To Eric, Harv said, "I'd like a place to lie down and rest, myself. This Martian air makes me weak as a kitten." His face had become mottled and ill-looking. "Why doesn't he build a dome? Keep real real air in here?" air in here?"

"Maybe," Eric pointed out, "there's a purpose in this. Prevents him from retiring here for good; makes him leave after a short while."

Coming up to them, Jonas said, "Personally I enjoy coming to this anachronistic place, Harv. It's a fnugging museum." To Eric he said, "In all fairness, your wife does a superb job of providing artifacts for this period. Listen to that-what's it called?-that radio playing in that apt." Dutifully they listened. It was "Betty and Bob," the ancient soap opera, emanating from the long-departed past. And even Eric found himself impressed; the voices seemed alive and totally real. They were here now now, not mere echoes of themselves. How Kathy had achieved this he didn't know.

Steve, the huge and handsome, masculine Negro janitor of the building-or rather his robant simulacrum-appeared then, smoking his pipe and nodding cordially to them all. "Morning, doctor. Little nip of cold we having these days. Kids be getting they sled out soonly. My own boy, Georgie, he saving for a sled, he say little while ago to me."

"I'll chip in a 1934 dollar," Ralf Ackerman said, reaching for his wallet. In a sotto voce sotto voce aside to Eric he said, "Or does old papa Virgil have it that the colored kid isn't ent.i.tled to a sled?" aside to Eric he said, "Or does old papa Virgil have it that the colored kid isn't ent.i.tled to a sled?"

"That no nevermind, Mr. Ackerman," Steve a.s.sured him. "Georgie, he earn he sled; he not want tips but real and troo pay." The dignified dark robant moved off then and was gone.

"d.a.m.n convincing," Harv said presently.

"Really is," Jonas agreed. He shivered. "G.o.d, to think that the actual man's been dead a century. It's distinctly hard to keep in mind that we're on Mars, not even on Earth in our own time-I don't like it. I like things to appear what they really are."

A thought came to Eric. "Do you object to a stereo tape of a symphony played back in the evening when you're at home in your apt?"

"No," Jonas said. "But that's totally different."

"It's not," Eric disagreed. "The orchestra isn't there, the original sound has departed, the hall in which it was recorded is now silent; all you possess is twelve hundred feet of iron oxide tape that's been magnetized in a specific pattern ... it's an illusion just like this. Only this is complete." Q.E.D., he thought, and walked on then, toward the stairs. We live with illusion daily, he reflected. When the first bard rattled off the first epic of a sometime battle, illusion entered our lives; the Iliad Iliad is as much a "fake" as those robant children trading postage stamps on the porch of the building. Humans have always striven to retain the past, to keep it convincing; there's nothing wicked in that. Without it we have no continuity; we have only the moment. And, deprived of the past, the moment-the present-has little meaning, if any. is as much a "fake" as those robant children trading postage stamps on the porch of the building. Humans have always striven to retain the past, to keep it convincing; there's nothing wicked in that. Without it we have no continuity; we have only the moment. And, deprived of the past, the moment-the present-has little meaning, if any.

Maybe, he pondered as he ascended the stairs, that's my problem with Kathy. I can't remember our combined past: can't recall the days when we voluntarily lived with each other ... now it's become an involuntary arrangement, derived G.o.d knows how from the past.

And neither of us understands it. Neither of us can puzzle out its meaning or its motivating mechanism. With a better memory we could turn it back into something we could fathom.

He thought, Maybe this is the first sign of old age making its dread appearance. And for me at thirty-four!

Phyllis, halting on the stair, waiting for him, said, "Have an affair with me, doctor."

Inwardly he quailed, felt hot, felt terror, felt excitement, felt hope, felt hopelessness, felt guilt, felt eagerness.

He said, "You have the most perfect teeth known to man."

"Answer."

"I-" He tried to think of an answer. Could words respond to this? But this had come in the form of words, had it not? "And be roasted into a cinder by Kathy-who sees everything that goes on?" He felt the woman staring at him, staring and staring with her huge, star-fixed eyes. "Hmm," he said, not too cleverly, and felt miserable and small and exactly precisely right to the last jot and t.i.ttle what he ought not to be.

Phyllis said, "But you need it."

"Umm," he said, wilting under this unwanted, undeserved female psychiatric examination of his evil, inner soul; she had it-his soul-and she was turning it over and over on her tongue. G.o.ddam her! She had figured it out; she spoke the truth; he hated her, he longed to go to bed with her. And of course she knew-saw on his face-all this, saw it with her accursed huge eyes, eyes which no mortal woman ought to possess.

"You're going to perish without it," Phyllis said. "Without true, spontaneous, relaxed, physical sheer-"

"One chance," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "In a billion. Of getting away with it." He managed, then, actually to laugh. "In fact our standing here right now on these d.a.m.n stairs is folly. But what the--do you care?" He started on, then, actually pa.s.sed her, continued on up to the second floor. What do you have to lose? he thought. It's me; I'd be the one. You can handle Kathy just as easily as you can yank me around at the end of that line you keep paying out and reeling back.

The door of Virgil's private, modern apt stood open; Virgil had gone inside. The balance of the party straggled after him, the blood clan first, of course, then the mere t.i.tled officers of the firm.

Eric entered-and saw Virgil's guest.

The guest; the man they had come here to see. Reclining, his face empty and slack, lips bulging dark purple and irregular, eyes fixed absently on nothing, was Gino Molinari. Supreme elected leader of Terra's unified planetary culture, and the supreme commander of its armed forces in the war against the reegs.

His fly was unb.u.t.toned.

3.

At his lunch break Bruce Himmel technician in charge of the final stage of quality control at Tijuana Fur & Dye Corporation's central installation, left his post and shuffled down the streets of Tijuana toward the cafe at which he traditionally ate, due to its being cheap plus making the fewest possible social demands on him. The Xanthus, a small yellow wooden building squeezed between two adobe dry-goods shops, attracted a variable trade of workmen and peculiar male types, mostly in their late twenties, who indicated no particular method of earning a living. But they left Himmel alone and that was all he asked. In fact this essentially was all he asked from life itself. And, oddly, life was willing to consummate a deal of this sort with him.

As he sat in the rear, spooning up the amorphous chili and tearing out chunks of the sticky, pale, thick bread which accompanied it, Himmel saw a shape bearing down on him, a tangle-haired Anglo-Saxon wearing a leather jacket, jeans, boots, and gloves, an altogether obsoletely attired individual seemingly from some other era entirely. This was Christian Plout, who drove an ancient turbine-powered taxi in Tijuana; he had hidden out in Lower California for a decade now, being in disagreement with the Los Angeles authorities over an issue involving the sale of capstene, a drug derived from the fly agaric mushroom. Himmel knew him slightly because Plout, like himself, gleeked Taoism.

"Salve, amicus," Plout intoned, sliding into the booth to face Himmel. Plout intoned, sliding into the booth to face Himmel.

"Greetings," Himmel mumbled, his mouth full of burdeningly hot chili. "What's new?" Plout always had in his possession the latest. During the course of his day cruising about Tijuana in his cab, he happened across everyone. If it existed, Chris Plout was on hand to witness it and, if possible, extract some gain. Plout, basically, was a bundle of sidelines.

"Listen," Plout said, leaning toward him, his sand-colored dry face wrinkled in concentration. "See this?" From his clenched fist he rolled across the table a capsule; instantly his palm covered the capsule and it had disappeared once more as suddenly as it had manifested itself.

"I see it," Himmel said, continuing to eat.

Twitching, Plout whispered, "Hey, hee-hoo. This is JJ-180."

"What's that?" Himmel felt sullenly suspicious; he wished Plout would shamble back out of the Xanthus in search of other prospects.

"JJ-180," Plout said in an almost inaudible voice, sitting hunched forward so that his face nearly touched Himmel's, "is the German name for the drug that's about to be marketed in South America as Frohedadrine. A German chemical firm invented it; the pharmaceutical house in Argentina is their cover. They can't get it into the USA; in fact it isn't even easy to get it here in Mexico, if you can believe that." He grinned, showing his irregular, stained teeth. Even his tongue, Himmel noted once again with disgust, had a peculiar tinge, as if corrupted by some unnatural substance. He drew away in aversion.

"I thought everything was available here in Tijuana," Himmel said.

"So did I. That's what interesed me in this JJ-180. So I picked up some."

"Have you taken it yet?"

"Tonight," Plout said. "At my place. I got five caps, one of them for you. If you're interested."

"What's it do?" Somehow that seemed pertinent.

Plout, undulating with an internal rhythm, said, "Hallucinogenic. But more than that. Whee, whoo, fic-fic." His eyes glazed over and he retreated into himself, grinning with beat.i.tude. Himmel waited; at last Plout returned. "Varies from person to person. Somehow involved with your sense of what Kant called the 'categories of perception.' Get it?"

"That would be your sense of time and s.p.a.ce," Himmel said, having read the Critique of Pure Reason Critique of Pure Reason, it being his style of prose as well as thought. In his small conapt he kept a paperbook copy of it, well marked.

"Right! It alters your perception of time in particular, so it ought to be called a tempogogic drug-correct?" Plout seemed transported by his insight. "The first tempogogic drug ... or rather maltempogogic, to be precise. Unless you believe believe what you experience." what you experience."

Himmel said, "I have to get back to TF&D." He started to rise.

Pressing him back down, Plout said, "Fifty bucks. US."

"W-what?"

"For a cap. Creaker, it's rare. rare. First I've seen." Once more Plout allowed the capsule to roll briefly across the table. "I hate to give it up but it'll be an experience; we'll find the Tao, the five of us. Isn't it worth fifty US dollars to find the Tao during this nurty war? You may never see JJ-180 again; the Mex c.o.o.nks are getting ready to crack down on shipments from Argentina or wherever it comes from. And they're good." First I've seen." Once more Plout allowed the capsule to roll briefly across the table. "I hate to give it up but it'll be an experience; we'll find the Tao, the five of us. Isn't it worth fifty US dollars to find the Tao during this nurty war? You may never see JJ-180 again; the Mex c.o.o.nks are getting ready to crack down on shipments from Argentina or wherever it comes from. And they're good."

"It's really that different from-"

"Oh yes! Listen, Himmel. You know what I almost ran over with my cab just now? One of your little carts. I could have squashed it but I didn't. I see them all the time; I could squash hundreds of them ... I go by TF&D every few hours. I'll tell you something else: The Tijuana authorities are asking me if I know where those G.o.ddam little carts are coming from. I told 'em I don't know ... but so help me, if we don't all merge with the Tao tonight I might-"

"Okay," Himmel said with a groan. "I'll buy a capsule from you." He dug for his wallet, considering this a shakedown, expecting nothing, really, for his money. Tonight would be a hollow fraud.

He couldn't have been further wrong.

Gino Molinari, supreme leader of Terra in its war against the reegs, wore khaki, as usual, with his sole military decoration on his breast, his Golden Cross First Cla.s.s, awarded by the UN General a.s.sembly fifteen years before. Molinari, Dr. Eric Sweetscent noted, badly needed a shave; the lower portion of his face was stubbled, stained by a grime and sootlike blackness that had risen ma.s.sively to the surface from deep within. His shoelaces, after the manner of his fly, were undone.

The appearance of the man, Eric thought, is appalling.

Molinari did not raise his head and his expression remained dull and unfocused as Virgil's party filed one by one into the room, saw him, and gulped in dumbfoundment. He was very obviously a sick and worn-out man; the general public impression was, it would seem, quite accurate.

To Eric's surprise he saw that in real life the Mole looked exactly as he had of late on TV, no greater, no st.u.r.dier, no more in command. It seemed impossible but it was so, and yet he was was in command; in every legal sense he had retained his positions of power, yielding to no one-at any rate, no one on Terra. Nor, Eric realized suddenly, did Molinari intend to step down, despite his obviously deteriorated psychophysical condition. Somehow that was clear, made so by the man's utterly slack stance, his willingness to appear this natural way to a collection of rather potent personages. The Mole remained as he was, with no poise, no posture of the militant heroic. Either he was too far gone to care, or-Eric thought, Or there is too much of genuine importance at stake for him to waste his waning strength at merely impressing people, and especially those of his own planet. The Mole had pa.s.sed beyond that. in command; in every legal sense he had retained his positions of power, yielding to no one-at any rate, no one on Terra. Nor, Eric realized suddenly, did Molinari intend to step down, despite his obviously deteriorated psychophysical condition. Somehow that was clear, made so by the man's utterly slack stance, his willingness to appear this natural way to a collection of rather potent personages. The Mole remained as he was, with no poise, no posture of the militant heroic. Either he was too far gone to care, or-Eric thought, Or there is too much of genuine importance at stake for him to waste his waning strength at merely impressing people, and especially those of his own planet. The Mole had pa.s.sed beyond that.

For better or worse.

To Eric, Virgil Ackerman said in a low voice, "You're a doctor. You are going to have to ask him if he needs medical attention." He, too, seemed concerned.

Eric looked toward Virgil and thought, I was brought here for this. It all has been arranged for this, for me to meet Molinari. Everything else, all the other people-a cover. To fool the 'Starmen. I see that now; I see what this is and what they want me to do. I see, he realized, whom I must heal; this is the man whom my skills and talents must, from this point on, exist for. The must; must; it is put that way. The must of the situation: this is it. it is put that way. The must of the situation: this is it.

Bending, he said haltingly, "Mr. Secretary General-" His voice shook. But it was not awe that stopped him-the reclining man certainly did not promote that that emotion-but ignorance; he simply did not know what to say to a man holding such an office. "I'm a GP," he said finally, and rather emptily, he realized. "As well as an org-trans surgeon." He paused; there came no response, visible or audible. "While you're here at Wash-" emotion-but ignorance; he simply did not know what to say to a man holding such an office. "I'm a GP," he said finally, and rather emptily, he realized. "As well as an org-trans surgeon." He paused; there came no response, visible or audible. "While you're here at Wash-"

All at once Molinari raised his head; his eyes cleared. He focused on Eric Sweetscent, then abruptly, startlingly, boomed in his familiar low-toned voice, "h.e.l.l on that, doctor. I'm okay." He smiled; it was a brief but innately human smile, one of understanding at Eric's clumsy, labored efforts. "Enjoy yourself! Live it up 1935 style! Was that during prohibition? No, I guess that was earlier. Have a Pepsi-Cola."

"I was about to try a raspberry Kool-Aid," Eric said, regaining some of his aplomb; his heart rate returned now to normal.

Molinari said jovially, "Quite a construct old Virgil has here. I took the opportunity to glim it over. I ought to nationalize the fnuggin' thing; too much private capital invested here, should be in the planet's war effort." His half-joking tone was, underneath, starkly serious; obviously this elaborate artifact distressed him. Molinari, as all citizens of Terra knew, lived an ascetic life, yet oddly intersticed with infrequent interludes of priapsistic, little-revealed sybaritic indulgence. Of late, however, the binges were said to have tapered off.

"This individual is Dr. Eric Sweetscent," Virgil said. "The G.o.ddam finest nugging org-trans surgeon on Terra, as you well know from the GHQ personnel dossiers; he's put twenty-five-or is it-six?-separate artiforgs in me during the last decade, but I've paid for it; he rakes in a fat haul every month. Not quite so fat a haul, though, as his ever-loving wife." He grinned at Eric, his fleshless, elongated face genial in a fatherly way.

After a pause Eric said to Molinari, "What I'm waiting for is the day when I trans a new brain for Virgil." The irritability in his own voice surprised him; probably it had been the mention of Kathy that had set it off. "I've got several on stand-by. One is a real goozler."

" 'Goozler,' " Molinari murmured. "I've missed out on the argot of recent months ... just plain too busy. Too many official doc.u.ments to prepare; too much establishment talk. It's a goozlery war, isn't it, doctor?" His great, dark, pain-impregnated eyes fixed on Eric, and Eric saw something he had never come across before; he saw an intensity that was not normal or human. And it was a physiological phenomenon, a swiftness of reflex, due surely to a unique and superior laying-down of the neural pathways during childhood. The Mole's gaze exceeded in its authority and astuteness, its power alone, anything possessed by ordinary persons, and in it Eric saw the difference between them all and the Mole. The primary conduit linking the mind with external reality, the sense of sight, was, in the Mole, so far more developed than one antic.i.p.ated that by it the man caught and held whatever happened to venture across his path. And, beyond all else, this enormity of visual prowess possessed the aspect of wariness. wariness. Of recognition of the imminence of Of recognition of the imminence of harm. harm.

By this faculty the Mole remained alive.

Eric realized something then, something that had never occurred to him in all the weary, dreadful years of the war.

The Mole would have been their leader at any time, at any stage in human society. And-anywhere.

"Every war," Eric said with utmost caution and tact, "is a hard war for those involved in it, Secretary." He paused, reflected, and then added, "We all understood this, sir, when we got into it. It's the risk a people, a planet, takes when it voluntarily enters a severe and ancient conflict that's been going on a long time between two other peoples."

There was silence; Molinari scrutinized him wordlessly.

"And the 'Starmen," Eric said, "are of our stock. We are related to them genetically, are we not?"

Against that there was only a silence, a wordless void which no one cared to fill. At last, reflectively, Molinari farted.

"Tell Eric about your stomach pains," Virgil said to Molinari.

"My pains," Molinari said, and grimaced.

"The whole point in bringing you together-" Virgil began.

"Yes," Molinari growled brusquely, nodding his ma.s.sive head. "I know. And you all know. It was for exactly exactly this." this."

"I'm as certain as I am of taxes and labor unions that Dr. Sweetscent can help you, Secretary," Virgil continued. "The rest of us will go across the hall to the suite of rooms there, so you two can talk in private." With unusual circ.u.mspection he moved away, and, one by one, the blood clan and firm officers filed out of the room, leaving Eric Sweetscent alone with the Secretary General.

After a pause Eric said, "All right, sir; tell me about your abdominal complaint, Secretary." In any case a sick man was a sick man; he seated himself in the form-binding armchair across from the UN Secretary General and, in this reflexively a.s.sumed professional posture, waited.

4.

That evening as Bruce Himmel tromped up the rickety wooden stairs to Chris Plout's conapt in the dismal Mexican section of Tijuana, a female voice said from the darkness behind him, "h.e.l.lo, Brucie. It looks as if this is an all-TF&D night; Simon Ild is here, too."

On the porch the woman caught up with him. It was s.e.xy, sharp-tongued Katherine Sweetscent; he had run into her at Plout's gatherings a number of times before and so it hardly surprised him to see her now. Mrs. Sweetscent wore a somewhat modified costume from that which she employed on the job; this also failed to surprise him. For tonight's mysterious undertaking Kathy had arrived naked from the waist up, except, of course, for her nipples. They had been-not gilded in the strict sense-but rather treated with a coating of living matter, sentient, a Martian life form, so that each possessed a consciousness. Hence each nipple responded in an alert fashion to everything going on.

The effect on Himmel was immense.

Behind Kathy Sweetscent ascended Simon Ild; in the dim light he had a vacant expression on his sappy, pimply, uneducated face. This was a person whom Himmel could do without; Simon-unfortunately-reminded him of nothing so much as a bad simulacrum of himself. And there was nothing for him quite so unbearable.

The fourth person gathered here in the unheated, low-ceilinged room of Chris Plout's littered, stale-food-smelling conapt was an individual whom Himmel at once recognized-recognized and stared at, because this was a man known to him through pics on the back of book jackets. Pale, with glases, his long hair carefully combed, wearing expensive, tasteful Io-fabric clothing, seemingly a trifle ill-at-ease, stood the Taoist authority from San Francisco, Marm Hastings, a slight man but extremely handsome, in his mid-forties, and, as Himmel knew, quite well-to-do from his many books on the subject of oriental mysticism. Why was Hastings here? Obviously to sample JJ-180; Hastings had a reputation for essaying an experience with every hallucinogenic drug that came into being, legal or otherwise. To Hastings this was allied with religion.

But as far as Himmel knew, Marm Hastings had never shown up here in Tijuana at Chris Plout's conapt. What did this indicate about JJ-180? He pondered as he stood off in a corner, surveying the goings-on. Hastings was occupied in examining Plout's library on the subject of drugs and religion; he seemed uninterested in the others present, even contemptuous of their existence. Simon Ild, as usual, curled up on the floor, on a pillow, and lit a twisted brown marijuana cigarette; he puffed vacantly, waiting for Chris to appear. And Kathy Sweetscent-she crouched down, stroking reflexively at her hocks, as if grooming herself flywise, putting her slender, muscular body into a state of alertness. Teasing it, he decided, by deliberate, almost yogalike efforts.

Such physicalness disturbed him; he glanced away. It was not in keeping with the spiritual emphasis of the evening. But no one could tell Mrs. Sweetscent anything; she was nearly autistic.

Now Chris Plout, wearing a red bathrobe, his feet bare, entered from the kitchen; through dark gla.s.ses he peered to see if it was time to begin. "Marm," he said. "Kathy, Bruce, Simon, and I, Christian; the five of us. An adventure into the unexplored by means of a new substance which has just arrived from Tampico aboard a banana boat ... I hold it here." He extended his open palm; within lay the five capsules. "One for each of us-Kathy, Bruce, Simon, Marm, and me, Christian; our first journey of the mind together. Will we all return? And will we be translated, as Bottom says?"

Himmel thought, As Peter Quince says to Bottom, actually.

Aloud, he said, " 'Bottom, thou art translated.' "

"Pardon?" Chris Plout said, frowning.

"I'm quoting," Himmel explained.

"Come on, Chris," Kathy Sweetscent said crossly. "Give us the jink and let's get started." She s.n.a.t.c.hed-successfully-one of the capsules from Chris's palm. "Here I go," she said. "And without water."