Roderick headed across the grass, to where a group of children were playing on swings. But as soon as they caught sight of him, the kids stopped playing and shouted: 'Aah, dirty gipsy! Goaway ya dirty gipsy!'

He changed direction and kept going.

Towards sunset he came back, while Zip was just finishing the palm of a frail old man. He rose and tottered away, leaning on his cane, grinning to himself about the three children he was going to have. Zip took off her scarf.

'Well, little puppet, what kind of day did you have? Make any money?'

'Almost. I mean I was standing on a street corner and somebody came up and tried to stick a quarter in my eye. Then I went to the bus station to watch Zeb and the kids and the street theatre only when Zeb started crying I said don't cry it's a very good act and she said she'd give me a dollar to go away only she never did. Then I saw Jeb on this park bench with his three cards and all this money in both hands saying Find the Lady, boys, Find the Lady, see they put down a dollar and he gives them five if they '

'I know how it goes.'

'Yeah well I saw how terrible they all were at the game so I said maybe he should give them three dollars if they're right and one dollar if they're wrong, see it works out the same, and Jeb whispered he'd give me a dollar to go away but heck, what do I want a dollar for? I guess if everybody in the world wants me to go away for a dollar I could get rich if I just disappeared.'

'Ha ha! You'll learn, little puppet, you'll learn. We'll make a gipsy out of you yet.'

What Roderick really wanted to do was help some grown-up do some grown-up job. And that night, he got his chance.

Everybody had returned in good spirits and carrying thick wads of money. The young men had spent all day finding an amazing number of abandoned cars on the streets, tearing them down and selling them to the local junk-yard. Zeb and Jeb and Zip had all cleaned up too, so now there was nothing left to do but junk their own car, find a new one, and leave town.

While they waited, Zip told Roderick all about the family.

'You see, everybody has to have a name beginning with Z J or Ch, middling with i, e or ee, and ending with b, p or t. But no boy can have Z and no girl can have J.'

'You mean there's only 27 names in the whole '

'No, well we can add -er to a boy's name if it's the same as his older brother's, and -erie to a girl's if it's the same as her older sister's. And if a boy and girl look like they're gonna get the same name, we just add -ette to the girl's name. So you see we can have Jeet, Jeeter, Jeeterer and so on, just like we can have Chep, Cheperie, Chepette, Chepetterie ...'

Boys took middle letters from their mothers and ending letters from their fathers, and girls did the opposite. Roderick was only just beginning to see why Jeep was not Zip's son nor her sister's son when Jeep and Chet drove up in a big red car. They started spraying it with green paint at once. Jeep looked scared.

The old man said, 'What's the big hurry?'

'Aw shit, Chet went and ripped off this here car, just as we drove away I seen it was by the city hall, parked in the mayor's parking spot. I think they seen us too what's that?'

That was the sound of a wow-wow siren, getting closer. Jeep threw down his sprayer. 'We better take her as she is, let's go.'

They piled in and started off. Old Jeb said, 'Take her as she is, that's rich that is. You ain't done no more'n the back and the right side, how's that gonna look? And nobody done the plates '

'Don't worry about the plates,' said Roderick quietly. 'I '

Chet said, 'Ra's ball, who's supposed to be drivin' here, anyway? I got enough on my mind, tryin' to figure all them fancy one-way streets, half of 'em blocked off at the other end without shit, they seen us!'

They were crossing an intersection; a few blocks to the East they could see the flashing red-and-blue lights of the police car crossing another. It went North, they went South. 'Holy Horus they done seen the wrong side of us, too. Now they know we got the mayor's red well, now what?'

Roderick spoke up. 'In a way it's lucky they did see the red side. I mean, if we could use the one-way streets, sort of turning left all the time ... hey, take a left.'

'All I need, got enough human back-seat drivers, now the damn toys gotta start '

'Do like he says,' Zip rumbled. 'That's one smart little cuss there.'

Chet took a left. 'Going round in circles, real smart. But then what we got to lose?'

'Everything,' said old Jeb, turning his face to the window. The baby kicked at his bald spot.

'They seen us again!'

And the police car saw them again and again, as both vehicles spiralled in through the one-way system, first seven blocks apart, then three, then two. When the police car was only one block away (and turning towards them) Roderick said: 'Okay, now pull over on this next block on the left. Turn out the lights and everybody duck down.'

An instant after they obeyed, tyres shrieked at the final corner and the flashing colours approached. They could hear the two policemen arguing. A spotlight went on.

'Okay, sure it's a new Shrapnel, only it ain't hizzonour's, just take a look. His is Lady Macbeth Red, and this is, it looks like Tango Green. Anyways, look at the plate, his is Elmer two six one zero five eight niner seven, while this here is Lolita six eight five zero one niner two three, we're wasting time ...'

'Have it your way ... thin air ...'

The police car wow-wowed away. They were safe.

Zip said later, 'I told you he was a smart little cuss. I bet Roderick's got more brains in one little silly-cone chip than you got in your whole head, Chet.'

A gold tooth grinned back at Roderick, wrinkles smiled, a watery eye winked, and a tattooed hand patted his dome. The children smiled in their sleep, the woman with earrings blew him a kiss, and even the baby seemed to wave its foot in congratulations. Roderick was a gipsy hero, and now there was no question of sending him to the junk-yard.

Instead, later that night, they sold him into slavery.

VI.

Midnight. The apostle clock chimed, and its twelve tiny wooden figures paraded out of one door and in at the other. Faces half-gone with worm-holes.

Mr Kratt lifted his snout and listened.

'You must really like that old clock, huh Mr Kratt?'

'Like it? I hate the goddamned thing. That's what I keep it for, to remind me how much I hated my old man.'

'I don't get it. If you '

'You don't have to get it, bub.' He watched the wooden door shut behind the last apostle. 'See, my old man had the damnedest collection of old clocks, cuckoos, grandfathers, you name it. Some real fancy ones, too: like this German school-house with these little enamel schoolboys that come outside, one at a time, they bend over, see, and get a beating from the old teacher. My old man spent his life fixing them up. His life and our money. And when he died he left us kids one broken-down clock apiece. All the rest went to a museum. Only good investment he ever made, and he gives it away.'

The chimes finished, and there was no sound in the office trailer but the faint noises filtering in from outside: screams. Bells. The waltz-time murmur of the merry-go-round.

Mr Kratt looked from the face of his digital watch to that of his young assistant, a pimply man with a handle-bar moustache.

'You oughta shave that thing off, bub.'

'Yes, Mr Kratt.'

'No, I mean it. What do you want with all that hair on your face? Think it gives you confidence, some shit like that?'

The young man fiddled with a company report. 'Well, I just like it. Same as you and your ring there.'

'Ha!' Mr Kratt held it up, a heavy gold claw mounted with a steel ball. 'That, my friend, is history. That's a pinball from my first machine. Took me five years to build it up to an arcade, but in two more years I had three arcades and the carny. Never looked back after that.' He checked his watch again. 'Where the hell is this guy? How long does it take to go through a few waste-baskets?'

'I thought you started out in Autosaunas, sir.'

'No, that was later. What happened was, I started out with these call girls '

'You was into call girls?'

'Not me, people I knew. And when they legalized them in California, see, they wanted to expand. So I came up with this idea, wiring the girls into a computer, hell, it cut their turnaround time by forty per cent. So then I thought, hell, why pay all these girls, I mean taxi fares and food and rent, skimming, it all comes off the top. All you need is something that looks and talks and moves like a girl anyway that's how Autosaunas got going. I was lucky there too, managed to sell off my interest just before all that litigation came down on them, not just the nuisance suits claiming clap and syph but the heavy stuff, middle-aged guy dies of heart failure and they try to prove electrocution, another guy files injury claim for amputa well, you know how these ambulance chasers get their clients all worked up over some little nothing. Anyway that's when I got the idea for Datajoy, all I got so far is a registered name and a process, but when the time's right look, we give that guy fifteen minutes more, then I'm splitting.'

'These people you knew that was into call girls, who, was it the Mafia?'

'There's no such thing as the Mafia,' said Mr Kratt quickly. 'Anyway that business showed me what I'm doing, made me think it deep. See, I used to think I was in the amusement machine business, but that's just part of the picture. See, what I'm really into is pleasure. The pleasure industry. Big difference there, changes the whole concept when you think about it. I mean now I could acquire a few other interests, stuff like T-Track Records, like K.T.Art Films, see these are all just departure points to the same place, they all come under one dome, pleasure. Nowadays whenever I plan anything, anything at all, I ask myself: "How is this gonna help give the most pleasure to the most people, at the highest return?" You'd be surprised how much crap that cuts out, having a simple business philosophy.'

'Pleasure. Is that why you're going into fun foods?'

'That's it, bub. Only as you know, it's a highly-saturated market there right now, so I can only get in with a hell of a good angle.' He glanced at his watch again. 'Which is one reason I end up sitting here half the night waiting for that market research yak-head to bring me what I need. Is that him now?'

The assistant answered the door. It was not the market researcher, only two old gipsies trying to sell a robot.

'Tell 'em we got a robot, we got a show full of robots. Tell 'em I make the goddamn things no wait, wait a minute. Let's just see what they call a robot. We got time.'

The two old people came in carrying a small, inhuman-looking device. 'Good evening sir, we '

'Put it on the desk there and turn it on,' said Kratt. 'What's it supposed to do? Tell fortunes?'

The old woman kept working her multitude of wrinkles into a smile, or was it a leer? 'If you want,' she said. 'Little Roderick here is a smart little cuss. He '

'That's its name, Little Roderick?'

'Roderick Wood,' said the gadget, holding out a claw. 'I '

The old man suddenly started dancing and whistling accompaniment. The entire trailer rocked with his tap routine.

'What the hell here, shut up you!' The assistant grabbed his arm, and might have hustled him out of the door if Kratt hadn't spoken up. 'Okay, okay, simmer down everybody, let's see here.' He took the claw and twisted it around, examining it. 'Not bad work here, you know? Course he looks like shit, but we might fix does he duke or what?'

'Sure I do,' said Roderick. 'Gimmee your mitt, uh, sir.'

Mr Kratt held out a bunch of thick fingers. He was thick all over, Roderick noticed, and wide: a wide head growing straight from the shoulders without pausing at any sort of neck. A wide face hanging from a thick black V of eyebrow. A wide nose, upturned to display its mole. The eyes were black and tiny and slightly crossed, as though ready to concentrate on that mole.

Roderick was afraid of Mr Kratt. 'Well maybe I '

'Come on, don't stall.'

'You, uh, will get married soon and have three children, first a boy, then a girl, then another girl.'

'Ha! Go on.'

'You're uh having trouble with your, your back, back pains?'

'What the hell is this thing shaking for? Think you got some problem with the motor circuits there. Yeah, go on.'

'You want to make lots of money and, uh, you will. Some thing you hope for will come true soon and make you lots of money.'

Kratt took his hand away to find a cheap cigar and unwrap it. 'Not bad, not bad.' He waited for the assistant to give him a light. 'Yeah, but not so good, either. Kind of easy, all it does is go through a little table, right? Tells the first client he's got back trouble, the next one he's got foot trouble, the next one he's got headaches '

'And so on,' said Roderick. 'That's it, all right. And for the children see I always say three children, they can have them eight different ways ...'

'Talkative little gadget, ain't it?' Kratt grinned and reached out to pat Roderick's dome. The robot flinched. 'Well I might find some use for him, let's say a hundred bucks.'

'We was thinkin' more like a grand,' said the old woman.

'A grand,' said the old man.

'A hundred. Cash. Look, I might have to do a lot of work on it, gotta change some a that direct programming, gotta maybe fix the motor circuits, gotta do something about its appearance '

'Five hundred?' said the old man.

'One-fifty, I'm generous too, this thing is probably hot.'

Roderick made a whimpering sound when the gipsies left with the $200 Mr Kratt had meant to pay all along. Mr Kratt patted his head again, spilling ash over his face. 'Good little gadget, bub, realistic talker. Stick on a fifty-cent coin box, penny a second, all it's gotta do is talk to people about their troubles.'

Roderick said, 'You mean 1 don't have to tell fortunes? Cause I don't like fortunes, dukes and stuff.'

'Ha! Hear that, it doesn't like hey, robot, what you got against duking?'

'Well I mean making up all this stuff and then it comes true, how come they need me to make it up, how come nobody wants to tell their own fortunes, Pa says they could just put all their choices in a hat and draw one out it's just as good. But I mean once I say it there it is, that's the future.'

'You think let me get this straight you think you can just go to a set of tables and just pick out a future for somebody and then it happens?'

'Sure, because like Ma uses the I Ching all the time and she says it never fails, that's just 64 choices, 64 ways the future can go.' He hesitated. 'Only Pa says it's a lot of crap.'

'Well this Pa is right, it's only like a game, see, to make money. Now well, about time.'

The door opened and a one-armed stranger stumbled in. 'Howdy. Sorry I took so long, only you know pickin' locks with one hand ain't exactly easy. Got jest what y'all wanted.' He looked at Roderick. 'What's that?'

'Nothing, another piece of crap for the carnival, stick it in the corner, bub let Mr Smith use the desk for his presenta '

'O'Smith.'

'Yeah, now let's see here, what's this, memos?'

'Yep, outa executive waste-baskets, all highly confidentials, reckon half the board at Dipchip don't know what's goin' down yet, looks like maybe kind of a private showdown between the research director Hare and the vice-president in charge of product development Hatlo '