‘I’ll go and contact Miss Reineke for you,’ Eric said, and started toward the door of the room. A Secret Service man detached himself to lead the way to the vidphone.

Outside in the corridor the Secret Service man said in a low voice, ‘Doctor, there’s an illness on level three, one of the White House cooks passed out about an hour ago; Dr Teagarden’s with him and wants you for a confab.’

‘Certainly,’ Eric said. ‘I’ll look in on him before I make my phone call.’ He followed the Secret Service man to the elevator. In the White House dispensary he found Dr Teagarden. ‘I needed you,’ Teagarden said at once, ‘because you’re an artiforg man; this is a clear case of angina pectoris and we’re going to need an org-trans right away. I assume you brought at least one heart with you.’

‘Yes,’ Eric murmured. ‘Had there been a history of heart trouble with this patient?’

‘Not until two weeks ago,’ Teagarden said. ‘When he had a mild attack. Then of course dorminyl was administered, twice daily. And he seemed to recover. But now—’

‘What’s the relationship between this man’s angina and the Secretary’s pains?’

‘“Relationship”? Is there one?’

‘Doesn’t it seem strange? Both men develop severe abdominal pains at about the same time—’

‘But in the case of McNeil, here,’ Teagarden said, leading Eric to the bed, ‘the diagnosis is unmistakable. Whereas with Secretary Molinari no such diagnosis as angina can be made; the symptoms are not there. So I don’t see any relationship.’ Teagarden added, ‘Anyhow this is a very tense place, doctor; people get sick here regularly.’

‘It still seems—’

‘In any case,’ Teagarden said, ‘the problem is simply a technical one; transplant the fresh heart and that’s that.’

‘Too bad we can’t do the same upstairs.’ Eric bent over the cot on which the patient McNeil lay. So this was the man who had the ailment which Molinari imagined he had. Which came first? Eric wondered. McNeil or Gino Molinari? Which is cause and which effect – assuming that such a relationship exists, and that is a mighty tenuous assumption at best. As Teagarden points out.

But it would be interesting to know, for instance, if anyone in the vicinity had cancer of the prostate gland when Gino had it… and the other cancers, infarcts, hepatitis, and whatever else as well.

It might be worth checking the medical records of the entire White House staff, he conjectured.

‘Need me to assist in the org-trans?’ Teagarden asked. ‘If not I’ll go upstairs to the Secretary. There’s a White House nurse who can help you; she was here a minute ago.’

‘I don’t need you. What I’d like is a list of all the current complaints among members of the local entourage; everyone who’s in physical contact with Molinari from day to day, whether these people are staff members or frequent official visitors – whatever their posts are. Can that be done?’

‘With the staff, yes,’ Teagarden said. ‘But not with visitors; we have no medical files on them. Obviously.’ He eyed Eric.

‘I have a feeling,’ Eric said, ‘that the moment a fresh heart is transplanted to McNeil here the Secretary’s pains will go away. And later records will show that as of this date the Secretary recovered from severe angina pectoris.’

Teagarden’s expression fused over, became opaque. ‘Well,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘Metaphysics, along with surgery. We’ve obtained a rare combination in you, doctor.’

‘Would you say that Molinari is empathic enough to develop every ailment suffered by every person around him? And I don’t mean just hysterically; I mean he genuinely experiences it. Gets it.’

‘No such empathic faculty,’ Teagarden said, ‘if you can bring yourself to dignify it by calling it a faculty, is known to exist.’

‘But you’ve seen the file,’ Eric pointed out quietly. He opened his instrument case and began to assemble the robant, self-guiding tools which he would need for the transplant of the artificial heart.

SEVEN After the operation – it required only half an hour’s labor on his part – Eric Sweetscent, accompanied by two Secret Service men, set off for the apartment of Mary Reineke.

‘She’s dumb,’ the man to his left said, gratuitously.

The other Secret Service man, older and grayer, said, ‘“Dumb”? She knows what makes the Mole work; nobody else has been able to dope that out.’

‘There’s nothing to dope out,’ the first – youthful – Secret Service man said. ‘It’s just the meeting of two vacuums and that’s the same as one big vacuum.’

‘Yeah, some vacuum. He rises to the UN Secretaryship; you think you or anybody else you know could do that? Here’s her conapt.’ The older Secret Service man halted and indicated a door. ‘Don’t act surprised when you see her,’ he told Eric. ‘I mean, when you see she’s just a kid.’

‘I was told,’ Eric said. And rang the bell. ‘I know all about it.’

‘“You know all about it,”’ the Secret Service man to his left mocked. ‘Good for you – without even seeing her. Maybe you’ll be the next UN Secretary after the Mole finally succumbs.’

The door opened. As astonishingly small, dark, pretty girl wearing a man’s red silk shirt with the tails out and tapered, tight slacks stood facing them. She held a pair of cutical scissors; evidently she had been trimming and improving her nails, which Eric saw were long and luminous.

‘I’m Dr Sweetscent. I’ve Joined Gino Molinari’s staff.’ He almost said your father’s staff; he caught the words barely in time.

‘I know,’ Mary Reineke said. ‘And he wants me; he’s feeling lousy. Just a minute.’ She turned to look for a coat, disappearing momentarily.

‘A high school girl,’ the Secret Service man on Eric’s left said. He shook his head. ‘For any ordinary guy it’d be a felony.’

‘Shut up,’ his companion snapped, as Mary Reineke returned wearing a heavy, blue-black, large button, navy-style jacket.

‘Couple of smart guys,’ Mary said to the Secret Service men. ‘You two take off; I want to talk to Dr Sweetscent without you sticking your big fat ears into it.’

‘Okay, Mary.’ Grinning, the Secret Service men departed. Eric was alone in the corridor with the girl in the heavy jacket, pants and slippers.

They walked in silence and then Mary said, ‘How is he?’

Cautiously, Eric said, ‘In many ways exceptionally healthy. Almost unbelievably so. But—’

‘But he’s dying. All the time. Sick, but it just goes on and on – I wish it would end; I wish he’d—’ She paused thoughtfully. ‘No, I don’t wish that. If Gino died I’d be booted out. Along with all the cousins and uncles and bambinos. There’d be a general housecleaning of all the debris that clutters up this place.’ Her tongue was amazingly bitter and fierce; Eric glanced sharply at her, taken aback. ‘Are you here to cure him?’ Mary asked.

‘Well, I can try. I can at least—’

‘Or are you here to administer the – what do they call it? The final blow. You know. Coup something.’

‘Coup de grace,’ Eric said.

‘Yes.’ Mary Reineke nodded. ‘Well? Which did you come for? Or don’t you know? Are you as confused as he is, is that it?’

‘I’m not confused,’ Eric said, after a pause.

‘Then you know your duty. You’re the artiforg man, aren’t you? The top org-trans surgeon … I read about you in Time, I think. Don’t you think Time is a highly informative magazine in all fields? I read it from cover to cover every week, especially the medical and scientific sections.’

Eric said, ‘Do – you go to school?’

‘I graduated. High school, not college; I’ve got no interest in what they call “higher learning.”’

‘What did you want to be?’

‘What do you mean?’ She eyed him suspiciously.

‘I mean what career did you intend to enter?’

‘I don’t need a career.’

‘But you didn’t know that; you had no way of telling you’d wind up—’ He gestured. ‘Be here at the White House.’

‘Sure I did. I always knew, all my life. Since I was three.’

‘How?’

‘I was – I am – one of those precogs. I could tell the future.’ Her tone was calm.

‘Can you still do it?’

‘Sure.’

‘Then you don’t need to ask me why I’m here; you can look ahead and see what I do.’

‘What you do,’ Mary said, ‘isn’t that important; it doesn’t register.’ She smiled then, showing beautiful, regular, white teeth.

‘I can’t believe that,’ he said, nettled.

‘Then be your own precog; don’t ask me what I know if you’re not interested in the results. Or not able to accept them. This is a cutthroat environment, here at the White House; a hundred people are clamoring to get Gino’s attention all the time, twenty-four hours a day. You have to fight your way through the throngs. That’s why Gino gets sick – or rather pretends to be sick.’

‘“Pretends,”’ Eric said.

‘He’s an hysteric; you know, where they think they have illnesses but really don’t. It’s his way of keeping people off his back; he’s just too sick to deal with them.’ She laughed merrily. ‘You know that – you’ve examined him. He doesn’t actually have anything.’

‘Have you read the file?’

‘Sure.’

‘Then you know that Gino Molinari has had cancer at three separate occasions.’

‘So what?’ She gestured. ‘Hysterical cancer.’

‘In the medical profession no such—’

‘Which are you going to believe, your textbooks or what you see with your own eyes?’ She studied him intently. ‘If you expect to survive here you better become a realist; you better learn to detect facts when you meet up with them. You think Teagarden is glad you’re here? You’re a menace to his status; he’s already begun trying to find ways to discredit you – or haven’t you noticed?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I haven’t noticed.’

‘Then you haven’t got a chance. Teagarden will have you out of here so fast—’ She broke off. Ahead lay the sick man’s door and the two rows of Secret Service men. ‘You know why Gino has those pains actually? So he can be pampered. So people will wait on him as if he’s a baby; he wants to be a baby again so he won’t have grownup responsibilities. See?’

‘Theories like that,’ Eric said, ‘sound so perfect, they’re so glib, so easy to say—’

‘But true,’ Mary said. ‘In this case.’ She pushed past the Secret Service men, opened the door, and entered. Going up to Gino’s bed, she gazed down at him and said, ‘Get on your feet, you big lazy bastard.’

Opening his eyes, Gino stirred leadenly. ‘Oh. It’s you. Sorry, but I—’

‘Sorry nothing,’ Mary said in a sharp voice. ‘You’re not sick. Get up! I’m ashamed of you; everybody’s ashamed of you. You’re just scared and acting like a baby – how do you expect me to respect you when you act like this?’

After a time Gino said, ‘Maybe I don’t expect you to.’ He seemed depressed more than anything else by the girl’s tirade. Now he made out Eric. ‘You hear her, doctor?’ he said gloomily. ‘Nobody can stop her; she comes in here when I’m dying and talks to me like that – maybe that’s the reason I’m dying.’ He rubbed his stomach gingerly. ‘I don’t feel them right now. I think that shot you gave me did it; what was in that?’

Not the shot, Eric thought, but the surgery downstairs on McNeil. Your complaint is gone because an assistant cook on the White House staff now has an artiforg heart. I was right.

‘If you’re okay—’ Mary began.

‘Okay,’ Molinari sighed. ‘I’ll get up; just leave me alone, will you, for chrissake?’ He stirred about, struggling to get from the bed. ‘Okay — I’ll get up; will that satisfy you?’ His voice rose to a shout of anger.

Turning to Eric, Mary Reineke said, ‘You see? I can get him out of bed; I can put him back on his feet like a man.’

‘Congratulations,’ Gino murmured sourly as he shakily rose to a standing position. ‘I don’t need a medical staff; all I need is you. But I noticed it was Dr Sweetscent here who got rid of my pains, not you. What did you ever do but bawl me out? If I’m back up it’s because of him.’ He passed by her, to the closet for his robe.

‘He resents me,’ Mary said to Eric. ‘But underneath he knows I’m right.’ She seemed perfectly placid and sure of herself; she stood with her arms folded, watching the Secretary as he tied the sash of his blue robe and got on his deerskin slippers.

‘Big-time,’ Molinari muttered to Eric, jerking his head at Mary. ‘She runs things – according to her.’

‘Do you have to do what she says?’ Eric inquired.

Molinari laughed. ‘Sure. Don’t I?’

‘What happens if you don’t? Does she make the heavens fall?’

‘Yes, she pulls down everything.’ Molinari nodded. ‘It’s a psionic talent she has … it’s called being a woman. Like your wife Kathy. I’m glad to have her around; I like her. I don’t care if she bawls me out – after all, I did get out of bed and it didn’t hurt me; she was right.’

‘I always know when you’re malingering,’ Mary said.

‘Come with me, doctor,’ Molinari said to Eric. There’s something they’ve set up for me to watch; I want you to see it too.’

Trailed by Secret Service men, they crossed the corridor and entered a guarded, locked room which Eric realized was a projection chamber; the far wall consisted of a permanent vidscreen installation on a grand scale.

‘Me making a speech,’ Molinari explained to Eric as they seated themselves. He signaled and a video tape began to roll, projected on the large screen. ‘It’ll be delivered tomorrow night, over all the TV networks. I want your opinion on it in advance, in case there’s anything I should change.’ He glanced slyly at Eric, as if there was more he was not saying.

Why would he want my opinion? Eric wondered as he watched the image of the UN Secretary fill the screen. The Mole in full military regalia as C-in-C of Terra’s armed forces: medals and arm bands and ribbons and, above all, the stiff marshal’s hat with its visor partly shielding the round, heavy-jowled face so that only the lower part, the grimy chin, was visible with its disconcertingly harsh scowl.

And the jowls, unaccountably, were not flabby; they had become, for no reason which Eric could conjure up, firm and determined. It was a rocklike, severe face which showed on the screen, stern and strengthened by inner authority that Eric had not seen before in the Mole … or had he?

Yes, he thought. But it had been years ago, when the Mole had first taken office, when he had been younger and there had not been the crushing responsibility. And now, on the screen, the Mole spoke. And his voice – it was the old original voice from past times; it was exactly as it had been, a decade ago, before this terrible, losing war.

Chuckling, Molinari said from the deep, foam-rubber chair in which he lounged beside Eric, ‘I look pretty good, don’t I?’

‘You do.’ The speech rolled on, sonorous, even containing, now and then, a trace of the awesome, the majestic. And it was precisely this which Molinari had lost: he had become pitiable. On the screen the mature, dignified man in military garb expressed himself clearly in a voice that snapped out its sentences without hesitancy; the UN Secretary, in the video tape, demanded and informed, did not beg, did not turn to the electorate of Terra for help … he told them what to do in this period of crisis. And that was as it should be. But how had it been done? How did the pleading, hypochondriacal invalid, suffering from his eternal half-killing complaints, rise up and do this? Eric was mystified.

Beside him Molinari said, ‘It’s a fake. That’s not me.’ He grinned with delight as Eric stared first at him and then at the screen.

Then who is it?’

‘It’s nobody. It’s a robant. General Robant Servant Enterprises made it up for me – this speech is its first appearance. Pretty good, like my old self, makes me feel young again just to watch it.’ And, Eric saw, the UN Secretary did seem more his old self; he had genuinely perked up as he sat watching the simulacrum on the screen. The Mole, above and beyond everyone else, was taken in by the ersatz spectacle; he was its first convert. ‘Want to see the thing? It’s top secret, of course – only three or four people know about it, besides Dawson Cutter of GRS Enterprises, of course. But they’ll keep it confidential; they’re used to handling classified material in the process of war-contract letting.’ He thumped Eric on the back. ‘You’re getting let in on one of the secrets of state — how does that feel? This is the way the modern state is run; there’re things the electorate doesn’t know, shouldn’t know for their own good. All governments have functioned this way, not just mine. You imagine it’s just mine? If you do you’ve got a lot to learn. I’m using a robant to make my speeches for me because at this point I don’t—’ He gestured ‘present quite the proper visual image, despite the make-up technicians who work me over. It’s just an impossible job.’ Now he had become dour, no longer joking. ‘So I gave up. I’m being realistic.’ He settled back in his chair, moodily.

‘Who wrote the speech?’

‘I did. I can still put together a political manifesto, depicting the situation, telling them how we stand and where we’re going and what we’ve got to do. My mind is still there.’ The Mole tapped his big bulging forehead. ‘However, I naturally had help.’

‘“Help,”’ Eric echoed.

‘A man I want you to meet – a brilliant new young lawyer who acts as confidential adviser to me, without pay. Don Festenburg, a whiz; you’ll be as impressed as I was. He has a knack for remolding, condensing, extracting the substance and presenting it in a few distilled sentences… I always had a tendency to run on at excessive length; everybody knows that. But not any more, not with Festenburg around. He programmed this simulacrum – he’s really saved my life.’

On the screen his synthetic image was saying com-mandingly, ‘—and gathering up the collective eclat of our several national societies, we as Terrans present a formidable association, more than just a planet but admittedly less, at the moment, than an interplanetary empire on the order of Lilistar… although perhaps—.’

‘I – would prefer not to have a look at the simulacrum,’ Eric decided.

Molinari shrugged. ‘It’s an opportunity, but if you’re not interested or if it distresses you—’ He eyed Eric. ‘You’d rather retain your idealistic image of me; rather imagine that the thing talking up there on the screen is real.’ He laughed. ‘I thought a doctor, like a lawyer and a priest, could withstand the shock of seeing life as it is; I thought truth was your daily bread.’ He leaned toward Eric earnestly; under him his chair squeaked in protest, giving under his excessive weight. ‘I’m too old. I can’t talk brilliantly any more. God knows I’d like to. But this is a solution; would it be better just to give up?’

‘No,’ Eric admitted. That wouldn’t solve their problems.

‘So I use a robant substitute, speaking lines that Don Festenburg programmed. The point is: we’ll go on. And that’s what matters. So learn to live with it, doctor; grow up.’ His face was cold now, unyielding. ’

‘Okay,’ Eric said after a moment.

Molinari tapped him on the shoulder and said in a low voice. The ‘Starmen don’t know about this simulacrum and Don Festenburg’s work; I don’t want them to find out, doctor, because I’d like to impress them, too. You understand? In fact I’m sending a print of this video tape to Lilistar; it’s already on the way. You want to know the truth, doctor? Frankly, I’m more interested in impressing them than I am our own population. How does that strike you? Tell me honestly.’

‘It strikes me,’ Eric said, ‘as an acute commentary on our plight.’

The Mole regarded him somberly. ‘Perhaps so. But what you don’t realize is that this is nothing; if you had any idea of—’

‘Don’t tell me any more. Not right now.’

On the screen the imitation of Gino Molinari boomed and expostulated, gesticulated to the unseen TV audience.

‘Sure, sure,’ Molinari agreed, mollified. ‘Sorry to have bothered you with my troubles in the first place.’ Downcast, his face more lined and weary than before, he turned his attention back to the screen, to the healthy, vigorous, completely synthetic image of his earlier self.

In the kitchen of her conapt Kathy Sweetscent lifted a small paring knife with difficulty, attempted to cut a purple onion but found to her incredulity that she had somehow slashed her finger; she stood mutely holding the knife, watching the crimson drops slide from her finger to merge with the water sprinkled across her wrist. She could no longer handle even the most commonplace object. The damn drug! she thought with embittered fury. Every minute it’s making me more powerless. Now everything defeats me. So how the hell am I going to fix dinner?

Standing behind her, Jonas Ackerman said with concern, ‘Something has to be done for you, Kathy.’ He watched her as she went to the bathroom for a Band-Aid. ‘Now you’re spilling the Band-Aids everywhere; you can’t even handle that.’ He complained, ‘If you’d tell me what it is, what—’

‘Put the Band-Aid on for me, will you?’ She stood silently as Jonas wrapped her cut finger. ‘It is JJ-180,’ she blurted suddenly, without premeditation. ‘I’m on it, Jonas. The ‘Starmen did it. Please help me, get me off it. Okay?’

Shaken, Jonas said, ‘I – don’t know exactly what I can do, because it’s such a new drug. Of course we’ll get in touch with our subsidiary right away. And the whole company will back you up, including Virgil.’

‘Go talk to Virgil right now.’

‘Now? Your time sense, Kathy; you feel this urgency because of the drug. I can see him tomorrow.’

‘Damn it, I’m not going to die because of this drug. So you better see him tonight, Jonas; do you understand?’

After a pause Jonas said, ‘I’ll call him.’

‘The vidlines are tapped. By the ‘Starmen.’

‘That’s a paranoid idea. From the drug.’

‘I’m afraid of them,’ she said trembling. They can do anything. You go and see Virgil face to face, Jonas; calling isn’t enough. Or don’t you care what happens to me?’

‘Of course I care! Okay, I’ll go and see the old man. But will you be all right alone?’

‘Yes,’ Kathy said. ‘I’ll just sit in the living room and do nothing. I’ll just wait for you to come back with some kind of help. What could happen to me if I don’t try to do anything, if I just sit there?’

‘You might get yourself into a state of morbid agitation. You might be swamped by panic… start to run. If it’s true you’re on JJ-180—’

‘It’s true!’ she said loudly. ‘Do you think I’m kidding?’

‘Okay,’ Jonas said, giving in. He led her to the couch in the living room, sat her down. ‘God, I hope you’ll be all right – I hope I’m not making a mistake.’ He was sweating and pale, his face wizened with worry. ‘See you in about half an hour, Kathy. Christ, if something goes wrong, Eric‘11 never forgive me and I won’t blame him.’ The apartment door shut after him. He did not even say good-by.

She was alone.

At once she went to the vidphone and dialed. ‘A cab.’ She gave her address and hung up.

A moment later, her coat over her shoulders, she hurried from the building and out onto the nocturnal sidewalk.

When the autonomic cab had picked her up she instructed it by means of the card which Corning had given her.

If I can get more of the drug, she thought, my mind will clear and I can reason out what I have to do; as I am now I can’t think. Anything I decide now, in this state, would be spurious. I owe it to myself to restore the normal functioning – or rather the desired functioning – of my faculties; without that I can’t plan or survive and I’m doomed. I know, she thought fiercely, that the only way out for me would be suicide; it’s just a matter of a few hours at the most. And Jonas couldn’t help me in that short a time.

The only way I could have gotten rid of him, she realized, is the way I chose; by telling him of my addiction. Otherwise he would have hung around me forever and I never would have had a chance to get to Corning for more. I gained the opportunity I need, but now the Ackermans understand what’s wrong with me and they’ll try even harder to keep me from going to Cheyenne and joining Eric. Maybe I should go there tonight, not even return to my apartment. Just take off as soon as I have the capsules. Leave everything I own behind, abandoned.

How demented can you get? she asked herself. And it required only one exposure to JJ-180 to do this; what’ll I be like when I’ve taken it repeatedly … or even just twice.

The future, to her, was mercifully obscure. She frankly did not know.

‘Your destination, miss.’ The cab settled onto the rooftop landing field of a building. That will be one dollar and twenty cents US plus a twenty-five-cent tip.’

‘Screw you and the tip,’ Kathy said, opening her purse; her hands shook and she could barely get out the money.

‘Yes, miss,’ the autonomic cab said obediently.

She paid and then stepped out. A dull guide-light showed her descent. What a rundown building for ‘Starmen to inhabit, she thought. It surely isn’t good enough for them; they must be pretending to be Terrans. The only consolation was a bitter one: the ‘Starmen, like Terra, were losing the war, would ultimately be defeated. Relishing that thought, she increased her pace, felt more confidence; she did not simply hate the ‘Starmen: she could, for a moment, despise them.

In this fortified frame of mind she reached the conapt held by the ‘Starmen, rang the bell, and waited.

It was Corning himself who answered; she saw, behind him, other ‘Starmen, evidently in conference. In camera, she said to herself; I’m disturbing them. Too bad; he said to come.

‘Mrs Sweetscent.’ Corning turned to the people behind him. ‘Isn’t that a superb name? Come in Kathy.’ He held the door wide.

‘Give it to me out here.’ She remained in the hall. ‘I’m on my way to Cheyenne; you’ll be glad to hear that. So don’t waste my time.’ She held out her hand.

An expression of pity – incredibly – passed over Coming’s face; he masterfully suppressed it. But she had seen it, and this, more than anything else that had happened, even the addiction itself or her suffering when the drug had worn off – nothing shocked her so much as Coming’s pity. If it could move a ‘Starman… she cringed. Oh God, she thought; I really am in trouble. I must be on my way to death.

‘Look,’ she said reasonably. ‘My addiction may not last forever. I’ve found out that you lied; the drug comes from Terra, not from the enemy, and sooner or later our subsidiary will be able to free me. So I’m not afraid.’ She waited while Corning went to get the drug; at least she presumed that this was what he had gone for. He certainly had vanished somewhere.

One of the other ‘Starmen, observing her leisurely, said, ‘You could float that drug around Lilistar for a decade and never find anyone unstable enough to succumb.’

‘Right,’ Kathy agreed. That’s the difference between you and us; we look alike but inside you’re tough and we’re weak. Gosh, I envy you. How long is it going to take Mr Corning?’

‘He’ll be back in a moment,’ the ‘Starman said. To a companion he said, ‘She’s pretty.’

‘Yes, pretty as an animal,’ the other ‘Starman answered. ‘So you like pretty animals? Is that why you were assigned to this?’

Corning returned. ‘Kathy, I’m giving you three caps. Don’t take more than one at a time. Otherwise its toxicity would probably be fatal to your heart action.’

‘Okay.’ She accepted the capsules. ‘Do you have a cup or glass of water so I can take one right now?’

He brought her a glass, stood watching sympathetically as she swallowed the capsule. ‘I’m doing this,’ she explained, ‘to clear my mind so that I can plan what to do. I’ve got friends helping me. But I will go to Cheyenne because a deal is a deal, even with you. Can you give me the name of someone there – you know, who can give me further supplies when I need them? If I need them, I mean.’

‘We have no one in Cheyenne who can help you. I’m very much afraid you’ll have to travel back here when your three caps are gone.’

‘Your infiltration of Cheyenne doesn’t consist of much, then.’

‘I guess not.’ Corning did not appear perturbed, however.

‘Good-by,’ Kathy said, starting away from the door. ‘Look at you,’ she said, addressing the group of ‘Starmen within the apartment. ‘God but you’re detestable. So confident. What kind of victory is it to—’ She broke off; what was the use? ‘Virgil Ackerman knows about me. I’ll bet he can do something; he’s not afraid of you, he’s too big a man.’

‘All right,’ Corning said, nodding. ‘You cherish that comforting delusion, Kathy. Meanwhile be sure you don’t tell anyone else, because if you do, then no more caps. You shouldn’t have told the Ackermans but I’ll let that pass; after all, you were dazed when the drug wore off – we expected that. You did it in a state of panic. Good luck, Kathy. And we’ll hear from you shortly.’

‘Can’t you give her further instructions now?’ a ‘Starman said from behind Corning, sleepy-eyed and toadlike, drawling his question.

‘She wouldn’t be able to retain anything more,’ Corning said. ‘It’s asking a lot of her already; can’t you see how overtaxed she is?’

‘Kiss her good-by,’ the ‘Starman behind him suggested. He strolled forward. ‘Or if that doesn’t cheer her up—’

The apartment door shut in Kathy’s face.

She stood a moment and then started back down the hall, toward the ascent ramp. Dizzy, she thought; I’m beginning to become disoriented – I hope I can make it to a cab. Once I’m in the cab I’ll be okay. Jesus, she thought, they treated me badly; I should care but I really don’t. Not as long as I have these two remaining capsules of JJ-180. And can get more.

The capsules were like a contracted form of life itself and yet at the same time everything they contained was fabricated from absolute delusion. What a mess, she thought drably as she emerged on the roof field and glanced about for the red, winking light of an autonomic cab. A – mess.

She had found a cab, was seated in it and on her way to Cheyenne, when she experienced the drug beginning to take effect.

Its initial manifestation was baffling. She wondered if perhaps a clue to its true action could be inferred from this; it seemed to her terribly important and she tried with every bit of mental energy she had to comprehend it. So simple and yet so meaningful.

The cut on her finger had disappeared.

She sat examining the spot, touching the smooth, perfect skin. No break. No scar. Her finger, exactly as before … as if time had been rolled back. The Band-Aid, too, was gone, and that seemed to clinch it, make it thoroughly comprehensible, even to her swiftly deteriorating faculties.

‘Look at my hand,’ she instructed the cab, holding her hand up. ‘Do you see any sign of an injury? Would you believe that I slashed myself badly, just half an hour ago?’

‘No, miss,’ the cab said as it passed out over the flat desert of Arizona, heading north toward Utah. ‘You appear uninjured.’

Now I understand what the drug does, she thought. Why it causes objects and people to become insubstantial. It’s not so magical, and it’s not merely hallucinogenic; my cut is really gone – this is no illusion. Will I remember this later on? Maybe, because of the drug, I’ll forget; there never will have been a cut, after a little while longer, as the action of the drug spreads out, engulfs more and more of me.

‘Do you have a pencil?’ she asked the cab.

‘Here miss.’ From a slot in the seat-back ahead of her a tablet of paper with attached writing stylus appeared.

Carefully Kathy wrote: JJ-180 took me back to before I had a severe cut on finger. ‘What day is this?’ she asked the cab.

‘May 18, miss.’

She tried to recall if that was correct, but now she felt muddled; it was already slipping away from her? Good thing she had written the note. Or had she written the note? On her lap the tablet lay with its stylus.

The note read: JJ-180 took me.

And that was all; the remainder dwindled into mere laboured convolutions without meaning.

And yet she knew that she had completed the sentence, whatever it had been; now she could recall it. As if by reflex she examined her hand. But how was her hand involved? ‘Cab,’ she said hurriedly, as she felt the balance of her personality ebbing away, ‘what did I ask you just a moment ago?’

The date.’

‘Before that.’

‘You requested a writing implement and paper, miss.’

‘Anything before that?’

The cab seemed to hesitate. But perhaps that was her imagination. ‘No, miss; nothing before that.’

‘Nothing about my hand?’

Now there was no doubt about it; the circuits of the cab did stall. At last it said creakily, ‘No, miss.’

Thank you,’ Kathy said, and sat back against the seat, rubbing her forehead and thinking. So it’s confused, too. Then this is not merely subjective; there’s been a genuine snarl in time, involving both me and my surroundings.

The cab said, as if in apology for its inability to assist her, ‘Since the trip will be several hours, miss, would you enjoy to watch TV? It, the screen, is placed directly before you; only touch the pedal.’

Reflexively she lit the screen with the tip of her toe; it came to life at once and Kathy found herself facing a familiar image, that of their leader, Gino Molinari, in the middle of a speech.

‘Is that channel satisfactory?’ the cab asked, still apologetic.

‘Oh sure,’ she said. ‘Anyhow when he gets up and rants it’s on all channels. “That was the law.

And yet here, too, in this familiar spectacle, something strange absorbed her; peering at the screen, she thought, He looks younger. The way I remember him when I was a child. Ebullient, full of animation and shouting excitement, his eyes alive with that old intensity: his original self that no one has forgotten, although long since gone. However, obviously it was not long since gone; she witnessed it now with her own eyes, and was more bewildered than ever.

Is JJ-180 doing this to me? she asked herself, and got no answer.

‘You enjoy to watch Mr Molinari?’ the cab inquired.

‘Yes,’ Kathy said, ‘I enjoy to watch.’

‘May I hazard,’ the cab said, ‘that he will obtain the office for which he is running, that of UN Secretary?’

‘You stupid autonomic robant machine,’ Kathy said witheringly. ‘He’s been in office years now.’ Running? she thought. Yes, the Mole had looked like this during his campaign, decades ago… perhaps that was what had confused the circuits of the cab. ‘I apologize,’ she said. ‘But where the hell have you been? Parked in an autofac repair garage for twenty-two years?’

‘No, miss. In active service. Your own wits, if I may say so, seem scrambled. Do you request medical assistance? We are at this moment over desert land but soon we will pass St George, Utah.’

She felt violently irritable. ‘Of course I don’t need medical assistance; I’m healthy.’ But the cab was right. The influence of the drug was upon her full force now. She felt sick and she shut her eyes, pressing her fingers against her forehead as if to push back the expanding zone of her psychological reality, her private, subjective self. I’m scared, she realized. I feel as if my womb is about to fall out; this time it’s hitting me much harder than before, it’s not the same, maybe because I’m alone instead of with a group. But I’ll just have to endure it. If I can.

‘Miss,’ the cab said suddenly, ‘would you repeat my destination? I have forgotten it.’ Its circuits clicked in rapid succession as if it were in mechanical distress. ‘Assist me, please.’

‘I don’t know where you’re going,’ she said. That’s your business; you figure it out. Just fly around, if you can’t remember.’ What did she care where it went? What did it have to do with her?

‘It began with a C,’ the cab said hopefully.

‘Chicago.’

‘I feel otherwise. However, if you’re sure—’ Its mechanism throbbed as it altered course.

You and I are both in this, Kathy realized. This drug-induced fugue. You made a mistake, Mr Corning, to give me the drug without supervision. Corning? Who was Corning?

‘I know where we were going,’ she said aloud. ‘To Corning.’

‘There is no such place,’ the cab said flatly.

‘There must be.’ She felt panic. ‘Check your data again.’

‘Honestly, there isn’t!’

‘Then we’re lost,’ Kathy said, and felt resigned. ‘God, this is awful. I have to be in Corning tonight, and there’s no such place; what’ll I do? Suggest something. I depend on you; please don’t leave me to flounder like this – I feel as if I’m losing my mind.’

‘I’ll request administrative assistance,’ the cab said. ‘From top-level dispatching service at New York. Just a moment.’ It was silent for a time. ‘Miss, there is no top-level dispatching service at New York, or if there is, I can’t raise them.’

‘Is there anything at New York?’

‘Radio stations, lots of them. But no TV transmissions or anything on the FM or ultra-high frequency; nothing on the band we use. Currently I am picking up a radio station which is broadcasting something entitled “Mary Marlin.” A piano piece by Debussy is being played as theme.’

She knew her history; after all she was an antique collector and it was her job. ‘Put it on your audio system so I can hear it,’ she instructed.

A moment later she heard a female voice, retailing a wretched tale of suffering to some other female, a dreary account at best. And yet it filled Kathy with frantic excitement.

They’re wrong, she thought, her mind working at its peak pitch. This won’t destroy me. They forgot this era is my specialty – I know it as well as the present. There’s nothing threatening or disintegrative about this experience for me; in fact it’s an opportunity.

‘Leave the radio on,’ she told the cab. ‘And just keep flying.’ Attentively, she listened to the soap opera as the cab continued on.

EIGHT It had – against nature and reason – become daytime. And the autonomic cab knew the impossibility of this; its voice was screechy with pain as it exclaimed to Kathy, ‘On the highway below, miss! An ancient car that can’t possibly exist!’ It sank lower. ‘See for yourself! Look!’

Gazing down, Kathy agreed, ‘Yes. A 1932 Model A Ford. And I agree with you; there haven’t been any Model A Fords for generations.’ Rapidly and with precision she reflected, then said, ‘I want you to land.’

‘Where?’ Decidedly, the autonomic cab did not like the idea.

‘That village ahead. Land on a rooftop there.’ She felt calm. But in her mind one realization dominated: it was the drug. And only the drug. This would last only so long as the drug operated within her cycle of brain metabolism; JJ-180 had brought her here without warning and JJ-180 would, eventually, return her to her own time – also without warning. ‘I am going to find a bank,’ Kathy said aloud. ‘And set up a savings account. By doing so—’ And then she realized that she possessed no currency of this period; hence there existed no way by which she could transact business. So what could she do? Nothing? Call President Roosevelt and caution him about Pearl Habor, she decided caustically. Change history. Suggest that years from now they not develop the atom bomb.

She felt impotent – and yet overwhelmed with her potential power; she experienced both sensations at once, finding the mixture radically unpleasant. Bring some artifact back to the present for Wash-35? Or check on some research quibble, settle some historical dispute? Snare the actual authentic Babe Ruth, bring him back to inhabit our Martian enterprise? It would certainly impart verisimilitude.

‘Virgil Ackerman,’ she said slowly, ‘is alive in this period as a small boy. Does that suggest anything?’

‘No,’ the cab said.

‘It gives me enormous power over him.’ She opened her purse. ‘I’ll give him something. The coins I have, bills.’ Whisper to him the date the United States enters the war, she thought. He can use that knowledge later on, somehow … he’ll find a way; he’s always been smart, much smarter than I. God, she thought, if only I could put my finger on it! Tell him to invest in what? General Dynamics? Bet on Joe Louis in every fight? Buy real estate in Los Angeles? What do you tell an eight-or nine-year-old boy when you have exact and complete knowledge of the next hundred and twenty years?

‘Miss,’ the cab said plaintively, ‘we’ve been in the air so long that I’m running short of fuel.’

Chilled, she said, ‘But you ought to be good for fifteen hours.’

‘I was low.’ It admitted this reluctantly. ‘It’s my fault; I’m sorry. I was on my way to a service station when you contacted me.’

‘You damn fool mechanism,’ she said with fury. But that was that; they couldn’t reach Washington D.C.; they were at least a thousand miles from it. And this period, of course, lacked the high-grade super-refined protonex which the cab required. And then all at once she knew what she had to do. The cab had given her the idea, unintentionally. Protonex was the finest fuel ever developed – and it was derived from sea water. All she had to do was mail a container of protonex to Virgil Ackerman’s father, instruct him to procure analysis of it and then a patent on it.

But there was no way she could mail anything, not without money to buy stamps. In her purse she had a small wad of dogeared postage stamps, but of course all from her own era, from 2055. ——, she said furiously to herself, overwhelmed. Here I have it right before me, the solution as to what I should do – and I can’t do it.

‘How,’ she asked the cab, ‘can I send a letter in this time period with no contemporary stamps? Tell me that.’

‘Send the letter unstamped, with no return address, miss. The post office will deliver it with a postage due stamp attached.’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘of course.’ But she could not get protonex into a first-class envelope; it would have to go parcel post, and in that class, lacking franking power, it would not be delivered. ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Do you have any transistors in your circuits?’

‘A few. But transistors became obsolete when—’

‘Give me one. I don’t care what it does to you; yank it out and let me have it, and the smaller it is the better.’

Presently, from the slot in the back of the seat before her, a transistor rolled; she caught it as it fell.

That puts my radio transmitter out of service,’ the cab complained. ‘I’ll have to bill you for it; it’ll be expensive because of—’

‘Shut up,’ Kathy said. ‘And land in that town; get down as soon as you can.’ She wrote hurriedly on the tablet of paper: ‘This is a radio part from the future, Virgil Ackerman. Show it to no one but save it until the early 1940s. Then take it to Westinghouse Corp. or to General Electric or any electronics (radio) firm. It will make you rich. I am Katherine Sweetscent. Remember me for this, later on.’

The cab landed gingerly on the roof of an office building in the centre of the small town. Below on the sidewalk the rustic, archaic-looking passers-by gaped.

‘Land on the street,’ Kathy reinstructed the cab. ‘I have to put this in the mail.’ She found an envelope in her purse, hurriedly wrote out Virgil’s address in Wash-35, put the transistor and note into the envelope and sealed it. Below them the street with its obsolete old cars rose slowly.

A moment later she was racing to a mailbox; she deposited the letter and then stood gasping for breath.

She had done it. Insured Virgil’s economic future and therefore her own. This would make his career and hers forever.

The hell with you, Eric Sweetscent, she said to herself. I don’t ever have to marry you now; I’ve left you behind.

And then she realized with dismay, I’ve still got to marry you in order to acquire the name. So that Virgil can identify me, later on in the future, in our own time. What she had done, then, came to exactly nothing.

Slowly, she returned to the parked cab.

‘Miss,’ the cab said, ‘can you help me find fuel, please?’

‘You won’t find any fuel here,’ Kathy said. Its obstinate refusal – or inability – to grasp the situation maddened her. ‘Unless you can run on sixty octane gasoline, which I very much doubt.’

A passer-by, a middle-aged man wearing a straw hat, frozen in his tracks by the sight of the autonomic cab, called to her, ‘Hey lady, what’s that, anyhow? A US Marine Corps secret weapon for war games?’

‘Yes,’ Kathy answered. ‘And in addition later on it’ll stop the Nazis.’ As she boarded the cab she said to the group of people who had cautiously formed around the cab at a safe distance, ‘Keep the date December 7, 1941, in mind; it’ll be a day to remember.’ She closed the cab door. ‘Let’s go. I could tell those people so much … but it seems hardly worth it. A bunch of Middle Western hicks.’ This town, she decided, lay either in Kansas or Missouri, from the looks of it. Frankly, it repelled her.

The cab dutifully ascended.

The ‘Starmen should see Kansas in 1935, she said to herself. If they did they might not care to take over Terra; it might not seem worth it.

To the cab she said, ‘Land in a pasture. We’ll sit it out until we’re back in our own time period.’ It probably would not be long, now; she had an impression of a devouring insubstantiality here in this era – the reality outside the cab had gained a gaseous quality which she recognized from her previous encounter with the drug.

‘Are you joking?’ the cab said. ‘Is it actually possible that we—’

‘The problem,’ she said tartly, ‘is not in returning to our own time; the problem is finding a way to stay under the drug’s influence until something of worth can be accomplished.’ The time was just not long enough.

‘What drug, miss?’

‘None of your goddam business,’ Kathy said. ‘You nosy autonomic nonentity with your big prying circuits all opened up and flapping.’ She lit a cigarette and leaned back against the seat, feeling weary. It had been a tough day and she knew, with acuity, that more lay ahead.

The sallow-faced young man, who oddly enough already possessed a conspicuous paunch, as if physically yielding to the more lush pleasures at this, the planet’s financial and political capital, shook Eric Sweetscent’s hand damply and said, ‘I’m Don Festenburg, doctor. It’s good to hear you’re joining us. How about an old-fashioned?’

‘No thanks,’ Eric said. There was something about Festenburg which he did not care for, but he could not put his finger on it. Despite his obesity and bad complexion Festenburg seemed friendly enough, and certainly he was competent; the latter alone counted, after all. But – Eric pondered as he watched Festenburg mix himself his drink. Perhaps it’s because I don’t think anyone should speak for the Secretary, he decided. I’d resent anyone who holds the job Festenburg does.

‘Since we’re alone,’ Festenburg said, glancing around the room, ‘I’d like to suggest something that may make me more, palatable to you.’ He grinned knowingly. ‘I can tell what your feelings are; I’m sensitive, doctor, even if I’m the pyknic body-type. Suppose I suggested that an elaborate ruse has been carried off successfully, convincing even you. The flabby, aging, utterly discouraged and hypochondriacal Gino Molinari whom you’ve met and accepted as the authentic UN Secretary—’ Festenburg lazily stirred his drink, eyeing Eric. ‘That’s the robant simulacrum. And the robust, energetic figure you witnessed on video tape a short while ago is the living man. And this ruse must necessarily be maintained, of course, to sidetrack no one else but our beloved ally, the ‘Starmen.’

‘What?’ Startled, he gaped. ‘Why would—’

‘The ‘Starmen consider us harmless, unworthy of their military attention, only .so long as our leader is palpably feeble. Quite visibly unable to discharge his responsibilities – in other words, in no sense a rival to them, a threat.’

After a pause Eric said, ‘I don’t believe this.’

‘Well,’ Festenburg said, shrugging, ‘it’s an interesting idea from the ivory tower, intellectual standpoint. Don’t you agree?’ He walked toward Eric, swirling the contents of his glass. Standing very close to him, Festenburg breathed his noxious breath into Eric’s face and said, ‘It could be. And until you actually subject Gino to an intensive physical examination you won’t know, because everything in that file you read – it could all be faked. Designed to validate a gross, well-worked-out swindle.’ His eyes twinkled with merciless amusement. ‘You think I’m out of my mind? I’m just playing, like a schizoid, with ideas for the fun of it, without regard to their actual consequences? Maybe so. But you can’t prove what I just now told you is untrue, and as long as this remains the case—’ He took a massive swallow of his drink, then made a face. ‘Don’t deplore what you saw on that Ampex video tape. Okay?’

‘But as you say,’ Eric said, ‘I’ll know as soon as I have a chance to examine him.’ And, he thought, that will come soon. ‘So if you’ll excuse me I’d like to end this conversation. I haven’t yet had time to set up my conapt here satisfactorily.’

‘Your wife – what’s her name? Kathy? – isn’t coming, is she?’ Don Festenburg winked. ‘You can enjoy yourself. I’m in a position to give you a hand. That’s my department, the land of the illicit, the feral, and the – let’s just call it the peculiar. Instead of the unnatural. But you come from Tijuana; I probably can’t teach you a thing.’

Eric said, ‘You can teach me to deplore not only what I saw on the video tape but—’ He broke off. Festenburg’s personal life was, after all, his own business.

‘But its creator as well,’ Festenburg finished for him. ‘Doctor, did you know that in the Middle Ages the ruling courts had people who lived in bottles. Spent their entire lives … all shrunken, of course, put in while babies, allowed to grow – to some extent, anyhow – within the bottle. We don’t have that now. However – Cheyenne is the contemporary ranking seat of kings; there are a few sights that could be shown you, if you’re interested. Perhaps from the purely medical standpoint — a sort of professional, disinterested—’

‘I think whatever it is you want to show me would only make me less pleased with my decision to come to Cheyenne,’ Eric said. ‘So frankly I don’t see what profit it would serve.’

‘Wait,’ Festenburg said, holding up his hand. ‘One item. Just this particular exhibit, all properly sealed hermetically, bathed in a solution that maintains the thing ad infinitum, or, as you probably will prefer, ad nauseam. May I take you there? It’s in what we at the White House call Room 3-C.’ Festenburg walked to the door, held it open for Eric.

After a pause Eric followed.

Hands in the pockets of his rumpled, unpressed trousers, Festenburg led the way down one corridor after another until at last they stood on a subsurface level, facing two high-ranking Secret Service men stationed at a metal reinforced door marked TOP SECRET, NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL PERMITTED.

‘I’m authorized,’ Festenburg said genially. ‘Gino’s given me the run of the warren; he has great trust in me, and because of this you’re going to see a state secret which you normally would never in a thousand years be allowed to view.’ As he passed by the uniformed Secret Service men and pushed open the door he added, ‘However, there will be one disappointing aspect of this; I’m going to show it to you but not explain it. I’d like to explain it but – very simply I can’t.’

In the center of the murky, cold room Eric saw a casket. As Festenburg had said, it was hermetically sealed; a pump throbbed dully, at its task of maintaining at extreme low temperatures whatever lay within the casket.

‘Look at it,’ Festenburg said sharply.

Deliberately pausing, Eric lit a cigarette, then walked over.

In the casket, supine, lay Gino Molinari, his face locked in agony. He was dead. Blood could be seen, dried drops on his neck. His uniform was torn, stained with mud. Both hands were lifted, the fingers writhing, as if trying even now to fight back at whatever — whoever – it was that had murdered him. Yes, Eric thought. I’m seeing the results of an assassination; this is the leader’s corpse, flailed with bullets emanating from a weapon with notably high muzzle velocity; the man’s body had been twisted, almost torn apart. It had been a savage assault. And – successful.

‘Well,’ Festenburg said, after a time, taking in a deep rush of breath, ‘there are several ways this item – which I like to think of as Exhibit One of the Cheyenne Freak Show – can be explained. Let’s assume it’s a robant. Waiting here in the wings for the moment that Gino needs it. Built by GRS Enterprises, the inventive Dawson Cutter, whom you must meet someday.’

‘Why would Molinari need this?’

Festenburg, scratching his nose, said, ‘Several reasons. In case of an attempted assassination – one which failed – this could be exhibited, taking the heat off Gino while he hid out. Or – it could be for the benefit of our sanguine ally; Gino may have it in the back of his mind that some incredibly complex, baroque plan will be necessary, something involving his retirement from office under the pressure they’re exerting on him.’

‘You’re sure this is a robant?’ To Eric the thing in the casket looked real.

‘I don’t even think it is, let alone know.’ Festenburg jerked his head and Eric saw that the two Secret Service men had entered the room; obviously it would not be possible to inspect the corpse.

‘How long has it been here?’

‘Only Gino knows and he won’t say; he just smiles slyly. “You wait, Don,” he says in his secretive fashion. “I got a big use for it.”’

‘And if it’s not a robant—’

Then it’s Gino Molinari lying there ripped apart by machine-gun slugs. A primitive, outmoded weapon but it certainly can kill its victim beyond the possibility of even org-trans repair; you can see that the brain case has been punctured – the brain is destroyed. If it is Gino, then where’s it from? The future? There is a theory, having to do with your firm, TF&D. A subsidiary has developed a drug which permits its user to move freely in time. You know about that?’ He studied Eric intently.

‘No,’ Eric admitted. The rumor was more or less new to him.

‘Anyhow, here’s this corpse,’ Festenburg said. ‘Lying here day after day, driving me nuts. Perhaps it’s from an alternate present in which Gino has been assassinated, driven out of office the hard way by a splinter political group of Terrans backed by Lilistar. But there’s a further ramification of this theory, one which really haunts me.’ Festenburg’s tone now was somber; he was no longer in a joking mood. ‘That would imply something about the virile, strutting Gino Molinari who made that video tape; that’s not a robant either and GRS Enterprises did not manufacture it because it too is an authentic Gino Molinari from an alternate present. One in which war didn’t come about, one perhaps in which Terra didn’t even get mixed up with Lilistar. Gino Molinari has gone into a more reassuring world and plucked his healthy counterpart over here to assist him. What do you think, doctor? Could that be it?’

Baffled, Eric said, ‘If I knew anything about that drug—’

‘I assumed you would. I’m disappointed; that was my reason for bringing you here. Anyhow – there’s one other possibility … logically. Suggested by this assassinated corpse, here.’ Festenburg hesitated. ‘I hate to mention it because it’s so bizarre that it makes my other conjectures look tainted by association.’

‘Go head,’ Eric said tightly.

‘There is no Gino Molinari.’

Eric grunted. Good grief, he thought.

‘All of them are robants. The healthy one who’s on the video tape, the tired, sick one you’ve met, this dead one here in the casket – that somebody, possibly GRS Enterprises, engineered this to keep the ‘Starmen from taking over our planet. So far they’ve made use of the ill one.’ Festenburg gestured. ‘And now they’ve hauled out the healthy one, made the first tape of him. And there may be more. Logically, why not? I’ve even tried to imagine what other alternatives might be like. You tell me. In addition to the three we know, what’s left?’

Eric said, ‘Obviously it leaves the possibility of building one with powers above the norm. Beyond the merely healthy.’ He thought, then, of Molinari’s recovery from one terminal illness after another. ‘But maybe we have that already. Have you read the medical file?’

‘Yes.’ Festenburg nodded. ‘And there’s one very interesting .quality about it. None of the tests were conducted by any persons now on his medical staff. Teagarden didn’t authorize any of them; the tests predate him, and as far as I know, Teagarden, like yourself, has never managed to subject Gino to even a cursory physical exam. Nor do I think he ever will. Nor do I think you ever will, doctor. Even if you’re kept around here for years.’

‘Your mind,’ Eric said, ‘is certainly hyperactive.’

‘Am I a glandular case?’

‘That has no bearing on the matter. But you certainly have spun a lot of ad hoc ideas out of your own head.’

‘Based on facts,’ Festenburg pointed out. ‘I want to know what Gino is up to. I think he’s one hell of a smart man. I think he can outthink the ‘Starmen any day of the week, and if he had the economic resources and the population behind him that they have, he’d be in the driver’s seat, no contest. As it is, he’s in charge of one dinky planet and they have a system-wide empire of twelve planets and eight moons. It’s frankly a wonder he’s been able to accomplish all he has. You know, doctor, you’re here to find out what’s making Gino sick. I say that’s not the issue. It’s obvious what’s making him sick: the whole darn situation. The real question is: What’s keeping him alive? That’s the real mystery. The miracle.’

‘I guess you’re right.’ Grudgingly, he had to admit that despite his repellent qualities Festenburg was intelligent and original; he had managed to see the problem properly. No wonder Molinari had hired him.

‘You’ve met the schoolgirl shrew?’

‘Mary Reineke?’ Eric nodded.

‘Christ, here’s this tragic, complicated mess, this sick man barely making it through the day with the weight of the world, of Terra itself, on his back, knowing he’s losing the war, knowing the reegs are going to get us if by some miracle Lilistar doesn’t – and in addition he’s got Mary on his back. And the final blistering irony is that Mary, by being a shrew and simple-minded, selfish, demanding, and anything else you want to articulate as a basic character defect – she does have him on his feet; you’ve seen her get him out of bed and back into uniform, functioning again. Do you know anything about Zen, doctor? This is a Zen paradox, because from a logical standpoint Mary ought to have been the final straw that utterly destroyed Gino. It makes you rethink the entire role of adversity in human life. To tell you the truth, I detest her. She detests me, too, naturally. Our only working connection is through Gino; we both want him to make it.’

‘Has she been shown the video tape of the healthy Molinari?’

Festenburg glanced up swiftly. ‘A wise thought. Has Mary seen the tape? Yes, maybe or no – check one. Not to my knowledge. But if you suppose my alternate-present theory, and that it’s not a robant on that tape, if it’s a human being, that magnetic, fire-eating, striving demigod, and if Mary catches sight of it – you can assume the following: the other Molinaris will disappear. Because what you saw on that tape is exactly what Mary Reineke wants — insists — that Gino be.’

It was an extraordinary thought. Eric wondered if Gino was aware of this aspect of the situation; if so, it might explain why he had waited so long to employ this tactic.

‘I wonder,’ he said to Festenburg, ‘how the sick Gino, whom we know, could be a robant, in view of Mary Reineke’s existence.’

‘How so? Why not?’

‘To put it in delicate terms … wouldn’t Mary be somewhat peeved by being the mistress of a product of GRS Enterprises?’

‘I’m getting tired, doctor,’ Festenburg said. ‘Let’s write finis to this discussion – you go and fix up your swinkly new conapt which they’ve donated to you for your loyal services here at Cheyenne.’ He moved toward the door; the two top-position Secret Service men stepped aside.

Eric said, ‘I’ll give you one opinion of my own. Having met Gino Molinari I refuse to believe GRS could construct something so human and—’

‘But you haven’t met the one they filmed,’ Festenburg said quietly. ‘It’s interesting, doctor. By drawing on himself from the alternates contained in the mishmash of time Gino may have collected an ensemble capable of facing the ally. Three or four Gino Molinaris, forming a committee, would be rather formidable… don’t you agree? Think of the combined ingenuity; think of the harebrained, clever, wild schemes they could hatch up working collectively.’ As he opened the door he added, ‘You’ve met the sick one and glimpsed the well one – weren’t you impressed?’

‘Yes,’ Eric admitted.

‘Would you now vote with those who want to see him sacked? And yet when you try to pin down what he’s actually done that’s so impressive – it isn’t there. If we were winning the war, or forcing back Lilistar’s investment of our planet… but we’re not. So what is it specifically, doctor, that Gino’s done that so impresses you? Tell me.’ He waited.

‘I – guess I can’t say specifically. But—’

A White House employee, a uniformed robant, appeared and confronted Eric Sweetscent. ‘Secretary Molinari has been looking for you, doctor. He’s waiting to see you in his office; I’ll lead the way.’

‘Oops,’ Festenburg said, chagrined and all at once quite nervous. ‘Evidently I kept you too long.’

Without a further exchange Eric followed the robant up the corridor to the elevator. This was probably important; he had that intuition.

In his office Molinari sat in a wheel chair, a blanket over his lap, his face gray and sunken. ‘Where were you?’ he said, as Eric came into sight. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter; listen, doctor – ‘Starmen have called a conference and I want you to be with me while I attend. I want you to be on hand constantly, just in case. I’m not feeling well and I wish this damn get-together could be avoided or at least postponed for a few weeks. But they insist.’ He began to wheel himself from the office. ‘Come on. It’s going to start any time.’

‘I met Don Festenburg.’

‘Brilliant rat, isn’t he? I put complete faith in our eventual success in him. What did he show you?’

It seemed unreasonable to tell Molinari that he had been viewing his corpse, especially in view of the fact that the man had just now said he did not feel well. So Eric merely said, ‘He took me around the building.’

‘Festenburg has the run of the place – because of the trust I put in him.’ At a bend in the corridor a gang of stenographers, translators, State Department officials, and armed guards met Molinari; his wheel chair disappeared into the corporate body and did not reappear. Eric, however, could still hear him talking away, explaining what lay ahead. ‘Freneksy is here. So this is going to be rough. I have an idea what they want, but we’ll have to wait and see. Better not to anticipate; that way you do their work for them, you sort of turn on yourself and do yourself in.’

Freneksy, Eric thought with a sensation of dread. Lilistar’s Prime Minister, here personally on Terra.

No wonder Molinari felt sick.

NINE The members of Terra’s delegation to the hastily called conference occupied seats on one side of the long oak table, and now, on the far side, the personages from Lilistar began to emerge from side corridors and find chairs. As a whole they did not look sinister; they looked, in fact, overworked and harried, caught up, as was Terra, by the strain of conducting the war. Obviously they had no time to spare. They were clearly mortal.

‘Translation,’ a ‘Starman said in English, ‘will be done by human agency not by machine, as any machine might make a permanent record, which is contrary to our desires here.’

Molinari grunted, nodded.

Now Freneksy appeared; the ‘Star delegation and several members of the Terran rose in a show of respect; the ‘Starmen clapped their hands as the bald, lean, oddly round-skulled man took a chair at the center of the delegation and began without preliminaries to open a briefcase of documents.

But his eyes. Eric noticed that, as Freneksy glanced briefly up at Molinari and smiled in greeting, Freneksy had what Eric thought of – and recognized in his practice as – paranoid eyes. Once he had learned to spot this, future identification generally came easy. This was not the glittering, restless stare of ordinary suspicion; this was a motionless gaze, a gathering of the totality of faculties within to comprise a single undisturbed psychomotor concentration. Freneksy did not decide to do this; in fact he was helpless, compelled to confront his compatriots and adversaries alike in this fashion, with this unending ensnaring fixity. It was an attentiveness which made empathic understanding impossible; the eyes did not reflect any inner reality; they gave back to the viewer exactly what he himself was. The eyes stopped communication dead; they were a barrier that could not be penetrated this side of the tomb.

Freneksy was not a bureaucrat and he did not – could not even if he tried – subordinate himself to his office. Freneksy remained a man – in the bad sense; he retained, in the midst of the busy activity of official conduct, the essence of the purely personal, as if to him everything was deliberate and intentional – a contest between people, not one between abstract or ideal issues.

What Minister Freneksy does, Eric realized, is to deprive all the others of the sanctity of their office. Of the security-producing reality of their titled position. Facing Freneksy, they became as they were born: isolated and individual, unsupported by the institutions which they were supposed to represent.

Take Molinari. Customarily, the Mole was the UN Secretary; he as an individual had – and properly so – dissolved into his function. But facing Minister Freneksy, the naked, hapless, lonely man reemerged – and was required to stand up to the Minister in this unhappy infinitude. The normal relative-ness of existence, lived with others in a fluctuating state of more or less adequate security, had vanished.

Poor Gino Molinari, Eric thought. Because facing Freneksy the Mole might as well not have become UN Secretary. And meanwhile Minister Freneksy became even more cold, more lifeless; he did not burn with the desire to destroy or dominate: he merely took away what his antagonist possessed – and left him nothing and nowhere, literally.

It was perfectly clear to Eric, at this point, why Molinari’s procession of lethal illnesses had not proved fatal. The illnesses were not merely a symptom of the stress under which he lay; they were simultaneously a solution to that stress.

He could not as yet make out quite precisely how the illnesses behaved in order to function as a response to Freneksy. But he had the deep and acute intuition that he would very soon; the confrontation between Freneksy and Molinari lay only moments away, and everything which the Mole had would have to be trotted out, if the Mole wished to survive.

Beside Eric a minor State Department official muttered, ‘Oppressive in here, isn’t it? Wish they’d open a window or turn on the vent system.’

Eric thought, No mechanical vent system will clear this air. Because the oppression emanates from those seated across from us and it will not depart until they depart – and perhaps not even then.

Leaning toward Eric, Molinari said, ‘Sit here beside me.’ He drew the chair back. ‘Listen, doctor, do you have your bag of instruments with you?’

‘It’s in my conapt.’

Molinari at once dispatched a robant runner. ‘I want you to have the bag at all times.’ He cleared his throat, then turned toward those seated on the far side of the table. ‘Minister Freneksy, I have a, uh, statement. I’d like to read it; the statement summarizes Earth’s present position as regards—’

‘Secretary,’ Freneksy said suddenly in English, ‘before you read any statement I would like to describe the status of the war effort on Front A.’ Freneksy rose; an aide at once unrolled a map projection which took effect on the far wall. The room sank into shadow.

Grunting, Molinari placed his written statement back inside the jacket of his uniform; he would not get his opportunity to read it. In an obvious manner he had been pre-empted. And, for a political strategist, this was a grave defeat. The initiative, if it had ever been his, was gone now.

‘Our combined armies,’ Freneksy stated, ‘are shortening their lines for strategic purposes. The reegs are expending inordinate amounts of men and materiel in this area.’ He indicated a sector on the map; it lay halfway between two planets of the Alpha System. ‘They will not be able to continue this long; I predict a bankruptcy of their strength no later than a month – Terran count – from now. The reegs do not understand yet that this is to be a long war. Victory, for them, must come soon or not at all. We, however—’ Freneksy indicated the entire map with a sweep of the pointer. ‘We are maturely aware of the over-all strategic meaning of this struggle, and how long it must remain with us in terms of time as well as space. Also, the reegs are spread too thinly. If a major battle were to break out here—’ Freneksy indicated the spot ‘—they could not support their forces already committed. Further, we will have twenty more first-line divisions in action by the end of the Terran year; this is a promise, Secretary. We have yet to call up several classes here on Terra, whereas the reegs have scraped the barrel.’ He paused.

Molinari murmured, ‘Is your bag here yet, doctor?’

‘Not yet,’ Eric said, looking for the robant runner; it had not returned.

Leaning close to Eric, the Mole whispered, ‘Listen. You know what I’ve been experiencing lately? Head noises. Rushing sounds – you know, in my ears. Swoop, zwoop. Does that sound like anything?’

Minister Freneksy had continued. ‘We have new weapons, also, emanating from Planet Four of the Empire; you will be astonished, Secretary, when you see video clips of them in tactical operation. They are devastating in their accuracy. I will not attempt to describe them in detail now; I prefer to wait until the tapes are available. I personally supervised their engineering and construction.’

His head almost touching Eric’s, Molinari whispered, ‘And when I turn my head from side to side I get a distinct cracking sound from the base of my neck. Can you hear it?’ He turned his head from side to side, nodding in a slow, stiff manner. ‘What is that? It resounds unpleasantly as hell in my ears.’

Eric said nothing; he was watching Freneksy, barely paying attention to the whispering from the man beside him.

‘Secretary,’ Freneksy said, pausing, ‘consider this aspect of our joint effort; the reegs’ space-drive output has been severely restricted due to the success by our W-bombs. Those which have come off their assembly lines recently – we are informed by MCI – are unreliable, and a number of highly destructive contaminations have occurred in deep space aboard their line ships.’

The robant runner entered the room now, with Eric’s instrument case.

Ignoring this, Freneksy continued, his voice harsh and insistent. ‘I also point out, Secretary, that on Front Blue the Terran brigades have not performed well, no doubt due to a lack of proper equipment. Victory is of course inevitable for us – eventually. But right now we must see to it that our troops who hold the line against the reegs are not put in the position of facing the enemy deprived of adequate materiel. It is criminal to allow men to fight under those circumstances; don’t you agree, Secretary?’ Without pausing, Freneksy continued, ‘Therefore you can see the urgency of increasing Terra’s output of strategic war goods and weapons of all sorts.’

Molinari saw Eric’s instrument case and nodded with relief. ‘You have it,’ he said. ‘Good. Keep it ready, just in case. You know what I think these head noises are from? Hypertension.’

Cautiously, Eric said, ‘Could be.’

Now Minister Freneksy had ceased; his expressionless face seemed to become more severe, more withdrawn into the vacuum of his own intensity, the nonBeing which seemed to be his major quality. Irritated by Molinari’s lack of attention, Freneksy was drawing from this well of his own anti-existence, Eric decided. Casting his principle over the conference room and the people in it, as if forcing everyone away from each other step by step.

‘Secretary,’ Freneksy said, ‘this now is most crucial. My generals in the field tell me that the new reeg offensive weapon, their—’

‘Wait,’ Molinari croaked. ‘I wish to confer with my colleague, here beside me.’ Bending so close to Eric that his soft, perspiration-dampened cheek pressed against his neck, Molinari whispered to him, ‘And you know what else? I seem to be having trouble with my eyes. As if I’m going completely blind. Here’s what I want you to do, doctor; give me a pressure reading right now. Just to be sure it’s not dangerously high. I feel it is frankly.’

Eric opened his instrument case.

At the wall map Minister Freneksy said, ‘Secretary, we must attend to this decisive detail before we can continue. Terran troops do not stand up well against the reegs’ new homeostatic bomb, hence I would like to relieve a million and a half of my own factory workers and put them into uniform, replacing them in Empire factories with Terrans. This is an advantage for you, Secretary, in that Terrans will not be fighting and dying in the lines but will be safe inside Empire factories. However, this must be done soon or not at all.’ He added, ‘This explains my desire for an immediate conference at a superior level.’

Eric read, from the testing disc, a pressure of 290 for Molinari, an elevation unnaturally high and ominous.

‘Bad, isn’t it?’ Molinari said, resting his head on his arms. ‘Get Teagarden in here,’ he instructed a robant. ‘I want him to confer with Dr Sweetscent; tell him to be prepared to make a diagnosis on the spot.’

‘Secretary,’ Freneksy said, ‘we cannot continue unless you turn attention to what I’m saying. My request for a million and a half Terran males and females to work in Empire factories – did you hear that? This crucial requisition must be honored at once; transport of these entities must begin no later than the end of this week, your time.’

‘Um,’ Molinari murmured. ‘Yes, Minister, I heard; I’m pondering this request.’

‘There is nothing to ponder,’ Freneksy said. ‘It must be achieved if we are to hold the line on Front C, where reeg pressure is now greatest. A breakthrough is imminent, and Terran brigades have not—’

‘I’ll have to consult with my Labor Secretary,’ Molinari said, after a long pause. ‘Get his approval.’

‘We must have the one and a half million of your people!’

Reaching into his jacket, Molinari fished out his folded sheets of paper. ‘Minister, this statement which I—’

‘Do I have your promise?’ Freneksy demanded. ‘So that we can go on to other matters, now?’

‘I’m sick,’ Molinari said.

There was silence.

At last Freneksy said thoughtfully, ‘I am aware. Secretary, that your health has not been good for years now. Therefore I took the liberty of bringing an Empire physician with me to this conference. This is Dr Gornel.’ On the far side of the table a lank-faced ‘Starman nodded curtly to the Mole. ‘I would like him to examine you, with a view toward making a permanent correction of your physical problems.’

‘Thank you, Minister,’ Molinari said. ‘Your kindness in bringing Dr Gornel is deeply appreciated. However, I have my own staff physician here, Dr Sweetscent. He and Dr Teagarden are about to perform an exploratory examination to determine the cause of my hypertension.’

‘Now?’ Freneksy said, and showed, for the first time, a trace of genuine emotion. Amazed anger.

‘My blood pressure is dangerously high,’ Molinari explained. ‘If it continues I’ll lose my eyesight. In fact already I’m suffering impaired vision.’ In a low voice he said to Eric, ‘Doctor, everything around me has become dim; I think I’m already blind. Where the hell’s Teagarden?’

Eric said, ‘I can seek for the source of the hypertension, Secretary; I have the necessary diagnostic instruments with me.’ He reached into his case once more. ‘Initially I’ll give you an injection of radioactive salts which will carry through your bloodstream—’

‘I know,’ Molinari said. ‘And collect at the source of the vasoconstriction. Go ahead.’ He rolled up his sleeve and held out his furry arm; Eric pressed the self-cleansing head of the injecting tube against a vein near the elbow and pressed the tab.

Severely, Minister Freneksy said, ‘What is taking place, Secretary? Can’t we continue with the conference?’

‘Yes, go ahead,’ Molinari said, nodding. ‘Dr Sweetscent is merely making an exploration to—’

‘Medical matters bore me,’ Freneksy interrupted. ‘Secretary, there is a further proposal I wish to make to you now. First, I would like to have my physician, Dr Gornel, placed permanently on your staff to supervise your medical care. Secondly, I have been informed by the Empire counter-intelligence agency operating here on Terra that a group of malcontents, desiring an end to Terra’s participation in the war, are planning your assassination; hence I wish, for your safety, to provide you with a perpetual armed guard of ‘Starmen commando troops who will, by their extreme courage and determination and efficiency, protect your person at all times. They number twenty-five, an adequate number, given their unique quality.’

‘What?’ Molinari said. He shuddered. ‘What do you find, doctor?’ He seemed confused now, unable to keep his attention fixed on both Eric and the progess of the conference. ‘Wait, Minister.’ To Eric he murmured, ‘What the hell do you find, doctor? Or did you just tell me? Sorry.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘I’m blind!’ His voice was filled with panic. ‘Do something doctor!’

Eric, examining the sighting graph which traced the movement of the radioactive salts in Molinari’s circulatory system, said, ‘There appears to be a stricture of the renal artery which passes through your right kidney. A ring which—’

‘I know,’ Molinari said, nodding. ‘I knew the stricture was in my right kidney; I’ve had it before. You’ll have to operate, doctor, and cut the ring or it’ll kill me.’ He seemed too weak now to raise his head; he sat slumped over, face in his hands. ‘God, I feel terrible,’ he mumbled. Then he raised his head and said to Freneksy, ‘Minister, I must undergo an immediate corrective operation to relieve this arterial stricture. We’ll have to postpone this discussion.’ He rose to his feet, swayed, and then fell noisily back; Eric and the man from the state caught him, helped him back into his chair. The Mole seemed incredibly heavy and inert; Eric could hardly support him, even with assistance.

Freneksy declared, The conference must continue.’

‘All right,’ Molinari gasped. ‘I’ll have the operation while you talk.’ He nodded weakly to Eric. ‘Don’t wait for Teagarden; get started.’

‘Here?’ Eric said.

‘It’ll have to be,’ Molinari whimpered. ‘Cut the ring, doctor, or I’m dead. I’m dying – I know it.’ He slumped, then, against the table. And this time he did not draw himself back up to a sitting position; he remained as he was. Like some great discarded, tossed sack.

At the far end of the table UN Vice Secretary Rick Prindle said to Eric, ‘Begin, doctor. As he said, it’s urgent; you know that.’ Obviously he – and the others present – had been through this before.

Freneksy said, ‘Secretary, will you empower Mr Prindle to take your official place in Terra-Lilistar negotiations?’

There was no answer from Molinari; he had passed into unconsciousness.

From his case Eric lifted a small surgical homeostatic unit; it would suffice – he hoped – for the delicate operation. Drilling its own path, and closing the passage behind it, the tool would penetrate the dermal layer and then the omentum until it reached the renal stricture, whereupon, if it was behaving properly, it would begin construction of a plastic bypass for the arterial section; this would be safer, at the moment, than attempting to remove the ring.

The door opened and Dr Teagarden entered; he hurried up to Eric, saw Molinari lying unconscious with his head on the table, said, ‘Are you prepared to operate?’

‘I have the equipment; yes, I’m ready.’

‘No artiforg, of course?’

‘It isn’t necessary.’

Teagarden took hold of Molinari by the wrist, measured his pulse; then he whipped out a stethoscope, unbuttoned the Secretary’s jacket and shirt, listened to his heart. ‘Weak and irregular. We’d better cool him off.’

‘Yes,’ Eric agreed, and brought a cold-pak assembly from his case.

Freneksy, coming over to see, said, ‘You’re going to lower his body temperature during the operation?’

‘Yes, we’ll put him out,’ Eric said. The metabolic processes—’

‘I don’t care to hear,’ Freneksy said. ‘Biological matters do not interest me; all I am concerned with is the evident fact that the Secretary is unable to continue at present with this discussion. A discussion for which we have traveled a number of light-years.’ His face displayed a dull, baffled anger which he could not suppress.

Eric said, ‘We have no choice, Minister. Molinari is dying.’

‘I realize that,’ Freneksy said, and walked away, his fists clenched.

‘He’s technically dead,’ Teagarden said, still listening to Molinari’s heart action. ‘Put the freeze into effect at once, doctor.’

Eric swiftly attached the cold-pak to Molinari’s neck, started its self-contained compression-circuit up. The cold radiated out from it; he let go and turned his attention to the surgical tool.

Minister Freneksy conferred, speaking in his own tongue, with the Empire doctor; he lifted his head all at once and said crisply, ‘I would like Dr Gornel to assist in this operation.’

Vice Secretary Prindle spoke up. ‘It can’t be permitted. Molinari has given strict orders that only his own staff doctors, chosen by himself personally, are to touch his person.’ He nodded to Tom Johannson and his corps of Secret Service men; they moved closer to Molinari.

‘Why?’ Freneksy asked.

‘They’re familiar with his case history,’ Prindle said woodenly.

Freneksy shrugged, walked away; he seemed even more baffled now, even bewildered. ‘It’s inconceivable to me,’ he said aloud, his back to the table, ‘that this could be permitted to happen, that Secretary Molinari could let his physical condition deteriorate to such a point.’

To Teagarden, Eric said, ‘Has this happened before?’

‘You mean has Molinari died during a conference with the ‘Starmen?’ Teagarden smiled reflexively. ‘Four times. Right here in this room, even in the same chair. You may start your borer, now.’

Placing the homeostatic surgical tool against Molinari’s lower right side, Eric activated it; the device, the size of a shot glass, at once flung itself into activity, delivering first a strong local anaesthetic and then beginning its task of cutting its way to the renal artery and the kidney.

The only sound in the room now was the whirring caused by the action of the tool; everyone, including Minster Freneksy, watched it disappear from sight, burrowing into Molinari’s heavy, motionless, slumped body.

‘Teagarden,’ Eric said, ‘I suggest that we keep—’ He stood back and lit a cigarette. ‘Watch for a case of hypertension occurring somewhere here in the White House, another partially blocked renal artery or—’

‘It’s come up already. A maid on the third floor. Hereditary malformation, as it has to be of course. But coming to a crisis in this woman during the last twenty-four hours because of an overdose of amphetamines; she began to lose her sight and we decided to go ahead and operate – that’s where I was when summoned here. I was just finishing up.’

‘Then you know,’ Eric said.

‘Know what?’ Teagarden’s voice was low, concealed from those across the table. ‘We’ll discuss it later. But I can assure you that I know nothing. Nor do you.’

Coming over to them, Minister Freneksy said, ‘How soon will Molinari be capable to resuming this discussion?’

Eric and Teagarden glanced at each other. Caught each other’s eye.

‘Hard to say,’ Teagarden said presently.

‘Hours? Days? Weeks? Last time it was ten days.’ Freneksy’s face writhed with impotence. ‘I am simply unable to remain here on Terra that long; the conference will have to be rescheduled for later in the year if it’s to be a wait of more than seventy-two hours.’ Behind him his consulting staff, his military and industrial and protocol advisers, were already putting their notes away in their briefcases, closing up shop.

Eric said, ‘Probably he won’t be strong enough within the two-day period generally allowed in cases like this; his over-all condition is too—’

Turning to Prindle, Minister Freneksy said, ‘And you decline any authority as Vice Secretary to speak in his place? What an abominable situation! It’s obvious why Terra—’ He broke off. ‘Secretary Molinari is a personal friend of mine,’ he said, then. ‘I’m keenly concerned as to his welfare. But why must Lilistar bear the major burden in this war? Why can Terra go on dragging her feet indefinitely?’

Neither Prindle nor the two doctors answered.

In his own language Freneksy spoke to his delegation; they rose en masse, obviously prepared to depart.

The conference, because of Molinari’s sudden near-fatal illness, had been called off. At least for now. Eric felt overwhelming relief.

Through his illness Molinari had escaped. But only temporarily.

Nevertheless, that was something. That was enough. The million and a half Terrans, demanded by Lilistar for its factories, would not be rounded up … Eric glanced at Teagarden, exchanged a brief flash of agreement and comprehension. Meanwhile, the borer went about its task, unaided, whining on.

A psychosomatic, hypochrondiacal illness had protected the lives of a great many people and it made Eric rethink, already, the value of medicine, the effect of bringing about a ‘cure’ for Molinari’s condition.

It seemed to him as he listened to the borer at work that he was now beginning to understand the situation – and what was really required of him by the ailing U N Secretary who lay against the conference table, neither seeing nor hearing, in a state where the problems of the discussion with Minister Freneksy did not exist.

Later, in his well-guarded bedroom, Gino Molinari sat propped up on pillows, weakly contemplating the homeopape the New York Times, which had been placed at his disposal.

‘It’s okay to read, isn’t it, doctor?’ he murmured faintly.

‘I think so,’ Eric said. The operation had been totally successful; the elevated blood pressure had been restored to a normal plateau, commensurate with the patient’s age and general condition.

‘Look at what the papes are able to get wind of.’ Molinari passed the first section to Eric.

POLICY MEET CALLED OFF ABRUPTLY DUE TO SECRETARY’S ILLNESS. ‘STAR DELEGATION HEADED BY FRENEKSY IN SECLUSION.

‘How do they find those things out?’ Molinari complained peevishly. ‘God, it makes me look bad; makes it obvious I finked out at a crucial time.’ He glared at Eric. ‘If I had any guts I’d have stood up to Freneksy on that labor-force conscription demand.’ He shut his eyes wearily. ‘I knew the demand was coming. Knew it last week, even.’

‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Eric said. How much of the physiological fugal dynamism was comprehensible to Molinari? None of it, evidently; Molinari not only did not grasp the purpose of his illness – he did not even approve of it. And so it continued to function at an unconscious level.

But how long can this go on? Eric wondered. With such a powerful dichotomy between conscious aspiration and unconscious will to escape … perhaps, finally, an illness would be produced from which the Secretary would never emerge; it would not only be fatal, it would be final.

The door to the next room opened; there stood Mary Reineke.

Taking her by the arm, Eric led her back out into the hall, shutting the door after them. ‘Can’t I see him?’ she demanded indignantly.

‘In a minute.’ He studied her, still unable to determine just how well she understood the situation. ‘I want to ask you something. Has Molinari undergone any psychiatric therapy or analysis that you know of?’ No mention existed in the file ; but he had a hunch.

‘Why should he?’ Mary toyed with the zipper of her skirt. ‘He’s not crazy.’

That certainly was true; he nodded. ‘But his physical—’

‘Gino has had back luck. That’s why he’s always getting sick. You know no psychiatrist is going to change his luck.’ Mary Reineke added with reluctance, ‘Yes, he did consult an analyst once, last year, a few times. But that’s a top secret; if the homeopapes got hold of it—’

‘Give me the analyst’s name.’

‘The hell I will.’ Her black eyes snapped with hostile triumph; she glared at him unwinkingly. ‘I won’t even tell Dr Teagarden, and him I like.’

‘After watching Gino’s illness in action I feel I—’

‘The analyst,’ Mary broke in, ‘is dead. Gino had him killed.’

Eric stared at her.

‘Guess why.’ She smiled with the random malice of a teen-age girl, the purposeless, delicious cruelty which took him back in a flash to his own boyhood. To the agonies such girls had caused him before. ‘It was something the analyst said. About Gino’s illness. I don’t know what it was but I assume he was on the right track … as you think you are. So do you really want to be so clever?’

‘You remind me,’ he said, ‘of Minister Freneksy.’

She pushed by him, toward Gino’s door. ‘I want to go on in; good-by.’

‘Did you know that Gino died there in that conference room today?’

‘Yes, he had to. Just for a few moments, of course; not long enough to muddle his brain cells. And of course you and Teagarden cooled him right down; I know about that, too. Why do I remind you of Freneksy, that crulp!’ She came back toward him, studying him intently. ‘I’m not like him at all. You’re just trying to make me sore so I’ll tell you something.’

Eric said, ‘What do you think I want you to tell me?’

‘About Gino’s suicide impulses.’ She spoke matter-of-factly. ‘He has them; everybody knows that. That’s why I was brought here by his relatives, to make sure somebody spent every night with him, snuggled right up against him in bed every hour or watching him while he paces around when he can’t sleep. He can’t be alone at night; he’s got to have me to talk to. And I can talk sense to him – you know, restore his perspective at four o’clock in the morning. That’s hard to do but I do it.’ She smiled. ‘See? Do you have somebody to do that for you, doctor? At your four a.m. moments?’

Presently he shook his head no.

‘A shame. You need it. Too bad I can’t do it for you, too, but one’s enough. Anyhow you’re not my type. But good luck – maybe someday you’ll find someone like me.’ Opening the door, she disappeared. He stood alone in the corridor, feeling futile. And, all at once, extremely lonely.

I wonder what became of the analyst’s files? he thought mechanically, turning his mind back to his job. No doubt Gino had them destroyed, so as not to fall into ‘Star hands.

That’s right, he thought. It is about four a.m. when it hits hardest. But there’s no one else like you, he thought. So that’s that.

‘Dr Sweetscent?’

He glanced up. A Secret Service man had approached him. ‘Yes.’

‘Doctor, there’s a woman outside who says she’s your wife; she wants to be admitted to the building.’

‘It can’t be,’ Eric said, with fear.

‘You want to come with me and see if you can identify her, please?’

Automatically he fell in beside the Secret Service man. Tell her to go away,’ he said. No, he thought, that won’t do; you don’t handle your problems like that, like a child waving a wand. ‘I have no doubt it’s Kathy,’ he said. ‘Followed me here after all. In the name of God – what dreadful luck. Did you ever feel this way?’ he asked the Secret Service man. ‘Did you ever find yourself unable to live with someone you had to live with?’

‘Nope,’ the Secret Service man said unfeelingly, leading the way.

TEN His wife stood in a corner of the outside compound which was the White House receiving room, reading a homeopape, the New York Times; she wore a dark coat and a good deal of make-up. Her skin, however, looked pale and her eyes seemed enormous, filled with anguish.

As he entered the compound she glanced up and said, ‘I’m reading about you; it seems you operated on Molinari and saved his life. Congratulations.’ She smiled at him but it was a bleak, trembling smile. ‘Take me somewhere and buy me a cup of coffee; I have a lot to tell you.’

‘You’ve got nothing to tell me,’ he said, unable to keep his stunned dismay out of his voice.

‘I had a major insight after you left,’ Kathy said.

‘So did I. It was that we’d done the right thing by splitting up.’

‘That’s strange, because my insight was just the opposite,’ she said.

‘I see that. Obviously. You’re here. Listen: by law I don’t have to live with you. All I’m required to do—’

‘You ought to listen to what I have to say,’ Kathy said steadily. ‘It wouldn’t be morally right for you just to walk off; that’s too easy.’

He sighed. Useful philosophy by which to achieve one’s goals. But nevertheless he was snared. ‘Okay,’ he agreed. ‘I can’t do that, just as I couldn’t honestly deny you’re my wife. So let’s have the coffee.’ He felt fatalistic. Perhaps it was an attenuated form of his self-destructive instinct. In any case he had given in; taking her arm, he guided her along the passage, past the White House guards, toward the nearest cafeteria. ‘You look bad,’ he said. ‘Your color. And you’re too tense.’

‘I’ve had a bad time,’ she admitted, ‘since you left. I guess I’m really dependent on you.’

‘Symbiosis,’ he said. ‘Unhealthy.’

‘It’s not that!’

‘Sure it is. This proves it. No, I’m not going to go back with you on the old basis.’ He felt – at least for the moment — determined; he was prepared to fight it out, here and now. Eyeing her, he said, ‘Kathy, you look quite sick.’

‘That’s because you’ve been hanging around the Mole; you’re getting used to a sick environment. I’m perfectly well, just a little tired.’

But she looked – smaller. As if something in her had dwindled away, as if she had dried up. It was almost – age. Yet not quite. Could their separation have done this much damage? He doubted it. His wife, since he had seen her last, had become frail, and he did not like this; despite his animosity he felt concern.

‘You better get a multiphasic,’ he said. ‘A complete check-up.’

‘Christ,’ Kathy said, ‘I’m okay. I mean, I’ll be okay, if you and I can iron out our misunderstanding and—’

‘The termination of a relationship,’ he said, ‘is not a misunderstanding. It’s a reorganization of life.’ He got his coffee cup and hers, filled both from the dispenser, paid the robant cashier.

When they had seated themselves at a table, Kathy lit a cigarette and said, ‘All right, suppose I admit it; without you I’m completely falling apart. Do you care?’

‘I care, but that doesn’t mean—’

‘You’d just let me fade away and perish.’

‘I have one sick man who occupies all my time and attention. I can’t heal you too.’ Especially, he thought, when I don’t genuinely want to.

‘But all you have to do is—’ She sighed, sipped her coffee glumly; her hand trembled, he noticed, in an almost pseudo Parkinsonism. ‘Nothing. Just accept me back. Then I’ll be well.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I frankly don’t believe it. You’re sicker than that; there’s some other cause.’ I’m not in the medical profession by mistake, he thought. I can spot a thoroughgoing illness pattern when I see it. But he could not diagnose it beyond that. ‘I think you know what ails you,’ he said bluntly. ‘You could tell me if you cared to. This makes me more wary than ever; you’re not telling me all that you should, you’re not being honest or responsible, and that’s a hell of a basis on which to—’

‘Okay!’ She stared at him. ‘I’m sick; I admit it! But let’s just say it’s my business; you don’t have to worry.’

‘I’d say,’ he said, ‘that there’s been neurological damage.’

Her head jerked; what color she had now drained from her face.

‘I think,’ he said suddenly, ‘that I’m going to do something I genuinely think may be premature and overly drastic, but I’ll try it and see what comes of it. I’m going to have you arrested.’

‘Good God why?’ Panic stricken, she gazed at him, now speechless; her hands lifted in defense, then fell back.

He rose, walked over to a cafeteria employee. ‘Miss,’ he said, ‘would you have a Secret Service man come to my table?’ He pointed to his table.

‘Yes sir,’ the woman said, blinking but unperturbed. She turned to a busboy who, without further discussion, scampered off into the kitchen.

Eric returned to his table, reseated himself opposite Kathy. He resumed sipping his coffee, trying to keep himself calm and at the same time bracing himself for the scene that lay ahead. ‘My rationale,’ he said, ‘is that it’s for your own good. Of course I don’t know yet. But I think it’ll turn out that way. And I think you know it.’

Blanched, wizened with fright, Kathy implored. ‘I’lll leave. Eric; I’ll go back to San Diego – okay?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘You got yourself into this by coming here; you made it my business. So you’ll have to suffer the consequences. As they say.’ He felt completely rational and in control; it was a bad situation but he sensed the possibilities of something imminent which was far worse.

Kathy said huskily, ‘Okay, Eric. I’ll tell you what it is. I’ve got myself addicted to JJ-180. That’s the drug I told you about, the drug we all, including Marm Hastings, took. Now you know. I have nothing more to say; that covers it. And I’ve taken it once since. And just one exposure is addicting. As you no doubt realize; after all, you are a doctor.’

‘Who else knows?’

‘Jonas Ackerman.’

‘You got it through Tijuana Fur & Dye? From our subsidiary?’

‘Y-yes.’ She did not meet his gaze. Presently she added, That’s why Jonas knows; he got it for me – but don’t tell anybody that. Please.’

Eric said, ‘I won’t.’ His mind had begun to function properly again, thank God. Was this the drug which Don Festenburg had obliquely referred to? The term JJ-180 roused dormant memories; he tried to straighten them out. ‘You made a hell of a mistake,’ he said, ‘from what I remember hearing about Frohedadrine, as it’s also called. Yes, Hazeltine makes it.’

At the table a Secret Service man appeared. ‘Yes, doctor?’

‘I just wanted to inform you that this woman is my wife, as she says. And I’d like to have her cleared to remain here with me.’

‘All right, doctor. We’ll run a routine security probe on her. But I’m certain it’s okay.’ The Secret Service man nodded and departed.

‘Thanks,’ Kathy said presently.

‘I consider addiction to such a toxic drug a major illness,’ Eric said. ‘In this day and age worse than cancer or a massive cardiac arrest. It’s obvious I can’t dump you. You’ll probably have to enter a hospital; you’re probably aware of that already. I’ll contact Hazeltine, find out all they know … but you understand it may be hopeless.’

‘Yes.’ She ducked her head in a spasmodic nod.

‘Anyhow, you seem to have a great deal of courage.’ He reached out, took hold of her hand; it was dry and cold. Lifeless. He let it go. ‘That has always been one thing I’ve admired in you – you’re not a coward. Of course that’s how you got yourself into this in the first place, by having the guts to try some new substance. Well, so now we’re back together.’ Glued fast to each other by your possibly fatal drug habit, he thought with morose despair. What a reason to resume our marriage. It was just a little too much for him.

‘You’re a good egg, too,’ Kathy said.

‘Do you have any more of the stuff?’

She hesitated. ‘N-no.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘I won’t give it up. I’d rather leave you and try to make it on my own.’ Her fear had become, momentarily, obstinate defiance. ‘Look, if I’m hooked on JJ-180 I can’t give you the supply I possess – that’s what it means to be hooked! I don’t want to take any more; I have to take it. Anyhow, there’s not much.’ She shuddered. ‘It makes me wish I were dead; that goes without saying. God, I don’t know how I got myself into this.’

‘What’s the experience like? I understand it involves time.’

‘Yes, you lose your fixed point of reference; you pass easily back and forth. What I’d like to do is put myself at the service of someone or something, find a use for the period that I’m in the hands of. Could the Secretary use me? Eric, maybe I could get us out of the war; I could warn Mplinari before he signs the Pact of Peace.’ Her eyes glowed with hope. ‘Isn’t it worth trying?’

‘Maybe so.’ However, he recalled Festenburg’s statements on the subject; perhaps Molinari had use of JJ-180 already. But the Mole clearly had not tried – or been able – to find a route back to pre-pact days. Perhaps the drug affected each person uniquely. Many stimulant, hallucinogenic drugs did.

‘Can I get access to him through you?’ Kathy asked.

‘I – suppose so.’ But something sprang to life inside him and made him wary. ‘It would take time. Right now he’s recovering from the kidney operation, as you seem to know.’

She shook her head then, nodding with pain. ‘Jesus, I feel awful, Eric. Like I’m not going to survive. You know… impending disaster. Give me a bunch of tranquilizers; it might help a little.’ She held out her hand and again he saw How badly it shook. Even worse, it seemed, than before.

‘I’ll put you in the building’s infirmary,’ he decided, rising to his feet. ‘For the time being. While I figure out what to do. I’d prefer not to give you any medication, though; it might further potentiate the drug. With a new substance you never—’

Kathy broke in, ‘Want to know what I did, Eric, while you were off getting the Secret Service? I dropped a cap of JJ-180 into your coffee cup. Don’t laugh; I’m serious. It’s true, and you’ve drunk it. So you’re addicted now. The effects should begin any time; you’d better get out of this cafeteria and to your own conapt, because they’re enormous.’ Her voice was flat and drab. ‘I did it because I thought you were going to have me arrested; you said you were and I believed you. So it’s your own fault. I’m sorry … I wish I hadn’t, but anyhow now you have a motive for curing me; you’ve got to find a solution. I just couldn’t depend on your sheer goodwill; we’ve had too much trouble between us. Isn’t that so?’

He managed to say, ‘I’ve heard that about addicts in general; they like to hook other people.’

‘Do you forgive me?’ Kathy asked, also rising.

‘No,’ he said. He felt wrathful and dizzy. Not only do I not forgive you, he thought, but I’ll do everything I can to deny you a cure; nothing means anything to me now except getting back at you. Even my own cure. He felt pure, absolute hate for her. Yes, this was what she would do; this was his wife. This was precisely why he had tried to get away.

‘We’re in this together,’ Kathy said.

As steadily as possible he walked toward the exit of the cafeteria step by step, past the tables, people. Leaving her.

He almost made it. He almost.

Everything returned. But totally different. New. Changed.

Across from him Don Festenburg leaned back, said, ‘You’re lucky. But I’d better explain this. Here. The calendar.’ He pushed a brass object; across the desk Eric saw. ‘You’ve moved slightly over one year ahead.’ Eric stared. Sightlessly. Ornate inscriptions. ‘This is June 17, 2056. You’re one of the happy few the drug affects this way. Most of them wander off into the past and get bogged down in manufacturing alternate universes; you know, playing God until at last the nerve destruction is too great and they degenerate to random twitches.’

Eric tried to think of something useful to say. Could not.

‘Save yourself the effort,’ Festenburg said, seeing him struggle. ‘I can do the talking; you’ll only be here a few minutes so let me get it said. A year ago, when you were given JJ-180 in the building cafeteria, I was fortunate enough to get in on the flurry; your wife became hysterical and you of course – disappeared. She was taken in tow by the Secret Service and she admitted her addiction and what she had done.’

‘Oh.’ The room dropped and rose as he reflexively nodded.

‘So that – you’re feeling better? So anyhow, but now Kathy is cured, but we won’t go into that; it hardly matters.’

‘What about—’

‘Yes, your problem. Your addiction. There was no cure then, a year ago. However, you’ll be gratified to hear that there is now. It came into being a couple of months ago, and I’ve been waiting for you to show up – so much more is known about JJ-180 now that I was privileged to compute almost to the minute when and where you’d appear.’ Reaching into his rumpled coat pocket, Festenburg brought out a small glass bottle. This is the antidote which TF&D’s subsidiary now manufactures. Would you like it? If you took it now, twenty milligrams, you’d be free of your addiction even after you return to your own time.’ He smiled, his sallow face wrinkling unnaturally. ‘But – there are problems.’

Eric said, ‘How is the war going?’

Deprecatingly, Festenburg said, ‘What do you care? Good God, Sweetscent; your life depends on this bottle – you don’t know what addiction to that stuff is like!’

‘Is Molinari still alive?’

Festenburg shook his head. ‘Minutes he’s got and he wants to know about the Mole’s state of health. Listen.’ He leaned toward Eric, his mouth turned down poutingly, his face puffy with agitation. ‘I want to make a deal, doctor. I’m asking astonishingly little in return for these medication tablets. Please do business with me; the next time you take the drug – if you’re not cured – you’ll go ten years into the future and that’ll be too late, too far.’

Eric said, ‘Too late for you, but not for me. The cure will still exist.’

‘You won’t even ask what I want in return?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

Eric shrugged. ‘I don’t feel comfortable; I’m being subjected to pressure and I don’t care for that – I’ll take my chances with the drug without you.’ It was sufficient merely to know that a cure existed. Such knowledge obliterated his anxiety and left him free to do as he liked. ‘Obviously, my best bet is to use the drug as often as physiologically possible, two or three times, going farther into the future each time, and then when its destructive effects become too great—’

‘Even one use,’ Festenburg said between his clenched teeth, ‘causes irreversible brain damage. You damn fool – you’ve already used it too much. You saw your wife; you want that damage for yourself?’

After a moment, considering deeply, Eric said, ‘For what I’ll get out of it, yes. By the time I’ve used it twice I’ll know the outcome of the war and if the outcome is unfavorable possibly I’ll be in a position to advise Molinari how it could be avoided. What’s my health compared to that?’ He was silent then; it seemed perfectly clear to him. There was nothing to discuss: he sat waiting for the effects of the drug to wear off. He waited to return to his own time.

Opening the glass bottle, Festenburg poured out the white tablets; he dropped them to the floor and ground them to dust under his heel.

‘Did it occur to you,’ Festenburg said, ‘that within the next ten years Terra may be so destroyed in the war that TF&D’s subsidiary may no longer be in a position to supply this antidote?’

It had not occurred to him; although jolted, he managed not to show it. ‘We’ll see,’ he murmured.

‘Frankly I have no knowledge of the future. However, I have knowledge of the past – of your future, this last year.’ He produced a homeopape, which he turned toward Eric and spread out on the desk. ‘Six months following your experience in the White House cafeteria. It’ll interest you.’

Eric scanned the lead article and its headline.

SWEETSCENT IMPLICATED AS PRIME MOVER IN DOCTOR’S PLOT AGAINST ACTING UN SECRETARY DONALD FESTENBURG, HELD BY SECRET SERVICE.

Abruptly Festenburg whipped the newspaper away, crumpling it and tossing it behind him. ‘I’m not saying what became of Molinari – find that out for yourself, since you’re uninterested in reaching a rational agreement with me.’

After a pause Eric said, ‘You’ve had a year to print up a fake of the Times. I seem to recall that such has been done before in political history … Joseph Stalin did it to Lenin during Lenin’s last year. Had a completely phony edition of Pravda printed, given to Lenin, who—’

‘My uniform,’ Festenburg said wildly, his face dark red and quivering as if it were about to burst. ‘Look at my shoulder patches!’

‘Why couldn’t that be faked, too? I’m not saying it is, or that the homeopape was faked.’ After all, he was not in a position to know one way or another. ‘I’m merely saying it could be, and that’s enough to cause me to suspend my judgement.’

With enormous effort Festenburg managed to gain partial control of himself. ‘All right; you’re playing cautious. This entire experience is disorienting for you – I understand. But doctor, be realistic for a moment; you’ve seen the pape, you know that in a way which I’m not specifying I succeeded Molinari as UN Secretary. Plus the fact that six months from your own time period you were caught red-handed conspiring against me. And—’

‘Acting UN Secretary,’ Eric amended.

‘What?’ Festenburg stared at him.

‘A pro tern situation is implied. Transitional. And I wasn’t – or won’t be – caught “red-handed.” The pape merely relates an accusation; there’s been no trial, no conviction. I could be innocent. I could be about to be framed, and by you. Again, recall Stalin during his last year, the so-called—’

‘Don’t lecture me in my own field! Yes, I know of the situation you related; I know how completely Stalin fooled the dying Lenin. And I know about the doctor’s plot, paranoiacally engineered by Stalin during his final illness. Okay—’ Festenburg’s voice was steady. ‘I admit it. That homeopape which I showed you just now – it was faked.’

Eric smiled.

‘And I’m not Acting UN Secretary,’ Festenburg continued. ‘But as to what actually has happened — I’ll leave it to you to guess. And you’re not going to be able to; you’re going to return to your own time a few moments from now knowing nothing, not a damn thing, about the world of the future – whereas if you had made a few deals with me you could know everything.’ He glowered at Eric.

‘I guess,’ Eric said, ‘I’m a fool.’

‘More than that: polymorphic perverse. You could be going back armed with incredible weapons – in the figurative sense, of course – to save yourself, your wife, Molinari. And for one year you’ll stew … assuming that you survive your drug addiction that long. We’ll see.’

For the first time Eric felt a wavering doubt. Was he making an error? After all, he had not even heard what he would need to pony up in order to consummate the deal. But now the antidote had been destroyed; it was too late. This was just talk.

Rising, Eric took a quick look out of the window at the city of Cheyenne.

The city was in ruins.

While he stood staring at that he felt the reality of the room, the substantiality of what he saw, ebb; it eased away from him and he clutched at it, trying to retain it.

‘Much luck, doctor,’ Festenburg said hollowly, and then he, too, became a streak of foglike wispiness that eddied gray and indistinct around him, blending with the disintegrated remnants of the desk, the walls of the room, the objects that a moment before had been utterly stable.

He lurched – and struggled to catch himself. Losing his balance, he pitched into the sickening experience of no weight… and then, with pain banging at his head, he looked up, saw around him the tables and people of the White House cafeteria.

A group had formed around him. Concerned but hesitant. Unwilling to actually touch him; they remained spectators.

‘Thanks for the help,’ he grated, and got unsteadily to his feet.

The spectators melted guiltily off to their tables, leaving him alone. Alone – except for Kathy.

‘You were out about three minutes,’ she said.

He said nothing; he had no desire to speak to her, to have anything to do with her. He felt nauseated and his legs shook under him; his head felt splintered and broken and he thought, This must be how it feels to experience carbon monoxide poisoning. As described in the old textbooks. A sense of having imbibed of death itself.

‘Can I help you?’ Kathy asked. ‘I remember how I felt the first time.’

Eric said, ‘I’ll take you to the infirmary now.’ He grabbed her by the arm; her purse bobbed against him. ‘You must have your supply in your purse,’ he said, and yanked it away from him.

A moment later he held two elongated spansules in his hand. Dropping them into his pocket, he returned her purse to her.

‘Thanks,’ she said with massive irony.

‘Thank you, too, dear. We’ve each got a lot of love for one another. In this new phase of our marital relationship.’ He led her from the cafeteria then; she accompanied him without resistance.

I’m glad I didn’t make a deal with Festenburg, he thought. But Festenburg would be after him again; this was not the end. However, he possessed an advantage over Festenburg, one which the sallow-faced speech writer did not – at this date – know of.

From this encounter a year hence he knew that Festenburg had political ambitions. That in some fashion he would attempt a coup and would try to buy support. The UN Secretary uniform had turned out to be ersatz, but Festenburg’s aspirations had not.

And it was entirely possible that Festenburg had not yet begun this phase of his career.

Festenburg, in this time period, could not take Eric Sweetscent by surprise because one year in the future, unknown to his present self, he had tipped his hand. And, in doing so, had not grasped the implications of what he had done.

It was a major political error and one which could not be retrieved. Especially in view of the fact that other political strategists, some with immense capabilities, were on the scene.

One of these was Gino Molinari.

After he had gotten his wife admitted to the White House infirmary he placed a vidphone call to Jonas Ackerman at TF&D in Tijuana.

‘So you know about Kathy,’ Jonas said. He did not look happy.

‘I’m not going to ask you why you did it,’ Eric said. ‘I’m calling in order to—’

‘Did what?’ Jonas’ face convulsed. ‘She told you I put her on the stuff, did she? Not true, Eric. Why should I do that? Ask yourself.’

‘We won’t discuss that now.’ There was no time. ‘I want to find out, first if Virgil knows anything about JJ-180.’

‘Yes, but no more than I do. There’s not much—’

‘Let me talk to Virgil.’

Reluctantly, Jonas switched the call to Virgil’s office. Eric after a moment faced the old man, who leered with guileless abandon when he saw who was calling. ‘Eric! I read in the pape – you’ve already saved his life once. I knew you’d make out. Now, if you can do that every day—’ Virgil chuckled delightedly.

‘Kathy is addicted to JJ-180. I need help; I have to get her off it.’

The pleased emotions left Virgil’s face. ‘That’s horrible! But what can I do, Eric? I’d like to, of course. We all love Kathy around here. You’re a doctor, Eric; you ought to be able to do something for her.’ He tried to babble on but Eric interrupted.

‘Tell me who to contact at the subsidiary. Where JJ-180 is made.’

‘Oh yes. Hazeltine Corporation, in Detroit. Let’s see… who should you talk to there? Maybe Bert Hazeltine himself. Just a minute; Jonas is up here in my office. He’s saying something.’

Jonas appeared on the vidscreen. ‘I was trying to tell you, Eric. When I found out about Kathy’s situation I contacted Hazeltine Corporation immediately. They’ve already sent someone out; he’s on his way to Cheyenne; I figured Kathy would show up there after she disappeared. Keep Virgil and me posted as to what progress he can make. Good luck.’ He disappeared from the screen, evidently relieved to have contributed his share.

Thanking Virgil, Eric rang off. Rising, he at once went to the White House receiving room to see if the representative of Hazeltine Corporation had shown up yet.

‘Oh yes, Dr Sweetscent,’ the girl said, checking her book. Two persons arrived just a moment ago; you’re being paged in the halls and in the cafeterias.’ She read the names from the book. ‘A Mr Bert Hazeltine and a woman. Miss Bachis … I’m trying to read her writing; I think that’s it. They were sent upstairs to your conapt.’

When he reached his conapt he found the door ajar; in the small living room sat two individuals, a middle-aged man, well dressed, in a long overcoat, and a blonde-haired woman, in her late thirties; she wore glasses and her features were heavy and professionally competent.

‘Mr Hazeltine?’ Eric said, entering with his hand out.

Both the man and the woman rose. ‘Hello, Dr Sweetscent.’ Bert Hazeltine shook hands with him. This is Hilda Bachis; she’s with the UN Narcotics Control Bureau. They had to be informed of your wife’s situation, doctor; it’s the law. However—’

Miss Bachis spoke up crisply, ‘We’re not interested in arresting or punishing your wife, doctor; we want to help her, as you do. We’ve already arranged to see her but we thought we’d talk with you first and then go down to the infirmary.’

In a quiet voice Hazeltine said, ‘Your wife has how large a supply of the drug with her?’

‘None,’ Eric said.

‘Let me explain to you, then,’ Hazeltine said, ‘the difference between habituation and addiction. In addiction—’

‘I’m a doctor,’ Eric reminded him. ‘You don’t have to spell it out for me.’ He seated himself, still feeling the effects of his bout of the drug; his head still ached and his chest hurt when he breathed.

‘Then you realize that the drug has entered her liver metabolism and now is required for that metabolism to continue. If she’s denied the drug she’ll die in—’ Hazeltine calculated. ‘How much has she taken?’ Two or three capsules.’

‘Without it she’ll die very possibly within twenty-four hours.’

‘And with it?’

‘She’ll live roughly four months. By that time, doctor, we may have an antidote; don’t think we’re not trying. We’ve even tried artiforg transplant, removing the liver and substituting—’

‘Then she’s got to have more of the drug,’ Eric said, and he thought about himself. His own situation. ‘Suppose she had only taken it once. Would that—’

‘Doctor,’ Hazeltine said, ‘don’t you understand? JJ-180 was not designed as a medicine; it’s a weapon of war. It was intended to be capable of creating an absolute addiction by a single dose; it was intended to bring about extensive nerve and brain damage. It’s odorless and tasteless; you can’t tell when it’s being administered to you in, say, food or drink. From the start we faced the problem of our own people becoming accidentally addicted; we were waiting until we had the cure and then we would use JJ-180 against the enemy. But—’ He eyed Eric. ‘Your wife was not accidentally addicted, doctor. It was done with deliberate intent. We know where she got it.’ He glanced at Miss Bachis.

‘Your wife couldn’t have obtained it from Tijuana Fur & Dye,’ Miss Bachis said, ‘because no quantity of the drug whatsoever has been released by Hazeltine to its parent company.’

‘Our ally,’ Bert Hazeltine said. ‘It was a protocol of the Pact of Peace; we had to deliver to them a sample of every new weapon of war produced on Terra. The UN compelled me to ship a quantity of JJ-180 to Lilistar.’ His face had become slack with what for him was now a stale, flat resentment.

Miss Bachis said, The quantity of JJ-180, for security purposes, was shipped to Lilistar in five separate containers on five separate transports. Four reached Lilistar. One did not; the reegs destroyed it with an automine. And, since then, we’ve heard persistent rumors through our intelligence service operating within the Empire that ‘Star agents have carried the drug back here to Terra, to use against our people.’

Eric nodded. ‘All right; she didn’t get it at Tijuana Fur & Dye.’ But what does it matter where Kathy had gotten it?

‘So your wife,’ Miss Bachis said, ‘has been approached by ‘Star intelligence agents and therefore can’t be kept in Cheyenne; we’ve already talked to the Secret Service and she’s to be transferred back to Tijuana or San Diego. There’s no alternative; she hasn’t admitted it, of course, but she’s being supplied in exchange for acting as a ‘Star recruit. That could be why she followed you here.’

‘But,’ Eric said, ‘if you cut her off her supply of the drug—’

‘We don’t intend that,’ Hazeltine said. ‘In fact just the opposite; the most thoroughgoing method of detaching her from the ‘Star agents is to supply her directly from our stock. That’s policy in cases such as this … and your wife is not the first, doctor; we’ve seen this before and take my word for it, we know what to do. That is, within the limited number of possibilities open to us. First, she needs the drug merely to stay alive; that alone makes it essential to keep her supplied. But there’s one more fact you should know. The shipment that was sent to Lilistar but was destroyed by a reeg mine … we understand now that the reegs were able to salvage portions of that ship. They obtained a minute but nonetheless real quantity of JJ-180.’ He paused. They’re working on a cure, too.’

The room went silent.

‘We don’t have a cure anywhere on Terra,’ Hazeltine continued, after a pause. ‘Lilistar, of course, isn’t even trying, despite what they may have told your wife; they’re simply cranking out their own supply of the drug, no doubt to use against us as well as the enemy. That’s a fact of life. But – a cure may already exist among the reegs; it would be unfair and morally wrong not to tell you this. I’m not suggesting that you defect to the enemy; I’m not suggesting anything – I’m just being honest with you. In four months we may have it or we may not; I have no way of knowing the future.’

‘The drug,’ Eric said, ‘permits some of its users to pass into the future.’

Hazeltine and Miss Bachis exchanged glances.

‘True,’ Hazeltine said, nodding. That’s highly classified information, as you no doubt know. I suppose you learned that from your wife. Is that the direction she moves when she’s under the influence of the drug? It’s relatively rare; withdrawal into the past seems to be the rule.’

Guardedly Eric said, ‘Kathy and I have talked about it.’

‘Well,’ Hazeltine said, ‘it’s a possibility, logically at least. To go into the future, obtain the cure – perhaps not a quantity of it but anyhow the formula; memorize it and then return to the present, turn the formula over to our chemists at H. Corporation. And that would be that. It seems almost too easy, doesn’t it? The drug’s effects contain the method for procuring the nullifying agent, the source of a new, unknown molecule to enter the liver metabolism in place of JJ-180 … The first objection that occurs to me is that there may never be such an antidote, in which case going into the future is useless. After all, there is not yet any sure cure for addiction to opium derivatives; heroin is still illegal and dangerous, as much so as a century ago. But another objection, a deeper one, occurs to me. Frankly – and I’ve supervised all phases of testing JJ-180 – I feel that the time period entered by the subject under its influence is phony. I don’t believe it’s the real future or the real past.’

Then what is it?’ Eric asked.

‘What we at Hazeltine Corporation have maintained from the start; we claim that JJ-180 is an hallucinogenic drug and we mean just that. Just because the hallucinations seem real, that’s no criterion to go by; most hallucinations seem real whatever the cause, whether from a drug, a psychosis, brain damage, or electrical stimulation given directly to specific areas of the brain. You must know that, doctor; a person experiencing hallucinosis doesn’t merely think he sees, say, a tree of oranges – he really does see it. For him it’s an authentic experience, as much so as our presence here in your living room. No one who’s taken JJ-180 and gone into the past has returned with any artifact; he doesn’t disappear or—’

Miss Bachis interrupted, ‘I disagree, Mr Hazeltine. I’ve talked to a number of JJ-180 addicts and they’ve given details about the past which I’m positive they wouldn’t know except by having gone there. I can’t prove it but I do believe it. Excuse me for interrupting.’

‘Buried memories,’ Hazeltine said irritably. ‘Or Christ, possibly past lives; maybe there is reincarnation.’

Eric said, ‘If JJ-180 did induce authentic time travel it might not constitute a good weapon to use against the reegs. It might give them hallucinosis, Mr Hazeltine. As long as you have plans of selling it to the government.’

‘An ad hominem argument,’ Hazeltine said. ‘Attack my motives, not my argument; I’m surprised, doctor.’ He looked glum. ‘But maybe you’re right. How do I know? I’ve never taken it, and we’ve given it to no one once we discovered its addictive properties; we’re limited to animal experiments, our first – and unfortunate – human subjects, and more recent ones such as your wife whom the ‘Starmen have made into addicts. And—’ He hesitated, then shrugged and continued. ‘And, obviously, we’ve given it to captured reegs in POW camps; otherwise we would have no way of determining its effects on them.’

‘How have they responded?’ Eric asked.

‘More or less as our own people. Complete addiction, neurological decay, hallucinations of an overpowering order which made them apathetic to their actual situation.’ He added, half to himself, The things you have to do in wartime. And they talk about the Nazis.’

Miss Bachis said, ‘We must win the war, Mr Hazeltine.’

‘Yes,’ Hazeltine said lifelessly. ‘Oh, you’re so goddam right, Miss Bachis; how truly right you are.’ He stared sightlessly down at the floor.

‘Give Dr Sweetscent the supply of the drug,’ Miss Bachis said.

Nodding, Hazeltine reached into his coat. ‘Here.’ He held out a flat metal tin. ‘JJ-180. Legally we can’t give it to your wife; we can’t supply a known addict. So you take it – this is a formality, obviously – and what you do with it is your own business. Anyhow, there’s enough in that tin to keep her alive for as long as she’ll live.’ He did not meet Eric’s gaze; he continued to stare at the floor.

Eric, as he accepted the tin, said, ‘You’re not very happy about this invention of your company’s.’

‘Happy?’ Hazeltine echoed. ‘Oh sure; can’t you see? Doesn’t it show? You know, oddly enough, the worst has been watching the POWs after they’ve taken it. They just plain fold up, wilt; there’s no remission at all for them … they live JJ-180, once they’ve touched it. They’re glad to be on it; the hallucinations are that – what should I say? — entertaining for them … no, not entertaining. Engrossing? I don’t know, but they act as if they’ve looked into the ultimate. But it’s one which clinically speaking, physiologically speaking, constitutes an insidious hell.’

‘Life is short,’ Eric pointed out.

‘And brutish and nasty,’ Hazeltine added, vaguely quoting, as if responding unconsciously. ‘I can’t be fatalistic, doctor. Maybe you’re lucky or smart, some such thing.’

‘No,’ Eric said. ‘Hardly that.’ To be a depressive was certainly not desirable; fatalism was not a talent but a protracted illness. ‘How soon after taking JJ-180 do the withdrawal symptoms appear? In other words must—’

‘You can go from twelve to twenty-four hours between dosages,’ Miss Bachis said. ‘Then the physiological requirements, the collapse of adequate liver metabolism, sets in. It’s unpleasant. So to speak.’

Hazeltine said hoarsely, ‘Unpleasant – God in heaven, be realistic; it’s unendurable. It’s a death agony, literally. And the person knows it. Feels it without being able to label it. After all, how many of us have gone into our death agonies?’

‘Gino Molinari has,’ Eric said. ‘But he’s unique.’ Placing the tin of JJ-180 in his coat pocket, he thought, So I have up to twenty-four hours before I’ll be forced to take my second dose of the drug. But it could come as soon as this evening.

So the reegs may have a cure, he thought. Would I go over to them to save my life? Kathy’s life? I wonder. He did not really know.

Perhaps, he thought, I’ll know after I undergo my first bout with the withdrawal symptoms. And, if not that, after I detect the first signs of neurological deterioration in my body.

It still dazed him that his wife had, just like that, addicted him. What hatred that showed. What enormous contempt for the value of life. But didn’t he feel the same way? He remembered his initial discussion with Gino Molinari; his sentiments had emerged then and he had faced them. In the final analysis he felt as Kathy did. This one great effect of war; the survival of one individual seems trivial. So perhaps he could blame it on the war. That would make it easier.

But he knew better.

ELEVEN On his way to the infirmary to turn over to Kathy her supply of the drug, he found himself facing unbelievably, the slumped, ill figure of Gino Molinari. In his wheel chair the UN Secretary sat with his heavy wool rug over his knees, his eyes writhing like separate living things, pinning Eric into immobility.

‘Your conapt was bugged,’ Molinari said. ‘Your conversation with Hazeltine and Bachis was picked up, recorded, and delivered in transcript form to me.’

‘So quickly?’ Eric managed to say. Thank God he had made no reference to his own addiction.

‘Get her out of here,’ Molinari moaned. ‘She’s a ‘Star fink; she’ll do anything – I know. This has happened before.’ He was shaking. ‘As a matter of fact she’s already out of here; my Secret Service men grabbed her and took her to the field, to a ‘copter. So I don’t know why I’m getting myself upset like this… intellectually I know the situation’s in hand.’

‘If you have a transcript you know that Miss Bachis already arranged for Kathy to—’

‘I know! All right.’ Molinari panted for breath, his face unhealthy and raw; his skin hung in folds, dark wrinkled wattles of loose flesh. ‘See how Lilistar operates? Using our own drug against us; it’s just like the bastards, something they’d get a kick out of. We ought to drop it in their reservoirs. I let you in here and then you let your wife in; to obtain that crap, that miserable drug, she’d be willing to do anything – assassinate me if they asked her to. I know everything there is to know about Frohedadrine; I’m the one who thought up the name. From the German Froh, meaning joy, and the Latin heda-, the root for pleasure. Drine, of course—’ He broke off, his swollen lips twitching. ‘I’m too sick to get agitated like this; I’m supposed to be recovering from that operation. Are you trying to heal me or kill me, doctor? Or do you know?’

Eric said, ‘I don’t know.’ He felt confused, numbed; this was just too much.

‘You look bad. This is tough on you, even though according to your security file and your own statements you detest your wife – and her you. I guess you figure if you’d stayed wtih her she wouldn’t have become an addict. Listen: everyone has to live his own life; she has to take the responsibility. You didn’t make her do it. She decided to do it. Does that help you? Feel any better?’ He scanned Eric’s face for his reaction.

‘I’ll – be okay,’ Eric said briefly.

‘In a pig’s ass. You look as bad as she does; I went down there to have a look at her, I couldn’t resist. The poor goddam dame; you already can make out the destruction caused by that stuff. And giving her a new liver and all new blood won’t help; that’s been tried before, as they told you.’

‘Did you talk to Kathy at all?’

‘Me? Talk to a ‘Star fink?’ Molinari glared at him. ‘Yes, I talked to her a little. While they were wheeling her out. I was curious to see what sort of woman you’d get mixed up with; you’ve got a masochistic streak eight yards wide and she proves it; she’s a harpy, Sweetscent, a monster. Like you told me. You know what she said?’ He grinned. ‘She told me you’re an addict. Anything to cause trouble, right?’

‘Right,’ Eric said stiffly.

‘Why are you looking at me that way?’ Molinari regarded him, his black, fat eyes showing his regained control. ‘It upsets you to hear that, doesn’t it? To know she’d do everything possible to destroy your career here. Eric, if I thought you’d dabbled with that stuff I wouldn’t have you kicked out of here; I’d have you killed. During wartime I kill people; it’s my job. Just as you know and I know, because we discussed it, there may come a time not far from now when it will be necessary for you to—’ He hesitated. ‘What we said. Kill even me. Right, doctor?’

Eric said, ‘I have to give her the drug supply. May I go. Secretary? Before they take off.’

‘No,’ Molinari said. ‘You can’t go because there’s something I want to ask you. Minister Freneksy is here still; you are aware of that. With his party, in the East Wing, in seclusion.’ He held out his hand. ‘I want one capsule of JJ-180, doctor. Give it to me and then forget we had this talk.’

To himself Eric thought, I know what you’re going to do. Or rather try to do. But you don’t have a chance; this isn’t the Renaissance.

‘I’m going to hand it to him personally,’ Molinari said. ‘To see that it actually gets there and isn’t drunk by some pimp along the way.’

‘No,’ Eric said. ‘I absolutely refuse.’

‘Why?’ Molinari cocked his head on one side.

‘It’s suicidal. For everyone on Terra.’

‘You know how the Russians got rid of Beria? Beria carried a pistol into the Kremlin, which was against the law; he had it in his briefcase and they stole his briefcase and shot him with his own pistol. You think matters at the top have to be complex? There’re simple solutions average people always overlook; that’s the main defect of the mass man—’ Molinari broke off, put his hand suddenly to his chest. ‘My heart. I think it stopped. It’s going now, but for a second there, nothing.’ He had blanched and his voice now ebbed to a whisper.

‘I’ll wheel you to your room.’ Eric stepped behind Molinari’s wheel chair and began to push it; the Mole did not protest but sat slumped forward, massaging his fleshy chest, exploring and touching himself, with the tentativeness of disintegrating, overwhelming fear. Everything else was forgotten; he perceived nothing more than his sick, failing body. It had become his universe.

With the assistance of two nurses he managed to get Molinari back into bed.

‘Listen, Sweetscent,’ Molinari whispered as he lay back against the pillow. ‘I don’t have to get that stuff through you; I can put pressure on Hazeltine and he’ll deliver it right to me. Virgil Ackerman is a friend of mine; Virgil will see to it that Hazeltine complies. And don’t try to tell me my job; you do yours and I’ll do mine.’ He shut his eyes and groaned. ‘God, I know an artery near my heart just burst; I can feel the blood leaking out. Get Teagarden in here.’ Again he groaned and then turned his face to the wall. ‘What a day. But I’ll get that Freneksy yet.’ All at once he opened his eyes and said, ‘I knew it was a stupid idea. But that’s the kind of ideas I’ve been having lately, dumb ideas like that. And what else can I do but that? Can you think of something else?’ He waited. ‘No. Because there isn’t anything else, that’s why.’ Again he shut his eyes. ‘I feel terrible. I think I really am dying this time and you won’t be able to save me.’

‘I’ll get Dr Teagarden,’ Eric said, and started toward the door.

Molinari said, T know you’re an addict, doctor.’ He drew himself up slightly. ‘I can almost invariably tell when someone is lying, and your wife wasn’t. As soon as I saw you I spotted it; you don’t know how much you’ve changed.’

After a pause Eric said, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘We’ll see, doctor,’ Molinari said, and again turned his face to the wall.

As soon as he had completed the task of delivering the supply of JJ-180 to Kathy he boarded an express ship for Detroit.

Forty-five minutes later he had reached the Detroit field and was on his way to Hazeltine Corporation by taxi. Gino Molinari, not the drug, had forced him to move this swiftly; he could not even wait until evening.

‘Here we are, sir,’ the autonomic circuit cab said respectfully. It slid open its door so that he could emerge. ‘That gray one-story building with the hedge of rose-colored calyx with the whorl of green bracts at the base … that is Hazeltine Corporation.’ Looking out, Eric saw the building, the lawn and heather hedge. It wasn’t a large structure as industrial installations went. So this was the point at which JJ-180 had entered the world.

‘Wait,’ he instructed the cab. ‘Do you have a glass of water?’

‘Certainly.’ From the slot facing Eric a paper cup of water slid forward, teetered on the lip of the slot, and then halted.

Seated in the cab Eric swallowed the capsule of JJ-180 which he had brought with him. Purloined from Kathy’s stock.

Several minutes passed.

‘Why aren’t you getting out, sir?’ the cab inquired. ‘Have I done something wrong?’

Eric waited. When he felt the drug begin to reach him he paid the cab, got out and walked slowly up the redwood-round path toward the Office of Hazeltine Corporation.

The building flashed as if caught by a whip of lightning. And, overhead, the blue sky twisted laterally. He saw, gazing up, the clear blue of day dawdle as if attempting to remain and then collapse; he shut his eyes because the dizziness was too great, the reference point of outside objects had become too tenuous, and he walked, step by step, feeling his way ahead, bent down, for some reason motivated to continue in motion, however slow.

It hurt. This, unlike the initial exposure, was a major readjustment of the reality structure impinging on him. His steps made no sound, he noticed; he had strayed onto the lawn, but he still kept his eyes shut. Hallucination, he thought, of another world. Is Hazeltine right? By a paradox perhaps I can answer that within the hallucination itself… if that is what it is. He did not think so; Hazeltine was wrong.

When a heather branch brushed his arm he let his eyes open. One of his feet had penetrated the soft black soil of a flower bed; he rested on a half-crushed tuberous begonia. Past the heather hedge the gray side of Hazeltine Corporation rose, exactly as before, and above it the sky was a washed-out blue with irregular clouds sweeping toward the north, the same sky, as nearly as he could tell. What had changed? He returned to the redwood-round path. Shall I go in? he asked himself. He looked back toward the street. The cab had gone. Detroit, the buildings and ramps of the city, seemed somehow elaborate. But he did not know this area.

When he reached the porch the door flew open automatically for him and he looked in on a neat office, with relaxing, leather-covered chairs, magazines, a deep-pile carpet whose design changed continuously… he saw, , through an open doorway, a business area: accounting machines and a computer of some ordinary kind, and at the same time he heard the buzz of activity beyond that, from the labs themselves.

As he started to sit down, a four-armed reeg walked into the office, its blue, chitinous face inexpressive, its embryonic wings pressed tightly to its sloping, bullet-shiny back. It whistled a greeting to him – he had not heard that about them – and passed on out through the doorway. Another reeg, manipulating its extensive network of double-jointed arms vigorously, made its appearance, traveled up to Eric Sweetscent, halted, and produced a small square box.

Scudding across the side of the box, words in English took shape and departed; he woke to the fact that he had to pay attention to them. The reeg was communicating with him.

WELCOME TO HAZELTINE CORPORATION He read the words but did not know what to do with them. This was a receptionist; he saw that the reeg was a female. How did he reply? The reeg waited, buzzing; its structure was so convoluted that it seemed unable to remain entirely still; its multilensed eyes shrank and grew as they were partially absorbed back into the skull, then pushed out like flattened corks. If he hadn’t known better he would have said it was blind. And then he realized that these were its false eyes; the genuine ones, compound, were at its top-arm elbows.

He said, ‘May I speak to one of your chemists?’ And he thought, So we did lose the war. To these things. And now Terra is occupied. And its industries are run by these. But, he thought, human beings still exist, because this reeg was not dumbfounded to see me; it has accepted my presence as natural. So we can’t be mere slaves, either.

REGARDING WHAT MATTER?

Hesitating, he said, ‘A drug. Produced here in the past. Called either Frohedadrine or JJ-180; both names refer to the same product.’