Hugh said, "Joe, what's that formula for setting a price to maximize profits rather than sales?"

            "Works only in a monopoly."

            "Well? How is that done here? Patents and copyrights and such? I haven't seen anything about it in what I've read."

            Joe looked troubled. "Hugh, the Chosen don't use such a system, they don't need to. Everything is pretty well worked out, things don't change much."

            Hugh said, "That's bad. Two weeks after we start, the market will be flooded with imitations."

            Ponse said, "What are you two jabbering about? Speak Language." Hugh's question had necessarily been in English; Joe had answered in English.

            Joe said, "Sorry, Ponse," and explained the ideas behind patent rights, copyright, and monopoly.

            Ponse relaxed. "Oh, that's simple. When a man gets an inspiration from Heaven, the Lord Proprietor forbids anyone else to use it without his let. Doesn't happen often, I recall only two cases in my lifetime. But Mighty Uncle has been known to smile."

            Hugh was not surprised to learn how scarce invention was. It was a static culture, with most of what they called "science" in the hands of tempered slaves-and if patenting a new idea was that difficult, there would be little incentive to invent. "Would you say that this idea is an inspiration from Heaven?"

            Ponse thought about it. "An inspiration is whatever Their Mercy, in Their wisdom, recognizes as an inspiration." Suddenly he grinned. "In my opinion, anything that will stack bullocks in the Family coffers is an inspiration. The problem is to make the Proprietor see it. But there are ways. Keep talking."

            Joe said, "Hugh, the protection should extend not only over playing cards but over the games themselves."

            "Of course. If they don't buy Their Charity's cards, they must not play his games. Hard to stop, since anybody can fake a deck of cards. But the monopoly should make it illegal."

            "And not just cards like these, but any sort of playing cards. You could play bridge with cards just with numbers on them."

            "Yes." Hugh pondered. "Joe, there was a Scrabble set in the shelter."

            "It's still around. Ponse's scientists saved everything. Hugh, I see what you're driving at, but nobody here could learn Scrabble. You have to know English."

            "What's to keep us from inventing Scrabble all over again- in Language? Let me set my staff to making a frequency count of the alphabet as it appears in Language and I'll have a set of Scrabble, board and tiles and rules, suited to Language, the following day."

            "What in the name of Uncle is Scrabble?"

            "It's a game, Ponse. Quite a good one. But the point is that it's a game that we can charge more for than we can for a deck of cards."            -

            "That's not all," said Hugh. He began ticking on his fingers. "Parcheesi, Monopoly, backgammon, Old Maid for kids-call it something else-dominoes, anagrams, poker chips and racks, jigsaw puzzles-have you seen any?"

            "No."

            "Good for young and old, and all degrees of difficulty. Tinker Toy. Dice-lots of games with dice. Joe, are there casinos here?"

            "Of sorts. There are places to gamble and lots of private gambling."

            "Roulette wheels?"

            "I don't believe so."

            "It gets too big to think about. Ponse, you are going to have to sit up nights, counting your money."

            "Servants for such chores. I wish I knew what you two are talking about. May one ask?"

            "Sorry, sir. Joe and I were talking about ancient games.. and not just games but all sorts of recreations that we used to have and have now been lost. At least I think they have been. Joe?"

            "The only one I've seen that looks familiar is chess."

            "Chess would hold up if anything would. Ponse, the point is that every one of these things has money in it. Surely, you have games now. But these will be novelties. So old they are new again. Ping-Pong . . . bowling alleys! Joe, have you seen-"

            "No."

            "Billiards. Pocket pool. I'll stop, we've got a backlog. Ponse, the first problem is to get a protection from Their Mercy to cover it all-and I see a theory that makes it an inspiration from on high. It was a miracle."

            "What? Garbage. I don't believe in miracles."

            "You don't have to believe in it. Look, we were found on the Proprietor's personal land-and you found us. Doesn't that look as if Uncle intended for the Proprietor to know about this? And for you as Lord Protector to protect it?"

            Ponse grinned. "An argument could be made for such a theory. Might be expensive. But you can't boil water without feeding the fire, as my aunt used to say." He stood up. "Hugh, let's see that Scrabble game. Soon. Joe, we'll find time for you to explain these other things. We excuse you both. All."

            Kitten was asleep when Hugh returned but she was clutching a note:

            Oh, darling, it was so wonderful to see you! ! ! I can't wait until Their Charity asks us to play bridge again! Isn't he an old dear? Even if he was thoughtless at one point. He corrected his mistake and that's the mark of a true gentleman.

            I'm so excited at seeing you that I can hardly write, and Kitten is waiting to take this to you.

            The twins send you kisses, slobbery ones. Love, love, love!

Your own B.

            Hugh read Barbara's note with mixed feelings. He shared her joy in their reunion, limited as it had been, and eagerly looked forward to the next time Ponse's pleasure would permit them to be together. As for the rest- Better get her out of here before she acquired a slave mentality! Surely, Ponse was a gentleman within the accepted meaning of the term. He was conscientious about his responsibilities, generous and tolerant with his inferiors. A gentleman.

            But he was a revolving son of a bitch, too! And Barbara ought not to be so ready to overlook the fact. Ignore it, yes- one had to. But not forget it.

            He must get her free.

            But how?

            He went to bed.

            An aching hour later he got up, went into his living room, stood at his window. He could make out against black sky the blacker blackness of the Rocky Mountains.

            Somewhere out there, were free men.

            He could break this window, go toward the mountains, be lost in them before daylight-find free companions. He need not even break the window-just slip past a nodding watchman, or use the authority symbolized by his whip to go out despite the watch. No real effort was made to keep house servants locked up. A watch was set more to keep intruders out. Most house servants would no more run away than a dog would.

            Dogs- One of the studmaster's duties was keeper of the hounds.

            If necessary, he could kill a dog with his hands. But how do you run when burdened with two small babies?

            He went to a cupboard, poured himself a stiff drink of Happiness, gulped it down, and went back to bed.

Chapter 16

            For the next many days Hugh was busy redesigning the game of Scrabble, translating Hoyle's Complete Book of Games, dictating rules and descriptions of games and recreations not in Hoyle (such as Ping-Pong, golf, water skiing), attending conferences with Ponse and Joe-playing bridge.

            The last was by far the best. With Joe's help he taught several Chosen the game, but most sessions were play, with Joe, Ponse, and always Barbara. Ponse had the enthusiasm of a convert; when he was in residence he played bridge every minute he could spare, and always wanted the same four, the best players available.

            It seemed to Hugh that Their Charity was honestly fond of Barbara, as fond as he was of the cat he called "Doklivstnipsoom"-never "Doc." Ponse extended to cats the courtesy due equals, and Doc, or any cat, was free to jump into his lap even when he was bidding a hand. He extended the same courtesy and affection to Barbara as he knew her better, always called her "Barba," or "Child," and never again referred to her as "it." Barbara called him "Ponse," or "Uncle," and clearly felt happy in his company.

            Sometimes Ponse left Barbara and Hugh alone, once for twenty minutes. These were jewels beyond price; they did not risk losing such a privilege by doing more than hold hands.

            If it was time to nurse the boys, Barbara said so and Ponse always ordered them fetched. Once he ordered them fetched when it wasn't necessary, said that he had not seen them for a week and wanted to see how much they had grown. So the game waited while their "Uncle" Ponse got down on the rug and made foolish noises at them.

            Then he had them taken away, five minutes of babies was enough. But he said to Barbara, "Child, they're growing like sugar cane. I hope I live to see them grow up."

            "You'll live a long time, Uncle.'!

            "Maybe. I've outlived a dozen food tasters, but that salts no fish. Those brats of ours will make magnificent matched footmen. I can see them now, serving in the banquet hail of the Palace-the Residence, I mean, not this cottage. Whose deal is it?"

            Hugh saw Grace a few times, but never for more than seconds. If he showed up when she was there, she left at once, displeasure large on her face. If Barbara arrived before Hugh did, Grace was always out of sight. It was clear that she was an habituée of the lord's informal apartments; it was equally clear that she resented Barbara as much as ever, with bile left over for Hugh. But she never said anything and it seemed likely that she had learned not to cross wills with Their Charity.

            It was now official that Grace was bedwarmer to Their Charity. Hugh learned this from Kitten. The sluts knew when the lord was in residence (Hugh often did not) by whether Grace was downstairs or up. She was assigned no other duties and was immune to all whips, even Memtok's. She was also, the times Hugh glimpsed her, lavishly dressed and bejeweled.

            She was also very fat, so fat that Hugh felt relieved that he no longer had even a nominal obligation to share a bed with her. True, all bedwarmers were fat by Hugh's standards. Even Kitten was plump enough that had she been a XXth century American girl, she would have been at least pretending to diet- Kitten fretted that she was unable to put on weight- and did Hugh like her anyhow?

            Kitten was so young that her plumpness was somewhat pleasing, as with a baby. But Hugh found Grace's fatness another matter-somewhere in that jiggling mass was buried the beautiful girl he had married. He tried not to think about it and could not see why Ponse would like it-if he did. But in truth, Hugh admitted, he did not know that Grace was anything more than nominally Ponse's bedwarmer. After all, Ponse was alleged to be more than a century old. Would Ponse have any more use for one than Memtok had? Hugh did not know-nor care. Ponse looked to be perhaps sixty-five and still strong and virile. But Hugh held a private opinion that Grace's role was odalisque, not houri.

            While the question did not matter to him, it did to Duke. Hugh's first son came storming into Hugh's office one day and demanded a private interview; Hugh led him to his apartment. He bad not seen Duke for a month. Translations had been coming in from him; there had been no need to see him.

            Hugh tried to make the meeting pleasant. "Sit down, Duke. May I offer you a drink of Happiness?"

            "No, thanks! What's this I hear about Mother?"

            "What do you hear, Duke?" (Oh, Lord! Here we go-)

            "You know damned well what I mean!"

            "I'm afraid I don't."

            Hugh made him spell it out. Duke had his facts correct and, to Hugh's surprise, had learned them just that day. Since more than four hundred servants had known all along that one of the slut savages-the other one, not the tail skinny one-lived upstairs with Their Charity more than she lived in sluts' quarters, it seemed incredible that Duke had taken so long to find out. However, Duke had little to do with the other servants and was not popular-a "troublemaker," Memtok had called him.

            Hugh neither confirmed nor denied Duke's story.

            "Well?" Duke demanded. "What are you going to do about it?"

            "About what, Duke? Are you suggesting that I put a stop to servants' hall gossip?"

            "I don't mean that at all! Are you going to sit there like a turd on a rock while your wife is being raped?"

            "Probably. You come in here with some story you've picked up from a second assistant dishwasher and expect me to do something. I would like to know, first, why do you think this gossip is true? Second, what has what you have told me got to do with rape? Third, what would you expect me to do about it? Fourth, what do you think I can do about it? Take them in 'order and be specific. Then we may talk about what I will do."

            "Quit twisting things."

            "I'm not twisting anything. Duke, you had an expensive education as a lawyer-I know, I picked up the tab. You used to lecture me about 'rules of evidence.' Now use that education. Take those questions in order. Why do you think this gossip is true?"

            "Uh. . . I heard it and checked around. Everybody knows it."

            "So? Everybody knew the Earth was flat, at one time. But what is the allegation? Be specific."

            "Why, I told you. Mother is assigned as that bastard's bedwarmer."

            "Who says so?"

            "Why, everybody!"

            "Did you ask the slutmaster?"

            "Do you think I'm crazy?"

            "I'll take that as rhetorical. To shorten this, what 'everybody knows,' as you put it, is that Grace is assigned duties upstairs. This could be verified, if true. Possibly in attendance on Their Charity, possibly waiting on the ladies of the household, or perhaps other duties. Do you want an appointment with the slutmaster, so that you can ask him what duties your mother has? I do not know her duties."

            "Uh, you ask him."

            "I shan't. I feel sure that Grace would regard it as snooping. Let's assume that you have asked him and that he has told you, as you now suspect only from gossip, that her assignment is as bedwarmer. To Their Charity. On this assumption, made solely for the sake of argument since you haven't proved it- on this assumption, where does rape come in?"

            Duke looked astonished. "I would not have believed it, even of you. Do you mean to sit there and say baldly that you think Mother would do such a thing voluntarily?"

            "I long ago gave up trying to guess what your mother would do. But I haven't said she is doing anything. You have. I don't know that her assignment is bedwarmer other than through gossip you have repeated without proof. If true, I still would not know if she had ever carried out the assignment by actually getting into his bed, voluntarily or otherwise-I've never seen his bed nor even heard gossip on this point. . . just your evil thoughts. But if those thoughts are correct, I still would have no opinion as to whether or not anything other than sleep had taken place. I have shared beds with females and done nothing but sleep; it can happen. But even stipulating sexual activity-your assumption, not mine-I doubt that Their Charity has ever raped any female in his life. I doubt it especially now."

            "Crap. There never was a nigger bastard who wouldn't rape a white woman if he had the chance."

            "Duke! That's poisonous, insane nonsense. You almost persuade me that you are crazy."

            "I-,'

            "Shut up! You know that Joseph, to give one example, had endless opportunity to rape any of three white women for nine long months. You also know that his behavior was above reproach."

            "Well.. . he didn't have a chance to."

            "I told you to shut up this poison. He had endless chance. While you were hunting, any day. He was alone with each of them, many times. Drop it! Slandering Joseph, I mean, even by innuendo. I'm ashamed of you."

            "And I'm ashamed of you. Fat cat for a nigger king."

            "Very well, the shame is mutual. Speaking of fat cats, I don't really need you. if you want to quit being a fat cat, you can wash dishes or whatever they assign you to."

            "Doesn't matter to me."

            "Let me know when you wish to be relieved. It will lose you your private cubicle but such luxury is a fat cat privilege. Never mind. I see only one way to get at the facts, if any, underlying these foul suspicions in your mind. Ask the Lord Protector."

            "Go right ahead! First sensible thing you've said."

            "Oh, not me, Duke. I don't suspect him of rape. But you can ask him. See the Chief Domestic. He'll see any Palace servant who wants to see him. At the servant's risk, but I doubt if he'll tingle anyone in my department without good cause; I do have some fat cat privileges. Tell him you want an audience with the Lord Protector. I think that is all it will take, although you may have to wait a week or two. If Memtok turns you down, tell me. I fancy I can get him to arrange it. Then, when you see the Lord Protector, simply ask him, point-blank."

            "And be lied to. If I ever get that close to that black ape, I'm going to kill him!"

            Mr. Farnham sighed. "Duke, I don't see how one man can be so wrong-headed so many different ways. If you are granted an audience, Memtok will be at your side. With his whip. The Lord Protector will be about fifty feet away. And the whip he carries doesn't just tingle; it's a deadly weapon. The old man has lived a long time, he's not easy to kill."

            "I can try!"

            "So you can. If a grasshopper tries to fight a lawnmower, one may admire his courage but not his judgment. But you are equally silly in thinking that Their Charity would lie about it. If he has done what you think he has-raped your mother, forced her to submit-he would feel not the slightest shame, not in any way reluctant to answer you honestly. Duke, he would no more bother to lie to you than it would occur to him to step aside if you were in his way. However-would you believe your mother?"

            "Of course I would."

            "Then tell him also that you would like to see her. I am almost certain that he would grant the request. For a few minutes and in his presence. The harem rules he can break if he chooses. If you have the guts to tell him that you want to hear her confirm whatever he tells you, I think he would be astonished. But I think he would then laugh and grant the petition. If you want to see your mother, assure yourself personally of her welfare and safety, that's all I can suggest. You can't see her otherwise. It's so irregular that your only chance is to spring it on him, face to face." -

            Duke looked baffled. "Look, why the devil don't you ask him? You see him almost every day, so I hear."

            "Me? Yes, I see him fairly often. But ask him about rape? Is that what you mean?"

            "Yes, if you choose to put it that way."

            "'Rape' is what you claim to be worried about. But I don't suspect him of rape. I won't be a front for your evil suspicions. If it is to be done, you must have the guts to do it yourself." Hugh stood up. "We've wasted enough time. Either get back to work, or go see Memtok."

            "I'm not through."

            "Oh, yes, you are. That was an order, not a suggestion."

            "If you think I'm scared of that whip-"

            "Heavens, Duke, I wouldn't tingle you myself. If you force me to it, I'll ask Memtok to chastise you. He's reputed to be expert. Now get out. You've wasted half my morning."

            Duke left. Hugh stayed, trying to compose himself. A row with Duke always left him shaking; it had been so when the lad was only twelve. But something else troubled him, too. He had used every sophistry he could think of to divert Duke from a hopeless course. That did not worry him, nor did he share Duke's basic worry. Whatever had happened to Grace, he felt sure that rape was not a factor.

            But he was sourly aware of something 'that Duke, in his delusions, apparently did not realize-the oldest Law of the Conquered, that their women eventually submit-willingly.

            Whether his ex-wife had or had not was a matter almost academic. He suspected that she had never been offered opportunity. Either way, she was obviously contented with her lot-smug about it. That troubled him little; he had tried to do his duty by her, she had long since withdrawn herself from him. But he did not want Barbara ever to feel the deadening load of hopelessness that could-and had, all through history-turned chaste women into willing concubines. Much as he loved her, he had no illusions that Barbara was either angel or saint; the Sabine women had stood no chance and neither would she. "Death before dishonor!" was a slogan that did not wear well. In time, it changed to happy cooperation.

            He got out his bottle of Happiness, looked at it-put it back. He would never solve his problems that way.

            Hugh made no effort to learn if Duke had gone to see Memtok. He got back to work at his endless task of buttering up Their Charity in every way available, whether by good bridge, moneymaking ideas, or simply translating. He no longer had any hope that the boss would eventually permit him to move Barbara and the twins into his apartment; old Ponse had seemed adamant on that. But favor at court could be useful, even indispensable, no matter what happened-and in the meantime it let him see Barbara occasionally.

            He never gave up his purpose of escape. As the summer wore on he realized that the chances were slim of escaping- all four of them escaping, twins in arms-that year. Soon the household would move to the city, and so far as he knew the only possible time to escape was when they were near mountains. No matter. A year, two years, even longer, perhaps wait until the boys could walk. Hard enough even then, but nearly impossible with babies in arms. He must tell Barbara, with whispered urgency, the next time they were left alone even for a minute, what he had in mind-urge her to keep her chin up, and wait.

            He didn't dare write it to her. Ponse could get it translated-other scholars somewhere understood English, even though Joe would never give him away. Would Grace? He hoped not, but couldn't guess. Probably Ponse knew all about those notes, had them translated every day, chuckled over them, and did not care.

            Perhaps he could work out a code-something as simple as first word, first line, then second line, second word, and so on. Might risk it.

            He had figured out one thing in their favor, an advantage that might overcome their lack of sophistication in this society. Runaways rarely succeeded simply because of their appearance. A white skin might be disguised-but servants averaged many inches shorter and many pounds lighter than the Chosen.

            Both Barbara and Hugh were tail; they were big enough to pass in that respect for Chosen. Features? The Chosen were not uniform in feature; Hindu influence mixed with Negroid and with other things. His baldness was a problem, he would have to steal a wig. Or make one. But with stolen clothes, squirreled food, weapons of some sort (his two hands!), and makeup-they might be able to pass for "poor black trash" and take to the road.

            If it wasn't too far. If the hounds did not get them. If they did not make some ridiculous bumble through ignorance. But servants, marked by their complexion, were not allowed to go one step outside the household, farm, ranch, or whatever was their lawful cage-without a pass from their patron.

            Perhaps he could learn what a pass looked like, forge one. No, Barbara and he could not travel as servants on a forged pass for the very reason that made it dimly possible for them to disguise as Chosen: Their size was distinctive, they would be picked up on sight.

            The more Hugh thought about it the more it seemed that he would have to wait at least until next summer.

            If they were among the servants picked for the Summer Palace next year- If they both were- If all four were- He had not thought of that. Christ! Their little family might never be all under this one roof again! Perhaps they would have to run for it now, in the short time left before the move-run and take a chance on hounds, on bears, on those nasty little leopards. . . with two nursing babies to protect. God! Was ever a man faced with poorer chances for saving his family?

            Yes. He himself-when he built that shelter.

            Prepare every way he could. . . and pray for a miracle. He started saving food from meals served in his rooms, such sorts as would keep a while. He kept his eyes open to steal a knife- or anything that could be made into a knife. He kept what he was doing from Kitten's eyes.

            Much sooner than he had hoped he got a chance to acquire makeup. A feast day always meant an orgy of Happiness in servants' hall; one came that featured amateur theatricals. Hugh was urged to clown the part of Lord Protector in a comic skit. He did not hesitate to do so, Memtok himself had pointed out that his size made him perfect for the part. Hugh roared through it, brandishing a quirt three times as big as Their Charity ever carried.

            He was a dramatic success. He saw Ponse watching from the balcony from which Hugh had first seen Happiness issued, watching and laughing. So Hugh ad-libbed, calling out, "Hey, less noise in the balcony! Memtok! Tingle that critter!"

            Their Charity laughed harder than ever, the servants were almost hysterical and, at bridge the following day, Ponse patted him and told him that he was the best Lord of Nonsense the pageant had ever had.

            Result: one stolen package of pigment which needed only to be mixed with the plentiful deodorant cream to make him the exact shade of the Lord Protector; one wig which covered his baldness with black wavy hair. It was not the wig he had worn in the skit; he had turned that one back to the chief housekeeper, picking a time under Memtok's eyes and urging Memtok to try it on. No, it was a wig he had tried on out of several saved from year to year-and which had fitted him just as well. He tried it on, dropped it, kicked it into a corner, recovered it in private-and kept it under his robe for several days until it seemed certain that it hadn't been missed. It wound up under a file case in his outer office one night when he chose to work later than his clerks.

            He was still looking for something he could grind into a knife.

            He did not see Duke during the three weeks following their row. Sometimes Duke's translations came in, sometimes he skipped a day or two; Hugh let him get away with it. But when Hugh could not recall having seen any scrolls come through of the sort Duke was concerned with for a full week, Hugh decided to check up.

            Hugh walked to the cubicle that was Duke's privilege for being a "researcher in history." He scratched on the door- no answer.

            He scratched again, decided that Duke was sleeping, or not in; he slid the door up and looked in.

            Duke was not asleep but he was out of this world. He was sprawled naked on his bunk in the most all-out Happiness jag Hugh had ever seen. Duke looked up when the door opened, giggled foolishly, made a gesture, and said, "Hiyah, y'ole bas'ard! How's tricks?"

            Hugh stepped closer for a better look at what he thought he saw, and felt sick at his stomach. "Son, son!"

            "Still crepe-hanging, Hughie? Old hooey Hugh, the fake fart!"

            Gulping, Hugh started to back out, and backed almost into the Chief Veterinarian. The surgeon smiled and said, "Visiting my patient? He hardly needs it." He moved past Hugh with a muttered apology, leaned over Duke, peeled an eyelid back, examined him in other ways, said to him jovially, "You're doing fine, cousin. Let's give you another little treatment, then I'll send you in another big meal. How does that sound?"

            "Jus' fine, Doe. Jus' dandy! You're m' frien'. Bes' frien' never had!"

            The vet set a dial on a little instrument, pressed it against Duke's thigh, waited a moment, and came out. He smiled at Hugh. "Practically recovered. He'll dream a few hours now, wake up hungry, and not know any time has passed. Then we'll feed him and give him another dose. A fine patient, he's raffled beautifully. Doesn't know what's happened-and by the time we're ready to taper him off, he won't be interested."

            "Who ordered this?"

            The surgeon looked surprised. "The Chief Domestic, of course. Why?"

            "Why wasn't I told?"

            "I don't know, better ask him. I got it as a routine order, we carried it out in the routine fashion. Sleeping powder in his evening meal, I mean, then surgery that night. Followed by post-surgical care and the usual massive dosage to keep him tranquil. It tends to make some of them a little nervous at first, we vary it to suit the patient. But, as you can see, this patient has taken it as easily as pulling a tooth. By the way, that bridge I installed in your mouth. Satisfactory?"

            "What? Yes. Never mind that! I want to know-"

            "May it please you, the Chief Domestic is the one to see. Now, if this one may be excused, I'm overdue to hold sick call. I merely stopped by to make sure my patient was happy."

            Hugh went to his apartment and threw up. Then he went looking for Memtok.

            Memtok received him into his office at once, invited him to sit down. Hugh had begun to value the Chief Domestic as a friend, or as the nearest thing he had to a friend. Memtok had formed a habit of dropping in on Hugh in the evenings occasionally and, despite the boss servant's vinegary approach to life and the vast difference in their backgrounds and values, Hugh found him shrewd and stimulating and well informed within his limits. Memtok seemed to have the loneliness that a ship's captain must endure; he seemed pleased to relax and enjoy friendship.

            Since the other upper servants were correctly polite with the Chief Researcher rather than warm, Hugh, lonesome himself, had enjoyed Memtok's unbending and had thought of him as his friend. Until this- Hugh told Memtok bluntly, without protocol, what was on his mind. "Why did you do this?"

            Memtok looked surprised. "Such a question! Such a very improper question. Because the Lord Protector ordered it."

            "He did?"

            "My dear cousin! Tempering is always by the lord's order. Oh, I recommend, to be sure. But orders for alterations must come from above. However, if it is any business of yours, in this case I made no recommendation. I was given the order, I had it carried out. All."

            "Certainly it was my business! He works for me."

            "Oh! But he had already been transferred before this was done. Else I would have made a point of telling you. Propriety, cousin, propriety in all things. I hold subordinates strictly accountable. So I never undercut them. Can't run a taut household if one does. Fair is fair."

            "I wasn't told he was transferred. Don't you count that as undercutting?"

            "Oh, but you were." The Chief Domestic glanced at the rack of pigeonholes backing his desk, searched briefly, pulled out a slip. "There it is." Hugh looked at it. DUTY ASSIGNMENT, CHANGE IN-ONE SERVANT, MALE (savage, rescued & adopted), known as Duke, description- Hugh skipped on down. -relieved of all duties in the Department of Ancient History and assigned to the personal service of Their Charity, effective immediately. BILLETING & MESSING ASSIGNMENTS: Unchanged until further- "I never saw this!"

            "It's my file copy. You got the original." Memtok pointed at the lower left corner. "Your deputy clerk's sign. It always pleases me when my executives can read and write, it makes things so much more orderly. With an ignoramus like the Chief Groundskeeper, one can tell him until one's throat is raw and later the stupid lout will claim that wasn't the way he heard it-yet a tingling improves his memory only for that day. Disheartening. One can't be forever tingling an upper servant, it doesn't work." Memtok sighed. "I'd recommend a change, if his assistant wasn't even stupider."

            "Memtok, I never saw this."

            "As may be. It was delivered, your deputy receipted for it. Look around your office. One bullock gets you three you'll find it. Perhaps you'd like me to tingle your deputy? Glad to."

            "No, no." Memtok was almost certainly right, the order was probably on his own desk, unread. Hugh's department had grown to two or three dozen people; there seemed to be more every day. Most of them seemed to be button sorters, all of them wanted to take up his time. Hugh had long since told the earnest, fairly literate clerk who was his deputy that he was not to be bothered-otherwise Hugh would have accomplished no translating after the first week; Parkinson's Law had taken over. The clerk had obeyed and routine matters stacked up. Every week or so Hugh would go through the stack rapidly, shove it back at his deputy for file or burning or whatever they did with useless papers.

            Probably the order transferring Hugh was in the current accumulation. If he had seen it in time- Too late, too late! He put his elbows on his knees and covered his face. Too late! Oh, my son!

            Memtok touched his shoulder almost gently. "Cousin, take hold of yourself. Your prerogatives were not abridged. You see 'that, do you not?"

            "Yes. Yes, I see it," Hugh mumbled through his hands.

            "Then why are you overwrought?"

            "He was-he is-my son."

            "He is? Then why are you behaving as if he were your nephew?" Memtok used the specific form, meaning "your eldest sister's oldest son" and he was honestly puzzled by the savage's odd reaction. He could understand a mother being interested in her son-her oldest son, at least. But a father? Uncle! Memtok had sons, he was certain, throughout the household-"One-Shot Memtok" the former slutmaster used to call him. But he didn't know who they were and could not imagine wanting to know. Or caring.

            "Because-" Hugh started. "Oh, forget it. You did your duty. Conceded."

            "Well- You still seem upset. I'll send for a bottle of Happiness. I'll join you, this once."

            "No. No, thank you."

            "Oh, come, come! You need it. A tonic is excellent, it is excess that one must avoid."

            "Thanks, Memtok, but I don't want it. Right now I must be sharp. I want to see Their Charity. Right away if possible. Will you arrange it for me?"

            "I can't do that."

            "Damn it, I know that you can. And I know he will see me if you ask him."

            "Cousin, I didn't say that I would not; I said 'I can't.' Their Charity is not in residence."

            "Oh." Then he asked to have word sent to Joe. But the Chief Domestic told him that the young Chosen had left with the Lord Protector. He promised to let Hugh know when either of them returned- Yes, at once, cousin.

            Hugh skipped dinner, went to his rooms and brooded. He could not avoid tormenting himself with the thought that it was, in part at least, his own fault-no, no, not for failing to read every useless paper that came into his office the instant it arrived; no, that was sheer bad luck. Even if he checked his "junk mail" each morning, it probably would have been too late; the two orders had probably gone out at the same time.

            What did anguish his soul was fear that he had pushed the first domino in that quarrel with Duke. He could have lied to the boy, told him that his mother was, to Hugh's certain knowledge, a maid-in-waiting or some such, to the Lord Protector's sister, safe inside the royal harem and never seen by a man. Pampered, living the life of Riley, and happy in it- and that other tale was just gossip servants talk to fill their idle minds.

            Duke would have believed it because Duke would have wanted to believe it.

            As it was- Perhaps Duke had gone to see Their Charity. Perhaps Memtok had arranged it, or perhaps Duke had simply tried to bull his way in and the row had reached Ponse's ears. It was more than possible, he saw now, that his advice to Duke to see the head man might well have resulted in a scene that would have caused Ponse to order the tempering as casually as he would order his air coach. All too likely- He tried to tell himself that no one is ever responsible for another person's actions. He believed it, he tried to live by it. But he found that cold wisdom no comfort.

            At last he quit brooding, got writing materials, and got to work on a letter to Barbara. He had had not even a moment's chance to tell her his plans for them to escape, no chance to work up a code. But she must be ready at no notice; he must tell her, somehow.

            Barbara knew German, he had a smattering from one high school year of it. He knew enough Russian to stumble through a simple conversation, Barbara had picked up a few words from him during their time in the wilderness-a game that they could share without giving Grace cause for jealousy.

            He wrote a draft, then painfully translated 'the letter into a mishmash of German, Russian, colloquial English, beatnik jive, literary allusions, pig Latin, and special idioms. In the end he had a message that he was sure Barbara could puzzle out, but he was certain that no student of ancient languages could translate it into Language, even in the unlikely event that the scholar knew English, German, and Russian.

            He was not afraid that it might be translated by anyone else. If Grace saw it, she would pronounce it gibberish; she knew no Russian, no German. Duke was off in a drug-ridden dream world. Joe might guess at the meaning-but he trusted Joe not to give him away. Nevertheless, he tried to conceal the meaning even from Joe, hashing the syntax and using deliberate misspellings.

            The draft read:

My darling,

            I have been planning our escape for some time. I do not know how I will manage it but I want you to be ready, day or night, to grab the twins and simply follow 'me. Steal food ii you can, steal some stout shoes, steal a knife. We'll head for the mountains. I had intended to wait until next summer, let the boys grow some first. But something has happened to change my mind: Duke has been tempered. I don't know why and I'm too heartbroken to talk about it. But it could happen to me next. Worse than that- You remember Ponse's saying that he wanted to see our twins as matched footmen? Darling, studs do not serve in the Banquet Hall. Nor is there any other fate in store for them; they are both going to be tall. It must not happen!

            And we can't wait. The capital city of the Protectorate is somewhere near where St. Louis used to be; we can't run all the way to the Rocky Mountains carrying our two boys-and we have no way of knowing (and no reason to expect) that all four of us will be sent to the Summer Palace next year.

            Be brave. Don't touch any Happiness drug in any form from here on; our chance is likely to be a split-second one, with no warning.

I love you,

Hugh

            Kitten came in; he told her to watch the show, not bother him. The child obeyed.

            The final draft read:

Luba,

            Ya bin smoking komplott seit Hector was weaned. The Count of Monte Cristo bit, dig? Kinder too klein machs nix-ya hawchoo! Goldiocks' troubles machs nix-as the fellow said, it's the only game in town. Good Girl Scouts always follow the Boy Scout motto. Speise, schuhen, messer-what Fagin taught Oliver, nicht? Da! Schnell is die herz von duh apparat; Berlin is too far from the Big Rock Candy and Eliza would never make the final curtain.

            Em ander jahr, nyet. It takes two to tango and four to play bridge, all in em kainmer, or the trek is dreck. A house divided is for the vogelen, like doom. Mehr, ya haben schrecken. Mein Kronprinz now rules 'only the Duchy of Abelard. Page Christine Jorgenson, he answers-I kid you not. Spilt milk butters no parsnips after the barn is burned so weep no more, my lady-but falsetto is not the pitch for detski whose horoscope reads Gemini. Borjemoi! Old King Coal is a Merry Old Soul but he'll get no zwilhing keilneren from thee. Better a bonny bairn beards bären y begegn Karen-is ratification unanimous? Igday eemay?

            Verb. Sap.: I don't drink, smoke, nor chew, nor run around with twists who do. Cloud nine is endsvffle for this bit. Write soon, even if it's only five dollars utbay swing the jive; the dump is bugged and the Gay Pay Oo is eager.

Forever-H.

            Kitten was long asleep before Hugh finished composing this jargon. He tore the draft into bits and dropped it down the whirlpool, went to bed. After a long time haunted by Duke's giggling, foolish, happy, drug-blurred face he got up and broke his own injunction to Barbara, dosed his sorrows and his fears with bottled Happiness.

Chapter 17

            Barbara's answer read:

Darling,

            When you bid three no-trump, my answer is seven no-trump, without hesitation. Then it's a grand slam-or we go set and don't cry. Any time you can get four together we'll be ready to play.

- Love always-B.

            Nothing else happened that day. Nor the next-or the next. Hugh doggedly dictated translations, his mind not on his work. He was very careful what he ate or drank, since he now knew the surgeon's humane way of sneaking up on a victim; he ate only from dishes Memtok had eaten from, tried to be crafty by never accepting a fruit or a roll that was closest to him when a servant offered him such, avoided drinking anything at the table-he drank only water which he himself had taken from the tap. He continued to have breakfast in his room, but he started passing up many foods in favor of unpeeled fruits and boiled eggs in the shell.

            He knew that these precautions were futile-no Borgia would have found them difficult to outwit-and in any case, if orders came to temper him, they need only grab him after subduing him with a whip if it proved difficult to drug him. But he might have time to protest, to demand that he be taken before the Lord Protector.

            As for whips- He resumed karate practice, alone in his rooms. A karate blow delivered fast enough would cause even a whip wielder to lose interest. There was no real hope behind any of it; he simply intended not to go peacefully. Duke had been right; it would have been better to have fought and died.

            He made no attempt to see Duke.

            He continued to hide food from his breakfast tray-sugar, salt, hard bread. He assumed that such food must be undrugged even though he ate none of it at the time, because it did not affect Kitten.

            He had been going barefoot most of the time but wearing felt slippers for his daily exercise walks in the servants' garden. Now he complained to Memtok that the gravel hurt his feet through these silly slippers-didn't the household afford anything better?

            He was given heavy leather sandals, wore them thereafter in the garden.

            He cultivated the household's chief engineer, telling him that, in his youth, he had been in charge of construction for his former lord. The engineer was flattered, being not only one of the junior executive servants but also in the habit of hearing mostly complaints rather than friendly interest. Hugh sat with him after dinner and managed to appear knowledgeable largely by listening.

            Hugh was invited to look around the plant, and spent a tiring morning crawling over pipes and looking at plans-the engineer could not write but could read a little and understood drawings. It would have been an interesting day in itself if Hugh had been free from worries; Hugh's background made engineering interesting to him. But he concentrated on trying to memorize every drawing he saw, match it in his mind with the passageways and rooms he was taken through. He had a deadly serious purpose: Despite having lived most of a summer in this big building, he knew only small pieces of it inside and only a walled garden outside. He needed to know all of it; he needed to know every possible exit from servants' quarters, what lay behind the guarded door to sluts' quarters, and most particularly, where in that area Barbara and the twins lived.

            He got as far as the meander door that led into the distaff side. The engineer hesitated when the guard suddenly became alert. He said, "Cousin Hugh, I'm sure it's all right for you to go in here, with me-but maybe we had better go up to the Chief Domestic's office and have him write you out a pass."

            "Whatever you say, cousin."

            "Well, there really isn't anything of interest in here. Just the usual appointments of a barracks-water, lights, air service, plumbing, baths, such things. All the interesting stuff, power plant, incinerator, air control, and so forth, is elsewhere. And you know how the boss is-likely to fret over any variation from routine. If it's all the same to you, I'll make my inspection in there later."

            "However you want to arrange things," Hugh answered with a suggestion of affronted dignity.

            "Well . . . everybody knows you're not one of those disgusting young studs." The engineer looked embarrassed. "Tell you what- You tell me flatly that you want to see everything

            in my department that is-and I'll trot up to Memtok and tell him you said so. He knows-Uncle! we all know- that you enjoy the favor of Their Charity. You understand me? I don't mean to presume. Memtok will write out a pass and I'll be in the clear and so will the guard and the head guard. You wait here and be comfortable. I'll hurry."

            "Don't bother. There's nothing in there I want to see," Hugh lied. "You've seen one bath, you've seen 'em all, I always say."

            The engineer smiled in relief. "That's 'a good one, I'll remember that. 'You've seen one bath, you've seen 'em all!' Ha ha! Well, we've still got the carpentry shop and the metal shop."

            Hugh went on with him, arm in arm and jovial, while fuming inside. So close! Yet letting Memtok suspect that he had any interest in sluts' quarters was the last thing he wanted.

            But the morning was well spent. Not only did Hugh acquire a burglar's insight as to weak points of the building (that delivery door to 'the unloading dock; if it was merely locked at night, it should be possible to break out) but also he picked up two prizes.

            The first was a piece of spring steel about eight inches long. Hugh palmed it from some scrap in the metal shop; it wound up taped to his arm, after an unneeded plumbing call, for he had gone prepared to steal.

            The second was even more of a prize: a printed drawing of the lowest level, with engineering installations shown boldly- but with every door and passage marked-including sluts' quarters.

            Hugh had admired it. "Uncle, but that's a beautiful drawing! Your own work?"

            The engineer shyly admitted that it was. Based on architect's plans, you understand-but changes keep having to be added.

            "Beautiful!" Hugh repeated. "It's a shame there isn't more than one copy."

            "Oh, plenty of copies, they wear out. Would you like one?"

            "I would treasure it. Especially if the artist would inscribe it." When 'the man hesitated, Hugh moved in fast and said, "May I suggest a wording? Here, I'll write it out and you copy it."

            Hugh walked away with the print, inscribed: To my dear Cousin Hugh, a fellow craftsman who appreciates beautiful work.

            That night he showed it to Kitten. The child was awestruck. She had no concept of maps and was fascinated by the idea that it was possible to put down, just on a piece of paper, the long passages and twisty turns of her world. Hugh showed her how one went from his quarters to the ramp leading up to the executive servants' dining room, where the servants' main hall was, how the passage outside led, by two turns, to the garden. She confirmed the routes slowly, frowning in unaccustomed mental effort.

            "You must live somewhere over here, Kitten. That is sluts' quarters."

            "It is?"

            "Yes. See if you can find where you live. I won't show you, you know how. I'll just sit back."

            "Oh. Uncle help me! Let me see. First, I have to come down this ramp-" She paused to think while Hugh kept his face impassive. She had confirmed what he had almost stopped suspecting; the child was a planted spy. "Then . . . this is the door?"

            "That's right."

            "Then I walk straight ahead past the slutmaster's office, clear to the end, and I turn, and . . . I must live right there!" She clapped her hands and giggled.

            "Your billet is across from your mess hail?"

            "Yes."

            "Then you got it right, first time! That's wonderful! Now let's see what else you can figure out."

            For the next quarter hour she took him on a tour of sluts' quarters-junior and senior common rooms, messes, virgins' dormitory, bedwarmers' sleep room, nursery, lying-in, children's hall, service stalls, baths, playground door, garden door, offices, senior matron's apartment, everything-and Hugh learned that Barbara was no longer billeted in lying-in. Kitten volunteered it.

            "Barbra-you know, the savage slut you write to-she used to be there, and now she's right there."

            "How can you tell? Those rooms all look alike."

            "I can tell. It's the second one of the four-mother rooms on this side, when you walk away from the baths."

            Hugh noted with deep interest that a maintenance tunnel ran under the baths, with an access manhole in the passage Barbara's room was on-and with even deeper interest that this seemed to connect with another that ran clear across the building. Could it be that here was a wide-open unguarded route between all three main areas of servants' land? Surely not, as the lines seemed to show that any stud with initiative need only crawl a hundred yards to let himself into sluts' quarters.

            Yet it might be true-for how would any stud know where those tunnels led?

            And why would a stud risk it if he guessed? With the ratio of intact males to breeding sluts about that of bulls to cows on a cattle ranch. And could thumbless hands handle the fastenings?

            For that matter, could those trap doors be opened from below?

            "You're a fast learner, Kitten. Now try a part you don't know as well. Figure out, on the drawing, how to get from our rooms here to my offices. And if you solve that one, here's a harder one. What turns you would take and what ramp you would use if I told you to take a message to the Chief Domestic?"

            She solved the first one after puzzling, the second she traced without hesitation.

            At lunch next day, with Memtok at his elbow, Hugh called down the table to the engineer. "Pipes, old cousin! That beautiful drawing you gave me yesterday- Do you suppose one of your woodworkers could frame it for me? I'd like to hang it over my desk where people can admire it."

            The engineer flushed and grinned widely. "Certainly, Cousin Hugh! How about a nice piece of mahogany?"

            "Perfect." Hugh turned to his left. "Cousin Memtok, our cousin is wasted on pipes and plumbing; he's an artist. As soon as I have it hung, you must stop by and see what I mean."

            "Glad to, cousin. When I find time. If I find time."

            More than a week passed with no word about Their Charity, nor about Joe-a week of no bridge, and no Barbara. At last, one day at lunch, Memtok said, "By the way, I had been meaning to tell you, the young Chosen Joseph has returned. Do you still want to see him?"

            "Certainly. Is Their Charity also in residence?"

            "No. Their Gracious sister believes that he may not return until after we go home. Ah, you must see that, cousin. Not a cottage like this. Great doings night and day-and this humble servant wifi be lucky to get three meals in peace all winter. Run, run, run, worry, worry, worry, problems popping right and left," he said with unctuous satisfaction. "Be glad you're a scholar."

            Word came a couple of hours later that Joe expected Hugh. He knew his way, having been to Joe's guest rooms to help teach bridge to Chosen, so he went up alone.

            Joe greeted him enthusiastically. "Come in, Hugh! Find a seat. No protocol, nobody here but us chickens. Wait till you hear what I've done. Boy, have I been busy! One shop ready to go as a pilot plant before Their Charity finished the wangling for the protection, all on the Q.T. But so organized that we were in production the day protection was granted. Not bad terms, either. Their Mercy takes half, Their Charity hangs onto half and floats the financing, and out of Their Charity's half I'm cut in for ten percent and manage the company. Of course as we branch out and into other lines-the whole thing is called 'Inspired Games' and the charter is written to cover almost any fun you can have out of bed-as we branch out, I'll need help and that's a problem; I'm scared old Ponse is going to want to put some of his dull-witted relatives in. Hope not, there's no place for nepotism when you're trying to hold down costs. Probably best to train servants for it-cheaper in the long run, with the right sort. How about you, Hugh? Do you think you could swing the management of a factory? It's a big job; I've got a hundred and seven people working already."

            "I don't see why not. I've employed three times that many and never missed a payroll-and I once bossed two thousand skilled trades in the Seabees. But, Joe, I came up here with something on my mind."

            "Uh, all right, spill it. Then I want to show you the plans."

            "Joe, you know about Duke?"

            "What about Duke?"

            "Tempered. Didn't you know?"

            "Oh. Yes, I knew. Happened just about as I left. He's not hurt, is he? Complications?"

            "'Hurt?' Joe, he was tempered. You act as if he had merely had a tooth pulled. You knew? Didn't you try to stop it?"

            "In the name of God, why not?"

            "Let me finish, can't you? I don't recall that you tried to stop it, either."

            "I never had the chance. I never knew."

            "Neither did I. That's what I've been trying to tell you, but you keep jumping down my throat. I learned about it after it happened."

            "Oh. Sorry. I thought you meant you just stood by and let it happen."

            "Well, I didn't. Don't know what I could have done if I had known. Maybe asked Ponse to call you in first, I suppose. Wouldn't have done any good, so I guess we were both better off not having to fret about it. Maybe all for the best. Now about our plans- If you'll look at this schematic layout, you'll see-"

            "Joe!"

            "Huh?"

            "Can't you see that I'm in no shape to talk about playingcard factories? Duke is my son."

            Joe folded up his plans. "I'm sorry, Hugh. Let's talk, if it will make you feel better. Get it off your chest-I suppose you do feel bad about it. Looking at it from one angle."

            Joe listened, Hugh talked. Presently Joe shook his head. "Hugh, I can set your mind at rest on one point. Duke never did see the Lord Protector. So your advice to Duke-good advice, I think-could not have had anything to do with his being tempered."

            "I hope you're right. I'd feel like cutting my throat if I knew it was my fault."

            "It's not, so quit fretting."

            "I'll try. Joe, whatever possessed Ponse to do it? He knew how we felt about it, from that time it almost happened through a misunderstanding. So why would he? I thought he was my friend."

            Joe looked embarrassed. "You really want to know?"

            "I've got to know."

            "Well.. . you're bound to find out. Grace did it."

            "What? Joe, you must be mistaken. Sure, Grace has her faults. But she wouldn't have that done-to her own son."

            "Well, no, not exactly. I doubt if she knew what it was until after it was done. But just the same, she set it off. She's been wheedling Ponse almost from the day we got here that she wanted her Dukie with her. She was lonesome. 'Ponsie, I'm lonesome. Ponsie, you're being mean to Gracie. Ponsie, I'm going to tickle you until you say Yes. Ponsie, why won't you?'-all in that baby whine she uses. Hugh, I guess you didn't see much of it-"

            "None of it."

            "I would have wrung her neck. Ponse just ignored her, except when she tickled him. Then he would laugh and they would roll on the floor and he would tell her to shut up, and make her sit quiet for a while. Treated her just like one of the cats. Honest, I don't think he ever- I mean, it doesn't seem likely, from what I saw, that he was interested in her as a-"

            "And I'm not interested. Didn't anybody tell Grace what it would entail, for her to have her son with her?"

            "Hugh, I don't think so. It would never occur to Ponse that explanation was required . . . and certainly I never discussed it with her. She doesn't like me, I take up too much of her Ponsie's time." Joe wrinkled his nose. "So I doubt if she knew. Of course she should have figured it out; anybody else would have. But, excuse me, since she's your wife, but I'm not sure she's bright enough."

            "And hopped up on Happiness, too-every time I caught sight of her. No, she's not bright. But she's not my wife, either. Barbara is my wife."

            "Well. . . legally speaking, a servant can't have a wife."

            "I wasn't speaking legally, I was speaking the truth. But even though Grace is no longer my wife, I'm somewhat comforted to know that she probably didn't know what it would cost Duke."

            Joe looked thoughtful. "Hugh, I don't think she did but I don't think she really cares, either. . . and I'm not sure that you can properly say that it cost Duke anything."

            "You might explain. Perhaps I'm dense."

            "Well, if Grace minds that Duke has been tempered, she doesn't show it. She's pleased as punch. And he doesn't seem to mind."

            "You've seen them? Since?"

            "Oh, yes. I had breakfast with Their Charity yesterday morning. They were there."

            "I thought Ponse was away?"

            "He was back and now he's gone out to the West Coast. Business. We're really tearing into it. He was here only a couple of days. But he had this birthday present for Grace. Duke, I mean. Yes, I know it wasn't her birthday, and anyhow birthdays aren't anything nowadays; it's nameday that counts. But she told Ponse she was about to have a birthday and kept wheedling hiin-.-and you know Ponse, indulgent with animals and kids. So he set it up as a surprise for her. The minute he was back, he made a present of Duke to her. Shucks, they've even got a room off Ponse's private quarters; neither of them sleeps belowstairs, they live up here."

            "Okay, I don't care where they sleep. You were telling me how Grace felt about it. And Duke."

            "Oh, yes. Can't say just when she found out what had been done to Duke, all I can say is that she is so happy about it all that she was even cordial with me-telling me what a dear Ponsie was to arrange it and doesn't Dukie look just grand? In his new clothes? Stuff like that. She's got him dressed in the fancy livery the servants wear up here, not a robe like that you're wearing. She's even put jewelry on him. Ponse doesn't mind. He's an outright gift, a servant's servant. I don't think he does a lick of work, he's just her pet. And she loves it that way."

            "But how about Duke?"

            "That's what I've been telling you, Hugh; Duke hasn't lost by it. He's snug as a bug in a rug and he knows it. He was almost patronizing to me. You might have thought that I was the one wearing livery. With Grace in solid with the big boss and with her wound around his finger, Duke thinks he's got it made. Well, he has, Hugh. And I didn't mind his manner; I could see he was hopped on this tranquilizer you servants use."

            "You call it 'got it made' when a man is grabbed and drugged and tempered and then kept drugged so that he doesn't care? Joe, I'm shocked."

            "Certainly I call it that! Hugh, put your prejudices aside and look at it rationally. Duke is happy. If you don't believe it, let me take you in there and you talk to him. Talk to both of them. See for yourself."

            "No, I don't think I could stomach it. I'll concede that Duke is happy. I'm well aware that if you feed a man enough of that Happiness drug, he'll be happy as a lark even if you cut off his arms and legs and then start on his head. But you can be that sort of 'happy' on morphine. Or heroin. Or opium. That doesn't make it a good thing. It's a tragedy."

            "Oh, don't be melodramatic, Hugh. These things are all relative. Duke was certain to be tempered eventually. It's not lawful for a servant as big as he is to be kept for stud, I'm sure you know that. So what difference does it make whether it's done last week, or next year, or when Ponse dies? The only difference is that he is happy in a life of luxury, instead of hard manual labor in a mine, or a rice swamp, or such. He doesn't know anything useful, he could never hope to rise very high. High for a servant, I mean."

            "Joe, do you know what you sound like? Like some whitesupremacy apologist telling how well off the darkies used to be, a-sittin' outside their cabins, a-strummin' their banjoes, and singin' spirituals."

            Joe blinked. "I could resent that."

            Hugh Farnham was angry and feeling reckless. "Go ahead and resent it! I can't stop you. You're a Chosen, I'm a servant. Can I fetch your white sheet for you, Massah? What time does the Klan meet?"

            "Shut up!"

            Hugh Farnham shut up. Joe went on quietly, "I won't bandy words with you. I suppose it does look that way to you. If so, do you expect me to weep? The shoe is on the other foot, that's all-and high time. I used to be a servant, now I'm a respected businessman-with a good chance of becoming a nephew by marriage of some noble family. Do you think I would swap back, even if I could? For Duke? Not for anybody, I'm no hypocrite. I was a servant, now you are one. What are you beefing about?"

            "Joe, you were a decently treated employee. You were not a slave."

            The younger man's eyes suddenly became opaque and his features took on an ebony hardness Hugh had never seen in him before. "Hugh," he said softly, "have you ever made a bus trip through Alabama? As a 'nigger'?"

            "Then shut up. You don't know what you are talking about." He went on, "The subject is closed and now we'll talk business. I want you to see what I've done and am planning to do. This games notion is the best idea I ever had."

            Hugh did not argue whose idea it had been; he listened while the young man went on with eager enthusiasm. At last Joe put down his pen and sat back. "What do you think of it? Any suggestions? You made some useful suggestions when I proposed it to Ponse-keep on being useful and there will be a good place in it for you."

            Hugh hesitated. It seemed to him that Joe's plans were too ambitious for a market that was only a potential and a demand that had yet to be created. But all he said was, "It might be worth while to package with each deck, no extra charge, a rule book."

            "Oh, no, we'll sell those separately. Make money on them."

            "I didn't mean a complete Hoyle. Just a pamphlet with some of the simpler games. Cribbage. A couple of solitaire games. One or two others. Do that and the customers start enjoying them at once. It should lead to more sales."

            "Hmm- I'll think about it." Joe folded up his papers, set them aside. "Hugh, you got so shirty a while ago that I didn't tell you one thing I have in mind."

            "Yes?"

            "Ponse is a grand old man, but he isn't going to live forever. I plan to have my own affairs separate from his by then so that I'll be financially independent. Trade around interests somehow, untangle it. I don't need to tell you that I'm not anxious to have Mrika as my boss-and I didn't tell you, so don't repeat it. But I'll manage it, I'm looking out for number one." He grinned. "And when Mrika is Lord Protector I won't be here. I'll have a household of my own, a modest one-and I'll need servants. Guess whom I plan to adopt when I staff it."

            "I couldn't."

            "Not you-although you may very well be a business servant to me, if it turns out you really can manage a job. No, I had in mind adopting Grace and Duke."

            "Huh?"

            "Surprised? Mrika won't want them, that's certain. He despises Grace because of her influence over his uncle, and it's a sure thing he's not going to like Duke any better. Neither of them is trained and it shouldn't be expensive to adopt them if I don't appear too eager. But they would be useful to me. For one thing, since they speak English, I'd be able to talk to them in a language nobody else knows, and that could be an advantage, especially when other servants are around. But best of all- Well, the food here is good but sometimes I get a longing for some plain old American cooking, and Grace is a good cook when she wants to be. So I'll make her a cook. Duke can't cook but he can learn to wait on table and answer the door and such. Houseboy, in other words. How about that?"

            Hugh said slowly, "Joe, you don't want them because Grace can cook."

            Joe grinned unashamedly. "No, not entirely. I think Duke would look real good as my houseboy. And Grace as my cook. Tit for tat. Oh, I'll treat them decently, Hugh, don't you worry. They work hard and behave themselves and they won't get tingled. However, I don't doubt but what it will take a few tingles before they get the idea." He twitched his quirt. "And I won't say I won't enjoy teaching them. I owe them a little. Three years, Hugh. Three years of Grace's endless demands, never satisfied with anything-and three years of being treated with patronizing contempt by Duke whenever he was around."

            Hugh said nothing. Joe said, "Well? What do you think of my plan?"

            "I thought better of you, Joe. I thought you were a gentleman. It seems I was wrong."

            "So?" Joe barely twitched his quirt. "Boy, we excuse you. All."

Chapter 18

            Hugh came away from Joe's rooms feeling utterly discouraged. He knew that he had been foolish-no, criminally careless !-in letting Joe get his goat. He needed Joe. Until he had Barbara and the twins safely hidden in the mountains, he needed every possible source of favor. Joe, Memtok, Ponse, anyone he could find-and probably Joe most of all. Joe was a Chosen, Joe could go anywhere, tell him things he didn't know, give him things he could not steal. He had even considered, as a last resort, asking Joe to help them to escape.

            Not now! Idiot! Utter fool! To risk Barbara and the boys just because you can't hold your bloody temper.

            It seemed to him that things were as bad as they could get-and part of it his own folly.

            He did not stand around moping; he looked up Memtok. It had become more urgent than ever to set up some way to communicate with Barbara secretly-and that meant that he had to talk to her-and that meant at least one bridge game in the Lord Protector's lounge and a snatch of talk even if he had to talk English in front of Ponse. He had to force matters.

            Hugh found the Chief Domestic leaving his office. "Cousin Memtok, could you spare me a word?"

            Memtok's habitual frown barely relaxed. "Certainly, cousin. But walk along with me, will you? Trouble, trouble, trouble- you would think that a department head could run his department without someone to wipe his nose, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong. The freezer flunky complains to the leading butcher and he complains to the chef, and it's a maintenance matter, and you would think that Gnou would take it up directly with engineering and between them they would settle it. Oh, no! They both come to me with their troubles. You know something about construction, don't you?"

            "Yes," Hugh admitted, "but I'm not up-to-date in the subject. It has been some years." (About two thousand, my friend! But we won't speak of that.)

            "Construction is construction. Come along, give me the benefit of your advice."

            (And find out that I'm faking. Chum, I'll double-talk you to death.) "Certainly. If this humble one's opinion is worth anything."

            "Damned chill room. It's been a headache every summer. I'm glad we'll be back in the Palace soon."

            "Has the date been set? May one ask?"

            "One may. A week from tomorrow. So it's time to think about packing up your department and being ready to move."

            Hugh tried to keep his face calm and his voice steady. "So soon?"

            "Why are you looking worried? A few files, some office equipment. Have you any idea how many thousands of items 1 have on inventory? And how much gets stolen, or lost, or damaged simply because you can't trust any of these fools? Uncle!"

            "It must be terribly wearing," agreed Hugh. "But that brings to mind something. I petitioned you to let me know when Their Charity was next in residence. I learned from the young Chosen, Joseph, that Their Charity returned a day or two ago and is now gone again."

            "Are you criticizing?"

            "Uncle forbid! I was just asking."

            "It is true that Their Charity was physically present for a short time. But he was not officially in residence. Not in the best of health, it seemed to me-Uncle protect him."

            "Uncle protect him well!" Hugh answered sincerely. "Under the circumstances naturally you did not ask him to grant me an audience. But could I ask of you the small favor, next time-"

            "We'll talk later. Let's see what these two helpless ones have to offer." Head Chef Gnou and the Chief Engineer met them at the entrance to Gnou's domain, they went on through the kitchen, through the butcher shop, and into the cold room. But they lingered in the butcher shop, Memtok impatient, while parka-like garments were fetched, the Chief Domestic having refused the ones offered on the legitimate grounds that they were soiled.

            The butcher shop was crowded with live helpers and dead carcasses-birds, beeves, fish, anything. Hugh reflected that thirty-eight Chosen and four hundred and fifty servants ate a lot of meat. He found the place mildly depressing even though he himself had cleaned and cut and trimmed many an animal.

            But only his habitual tight control in the presence of Memtok and his "cousins" in service kept him from showing shock at something he saw on the floor, trimmed from a carcass almost cut up on one block.

            It was a dainty, plump, very feminine hand.

            Hugh felt dizzy, there was a roaring in his ears. He blinked. Itwas still there. A hand much like Kitten's- He breathed carefully, controlled the retching within him, kept his back turned until he had command over himself. There had suddenly flooded over him the truth behind certain incongruities, certain idioms, some pointless jokes.

            Gnou was making nervous conversation while his boss waited. He moved to the chopping block, unintentionally kicking the dainty little hand underneath into a pile of scraps and said, "Here's one you won't have to bother to taste, Chief Domestic. Unless the old one returns unexpectedly."

            "I always bother to taste," Memtok said coldly. "Their Charity expects his table to be perfect whether he is in residence or not."

            "Oh, yes, surely," Gnou agreed. "That's what I always tell my cooks. But- Well, this very roast illustrates one of my problems. Too fat. You'll feel that it's greasy-and so it wifi be. But that's what comes of using sluts. Now, in my opinion, you can't find a nicer piece of meat, marbled but firm, than a buck tempered not older than six, then hung at twice that age."

            "No one asked your opinion," Memtok answered. "Their Charity's opinion is the only one that counts. They think that sluts are more tender."

            "Oh, I agree, I agree! No offense intended."

            "And none taken. In fact I agree with your opinion. I was simply making clear that your opinion-and mine in this matter-is irrelevant. I see they've fetched them. Did they stop to make them?"

            The party put on heavy garments, went on inside. The engineer had said nothing up to then, effacing himself other than a nod and a grin to Hugh. Now he explained the problem, a cranky one of refrigeration. Hugh tried to keep his eyes on it, rather than on the contents of the meat storage room.

            Most of the meat was beef and fowl. But one long row of hooks down the center held what he knew he would find- human carcasses, gutted and cleaned and frozen, hanging head down, save that the heads were missing. Young sluts and bucks, he could see, but whether the bucks were tempered or not was no longer evident. He gulped and thanked his unlucky stars that that pathetic little hand had given him warning, at least saved him from fainting.

            "Well, Cousin Hugh, what do you think?"

            "Why, I agree with Pipes."

            "That the problem can't be solved?"

            "No, no." Hugh had not listened. "His reasoning is correct and he implied the answer. As he says, the problem can't be solved-now. The thing to do is not to try to patch it up, now. Wait a week. Tear it out. Put in new equipment."

            Memtok looked sour. "Expensive."

            "But cheaper in the long run. Good engineering isn't accomplished by grudging a few bullocks. Isn't that right, Pipes?"

            The engineer nodded vigorously. "Just what I always say, Cousin Hugh! You're absolutely right."

            Memtok still frowned. "Well- Prepare an estimate. Show it to Cousin Hugh before you bring it to me."

            "Yes, sir!"

            Memtok paused on the way out and patted the loin of a stripling buck carcass. "That's what I would call a nice piece of meat. Eh, Hugh?"

            "Beautiful," Hugh agreed with a straight face. "Your nephew, perhaps? Or just a son?"

            There was frozen silence. Nobody moved except that Memtok seemed to grow taller. He raised his whip of authority most slightly, no more than tightening his thumbless grip.

            Then he grimaced and gave a dry chuckle. "Cousin Hugh, your well-known wit will be the death of me yet. That's a good one. Gnou, remind me to tell that this evening."

            The Chef agreed and chuckled, the engineer roared. Memtok gave his cold little laugh again. "I'm afraid I can't claim the honor, Hugh. All of these critters are ranch bred, not one of them is a cousin of ours. Yes, I know how it is in some households, but Their Charity considers it unspeakably vulgar to serve a house servant, even in cases of accidental death-.- And besides, it makes the servants restless."

            "Commendable."

            "Yes. It is gratifying to serve one who is a stickler for propriety. Enough, enough, time is wasting. Walk back with me, Hugh."

            Once they were clear of the rest Memtok said, "You were saying?"

            "Excuse me?"

            "Come, come, you're absentminded today. Something about Their Charity not being in residence."

            "Oh, yes. Memtok, could you, as a special favor to me, let me know the minute Their Charity returns? Whether officially in residence or not? Not petition anything for me. Just let me know." Damn it, with time pouring away like life through a severed artery his only course might be a belly-scraping apology to Joe, then get Joe to intercede.

            "No," said Memtok. "No, I don't think I can."

            "I beg your pardon? Has this one offended you?"

            "You mean that witticism? Heaven, no! Some might find it vulgar and one bullock gets you three that if you had told it in sluts' quarters some of them would have fainted. But if there is one thing I pride myself on, Hugh, it's my sense of humor- and any day I can't see a joke simply because I am the butt of it, I'll petition to turn in my whip. No, it was simply my turn to have a little joke at your expense. I said, 'I don't think I can.' That is a statement of two meanings-a double-meaning joke, follow me? I don't think I can tell you when Their Charity returns because he has sent word to me that he is not returning. So you'll see him next at the Palace . . . and I promise I'll let you know when he's in residence." The Chief Domestic dug him in the ribs. "I wish you had seen your own face. My joke wasn't nearly as sharp as yours. But your jaw dropped. Very comical."

            Hugh excused himself, went to his rooms, took an extra bath, a most thorough one, then simply thought until dinnertime. He braced himself for the ordeal of dinner with a carefully measured dose of Happiness-not enough to affect him later, strong enough to carry him through dinner, now that he knew why "pork" appeared so often on the menu of the Chosen. He suspected that the pork served to servants was really pork. But he intended to eat no more bacon nevertheless. Nor ham, nor pork chops, nor sausage. In fact he might turn vegetarian-at least until they were free in the mountains and it was eat game or starve.

            But with a shot of Happiness inside him he was able to smile when Memtok tasted the roast for upstairs and to say, "Greasy?"

            "Worse than usual. Taste it."

            "No, thanks. I knew it would be. I would cook up better than that-though no doubt I would be terribly stringy. And tough. Though perhaps Cousin Gnou could tenderize me."

            Memtok laughed until he choked. "Oh, Hugh, don't ever be that funny while I'm swallowing! You'll kill me yet."

            "This one hopes not." Hugh toyed with the beef on his plate, pushed it aside and ate a few nuts.

            He was very busy that evening, writing long after Kitten was asleep. It had become utterly necessary to reach Barbara secretly, yet his only means was the insecure route through Kitten. The problem was to write to Barbara in a code that only she could read, and which she would see as a code without having been warned and without the code being explained to her-and yet one which was safe from others. But the double-talk mixture he had last sent her would not do; he was now going to have to give her detailed instructions, ones where it really mattered if she missed a word or failed to guess a concealed meaning.

            His last draft was:

Darling,

            If you were here, I would love a literary gabfest, a good

            one. You know what I mean, I am sure. Let's consider Edgar Allan Poe, for example. Can you recall how I claimed that Poe was the best

            writer both to read and to reread of all the mystery writers before or since, and that this was true because he never could be milked

            dry on one reading? The answer or answers in The Gold Bug, or certainly that little gem The Murders in the Rue Morgue, or take The Case of

            the Purloined Letter, or any of them; same rule will apply to

            them all, when you consider the very subtle way he always had of

            slanting his meaning so that one reaches a full period in his sentences only after much thought. Poe is grand fun and well worth study. Let's have our old literary talks by letter. How about Mark Twain next? Tired-must go to bed!

            Love- Since Hugh had never discussed Edgar Allan Poe with Barbara at any time, he was certain that she would study the note for a hidden message. The only question was whether or not she would find it. He wanted her to read it as:

"If

you

            can

                        read

                                    this

                                                answer

                                                            the

                                                                        same

                                                                                    way

                                                                                                period"

            Having done his best he put it aside, first disposing of all trial work, then prepared to do something else much more risky. At that point he would have given his chances of immortal bliss, plus 10 percent, for a flashlight, then settled for a candle. His rooms were lighted, brilliantly or softly as he wished, by glowing translucent spheres set in the upper corners. Hugh did not know what they were save that they were not any sort of light he had ever known. They gave off no heat, seemed not to require wiring, and were controlled by little cranks.

            A similar light, the size of a golf ball, was mounted on his scroll reader. It was controlled by twisting it; he had decided tentatively that twisting these spheres polarized them in some way.

            He tried to dismount the scroll reader light.

            He finally got it loose by breaking the upper frame. It was now a featureless, brilliantly shining ball and nothing he could do would dim it-which was almost as embarrassing as no light at all.

            He found that he could conceal it in an armpit under his robe. There was still a glow but not much.

            He made sure that Kitten was asleep, turned out all lights, raised his corridor door, looked out. The passageway was lighted by a standing light at an intersection fifty yards away. Regrettably he had to go that way. He had expected no lights at this hour.

            He felt his "knife" taped to his left arm-not much of a knife, but patient whetting with a rock picked up from a garden path had put an edge on it, and tape had made a firm grip. It needed hours more work and he could work on it only after Kitten was asleep or in time stolen from working hours. But it felt good to have it there and it was the only knife, chisel, screwdriver, or burglar's jimmy that he had.

            The manhole to the engineering service tunnels lay in the passage to the right after he had to pass the lighted intersection. Any manhole would do but that one was on the route to the veterinary's quarters; if caught outside his rooms but otherwise without cream on his lip, he planned to plead a sudden stomachache.

            The manhole cover swung back easily on a hinge, it was fastened by a clasp that needed only turning to free it. The floor of the tunnel, glimpsed with his shiny sphere, lay four feet below the corridor floor. He started to let himself down and ran into his first trouble.

            These manholes and tunnels had been intended for men a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter than Hugh Farnham, and proportionately smaller in shoulders, hips, hands-and-knees height, and so forth.

            But he could make it. He had to.

            He wondered how he would make it, crawling and carrying at least one baby. But that he had to do, too. So he would.

            He almost trapped himself. Barely in time he found that the underside of the steel door was smooth, no handle, and that it latched automatically by a spring catch.

            That settled why no one worried that the studs might gain unplanned access to sluts. But it also settled something else. Hugh had considered snatching this very chance, if he found things quiet at the other end: Wake Barbara, bring all four of them back via the tunnel-then outside and away, by any of a dozen weak points, away and off to the mountains on foot, reach them before light, find some stream and ford it endwise to throw off hounds. Go, go, go! With almost no food, with nothing but a makeshift knife, with no equipment, a "nightshirt" for clothing, and no hope of anything better. Go! And save his family, or die with them. But die free!

            Perhaps someday his twin sons, wiser in the new ways than himself and toughened by a life fighting nature, could lead an uprising against this foul thing. But all he planned to do, all he could hope for, was get them free, keep them free, alive and free and ungelded, until they were grown and strong.

            Or die.

            Such was still his plan. He wasted not a moment sorrowing over that spring catch. It merely meant that he must communicate with Barbara, set a time with her, because she would have to open the hatch at the far end. Tonight he could only reconnoiter.

            He found that tape from his knife handle would hold the spring catch back. He tested it from above; the lid could now be swung back without turning the clasp.

            But his wild instincts warned him. The tape might not hold until he was back. He might be trapped inside.

            He spent a sweating half hour working on that spring catch, using knife and fingers and holding the light ball in his teeth.

            At last he managed to get at and break the spring. He removed the catch entirely. The manhole, closed, now looked normal, but it could be opened from underneath with just a push.

            Only then did he let himself down inside and close it over him.

            He started out on knees and elbows with the light in his mouth, and stopped almost at once. The damned skirt of his robe kept him from crawling! He tried bunching it around his waist. It slid down.

            He inched back to the manhole shaft, took the pesky garment off entirely, left it under the manhole, crawled away without it, naked save for the knife strapped to his arm and the light in his teeth. He then made fair progress, although never able to get fully on hands and knees. His elbows had to be bent, his thighs he could not bring erect, and there were places where valves and fittings of the pipes he crawled past forced him almost to his belly.

            Nor could he tell how far he was going. However, there were joints in the tunnel about every thirty feet; he counted them and tried to match them in his mind with the engineering drawing. Pass under two manholes . . . sharp left turn into another tunnel at next manhole . . . crawl about a hundred and fifty feet and under one manhole- Something more than an hour later he was under a manhole which had to be the one closest to Barbara.

            If he had not lost himself in the bowels of the palace- If he had correctly remembered that complex drawing- If the drawing was up to date- (Had two thousand years made any difference in the lag between engineering changes and revisions of prints to match?) If Kitten knew what she was talking about in locating Barbara's billet by a method so novel to her- If it was still Barbara's billet- He crouched in the awkward space and tried to press his ear against the shaft's cover.

            He heard a baby cry.

            About ten minutes later he heard hushed female voices. They approached, passed over him, and someone stepped on the lid.

            Hugh unkinked himself, prepared to return. The space was so tight that the obvious way was to back up the way he had come, so he found himself trying to crawl backward through the tunnel.

            That worked so poorly that he came back to the shaft and, with contortions and loss of skin, got turned around.

            What seemed hours later he was convinced that he was lost. He began to wonder which was the more likely: Would he starve or die of thirst? Or would some repairman get the shock of his life by finding him?

            But he kept on crawling.

            His hands found his robe before his eyes saw it. Five minutes later he was in it; seven minutes later (he stopped to listen) he was up and out and had the lid closed. He forced himself not to run back to his rooms.

            Kitten was awake.

            He wasn't aware of it until she followed him into the bath. Then she was saying with wide-eyed horror, "Oh, dear! Your poor knees! And your elbows, too."

            "I stumbled and fell down."

            She didn't argue it, she simply insisted on bathing him and salving and taping the raw places. When she started to pick up his dirty robe, he told her sharply to go to bed. He did not mind her touching his robe but his knife had been on top of it and only by maneuvering had he managed to keep himself between her and it long enough to flip a fold of cloth over the weapon.

            Kitten went silently to bed. Hugh hid the knife in its usual place (much too high for Kitten), then went into his living room and found the child crying. He petted her, soothed her, said he had not meant to sound harsh, and fed her a bonus dose of Happiness-sat with her while she drank it, watched her go happily to sleep.

            Then he did not even try to get along without it himself. Kitten had gone to sleep with one hand outside her cover. It looked to Hugh exactly like a forlorn little hand he had seen twelve hours earlier on the floor of a butcher shop.

            He was exhausted and the drink let him go to sleep. But not to rest. He found himself at a dinner party, black tie and dressy. But he did not like the menu. Hungarians goulash... French fries. . . Chinese noodles. . . p0' boy sandwich. . breast of peasant . . . baked Alaskans-but it was all pork. His host insisted that he taste every dish. "Come, come!" he chided with a wintry smile. "How do you know you don't like it? One bullock gets you three you'll learn to love it."

            Hugh moaned and could not wake up.

            Kitten did not chatter at breakfast, which suited him. Two hours of nightmare-ridden sleep was not enough, yet it was necessary to go to his office and pretend to work. Mostly he stared at the print framed over his desk while his scroll reader clicked unnoticed. After lunch he sneaked away and tried to nap. But the engineer scratched at his door and apologetically asked him to look over his estimates on refitting the meat cooler. Hugh poured his guest a dollop of Happiness, then pretended to study figures that meant nothing to him. After a decent time he complimented the man, then scrawled a note to Memtok, recommending that the contract be let.

            Barbara's note that night applauded the idea of a literary discussion club by mail and discussed Mark Twain. Hugh was interested only in how it read diagonally:

"Did

            I

                        read

                                    it

                                                correctly

                                                            darling

                                                                        question

                                                                                    mark"

Chapter 19

"Darling

we

must

escape

next

six

days

or

sooner

be

ready

night

after

letter

has

phrase

Freedom

is

a

lonely

thing-"

            For the next three days Hugh's letters to Barbara were long and chatty and discussed everything from Mark Twain's use of colloquial idiom to the influence of progressive education on the relaxation of grammar. Her answers were lengthy, equally "literary," and reported that she would be ready to open the hatch, confirmed that she understood, that she had a little stock of food, had no knife, no shoes-but that her feet were very calloused-and that her only worry was that the twins might cry or that her roommates might wake up, especially as two of them were stifi giving night feedings to their babies. But for Hugh not to worry, she would manage.

            Hugh drew a fresh bottle of Happiness, taped it near the top of the shaft closest to her billet, instructed her to tell her roommates that she had stolen it, then use it to get them so hopped up on the drug that they would either sleep or be so slaphappy that if they did wake, they would do nothing but giggle-and, if possible, get enough of the drug into the twins that the infants would pass out and not cry no matter how they were handled.

            Making an extra trip through the tunnels to plant the bottle was a risk Hugh hated to take. But he made it pay. He not only timed himself by the clock in his rooms and learned beyond any possibility of mistake the rat maze he must follow but also he carried a practice load, a package of scrolls taped together to form a mass bigger and heavier, he felt sure, than one of his infant sons would be. This he tied to his chest with a sling made of stolen cloth; it had been a dust cover for the scroll printer in his offices. He made two such slings, one for Barbara, and tore and tied them so they could be shifted to the back later to permit the babies to be carried papoose style.

            He found that it was difficult but not impossible to carry a baby in this fashion through the tunnels, and he spotted the places where it was necessary to inch forward with extreme care not to place any pressure on his dummy "precious burden" and still not let the ties on his back catch on engineering fittings above him.

            But it could be done and he got back to his rooms without waking Kitten-he had increased her evening bonus of Happiness. He replaced the scrolls, hid his knife and spherical lamp, washed his knees and elbows and anointed them, then sat down and wrote a long P.S. to the letter he had written earlier to tell Barbara how to find the bottle. This postscript added some afterthoughts about the philosophy of Hemingway and remarked that it seemed odd that a writer would in one story say that "freedom is a lonely thing" and in another story state that-and so on.

            That night he gave Kitten her usual amplified nightcap, then said, "Not much left in this bottle. Finish it off and I'll get a fresh one tomorrow."

            "Oh, I'd get terribly silly. You wouldn't like me."

            "Go ahead, drink it. Have a good time, live it up. What else is life for?"

            Half an hour later Kitten was more than willing to be helped to bed. Hugh stayed with her until she was snoring heavily. He covered her hands, stood looking down at her, suddenly knelt and kissed her good-bye.

            A few minutes later he was down the first manhole.

            He took off his robe, piled on it a bundle of what he had collected for survival-food, sandals, wig, two pots of deodorant cream into which he had blended brown pigment. He did not expect to use disguise and h~d little faith in it, but if they were overtaken by daylight before they were in the mountains, he intended to darken all four of them, tear their robes into something resembling the breechclout and wrap-around which he had learned were the working clothes of free peasant farmers among the Chosen-"poor black trash" as Joe called them-and try to brazen it out, keeping away from people if possible, until it was dark again.

            He tied one baby sling to him with the other inside it and started. He hurried, as time was everything. Even if Barbara managed to pass out her roommates promptly, even if he had no trouble breaking out at his preferred exit, even if the crawl back through the tunnels could be made in less than an hour- doubtful, with the kids-they could not be outdoors earlier than midnight, which allowed them five hours of darkness to reach wild country. Could he hope for three miles an hour? It seemed unlikely, Barbara barefooted and both carrying kids, the country unknown and dark-and those mountains seen from his window seemed to be at least fifteen miles away. It would be a narrow squeak even if everything broke his way.

            He made fast time to sluts' quarters, punishing his knees and elbows.

            The bottle was missing, he could feel the tacky places where he had fastened it. He settled himself as comfortably as possible and concentrated on quieting his pounding heart, slowing his breathing, and relaxing. He tried to make his mind blank.

            He dozed off. But he was instantly alert when the lid over him was raised.

            Barbara made no sound. She handed him one of their sons, he stuffed the limp little body as far down the tunnel as he could reach. She handed him the other, he placed it beside the first, then added a pitiful little bundle she had.

            But he did not kiss her until they were down inside-only seconds after he had wakened-and the lid had clicked into place over them.

            She clung to him, sobbing; he whispered to her fiercely not to make a sound, then added last-minute instructions into her ear. She quieted instantly; they got busy.

            It was agonizingly difficult to get ready for the crawl in a space too small for one and nearly impossible for them both. They did it because they had to. First he helped her get out of the shorter garment sluts wore, then he had her lie down with her legs back in the other reach of the tunnel while he tied a baby sling to her, then a baby was stuffed into each sling and knots tightened to keep each child slung as high in its little hammock as possible. Hugh then knotted the skirt of her garment together, stuffed her hoarded food into the sack thus formed, tied the sleeves around his left leg, and let it drag behind. He had planned to tie it around his waist, but the sleeves were too short.

            That done (it seemed to take hours), he had Barbara back up into the far reach of the tunnel, then managed painfully to turn himself and get headed the right way without banging little Hughie's skull. Or was it Karl Joseph? He had forgotten to ask. Either one, the baby's warm body against his, its lightly sensed breathing, gave him fresh courage. By God, they would make it! Whatever got in his way would die.

            He set out, with the light in his teeth, moving very fast wherever clearance let him do so. He did not slow down for Barbara and had warned her that he would not unless she called out.

            She did not, ever. Once her baggage worked loose from his leg. They stopped and he had her tie it to his ankle; that was their only rest. They made good time but it seemed forever before he reached the little pile of plunder he had cached when he set out.

            They unslung the babies and caught their breaths.

            He helped Barbara back into her shift, rearranged her sling to carry one baby papoose fashion, and made up their luggage into one bundle. All that he held out was his knife taped to his arm, his robe, and the light. He showed her how to hold the light in her mouth, then spread her lips and let the tiniest trickle leak out between her teeth. She tried it.

            "You look ghastly," he whispered, "Like a jack-o'-lantern. Now listen carefully. I'm going up. You be ready to hand me my robe instantly. I may reconnoiter."

            "I could help you get it on, right here."

            "No. If I'm caught coming out, there will be a fight and it would slow me down. I won't want it, probably, until we reach a storeroom that is our next stop. If it's all clear above, I'll want you to hand out everything fast, including the baby not on your back. But you will have to carry him as well as the bundle and my robe; I've got to have my hands free. Darling, I don't want to kill anybody but if anyone gets in our way, I will. You understand that, don't you?"

            She nodded. "So I carry everything. Can do, my husband."

            "You follow me, fast. It's about two city blocks to that storeroom and we probably won't see anyone. I jiggered its lock this afternoon, stuffed a wad of Kitten's chewing gum into it. Once inside we'll rearrange things and see if you can wear my sandals."

            "My feet are all right. Feel."

            "Maybe we'll take turns wearing them. Then I have to break a lock on a delivery door but I spotted some steel bars a week ago which ought still to be there. Anyhow, I'll break out. Then away we go, fast. It should be breakfast before we are missed, sometime after that before they are sure we are gone, still longer before a chase is organized., We'll make it."

            "Sure we will."

            "Just one thing- If I reach for my robe and then close the lid on you, you stay here. Don't make a sound, don't try to peek out."

            "I won't."

            "I might be gone an hour. I might fake a bellyache and have to see the vet, then come back when I can."

            "All right."

            "Barbara, it might be twenty-four hours, if anything goes wrong. Can you stay here and keep the twins quiet that long? If you must?"

            "Whatever it takes, Hugh."

            He kissed her. "Now put the light back in your mouth and close your lips. I'm going to sneak a peek."

            He raised the lid an inch, lowered it. "In luck," he whispered. "Even the standing light is out. Here I go. Be ready to hand things up. Joey first. And don't show a light."

            He pushed the lid up and flat down without a sound, raised himself, got his feet to the corridor floor, stood up.

            A light hit him. "That's far enough," a dry voice said, "Don't move."

            He kicked the whip hand so fast that the whip flew aside as he closed. Then this-and that!-and sure enough! The man's neck was broken, just as the book said it would be.

            Instantly he knelt down. "Everything out! Fast!"

            Barbara shoved baby and baggage up to him, was out fast as he took her hand. "Some light," he whispered. "His went out and I've got to dispose of him." She gave him light. Memtok- Hugh quelled his surprise, stuffed the body down the hole, closed the lid. Barbara was ready, baby on back, baby in left arm, bundle in right. "We go on! Stay close on my heels!" He set out for the intersection, holding his course in the dark by fingertips on the wall.

            He never saw the whip that got him. All he knew was the pain.

Chapter 20

            For a long time Mr. Hugh Farnham was aware of nothing but pain. When it eased off, he found that he was in a confinement cell like the one in which he had lived his first days under the Protectorate.

            He was there three days. He thought it was three days, as he was fed six times. He always knew when they were about to feed him-and to empty his slop jar, for he was not taken outside for any purpose. He would find himself restrained by invisible spider web, then someone would come inside, leave food, replace the slop jar, and go. It was impossible to get the servant who did this to answer him.

            After what may have been three days he found himself unexpectedly caught up by that prisoning field (he had just been fed) and his old colleague and "cousin" the Chief Veterinary came in. Hugh had more than a suspicion as to why; his feeling amounted to a conviction, so he pleaded, demanded to be taken to the Lord Protector, and finally shouted.

            The surgeon ignored it. He did something to Hugh's thigh, then left.

            To Hugh's limited relief he did not become unconscious, but he found, when the tanglefoot field let up, that he could not move anyhow and felt lethargic. Shortly two servants came in, picked him up, placed him in a box like a coffin.

            Hugh found that he was being shipped somewhere. His shipping case was given casual but not rough handling; once he felt a lift surge and then surge to a stop; his box was placed in something; and some minutes, hours, or days later it was moved again; and presently he was dumped into another confinement room. He knew it was a different one; the walls were light green instead of white. By the time they fed him he had recovered and was again "tangled" while food was placed inside.

            This went on for one hundred and twenty-two meals. Hugh kept track by biting a chunk out of his fingernails and scratching the inside of his left arm. This took him less than five minutes each day; he spent the rest of his time worrying and sometimes sleeping. Sleeping was worse than worrying because he always reenacted his escape attempt in his sleep and it always ended in disaster-although not necessarily at the same point. He did not always kill his friend the Chief Domestic and at least twice they got all the way to the mountains before they were caught. But, long or short, it ended the same way and he would wake up sobbing and calling for Barbara.

            He worried most about Barbara-and the twins, although the boys were not as real to him. He had never heard of a slut being severely punished for anything. However, he had never heard of a slut being involved in an attempted escape and a killing, either; he just did not know. But he did know that the Lord Protector preferred slut meat for his table.

            He tried to tell himself that old Ponse would do nothing to a slut while she was still nursing babies-and that would be a long time yet; among servants, according to Kitten, mothers nursed babies for at least two years.

            He worried about Kitten, too. Would the child be punished for something she had had nothing to do with? A completely innocent bystander? Again he did not know. There was "justice" here; it was a major branch of religious writings. But it resembled so little the concept "justice" of his own culture that he had found the stuff almost unreadable.

            He spent most of his time on what he thought of as "constructive" worry, i.e., what he should have done rather than what he had done.

            He saw now that his plans had been laughably inadequate. He should never have let himself be panicked into moving too soon. It would have been far better to have built up his connection with Joe, never disagreed with him, tickled his vanity, gone to work for him and, in time, prevailed on him to adopt Barbara and the kids. Joe was an accommodating person and old Ponse was so openhanded that he might simply have made Joe a present of these three useless servants instead of demanding cash. The boys would have been in no danger for years (and perhaps never in danger if Joe owned them), and, in time, Hugh could have expected to become a trusted business servant, with a broad pass allowing him to go anywhere on his master's business-and Hugh .would have acquired sophisticated knowledge of how this world worked that a house servant could never acquire.

            Once he had learned exactly how it ticked, he could have planned an escape that would work.

            Any society man has ever devised, he reminded himself, could be bribed-and a servant who handles money can find ways to steal some. Probably there was an "underground railroad" that ran to the mountains. Yes, he had been far too hasty.

            He considered, too, the wider aspects-a slave uprising. He visualized those tunnels being used not for escape but as a secret meeting place-classes in reading and writing, taught in whispers; oaths as mighty as a Mau Mau initiation binding the conspirators as blood brothers with each Chosen having marked against his name a series of dedicated assassins, servants patiently grinding scraps of metal into knives.

            This "constructive" dream he enjoyed most-and believed in least. Would these docile sheep ever rebel? It seemed unlikely. He had been classed with them by accident of cornplexion but they were not truly of his breed. Centuries of selective breeding had made them as little like himself as a lap dog is like a timber wolf.

            And yet, and yet, how did he know? He knew only the tempered males, and the few studs he had seen had all been dulled by a liberal ration of Happiness-to~ say nothing of what it might do to a man's fighting spirit to lose his thumbs at an early age and be driven around with whips-that-weremore-than-whips.

            This matter of racial differences-or the nonsense notion of "racial equality"-had never been examined scientifically; there was too much emotion on both sides. Nobody wanted honest data.

            Hugh recalled an area of Pernambuco he had seen while in the Navy, a place where rich plantation owners, dignified, polished, educated in France, were black, while their servants and field hands-giggling, shuffling, shiftless knuckleheads "obviously" incapable of better things-were mostly white men. He had stopped telling this anecdote in the States; it was never really believed and it was almost always resented-even by whites who made a big thing of how anxious they were to "help the American Negro improve himself." Hugh had formed the opinion that almost all of those bleeding hearts wanted the Negro's lot improved until it was almost as high as their own- and no longer on their consciences-but the idea that the tables could ever be turned was one they rejected emotionally.

            Hugh knew that the tables could indeed be turned. He had seen it once, now he was experiencing it.

            But Hugh knew that the situation was still more confused. Many Roman citizens had been "black as the ace of spades" and many slaves of Romans had been as blond as Hitler wanted to be-so any "white man" of European ancestry was certain to have a dash of Negro blood. Sometimes more than a dash. That southern Senator, what was his name?-the one who had built his career on "white supremacy." Hugh had come across two sardonic facts: This old boy had died from cancer and had had many transfusions-and his blood type was such that the chances were two hundred to one that its owner had nnt inst a tnnch nf thn tarhriish hut nraetk~a1lv thp. whn1~ tar barrel. A navy surgeon had gleefully pointed this out to Hugh and had proved both points in medical literature.

            Nevertheless, this confused matter of races would never be straightened out-because almost nobody wanted the truth.

            Take this matter of singing- It had seemed to Hugh that Negroes of his time averaged better singers than had whites; most people seemed to think so. Yet the very persons, white or black, who insisted most loudly that "all races were equal" always seemed happy to agree that Negroes were superior, on the average, in this one way. It reminded Hugh of Orwell's Animal Farm, in which "AU Animals Are Equal But Some Are More Equal Than Others."

            Well, he knew who wasn't equal here-despite his statistically certain drop of black blood. Hugh Farnham, namely. He found that he agreed with Joe: When things were unequal, it was much nicer to be on top!

            On the sixty-first day in this new place, if it was the sixtyfirst, they came for him, bathed him, cut his nails, rubbed him with deodorant cream, and paraded him before the Lord Protector.

            Hugh learned that he still could be humiliated by not being given even a nightshirt as clothing, but he conceded that it was a reasonable precaution in handling a prisoner who killed with his bare hands. His escort was two young Chosen, in uniforms which Hugh assumed to be military, and the whips they carried were definitely not "lesser whips."

            The route they followed was very long; it was clearly a huge building. The room where he was delivered was very like in spirit to the informal lounge where Hugh had once played bridge. The big view window looked out over a wide tropical river.

            Hugh hardly glanced at it; the Lord Protector was there. And so were Barbara and the twins!

            The babies were crawling on the floor. But Barbara was breast deep in that invisible quicksand, a trap that claimed T4iwh as snnui as he was halted She smiled at him hut did not speak. He looked her over carefully. She seemed unhurt and healthy, but was thin and had deep circles under her eyes.

            He started to speak; she gestured warningly with eyes and head. Hugh then looked at the Lord Protector-and noticed only then that Joe was lounging near him and that Grace and Duke were playing some card game over in a corner, both of them chewing gum and ostentatiously not seeing that Hugh was there. He looked back at Their Charity.

            Hugh decided that Ponse had been ill. Despite the fact that Hugh felt comfortably warm in skin, Ponse was wearing a full robe with a shawl over his lap and he looked, for once, almost his reputed age.

            But when he spoke, his voice was still resonant. "You may go, Captain. We excuse you."

            The escort withdrew. Their Charity looked Hugh over soberly. At last he said, "Well, boy, you certainly made a mess of things, didn't you?" He looked down and played with something in his lap, caught it and pulled it back to the middle of the shawl. Hugh saw that it was a white mouse. He felt sudden sympathy for the mouse. It didn't seem to like where it was, but if it did manage to escape, the cats would get it. Maggie was watching with deep interest.

            Hugh did not answer, the remark seemed rhetorical. But it had startled him very much. Ponse covered the mouse with his hand, looked up. "Well? Say something!"

            "You speak English!"

            "Don't look so silly. I'm a scholar, Hugh. Do you think I would let myself be surrounded by people who speak a language I don't understand? I speak it, and I read it, silly as the spelling is. I've been tutored daily by skilled scholars-plus conversation practice with a living dictionary." He jerked his head toward Grace. "Couldn't you guess that I would want to read those books of mine? Not be dependent on your hitor-miss translations? I've read the Just So Stories twice- charming !-and I've started on the Odyssey."

            He shifted back to Language. "But we are not here to discuss literature." Their Charity barely gestured. Four slut servants came running in with a table, placed it in front of the big man, placed things on it. Hugh recognized them-a homemade knife, a wig, two pots for deodorant cream, a bundle, an empty Happiness bottle, a little white sphere now dull, a pair of sandals, two robes, one long, one short, mussed and dirty, and a surprisingly high stack of paper, creased and much written on.

            Ponse put the white mouse on the table, stirred the display, said broodingly, "I'm no fool, Hugh. I've owned servants all my life. I had you figured out before you had yourself figured out. Doesn't do to let a man like you mingle with loyal servants, he corrupts them. Gives them ideas they are better off without. I had planned to let you escape as soon as I was through with you, you could have afforded to wait."

            "Do you expect me to believe that?~'

            "Doesn't matter whether you do or don't. I could not afford to keep you very long-one bad apple rots the rest, as my uncle was fond of saying. Nor could I put you up for adoption and let some unwitting buyer pay good money for a servant who would then corrupt others elsewhere in my realm. No, you had to escape." -

            "Even if that is so, I would never have escaped without Barbara and my boys."

            "I said I am not a fool. Kindly remember it. Of course you would not. I was going to use Barba-and these darling brats-to force you to escape. At my selected time. Now you've ruined it. I must make an example of you. For the benefit of the other servants." He frowned and picked up the crude knife. "Poor balance. Hugh, did you really expect to make it with this pitiful tackle? Not even shoes for that child by you. If only you had waited, you would have been given opportunity to steal what you needed."

            "Ponse, you are playing with me the way you've been playing with that mouse. You weren't planning to let us escape. Not really escape at least. I would have wound up on your table."

            "Please!" The old man made a grimace of distaste. "Hugh, I'm not well, someone has again been trying to poison me- my nephew, I suppose-and this time almost succeeded. So don't talk nasty, it upsets my stomach." He looked Hugh up and down. "Tough. Inedible. An old stud savage is merely garbage. Much too gamy. Besides that, a gentleman doesn't eat members of his own family, no matter what. So let's not talk in bad taste. There's no cause for you to bristle so. I'm not angry with you, just very, very provoked." He glanced at the twins, said, "Hughie, stop pulling Maggie's tail." His voice was neither loud nor sharp; the baby stopped at once. "Admittedly those two would make tasty appetizers were they not of my household. But even had they not been, I would have planned better things for them; they are so cute and so much alike. Did plan better things at first. Until it became clear that they were necessary to forcing you to run."

            Ponse sighed. "You still do not believe a word I'm saying. Hugh, you don't understand the system. Well, servants never do. Did you ever grow apples?"

            "A good eating apple, firm and sweetly tart, is never a product of nature; it is the result of long development from something small and sour and hard and hardly fit for animal fodder. Then it has to be scientifically propagated and protected. On the other hand, too highly developed plants-or animals-can go bad, lose their firmness, their flavor, get mushy and soft and worthless. It's a two-horned problem. We have it constantly with servants. You must weed out the troublemakers, not let them breed. On the other hand these very troublemakers, the worst of them, are invaluable breeding stock that must not be lost. So we do both. The run-of-thecrop bad ones we temper and keep. The very worst ones- such as you-we encourage to run. If you live-and some of you do-we can rescue you, or your strong get, at a later time and add you in, judiciously, to a breeding line that has become so soft and docile and stupid that it is no longer worth its keep. Our poor friend Memtok was a result of such pepping up of hrppg~I fln~ niiartc~r ~v~,ap h~' w~z__he never knew it of course-and a good stud that added strength to a line. But far too dangerous and ambitious to be kept too long at stud; he had to be made to see the advantages of being tempered. Most of my upper servants have a recent strain of savage in them; some of them are Memtok's sons. My engineer, for example. No, Hugh, you would not have wound up on anybody's table. Nor tempered. I would like to have kept you as a pet, you're diverting-and a fair bridge hand in the bargain. But I could not let you stay in contact with loyal servants, even as insulated as you were by your fancy title. Presently you would have been put in touch with the underground."

            Hugh opened his mouth and closed it.

            "Surprised, eh? But there is always an underground wherever there is a ruling class and a serving class. Which is to say, always. If there were not one, it would be necessary to invent one. However, since there is one, we keep track of it, subsidize it-and use it. In the upper servants' mess its contact is the veterinary-trusted by everyone and quite shamelessly free of sentiment; 1 don't like him. If you had confided in him, you would have been guided, advised, and helped. I would have used you to cover about a hundred sluts, then sent you on your way. Don't look startled, even Their Mercy uses studs who have to stoop a bit to get through the studs' door when a

            freshening of the line is indicated-and there was always the danger that you might get yourself, and those dear boys, killed, and thereby have wasted a fine potential."

            Their Charity picked up the pile of Kitten-delivered mail. "These things- All my Chief Domestic was expected to do was to thwart you from doing something silly; he never knew the veterinary's second function. Why, I even had to crack down on Memtok a bit to turn his copies of these over to me- when anyone could have guessed that a stud like you would find a way to get in touch with his slut. I deduced that it would happen that time that you stood up to me about her, our first bridge game. Remember? Perhaps you don't. But I sent for Memtok, and sure enough, you had already started. Although he was reluctant to admit it. since he had not renorted it."

            Hugh was hardly listening. He was turning over in his mind the glaring fact that he was hearing things told only to dead men. None of the four was going to leave this mom alive. No, perhaps the twins would. Yes, Ponse wanted the breeding line. But he-and Barbara-would never have a chance to talk.

            But Ponse was saying, "You still have a chance to correct your mistakes. And you made lots of them. One note you wrote my scholars assured me was gibberish, not English at all. So I knew it was a secret message whether we could read it or not. Thereafter all your notes were subjected to careful analysis. So of course we found the key-rather naïve to be considered a code, rather clever considering the handicaps. And useful to me. But confound it, Hugh, it cost me! Memtok was naïve about savages, he did not realize that they fight when cornered."

            Ponse scowled. "Damn you, Hugh, your recklessness cost me a valuable property. I wouldn't have taken ten thousand bullocks for Memtok's adoption-no, not twenty. And now your life is forfeit. The charge of attempting to run we could overlook, a tingling in front of the other servants would cover that. Destroying your master's property we could cover up if it had been done secretly. Did you know that that bedwarmer I lent you knew most of what you were up to? Saw much of it? Sluts gossip."

            "She told you?"

            "No, damn it, it didn't tell the half; we had to tingle it out of it. Then it turned out it knew so much that we could not afford to have it talking and the other servants putting one and one together. So it had to go."

            "You had her killed." Hugh felt a surge of disgust and said it, knowing that nothing he said could matter now.

            "What's it to you? Its life was forfeit, treason to its master. However, I'm not a spiteful man, the little critter has no moral sense and didn't know what it was doing-you must have hypnotized it, Hugh-and I am a frugal man; I don't waste property. It's adopted so far away that it'll have trouble under

            Hugh sighed. "I'm relieved."

            "Choice about the slut, eh? Was it that good?"

            "She was innocent. I didn't want her hurt."

            "As may be. Now, Hugh, you can repair all this costly mess. Pay me back the damage and do yourself a good turn at the same time."

            "How?"

            "Quite simple. You've cost me my key executive servant, I've no one of his caliber to replace him. So you take his place. No scandal, no fuss, no upset belowstairs-every servant who saw any piece of it is already adopted away. And you can tell any story you like about what happened to Memtok. Or even claim you don't know. Barba, can you refrain from gossip?"

            "I certainly can where Hugh's welfare is concerned!"

            "That's a good child. I would hate to have you muted, it would hamper our bridge game. Although Hugh will be rather busy for bridge. Hugh, here's the honey that trapped the bear. You take over as Chief Domestic, do the kind of a job I know you can do once you learn the details-and Barba and the twins live with you. What you always wanted. Well, that's the choice. Be my boss servant and have them with you. Or your lives are forfeit. What do you say?"

            Hugh Farnham was so dazed that he was gulping trying to accept, when Their Charity added, "Just one thing. I won't be able to let you have them with you right away."

            "No?"

            "No. I still want to breed a few from you, before you are tempered. Needn't be long, if you are as spry as you look."

            Barbara said, "No!"

            But Hugh Farnham was making a terrible decision. "Wait, Barbara. Ponse. What about the boys? Will they be tempered, too?"

            "Oh." Ponse thought about it. "You drive a hard bargain, Hugh. Suppose we say that they will not be. Let's say that I might use them at stud a bit-but not take their thumbs; it would be a dead giveaway for so private a purpose with studs as tall as they are going to be. Then at fourteen or fifteen I let them escape. Does that sult you?" The old man stopped to cough; a spasm racked him. "Damn it, you're tiring me."

            Hugh pondered it. "Ponse, you may not be alive fourteen or fifteen years from now."

            "True. But it is very impolite for you to say so."

            "Can you bind this bargain for your heir? Mrika?"

            Ponse rubbed his hair and grinned. "You're a sharp one, Hugh. What a Chief Domestic you will make! Of course I can't-which is why I want some get from you, without waiting for the boys to mature. But there is always a choice, just as you have a choice now. I can see to it that you are in my heavenly escort. All of you, the boys, too. Or I can have you all kept alive and you can work out a new bargain, if any. 'Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi'-which was the ancients' way of saying that when the protector leaves there is always a new protector. Just tell me, I'll do it either way."

            Hugh was thinking over the grim choices when Barbara again spoke up. "Their Charity-"

            "Yes, child?"

            "You had better have my tongue cut out. Right now, before you let me leave this room. Because I will have nothing to do with this wicked scheme. And I will not keep quiet. No!"

            "Barba, Barba, that's not being a good girl."

            "I am not a girl. I am a woman and a wife and a mother! I will never call you 'uncle' again-you are vile! I wifi not play bridge with you ever again, with or without my tongue. We are helpless. . . but I will give you nothing. What is this you offer? You want my husband to agree to this evil thing in exchange for a few scant years of life for me and for our sons-for as long as God lets that evilness you call your body continue to breathe. Then what? You cheat him even then. We die. Or we are left to the mercy of your nephew who is even worse than you are. Oh, I know! The bedwarmers all hate him, they weep when they are called to serve him-and weep even harder when they come back. But I would not let Hugh make this choice even if you could promise us all a lifetime of luxurv. No! I won't. I won't! You trv to do it I'll kill my babies! Then myself. Then Hugh wifi kill himself I know! No matter what you have done to him!" She stopped, spat as far as she could in the old man's direction, then burst into tears.

            Their Charity said, "Hughie, I told you to stop teasing that cat. It will scratch you." Slowly he stood up, said, "Reason with them, Joe," and left the room.

            Joe sighed and came over close to them. "Barbara," he said gently, "take hold of yourself. You aren't acting in Hugh's interests even if you think you are. You should advise him to take it. After all, a man Hugh's age doesn't have much to lose by it."

            Barbara looked at him as if she had never seen him before in her life. Then she spat again. Joe was close, she got him in the face.

            He jumped and raised his hand. Hugh said sharply, "Joe, if you hit her and I ever get loose, I'll break your arm!"

            "I wasn't going to hit her," Joe said slowly. "I was just going to wipe my face. I wouldn't hit Barbara, Hugh; I admire her. I just don't think she has good sense." He took a kerchief to the smear of saliva. "I gu~ss there is no use arguing."

            "None, Joe. I'm sorry I spit on you."

            "That's all right, Barbara. You're upset. .. and you never treated me as a nigger, ever. Well, Hugh?"

            "Barbara has decided it. And she always means what she says. I can't say that I'm sorry. Staying alive here just isn't worth it, for any of us. Even if I was not to be tempered."

            "I hate to hear you say that, Hugh. All in all, you and I always got along pretty well. Well, if that's your last word, I might as well go tell Their Charity. Is it?"

            "Yes."

            "Yes, Joe."

            "Well- Good-bye, Barbara. Good-bye, Hugh." He left.

            The Lord Protector came back in alone, moving with the slow caution of a man old and sick. "So that's what you've decided," he said, sitting down and gathering the shawl around him I-fr reached mit fnr the mouise still crnuichinc, on the table top; servants came in and cleared off the table. He went on, "Can't say that I'm surprised- I've played bridge with both of you. Well, now we take up the other choice. .Your lives are forfeit and I can't let you stay here, other than on those terms. So now we send you back."

            "Back where, Ponse?"

            "Why, back to your own time, of course. If you make it. Perhaps you will." He stroked the mouse. "This little fellow made it. Two weeks at least. And it didn't hurt him. Though one can only guess what two thousand years would do."

            The servants were back and were piling on the table a man's watch, a Canadian dime, a pair of much worn mountain boots, a hunting knife, some badly made moccasins, a pair 2 of Levis, some ragged denim shorts with a very large waistline, a .45 automatic pistol with belt, two ragged and faded shirts, one somewhat altered, a part of a paper of matches, and a small notebook and pencil.

            Ponse looked at the collection. "Was there anything else?" He slid the loaded clip from the pistol, held it in his hand. "If not, get dressed."

            The invisible field let them loose.

Chapter 21

            "I don't see what there is to be surprised about," Ponse told them. "Hugh, you will remember that I told my scientists that I wanted to know how you got here. No miracles. I told them rather firmly. They understood that I would be most unhappy-and vexed-if the Protectorate's scientists could not solve it when they had so many hints, so much data. So they did. Probably. At least they were able to move this little fellow. He arrived today, which is why I sent for you. Now we will find out if it works backwards in time as well as forwards-and if the big apparatus works as well as the bench model. I understand it is not so much the amount of power-no atom-kernel bombs necessary -as the precise application of power. But we'll soon know." Hugh asked, "How will you know? We will know-if it works. But how will you know?"

            "Oh, that. My scientists are clever, when they have incentive. One of them will explain it."

            The scientists were called in, two Chosen and five servants. There was no introduction; Hugh found himself treated as impersonally as the little white mouse who still tried to meet his death on the floor. Hugh was required to take off his shirt and two servant-scientists taped a small package to Hugh's right shoulder. "What's that?" It seemed surprisingly heavy for its size.

            The servants did not answer; the leading Chosen said, "You will be told. Come here. See this."

            "This" turned out to be Hugh's former property, a U. S. Geodetic Survey map of James County. "Do you understand this? Or must we explain it?"

            "I understand it." Hugh used the equals mode, the Chosen ignored it while continuing to speak in protocol mode, falling.

            "Then you know that here is where you arrived."

            Hugh agreed, as the man's finger covered the spot where Hugh's home had once stood. The Chosen nodded thoughtfully and added, "Do you understand the meaning of these marks?" He pointed to a tiny x-mark and very small figures beside it.

            "Certainly. We call that a 'bench mark.' Exact location and altitude. It's a reference point for all the rest of the map."

            "Excellent." The Chosen pointed to a similar mark at the summit of Mount James as shown by the map. "Now, tell us, if you know-but don't lie about it; it will not advantage you-how much error there would be, horizontally and vertically, between these two reference points."

            Hugh thought about it, held up his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. The Chosen blinked. "It would not have been that accurate in those primitive times. We assume that you are lying. Try again. Or admit that you don't know."

            "And I suggest that you don't know what you are talking about. It would be at least that accurate." Hugh thought of telling him that he had bossed surveying parties in the Seabees and had done his own surveying when he was getting started as a contractor-and that while he did not know how accurate a geodetic survey was, he did know that enormously more accurate methods had been used in setting those bench marks than were ever used in the ordinary survey.

            He decided that explanation would be wasted.

            The Chosen looked at him, then glanced at Their Charity. The old man had been listening but his face showed nothing. "Very well. We will assume that the marks are accurate, each to the other. Which is fortunate, as this one is missing"-he pointed to the first one, near where Hugh's home had been- "whereas this one"-he indicated the summit of Mount James-"is still in place, in solid rock. Now search your memory and do not lie again, as it will matter to you . . . and it will matter to Their Charity, as a silly lie on your part could waste much effort and Their Charity would be much displeased, we are certain. Where, quite near this reference mark and the same height-certainly no higher!-is-was, I mean, in those primitive times-a flat, level place?"

            Hugh thought about it. He knew exactly where that bench mark had been: in the cornerstone of the Southport Savings Bank. It was, or had been, a small brass plate let into the stone beside the larger dedication plate, about eighteen inches above the sidewalk at the northeast corner of the building. It had been placed there shortly after the Southport shopping center had been built. Hugh had often glanced at it in passing; it had always given him a warm feeling of stability to note a bench mark.

            The bank had sided on a parking lot shared by the bank, a Safeway Supermarket, and a couple of other shops. "It is level and flat nif this way fnr a distance nf-" (I-Iiwh estimated the width of that ancient parking lot in feet, placed the figure in modern units.) "Or a little farther. That's just an estimate, not wholly accurate."

            "But it is flat and level? And no higher than this point?"

            "A little lower and sloping away. For drainage."

            "Very well. Now place your attention on this configuration." Again it was Hugh's property, a Conoco map of the state. "That object fastened to your back you may think of as a clock. We will not explain it, you could not understand. Suffice to say that radiation decay of a metal inside it measures time. That is why it is heavy; it is cased in lead to protect it. You will take it to here." The Chosen pointed to a town on the map; Hugh noted that it was the home of the state university.

            At a gesture the Chosen was handed a slip of paper. To Hugh he said, "Can you read this? Or must it be explained?"

            "It says 'University State Bank,'" Hugh told him. "I seem to recall that there was an institution of that name in that town. I'm not sure, I don't recall doing business with it."

            "There was," the Chosen assured him, "and its ruins were recently uncovered. You will go to it. There was, and still is, a strong room, a vault, in its lowest part. You will place this clock in that vault. Do you understand?"

            "I understand."

            "By Their Charity's wish, that vault has not yet been opened. After you have gone, it will be opened. The clock will be found and we will read it. Do you understand why this is crucial to the experiment? It will not only tell us that you made the time jump safely but also exactly how long the span was-and from this our instruments will be calibrated." The Chosen looked very fierce. "Do this exactly. Or you will be severely punished."

            Ponse caught Hugh's eye at this point. The old man was not laughing but his eyes twinkled. "Do it, Hugh," he said quietly. "That's a good fellow."

            Hugh said to the Chosen scientist. "I will do it. I underc~t~ind "

            The Chosen said, "May it please Their Charity, this one is ready to weigh them now, and then leave for the site."

            "We've changed our mind," Ponse announced. "We will see this." He added, "Nerve in good shape, Hugh?"

            "Quite."

            "All of you who made the first jump were given this opportunity, did I tell you? Joe turned it down flatly." The old man glanced over his shoulder. "Grace! Changed your mind, little one?"

            Grace looked up. "Ponsie!" she said reproachfully. "You know I would never leave you."

            "Duke?"

            The tempered servant did not even look up. He simply shook his head.

            Ponse said to the scientist, "Let's hurry and get them weighed. We intend to sleep at home tonight."

            The weighing was done elsewhere in the Palace. Just before the four were placed on the weighing area the Lord Protector held up the cartridge clip he had removed from the pistol Hugh now wore. "Hugh? Will you undertake not to be foolish with this? Or should I have the pellets separated from the explosives?"

            "Uh, I'll behave."

            "Ah, but how will you behave? If you were impetuous, you might succeed in killing me. But consider what would happen to Barba and our little brats."

            (I had thought of that, you old scoundrel. I'll still do what seems best to me.) "Ponse, why don't you let Barbara carry the clip in a pocket? That would keep me from loading and firing very fast even if I did get ideas."

            "A good plan. Here, Barba."

            The boss scientist seemed unhappy at the total weight of his experimental package. "May it please Their Charity, this one finds that body weights of both adults must have lessened markedly since the time of the figures on which the calculations were made."

            "Oh, nothing, nothing, may it please Their Charity. Just a slight delay. The mass must be exact." Hurriedly the Chosen started piling metal discs on the platform.

            It gave Hugh an idea. "Ponse, you really expect this to work?"

            "If I knew the answer, it would not be necessary to try it. I hope it will work."

            "If it does work, we'll need money right away. Especially if I'm to travel half across the state to bury this clock device."

            "Reasonable. You used gold, did you not? Or was it silver? I see your idea." The old man gestured. "Stop that weighing."

            "We used both, sometimes, but it had to have our own protectorate's stamp. Ponse, there were quite a number of American silver dollars in my house when you took it away from me. Are they available?"

            They were available and in the Palace and the old man had no objection to using them to make up the missing weight. The boss scientist was fretted over the delay-he explained to his lord that the adjustments were set for an exact time span as well as exact mass in order to place these specimens at a time before the East-West War had started, plus a margin for error-but that delay was reducing the margin and might require recalculation and long and painful recalibration. Hugh did not follow the technicalities.

            Nor did Ponse. He cut the scientist off abruptly. "Then recalculate if necessary. All."

            It took more than an hour to locate the man who could locate the man who knew where these particular items of the savage artifacts were filed, then dig them out and fetch them. Ponse sat brooding and playing with his mouse. Barbara nursed the twins, then changed them with the help of slut servants; Hugh petitioned plumbing calls for each of them-granted, under guard-and all this changed all the body weights and everything was started over again.

            The silver dollars were still in, or had been replaced in, the $100 rolls in which Hugh had hoarded them. They made quite a stack, and (on the happy assumption that the time jump would work) Hugh was pleased that he had lost while imprisoned the considerable paunch he had regrown during his easy days as "Chief Researcher." However, less than three hundred silver dollars were used in bringing them up to calculated weight-plus a metal slug and some snips of foil.

            "If it suits the Lord Protector, this one believes that the specimens should be placed in the container without delay."

            "Then do it! Don't waste our time."

            The container was floated in. It was a box, metallic, plain, empty, and with no furnishings of any sort, barely high enough for Hugh to stand upright in, barely large enough for all of them. Hugh got into it, helped Barbara in, the babies were handed to them and Hughie started to squawl and set off his brother.

            Ponse looked annoyed. "My sluts have been spoiling those brats. Hugh, I've decided not to watch it, I'm weary. Goodbye to both of you-and good riddance; neither of you would ever have made a loyal servant. But I'll miss our bridge games. Barba, you must bring those brats back into line. But don't break their spunk doing it; they're fine boys." He turned and left abruptly.

            The hatch was closed down on them and fastened; they were alone. Hugh at once took advantage of it to kiss his wife, somewhat hampered by each of them holding a baby.

            "I don't care what happens now," Barbara said as soon as her mouth was free. "That's what I've been longing for. Oh, dear, Joey is wet again. How about Hughie?"

            "It's unanimous, Hughie also. But I thought you just said you didn't care what happens now?"

            "Well, I don't, really. But try explaining that to a baby. I would gladly swap one of those rolls of dollars for ten new diapers."

            "My dear, do you realize that the human race lasted at least a million years with no diapers at all? Whereas we may not last another hour. So let's not spend it talking about diapers."

            "I simply meant- Wups! They're moving us."

            "Sit flat on the floor and brace your feet against the wall. Before we have scrambled babies. You were saying?"

            "I simply meant, my darling, that I do not care about diapers, I don't care about anything-now that I have you with me again. But if we aren't going to die-if this thing works- I'm going to have to be practical. And do you know of anything more practical than diapers?"

            "Yes. Kissing. Making love."

            "Well, yes. But they lead to diapers. Darling, could you hold Hughie in your other arm and put this one around me? Uh, they're moving us again. Hugh, is this thing going to work? Or are we going to be very suddenly dead? Somehow I can imagine time travel frontwards-and anyhow we did it. But I can't imagine it backwards. I mean, the past has already happened. That's it. Isn't it?"

            "Well, yes. But you haven't stated it correctly. The way I see it, there are no paradoxes in time travel, there can't be. If we are going to make this time jump, then we already did; that's what happened. And if it doesn't work, then it's because it didn't happen."

            "But it hasn't happened yet. Therefore, you are saying that it didn't happen, so it can't happen. That's what I said."

            "No, no! We don't know whether it has already happened or not. If it did, it will. If it didn't, it won't."

            "Darling, you're confusing me."

            "Don't worry about it. 'The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on'-and only then do you find out if it goosed you in passing. I think we've straightened out on a course; we're steady now, just the faintest vibration. If they are taking us where I think they are, James County I mean, then we've got at least an hour before we need worry about anything." He tightened his arm around her. "So let's be happy that hour."

            She snuggled in. "That's what I was saying. Beloved, we've come through so many narrow squeaks together that I'm not ever going to worry again. If it's an hour, I'll be happy every second of it. If it's forty years, I'll be happy every second of that, too. If it's together. And if it's not together, I don't want it. But either way, we go on. To the end of our day."

            "Yes. 'To the end of our day.'"

            She sighed happily, rearranged a wet and sleeping infant, snuggled into his shoulder and murmured, "This feels like our very first day. In the tank room of the shelter, I mean. We were just as crowded and even warmer-and I was never so happy. And we didn't know whether we were going to live through that day, either. That night."

            "We didn't expect to. Else we wouldn't have twin boys now."

            "So I'm glad we thought we were going to die. Hugh? It isn't any more crowded than it was that night in the tank room."

            "Woman, you are an insatiable lecher. You'll shock the boys."

            "I don't think once in more than a year is being insatiable. And the boys are too young to be shocked. Aw, come on! You said yourself we might be dead in an hour."

            "Yes, we might and you have a point and I'm theoretically in favor of the idea. But the boys do inhibit me and there actually isn't quite as much room even if we weren't cluttered up with eight or nine wet babies and I don't see how it's mechanically possible. The act would be a tesseract, at least."

            "Well- I guess you're right. I don't see any way either; we would probably squash them. But it does seem a shame, if we're going to die."

            "I refuse to assume that we're going to die. I won't ever make that assumption again. All my figuring is based on the assumption that we are going to live. We go on. No matter what happens-we go on."

            "All right. Seven no trump."

            "That's better."

            "Doubled and redoubled. Hugh? Just as soon as the boys are big enough to hold thirteen cards in their pudgy little hands, we're going to start teaching them contract. Then we'll have a family four of our own."

            "Suits. And if they can't learn to play, we'll temper them and try again."

            "I don't want ever to hear that word again!"

            "Sorry."

            "And I don't want to hear that language again, either, dear. The boys should grow up hearing English."

            "Sorry again. You're right. But I may slip; I've gotten in the habit of thinking in it-all that translating. So allow me a few slips."

            "I'll always allow you a few slips. Speaking of slips- Did you? With Kitten?"

            "No."

            "Why not? I wouldn't have minded. Well, not much anyhow. She was sweet. She would baby-sit for me any time I would let her. She loved our boys.".

            "Barbara, I don't want to think about Kitten. It makes me sad. I just hope whoever has her now is good to her. She didn't have any defenses at all-like a kitten before it has its eyes open. Helpless. Kitten means to me everything that is utterly damnable about slavery."

            She squeezed his hand. "I hope they're good to her, too. But, dear, don't hurt yourself inside about it; there is nothing we can do for her."

            "I know it and that's why I don't want to talk about her. But I do miss her. As a daughter. She was a daughter to me. 'Bedwarmer' never entered into it."

            "I didn't doubt it, dear. But- Well, look here, my good man, maybe this place is too cramped. All right, we're going to live through it; we go on. Then don't let me catch you treating me like a daughter! I intend to keep your bed very warm indeed!"

            "Mmm- You want to remember that I'm an old man."

            "'Old man' my calloused feet! We'll be the same age for all practical purposes-namely something over four thousand years, counting once each way. And my purposes are very practical, understand me?"

            "I understand you. I suppose 'four thousand years' is one way to look at it. Though perhaps not for 'practical purposes.'"

            "You won't get out of it that easily," she said darkly. "I won't stand for it."

            "Woman, you've got a one-track mind. All right, I'll do my best. I'll rest all the time and let you do all the work. Hey, I think we're there."

            The box was moved several times, then remained stationary a few minutes, then surged straight up with sickening suddenness, stopped with another stomach twister, seemed to hunt a little, and then was perfectly steady.

            "You in the experimental chamber," a voice said out of nowhere. "You are warned to expect a short fall. You are advised to stand up, each of you hold one brat, and be ready to fall. Do you understand?"

            "Yes," Hugh answered while helping Barbara to her feet. "How much of a fall?"

            There was no answer. Hugh said, "Hon, I don't know what they mean. A 'short fall' could be one foot, or fifty. Protect Joey with your arms and better bend your knees a little. If it's quite a fall, then go ahead and go down; don't try to take it stiff-legged. These jokers don't give a hoot what happens to us."

            "Bent knees. Protect Joey. All right."

            They fell.

Chapter 22      

            Hugh never did know how far they fell but he decided later that it could not have been more than four feet. One instant they were standing in a well-lighted, cramped box; the next instant they were outdoors, in the dark of night, and falling.

            His boots hit, he went down, landing on the right side his rump and on two very hard rolls of silver dollars in hip pocket-rolled with the fall and protected the baby in arms.

            Then he rolled to a sitting position. Barbara was near h on her side. She was not moving. "Barbara! Are you hui

            "No," she said breathlessly. "I don't think so. Just knoc] the breath out of me."

            "Is Joey all right? Hughie is, but I think he's more ti wet now."

            "Joey is all right." Joey confirmed this by starting to y his brother joined him. "He had the breath knocked out of h too, I think. Shut up, Joey; Mother is busy. Hugh, where we?"

            He looked around. "We are," he announced, "in a park lot in a shopping center about four blocks from where I I And apparently somewhere close to our own proper time. least that's a 'sixty-one Ford we almost landed on." The was empty save for this one car. It occurred to him that tl arrival might have been something else than a bump-an plosion, perhaps?-if they had been six feet to the right. he dropped the thought; enough narrow squeaks and one m didn't matter.

            He stood up and helped Barbara up. She winced and in dim light that came from inside the bank he noticed "Trouble?"

            "I turned my ankle when I hit."

            "Can you walk?"

            "I can walk."

            "I'll carry both kids. It's not far."

            "Hugh, where are we going?"

            "Why, home, of course." He looked in the window of bank, tried to spot a calendar. He saw one but the stand light was not shining on it; he couldn't read it. "I wish I ki the date. Honey, I hate to admit it but it does look as if t travel has some paradoxes-and I think we are about to give somebody a terrible shock."

            "Who?"

            "Me, maybe. In my earlier incarnation. Maybe I ought to phone him first, not shock him. No, he-I, I mean-wouldn't believe it. Sure you can walk?"

"Certainly."

            "All right. Hold our monsters for a moment and let me set my watch." He glanced back into the bank where a clock was visible even though the calendar was shadowed. "Okay. Gimine. And holler if you need to stop."

            They set off, Barbara limping but keeping up. He discouraged talk, because he did not have his thoughts in order. To see a town that he had thought of as destroyed so quiet and peaceful on a warm summery night shook him more than he dared admit. He carefully avoided any speculation as to what he might find at his home-except one fleeting thought that if it turned out that his shelter was not yet built, then it never would be and he would try his hand at changing history.

            He adjourned that thought, too, and concentrated on being glad that Barbara was a woman who never chattered when her man wanted her to be quiet.

            Presently they turned into his driveway, Barbara limping and Hugh beginning to develop cramps in both arms from being unable to shift his double load. There were two cars parked tandem and facing out in the drive; he stopped at the first one, opened the door and said, "Slide in, sit down, and take the load off that ankle. I'll leave the boys with you and reconnoiter." The house was brightly lighted.

            "Hugh! Don't do it!"

            "Why not?"

            "This is my car. This is the night!"

            He stared at her for a long moment. Then he said quietly, "I'm still going to reconnoiter. You sit here."

            He was back in less than two minutes, jerked open the car door, collapsed onto the seat, let out a gasping sob.

            Barbara said, "Darling! Darling!"

            "Oh, my God!" He choked and caught his breath. "She's in

there! Grace. And so am I." He dropped his face to the steering wheel and sobbed.

            "Hugh."

            "What? Oh, my God!"

            "Stop it, Hugh. I started the engine while you were gone. The keys were in the ignition, I had left them there so that Duke could move it and get out. So let's go. Can you drive?"

            He sobered down. "I can drive." He took ten seconds to check the instrument board, adjusted the seat backwards, put it in gear, turned right out of his drive. Four minutes later he turned west on the highway into the mountains, being careful to observe the stop sign; it had occurred to him that this was no night to get stopped and pulled off the road for driving without a license.

            As he made the turn a clock inthe distance bonged the half hour; he glanced at his wrist watch, noted a one-minute difference. "Switch on the radio, hon."

            "Hugh, I'm sorry. The durn thing quit and I couldn't afford to have it repaired."

            "Oh. No matter. The news doesn't matter, I mean; time is all that matters. I'm trying to estimate how far we can go in an hour. An hour and some minutes. Do you recall what time the first missile hit us?"

            "I think you told me it was eleven-forty-seven."

            "That's my recollection, too. I'm certain of it, I just wanted it confirmed. But it all checks. You made crêpes Suzettes, you and Karen fetched them in just in time to catch the end of the ten o'clock news. I ate pretty quickly-they were wonderful- this booney old character rang the doorbell. Me, I mean. And I answered it. Call it ten-twenty or a little after. So we just heard half-past chime and my watch agrees. We've got about seventy-five minutes to get as far from ground zero as possible."

            Barbara made no comment. Moments later they passed the city limits; Hugh put the speed up from a careful forty-five to an exact sixty-five.

            About ten minutes later she said, "Dear? I'm sorry. About Karen, I mean. Not about anything else."

            "I'm not sorry about anything. No, not about Karen. Hearing her merry laugh again shook me up, ~yes. But now I treasure it. Barbara, for the first time in my life I have a conviction of immortality. Karen is alive right now, back there behind us-and yet we saw her die. So somehow, in some timeless sense, Karen is alive forever, somewhere. Don't ask me to explain it, but that's how it is."

            "I've always known it, Hugh. But I didn't dare say so."

            "Dare say anything, damn it! I told you that long ago. So I no longer feel sorrow over Karen. I can't feel any honest sorrow over Grace. Some people make a career of trying to get their own way; she's one of them. As for Duke, I hate to think about him. I had great hopes for my son. My first son. But I never had control over his rearing and I certainly had no control over what became of him. And, as Joe pointed out to me, Duke's not too badly off-if welfare and security and happiness are sufficient criteria." Hugh shrugged without taking his hands from the wheel. "So I shall forget him. As of this instant I shall endeavor never to think about Duke again."

            Presently he spoke again. "Hon, can you, in spite of being smothered in babies, get at that clock thing on my shoulder and get it off?"

            "I'm sure I can."

            "Then do it and chuck it into the ditch. I'd rather throw it away inside the circle of total destruction-if we're still in it." He scowled. "I don't want those people ever to have time travel. Especially Ponse."

            She worked silently for some moments, awkwardly with one hand. She got the radiation clock loose and threw it out into the darkness before she spoke. "Hugh, I don't think Ponse intended us to accept that offer. I think he made the terms such that he knew that I would refuse, even if you were indlined to sacrifice yourself."

"Of course! He picked us as guinea pigs-his white mice- .~fl6

and chivvied us into 'volunteering.' Barbara, I can stand-and somewhat understand but not forgive-a straight-out son of a bitch. But Ponse was, for my money, much worse. He had good intentions. He could always prove why the hotfoot he was giving you was for your own good. I despise him."

            Barbara said stubbornly, "Hugh, how many white men of today could be trusted with the power Ponse had and use it with as much gentleness as he did use it?"

            "Huh? None. Not even yours truly. And that was a low blow about 'white men.' Color doesn't enter into it."

            "I withdraw the word 'white.' And I'm sure that you are one who could be trusted with it. But I don't know any others."

            "Not even me. Nobody can be trusted with it. The one time I had it I handled it as badly as Ponse. I mean that time I caused a gun to be raised at Duke. I should simply have used karate and knocked him out or even killed him. But not humiliated him. Nobody, Barbara. But Ponse was especially bad. Take Memtok. I'm really sorry that I happened to kill Memtok. He was a man who behaved better than his nature, not worse. Memtok had a streak of meanness, sadism, wide as his back. But he held it closely in check so that he could do his job better. But Ponse-~ Barbie hon, this is probably a subject on which you and I will never agree. You feel a bit soft toward him because he was sweet to you most of the time and always sweet to our boys. But I despised him because of that-because he was always showing 'king's mercy'-being less cruel than he could have been, but always reminding his victim of how cruel he could be if he were not such a sweet old guy and such a prince of a fellow. I despised him for it. I despised him long before I found out about his having young girls butchered and served for his dinner."

            "What?"

            "Didn't you know? Oh, surely, you must have known. Ponse and I discussed it in our very last talk. Weren't you listening?"

            "I thought that was just heavy sarcasm, on the part of each of you."

            "Nope, Ponse is a cannibal. Maybe not a cannibal, since he doesn't consider us human. But he does eat us-they all do. Ponse always ate girls. About one a day for his family table, I gathered. Girls about the age and plumpness of Kitten."

            "But- But- Hugh, I ate the same thing he did, lots of times. I must have- I must have-"

            "Sure you did. So did I. But not after I knew. Nor did you."

            "Honey. . . you better stop the car. I'm going to be sick."

            "Throw up on the twins if you must. This car doesn't stop for anything."

            She managed to get the window open, got it mostly outside. Presently he said gently,             "Feeling better?"

            "Some."

            "Sweetheart, don't hold what he ate too much against Ponse. He honestly did not know it was wrong-and no doubt cows would feel the same way about us, if they knew. But these other things he knew were wrong. Because he tried to justify them. He rationalized slavery, he rationalized tyranny, he rationalized cruelty, and always wanted the victim to agree and thank him. The headsman expected to be tipped."

            "I don't want to talk about him, dear. I feel all mixed up inside."

            "Sorry. I'm half drunk without a drop and babbling. I'll shut up. Watch the traffic behind, I'm going to make a left turn shortly."

            She did so and after they had turned off on a state road, narrower and not as well graded, he said, "I've figured out where we're going. At first I was just putting distance behind us. Now we've got a destination. Maybe a safe one."

            "Where, Hugh?"

            "A shutdown mine. I had a piece of it, lost some money in it. Now maybe it pays off. The Havely Lode. Nice big tunnels and we can reach the access road from this road. If I can find it in the dark. If we can get there before the trouble starts." He concentrated on herding the car, changing down on the grades both climbing and on the occasional downhill

piece, braking hard before going into a curve, then cornering hard with plenty of throttle in the curves.

            After a particularly vicious turn with Barbara on the hairraising outside, she said, "Look, dear, I know you're doing it to save us. But we can be just as dead from a car crash as from an H-bomb."

            He grinned without slowing. "I used to drive jeeps in the dark with no headlights. Barbie, I won't kill us. Few people realize how much a car will do and I'm delighted that this has a manual gear shift. You need it in the mountains. I would not dare drive this way with an automatic shift."

            She shut up and prayed, silently.

            The road dropped into a high alp where it met another road; at the intersection there was a light. When he saw it Hugh said, "Read my watch."

            "Eleven-twenty-five."

            "Good. We are slightly over fifty miles from ground zero. From my house, I mean. And the Havely Lode is only five minutes beyond here, I know how to find it now. I see Schmidt's Corner is open and we are low on gas. We'll grab some and groceries, too-yes, I recall you told me you had both in this car; we'll get more-and still make it before the curtain."

            He braked and scattered gravel, stopped by a pump, jumped out. "Run inside and start grabbing stuff. Put the twins on the floor of the car and close the door. Won't hurt 'em." He stuck the hose into the car's tank, started cranking the old-fashioned pump.

            She was out in a moment. "There's nobody here."

            "Honk the horn. The Dutchman is probably back at his house."

            Barbara honked and honked and the babies cried. Hugh hung up the hose. "Fourteen gallons we owe him for. Let's go in. Should roll in just ten minutes, to be safe."

            Schmidt's Corner was a gasoline station, a small lunch counter, a one-end grocery store, all of the sort that caters to local people, fishermen, hunters, and the tourist who likes to

get off the pavement. Hugh wasted no time trying to rouse out the owner; the place told its own story: All lights were on, the screen door stood open, coffee was simmering on a hot plate, a chair had been knocked over, and the radio was tuned to the emergency frequency. It suddenly spoke up as he came in:

            "Bomb warning. Third bomb warning. This is not a drill. Take shelter at once. Any shelter, God damn it, you're going to be atom-bombed in the next few minutes. I'm damn well going to leave this goddam microphone and dive for the basement myself when impact is five minutes away! So get the lead out, you stupid fools, and quit listening to this chatter! TAKE

SHELTER!"

            "Grab those empty cartons and start filling them. Don't pack, just dump stuff in. I'll trot them out. We'll fill the back seat and floor." Hugh started following his own orders, had one carton filled before Barbara did. He rushed it out, rushed back; Barbara had another waiting, and a third almost filled. "Hugh. Stop one second. Look."

            The end carton was not empty. Mama cat, quite used to strangers, stared solemnly out at him while four assorted fuzzy ones nursed. Hugh returned her stare.

            He suddenly closed the top of the carton over her. "All right," he said. "Load something light into another carton so it weighs this one down while I drive. Hurry." He rushed out to the car with the little family while the mother cat set up agonized complaint.

            Barbara followed quickly with a half-loaded carton, put it on top of the cat box. They both rushed back inside. "Take all the canned milk he's got." Hugh stopped long enough to put a roll of dollars on top of the cash register. "And grab all the toilet paper or Kleenex you see, too. Three minutes till we leave."

            They left in five minutes but with more cartons; the back seat of the car was well leveled off. "I got a dozen tea towels," Barbara said gleefully, "and six big packs of Chux."

            "Huh?"

            "Diapers, dear, diapers. Might last us past the fallout. I hope. And I grabbed two packs of playing cards, too. Maybe I shouldn't have."

            "Don't be hypocritical, my love. Hang onto the kids and be sure that door is locked." He drove for several hundred yards, with his head hanging out. "Here!"

            The going got very rough. Hugh drove in low gear and very carefully~

            A black hole in the side of the mountain loomed up suddenly as he turned. "Good, we've made it! And we drive straight inside." He started in and tromped on the brake. "Good Lord! A cow."

            "And a calf," Barbara added, leaning out her side.

            "I'll have to back out."

            "Hugh. A cow. With a calf."

            "Uh. . . how the hell would we feed her?"

            "Hugh, it may not burn here at all. And that's a real live cow."

            "Uh. . . all right, all right. We'll eat them if we have to." There was a wooden wall and a stout door about thirty feet inside the mouth of the mine tunnel. Hugh eased the car forward, forcing the reluctant cow ahead of him, and at last crunched his side of the car against the rock wall to allow the other door to open.

            The cow immediately made a break for freedom; Barbara opened her door and thereby stopped her. The calf bawled, the twins echoed him.

            Hugh squeezed out past Barbara and the babies, got past the cow and unfastened the door, which was secured by a padlock passed through a hasp but not closed. He shoved the cow's rump aside and braced the door open. "Kick on the 'up' lights. Let it shine in."

            Barbara did, then insisted that cow and calf be taken inside. Hugh muttered something about, "Noah's bloody ark!" but agreed, largely because the cow was so very much in the way. The door, though wide, was about one inch narrower than bossie; she did not want to go through it. But Hugh got

her beaded that way, then kicked her emphatically. She went through. The calf followed his mother.

            At which point Hugh discovered why th~ cow was in the tunnel. Someone-presumably someone nearby-had converted the mine to use as a cow barn; there were a dozen or so bales of hay inside. The cow showed no wish to leave once she was at this treasure.

            Cartons were carried in, two cartons were dumped and a twin placed in each, with a carton of cat and kittens just beyond and all three weighted down to insure temporary captivity.

            While they were unloading Barbara's survival gear from the trunk, everything suddenly became noonday bright. Barbara said, "Oh, heavens! We aren't through."

            "We go on unloading. Maybe ten minutes till the sound wave. I don't know about the shock wave. Here, take the rifle."

            They had the car empty with jeep cans of water and gasoline out but not yet inside when the ground began to tremble and noise of giant subways started. Hugh put the cans inside, yelled, "Move these!"

            "Hugh! Come in!"

            "Soon." There was loose hay he had driven over just back of the car. He gathered it up, stuffed it through the door, went back and scavenged, not to save the hay but to reduce fire hazard to gasoline in the car's tank. He considered backing the car out and letting it plunge down the hill. He decided not to risk it. If it got hot enough to set fire to the car's gas tank-well, there were side tunnels, deep inside. "Barbara! Do you have a light yet?"

            "Yes! Please come inside. Please!"

            He went in, barred the door. "Now we move these bales of hay, far back. You carry the light, I carry the bay. And mind your feet. It is wet a bit farther back. That's why we shut down. Too much pumping."

            They moved groceries, livestock (human, bovine, and feline) and gear into a side tunnel a hundred yards inside the

mountain. They had to wade through several inches of water on the way but the side tunnel was slightly higher and dry. Once Barbara lost a moccasin. "Sorry," said Hugh. "This mountain is a sponge. Almost every bore struck water."

            "I," said Barbara, "am a woman who appreciates water. I have had reason to."

            Hugh did not answer as the flash of the second bomb suddenly brightened everything even that deep inside-just through cracks of a wooden wall. He looked at his watch. "Right on time. We're sitting through a second show of the same movie, Barb. This time I hope it will be cooler."

            "I wonder."

            "If it will be cooler? Sure, it will. Even if it burns outside. I think I know a place where we can go down, and save us, and maybe the cats but not the cow and calf, even if smoke gets pulled in."

            "Hugh, I didn't mean that."

            "What did you mean?"

            "Hugh, I didn't tell you this at the time. I was too upset by it and didn't want you to get upset. But I don't own a manual gear shift car."

            "Huh? Then whose car is that outside?"

            "Mine. I mean my keys were in it-and it certainly had my stuff in the trunk. But mine had automatic shift."

            "Honey," he said slowly, "I think you've flipped your lid a little."

            "I thought you would think so and that's why I didn't say anything until we were safe. But Hugh-listen to me, dear!-I have never owned a manual shift car. I didn't learn to drive that far back. I don't know how to drive manual shift."

            He stared thoughtfully. "I don't understand it."

            "Neither do I. Darling, when you came away from your house, you said, 'She's in there. Grace.' Did you mean you saw her?"

            "Why, yes. She was nodding over the television, half passed out."

            "But, dearest, Grace had been nodding over the television. But you put her to bed while I was making crêpes Suzettes. Don't you remember? When the alert came, you went and got her and carried her down-in her nightgown."

            Hugh Farnham stood quite still for several moments. "So I did," he agreed. "So I had. Well, let's get the rest of this gear moved. The big one will be along in about an hour and a half."

            "But will it be?"

            "What do you mean?"

            "Hugh, I don't know what has happened. Maybe this is a different world. Or maybe it's the same one but just a tiny bit changed by-well, by us coming back, perhaps."

            "I don't know. But right now we go on, moving this stuff."

            The big one came on time. It shook them up, did not hurt them. When the air wave hit, it shook them up again. But without casualties other than to the nerves of some very nervous animals-the twins by now seemed to enjoy rough stuff.

            Hugh noted the time, then said thoughtfully, "If it is a different world, it is not so very different. And yet-"

            "Yet what, dear?"

            "Well, it is some different. You wouldn't forget that about your own car. And I do remember putting Grace to bed early; Duke and I had a talk afterwards. So, it's different." Suddenly he grinned. "It could be importantly different. If the future can change the past, or whatever, maybe the past can change the future, too. Maybe the United States won't be wholly destroyed. Maybe neither side will be so suicidal as to use plague bombs. Maybe- Hell, maybe Ponse will never get a chance to have teen-age girls for dinner!" He added, "I'm damn' well going to make a try! To see that he doesn't."

            "We'll try! And our boys will try."

            "Yes. But that's tomorrow. I think the fireworks are over for tonight. Madame, do you think you can sleep on a pile of hay?"

"Just sleep?"

            "You're too eager. I've had a long hard day."

            "You had had a long hard day the other time, too."

"We'll see."

Chapter 23

            They lived through the missiles, they lived through the bombs, they lived through the fires, they lived through the epidemics-which were not extreme and may not have been weapons; both sides disclaimed them-and they lived through the long period of disorders while civil government writhed like a snake with a broken back. They lived. They went on.

Their sign reads:

FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD

TRADING POST & RESTAURANT BAR

American Vodka

Corn Liquor

Applejack

Pure Spring Water

Grade "A" Milk

Corned Beef & Potatoes

Steak & Fried Potatoes

Butter & some days Bread

Smoked Bear Meat

Jerked Quisling (by the neck)

!!!!Any BOOK Accepted as Cash!!!!

DAY NURSERY

!!FREE KITTENS!!

Blacksmithing, Machine Shop, Sheet Metal Work- You Supply the Metal

FARNHAM SCHOOL OF CONTRACT BRIDGE

Lessons by Arrangement

Social Evening Every Wednesday

WARNING!!!

Ring Bell. Wait. Advance with your Hands Up. Stay on path, avoid mines. We lost three customers last week. We can't afford to lose you. No sales tax.

Hugh & Barbara Farnham & Family

Freeholders

            High above their sign their homemade starry flag is flying- and they are still going on.