"Is he locatable?"

"Yes and no. Gil, I think our Smith is Meldrum Smith."

"That's crazy. Dawn! He's a d.a.m.n Alpha holdover, clinging to the last century like a kid with his blankie.

And didn't Smith claim he was Capricorn with a Virgo moon?"

"We have only his word on that. Just hear me out.

He could have lied about his chartA lot of astrologers guard their planetary picture jealously. But Smith volunteered the information. I think he's a quadruple Scorpio pa.s.sing as a Capricorn. This side of the Rockieswho would know differently? And his demeanor is extremely Scorpionic."

"What about the suspect sketch your people came up with?"

"They're never perfect. You know that. And Smith's mustache might be the remnants of a shaven beard. Think about it. We know our terrorist doesn't preselect his victims in order to foil pre cog scans.

When we consulted Smith, we fell into his hands. He pointed us where he didn't want us looking. It's cla.s.sic misdirection."

"Too much of a coincidence," Murrillo snapped.

"We just happened to consult the one Betaside guy who's our man?"

"Maybe it wasn't a coincidence," Dawn said levelly.

"I thought it was odd his name just popped into my head when this all started. Maybe it didn't. Maybe Smith planted the thought in my mind.

It's a given our man is monitoring all operations against him. If he intuited the existence of FBI D-teams, he'd know it was only a matter of time before we found him, one way or another. So he drew us to him."

"I don't buy it." The harshness left Murrillo's voice.

"But the Director wants Smith picked up for practicing an illegal system of divination, and being a smug jerk. I'll let you audit the interrogation, okay?"

Dawn's voice climbed to a shrill note.

"Gil. Don't treat this as a routine pickup. I have a strong feeling about--" The sudden catch in Dawn's voice was like a sob.

When it came back, her voice was hushed and thick with fear.

"Gill I think I'm being remotely viewed. I sense a presence. It's ..

. why am I smelling apricots?"

"Apricots! The odor of apricots was all over Roberta Chung."

"Gill Gill" The line went dead.

An FBI light car whisked Gil Murrillo to Dawn/ Fawn O'Leary's co-opt overlooking Hudson River. His override card defeated all building security lockouts until O'Leary's door fell open before him.

Polypistol in hand, he eased his way in.

"Fawn?

Dawn? Either of you here?" Silence came back. He inched forward, every sense keyed up.

FBI SAC Gil Murrillo found Dawn/ Fawn O'Leary seated at her desk system. Her head came up at his approach. She smiled gloriously--a radiant, beatific smile. Her entire being seemed to glow, as if her auric field were becoming palpable.

"h.e.l.lo.. .." Her voice was dreamy.

"Agent O'Leary, what happened to you? Talk to me, Dawn."

"I'm Fawn. I'm Fawn forever.. .."

"Was it Smith? Tell me. Who did this to you?"

Her hands came up, open, inviting, almost eager.

Carefully bolstering his poly pistol Murrillo approached.

Her hands took his. They were strangely cool to the touch, her obsidian eyes luminous.

"Just talk to me, Fawn," he coaxed.

Gil Murrillo never had a solid hunch or psychic flash in his entire life. But in the moment Fawn's hands clutched his in a grip that was warm and loving, yet as unshakable as steel, a strange fluttering touched his left temporal lobe--and his gut grew cold with fear.

"Nothing will hurt you again," Fawn promised.

"Ever."

The hand wielding the stainless steel beam pointer was hairy and masculine. Murrillo caught a momentary glimpse of a faded bluish tattoo. A letter M-but with an extra fillip. A loop that stuck out like a barbed tail.

Perhaps it was an old subconscious memory. Maybe it was a true psychic insight. But in that flash of knowing Gil Murrillo understood with perfect knowledge that he was looking at a dual symbol: The ancient glyph of Scorpio--which also stood for a man's name: Meldrum.

A familiar husky male voice said, "Astrology is timing.

It's all timing."

A coolness touched Gil's temple and a cold blue light flashed. It pierced his skull, illuminated his brain, interpenetrating his soul. In the next exquisite moment he saw a greater, whiter light. Even though he had never seen it before, Gil recognized the light.

It was G.o.d, the Universe, everything. His ego, his mind, his individuality melted into a warm oneness that was utter bliss.

Gil Murrillo was one with G.o.d, and G.o.d was pure, perfect Alpha.

by Janet Berliner In her twenty-five years as a writer, editor, and publishing consultant, Janet Berliner has worked with such authors as Peter S.

Beagle, David Copperfield, Michael Crichton, and Joyce Carol Oates.

Among her most recent books are the anthology David Copperfield's Beyond Imagination, which she created and edited, and Children of the Dusk, the final book of The Madagascar Manifesto, a three-book series co auth.o.r.ed with George Guthridge. Currently Janet divides her time between Las Vegas, where she lives and works, and Grenada, West Indies, where her heart is.

IN order to more completely answer the dichotomy of her present and her future, Pia took a trip into her past. Borrowing from Peter, promising herself that she would repay Paul later, she ordered the archival tape of her grandmother's memories.

When the tape arrived, she delighted her understudy by taking two days of her allotted personal time off from the Company's musical production of Hamlet. Headset in place, she entered her grandmother's archival experience and toured her life, her world, her stomping grounds, starting in East Berlin, as it was called then, in the early sixties.

She was eight years old, standing with her bicycle at the Brandenburger Turm. This was her weekly pilgrimage to the Wall which rose menacingly between her and her best friend. Daniel, who had escaped the East the year before.

"Danny," she called out.

"Are you there?" His voice rose thinly into the crisp autumn day.

"I'm here, Rachel. I'll come and see you next week. We have a pa.s.s to come through."

"Mutti says bring coffee," she called out.

"Next week, then."

She wheeled the bike down the boulevard, away from the monument, playing their game, hers and Danny's. Looking for litter was a foolish game at best, and one they could never win, but they'd always played it anyway.

Sometimes they found a small branch that had detached itself from one of the linden trees that lined the boulevard; the occasional stray leaf. That was it.

Nothing else ever disturbed the street's antisepsis. Not even one small piece of debris.. ..

Briefly, Pia removed the headphones. She had expected to feel discomfort in the mind of someone she'd never known, in a time and country she'd seen only in old movies. Instead, she felt more comfortable than she did in her own skin. It was a puzzlement, she thought, quoting the King of Siam. Her mother and grandmother had parted ways long before she was born. Her mother fitted perfectly into the late nineties. Judgementalism was the order of the day, a perfect environment for her. But not for Pia, who had never quite managed to fit the mold, and apparently not for her grandmother.