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which he hadn't previously guessed. This was the latest of perhaps five,
perhaps six, annual demolitions of what was threatening to turn from a present
into a past, with all that that implied: a fettering, hampering tail of
concern for objects at the expense of memories. Desultorily they chatted as
they worked; mostly he asked whether this was to be kept, and she answered yes
or no, and from her pattern of choice he was able to paradigm her personality
and was more than a little frightened when he was through.
This girl wasn't at Tarnover. This girl is six years younger than I am, and
yet . . .
The thought stopped there. To continue would have been like holding his finger
in a flame to discover how it felt to be burned alive.
"After which we paint walls," she said, slapping her hands together in
satisfaction. "Though maybe you'd like a beer before we shift modes. I make
real beer and there are six bottles in to chill."
"
Real beer?" Maintaining Sandy Locke's image at all costs, he made his tone
ironical.
"A plastic person like you probably doesn't believe it exists," she said, and
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headed for the kitchen before he could devise a comeback.
When she returned with two foam-capped mugs, he had some sort of remark ready,
anyway. Pointing at the hieroglyphs, he said, "It's a shame to paint these
over. They're very good."
"I've had them up since January," was her curt reply. "They've furnished my
mind, and that's what counts. When you've drunk that, grab a paint-spray."
He had arrived at around five P.M. A quarter of ten saw them in a freshly
whitened framework, cleansed of what Kate no longer felt to be necessary,
cleared of what the city scrap-and-garbage team would remove from the stoop
come Monday morning and duly mark credit in respect of. There was a sense of
space. They sat in the spacefulness eating omelets and drinking the last of
the real beer, which was good. Through the archway to the kitchen they could
see and hear Bagheera gnawing a beefbone with old blunt teeth, uttering an
occasional rrrr of contentment.
"And now," Kate said, laying aside her empty plate, "for the explanations."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm a virtual stranger. Yet you've spent five hours helping me shift
furniture and fill garbage cans and redecorate the walls. What do you want? To
plug into me by way of payment?"
He sat unspeaking and immobilized.
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"If that were it . . ." She was gazing at him with a thoughtful air. "I don't
think I'd say no. You'd be good at it, no doubt about that. But it isn't why
you came."
Silence filled the brightly whitened room, dense as the feathers in a pillow.
"I think," she said eventually, "you must have come to calibrate me. Well, did
you get me all weighed and measured?"
"No," he said gruffly, and rose and left.
INTERIM REPORT
"Bureau of Data Processing, good afternoon!"
"The Deputy Director, please. Mr. Hartz is expecting my call. . . . Mr. Hartz,
I thought you should know that I'm approaching a crisis point, and if you care
to come back and
"Oh. I see. What a pity. Then I'd better just arrange for my tapes to be
copied to your office.
"Yes, naturally. By a most-secure circuit."
IMPERMEABLE
It was a nervous day, very nervous. Today they were boarding him: not just
Rico and Dolores and
Vivienne and the others he had met but also august remote personages from the
intercontinental level.
Perhaps he should not have shown a positive reaction when Ina mentioned the
corp's willingness to semi-
perm him, hinted that eventually they might give him tenure.
Stability, for a while at any rate, was tempting. He had no other plans
formulated, and out of this context he intended to move when chose, not by
order of some counterpart to Shad Fluckner. Yet a he sense of risk grew
momently more agonizing in his mind. To be focused on by people of such power
and influence what could be more dangerous? Were there not at Tarnover
people charged with tracking down and dragging back in chains Nickie Haflinger
on whom the government had lavished thirty millions' worth of special
training, teaching, conditioning? (By now perhaps there were other fugitives.
He dared not try to link up with them. If only . . . !)
Still, facing the interview was the least of countless evils. He was preening
prior to departure, determined to perfect his conformist image to the last
hair on his head, when the buzzer called him to the veephone.
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The face showing on the screen belonged to Dolores van Bright, with whom he
had got on well during his stay here.
"Hi, Sandy!" was her cordial greeting. "Just called to wish you luck when you
meet the board. We prize you around here, you know. Think you deserve a
long-term post."
"Well, thanks," he answered, hoping the camera wouldn't catch the gleam of
sweat he felt pearling on his skin.
"And I can strew your path with a rose or so."
"Hm?" Instantly, all his reflexes triggered into fight-or-flight mode.
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"I guess I shouldn't, but . . . Well, for better or worse. Vivienne dropped a
hint, and I checked up, and there's to be an extra member on the selection
board. You know Viv thinks you've been overlooked as kind of a major national
resource? So some federal twitch is slated to join us. Don't know who, but I
believe he's based at Tarnover. Feel honored?"
How he managed to conclude the conversation, he didn't know. But he did, and
the phone was dead, and he was . . .
On the floor?
He fought himself, and failed to win; he lay sprawled, his legs apart, his
mouth dry, his skull ringing like a bell that tolls nine tailors, his guts
churning, his fingers clenched and his toes attempting to imitate them. The
room swam, the world floated off its mooring, everything EVERYTHING dissolved
into mist and he was aware of one sole fact:
Got to get up and go.
Weak-limbed, sour-bellied, half-blind with terror he could no longer resist,
he stumbled out of his apartment (
Mine? No! Their apartment!
) and headed for his rendezvous in hell.
THE CONVICTION OF HIS COURAGE
After pressing the appropriate switches Freeman waited patiently for his
subject to revert from regressed to present-time mode. Eventually he said, "It
seems that experience remains peculiarly painful.
We shall have to work through it again tomorrow."
The answer came in a weak voice, but strong enough to convey venomous hatred.
"You devil! Who gave you the right to torture me like this?"
"You did."
"So I committed what you call a crime! But I was never put on trial, never
convicted!"
"You're not entitled to a trial."
"Anybody's entitled to a trial, damn you!"
"That is absolutely true. But you see you are not anybody. You are nobody
. And you chose to be so of your own free will. Legally officially you
simply don't exist."
BOOK 2
THE DELPHI CORACLE
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SHALLOW MAN IN ALL HIS GORY WAS NOT DISMAYED BY ONE OF THESE
Take no thought for the morrow; that's your privilege. But don't complain if
when it gets here you're off guard.
ARARAT
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