command.”

Patterson was deep in thought. “I don’t think so,” he said to West. “You’re a lot older than David Unger.”

West blinked. “What do you mean? He’s a broken-down old man and I’m still in my twenties.”

“David Unger is fifteen,” Patterson answered. “At this point you’re almost twice his age. You’re already a commissioned officer on the Lunar policy-level staff. Unger isn’t even in the Military Service. He’ll volunteer when war breaks out, as a buck private without experience or training. When you’re an old man, commanding the Wind Giant, David Unger will be a middle-aged nonentity working one of the gun turrets, a name you won’t even know.”

“Then Unger is already alive?” Gannet said, puzzled.

“Unger is someplace around, waiting to step onto the stage.” Patterson filed the thought away for future study; it might have valuable possibilities. “I don’t think he’ll recognize you, West. He may never even have seen you. The Wind Giant is a big ship.”

West quickly agreed. “Put a bug-system on me, Gannet. So the command staff can have the aud and vid images of what Unger says.”

In the bright mid-morning sunlight, David Unger sat moodily on his park bench, gnarled fingers gripping his aluminum cane, gazing dully at the passers-by.

To his right a robot gardener worked over the same patch of grass again and again, its metallic eye-lenses intently fastened on the wizened, hunched-over figure of the old man. Down the gravel path a group of loitering men sent random comments to the various monitors scattered through the park, keeping the relay system open. A bare-bosomed young woman sunbathing by the pool nodded faintly to a pair of soldiers pacing around the park, within constant sight of David Unger.

That morning there were a hundred people in the park. All were integrated elements of the screen surrounding the half-dozing, resentful old man.

“All right,” Patterson said. His car was parked at the edge of the plot of green trees and lawns. “Remember not to overexcite him. V-Stephens revived him originally. If something goes wrong with his heart we can’t get V-Stephens to pump him back.”

The blond young lieutenant nodded, straightened his immaculate blue tunic and slid onto the sidewalk. He pushed his helmet back and briskly strode down the gravel path, toward the center of the park. As he approached, the lounging figures moved imperceptibly. One by one they took up positions on the lawns, on the benches, in groups here and there around the pool.

Lieutenant West stopped at a drinking-fountain and allowed the robot water-brain to find his mouth with a jet of ice-cold spray. He wandered slowly away and stood for a moment, arms loose at his sides, vacantly watching a young woman as she removed her clothes and stretched out languidly on a multi-colored blanket. Her eyes shut, red lips parted, the woman relaxed with a grateful sigh.

“Let him speak to you first,” she said faintly, to the lieutenant standing a few feet from her, one black boot on the edge of a bench. “Don’t start the conversation.”

Lieutenant West watched her a moment longer and then continued along the path. A passing heavyset man said swiftly in his ear, “Not so fast. Take your time and don’t appear to hurry.”

“You want to give the impression you have all day,” a hatchet-faced nurse grated, as she passed him wheeling a baby carriage.

Lieutenant West slowed almost to a halt. He aimlessly kicked a bit of gravel from the path into the wet bushes. Hands deep in his pockets he wandered over to the central pool and stood gazing absently into its depths. He lit a cigarette, then bought an ice cream bar from a passing robot salesman.

“Spill some on your tunic, sir,” the robot’s speaker instructed faintly. “Swear and start dabbing at it.”

Lieutenant West let the ice cream melt in the warm summer sun. When some had dripped down his wrist onto his starched blue tunic he scowled, dug out his handkerchief, dipped it in the pool, and began clumsily to wipe the ice cream away.

On his bench, the scar-faced old man watched with his one good eye, gripping his aluminum cane and cackling happily. “Watch out,” he wheezed. “Look out there!”

Lieutenant West glanced up in annoyance.

“You’re dripping more,” the old man cackled, and lay back in weak amusement, toothless mouth slack with pleasure.

Lieutenant West grinned goodnaturedly. “I guess so,” he admitted. He dropped the melting half-eaten ice cream bar into a disposal slot and finished cleaning his tunic. “Sure is warm,” he observed, wandering vaguely over.

“They do a good job,” Unger agreed, nodding his birdlike head. He peered and craned his neck, trying to make out the insignia markings on the young soldier’s shoulder. “You with the rocketeers?”

“Demolition,” Lieutenant West said. As of that morning his insignia had been changed. “Ba-3.”

The old man shuddered. He hawked and spat feverishly into the nearby bushes. “That so?” He half-rose, excited and fearful, as the lieutenant started to move away. “Say, you know, I was in the Ba-3 years ago.” He tried to make his voice sound calm and casual. “Long before your time.” Amazement and disbelief slid over Lieutenant West’s handsome blond face. “Don’t kid me. Only a couple guys from the old group are still alive. You’re pulling my leg.”

“I was, I was,” Unger wheezed, fumbling with trembling haste at his coat pocket. “Say, look at this. Stop a minute and I’ll show you something.” Reverent and awed, he held out his Crystal Disc. “See? You know what this is?”

Lieutenant West gazed down at the medal a long time. Real emotion welled up inside him; he didn’t have to counterfeit it. “Can I examine it?” he asked finally.

Unger hesitated. “Sure,” he said. “Take it.”

Lieutenant West took the medal and held it for a long moment, weighing it and feeling its cold surface against his smooth skin. Finally he returned it. “You got that back in ’87?”

“That’s right,” Unger said. “You remember?” He returned it to his pocket. “No, you weren’t even alive, then. But you heard about it, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” West said. “I’ve heard about it many times.”

“And you haven’t forgotten? A lot of people forgot that, what we did there.”

“I guess we took a beating that day,” West said. He sat down slowly on the bench beside the old man. “That was a bad day for Earth.”

“We lost,” Unger agreed. “Only a few of us got out of there. I got to Luna. I saw Earth go, piece by piece, until there was nothing left. It broke my heart. I cried until I lay like a dead thing. We were all weeping, soldiers, workmen, standing there helpless. And then they turned their missiles on us.”

The lieutenant licked his dry lips. “Your Commander didn’t get out, did he?”

“Nathan West died on his ship,” Unger said. “He was the finest Commander in the line. They didn’t give him the Wind Giant for nothing.” His ancient, withered features dimmed in recollection. “There’ll never be another man like West. I saw him, once. Big stem-faced man, wide-shouldered. A giant himself. He was a great old man. Nobody could have done better.”

West hesitated. “You think if somebody else had been in command—”

“No!” Unger shrieked. “Nobody could have done better! I’ve heard it said—I know what some of those fat-bottomed armchair strategists say. But they’re wrong! Nobody could have won that battle. We didn’t have a chance. We were outnumbered five to one—two huge fleets, one straight at our middle and the other waiting to chew us up and swallow us.”

“I see,” West said thickly. Reluctantly he continued, in an agony of turmoil, “These armchair men, what the hell is it they say? I never listen to the brass.” He tried to grin but his face refused to respond. “I know they’re always saying we could have won the battle and maybe even saved the Wind Giant, but I—”

“Look here,” Unger said fervently, his sunken eye wild and glittering. With the point of his aluminum cane he began gouging harsh, violent ditches in the gravel by his feet. “This line is our fleet. Remember how West had it drawn up? It was a mastermind arranged our fleet, that day. A genius. We held them off for twelve hours before they busted through. Nobody thought we’d have a chance of even doing that.” Savagely, Unger gouged another line. “That’s the crow fleet.”

“I see,” West muttered. He leaned over so his chest-lens would vid the rough lines in the gravel back to the scanning center in the mobile unit circling lazily overhead. And from there to main headquarters on Luna. “And the web-foot fleet?”

Unger glanced cagily at him, suddenly shy. “I’m not boring you, am I? I guess an old man likes to talk. Sometimes I bother people, trying to take up their time.”

“Go on,” West answered. He meant what he said. “Keep drawing—I’m watching.”

Evelyn Cutter paced restlessly around her softly-lit apartment, arms folded, red lips tight with anger. “I don’t understand you!” She paused to lower the heavy drapes. “You were willing to kill V-Stephens a little while ago. Now you won’t even help block LeMarr. You know LeMarr doesn’t grasp what’s happening. He dislikes Gannet and he prattles about the interplan community of scientists, our duty to all mankind and that sort of stuff. Can’t you see if V-Stephens gets hold of him—”

“Maybe LeMarr is right,” Patterson said. “I don’t like Gannet either.”

Evelyn exploded. “They’ll destroy us! We can’t fight a war with them—we don’t have a chance.” She halted in front of him, eyes blazing. “But they don’t know that yet. We’ve got to neutralize LeMarr, at least for awhile. Every minute he’s walking around free puts our world in jeopardy. Three billion lives depend on keeping this suppressed.”

Patterson was brooding. “I suppose Gannet briefed you on the initial exploration West conducted today.”

“No results so far. The old man knows every battle by heart, and we lost them all.” She rubbed her forehead wearily. “I mean, we will lose them all.” With numb fingers she gathered up the empty coffee cups. “Want some more coffee?”

Patterson didn’t hear her; he was intent on his own thoughts. He crossed over to the window and stood gazing out until she returned with fresh coffee, hot and black and steaming.

“You didn’t see Gannet kill that girl,” Patterson said.

“What girl? That webfoot?” Evelyn stirred sugar and cream into her coffee. “She was going to kill you. V-Stephens would have lit out for Color-Ad and the war would begin.” Impatiently, she pushed his coffee cup to him. “Anyhow, that was the girl we saved.”

“I know,” Patterson said. “That’s why it bothers me.” He took the coffee automatically and sipped without tasting. “What was the point of dragging her from the mob? Gannet’s work. We’re employees of Gannet.”

“So?”

“You know what kind of game he’s playing!”

Evelyn shrugged. “I’m just being practical. I don’t want Earth destroyed. Neither does Gannet—he wants to avoid the war.”

“He wanted war a few days ago. When he expected to win.”

Evelyn laughed sharply. “Of course! Who’d fight a war thev knew they’d lose? That’s irrational.”

“Now Gannet will hold off the war,” Patterson admitted slowly. “He’ll let the colony planets have their independence. He’ll recognize Color-Ad. He’ll destroy David Unger and everybody who knows. He’ll pose as a benevolent peacemaker.”

“Of course. He’s already making plans for a dramatic trip to Venus. A last minute conference with Color-Ad officials, to prevent war. He’ll put pressure on the Directorate to back down and let Mars and Venus sever. He’ll be the idol of the system. But isn’t that better than Earth destroyed and our race wiped out?”

“Now the big machine turns around and roars against war.” Patterson’s lips twisted ironically. “Peace and compromise instead of hate and destructive violence.”

Evelyn perched on the arm of a chair and made rapid calculations. “How old was David Unger when he joined the Military?”

“Fifteen or sixteen.”

“When a man joins the Service he gets his i.d. number, doesn’t he?”

“That’s right. So?”

“Maybe I’m wrong, but according to my figures—” She glanced up. “Unger should appear and claim his number, soon. That number will be coming up any day, according to how fast the enlistments pour in.”

A strange expression crossed Patterson’s face. “Unger is already alive…a fifteen year old kid. Unger the youth and Unger the senile old war veteran. Both alive at once.” Evelyn shuddered. “It’s weird. Suppose they ran into each other? There’d be a lot of difference between them.”

In Patterson’s mind a picture of a bright-eyed youth of fifteen formed. Eager to get into the fight. Ready to leap in and kill webfoots and crows with idealistic enthusiasm. At this moment, Unger was moving inexorably toward the recruiting office…and the half-blind, crippled old relic of eighty-nine wretched years was creeping hesitantly from his hospital room to his park bench, hugging his aluminum cane, whispering in his raspy, pathetic voice to anyone who would listen.

“We’ll have to keep our eyes open,” Patterson said. “You better have somebody at Military notify you when that number comes up. When Unger appears to claim it.”

Evelyn nodded. “It might be a good idea. Maybe we should request the Census Department to make a check for us. Maybe we can locate—”

She broke off. The door of the apartment had swung silently open. Edwin LeMarr stood gripping the knob, blinking red-eyed in the half-light. Breathing harshly, he came into the room. “Vachel, I have to talk to you.”

“What is it?” Patterson demanded. “What’s going on?”

LeMarr shot Evelyn a look of pure hate. “He found it. I knew he would. As soon as he can get it analyzed and the whole thing down on tape—”

“Gannet?” Cold fear knifed down Patterson’s spine. “Gannet found what?”

“The moment of crisis. The old man’s babbling about a five-ship convoy. Fuel for the crow warfleet. Unescorted and moving toward the battle line. Unger says our scouts will miss it.” LeMarr’s breathing was hoarse, and frenzied. “He says if we knew in advance—” He pulled himself together with a violent effort. “Then we could destroy it.”

“I see,” Patterson said. “And throw the balance in Earth’s favor.”

“If West can plot the convoy route,” LeMarr finished, “Earth will win the war. That means Gannet will fight—as soon as he gets the exact information.”

V-Stephens sat crouched on the single-piece bench that served as chair and table and bed for the psychotic ward. A cigarette dangled between his dark green lips. The cube—like room was ascetic, barren. The walls glittered dully. From time to time V-Stephens examined his wristwatch and then turned his attention back to the object crawling up and down the sealed edges of the entrance-lock.

The object moved slowly and cautiously. It had been exploring the lock for twenty-nine hours straight; it had traced down the power leads that kept the heavy plate fused in place. It had located the terminals at which the leads joined the magnetic rind of the door. During the last hour it had cut its way through the rexeroid surface to within an inch of the terminals. The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen’s surgeon-hand, a self-contained robot of precision quality usually joined to his right wrist.

It wasn’t Joined there now. He had detached it and sent it up the face of the cube to find a way out. The metal fingers clung precariously to the smooth dull surface, as the cutting-thumb laboriously dug its way in. It was a big job for the surgeon-hand; after this it wouldn’t be of much use at the operating table. But V-Stephen could easily get another—they were for sale at any medical supply house on Venus.

The forefinger of the surgeon-hand reached the anode terminal and paused questioningly. All four fingers rose erect and waved like insect antennae. One by one they fitted themselves into the cut slot and probed for the nearby cathode lead.

Abruptly there was a blinding flash. A white acrid cloud billowed out, and then came a sharp pop. The entrance-lock remained motionless as the hand dropped to the floor, its work done. V-Stephens put out his cigarette, got leisurely to his feet, and crossed the cube to collect it.

With the hand in place and acting as part of his own neuromuscular system again, V-Stephens gingerly grasped the lock by its perimeter and after a moment pulled inward. The lock came without resistance and he found himself facing a deserted corridor. There was no sound or motion. No guards. No check-system on the psych patients. V-Stephens loped quickly ahead, around a turn, and through a series of connecting passages.

In a moment he was at a wide view-window, overlooking the street, the surrounding buildings, and the hospital grounds.

He assembled his wristwatch, cigarette lighter, fountain pen, keys and coins. From them his agile flesh and metal fingers rapidly formed an intricate gestalt of wiring and plates. He snapped off the cutting-thumb and screwed a heat-element in its place. In a brief flurry he had fused the mechanism to the underside of the window ledge, invisible from the hall, too far from ground level to be noticed.

He was starting back down the corridor when a sound stopped him rigid. Voices, a routine hospital guard and somebody else. A familiar somebody else.

He raced back to the psych ward and into his sealed cube. The magnetic lock fitted reluctantly in place; the heat generated by the short had sprung its clamps. He got it shut as footsteps halted outside. The magnetic field of the lock was dead, but of course the visitor didn’t know that. V-Stephens listened with amusement as the visitor carefully negated the supposed magnetic field and then pushed the lock open.

“Come in,” V-Stephens said.

Doctor LeMarr entered, briefcase in one hand, cold-beam in the other. “Come along with me. I have everything arranged. Money, fake identification, passport, tickets and clearance. You’ll go as a webfoot commercial agent. By the time Gannet finds out you’ll be past the Military monitor and out of Earth jurisdiction.”

V-Stephens was astounded. “But—”

“Hurry up!” LeMarr waved him into the corridor with his cold-beam. “As a staff member of the hospital I have authority over psych prisoners. Technically, you’re listed as a mental patient. As far as I’m concerned you’re no more crazy than the rest of them. If not less. That’s why I’m here.”

V-Stephens eyed him doubtfully. “You sure you know what you’re doing?” He followed LeMarr down the corridor, past the blank-faced guard and into the elevator. “They’ll destroy you as a traitor, if they catch you. That guard saw you—how are you going to keep this quiet?”

“I don’t expect to keep this quiet. Gannet is here, you know. He and his staff have been working over the old man.”

“Why are you telling me this?” The two of them strode down the descent ramp to the subsurface garage. An attendant rolled out LeMarr’s car and they climbed into it, LeMarr behind the wheel. “You know why I was thrown in the psych-cube in the first place.”

“Take this.” LeMarr tossed V-Stephens the cold-beam and steered up the tunnel to the surface, into the bright midday New York traffic. “You were going to contact Color-Ad and inform them Earth will absolutely lose the war.” He spun the car from the mainstream of traffic and onto a side lane, toward the interplan spacefield. “Tell them to stop working for compromise and strike hard—immediately. Full scale war. Right?”

“Right,” V-Stephens said. “After all, If we’re certain to win—”

“You’re not certain.”

V-Stephens raised a green eyebrow. “Oh? I thought Unger was a veteran of total defeat.”

“Gannet is going to change the course of the war. He’s found a critical point. As soon as he gets the exact information he’ll pressure the Directorate into an all-out attack on Venus and Mars. War can’t be avoided, not now.” LeMarr slammed his car to a halt at the edge of the interplan field. “If there has to be war at least nobody’s going to be taken by a sneak attack. You can tell your Colonial Organization and Administration our warfleet is on its way. Tell them to get ready. Tell them—”

LeMarr’s voice trailed off. Like an unwound toy he sagged against the seat, slid silently down, and lay quietly with his head against the steering wheel. His glasses dropped from his nose onto the floor and after a moment V-Stephens replaced them. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “You meant well, but you sure fouled everything up.”

He briefly examined the surface of LeMarr’s skull. The impulse from the cold-beam had not penetrated into brain tissue; LeMarr would regain consciousness in a few hours with nothing worse than a severe headache. V-Stephens pocketed the cold-beam, grabbed up the briefcase, and pushed the limp body of LeMarr away from the wheel. A moment later he was turning on the motor and backing the car around.

As he sped back to the hospital he examined his watch. It wasn’t too late. He leaned forward and dropped a quarter in the pay vidphone mounted on the dashboard. After a mechanical dialing process the Color-Ad receptionist flickered into view.

“This is V-Stephens,” he said. “Something went wrong. I was taken out of the hospital building. I’m heading back there now. I can make it in time, I think.”

“Is the vibrator-pack assembled?”

“Assembled, yes. But not with me. I had already fused it into polarization with the magnetic flux. It’s ready to go—if I can get back there and at it.”

“There’s a hitch at this end,” the green-skinned girl said. “Is this a closed circuit?”

“It’s open,” V-Stephens admitted. “But it’s public and probably random. They couldn’t very well have a bug on it.” He checked the power meter on the guarantee seal fastened to the unit. “It shows no drain. Go ahead.”

“The ship won’t be able to pick you up in the city.”

“Hell,” V-Stephens said.

“You’ll have to get out of New York on your own power; we can’t help you there. Mobs destroyed our New York port facilities. You’ll have to go by surface car to Denver. That’s the nearest place the ship can land. That’s our last protected spot on Earth.”

V-Stephens groaned. “Just my luck. You know what’ll happen if they catch me?”

The girl smiled faintly. “All webfoots look alike to Earthmen. They’ll be stringing us up indiscriminately. We’re in this together. Good luck; we’ll be waiting for you.”

V-Stephens angrily broke the circuit and slowed the car. He parked in a public lot on a dingy side street and got quickly out. He was at the edge of the green expanse of park. Beyond it, the hospital buildings rose. Gripping the briefcase tightly he ran toward the main entrance.

David Unger wiped his mouth on his sleeve, then lay back weakly against his chair. “I don’t know,” he repeated, his voice faint and dry. “I told you I don’t remember any more. It was so long ago.”

Gannet signaled, and the officers moved away from the old man. “It’s coming,” he said wearily. He mopped his perspiring forehead. “Slowly and surely. We should have what we want inside another half hour.”

One side of the therapy house had been turned into a Military table-map. Counters had been laid out across the surface to represent units of the webfoot and crow fleets. White luminous chips represented Earth ships lined up against them in a tight ring around the third planet.

“It’s someplace near here,” Lieutenant West said to Patterson. Red-eyed, stubble-chinned, hands shaking with fatigue and tension, he indicated a section of the map. “Unger remembers hearing officers talking about this convoy. The convoy took off from a supply base on Ganymede. It disappeared on some kind of deliberate random course.” His hand swept the area. “At the time, nobody on Earth paid any attention to it. Later, they realized what they’d lost. Some military expert charted the thing in retrospect and it was taped and passed around. Officers got together and analyzed the incident. Unger thinks the convoy route took it towards Europa. But maybe it was Callisto.”

“That’s not good enough,” Gannet scanned. “So far we don’t have any more route data than Earth tacticians had at that time. We need to add exact knowledge, material released after the event.”

David Unger fumbled with a glass of water. “Thanks,” he muttered gratefully, as one of the young officers handed it to him. “I sure wish I could help you fellows out better,” he said plaintively. “I’m trying to remember. But I don’t seem able to think clear, like I used to.” His wizened face twisted with futile concentration. “You know, it seems to me that convoy was stopped near Mars by some kind of meteor swarm.”

Gannet moved forward. “Go on.”

Unger appealed to him pathetically. “I want to help you all I can, mister. Most people go to write a book about a war, they just scan stuff from other books.” There was pitiful gratitude on the eroded face. “I guess you’ll mention my name in your book, someplace.”

So that was it. Patterson turned away, sickened. Gannet was posing as a military historian. Writing a book on the lost war, gleaning memories from the old man for his “treatise.”

“Sure,” Gannet said expansively. “Your name’ll be on the first page. Maybe we could even-get in a picture of you.”

“I know all about the war,” Unger muttered. “Give me time and I’ll have it straight. Just give me time. I’m trying as best I can.”

The old man was deteriorating rapidly. His wrinkled face was an unhealthy gray. Like drying putty, his flesh clung to his brittle, yellowed bones. His breath rattled in his throat. It was obvious to everyone present that David Unger was going to die—and soon.

“If he croaks before he remembers,” Gannet said softly to Lieutenant West, “I’ll—”

“What’s that?” Unger asked sharply. His one good eye was suddenly keen and wary. “I can’t hear so good.”

“Just fill in the missing elements,” Gannet said wearily. He jerked his head. “Get him over to the map where be can see the setup. Maybe that’ll help.”

The old man was yanked to his feet and propelled to the table. Technicians and brass hats closed in around him and the dim-eyed stumbling figure was lost from sight.

“He won’t last long,” Patterson said savagely. “If you don’t let him rest his heart’s going to give out.”

“We must have the information,” Gannet retorted. He eyed Patterson. “Where’s the other doctor? LeMarr, I think he’s called.”

Patterson glanced briefly around. “I don’t see him. He probably couldn’t stand it.”

“LeMarr never came,” Gannet said, without emotion. “I wonder if we should have somebody round him up.” He indicated Evelyn Cutter, who had just arrived, white-faced, her black eyes wide, breathing quickly. “She suggests—”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Evelyn said frigidly. She shot a quick, urgent glance at Patterson. “I want nothing to do with you and your war.”

Gannet shrugged. “I’ll send out a routine net, in any case. Just to be on tbe safe side.” He moved off, leaving Evelyn and Patterson standing alone together.

“Listen to me,” Evelyn said harshly, her lips hot and close to his ear. “Unger’s number has come up.”

They looked at each other.

“When did they notify you?” Patterson demanded.

“I was on my way here. I did what you said—I fixed it up with a clerk at Military.”

“How long ago?”

“Just now.” Evelyn’s face trembled. “Vachel, he’s here.”

It was a moment before Patterson understood. “You mean they sent him over here? To the hospital?”

“I told them to. I told them when he came to volunteer, when his, number came to the top—”

Patterson grabbed her and hurried her from the therapy house, outside into the bright sunlight. He pushed her onto an ascent ramp and crowded in after her. “Where are they holding him?”

“In the public reception room. They told him it was a routine physical check. A minor test of some kind.” Evelyn was terrified. “What are we going to do? Can we do something?”

“Gannet thinks so.”

“Suppose we—stopped him? Maybe we could turn him aside?” She shook her head, dazed. “What would happen? What would the future be like if we stopped him here? You could keep him out of the Service—you’re a doctor. A little red check on his health card.” She began to laugh wildly. “I see them all the time. A little red check, and no more David Unger. Gannet never sees him, Gannet never knows Earth can’t win and then Earth will win, and V-

Stephens doesn’t get locked up as a psychotic and that web-foot girl—”

Patterson’s open hand smashed across the woman’s face. “Shut up and snap out of it! We don’t have time for that!” Evelyn shuddered; he caught hold of her and held on tight to her until finally she raised her face. A red welt was rising slowly on her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she managed to murmur. “Thanks. I’ll be all right.”

The lift had reached the main floor. The door slid back and Patterson led her out into the hall. “You haven’t seen him?”

“No. When they told me the number had come up and he was on his way”—Evelyn hurried breathlessly after Patterson—“I came as quickly as I could. Maybe it’s too late. Maybe he got tired of waiting and left. He’s a fifteen year old boy. He wants to get into the fight. Maybe he’s gone!”

Patterson halted a robot attendant. “Are you busy?”

“No sir,” the robot answered.

Patterson gave the robot David Unger’s i.d. number. “Get this man from the main reception room. Send him out here and then close off this hall. Seal it at both ends so nobody can enter or leave.”

The robot clicked uncertainly. “Will there be further orders? This syndrome doesn’t complete a—”

“I’ll instruct you later. Make sure nobody comes out with him. I want to meet him here alone.”

The robot scanned the number and then disappeared into the reception room.

Patterson gripped Evelyn’s arm. “Scared?”

“I’m terrified.”

“I’ll handle it. You just stand there.” He passed her his cigarettes. “Light one for both of us.”

“Three, maybe. One for Unger.”

Patterson grinned. “He’s too young, remember? He’s not old enough to smoke.”

The robot returned. With it was a blond boy, plump and blue-eyed, his face wrinkled with perplexity. “You wanted me, Doc?” He came uncertainly up to Patterson. “Is there something wrong with me? They told me to come here, but they didn’t say what for.” His anxiety increased with a tidal rush. “There’s nothing to keep me out of the Service, is there?”

Patterson grabbed the boy’s newly stamped i.d. card, glanced at it, and then passed it to Evelvn. She accepted it with paralyzed fingers, her eyes on the blond youth.

He was not David Unger.

“What’s your name?” Patterson demanded.

The boy stammered out his name shyly. “Bert Robinson. Doesn’t it say there on my card?”

Patterson turned to Evelyn. “It’s the right number. But this isn’t Unger. Something’s happened.”

“Say, Doc,” Robinson asked plaintively, “is there something going to keep me out of the Service or not? Give me the word.”

Patterson signaled the robot. “Open up the hall. It’s all over with. You can go back to what you were doing.”

“I don’t understand,” Evelyn murmured. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re all right,” Patterson said to the youth. “You can report for induction.”

The boy’s face sagged with relief. “Thanks a lot, Doc.” He edged toward the descent ramp. “I sure appreciate it. I’m trying to get a crack at those webfoots.”

“Now what?” Evelyn said tightly, when the youth’s broad back had disappeared. “Where do we go from here?”

Patterson shook himself alive. “We’ll get the Census Department to make their check. We’ve sot to locate Unset.” The transmission room was a humming blur of vid and aud reports. Patterson elbowed his way to an open circuit and placed the call.

“That information will take a short time, sir,” the girl at Census told him. “Will you wait, or shall we return your call?”

Patterson grabbed up an h-loop and clipped it around his neck. “As soon as you have any information on Unger let me know. Break into this loop immediately.”

“Yes, sir,” the girl said dutifully, and broke the circuit. Patterson headed out of the room and down the corridor. Evelyn hurried after him. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“To the therapy house. I want to talk to the old man. I want to ask him some things.”

“Gannet’s doing that,” Evelyn gasped, as they descended to ground level. “Why do you—”

“I want to ask him about the present, not the future.”

They emerged in the blinding afternoon sunlight. “I want to ask him about things going on right now.”

Evelyn stopped him. “Can’t you explain it to me?”

“I have a theory,” Patterson pushed urgently past her. “Come on, before it’s too late.”

They entered the therapy house. Technicians and officers were standing around the huge map table, examining the counters and indicator lines. “Where’s Unger?” Patterson demanded.

“He’s gone,” one of the officers answered. “Gannet gave up for today.”

“Gone where?” Patterson began to swear savagely. “What happened?”

“Gannet and West took him back to the main building. He was too worn out to continue. We almost had it. Gannet’s ready to burst a blood vessel, but we’ll have to wait.”

Patterson grabbed Evelyn Cutter. “I want you to set off a general emergency alarm. Have the building surrounded. And hurry.”

Evelyn gaped at him. “But—”

Patterson ignored her and raced out of the therapy house, toward the main hospital building. Ahead of him wer4 three slowly-moving figures. Lieutenant West and Gannet walked on each side of the old man, supporting him as he crept feebly forward.

“Get away!” Patterson shouted at them.

Gannet turned. “What’s going on?”

“Get him away!” Patterson dived for the old man—but it was too late.

The burst of energy seared past him; an ignited circle of blinding white flame lapped everywhere. The hunched-over figure of the old man wavered, then charred. The aluminum cane fused and ran down in a molten mass. What had been the old man began to smoke. The body cracked open and shriveled. Then very slowly, the dried, dehydrated fragment of ash crumpled in a weightless heap. Gradually the circle of energy faded out.

Gannet kicked aimlessly at it, his heavy face numb with shock and disbelief. “He’s dead. And we didn’t get it.”

Lieutenant West stared at the still-smoking ash. His lips twisted into words. “We’ll never find out. We can’t change it. We can’t win.” Suddenly his fingers grabbed at his coat.

He tore the insignia from it and hurled the square of cloth savagely away. “I’D be damned if I’m going to give up my life so you can comer the system. I’m not getting into that death trap. Count me out!”

The wail of the general emergency alarm dinned from the hospital building. Scampering figures raced toward Gannet, soldiers and hospital guards scurrying in confusion. Patterson paid no attention to them; his eyes were on the window directly above.

Someone was standing there. A man, his hands deftly at work removing an object that flashed in the afternoon sun. The man was V-Stephens. He got the object of metal and plastic loose and disappeared with it, away from the window.

Evelyn hurried up beside Patterson. “What—” She saw the remains and screamed. “Oh, God. Who did it? Who?”

“V-Stephens.”

“LeMarr must have let him out. I knew it would happen.” Tears filled her eyes and her voice rose in shrill hysteria. “I told you he’d do it! I warned you!”

Gannet appealed childishly to Patterson. “What are we going to do? He’s been murdered.” Rage suddenly swept away the big man’s fear. “I’ll kill every webfoot on the planet. I’ll bum down their homes and string them up. I’ll—” He broke off raggedly. “But it’s too late, isn’t it? There’s nothing we can do. We’ve lost. We’re beaten, and the war hasn’t even begun.”

“That’s right,” Patterson said. “It’s too late. Your chance is gone.”

“If we could have got him to talk—” Gannet snarled helplessly.

“You couldn’t. It wasn’t possible.”

Gannet blinked. “Why not?” Some of his innate animal cunning filtered back. “Why do you say that?”

Around Patterson’s neck his h-loop buzzed loudly. “Doctor Patterson,” the monitor’s voice came, “there is a rush call for you from Census.”

“Put it through,” Patterson said.

The voice of the Census clerk came tinnily in his ears. “Doctor Patterson, I have the information you requested.”

“What is it?” Patterson demanded. But he already knew the answer.

“We have cross-checked our results to be certain. There is no person such as you described. There is no individual at this time or in our past records named David L. Unger with the identifying characteristics you outlined. The brain, teeth, and fingerprints do not refer to anything extant in our files. Do you wish us to—”

“No,” Patterson said. “That answers my question. Let it go.” He cut off the h-loop switch.

Gannet was listening dully. “This is completely over my head, Patterson. Explain it to me.”

Patterson ignored him. He squatted down and poked at the ash that had been David Unger. After a moment he snapped the h-loop on again. “I want this taken upstairs to the analytical labs,” he ordered quietly. “Get a team out here at once.” He got slowly to his feet and added even more softly, “Then I’m going to find V-Stephens—if I can.”

“He’s undoubtedly on his way to Venus by now,” Evelyn Cutter said bitterly. “Well, that’s that. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

“We’re going to have war,” Gannet admitted. He came slowly back to reality. With a violent effort he focused on the people around him. He smoothed down his mane of white hair and adjusted his coat. A semblance of dignity was restored to his once-impressive frame. “We might as well meet it like men. There’s no use trying to escape it.”

Patterson moved aside as a group of hospital robots approached the charred remains and began gingerly to collect them in a single heap. “Make a complete analysis,” he said to the technician in charge of the work-detail. “Break down the basic cell-units, especially the neurological apparatus. Report what you find to me as soon as you possibly can.”

It took just about an hour.

“Look for yourself,” the lab technician said. “Here, take hold of some of the material. It doesn’t even feel right.”

Patterson accepted a sample of dry, brittle organic matter. It might have been the smoked skin of some sea creature. It broke apart easily in his hands; as he put it down among the test equipment it crumbled into powdery fragments. “I see,” he said slowly.

“It’s good, considering. But it’s weak. Probably it wouldn’t have stood up another couple of days. It was deteriorating rapidly; sun, air, everything was breaking it down. There was no innate repair-system involved. Our cells are constantly reprocessed, cleaned and maintained. This thing was set up and then pushed into motion. Obviously, somebody’s a long way ahead of us in biosynthetics. This is a masterpiece.”

“Yes, it’s a good job,” Patterson admitted. He took another sample of what had been the body of David Unger and thoughtfully broke it into small dry pieces. “It fooled us completely.”

“You knew, didn’t you?”

“Not at first.”

“As you can see we’re reconstructing the whole system, getting the ash back into one piece. Parts are missing, of course, but we can get the general outlines. I’d like to meet the manufacturers of this thing. This really worked. This was no machine.”

Patterson located the charred ash that had been reconstructed into the android’s face. Withered, blackened paper-thin flesh. The dead eye gazed out lusterless and blind. Census had been right. There was never a David Unger. Such a person had never lived on Earth or anywhere else. What they had called “David Unger” was a man-made synthetic.

“We were really taken in,” Patterson admitted. “How many people know, besides the two of us?”

“Nobody else.” The lab technician indicated his squad of work-robots. “I’m the only human on this detail.”

“Can you keep it quiet?”

“Sure. You’re my boss, you know.”

“Thanks,” Patterson said. “But if you want, this information would get you another boss any time.”

“Gannet?” The lab technician laughed. “I don’t think I’d like to work for him.”

“He’d pay you pretty well.”

“True,” said the lab technician. “But one of these days I’d be in the front lines. I like it better here in the hospital.” Patterson started toward the door. “If anybody asks, tell them there wasn’t enough left to analyze. Can you dispose of these remains?”

“I’d hate to, but I guess I can.” The technician eyed him curiously. “You have any idea who put this thing together? I’d like to shake hands with them.”

“I’m interested in only one thing right now,” Patterson said obliquely. “V-Stephens has to be found.”

LeMarr blinked, as dull late-aftemoon sunlight filtered into his brain. He pulled himself upright—and banged his head sharply on the dashboard of the car. Pain swirled around him and for a time he sank back down into agonized darkness. Then slowly, gradually, he emerged. And peered around him.

His car was parked in the rear of a small, dilapidated public lot. It was about five-thirty. Traffic swarmed noisily along the narrow street onto which the lot fed. LeMarr reached up and gingerly explored the side of his skull. There was a numb spot the size of a silver dollar, an area totally without sensation. The spot radiated a chill breath, the utter absence of heat, as if somehow he had bumped against a nexus of outer space.

He was still trying to collect himself and recollect the events that had preceded his period of unconsciousness, when the swift-moving form of Doctor V-Stephens appeared.

V-Stephens ran lithely between the parked surface cars, one hand in his coat pocket, eyes alert and wary. There was something strange about him, a difference that LeMarr in his befuddled state couldn’t pin down. V-Stephens had almost reached the car before he realized what it was—and at the same time was lashed by the full surge of memory. He sank down and lay against the door, as limp and inert as possible. In spite of himself he started slightly, as V-Stephens yanked the door open and slid behind the wheel.

V-Stephens was no longer green.

The Venusian slammed the door, jabbed the car key in the lock, and started up the motor. He lit a cigarette, examined his pair of heavy gloves, glanced briefly at LeMarr, and pulled out of the lot into the early-evening traffic. For a moment he drove with one gloved hand on the wheel, the other still inside his coat. Then, as he gained full speed, he slid his cold-beam out, gripped it briefly, and dropped it on the seat beside him.

LeMarr pounced on it. From the comer of his eye, V-Stephens saw the limp body swing into life. He slammed on the emergency brake and forgot the wheel; the two of them struggled Silently, furiously. The car shrieked to a halt and immediately became the center of an angry mass of honking car-horns. The two men fought with desperate intensity, neither of them breathing, locked almost immobile as momentarily all forces balanced. Then LeMarr yanked away, the cold-beam aimed at V-Stephens’ colorless face.

“What happened?” he croaked hoarsely. “I’m missing five hours. What did you do?’

V-Stephens said nothing. He released the brake and began driving slowly with the swirl of traffic. Gray cigarette smoke dribbled from between his lips; his eyes were half-closed, filmed over and opaque.

“You’re an Earthman,” LeMarr said, wonderingly. “You’re not a webfoot after all.”

“I’m a Venusian,” V-Stephens answered indifferently. He showed his webbed fingers, then replaced his heavy driving gloves.

“But how—”

“You think we can’t pass over the color line when we want to?” V-Stephens shrugged. “Dyes, chemical hormones, a few minor surgical operations. A half hour in the men’s room with a hypodermic and salve…This is no planet for a man with green skin.”

Across the street a hasty barricade had been erected. A group of sullen-faced men stood around with guns and crude hand-clubs, some of them wearing gray Home Guard caps. They were flagging down cars one by one and searching them. A beefy-faced man waved V-Stephens to a halt. He strolled over and gestured for the window to be rolled down.

“What’s going on?” LeMarr demanded nervously.

“Looking for webfoots,” the man growled, a thick odor of garlic and perspiration steaming from his heavy canvas shirt. He darted quick, suspicious glances into the car. “Seen any around?”

“No,” V-Stephens said.

The man ripped open the luggage compartment and peered in. “We caught one a couple minutes ago.” He jerked his thick thumb. “See him up there?”

The Venusian had been strung up to a street lamp. His green body dangled and swayed with the early-evening wind. His face was a mottled, ugly mass of pain. A crowd of people stood around the pole, grim, mean-looking. Waiting.

“There’ll be more,” the man said, as he slammed the luggage compartment. “Plenty more.”

“What happened?” LeMarr managed to ask. He was nauseated and horrified; his voice came out almost inaudible. “Why all this?”

“A webfoot killed a man. An Earthman” The man pulled back and slapped the car. “Okay—you can go.”

V-Stephens moved the car forward. Some of the loitering people had whole uniforms, combinations of the Home Guard gray and Terran blue. Boots, heavy belt-buckles, caps, pistols, and armbands. The armbands read D.C. in bold black letters against a red background.

“What’s that?” LeMarr asked faintly.

“Defense Committee,” V-Stephens answered. “Gannet’s front outfit. To’ defend Earth against the webfoots and crows.”

“But—” LeMarr gestured helplessly. “Is Earth being attacked?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Turn the car around. Head back to the hospital.”

V-Stephens hesitated, then did as he was told. In a moment the car was speeding back toward the center of New York. “What’s this for?” V-Stephens asked. “Why do you want to go back?”

LeMarr didn’t hear him; he was gazing with fixed horror at the people along the street. Men and women prowling like animals, looking for something to kill. “They’ve gone crazy,” LeMarr muttered. “They’re beasts.”

“No,” V-Stephens said. “This’ll die down, soon. When the Committee gets its financial support jerked out from under it. It’s still going full blast, but pretty soon the gears will change around and the big engine will start grinding in reverse.

^Why?”

“Because Gannet doesn’t want war, now. It takes awhile for the new line to trickle down. Gannet will probably, finance a movement called P.C. Peace Committee.”

The hospital was surrounded by a wall of tanks and trucks and heavy mobile guns. V-Stephens slowed the car to a halt and stubbed out his cigarette. No cars were being passed. Soldiers moved among the tanks with gleaming heavy-duty weapons that were still shiny with packing grease.

“Well?” V-Stephens said. “What now? You have the gun. It’s your hot potato.”

LeMarr dropped a coin in the vidphone mounted on the dashboard. He gave the hospital number, and when the monitor appeared, asked hoarsely for Vachel Patterson.

“Where are you?” Patterson demanded. He saw the cold-beam in LeMarr’s hand, and then his eyes fastened on V-Stephens. “I see you got him.”

“Yes,” LeMarr agreed, “but I don’t understand what’s happening.” He appealed helplessly to Patterson’s miniature vidimage. “What’ll I do? What is all this?”

“Give me your location,” Patterson said tensely.

LeMarr did so. “You want me to bring him to the hospital? Maybe I should—”

“Just hold onto that cold-beam. I’ll be right there.” Patterson broke the connection and the screen died.

LeMarr shook his head in bewilderment. “I was trying to get you away,” he said to V-Stephens. “Then you cold-beamed me. Why?” Suddenly LeMarr shuddered violently. Full understanding came to him. “You killed David Unger!”

“That’s right,” V-Stephens answered.

The cold-beam trembled in LeMarr’s hand. “Maybe I ought to kill you right now. Maybe I ought to roll down the window and yell to those madmen to come and get you. I don’t know.”

“Do whatever you think best,” V-Stephens said.

LeMarr was still trying to decide, when Patterson appeared beside the car. He rapped on the window and LeMarr unlocked the door. Patterson climbed quickly in, and slammed the door after him.

“Start up the car,” he said to V-Stephens. “Keep moving, away from downtown.”

V-Stephens glanced briefly at him, and then slowly started up the motor. “You might as well do it here,” he said to Patterson. “Nobody’ll interfere.”

“I want to get out of the city,” Patterson answered. He added in explanation, “My lab staff analyzed the remains of David Unger. They were able to reconstruct most of the synthetic.”

V-Stephens’ face registered a surge of frantic emotion. “Oh?”

Patterson reached out his hand. “Shake,” he said grimly.

“Why?” V-Stephens asked, puzzled.

“Somebody told me to do this. Somebody who agrees you Venusians did one hell of a good job when you made that android.”

The car purred along the highway, through the evening gloom. “Denver is the last place left,” V-Stephens explained to the two Earthmen. “There’re too many of us, there. Color-Ad says a few Committee men started shelling our offices, but the Directorate put a sudden stop to it. Gannet’s pressure, probably.”

“I want to hear more,” Patterson said. “Not about Gannet; I know where he stands. I want to know what you people are up to.”

“Color-Ad engineered the synthetic,” V-Stephens admitted. “We don’t know any more about the future than you do—which is absolutely nothing. There never was a David Unger. We forged the i.d. papers, built up a whole false personality, history of a nonexistent war—everything.”

“Why?” LeMarr demanded.

“To scare Gannet into calling off the dogs. To terrify him into letting Venus and Mars become independent. To keep him from fanning up a war to preserve his economic stranglehold. The fake history we constructed in Unger’s mind has Gannet’s nine-world empire broken and destroyed. Gannet’s a realist. He’d take a risk when he had odds—but our history put the odds one hundred percent against him.”

“So Gannet pulls out,” Patterson said slowly. “And you?”

“We were always out,” V-Stephens said quietly. “We were never in this war game. All we want is our freedom and independence. I don’t know what the war would really be like, but I can guess. Not very pleasant. Not worth it for either of us. And as things were going, war was in the cards.” “I want to get a few things straight,” Patterson said. “You’re a Color-Ad agent?”

“Right.”

“And V-Rafia?”

“She was also Color-Ad. Actually, all Venusians and Martians are Color-Ad agents as soon as they hit Earth. We wanted to get V-Rafia into the hospital to help me out. There was a chance I’d be prevented from destroying the synthetic at the proper time. If I hadn’t been able to do it, V-Rafia would have. But Gannet killed her.”

“Why didn’t you simply cold-beam Unger?”

“For one thing we wanted the synthetic body completely destroyed. That isn’t possible, of course. Reduced to ash was the next best thing. Broken down small enough so a cursory examination wouldn’t show anything.” He glanced up at Patterson. “Why’d you order such a radical examination?”

“Unger’s i.d. number had come up. And Unger didn’t appear to claim it.”

“Oh,” V-Stephens said uneasily. “That’s bad. We had no way to tell when it would appear. We tried to pick a number due in a few months—but enlistments rose sharply the last couple of weeks.”

“Suppose you hadn’t been able to destroy Unger?”

“We had the demolition machinery phased in such a way that the synthetic didn’t have a chance. It was tuned to his body; all I had to do was activate it with Unger in the general area. If I had been killed, or I hadn’t been able to set off the mechanism, the synthetic would have died naturally before Gannet got the information he wanted. Preferably, I was to destroy it in plain view of Gannet and his staff. It was important they think we knew about the war. The psychological shock-value of seeing Unger murdered outweighs the risk of my capture.”

“What happens next?” Patterson asked presently.

“I’m supposed to join with Color-Ad. Originally, I was to grab a ship at the New York office, but Gannet’s mobs took care of that. Of course, this is assuming you won’t stop me.

LeMarr had begun to sweat. “Suppose Gannet finds out he was tricked? If he discovers there never was a David Unger—”

“We’re patching that up,” V-Stephens said. “By the time Gannet checks, there will be a David linger. Meanwhile—” He shrugged. “It’s up to you two. You’ve got the gun.”

“Let him go,” LeMarr said fervently.

“That’s not very patriotic,” Patterson pointed out. “We’re helping the webfoots put over something. Maybe we ought to call in one of those Committee men.”

“The devil with them,” LeMarr grated. “I wouldn’t turn anybody over to those lynch-happy lunatics. Even a—”

“Even a webfoot?” V-Stephens asked.

Patterson was gazing up at the black, star-pocked sky. “What’s finally going to happen?” he asked V-Stephens. “You think this stuff will end?”

“Sure,” V-Stephens said promptly. “One of these days we’ll be moving out into the stars. Into other systems. We’ll bump into other races—and I mean real other races. Nonhuman in the true sense of the word. Then people will see we’re all of the same stem. It’ll be obvious, when we’ve got something to compare ourselves to.”

“Okay,” Patterson said. He took the cold-beam and handed it to V-Stephens. “That was all that worried me. I’d hate to think this stuff might keep on going.”

“It won’t,” V-Stephens answered quietly. “Some of those non-human races ought to be pretty hideous. After a look at them, Earthmen will be glad to have their daughters marry men with green skin.” He grinned briefly. “Some of the non-human races may not have any skin at all…

TOP STANDBY JOB

An hour before his morning program on channel six, ranking news clown Jim Briskin sat in his private office with his production staff, conferring on the report of an unknown and possibly hostile flotilla detected at eight hundred astronomical units from the sun. It was big news, of course. But how should it be presented to his several-billion viewers scattered over three planets and seven moons?

Peggy Jones, his secretary, lit a cigarette and said, “Don’t alarm them, Jim-Jam. Do it folksy-style.” She leaned back, riffled the dispatches received by their commercial station from Unicephalon 40-D’s teletypers.

It had been the homeostatic problem-solving structure Unicephalon 40-D at the White House in Washington D.C. which had detected this possible external enemy; in its capacity as President of the United States it had at once dispatched ships of the line to stand picket duty. The flotilla appeared to be entering from another solar system entirely, but that fact of course would have to be determined by the picket ships.

“Folksy-style,” Jim Briskin said glumly. “I grin and say, Hey look, comrades—it’s happened at last, the thing we all feared, ha ha.” He eyed her. “That’ll get baskets full of laughs all over the Earth and Mars but just possibly not on the far-out moons.” Because if there were some kind of attack it would be the farther colonists who would be hit first.

“No, they won’t be amused,” his continuity advisor Ed Fineberg agreed. He, too, looked worried; he had a family on Ganymede.

“Is there any lighter piece of news?” Peggy asked. “By which you could open your program? The sponsor would like that.” She passed the armload of news dispatches to Briskin. “See what you can do. Mutant cow obtains voting franchise in court case in Alabama…you know.”

“I know,” Briskin agreed as he began to inspect the dispatches. One such as his quaint account—it had touched the hearts of millions—of the mutant blue jay which learned, by great trial and effort, to sew. It had sewn itself and its progeny a nest, one April morning, in Bismarck, North Dakota, in front of the T.V. cameras of Briskin’s network.

One piece of news stood out; he knew intuitively, as soon as he saw it, that here he had what he wanted to lighten the dire tone of the day’s news. Seeing it, he relaxed. The worlds went on with business as usual, despite this great newsbreak from eight hundred a.u.’s out.

“Look,” he said, grinning. “Old Gus Schatz is dead. Finally.”

“Who’s Gus Schatz?” Peggy asked, puzzled. “That name…it does sound familiar.”

“The union man,” Jim Briskin said. “You remember. The standby President, sent over to Washington by the union twenty-two years ago. He’s dead, and the union—” He tossed her the dispatch; it was lucid and brief. “Now it’s sending a new standby President over to take Schatz’ place. I think I’ll interview him. Assuming he can talk.”

“That’s right,” Peggy said. “I keep forgetting. There still is a human standby in case Unicephalon fails. Has it ever failed?^

“No,” Ed Fineberg said. “And it never will. So we have one more case of union featherbedding. The plague of our society.”

“But still,” Jim Briskin said, “people would be amused.

The home life of the top standby in the country…why the union picked him, what his hobbies are. What this man, whoever he is, plans to do during his term to keep from going mad with boredom. Old Gus learned to bind books; he collected rare old motor, magazines and bound them in vellum with gold-stamped lettering.”

Both Ed and Peggy nodded in agreement. “Do that,” Peggy urged him. “You can make it interesting, Jim-Jam; you can make anything interesting. I’ll place a call to the White House, or is the new man there yet?”

“Probably still at union headquarters in Chicago,” Ed said. “Try a line there. Government Civil Servants’ Union, East Divison.”

Picking up the phone, Peggy quickly dialed.

At seven o’clock in the morning Maximilian Fischer sleepily heard noises; he lifted his head from the pillow, heard the confusion growing in the kitchen, the landlady’s shrill voice, then men’s voices which were unfamiliar to him. Groggily, he managed to sit up, shifting his bulk with care. He did not hurry; the doc had said not to overexert, because of the strain on his already-enlarged heart. So he took his time dressing.

Must be after a contribution to one of the funds, Max said to himself. It sounds like some of the fellas. Pretty early, though. He did not feel alarmed. I’m in good standing, he thought firmly. Nuthin to fear.

With care, he buttoned a fine pink and green-striped silk shirt, one of his favorites. Gives me class, he thought as with labored effort he managed to bend far enough to slip on his authentic simulated deerskin pumps. Be ready to meet them on an equality level, he thought as he smoothed his thinning hair before the mirror. If they shake me down too much I’ll squawk directly to Pat Noble at the Noo York hiring hall; I mean, I don’t have to stand for any stuff, I been in the union too long.

From the other room a voice bawled, “Fischer—get your clothes on and come out. We got a job for you and it begins today.”

A job, Max thought with mixed feelings; he did not know whether to be glad or sorry. For over a year now he had been drawing from the union fund, as were most of his friends. Well what do you know. Cripes, he thought; suppose it’s a hard job, like maybe 1 got to bend over all the time or move around. He felt anger. What a dirty deal. I mean, who do they think they are? Opening the door, he faced them. “Listen,” he began, but one of the union officials cut him off.

“Pack your things, Fischer. Gus Schatz kicked the bucket and you got to go down to Washington D.C. and take over the number one standby; we want you there before they abolish the position or something and we have to go out on strike or go to court. Mainly, we want to get someone right in clean and easy with no trouble; you understand? Make the transition so smooth that no one hardly takes notice.”

At once, Max said, “What’s it pay?”

Witheringly, the union official said, “You got no decision to make in this; you’re picked. You want your freeloader fund-money cut off? You want to have to get out at your age and look for work?”

“Aw come on,” Max protested. “I can pick up the phone and dial Pat Noble—”

The union officials were grabbing up objects here and there in the apartment. “We’ll help you pack. Pat wants you in the White House by ten o’clock this morning.”

“Pat!” Max echoed. He had been sold out.

The union officials, dragging suitcases from the closet, grinned.

Shortly, they were on their way across the flatlands of the Midwest by monorail. Moodily, Maximilian Fischer watched the countryside flash past; he said nothing to the officials flanking him, preferring to mull the matter over and over in his mind. What could he recall about the number one standby job? It began at 8:00 a.m.—he recalled reading that. And there always were a lot of tourists flocking through the White House to catch a glimpse of Unicephalon 40-D, especially the school kids…and he disliked kids because they always jeered at him due to his weight. Cripes, he’d have a million of them filing by, because he had to be on the premises. By law, he had to be within a hundred yards of Unicephalon 40-D at all times, day and night, or was it fifty yards? Anyhow it practically was right on top, so if the homeostatic problem-solving system failed—Maybe 1 better bone up on this, he decided. Take a TV educational course on government administration, just in case.

To the union official on his right, Max asked, “Listen, good member, do I have any powers in this job you guys got me? I mean, can I—”

“It’s a union job like every other union job,” the official answered wearily. “You sit. You stand by. Have you been out of work that long, you don’t remember?” He laughed, nudging his companion. “Listen, Fischer here wants to know what authority the job entails.” Now both men laughed. “I tell you what, Fischer,” the official drawled. “When you’re all set up there in the White House, when you got your chair and bed and made all your arrangements for meals and laundry and TV viewing time, why don’t you amble over to Unicephalon 40-D and just sort of whine around there, you know, scratch and whine, until it notices you.”

“Lay off,” Max muttered.

“And then,” the official continued, “you sort of say, Hey Unicephalon, listen. I’m your buddy. How about a little ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine.’ You pass an ordinance for me—”

“But what can he do in exchange?” the other union official asked.

“Amuse it. He can tell it the story of his life, how he rose out of poverty and obscurity and educated himself by watching TV seven days a week until finally, guess what, he rose all the way to the top; he got the job—” The official snickered. “Of standby President.”

Maximilian, flushing, said nothing; he stared woodenly out of the monorail window.

When they reached Washington D.C. and the White House, Maximilian Fischer was shown a little room. It had belonged to Gus, and although the faded old motor magazines had been cleared out, a few prints remained tacked on the walls: a 1963 Volvo S-122, a 1957 Peugeot 403 and other antique classics of a bygone age. And, on a bookcase, Max saw a hand-carved plastic model of a 1950 Studebaker Starlight coupe, with each detail perfect.

“He was making that when he croaked,” one of the union officials said as he set down Max’s suitcase. “He could tell you any fact there is about those old pre-turbine cars—any useless bit of car knowledge.”

Max nodded.

“You got any idea what you’re going to do?” the official asked him.

“Aw hell,” Max said, “how could I decide so soon? Give me time.” Moodily, he picked up the Studebaker Starlight coupe and examined its underside. The desire to smash the model car came to him; he put the car down, then, turning away.

“Make a rubber band ball,” the official said.

“What?” Max said.

“The standby before Gus. Louis somebody-or-other…he collected rubber bands, made a huge ball, big as a house, by the time he died. I forget his name, but the rubber band ball is at the Smithsonian now.”

There was a stir in the hallway. A White House receptionist, a middle-aged woman severely dressed, put her head in the room and said, “Mr. President, there’s a TV news clown here to interview you. Please try to finish with him as quickly as possible because we have quite a few tours passing through the building today and some may want to look at you.”

“Okay,” Max said. He turned to face the TV news clown. It was Jim-Jam Briskin, he saw, the ranking clown just now. “You want to see me?” he asked Briskin haltingly. “I mean, you’re sure it’s me you want to interview?” He could not imagine what Briskin could find of interest about him. Holding out his hand he added, “This is my room, but these model cars and pics aren’t mine; they were Gus’. I can’t tell you nuthin about them.”

On Briskin’s head the familiar flaming-red clown wig glowed, giving him in real life the same bizarre cast that the TV cameras picked up so well. He was older, however, than the TV image indicated, but he had the friendly, natural smile that everyone looked for: it was his badge of informality, a really nice guy, even-tempered but with a caustic wit when occasion demanded. Briskin was the sort of man who…well, Max thought, the sort of fella you’d like to see marry into your family.

They shook hands. Briskin said, “You’re on camera, Mr. Max Fischer. Or rather, Mr. President, I should say. This is Jim-Jam talking. For our literally billions of viewers located in every niche and comer of this far-flung solar system of ours, let me ask you this. How does it feel, sir, to know that If Unicephalon 40-D should fail, even momentarily, you would be catapulted into the most important post that has ever fallen onto the shoulders of a human being, that of actual, not merely standby, President of the United States? Does it worry you at night?” He smiled. Behind him the camera technicians swung their mobile lenses back and forth; lights burned Max’s eyes and he felt the heat beginning to make him sweat under his arms and on his neck and upper lip. “What emotions grip you at this instant?” Briskin asked. “As you stand on the threshold of this new task for perhaps the balance of your life? What thoughts run through your mind, now that you’re actually here in the White House?”

After a pause, Max said, “It’s—a big responsibility.” And then he realized, he saw, that Briskin was laughing at him, laughing silently as he stood there. Because it was all a gag Briskin was pulling. Out in the planets and moons his audiences knew it, too; they knew Jim-Jam’s humor.

“You’re a large man, Mr. Fischer,” Briskin said. “If I may say so, a stout man. Do you get much exercise? I ask this because with your new job you pretty well will be confined to this room, and I wondered what change in your life this would bring about.”

“Well,” Max said, “I feel of course that a Government employee should always be at his post. Yes, what you say is true; I have to be right here day and night, but that doesn’t bother me. I’m prepared for it.”

“Tell me,” Jim Briskin said, “do you—” And then he ceased. Turning to the video technicians behind him he said in an odd voice, “We’re off the air.”

A man wearing headphones squeezed forward past the cameras. “On the monitor, listen.” He hurriedly handed the headphones to Briskin…“We’ve been pre-empted by Unicephalon; it’s broadcasting a news bulletin.”

Briskin held the phones to his ear. His face writhed and he said, “Those ships at eight hundred a.u.’s. They are hostile, it says.” He glanced up sharply at his technicians, the red clown’s wig sliding askew. “They’ve begun to attack.”

Within the following twenty-four hours the aliens had managed not only to penetrate the Sol System but also to knock out Unicephalon 40-D.

News of this reached Maximilian Fischer in an indirect manner as he sat in the White House cafeteria having his supper.

“Mr. Maximilian Fischer?”

“Yeah,” Max said, glancing up at the group of Secret Servicemen who had surrounded his table.

“You’re President of the United States.”

“Naw,” Max said, “I’m the standby President; that’s different.”

The Secret Serviceman said, “Unicephalon 40-D is out of commission for perhaps as long as a month. So according to the amended Constitution, you’re President and also Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. We’re here to guard you.” The Secret Serviceman grinned ludicrously. Max grinned back. “Do you understand?” the Secret Serviceman asked. “I mean, does it penetrate?”

“Sure,” Max said. Now he understood the buzz of conversation he had overheard while waiting in the cafeteria line with his tray. It explained why White House personnel had looked at him strangely. He set down his coffee cup, wiped his mouth with his napkin, slowly and deliberately, pretended to be absorbed in solemn thought. But actually his mind was empty.

“We’ve been told,” the Secret Serviceman said, “that you’re needed at once at the National Security Council bunker. They want your participation in finalization of strategy deliberations.”

They walked from the cafeteria to the elevator.

“Strategy policy,” Max said, as they descended. “I got a few opinions about that. I guess it’s time to deal harshly with these alien ships, don’t you agree?” The Secret Servicemen nodded. “Yes, we got to show we’re not afraid,” Max said. “Sure, we’ll get finalization; we’ll blast the buggers.”

The Secret Servicemen laughed good-naturedly.

Pleased, Max nudged the leader of the group. “I think we’re pretty goddam strong; I mean, the U.S.A. has got teeth.”

“You tell ’em, Max,” one of the Secret Servicemen said, and they all laughed aloud, Max included.

As they stepped from the elevator they were stopped by a tall, well-dressed man who said urgently, “Mr. President, I’m Jonathan Kirk, White House press secretary; I think before you go in there to confer with the NSC people you should address the nation in this hour of gravest peril. The public wants to see what their new leader is like.” He held out several sheets of paper. “Here’s a statement drawn up by the Political Advisory Board; it codifies your—”

“Nits,” Max said, handing it back without looking at it. “I’m the President, not you. I don’t even know you. Kirk? Burke? Shirk? Never heard of you. Show me the microphone and I’ll make my own speech. Or get me Pat Noble; maybe he’s got some ideas.” And then he remembered that Pat had sold him out in the first place; Pat had gotten him into this. “Not him either,” Max said. “Just give me the microphone.”

“This is a time of crisis,” Kirk grated.

“Sure,” Max said, “so leave me alone; you keep out of my way and I’ll keep out’ of yours. Ain’t that right?” He slapped Kirk good-naturedly on the back. “And we’ll both be better off.”

A group of people with. portable TV cameras and lighting appeared, and among them Max saw Jim-Jam Briskin, in the middle, with his staff.

“Hey, Jim-Jam,” he yelled. “Look, I’m President now!”

Stolidly, Jim Briskin came toward him.

“I’m not going to be winding no ball of string,” Max said. “Or making model boats, nuthin like that.” He shook hands warmly with Briskin. “I thank you,” Max said. “For your congratulations.”

“Congratulations,” Briskin said, then, in a low voice.

“Thanks,” Max said, squeezing the man’s hand until the knuckles creaked. “Of course, sooner or later they’ll get that noise-box patched up and I’ll just be standby again. But—” He grinned gleefully around at all of them; the corridor was full of people now, from TV to White House staff members to Army officers and Secret Servicemen, all kinds of people.

Briskin said, “You have a big task, Mr. Fischer.”

“Yeah,” Max agreed.

Something in Briskin’s eyes said: And 1 wonder if you can handle it. I wonder if you’re the man to hold such power.

“Sure I can do it,” Max declared, into Briskin’s microphone, for all the vast audience to hear.

“Possibly you can,” Jim Briskin said, and on his face was dubiousness.

“Hey, you don’t like me any more,” Max said. “How come?”

Briskin said nothing, but his eyes flickered.

“Listen,” Max said, “I’m President now; I can close down your silly network—I can send FBI men in any time I want. For your information I’m firing the Attorney General right now, whatever his name is, and putting in a man I know, a man I can trust.”

Briskin said, “I see.” And now he looked less dubious; conviction, of a sort which Max could not fathom, began to appear instead. “Yes,” Jim Briskin said, “you have the authority to order that, don’t you? If you’re really President…”

“Watch out,” Max said. “You’re nothing compared to me, Briskin, even if you do have that great big audience.” Then, turning his back on the cameras, - he strode through the open door, into the NSC bunker.

Hours later, in the early morning, down in the National Security Council subsurface bunker, Maximilian Fischer listened sleepily to the TV set in the background as it yammered out the latest news. By now, intelligence sources had plotted the arrival of thirty more alien ships in the Sol System. It was believed that seventy in all had entered. Each was being continually tracked.

But that was not enough, Max knew. Sooner or later he would have to give the order to attack the alien ships. He hesitated. After all, who were they? Nobody at CIA knew. How strong were they? Not known either. And—would the attack be successful?

And then there were domestic problems. Unicephalon had continually tinkered with the economy, priming it when necessary, cutting taxes, lowering interest rates…that had ceased with the problem-solver’s destruction. Jeez, Max thought dismally. What do I know about unemployment? I mean, how can I tell what factories to reopen and where?

He turned to General Tompkins, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who sat beside him examining a report on the scrambling of the tactical defensive ships protecting Earth. “They got all them ships distributed right?” he asked Tompkins.

“Yes, Mr. President,” General Tompkins answered.

Max winced. But the general did not seem to have spoken ironically; his tone had been respectful. “Okay,” Max murmured. “Glad to hear that. And you got all that missile cloud up so there re no leaks, like you let in that ship to blast Unicephalon. I don’t want that to happen again.”

“We’re under Defcon one,” General Tompkins said. “Full war footing, as of six o’clock, our time.”

“How about those strategic ships?” That, he had learned, was the euphemism for their offensive strike-force.

“We can mount an attack at any time,” General Tompkins said, glancing down the long table to obtain the assenting nods of his co-workers. “We can take care of each of the seventy invaders now within our system.”

With a groan, Max said, “Anybody got any bicarb?” The whole business depressed him. What a lot of work and sweat, he thought. All this goddam agitation—why don’t the buggers fust leave our system? 1 mean, do we have to get into a war? No telling what their home system will do in retaliation; you never can tell about unhuman life forms—they’re unreliable.

“That’s what bothers me,” he said aloud. “Retaliation.” He sighed.

General Tompkins said, “Negotiation with them evidently is impossible.”

“Go ahead, then,” Max said. “Go give it to them.” He looked about for the bicarb.

“I think you’re making a wise choice,” General Tompkins said, and, across the table, the civilian advisors nodded in agreement.

“Here’s an odd piece of news,” one of the advisors said to Max. He held out a teletype dispatch. “James Briskin has just filed a writ of mandamus against you in a Federal Court in California, claiming you’re not legally President because you didn’t run for office.”

“You mean because I didn’t get voted in?” Max said. “Just because of that?”

“Yes sir. Briskin is asking the Federal Courts to rule on this, and meanwhile he has announced his own candidacy.”

“WHAT?”

“Briskin claims not only that you must run for office and be voted in, but you must run against him. And with his popularity he evidently feels—”

“Aw nuts,” Max said in despair. “How do you like that.” There was silence in the bunker.

“Well anyhow,” Max said, “it’s all decided; you military fellas go ahead and knock out those alien ships. And meanwhile—” He decided there and then. “We’ll put economic pressure on Jim-Jam’s sponsers, that Reinlander beer and Calbest Electronics, to get him not to run.”

The men at the long table nodded. Papers rattled as briefcases were put away; the meeting—temporarily—was at an end.

He’s got an unfair advantage, Max said to himself. How can 1 run when it’s not equal, him a famous TV personality and me not? That’s not right; I can’t allow that.

Jim-Jam can run, he decided, but it won’t do him any good. He’s not going to beat me because he’s not going to be alive that long.

A week before the election, Telscan, the interplanetary public-opinion sampling agency, published its latest findings. Reading them, Maximilian Fischer felt more gloomy than ever.

“Look at this,” he said to his cousin Leon Lait, the lawyer whom he had recently made Attorney General. He tossed the report to him.

His own showing of course was negligible. In the election, Briskin would easily, and most definitely, win.

“Why is that?” Lait asked. Like Max, he was a large, paunchy man who for years now had held a standby job; he was not used to physical activity of any sort and his new position was proving difficult for him. However, out of family loyalty to Max, he remained. “Is that because he’s got all those TV stations?” he asked, sipping from his can of beer.

Max said cuttingly, “Naw, it’s because his navel glows in the dark. Of course it’s because of his TV stations, you jerk—he’s got them pounding away night and day, creatin’ an image.” He paused, moodily. “He’s a clown. It’s that red wig; it’s fine for a newscaster, but not for a President.” Too morose to speak, he lapsed into silence.

And worse was to follow.

At 9:00 p.m. that night, Jim-Jam Briskin began a seventy-two hour marathon TV program over all his stations, a great final drive to bring his popularity over the top and insure his victory.

In his special bedroom at the White House, Max Fischer sat with a tray of food before him, in bed, gloomily facing the TV set.

That Briskin, he thought furiously for the millionth time. “Look,” he said to his cousin; the Attorney General sat in the easy chair across from him. “There’s the nert now.” He pointed to the TV screen…

Leon Lait, munching on his cheeseburger, said, “It’s abominable.”

“You know where he’s broadcasting from? Way out in deep space, out past Pluto. At their furthest-out transmitter, which your FBI guys will never in a million years manage to get to.”

“They will,” Leon assured him. “I told them they have to get him—the President, my cousin, personally says so.”

“But they won’t get him for a while,” Max said. “Leon, you’re just too damn slow. I’ll tell you something. I got a ship of the line out there, the Dwight D. Eisenhower. It’s all ready to lay an egg on them, you know, a big bang, just as soon as I pass on the word.”

“Right, Max.”

“And I hate to,” Max said.

The telecast had begun to pick up momentum already. Here came the Spotlights, and sauntering out onto the stage pretty Peggy Jones, wearing a glittery bare-shoulder gown, her hair radiant. Now we get a topflight striptease, Max realized, by a real fine-looking girl. Even he sat up and took notice. Well, maybe not a true striptease, but certainly the opposition, Briskin and his staff, had sex working for them, here. Across the room his cousin the Attorney General had stopped munching his cheeseburger; the noise came to a halt, then picked up slowly once more.

On the screen, Peggy sang:

It’s Jim-Jam, for whom I am,

America’s best-loved guy.

It’s Jim-Jam, the best one that am,

The candidate for you and I.

“Oh god,” Max groaned. And yet, the way she delivered it, with every part of her slim, long body…it was okay. “I guess I got to inform the Dwight D. Eisenhower to go ahead,” he said, watching.

“If you say so, Max,” Leon said. “I assure you, I’ll rule that you acted legally; don’t worry none about that.”

“Gimme the red phone,” Max said. “That’s the armored connection that only the Commander-in-Chief uses for top-secret instructions. Not bad, huh?” He accepted the phone from the Attorney General. “I’m calling General Tompkins and he’ll relay the order to the ship. Too bad, Briskin,” v he added, with one last look at the screen. “But it’s your own fault; you didn’t have to do what you did, opposing me and all.”

The girl in the silvery dress had gone, now, and Jim-Jam Briskin had appeared in her place. Momentarily, Max lowered the phone to watch. ~

“Hi, beloved comrades,” Briskin said, raising his hands for silence; the canned applause—Max knew that no audience existed in that remote spot—lowered, then rose again. Briskin grinned amiably, waiting for it to die.

“It’s a fake,” Max grunted. “Fake audience. They’re smart, him and his staff. His rating’s already way up.”

“Right, Max,” the Attorney General agreed. “I noticed that.”

“Comrades,” Jim Briskin was saying soberly on the TV screen, “as you may know, originally President Maximilian Fischer and I got along very well.”

His hand on the red phone, Max thought to himself that what Jim-Jam said was true.

“Where we broke,” Briskin continued, “was over the issue of force—of the use of naked, raw power. To Max Fischer, the office of President is merely a machine, an instrument, which he can use as an extension of his own desires, to fulfill his own needs. I honestly believe that in many respects his aims are good; he is trying to carry out Unicephalon’s fine policies. But as to the means. That’s a different matter.”

Max said, “Listen to him, Leon.” And he thought, No matter what he says “I’m going to keep on; nobody is going to stand in my way, became it’s my duty; it’s the job of the office, and if you got to be President like I am you’d do it, too.

“Even the President,” Briskin was saying, “must obey the law; he doesn’t stand outside it, however powerful he is.” He was silent for a moment and then he said slowly, “I know that at this moment the FBI, under direct orders from Max Fischer’s appointee, Leon Lait, is attempting to close down these stations, to still my voice. Here again Max Fischer is making use of power, of the police agency, for his own ends, making it an extension—”

Max picked up the red phone. At once a voice said from it, “Yes, Mr. President. This is General Tompkins’ C of C.”

“What’s that?” Max said.

“Chief of Communications, Army 600-1000, sir. Aboard the Dwight D. Eisenhower, accepting relay through the transmitter at the Pluto Station.”

“Oh yeah,” Max said, nodding. “Listen, you fellas stand by, you understand? Be ready to receive instructions.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “Leon,” he said to his cousin, who had now finished his cheeseburger and was starting on a strawberry shake. “How can I do it? I mean, Briskin is telling the truth.”

Leon said, “Give Tompkins the word.” He belched, then tapped himself on the chest with the side of his fist. “Pardon me.

On the screen Jim Briskin said, “I think very possibly I’m risking my life to speak to you, because this we must face: we have a President who would not mind employing murder to obtain his objectives. This is the political tactic of a tyranny, and that’s what we’re seeing, a tyranny coming into existence in our society, replacing the rational, disinterested rule of the homeostatic problem-solving Unicephaton 40-D which was designed, built and put into operation by some of the finest minds we have ever seen, minds dedicated to the > preservation of all that’s worthy in our tradition. And the transformation from this to a one-man tyranny is melancholy, to say the least.”

Quietly, Max said, “Now I can’t go ahead.”

“Why not?” Leon said.

“Didn’t you hear him? He’s talking about me. I’m the tyrant he has reference to. Keerist.” Max hung up the red phone. “I waited too long.”

“I don’t see that,” Leon said. “Why can’t you go ahead, Max?”

“It’s hard for me to say it,” Max said, “but—well, hell, it would prove he’s right.” 1 know he’s right anyhow, Max thought. But do they know it? Does the public know it? 1 can’t let them find out about me, he realized. They should look up to their President, respect him. Honor him. No wonder I show up so bad in the Telscan poll. No wonder Jim Briskin decided to run against me the moment he heard I was in office. They really do know about me; they sense it, sense that Jim-Jam is speaking the truth. I’m just not Presidential caliber.

I’m not fit, he thought, to hold this office.

“Listen, Leon,” he said, “I’m going to give it to that Briskin anyhow and then step down. It’ll be my last official act.” Once more he picked up the red phone. “I’m going to order them to wipe out Briskin and then someone else can be President. Anyone the people want. Even Pat Noble or you; I don’t care.” He jiggled the phone. “Hey, C. of C.,” he said loudly. “Come on, answer.” To his cousin he said, “Leave me some of that shake; it’s actually half-mine.”

“Sure, Max,” Leon said loyally.

“Isn’t no one there?” Max said into the phone. He waited. The phone remained dead. “Something’s gone wrong,” he said to Leon. “Communications have busted down. It must be those aliens again.”

And then he saw the TV screen. It was blank.

“What’s happening?” Max said. “What are they doing to me? Who’s doing it?” He looked around, frightened. “I don’t get it.”

Leon stoically drank the milkshake, shrugging to show that he had no answer. But his beefy face had paled.

“It’s too late,” Max said. “For some reason it’s just too late.” Slowly, he hung up the phone. “I’ve got enemies, Leon, more powerful than you or me. And I don’t even know who they are.” He sat in silence, before the dark, soundless TV screen. Waiting.

The speaker of the TV set said abruptly, “Pseudo-autonomic news bulletin. Stand by, please.” .Then again there was silence.

Jim Brisldn, glancing at Ed Fineberg and Peggy, waited.

“Comrade citizens of the United States,” the flat, unmodulated voice from the TV speaker said, all at once. “The interregnum is over, the situation has returned to normal.” As it spoke, words appeared on the monitor screen, a ribbon of printed tape passing slowly across, before the TV cameras in Washington D.C. Unicephalon 40-D had spliced itself into the coax in its usual fashion; it had pre-empted the program in progress: that was its traditional right.

The voice was the synthetic verbalizing-organ of the homeostatic structure itself.

“The election campaign is nullified,” Unicephalon 40-D said. “That is item one. The standby President Maximilian Fischer is canceled out; that is item two. Item three: we are at war with the aliens who have invaded our system. Item four: James Briskin, who has been speaking to you—”

This is it, Briskin realized.

In his earphones the impersonal, plateau-like voice continued, “Item four: James Briskin, who has been speaking to you on these facilities, is hereby ordered to cease and desist, and a writ of mandamus is issued forthwith requiring him to show just cause why he should be free to pursue any further political activity. In the public interest we instruct him to become politically silent.”

Grinning starkly at Peggy and Ed Fineberg, Brisldn said, “That’s it. It’s over. I’m to politically shut up.”

“You can fight it in the courts,” Peggy said at once. “You can take it all the way up to the Supreme Court; they’ve set aside decisions of Unicephalon in die past.” She put her hand on his shoulder, but he moved away. “Or do you want to fight it?”

“At least I’m not canceled out,” Briskin said. He felt tired. “I’m glad to see that machine back in operation,” he said, to reassure Peggy. “It means a return to stability. That we can use.”

“What’ll you do, Jim-Jam?” Ed asked. “Go back to Reinlander beer and Calbest Electronics and try to get your old job back?”

“No,” Briskin murmured. Certainly not that. But—he could not really become politically silent; he could not do what the problem-solver said. It simply was not biologically possible for him; sooner or later he would begin to talk again, for better or worse. And, he thought, I’ll bet Max can’t do what it says either…neither of us can.

Maybe, he thought, I’ll answer the writ of mandamus; maybe I’ll contest it. A counter suit…I’ll sue Unicephalon 40-D in a court of law. Jim-Jam Briskin the plaintiff, Unicephalon 40-D the defendant. He smiled. I'll need a good lawyer for that. Someone quite a bit better than Max Fischer’s top legal mind, cousin Leon Lait.

Going to the closet of the small studio in which they had been broadcasting, he got his coat and began to put it on. A long trip lay ahead of them back to Earth from this remote spot, and he wanted to get started.

Peggy, following after him, said, “You’re not going back on the air at all? Not even to finish the program?”

“No,” he said.

“But Unicephalon will be cutting back out again, and what’ll that leave? Just dead air. That’s not right, is it, Jim? Just to walk out like this…I can’t believe you’d do it, it’s not like you.”

He halted at die door of the studio. “You heard what it said. The instructions it handed out to me.”

“Nobody leaves dead air going,” Peggy said. “It’s a vacuum, Jim, the thing nature abhors. And if you don’t fill it, someone else will. Look, Unicephalon is going back off right now.” She pointed at the TV monitor. The ribbon of words had ceased; once more the screen was dark, empty of motion and light. “It’s your responsibility,” Peggy said, “and you know it.”

“Are we back on the air?” he asked Ed.

“Yes. It’s definitely out of the circuit, at least for a while.” Ed gestured toward the vacant stage on which the TV cameras and lights focused. He said nothing more; he did not have to.

With his coat still on, Jim Brisldn walked that way. Hands in his pockets he stepped back into the range of the cameras, smiled and said, “I think, beloved comrades, the interruption is over. For the time being, anyhow. So…let’s continue.”

The noise of canned applause—manipulated by Ed Fine-berg—swelled up, and Jim Briskin raised his hands and signaled the nonexistent studio audience for silence.

“Does any of you know a good lawyer?” Jim-Jam asked caustically. “And if you do, phone us and tell us right away—before the FBI finally manages to reach us out here.”

In his bedroom at the White House, as Unicephalon’s message ended, Maximilian Fischer turned to his cousin Leon and said, “Well, I’m out of office.”

“Yeah, Max,” Leon said heavily. “I guess you are.”

“And you, too,” Max pointed out. “It’s going to be a clean sweep; you can count on that. Canceled.” He gritted his teeth. “That’s sort of insulting. Couldn’t it have said retired?”

“I guess that’s just its way of expressing itself,” Leon said.

“Don’t get upset, Max; remember your heart trouble. You still got the job of standby, and that’s the top standby position there is, Standby President of the United States, I want to remind you. And now you’ve got all this worry and effort off your back; you’re lucky.”

“I wonder if I’m allowed to finish this meal,” Max said, picking at the food in the tray before him. His appetite, now that he was retired, began almost at once to improve; he selected a chicken salad sandwich and took a big bite from it. “It’s still mine,” he decided, his mouth full. “I still get to live here and eat regularly—right?”

“Right,” Leon agreed, his legal mind active. “That’s in the contract the union signed with Congress; remember back to that? We didn’t go out on strike for nothing.”

“Those were the days,” Max said. He finished the chicken salad sandwich and returned to the eggnog. It felt good not to have to make big decisions; he let out a long, heartfelt sigh and settled back into the pile of pillows propping him up.

But then he thought, In some respects I sort of enjoyed making decisions. I mean, it was—He searched for the thought. It was different from being a standby or drawing unemployment. It had—

Satisfaction, he thought. That’s what it gave me. Like I was accomplishing something. He missed that already; he felt suddenly hollow, as if things had all at once become purposeless.

“Leon,” he said, “I could have gone on as President another whole month. And enjoyed the job. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I guess I get your meaning,” Leon mumbled.

“No, you don’t,” Max said.

“I’m trying, Max,” his cousin said. “Honest.”

With bitterness, Max said, “I shouldn’t have had them go ahead and let those engineer-fellas patch up that Unicephalon; I should have buried the project, at least for a while. For maybe another six months.”

“Too late to think about that now,” Leon said.

Is it? Max asked himself. You know, something could happen to Unicephalon 40-D. An accident.

He pondered that as he ate a piece of green-apple pie with a wide slice of longhorn cheese. A number of persons whom he knew could pull off such tasks…and did so, now and then.

A big, nearly-fatal accident, he thought. Late some night, when everyone’s asleep and it’s just me and it awake here in the White House. 1 mean, let’s face if; the aliens showed us how.

“Look, Jim-Jam Briskin’s back on the air,” Leon said, gesturing at the TV set. Sure enough, there was the famous, familiar red wig, and Briskin was saying something witty and yet profound, something that made one stop to ponder. “Hey listen,” Leon said. “He’s poking fun at the FBI; can you imagine him doing that now? He’s not scared of anything.”

“Don’t bother me,” Max said. “I’m thinking.” He reached over and carefully turned the sound of the TV set off.

For thoughts such as he was having he wanted no distractions.

BEYOND LIES THE WUB

They had almost finished with the loading. Outside stood the Optus, his arms folded, his face sunk in gloom. Captain Franco walked leisurely down the gangplank, grinning.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “You’re getting paid for all this.”

The Optus said nothing. He turned away, collecting his robes. The Captain put his boot on the hem of the robe.

“Just a minute. Don’t go off. I’m not finished.”

“Oh?” The Optus turned with dignity. “I am going back to the village.” He looked toward the animals and. birds being driven up the gangplank into the spaceship. “I must organize new hunts.”

Franco lit a cigarette. “Why not? You people can go out into the veldt and track it all down again. But when we run halfway between Mars and Earth—”

The Optus went off, wordless. Franco joined the first mate at the bottom of the gangplank.

“How’s it coming?” he said. He looked at his watch. “We got a good bargain here.”

The mate glanced at him sourly. “How do you explain that?”

“What’s the matter with you? We need it more than they do.”

“I’ll see you later, Captain.” The mate threaded his way up the plank, between the long-legged Martian go-birds, into the ship. Franco watched him disappear. He was just starting up after him, up the plank toward the port, when he saw it.

“My God!” He stood staring, his hands on his hips. Peterson was walking along the path, his face red, leading it by a string.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” he said, tugging at the string. Franco walked toward him.

“What is it?”

The wub stood sagging, its great body settling slowly. It was sitting down, its eyes half shut. A few flies buzzed about its flank, and it switched its tail.

It sat. There was silence.

“It’s a wub,” Peterson said. “I got it from a native for fifty cents. He said it was a very unusual animal. Very respected.”

“This?” Franco poked the great sloping side of the wub. “It’s a pig! A huge dirty pig!”

“Yes sir, it’s a pig. The natives call it a wub.”

“A huge pig. It must weigh four hundred pounds.” Franco grabbed a tuft of the rough hair. The wub gasped. Its eyes opened, small and moist. Then its great mouth twitched.

A tear rolled down the wub’s cheek and splashed on the floor.

“Maybe it’s good to eat,” Peterson said nervously.

“We’ll soon find out,” Franco said.

The wub survived the takeoff, sound asleep in the hold of the ship. When they were out in space and everything was running smoothly, Captain Franco bade his men fetch the wub upstairs so that he might perceive what manner of beast it was.

The wub grunted and wheezed, squeezing up the passageway.

“Come on,” Jones grated, pulling at the rope. The wub twisted, rubbing its skin off on the smooth chrome walls. It burst into the anteroom, tumbling down in a heap. The men leaped up.

“Good Lord,” French said. “What is it?”

“Peterson says it’s a wub,” Jones said. “It belongs to him.” He kicked at the wub. The wub stood up unsteadily, panting.

“What’s the matter with it?” French came over. “Is it going to be sick?”

They watched. The wub rolled its eyes mournfully. It gazed around at the men.

“I think it’s thirsty,” Peterson said. He went to get some water. French shook his head.

“No wonder we had so much trouble taking off. I had to reset all my ballast calculations.”

Peterson came back with the water. The wub began to lap gratefully, splashing the men.

Captain Franco appeared at the door.

“Let’s have a look at it.” He advanced, squinting critically. “You got this for fifty cents?”

“Yes, sir,” Peterson said. “It eats almost anything. I fed it on grain and it liked that. And then potatoes, and mash, and scraps from the table, and milk. It seems to enjoy eating. After it eats it lies down and goes to sleep.”

“I see,” Captain Franco said. “Now, as to its taste. That’s the real question. I doubt if there’s much point in fattening it up any more. It seems fat enough to me already. Where’s the cook? I want him here. I want to find out—”

The wub stopped lapping and looked up at the Captain. “Really, Captain,” the wub said. “I suggest we talk of other matters.”

The room was silent.

“What was that?” Franco said. “Just now.”

“The wub, sir,” Peterson said. “It spoke.”

They all looked at the wub.

“What did it say? What did it say?”

“It suggested we talk about other things.”

Franco walked toward the wub. He went all around it, examining it from every side. Then he came back over and stood with the men.

“I wonder if there’s a native inside it,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe we should open it up and have a look.”

“Oh, goodness!” the wub cried. “Is that all you people can think of, killing and cutting?”

Franco clenched his fists. “Come out of there! Whoever you are, come out!”

Nothing stirred. The men stood together, their faces blank, staring at the wub. The wub swished its tail. It belched suddenly.

“I beg your pardon,” the wub said.

“I don’t think there’s anyone in there,” Jones said in a low voice. They all looked at each other.

The cook came in.

“You wanted me, Captain?” he said. “What’s this thing?”

“This is a wub,” Franco said. “It’s to be eaten. Will you measure it and figure out—”

“I think we should have a talk,” the wub said. “I’d like to discuss this with you, Captain, if I might. I can see that you and I do not agree on some basic issues.”

The Captain took a long time to answer. The wub waited good-naturedly, licking the water from its jowls.

“Come into my office,” the Captain said at last. He turned and walked out of the room. The wub rose and padded after him, The men watched it go out. They heard it climbing the stairs.

“I wonder what the outcome will be,” the cook said. “Well, I’ll be in the kitchen. Let me know as soon as you hear.”

“Sure,” Jones said. “Sure.”

The wub eased itself down in the comer with a sigh. “You must forgive me,” it said. “I’m afraid I’m addicted to various forms of relaxation. When one is as large as I—”

The Captain nodded impatiently. He sat down at his desk and folded his hands.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s get started. You’re a wub? Is that correct?”

The wub shrugged. “I suppose so. That’s what they call us, the natives, I mean. We have our own term.”

“And you speak English? You’ve been in contact with Earthmen before?”

“No.”

“Then how do you do it?”

“Speak English? Am I speaking English? I’m not conscious of speaking anything in particular. I examined your mind—”

“My mind?”

“I studied the contents, especially the semantic warehouse, as I refer to it—”

“I see,” the Captain said. “Telepathy. Of course.”

“We are a very old race,” the wub said. “Very old and very ponderous. It is difficult for us to move around. You can appreciate that anything so slow and heavy would be at the mercy of more agile forms of life. There was no use in our relying on physical defenses. How could we win? Too heavy to run, too soft to fight, too good-natured to hunt for game—”

“How do you live?”

“Plants. Vegetables. We can eat almost anything. We’re very catholic. Tolerant, eclectic, catholic. We live and let live. That’s how we’ve gotten along.”

’ The wub eyed the Captain.

“And that’s why I so violently objected to this business about having me boiled. I could see the image in your mind-most of me in the frozen food locker, some of me in the kettle, a bit for your pet cat—”

“So you read minds?” the Captain said. “How interesting. Anything else? I mean, what else can you do along those lines?”

“A few odds and ends,” the wub said absently, staring around the room. “A nice apartment you have here, Captain. You keep it quite neat. I respect lifeforms that are tidy. Some Martian birds are quite tidy. They throw things out of their nests and sweep them—”

“Indeed.” The Captain nodded. “But to get back to the problem—”

“Quite so. You spoke of dining on me. The taste, I am told, is good. A little fatty, but tender. But how can any lasting contact be established between your people and mine if you resort to such barbaric attitudes? Eat me? Rather you should discuss questions with me, philosophy, the arts—” The Captain stood up. “Philosophy. It might interest you to know that we will be hard put to find something to eat for the next month. An unfortunate spoilage—”

“I know.” The wub nodded. “But wouldn’t it be more in accord with your principles of democracy if we all drew straws, or something along that line? After all, democracy is to protect the minority from just such infringements. Now, if each of us casts one vote—”

The Captain walked to the door.

“Nuts to you,” he said. He opened the door. He opened his mouth.

He stood frozen, his mouth wide, his eyes staring, his fingers still on the knob.

The wub watched him. Presently it padded out of the room, edging past the Captain. It went down the hall, deep in meditation.

The room was quiet.

“So you see,” the wub said, “we have a common myth. Your mind contains many familiar myth symbols. Ishtar, Odysseus—”

Peterson sat silently, staring at the floor. He shifted in his chair.

“Go on,” he said. “Please go on.”

“I find in your Odysseus a figure common to the mythology of most self-conscious races. As I interpret it, Odysseus wanders as an individual aware of himself as such. This is the idea of separation, of separation from family and country. The process of individuation.”

“But Odysseus returns to his home.” Peterson looked out the port window, at the stars, endless stars, burning intently in the empty universe. “Finally he goes home.”

“As must all creatures. The moment of separation is a temporary period, a brief journey of the soul. It begins, it ends. The wanderer returns to land and race…”

The door opened. The wub stopped, turning its great head.

Captain Franco came into the room, the men behind him. They hesitated at the door.

“Are you all right?” French said.

“Do you mean me?” Peterson said, surprised. “Why me?” Franco lowered his gun. “Come over here,” he said to Peterson. “Get up and come here.”

There was silence.

“Go ahead,” the wub said. “It doesn’t matter.”

Peterson stood up. “What for?”

“It’s an order.”

Peterson walked to the door. French caught his arm.

“What’s going on?” Peterson wrenched loose. “What’s the matter with you?”

Captain Franco moved toward the wub. The wub looked up from where it lay in the corner, pressed against the wall.

“It is interesting,” the wub said, “that you are obsessed with the idea of eating me. I wonder why.”

“Get up,” Franco said.

“If you wish.” The wub rose, grunting. “Be patient. It is difficult for me.” It stood, gasping, its tongue lolling foolishly.

“Shoot it now,” French said.

“For God’s sake!” Peterson exclaimed. Jones turned to him quickly, his eyes gray with fear.

“You didn’t see him—like a statue, standing there, his mouth open. If we hadn’t come down, he’d still be there.”

“Who? The Captain?” Peterson stared around. “But he’s all right now.”

They looked at the wub, standing in the middle of the room, its great chest rising and falling.

“Come on,” Franco said. “Out of the way.”

The men pulled aside toward the door.

“You are quite afraid, aren’t you?” the wub said. “Have I done anything to von? I am against the idea of hurting. All I have done is try to protect myself. Can you expect me to rush eagerly to mv death? I am a sensible being like yourselves. I was curious to see your ship, leam about you. I suggested to the native—”

The gun jerked.

“See,” Franco said “I thought so.”

The wub settled down, panting. It put its paw out, pulling its tail around it.

“It is very warm,” the wub said. “I understand that we are close to the jets. Atomic power. You have done many wonderful things with it—technically. Apparently your scientific hierachy is not equipped to solve moral ethical—”

Franco turned to the men, crowding behind him, wide-eyed. silent.

“I’ll do it. You can watch.”

French nodded “Try to hit the brain. It’s no good for eating. Don’t hit the chest. If the rib cage shatters, we’ll have to pick bones out.”

“Listen.” Peterson said licking his lips. “Has it done anything? What harm has it done? I’m asking you. And anyhow, it’s still mine. You have no right to shoot it. It doesn’t belong to you.”

Franco raised his gun.

“I’m going out,” Jones said, his face white and sick. “I don’t want to see it.”

“Me, too,” French said. The men straggled out, murmuring. Peterson lingered at the door.

“It was talking to me about myths,” he said. “It wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

He went outside.

Franco walked toward the wub. The wub looked up slowly. It swallowed.

“A very foolish thing,” it said. “I am sorry that you want to do it. There was a parable that your Saviour related—”

It stopped, staring at the gun.

“Can you look me in the eye and do it?” the wub said. “Can you do that?”

The Captain gazed down. “I can look you in the eye,” he said. “Back on the farm we had hogs, dirty razorback hogs. I can do it.”

Staring down at the wub, into the gleaming, moist eyes, he pressed the trigger.

The taste was excellent.

They sat glumly around the table, some of them hardly eating at all. The only one who seemed to be enjoying himself was Captain Franco.

“More?” he said, looking around. “More? And some wine, perhaps.”

“Not me,” French said. “I think I’ll go back to the chart room.”

“Me, too.” Jones stood up, pushing his chair back. “I’ll see you later.”

The Captain watched them go. Some of the others excused themselves.

“What do you suppose the matter is?” the Captain said. He turned to Peterson. Peterson sat staring down at his plate, at the potatoes, the green peas, and at the thick slab of tender, warm meat.

He opened his mouth. No sound came.

The Captain put his hand on Peterson’s shoulder.

“It is only organic matter, now,” he said. “The life essence is gone.” He ate, spooning up the gravy with some bread. “I, myself, love to eat. It is one of the greatest things that a living creature can enjoy. Eating, resting, meditation, discussing things.”

Peterson nodded. Two more men got up and went out. The Captain drank some water and sighed.

“Well,” he said. “I must say that this was a very enjoyable meal. All the reports I had heard were quite true—the taste of wub. Very fine. But I was prevented from enjoying this in times past.”

He dabbed at his lips with his napkin and leaned back in his chair. Peterson stared dejectedly at the table.

The Captain watched him intently. He leaned over.

“Come, come,” he said. “Cheer up! Let’s discuss things.”

He smiled. .

“As I was saying before I was interrupted, the role of Odysseus in the myths—”

Peterson jerked up, staring.

“To go on,” the Captain said. “Odysseus, as I understand him—”

WE CAN REMEMBER IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE

He awoke—and wanted Mars. The valleys, he thought. What would it be like to trudge among th“m? Great and greater yet: the dream grew as he became fully conscious, the dream and the yearning. He could almost feel the enveloping presence of the other world, which only Government agents and high officials had seen. A clerk like himself? Not likely.

“Are you getting up or not?” his wife Kirsten asked drowsily, with her usual hint of fierce crossness. “If you are, push the hot coffee button on the dam stove.”

“Okay,” Douglas Quail said, and made his way barefoot from the bedroom of their conapt to the kitchen. There, having dutifully pressed the hot coffee button, he seated himself at the kitchen table, brought out a yellow, small tin of fine Dean Swift snuff. He inhaled briskly, and the Beau Nash mixture stung his nose, burned the roof of his mouth. But still he inhaled; it woke him up and allowed his dreams, his nocturnal desires and random wishes, to condense into a semblance of rationality.

I will go, he said to himself. Before I die TU see Mars.

It was, of course, impossible, and he knew this even as he dreamed. But the daylight, the mundane noise of his wife now brushing her hair before the bedroom mirror—everything conspired to remind him of what he was. A miserable little salaried employee, he said to himself with bitterness. Kirsten reminded him of this at least once a day and he did not blame her; it was a wife’s job to bring her husband down to Earth. Down to Earth, he thought, and laughed. The figure of speech in this was literally apt.

“What are you sniggering about?” his wife asked as she swept into the kitchen, her long busy-pink robe wagging after her. “A dream, I bet. You’re always full of them.”

“Yes,” he said, and gazed out the kitchen window at the hovercars and traffic runnels, and all the little energetic people hurrying to work. In a little while he would be among them. As always.

“I’ll bet it has to do with some woman,” Kirsten said witheringly.

“No,” he said. “A god. The god of war. He has wonderful craters with every kind of plant-life growing deep down in them.”

“Listen.” Kirsten crouched down beside him and spoke earnestly, the harsh quality momentarily gone from her voice. “The bottom of the ocean—our ocean is much more, an infinity of times more beautiful. You know that; everyone knows that. Rent an artificial gill-outfit for both of us, take a week off from work, and we can descend and live down there at one of those year-round aquatic resorts. And in addition—” She broke off. “You’re not listening. You should be. Here is something a lot better than that compulsion, that obsession you have about Mars, and you don’t even listen!” Her voice rose piercingly. “God in heaven, you’re doomed, Doug! What’s going to become of you?”

“I’m going to work,” he said, rising to his feet, his breakfast forgotten. “That’s what’s going to become of me.”

She eyed him. “You’re getting worse. More fanatical every day. Where’s it going to lead?”

“To Mars,” he said, and opened the door to the closet to get down a fresh shirt to wear to work.

Having descended from the taxi Douglas Quail slowly walked across three densely-populated foot runnels and to the modem, attractively inviting doorway. There he halted, impeding mid-morning traffic, and with caution read the shifting-color neon sign. He had, in the past, scrutinized this sign before…but never had he come so close. This was very different; what he did now was something else. Something which sooner or later had to happen.

REKAL, INCORPORATED

Was this the answer? After all, an illusion, no matter how convincing, remained nothing more than an illusion. At least objectively. But subjectively—quite the opposite entirely.

And anyhow he had an appointment. Within the next five minutes.

Taking a deep breath of mildly smog-infested Chicago air, he walked through the dazzling polychromatic shimmer of the doorway and up to the receptionist’s counter.

The nicely-articulated blonde at the counter, bare-bosomed and tidy, said pleasantly, “Good morning, Mr. Quail.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m here to see about a Rekal course. As I guess you know.”

“Not 'rekal' but recall,” the receptionist corrected him. She picked up the receiver of the vidphone by her smooth elbow and said into it, “Mr. Douglas Quail is here, Mr. McClane. May he come inside, now? Or is it too soon?”

“Giz wetwa wum-wum wamp,” the phone mumbled.

“Yes, Mr. Quail,” she said. “You may go in; Mr. McClane is expecting you.” As he started off uncertainly she called after him, “Room D, Mr. Quail. To your right.”

After a frustrating but brief moment of being lost he found the proper room. The door hung open and inside, at a big genuine walnut desk, sat a genial-looking man, middle-aged, wearing the latest Martian frog-pelt gray suit; his attire alone would have told Quail that he had come to the right person.

“Sit down, Douglas,” McClane said, waving his plump hand toward a chair which faced the desk. “So you want to have gone to Mars. Very good.”

Quail seated himself, feeling tense. “I’m not so sure this is worth the fee,” he said. “It costs a lot and as far as I can see I really get nothing.” Costs almost as much as going, he thought.

“You get tangible proof of your trip,” McClane disagreed emphatically. “All the proof you’ll need. Here; I’ll show you.” He dug within a drawer of his impressive desk. “Ticket stub.” Reaching into a manila folder, he produced a small square of embossed cardboard. “It proves you went—and returned. Postcards.” He laid out four franked picture 3-D full-color postcards in a neatly-arranged row on the desk for Quail to see. “Film. Shots you took of local sights on Mars with a rented moving camera.” To Quail he displayed those, too. “Plus the names of people you met, two hundred poscreds worth of souvenirs, which will arrive—from Mars—within the following month. And passport, certificates listing the shots you received. And more.” He glanced up keenly at Quail. “You’ll know you went, all right,” he said. “You won’t remember us, won’t remember me or ever having been here. It’ll be a real trip in your mind; we guarantee that. A full two weeks of recall; every last piddling detail. Remember this: if at any time you doubt that you really took an extensive trip to Mars you can return here and get a full refund. You see?”

“But I didn’t go,” Quail said. “I won’t have gone, no matter what proofs you provide me with.” He took a deep, unsteady breath. “And I never was a secret agent with Interplan.” It seemed impossible to him that Rekal, Incorporated’s extra-factual memory implant would do its job—despite what he had heard people say.

“Mr. Quail,” McClane said patiently. “As you explained in your letter to us, you have no chance, no possibility in the slightest, of ever actually getting to Mars; you can’t afford it, and what is much more important, you could never qualify as an undercover agent for Interplan or anybody else. This is the only way you can achieve your, ahem, lifelong dream; am I not correct, sir? You can’t be this; you can’t actually do this.” He chuckled. “But you can have been and have done. We see to that. And our fee is reasonable; no hidden charges.” He smiled encouragingly.

“Is an extra-factual memory that convincing?” Quail asked.

“More than the real thing, sir. Had you really gone to Mars as an Interplan agent, you would by now have forgotten a great deal; our analysis of true-mem systems—authentic recollections of major events in a person’s life—shows that a variety of details are very quickly lost to the person. Forever. Part of the package we offer you is such deep implantation of recall that nothing is forgotten. The packet which is fed to you while you’re comatose is the creation’ of trained experts, men who have spent years on Mars; in every case we verify details down to the last iota. And you’ve picked a rather easy extra-factual system; had you picked Pluto or wanted to be Emperor of die Inner Planet Alliance we’d have much more difficulty…and the charges would be considerably greater.”

Reaching into his coat for his wallet, Quail said, “Okay. It’s been my lifelong ambition and so I see I’ll never really do it. So I guess I’ll have to settle for this.”

“Don’t think of it that way,” McClane said severely. “You’re not accepting second-best. The actual memory, with all its vagueness, omissions and ellipses, not to say distortions—that’s second-best.” He accepted the money and pressed a button on his desk. “All right, Mr. Quail,” he said, as the door of his office opened and two burly men swiftly entered. “You’re on your way to Mars as a secret agent.” He rose, came over to shake Quail’s nervous, moist hand. “Or rather, you have been on your way. This afternoon at four-thirty you will, um, arrive back here on Terra; a cab will leave you off at your conapt and as I say you will never remember seeing me or coming here; you won’t, in fact, even remember having heard of our existence.”

His mouth dry with nervousness, Quail followed the two technicians from the office; what happened next depended on them.

Will I actually believe I’ve been on Mars? he wondered. That I managed to fulfill my lifetime ambition? He had a strange, lingering intuition that something would go wrong. But just what—he did not know.

He would have to wait to find out.

The intercom on McClane’s desk, which connected him with the work-area of the firm, buzzed and a voice said, “Mr. Quail is under sedation now, sir. Do you want to supervise this one, or shall we go ahead?”

“It’s routine,” McClane observed. “You may go ahead, Lowe; I don’t think you’ll run into any trouble.” Programming an artificial memory of a trip to another planet—with or without the added fillip of being a secret agent—showed up on the firm’s work-schedule with monotonous regularity. In one month, he calculated wryly, we must do twenty of these . …ersatz interplanetary travel has become our bread and butter.

“Whatever you say, Mr. McClane,” Lowe’s voice came, and thereupon the intercom shut off.

Going to the vault section in the chamber behind his office, McClane searched about for a Three packet—trip to Mars—and a Sixty-two packet; secret Interplan spy. Finding the two packets, he returned with them to his desk, seated himself comfortably, poured out the contents—merchandise which would be planted in Quail’s conapt while the lab technicians busied themselves installing false memory.

A one-poscred sneaky-pete side arm, McClane reflected; that’s the largest item. Sets us back financially the most. Then a pellet-sized transmitter, which could be swallowed if the agent were caught. Code book that astonishingly resembled the real thing…the firm’s models were highly accurate: based, whenever possible, on actual U.S. military issue. Odd bits which made no intrinsic sense but which would be woven into the warp and woof of Quail’s imaginary trip, would coincide with his memory: half an ancient silver fifty cent piece, several quotations from John Donne’s sermons written incorrectly, each on a separate piece of transparent tissue-thin paper, several match folders from bars on Mars, a stainless steel spoon engraved property of dome-mars national kibbuzim, a wire tapping coil which—The intercom buzzed. “Mr. McClane, I’m sorry to bother you but something rather ominous has come up. Maybe it would be better if you were in here after all. Quail is already under sedation; he reacted well to the narkidrine; he’s completely unconscious and receptive. But—”

“I’ll be in.” Sensing trouble, McClane left his office; a moment later he emerged in the work area.

On a hygienic bed lay Douglas Quail, breathing slowly and regularly, his eyes virtually shut; he seemed dimly—but only dimly—aware of the two technicians and now McClane himself.

“There’s no space to insert false memory-patterns?” McClane felt irritation. “Merely drop out two work weeks; he’s employed as a clerk at the West Coast Emigration Bureau, which is a government agency, so he undoubtedly has or had two weeks vacation within the last year. That ought to do it.” Petty details annoyed him. And always would.

“Our problem,” Lowe said sharply, “is something quite different.” He bent over the bed, said to Quail, “Tell Mr. McClane what you told us.” To McClane he said, “Listen closely.” The gray-green eyes of the man lying supine in the bed focused on McClane’s face. The eyes, he observed uneasily, had become hard; they had a polished, inorganic quality, like semiprecious tumbled stones. He was not sure that he liked what he saw; the brilliance was too cold. “What do you want now?” Quail said harshly. “You’ve broken my cover. Get out of here before I take you all apart.” He studied McClane. “Especially you,” he continued. “You’re in charge of this counter-operation.”

Lowe said, “How long were you on Mars?”

“One month,” Quail said gratingly.

“And your purpose there?” Lowe demanded.

The meager lips twisted; Quail eyed him and did not speak. At last, drawling the words out so that they dripped with hostility, he said, “Agent for Interplan. As I already told you. Don’t you record everything that’s said? Play your vid-aud tape back for your boss and leave me alone.” He shut his eyes, then; the hard brilliance ceased. McClane felt, instantly, a rushing splurge of relief.

Lowe said quietly, “This is a tough man, Mr. McClane.”

“He won’t be,” McClane said, “after we arrange for him to lose his memory-chain again. He’ll be as meek as before.” To Quail he said, “So this is why you wanted to go to Mars so terribly bad.”

Without opening his eyes Quail said, “I never wanted to go to Mars. I was assigned it—they handed it to me and there I was: stuck. Oh yeah, I admit I was curious about it; who wouldn’t be?” Again he opened his eyes and surveyed the three of them, McClane in particular. “Quite a truth drug you’ve got here; it brought up things I had absolutely no memory of.” He pondered. “I wonder about Kirsten,” he said, half to himself. “Could she be in on it? An Interplan contact keeping an eye on me…to be certain I didn’t regain my memory? No wonder she’s been so derisive about my wanting to go there.” Faintly, he smiled; the smile—one of understanding—disappeared almost at once. ,

McClane said, “Please believe me, Mr. Quail; we stumbled onto this entirely by accident. In the work we do—”

“I believe you,” Quail said. He seemed tired, now; the drug was continuing to pull him under, deeper and deeper. “Where did I say I’d been?” he murmured. “Mars? Hard to remember—I know I’d like to see it; so would everybody else. But me—” His voice trailed off. “Just a clerk, a nothing clerk.”

Straightening up, Lowe said to his superior, “He wants a false memory implanted that corresponds to a trip he actually took. And a false reason which is the real reason. He’s telling the truth; he’s a long way down in the narkidrine. The trip is very vivid in his mind—at least under sedation. But apparently he doesn’t recall it otherwise. Someone, probably at a government military-sciences lab, erased his conscious memories; all he knew was that going to Mars meant something special to him, and so did being a secret agent. They couldn’t erase that; it’s not a memory but a desire, undoubtedly the same one that motivated him to volunteer for the assignment in the first place.”

The other technician, Keeler, said to McClane, “What do we do? Graft a false memory-pattern over the real memory? There’s no telling what the results would be; he might remember some of the genuine trip, and the confusion might bring on a psychotic interlude. He’d have to hold two opposite premises in his mind simultaneously: that he went to Mars and that he didn’t. That he’s a genuine agent for Interplan and he’s not, that it’s spurious. I think we ought to revive him without any false memory implantation and send him out of here; this is hot.”

“Agreed,” McClane said. A thought came to him. “Can you predict what he’ll remember when he comes out of sedation?”

“Impossible to tell,” Lowe said. “He probably will have some dim, diffuse memory of his actual trip, now. And he’d probably be in grave doubt as to its validity; he’d probably decide our programming slipped a gear-tooth. And he’d remember coming here; that wouldn’t be erased—unless you want it erased.”

“The less we mess with this man,” McClane said, “the better I like it. This is nothing for us to fool around with; we’ve been foolish enough to—or unlucky enough to—uncover a genuine Interplan spy who has a cover so perfect that up to now even he didn’t know what he was—or rather is.” The sooner they washed their hands of the man calling himself Douglas Quail the better.

“Are you going to plant packets Three and Sixty-two in his conapt?” Lowe said.

“No,” McClane said. “And we’re going to return half his fee”

“‘Half’! Why half?”

McClane said lamely, “It seems to be a good compromise.”

As the cab carried him back to his conapt at the residential end of Chicago, Douglas Quail said to himself, It’s sure good to be back on Terra.

Already the month-long period on Mars had begun to waver in his memory; he had only an image of profound gaping craters, an ever-present ancient erosion of hills, of vitality, of motion itself. A world of dust where little happened, where a good part of the day was spent checking and rechecking one’s portable oxygen source. And then the life forms, the unassuming and modest gray-brown cacti and maw-worms.

As a matter of fact he had brought back several moribund examples of Martian fauna; he had smuggled them through customs. After all, they posed no menace; they couldn’t survive in Earth’s heavy atmosphere.

Reaching into his coat pocket, he rummaged for the container of Martian maw-worms—

And found an envelope instead.

Lifting it out, he discovered, to his perplexity, that it contained five hundred and seventy poscreds, in cred bills of low denomination.

Where’d I get this? he asked himself. Didn’t 1 spend every ’cred I had on my trip?

With the money came a slip of paper marked: One-half fee ret’d. By McClane. And then the date. Today’s date.

“Recall,” he said aloud.

“Recall what, sir or madam?” the robot driver of the cab inquired respectfully.

“Do you have a phone book?” Quail demanded.

“Certainly, sir or madam.” A slot opened; from it slid a microtape phone book for Cook County.

“It’s spelled oddly,” Quail said as he leafed through the pages of the yellow section. He felt fear, then; abiding fear. “Here it is,” he said. “Take me there, to Rekal, Incorporated. I’ve changed my mind; I don’t want to go home.”

“Yes sir, or madam, as the case may be,” the driver said. A moment later the cab was zipping back in the opposite direction.

“May I make use of your phone?” he asked.

“Be my guest,” the robot driver said. And presented a shiny new emperor 3-D color phone to him.

He dialed his own conapt. And after a pause found himself confronted by a miniature but chillingly realistic image of Kirsten on the small screen. “I’ve been to Mars,” he said to her.

“You’re drunk.” Her lips writhed scornfully. “Or worse.”

“’S god’s truth.”

“When?” she demanded.

“I don’t know.” He felt confused. “A simulated trip, I think. By means of one of those artificial or extra-factual or whatever it is memory places. It didn’t take.”

Kirsten said witheringly, “You are drunk.” And broke the connection at her end. He hung up, then, feeling his face flush. Always the same tone, he said hotly to himself. Always the retort, as if she knows everything and I know nothing. What a marriage. Keerist, he thought dismally.

A moment later the cab stopped at the curb before a modem, very attractive little pink building, over which a shifting polychromatic neon sign read: rekal, incorporated.

The receptionist, chic and bare from the waist up, started in surprise, then gained masterful control of herself. “Oh, hello, Mr. Quail,” she said nervously. “H-how are you? Did you forget something?”

“The rest of my fee back,” he said.

More composed now, the receptionist said, “Fee? I think you are mistaken, Mr. Quail. You were here discussing the feasibility of an extra-factual trip for you, but—” She shrugged her smooth pale shoulders. “As I understand it, no trip was taken.”

Quail said, “I remember everything, miss. My letter to Rekal, Incorporated, which started this whole business off. I remember my arrival here, my visit with Mr. McClane. Then the two lab technicians taking me in tow and administering a drug to put me out.” No wonder the firm had returned half his fee. The false memory of his “trip to Mars” hadn’t taken—at least not entirely, not as he had been assured.

“Mr. Quail,” the girl said, “although you are a minor clerk you are a good-looking man and it spoils your features to become angry. If it would make you feel any better, I might, ahem, let you take me out…”

He felt furious, then. “I remember you,” he said savagely. “For instance the fact that your breasts are sprayed blue; that stuck in my mind. And I remember Mr. McClane’s promise that if I remembered my visit to Rekal, Incorporated I’d receive my money back in full. Where is Mr. McClane?”

After a delay—probably as long as they could manage—he found himself once more seated facing the imposing walnut desk, exactly as he had been an hour or so earlier in the day.

“Some technique you have,” Quail said sardonically. His disappointment—and resentment—was enormous, by now. “My so-called ‘memory’ of a trip to Mars as an undercover agent for Interplan is hazy and vague and shot full of contradictions. And I clearly remember my dealings here with you people. I ought to take this to the Better Business Bureau.” He was burning angry, at this point; his sense of being cheated had overwhelmed him, had destroyed his customary aversion to participating in a public squabble.

Looking morose, as well as cautious, McClane said, “We capitulate, Quail. We’ll refund the balance of your fee. I fully concede the fact that we did absolutely nothing for you.” His tone was resigned.

Quail said accusingly, “You didn’t even provide me with the various artifacts that you claimed would ‘prove’ to me I had been on Mars. All that song-and-dance you went into—it hasn’t materialized into a damn thing. Not even a ticket stub. Nor postcards. Nor passport. Nor proof of immunization shots. Nor—”

“Listen, Quail,” McClane said. “Suppose I told you—” He broke off. “Let it go.” He pressed a button on his intercom. “Shirley, will you disburse five hundred and seventy more ’creds in the form of a cashier’s check made out to Douglas Quail? Thank you.” He released the button, then glared at Quail.

Presently the check appeared; the receptionist placed it before McClane and once more vanished out of sight, leaving the two men alone, still facing each other across the surface of the massive walnut desk.

“Let me give you a word of advice,” McClane said as he signed the check and passed it over. “Don’t discuss your, ahem, recent trip to Mars with anyone.”

“What trip?”

“Well, that’s the thing.” Doggedly, McClane said, “The trip you partially remember. Act as if you don’t remember; pretend it never took place. Don’t ask me why; just take my advice: it’ll be better for all of us.” He had begun to perspire. Freely. “Now, Mr. Quail, I have other business, other clients to see.” He rose, showed Quail to the door.

Quail said, as he opened the door, “A firm that turns out such bad work shouldn’t have any clients at all.” He shut the door behind him.

On the way home in the cab Quail pondered the wording of his letter of complaint to the Better Business Bureau, Terra Division. As soon as he could get to his typewriter he’d get started; it was clearly his duty to warn other people away from Rekal, Incorporated.

When he got back to his conapt he seated himself before his Hermes Rocket portable, opened the drawers and rummaged for carbon paper—and noticed a small, familiar box. A box which he had carefully filled on Mars with Martian fauna and later smuggled through customs.

Opening the box he saw, to his disbelief, six dead maw-worms and several varieties of the unicellular life on which the Martian worms fed. The protozoa were dried-up, dusty, but he recognized them; it had taken him an entire day picking among the vast dark alien boulders to find them. A wonderful, illuminated journey of discovery.

But I didn’t go to Mars, he realized.

Yet on the other hand—

Kirsten appeared at the doorway to the room, an armload of pale brown groceries gripped. “Why are you home in the middle of the day?” Her voice, in an eternity of sameness, was accusing.

“Did I go to Mars?" he asked her. “You would know.”

“No, of course you didn’t go to Mars; you would know that, I would think. Aren’t you always bleating about going?”

He said, “By God, I think I went.” After a pause he added, “And simultaneously I think I didn’t go.”

“Make up your mind.”

“How can I?” He gestured. “I have both memory-tracks grafted inside my head; one is real and one isn’t but I can’t tell which is which. Why can’t I rely on you? They haven’t tinkered with you.” She could do this much for him at least—even if she never did anything else.

Kirsten said in a level, controlled voice, “Doug, if you don’t pull yourself together, we’re through. I’m going to leave you.”

“I’m in trouble.” His voice came out husky and coarse. And shaking. “Probably I’m heading into a psychotic episode; I hope not, but—maybe that’s it. It would explain everything, anyhow.”

Setting down the bag of groceries, Kirsten stalked to the closet. “I was not kidding,” she said to him quietly. She brought out a coat, got it on, walked back to the door of the conapt. “I’ll phone you one of those days soon,” she said tonelessly. “This is goodbye, Doug. I hope you pull out of this eventually; I really pray you do. For your sake.”

“Wait,” he said desperately. “Just tell me and make it absolute; I did go or I didn’t—tell me which one.” But they may have altered your memory-track also, he realized.

The door closed. His wife had left. Finally!

A voice behind him said, “Well, that’s that. Now put up your hands, Quail. And also please turn around and face this way.”

He turned, instinctively, without raising his hands.

The man who faced him wore the plum uniform of the Interplan Police Agency, and his gun appeared to be UN issue. And, for some odd reason, he seemed familiar to Quail; familiar in a blurred, distorted fashion which he could not pin down. So, jerkily, he raised his hands.

“You remember,” the policeman said, “your trip to Mars. We know all your actions today and all your thoughts—in particular your very important thoughts on the trip home from Rekal, Incorporated.” He explained, “We have a telep-transmitter wired within your skull; it keeps us constantly informed.”

A telepathic transmitter; use of a living plasma that had been discovered on Luna. He shuddered with self-aversion. The thing lived inside him, within his own brain, feeding, listening, feeding. But the Interplan police used them; that had come out even in the homeopapes. So this was probably true, dismal as it was.

“Why me?” Quail said huskily. What had he done—or thought? And what did this have to do with Rekal, Incorporated?

“Fundamentally” the Interplan cop said, “this has nothing to do with Rekal; it’s between you and us.” He tapped his right ear. “I’m still picking up your mentational processes by way of your cephalic transmitter.” In the man’s ear Quad saw a small white-plastic plug. “So I have to warn you: anything you think may be held against you.” He smiled. “Not that it matters now; you’ve already thought and spoken yourself into oblivion. What’s annoying is the fact that under narkidrine at Rekal, Incorporated you told them, their technicians and the owner, Mr. McClane, about your trip—where you went, for whom, some of what you did. They’re very frightened. They wish they had never laid eyes on you.” He added reflectively, “They’re right.”

Quail said, “I never made any trip. It’s a false memory-chain improperly planted in me by McClane’s technicians.” But then he thought of the box, in his desk drawer, containing the Martian life forms. And the trouble and hardship he had had gathering them. The memory seemed real. And the box of life forms; that certainly was real…Unless McClane had planted it. Perhaps this was one of the “proofs” which McClane had talked glibly about.

The memory of my trip to Mars, he thought, doesn’t convince me—but unfortunately it has convinced the Interplan Police Agency. They think I really went to Mars and they think I at least partially realize it.

“We not only know you went to Mars,” the Interplan cop agreed, in answer to his thoughts, “but we know that you now remember enough to be difficult for us. And there’s no use expunging your conscious memory of all this, because if we do you’ll simply show up at Rekal, Incorporated again and start over. And we can’t do anything about McClane and his operation because we have no jurisdiction over anyone except our own people. Anyhow, McClane hasn’t committed any crime.” He eyed Quail. “Nor, technically, have you. You didn’t go to Rekal, Incorporated with the idea of regaining your memory; you went, as we realize, for the usual reason people go there—a love by plain, dull people for adventure.” He added, “Unfortunately you’re not plain, not dull, and you’ve already had too much excitement; the last thing in the universe you needed was a course from Rekal, Incorporated. Nothing could have been more lethal for you or for us. And, for that matter, for McClane.” Quail said, “Why is it ‘difficult’ for you if I remember my trip—my alleged trip—and what I did there?”

“Because,” the Interplan harness bull said, “what you did is not in accord with our great white all-protecting father public image. You did, for us, what we never do. As you’ll presently remember—thanks to narkidrine. That box of dead worms and algae has been sitting in your desk drawer for six months, ever since you got back. And at no time have you shown the slightest curiosity about it. We didn’t even know you had it until you remembered it on your way home from Rekal; then we came here on the double to look for it.” He added, unnecessarily, “Without any luck; there wasn’t enough time.”

A second Interplan cop joined the first one; the two briefly conferred. Meanwhile, Quail thought rapidly. He did remember more, now; the cop had been right about narkidrine. They—Interplan—probably used it themselves. Probably? He knew darn well they did; he had seen them putting a prisoner on it. Where would that be? Somewhere on Terra? More likely Luna, he decided, viewing the image rising from his highly defective—but rapidly less so—memory.

And he remembered something else. Their reason for sending him to Mars; the job he had done.

No wonder they had expunged his memory.

“Oh god,” the first of the two Interplan cops said, breaking off his conversation with his companion. Obviously, he had picked up Quail’s thoughts. “Well, this is a far worse problem, now; as bad as it can get.” He walked toward Quail, again covering him with his gun. “We’ve got to kill you,” he said. “And right away.”

Nervously, his fellow officer said, “Why right away? Can’t we simply cart him off to Interplan New York and let them—”

“He knows why it has to be right away,” the first cop said; he too looked nervous, now, but Quail realized that it was for an entirely different reason. His memory had been brought back almost entirely, now. And he fully understood the officer’s tension.

“On Mars,” Quail said hoarsely, “I killed a man. After getting past fifteen bodyguards. Some armed with sneaky-pete guns, the way you are.” He had been trained, by Interplan, over a five year period to be an assassin. A professional killer. He knew ways to take out armed adversaries…such as these two officers; and the one with the ear-receiver knew it, too.

If he moved swiftly enough—

The gun fired. But he had already moved to one side, and at the same time he chopped down the gun-carrying officer. In an instant he had possession of the gun and was covering the other, confused, officer.

“Picked my thoughts up,” Quail said, panting for breath. “He knew what I was going to do, but I did it anyhow.”

Half sitting up, the injured officer grated, “He won’t use that gun on you, Sam; I pick that up, too. He knows he’s finished, and he knows we know it, too. Come on, Quail.” Laboriously, grunting with pain, he got shakily to his feet. He held out his hand. “The gun,” he said to Quail. “You can’t use it, and if you turn it over to me I’ll guarantee not to kill you; you’ll be given a hearing, and someone higher up in Interplan will decide, not me. Maybe they can erase your memory once more; I don’t know. But you know the thing I was going to kill you for; I couldn’t keep you from remembering it. So my reason for wanting to kill you is in a sense past.”

Quail, clutching the gun, bolted from the conapt, sprinted for the elevator. If you follow me, he thought. I’ll kill you. So don’t. He jabbed at the elevator button and, a moment later, the doors slid back.

The police hadn’t followed him. Obviously they had picked up his terse, tense thoughts and had decided not to take the chance.

With him inside the elevator descended. He had gotten away—for a time. But what next? Where could he go?

The elevator reached the ground floor; a moment later Quail had joined the mob of peds hurrying along the runnels. His head ached and he felt sick. But at least he had evaded death; they had come very close to shooting him on the spot, back in his own conapt.

And they probably will again, he decided. When they find me. And with this transmitter inside me, that wont take too long.

Ironically, he had gotten exactly what he had asked Rekal, Incorporated for. Adventure, peril, Interplan police at work, a secret and dangerous trip to Mars in which his life was at stake—everything he had wanted as a false memory.

The advantages of it being a memory—and nothing more—could now be appreciated.

On a park bench, alone, he sat dully watching a flock of perts: a semi-bird imported from Mars’ two moons, capable of soaring flight, even against Earth’s huge gravity.

Maybe I can find my way back to Mars, he pondered. But then what? It would be worse on Mars; the political organization whose leader he had assassinated would spot him the moment he stepped from the ship; he would have Interplan and them after him, there.

Can you hear me thinking? he wondered. Easy avenue to paranoia; sitting here alone he felt them tuning in on him, monitoring, recording, discussing…He shivered, rose to his feet, walked aimlessly, his hands deep in his pockets. No matter where I go, he realized, you’ll always be with me. As long as I have this device inside my head.

I’ll make a deal with you, he thought to himself—and to them. Can you imprint a false-memory template on me again, as you did before, that I lived an average, routine life, never went to Mars? Never saw an Interplan uniform up close and never handled a gun?

A voice inside his brain answered, “As has been carefully explained to you: that would not be enough.”

Astonished, he halted.

“We formerly communicated with you in this manner,” the voice continued. “When you were operating in the field, on Mars. It’s been months since we’ve done it; we assumed, in fact, that we’d never have to do so again. Where are you?”

“Walking,” Quail said, “to my death.” By your officers’ guns, he added as an afterthought. “How can you be sure it wouldn’t be enough?” he demanded. “Don’t the Rekal techniques work?”

“As we said. If you’re given a set of standard, average memories you get—restless. You’d inevitably seek out Rekal or one of its competitors again. We can’t go through this a second time.”

“Suppose,” Quail said, “once my authentic memories have been canceled, something more vital than standard memories are implanted. Something which would act to satisfy my craving,” he said. “That’s been proved; that’s probably why you initially hired me. But you ought to be able to come up with something else—something equal. I was the richest man on Terra but I finally gave all my money to educational foundations. Or I was a famous deep-space explorer. Anything of that sort; wouldn’t one of those do?”

Silence.

“Try it,” he said desperately. “Get some of your top-notch military psychiatrists; explore my mind. Find out what my most expansive daydream is.” He tried to think. “Women,” he said. “Thousands of them, like Don Juan had. An interplanetary playboy—a mistress in every city on Earth, Luna and Mars. Only I gave that up, out of exhaustion. Please,” he begged. “Try it.”

“You’d voluntarily surrender, then?” the voice inside his head asked. “If we agreed, to arrange such a solution? If it’s possible?”

After an interval of hesitation he said, “Yes.” “I’ll take the risk, he said to himself, that you don’t simply kill me.

“You make the first move,” the voice said presently. “Turn yourself over to us. And we’ll investigate that line of possibility. If we can’t do it, however, if your authentic memories begin to crop up again as they’ve done at this time, then—” There was silence and then the voice finished, “Well have to destroy you. As you must understand. Well, Quail, you still want to try?”

“Yes,” he said. Because the alternative was death now—and for certain. At least this way he had a chance, slim as it was.

“You present yourself at our main barracks in New York,” the voice of the Interplan cop resumed. “At 580 Fifth Avenue, floor twelve. Once you’ve surrendered yourself well have our psychiatrists begin on you; well have personality-profile tests made. Well attempt to determine your absolute, ultimate fantasy wish—then we’ll bring you back to Rekal, Incorporated, here; get them in on it, fulfilling that wish in vicarious surrogate retrospection. And—good luck. We do owe you something; you acted as a capable instrument for us.” The voice lacked malice; if anything, they—the organization—felt sympathy toward him.

“Thanks,” Quail said. And began searching for a robot cab.

“Mr. Quail,” the stern-faced, elderly Interplan psychiatrist said, “you possess a most interesting wish-fulfillment dream fantasy. Probably nothing such as you consciously entertain or suppose. This is commonly the way; I hope it won’t upset you too much to hear about it.”

The senior ranking Interplan officer present said briskly, “He better not be too much upset to hear about it, not if he expects not to get shot.”

“Unlike the fantasy of wanting to be an Interplan undercover agent,” the psychiatrist continued, “which, being relatively speaking a product of maturity, had a certain plausibility to it, this production is a grotesque dream of your childhood; it is no wonder you fail to recall it. Your fantasy is this: you are nine years old, walking alone down a rustic lane. An unfamiliar variety of space vessel from another star system lands directly in front of you. No one on Earth but you, Mr. Quail, sees it. The creatures within are very small and helpless, somewhat on the order of field mice, although they are attempting to invade Earth; tens of thousands of other such ships will soon be on their way, when this advance party gives the go-ahead signal.”

“And I suppose I stop them,” Quail said, experiencing a mixture of amusement and disgust. “Single-handed I wipe them out. Probably by stepping on them with my foot.”

“No,” the psychiatrist said patiently. “You halt the invasion, but not by destroying them. Instead, you show them kindness and mercy, even though by telepathy—their mode of communication—you know why they have come. They have never seen such humane traits exhibited by any sentient organism, and to show their appreciation they make a covenant with you.”

Quail said, “They won’t invade Earth as long as I’m alive.”

“Exactly.” To the Interplan officer the psychiatrist said, “You can see it does fit his personality, despite his feigned scorn.”

“So by merely existing,” Quail said, feeling a growing pleasure, “by simply being alive, I keep Earth safe from alien rule. I’m in effect, then, the most important person on Terra. Without lifting a finger.”

“Yes, indeed, sir,” the psychiatrist said. “And this is bedrock in your psyche; this is a lifelong childhood fantasy. Which, without depth and drug therapy, you never would have recalled. But it has always existed in you; it went underneath, but never ceased.”

To McClane, who sat intently listening, the senior police official said, “Can you implant an extra-factual memory pattern that extreme in him?”

“We get handed every possible type of wish-fantasy there is,” McClane said. “Frankly, I’ve heard a lot worse than this. Certainly we can handle it. Twenty-four hours from now he won’t just wish he’d saved Earth; he’ll devoutly believe it really happened.”

The senior police official said, “You can start the job, then. In preparation we’ve already once again erased the memory in him of his trip to Mars.”

Quail said, “What trip to Mars?”

No one answered him, so reluctantly, he shelved the question. And anyhow a police vehicle had now put in its appearance; he,’ McClane and the senior police officer crowded into it, and presently they were on their way to Chicago and Rekal, Incorporated.

“You had better make no errors this time,” the police officer said to heavyset, nervous-looking McClane.

“I can’t see what could go wrong,” McClane mumbled, perspiring. “This has nothing to do with Mars or Interplan. Single-handedly stopping an invasion of Earth from another star-system.” He shook his head at that. “Wow, what a kid dreams up. And by pious virtue, too; not by force. It’s sort of quaint.” He dabbed at his forehead with a large linen pocket handkerchief.

Nobody said anything.

“In fact,” McClane said, “it’s touching.”

“But arrogant,” the police official said starkly. “Inasmuch as when he dies the invasion will resume. No wonder he doesn’t recall it; it’s the most grandiose fantasy I ever ran across.” He eyed Quail with disapproval. “And to think we put this man on our payroll.”

When they reached Rekal, Incorporated the receptionist, Shirley, met them breathlessly in the outer office. “Welcome back, Mr. Quail,” she fluttered, her melon-shaped breasts—today painted an incandescent orange—bobbing with agitation. “I’m sorry everything worked out so badly before; I’m sure this time it’ll go better.”

Still repeatedly dabbing at his shiny forehead with his neatly-folded Irish linen handkerchief, McClane said, “It better.” Moving with rapidity he rounded up Lowe and Keeler, escorted them and Douglas Quail to the work area, and then, with Shirley and the senior police officer, returned to his familiar office. To wait.

“Do we have a packet made up for this, Mr. McClane?” Shirley asked, bumping against him in her agitation, then coloring modestly.

“I think we do.” He tried to recall, then gave up and consulted the formal chart. “A combination,” he decided aloud, “of packets Eighty-one, Twenty, and Six.” From the vault section of the chamber behind his desk he fished out the appropriate packets, carried them to his desk for inspection. “From Eighty-one,” he explained, “a magic healing rod given him—the client in question, this time Mr. Quail—by the race of beings from another system. A token of their gratitude.”

“Does it work?” the police officer asked curiously.

“It did once,” McClane explained. “But he, ahem, you see, used it up years ago, healing right and left. Now it’s only a memento. But he remembers it working spectacularly.” He chuckled, then opened packet Twenty. “Document from the UN Secretary General thanking him for saving Earth; this isn’t precisely appropriate, because part of Quail’s fantasy is that no one knows of the invasion except himself, but for the sake of verisimilitude we’ll throw it in.” He inspected packet Six, then. What came from this? He couldn’t recall; frowning, he dug into the plastic bag as Shirley and the Interplan police officer watched intently.

“Writing,” Shirley said. “In a funny language.”

“This tells who they were,” McClane said, “and where they came from. Including a detailed star map logging their flight here and the system of origin. Of course it’s in their script, so he can’t read it. But he remembers them reading it to him in his own tongue.” He placed the three artifacts in the center of the desk. “These should be taken to Quail’s conapt,” he said to the police officer. “So that when he gets home he’ll find them. And it’ll confirm his fantasy. SOP—standard operating procedure.” He chuckled apprehensively, wondering how matters were going with Lowe and Keeler.

The intercom buzzed. “Mr. McClane, I’m sorry to bother you.” It was Lowe’s voice; he froze as he recognized it, froze and became mute. “But something’s come up. Maybe it would be better if you came in here and supervised. Like before, Quail reacted well to the narkidrine; he’s unconscious, relaxed and receptive. But—”

McClane sprinted for the work area.

On a hygienic bed Douglas Quail lay breathing slowly and regularly, eyes half-shut, dimly conscious of those a-round him.

“We started interrogating him,” Lowe said, white-faced. “To find out exactly when to place the fantasy-memory of him single-handedly having saved Earth. And strangely enough—”

“They told me not to tell,” Douglas Quail mumbled in a dull drug-saturated voice. “That was the agreement. I wasn’t even supposed to remember. But how could I forget an event like that?”

I guess it would be hard, McClane reflected. But you did—until now.

“They even gave me a scroll,” Quail mumbled, “of gratitude. I have it hidden in my conapt; I’ll show it to you.”

To the Interplan officer who had followed after him, McClane said, “Well, I offer the suggestion that you better not kill him. If you do they’ll return.”

“They also gave me a magic invisible destroying rod,” Quail mumbled, eyes totally shut now. “That’s how I killed that man on Mars you sent me to take out. It’s in my drawer along with the box ^of Martian maw-worms and dried-up plant life.”

Wordlessly, the Interplan officer turned and stalked from the work area.

I might as well put those packets of proof-artifacts away, McClane said to himself resignedly. He walked, step by step, back to his office. Including the citation from the UN Secretary General. After all—

The real one probably would not be long in coming.

CAPTIVE MARKET

Saturday morning, about eleven o’clock, Mrs. Edna Berthelson was ready to make her little trip. Although it was a weekly affair, consuming four hours of her valuable business time, she made the profitable trip alone, preserving for herself the integrity of her find.

Because that was what it was. A find, a stroke of incredible luck. There was nothing else like it, and she had been in business fifty-three years. More, if the years in her father’s store were counted—but they didn’t really count. That had been for the experience (her father made that clear); no pay was involved. But it gave her the understanding of business, the feel of operating a small country store, dusting pencils and unwrapping fly paper and serving up dried beans and chasing the cat out of the cracker barrel where he liked to sleep.

Now the store was old, and so was she. The big heavyset, black-browed man who was her father had died long ago; her own children and grandchildren had been spawned, had crept out over the world, were everywhere. One by one they had appeared, lived in Walnut Creek, sweated through the dry, sun-baked summers, and then gone on, leaving one by one as they had come. She and the store sagged and settled a little more each year, became a little more frail and stem and grim. A little more themselves.

That morning very early Jackie said: “Grandmaw, where are you going?” Although he knew, of course, where she was going. She was going out in her truck as she always did; this was the Saturday trip. But he liked to ask; he was pleased by the stability of the answer. He liked having it always the same.

To another question there was another unvarying answer, but this one didn’t please him so much. It came in answer to the question: “Can I come along?”

The answer to that was always no.

Edna Berthelson laboriously carried packages and boxes from the back of the store to the rusty, upright pickup truck. Dust lay over the truck; its red-metal sides were bent and corroded. The motor was already on; it was wheezing and heating up in the midday sun. A few drab chickens pecked in the dust around its wheels. Under the porch of the store a plump white shaggy sheep squatted, its face vapid, indolent, indifferently watching the activity of the day. Cars and trucks rolled along Mount Diablo Boulevard. Along Lafayette Avenue a few shoppers strolled, farmers and their wives, petty businessmen, farm hands, some city women in their gaudy slacks and print shirts, sandals, bandanas. In the front of the store the radio tinnily played popular songs.

“I asked you a question,” Jackie said righteously. “I asked you where you’re going.”

Mrs. Berthelson bent stiffly over to lift the last armload of boxes. Most of the loading had been done the night before by Arnie the Swede, the hulking white-haired hired-man who did the heavy work around the store. “What?” she murmured vaguely, her gray, wrinkled face twisting with concentration. “You know perfectly well where I’m going.”

Jackie trailed plaintively after her, as she re-entered the store to look for her order book. “Can I come? Please, can I come along? You never let me come—you never let anybody come.”

“Of course not,” Mrs. Berthelson said sharply. “It’s nobody’s business.”

“But I want to come along,” Jackie explained.

Slyly, the little old woman turned her gray head and peered back at him, a worn, colorless bird taking in a world perfectly understood. “So does everybody else.” Thin lips twitching in a secret smile, Mrs. Berthelson said softly: “But nobody can.”

Jackie didn’t like the sound of that. Sullenly, he retired to a corner, hands stuck deep in the pockets of his jeans, not taking part in something that was denied him, not approving of something in which he could not share. Mrs. Berthelson ignored him. She pulled her frayed blue, sweater around her thin shoulders, located her sunglasses, pulled the screen door shut after her, and strode briskly to the truck.

Getting the truck into gear was an intricate process. For a time she sat tugging crossly at the shift, pumping the clutch up and down, waiting impatiently for the teeth to fall into place. At last, screeching and chattering, the gears meshed; the truck leaped a little, and Mrs. Berthelson gunned the motor and released the hand brake.

As the truck roared jerkily down the driveway, Jackie detached himself from the shade by the house and followed along after it. His mother was nowhere in sight. Only the dozing sheep and the two scratching chickens were visible. Even Amie the Swede was gone, probably getting a cold coke. Now was a fine time. Now was the best time he had ever had. And it was going to be sooner or later anyhow, because he was determined to come along.

Grabbing hold of the tailboard of the truck, Jackie hoisted himself up and landed face-down on the tightly-packed heaps of packages and boxes. Under him the truck bounced and bumped. Jackie hung on for dear life; clutching at the boxes he pulled his legs under him, crouched down, and desperately sought to keep from being flung off. Gradually the truck righted itself, and the torque diminished. He breathed a sigh of relief and settled gratefully down.

He was on his way. He was along, finally. Accompanying Mrs. Berthelson on her secret weekly trip, her strange covert enterprise from which—he had heard—she made a fabulous profit. A trip which nobody understood, and which he knew, in the deep recesses of his child’s mind, was something awesome and wonderful, something that would be well worth the trouble.

He had hoped fervently that she wouldn’t stop to check her load along the way.

With infinite care, Tellman prepared himself a cup of “coffee.” First, he carried a tin cup of roasted grain over to the gasoline drum the colony used as a mixing bowl. Dumping it in, he hurried to add a handful of chicory and a few fragments of dried bran. Dirt-stained hands trembling, he managed to get a fire started among the ashes and coals under the pitted metal grate. He set a pan of tepid water on the flames and searched for a spoon.

“What are you up to?” his wife demanded from behind him.

“Uh,” Tellman muttered. Nervously, he edged between Gladys and the meal. “Just fooling around.” In spite of himself, his voice took on a nagging whine. “I have a right to fix myself something, don’t I? As much right as anybody else.”

“You ought to be over helping.”

“I was. I wrenched something in my back.” The wiry middle-aged man ducked uneasily away from his wife; tugging at the remains of his soiled white shirt, he retreated toward the door of the shack. “Damn it, a person has to rest, sometimes.”

“Rest when we get there.” Gladys wearily brushed back her thick dark-blonde hair. “Suppose everybody was like you.”

Tellman flushed resentfully. “Who plotted our trajectory? Who’s done all the navigation work?”

A faint ironic smile touched his wife’s chapped lips. “We’ll see how your charts work out,” she said. “Then we’ll talk about it.”

Enraged, Tellman pinned out of the shack, into the blinding late-aftemoon sunlight.

He hated the sun, the sterile white glare that began at five in the morning and lasted until nine in the evening. The Big Blast had sizzled the water vapor from the air; the sun beat down pitilessly, sparing nobody. But there were few lef^1 to care.

To his right was the cluster of shacks that made up the camp. An eclectic hodgepodge of boards, sheets of tin, wire and tar paper, upright concrete blocks, anything and everything dragged from the San Francisco ruins, forty miles west. Cloth blankets flapped dismally in doorways, protection against the vast hosts of insects that swept across the camp site from time to time. Birds, the natural enemy of insects, were gone. Tellman hadn’t seen a bird in two years—and he didn’t expect to see one again. Beyond the camp began the eternal dead black ash, the charred face of the world, without features, without life.

The camp had been set up in a natural hollow. One side was sheltered by the tumbled ruins of what had once been a minor mountain range. The concussion of the blast had burst the towering cliffs; rock had cascaded into the valley for days. After San Francisco had been fired out of existence, survivors had crept into the heaps of boulders, looking for a place to hide from the sun. That was the hardest part: the unshielded sun. Not the insects, not the radioactive clouds of ash, not the flashing white fury of the blasts, but the sun. More people had died of thirst and dehydration and blind insanity than from toxic poisons.

From his breast pocket, Tellman got a precious package of cigarettes. Shakily, he lit up. His thin, claw-like hands were trembling, partly from fatigue, partly from rage and tension. How he hated the camp. He loathed everybody in it, his wife included. Were they worth saving? He doubted it. Most of them were barbarians, already; what did it matter if they got the ship off or not? He was sweating away his mind and life, trying to save them. The hell with them.

But then, his own safety was involved with theirs.

He stalked stiff-legged over to where Barnes and Master-son stood talking. “How’s it coming?” he demanded gruffly.

“Fine,” Barnes answered. “It won’t be long, now.”

“One more load,” Masterson said. His heavy features twitched uneasily. “I hope nothing gets fouled up. She ought to be here any minute.”

Tellman loathed the sweaty, animal-like scent that rolled from Masterson’s beefy body. Their situation wasn’t an excuse to creep around filthy as a pig…on Venus, things would be different. Masterson was useful, now; he was an experienced mechanic, invaluable in servicing the turbine and jets of the ship. But when the ship had landed and been pillaged…

Satisfied, Tellman brooded over the re-establishment of the rightful order. The hierarchy had collapsed in the ruins of the cities, but it would be back strong as ever. Take Flannery, for example. Flannery was nothing but a foul-mouthed shanty-Irish stevedore…but he was in charge of loading the ship, the greatest job at the moment. Flannery was top dog, for the time being…but that would change.

It had to change. Consoled, Tellman strolled away from Barnes and Masterson, over to the ship itself.

The ship was huge. Across its muzzle the stenciled identification still remained, not yet totally obliterated by drifting ash and the searing heat of the sun.

U. S. ARMY ORDNANCE SERIES A-3 (b)

Originally, it had been a high-velocity “massive retaliation” weapon, loaded with an H-warhead, ready to carry indiscriminate death to the enemy. The projectile had never been launched. Soviet toxic crystals had blown quietly into the windows and doors of the local command barracks. When launching day arrived, there was no crew to send it off. But it didn’t matter—there was no enemy, either. The rocket had stood c:i its buttocks for months…it was still there when the first refugees straggled into the shelter of the demolished mountains.

“Nice, isn’t it?” Patricia Shelby said. She glanced up from her work and smiled blearily at Tellman. Her small, pretty face was streaked with fatigue and eye-strain. “Sort of like the trylon at the New York World’s Fair.”

“My God,” Tellman said, “you remember that?”

“I was only eight,” Patricia answered. In the shadow of the ship she was carefully checking the automatic relays that would maintain the air, temperature, and humidity of the ship. “But I’ll never forget it. Maybe I was a precog—when I saw it sticking up I knew someday it would mean a lot to everybody.”

“A lot to the twenty of us,” Tellman corrected. Suddenly he offered her the remains of his cigarette. “Here—you look like you could use it.”

“Thanks.” Patricia continued with her work, the cigarette between her lips. “I’m almost done—Boy, some of these relays are tiny. Just think.” She held up a microscopic wafer of transparent plastic. “While we’re all out cold, this makes the difference between life and death.” A strange, awed look crept into her dark-blue eyes. “To the human race.”

Tellman guffawed. “You and Flannery. He’s always spouting idealistic twaddle.”

Professor John Crowley, once head of the history department at Stanford, now the nominal leader of the colony, sat with Flannery and Jean Dobbs, examining the suppurating arm of a ten-year-old boy. “Radiation,” Crowley was saying emphatically. “The overall level is rising daily. It’s settling ash that does it. If we don’t get out soon, we’re done.”

“It’s not radiation,” Flannery corrected in his ultimately-certain voice. “It’s toxic crystalline poisoning; that stuffs knee-deep up in the hills. He’s been playing around up there.”

“Is that so?” Jean Dobbs demanded. The boy nodded his head not daring to look at her. “You’re right,” she said to Flannery.

“Put some salve on it,” Flannery said. “And hope he’ll live. Outside of sulfathiazole there’s not much we have.” He glanced at his watch, suddenly tense. “Unless she brings the penicillin, today.”

“If she doesn’t bring it today,” Crowley said, “she’ll never bring it. This is the last load; as soon as it’s stored, we’re taking off.”

Rubbing his hands, Flannery suddenly bellowed: “Then get out the money!”

Crowley grinned. “Right.” He fumbled in one of the steel storage lockers and yanked out a handful of paper bills. Holding a sheaf of bills up to Tellman he fanned them out invitingly. “Take your pick. Take them all.”

Nervously, Tellman said, “Be careful with that. She’s probably raised the price on everything, again.”

“We’ve got plenty.” Flannery took some and stuffed it into a partly-filled load being wheeled by, on its way to the ship. “There’s money blowing all over the world, along with the ash and particles of bone. On Venus we won’t need it—she might as well have it all.”

On Venus, Tellman thought, savagely, things would revert to their legitimate order—with Flannery digging sewers where he belonged. “What’s she bringing mostly?” he asked Crowley and Jean Dobbs, ignoring Flannery. “What’s the last load made up of?”

“Comic books,” Flannery said dreamily, wiping perspiration from his balding forehead; he was a lean, tall, dark-haired young man. “And harmonicas.”

Crowley winked at him. “Uke picks, so we can lie in our hammocks all day, strumming Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah.”

“And swizzle sticks,” Flannery reminded him. “In order that we may all the more properly flatten the bubbles of our vintage ’38 champagne.”

Tellman boiled. “You—degenerate!”

Crowley and Flannery roared with laughter, and Tellman stalked off, smoldering under this new humiliation. What kind of morons and lunatics were they? Joking at a time like this…He peered miserably, almost accusingly, at the ship. Was this the kind of world they were going to found?

In the pitiless white-hot sun, the huge ship shimmered and glowed. A vast upright tube of alloy and protective fiber mesh rising up above the tumble of wretched shacks. One more load, and they were off. One more truckful of supplies from their only source, the meager trickle of uncontaminated goods that meant the difference between life and death.

Praying that nothing would go wrong, Tellman turned to await the arrival of Mrs. Edna Berthelson and her battered red pickup truck. Their fragile umbilical cord, connecting them with the opulent, undamaged past.

On both sides of the road lay groves of lush apricot trees. Bees and flies buzzed sleepily among the rotting fruit scattered over the Soil; every now and then a roadside stand appeared, operated by somnambulistic children. In driveways stood parked Buicks and Oldsmobiles. Rural dogs wandered here and there. At one intersection stood a swank tavern, its neon sign blinking on and off, ghostly pale in the midmorning sun.

Mrs. Edna Berthelson glared hostilely at the tavern, and at the cars parked around it. City people were moving out into the valley, cutting down the old oak trees, the ancient fruit orchards, setting up suburban homes, stopping in the middle of the day for a whiskey sour and then driving cheerfully on. Driving at seventy-five miles an hour in their sweptback Chryslers. A column of cars that had piled up behind her truck suddenly burst forth and swung past her. She let them go, stony-faced, indifferent. Served them right for being in such a hurry. If she always hurried like that, she would never have had time to pay attention to that odd ability she had found in her introspective, lonely drives; never have discovered that she could look “ahead,” never have discovered that hole in the warp of time which enabled her to trade so easily at her own exorbitant prices. Let them hurry if they wanted. The heavy load in the back of the truck jogged rhythmically. The motor wheezed. Against the back window a half-dead fly buzzed.

Jackie lay stretched out among the cartons and boxes, enjoying the ride, gazing complacently at the apricot trees and cars. Against the hot sky the peak of Mount Diablo rose, blue and white, an expanse of cold rock. Trails of mist clung to the peak; Mount Diablo went a long way up. He made a face at a dog standing indolently at the side of the road, waiting to cross. He waved gaily at a Pacific Telephone Co. repairman, stringing wire from a huge reel.

Abruptly the truck turned off the state highway and onto a black-surfaced side road. Now there were fewer cars. The truck began to climb…the rich orchards fell behind and gave way to flat brown fields. A dilapidated farm house lay to the right; he watched it with interest, wondering how old it was. When it was out of sight, no other man-made structures followed. The fields became unkempt. Broken, sagging fences were visible occasionally. Tom signs, no longer legible. The truck was approaching the base of Mount Diablo,…almost nobody came this way.

Idly, the boy wondered why Mrs. Berthelson’s little trip took her in this direction. Nobody lived here; suddenly there were no fields, only scrub grass and bushes, wild countryside, the tumbled slope of the mountain. A rabbit hopped skillfully across the half-decayed road. Rolling hills, a broad expanse of trees and strewn boulders…there was nothing here but a State fire tower, and maybe a water shed. And an abandoned picnic area, once maintained by the State, now forgotten.

An edge of fear touched the boy. No customers lived out this way…he had been positive the battered red pickup truck would head directly into town, take him and the load to San Francisco or Oakland or Berkeley, a city where he could get out and run around, see interesting sights. There was nothing here, only abandoned emptiness, silent and foreboding. In the shadow of the mountain, the air was chill. He shivered. All at once he wished he hadn’t come.

Mrs. Berthelson slowed the truck and shifted noisily into low. With a roar and an explosive belch of exhaust gases, the truck crept up a steep ascent, among jagged boulders, ominous and sharp. Somewhere far off a bird cried shrilly; Jackie listened to its thin sounds echoing dismally away and wondered how he could attract his grandmother’s attention. It would be nice to be in front, in the cabin. It would be nice—

And then he noticed it. At first he didn’t believe it…but he had to believe it.

Under him, the truck was beginning to fade away.

It faded slowly, almost imperceptibly. Dimmer and dimmer the truck grew; its rusty red sides became gray, then colorless. The black road was visible underneath. In wild panic, the boy clutched at the piles of boxes. His hands passed through them; he was riding precariously on an uneven sea of dim shapes, among almost invisible phantoms.

He lurched and slid down. Now—hideously—he was suspended momentarily halfway through the truck, just above the tail pipe. Groping desperately, he struggled to catch hold of the boxes directly above him. “Help!” he shouted. His voice echoed around him; it was the only sound…the roar of the truck was fading. For a moment he clutched at the retreating shape of the truck; then, gently, gradually, the last image of the truck faded, and with a sickening crunch, the boy dropped to the road.

The impact sent him rolling into the dry weeds beyond the drainage ditch. Stunned, dazed with disbelief and pain, he lay gasping, trying feebly to pull himself up. There was only silence; the truck, Mrs. Berthelson, had vanished. He was totally alone. He closed his eyes and lay back, stupefied with fright.

Sometime later, probably not much later, he was aroused by the squeal of brakes. A dirty, orange State maintenance truck had lurched to a stop; two men in khaki work clothes were climbing down and hurrying over.

“What’s the matter?” one yelled at him. They grabbed him up, faces serious and alarmed. “What are you doing here?”

“Fell,” he muttered. “Off the truck.”

“What truck?” they demanded. “How?”

He couldn’t tell them. All he knew was that Mrs. Berthelson had gone. He hadn’t made it, after all. Once again, she was making her trip alone. He would never know where she went; he would never find out who her customers were.

Gripping the steering wheel of the truck, Mrs. Berthelson was conscious that the transition had taken place. Vaguely, she was aware that the rolling brown fields, rocks and green scrub bushes had faded out. The first time she had gone “ahead” she had found the old truck floundering in a sea of black ash. She had been so excited by her discovery that day that she had neglected to “scan” conditions on the other side of the hole. She had known there were customers… and dashed headlong through the warp to get there first. She smiled complacently…she needn’t have hurried, there was no competition here. In fact, the customers were so eager to deal with her, they had done virtually everything in their power to make things easier for her.

The men had built a crude strip of road out into the ash, a sort of wooden platform onto which the truck now rolled. She had learned the exact moment to “go ahead”; it was the instant that the truck passed the drainage culvert a quarter mile inside the State park. Here, “ahead,” the culvert also existed…but there was little left of it, only a vague jumble of shattered stone. And the road was utterly buried. Under the wheels of the truck the rough boards thumped and banged. It would be bad if she had a flat tire…but some of them could fix it. They were always working; one little additional task wouldn’t make much difference. She could see them, now; they stood at the end of the wooden platform, waiting impatiently for her. Beyond them was their jumble of crude, smelly shacks, and beyond that, their ship.

A lot she cared about their ship. She knew what it was: stolen Army property. Setting her bony hand rigidly around the gearshift knob, she threw the truck into neutral and coasted to a stop. As the men approached, she began pulling on the hand brake.

“Afternoon,” Professor Crowley muttered, his eyes sharp and keen as he peered eagerly into the back of the truck.

Mrs. Berthelson grunted a noncommittal answer. She didn’t like any of them…dirty men, smelling of sweat and fear, their bodies and clothes streaked with grime, and the ancient coating of desperation that never seemed to leave them. Like awed, pitiful children they clustered around the truck, poking hopefully at the packages, already beginning to pluck them out onto the black ground.

“Here now,” she said sharply. “You leave those alone.”

Their hands darted back as if seared. Mrs. Berthelson sternly climbed from the truck, grabbed up her inventory sheet, and plodded up to Crowley.

“You just wait,” she told him. “Those have to be checked off.”

He nodded, glanced at Masterson, licked his dry lips, and waited. They all waited. It had always been that way; they knew, and she knew, that there was no other way they could get their supplies. And if they didn’t get their supplies, their food and medicine and clothing and instruments and tools and raw materials, they wouldn’t be able to leave in their ship.

In this world, in the “ahead,” such things didn’t exist. At least, not so anybody could use them. A cursory glance had told her that; she could see the ruin with her own eyes. They hadn’t taken very good care of their world. They had wasted it all, turned it into black ash and ruin. Well, it was their business, not hers.

She had never been much interested in the relationship between their world and hers. She was content to know that both existed, and that she could go from one to the other and back. And she was the only one who knew how. Several times, people from this world, members of this group, had tried to go “back there” with her. It had always failed. As she made the transition, they were left behind. It was her power, her faculty. Not a shared faculty—she was glad of that. And for a person in business, quite a valuable faculty.

“All right,” she said crisply. Standing where she could keep her eye on them, she began checking off each box as it was carried from the truck. Her routine was exact and certain; it was a part of her life. As long as she could remember she had transacted business in a distinct way. Her father had taught her how to live in a business world; she had learned his stem principles and rules. She was following them now.

Flannery and Patricia Shelby stood together at one side; Flannery held the money, payment for the delivery. “Well,” he said, under his breath, “now we can tell her to go leap in the river.”

“Are you sure?” Pat asked nervously.

“The last load’s here.” Flannery grinned starkly and ran a trembling hand through his thinning black hair. “Now we can get rolling. With this stuff, the ship’s crammed to the gills. We may even have to sit down and eat some of that now.” He indicated a bulging pasteboard carton of groceries. “Bacon, eggs, milk, real coffee. Maybe we won’t shove it in deep-freeze. Maybe we ought to have a last-meal-before-the-flight orgy.”

Wistfully, Pat said, “It would be nice. It’s been a long time since we’ve had food like that.”

Masterson strode over. “Let’s kill her and boil her in a big kettle. Skinny old witch—she might make good soup.”

“In the oven,” Flannery corrected. “Some gingerbread, to take along with us.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” Pat said apprehensively. “She’s so—well, maybe she is a witch. I mean, maybe that’s what witches were…old women with strange talents. Like her—being able to pass through time.”

“Damn lucky for us,” Masterson said briefly.

“But she doesn’t understand it. Does she? Does she know what she’s doing? That she could save us all this by sharing her ability. Does she know what’s happened to our world?” Flannery considered. “Probably she doesn’t know—or care. A mind like hers, business and profit—getting exorbitant rates from us, selling this stuff to us at an incredible premium. And the joke is that money’s worth nothing to us. If she could see, she’d know that. It’s just paper, in this world. But she’s caught in a narrow little routine. Business, profit.” He shook his head. “A mind like that, a warped, miserable flea-sized mind…and she has that unique talent.”

“But she can see,” Pat persisted. “She can see the ash, the ruin. How can she not know?”

Flannery shrugged. “She probably doesn’t connect it with her own life. After all, she’ll be dead in a couple of years…she won’t see the war in her real time. She’ll only see it this way, as a region into which she can travel. A sort of travelogue of strange lands. She can enter and leave—but we’re stuck. It must give you a damn fine sense of security to be able to walk out of one world, into another. God, what I’d give to be able to go back with her.”

“It’s been tried,” Masterson pointed out. “That lizard-head Tellman tried it. And he came walking back, covered with ash. He said the truck faded out.”

“Of course it did,” Flannery said mildly. “She drove it back to Walnut Creek. Back to 1965.”

The unloading had been completed. The members of the colony were toiling up the slope, lugging the cartons to the check-area beneath the ship. Mrs. Berthelson strode over to Flannery, accompanied by Professor Crowley.

“Here’s the inventory,” she said briskly. “A few items couldn’t be found. You know, I don’t stock all that in my store. I have to send out for most of it.”

“We know,” Flannery said, coldly amused. It would be interesting to see a country store that stocked binocular microscopes, turret lathes, frozen packs of antibiotics, high-frequency radio transmitters, advanced text books in all fields.

“So that’s why I have to charge you a little dearer,” the old woman continued, the inflexible routine of squeeze. “On items I bring in—” She examined her inventory, then returned the ten-page typewritten list that Crowley had given her on the previous visit. “Some of these weren’t available. I marked them back order. That bunch of metals from those laboratories back East—they said maybe later.” A cunning look slid over the ancient gray eyes. “And they’ll be very expensive.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Flannery said, handing her the money. “You can cancel all the back orders.”

At first her face showed nothing. Only a vague inability to understand.

“No more shipments,” Crowley explained. A certain tension faded from them; for the first time, they weren’t afraid of her. The old relationship had ended. They weren’t dependent on the rusty red truck. They had their shipment; they were ready to leave.

“We’re taking off,” Flannery said, grinning starkly. “We’re full up.”

Comprehension came. “But I placed orders for those things.” Her voice was thin, bleak. Without emotion. “They’ll be shipped to me. I’ll have to pay for them.”

“Well,” Flannery said softly, “isn’t that too damn bad.”

Crowley shot him a warning glance. “Sorry,” he said to the old woman. “We can’t stick around—this place is getting hot. We’ve got to take off.”

On the withered face, dismay turned to growing wrath. “You ordered those things! You have to take them!” Her shrill voice rose to a screech of fury. “What am I supposed to do with them?”

As Flannery framed his bitter answer, Pat Shelby intervened. “Mrs. Berthelson,” she said quietly, “you’ve done a lot for us, even if you wouldn’t help us through the hole in your time. And we’re very grateful. If it wasn’t for you, we couldn’t have got together enough supplies. But we really have to go.” She reached out her hand to touch the frail shoulder, but the old woman jerked furiously away. “I mean,” Pat finished awkwardly, “we can’t stay any longer, whether we want to or not. Do you see all that black ash?

It’s radioactive, and more of it sifts down all the time. The toxic level is rising—if we stay any longer it’ll start destroying us.”

Mrs. Edna Berthelson stood clutching her inventory list. There was an expression on her face that none of the group had ever seen before. The violent spasm of wrath had vanished; now a cold, chill glaze lay over the aged features. Her eyes were like gray rocks, utterly without feeling.

Flannery wasn’t impressed. “Here’s your loot,” he said, thrusting out the handful of bills. “What the hell.” He turned to Crowley. “Let’s toss in the rest. Let’s stuff it down her goddamn throat.”

“Shut up,” Crowley snapped.

Flannery sank resentfully back. “Who are you talking to?”

“Enough’s enough.” Crowley, worried and tense, tried to speak to the old woman. “My God, you can’t expect us to stay around here forever, can you?”

There was no response. Abruptly, the old woman tinned and strode silently back to her truck.

Masterson and Crowley looked uneasily at each other. “She sure is mad,” Masterson said apprehensively.

Tellman hurried up, glanced at the old woman getting into her truck, and then bent down to root around in one of the cartons of groceries. Childish greed flushed across his thin face. “Look,” he gasped. “Coffee—fifteen pounds of it. Can we open some? Can we get one tin open, to celebrate?”

“Sure,” Crowley said tonelessly, his eyes on the truck. With a muffled roar, the truck turned in a wide arc and rumbled off down the crude platform, toward the ash. It rolled off into the ash, slithered for a short distance, and then faded out. Only the bleak, sun-swept plain of darkness remained.

“Coffee!” Tellman shouted gleefully. He tossed the bright metal can high in the air and clumsily caught it again. “A celebration! Our last night—last meal on Earth!”

It was true.

As the red pickup truck jogged metallically along the road, Mrs. Berthelson scanned “ahead” and saw that the men were telling the truth. Her thin lips writhed; in her mouth an acid taste of bile rose. She had taken it for granted that they would continue to buy—there was no competition, no other source of supply. But they were leaving. And when they left, there would be no more market.

She would never find a market that satisfactory. It was a perfect market; the group was a perfect customer. In the locked box at the back of the store, hidden down under the reserve sacks of grain, was almost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. A fortune, taken in over the months, received from the imprisoned colony as it toiled to construct its ship.

And she had made it possible. She was responsible for letting them get away after all. Because of her short-sightedness, they were able to escape. She hadn’t used her head.

As she drove back to town she meditated calmly, rationally. It was totally because of her: she was the only one who had possessed the power to bring them their supplies. Without her, they were helpless.

Hopefully, she cast about, looking this way and that, peering with her deep inner sense, into the various “aheads.” There was more than one, of course. The “aheads” lay like a pattern of squares, an intricate web of worlds into which she could step, if she cared. But all were empty of what she wanted.

All showed bleak plains of black ash, devoid of human habitation. What she wanted was lacking: they were each without customers.

The patterns of “aheads” was complex. Sequences were connected like beads on a string; there were chains of “aheads” which formed interwoven links. One step led to the next…but not to alternate chains.

Carefully, with great precision, she began the job of searching through each of the chains. There were many of them…a virtual infinity of possible “aheads.” And it ‘was her power to select; she had stepped into that one, the particular chain in which the huddled colony had labored to construct its ship. She had, by entering it, made it manifest. Frozen it into reality. Dredged it up from among the many, from among the multitude of possibilities.

Now she needed to dredge another. That particular “ahead” had proven unsatisfactory. The market had petered out.

The truck was entering the pleasant town of Walnut Creek, passing bright stores and houses and supermarkets, before she located it. There were so many, and her mind was old…but now she had picked it out. And as soon as she found it, she knew it was the one. Her innate business instinct certified it; the particular “ahead” clicked.

Of the possibilities, this one was unique. The ship was well-built, and thoroughly tested. In “ahead” after “ahead” the ship rose, hesitated as automatic machinery locked, and then burst from the jacket of atmosphere, toward the morning star. In a few “aheads,” the wasted sequences of failure, the ship exploded into white-hot fragments. Those, she ignored; she saw no advantage in that.

In a few “aheads” the ship failed to take off at all. The turbines lashed; exhaust poured out…and the ship remained as it was. But then the men scampered out, and began going over the turbines, searching for the faulty parts. So nothing was gained. In later segments along the chain, in subsequent links, the damage was repaired, and the takeoff was satisfactorily completed.

But one chain was correct. Each element, each link, developed perfectly. The pressure-locks closed, and the ship was sealed. The turbines fired, and the ship, with a shudder, rose from the plain of black ash. Three miles up, the rear jets tore loose. The ship floundered, dropped in a screaming dive, and plunged back toward the Earth. Emergency landing jets, designed for Venus, were frantically thrown on. The ship slowed, hovered for an agonizing instant, and then crashed into the heap of rubble that had been Mount Diablo. There the remains of the ship lay, twisted metal sheets, smoking in the dismal silence.

From the ship the men emerged, shaken and mute, to inspect the damage. To begin the miserable, futile task all over again. Collecting supplies, patching the rocket up…The old woman smiled to herself.

That was what she wanted. That would do perfectly. And all she had to do—such a little thing—was select that sequence when she made her next trip. When she took her little business trip, the following Saturday.

Crowley lay half buried in the black ash, pawing feebly at a deep gash in his cheek. A broken tooth throbbed. A thick ooze of blood dripped into his mouth, the hot salty taste of his own body-fluids leaking helplessly out. He tried to move his leg, but there was no sensation. Broken. His mind was too dazed, too bewildered with despair, to comprehend.

Somewhere in the half-darkness, Flannery stirred. A woman groaned; scattered among the rocks and buckled sections of the ship lay the injured and dying. An upright shape rose, stumbled, and pitched over. An artificial fight flickered. It was Tellman, making his way clumsily over the tattered remains of their world. He gaped foolishly at Crowley; his glasses hung from one ear and part of his lower jaw was missing. Abruptly he collapsed face-forward into a smoking mound of supplies. His skinny body twitched aimlessly.

Crowley managed to pull himself to his knees. Masterson’ was bending over him, saying something again and again. “I’m all right,” Crowley rasped.

“We’re down. Wrecked.”

“I know.”

On Masterson’s shattered face glittered the first stirrings of hysteria. “Do you think—”

“No,” Crowley muttered. “It isn’t possible.”

Masterson began to giggle. Tears streaked the grime of his cheeks; drops of thick moisture dripped down his neck into his charred collar. “She did it. She fixed us. She wants us to stay here.”

“No,” Crowley repeated. He shut out the thought. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. “We’ll get away,” he said. “We’ll assemble the remains—start over.”

“She’ll be back,” Masterson quavered. “She knows we’ll be here waiting for her. Customers!”

“No,” Crowley said. He didn’t believe it; he made himself not believe it. “We’ll get away. We’ve got to get away!”

IF THERE WERE NO BENNY CEMOLI

Scampering across the unplowed field the three boys shouted as they saw the ship; it had landed, all right, just where they expected, and they were the first to reach it.

“Hey, that’s the biggest I ever saw!” Panting, the first boy halted. “That’s not from Mars; that’s from farther. It’s from all the way out, I know it is.” He became silent, afraid as he saw the size of it. And then looking up into the sky he realized that an armada had arrived, exactly as everyone had expected. “We better go tell,” he said to his companions.

Back on the ridge, John LeConte stood by his steam-powered chauffeur-driven limousine, impatiently waiting for the boiler to warm. Kids got there first, he said to himself with anger. Whereas I’m supposed to. And the children were ragged; they were merely farm boys.

“Is the phone working today?” LeConte asked his secretary.

Glancing at his clipboard, Mr. Fall said, “Yes sir. Shall I put through a message to Oklahoma City?” He was the skinniest employee ever assigned to LeConte’s office; the man evidently took nothing for himself, was positively uninterested in food. And he was efficient.

LeConte murmured, “The immigration people ought to hear about this outrage.” He sighed. It had all gone wrong; the armada from Proxima Centaurus had after ten years arrived and none of the early-warning devices had detected it in advance of its landing. Now Oklahoma City would have to deal with the outsiders here on home ground—a psychological-disadvantage which LeConte felt keenly.

Look at the equipment they’ve got, he thought as he watched the commercial ships of the flotilla begin to lower their cargoes. Why, hell, they make us look like provincials. He wished that his official car did not need twenty minutes to warm up; he wished—

Actually, he wished that CURB did not exist. Centaurus Urban Renewal Bureau, a do-gooding body unfortunately vested with enormous inter-system authority—it had been informed of the Misadventure back in 2170 and had started into space like a phototropic organism, sensitive to the mere physical light created by the hydrogen bomb explosions. But LeConte knew better than that; actually the governing organizations in the Centaurian system knew many details of the tragedy because they had been in radio contact with other planets of the Sol system. Little of the native forms on Earth had survived. He himself was from Mars; he had headed a relief mission seven years ago, had decided to stay because there were so many opportunities here on Earth, conditions being what they were…

This is all very difficult, he said to himself as he stood waiting for his steam-powered car to warm. WE got here first, but CURB does outrank us; we must face that awkward fact. In my opinion, we’ve done a good job of rebuilding. Of course, it isn’t like it was before…but ten years is not long. Give us another twenty and we’ll have the trains running again. And our recent road-building bonds sold quite successfully, in fact were oversubscribed.

“Call for you, sir, from Oklahoma City,” Mr. Fall said, holding out the receiver of the portable field-phone.

“Ultimate Representative in the Field John LeConte, here,” LeConte said into it loudly. “Go ahead; I say go ahead.”

“This is Party Headquarters,” the dry official voice at the other end came faintly, mixed with static, in his ear. “We’ve received reports from dozens of alert citizens in Western Oklahoma and Texas of an immense—”

“It’s here,” LeConte said. “I can see it; I’m just about ready to go out and confer with its ranking members, and I’ll file a full report at the usual time. So it wasn’t necessary for you to check up on me.” He felt irritable.

“Is the armada heavily armed?”

“Naw,” LeConte said. “It appears to comprise bureaucrats and trade officials and commercial carriers. In other words, vultures.”

The Party desk-man said, “Well, go and make certain they understand that their presence here is resented by the native population as well as the Relief of War-tom Areas Administrating Council. Tell them that the legislature will be called to pass a special bill expressing indignation at this intrusion into domestic matters by an inter-system body.”

“I know, I know,” LeConte said. “It’s been all decided; I know.”

His chauffeur called to him, “Sir, your car is ready, now.”

The Party desk-man concluded, “Make certain they understand that you can’t negotiate with them; you have no power to admit them to Earth. Only the Council can do that and of course it’s adamantly against that.”

LeConte hung up the phone and hurried to his car.

Despite the opposition of the local authorities, Peter Hood of CURB decided to locate his headquarters in the mins of the old Terran capital, New York City. This would lend prestige to the CURBmen as they gradually widened the circle of the organization’s influence. At last, of course, the circle would embrace the planet. But that would take decades.

As he walked through the ruins of what had once been a major train yard, Peter Hood thought to himself that when the task was done he himself would have long ago retired. Not much remained of the pre-tragedy culture, here, and the local authorities—the political nonentities who had flocked in from Mars and Venus, as the neighboring planets were called—had done little. And yet he admired their efforts.

To the members of his staff walking directly behind him he said, “You know, they have done the hard part for us; we ought to be grateful. It is not easy to come into a totally destroyed area, as they’ve done.”

His man Fletcher observed, “They got back a good return.”

Hood said, “Motive is not important. They have achieved results.” He was thinking of the official who had met them in his steam car; it had been solemn and formal, carrying complicated trappings. When these locals had first arrived on the scene years ago they had not been greeted, except perhaps by radiation-seared, blackened survivors who had stumbled out of cellars and gaped sightlessly. He shivered.

Coming up to him, a CURBman of minor rank saluted and said, “I think we’ve managed to locate an undamaged structure in which your staff could be housed for the time being. It’s underground.” He looked embarrassed. “Not what we had hoped for…we’d have to displace the locals to get anything attractive.”

“Yes,” Hood agreed, “they have had a good long time to explore. I don’t object; a glorified basement, if it’s serviceable, will do.”

“The structure,” the minor CURBman said, “was once a great homeostatic newspaper, the New York Times. It printed itself directly below us. At least, according to the maps. We haven’t located the newspaper yet; it was customary for the homeopapes to be buried a mile or so down. As yet we don’t know how much of this one survived.”

“But it would be valuable,” Hood agreed.

“Yes,” the CURBman said. “Its outlets are scattered all over the planet; it must have had a thousand different editions which it put out daily. How many outlets function—” He broke off. “It’s hard to believe that the local politicos made no effort to repair any of the ten or eleven worldwide homeopapes, but that seems to be the case.”

“Odd,” Hood said. Surely it would have eased their task; the post-tragedy job of reuniting people into a common culture depended on newspapers, particles in the atmosphere making radio and TV reception difficult if not impossible. “This makes me instantly suspicious,” he said, turning to his staff. “Are they perhaps not trying after all? Is their work merely a pretense?”

It was his own wife Joan who spoke up. “They may simply have lacked the ability to place the homeopapes on an operational basis.”

Give them the benefit of the doubt, Hood thought. You’re right.

“So the last edition of the Times,” Fletcher said, “was put on the lines the day the Misadventure occurred. And the entire network of newspaper communication and news-creation has been idle since. I can’t respect these politicos; it shows they’re ignorant of the basics of a culture. By reviving the homeopapes we can do more to reestablish the pre-tragedy culture than they’ve done in ten thousand pitiful projects.” His tone was scornful.

Hood said, “You may misunderstand, but let it go.

Let’s hope that the cephalon of the pape is undamaged; we couldn’t possibly replace it.” Ahead he saw the yawning entrance which the CURBmen crews had cleared. This was to be his first move, here on the ruined planet, restoring this immense self-contained entity to its former authority. Once it had resumed its activity he would be freed for other tasks; the homeopape would take some of the burden from him.

A workman, still clearing debris away, muttered, “Jeez, I never saw so many layers of junk. You’d think they deliberately bottled it up, down here.” In his hands, the suction furnace which he operated glowed and pounded as it absorbed material, converting it to energy, leaving an increasingly enlarged opening.

“I’d like a report as soon as possible as to its condition,” Hood said to the team of engineers who stood waiting to descend into the opening. “How long it will take to revive it, how much—” He broke off.

Two men in black uniforms had arrived. Police, from the Security ship. One, he saw, was Otto Dietrich, the ranking investigator accompanying the armada from Centaurus, and he felt tense automatically; it was a reflex for all of them—he saw the engineers and the workmen cease momentarily and then, more slowly, resume their work.

“Yes,” he said to Dietrich. “Glad to see you. Let’s go off to this side room and talk there.” He knew beyond a doubt what the investigator wanted; he had been expecting him.

Dietrich said, “I won’t take up too much of your time, Hood; I know you’re quite busy. What is this, here?” He glanced about curiously, his scrubbed, round, alert face eager.

In a small side room, converted to a temporary office, Hood faced the two policemen. “I am opposed to prosecution,” he said quietly. “It’s been too long; let them go.”

Dietrich, tugging thoughtfully at his ear, said, “But war crimes are war crimes, even three decades, four, later. Anyhow, what argument can there be? We’re required by law to prosecute. Somebody started the war. They may well hold positions of responsibility now, but that hardly matters.”

“How many police troops have you landed?” Hood asked.

“Two hundred.”

“Then you’re ready to go to work.”

“Were ready to make inquiries. Sequester pertinent documents and initiate litigation in the local courts. We’re prepared to enforce cooperation, if that’s what you mean. Various experienced personnel have been distributed to key points.” Dietrich eyed him. “All this is necessary; I don’t see the problem. Did you intend to protect the guilty parties—make use of their so-called abilities on your staff?”

“No,” Hood said evenly.

Dietrich said, “Nearly eighty million people died in the Misfortune. Can you forget that? Or is it that since they were merely local people, not known to us personally—”

“It’s not that,” Hood said. He knew it was hopeless; he could not communicate with the police mentality. “I’ve already stated my objections; I feel it serves no purpose at this late date to have trials and hangings. Don’t request use of my staff in this; I’ll refuse on the grounds that I can spare no one, not even a janitor. Do I make myself clear?”

“You idealists,” Dietrich sighed. “This is strictly a noble task confronting us…to rebuild, correct? What you don’t or won’t see is that these people will start it all over again, one day, unless we take steps now. We owe it to future generations; to be harsh now is the most humane method, in the long run. Tell me, Hood. What is this site? What are you resurrecting, here, with such vigor?”

“The New York Times” Hood said.

“It has, I assume, a morgue? We can consult its backlog of information? That would prove valuable in building up our cases.”

Hood said, “I can’t deny you access to material we uncover.”

Smiling, Dietrich said, “A day by day account of the political events leading up to the war would prove quite interesting. Who, for instance, held supreme power in the United States at the time of the Misfortune? No one we’ve talked to so far seems to remember.” His smile increased.

Early the next morning the report from the corps of engineers reached Hood in his temporary office. The power supply of the newspaper had been totally destroyed. But the cephalon, the governing brain-structure which guided and oriented the homeostatic system, appeared to be intact.

If a ship were brought close by, perhaps its power supply could be integrated into the newspaper’s lines. Thereupon much more would be known.

“In other words,” Fletcher said to Hood, as they sat with Joan eating breakfast, “it may come on and it may not. Very pragmatic. You hook it up and if it works you’ve done your job. What if it doesn’t? Do the engineers intend to give up, at that point?”

Examining his cup, Hood said, “This tastes like authentic coffee.” He pondered. “Tell them to bring a ship in and start the homeopape up. And if it begins to print, bring me the edition at once.” He sipped his coffee.

An hour later a ship of the line had landed in the vicinity and its power source had been tapped for insertion into the homeopape. The conduits were placed, the circuits cautiously closed.

Seated in his office, Peter Hood heard far underground a low rumble, a halting, uncertain stirring. They had been successful. The newspaper was returning to life.

The edition, when it was laid on his desk by a bustling CURBman, surprised him by its accuracy. Even in its dormant state, the newspaper had somehow managed not to fall behind events. Its receptors had kept going.

CURB LANDS FROM CENTAURUS TRIP DECADE LONG,

PLANS REBUILD, CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION

Ten years after the Misfortune of a nuclear holocaust, the inter-system rehabilitation agency, CURB, has made its historic appearance on Earth’s surface, landing from a veritable armada of craft—a sight which witnesses described as “overpowering both in scope and in significance.” CURBman Peter Hood, named top coordinator by Centaurian authorities, immediately set up headquarters in the ruins of New York City and conferred with aides, declaring that he had come “not to punish the guilty but to re-establish the planet-wide culture by every means available, and to restore.

It was uncanny, Hood thought as he read the lead article. The varied news-gathering services of the homeopape had reached into his own life, had digested and then inserted into the lead article even the discussion between himself and Otto Dietrich. The newspaper was—had been—doing its job; nothing of news-interest escaped it, even a discreet conversation carried on with no outsiders as witnesses. He would have to be careful.

Sure enough, another item, ominous in tone, dealt with the arrival of the black jacks, the police.

SECURITY AGENCY VOWS “WAR CRIMINALS” TARGET

Captain Otto Dietrich, supreme police investigator arriving with the CURB armada from Proxima Centaurus, said today that those responsible for the Misfortune of a decade ago “will have to pay for their crimes” before the bar of Centaurian justice. Two hundred black-uniformed police, it was learned by the Times, have already begun exploratory activities designed to.

The newspaper was warning Earth about Dietrich, and Hood could not help feeling grim relish. The Times had not been set up to serve merely the occupying hierarchy; it served everyone, including those Dietrich intended to try, and each step of the police activity would no doubt be reported in full detail. Dietrich, who liked to work in anonymity, would not enjoy this. But the authority to maintain the newspaper belonged to Hood.

And he did not intend to shut it off.

One item on the first page of the paper attracted his further notice; he read it, frowning and a little uneasy.

CEMOLI SUPPORTERS RIOT IN UPSTATE NEW YORK

Supporters of Benny Cemoli, gathered in the familiar tent cities associated with the colorful political figure, clashed with local citizens armed with hammers, shovels and boards, both sides claiming victory in the two-hour melee which left twenty injured and a dozen hospitalized in hastily-erected first aid stations. Cemoli, garbed as always in his toga-style red robes, visited the injured, evidently in good spirits, joking and telling his supporters that “it won’t be long now,” an evident reference to the organization’s boast that it would march on New York City in the near future to establish what Cemoli deems “social justice and true equality for the first time in world history.” It should be recalled that prior to his imprisonment at San Quentin.

Flipping a switch on his intercom system, Hood said, “Fletcher, check into activities up in the north of the county; find out about some sort of a political mob gathering there.”

Fletcher’s voice came back, “I have a copy of the Times, too, sir. I see the item about this Cemoli agitator. There’s a ship on the way up there right now; should have a report within ten minutes.” Fletcher paused. “Do you think…it’ll be necessary to bring in any of Dietrich’s people?”

“Let’s hope not,” Hood said shortly.

Half an hour later the CURB ship, through Fletcher, made its report. Puzzled, Hood asked that it be repeated. But there was no mistake. The CURB field team had investigated thoroughly. They had found no sign whatsoever of any tent city or any group gathering. And citizens in the area whom they had interrogated had never heard of anyone named “Cemoli.” And there was no sign of any scuffle having taken place, no first aid stations, no injured persons. Only the peaceful, semi-rural countryside.

Baffled, Hood read the item in the Times once more. There it was, in black and white, on the front page, along with the news about the landing of the CURB armada. What did it mean?

He did not like it, not at all.

Had it been a mistake to revive the great, old, damaged homeostatic newspaper?

From a sound sleep that night Hood was awakened by a clanging from far beneath the ground, an urgent racket that grew louder and louder as he sat up in bed, blinking and confused. Machinery roared; he heard the heavy rumbling movement as automatic circuits fitted into place, responding to instructions emanating from within the closed system itself.

“Sir,” Fletcher was saying, from the darkness; a light came on as Fletcher located the temporary overhead fixture. “I thought I should come in and wake you. Sorry, Mrs. Hood.”

“I’m awake,” Hood muttered, rising from the bed and putting on his robe and slippers. “What’s it doing?”

Fletcher said, “It’s printing an extra.”

Sitting up, smoothing her tousled blonde hair back, Joan said, “Good lord. What about?” Wide-eyed, she looked from her husband to Fletcher.

“We’ll have to bring in the local authorities,” Hood said.

“Confer with them.” He had an intuition as to the nature of the extra roaring through the presses at this moment. “Get that LeConte here, that politico who met us on our arrival. Wake him up and fly him here; we need him.”

It took almost an horn- to obtain the presence of the haughty, ceremonious local potentate and his staff-member; the two of them in their elaborate uniforms at last put in an appearance at Hood’s office, both of them indignant. They faced Hood silently, waiting to hear what he wanted.

In his bathrobe and slippers Hood sat at his desk, a copy of the Times’ extra before him; he was reading it once more as LeConte and his man entered.

NEW YORK POLICE REPORT CEMOLI LEGIONS ON MOVE

TOWARD CITY, BARRICADES ERECTED, NATIONAL GUARD

ALERTED

He turned the paper, showing the headlines to the two Earthmen. “Who is this man?” he said.

After a moment LeConte said, “I…don’t know.”

Hood said, “Come on, Mr. LeConte.”

“Let me read the article,” LeConte said nervously. He scanned it in haste; his hands trembled as he held the newspaper. “Interesting,” he said at last. “But I can’t tell you a thing; it’s news to me—you must understand that our communications have been sparse, since the Misfortune, and it’s entirely possible that a political movement could spring up without our—”

“Please,” Hood said. “Don’t make yourself absurd.”

Flushing, LeConte stammered, “I’m doing the best I can, summoned out of my bed in the middle of the night”

There was a stir, and through the office doorway came the rapidly-moving figure of Otto Dietrich, looking grim. “Hood,” he said without preamble, “there’s a Times kiosk near my headquarters—it just posted this.” He held up a copy of the extra. “The damn thing is running this off and distributing it throughout the world, isn’t it? However, we have crack teams up in that area and they report absolutely nothing, no road blocks, no militia-style troops on the move, no activity of any sort.”

“I know,” Hood said. He felt weary. And still, from beneath them, the deep rumble continued, the newspaper printing its extra, informing the world of the march by Benny Cemoli’s supporters on New York City—a fantasy march, evidently, a product manufactured entirely within the cephalon of the newspaper itself.

“Shut it off,” Dietrich said.

Hood shook his head. “No. I…want to know more.”

“That’s no reason,” Dietrich said. “Obviously, it’s defective. Very seriously damaged, not working properly. You’ll have to search elsewhere for your worldwide propaganda network.” He tossed the newspaper down on Hood’s desk.

To LeConte, Hood said, “Was Benny Cemoli active before the war?”

There was silence. Both LeConte and his assistant Mr. Fall were pale and tense; they faced him tight-lipped, glancing at each other.

“I am not much for police matters,” Hood said to Dietrich, “but I think you could reasonably step in, here.”

Dietrich, understanding, said, “I agree. You two men are under arrest. Unless you feel inclined to talk a little more freely about this agitator, this apparition in the red toga.” He nodded to two of his police, who stood by the office doorway; they stepped forward.

As the two policemen came up to him, LeConte said, “Come to think of it, there was such a person. But—he was very obscure.”

“Before the war?” Hood asked.

“Yes.” LeConte nodded slowly. “He was a joke, a clown. As I recall, and it’s difficult…a fat, ignorant clown from some backwoods area. He had a little radio station or something over which he broadcast. He peddled some sort of anti-radiation box which you installed in your house, and it made you safe from bomb-test fallout.”

Now his staff member Mr. Fall said, “I remember. He even ran for the UN senate. But he was defeated, naturally.”

“And that was the last of him?” Hood asked.

“Oh yes,” LeConte said. “He died of Asian flu soon after. He’s been dead for fifteen years.”

In a helicopter, Hood flew slowly above the terrain depicted in the Times articles, seeing for himself that there was no sign of political activity; he did not feel really assured until he had done so, seen with his own eyes that the newspaper had lost contact with actual events. The reality situation did not coincide with the Times’ articles in any way; that was obvious. And yet—the homeostatic system continued on.

Joan, seated beside him, said, “I have the third article here, if you want to read it.” She had been looking the latest edition over.

“No,” Hood said.

“It says they’re in the outskirts of the city,” she said. “They broke through the police barricades and the governor has appealed for UN assistance.”

Thoughtfully, Fletcher said, “Here’s an idea. One of us, preferably you, Hood, should write a letter to the Times.” Hood glanced at him.

“I think I can tell you exactly how it should be worded,” Fletcher said. “Make it a simple inquiry. You’ve followed the accounts in the paper about Cemoli’s movement. Tell the editor—” Fletcher paused. “That you feel sympathetic and you’d like to join the movement. Ask the paper how.”

To himself, Hood thought, In other words, ask the newspaper to put me in touch with Cemoli. He had to admire Fletcher’s idea; it was brilliant, in a crazy sort of way. It was as if Fletcher had been able to match the derangement of the newspaper by a deliberate shift from common sense on his own part. He would participate in the newspaper’s delusion. Assuming there was a Cemoli and a march on New York, he was asking a reasonable question.

Joan said, “I don’t want to sound stupid, but how does one go about mailing a letter to a homeopape?”

“I’ve looked into that,” Fletcher said. “At each kiosk set up by the paper there’s a letter-slot, next to the coin-slot where you pay for your paper. It was the law, when the homeopapes were set up originally, decades ago. All we need is your husband’s signature.” Reaching into his jacket, he brought out an envelope. “The letter’s written.”

Hood took the letter, examined it. So we desire to be part of the mythical fat clown’s throng, he said to himself. “Won’t there be a headline reading curb chief joins march on earth capital?” he asked Fletcher, feeling a trace of wry amusement. “Wouldn’t a good, enterprising homeopape make front page use of a letter such as this?”

Obviously Fletcher had not thought of that; he looked chagrined. “I suppose we had better get someone else to sign it,” he admitted. “Some minor person attached to your staff.” He added, “I could sign it myself.”

Handing him the letter back, Hood said, “Do so. It’ll be interesting to see what response, if any, there is.” Letters to the editor, he thought. Letters, rather, to a vast complex electronic organism buried deep in the ground, responsible to no one, guided solely by its own ruling circuits. How would it react to this external ratification of its delusion? Would the newspaper be snapped back to reality?

It was, he thought, as if the newspaper, during these years of its enforced silence, had been dreaming, and now, reawakened, it had allowed portions of its former dreams to materialize in its pages along with its accurate, perceptive accounts of the actual situation. A blend of figments and sheer, stark reporting. Which ultimately would triumph? Soon, evidently, the unfolding story of Benny Cemoli would have the toga-wearing spellbinder in New York; it appeared that the march would succeed. And what then? How could this be squared with the arrival of CURB, with all its enormous inter-system authority and power? Surely the homeopape, before long, would have to face the incongruity.

One of the two accounts would have to cease…but Hood had an uneasy intuition that a homeopape which had dreamed for a decade would not readily give up its fantasies. Perhaps, he thought, the news of us, of CURB and its task of rebuilding Earth, will fade from the pages of the Times, will be given a steadily decreasing coverage each day, farther back in the paper. And at last only the exploits of Benny Cemoli will remain.

It was not a pleasant anticipation; it disturbed him deeply. As if, he thought, we are only real so long as the Times writes about us; as if we were dependent, for our existence, on it.

Twenty-four hours later, in its regular edition, the Times printed Fletcher’s letter. In print it had a peculiar quality; it struck Hood as flimsy and contrived—surely the homeopape could not be taken in by it, and yet here it was. It had managed to pass each of the steps in the pape’s processing.

Dear Editor:

Your coverage of the heroic march on the decadent plutocratic stronghold of New York City has fired my enthusiasm. How does an ordinary citizen become a part of this history in the making? Please inform me at once, as I am eager to join Cemoli and endure the rigors and triumphs with the others.

Cordially,

Rudolf Fletcher

Beneath the letter, the homeopape had given an answer; Hood read it rapidly.

Cemoli’s stalwarts maintain a recruiting office in downtown

New York; address, 460 Bleekman St., New York 32. You might apply there, if the police haven’t cracked down on these quasi-legal activities, in view of the current crisis.

Touching a button on his desk, Hood opened the direct line to police headquarters. When he had the chief investigator, he said, “Dietrich, I’d like a team of your men; we have a trip to make and there may be difficulties.”

After a pause Dietrich said dryly, “So it’s not all noble reclamation after all. Well, we’ve already dispatched a man to keep an eye on the Bleekman Street address…I admire your letter scheme; it may have done the trick.” He chuckled.

Shortly, Hood and four black-uniformed Centaurian policemen flew by ’copter above the ruins of New York City, searching for the remains of what had once been Bleekman Street. By the use of a map they managed after half an hour to locate themselves.

“There,” the police captain in charge of the team said, pointing. “That would be it, that building used as a grocery store.” The ’copter began to lower.

It was a grocery store, all right; Hood saw no signs of political activity, no persons loitering, no flags or banners. And yet—something ominous seemed to lie behind the commonplace scene below, the bins of vegetables parked out on the sidewalk, the shabby women in long cloth coats who stood picking over the winter potatoes, the elderly proprietor with his white cloth apron sweeping with his broom…it was too natural, too easy. It was too ordinary.

“Shall we land?” the police captain asked him.

“Yes,” Hood said. “And be ready.”

The proprietor, seeing them land in the street before his grocery store, laid his broom carefully to one side and walked toward them. He was, Hood saw, a Greek; he had a heavy moustache and slightly wavy gray hair, and he gazed at them with innate caution, knowing at once that they did not intend him any good. Yet he had decided to greet them with civility; he was not afraid of them.

“Gentlemen,” the Greek grocery store owner said, bowing slightly. “What can I do for you?” His eyes roved speculatively over the black Centaurian police uniforms, but he showed no expression, no reaction.

Hood said, “We’ve come to arrest a political agitator. You have nothing to be alarmed about.” He started toward the grocery store; the team of police followed, their side arms drawn.

“Political agitation here?” the Greek said. “Come on; it is impossible.” He hurried after them, panting, alarmed now. “What have I done? Nothing at all; you can look around. Go ahead.” He held open the door of the store, ushering them inside. “See right away for yourself.”

“That’s what we intend to do,” Hood said. He moved with agility, wasting no time on the conspicuous portions of the store; he strode directly on through.

The back room lay ahead, the warehouse with its cartons of cans, cardboard boxes stacked up on every side. A young boy was busy making a stock inventory; he glanced up, startled, as they entered. Nothing here, Hood thought. The owner’s son at work, that’s all. Lifting the lid of a carton Hood peered inside. Cans of peaches. And beside that a crate of lettuce; he tore off a leaf, feeling futile and—disappointed.

The police captain said to him in a low voice, “Nothing, sir.”

“I see that,” Hood said, irritably.

A door to the right led to a closet; opening it, he saw brooms and a mop, a galvanized pail, boxes of detergents. And—

There were drops of paint on the floor. The closet, sometime recently, had been repainted; when he bent down and scratched with his nail he found the paint still tacky.

“Look at this,” he said, beckoning the police captain over.

The Greek, nervously, said, “What’s the matter, gentlemen? You find something dirty and report to the board of health, is that it? Customers have complained—tell me the truth, please. Yes, it is fresh paint; we keep everything spick and span. Isn’t that in the public interest?”

Running his hands across the wall of the broom closet, the police captain said quietly, “Mr. Hood, there was a doorway here. Sealed up, now, very recently.” He looked expectantly toward Hood, awaiting instructions.

Hood said, “Let’s get in. At once.”

Turning to his subordinates, the police captain gave a series of orders. From the ship, equipment was dragged, through the store, to the closet; a controlled whine arose as the police began the task of cutting into the wood and plaster.

Pale, the Greek said, “This is outrageous. I will sue.”

“Right,” Hood agreed. “Take us to court.” Already, a portion of the wall had given way; it fell inward with a crash, and bits of rubble spilled down onto the floor. A white cloud of dust rose, then settled.

It was not a large room which Hood saw in the glare of the police flashlights. Dusty, without windows, smelling stale and ancient…the room had not been inhabited for a long, long time, he realized as he warily entered. It was empty. Just an abandoned storeroom of some kind, its wooden walls scaling and dingy. Perhaps before the Misfortune the grocery store had possessed a larger inventory; more stocks had been available, then, but now this room was not needed. Hood moved about, flashing his beam of light up to the ceiling and then down to the floor. Dead flies, entombed here…and, he saw, a few live ones which crept haltingly in the dust.

“Remember,” the police captain said, “it was boarded up just now, within the last three days. Or at least the painting was just done, to be absolutely accurate about it.”

“These flies,” Hood said. “They’re not even dead yet.” So it had not even been three days. Probably the boarding-up had been done yesterday.

What had this room been used for? He turned to the Greek, who had come after them, still tense and pale, his dark eyes flickering rapidly with concern. This is a smart man, Hood realized. We will get little out of him.

At the far end of the storeroom the police flashlights picked out a cabinet, empty shelves of bare, rough wood. Hood walked toward it.

“Okay,” the Greek said thickly, swallowing. “I admit it; we have kept bootleg gin stored here. We became scared. You Centaurians—” He looked around at them all with fear. “You’re not like our local bosses; we know them, they understand us. You, you can’t be reached. But we have to make a living.” He spread his hands, appealing to them.

From behind the cabinet the edge of something protruded. Barely visible, it might never have been noticed. A paper which had fallen there, almost out of sight; it had slipped down farther and farther. Now Hood took hold of it and carefully drew it out. Back up the way it had come.

The Greek shuddered.

It was, Hood saw, a picture. A heavy, middle-aged man with loose jowls stained black by the grained beginning of a beard, frowning, his lips set in defiance. A big man, wearing some kind of uniform. Once this picture had hung on the wall and people had come here and looked at it, paid respect to it. He knew who it was. This was Benny Cemoli, at the height of his political career, the leader glaring bitterly at the followers who had gathered here. So this was the man.

No wonder the Times showed such alarm.

To the Greek grocery store owner, Hood said, holding up the picture, “Tell me. Is this familiar to you?”

“No, no,” the Greek said. He wiped perspiration from his face with a large red handkerchief. “Certainly not.” But obviously, it was.

Hood said, “You’re a follower of Cemoli, aren’t you?”

There was silence.

“Take him along,” Hood said to the police captain. “And let’s start back.” He walked from the room, carrying the picture with him.

As he spread the picture out on his desk, Hood thought, It isn’t merely a fantasy of the Times. We know the truth now; the man is real and twenty-four hours ago this portrait of him hung on a wall, in plain sight. It would still be there this moment, if CURB had not put in its appearance. We frightened them. The Earth people have a lot to hide from us, and they know it; they are taking steps, rapidly and effectively, and we will be lucky if we can- interrupting his thoughts, Joan said, “Then the Bleekman Street address really was a meeting place for them. The pape was correct.”

“Yes,” Hood said.

“Where is he now?”

I wish we knew, Hood thought.

“Has Dietrich seen the picture, yet?”

“Not yet,” Hood said.

Joan said, “He was responsible for the war and Dietrich is going to find it out.”

“No one man,” Hood said, “could solely be responsible.”

“But he figured largely,” Joan said. “That’s why they’ve gone to so much effort to eradicate all traces of his existence.”

Hood nodded.

“Without the Times,” she said, “would we ever have guessed that such a political figure as Benny Cemoli existed? We owe a lot to the pape. They overlooked it or weren’t able to get to it. Probably they were working in such haste; they couldn’t think of everything, even in ten years. It must be hard to obliterate every surviving detail of a planetwide political movement, especially when its leader managed to seize absolute power in the final phase.”

“Impossible to obliterate,” Hood said. A closed-off storeroom in the back of a Greek grocery store…that was enough to tell us what we needed to know. Now Dietrich’s men can do the rest. If Cemoli is alive they will eventually find him, and if he’s dead—they’ll be hard to convince, knowing Dietrich. They’ll never stop looking, now.

“One good thing about this,” Joan said, “is that now a lot of innocent people will be off the hook. Dietrich won’t go around prosecuting them; he’ll be busy tracking down Cemoli.”

True, Hood thought. And that was important. The Centaurian police would be thoroughly occupied for a long time to come, and that was just as well for everyone, including CURB and its ambitious program of reconstruction.

If there had never been a Benny Cemoli, he thought, it would almost have been necessary to invent him. An odd thought…he wondered how it had happened to come to him. Again he examined the picture, trying to infer as much as possible about the man from this flat likeness; how had Cemoli sounded? Had he gained power through the spoken word, like so many demagogues before him? And his writing…maybe some of it would turn up. Or even tape recordings of speeches he had made, the actual sound of the man. And perhaps video tapes as well. Eventually it would all come to light; it was only a question of time. And then we will be able to experience for ourselves how it was to live under the shadow of such a man, he realized.

The line from Dietrich’s office buzzed. He picked up the phone.

“We have the Greek here,” Dietrich said. “Under drug-guidance he’s made a number of admissions; you may be interested.”

“Yes,” Hood said.

Dietrich said, “He tells us he’s been a follower for seventeen years, a real old-timer in the Movement. They met twice a week in the back of his grocery store, in the early days when the Movement was small and relatively powerless. That picture you have—I haven’t seen it, of course, but Stavros, our Greek gentleman, told me about it—that portrait is actually obsolete in the sense that several more recent ones have been in vogue among the faithful for some time now. Stavros hung onto it for sentimental reasons. It reminded him of the old days. Later on when the Movement grew in strength, Cemoli stopped showing up at the grocery store, and the Greek lost out in any personal contact with him…he continued to be a loyal dues-paying member, but it became abstract for him.”

“What about the war?” Hood asked.

“Shortly before the war Cemoli seized power in a coup here in North America, through a march on New York City, during a severe economic depression…millions were unemployed and he drew a good deal of support from them. He tried to solve the economic problems through an aggressive foreign policy—attacked several Latin American republics which were in the sphere of influence of the Chinese. That seems to be it, but Stavros is a bit hazy about the big picture…we’ll have to fill in more from other enthusiasts as we go along. From some of the younger ones; after all, this one is over seventy years old.”

Hood said, “You’re not going to prosecute him, I hope.”

“Oh no. He’s simply a source of information; when he’s told us all he has on his mind we'll let him go bade to his onions and canned apple sauce. He’s harmless.”

“Did Cemoli survive the war?”

“Yes,” Dietrich said. “But that was ten years ago; Stavros doesn’t know if the man is still alive now. Personally I think he is, and we’ll go on that assumption until it’s proved false. We have to.”

Hood thanked him and hung up.

As he turned from the phone he heard, beneath him, the low, dull rumbling. The homeopape had once more started into life.

“It’s not a regular edition,” Joan said, quickly consulting her wristwatch. “So it must be another extra. This is exciting, having it happen like this; I can’t wait to read the front page.”

What has Benny Cemoli done now? Hood wondered. According to the Times, in its misphased chronicling of the man’s epic …what stage, actually taking place years ago, has now been reached? Something climactic, deserving of an extra. It will be interesting, no doubt of that; the Times knows what makes a good story.

He, too, could hardly wait.

In downtown Oklahoma City, John LeConte put a coin into the slot of the kiosk which the Times had long ago established there. The copy of the Times, the latest extra, slid out and he picked it up and read the headline, briefly, spending only a moment on it to verify the essentials. Then he crossed the sidewalk and stepped once more into the rear seat of his chauffeur-driven steam car.

Mr. Fall said circumspectly, “Sir, here is the primary material, if you wish to make a word-by-word comparison.” The secretary held out the folder, and LeConte accepted it.

The car started up; without being told, the chauffeur drove in the direction of Party headquarters. LeConte leaned back, lit a cigar and made himself comfortable.

On his lap, the newspaper blazed up its enormous headlines.

CEMOLI ENTERS COALITION UN GOVERNMENT,

TEMPORARY CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES

To his secretary, LeConte said, “My phone, please.”

“Yes sir.” Mr. Fall handed him the portable field-phone.

“But we’re almost there. And it’s always possible, if you don’t mind my pointing it out, that they may have tapped us somewhere along the line.”

“They’re busy in New York,” LeConte said. “Among the ruins.” In an area that hasn’t mattered as long as I can remember, he said to himself. However, possibly Mr. Fall’s advice was good; he decided to skip the phone call. “What do you think of this last item?” he asked his secretary, holding up the newspaper.

“Very success-deserving,” Mr. Fall said, nodding.

Opening his briefcase, LeConte brought out a tattered, coverless textbook. It had been manufactured only an hour ago, and it was the next artifact to be planted for the invaders from Proxima Centaurus to discover. This was his own contribution, and he was personally quite proud of it. The book outlined in massive detail Cemoli’s program of social change, the revolution depicted in language comprehensible to school children.

“May I ask,” Mr. Fall said, “if the Party hierarchy intends for them to discover a corpse?”

“Eventually,” Le Conte said. “But that will be several months from now.” Taking a pencil from his coat pocket he wrote in the tattered textbook, crudely, as if a pupil had done it:

DOWN WITH CEMOLI

Or was that going too far? No, he decided. There would be resistance. Certainly of the spontaneous, schoolboy variety. He added:

WHERE ARE THE ORANGES?

Peering over his shoulder, Mr. Fall said, “What does that mean?”

“Cemoli promises oranges to the youth,” LeConte explained. “Another empty boast which the revolution never fulfills. That was Stavros’ idea…he being a grocer. A nice touch.” Giving it, he thought, just that much more semblance of verisimilitude. It’s the little touches that have done it.

“Yesterday,” Mr. Fall said, “when I was at Party headquarters, I heard an audio tape that had been made. Cemoli addressing the UN. It was uncanny; if you didn’t know—”

“Who did they get to do it?” LeConte asked, wondering why he hadn’t been in on it.

“Some nightclub entertainer here in Oklahoma City. Rather obscure, of course. I believe he specializes in all sorts of characterizations. The fellow gave it a bombastic, threatening quality which in my opinion was a little overdone, but certainly effective. Plenty of crowd-noises…I must admit I enjoyed that part.”

And meanwhile, LeConte thought, there are no war-crimes trials. We who were leaders during the war, on Earth and on Mars, we who held responsible posts—we are safe, at least for a while. And perhaps it will be forever. If our strategy continues to work. And if our tunnel to the cephalon of the homeopape, which took us five years to complete, isn’t discovered. Or doesn’t collapse.

The steam car parked in the reserved space before Party headquarters; the chauffeur came around to open the door, and LeConte got leisurely out, stepping forth into the light of day, with no feeling of anxiety. He tossed his cigar into the gutter and then sauntered across the sidewalk, into the familiar building.

RETREAT SYNDROME

Peace officer Caleb Myers picked up the fast-moving surface vehicle on his radarscope, saw at once that its operator had managed to remove the governor; the vehicle, at one-sixty miles per hour, had exceeded its legal capacity. Hence, he knew, the operator came from the Blue Class, engineer and technicians capable of tinkering with their wheels. Arrest, therefore, would be a tricky matter.

By radio Myers contacted a police vessel ten miles north along the freeway. “Shoot its power supply out as it passes you,” he suggested to his brother officer. “It’s going too fast to block, right?”

At 3:10 a.m. the vehicle was stopped; powerless, it had coasted to a halt on the freeway shoulder. Officer Myers pressed buttons, flew leisurely north until he spotted the helpless wheel, plus the red-lit police wheel making its way through heavy traffic toward it. He landed at the exact instant that his compatriot arrived on the scene.

Together, warily, they walked to the stalled wheel, gravel crunching under their boots.

In the wheel sat a slim man wearing a white shirt and tie; he stared straight ahead with a dazed expression, making no move to greet the two gray-clad officers with their laser rifles, anti-pellet bubbles protecting their bodies from thigh to cranium. Myers opened the door of the wheel and glanced in, while his fellow officer stood with rifle in hand, just in case this was another come-on; five men from the local office, San Francisco, had been killed this week alone.

“You know,” Myers said to the silent driver, “that it’s a mandatory two-year suspension of license if you tamper with your wheel’s speed governor. Was it worth it?”

After a pause the driver turned his head and said, “I’m sick.”

“Psychically? Or physically?” Myers touched the emergency button at his throat, making contact with line 3, to San Francisco General Hospital; he could have an ambulance here in five minutes, if necessary.

The driver said huskily, “Everything seemed unreal to me. I thought if I drove fast enough I could reach some place where it’s—solid.” He put his hand gropingly against the dashboard of his wheel, as if not really believing the heavily-padded surface was there.

“Let me look in your throat, sir,” Myers said, and shone his flashlight in the driver’s face. He turned the jaw upward, peered down past well-cared-for teeth as the man reflexively opened his mouth.

“See it?” his fellow officer asked.

“Yes.” He had caught the glint. The anti-carcinoma unit, installed in the throat; like most non-Terrans this man was cancer phobic. Probably he had spent most of his life on a colony world, breathing pure air, the artificial atmosphere installed by autonomic reconstruct equipment prior to human habitation. So the phobia was easy to understand.

“I have a full-time doctor.” The driver reached now into his pocket, brought out his wallet; from it he extracted a card. His hand shook as he passed the card to Myers. “Specialist in psychosomatic medicine, in San Jose. Any way you could take me there?”

“You’re not sick,” Myers said. “You just haven’t fully adjusted to Earth, to this gravity and atmosphere and milieu factors. It’s three-fifteen in the morning; this doctor—Hagopian or whatever his name is—can’t see you now.” He studied the card. It informed him:

This man is under medical care and should any bizarre behavior be exhibited obtain medical help at once.

“Earth doctors,” his fellow officer said, “don’t see patients after hours; you’ll have to learn that, Mr.—” He held out his hand. “Let me see your operator’s license, please.”

The entire wallet was reflexively passed to him.

“Go home,” Myers said to the man. His name, according to the license, was John Cupertino. “You have a wife? Maybe she can pick you up; we’ll take you into the city…better leave your wheel here and not try to drive any more tonight. About your speed—”

Cupertino said, “I’m not used to an arbitrary maximum. Ganymede has no traffic problem; we travel in the two and two-fifties.” His voice had an oddly flat quality. Myers thought at once of drugs, in particular of thalamic stimulants; Cupertino was hag-ridden with impatience. That might explain his removal of the official speed regulator, a rather easy removal job for a man accustomed to machinery. And yet—

There was more. From twenty years’ experience Myers intuited it.

Reaching out he opened the glove compartment, flashed his light in. Letters, an AAA book of approved motels…

“You don’t really believe you’re on Earth, do you, Mr. Cupertino?” Myers said. He studied the man’s face; it was devoid of affect. “You’re another one of those bippity-bop addicts who thinks this is a drug-induced guilt-fantasy…and you’re really home on Ganymede, sitting in the living room of your twenty-room demesne—surrounded no doubt by your autonomic servants, right?” He laughed sharply, then turned to his fellow officer. “It grows wild on Ganymede,” he explained. “The stuff. Frohedadrine, the extract’s called. They grind up the dried stalks, make a mash of it, boil it, drain it, filter it, and then roll it up and smoke it. And when they’re all done—”

“I’ve never taken Frohedadrine,” John Cupertino said remotely; he stared straight ahead. “I know I’m on Earth. But there’s something wrong with me. Look.” Reaching out, he put his hand through the heavily-padded dashboard; officer Myers saw the hand disappear up to the wrist. “You see? It’s all insubstantial around me, like shadows. Both of you; I can banish you by just removing my attention from you. I think I can, anyhow. But—I don’t want to!” His voice grated with anguish. “I want you to be real; I want all of this to be real, including Dr. Hagopian.”

Officer Myers switched his throat-transmitter to line 2 and said, “Put me through to a Dr. Hagopian in San Jose. This is an emergency; never mind his answering service.”

The line clicked as the circuit was established.

Glancing at his fellow officer Myers said, “You saw it. You saw him put his hand through the dashboard. Maybe he can banish us.” He did not particularly feel like testing it out; he felt confused and he wished now that he had let Cupertino speed on along the freeway, to oblivion if necessary. To wherever he wanted.

“I know why all this is,” Cupertino said, half to himself. He got out cigarettes, lit up; his hand was less shaky now. “It’s because of the death of Carol, my wife.”

Neither officer contradicted him; they kept quiet and waited for the call to Dr. Hagopian to be put through.

His trousers on over his pajamas, and wearing a jacket buttoned to keep him warm in the night chill, Gottlieb Hagopian met his patient Mr. Cupertino at his otherwise closed-up office in downtown San Jose. Dr. Hagopian switched on lights, then the heat, arranged a chair, wondered how he looked to his patient with his hair sticking in all directions.

“Sorry to get you up,” Cupertino said, but he did not sound sorry; he seemed perfectly wide-awake, here at four in the morning. He sat smoking with his legs crossed, and Dr. Hagopian, cursing and groaning to himself in futile complaint, went to the back room to plug in the coffee-maker: at least he could have that.

“The police officers,” Hagopian said, “thought you might have taken some stimulants, by your behavior. We know better.” Cupertino was, as he well knew, always this way; the man was slightly manic.

“I never should have killed Carol,” Cupertino said. “It’s never been the same since then.”

“You miss her right now? Yesterday when you saw me you said—”

“That was in broad daylight; I always feel confident when the sun’s up. By the way—I’ve retained an attorney. Name’s Phil Wolfson.”

“Why?” No litigation was pending against Cupertino; they both knew that “I need professional advice. In addition to yours. I’m not criticizing you, doctor; don’t take it as an insult. But there’re aspects to my situation which are more legal than medical. Conscience is an interesting phenomenon; it lies partly in the psychological realm, partly—”

“Coffee?”

“Lord no. It sets the vagus nerve off for four hours.”

Dr. Hagopian said, “Did you tell the police officers about Carol? About your killing her?”

“I just said that she was dead; I was careful.”

“You weren’t careful when you drove at one-sixty. There was a case in the Chronicle today—it happened on the Bayshore Freeway—where the State Highway Patrol went ahead and disintegrated a car that was going one-fifty; and it was legal. Public safety, the lives of—”

“They warned it,” Cupertino pointed out. He did not seem perturbed; in fact he had become even more tranquil. “It refused to stop. A drunk.”

Dr. Hagopian said, “You realize, of course, that Carol is still alive. That in fact she’s living here on Earth, in Los Angeles.”

“Of course.” Cupertino nodded irritably. Why did Hagopian have to belabor the obvious? They had discussed it countless times, and no doubt the psychiatrist was going to ask him the old query once again: how could you have killed her when you know she’s alive? He felt weary and irritable; the session with Hagopian was getting him nowhere.

Taking a pad of paper Dr. Hagopian wrote swiftly, then tore off the sheet and held it toward Cupertino.

“A prescription?” Cupertino accepted it warily.

“No. An address.”

Glancing at it Cupertino saw that it was an address in South Pasadena. No doubt it was Carol’s address; he glared at it in wrath.

“I’m going to try this,” Dr. Hagopian said. “I want you to go there and see her face to face. Then we’ll—”

“Tell the board of directors of Six-planet Educational Enterprises to see her, not me,” Cupertino said, handing the piece of paper back. “They’re responsible for the entire tragedy; because of them I had to do it. And you know that, so don’t look at me that way. It was their plan that had to be kept secret; isn’t that so?”

Dr. Hagopian sighed. “At four in the morning everything seems confused. The whole world seems ominous. I’m aware that you were employed by Six-planet at the time, on Ganymede. But the moral responsibility—” He broke off. “This is difficult to say, Mr. Cupertino. You pulled the trigger on the laser beam, so you have to take final moral responsibility.”

“Carol was going to tell the local homeopapes that there was about to be an uprising to free Ganymede, and the bourgeoise authority on Ganymede, consisting in the main of Six-planet, was involved; I told her that we couldn’t afford to have her say anything. She did it for petty, spiteful motives, for hatred of me; nothing to do with the actual issues involved. Like all women she was motivated by persona] vanity and wounded pride.”

“Go to that address in South Pasadena,” Dr. Hagopian urged. “See Carol. Convince yourself that you never killed her, that what happened on Ganymede that day three years ago was a—” He gestured, trying to find the right words.

“Yes, doctor,” Cupertino said cuttingly. “Just what was it? Because that day—or rather that night—I got Carol right above the eyes with that laser beam, right in the frontal lobe; she was absolutely unmistakably dead before I left the conapt and got out of there, got to the spaceport and found an interplan ship to take me to Earth.” He waited; it was going to be hard on Hagopian, finding the right words; it would take quite some time.

After a pause Hagopian admitted, “Yes, your memory is detailed; it’s all in my file and I see no use in your repeating it—I frankly find it unpleasant at this hour of the morning.

I don’t know why the memory is there; I know it’s false because I’ve met your wife, talked to her, carried on a correspondence with her, all subsequent to the date, on Ganymede, at which you remember killing her. I know that much, at least.”

Cupertino said, “Give me one good reason for looking her up.” He made a motion to tear the slip of paper in half.

“One?” Dr. Hagopian pondered. He looked gray and tired. “Yes, I can give you a good reason, but probably it’s one you’ll reject.”

“Try me.”

Dr. Hagopian said, “Carol was present that night on Ganymede, the night you recall killing her. Maybe she can tell you how you obtained the false memory; she implied in correspondence with me that she knows something about it.” He eyed Cupertino. “That’s all she would tell me.”

“I’ll go,” Cupertino said. And walked swiftly to the door of Dr. Hagopian’s office. Strange, he thought, to obtain knowledge about a person’s death from that person. But Hagopian was right; Carol was the only other person who was present that night…he should have realized long ago that eventually he’d have to look her up.

It was a crisis in his logic that he did not enjoy facing.

At six in the morning he stood at Carol Holt Cupertino’s door. Many rings of the bell were required until at last the door of the small, single-unit dwelling opened; Carol, wearing a blue, pellucid nylon nightgown and white furry slippers, stood sleepily facing him. A cat hurried out past her.

“Remember me?” Cupertino said, stepping aside for the cat.

“Oh god.” She brushed the tumble of blonde hair back from her eyes, nodded. “What time is it?” Gray, cold light filled the almost deserted street; Carol shivered, folded her arms. “How come you’re up so early? You never used to be out of bed before eight.”

“I haven’t gone to bed yet.” He stepped past her, entered the dark living room with its drawn shades. “How about some coffee?”

“Sure.” Listlessly she made her way to the kitchen, pressed the hot coffee button on the stove; first one, then a second cup appeared, giving off fragrant steam. “Cream for me,” she said, “cream and sugar for you. You’re more infantile.”

She handed him his cup; the smell of her—warmth and softness and sleep—mixed with that of the coffee.

Cupertino said, “You haven’t gotten a day older and it’s been well over three years.” In fact she was even more slender, more supple.

Seating herself at the kitchen table, her arms still modestly folded, Carol said, “Is that suspicious?” Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright.

“No. A compliment.” He, too, seated himself. “Hagopian sent me here; he decided I should see you. Evidently—”

“Yes,” Carol said, “I’ve seen him. I was in Northern California several times on business; I stopped by…he had asked me to in a letter. I like him. In fact you should be about cured by now.”

“‘Cured’?” He shrugged. “I feel l am. Except—”

“Except that you still have your idee fixe. Your basic, delusional, fixed idea that no amount of psychoanalysis will help. Right?”

Cupertino said, “If you mean my recollection of killing you, yes; I still have it—I know it happened. Dr. Hagopian thought you could tell me something about it; after all, as he pointed out—”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but is it really worth going over this with you? It’s so tedious, and my god, it’s only six a.m. Couldn’t I go back to bed and then sometime later get together with you, maybe in the evening? No?” she sighed. “Okay. Well, you tried to kill me. You did have a laser beam. It was at our conapt in New Detroit-G, on Ganymede, on March 12, 2014.”

“Why did I try to kill you?”

“You know.” Her tone was bitter; her breasts pulsed with resentment.

“Yes.” In all his thirty-five years he had never made another mistake as serious. In their divorce litigation his wife’s knowledge of the impending revolt had given her the dominant position; she had been able to dictate settlement terms to him precisely as she wished. At last the financial components had proved unbearable and he had gone to the con-apt which they had shared—by then he had moved out, gotten a small conapt of his own at the other end of the city—and had told her simply and truthfully that he could not meet her demands. And so the threat by Carol to go to the homeopapes, the news-gathering extensors of the New York Times and Daily News which operated on Ganymede.

“You got out your little laser beam,” Carol was saying, “and you sat with it, fooling with it, not saying much. But you got your message over to me; either I accepted an unfair settlement which—”

“Did I fire the beam?”

“Yes.”

“And it hit you?”

Carol said, “You missed and I ran out of the conapt and down the hall to the elevator. I got downstairs to the sergeant at arms’ room on floor one and called the police from there. They came. They found you still in the conapt.” Her tone was withering. “You were crying.”

“Christ,” Cupertino said. Neither of them spoke for a time, then; they both drank their coffee. Across from him his wife’s pale hand shook and her cup clinked against its saucer.

“Naturally,” Carol said matter of factly, “I went ahead with the divorce litigation. Under the circumstances—”

“Dr. Hagopian thought you might know why I remember killing you that night. He said you hinted at it in a letter.”

Her blue eyes glittered. “That night you had no fake memory; you knew you had failed. Amboynton, the district attorney, gave you a choice between accepting mandatory psychiatric help or having formal charges filed of attempted first-degree murder; you took the former—naturally—and so you’ve been seeing Dr. Hagopian. The false memory—I can tell you exactly when that set in. You visited your employer, Six-planet Educational Enterprises; you saw their psychologist, a Dr. Edgar Green, attached to their personnel department. That was shortly before you left Ganymede and came here to Terra.” Rising she went to fill her cup; it was empty. “I presume Dr. Green saw to the implanting of the false memory of your having killed me.”

Cupertino said, “But why?”

“They knew you had told me of the plans for the uprising. You were supposed to commit suicide from remorse and grief, but instead you booked passage to Terra, as you had agreed with Amboynton. As a matter of fact you did attempt suicide during the trip…but you must remember this.”

“Go on and say it.” He had no memory of a suicide attempt.

“I’ll show you the clipping from the homeopape; naturally I kept it.” Carol left the kitchen; her voice came from the bedroom. “Out of misguided sentimentality. ‘Passenger on interplan ship seized as—’” Her voice broke off and there was silence.

Sipping his coffee Cupertino sat waiting, knowing that she would find no such newspaper clipping. Because there had been no such attempt.

Carol returned to the kitchen, a puzzled expression on her face. “I can’t locate it. But I know it was in my copy of War and Peace, in volume one; I was using it as a bookmark.” She looked embarrassed.

Cupertino said, “I’m not the only one who has a false memory. If that’s what it is.” He felt, for the first time in over three years, that he was at last making progress.

But the direction of that progress was obscured. At least so far. “I don’t understand,” Carol said. “Something’s wrong.”

While he waited in the kitchen, Carol, in the bedroom, dressed. At last she emerged, wearing a green sweater, skirt, heels; combing her hair she halted at the stove and pressed the buttons for toast and two soft-boiled eggs. It was now almost seven; the light in the street outside was no longer gray but a faint gold. And more traffic moved; he heard the reassuring sound of commercial vehicles and private commute wheels.

“How did you manage to snare this single-unit dwelling?” he asked. “Isn’t it as impossible in the Los Angeles area as in the Bay area to get anything but a conapt in a high-riser?”

“Through my employers.”

“Who’re your employers?” He felt at once cautious and disturbed; obviously they had influence. His wife had gone up in the world.

“Falling Star Associates.”

He had never heard of them; puzzled, he said, “Do they operate beyond Terra?” Surely if they were interplan—

“It’s a holding company. I’m a consultant to the chairman of the board; I do marketing research.” She added, “Your old employers, Six-planet Educational Enterprises, belongs to us; we own controlling stock. Not that it matters. It’s just a coincidence.”

She ate breakfast, offering him nothing; evidently it did not even occur to her to. Moodily he watched the familiar dainty movements of her cutlery. She was still ennobled by petite bourgeois gentility; that had not changed. In fact she was more refined, more feminine, than ever.

“I think,” Cupertino said, “that I understand this.”

“Pardon?” She glanced up, her blue eyes fixed on him intently. “Understand what, Johnny?”

Cupertino said, “About you. Your presence. You’re obviously quite real—as real as everything else. As real as the city of Pasadena, as this table—” He rapped with brusque force on the plastic surface of the kitchen table. “As real as Dr. Hagopian or the two police who stopped me earlier this morning.” He added, “But how real is that? I think we have the central question there. It would explain my sensation of passing my hands through matter, through the dashboard of my wheel, as I did. That very unpleasant sensation that nothing around me was substantial, that I inhabited a world of shadows.”

Staring at him Carol suddenly laughed. Then continued eating.

“Possibly,” Cupertino said, “I’m in a prison on Ganymede, or in a psychiatric hospital there. Because of my criminal act. And I’ve begun, during these last years since your death, to inhabit a fantasy world.”

“Oh god,” Carol said and shook her head. “I don’t know whether to laugh or feel sorry; it’s just too—” She gestured. “Too pathetic. I really feel sorry for you, Johnny. Rather than give up your delusional idea you’d actually prefer to believe that all Terra is a product of your own mind, everyone and everything. Listen—don’t you agree it’d be more economical to give up the fixed idea? Just abandon the one idea that you killed me—”

The phone rang.

“Pardon me.” Carol hastily wiped her mouth, rose to go and answer it. Cupertino remained where he was, gloomily playing with a flake of toast which had fallen from her plate; the butter on it stained his finger and he licked it away, reflexively, then realized that he was gnawingly hungry; it was time for his own breakfast and he went to the stove to press buttons for himself, in Carol’s absence.

Presently he had his own meal, bacon and scrambled eggs, toast and hot coffee, before him.

But how can 1 live? he asked himself. —Gain substance, if this is a delusional world?

I must be eating a genuine meal, he decided. Provided by the hospital or prison; a meal exists and I am actually consuming it—a room exists, walls and a floor…but not this room. Not these walls nor this floor.

And—people exist. But not this woman. Not Carol Holt Cupertino. Someone else. An impersonal jailer or attendant. And a doctor. Perhaps, he decided, Dr. Hagopian.

That much is so, Cupertino said to himself. Dr. Hagopian is really my psychiatrist.

Carol returned to the kitchen, reseated herself at her now cold plate. “You talk to him. It’s Hagopian.”

At once he went to the phone.

On the small vidscreen Dr. Hagopian’s image looked taut and drawn. “I see you got there, John. Well? What took place?”

Cupertino said, “Where are we, Hagopian?”

Frowning, the psychiatrist said, “I don’t—”

“We’re both on Ganymede, aren’t we?”

Hagopian said, “I’m in San Jose; you’re in Los Angeles.”

“I think I know how to test my theory,” Cupertino said. “I’m going to discontinue treatment with you; if I’m a prisoner on Ganymede I won’t be able to, but if I’m a free citizen on Terra as you maintain—”

“You’re on Terra,” Hagopian said, “but you’re not a free citizen. Because of your attempt on your wife’s life you’re obliged to accept regular psychotherapy through me. You know that. What did Carol tell you? Could she shed any light on the events of that night?”

“I would say so,” Cupertino said. “I learned that she’s employed by the parent company of Six-planet Educational Enterprises; that alone makes my trip down here worthwhile. I must have found out about her, that she was employed by Six-planet to ride herd over me.”

“P-pardon?” Hagopian blinked.

“A watchdog. To see that I remained loyal; they must have feared I was going to leak details of the planned uprising to the Terran authorities. So they assigned Carol to watch me. I told her the plans and to them that proved I was unreliable. So Carol probably received instructions to kill me; she probably made an attempt and failed, and everyone connected with it was punished by the Terran authorities. Carol escaped because she wasn’t officially listed as an employee of Six-planet.”

“Wait,” Dr. Hagopian said. “It does sound somewhat plausible. But—” He raised his hand. “Mr. Cupertino, the uprising was successful; it’s a matter of historic fact. Three years ago Ganymede, Io and Callisto simultaneously threw off Terra and became self-governing, independent moons. Every child in school beyond the third grade knows that; it was the so-called Tri-Lunar War of 2014. You and I have never discussed it but I assumed you were as aware of it as—” He gestured. “Well, as any other historic reality.”

Turning from the telephone to Carol, John Cupertino said, “Is that so?”

“Of course,” Carol said. “Is that part of your delusional system, too, that your little revolt failed?” She smiled. “You worked eight years for it, for one of the major economic cartels masterminding and financing it, and then for some occult reason you choose to ignore its success. I really pity you, Johnny; it’s too bad.”

“There must be a reason,” Cupertino said. “Why I don’t know that. Why they decided to keep me from knowing that.” Bewildered, he reached out his hand…

His hand, trembling, passed into the vidphone screen and disappeared. He drew it back at once; his hand reappeared. But he had seen it go. He had perceived and understood.

The illusion was good—but not quite good enough. It simply was not perfect; it had its limitations.

“Dr. Hagopian,” he said to the miniature image on the vidscreen, “I don’t think I’ll continue seeing you. As of this morning you’re fired. Bill me at my home, and thank you very much.” He reached to cut the connection.

“You can’t,” Hagopian said instantly. “As I said, it’s mandatory. You must face it, Cupertino; otherwise you’ll have to go up before the court once more, and I know you don’t want to do that. Please believe me; it would be bad for you.”

Cupertino cut the connection and the screen died.

“He’s right, you know,” Carol said, from the kitchen.

“He’s lying,” Cupertino said. And, slowly, walked back to seat himself across from her and resume eating his own breakfast.

When he returned to his own conapt in Berkeley he put in a long distance vidcall to Dr. Edgar Green at Six-planet Educational Enterprises on Ganymede. Within half an hour he had his party.

“Do you remember me, Dr. Green?” he asked as he faced the image. To him the rather plump, middle-aged face opposite ton was unfamiliar; he did not believe he had ever seen the man before in his life. However, at least one fundamental reality-configuration had borne tbe test: there was a Dr. Edgar Green in Six-planet’s personnel department; Carol had been telling the truth to that extent.

“I have seen you before,” Dr. Green said, “but I’m sorry to say that the name does not come to mind, sir.”

“John Cupertino. Now of Terra. Formerly of Ganymede. I was involved in a rather sensational piece of litigation slightly over three years ago, somewhat before Ganymede’s revolt. I was accused of murdering my wife, Carol. Does that help you, doctor?”

“Hmm,” Dr. Green said, frowning. He raised an eyebrow. “Were you acquitted, Mr. Cupertino?”

Hesitating, Cupertino said, “I—currently am under psychiatric care, here in the Bay area of California. If that’s any help.”

“I presume you’re saying that you were declared legally insane. And therefore could not stand trial.”

Cupertino, cautiously, nodded.

“It may be,” Dr. Green said, “that I talked to you. Very dimly it rings a bell. But I see so many people…were you employed here?”

“Yes,” Cupertino said.

“What specifically, did you want from me, Mr. Cupertino? Obviously you want something; you’ve placed a rather expensive long distance call. I suggest for practical purposes—your pocketbook in particular—you get to the point.”

“I’d like you to forward my case history,” Cupertino said. “To me, not to my psychiatrist. Can that be arranged?”

“You want it for what purpose, Mr. Cupertino? For securing employment?”

Cupertino, taking a deep breath, said, “No, doctor. So that I can be absolutely certain what psychiatric techniques were used in my case. By you and by members of your medical staff, those working under you. I have reason to believe I underwent major corrective therapy with you. Am I entitled to know that, doctor? It would seem to me that I am.” He waited, thinking, I have about one chance in a thousand of prying anything of worth out of this -man. But it was worth the try.

“‘Corrective therapy’? You must be confused, Mr. Cupertino; we do only aptitude testing, profile analysis—we don’t do therapy, here. Our concern is merely to analyze the job-applicant in order to—”

“Dr. Green,” Cupertino said, “were you personally involved in the revolt of three years ago?”

Green shrugged. “We all were. Everyone on Ganymede was filled with patriotism.” His voice was bland.

“To protect that revolt,” Cupertino said, “would you have implanted a delusional idea in my mind for the purpose of—”

“I’m sorry,” Green interrupted. “It’s obvious that you’re psychotic. There’s no point in your wasting your money on this call; I’m surprised that they permitted you access to an outside vid-line.”

“But such an idea can be implanted,” Cupertino persisted. “It is possible, by current psychiatric techniques. You admit that.”

Dr. Green sighed. “Yes, Mr. Cupertino. It’s been possible ever since the mid-twentieth century; such techniques were initially developed by the Pavlov Institute in Moscow as early as 1940, perfected by the time of the Korean War. A man can be made to believe anything.”

“Then Carol could be right.” He did not know if he was disappointed or elated. It would mean, he realized, that he was not a murderer; that was the cardinal point. Carol was alive, and his experience with Terra, with its people, cities and objects, was genuine. And yet—“If I came to Ganymede,” he said suddenly, “could I see my file? Obviously if I’m well enough to make the trip I’m not a psychotic under mandatory psychiatric care. I may be sick, doctor, but I’m not that sick.” He waited; it was a slim chance, but worth trying.

“Well,” Dr. Green said, pondering, “there is no company rule which precludes an employee—or ex-employee—examining his personnel file; I suppose I could open it to you. However, I’d prefer to check with your psychiatrist first. Would you give me his name, please? And if he agrees I’ll save you a trip; I’ll have it put on the vidwires and in your hands by tonight, your time.”

He gave Dr. Green the name of his psychiatrist, Dr. Hagopian. And then hung up. What would Hagopian say? An interesting question and one he could not answer; he had no idea which way Hagopian would jump.

But by nightfall he would know; that much was certain.

He had an intuition that Hagopian would agree. But for the wrong reasons.

However that did not matter; Hagopian’s motives were not important—all that he cared about was the file. Getting his hands on it, reading it and finding out if Carol was right.

It was two hours later—actually an incredibly long time—that it came to him, all at once, that Six-planet Educational Enterprises could, with no difficulty whatsoever, tamper with the file, omit the pertinent information. Transmit to Earth a spurious, worthless document.

Then what did he do next?

It was a good question. And one—for the moment—which he could not answer.

That evening the file from Six-planet Educational Enterprises’ main personnel offices on Ganymede was delivered by Western Union Messenger to his conapt. He tipped the messenger, seated himself in his living room and opened the file.

It took him only a few moments to certify the fact which he had suspected: the file contained no references to any implantation of a delusional idea. Either the file had been reconstructed or Carol was mistaken. Mistaken—or lying. In any case the file told him nothing.

He phoned the University of California, and, after being switched from station to station, wound up with someone who seemed to know what he was talking about. “I want an analysis,” Cupertino explained, “of a written document. To find out how recently it was transcribed. This is a Western Union wire-copy so you’ll have to go on word anachronisms alone. I want to find out if the material was developed three years ago or more recently. Do you think you can analyze for so slight a factor?”

“There’s been very little word-change in the past three years,” the university philologist said. “But we can try. How soon do you have to have the document back?”

“As soon as possible,” Cupertino said.

He called for a building messenger to take the file to the university, and then he took time to ponder another element in the situation.

If his experience of Terra was delusional, the moment at which his perceptions most closely approximated reality occurred during his sessions with Dr. Hagopian. Hence if he were ever to break through the delusional system and perceive actual reality it would most likely take place then; his maximum efforts should be directed at that time. Because one fact seemed clearly established: he really was seeing Dr. Hagopian.

He went to the phone and started to dial Hagopian’s number. Last night, after the arrest, Hagopian had helped him; it was unusually soon to be seeing the doctor again, but he dialed. In view of his analysis of the situation it seemed justified; he could afford the cost…And then something came to him.

The arrest. All at once he remembered what the policeman had said; he had accused Cupertino of being a user of the Ganymedean drug Frohedadrine. And for a good reason: he showed the symptoms.

Perhaps that was the modus operandi by which the delusional system was maintained; he was being given Frohedadrine in small regular doses, perhaps in his food.

But wasn’t that a paranoid—in other words psychotic-concept?

And yet paranoid or not, it made sense.

What he needed was a blood fraction test. The presence of the drug would register in such a test; all he had to do was show up at the clinic of his firm in Oakland, ask for the test on the grounds that he had a suspected toxemia. And within an hour the test would be completed.

And, if he was on Frohedadrine, it would prove that he was correct; he was still on Ganymede, not on Terra. And all that he experienced—or seemed to experience—was a delusion, with die possible exception of his regular, mandatory visits to the psychiatrist.

Obviously he should have the blood fraction test made—at once. And yet he shrank from it. Why? Now he had the means by which to make a possible absolute analysis, and yet he held back.

Did he want to know the truth?

Certainly he had to have the test made; he forgot temporarily the notion of seeing Dr. Hagopian, went to the bathroom to shave, then put on a clean shirt and tie and left the conapt, starting toward his parked wheel; in fifteen minutes he would be at his employer’s clinic.

His employer. He halted, his hand touching the doorhandle of his wheel, feeling foolish.

They had slipped up somehow in their presentation of his delusional system. Because he did not know where he worked. A major segment of the system simply was not there.

Returning to his conapt he dialed Dr. Hagopian.

Rather sourly Dr. Hagopian said, “Good evening, John. I see you’re back in your own conapt; you didn’t stay in Los Angeles long.”

Cupertino said huskily, “Doctor, I don’t know where I work. Obviously something’s gone wrong; I must have known formerly—up until today, in fact. Haven’t I been going to work four days a week like everyone else?”

“Of course,” Hagopian said, unruffled. “You’re employed by an Oakland firm, Triplan Industries, Incorporated, on San Pablo Avenue near Twenty-first Street. Look up the exact address in your phone book. But—I’d say go to bed and rest; you were up all last night and it seems obvious that you’re suffering a fatigue reaction.”

“Suppose,” Cupertino said, “greater and greater sections of the delusional system begin to slip. It Won’t be very pleasant for me.” The one missing element terrified him; it was as if a piece of himself had dissolved. Not to know where he worked—in an instant he was set apart from all other humans, thoroughly isolated. And how much else could he forget? Perhaps it was the fatigue; Hagopian might be right. He was, after all, too old to stay up all night; it was not as it had been a decade ago when such things were physically possible for both him and Carol.

He wanted, he realized, to hang onto the delusional system; he did not wish to see it decompose around him. A person was his world; without it he did not exist.

“Doctor,” he said, “may I see you this evening?”

“But you just saw me,” Dr. Hagopian pointed out. “There’s no reason for another appointment so soon. Wait until later in the week. And in the meantime—”

“I think I understand how the delusional system is maintained,” Cupertino said. “Through daily doses of Frohedadrine, administered orally, in my food. Perhaps by going to Los Angeles I missed a dose; that might explain why a segment of the system collapsed. Or else as you say it’s fatigue; in any case this proves that I’m correct: this is a delusional system, and I don’t need either the blood fraction test or the University of California to confirm it. Carol is dead—and you know it. You’re my psychiatrist on Ganymede and I’m in custody, have been now for three years. Isn’t that actually the case?” He waited, but Hagopian did not answer; the doctor’s face remained impassive. “I never was in Los Angeles,” Cupertino said. “In fact I’m probably confined to a relatively small area; I have no freedom of motion as it would appear. And I didn’t see Carol this morning, did I?”

Hagopian said slowly, “What do you mean, ‘blood fraction test’? What gave you the idea of asking for that?” He smiled faintly. “If this is a delusional system, John, the blood fraction test would be illusory, too. So how could it help you?”

He had not thought of that; stunned, he remained silent, unable to answer.

“And that file which you asked Dr. Green for,” Hagopian said. “Which you received and then transferred to the University of California for analysis; that would be delusional, too. So how can the result of their tests—”

Cupertino said, “There’s no way you could know of that, doctor. You conceivably might know that I talked to Dr. Green, asked for and received the file; Green might have talked to you. But not my request for analysis by the university; you couldn’t possibly know that. I’m sorry, doctor, but by a contradiction of internal logic this structure has proved itself unreal. You know too much about me. And I think I know what final, absolute test I can apply to confirm my reasoning.”

“What test?” Hagopian’s tone was cold.

Cupertino said, “Go back to Los Angeles. And kill Carol once more.”

“Good god, how—”

“A woman who has been dead for three years can’t die again,” Cupertino said. “Obviously it’ll prove impossible to kill her.” He started to break the phone connection.

“Wait,” Hagopian said rapidly. “Look, Cupertino; I’ve got to contact the police now—you’ve forced me to. I can’t let you go down there and murder that woman for the—” He broke off. “Make a second try, I mean,-on her life. All right, Cupertino; I’ll admit several things which have been concealed from you. To an extent you’re right; you are on Ganymede, not on Terra.”

“I see,” Cupertino said, and did not break the circuit. “But Carol is real,” Dr. Hagopian continued. He was perspiring, now; obviously afraid that Cupertino would ring off he said almost stammeringly, “She’s as real as you or I. You tried to kill her and failed; she informed the homeo-papes about the intended revolt—and because of that the revolt was not completely successful. We here on Ganymede are surrounded by a cordon of Terran military ships; we’re cut off from the rest of the Sol System, living on emergency rations and being pushed back, but still holding out.” “Why my delusional system?” He felt cold fright rise up inside him; unable to stifle it he felt it enter his chest, invade his heart. “Who imposed it on me?”

“No one imposed it on you. It was a self-induced retreat syndrome due to your sense of guilt. Because, Cupertino, it was your fault that the revolt was detected; your telling Carol was the crucial factor—and you recognize it. You tried suicide and that failed, so instead you withdrew psychologically into this fantasy world.”

“If Carol told the Terran authorities she wouldn’t now be free to—”

“That’s right. Your wife is in prison and that’s where you visited her, at our prison in New Detroit-G, here on Ganymede. Frankly, I don’t know what the effect of my telling you this will have on your fantasy world; it may cause it to further disintegrate, in fact it may even restore you to a clear perception of the terribly difficult situation which we Ganys face vis-a-vis the Terran military establishment. I’ve envied you, Cupertino, during these last three years; you haven’t had to face the harsh realities we’ve had to. Now—” He shrugged. “We’ll see.”

After a pause Cupertino said, “Thanks for telling me.”

“Don’t thank me; I did it to keep you from becoming agitated to the point of violence. You’re my patient and I have to think of your welfare. No punishment for you is now or ever was intended; the extent of your mental illness, your retreat from reality, fully demonstrated your remorse at the results of your stupidity.” Hagopian looked haggard and gray. “In any case leave Carol alone; it’s not your job to exact vengeance. Look it up in the Bible if you don’t believe me. Anyhow she’s being punished, and will continue to be as long as she’s physically in our hands.”

Cupertino broke the circuit.

Do I believe him? he asked himself.

He was not certain. Carol, he thought. So you doomed our cause, out of petty, domestic spite. Out of mere female bitterness, because you were angry at your husband; you doomed an entire moon to three years of losing, hateful war.

Going to the dresser in his bedroom he got out his laser beam; it had remained hidden there, in a Kleenex box, the entire three years since he had left Ganymede and come to Terra.

But now, he said to himself, it’s time to use this.

Going to the phone he dialed for a cab; this time he would travel to Los Angeles by public rocket express, rather than by his own wheel.

He wanted to reach Carol as soon as humanly possible.

You got away from me once, he said as he walked rapidly to the door of his conapt. But not this time. Not twice.

Ten minutes later he was aboard the rocket express, on his way to Los Angeles and Carol.

Before John Cupertino lay the Los Angeles Times; once more he leafed through it, puzzled, still unable to find the article. Why wasn’t it here? he asked himself. A murder committed, an attractive, sexy woman shot to death…he had walked into Carol’s place of work, found her at her desk, killed her in front of her fellow employees, then turned and, unhindered, walked back out; everyone had been too frozen with fear and surprise to interfere with him.

And yet it was not in the pape. The homeopape made absolutely no mention of it.

“You’re looking in vain,” Dr. Hagopian said, from behind his desk.

“It has to be here,” Cupertino said doggedly. “A capital crime like that—what’s the matter?” He pushed the homeopape aside, bewildered. It made no sense; it defied obvious logic.

“First,” Dr. Hagopian said wearily, “the laser beam did not exist; that was a delusion. Second, we did not permit you to visit your wife again because we knew you planned violence—you had made that perfectly clear. You never saw her, never killed her, and the homeopape before you is not the Los Angeles Times; it’s the New Detroit-G Star . …which is limited to four pages because of the pulp-paper shortage here on Ganymede.”

Cupertino stared at him.

“That’s right,” Dr. Hagopian said, nodding. “It’s happened again, John; you have a delusional memory of killing her twice, now. And each event is as unreal as the other. You poor creature—you’re evidently doomed to try again and again, and each time failing. As much as our leaders hate Carol Holt Cupertino and deplore and regret what she did to us—” He gestured. “We have to protect her; it’s only just. Her sentence is being carried out; she’ll be imprisoned for twenty-two more years or until Terra manages to defeat us and releases her. No doubt if they get hold of her they’ll make her into a heroine; she’ll be in every Terran-controlled homeopape in the Sol System.”

“You’d let them get her alive?” Cupertino said, presently. “Do you think we should kill her before they take her?” Dr. Hagopian scowled at him. “We’re not barbarians, John; we don’t commit crimes of vengeance. She’s suffered three years of imprisonment already; she’s being punished sufficiently.” He added, “And so are you as well. I wonder which of you is suffering the more.”

“I know I killed her,” Cupertino persisted. “I took a cab to her place of employment, Falling Star Associates, which controls Six-planet Educational Enterprises, in San Fernando; her office was on the sixth floor.” He remembered the trip up in the elevator, even the hat which the other passenger, a middle-aged woman, had worn. He remembered the slender, red-haired receptionist who had contacted Carol by means of her desk intercom; he remembered passing through the busy inner offices, suddenly finding himself face to face with Carol. She had risen, stood behind her desk, seeing the laser beam which he had brought out; understanding had flashed across her features and she had tried to run, to get away…but he had killed her anyhow, as she reached the far door, her hand clutching for the knob.

“I assure you,” Dr. Hagopian said. “Carol is very much alive.” He turned to the phone on his desk, dialed. “Here, I’ll call her, get her on the line; you can talk to her.”

Numbly, Cupertino waited until at last the image on the vidscreen formed. It was Carol.

“Hi,” she said, recognizing him.

Haltingly he said, “Hi.”

“How are you feeling?” Carol asked.

“Okay.” Awkwardly he said, “And you?”

“I’m fine,” Carol said. “Just a little sleepy because of being woken up so early this morning. By you.”

He rang off, then. “All right,” he said to Dr. Hagopian. “I’m convinced.” It was obviously so; his wife was alive and untouched; in fact she evidently had no knowledge even of an attempt by him on her life this time. He had not even come to her place of business; Hagopian was telling the truth.

Place of business? Her prison cell, rather. If he was to believe Hagopian. And evidently he had to.

Rising, Cupertino said, “Am I free to go? I’d like to get back to my conapt; I’m tired, too. I’d like to get some sleep tonight.”

“It’s amazing you’re able to function at all,” Hagopian said, “after having had no sleep for almost fifty hours. By all means go home and go to bed. We’ll talk later.” He smiled encouragingly.

Hunched with fatigue John Cupertino left Dr. Hagopian’s office; he stood outside on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, shivering in the night cold, and then he got unsteadily into his parked wheel.

“Home,” he instructed it.

The wheel turned smoothly away from the curb, to join traffic.

I could try once more, Cupertino realized suddenly. Why not? And this time 1 might he successful. Just because I’ve failed twice—that doesn’t mean I’m doomed always to fail.

To the wheel he said, “Head toward Los Angeles.”

The autonomic circuit of the wheel clicked as it contacted the main route to Los Angeles, U.S. Highway 99.

She’ll be asleep when I get there, Cupertino realized. Probably because of that she’ll be confused enough to let me in. And then—

Perhaps now the revolt will succeed.

There seemed to him to be a gap, a weak point, in his logic. But he could not quite put his finger on it; he was too tired. Leaning back he tried to make himself comfortable against the seat of the wheel; he let the autonomic circuit drive and shut his eyes in an attempt to catch some much-needed sleep. In a few hours he would be in South Pasadena, at Carol’s one-unit dwelling. Perhaps after he killed her he could sleep; he would deserve it, then.

By tomorrow morning, he thought, if all goes well she’ll be dead. And then he thought once more about the homeo-pape, and wondered why there had been no mention of the crime in its columns. Strange, he thought. 1 wonder why not.

The wheel, at one hundred and sixty miles an hour-after all, he had removed the speed governor—hurtled toward what John Cupertino believed to be Los Angeles and his sleeping wife.

THE CRAWLERS

He built, and the more he built the more he enjoyed building. Hot sunlight filtered down; summer breezes stirred around him as he toiled joyfully. When he ran out of material he paused awhile and rested. His edifice wasn’t large; it was more a practice model than the real thing. One part of his brain told him that, and another part thrilled with excitement and pride. It was at least large enough to enter. He crawled down the entrance tunnel and curled up inside in a contented heap.

Through a rent in the roof a few bits of dirt rained down. He oozed binder fluid and reinforced the weak place. In his edifice the air was clean and cool, almost dust-free. He crawled over the inner walls one last time, leaving a quick-drying coat of binder over everything. What else was needed?

He was beginning to feel drowsy; in a moment he’d be asleep.

He thought about it, and then he extended a part of himself up through the still-open entrance. That part watched and listened warily, as the rest of him dozed off in a grateful slumber. He was peaceful and content, conscious that from a distance all that was visible was a light mound of dark clay. No one would notice it: no one would guess what lay beneath.

And if they did notice, he had methods of taking care of them.

The farmer halted his ancient Ford truck with a grinding shriek of brakes. He cursed and backed up a few yards. “There’s one. Hop down and take a look at it. Watch the cars—they go pretty fast along here.”

Ernest Gretry pushed the cabin door open and stepped down gingerly onto the hot mid-morning pavement. The air smelled of sun and drying grass. Insects buzzed around him as he advanced cautiously up the highway, hands in his trouser- pockets, lean body bent forward. He stopped and peered down.

The thing was well mashed. Wheel marks crossed it in four places and its internal organs had ruptured and burst through. The whole thing was snail-like, a gummy elongated tube with sense organs at one end and a confusing mass of protoplasmic extensions at the other.

What got him most was the face. For a time he couldn’t look directly at it: he had to contemplate the road, the hills, the big cedar trees, anything else. There was something in the little dead eyes, a glint that was rapidly fading. They weren’t the lusterless eyes of a fish, stupid and vacant. The life he had seen haunted him, and he had got only a brief glimpse, as the truck bore down on it and crushed it flat.

“They crawl across here every once in awhile,” the farmer said quietly. “Sometimes they get as far as town. The first one I saw was heading down the middle of Grant Street, about fifty yards an hour. They go pretty slow. Some of the teenage kids like to run them down. Personally I avoid them, if I see them.”

Gretry kicked aimlessly at the thing. He wondered vaguely how many more there were in the bushes and hills. He could see farmhouses set back from the road, white gleaming squares in the hot Tennessee sun. Horses and sleeping cattle. Dirty chickens scratching. A sleepy, peaceful countryside, basking in the late-summer sun.

“Where’s the radiation lab from here?” he asked.

The farmer indicated. “Over there, on the other side of those hills. You want to collect the remains? They have one down at the Standard Oil Station in a big tank. Dead, of course. They filled the tank with kerosene to try to preserve it. That one’s in pretty good shape, compared to this. Joe Jackson cracked its head with a two-by-four. He found it crawling across his property one night.”

Gretry got shakily back into the truck. His stomach turned over and he had to take some long deep breaths. “I didn’t realize there were so many. When they sent me out from Washington they just said a few had been see.”

“There’s been quite a lot.” The farmer started up the truck and carefully skirted the remains on the pavement. “We’re trying to get used to them, but we can’t. It’s not nice stuff. A lot of people are moving away. You can feel it in the air, a sort of heaviness. We’ve got this problem and we have to meet it.” He increased speed, leathery hands tight around the wheel. “It seems like there’s more of them bom all the time, and almost no normal children.”

Back in town, Gretry called Freeman long distance from the booth in the shabby hotel lobby. “We’ll have to do something. They’re all around here. I’m going out at three to see a colony of them. The fellow who runs the taxi stand knows where they are. He says there must be eleven or twelve of them together.”

“How do the people around there feel?”

“How the hell do you expect? They think it’s God’s Judgment. Maybe they’re right.”

“We should have made them move earlier. We should have cleaned out the whole area for miles around. Then we wouldn’t have this problem.” Freeman paused. “What do you suggest?”

“That island we took over for the H-bomb tests.”

“It’s a damn big island. There was a whole group of natives we moved off and resettled.” Freeman choked. “Good God, are there that many of them?”

“The staunch citizens exaggerate, of course. But I get the impression there must be at least a hundred.”

Freeman was silent a long time. “I didn’t realize,” he said finally. “I’ll have to put it through channels, of course. We were going to make further tests on that island. But I see your point.”

“I’d like it,” Gretry said. “This is a bad business. We can’t have things like this. People can’t live with this sort of thing. You ought to drop out here and take a look. It’s something to remember.”

“I’ll—see what I can do. I’ll talk to Gordon. Give me a ring tomorrow.”

Gretry hung up and wandered out of the drab, dirty lobby onto the blazing sidewalk. Dingy stores and parked cars. A few old men hunched over on steps and sagging cane-bottom chairs. He lit a cigarette and shakily examined his watch. It was almost three. He moved slowly toward the taxi stand.

The town was dead. Nothing stirred. Only the motionless old men in their chairs and the out-of-town cars zipping along the highway. Dust and silence lay over everything. Age, like a gray spider web, covered all the houses and stores. No laughter; No sounds of any kind.

No children playing games.

A dirty blue taxicab pulled up silently beside him. “Okay, mister,” the driver said, a rat-faced man in his thirties, toothpick hanging between his crooked teeth. He kicked the bent door open. “Here we go.”

“How far is it?” Gretry asked, as he climbed in.

“Just outside town.” The cab picked up speed and hurtled noisily along, bouncing and bucking. “You from the FBI?”

“No.”

“I thought from your suit and hat you was.” The driver eyed him curiously. “How’d you hear about the crawlers?”

“From the radiation lab.”

“Yeah, it’s that hot stuff they got there.” The driver turned off the highway and onto a dirt side-road. “It’s up here on the Higgins farm. The crazy damn things picked the bottom of old lady Higgins’ place to build their houses.”

“Houses?”

“They’ve got some sort of city, down under the ground. You’ll see it—the entrances, at least. They work together, building and fussing.” He twisted the cab off the dirt road, between two huge cedars, over a bumpy field, and finally brought it to rest at the edge of a rocky gully. “This is it.”

It was the first time Gretry had seen one alive.

He got out of the cab awkwardly, his legs numb and unresponding. The things were moving slowly between the woods and the entrance tunnels in the center of the clearing. They were bringing building material, clay and weeds. Smearing it with some kind of ooze and plastering it in rough forms which were carefully carried beneath the ground. The crawlers were two or three feet long; some were older than others, darker and heavier. All of them moved with agonizing slowness, a silent flowing motion across the sun-baked ground. They were soft, shelless, and looked harmless.

Again, he was fascinated and hypnotized by their faces. The weird parody of human faces. Wizened little baby features, tiny shoebutton eyes, slit of a mouth, twisted ears, and a few wisps of damp hair. What should have been arms were elongated pseudopods that grew and receded like soft dough. The crawlers seemed incredibly flexible; they extended themselves, then snapped their bodies back, as their feelers made contact with obstructions. They paid no attention to the two men; they didn’t even seem to be aware of them.

“How dangerous are they?” Gretry asked finally.

“Well, they have some sort of stinger. They stung a dog, I know. Stung him pretty hard. He swelled up and his tongue turned black. He had fits and got hard. He died.” The driver added half-apologetically, “He was nosing a-round. Interrupting their building. They work all the time. Keep busy.”

“Is this most of them?”

“I guess so. They sort of congregate here. I see them crawling this way.” The driver gestured. “See, they’re bom in different places. One or two at each farmhouse, near the radiation lab.”

“Which way is Mrs. Higgins’ farmhouse?” Gretry asked.

“Up there. See it through the trees? You want to—”

‘I’ll be right back,” Gretry said, and started abruptly off. “Wait here.”

The old woman was watering the dark red geraniums that grew around her front porch, when Gretry approached. She looked up quickly, her ancient wrinkled face shrewd and suspicious, the sprinkling can poised like a blunt instrument.

“Afternoon,” Gretry said. He tipped his hat and showed her his credentials. “I’m investigating the—crawlers. At the edge of your land.”

“Why?” Her voice was empty, bleak, cold. Like her withered face and body.

“We’re trying to find a solution.” Gretry felt awkward and uncertain. “It’s been suggested we transport them away from here, out to an island in the Gulf of Mexico. They shouldn’t be here. It’s too hard on people. It isn’t right,” he finished lamely.

“No. It isn’t right.”

“And we’ve already begun moving everybody away from the radiation lab. I guess we should have done that a long time ago.”

The old woman’s eyes flashed. “You people and your machines. See what you’ve done!” She jabbed a bony finger at him excitedly. “Now you have to fix it. You have to do something.”

“We’re taking them away to an island as soon as possible. But there’s one problem. We have to be sure about the parents. They have complete custody of them. We can’t just—” He broke off futilely. “How do they feel? Would they let us cart up their—children, and haul them away?”

Mrs. Higgins turned and headed into the house. Uncertainly, Gretry followed her through the dim, dusty interior rooms. Musty chambers full of oil lamps and faded pictures, ancient sofas and tables. She led him through a great kitchen of immense cast iron pots and pans down a flight of wooden stairs to a painted white door. She knocked sharply.

Flurry and movement on the other side. The sound of people whispering and moving things hurriedly.

“Open the door,” Mrs. Higgins commanded. After an agonized pause the door opened slowly. Mrs. Higgins pushed it wide and motioned Gretry to follow her.

In the room stood a young man and woman. They backed away as Gretry came in. The woman hugged a long pasteboard carton which the man had suddenly passed to her.

“Who are you?” the man demanded. He abruptly grabbed the carton back; his wife’s small hands were trembling under the shifting weight.

Gretry was seeing the parents of one of them. The young woman, brown-haired, not more than nineteen. Slender and small in a cheap green dress, a full-breasted girl with dark frightened eyes. The man was bigger and stronger, a handsome dark youth with massive arms and competent hands gripping the pasteboard carton tight.

Gretry couldn’t stop looking at the carton. Holes had been punched in the top; the carton moved slightly in the man’s arms, and there was a faint shudder that rocked it back and forth.

“This man,” Mrs. Higgins said to the husband, “has come to take it away.”

The couple accepted the information in silence. The husband made no move except to get a better grip on the box.

“He’s going to take all of them to an island,” Mrs. Higgins said. “It’s all arranged. Nobody’ll harm them. They’ll be safe and they can do what they want. Build and crawl around where nobody has to look at them.”

The young woman nodded blankly.

“Give it to him,” Mrs. Higgins ordered impatiently. “Give him the box and let’s get it over with once and for all.”

After a moment the husband carried the box over to a table and put it down. “You know anything about them?” he demanded. “You know what they eat?”

“We—” Gretry began helplessly.

“They eat leaves. Nothing but leaves and grass. We’ve be£n bringing in the smallest leaves we could find.”

“It’s only a month old,” the young woman said huskily. “It already wants to go down with the others, but we keep it here. We don’t want it to go down there. Not yet. Later, maybe, we thought. We didn’t know what to do. We weren’t sure.” Her large dark eyes flashed briefly in mute appeal, then faded out again. “It’s a hard thing to know.”

The husband untied the heavy brown twine and took the lid from the carton. “Here. You can see it.”

It was the smallest Gretry had seen. Pale and soft, less than a foot long. It had crawled in a comer of the box and was curled up in a messy web of chewed leaves and some kind of wax. A translucent covering spun clumsily around it, behind which it lay asleep. It paid no attention to them; they were out of its scope. Gretry felt a strange helpless horror rise up in him. He moved away, and the young man replaced the lid.

“We knew what it was,” he said hoarsely. “Right away, as soon as it was born. Up the road, there was one we saw. One of the first. Bob Douglas made us come over and look at it. It was his and Julie’s. That was before they started coming down and collecting together by the gulley.”

“Tell him what happened,” Mrs. Higgins said.

“Douglas mashed its head with a rock. Then he poured gasoline on it and burned it up. Last week he and Julie packed and left.”

“Have many of them been destroyed?” Gretry managed to ask.

“A few. A lot of men, they see something like that and they go sort of wild. You can’t blame them.” The man’s dark eyes darted hopelessly. “I guess I almost did the same thing.”

“Maybe we should have,” his wife murmured. “Maybe I should have let you.”

Gretry picked up the pasteboard carton and moved toward the door. “We’ll get this done as quickly as we can. The trucks are on the way. It should be over in a day.”

“Thank God for that,” Mrs. Higgins exclaimed in a clipped, emotionless voice. She held the door open, and Gretry carried the carton through the dim, musty house, down the sagging front steps and out into the blazing mid-afternoon sun.

Mrs. Higgins stopped at the red geraniums and picked up her sprinkling can. “When you take them, take them all. Don’t leave any behind. Understand?”

“Yes,” Gretry muttered.

“Keep some of your men and trucks here. Keep checking. Don’t let any stay where we have to look at them.”

“When we get the people near the radiation lab moved away there shouldn’t be any more of—”

He broke off. Mrs. Higgins had turned her back and was watering the geraniums. Bees buzzed around her. The flowers swayed dully with the hot wind. The old woman passed on around the side of the house, still watering and stooping over. In a few moments she was gone and Gretry was alone with his carton.

Embarrassed and ashamed, he carried the carton slowly down the hill and across the field to the ravine. The taxi driver was standing bv his cab, smoking a cigarette and waiting patiently for him. The colony of crawlers was working steadily on its city. There were streets and passages. On some of the entrance-mounds he noticed intricate scratches that might have been words. Some of the crawlers were grouped together, setting up involved things he couldn’t make out.

“Let’s go,” he said wearily to the driver.

The driver grinned and yanked the back door. “I left the meter running,” he said, his ratty face bright with craft. “You guys all have a swindle sheet—you don’t care.”

He built, and the more he built the more he enjoyed building. By now the city was over eighty miles deep and five miles in diameter. The whole island had been converted into a single vast city that honeycombed and interlaced farther each day. Eventually it would reach the land beyond the ocean; then the work would begin in earnest.

To his right, a thousand methodically moving companions toiled silently on the structural support that was to reinforce the main breeding chamber. As soon as it was in place everyone would feel better; the mothers were just now beginning to bring forth their young.

That was what worried him. It took some of the joy out of building. He had seen one of the first bom—before it was quickly hidden and the thing hushed up. A brief glimpse of a bulbous head, foreshortened body, incredibly rigid extensions. It shrieked and wailed and turned red in the face. Gurgled and plucked aimlessly and kicked its feet.

In horror, somebody had finally mashed the throwback with a rock. And hoped there wouldn’t be any more.

OH, TO BE A BLOBEL!

He put a twenty-dollar platinum coin into the slot and •the analyst, after a pause, lit up. Its eyes shone with sociability and it swiveled about in its chair, picked up a pen and pad of long yellow paper from its desk and said, “Good morning, sir. You may begin.”

“Hello, Doctor Jones. I guess you’re not the same Doctor Jones who did the definitive biography of Freud; that was a century ago.” He laughed nervously; being a rather poverty-stricken man he was not accustomed to dealing with the new fully-homeostatic psychoanalysts. “Um,” he said, “should I free-associate or give you background material or just what?” .

Dr. Jones said, “Perhaps you could begin by telling me who you are und warum mich—why you have selected me.”

“I’m George Munster of catwalk 4, building WEF-395, San Francisco condominium established 1996.”

“How do you do, Mr. Munster.” Dr. Jones held out its hand, and George Munster shook it. He found the hand to be of a pleasant body-temperature and decidedly soft. The grip, however, was manly.

“You see,” Munster said, “I’m an ex-GI, a war veteran. That’s how I got my condominium apartment at WEF-395; veterans’ preference.”

“Ah yes,” Dr. Jones said, ticking faintly as it measured the passage of time. “The war with the Blobels.”

“I fought three years in that war,” Munster said, nervously smoothing his long, black, thinning hair. “I hated the Blobels and I volunteered; I was only nineteen and I had a good job—but the crusade to clear the Sol System of Blobels came first in my mind.”

“Um,” Dr. Jones said, ticking and nodding.

George Munster continued, “I fought well. In fact I got two decorations and a battlefield citation. Corporal. That’s because I single-handed wiped out an observation satellite full of Blobels; we’ll never know exactly how many because of course, being Blobels, they tend to fuse together and unfuse confusinly.” He broke off, then, feeling emotional. Even remembering and talking about the war was too much for him…he lay back on the couch, lit a cigarette and tried to become calm.

The Blobels had emigrated originally from another star system, probably Proxima. Several thousand years ago they had settled on Mars and on Titan, doing very well at agrarian pursuits. They were developments of the original unicellular amoeba, quite large and with a highly-organized nervous system, but still amoeba, with pseudopodia, reproducing by binary fission, and in the main offensive to Terran settlers.

The war itself had broken out over ecological considerations. It had been the desire of the Foreign Aid Department of the UN to change the atmosphere on Mars, making it more usable for Terran settlers. This change, however, had made it unpalatable for the Blobel colonies already there; hence the squabble.

And, Munster reflected, it was not possible to change half the atmosphere of a planet, the Brownian movement being what it was. Within a period of ten years the altered atmosphere had diffused throughout the planet, bringing suffering—at least so they alleged—to the Blobels. In retaliation, a Blobel armada had approached Terra and had put into orbit a series of technically sophisticated satellites designed eventually to alter the atmosphere of Terra. This alteration had never come about because of course the War Office of the UN had gone into action; the satellites had been detonated by self-instructing missiles…and the war was on.

Dr. Jones said, “Are you married, Mr. Munster?”

“No sir,” Munster said. “And—” He shuddered. “You’ll see why when I’ve finished telling you. See, Doctor—” He stubbed out his cigarette. “I’ll be frank. I was a Terran spy. That was my task; they gave the job to me because of my bravery in the field…I didn’t ask for it.”

“I see,” Dr. Jones said.

“Do you?” Munster’s voice broke. “Do you know what was necessary in those days in order to make a Terran into a successful spy among the Blobels?”

Nodding, Dr. Jones said, “Yes, Mr. Munster. You had to relinquish your human form and assume the repellent form of a Blobel.”

Munster said nothing; he clenched and unclenched his fist, bitterly. Across from him Dr. Jones ticked.

That evening, back in his small apartment at WEF-395, Munster opened a fifth of Teacher’s scotch, sat by himself sipping from a cup, lacking even the energy to get a glass down from the cupboard over the sink.

What had he gotten out of the session with Dr. Jones today? Nothing, as nearly as he could tell. And it had eaten deep into his meager financial resources…meager because—

Because for almost twelve hours out of the day he reverted, despite all the efforts of himself and the Veterans’ Hospitalization Agency of die UN, to his old wartime Blobel shape. To formless unicellular-like blob, right in the middle of his own apartment at WEF-395.

His financial resources consisted of a small pension from the War Office; finding a job was impossible, because as soon as he was hired the strain caused him to revert there on the spot, in plain sight of his new employer and fellow workers.

It did not assist in forming successful work-relationships.

Sure enough, now, at eight in the evening, he felt himself once more beginning to revert; it was an old and familiar experience to him, and he loathed it. Hurriedly, he sipped the last of the cup of scotch, put the cup down on a table…and felt himself slide together into a homogenous puddle.

The telephone rang.

“I can’t answer,” he called to it. The phone’s relay picked up his anguished message and conveyed it to the calling party. Now Munster had become a single transparent gelatinous mass in the middle of the rug; he undulated toward the phone—it was still ringing, despite his statement to it, and he felt furious resentment; didn’t he have enough troubles already, without having to deal with a ringing phone?

Reaching it, he extended a pseudopodium and snatched the receiver from the hook. With great effort he formed his plastic substance into the semblance of a vocal apparatus, resonating dully. “I’m busy,” he resonated in a low booming fashion into the mouthpiece of the phone. “Call later.” Call, he thought as he hung up, tomorrow morning. When I’ve been able to regain my human form.

The apartment was quiet, now.

Sighing, Munster flowed back across the carpet, to the window, where he rose into a high pillar in order to see the view beyond; there was a light-sensitive spot on his outer surface, and although he did not possess a true lens he was able to appreciate—nostalgically—the sight of San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, the playground for small children which was Alcatraz Island.

Dammit, he thought bitterly. 1 can’t marry; 1 can’t live a genuine human existence, reverting this way to the form the War Office bigshots forced me into back in the war times…

He had not known then, when he accepted the mission, that it would leave this permanent effect. They had assured him it was “only temporary, for the duration,” or some such glib phrase. Duration my ass, Munster thought with furious, impotent resentment. It’s been eleven years, now.

The psychological problems created for him, the pressure on his psyche, were immense. Hence his visit to Dr. Jones.

Once more the phone rang.

“Okay,” Munster said aloud, and flowed laboriously back across die room to it. “You want to talk to me?” he said as he came closer and closer; the trip, for someone in Blobel form, was a long one. “I’ll talk to you. You can even turn on the vidscreen and look at me.” At the phone he snapped the switch which would permit visual communication as well as auditory. “Have a good look,” he said, and displayed his amorphous form before the scanning tube of the video.

Dr. Jones’ voice came: “I’m sorry to bother you at your home, Mr. Munster, especially when you’re in this, tun, awkward condition…” The homeostatic analyst paused. “But I’ve been devoting time to problem-solving vis-a-vis your condition. I may have at least a partial solution.”

“What?” Munster said, taken by surprise. “You mean to imply that medical science can now—”

“No, no,” Dr. Jones said hurriedly. “The physical aspects lie out of my domain; you must keep that in mind, Munster. When you consulted me about your problems it was the psychological adjustment that—”

“I’ll come right down to your office and talk to you,” Munster said. And then he realized that he could not; in his Blobel form it would take him days to undulate all the way across town to Dr. Jones’ office. “Jones,” he said desperately, “you see the problems I face. I’m stuck here in this apartment every night beginning about eight o’clock and lasting through until almost seven in the morning…I can’t even visit you and consult you and get help—”

“Be quiet, Mr. Munster,” Dr. Jones interrupted. “I’m trying to tell you something. You’re not the only one in this condition. Did you know that?”

Heavily, Munster said, “Sure. In all, eighty-three Ter-rans were made over into Blobels at one time or another during the war. Of the eighty-three—” He knew the facts by heart. “Sixty-one survived and now there’s an organization called Veterans of Unnatural Wars of which fifty are members. I’m a member. We meet twice a month, revert in unison…” He started to hang up the phone. So this was what he had gotten for his money, this stale news. “Goodbye, Doctor,” he murmured.

Dr. Jones whirred in agitation. “Mr. Munster, I don’t mean other Terrans. I’ve researched this in your behalf, and I discover that according to captured records at the Library of Congress fifteen Blobels were formed into pseudo-Terrans to act as spies for their side. Do you understand?”

After a moment Minister said, “Not exactly.”

“You have a mental block against being helped,” Dr. Jones said. “But here’s what I want, Munster; you be at my office at eleven in the morning tomorrow. We’ll take up the solution to your problem then. Goodnight.”

Wearily, Munster said, “When I’m in my Blobel form my wits aren’t too keen, Doctor. You’ll have to forgive me.” He hung up, still puzzled. So there were fifteen Blobels walking around on Titan this moment, doomed to occupy human forms—so what? How did that help him?

Maybe he would find out at eleven tomorrow.

When he strode into Dr. Jones’ waiting room he saw, seated in a deep chair in a comer by a lamp, reading a copy of Fortune, an exceeding attractive young woman.

Automatically, Munster found a place to sit from which he could eye her. ‘Stylish dyed-white hair braided down the back of her neck…he took in the sight of her with delight, pretending to read his own copy of Fortune. Slender legs, small and delicate elbows. And her sharp, clearly-featured face. The intelligent eyes, the thin, tapered nostrils—a truly lovely girl, he thought. He drank in the sight of her…until all at once she raised her head and stared coolly back at him.

“Dull, having to wait,” Munster mumbled.

The girl said, “Do you come to Dr. Jones often?”

“No,” he admitted. “This is just the second time.”

“I’ve never been here before,” the girl said. “I was going to another electronic fully-homeostatic psychoanalyst in Los Angeles and then late yesterday Dr. Bing, my analyst, called me and told me to fly up here and see Dr. Jones this morning. Is this one good?”

“Um,” Munster said. “I guess so.” We’ll see, he thought. That’s precisely what we don’t know, at this point.

The inner office door opened and there stood Dr. Jones. “Miss Arrasmith,” it said, nodding to the girl. “Mr. Munster.” It nodded to George. “Won’t you both come in?”

Rising to her feet, Miss Arrasmith said, “Who pays the twenty dollars then?”

But the analyst had become silent it had turned off.

“I’ll pay,” Miss Arrasmith said, reaching into her purse.

“No, no,” Munster said. “Let me.” He got out a twenty-dollar piece and dropped it into the analyst’s slot.

At once, Dr. Jones said, “You’re a gentleman, Mr. Munster.” Smiling, it ushered the two of them into its office. “Be seated, please. Miss Arrasmith, without preamble please allow me to explain your—condition to Mr. Munster.” To Munster it said, “Miss Arrasmith is a Blobel.”

Munster could only stare at the girl.

“Obviously,” Dr. Jones continued, “presently in human form. This, for her, is the state of involuntary reversion. During the war she operated behind Terran lines, acting for the Blobel War League. She was captured and held, but then the war ended and she was neither tried nor sentenced.”

“They released me,” Miss Arrasmith said in a low, carefully-controlled voice. “Still in human form. I stayed here out of shame. I just couldn’t go back to Titan and—” Her voice wavered.

“There is great shame attached to this condition,” Dr. Jones said, “for any high-caste Blobel.”

Nodding, Miss Arrasmith sat clutching a tiny Irish linen handkerchief and trying to look poised. “Correct, Doctor. I did visit Titan to discuss my condition with medical authorities there. After expensive and prolonged therapy with me they were able to induce a return to my natural form for a period of—” She hesitated. “About one-fourth of the time. But the other three-fourths…I am as you perceive me now.” She ducked her head and touched the handkerchief to her right eye.

“Jeez,” Munster protested, “you’re lucky; a human form is infinitely superior to a Blobel form—I ought to know. As a Blobel you have to creep along…you’re like a big jellyfish, no skeleton to keep you erect. And binary fission—it’s lousy, I say really lousy, compared to the Terran form of—you know. Reproduction.” He colored.

Dr. Jones ticked and stated, “For a period of about six hours your human forms overlap. And then for about one hour your Blobel forms overlap. So all in all, the two of you possess seven hours out of twenty-four in which you both possess identical forms. In my opinion—” It toyed with its pen and paper. “Seven hours is not too bad. If you follow my meaning.”

After a moment Miss Arrasmith said, “But Mr. Munster and I are natural enemies.” —

“That was years ago,” Munster said.

“Correct,” Dr. Jones agreed. “True, Miss Arrasmith is basically a Blobel and you, Munster, are a Terran, but—” It gestured. “Both of you are outcasts in either civilization; both of you are stateless and hence gradually suffering a loss of ego-identity. I predict for both of you a gradual deterioration ending finally in severe mental illness. Unless you two can develop a rapprochement.” The analyst was silent, then.

Miss Arrasmith said softly, “I think we’re very lucky, Mr. Munster. As Dr. Jones said, we do overlap for seven hours a day…we can enjoy that time together, no longer in wretched isolation.” She smiled up hopefully at him, rearranging her coat. Certainly, she had a nice figure; the somewhat low-cut dress gave an ideal clue to that.

Studying her, Munster pondered.

“Give him time,” Dr. Jones told Miss Arrasmith. “My analysis of him is that he will see this correctly and do the right thing.”

Still rearranging her coat and dabbing at her large, dark eyes, Miss Arrasmith waited.

The phone in Dr. Jones’ office rang, a number of years later. He answered it in his customary way. “Please, sir or madam, deposit twenty dollars if you wish to speak to me.”

A tough male voice on the other end of the line said, “Listen, this is the UN Legal Office and we don’t deposit twenty dollars to talk to anybody. So trip that mechanism inside you, Jones.”

“Yes sir,” Dr. Jones said, and with his right hand tripped the lever behind his ear that caused him to come on free.

“Back in 2037,” the UN legal expert said, “did you advise a couple to marry? A George Munster and a Vivian Arrasmith, now Mrs. Munster?”

“Why yes,” Dr. Jones said, after consulting his built-in memory banks.

“Had you investigated the legal ramifications of their issue?”

“Um well,” Dr. Jones said, “that’s not my worry.”

“You can be arraigned for advising any action contrary to UN law.”

“There’s no law prohibiting a Blobel and a Terran from marrying.”

The UN legal expert said, “All right, Doctor, I’ll settle for a look at their case histories.”

“Absolutely no,” Dr. Jones said. “That would be a breach of ethics.”

“We’ll get a writ and sequester them, then.”

“Go ahead.” Dr. Jones reached behind his ear to shut himself off.

“Wait. It may interest you to know that the Munsters now have four children. And, following the Mendelian Law, the offspring comprise a strict one, two, one ratio. One Blobel girl, one hybrid boy, one hybrid girl, one Terran girl. The legal problem arises in that the Blobel Supreme Council claims the pure-blooded Blobel girl as a citizen of Titan and also suggests that one of the two hybrids be donated to the Council’s jurisdiction.” The UN legal expert explained, “You see, the Munsters’ marriage is breaking up; they’re getting divorced and it’s sticky finding which laws obtain regarding them and their issue.”

“Yes,” Dr. Jones admitted, “I would think so. What has caused their marriage to break up?”

“I don’t know and don’t care. Possibly the fact that both adults and two of the four children rotate daily between being Blobels and Terrans; maybe the strain got to be too much. If you want to give them psychological advice, consult them. Goodbye.” The UN legal expert rang off.

Did I make a mistake, advising them to marry? Dr. Jones asked itself. I wonder if I shouldn’t look them up; I owe at least that to them.

Opening the Los Angeles phonebook, it began thumbing through the Ms.

These had been six difficult years for the Munsters.

First, George had moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles; he and Vivian had set up their household in a condominium apartment with three instead of two rooms. Vivian, being in Terran form three-fourths of the time, had been able to obtain a job; right out in public she gave jet flight information at the Fifth Los Angeles Airport. George, however—

His. pension comprised an amount only one-fourth that of his wife’s salary and he felt it keenly. To augment it, he had searched for a way of earning money at home. Finally in a magazine he had found this valuable ad:

MAKE SWIFT PROFITS IN YOUR OWN CONDO! RAISE GIANT

BULLFROGS FROM JUPITER, CAPABLE OF EIGHTY-FOOT

LEAPS. CAN BE USED IN FROG-RACING (WHERE LEGAL)

AND

So in 2038 he had bought his first pair of frogs imported from Jupiter and had begun raising diem for swift profits, right in his own condominium apartment building, in a corner of the basement that Leopold the partially-homeostatic janitor let him use gratis.

But in the relatively feeble Terran gravity the frogs were capable of enormous leaps, and the basement proved too small for them; they ricocheted from wall to wall like green ping pong balls and soon died. Obviously it took more than a portion of the basement at QEK-604 Apartments to house a crop of the damned things, George realized.

And then, too, their first child had been bom. It had turned out to be pure-blooded Blobel; for twenty-four hours a day it consisted of a gelatinous mass and George found himself waiting in vain for it to switch over to a human form, even for a moment.

He faced Vivian defiantly in this matter, during a period when both of them were in human form.

“How can I consider it my child?” he asked her. “It’s—an alien life form to me.” He was discouraged and even horrified. “Dr. Jones should have foreseen this; maybe it’s your child—it looks just like you.”

Tears filled Vivian’s eyes. “You mean that insultingly.”

“Damn right I do. We fought you creatures—we used to consider you no better than Portuguese stingrays.” Gloomily, he put on his coat. “I’m going down to Veterans of Unnatural Wars Headquarters,” he informed his wife. “Have a beer with the boys.” Shortly, he was on his way to join with his old wartime buddies, glad to get out of the apartment house.

VUW Headquarters was a decrepit cement building in downtown Los Angeles left over from the twentieth century and sadly in need of paint. The VUW had little funds because most of its members were, like George Munster, living on UN pensions. However, there was a pool table and an old 3-D television set and a few dozen tapes of popular music and also a chess set. George generally drank his beer and played chess with his fellow members, either in human form or in Blobel form; this was one place in which both were accepted.

This particular evening he sat with Pete Ruggles, a fellow veteran who also had married a Blobel female, reverting, as Vivian did, to human form.

“Pete, I can’t go on. I’ve got a gelatinous blob for a child. My whole life I’ve wanted a kid, and now what have I got? Something that looks like it washed up on the beach.”

Sipping his beer—he too was in human form at the moment—Pete answered, “Criminy, George, I admit it’s a mess. But you must have known what you were getting into when you married her. And my god, according to Mendel’s Law, the next kid—”

“I mean,” George broke in, “I don’t respect my own wife; that’s the basis of it. I think of her as a thing. And myself, too. We’re both things.” He drank down his beer in one gulp.

Pete said meditatively, “But from the Blobel standpoint—”

“Listen, whose side are you on?” George demanded.

“Don’t yell at me,” Pete said, “or I’ll deck you.”

A moment later they were swinging wildly at each other. Fortunately Pete reverted to Blobel form in the nick of time; no harm was done. Now George sat alone, in human shape, while Pete oozed off somewhere else, probably to join a group of the boys who had also assumed Blobel form.

Maybe we can found a new society somewhere on a remote moon, George said to himself moodily. Neither Terran nor Blobel.

I’ve got to go back to Vivian, George resolved. What else is there for me? I’m lucky to find her; I’d be nothing but a war veteran guzzling beer here at VUW Headquarters every damn day and night, with no future, no hope, no real life .…

He had a new moneymaking scheme going, now. It was a home mail-order business; he had placed an ad in the Saturday Evening Post for magic lodestones reputed to BRING YOU LUCK. FROM ANOTHER STAR-SYSTEM ENTIRELY!

The stones had come from Proxima and were obtainable on Titan; it was Vivian who had made the commercial contact for him with her people. But so far, few people had sent in the dollar-fifty.

I’m a failure, George said to himself.

Fortunately the next child, bom in the winter of 2039, showed itself to be a hybrid; it took human form fifty percent of the time, and so at last George had a child who was—occasionally, anyhow—a member of his own species.

He was still in the process of celebrating the birth of Maurice when a delegation of their neighbors at QEK-604 Apartments came and rapped on their door.

“We’ve got a petition here,” the chairman of the delegation said, shuffling his feet in embarrassment, “asking that you and Mrs. Munster leave QEK-604.”

“But why?” George asked, bewildered. “You haven’t objected to us up until now.”

“The reason is that now you’ve got a hybrid youngster who will want to play with ours, and we feel it’s unhealthy for our kids to—”

George slammed the door in their faces.

But still, he felt the pressure, the hostility from the people on all sides of them. And to think, he thought bitterly, that I fought in the war to save these people. It sure wasn’t worth it.

An hour later he was down at VUW Headquarters once more, drinking beer and talking with his buddy Sherman Downs, also married to a Blobel.

“Sherman, it’s no good. We’re not wanted; we’ve got to emigrate. Maybe we’ll try it on Titan, in Viv’s world.”

“Chrissakes,” Sherman protested, “I hate to see you fold up, George. Isn’t your electromagnetic reducing belt beginning to sell, finally?”

For the last few months, George, had been making and selling a complex electronic reducing gadget which Vivian had helped him design; it was based in principle on a Blobel device popular on Titan but unknown on Terra. And this had gone over well; George had more orders than he could fill. But—

“I had a terrible experience, Sherm,” George confided. “I was in a drugstore the other day, and they gave me a big order for my reducing belt, and I got so excited—” He broke off. “You can guess what happened. I reverted. Right in plain sight of a hundred customers. And when the buyer saw that he canceled the order for the belts. It was what we all fear…you should have seen how their attitude toward me changed.”

Sherm said, “Hire someone to do your selling for you. A full-blooded Terran.”

Thickly, George said, “I’m a full-blooded Terran, and don’t you forget it. Ever.”

“I just mean—”

“I know what you meant,” George said. And took a swing at Sherman. Fortunately he missed and in the excitement both of them reverted to Blobel form. They oozed angrily into each other for a time, but at last fellow veterans managed to separate them.

“I’m as much a Terran as anyone,” George thought-radiated in the Blobel manner to Sherman. “And I’ll flatten anyone who says otherwise.”

In Blobel form he was unable to get home; he had to phone Vivian to come and get him. It was humiliating.

Suicide, he decided. That’s the answer.

How best to do it? In Blobel form he was unable to feel pain; best to do it then. Several substances would dissolve him…he could for instance drop himself into a heavily-chlorinated swimming pool, such as QEK-604 maintained in its recreation room.

Vivian, in human form, found him as he reposed hesitantly at the edge of the swimming pool, late one night.

“George, I beg you—go back to Dr. Jones.”

“Naw,” he boomed dully, forming a quasi-vocal apparatus with a portion of his body. “It’s no use, Viv. I don’t want to go on.” Even the belts; they had been Viv’s idea, rather than his. He was second even there…behind her, falling constantly further behind each passing day.

Viv said, “You have so much to offer the children.”

That was true. “Maybe I’ll drop over to the UN War Office,” he decided. “Talk to them, see if there’s anything new that medical science has come up with that might stabilize me.”

“But if you stabilize as a Terran,” Vivian said, “what would become of me?”

“We’d have eighteen entire hours together a day. All the hours you take human form!”

“But you wouldn’t want to stay married to me. Because, George, then you could meet a Terran woman.”

It wasn’t fair to her, he realized. So he abandoned the idea.

In the spring of 2041 their third child was bom, also a girl, and like Maurice a hybrid. It was Blobel at night and Terran by day.

Meanwhile, George found a solution to some of his problems.

He got himself a mistress.

At the Hotel Elysium, a run-down wooden building in the heart of Los Angeles, he and Nina arranged to meet one another.

“Nina,” George said, sipping Teacher’s scotch and seated beside her on the shabby sofa which the hotel provided, “you’ve made my life worth living again.” He fooled with the buttons of her blouse.

“I respect you,” Nina Glaubman said, assisting him with the buttons. “In spite of the fact—well, you are a former enemy of our people.”

“God,” George protested, “we must not think about the old days—we have to close our minds to our pasts.” Nothing but our future, he thought.

His reducing belt enterprise had developed so well that now he employed fifteen full-time Terran employees and owned a small, modem factory on the outskirts of San Fernando. If UN taxes had been reasonable he would by now be a wealthy man…brooding on that, George wondered what the tax rate was in Blobel-run lands, on Io, for instance. Maybe he ought to look into it.

One night at VUW Headquarters he discussed the subject with Reinholt, Nina’s husband, who of course was ignorant of the modus vivendi between George and Nina.

“Reinholt,* George said with difficulty, as he drank his beer, “I’ve got big plans. This cradle-to-grave socialism the UN operates…it’s not for me. It’s cramping me. The Munster Magic Magnetic Belt is—” He gestured. “More than Terran civilization can support. You get me?”

Coldly, Reinholt said, “But George, you are a Terran; if you emigrate to Blobel-run territory with your factory you’ll be betraying your—”

“Listen,” George told him, “I’ve got one authentic Blobel child, two half-Blobel children, and a fourth on the way. I’ve got strong emotional ties with those people out there on Titan and Io.”

“You’re a traitor,” Reinholt said, and punched him in the mouth. “And not only that,” he continued, punching George in the stomach, “you’re running around with my wife. I’m going to kill you.”

To escape, George reverted to Blobel form; Reinholt’s blows passed harmlessly deep into his moist, jellylike substance. Reinholt then reverted too, and flowed into him murderously, trying to consume and absorb George’s nucleus.

Fortunately fellow veterans pried their two bodies apart before any permanent harm was done.

Later that night, still trembling, George sat with Vivian in the living room of their eight-room suite at the great new condominium apartment building ZGF-900. It had been a close call, and now of course Reinholt would tell Viv; it was only a question of time. The marriage, as far as George could see, was over. This perhaps was their last moment together.

“Viv,” he said urgently, “you have to believe me; I love you. You and the children—plus the belt business, naturally—are my complete life.” A desperate idea came to him. “Let’s emigrate now, tonight. Pack up the kids and go to Titan, right this minute.”

“I can’t go,” Vivian said. “I know how my people would treat me, and treat you and the children, too. George, you go. Move the factory to Io. I’ll stay here.” Tears filled her dark eyes.

“Hell,” George said, “what kind of life is that? With you on Terra and me on Io—that’s no marriage. And who’ll get the kids?” Probably Viv would get them…but his firm employed top legal talent—perhaps he could use it to solve his domestic problems.

The next morning Vivian found out about Nina. And hired an attorney of her own.

“Listen,” George said, on the phone talking to his top legal talent, Henry Ramarau. “Get me custody of the fourth child; it’ll be a Terran. And we’ll compromise on the two hybrids; I’ll take Maurice and she can have Kathy. And naturally she gets that blob, that first so-called child. As far as I’m concerned it’s hers anyhow.” He slammed the receiver down and then turned to the board of directors of his company. “Now where were we?” he demanded. “In our analysis of Io tax laws.”

During the next weeks the idea of a move to Io appeared more and more feasible from a profit and loss stand-pont.

“Go ahead and buy land on Io,” George instructed his business agent in the field, Tom Hendricks. “And get it cheap; we want to start right.” To his secretary Miss Nolan he said, “Now keep everyone out of my office until further notice. I feel an attack coming on. From anxiety over this major move off Terra to Io.” He added. “And personal worries.”

“Yes, Mr. Munster,” Miss Nolan said, ushering Tom Hendricks out of George’s private office. “No one will disturb you.” She could be counted on to keep everyone out while George reverted to his wartime Blobel shape, as he often did, these days; the pressure on him was immense.

When, later in the day, he resumed human form, George learned from Miss Nolan that a Doctor Jones had called.

“I’ll be damned,” George said, thinking back to six years ago. “I thought it’d be in the junk pile by now.” To Miss Nolan he said, “Call Doctor Jones, notify me when you have it; I’ll take a minute off to talk to it.” It was like old times, back in San Francisco.

Shortly, Miss Nolan had Dr. Jones on the line.

“Doctor,” George said, leaning back in his chair and swiveling from side to side and poking at an orchid on his desk. “Good to hear from you.”

The voice of the homeostatic analyst came in his ear, “Mr. Munster, I note that you now have a secretary.”

“Yes,” George said, “I’m a tycoon. I’m in the reducing belt game; it’s somewhat like the flea-collar that cats wear. Well, what can I do for you?”

“I understand you have four children now—”

“Actually three, plus a fourth on the way. Listen, that fourth, Doctor, is vital to me; according to Mendel’s Law it’s a full-blooded Terran and by god I’m doing everything in my power to get custody of it.” He added, “Vivian—you remember her—is now back on Titan. Among her own people, where she belongs. And I’m putting some of the finest doctors I can get on my payroll to stabilize me; I’m tired of this constant reverting, night and day; I’ve got too much to do for such nonsense.”

Dr. Jones said, “From your tone I can see you’re an important, busy man, Mr. Munster. You’ve certainly risen in the world, since I saw you last.”

“Get to the point, Doctor,” George said impatiently. “Why’d you call?”

“I, urn, thought perhaps I could bring’ you and Vivian together again.”

“Bah,” George said contemptuously. “That woman? Never. Listen Doctor, I have to ring off; we’re in the process of finalizing on some basic business strategy, here at Munster, Incorporated.”

“Mr. Munster,” Dr. Jones asked, “is there another woman?”

“There’s another Blobel,” George said, “if that’s what you mean.” And he hung up the phone. Two Blobels are better than none, he said to himself. And now back to business . …He pressed a button on his desk and at once Miss Nolan put her head into the office. “Miss Nolan,” George said, “get me Hank Ramarau; I want to find out—”

“Mr. Ramarau is waiting on the other line,” Miss Nolan said. “He says it’s urgent.”

Switching to the other line, George said, “Hi, Hank. What’s up?”

“I’ve just discovered,” his top legal advisor said, “that to operate your factory on Io you must be a citizen of Titan.”

“We ought to be able to fix that up,” George said.

“But to be a citizen of Titan—” Ramarau hesitated. “I’ll break it to you easy as I can, George. You have to be a Blobel.”

“Dammit, I am a Blobel,” George said. “At least part of the time. Won’t that do?”

“No,” Ramarau said, “I checked into that, knowing of your affliction, and it’s got to be one hundred percent of the time. Night arid day.”

“Hmmm,” George said. “This is bad. But we’ll overcome it, somehow. Listen, Hank, I’ve got an appointment with Eddy Fullbright, my medical coordinator; I’ll talk to you after, okay?” He rang off and then sat scowling and rubbing his jaw. Well, he decided, if it has to be it has to be. Facts are facts, and we can’t let them stand in our way.

Picking up the phone he dialed his doctor Eddy Full-bright.

The twenty-dollar platinum coin rolled down the chute and tripped the circuit. Dr. Jones came on, glanced up and saw a stunning, sharp-breasted young woman whom it recognized—by means of a quick scan of its memory banks—as Mrs. George Munster, the former Vivian Arrasmith.

“Good day, Vivian,” Dr. Jones said cordially. “But I understood you were on Titan.” It rose to its feet, offering her a chair.

Dabbing at her large, dark eyes* Vivian sniffled, “Doctor, everything is collapsing around me. My husband is having an affair with another woman…all I know is that her name is Nina and all the boys down at VUW Headquarters are talking about it. Presumably she’s a Terran. We’re both filing for divorce. And we’re having a dreadful legal battle over the children.” She arranged her coat modestly. “I’m expecting. Our fourth.”

“This I know,” Dr. Jones said. “A full-blooded Terran this time, if Mendel’s Law holds…although it only applied to litters.”

Mrs. Munster said miserably, “I’ve been on Titan talking to legal and medical experts, gynecologists, and especially marital guidance counselors; I’ve had all sorts of advice during the past month. Now I’m back on Terra but I can’t find George—he’s gone.”

“I wish I could help you, Vivian,” Dr. Jones said. “I talked to your husband briefly, the other day, but he spoke only in generalities…evidently he’s such a big tycoon now that it’s hard to approach him.”

“And to think,” Vivian sniffled, “that he achieved it all because of an idea I gave him. A Blobel idea.”

“The ironies of fate,” Dr. Jones said. “Now, if you want to keep your husband, Vivian—”

“I’m determined to keep him, Doctor Jones. Frankly I’ve undergone therapy on Titan, the latest and most expensive…it’s because I love George so much, even more than I love my own people or my planet.”

“Eh?” Dr. Jones said.

“Through the most modem developments in medical science in the Sol System,” Vivian said, “I’ve been stabilized, Doctor Jones. Now I am in human form twenty-four hours a day instead of eighteen. I’ve renounced my natural form in order to keep my marriage with George.”

“The supreme sacrifice,” Dr. Jones said, touched.

“Now, if I can only find him, Doctor—”

At the ground-breaking ceremonies on Io, George Munster flowed gradually to the shovel, extended a pseudopodium, seized the shovel, and with it managed to dig a symbolic amount of soil. “This is a great day,” he boomed hollowly, by means of the semblance of a vocal apparatus into which he had fashioned the slimy, plastic substance which made up his unicellular body.

“Right, George,” Hank Ramarau agreed, standing nearby with the legal documents.

The Ionan official, like George a great transparent blob, oozed across to Ramarau, took the documents and boomed, “These will be transmitted to my government. I’m sure they’re in order, Mr. Ramarau.”

“I guarantee you,” Ramarau said to the official, “Mr. Munster does not revert to human form at any time; he’s made use of some of the most advanced techniques in medical science to achieve this stability at the unicellular phase of his former rotation. Munster would never cheat.”

“This historic moment,” the great blob that was George Munster thought-radiated to the throng of local Blobels attending the ceremonies, “means a higher standard of living for Ionans who will be employed; it will bring prosperity to this area, plus a proud sense of national achievement in the manufacture of what we recognize to be a native invention, the Munster Magic Magnetic Belt.”

The throng of Blobels thought-radiated cheers.

“This is a proud day in my life,” George Munster informed them, and began to ooze by degrees back to his car, where his chauffeur waited to drive him to his permanent hotel room at Io City.

Someday he would own the hotel. He was putting the profits from his business in local real estate; it was the patriotic—and the profitable—thing to do, other Ionans, other Blobels, had told him.

“I’m finally a successful man,” George Munster thought-radiated to all close enough to pick up his emanations.

Amid frenzied cheers he oozed up the ramp and into his Titan-made car.

WHAT THE DEAD MEN SAY

I

The body of Louis Sarapis, in a transparent plastic shatterproof case, had lain on display for one week, exciting a continual response from the public. Distended lines filed past with the customary sniffling, pinched faces, distraught elderly ladies in black cloth coats.

In a comer of the large auditorium in which the casket reposed, Johnny Barefoot impatiently waited for his chance at Sarapis’ body. But he did not intend merely to view it; his job, detailed in Sarapis’ will, lay in another direction entirely. As Sarapis’ public relations manager, his job was—simply—to bring Louis Sarapis back to life.

“Keerum,” Barefoot murmured to himself, examining his wristwatch and discovering that two more hours had to pass before the auditorium doors could be finally closed. He felt hungry. And the chill, issuing from the quick-pack envelope surrounding the casket, had increased his discomfort minute by minute.

His wife Sarah Belle approached him, then, with a thermos of hot coffee. “Here, Johnny.” She reached up and brushed the black, shiny Chiricahua hair back from his forehead. “You don’t look so good.”

“No,” he agreed. “This is too much for me. I didn’t care for him much when he was alive—I certainly don’t like him any better this way.” He jerked his head at the casket and the double line of mourners.

Sarah Belle said softly, “Nil nisi bonum.”

He glowered at her, not sure of what she had said. Some foreign language, no doubt. Sarah Belle had a college degree.

“To quote Thumper Rabbit,” Sarah Belle said, smiling gently, “‘if you can’t say nothing good, don’t say nothing at all.’” She added, “From Bambi, an old film classic. If you attended the lectures at the Museum of Modem Art with me every Monday night—”

“Listen,” Johnny Barefoot said desperately, “I don’t want to bring the old crook back to life, Sarah Belle; how’d I get myself into this? I thought sure when the embolism dropped him like a cement block it meant I could kiss the whole business goodbye forever.” But it hadn’t quite worked out that way.

“Unplug him,” Sarah Belle said.

“W-what?”

She laughed. “Are you afraid to? Unplug the quick-pack power source and he’ll warm up. And no resurrection, right?” Her blue-gray eyes danced with amusement. “Scared of him, I guess. Poor Johnny.” She patted him on the arm. “I should divorce you, but I won’t; you need a mama to take care of you.”

“It’s wrong,” he said. “Louis is completely helpless, lying there in the casket. It would be—unmanly to unplug him.”

Sarah Belle said quietly, “But someday, sooner or later, you’ll have to confront him, Johnny. And when he’s in half-life you’ll have the advantage. So it will be a good time; you might come out of it intact.” Turning, she trotted off, hands thrust deep in her coat pockets because of the chill.

Gloomily, Johnny fit a cigarette and leaned against the wall behind him. His wife was right, of course. A half-lifer was no match, in direct physical téte-à-téte, for a living person. And yet—he still shrank from it, because ever since childhood he had been in awe of Louis, who had dominated 3-4 shipping, the Earth to Mars commercial routes, as if he were a model rocketship enthusiast pushing miniatures over a papier-mâché board in his basement. And now, at his death, at seventy years of age, the old man through Wilhelmina Securities controlled a hundred related—and non-related—industries on both planets. His net worth could not be calculated, even for tax purposes; it was not wise, in fact, to try, even for Government tax experts.

It’s my kids, Johnny thought; I’m thinking about them, in school back in Oklahoma. To tangle with old Louis would be okay if he wasn’t a family man…nothing meant more to him than the two little girls and of course Sarah Belle, too. 1 got to think of them, not myself, he told himself now as he waited for the opportunity to remove the body from the casket in accordance with the old man’s detailed instructions. Let’s see. He’s probably got about a year in total half-life time, and he’ll want it divided up strategically, like at the end of each fiscal year. He’ll probably proportion it out over two decades, a month here and there, then toward the end as he runs out, maybe fust a week. And then—days.

And finally old Louis would be down to a couple of hours; the signal would be weak, the dim spark of electrical activity hovering in the frozen brain cells…it would flicker, the words from the amplifying equipment would fade, grow indistinct. And then—silence, at last the grave. But that might be twenty-five years from now; it would be the year 2100 before die old man’s cephalic processes ceased entirely.

Johnny Barefoot, smoking his cigarette rapidly, thought back to the day he had slouched anxiously about the personnel office of Archimedean Enterprises, mumbling to the girl at the desk that he wanted a job; he had some brilliant ideas that were for sale, ideas that would help untangle the knot of strikes, the spaceport violence growing out of jurisdictional overlapping by rival unions—ideas that would, in essence, free Sarapis of having to rely on union labor at all. It was a dirty scheme, and he had known’ it then, but he had been right; it was worth money. The girl had sent him on to Mr. Pershing, the Personnel Manager, and Pershing had sent him to Louis Sarapis.

“You mean,” Sarapis had said, “I launch from the ocean? From the Atlantic, out past the three mile limit?”

“A union is a national organization,” Johnny had said. “Neither outfit has jurisdiction on the high seas. But a business organization is international.”

“I’d need men out there; I’d need the same number, even more. Where’ll I get them?”

“Go to Burma or India or the Malay States,” Johnny had said. “Get young unskilled laborers and bring them over. Train them yourself on an indentured servant basis. In other words, charge the cost of their passage against their earnings.” It was peonage, he knew. And it appealed to Louis Sarapis. A little empire on the high seas, worked by men who had no legal rights. Ideal.

Sarapis had done just that and hired Johnny for his public relations department; that was the best place for a man who had brilliant ideas of a non-technical nature. In other words, an uneducated man: a noncol. A useless misfit, an outsider. A loner lacking college degrees.

“Hey Johnny,” Sarapis had said once. “How come since you’re so bright you never went to school? Everyone knows that’s fatal, nowdays. Self-destructive impulse, maybe?” He had grinned, showing his stainless-steel teeth.

Moodily, he had replied, “You’ve got it, Louis. I want to die. I hate myself.” At that point he had recalled his peonage idea. But that had come after he had dropped out of school, so it couldn’t have been that. “Maybe I should see an analyst,” he had said.

“Fakes,” Louis had told him. “All of them—I know because I’ve had six on my staff, working for me exclusively at one time or another. What’s wrong with you is you’re an envious type; if you can’t have it big you don’t want it, you don’t want the climb, the long struggle.”

But I’ve got it big, Johnny Barefoot realized, had realized even then. This is big, working for you. Everyone wants to work for Louis Sarapis; he gives all sorts of people jobs.

The double lines of mourners that filed past the casket…he wondered if all these people could be employees of Sarapis or relatives of employees. Either that or people who had benefited from the public dole that Sarapis had pushed through Congress and into law during the depression three years ago. Sarapis, in his old age the great daddy for the poor, the hungry, the out of work. Soup kitchens, with lines there, too. Just as now.

Perhaps the same people had been in those lines who were here today.

Startling Johnny, an auditorium guard nudged him. “Say, aren’t you Mr. Barefoot, the P.R. man for old Louis?”

“Yes,” Johnny said. He put out his cigarette and then began to unscrew the lid of the thermos of coffee which Sarah Belle had brought him. “Have some,” he said. “Or maybe you’re used to the cold in these civic halls.” The City of Chicago had lent this spot for Louis to lie in state; it was gratitude for what he had done here in this area. The factories he had opened, the men he had put on the payroll.

“I’m not used,” the guard said, accepting a cup of coffee. “You know, Mr. Barefoot, I’ve always admired you because you’re a noncol, and look how you rose to a top job and lots of salary, not to mention fame. It’s an inspiration to us other noncols.”

Grunting, Johnny sipped his own coffee.

“Of course,” the guard said, “I guess it’s really Sarapis we ought to thank; he gave you the job. My brother-in-law worked for him; that was back five years ago when nobody in the world was hiring except Sarapis. You hear what an old skinflint he was—wouldn’t permit the unions to come in, and all. But he gave so many old folks pensions…my father was living on a Sarapis pension-plan until the day he died. And all those bills he got through Congress; they wouldn’t have passed any of the welfare for the needy bills without pressure from Sarapis.”

Johnny grunted.

“No wonder there’re so many people here today,” the guard said. “I can see why. Who’s going to help the little fellow, the noncols like you and me, now that he’s gone?”

Johnny had no answer, for himself or for the guard.

As owner of the Beloved Brethren Mortuary, Herbert Schoenheit von Vogelsang found himself required by law to consult with the late Mr. Sarapis’ legal counsel, the well-known Mr. Claude St. Cyr. In this connection it was essential for him to know precisely how the half-life periods were to be proportioned out; it was his job to execute the technical arrangements.

The matter should have been routine, and yet a snag developed almost at once. He was unable to get in touch with Mr. St. Cyr, trustee for the estate.

Drat, Schoenheit von Vogelsang thought to himself as he hung up the unresponsive phone. Something must be wrong; this is unheard of in connection with a man so important.

He had phoned from the bin—the storage vaults in which the half-lifers were kept in perpetual quick-pack. At this moment, a worried-looking clerical sort of individual waited at the desk with a claim check stub in his hand. Obviously he had shown up to collect a relative. Resurrection Day—the holiday on which the half-lifers were publically honored—was just around the comer; the rush would soon be beginning.

“Yes sir,” Herb said to him, with an affable smile. “I’ll take your stub personally.”

“It’s an elderly lady,” the customer said. “About eighty, very small and wizened. I didn’t want just to talk to her; I wanted to take her out for awhile.” He explained, “My grandmother.”

“Only a moment,” Herb said, and went back into the bin to search out number 3054039-B.

When he located the correct party he scrutinized the lading report attached; it gave but fifteen days of half-life remaining. Automatically, he pressed a portable amplifier into the hull of the glass casket, tuned it, listened tat the proper frequency for indication of cephalic activity.

Faintly from the speaker came, “…and then Tillie sprained her ankle and we never thought it’d heal; she was so foolish about it, wanting to start walking immediately…”

Satisfied, he unplugged the amplifier and located a union man to perform the actual task of carting 3054039-B to the loading platform, where the customer could place her in his ’copter or car.

“You checked her out?” the customer asked as he paid the money due.

“Personally,” Herb answered. “Functioning perfectly.” He smiled at the customer. “Happy Resurrection Day, Mr. Ford.”

“Thank you,” the customer said, starting off for the loading platform.

When I pass, Herb said to himself, I think I’ll will my heirs to revive me one day a century. That way I can observe the fate of all mankind. But that meant a rather high maintenance cost to the heirs, and no doubt sooner or later they would kick over the traces, have the body taken out of quick-pack and—god forbid—buried.

“Burial is barbaric,” Herb murmured aloud. “Remnant of the primitive origins of our culture.”

“Yes sir,” his secretary Miss Beasman agreed, at her typewriter.

In the bin, several customers communed with their half-lifer relations, in rapt quiet, distributed at intervals along the aisles which separated the caskets. It was a tranquil sight, these faithfuls, coming as they did so regularly, to pay homage. They brought messages, news of what took place in the outside world; they cheered the gloomy half-lifers in these intervals of cerebral activity. And—they paid Herb Schoenheit von Vogelsang; it was a profitable business, operating a mortuary.

“My dad seems a little frail,” a young man said, catching Herb’s attention. “I wonder if you could take a moment to check him over. I’d really appreciate it.”

“Certainly,” Herb said, accompanying the customer down the aisle to his deceased relative. The lading report showed only a few days remaining;, that explained the vitiated quality of cerebration. But still—he -turned up the gain, and the voice from the half-lifer became a trifle stronger. He’s almost at an end, Herb thought. It was obvious that the son did not want to see the lading, did not actually care to know that contact with his dad was diminishing, finally. So Herb said nothing; he merely walked off, leaving the son to commune. Why tell him? Why break the bad news?

A truck had now appeared at the loading platform, and two men hopped down from it, wearing familiar pale blue uniforms. Atlas Interplan Van and Storage, Herb realized. Delivering another half-lifer, or here to pick up one which had expired. He strolled toward them. “Yes, gentlemen,” he said.

The driver of the truck leaned out and said, “We’re here to deliver Mr. Louis Sarapis. Got room all ready?”

“Absolutely,” Herb said at once. “But I can’t get hold of Mr. St. Cyr to make arrangements for the schedule. When’s he to be brought back?”

Another man, dark-haired, with shiny-button black eyes, emerged from the truck. “I’m John Barefoot. According to the terms of the will I’m in charge of Mr. Sarapis. He’s to be brought back to life immediately; that’s the instructions I’m charged with.”

“I see,” Herb said, nodding. “Well, that’s fine. Bring him in and we’ll plug him right in.”

“It’s cold, here,” Barefoot said. “Worse than the auditorium.”

“Well of course,” Herb answered.

The crew from the van began wheeling the casket. Herb caught a glimpse of the dead man, the massive, gray face resembling something cast from a break-mold. Impressive old pirate, he thought. Good thing for us all he’s dead finally, in spite of his charity work. Because who wants charity? Especially his. Of course, Herb did not say that to Barefoot; he contented himself with guiding the crew to the prearranged spot.

“I’ll have him talking in fifteen minutes,” he promised Barefoot, who looked tense. “Don’t worry; we’ve had almost no failures at this stage; the initial residual charge is generally quite vital.”

“I suppose it’s later,” Barefoot said, “as it dims…then you have the technical problems.”

“Why does he want to be brought back so soon?” Herb asked.

Barefoot scowled and did not answer.

“Sorry,” Herb said, and continued tinkering with the wires which had to be seated perfectly to the cathode terminals of the casket. “At low temperatures,*’ he murmured, “the flow of current is virtually unimpeded. There’s no measurable resistance at minus 150g. So—” He fitted the anode cap in place. “The signal should bounce out clear and strong.” In conclusion, he clicked the amplifier on.

A hum. Nothing more.

“Well?” Barefoot said.

“I’ll recheck,” Herb said, wondering what had gone afoul. “Listen,” Barefoot said quietly, “if you slip up here and let the spark flicker out—” It was not necessary for him to finish; Herb knew.

“Is it the Democratic-Republican National Convention that he wants to participate in?” Herb asked. The Convention would be held later in the month, in Cleveland. In the past, Sarapis had been quite active in the behind-the-scenes activities at both the Democratic-Republican and the Liberal Party nominating conventions. It was said, in fact, that he had personally chosen the last Democratic-Republican Presidential candidate, Alfonse Gam. Tidy, handsome Gam had lost, but not by very much.

“Are you still getting nothing?” Barefoot asked.

“Um, it seems—” Herb said.

“Nothing. Obviously.” Now Barefoot looked grim. “If you can’t rouse him in another ten minutes I’ll get hold of Claude St. Cyr and we’ll take Louis out of your mortuary and lodge charges of negligence against you.”

“I’m doing what I can,” Herb said, perspiring as he fiddled with the leads to the casket. “We didn’t perform the quick-pack installation, remember; there may have been a slip-up at that point.”

Now static supervened over the steady hum.

“Is that him coming in?” Barefoot demanded.

“No,” Herb admitted, thoroughly upset, by now. It was, in fact, a bad sign.

“Keep trying,” Barefoot said. But it was unnecessary to tell Herbert Schoenheit von Vogelsang that; he was struggling desperately, with all he had, with all his years of professional competence in this field. And still he achieved nothing; Louis Sarapis remained silent.

I’m not going to be successful, Herb realized in fear. I don’t understand why, either. WHAT’S WRONG? A big client like this, and it has to get fouled up. He toiled on, not looking at Barefoot, not daring to.

At the radio telescope at Kennedy Slough, on the dark side of Luna, Chief Technician Owen Angress discovered that he had picked up a signal emanating from a region one light-week beyond the solar system in the direction of Proxima. Ordinarily such a region of space would have held little of interest for the U.N. Commission on Deep-Space Communications, but this, Owen Angress realized, was unique.

What reached him, thoroughly amplified by the great antennae of the radio telescope, was, faintly but clearly, a human voice.

“…probably let it slide by,” the voice was declaring. “If I know them, and I believe I do. That Johnny; he’d revert without my keeping my eye on him, but at least he’s not a crook like St. Cyr. I did right to fire St. Cyr. Assuming I can make it stick…” The voice faded momentarily.

What’s out there? Angress wondered, dazedly. “At one fifty-second of a light-year,” he murmured, making a quick mark on the deep-space map which he had been recharting. “Nothing. That’s just empty dust-clouds.” He could not understand what the signal implied; was it being bounced back to Luna from some nearby transmitter? Was this, in other words, merely an echo?

Or was he reading his computation incorrectly?

Surely this couldn’t be correct. Some individual ruminating at a transmitter out beyond the solar system…a man not in a hurry, thinking aloud in a kind of half-slumbering attitude, as if free-associating…it made no sense.

“I’d better report this to Wycoff at the Soviet Academy of Sciences, he said to himself. Wycoff was his current superior; next month it would be Jamison of MIT. Maybe it’s a long-haul ship that—

The voice filtered in clearly once again. “…that Gam is a fool; did wrong to select him. Know better now but too late. Hello?” The thoughts became sharp, the words more distinct. “Am I coming back?—for god’s sake, it’s about time. Hey. Johnny! Is that you?”

Angress picked up ‘the telephone and dialed the code for the line to the Soviet Union.

“Speak up, Johnny!” the voice from the speaker demanded plaintively. “Come on, son; I’ve got so damn much on my mind. So much to do. Convention’s started yet, has it? Got no sense of time stuck in here, can’t see or hear; wait’ll you get here and you’ll find out…” Again the voice faded.

This is exactly what Wycoff likes to call a “phenomenon,” Angress realized.

And I can understand why.

II

On the evening television news, Claude St. Cyr heard the announcer babbling about a discovery made by the radio telescope on Luna, but he paid little attention; he was busy mixing martinis for his guests.

“Yes,” he said to Gertrude Harvey, “ironic as it is, I drew up the will myself, including the clause that automatically dismissed me, canceled my services out of existence the moment he died. And I’ll tell you why Louis did that; he had paranoid suspicions of me, so he figured that with such a clause he’d insure himself against being—” He paused as he measured out the iota of dry wine which accompanied the gin. “Being prematurely dispatched.” He grinned, and Gertrude, arranged decoratively on the couch beside her husband, smiled back.

“A lot of good it did him,” Phil Harvey said.

“Hell,” St. Cyr protested. “I had nothing to do with his death; it was an embolus, a great fat clot stuck like a cork in a bottleneck.” He laughed at the image. “Nature’s own remedy.”

Gertrude said, “Listen. The TV; it’s saying something strange.” She rose, walked over to it and bent down, her ear close to the speaker.

“It’s probably that oaf Kent Margrave,” St. Cyr said. “Making another political speech.” Margrave had been their President now for four years; a Liberal, he had managed to defeat Alfonse Gam, who had been Louis Sarapis’ handpicked choice for the office. Actually Margrave, for all his faults, was quite a politician; he had managed to convince large blocs of voters that having a puppet of Sarapis’ for their President was not such a good idea.

“No,” Gertrude said, carefully arranging her skirt over her bare knees. “This is—the space agency, I think. Science.”

“Science!” St. Cyr laughed. “Well, then let’s listen; I admire science. Turn it up.” I suppose they’ve found another planet in the Orionus System, he said to himself. Something more for us to make the goal of our collective existence.

“A voice,” the TV announcer was saying, “emanating from outer space, tonight has scientists both in the United States and the Soviet Union completely baffled.”

“Oh no,” St. Cyr choked. “A voice from outer space—please, no more.” Doubled up with laughter, he moved off, away from the TV set; he could not bear to listen any more. “That’s what we need,” he said to Phil. “A voice that turns out to be—you know Who it is.”

“Who?” Phil asked.

“God, of course. The radio telescope at Kennedy Slough has picked up the voice of God and now were going to receive another set of divine commandments or at least a few scrolls.” Removing his glasses he wiped his eyes with his Irish linen handkerchief.

Dourly, Phil Harvey said, “Personally I agree with my wife; I find it fascinating.”

“Listen, my friend,” St. Cyr said, “you know it’ll turn out to be a transistor radio that some Jap student lost on a trip between Earth and Callisto. And the radio just drifted on out of the solar system entirely and now the telescope has picked it up and it’s a huge mystery to all the scientists.” He became more sober. “Shut it off, Gert; we’ve got serious things to consider.”

Obediently but reluctantly she did so. “Is it true, Claude,” she asked, rising to her feet, “that the mortuary wasn’t able to revive old Louis? That he’s not in half-life as he’s supposed to be by now?”

“Nobody tells me anything from the organization, now,” St. Cyr answered. “But I did hear a rumor to that effect.” He knew, in fact, that it was so; he had many friends within Wilhelmina, but he did not like to talk about these surviving links. “Yes, I suppose that’s so,” he said.

Gertrude shivered. “Imagine not coming back. How dreadful.”

“But that was the old natural condition,” her husband pointed out as he drank his martini. “Nobody had half-life before the turn of the century.”

“But we’re used to it,” she said stubbornly.

To Phil Harvey, St. Cyr said, “Let’s continue our discussion.”

Shrugging, Harvey said, “All right. If you really feel there’s something to discuss.” He eyed St. Cyr critically. “I could put you on my legal staff, yes. If that’s what you’re sure you want. But I can’t give you the kind of business that Louis could. It wouldn’t be fair to the legal men I have in there now.”

“Oh, I recognize that,” St. Cyr said. After all, Harvey’s drayage firm was small in comparison with the Sarapis outfits; Harvey was in fact a minor figure in the 3-4 shipping business.

But that was precisely what St. Cyr wanted. Because he believed that within a year with the experience and contacts he had gained working for Louis Sarapis he could depose Harvey and take over Elektra Enterprises.

Harvey’s first wife had been named Elektra. St. Cyr had known her, and after she and Harvey had split up St. Cyr had continued to see her, now in a more personal—and more spirited—way. It had always seemed to him that Elektra Harvey had obtained a rather bad deal; Harvey had employed legal talent of sufficient caliber to outwit Elektra’s attorney…who had been, as a matter of fact, St. Cyr’s junior law partner, Harold Faine. Ever since her defeat in the courts, St. Cyr had blamed himself; why hadn’t he taken the case personally? But he had been so tied up with Sarapis business…it had simply not been possible.

Now, with Sarapis gone and his job with Atlas, Wilhelmina and Archimedean over, he could take some time to rectify the imbalance; he could come to the aid of the woman (he admitted it) whom he loved.

But that was a long step from this situation; first he had to get into Harvey’s legal staff—at any cost. Evidently, he was succeeding.

“Shall we shake on it, then?” he asked Harvey, holding out his hand.

“Okay,” Harvey said, not very much stirred by the event. He held out his hand, however, and they shook. “By the way,” he said, then, “I have some knowledge—fragmentary but evidently accurate—as to why Sarapis cut you off in his will. And it isn’t what you said at all.”

“Oh?” St. Cyr said, trying to sound casual.

“My understanding is that he suspected someone, possibly you, of desiring to prevent him from returning to half-life. That you were going to select a particular mortuary which certain contacts of yours operate…and they’d somehow fail to revive the old man.” He eyed St. Cyr. “And oddly, that seems to be exactly what has happened.”

There was silence.

Gertrude said, at last, “Why would Claude not want Louis Sarapis to be resurrected?”

“I have no idea,” Harvey said. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t even fully understand half-life itself. Isn’t it true that the half-lifer often finds himself in possession of a sort of insight, of a new frame of reference, a perspective, that he lacked while alive?”

“I’ve heard psychologists say that,” Gertrude agreed. “It’s what the old theologists called conversion.”

“Maybe Claude was afraid of some insight that Louis might show up with,” Harvey said. “But that’s just conjecture.”

“Conjecture,” Claude St. Cyr agreed, “in its entirety, including that as to any such plan as you describe; in actual fact I know absolutely no one in the mortuary business.” His voice was steady, too; he made it come out that way. But this all was very sticky, he said to himself. Quite awkward.

The maid appeared, then, to tell them that dinner was ready. Both Phil and Gertrude rose, and Claude joined them as they entered the dining room together.

“Tell me,” Phil Harvey said to Claude. “Who is Sarapis’ heir?”

St. Cyr said, “A granddaughter who lives on Callisto; her name is Kathy Egmont and she’s an odd one…she’s about twenty years old and already she’s been in jail five times, mostly for narcotics addiction. Lately, I understand, she’s managed to cure herself of the drug habit and now she’s a religious convert of some kind. I’ve never met her but I’ve handled volumes of correspondence passing between her and old Louis.”

“And she gets the entire estate, when it’s out of probate? With all the political power inherent in it?”

“Haw,” St. Cyr said. “Political power can’t be willed, can’t be passed on. All Kathy gets is the economic syndrome. It functions, as you know, through the parent holding company licensed under the laws of the state of Delaware, Wilhelmina Securities, and that’s hers, if she cares to make use of it—if she can understand what it is she’s inheriting.”

Phil Harvey said, “You don’t sound very optimistic.”

“All the correspondence from her indicates—to me at least—that she’s a sick, criminal type, very eccentric and unstable. The very last sort I’d like to see inherit Louis’ holdings.”

On that note, they seated themselves at the dinner table.

In the night, Johnny Barefoot heard the phone, drew himself to a sitting position and fumbled until his hands touched the receiver. Beside him in the bed Sarah Belle stirred as he said gratingly, “Hello. Who the hell is it?”

A fragile female voice said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Barefoot…I didn’t mean to wake you up. But I was told by my attorney to call you as soon as I arrived on Earth.” She added, “This is Kathy Egmont, although actually my real name is Mrs. Kathy Sharp. Do you know who I am?”

“Yes,” Johnny said, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He shivered from the cold of the room; beside him, Sarah Belle drew the covers back up over her shoulders and turned the other way. “Want me to come and pick you up? Do you have a place to stay?”

“I have no friends here on Terra,” Kathy said. “But the spaceport people told me that the Beverely is a good hotel, so I’m going there. I started from Callisto as soon as I heard that my grandfather had died.”

“You made good time,” he said. He hadn’t expected her for another twenty-four hours.

“Is there any chance—” The girl sounded timid. “Could I possibly stay with you, Mr. Barefoot? It scares me, the idea of a big hotel where no one knows me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said at once. “I’m married.” And then he realized that such a retort was not only inappropriate…it was actually abusive. “What I mean is,” he explained, “I have no spare room. You stay at the Beverely tonight and tomorrow we’ll find you a more acceptable apartment.”

“All right,” Kathy said. She sounded resigned but still anxious. “Tell me, Mr. Barefoot, what luck have you had with my grandfather’s resurrection? Is he in half-life, now?”

“No,” Johnny said. “It’s failed, so far. They’re working on it.” When he had left the mortuary, five technicians had been busy at work, trying to discover what was wrong. Kathy said, “I thought it might work out that way.” “Why?”

“Well, my grandfather—he was so different from everyone else. I realize you know that, perhaps even better than I…after all, you were with him daily. But—I just couldn’t imagine, him inert, the way the half-lifers are. Passive and helpless, you know. Can you imagine him like that, after all he’s done?”

Johnny said, “Let’s talk tomorrow; I’ll come by the hotel about nine. Okay?”

“Yes, that’s fine. I’m glad to have met you, Mr. Barefoot. I hope you’ll stay on with Archimedean, working for me. Goodbye.” The phone clicked; she had rung off.

My new boss, Johnny said to himself. Wow.

“Who was that?” Sarah Belle murmured. “At this hour?”

“The owner of Archimedean,” Johnny said. “My employer.”

“Louis Sarapis?” His wife sat up at once. “Oh…you mean his granddaughter; she’s here already. What’s she sound like?”

“I can’t tell,” he said meditatively. “Frightened, mostly. It’s a finite, small world she comes from, compared with Terra, here.” He did not tell his wife the things he knew about Kathy, her drug addiction, her terms in jail.

“Can she take over now?” Sarah Belle asked. “Doesn’t she have to wait until Louis’ half-life is over?”

“Legally, he’s dead. His will has come into force.” And, he thought acidly, he’s not in half-life anyhow; he’s silent and dead in his plastic casket, in his quick-pack, which evidently wasn’t quite quick enough.

“How do you think you’ll get along with her?”

“I don’t know,” he said candidly. “I’m not even sure I’m going to try.” He did not like the idea of working for a woman, especially one younger than himself. And one who was—at least according to hearsay—virtually psychopathic. But on the phone she had certainly not sounded psychopathic. He mulled that over in his mind, wide-awake, now.

“She’s probably very pretty,” Sarah Belle said. “You’ll probably fall in love with her and desert me.”

“Oh no,” he said. “Nothing as startling as that. I’ll probably try to work for her, drag out a few miserable months, and then give up and look elsewhere.” And meanwhile, he thought, WHAT ABOUT LOUIS? Are we, or are we not, going to be able to revive him? That was the really big unknown.

If the old man could be revived, he could direct his granddaughter; even though legally and physically dead, he could continue to manage his complex economic and political sphere, to some extent. But right now this was simply not working out, and the old man had planned on being revived at once, certainly before the Democratic-Republican Convention. Louis certainly knew—or rather had known—what sort of person he was willing his holdings to. Without help she surely could not function. And, Johnny thought, there’s little I can do for her. Claude St. Cyr could have, but by the terms of the will he’s out of the picture entirely. So what is left? We must keep trying to revive old Louis, even if we have to visit every mortuary in the United States, Cuba and Russia.

“You’re thinking confused thoughts,” Sarah Belle said. “I can tell by your expression.” She turned on the small lamp by the bed, and was now reaching for her robe. “Don’t try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.”

This must be how half-life feels, he thought groggily. He shook his head, trying to clear it, to wake up fully.

The next morning he parked his car in the underground garage of the Beverely and ascended by elevator to the lobby and the front desk where he was greeted by the smiling day clerk. It was not much of a hotel, Johnny decided. Clean, however; a respectable family hotel which probably rented many of its units by the month, some no doubt to elderly retired people. Evidently Kathy was accustomed to living modestly.

In answer to his query, the cleric pointed to the adjoining coffee shop. “You’ll find her in there, eating breakfast. She said you might be calling, Mr. Barefoot.”

In the coffee shop he found a good number of people having breakfast; he stopped short, wondering which was Kathy. The dark-haired girl with the stilted, frozen features, over in the far comer out of the way? He walked toward her. Her hair, he decided, was dyed. Without makeup she looked unnaturally pale; her skin had a stark quality, as if she had known a good deal of suffering, and not the sort that taught or informed one, made one into a “better” person. It had been pure pain, with no redemptive aspects, he decided as he studied her.

“Kathy?” he asked.

The girl turned her head. Her eyes, empty; her expression totally flattened. In a little voice she said, “Yes. Are you John Barefoot?” As he came up to the booth and seated himself opposite her she watched as if she imagined he would spring at her, hurl himself on her and—god forbid—sexually assault her. It’s as if she's nothing more than a lone, small animal, he thought. Backed into a comer to face the entire world.

The color, or rather lack of it, could stem from the drug addiction, he decided. But that did not explain the flatness of her tone, and her utter lack of facial expression. And yet—she was pretty. She had delicate, regular features…animated, they would have been interesting. And perhaps they had been, once. Years ago.

“I have only five dollars left,” Kathy said. “After I paid for my one-way ticket and my hotel and my breakfast. Could you—” She hesitated. “I’m not sure exactly what to do. Could you tell me…do I own anything yet? Anything that was my grandfather’s? That I could borrow against?”

Johnny said, “I’ll write you a personal check for one hundred dollars and you can pay me back sometime.” He got out his checkbook.

“Really?” She looked stunned, and now, faintly, she smiled. “How trusting of you. Or are you trying to impress me? You were my grandfather’s public relations man, weren’t you? How were you dealt with in the will? I can’t remember; it’s all happened so fast, it’s been so blurred.”

“Well,” he said, “I wasn’t fired, as was Claude St. Cyr.”

“Then you’re staying on.” That seemed to relieve her mind. “I wonder…would it be correct to say you’re now working for me?”

“You could say that,” Johnny said. “Assuming you feel you need a P.R. man. Maybe you don’t. Louis wasn’t sure, half the time.”

“Tell me what efforts have been made to resurrect him.”

He explained to her, briefly, what he had done.

“And this is not generally known?” she asked.

“Definitely not. I know it, a mortuary owner with the unnatural name of Herb Schoenheit von Vogelsang knows it, and possibly news has trickled to a few high people in the drayage business, such as Phil Harvey. Even Claude St. Cyr may know it, by now. Of course, as time goes on and Louis has nothing to say, no political pronouncements for the press—”

“We’ll have to make them up;” Kathy said. “And pretend they’re from him. That will be your job, Mr. Funnyfoot.” She smiled once more. “Press-releases by my grandfather, until he’s finally revived or we give up. Do you think we’ll have to give up?” After a pause she said softly, “I’d like to see him. If I may. If you think it’s all right.”

“I’ll take you there, to the Blessed Brethren Mortuary. I have to go there within the hour anyhow.”

Nodding, Kathy resumed eating her breakfast.

As Johnny Barefoot stood beside the girl, who gazed intently at the transparent casket, he thought bizarrely, Maybe she’ll rap on the glass and say, “Grandfather, you wake up.” And, he thought, maybe that will accomplish it. Certainly nothing else has.

Wringing his hands, Herb Schoenheit von Vogelsang burbled miserably, “I just don’t understand it, Mr. Barefoot. We worked all night, in relays, and we just aren’t getting a single spark. And yet we ran an electrocephalograph and the ’gram shows faint but unmistakable cerebral activity. So the afterlife is there, but we can’t seem to contact it. We’ve got probes at every part of the skull, now, as you can see.” He pointed to the maze of hair-wires connecting the dead man’s head to the amplifying equipment surrounding the casket. “I don’t know what else we can do, sir.”

“Is there measurable brain metabolism?” Johnny asked.

“Yes sir. We called in outside experts and they detected it; it’s a normal amount, too, just what you’d expect, immediately after death.”

Kathy said calmly, “I know it’s hopeless. He’s too big a man for this. This is for aged relatives. For grandmothers, to be trotted out once a year on Resurrection Day.” She turned away from the casket. “Let’s go,” she said to Johnny.

Together, he and the girl walked along die sidewalk from the mortuary, neither speaking. It was a mild spring day, and the trees here and there at the curb had small pink flowers. Cherry trees, Johnny decided.

“Death,” Kathy murmured, at last. “And rebirth. A technological miracle. Maybe when Louis saw what it was like on the other side he changed his mind about coming back…maybe he just doesn’t want to return.”

“Well,” Johnny said, “the electrical spark is there; he’s inside there, thinking something.” He let Kathy take his arm as they crossed the street. “Someone told me,” he said quietly, “that you’re interested in religion.”

“Yes, I am,” Kathy said quietly. “You see, when I was a narcotics addict I took an overdose—never mind of what—and as a result my heart action ceased. I was officially, medically, dead for several minutes; they brought me back by open-chest heart massage and electroshock…you know. During that time I had an experience, probably much like what those who go into half-life have experienced.”

“Was it better than here?”

“No,” she said. “But it was different. It was—dreamlike.

I don’t mean vague or unreal. I mean the logic, the weightlessness; you see, that’s the main difference. You’re free of gravity. It’s hard to realize how important that is, but just think how many of the characteristics of the dream derive from that one fact.”

Johnny said, “And it changed you.”

“I managed to overcome the oral addictive aspects of my personality, if that’s what you mean. I learned to control my appetites. My greed.” At a newspaper stand Kathy halted to read the headlines. “Look,” she said.

VOICE FROM OUTER SPACE RAFFLES SCIENTISTS

“Interesting,” Johnny said.

Kathy, picking up the newspaper, read the article which accompanied the headline. “How strange,” she said. “They’ve picked up a sentient, living entity…here, you can read it, too.” She passed the newspaper to him. “I did that, when I died…I drifted out, free of the solar system, first planetary gravity and then the sun’s. I wonder who it is.” Taking the newspaper back she reread the article.

“Ten cents, sir or madam,” the robot vender said, suddenly.

Johnny tossed it the dime.

“Do you think it’s my grandfather?” Kathy asked.

“Hardly,” Johnny said.

“I think it is,” Kathy said, staring past him, deep in thought. “I know it is; look, it began one week after his death, and it’s one light-week out. The time fits, and here’s the transcript of what it’s saying.” She pointed to the column. “All about you, Johnny, and about me and about Claude St. Cyr, that lawyer he fired, and the Convention; it’s all there, but garbled. That’s the way your thoughts run, when you’re dead; all compressed, instead of in sequence.” She smiled up at Johnny. “So we’ve got a terrible problem. We can hear him, by use of the radio telescope at Kennedy Slough. But he can’t hear us.”

“You don’t actually—”

“Oh, I do,” she said matter-of-factly. “I knew he wouldn’t settle for half-life; this is a whole, entire life he’s leading now, out in space, there, beyond the last planet of our system. And there isn’t going to be any way we can interfere with him; whatever it is he’s doing—” She began to walk on, once more; Johnny followed. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be at least as much as he did when he was alive here on Terra. You can be sure of that. Are you afraid?”

“Hell,” Johnny protested, “I’m not even convinced, let alone afraid.” And yet—perhaps she was right. She seemed so certain about it. He could not help being a little impressed, a little convinced.

“You should be afraid,” Kathy said. “He may be very strong, out there. He may be able to do a lot. Affect a lot…affect us, what we do and say and believe. Even without the radio telescope—he may be reaching us, even now. Subliminally.”

“I don’t believe it,” Johnny said. But he did, in spite of himself. She was right; it was just what Louis Sarapis would do.

Kathy said, “We’ll know more when the Convention begins, because that’s what he cares about. He failed to get Gam elected last time, and that was one of the few times in his life that he was beaten.”

“Garni” Johnny echoed, amazed. “That has-been? Is he even still in existence? Why, he completely disappeared, four years ago—”

“My grandfather won’t give up with him,” Kathy said meditatively. “And he is alive; he’s a turkey farmer or some such thing, on Io. Perhaps it’s ducks. Anyhow, he’s there. Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

Kathy said, “For my grandfather to contact him again. As he did before, four years ago, at the Convention then.”

“No one would vote for Gam again!” Repelled, he gazed at her.

Smiling, Kathy said nothing. But she squeezed his arm, hugging him. As if, he thought, she were afraid again, as she had been in the night, when he had talked to her. Perhaps even more so.

III

The handsome, dapper, middle-aged man wearing vest and narrow, old-fashioned necktie, rose to his feet as Claude St.

Cyr entered the outer office of St. Cyr and Faine, on his way to court. “Mr. St. Cyr—”

Glancing at him, St. Cyr murmured, “I’m in a rush; you’ll have to make an appointment with my secretary.” And then he recognized the man. He was talking to Alfonse Gam.

“I have a telegram,” Gam said. “From Louis Sarapis.” He reached into his coat pocket.

“Sorry,” St. Cyr said stiffly. “I’m associated with Mr. Phil Harvey now; my business relationship with Mr. Sarapis was terminated several weeks ago.” But he paused, curious. He had met Gam before; at the time of the national campaign, four years ago, he had seen a good deal of the man—in fact, he had represented Gam in several libel suits, one with Gam as the plaintiff, the other as defendant. He did not like the man.

Gam said, “This wire arrived the day before yesterday.”

“But Sarapis has been—” Claude St. Cyr broke off. “Let me see it.” He held out his hand, and Gam passed him the wire.

It was a statement from Louis Sarapis to Gam, assuring Gam of Louis’ utter and absolute support in the forthcoming struggle at the Convention. And Gam was correct; the wire was dated only three days before. It did not make sense.

“J can’t explain it, Mr. St. Cyr,” Gam said dryly. “But it sounds like Louis. He wants me to run again. As you can see. It never occurred to me; as far as I’m concerned I’m out of politics and in the guinea-fowl business. I thought you might know something about this, who sent it and why.” He added, “Assuming that old Louis didn’t.”

St. Cyr said, “How could Louis have sent it?”

“I mean, written it before his death and had someone send it just the other day. Yourself, perhaps.” Gam shrugged. “Evidently it wasn’t you. Perhaps Mr. Barefoot, then.” He reached out for his wire.

“Do you actually intend to run again?” St. Cyr asked.

“If Louis wants me to.”

“And lose again? Drag the party to defeat again, just because one stubborn, vindictive old man—” St. Cyr broke off. “Go back to raising guinea fowl. Forget politics. You’re a loser, Gam. Everyone in the party knows it. Everyone in America, in fact.”

“How can I contact Mr. Barefoot?”

St. Cyr said, “I have no idea.” He started on.

“I’ll need legal help,” Gam said.

“For what? Who’s suing you now? You don’t need legal help, Mr. Gam; you need medical help, a psychiatrist to explain why you want to run again. Listen—” He leaned toward Gam. “If Louis alive couldn’t get you into office, Louis dead certainly can’t.” He went on, then, leaving Gam standing there.

“Wait,” Gam said.

Reluctantly, Claude St. Cyr turned around.

“This time I’m going to win,” Gam said. He sounded as if he meant it; his voice, instead of its usual reedy flutter, was firm.

Uneasy, St. Cyr said, “Well, good luck. To both you and Louis.”

“Then he is alive.” Gam’s eyes flickered.

“I didn’t say that; I was being ironic.”

Gam said thoughtfully, “But he is alive; I’m sure of it. I’d like to find him. I went to some of the mortuaries, but none of them had him, or if they did they wouldn’t admit it. I’ll keep looking; I want to confer with him.” He added, “That’s why I came here from Io.”

At that point, St. Cyr managed to break away and depart. What a nonentity, he said to himself. A cypher, nothing but a puppet of Louis’. He shuddered. God protect us from such a fate-, that man as our President.

Imagine us all becoming like Gam!

It was not a pleasant thought; it did not inspire him for the day ahead. And he had a good deal of work on his shoulders.

This was the day that he, as attorney for Phil Harvey, would make Mrs. Kathy Sharp—the former Kathy Egmont—an offer for Wilhelmina Securities. An exchange of stock would be involved; voting stock, redistributed in such a fashion that Harvey gained control of Wilhelmina. The worth of the corporation being almost impossible to calculate, Harvey was offering not money but real estate in exchange; he had enormous tracts of land on Ganymede, deeded to him by the Soviet Government a decade ago in exchange for technical assistance he had rendered it and its colonies.

The chance of Kathy accepting was nil.

And yet, the offer had to be made. The next step—he shrank from even thinking about it—involved a fracas to the death in the area of direct economic competition, between Harvey’s drayage firm and hers. And hers, he knew, were now in a state of decay; there had beep union trouble since the old man’s death. The thing that Louis hated the most had started to take place: union organizers had begun to move in on Archimedean.

He himself sympathized with the unions; it was about time they came onto the scene. Only the old man’s dirty tactics and his boundless energy, not to speak of his ruthless, eternal imagination, had kept them out. Kathy had none of these. And Johnny Barefoot—

What can you ask of a noncol? St. Cyr asked himself caustically. Brilliant strategy-purse out of the sow’s ear of mediocrity?

And Barefoot had his hands full building up Kathy’s image before the public; he had barely begun to succeed in that when the union squabbles broke out. An ex-narcotics addict and religious nut, a woman who had a criminal record…Johnny had his work cut out for him.

Where he had been productive lay in the area of the woman’s physical appearance. She looked sweet, even gentle and pure; almost saintly. And Johnny had seized on this. Instead of quoting her in the press he had photographed her, a thousand wholesome poses: with dogs, children, at county fairs, at hospitals, involved in charity drives—the whole business.

But unfortunately Kathy had spoiled the image he had created, spoiled it in a rather unusual way.

Kathy maintained—simply—that she was in communication with her grandfather. That it was he who lay a light-week out in space, picked up by Kennedy Slough. She heard him, as the rest of the world did…and by some miracle he heard her, too.

St. Cyr, riding the self-service elevator up to the ’copter port on the roof, laughed aloud. Her religious crackery couldn’t be kept from the gossip columnists…Kathy had said too much in public places, in restaurants and small, famous bars. And even with Johnny beside her. Even he couldn’t keep her quiet.

Also, there had been that incident at that party in which she had taken off her clothes, declaring the hour of purification to be momentarily arriving; she had daubed herself in certain spots with crimson nail polish, as well, a sort of ritual ceremony…of course she had been drinking.

And this is the woman, St. Cyr thought, who operates Archimedean.

The woman we must oust, for our good and the public’s. It was, to him, practically a mandate in the name of the people. Virtually a public service to be performed, and the only one who did not see it that way was Johnny.

St. Cyr thought, Johnny LIKES her. There’s the motive.

I wonder, he mused, what Sarah Belle thinks of that.

Feeling cheerful, St. Cyr entered his ’copter, closed the hatch and inserted his key in the ignition. And then he thought once again of Alfonse Gam. And his good humor vanished at once; again he felt glum.

There are two people, he realized, who are acting on the assumption that old Louis Sarapis is alive; Kathy Egmont Sharp and Alfonse Gam.

Two most unsavory people, too. And, in spite of himself, he was being forced to associate with both of them. It seemed to be his fate.

He thought, I’m no better off than I was with old Louis. In some respects, I’m even worse off.

The ‘copter rose into the sky, on its way to Phil Harvey’s building in downtown Denver.

Being late, he snapped on the little transmitter, picked up the microphone and put in a call to Harvey. “Phil,” he said, “can you hear me? This is St. Cyr and I’m on my way west.” He listened, then.

—Listened, and heard from the speaker a far-off weird babble, a murmur as if many words were being blended into a confusion. He recognized it; he had come onto it several times now, on the TV news programs.

. . spite of personal attacks, much superior to Chambers, who couldn’t win an election for house of ill repute janitor. You keep up faith in yourself, Alfonse. People know a good man, value him; you wait. Faith moves mountains. I ought to know, look what I’ve accomplished in my life…”

It was, St. Cyr realized, the entity a light-week out, now emitting an even more powerful signal; like sunspots, it beclouded normal transmission channels. He cursed, scowled, then snapped off the receiver. /

Fouling up communications, he said to himself. Must be against the law; 1 ought to consult the FCC.

Shaken, he piloted his ‘copter on, across open farm land.

My god, he thought, it did sound like old Louis!

Could Kathy Egmont Sharp possibly be right?

At the Michigan plant of Archimedean, Johnny Barefoot appeared for his appointment with Kathy and found her in a state of gloom.

“Don’t you see what’s happening?” she demanded, facing him across the office which had once been Louis’. “I’m not managing things right at all; everybody knows that. Don’t you know that?” Wild-eyed, she stared at him.

“I don’t know that,” Johnny said. But inside he did know it; she was correct. “Take it easy and sit down,” he said. “Harvey and St. Cyr will be here any minute now, and you want to be in command of yourself when you meet with them.” It was a meeting which he had hoped to avoid. But, he had realized, sooner or later it would take place, and so he had let Kathy agree to it.

Kathy said, “I—have something terrible to tell you.”

“What is it? It can’t be so terrible.” He set himself, waiting in dread to hear.

“I’m back on drugs, Johnny. All this responsibility and pressure; it’s too much for me. I’m sorry.” She gazed down at the floor sadly.

“What is the drug?”

“I’d rather not say. It’s one of the amphetamines. I’ve read the literature; I know it can cause a psychosis, in the amounts I’m taking. But I don’t care.” Panting, she turned away, her back to him. He saw, now, how thin she had gotten. And her face was gaunt, hollow-eyed; he now understood why. The overdosage of amphetamines wasted the body away, turned matter into energy. Her metabolism was altered so that she became, as the addiction returned, a pseudo-hyperthyroid, with all the somatic processes speeded up-

Johnny said, “I’m sorry to hear it.” He had been afraid of this. And yet when it had come he had not understood; he had had to wait until she told him. “I think,” he said, “you should be under a doctor’s care.” He wondered where she got the drug. But probably for her, with her years of experience, it was not difficult.

“It makes a person very unstable emotionally,” Kathy said. “Given to sudden rages and also crying jags. I want you to know that, so you won’t blame me. So you’ll understand that it’s the drug.” She tried to smile; he saw her making the effort.

Going over to her he put his hand on her shoulder. “Listen,” he said, “when Harvey and St. Cyr get here, I think you better accept their offer.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding. “Well.”

“And then,” he said, “I want you to go voluntarily into a hospital.”

“The cookie factory,” Kathy said bitterly.

“You’d be better off,” he said, “without the responsibility you have, here at Archimedean. What you need is deep, protracted rest. You’re in a state of mental and physical fatigue, but as long as you’re taking that amphetamine—”

“Then it doesn’t catch up with me,” Kathy finished. “Johnny, I can’t sell out to Harvey and St. Cyr.”

“Why not?”

“Louis wouldn’t want me to. He—” She was silent a moment. “He says no.”

Johnny said, “Your health, maybe your life—”

“My sanity, you mean, Johnny.”

“You have too much personally at stake,” he said. “The hell with Louis. The hell with Archimedean; you want to find yourself in a mortuary, too, in half-life? It’s not worth it; it’s just property, and you’re a living creature.”

She smiled. And then, on the desk, a light came on and a buzzer sounded. The receptionist outside said, “Mrs. Sharp, Mr. Harvey and Mr. St. Cyr are here, now. Shall I send them in?”

“Yes,” she answered.

The door opened, and Claude St. Cyr and Phil Harvey came swiftly in. “Hey, Johnny,” St. Cyr said. He seemed to be in a confident mood; beside him, Harvey looked confident, too.

Kathy said, “I’ll let Johnny do most of the talking.”

He glanced at her. Did that mean she had agreed to sell? He said, “What kind of deal is this? What do you have to offer in exchange for a controlling interest in Wilhelmina Securities of Delaware? I can’t imagine what it could be.”

“Ganymede,” St. Cyr said. “An entire moon.” He added, “Virtually.”

“Oh yes,” Johnny said. “The USSR land deed. Has it been tested in the international courts?”

“Yes,” St. Cyr said, “and found totally valid. Its worth is beyond estimate. And each year it will increase, perhaps double, in value. My client will put that up. It’s a good offer, Johnny; you and I know each other, and you know when I say it that it’s true.”

Probably it was, Johnny decided. It was in many respects a generous offer; Harvey was not trying to bilk Kathy.

“Speaking for Mrs. Sharp,” Johnny began. But Kathy cut him off.

“No,” she said in a quick, brisk voice. “I can’t sell. He says not to.”

Johnny said, “You’ve already given me authority to negotiate, Kathy.”

“Well,” she said in a hard voice, “I’m taking it back.”

“If I’m to work with you and for you at all,” Johnny said, “you must go on my advice. We’ve already talked it over and agreed—”

The phone in the office rang.

“Listen to him yourself,” Kathy said. She picked up the phone and held it out to Johnny. “He’ll tell you.”

Johnny accepted the phone and put it to his ear. “Who is this?” he demanded. And then he heard the drumming. The far-off uncanny drumming noise, as if something were scratching at a long metal wire.

“…imperative to retain control. Your advice absurd. She can puff herself together; she’s got the stuff. Panic reaction; you’re scared because she’s ill. A good doctor can fix her up. Get a doctor for her; get medical help. Get an attorney and be sure she stays out of the hands of the law. Make sure her supply of drugs is cut. Insist on…” Johnny yanked the receiver away from his ear, refusing to hear more. Trembling, he hung the phone back up.

“You heard him,” Kathy said. “Didn’t you? That was Louis.”

“Yes,” Johnny said.

“He’s grown,” Kathy said. “Now we can hear him direct; it’s not just the radio telescope at Kennedy Slough. I heard him last night, clearly, for the first time, as I lay down to go to sleep.”

To St. Cyr and Harvey, Johnny said, “We’ll have to think your proposition over, evidently. We’ll have to get an appraisal of the worth of the unimproved real estate you’re offering and no doubt you want an audit of Wilhelmina. That will take time.” He heard his voice shake; he had not gotten over the shock of picking Up the telephone and hearing the living voice of Louis Sarapis.

After making an appointment with St. Cyr and Harvey to meet with them once more later in the day, Johnny took Kathy out to a late breakfast; she had admitted, reluctantly, that she had eaten nothing since the night before.

“I’m just not hungry,” she explained, as she sat picking listlessly at her plate of bacon and eggs, toast with jam.

“Even if that was Louis Sarapis,” Johnny said, “you don’t—”

“It was. Don’t say ’even’; you know it’s him. He’s gaining power all the time, out there. Perhaps from the sun.”

“So it’s Louis,” he said doggedly. “Nonetheless, you have to act in your own interest, not in his.”

“His interests and mine are the same,” Kathy said. “They involve maintaining Archimedean.”

“Can he give you the help you need? Can he supply what’s missing? He doesn’t take your drug-addiction seriously; that’s obvious. All he did was preach at me.” He felt anger. “That’s damn little help, for you or for me, in this situation.”

“Johnny,” she said, “I feel him near me all the time; I don’t need the TV or the phone—I sense him. It’s my mystical bent, I’ think. My religious intuition; it’s helping me maintain contact with him.” She sipped a little orange juice.

Bluntly, Johnny said, “It’s your amphetamine psychosis, you mean.”

“I won’t go into the hospital, Johnny. I won’t sign myself in; I’m sick but not that sick. I can get over this bout on my own, because “I’m not alone. I have my grandfather. And—” She smiled at him. “I have you. In spite of Sarah Belle.”

“You won’t have me, Kathy,” he said quietly, “unless you sell to Harvey. Unless you accept the Ganymede real estate.”

“You’d quit?”

“Yes,” he said.

After a pause, Kathy said, “My grandfather says go ahead and quit.” Her eyes were dark, enlarged, and utterly cold.

“I don’t believe he’d say that.”

“Then talk to him.”

“How?”

Kathy pointed to the TV set in the comer of the restaurant. “Turn it on and listen.”

Rising to his feet, Johnny said, “I don’t have to; I’ve already given my decision. I’ll be at my hotel, if you should change your mind.” He walked away from the table, leaving her sitting there. Would she call after him? He listened as he walked. She did not call.

A moment later he was out of the restaurant, standing on the sidewalk. She had called his bluff, and so it ceased to be a bluff; it became the real thing. He actually had quit.

Stunned, he walked aimlessly on. And yet—he had been right. He knew that. It was just that…damn her, he thought. Why didn’t she give in? Because of Louis, he realized. Without the old man she would have gone ahead and done it, traded her controlling, voting stock for the Ganymede property. Damn Louis Sarapis, not her, he thought furiously.

What now? he asked himself. Go back to New York? Look for a new job? For instance approach Alfonse Gam? There was money in that, if he could land it. Or should he stay here in Michigan, hoping that Kathy would change her mind?

She can’t keep on, he decided. No matter what Sarapis tells her. Or rather, what she believes he’s telling her. Whichever it is.

Hailing a cab, he gave the driver the address of his hotel room. A few moments later he was entering the lobby of the Antler Hotel, back where he had started early in the morning. Back to the forbidding empty room, this time merely to sit and wait. To hope that Kathy-would change her mind and call him. This time he had no appointment to go to; the appointment was over.

When he reached his hotel room he heard his phone ringing.

For a moment Johnny stood at the door, key in hand, listening to the phone on the other side of the door, the shrill noise reaching him as he stood in the hall. Is it Kathy? he wondered. Or is it him?

He put the key in the lock, turned it and entered the room; sweeping the receiver off its hook he said, “Hello.”

Drumming and far-off, the voice, in the middle of its monotonous monologue, its recitation to itself, was murmuring, . no good at all, Barefoot, to leave her. Betrayal of your job; thought you understood your responsibilities. Same to her as it was to me, and you never would have walked off in a fit of pique and left me. I deliberately left the disposition of my body to you so you’d stay on. You can’t…

At that point Johnny hung up, chilled.

The phone rang again, at once.

This time he did not take it off the hook. The hell with you, he said to himself. He walked to the window and stood looking down at the street below, thinking to himself of the conversation he had held with old Louis years ago, the one that had made such an impression in his mind. The conversation in which it had come out that he had failed to. go to college because he wanted to die. Looking down at the street below, he thought, Maybe I ought to jump. At least there’d be no more phones…no more of it.

The worst part, he thought, is its senility. Its thoughts are not clear, not distinct; they’re dreamlike, irrational. The old man is not genuinely alive. He is not even in half-life. This is a dwindling away of consciousness toward a nocturnal state. And we are forced to listen to it as it unwinds, as it devolves step by step, to final, total death.

But even in this degenerative state, it had desires. It wanted, and strongly. It wanted him to do something; it wanted Kathy to do something; the remnants of Louis Sara-pis were vital and active, and clever enough to find ways of pursuing him, of getting what was wanted. It was a travesty of Louis’ wishes during his lifetime, and yet it could not be ignored; it could not be escaped.

The phone continued to ring.

Maybe it isn’t Louis, he thought then. Maybe it’s Kathy. Going to it he lifted the receiver. And put it back down at once. The drumming once more, the fragments of Louis Sarapis’ personality…he shuddered. And is it just here, is it selective?

He had a terrible feeling that it was not selective.

Going to the TV set at the far end of the room he snapped the switch. The screen grew into lighted animation, and yet, he saw, it was strangely blurred. The dim outlines of—it seemed to be a face.

And everyone, he realized, is seeing this. He turned to another channel. Again the dully-formed features, the old man half-materialized here on the television screen. And from the set’s speaker the murmur of indistinct words.

. . told you time and again your primary responsibility is to…Johnny shut the set off; the ill-formed face and words sank out of existence, and all that remained, once more, was the ringing phone.

He picked up the phone and said, “Louis, can you hear me?”

. . when election time comes they’ll see. A man with the spirit to campaign a second time, take the financial responsibility, after all it’s only for wealthy men, now, the cost of running…” The voice droned on. No, the old man could not hear him. It was not a conversation; it was a monologue. It was not authentic communication.

And yet the old man knew what was occurring on Earth; he seemed to understand, to somehow see, that Johnny had quit his job.

Hanging up the phone he seated himself and lit a cigarette.

I can’t go back to Kathy, he realized, unless I’m willing to change my mind and advise her not to sell. And that’s impossible; I can’t do that. So that’s out. What is there left for me?

How long can Sarapis hound me? Is there any place I can go?

Going to the window once more he stood looking down at the street below.

At a newsstand, Claude St. Cyr tossed down coins, picked up the newspaper.

“Thank you, sir or madam,” the robot vender said.

The lead article…St. Cyr blinked and wondered if he had lost his mind. He could not grasp what he was reading—or rather unable to read. It made no sense; the homeostatic news-printing system, the fully automated micro-relay newspaper, had evidently broken down. All he found was a procession of words, randomly strung together. It was worse than Finnegans Wake.

Or was it random? One paragraph caught his eye.

At the hotel window now ready to leap. If you expect to conduct any more business with her you better get over there. She’s dependent on him, needs a man since her husband, that Paul Sharp, abandoned her. The Antler Hotel, room 604. I think you have time. Johnny is too hotheaded; shouldn’t have tried to bluff her. With my blood you can’t be bluffed and she’s got my blood.

St. Cyr said rapidly to Harvey, who stood beside him, “Johnny Barefoot’s in a room at the Antler Hotel about to jump, and this is old Sarapis telling us, warning us. We better get over there.”

Glancing at him, Harvey said, “Barefoot’s on our side; we can’t afford to have him take his life. But why would Sarapis—”

“Let’s just get over there,” St. Cyr said, starting toward his parked ’copter. Harvey followed on the run.

IV

All at once the telephone stopped ringing. Johnny turned from the window—and saw Kathy Sharp standing by it, the receiver in her hand. “He called me,” she said. “And he told me, Johnny, where you were and what you were going to do.”

“Nuts,” he said, “I’m not going to do anything.” He moved back from the window.

“He thought you were,” Kathy said.

“Yes, and that proves he can be wrong.” His cigarette, he saw, had burned down to the filter; he dropped it into the ashtray on the dresser and stubbed it out.

“My grandfather was always fond of you,” Kathy said. “He wouldn’t like anything to happen to you.”

Shrugging, Johnny said, “As far as I’m concerned I have nothing to do with Louis Sarapis any more.”

Kathy had put the receiver to her ear; she paid no attention to Johnny—she was listening to her grandfather, he saw, and so he ceased talking. It was futile,

“He says,” Kathy said, “that Claude St. Cyr and Phil Harvey are on their way up here. He told them to come, too.”

“Nice of him,” he said shortly.

Kathy said, “I’m fond of you, too, Johnny. I can see what my grandfather found about you to like and admire. You genuinely take my welfare seriously, don’t you? Maybe I could go into the hospital voluntarily, for a short period anyhow, a week or a few days.”

“Would that be enough?” he asked.

“It might.” She held the phone out to him. “He wants to talk to you. I think you’d better listen; he’ll find a way to reach you, in any case. And you know that.”

Reluctantly, Johnny accepted the phone.

“…trouble is you’re out of a job and that depresses you. If you’re not working you feel you don’t amount to anything; that’s the kind of person you are. I like that. The same way myself. Listen, I’ve got a job for you. At the Convention. Doing publicity to make sure Alfonse Gam is nominated; you’d do a swell job. Call Gam. Call Alfonse Gam. Johnny, call Gam. Call—”

Johnny hung up the phone.

“I’ve got a job,” he told Kathy. “Representing Gam. At least Louis says so.”

“Would you do that?” Kathy asked. “Be his P.R. man at the nominating convention?”

He shrugged. Why not? Gam had the money; he could and would pay well. And certainly he was no worse than the President, Kent Margrave. And—I must get a job, Johnny realized. 1 have to live. I’ve got a wife and two children; this is no joke.

“Do you think Gam has a chance this time?” Kathy asked. “No, not really. But miracles in politics do happen; look at Richard Nixon’s incredible comeback in 1968.”

“What is the best route for Gam to follow?”

He eyed her. “I’ll talk that over with him. Not with you.”

“You’re still angry,” Kathy said quietly. “Because I won’t sell. Listen, Johnny. Suppose I turned Archimedean over to you.”

After a moment he said, “What does Louis say to that?”

“I haven’t asked him.”

“You know he’d say no. I’m too inexperienced. I know the operation, of course; I’ve been with it from the start. But—”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Kathy said softly.

“Please,” Johnny said. “Don’t lecture me. Let’s try to stay friends; cool, distant friends.” And if there’s one thing 1 can’t stand, he said to himself, it’s being lectured by a woman. And for my own good.

The door of the room burst open. Claude St. Cyr and Phil Harvey leaped inside, then saw Kathy, saw him with her, and sagged. “So he got you to come here, too,” St. Cyr said to her, panting for breath.

“Yes,” she said. “He was very concerned about Johnny.” She patted him on the arm. “See how many friends you have? Both warm and cool?”

“Yes,” he said. But for some reason felt deeply, miserably sad.

That afternoon Claude St. Cyr found time to drop by the house of Elektra Harvey, his present employer’s ex-wife.

“Listen, doll,” St. Cyr said, “I’m trying to do good for you in this present deal. If I’m successful—” He put his arms around her and gave her a bear hug. “You’ll recover a little of what you lost. Not all, but enough to make you a trifle happier about life in general.” He kissed her and, as usual, she responded; she squirmed effectively, drew him down to her, pressed close in a manner almost uncannily satisfying. It was very pleasant, and in addition it lasted a long time. And that was not usual.

Stirring, moving away from him finally, Elektra said, “By the way, can you tell me what ails the phone and the TV? I can’t call—there always seems to be someone on the line. And the picture on the TV screen; it’s all fuzzy and distorted, and it’s always the same, just a sort of face.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Claude said. “We’re working on that right now; we’ve got a crew of men out scouting.” His men were going from mortuary to mortuary; eventually they’d find Louis’ body. And then this nonsense would come to an end…to everyone’s relief.

Going to the sideboard to fix drinks, Elektra Harvey said, “Does Phil know about us?” She measured out bitters into the whiskey glasses, three drops to each.

“No,” St. Cyr said, “and it’s none of his business anyhow.”

“But Phil has a’ strong prejudice about ex-wives. He wouldn’t like it. He’d get ideas about you being disloyal; since he dislikes me, you’re supposed to, too. That’s what Phil calls ‘integrity/”

“I’m glad to know that,” St. Cyr said, “but there’s damn little I can do about it. Anyhow, he isn’t going to find out.”

“I can’t help being worried, though,” Elektra said, bringing him his drink. “I was tuning the TV, you see, and—I know this sounds crazy, but it actually seemed to me—” She broke off. “Well, I actually thought I heard the TV announcer mention us. But he was sort of mumbling, or the reception was bad. But anyhow I did hear that, your name and mine.” She looked soberly up at him, while absent-mindedly rearranging the strap of her dress.

Chilled, he said, “Dear, it’s ridiculous.” Going over to the TV set he clicked it on.

Good lord, he thought. Is Louis Sarapis everywhere? Does he see everything we do from that locus of his out there in deep space?

It was not exactly a comforting thought, especially since he was trying to involve Louis’ granddaughter in a business deal which the old man disapproved of.

He’s getting back at me, St. Cyr realized as he reflexively tuned the television set with numbed fingers.

Alfonse Gam said, “As a matter of fact, Mr. Barefoot, I intended to call you. I have a wire from Mr. Sarapis advising me to employ you. I do think, however, we’ll have to come up with something entirely new. Margrave has a considerable advantage over us.” —^

“True,” Johnny admitted. “But let’s be realistic; we’re going to get help this time. Help from Louis Sarapis.”

“Louis helped last time,” Cam pointed out, “and it wasn’t sufficient.”

“But his help now will be on a different order.” After all, Johnny thought, the old man controls all the communication media, the newspapers, radio and TV, even the telephones, god forbid. With such power Louis could do almost anything he chose.

He hardly needs me, he thought caustically. But he did not say that to Alfonse Gam; apparently Gam did not understand about Louis and what Louis could do. And after all, a job was a job.

“Have you turned on a TV set lately?” Gam asked. “Or tried to use the phone, or even bought a newspaper? There’s nothing but a sort of decaying gibberish coming out. If that’s Louis, he’s not going to be much help at the Convention. He’s—disjointed. Just rambles.”

“I know,” Johnny said guardedly.

“I’m afraid whatever scheme Louis had for his half-life period has gone wrong,” Gam said. He looked morose; he did not look like a man who expected to win an election. “Your admiration for Louis is certainly greater than mine, at this stage,” Gam said. “Frankly, Mr. Barefoot, I had a long talk with Mr. St. Cyr, and his concepts were totally discouraging. I’m determined to press on, but frankly—” He gestured. “Claude St. Cyr told me to my face I’m a loser.”

“You’re going to believe St. Cyr? He’s on the other side, now, with Phil Harvey.” Johnny was astonished to find the man so naive, so pliable.

“I told him I was going to win,” Gam murmured. “But honest to god, this drivel from every TV set and phone—it’s awful. It discourages me; I want to get as far away from it as possible.”

Presently Johnny said, “I understand.”

“Louis didn’t use to be like that,” Gam said plaintively. “He just drones on, now. Even if he can swing the nomination to me…do I want it? I’m tired, Mr. Barefoot. Very tired.” He was silent, then.

“If you’re asking me to give you pep,” Johnny said, “you’ve got the wrong man.” The voice from the phone and the TV affected him much the same way. Much too much for him to say anything encouraging to Gam.

“You’re in P.R.,” Gam said. “Can’t you generate enthusiasm where there is none? Convince me, Barefoot, and then I’ll convince the world.” From his pocket he brought a folded-up telegram. “This is what came from Louis, the other day. Evidently he can interfere with the telegraph lines as well as the other media.” He passed it over and Johnny read it.

“Louis was more coherent then,” Johnny said. “When he wrote this.”

“That’s what I meant He’s deteriorating rapidly. When the Convention begins—and it’s only one more day, now—what’ll he be like? I sense something dreadful, here. And I don’t care to get mixed up in it.” He added, “And yet I want to run. So Barefoot—you deal with Louis for me; you can be the go-between.” He added. “The psychopomp.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The go-between God and man,” Gam said.

Johnny said, “If you use words like that you won’t get the nomination; I can promise you that.”

Smiling wryly, Gam said, “How about a drink?” He started from his living room, toward the kitchen. “Scotch? Bourbon?”

“Bourbon,” Johnny said.

“What do you think of the girl, Louis’ granddaughter?”

“I like her,” he said. And that was true; he certainly did. “Even though she’s a psychotic, a drug addict, been in jail and on top of that a religious nut?” ‘

“Yes,” Johnny said tightly.

“I think you’re crazy,” Gam said, returning with the drinks. “But I agree with you. She’s a good person. I’ve known her for some time, as a matter of fact. Frankly, I don’t know why she took the bent that she has. I’m not a psychologist…probably though it has something to do with Louis. She has a peculiar sort of devotion to him, a kind of loyalty that’s both infantile and fanatic. And, to me, touchingly sweet.”

Sipping his drink, Johnny said, “This is terrible bourbon.”

“Old Sir Muskrat,” Gam said, grimacing. “I agree.”

“You better serve a better drink,” Johnny said, “or you really are through in politics.”

“That’s why I need you,” Gam said. “You see?”

“I see,” Johnny said, carrying his drink into the kitchen to pour it back in the bottle—and to take a look at the Scotch instead.

“How are you going about getting me elected?” Alfonse Gam asked.

Johnny said, “I—think our best approach, our only approach, is to make use of the sentimentality people feel about Louis’ death. I saw the lines of mourners; it was impressive, Alfonse. Day after day they came. When he was alive, many persons feared him, feared his power. But now they can breathe easier; he’s gone, and the frightening aspects of—”

Gam interrupted. “But Johnny, he’s not gone; that’s the whole point. You know that gibbering thing on the phones and on TV—that’s him!”

“But they don’t know it,” Johnny said. “The public is baffled—just as the first person to pick it up was baffled.

That technician at Kennedy Slough.” Emphatically, he said, “Why should they connect an electrical emanation one light-week away from Earth with Louis Sarapis?”

After a moment Gam said, “I think you’re making an error, Johnny. But Louis said to hire you, and I’m going to. And you have a free hand; I’ll depend on your expertise.”

“Thanks,” Johnny said. “You can depend on me.” But inside, he was not so sure. Maybe the public is smarter than 1 realize, he thought. Maybe I’m making a mistake. But what other approach was there? None that he could dream up; either they made use of Gam’s tie with Louis or they had absolutely nothing by which to recommend him.

A slender thread on which to base the campaign for nomination—and only a day before the Convention convened. He did not like it.

The telephone in Gam’s living room rang.

“That’s probably him,” Gam said. “You want to talk to him? To be truthful, I’m afraid to take it off the hook.”

“Let it ring,” Johnny said. He agreed with Gam; it was just too damn unpleasant.

“But we can’t evade him,” Gam pointed out. “If he wants to get in touch with us; if it isn’t the phone it’s the newspaper. And yesterday I tried to use my electric typewriter…instead of the letter I intended to compose I got the same mishmash—I got a text from him.”

Neither of them moved to take the phone, however. They let it ring on.

“Do you want an advance?” Gam asked. “Some cash?”

“I’d appreciate it,” Johnny said. “Since today I quit my job with Archimedean.”

Reaching into his coat for his wallet, Gam said, “I’ll give you a check.” He eyed Johnny. “You like her but you can’t work with her; is that it?”

“That’s it,” Johnny said. He did not elaborate, and Gam did not press him any further. Gam was, if nothing else, gentlemanly. And Johnny appreciated it.

As the check changed hands the phone stopped ringing. Was there a link between the two? Johnny wondered. Or was it just chance? No way to tell. Louis seemed to know everything…anyhow, this was what Louis had wanted; he had told both of them that.

“I guess we did the right thing,” Gam said tartly. “Listen,

Johnny. I hope you can get back on good terms with Kathy Egmont Sharp. For her sake; she needs help. Lots of it.”

Johnny grunted.

“Now that you’re not working for her, make one more try,” Gam said. “Okay?”

“I’ll think about it,” Johnny said.

“She’s a very sick girl, and she’s got a lot of responsibility now. You know that, too. Whatever caused the rift between you—try to come to some kind of understanding before it’s too late. That’s the only proper way.”

Johnny said nothing. But he knew, inside him, that Gam was right.

And yet—how did he do it? He didn’t know how. How do you approach a psychotic person? he wondered. How do you repair such a deep rift? It was hard enough in regular situations…and this had so many overtones.

If nothing else, this had Louis mixed in it. And Kathy’s feelings about Louis. Those would have to change. The blind adoration—that would have to cease.

“What does your wife think of her?” Gam asked.

Startled, he said, “Sarah Belle? She’s never met Kathy.” He added, “Why do you ask?”

Gam eyed him and said nothing.

“Damn odd question,” Johnny said.

“Damn odd girl, that Kathy,” Gam said. “Odder than you think, my friend. There’s a lot you don’t know.” He did not elaborate.

To Claude St. Cyr, Phil Harvey said, “There’s something I want to know. Something we must have the answer to, or we’ll never get control of the voting stock of Wilhelmina. Where’s the body?”

“We’re looking,” St. Cyr said patiently. “Were trying all of the mortuaries, one by one. But money’s involved; undoubtedly someone’s paying them to keep quiet, and if we want them to talk—” ’

“That girl,” Harvey said, “is going on instructions from beyond the grave. Despite the fact that Louis is devolving…she still pays attention to him. It’s—unnatural.” He shook his head, repelled.

“I agree,” St. Cyr said. “In fact, you expressed it perfectly. This morning when I was shaving—I picked him up on the TV.” He shuddered visibly. “I mean, it’s coming at us from every side, now.”

“Today,” Harvey said, “is the first day of the Convention.” He looked out of the window, at the cars and people. “Louis’ attention will be tied up there, trying to swing the vote onto Alfonse Gam. That’s where Johnny is, working for Gam—that was Louis’ idea. Now perhaps we can operate with more success. Do you see? Maybe he’s forgotten about Kathy; my god, he can’t watch everything at once.”

St. Cyr said quietly, “But Kathy is not at Archimedean now.”

“Where is she, then? In Delaware? At Wilhelmina Securities? It ought to be easy to find her.”

“She’s sick,” St. Cyr said. “In a hospital, Phil. She was admitted during the late evening, last night. For her drug addiction, I presume.”

There was silence.

“You know a lot,” Harvey said finally. “Where’d you learn this, anyhow?”

“From listening to the phone and the TV. But I don’t know where the hospital is. It could even be off Earth, on Luna or on Mars, even back where she came from. I got the impression she’s extremely ill. Johnny’s abandoning her set her back greatly.” He gazed at his employer somberly. “That’s all I know, Phil.”

“Do you think Johnny Barefoot knows where she is?”

“I doubt it.”

Pondering, Harvey said, “I’ll bet she tries to call him. I’ll bet he either knows or will know, soon. If we only could manage to put a snoop-circuit on his phone…get his calls routed through here.”

“But the phones,” St. Cyr said wearily. “All it is now-just the gibberish. The interference from Louis.” He wondered what became of Archimedean Enterprises if Kathy was declared unable to manage her affairs, if she was forcibly committed. Very complicated, depending on whether Earth law or—

Harvey was saying, “We can’t find her and we can’t find the body. And meanwhile the Convention’s on, and they’ll nominate that wretched Gam, that creature of Louis’. And next we know, he’ll be President.” He eyed St. Cyr with antagonism. “So far you haven’t done me much good, Claude.”

“We’ll try all the hospitals. But there’s tens of thousands of them. And if it isn’t in this area it could be anywhere.” He felt helpless. Around and around we go, he thought, and we get nowhere.

Well, we can keep monitoring the TV, he decided. That’s some help.

“I’m going to the Convention,” Harvey announced. “I’ll see you later. If you should come up with something—which I doubt—you can get in touch with me there.” He strode to the door, and a moment later St. Cyr found himself alone.

Doggone it, St. Cyr said to himself. What’ll I do now? Maybe I ought to go to the Convention, too. But there was one more mortuary he wanted to check; his men had been there, but he also wanted to give it a try personally. It was just the sort that Louis would have liked, run by an unctious individual named, revoltingly, Herbert Schoenheit von Vogelsang, which meant, in German, Herbert Beauty of the Bird’s Song—a fitting name for a man who ran the Beloved Brethren Mortuary in downtown Los Angeles, with branches in Chicago and New York and Cleveland.

When he reached the mortuary, Claude St. Cyr demanded to see Schoenheit von Vogelsang personally. The place was doing a rush business; Resurrection Day was just around the comer and the petite bourgeoise, who flocked in great numbers to just such ceremonies, were lined up waiting to retrieve their half-lifer relatives.

“Yes sir,” Schoenheit von Vogelsang said, when at last he appeared at the counter in the mortuary’s business office. “You asked to speak to me.”

St. Cyr laid his business card down on the counter; the card still described him as legal consultant for Archimedean Enterprises. “I am Claude St. Cyr,” he declared. “You may have heard of me.”

Glancing at the card, Schoenheit von Vogelsang blanched and mumbled, “I give you my word, Mr. St. Cyr, we’re trying, we’re really trying. We’ve spent out of our own funds over a thousand dollars in trying to make contact with him; we’ve had high-gain equipment flown in from Japan where it was developed and made. And still no results.” Tremulously, he backed away from the counter. “You can come and see for yourself. Frankly, I believe someone’s doing it on purpose; a complete failure like this can’t occur naturally, if you see what I mean.”

St. Cyr said, “Let me see him.”

“Certainly.” The mortuary owner, pale and agitated, led the way through the building into the chill bin, until, at last, St. Cyr saw ahead the casket which had lain in state, the casket of Louis Sarapis. “Are you planning any sort of litigation?” the mortuary owner asked fearfully. “I assure you, we—”

“I’m here,” St. Cyr stated, “merely to take the body. Have your men load it onto a truck for me.”

“Yes, Mr. St. Cyr,” Herb Schoenheit von Vogelsang said in meek obedience; he waved two mortuary employees over and began giving them instructions. “Do you have a truck with you, Mr. St. Cyr?” he asked.

“You may provide it,” St. Cyr said, in a forbidding voice.

Shortly, the body in its casket was loaded onto a mortuary truck, and the driver turned to St. Cyr for instructions.

St. Cyr gave him Phil Harvey’s address.

“And the litigation,” Herb Schoenheit von Vogelsang was murmuring, as St. Cyr boarded the truck to sit beside the driver. “You don’t infer malpractice on our part, do you, Mr. St. Cyr? Because if you do—”

“The affair is- closed as far as we’re concerned,” St. Cyr said to him laconically, and signaled the driver to drive off.

As soon as they had left the mortuary, St. Cyr began to laugh.

“What strikes you so funny?” the mortuary driver asked.

“Nothing,” St. Cyr said, still chuckling.

When the body in its casket, still deep in its original quick-pack, had been left off at Harvey’s home and the driver had departed, St. Cyr picked up the telephone and dialed. But he found himself unable to get through to the Convention Hall. All he heard, for his trouble, was the weird distant drumming, the monotonous litany of Louis Sarapis—he hung up, disgusted but at the same time, grimly determined.

We’ve had enough of that, St. Cyr said to himself. I won’t wait for Harvey’s approval; I don’t need it.

Searching the living room he found, in a desk drawer, a heat gun. Pointing it at the casket of Louis Sarapis he pressed the trigger.

The envelope of quick-pack steamed up, the casket itself fizzed as the plastic melted. Within, the body blackened, shriveled, charred away at last into a baked, coal-like clinker, small and nondescript.

Satisfied, St. Cyr returned the heat gun to the desk drawer.

Once more he picked up the phone and dialed.

In his ear the monotonous voice intoned, “…no one but Gam can do it; Gam’s the man what am—good slogan for you, Johnny. Gam’s the man what am; remember that. I’ll do the talking. Give me the mike and I’ll tell them; Gam’s the man what am. Gam’s—”

Claude St. Cyr slammed down the phone, turned to the blackened deposit that had been Louis Sarapis; he gaped mutely at what he could not comprehend. The voice, when St. Cyr turned on the television set, emanated from that, too, just as it had been doing; nothing had changed.

The voice of Louis Sarapis was not originating in the body. Because the body was gone. There simply was no connection between them.

Seating himself in a chair, Claude St. Cyr got out his cigarettes and shakily lit up, trying to understand what this meant. It seemed almost as if he had it, almost had the explanation.

But not quite.

V

By monorail—he had left his ‘copter at the Beloved Brethren Mortuary—Claude St. Cyr numbly made his way to Convention Hall. The place, of course, was packed; the noise was terrible. But he managed to obtain the services of a robot page; over the public address system, Phil Harvey’s presence was requested in one of the side rooms used as meeting places by delegations wishing to caucus in secret.

Harvey appeared, disheveled from shoving through the dense pack of spectators and delegates. “What is it, Claude?” he asked, and then he saw his attorney’s face. “You better tell me,” he said quietly.

St. Cyr blurted, “The voice we hear. It isn’t Louis! It’s someone else trying to sound like Louis!”

“How do you know?”

He told him.

Nodding, Harvey said, “And it definitely was Louis’ body you destroyed; there was no deceit there at the mortuary—you’re positive of that.”

“I’m not positive,” St. Cyr said. “But I think it was; I believe it now and I believed it at the time.” It was too late to find out now, in any case, not enough remained of the body for such an analysis to be successfully made.

“But who could it be, then?” Harvey said. “My god, it’s coming to us from beyond the solar system—could it be nonterrestrials of some kind? Some sort of echo or mockery, a non-living reaction unfamiliar to us? An inert process without intent?”

St. Cyr laughed. “You’re babbling, Phil. Cut it out.”

Nodding, Harvey said, “Whatever you say, Claude. If you think it’s someone here—”

“I don’t know,” St. Cyr said candidly. “But I’d guess it’s someone right on this planet, someone who knew Louis well enough to have introjected his characteristics sufficiently thoroughly to imitate them.” He was silent, then. That was as far as he could carry his logical processes…beyond that he saw nothing. It was a blank, and a frightening one at that.

There is, he thought, an element of the deranged in it. What we took to be decay—it’s more a form of madness than degeneration. Or is madness itself degeneration? He did not know; he wasn’t trained in the field of psychiatry, except regarding its legal aspects. And the legal aspects had no application, here.

. “Has anyone nominated Gam yet?” he asked Harvey.

“Not yet. It’s expected to come sometime today, though. There’s a delegate from Montana who’ll do it, the rumor is.”

“Johnny Barefoot is here?”

“Yes.” Harvey nodded. “Busy as can be, lining up delegates. In and out of the different delegations, very much in evidence. No sign of Gam, of course. He won’t come in until near the end of the nominating speech and then of course all hell will break loose. Cheering and parading and waving banners…the Gam supporters are all prepared.”

“Any indication of—” St. Cyr hesitated. “What we’ve assumed to be Louis? His presence? Or its presence, he thought. Whatever it is.

“None as yet,” Harvey said.

“I think we’ll hear from it,” St. Cyr said. “Before the day is over.”

Harvey nodded; he thought so, too.

“Are you afraid of it?” St. Cyr asked.

“Sure,” Harvey said. “A thousand times more so than ever, now that we don’t even know who or what it is.”

“You’re right to take that attitude,” St. Cyr said. He felt the same way.

“Perhaps we should tell Johnny,” Harvey said.

St. Cyr said, “Let him find out on his own.”

“All right, Claude,” Harvey said. “Anything you say. After all, it was you who finally found Louis’ body; I have complete faith in you.”

In a way, St. Cyr thought, 1 wish I hadn’t found it. 1 wish I didn’t know what I know now; we were better off believing it teas old Louis talking to us from every phone, newspaper and TV set.

That was bad—but this is far worse. Although, he thought, it seems to me that the answer is there, somewhere, just waiting.

I must try, he told himself. Try to get it. TRY!

Off by himself in a side room, Johnny Barefoot tensely watched the events of the Convention on closed-circuit TV. The distortion, the invading presence from one light-week away, had cleared for a time, and he could see and hear the delegate from Montana delivering the nominating speech for Alfonse Gam.

He felt tired. The whole process of the Convention, its speeches and parades, its tautness, grated on his nerves, ran contrary to his disposition. So damn much show, he thought. Display for what? If Gam wanted to gain the nomination he could get it, and all the rest of this was purposeless.

His own thoughts were on Kathy Egmont Sharp.

He had not seen her since her departure for U.C. Hospital in San Francisco. At this point he had no idea of her condition, whether she had responded to therapy or not.

The deep intuition could not be evaded that she had not.

How sick really was Kathy? Probably very sick, with or without drugs; he felt that strongly. Perhaps she would never be discharged from U.C. Hospital; he could imagine that.

On the other hand—if she wanted out, he decided, she would find a way to get out. That he intuited, too, even more strongly.

So it was up to her. She had committed herself, gone into the hospital voluntarily. And she would come out—if she ever did—the same way. No one could compel Kathy…she was simply not that sort of person. And that, he realized, could well be a symptom of the illness-process.

The door to the room opened. He glanced up from the TV screen.

And saw Claude St. Cyr standing in the entrance. St. Cyr held a heat gun in his hand, pointed at Johnny. He said, “Where’s Kathy?”

“I don’t know,” Johnny said. He got slowly,, warily, to his feet.

“You do. I’ll kill you if you don’t tell me.”

“Why?” he said, wondering what had brought St. Cyr to this point, this extreme behavior.

St. Cyr said, “Is it on Earth?” Still holding the gun pointed at Johnny he came toward him.

“Yes,” Johnny said, with reluctance.

“Give me the name of the city.”

“What are you going to do?” Johnny said. “This isn’t like you, Claude; you used to always work within the law.”

St. Cyr said, “I think the voice is Kathy. I know it’s not Louis, now; we have that to go on but beyond that it’s just a guess. Kathy is the only one I know deranged enough, deteriorated enough. Give me the name of the hospital.”

“The only way you could know it isn’t Louis,” Johnny said, “would be to destroy the body.”

“That’s right,” St. Cyr said, nodding.

Then you have, Johnny realized. You found the correct mortuary; you got to Herb Schoenheit von Vogelsang. So that was that.

The door to the room burst open again; a group of cheering delegates, Gam supporters, marched in, blowing horns and hurling streamers, carrying huge hand-painted placards. St. Cyr turned toward them, waving his gun at them—and Johnny Barefoot sprinted past the delegates, to the door and out into the corridor.

He ran down the corridor and a moment later emerged at the great central hall in which Gam’s demonstration was in full-swing. From the loudspeakers mounted at the ceiling a voice boomed over and over.

“Vote for Gam, the man what am. Gam, Gam, vote for Gam, vote for Gam, the one fine man; vote for Gam who really am. Gam, Gam, Gam, he really am—”

Kathy, he thought. It can’t be you; it just cant. He ran on, out of the hall, squeezing past the dancing, delirious delegates, past the glazed-eyed men and women in their funny hats, their banners wiggling…he reached the street, the parked ’copters and cars, throngs of people clustered about, trying to push inside.

If it is you, he thought, then you’re too sick ever to come back. Even if you want to, will yourself to. Had you been waiting for Louis to die, is that it? Do you hate us? Or are you afraid of us? What explains what it is you’re doing . …what’s the reason for it?

He hailed a ’copter marked taxi. “To San Francisco,” he instructed the driver.

Maybe you’re not conscious that you’re doing it, he thought. Maybe it’s an autonomous process, rising out of your unconscious mind. Your mind split into two portions, one on the surface which we see, the other one—

The one we hear.

Should we feel sorry for you? he wondered. Or should we hate you, fear you? HOW MUCH HARM CAN YOU DO? I guess that’s the real issue. I love you, he thought. In some fashion, at least. I care about you, and that’s a form of love, not such as I feel toward my wife or my children, but it is a concern. Damn it, he thought, this is dreadful. Maybe St. Cyr is wrong; maybe it isn’t you.

The ’copter swept upward into the sky, cleared the buildings and turned west; its blade spinning at peak velocity.

On the ground, standing in front of the convention hall, St. Cyr and Phil Harvey watched the ’copter go.

“Well, so it worked,” St. Cyr said. “I got him started moving. I’d guess he’s on his way either to Los Angeles or to San Francisco.”

A second ’copter slid up before them, hailed by Phil Harvey; the two men entered it, and Harvey said, “You see the taxi that just took off? Stay behind it, just within sight. But don’t let it catch a glimpse of you if you can help it.”

“Heck,” the driver said, “if I can see it, it can see me.” But he clicked on his meter and began to ascend. Grumpily, he said to Harvey and St. Cyr, “I don’t like this kind of stuff; it can be dangerous.”

“Turn on your radio,” St. Cyr told him. “If you want to hear something that’s dangerous.”

“Aw hell,” the driver said, disgusted. “The radio don’t work; some kind of interference, like sun spots or maybe some amateur operator—I lost a lot of fares because the dispatcher can’t get hold of me. I think the police ought to do something about it, don’t you?”

St. Cyr said nothing. Beside him, Harvey peered at the ’copter ahead.

When he reached U.C. Hospital at San Francisco, and had landed at the field on the main building’s roof, Johnny Barefoot saw the second ship circling, not passing on, and he knew that he was right; he had been followed all the way. But he did not care. It didn’t matter.

Descending by means of the stairs, he came out on the third floor and approached a- nurse. “Mrs. Sharp,” he said. “Where is she?”

“You’ll have to ask at the desk,” the nurse said. “And visiting hours aren’t until—”

He rushed on until he found the desk.

“Mrs. Sharp’s room is 309,” the bespectacled, elderly muse at the desk said. “But you must have Doctor Gross’ permission to visit her. And I believe Doctor Gross is having lunch right now and probably won’t be back until two o’clock, if you’d care to wait.” She pointed to a waiting room.

“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll wait.” He passed through the waiting room and out the door at the far end, down the corridor, watching the numbers on the doors until he saw room number 309. Opening the door he entered the room, shut the door after him and looked around for her.

There was the bed, but it was empty.

“Kathy,” he said.

At the window, in her robe, she turned, her face sly, bound up by hatred; her lips moved and, staring at him, she said with loathing, “I want Gam because he am.” Spitting at him, she crept toward him, her hands raised, her fingers writhing. “Gam’s a man, a real man,” she whispered, and he saw, in her eyes, the dissolved remnants of her personality expire even as he stood there. “Gam, gam, gam,” she whispered, and slapped him.

He retreated. “It’s you,” he said. “Claude St. Cyr was right. Okay. I’ll go.” He fumbled for the door behind him, trying to get it open. Panic passed through him, like a wind, then; he wanted nothing but to get away. “Kathy,” he said, “let go.” Her nails had dug into him, into his shoulder, and she hung onto him, peering sideways into his face, smiling at him.

“You’re dead,” she said. “Go away. I smell you, the dead inside you.”

“I’ll go,” he said, and managed to find the handle of the door. She let go of him, then; he saw her right hand flash up, the nails directed at his face, possibly his eyes—he ducked, and her blow missed him. “I want to get away,” he said, covering his face with his arms.

Kathy whispered, “I am Gam, I am. I’m the only one who am. Am alive. Gam, alive.” She laughed. “Yes, I will,” she said, mimicking his voice perfectly. “Claude St. Cyr was right; okay, I’ll go. I’ll go. I’ll go.” She was now between him and the door. “The window,” she said. “Do it now, what you wanted to do when I stopped you.” She hurried toward him, and he retreated, backward, step by step, until he felt the wall behind him.

“It’s all in your mind,” he said, “this hate. Everyone is fond of you; I am, Gam is, St. Cyr and Harvey are. What’s the point of this?”

“The point,” Kathy said, “is that I show you what you’re really like. Don’t you know yet? You’re even worse than me. I’m just being honest.”

“Why did you pretend to be Louis?” he said.

“I am Louis,” Kathy said. “When he died he didn’t go into half-life because I ate him; he became me. I was waiting for that. Alfonse and I had it all worked out, the transmitter out there with the recorded tape ready—we frightened you, didn’t we? You’re all scared, too scared to stand in his way. He’ll be nominated; he’s been nominated already, I feel it, I know it.”

“Not yet,” Johnny said.

“But it won’t be long,” Kathy said. “And I’ll be his wife.” She smiled at him. “And you’ll be dead, you and the others.” Coming at him she chanted, “I am Gam, I am Louis and when you’re dead I’ll be you, Johnny Barefoot, and all the rest; I’ll eat you all.” She opened her mouth wide and he saw the sharp, jagged, pale-as-death teeth.

“And rule over the dead,” Johnny said, and hit her with all his strength, on the side of her face, near the jaw. She spun backward, fell, and then at once was up and rushing at him. Before she could catch him he sprinted away, to one side, caught then a glimpse of her distorted, shredded features, ruined by the force of his blow—and then the door to the room opened, and St. Cyr and Phil Harvey, with two of the nurses, stood there. Kathy stopped. He stopped, too.

“Come on, Barefoot,” St. Cyr said, jerking his head.

Johnny crossed the room and joined them.

Tying the sash of her robe, Kathy said matter-of-factly, “So it was planned; he was to kill me, Johnny was to. And the rest of you would all stand and watch and enjoy it.”

“They have an immense transmitter out there,” Johnny said. “They placed it a long time ago, possibly years back. All this time they’ve been waiting for Louis to die; maybe they even killed him, finally. The idea’s to get Gam nominated and elected, while keeping everyone terrorized with that transmission. She’s sick, much sicker than we realized, even sicker than you realized. Most of all it was under the surface where it didn’t show.”

St. Cyr shrugged. “Well, she’ll have to be certified.” He was calm but unusually slow-spoken. “The will named me as trustee; I can represent the estate against her, file the commitment papers and then come forth at the sanity hearing.”

“I’ll demand a jury trial,” Kathy said. “I can convince a jury of my sanity; it’s actually quite easy and I’ve been through it before.”

“Possibly,” St. Cyr said. “But anyhow the transmitter will be gone; by that time the authorities will be out there.”

“It’ll take months to reach it,” Kathy said. “Even by the fastest ship. And by then the election will be over; Alfonse will be President.”

St. Cyr glanced at Johnny Barefoot. “Maybe so,” he murmured.

“That’s why we put it out so far,” Kathy said. “It was Alfonse’s money and my ability; I inherited Louis’ ability—you see. I can do anything. Nothing is impossible for me if I want it; all I have to do is want it enough”

“You wanted me to jump,” Johnny said. “And I didn’t.”

“You would have,” Kathy said, “in another minute. If they hadn’t come in.” She seemed quite poised, now. “You will, eventually; I’ll keep after you. And there’s no place you can hide; you know I’ll follow you and find you. All three of you.” Her gaze swept from one of them to the next, taking them all in.

Harvey said, “I’ve got a little power and wealth, too. I think we can defeat Gam, even if he’s nominated.”

“You have power,” Kathy said, “but not imagination. What you have isn’t enough. Not against me.” She spoke quietly, with complete confidence.

“Let’s go,” Johnny said, and started down the hall, away from room 309 and Kathy Egmont Sharp.

Up and down San Francisco’s hilly streets Johnny walked, hands in his pockets, ignoring the buildings and people, seeing nothing, merely walking on and on. Afternoon faded, became evening; the lights of the city came on and he ignored that, too. He walked block after block until his feet ached, burned, until he became aware that he was very hungry—that it was now ten o’clock at night and he had not eaten anything since morning. He stopped, then, and looked around him.

Where were Claude St. Cyr and Phil Harvey? He could not remember having parted from them; he did not even remember leaving the hospital. But Kathy; he remembered that. He could not forget it even if he wanted to. And he did not want to. It was too important ever to be forgotten, by any of them who had witnessed it, understood it.

At a newsstand he saw the massive, thick-black headlines.

GAM WINS NOMINATION, PROMISES BATTLING

CAMPAIGN FOR NOVEMBER ELECTION

So she did get that, Johnny thought. They did, the two of them; they got what they’re after exactly. And now—all they have to do is defeat Kent Margrave. And that thing out there, a light-week away; it’s still yammering. And will be for months.

They’ll win, he realized.

At a drugstore he found a phonebooth; entering it he put money into the slot and dialed Sarah Belle, his own home phone number.

The phone clicked in his ear. And then the familiar monotonous voice chanted, “Gam in November, Gam in November; win with Gam, President Alfonse Gam, our man—I am for Gam. 1 am for Cam. For GAM!” He rang off, then, and left the phone booth. It was hopeless.

At the counter of the drugstore he ordered a sandwich and coffee; he sat eating mechanically, filling the requirements of his body without pleasure or desire, eating by reflex until the food was gone and it was time to pay the bill. What can 1 do? he asked himself. What can anyone do? All the means of communication are gone; the media have been taken over. They have the radio, TV, newspapers, phone, wire services . …everything that depends on microwave transmission or open-gap electric circuitry. They’ve captured it all, left nothing for us, the opposition, by which to fight back.

Defeat, he thought. That’s the dreary reality that lies ahead for us. And then, when they enter office, it’ll be our—death.

“That’ll be a dollar ten,” the counter girl said.

He paid for his meal and left the drugstore.

When a ’copter marked taxi came spiraling by, he hailed it.

“Take me home,” he said.

“Okay,” the driver said amiably. “Where is home, buddy?”

He gave him the address in Chicago and then settled back for the long ride. He was giving up; he was quitting, going back to Sarah Belle, to his wife and children. The fight—for him—apparently was over.

When she saw him standing in the doorway, Sarah Belle said, “Good god, Johnny—you look terrible.” She kissed him, led him inside, into the warm, familiar living room. “I thought you’d be out celebrating.”

“Celebrating?” he said hoarsely.

“Your man won the nomination.” She went to put the coffee pot on for him.

“Oh yeah,” he said, nodding. “That’s right. I was his P.R. man; I forgot.”

“Better lie down,” Sarah Belle said. “Johnny, I’ve never seen you look so beaten; I can’t understand it. What happened to you?”

He sat down on the couch and lit a cigarette.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, with anxiety. “Nothing,” he said.

“Is that Louis Sarapis on all the TV and phones? It sounds like him. I was talking to the Nelsons and they said it’s Louis’ exact voice.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not Louis. Louis is dead.”

“But his period of half-life—”

“No,” he said. “He’s dead. Forget about it.”

“You know who the Nelsons are, don’t you? They’re the new people who moved into the apartment that—”

“I don’t want to talk,” he said. “Or be talked at.”

Sarah Belle was silent, for a minute. And then she said, “One thing they said—you won’t like to hear it, I guess. The Nelsons are plain, quite commonplace people…they said even if Alfonse Gam got the nomination they wouldn’t vote for him. They just don’t like him.”

He grunted.

“Does that make you feel bad?” Sarah Belle asked. “I think they’re reacting to the pressure, Louis’ pressure on the TV and phones; they just don’t care for it. I think you’ve been excessive in your campaign, Johnny.” She glanced at him hesitantly. “That’s the truth; I have to say it.”

Rising to his feet, he said, “I’m going to visit Phil Harvey. I’ll be back later on.”

She watched him go out the door, her eyes darkened with concern.

When he was admitted to Phil Harvey’s house he found Phil and Gertrude Harvey and Claude St. Cyr sitting together in the living room, each with a glass in hand, but no one speaking. Harvey glanced up briefly, saw him, and then looked away.

“Are we going to give up?” he asked Harvey.

Harvey said, “I’m in touch with Kent Margrave. We’re going to try to knock out the transmitter. But it’s a million to one shot, at that distance. And with even the fastest missile it’ll take a month.”

“But that’s at least something,” Johnny said. It would at least be before the election; it would give them several weeks in which to campaign. “Does Margrave understand the situation?”

“Yes,” Claude St Cyr said. “We told him virtually everything.”

“But that’s not enough,” Phil Harvey said. “There’s one more thing we must do. You want to be in on it? Draw for the shortest match?” He pointed to the coffee table; on it Johnny saw three matches, one of them broken in half. Now Phil Harvey added a fourth match, a whole one.

St. Cyr said, “Her first. Her right away, as soon as possible. And then later on if necessary, Alfonse Gam.”

Weary, cold fright filled Johnny Barefoot.

“Take a match,” Harvey said, picking up the four matches, arranging and rearranging them in his hand and then holding out the four even tops to the people in the room. “Go ahead, Johnny. You got here last so I’ll have you go first.”

“Not me,” he said.

“Then we’ll draw without you,” Gertrude Harvey said, and picked a match. Phil held the remaining ones out to St. Cyr and he drew one also. Two remained in Phil Harvey’s hand.

“I was in love with her,” Johnny said. “I still am.”

Nodding, Phil Harvey said, “Yes, I know.”

His heart leaden, Johnny said, “Okay. I’ll draw.” Reaching, he selected one of the two matches.

It was the broken one.

“I got it,” he said. “It’s me.”

“Can you do it?” Claude St. Cyr asked him.

He was silent for a time. And then he shrugged and said, “Sure. I can do it. Why not?” Why not indeed? he asked himself. A woman that I was falling in love with; certainly I can murder her. Because it has to be done. There is no other way out for us.

“It may not be as difficult as we think,” St. Cyr said. “We’ve consulted some of Phil’s technicians and we picked up some interesting advice. Most of their transmissions are coming from nearby, not a light-week away by any means. I’ll tell you how we know. Their transmissions have kept up with changing events. For example, your suicide-attempt at the Antler Hotel. There was no time-lapse there or anywhere eke.”

“And they’re not supernatural, Johnny,” Gertrude Harvey said.

“So the first thing to do,” St. Cyr continued, “is to find their base here on Earth or at least here in the solar system. It could be Gam’s guinea fowl ranch on Io. Try there, if you find she’s left the hospital.”

“Okay,” Johnny said, nodding slightly.

“How about a drink?” Phil Harvey said to him.

Johnny nodded.

The four of them, seated in a circle, drank, slowly and in silence.

“Do you have a gun?” St. Cyr asked.

“Yes.” Rising to his feet he set his glass down.

“Good luck,” Gertrude said, after him.

Johnny opened the front door and stepped outside alone, out into the dark, cold evening.

PAY FOR THE PRINTER

Ash, black and desolate, stretched out on both sides of the road. Uneven heaps extended as far as the eye could see—the dim ruins of buildings, cities, a civilization—a corroded planet of debris, wind-whipped black particles of bone and steel and concrete mixed together in an aimless mortar.

Allen Fergesson yawned, lit a Lucky Strike, and settled back drowsily against the shiny leather seat of his ’57 Buick. “Depressing damn sight,” he commented. “The monotony —nothing but mutilated trash. It gets you down.”

“Don’t look at it,” the girl beside him said indifferently.

The sleek, powerful car glided silently over the rubble that made up the road. His hand barely touching the power-driven wheel, Fergesson relaxed comfortably to the soothing music of a Brahms Piano Quintet filtering from the radio, a transmission of the Detroit settlement. Ash blew up against the windows—a thick coat of black had already formed, though he had gone no more than a few miles. But it ; didn’t matter. In the basement of her apartment, Charlotte had a green-plastic garden hose, a zinc bucket and a DuPont sponge.

“And you have a refrigerator full of good Scotch,” he added aloud. “As I recall—unless that fast crowd of yours has finished it off.”

Charlotte stirred beside him. She had drifted into halfsleep, lulled by the purr of the motor and the heavy warmth of the air. “Scotch?” she murmured. “Well, I have a fifth of Lord Calvert.” She sat up and shook back her cloud of blonde hair. “But it’s a little puddinged.”

In the back seat, their thin-faced passenger responded. They had picked him up along the way, a bony, gaunt man in coarse gray work-pants and shirt. “How puddinged?” he asked tautly.

“About as much as everything else,” she said.

Charlotte wasn’t listening. She was gazing vacantly through the ash-darkened window at the scene outside. To the right of the road, the jagged, yellowed remains of a town jutted up like broken teeth against the sooty midday sky. A bathtub here, a couple of upright telephone poles, bones and bleak fragments, lost amid miles of pocked debris. A forlorn, dismal sight. Somewhere in the moldy cave-like cellars a few mangy dogs huddled against the chill. The thick fog of ash kept real sunlight from reaching the surface.

“Look there,” Fergesson said to the man in the back.

A mock-rabbit had bounded across the ribbon of road. He slowed the car to avoid it. Blind, deformed, the rabbit hurtled itself with sickening force against a broken concrete slab and bounced off, stunned. It crawled feebly a few paces, then one of the cellar dogs rose and crunched it.

“Ugh!” said Charlotte, revolted. She shuddered and reached to turn up the car heater. Slim legs tucked under her, she was an attractive little figure in her pink wool sweater and embroidered skirt. “I’ll be glad when we get back to my settlement. It’s not nice out here…”

Fergesson tapped the steel box on the seat between them. The firm metal felt good under his fingers. “They’ll be- glad to get hold of these,” he said, “if things are as bad as you say.”

“Oh, yes,” Charlotte agreed. “Things are terrible. I don’t know if this will help—he’s just about useless.” Her small smooth face wrinkled with concern. “I guess it’s worth trying. But I can’t see much hope.”

“We’ll fix up your settlement,” Fergesson reassured her easily. The first item was to put the girl’s mind at rest. Panic of this kind could get out of hand—had got out of hand, more than once. “But it’ll take a while,” he added, glancing at her. “You should have told us sooner.”

“We thought it was just laziness. But he’s really going, Allen.” Fear flicked in her blue eyes. “We can’t get anything good out of him anymore. He just sits there like a big lump, as if he’s sick or dead.”

“He’s old,” Fergesson said gently. “As I recall, your Biltong dates back a hundred and fifty years.”

“But they’re supposed to go on for centuries I”

“It’s a terrible drain on them,” the man in the back seat pointed out. He licked his dry lips, leaned forward tensely, his dirt-cracked hands clenched. “You’re forgetting this isn’t natural to them. On Proxima they worked together. Now they’ve broken up into separate units—and gravity is greater here.”

Charlotte nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. “Gosh!” she said plaintively. “It’s just terrible—look at this!” She fumbled in her sweater pocket and brought out a small bright object the size of a dime. “Everything he prints is like this, now—or worse.”

Fergesson took the watch and examined it, one eye on the road. The strap broke like a dried leaf between his fingers into small brittle fragments of dark fiber without tensile strength. The face of the watch looked all right—but the hands weren’t moving.

“It doesn’t run,” Charlotte explained. She grabbed it back and opened it. “See?” She held it up in front of his face, her crimson lips tight with displeasure. “I stood in line half an hour for this, and it’s just a blob!”

The works of the tiny Swiss watch were a fused, unformed mass of shiny steel. No separate wheels or jewels or springs, just a glitter of pudding.

“What did he have to go on?” the man in back asked. “An original?”

“A print—but a good print. One he did thirty-five years ago—my mother’s, in fact. How do you think 1 felt when I saw it? I can’t use it.” Charlotte took the puddinged watch back and restored it to her sweater pocket. “I was so mad I—” She broke off and sat up straight. “Oh, we’re here. See the red neon sign? That’s the beginning of the settlement.”

The sign read standard stations inc. Its colors were blue, red, and white—a spotlessly clean structure at the edge of the road. Spotless? Fergesson slowed the car as he came abreast of the station. All three of them peered out intently, stiffening for the shock they knew was coming.

“You see?” said Charlotte in a thin, clipped voice.

The gas station was crumbling away. The small white building was old—old and worn, a corroded, uncertain thing that sagged and buckled like an ancient relic. The bright red neon sign sputtered fitfully. The pumps were rusted and bent. The gas station was beginning to settle back into the ash, back into black, drifting particles, back to the dust from which it had come.

As Fergesson gazed at the sinking station, the chill of death touched him. In his settlement, there was no decay— yet. As fast as prints wore out, they were replaced by the Pittsburgh Biltong. New prints were made from the original objects preserved from the War. But here, the prints that made up the settlement were not being replaced.

It was useless to blame anyone. The Biltong were limited, like any race. They had done the best they could—and they were working in an alien environment.

Probably they were indigenous to the Centaurus system. They had appeared in the closing days of the War, attracted by the H-bomb flashes—and found the remnants of the human race creeping miserably through radioactive black ash, trying to salvage what they could of their destroyed culture.

After a period of analysis, the Biltong had separated into individual units, begun the process of duplicating surviving artifacts humans brought to them. That was their mode of survival—on their own planet, they had created an enclosing membrane of satisfactory environment in an otherwise hostile world.

At one of the gasoline pumps a man was trying to fill the tank of his ’66 Ford. Cursing in futility, he tore the rotting hose away. Dull amber fluid poured on the ground and soaked into the grease-encrusted gravel. The pump itself spouted leaks in a dozen places. Abruptly, one of the pumps tottered and crashed in a heap.

Charlotte rolled down the car window. “The Shell station is in better shape, Beni” she called. “At the other end of the settlement.”

The heavyset man clumped over, red-faced and perspiring. “Damn!” he muttered. “I can’t get a damn thing out of it. Give me a lift across town, and I’ll fill me a bucket there.”

Fergesson shakily pushed open the car door. “It’s all like this here?”

“Worse.” Ben Untermeyer settled back gratefully with their other passenger as the Buick purred ahead. “Look over there.”

A grocery store had collapsed in a twisted heap of concrete and steel supports. The windows had fallen in. Stacks of goods lay strewn everywhere. People were picking their way around, gathering up armloads, trying to clear some of the debris aside. Their faces were grim and angry.

The street itself was in bad repair, full of cracks, deep pits and eroded shoulders. A broken water main oozed slimy water in a growing pool. The stores and cars on both sides were dirty and run-down. Everything had a senile look. A shoe-shine parlor was boarded up, its broken windows stuffed with rags, its sign peeling and shabby. A filthy café next door had only a couple of patrons, miserable men in rumpled business suits, trying to read their newspapers and drink the mud-like coffee from cups that cracked and dribbled ugly brown fluid as they lifted them from the worm-eaten counter.

“It can’t last much longer,” Untermeyer muttered, as he mopped his forehead. “Not at this rate. People are even scared to go into the theater. Anyhow, the film breaks and half the time it’s upside-down.” He glanced curiously at the lean-jawed man sitting silently beside him. “My name’s Untermeyer,” he grunted.

They shook. “John Dawes,” the gray-wrapped man answered. He volunteered no more information. Since Fergesson and Charlotte had picked him up along the road, he hadn’t said fifty words.

Untermeyer got a rolled-up newspaper from his coat pocket and tossed it onto the front seat beside Fergesson. “This is what I found on the porch, this morning.”

The newspaper was a jumble of meaningless words. A vague blur of broken type, watery ink that still hadn’t dried, faint, streaked and uneven. Fergesson briefly scanned the text, but it was useless. Confused stories wandered off aimlessly, bold headlines proclaimed nonsense.

“Allen has some originals for us,” Charlotte said. “In the box there.”

“They won’t help,” Untermeyer answered gloomily. “He didn’t stir all morning. I waited in line with a pop-up toaster I wanted a print of. No dice. I was driving back home when my car began to break down. I looked under the •hood, but who knows anything about motors? That’s not our business. I poked around and got it to run as far as the Standard station…the damn metal’s so weak I put my thumb through it.”

Fergesson pulled his Buick to a halt in front of the big white apartment building where Charlotte lived. It took him a moment to recognize it; there had been changes since he last saw it, a month before. A wooden scaffolding, clumsy and amateur, had been erected around it. A few workmen were poking uncertainly at the foundations; the whole building was sinking slowly to one side. Vast cracks yawned up and down the walls. Bits of plaster were strewn everywhere. The littered sidewalk in front of the building was roped off.

“There isn’t anything we can do on our own,” Untermeyer complained angrily. “All we can do is just sit and watch everything fall apart. If he doesn’t come to life soon…” “Everything he printed for us in the old days is beginning to wear out,” Charlotte said, as she opened the car door and slid onto the pavement. “And everything he prints for us now is a pudding. So what are we going to do?” She shivered in the chill midday cold. “I guess we’re going to wind up like the Chicago settlement.”

The word froze all four of them. Chicago, the settlement that had collapsed! The Biltong printing there had grown old and died. Exhausted, he had settled into a silent, unmoving mound of inert matter. The buildings and streets around him, all the things he had printed, had gradually worn out and returned to black ash.

“He didn’t spawn,” Charlotte whispered fearfully. “He used himself up printing, and then he just—died.”

After a time, Fergesson said huskily, “But the others noticed. They sent a replacement as soon as they could.”

“It was too late!” Untermeyer grunted. “The settlement had already gone back. All that was left were maybe a couple of survivors wandering around with nothing on, freezing and starving, and the dogs devouring them. The damn dogs, flocking from everywhere, having a regular feast!”

They stood together on the corroded sidewalk, frightened and apprehensive. Even John Dawes’ lean face had a look of bleak horror on it, a fear that cut to the bone. Fergesson thought yearningly of his own settlement, a dozen miles to the East. Thriving and virile—the Pittsburgh Biltong was in his prime, still young and rich with the creative powers of his race. Nothing like this!

The buildings in the Pittsburgh settlement were strong and spotless. The sidewalks were clean and firm underfoot. In the store windows, the television sets and mixers and toasters and autos and pianos and clothing and whiskey and frozen peaches were perfect prints of the originals—authentic, detailed reproductions that couldn’t be told from the actual articles preserved in the vacuum-sealed subsurface shelters.

“If this settlement goes out,” Fergesson said awkwardly, “maybe a few of you can come over with us.”

“Can your Biltong print for more than a hundred people?” John Dawes asked softly.

“Right now he can,” Fergesson answered. He proudly indicated his Buick. “You rode in it—you know how good it is. Almost as good as the original it was printed from. You’d have to have them side by side to tell the difference.” He grinned and made an old joke. “Maybe I got away with the original.”

“We don’t have to decide now,” Charlotte said curtly. “We still have some time, at least.” She picked up the steel box from the seat of the Buick and moved toward the steps of the apartment building. “Come on up with us, Ben.” She nodded toward Dawes. “You, too. Have a shot of whiskey. It’s not too bad—tastes a little like antifreeze, and the label isn’t legible, but other than that it’s not too puddinged.”

A workman caught her as she put a foot on the bottom step. “You can’t go up, miss.”

Charlotte pulled away angrily, her face pale with dismay. “My apartment’s up there! All my things—this is where I live!”

’The building isn’t safe,” the workman repeated. He wasn’t a real workman. He was one of the citizens of the settlement, who had volunteered to guard the buildings that were deteriorating. “Look at the cracks, miss.”

“They’ve been there for weeks.” Impatiently, Charlotte waved Fergesson after her. “Come on.” She stepped nimbly up onto the porch and reached to open the big glass-and-chrome front door.

The door fell from its hinges and burst. Glass shattered everywhere, a cloud of lethal shards flying in all directions. Charlotte screamed and stumbled back. The concrete crumbled under her heels; with a groan the whole porch settled down in a heap of white powder, a shapeless mound of billowing particles.

Fergesson and the workman caught hold of the struggling girl. In the swirling clouds of concrete dust, Unter-meyer searched frantically for the steel box; his fingers closed over it and he dragged it to the sidewalk.

Fergesson and- the workman fought back through the ruins of the porch, Charlotte gripped between them. She was trying to speak, but her face jerked hysterically.

“My things!” she managed to whisper.

Fergesson brushed her off unsteadily. “Where are you hurt? Are you all right?”

“I’m not hurt.” Charlotte wiped a trickle of blood and white powder from her face. Her cheek was cut, and her blonde hair was a sodden mass. Her pink wool sweater was tom and ragged. Her clothes were totally ruined. “The box—have you got it?”

“It’s fine,” John Dawes said impassively. He hadn’t moved an inch from his position by the car.

Charlotte hung on tight to Fergesson—against him, her body shuddered with fear and despair. “Lookl” she whispered. “Look at my hands.” She held up her white-stained hands. “It’s beginning to turn black.”

The thick powder streaking her hands and arms had begun to darken. Even as they watched, the powder became gray, then black as soot. The girl’s shredded clothing withered and shriveled up. Like a shrunken husk, her clothing cracked and fell away from her body.

“Get her in the car,” Fergesson ordered. “There’s a blanket in there—from my settlement.”

Together, he and Untermeyer wrapped the trembling girl in the heavy wool blanket. Charlotte crouched against the seat, her eyes wide with terror, drops of bright blood sliding down her cheek onto the blue and yellow stripes of the blanket. Fergesson lit a cigarette and put it between her quivering bps.

’Thanks.” She managed a grateful half-whimper. She took hold of the cigarette shakily. “Allen, what the hell are we going to do?”

Fergesson softly brushed the darkening powder from the girl’s blonde hair. “We’ll drive over and show him the originals I brought. Maybe he can do something. They’re always stimulated by the sight of new things to print from. Maybe this’ll arouse some life in him.”

“He’s not just asleep,” Charlotte said in a stricken voice. “He’s dead, Allen. I know it!”

“Not yet,” Untermeyer protested thickly. But the realization was in the minds of all of them.

“Has he spawned?” Dawes asked.

The look on Charlotte’s face told them the answer. “He tried to. There were a few that hatched, but none of them lived. I’ve seen eggs back there, but…”

She was silent. They all knew. The Biltong had become sterile in their struggle to keep the human race alive. Dead eggs, progeny hatched without life…

Fergesson slid in behind the wheel and harshly slammed the door. The door didn’t close properly. The metal was sprung—or perhaps it was misshapen. His hackles rose. Here, too, was an imperfect print—a trifle, a microscopic element botched in the printing. Even his sleek, luxurious Buick was puddinged. The Biltong at his settlement was wearing out, too.

Sooner or later, what had happened to the Chicago settlement would happen to them all…

Around the park, rows of automobiles were lined up, silent and unmoving. The park was full of people. Most of the settlement was there. Everybody had something that desperately needed printing. Fergesson snapped off the motor and pocketed the keys.

“Can you make it?” he asked Charlotte. “Maybe you’d better stay here.”

“I’ll be all right,” Charlotte said, and tried to smile.

She had put on a sports shirt and slacks that Fergesson had picked up for her in the ruins of a decaying clothing store. He felt no qualms—a number of men and women were picking listlessly through the scattered stock that littered the sidewalk. The clothing “would be good for perhaps a few days.

Fergesson had taken his time picking Charlotte’s wardrobe. He had found a heap of sturdy-fibered shirts and slacks in the back storeroom, material still a long way from the dread black pulverization. Recent prints? Or, perhaps—incredible but possible—originals the store owners had used for printing. At a shoe store still in business, he found her a pair of low-heeled slippers. It was his own belt she wore— the one he had picked up in the clothing store rotted away in his hands while he was buckling it around her.

Untermeyer gripped the steel box with both hands as the four of them approached the center of the park. The people around them were silent and grim-faced. No one spoke. They all carried some article, originals carefully preserved through the centuries or good prints with only minor imperfections. On their faces were desperate hope and fear fused, in a taut mask.

“Here they are,” said Dawes, lagging behind. “The dead eggs.”

In a grove of trees at the edge of the park was a circle of gray-brown pellets, the size of basketballs. They were hard, calcified. Some were broken. Fragments of shell were littered everywhere.

Untermeyer kicked at one egg; it fell apart, brittle and empty. “Sucked dry by some animal,” he stated. “We’re seeing the end, Fergesson. I think dogs sneak in here at night, now, and get at them. He’s too weak to protect them.”

A dull undercurrent of outrage throbbed through the waiting men and women. Their eyes were red-rimmed with anger as they stood clutching their objects, jammed in together in a solid mass, a circle of impatient, indignant humanity ringing the center of the park. They had been waiting a long time. They were getting tired of waiting.

“What the hell is this?” Untermeyer squatted down in front of a vague shape discarded under a tree. He ran his fingers over the indistinct blur of metal. The object seemed melted together like wax—nothing was distinguishable. “I can’t identify it.”

“That’s a power lawnmower,” a man nearby said sullenly.

“How long ago did he print it?” Fergesson asked.

“Four days ago.” The man knocked at it in hostility.

“You can’t even tell what it is—it could be anything. My old one’s worn out. I wheeled the settlement’s original up from the vault and stood in line all day—and look what I got.” He spat contemptuously. “It isn’t worth a damn. I left it sitting here—no point taking it home.”

His wife spoke up in a shrill, harsh wail. “What are we going to do? We can’t use the old one. It’s crumbling away like everything else around here. If the new prints aren’t any good, then what—”

“Shut up,” her husband snapped. His face was ugly and strained. His long-fingered hands gripped a length of pipe. “We’ll wait a little longer. Maybe he’ll snap out of it.”

A murmur of hope rippled around them. Charlotte shivered and pushed on. “I don’t blame him,” she said to Fergesson. “But…She shook her head wearily. “What good would it do? If he won’t print copies for us that are any good…”

“He can’t,” John Dawes said. “Look at him!” He halted and held the rest of them back. “Look at him and tell me how he could do better.”

The Biltong was dying. Huge and old, it squatted in the center of the settlement park, a lump of ancient yellow protoplasm, thick, gummy, opaque. Its pseudopodia were dried up, shriveled to blackened snakes that lay inert on the brown grass. The center of the mass looked oddly sunken. The Biltong was gradually settling, as the moisture was burned from its veins by the weak overhead sun.

“Oh, dear!” Charlotte whispered. “How awful he looks!”

The Biltong’s central lump undulated faintly. Sickly, restless heavings were noticeable as it struggled to hold onto its dwindling life. Flies clustered around it in dense swarms of black and shiny blue. A thick odor hung over the Biltong, a fetid stench of decaying organic matter. A pool of brackish waste liquid had oozed from it.

Within the yellow protoplasm of the creature, its solid core of nervous tissue pulsed in agony, with quick, jerky movements that sent widening waves across the sluggish flesh. Filaments were almost visibly degenerating into calcified granules. Age and decay—and suffering.

On the concrete platform, in front of the dying Biltong, lay a heap of originals to be duplicated. Beside them, a few prints had been commenced, unformed balls of black ash mixed with the moisture of the Biltong’s body, the juice from which it laboriously constructed its prints. It had halted the work, pulled its still-functioning pseudopodia painfully back into itself. It was resting—and trying not to die.

“The poor damn thing!” Fergesson heard himself say. “It can’t keep on.”

“He’s been sitting like that for six solid hours,” a woman snapped sharply in Fergesson’s ear. “Just sitting there! What does he expect us to do, get down on our hands and knees and beg him?”

Dawes turned furiously on her. “Can’t you see it’s dying? For God’s sake, leave it alone!”

An ominous rumble stirred through the ring of people. Faces turned toward Dawes—he icily ignored them. Beside him, Charlotte had stiffened to a frightened ramrod. Her eyes were pale with fear.

“Be careful,” Untermeyer warned Dawes softly. “Some of these boys need things pretty bad. Some of them are waiting here for food.”

Time was running out. Fergesson grabbed the steel box from Untermeyer and tore it open. Bending down, he removed the originals and laid them on the grass in front of him.

At the sight, a murmur went up around him, a murmur blended of awe and amazement. Grim satisfaction knifed through Fergesson. These were originals lacking in this settlement. Only imperfect prints existed here. Printing had been done from defective duplicates. One by one, he gathered up the precious originals and moved toward the concrete platform in front of the Biltong. Men angrily blocked his way— until they saw the originals he carried.

He laid down a silver Ronson cigarette lighter. Then a Bausch and Lomb binocular microscope, still black and pebbled in its original leather. A high-fidelity Pickering phonograph cartridge. And a shimmering Steuben crystal cup.

“Those are fine-looking originals,” a man nearby said enviously. “Where’d you get them?”

Fergesson didn’t reply. He was watching the dying Biltong.

The Biltong hadn’t moved. But it had seen the new originals added to the others. Inside the yellow mass, the hard fibers raced and blurred together. The front orifice shuddered and then split open. A violent wave lashed the whole lump of protoplasm. Then from the opening, rancid bubbles oozed. A pseudopodium twitched briefly, struggled forward across the slimy grass, hesitated, touched the Steuben glass.

It pushed together a heap of black ash, wadded it with fluid from the front orifice. A dull globe formed, a grotesque parody of the Steuben cup. The Biltong wavered and drew back to gather more strength. Presently it tried once more to form the blob. Abruptly, without warning, the whole mass shuddered violently, and the pseudopodium dropped, exhausted. It twitched, hesitated pathetically, and then withdrew, back into the central bulk.

“No use,” Untermeyer said hoarsely. “He can’t do it. It’s too late.”

With stiff, awkward fingers Fergesson gathered the originals together and shakily stuffed them back in the steel box. “I guess I was wrong,” he muttered, climbing to his feet. “I thought this might do it. I didn’t realize how far it had gone.”

Charlotte, stricken and mute, moved blindly away from the platform. Untermeyer followed her through the coagulation of angry men and women, clustered around the concrete platform.

“Wait a minute,” Dawes said. “I have something for him to try.”

Fergesson waited wearily, as Dawes groped inside his coarse gray shirt. He fumbled and brought out something wrapped in old newspaper. It was a cup, a wooden drinking cup, crude and ill-shaped. There was a strange wry smile on his face as he squatted down and placed the cup in front of the Biltong.

Charlotte watched, vaguely puzzled. “What’s the use? Suppose he does make a print of it.” She poked listlessly at the rough wooden object with the toe of her slipper. “It’s so simple you could duplicate it yourself.”

Fergesson started. Dawes caught his eye—for an instant the two men gazed at each other, Dawes smiling faintly, Fergesson rigid with burgeoning understanding.

“That’s right,” Dawes said. “I made it.”

Fergesson grabbed the cup. Trembling, he turned it over and over. “You made it with what? I don’t see howl What did you make it out of?”

“We knocked down some trees.” From his belt, Dawes slid something that gleamed metallically, dully, in the weak sunlight. “Here—be careful you don’t cut yourself.”

The knife was as crude as the cup—hammered, bent, tied together with wire. “You made this knife?” Fergesson asked, dazed. “I can’t believe it. Where do you start? You have to have tools to make this. It’s a paradox!” His voice rose with hysteria. “It isn’t possible!”

Charlotte tinned despondently away. “It’s no good—you couldn’t cut anything with that.” Wistfully, pathetically, she added, “In my kitchen I had that whole set of stainless steel carving knives—the best Swedish Steel. And now they’re nothing but black ash.”

There were a million questions bursting in Fergesson’s mind. “This cup, this knife—there’s a group of you? And that material you’re wearing—you wove that?”

“Come on,” Dawes said brusquely. He retrieved the knife and cup, moved urgently away. “We’d better get out of here. I think the end has about come.”

People were beginning to drift out of the park. They were giving up, shambling wretchedly off to forage in the decaying stores for food remnants. A few cars muttered into life and rolled hesitantly away.

Untermeyer licked his flabby lips nervously. His doughy flesh was mottled and grainy with fear. “They’re getting wild,” he muttered to Fergesson. “This whole settlement’s collapsing—in a few hours there won’t be anything. No food, no place to stay!” His eyes darted toward the car, then faded to opaqueness.

He wasn’t the only one who had noticed the car.

A group of men were slowly forming around the massive dusty Buick, their faces dark. Like hostile, greedy children, they poked at it intently, examining its fenders, hood, touching its headlights, its firm tires. The men had clumsy weapons—pipes, rocks, sections of twisted steel ripped from collapsing buildings.

“They know it isn’t from this settlement,” Dawes said. “They know it’s going back.”

“I can take you to the Pittsburgh settlement,” Fergesson said to Charlotte. He headed toward the car. “I’ll register you as my wife. You can decide later on whether you want to go through with the legalities.”

“What about Ben?” Charlotte asked faintly.

“I can’t marry him, too.” Fergesson increased his pace. “I can take him there, but they won’t let him stay. They have their quota system. Later on, when they realize the emergency…”

“Get out of die way,” Untermeyer said to the cordon of men. He lumbered toward them vengefully. After a moment, the men uncertainly retreated and finally gave way. Untermeyer stood by the door, his huge body drawn up and alert.

“Bring her through—and watch it!” he told Fergesson.

Fergesson and Dawes, with Charlotte between them, made their way through the line of men to Untermeyer. Fergesson gave the fat man the keys, and Untermeyer yanked the front door open. He pushed Charlotte in, then motioned Fergesson to hurry around to the other side.

The group of men came alive.

With his great fist, Untermeyer smashed the leader into those behind him. He struggled past Charlotte and got his bulk wedged behind the wheel of the car. The motor came on with a whirr. Untermeyer threw it into low gear and jammed savagely down on the accelerator. The car edged forward. Men clawed at it crazily, groping at the open door for the man and woman inside.

Untermeyer slammed the doors and locked them. As the car gained speed, Fergesson caught a final glimpse of the fat man’s sweating, fear-distorted face.

Men grabbed vainly for the slippery sides of the car. As it gathered momentum, they slid away one by one. One huge red-haired man clung maniacally to the hood, pawing at the shattered windshield for the driver’s face beyond. Untermeyer sent the car spinning into a sharp curve; the red-haired man hung on for a moment, then lost his grip and tumbled silently, face-forward, onto the pavement.

The car wove, careened, at last disappeared from view beyond a row of sagging buildings. The sound of its screaming tires faded. Untermeyer and Charlotte were on their way to safety at the Pittsburgh settlement.

Fergesson stared after the car until the pressure of Dawes’ thin hand on his shoulder aroused him. “Well,” he muttered, “there goes the car. Anyhow, Charlotte got away.”

“Come on,” Dawes said tightly in his ear. “I hope you have good shoes—we’ve got a long way to walk.”

Fergesson blinked. “Walk? Where…P”

“The nearest of our camps is thirty miles from here. We can make it, I think.” He moved away, and after a moment Fergesson followed him. “I’ve done it before. I can do it again.”

Behind them, the crowd was collecting again, centering its interest upon the inert mass that was the dying Biltong. The hum of wrath sounded—frustration and impotence at the loss of the car pitched the ugly cacophony to a gathering peak of violence. Gradually, like water seeking its level, the ominous, boiling mass surged toward the concrete platform.

On the platform, the ancient dying Biltong waited helplessly. It was aware of them. Its pseudopodia were twisted in one last decrepit action, a final shudder of effort.

Then Fergesson saw a terrible thing—a thing that made shame rise inside him until his humiliated fingers released the metal box he carried, let it fall, splintering, to the ground. He retrieved it numbly, stood gripping it helplessly. He wanted to run off blindly, aimlessly, anywhere but here. Out into the silence and darkness and driving shadows beyond the settlement. Out in the dead acres of ash.

The Biltong was trying to print himself a defensive shield, a protective wall of ash, as the mob descended on him…

When they had walked a couple of hours, Dawes came to a halt and threw himself down in the black ash that extended everywhere. “We’ll rest awhile,” he grunted to Fergesson. “I’ve got some food we can cook. We’ll use that Ronson lighter you have there, if it’s got any fluid in it.”

Fergesson opened the metal box and passed him the lighter. A cold, fetid wind blew around them, whipping ash into dismal clouds across the barren surface of the planet. Off in the distance, a few jagged walls of buildings jutted upward like splinters of bones. Here and there dark, ominous stalks of weeds grew.

“It’s not as dead as it looks,” Dawes commented, as he gathered bits of dried wood and paper from the ash around them. “You know about the dogs and the rabbits. And there’s lots of plant seeds—all you have to do is water the ash, and up they spring.”

“Water? But it doesn’t—rain. Whatever the word used to be/’

“We have to dig ditches. There’s still water, but you have to dig for it.” Dawes got a feeble fire going—there was fluid in the lighter. He tossed it back and turned his attention to feeding the fire.

Fergesson sat examining the lighter. “How can you build a thing like this?” he demanded bluntly.

“We can’t.” Dawes reached into his coat and brought out a flat packet of food—dried, salted” meat and parched com. “You can’t start out building complex stuff. You have to work your way up slowly.”

“A healthy Biltong could print from this. The one in Pittsburgh could make a perfect print of this lighter.”

“I know,” Dawes said. “That’s what’s held us back. We have to wait until they give up. They will, you know. They’ll have to go back to their own star-system—it’s genocide for them to stay here.”

Fergesson clutched convulsively at the lighter. “Then our civilization goes with them.”

“That lighter?” Dawes grinned. “Yes, that’s going—for a long time, at least. But I don’t think you’ve got the right slant. We’re going to have to re-educate ourselves, every damn one of us. It’s hard for me, too.”

“Where did you come from?”

Dawes said quietly, “I’m one of the survivors from Chicago. After it collapsed, I wandered around—killed with a stone, slept in cellars, fought off the dogs with my hands and feet. Finally, I found my way to one of the camps. There were a few before me—you don’t know it, my friend, but Chicago wasn’t the first to fall.”

“And you’re printing tools? Like that knife?”

Dawes laughed long and loud. “The word isn’t print—the word is build. We’re building tools, making things.” He pulled out the crude wooden cup and laid it down on the ash. “Printing means merely copying. I can’t explain to you what building is; you’ll have to try it yourself to find out. Building and printing are two totally different things.”

Dawes arranged three objects on the ash. The exquisite Steuben glassware, his own crude wooden drinking cup and the blob, the botched print the dying Biltong had attempted.

“This is the way it was,” he said, indicating the Steuben cup. “Someday it’ll be that way again…but we’re going up the right way—the hard way—step by step, until we get back up there.” He carefully replaced the glassware back in its metal box. “We’ll keep it—not to copy, but as a model, as a goal. You can’t grasp the difference now, but you will.”

He indicated the crude wooden cup. “That’s where we are right now. Don’t laugh at it. Don’t say it’s not civilization. It is—it’s simple and crude, but it’s the real thing. We’ll go up from here.”

He picked up the blob, the print the Biltong had left behind. After a moment’s reflection, he drew back and hurled it away from him. The blob struck, bounced once, then broke into fragments.

“That’s nothing,” Dawes said fiercely. “Better this cup. This wooden cup is closer to that Steuben glass than any print.”

“You’re certainly proud of your little wooden cup,” Fergesson observed.

“I sure as hell am,” Dawes agreed, as he placed the cup in the metal box beside the Steuben glassware. “You’ll understand that, too, one of these days. It’ll take awhile, but you’ll get it.” He began closing the box, then halted a moment and touched the Ronson lighter.

He shook his head regretfully. “Not in our time,” he said, and closed the box. “Too many steps in between.” His lean face glowed suddenly, a flicker of joyful anticipation. “But by God, we’re moving that way!”

Table of Contents

- WAR GAME
- UPON THE DULL EARTH
- ROOG
- WAR VETERAN
- TOP STAND-BY JOB
- BEYOND LIES THE WUB
- WE CAN REMEMBER IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE
- CAPTIVE MARKET
- IF THERE WERE NO BENNY CEMOLI
- RETREAT SYNDROME
- THE CRAWLERS
- OH, TO BE A BLOBEL!
- WHAT THE DEAD MEN SAY
- PAY FOR THE PRINTER