The Simulacra is a book that stretches beyond its capacity and tries to incorporate many disparate storylines into a cohesive plot structure. The Simulacra investigates some thought-bending concepts involving a cynical future but fails to demonstrate it’s points effectively.

In the futuristic America Dick creates in. The Simulacra, the population is divided into two groups. The Be’s are the masses who live their dull existences with blind acceptance and are brainwashed by a condescending government. The Ge’s are the elite who control the population through a matriarchal “puppet” government. The power structure of the country rests on the popularity (and deep love for) Nicole Thibodeaux, the first-lady who has remained in power for more than 40 years.

The story follow a diverse group of characters whose adventures are seemingly unrelated except that they inhabit the same world. Nat Flieger is a record company executive who travels to northern California to record the greatest living musician, telepathic pianist Richard Kongrosian. The problem is Kongrosian is too much of a genius and reflects his low self-confidence and mental illness on his view of the world. Three characters, brothers Vince & Chic Strikerock and Ian Duncan are trying to get ahead in the world but can’t seem to get a break. In a subplot that could only have been dreamed up by PKD, Hermann Goering is brought from the Nazi Germany of the past by first-lady Nicole (as she’ affectionately known) in an attempt to influence the outcome of WWII. This is one of the more intriguing parts of The Simulacra but unfortunately is not well developed in the story.

There’s also a popular leader named Bertold Goltz who is able to see beyond the government’s facade and also the limitations of time due to his possession of time travel equipment. When the government facade collapses and the strict societal boundaries are broken down, the lives of all the characters are affected. They all face difficult decisions involving planetary emigration, loyalty to each other and even establishing contact with reality.

There are some radical notion of the world and the future presented in The Simulacra. Dick’s portrayal of a matriarchal society draws from the deepest and most basic human emotions. Kongrosian’s use of telepathy is the basis for the highest degree of creativity and artistic ability. Dick also addresses the role and need for government in people’s lives. He suggests that underneath the surface, society creates a population that needs to be ignorant and apathetic in order to preserve it’s own structure.

1

The interoffice memo at Electronic Musical Enterprise frightened Nat Flieger and he did not know why. It dealt, after all, with a great opportunity, the famed Soviet pianist Richard Kongrosian, a psychokineticist who played Brahms and Schumann without manually approaching the keyboard, had been located at his summer home in Jenner, California. And, with luck, Kongrosian would be available for a series of recording sessions with EME. And yet -- Perhaps, Flieger reflected, it was the dark, wet forests of the extreme northern coastal region of California which repelled him; he liked the dry southlands near Tijuana, here where EME maintained its central offices. But Kongrosian, according to the memo, would not come out of his summer home; he had entered semi-retirement, possibly due to some unknown domestic situation, hinted to be a tragedy involving either his wife or his child. This had happened years ago, the memo implied.

It was nine in the morning. Nat Flieger reflexively poured water in a cup and fed the living protoplasm incorporated into the Ampek F-a2 recording system which he kept in his office; the Ganymedean life form did not experience pain and had not yet objected to being made over into a portion of an electronic system ... neurologically it was primitive, but as an auditory receptor it was unexcelled.

Water trickled through the membranes of the Ampek F-a2 and was gratefully absorbed; the conduits of the living system pulsed. I could take you along, Flieger decided. The F-a2 was portable and he preferred its curve to later, more sophisticated equipment. Flieger lit a delicado, walked to the window of his office to switch the blind to receive; warm Mexican sunlight burst in and he blinked. The F-a2 went into a state of extreme activity, then, utilizing the sunlight and the water, its metabolic processes stimulated. From habit Flieger watched it at work, but his mind was still on the memo.

Once more he picked up the memo, squeezed it, and it instantly whined, ‘ ... this opportunity presents EME with an acute challenge, Nat. Kongrosian refuses to perform in public but we have a contract through our Berlin affiliate, Art-Cor, and legally we can make Kongrosian record for us ... at least if we can get him to stand still long enough. Eh, Nat?’

‘Yes,’ Nat Flieger said, nodding absently, replying to Leo Dondoldo’s voice.

Why had the famed Soviet pianist acquired a summer home in northern California? That in itself was radical, frowned on by the central government in Warsaw. And if Kongrosian had learned to defy the ukases of the supreme Communist authority he could scarcely be expected to flinch from a showdown with EME; Kongrosian, now in his sixties, was a professional at ignoring the legal ramifications of contemporary social life, either in Communist lands or in the USEA. Like many artists, Kongrosian travelled his own way, somewhere in between the two overpowering social realities.

A certain amount of hucksterism would have to be brought into such a pressing as this. The public had a short memory, as was well known; it would have to be forcibly reminded of Kongrosian’s existence and musical cum Psionic talents. But EME’s publicity department could readily handle it; after all, they had managed to sell many an unknown, and Kongrosian, for all his momentary obscurity, was scarcely that. But I wonder just how good Kongrosian is today, Nat Flieger reflected.

The memo was trying to sell him on that, too. ‘ ... everybody knows that Kongrosian has up until quite recently played before private gatherings,’ the memo declared fervently. ‘For bigwigs in Poland and Cuba and before the Puerto Rican elite in New York. One year ago, in Birmingham, he appeared before fifty Negro millionaires for benefit purposes; the funds raised went to help with Afro Moslem lunar type colonization. I talked to a couple of modern composers who were present at that; they swore that Kongrosian hadn’t lost any of his pizazz. Let’s see ... that was in 2040. He was fifty-two, then. And of course he’s always at the White House, playing for Nicole and that nonentity, der Alte.’

We had better get the F-a2 up there to Jenner and get him down on oxytape, Nat Flieger decided. Because this may be our last chance; artistic Psis like Kongrosian have a reputation for dying early.

He answered the memo. ‘I’ll handle it, Mr Dondoldo. I’ll fly up to Jenner and try to negotiate with him personally.’

That was his decision.

‘Whee,’ the memo exulted. Nat Flieger felt sympathy for it.

The buzzing, super-alert, obnoxiously persistent reporting machine said, ‘Is it true, Dr Egon Superb, that you’re going to try to enter your office today?’

There should have been some way to keep reporting machines out of one’s house, Dr Superb reflected. However, there was not. He said, ‘Yes. As soon as I finish this breakfast which I am eating I will get into my wheel, drive to downtown San Francisco, park in a lot, walk directly to my office on Post Street, where as usual I will give psychotherapy to my first patient of the day. Despite the law, the so-called McPhearson Act.’ He drank his coffee.

‘And you have the support -- ‘

‘The IAPP has fully endorsed my action,’ Dr Superb said.

In fact he had talked to the executive council of the International Association of Practising Psychoanalysts just ten minutes ago. ‘I don’t know why you picked me out to interview. Every member of the IAPP will be in his office this morning.’ And there were over ten thousand members, scattered throughout the USEA, both in North America and in Europe.

The reporting machine purred intimately, ‘Who do you feel is responsible for the passage of the McPhearson Act and der Alte’s willingness to sign it into law?’

‘You know who,’ Dr Superb said, ‘and so do I. Not the army and not Nicole and not even the NP. It’s the great ethical pharmaceutical house, the cartel A.G. Chemie, in Berlin.’ Everyone knew that; it was hardly news. The powerful German cartel had sold the world on the notion of drug-therapy for mental illness; there was a fortune to be made, there. And by corollary, psychoanalysts were quacks, on a par with orgone box and health food healers. It was not like the old days, the previous century, when psychoanalysts had had stature. Dr Superb sighed.

‘Does it cause you anguish,’ the reporting machine said penetratingly, ‘to abandon your profession under external compulsion? Hmm?’

‘Tell your audience,’ Dr Superb said slowly, ‘That we intend to keep on, law or no law. We can help, just as chemical therapy can help. In particular, characterological distortions -- where the entire life-history of the patient is involved.’ He saw now that the reporting machine represented one of the major TV networks; an audience of perhaps fifty million sat in on this interchange. Dr Superb felt suddenly tongue-tied.

After breakfast when he walked outside to his wheel he found a second reporting machine lying in wait for him.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last of the race of the Vienna School of analysts. Perhaps the once distinguished psychoanalyst Dr Superb will say a few words to us.

‘Doctor?’ It rolled towards him, blocking his way. ‘How do you feel, sir?’

Dr Superb said, ‘I feel lousy. Please get out of my way.’

‘Going to his office for the last time,’ the machine declared, as he slipped away, ‘Dr Superb wears the air of a condemned man and yet a man secretly proud in the knowledge that according to his own lights he’s done his job. But time and tide have passed all the Dr Superbs by ... and only the future will know if this is a good thing. Like the practice of bloodletting, psychoanalysis has thrived and then waned and now a new therapy has taken its place.’

Having boarded his wheel, Dr Superb started up the feeder-road and presently he was rolling along the autobahn towards San Francisco, still feeling lousy, dreading what he knew to be inevitable: the clash with the authorities which lay directly ahead.

He was not a young man any more. There was too much spare flesh at his midsection; physically, he was too dumpy, almost middle-aged, to be a participant in these events. And he had a bald spot, which his bathroom mirror took pains to disclose to him each morning. Five years ago he had divorced his third wife, Livia, and had not remarried; his career was his life, his family. So what now? It was indisputable that, as the reporting machine had said, today he went to his office for the last time. Fifty million people in North America and Europe would watch, but would this get him a new vocation, a new transcendental goal to replace the old one? No, it would not.

To cheer himself up he picked up the wheel’s phone receiver and dialled a prayer.

When he had parked and had walked to his Post Street office he found a small crowd of people and several more reporting machines and a handful of blue-uniformed San Francisco police waiting.

‘Morning,’ Dr Superb said to them awkwardly as he ascended the stairs of the building, key in hand. The crowd parted for him. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, letting morning sunlight spill into the long corridor with its prints by Paul Klee and Kandinsky which he and Dr Buckleman had put up seven years ago when together they had decorated this rather old building.

One of the reporting machines declared. ‘The test will come, TV-viewers, when Dr Superb’s first patient of the day arrives.’

The police, at parade rest, waited silently.

Pausing at the doorway before going on into his office, Dr Superb looked back at the people and then said, ‘Nice day.

For October, anyhow.’ He tried to think of something more to say, some heroic phrase which would convey the nobility of his sentiments and position. But nothing came to mind.

Perhaps, he decided, it was because there simply was no nobility involved; he was simply doing what he had done five days a week now for years on end and it did not involve any special courage to keep the routine alive one more time. Of course, he would pay for this donkey-like persistence by being arrested; intellectually he knew that, but his body, his lower nervous system, did not. Somatically, he continued along his path.

Someone in the crowd, a woman, called, ‘We’re with you, doctor. Good luck.’ Several others grinned at him, and a flimsy cheer went up, briefly. The police looked bored. Dr Superb shut the door and went on.

In the front room, at her desk, his receptionist Amanda Conners raised her head and said, ‘Good morning, doctor.’

Her bright red hair glowed, tied by a ribbon, and from her low-cut mohair sweater, her breasts protruded divinely.

‘Morning,’ Dr Superb said, pleased to see her here today, and so well-groomed at that. He handed her his coat, which she hung in the closet. ‘Um, who’s the first patient?’ He lit a mild Florida cigar.

Consulting her book, Amanda said, ‘It’s Mr Rugge, doctor. At nine o’clock. That’ll give you time for a cup of coffee. I’ll fix it.’ She quickly started towards the coffee machine in the corner.

‘You know what’s going to be happening here in a little while,’ Superb said. ‘Don’t you?’

‘Oh yes. But the IAPP will provide bail, won’t it?’ She brought him the small paper cup, carrying it with shaking fingers.

‘I’m afraid this means the end of your job.’

‘Yes.’ Mandy nodded, no longer smiling; her large eyes had become dark. ‘I can’t understand why der Alte didn’t veto that bill; Nicole was against it and so I was sure he would, right up to the last moment. My god, the government’s got that time travel equipment; surely they can go ahead and see the harm this’ll cause -- the impoverishment to our society.’

‘Maybe they did look ahead.’ And he thought, there will be no impoverishment.

The office door opened. There stood the first patient of the day, Mr Gordon Rugge, pale with nervousness.

‘Ah, you came,’ Dr Superb said. In fact, Rugge was early.

‘The bastards,’ Rugge said. He was a tall, lean man, in his mid-thirties, well dressed; professionally he was a broker on Montgomery Street.

Behind Rugge appeared two plainclothes members of the City Police. They fixed their gaze on Dr Superb, waiting.

The reporting machines extended their hose-like receptors, sucking in data rapidly. For an interval no one moved or spoke.

‘Let’s step into my inner office,’ Dr Superb said to Mr Rugge. ‘And pick up where we left off last Friday.’

‘You’re under arrest,’ one of the two plainclothes police said at once. He advanced and handed Dr Superb a folded writ. ‘Come along.’ Taking hold of Superb’s arm he started to lead him towards the door; the other plainclothes man moved to the other side so that they had Superb between them. It was all done neatly, with no fuss.

To Mr Rugge, Dr Superb said, ‘I’m sorry, Gordon. Obviously there’s nothing I can do by way of continuing your therapy.’

‘The rats want me to take drugs,’ Rugge said bitterly. ‘And they know that pills make me sick; they’re toxic to my particular system.’

‘It is interesting,’ one of the reporting machines was murmuring, for the benefit of its TV audience, ‘to observe the loyalty of the analyst’s patient. And yet, why not? This man has placed his faith in psychoanalysis possibly for years.’

‘For six years,’ Rugge said to it. ‘And I’d go six more, if necessary.’

Amanda Conners began to cry silently into her handkerchief.

As Dr Superb, escorted by both the plainclothes men and the uniformed San Francisco police, was led to the waiting patrol car, the crowd once again gave a meagre cheer of encouragement. But for the most part, Superb observed, they were older people. Remnants from earlier times when psychoanalysis was respected; like himself, part of another era entirely. He wished there were a few youths to be seen, but there were not.

At the police station the thin-faced man in the heavy overcoat, smoking the Bela King handmade Philippine cigar, glanced out the window with flat, cold eyes, consulted his watch, then paced restlessly.

He was just putting out his cigar and preparing to light another when he caught sight of the police car. At once he hurried outside on to the loading platform where the police were preparing to begin processing of the individual in question. ‘Doctor,’ he said. ‘I’m Wilder Pembroke. I’d like to talk to you a moment.’ He nodded to the police and they fell back, leaving Dr Superb unhanded. ‘Come inside; I’ve got temporary use of a room on the second floor. This won’t take long.’

‘You’re not one of the City Police,’ Dr Superb said eyeing him acutely. ‘Or perhaps you’re NP.’ He looked uneasy, now. ‘Yes, that must be it.’

Pembroke, as he led the way to the elevator, said, ‘Just consider me an interested party.’ He lowered his voice as a group of police officials passed them. ‘Interested in seeing you back in your office, treating your patients.’

‘You have authority to do that?’ Superb asked.

‘I think so.’ The elevator came and the two of them entered it. ‘It’ll take an hour or so to get you back there, however. Please try to be patient.’ Pembroke lit a fresh cigar.

He did not offer one to Superb.

‘May I ask -- what agency you are with?’

‘I told you.’ Pembroke felt irritable. ‘You’re simply to consider me an interested party; don’t you understand?’ He glared at Superb, and neither of them spoke again until they had reached the second floor. ‘Sorry to be abrupt,’ Pembroke said as they walked down the hall. ‘But I’m very concerned about your arrest. Very disturbed.’ He held the door open, and Superb cautiously entered room 209. ‘Of course, I get disturbed rather readily. It’s my job, more or less. Just as it’s your job not to permit yourself to become emotionally involved.’ He smiled, but Dr Superb did not smile back. Too tense for that, Pembroke observed. Superb’s reaction fitted the profile contained in the dossier.

They seated themselves warily, facing each other.

Pembroke said, ‘There’s a man coming to consult you. Not far from now, going to be a patient of yours. You understand? So we want you to be there; we want your office open so you can accept him and treat him.’

Nodding, his face rigid, Dr Superb said, ‘I -- see.’

‘The rest -- the others you treat -- we don’t care about. Whether they get sicker, get well, pay you a fortune, welsh on their bills -- anything. Just this one individual.’

‘And after he’s treated,’ Superb said, ‘then you’ll shut me down? Like all the other psychoanalysts?’

‘We’ll talk about that then. Not right now.’

‘Who is this man?’

Pembroke said, ‘I’m not going to tell you.’

‘I assume,’ Dr Superb said after a pause, ‘you’ve used von Lessinger’s time travel apparatus to scout out my results with this man.’

‘Yes, ‘Pembroke said.

‘So you have no doubts I will be able to cure him.’

‘On the contrary,’ Pembroke said. ‘You won’t be able to help him; that’s exactly why we want you there. If he obtains chemical therapy he’ll recover his mental balance. And it’s extremely important to us that he remains ill. So you can see, doctor, we need the continued professional existence of a quack, a practising psychoanalyst.’

Carefully Pembroke relit his cigar, which had gone out.

‘So your primary instructions are: turn down no new patients. You understand? However insane -- or rather, however evidently sane.’ He smiled; the doctor’s discomfort amused him.

2

Lights burned late in the great communal apartment building The Abraham Lincoln, as this was All Souls night: the residents, all six hundred of them, were required by their charter to attend, down in the subsurface community hall.

They filed in, men, women and children; at the door Vince Strikerock, businesslike and cool, a good, solid bureaucratic official, operated their new identification reader, checking each of them in turn to be sure that no one from outside, from another communal apartment building, got in. The residents submitted good-naturedly and it all went very fast.

‘Hey Vince, how much’d it set us back?’ asked old Joe Purd, oldest resident in the building; he had moved in with his wife the day the building, in May of 1992, had been built.

His wife was dead now and the children had grown up, married and moved on, but Joe remained.

‘Plenty,’ Vince said quietly, ‘But it’s error-proof. It isn’t merely subjective.’ Up to now, in his permanent job as sergeant of arms, he had admitted people merely by his ability to recognize them. But that way, he had let in a pair of goons from Robin Hill Manor and they had disrupted the entire meeting with their questions and comments. It would not happen again: Vince Strikerock had vowed that, to himself and to his fellow apartment dwellers. And he meant it. Passing out copies of the agenda, Mrs Wells smiled fixedly and chanted, ‘Item 3 A, Appropriation for Roof Repairs, has been moved to 4 A. Please make a note of that.’

The residents accepted their agendas and then divided into two streams flowing to opposite sides of the hall; the liberal faction of the building seated themselves on the right and the conservatives on the left, each conspicuously ignoring the existence of the other. A few uncommitted persons -- new residents or oddballs -- took seats in the rear, self-conscious and silent as the room buzzed with many small conferences.

The tone, the mood of the room, was tolerant, but the residents knew that tonight there was going to be a clash. Presumably, both sides were prepared. Here and there documents, petitions, newspaper clippings rustled as they were read and exchanged, handed back and forth.

On the platform, seated at the table with the four building trustees, chairman Donald Tishman felt sick at his stomach.

A peaceful man, he shrank from these violent squabbles.

Even seated in the audience he found it too much for him, and here tonight he would have to take active part; time and tide had rotated the chair around to him, as it did to each resident in turn, and of course it would be the night the school issue reached its climax.

The room had almost filled and now Patrick Doyle, the current building skypilot, looking none too happy in his long white robe, raised his hands for silence. ‘The opening prayer,’ he called huskily, cleared his throat and brought forth a small card. ‘Everyone please shut your eyes and bow your head.’ He glanced at Tishman and the trustees, and Tishman nodded for him to continue. ‘Heavenly father,’ Doyle read, ‘we the residents of the communal apartment building Abraham Lincoln beseech you to bless our assembly tonight. Um, we ask that in your mercy you enable us to raise the funds for the roof repairs which seem imperative. We ask that our sick be healed and that in processing applicants wishing to live amongst us we show wisdom in whom we admit and who we turn away. We further ask that no outsiders get in and disrupt our law-abiding, orderly lives and we ask in particular that lastly, if it be thy will, that Nicole Thibodeaux be free of her sinus headaches which have caused her not to appear before us on TV lately, and that those headaches not have anything to do with that time two years ago, which we recall, when that stagehand allowed that weight to fall and strike her on the head, sending her to the hospital for several days. Anyhow, amen.’

The audience agreed, ‘Amen.’

Rising from his chair, Tishman said, ‘Now, before the business of the meeting, we’ll have a few rewarding minutes of our own talent display for our enjoyment. First, the three Fetersmoeller girls from apartment number 205. They will do a soft-shoe dance to the tune of “I’ll Build a Stairway to the Stars.” ‘ He reseated himself, and on to the stage came the three little blonde-haired children, familiar to the audience from talent shows in the past.

As the Fetersmoeller girls, in their striped pants and glittery silver jackets, shuffled smilingly through the dance, the door to the outside corridor opened and a latecomer, Edgar Stone, appeared.

He was late, this evening, because he had been grading test papers of his next-door neighbour, Mr Ian Duncan, and as he stood in the doorway his mind was still on the test and the poor showing which Duncan -- whom he barely knew had made. It seemed to him that without even having finished the grading of the test he could see that Duncan had failed.

On the stage the Fetersmoeller girls sang in their scratchy voices, and Stone wondered why he had come. Perhaps for no more reason than to avert a fine, it being mandatory for the residents to be here tonight. These amateur talent shows, put on so frequently, meant nothing to him; he recalled the old days when the TV set had carried entertainment, good shows put on by professionals. Now of course all the professionals who were any good were under contract to the White House, and the TV had become educational, not entertaining. Mr Stone thought of the glorious old golden age, long since gone, of great old movie comics such as Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, and then he looked once more at the Fettersmoeller sisters and groaned.

Vince Strikerock, ever on duty, hearing him, glanced at him severely.

At least he had missed the prayer. He presented his identification to Vince’s expensive new machine and it allowed him to pass -- lucky break! -- down the aisle towards a vacant seat. Was Nicole watching this, tonight? Was a talent scout present somewhere in the audience? He saw no unfamiliar faces. The Fetersmoeller girls were wasting their time. Seating himself, he closed his eyes and listened, unable to endure watching. They’ll never make it, he thought.

They’ll have to face it, and so will their ambitious parents, they’re untalented, like the rest of us ... The Abraham Lincoln has added little to the cultural store of the USEA, despite its sweaty, strenuous determination, and you are not going to be able to alter that.

The hopelessness of the Fetersmoeller girls’ position made him remember once more the test papers which Ian Duncan, trembling and waxen-faced, had pressed into his hands early that morning. If Duncan failed he would be even worse off than the Fetersmoeller girls because he would not even be living at The Abraham Lincoln; he would drop out of sight -- their sight, anyhow -- and would revert to a despised and ancient status: he would, in all probability, unless gifted with some special skills, find himself once more in a dorm, working on a manual gang as they all had done back in their teens.

Of course he would also be refunded the money which he had paid for his apartment, a large sum which represented the man’s sole major investment in life. From one standpoint, Stone envied him. What would I do, he asked himself as he sat, eyes closed, if I had my equity back right now, in a lump sum? Perhaps, he thought, I’d emigrate. Buy one of those cheap, illegal jalopies they peddle at those lots which -- Clapping hands roused him. The girls had finished, and he, too, joined in the applause. On the platform, Tishman waved for silence. ‘Okay, folks, I know you enjoyed that, but there’s lots more in store, tonight. And then there’s the business part of the meeting; we mustn’t forget that.’ He grinned at them.

Yes, Stone thought. The ‘beezness’. And he felt tense, because he was one of the radicals at The Abraham Lincoln who wanted to abolish the building’s grammar school and send their children to a public grammar school where they would be exposed to children from other buildings entirely.

It was the kind of idea which met much opposition. And yet, in the last weeks, it had gained support. Perhaps they were entering an odd and unusual time. In any case, what a broadening experience it would be; their children would discover that people in other apartment buildings were no different from themselves. Barriers between people of all apartments would be torn down and a new understanding would come about.

At least, that was how it struck Stone, but the conservatives did not see it that way. Too soon, they said, for such mixing. There would be outbreaks of fights as the children clashed over which building was supreme. In time it would happen ... but not now, not so soon.

Risking the severe fine, small, grey, nervous Mr Ian Duncan missed the assembly and remained in his apartment that evening, studying official Government texts on the political history of the United States of Europe and America. He was weak in that, he knew; he could barely comprehend the economic factors, let alone all the relpol ideologies that had come and gone during the twentieth century, directly contributing to the present situation. For instance, the rise of the Democratic-Republican Party. Once it had been two parties (or was it three?) which had engaged in wasteful quarrels, in struggles for power, just the way buildings fought now. The two -- or three -- parties had merged, about 1985, just before Germany entered the USEA. Now there was just the one party, which had ruled a stable and peaceful society, and everyone, by law, belonged to it. Everyone paid dues and attended meetings and voted, each four years, for a new der Alte -- for the man they thought Nicole would like best.

It was nice to know that they, the people, had the power to decide who would become Nicole’s husband, each four years; in a sense it gave to the electorate supreme power, even above Nicole herself. For instance, this latest man, Rudolf Kalbfleisch. Relations between this der Alte and the First Lady were quite cool, indicating that she did not like this most recent choice very much. But of course being a lady she would never let on.

When did the position of First Lady begin to assume stature greater than that of President? The text inquired. In other words, when did our society become matriarchal, Ian Duncan said to himself. Around about 1990; I know the answer to that. There were glimmerings before that -- the change came gradually. Each year der Alte became more obscure, the First Lady became better known, more liked, by the public which brought it about. Was it a need for mother, wife, mistress, or perhaps all three? Anyhow they got what they wanted; they got Nicole and she is certainly all three and more besides.

In the corner of his living room the television set said taaaaanggg, indicating that it was about to come on. With a sigh, Duncan closed the official relpol textbook and turned his attention to the screen. A special, dealing with activities at the White House, he speculated. Another tour, perhaps, or a thorough scrutiny (in massively-detailed depth) about a new hobby or passion of Nicole’s. Has she taken up collecting bone-china cups? If so, we will have to view each and every damn cup.

Sure enough, the round, heavy, wattled features of Maxwell W. Jamison, the White House News Secretary, appeared on the screen. ‘Evening, people of this land of ours,’ he said solemnly. ‘Have you ever wondered what it would be like to descend to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean? Nicole has, and to answer that question she has assembled here in the Tulip Room of the White House three of the world’s foremost oceanographers. Tonight she will ask them for their stories, and you will hear them too, as they were taped live, just a short while ago through the facilities of the Unified Triadic Network’s Public Affairs Bureau.’

And now to the White House, Duncan said to himself. At least vicariously. We who can’t find our way there, who have not talents which might interest the First Lady even for one evening: we get to see in anyhow, through the carefully-regulated window of our television set.

Tonight he did not really want to watch, but it seemed expedient to do so; there might be a surprise quiz on the programme, at the end. And a good grade on a surprise quiz might well offset the bad grade he had surely made on the recent relpol test, now being corrected by his neighbour, Mr Edgar Stone.

On the screen bloomed now the lovely tranquil features, the pale skin and dark, intelligent eyes, the wise and yet pert face of the woman who had come to monopolize their attention, on whom an entire nation, almost an entire planet, dwelt obsessively. At the sight of her, Ian Duncan felt sick with fear. He had failed her; his rotten test results were somehow known to her and although she would say nothing, the disappointment was there.

‘Good evening,’ Nicole said in her soft, slightly husky voice.

‘It’s this way,’ Duncan found himself mumbling. ‘I don’t have a head for abstractions; I mean, all this religio-political philosophy -- it makes no sense to me. Couldn’t I just concentrate on concrete reality? I ought to be baking bricks or turning out shoes.’ I ought to be on Mars, he thought, on the frontier.

I’m flunking out here; at thirty-five I’m washed up, and she knows it.

Let me go Nicole, he thought in desperation. Don’t give me any more tests, because I don’t have a chance of passing them. Even this programme about the ocean’s bottom; by the time it’s over I’ll have forgotten all the data. I’m no use to the Democratic-Republican Party.

He thought about his former buddy Al, then. Al could help me. Al worked for Loony Luke, at one of his Jalopy Jungles peddling the little tin and cardboard ships that even defeated People could afford, ships that could, if luck was with them, successfully make a one-way trip to Mars. Al, he said to himself, could get me a jalopy wholesale.

On the TV screen, Nicole was saying, ‘And really, it is a world of much enchantment, with luminous entities far surpassing in variety and in sheer delightful wonder anything found on other planets. Scientists compute that there are more forms of life in the ocean -- ‘

Her face faded, and a sequence showing unnatural, grotesque fish took its place. This is part of the deliberate propaganda line, Duncan realized. An effort to take our minds off Mars and the idea of getting away from the Party -- and from her. On the screen a bulbous-eyed fish gaped at him, and his attention, despite himself, was captured. Jeez, he thought, it is a weird world down there. Nicole, he thought, you’ve got me trapped. If only Al and I had succeeded; we might be performing right now for you, and we’d be happy. While you interviewed world-famous oceanographers Al and I would be discreetly playing in the background, perhaps one of the Bach ‘Two Part Inventions’.

Going to the closet of his apartment, Ian Duncan bent down and carefully lifted a cloth-wrapped object into the light. We had so much youthful faith in this, he recalled.

Tenderly, he unwrapped the jug; then, taking a deep breath, he blew a couple of hollow notes on it. Duncan & Miller and Their Two-man Jug Band, he and Al Miller had been, playing their own arrangement for two jugs of Bach and Mozart and Stravinsky. But the White House talent scout -- the skunk. He had never even given them a fair audition. It had been done, he told them. Jesse Pigg, the fabulous jug-artist from Alabama, had got to the White House first, entertaining and delighting the dozen and one members of the Thibodeaux family gathered there with his version of ‘Derby Ram’ and ‘John Henry’ and the like.

‘But,’ Ian Duncan had protested, ‘this is classical jug. We play late Beethoven sonatas.’

‘We’ll call you,’ the talent scout had said briskly. ‘If Nicky shows an interest at any time in the future.’

Nicky! He had blanched. Imagine being that intimate to the First Family. He and Al, mumbling pointlessly, had retired from the stage and their jugs, making way for the next act, a group of dogs dressed up in Elizabethan costumes portraying characters from Hamlet.

The dogs had not made it, either, but that was little consolation.

‘I am told,’ Nicole was saying, ‘that there is so little light in the ocean depths that, well, observe this strange fellow.’ A fish, sporting a glowing lantern before him, swam across the TV screen.

Startling him, there came a knock on the apartment door.

With caution, LAN Duncan answered it. He found his neighbour Mr Stone standing there, looking nervous.

‘You weren’t at All Souls?’ Edgar Stone said. ‘Won’t they check and find out?’ He held in his hands Ian Duncan’s corrected test.

Duncan said, ‘Tell me how I did.’ He prepared himself.

Entering the apartment, Stone shut the door after him. He glanced at the TV set, saw Nicole seated with the oceanographers, listened for a moment to her, then abruptly said in a hoarse voice, ‘You did fine.’ He held out the test.

‘I passed?’

Duncan could not believe it. He accepted the papers, examining them with incredulity. And then he understood what had happened.

Stone had conspired to see that he passed. He had falsified the score, probably out of humanitarian motives. Duncan raised his head and they looked at each other, neither speaking. This is terrible, Duncan thought. What’ll I do now? His reaction amazed him, but there it was.

I wanted to fail, he realized. Why? So I can get out of here, so I would have an excuse to give up all this, my apartment and my job, say fork it and go. Emigrate with nothing more than the shirt on my back, in a jalopy that falls to pieces the moment it comes to rest in the Martian wilderness.

‘Thanks,’ he said glumly.

In a rapid voice, Stone said, ‘Y-you can do the same for me sometime.’

‘Oh yeah, be happy to,’ Duncan said.

Scuttling back out of the apartment, Stone left him alone with the TV set, his jug and the falsely corrected test papers, and his thoughts.

3

One would have to go back to the year 1994, the year that West Germany entered the Union as the fifty-third of the United States, to understand why Vince Strikerock, an American citizen and an inhabitant of The Abraham Lincoln Apartments, was listening to der Alte on the television set while he shaved, the next morning. There was something about this particular der Alte, President Rudi Kalbfleisch, which always irritated him, and it would be a great thing when Kalbfleisch, in two more years, reached the end of his term and had, by law, to retire. It was always a great thing, a good day, when the law got one of them out of office; Vince always found it worth celebrating.

None the less, Vince felt, it was best to do all that was possible with the old man while he remained in office, and so he put down his razor and went into the living room to fiddle with the knobs of the TV set. He adjusted the n, the r and b knobs, and hopefully anticipated a turn for the better in the dire droning on of the speech ... however, no change took place. Too many other viewers had their own ideas as to what the old man ought to be saying, Vince realized. In fact there were probably enough other people in this one apartment building alone to offset any pressures he might try to exert on the old man through his particular set. But anyhow that was democracy. Vince sighed. This was what they had wanted: a government receptive to what the people said. He returned to the bathroom and continued shaving.

‘Hey Julie!’ he called to his wife. ‘Is breakfast about ready?’ He heard no sound of her stirring about in the kitchen of the apartment. And come to think of it, he hadn’t noticed her beside him in bed as he had groggily got up this morning.

All at once he remembered. Last night after All Souls he and Julie, after a particularly bitter fight, had got divorced, had gone down to the building’s M & D Commissioner and filled out the D papers. Julie had packed her things then and there; he was alone in the apartment -- no one was fixing his breakfast and unless he got busy he would miss it entirely.

It was a shock, because this particular marriage had endured for six entire months and he had become thoroughly used to seeing her in the mornings. She knew just how he liked his eggs (cooked with a small amount of Mild Munster cheese). Damn the new permissive divorce legislation that old President Kalbfleisch had ushered in! Damn Kalbfleisch in general; why didn’t the old man turn over and die some afternoon during his famous two o’clock nap? But then of course another der Alte would simply take his place. And even the old man’s death wouldn’t bring Julie back; that lay outside the area of USEA bureaucracy, vast as it was.

Savagely, he went to the TV set and pressed the s knob; if enough citizens pushed it, the old man would stop entirely the stop knob meant total cessation of the mumbling speech.

Vince waited, but the speech went on.

And then it struck him as odd that there should be a speech so early in the morning; after all, it was only eight a.m. Perhaps the entire lunar colony had gone up in a single titanic explosion of its fuel depot. The old man would be telling them that more belt-tightening was required, in order to restock the space programme; these and other quaint calamities had to be expected. Or perhaps at last some authentic remains of a sentient race had been unearthed -- or was the term unmarsed? -- on the fourth planet, hopefully not in the French area but in, as der Alte liked to phrase it, ‘one’s own’. You Prussian bastards, Vince thought. We never should have admitted you into what I like to phrase as ‘our tent’, our federal union, which should have been confined to the Western Hemisphere. But the world has shrunk. When you are founding a colony millions of miles away on another moon or planet, the three thousand miles separating New York from Berlin did not seem meaningful. And god knew the Germans in Berlin were willing.

Picking up the telephone, Vince called the manager of the apartment building. ‘My wife Julie -- I mean my ex-wife did she take another apartment last night?’ If he could locate her he could perhaps have breakfast with her and that would be cheering. He listened hopefully.

‘No, Mr Strikerock.’ A pause. ‘Not according to our records.’

Aw hell, Vince thought, and hung up.

What was marriage, anyhow? An arrangement of sharing things, such as right now being able to discuss the meaning of der Alte giving an eight a.m. speech and getting someone else -- his wife -- to fix breakfast while he prepared to go to his job at Karp u. Sohnen Werke’s Detroit branch. Yes, it meant an arrangement in which one could get another person to do certain things one didn’t like to do, such as cooking meals; he hated having to eat food which he had prepared himself. Single, he would eat at the building’s cafeteria; he foresaw that, based on past experience. Mary, Jean, Laura, now Julie; four marriages and the last the shortest.

He was going downhill. Maybe, god forbid, he was a latent queer.

On the TV, der Alte uttered, ‘ ... and paramilitary activity recalls the Days of Barbarism and hence is doubly to be renounced.’

Days of Barbarism -- that was the sweet-talk for the Nazi Period of the middle part of the previous century, now gone nearly a century but still vividly, if distortedly, recalled. So der Alte had taken to the airwaves to denounce the Sons of Job, the latest nut organization of a quasi-religious nature flapping about in the streets, proclaiming a purification of national ethnic life, etc., or whatever it was they proclaimed.

In other words, stiff legislation to bar persons from public life who were odd -- those born specially, due to the years of radiation fall-out from bomb testing, in particular from the vicious People’s China blasts.

That would mean Julie, Vince conjectured, since she’s sterile. Because she could not bear children she would not be permitted to vote ... a rather neurotic connective, logically possible only in the minds of a Central European people such as the Germans. The tail that wags the dog, he said to himself as he dried his face. We in Nord Amerika are the dog; the Reich is the tail. What a life. Maybe I ought to emigrate to colonial reality, live under a faint, fitful, pale-yellow sun where even things with eight legs and a stinger get to vote ... no Sons of Job, there. Not that all the special people were that special, but a good many of them had seen fit -- and for good reason -- to emigrate. As had quite a number of quite unspecial folk who were simply tired of the overpopulated, bureaucratically-controlled life on Terra these days, whether in the USEA, in the French Empire, or in People’s Asia, or Free -- that is, black -- Africa.

In the kitchen he fixed himself bacon and eggs. And, while the bacon cooked, he fed the sole pet allowed him in the apartment building: George III, his small green turtle.

George III ate dried flies (twenty-five per cent protein, more nourishing than human food), hamburger, and ant eggs, a breakfast which caused Vince Strikerock to ponder on the axiom de gustibus non disputandum est there’s no accounting for other people’s tastes, especially at eight in the morning.

Even as recently as five years ago he could have possessed a pet bird in The Abraham Lincoln, but that was now ruled out. Too noisy, really. Building Rule s205; thou shalt not whistle, sing, tweet or chirp. A turtle was mute -- as was a giraffe, but giraffes were verboten, too, along with the quondam friends of man, the dog and cat, the companions which had vanished back in the days of der Alte Frederich Hempel, whom Vince barely remembered. So it could not have been the quality of muteness, and he was left, as so often before, merely to guess at the reasoning of the Party bureaucracy. He could not genuinely fathom its motives, and in a sense for that he was glad. It proved that he was not spiritually a part of it.

On the TV the withered, elongated, near-senile face had vanished and a moment of music, a purely audible event, had replaced it. Percy Grainger, a tune called ‘Handel in the Strand’, as banal as could be ... just the appropriate postscript to what had come before, Vince reflected. He clicked his heels abruptly, came to attention, in a parody of Germanic military stiffness, chin up, arms rigid, as the melody tinkled from the speaker of the TV set; Vince Strikerock at attention to this child’s music which the authorities, the so-called Ges, saw fit to play. Heil, Vince said to himself, and raised his arm in the ancient Nazi salute.

The music tinkled on.

Vince turned to another channel.

And there, on the screen, a hounded-looking man fleetingly appeared in the midst of a crowd which seemed to be cheering him; the man, with what were obviously police on both sides of him, disappeared into a parked vehicle. At the same time the newscaster declared, ‘ ... and, just as in hundreds of other cities across the USEA, Dr Jack Dowling, leading psychiatrist of the Vienna School here in Bonn, is taken into custody as he protests the newly-signed-into-law bill, the McPhearson Act ... ‘

On the screen the vehicle, a marked police car, zipped away.

A hell of a note, Vince thought glumly. Sign of the times; more repressive, scared legislation by the establishment. So who am I going to get help from if Julie’s departure causes me to break down mentally? As well it might. I’ve never consulted an analyst -- I’ve never needed to in my entire life.

But this ... nothing like this, precisely this bad, has ever happened to me. Julie, he thought, where are you? Now, on the TV screen, the scene changed, and yet it remained the same. Vince Strikerock saw a new crowd, different police, another psychoanalyst being led off; another protesting soul taken into custody.

‘It is interesting,’ the TV set murmured, ‘to observe the loyalty of the analyst’s patient. And yet, why not? This man has placed his faith in psychoanalysis possibly for years.’

And where did it get him? Vince wondered.

Julie, he said to himself, if you’re with someone, some other man right now, there’s going to be trouble. Either I’ll drop dead -- either it will kill me outright -- or I’m going to give it to you and that individual, whoever he is. Even if, especially if, he’s a friend of mine.

I’m going to get you back, he decided. My relationship with you is unique, not like that with Mary, Jean and Laura.

I love you; that’s it. My god, he thought, I’m in love! And in this day and age. Incredible. If I told her, if she knew, she’d laugh her head off. That’s Julie.

I should go to an analyst, he realized, for being in a state like this, for being totally psychologically dependent on a cold, selfish creature like Julie for existence itself. Hell, its unnatural. And -- it’s folly.

Could Dr Jack Dowling, leading psychiatrist of the Vienna School in Bonn, Germany, cure me? Free me? Or this other man they’re showing, this -- he listened to the newscaster, who droned on as the police vehicle drove away -- Egon Superb. He had looked like an intelligent, sympathetic person, gifted with the balm of empathetic understanding. Listen, Egon Superb, Vince thought, I’m in deep trouble; my tiny world collapsed this morning when I woke up. I need a woman whom I’ll probably never see again.

A.G. Chemie’s drugs can’t help me with this ... except, perhaps, a mortal overdose. And that’s not the sort of help I’m after.

Maybe I should roust out my brother Chic and both of us join the Sons of Job, he thought abruptly. Chic and I swear fealty to Bertold Goltz. Others have done so, other malcontents, others who have dismally failed, either in their private lives -- as I have -- or in business or in their social ascent from Be to Ge.

Chic and I Sons of Job, Vince Strikerock thought eerily.

In bizarre uniform, parading down the street. Being jeered at. And yet believing -- in what? In ultimate victory? In Goltz, who looks like a movie version of a Rattenfanger, a rat-catcher? He cringed from the notion; it frightened him.

And still the idea remained lodged in his mind.

In his apartment on the top of The Abraham Lincoln Apartments, thin, balding Chic Strikerock, Vince’s older brother, awoke and peered nearsightedly at the clock to see if one could manage to remain in bed a bit longer. But the excuse was not valid; the clock read eight-fifteen. Time to get up ... a news machine, noisily vending its wares outside the building, had awakened him, fortunately. And then Chic discovered to his shock that someone was in bed with him; he opened his eyes fully and made himself rigid as he inspected the covered outline of what he saw at once, from the tumble of brown hair, was a young woman, and one familiar (that was a relief -- or was it?) to him. Julie! His sister-in-law, his brother Vince’s wife. Good grief. Chic sat up.

Let’s see, he said to himself rapidly. Last night -- what did go on here after All Souls, anyhow? Julie appeared, didn’t she, distraught, with one suitcase and two coats and telling a disjointed story which boiled down to a simple fact, at last; she had broken up with Vince legally; she no longer had any official relationship to him and was free to come and go as she pleased. So here she was. Why? That part he couldn’t remember; he had always liked Julie but -- it did not explain this; what she had done concerned her own secret, inner world of values and attitudes, not his, not anything that was objective, real.

Anyhow, here Julie was, still sound asleep, too, here physically but withdrawn into herself, curled up, retracted mollusc-like, which was just as well, because for him it all seemed incestuous, despite the clarity of the law in this variety of matter. She, to him, was more like family. He had never looked in her direction. But last night, after a few drinks -- that was it; he could not drink any more. Or rather he could, and when he did he underwent a rapid change for what at the time seemed like the better; he became outgoing, adventurous, extroverted, instead of morose and taciturn.

But here was a consequence. Look what he got involved in, here.

And yet on a very deep, private level he didn’t object as much as all that. It was a compliment to him, her showing up here.

But it would be awkward, the next time he ran into Vince checking everyone’s ID at the front door. Because Vince would want to discuss it on a profound, meaningful, sombre basis, with much intellectual hot air wasted in analysing basic motives. What was Julie’s real purpose for leaving him and moving in here? Why? Ontological questions, such as Aristotle would have appreciated, teleological issues having to do with what they had once called ‘final causes’. Vince was out of step with the times; this had all become null and void.

I had better call my boss, Chic decided, and tell him -- ask him if -- I can be late today. Should settle this with Julie; what’s up, and so forth. How long is she staying and is she going to help pay expenses. Basic unphilosophical questions of practical nature.

He fixed coffee in the kitchen, sat sipping, in his pyjamas.

Turning on the phone he punched his boss’s number, Maury Frauenzimmer; the screen turned pale grey, then white, then cloudy as an out-of-focus portion of Maury’s anatomy formed. Maury was shaving. ‘Yeah, Chic?’

‘Hey,’ Chic said, and heard it sound forth proudly. ‘I got a girl here, Maury, so I’ll be late.’

It was male-to-male business. Did not matter who the girl was; no need to go into that. Maury did not bother to ask; he showed on his face the involuntary, genuine admiration, then censure. But -- the admiration came first! Chic grinned; the censure did not bother him.

‘Goddam you,’ Maury said, ‘you better get into the office by no later than nine.’ His tone said: I wish I were you. I envy you, damn you.

‘Aw,’ Chic said, ‘I’ll be in, soon as I can.’ He glanced towards the bedroom and Julie. She was sitting up. Perhaps Maury saw her. Perhaps not. In any case it was time to conclude the conversation. ‘So long Maury, old man,’ Chic said. And rang off.

‘Who was that? Julie said sleepily. ‘Was that Vince?’

‘No. My boss.’ Chic put on the coffee water for her.

‘Hi,’ he said, walking back into the bedroom and seating himself on the bed beside her. ‘How are you?’

‘I forgot my comb,’ Julie said, pragmatically.

‘I’ll buy you one from the hall dispenser.’

‘Those measly little plastic things.’

‘Um,’ he said, feeling fond of her, feeling sentimental. The situation, she in bed, he sitting beside her in his pyjamas -- it was a bittersweet situation, reminding him of his own previous last marriage of four months ago. ‘Hi,’ he said, patting her on the thigh.

‘Aw god,’ Julie said. ‘I wish I was dead.’ She did not say it accusingly, as if it was his fault, or even as if she meant it passionately; it was as if she were resuming a conversation from the night before. ‘What is the purpose of it all, Chic?’ she said. ‘I like Vince, but he’s so goofy; he’ll never grow up and really bear down at the business of living. He’s always playing his games of being the embodiment of modern organized social life, the estab-man, pure and simple, whereas actually he’s not. But he’s young.’ She sighed. It was a sigh that chilled Chic because it was a cold, cruel, utterly dismissing sigh. She was writing off another human being, severing herself from Vince with as little spilled emotion as if she had returned a book borrowed from the building’s library.

Good grief, Chic thought, this man was your husband.

You were in love with him. You slept with him, lived with him, knew all there was to know about him -- in fact knew him better than I can, and he’s been my brother for longer than you’ve been alive. Women down underneath, he thought, are tough. Terribly tough.

‘I, uh, have to get to work,’ Chic said, nervously.

‘Is that coffee you have on for me, in there?’

‘Oh yeah. Sure!’

‘Bring it here, then, will you, Chic?’

He went to get the coffee, while she dressed.

‘Did old Kalbfleisch make his speech this morning?’ Julie asked.

‘I dunno.’ It hadn’t occurred to him to turn on the TV, although he had read in the paper last night that the speech was due. He didn’t give a damn what the old man had to say, about anything.

‘Do you really have to trot off to your little company and go to work?’ She eyed him steadily and he saw, for what perhaps was the first time in his life, that she had lovely natural colour in her eyes, a polished slab texture of rock-smoothness and brilliance that needed the natural daylight for it to be brought out. She had, too, an odd, square jaw and a slightly large mouth with a tendency to turn down, tragedy-mask like, with her lips unnaturally red and lush, drawing attention away from her rather drably-coloured hair. She had a nice figure, rounded, pleasant, and she dressed well; that is, she looked splendid in whatever she wore. Clothes seemed to fit her, even mass-produced cotton dresses that other women would have difficulty with. Now she stood wearing the same olive-coloured dress with round black buttons which she had worn the night before, a cheap dress, really, and yet in it she looked elegant; there was no other word for it. She had an aristocratic carriage and bone-structure. It showed her jaw, her nose, her excellent teeth. She was not German but she was Nordic, perhaps Swedish or Danish. He thought, as he glanced at her, that she looked fine.

It seemed to him certain that she would hold together well over the years, not deteriorate; she seemed to be unbreakable. He could not imagine her getting sloppy or fat or dull.

‘I’m hungry,’ Julie said.

‘You mean you want me to fix breakfast.’ He perceived that; no doubt, there.

‘I’ve fixed all the breakfasts I’m going to fix for any man, you or your dumb kid brother,’ Julie said.

Again he experienced fear. She was being too harsh, too soon; he knew her, knew she was this way -- but couldn’t it be glossed over, at least for a while? Was she going to bring to him whatever her last mood with Vince had been? Wasn’t there going to be a honeymoon? I think I’m in trouble, he thought to himself. I’ve got hold of just too much here; I’m not up to it. God, maybe she’ll move on; I hope so. It was a childish hope, very regressive, not grown-up, masculine. No real man ever felt this way, he realized that.

‘I’ll fix breakfast,’ he said, and went into the kitchen to do so. Julie stood at the bedroom mirror, combing her hair.

Curtly, in his usual brisk tone, Garth McRae said, ‘Shut it off.’ The Kalbfleisch simulacrum stopped. Its arms struck out rigid in their final gesture, the withered face vacuous. The simulacrum said nothing and automatically the TV cameras also shut off, one by one; there was no longer anything for them to transmit, and the technicians behind them, all of them Ges, knew it. They looked to Garth McRae.

‘We got the message across,’ McRae informed Anton Karp.

‘Well done,’ Karp said. ‘This Bertold Goltz, this Sons of Job man, makes me nervous; I think the speech here now this morning will dispel a little of that, my legitimate fear.’

He glanced timidly at McRae for confirmation, as did the others in the control room, the simulacrum engineers from the Karp Werke.

‘This is only the start,’ McRae said presently.

‘True,’ Karp agreed, nodding. ‘But a good start.’ Walking up to the Kalbfleisch simulacrum he touched it gingerly on the shoulder, as if expecting it, prodded, to resume its activity. It did not.

McRae laughed.

‘I wish,’ Anton Karp said, ‘that it had mentioned Adolf Hitler; you know, comparing the Sons of Job to the Nazis more directly, comparing Goltz to Hitler.’

‘But,’ McRae said, ‘that would not have helped. True as it may be. You’re not authentically a political person, Karp; what gives you the idea that ‘the truth’ is the best story to stick to? If we want to stop Bertold Goltz we don’t want to identify him as another Hitler simply because in their secret hearts fifty-one per cent of the local population would like to see another Hitler.’ He smiled at Karp, who looked worried, who looked, in fact, tremulous and apprehensive.

‘What I want to know,’ Karp said, ‘is this: is Kalbfleisch going to be able to handle the Sons of Job? You have von Lessinger equipment; tell me.’

‘No,’ McRae said. ‘He won’t be able to.’

Karp gaped at him.

‘But,’ McRae said, ‘Kalbfleisch is going to go. Soon. Within the next month.’ He did not say what Karp at once wanted him to say, what Anton and Felix Karp and the entire Karp Werke instinctively inquired into as a first reflex, an immediate query of primary magnitude.

Will we build the next simulacrum? Karp would have asked, had he dared, but he was afraid to speak. Karp was, as McRae knew, a coward. His integrity had long ago been emasculated in order that he be capable of functioning properly within the German business community; spiritual -- moral emasculation was a present day prerequisite for participation in the Ge class, in the ruling circles.

I could tell him, McRae thought. Ease his pain. But why? He did not like Karp, who had built and now maintained the simulacrum, kept it functioning as it had to function -- without even a trace of hesitation. Any failure would have betrayed to the Bes the secret, the Geheimnis, which distinguished the elite, the establishment of the United States of Europe and America; their possession of the one or more secrets made them into Geheimnistrager, bearers of the secret, rather than Befehltrager, mere carry-outer of instructions.

But all this to McRae was Germanic mysticism; he preferred to think of it in simple practical terms. Karp u.

Sohnen Werke was capable of building simulacra, had as an example built Kalbfleisch and done a good job of it, as well as a good job of maintaining this der Alte during his reign. However, another firm would construct the next der Alte equally well, and by eradicating the economic ties with Karp, the government cut the vast cartel out of participation in the economic privileges which it now enjoyed ... to the government’s loss.

The next firm which built a simulacrum for the government of the USEA would be a small firm, one which the authorities could control.

The name which came to McRae’s mind was Frauenzimmer Associates, an extremely small, marginal firm barely surviving in the field of sun-con: simulacra construction for planetary colonization.

He did not tell Anton Karp this, but he intended to open business discussions with Maurice Frauenzimmer, the head of the firm, any day now. And it would surprise Frauenzimmer, too; he did not know either.

Karp said thoughtfully, eyeing McRae, ‘What do you think Nicole will say?’

Smiling, McRae said, ‘I think she’ll be glad. She never really liked old Rudi.’

‘I thought she did.’ Karp looked chagrined.

‘The First Lady,’ McRae said acidly, ‘has never liked a der Alte yet. Why should she? After all ... she’s twenty-three and Kalbfleisch was, according to our informational poop-sheets, seventy-eight.’

Karp bleated, ‘But what does she have to do with him? Nothing. Just appear at a reception very seldom, just every now and then!’

‘I think that Nicole in general detests the old, the outworn, the useless,’ McRae said, not sparing Anton Karp; he saw the middle-aged businessman wince. ‘That is a good shorthand description of your chief product,’ he added.

‘But the specifications -- ‘

‘You could have made it a trifle more -- ‘ McRae searched for the word, ‘fascinating.’

‘Enough,’ Karp said, flushing, knowing now that McRae was merely tormenting him, that all this was simply to drive home the point that as large and powerful as it was, Karp u. Sohnen Werke was a servant, only an employee, of the government; it did not really influence it, and even McRae, who was simply an Assistant Secretary of State, could take a stand of this sort with impunity.

‘If you ran things once more,’ McRae drawled reflectively, ‘how would you alter matters? Go back to hiring concentration camp victims, as Krupp did during the twentieth century? Perhaps you could obtain and use von Lessinger equipment for that ... letting them die even faster, as your employees, than they died at Belsen-Belsen -- ‘

Karp turned and strode off. He was trembling.

Grinning, McRae lit a cigar. An American, not a German-Dutch, variety.

4

EME’s top recording technician watched in amazement as Nat Flieger carried the Ampek F-a2 to the ‘copter. ‘You’re going to catch him on that?’

Jim Planck groaned. ‘My god, the F-a2 was obsolete last year!’

‘If you can’t operate it -- ‘ Nat said.

‘I can,’ Planck muttered. ‘I’ve run wormies before; I just feel that -- ‘ He gestured in dismay. ‘I suppose you’re using an old-tune carbon type mike along with it.’

‘Hardly,’ Nat said. Good-naturedly, he spalled Planck on the back; he had known him for years and was used to him.

‘Don’t worry. We’ll get along fine.’

‘Listen,’ Planck said in a low voice, glancing around. ‘It is really a fact that Leo’s daughter is coming with us on this trip?’

‘It’s really a fact.’

‘That Molly Dondoldo always meant complications -- you know what I refer to? Naw, you don’t. Nat, I don’t have any idea what your relationship to Molly is these days, but -- ‘

‘You worry about recording Richard Kongrosian,’ Nat said shortly.

‘Sure, sure.’ Planck shrugged. ‘It’s your life and job and your project, Nat; I’m just a wage-slave, doing what you tell me.’ He ran a nervous, shaky hand through his thinning, slightly shiny black hair. ‘Are we ready to go?’

Molly had already got into the ‘copter; she sat reading a book, ignoring the two of them. She wore a brightly coloured cotton blouse and shorts and Nat thought to himself how inappropriate her dress would be for the rain-drenched forests into which they were going. Such a radically different climate; he wondered if Molly had ever been north before. The Oregon-Northern California region had lost much of its population during the fracas of 1980; it had been heavily hit by Red Chinese guided missiles, and of course the clouds of fallout had blanketed it in the subsequent decade. They had in fact not entirely dissipated yet.

But the level had been pronounced by NASA technicians as lying within the safe tolerance.

Lush growth, tangled variants created by the fallout ... the forestation had an almost tropical quality now, Nat knew. And the rain virtually never ceased; it had been frequent and heavy before 1990 and now it was torrential.

‘Ready,’ he said to Jim Planck.

An unlit Alta Camina cigar jutting from between his teeth, Planck said, ‘Then away we go, us and your pet worm. To record the greatest handless piano player of the century. Hey, I got a joke, Nat. One day Richard Kongrosian is in a pub-trans accident; he’s all battered up in the wreck, and when they take the bandages off he’s grown hands.’

Planck chuckled. ‘And so he can never play again.’

Lowering her book, Molly said frigidly, ‘Be entertainment, is that what it’s going to be on this flight?’

Planck coloured, bent to fumble with his recording gear, checking it automatically. ‘Sorry, Miss Dondoldo,’ he said, but he did not sound sorry; he sounded chokingly resentful.

‘Just start up the ‘copter,’ Molly said. And returned to reading her book. It was, Nat saw, a banned text by the twentieth-century sociologist C. Wright Mills. Molly Dondoldo, he reflected, no more a Ge than he or Jim Planck, had no anxiety over publicly reading an item forbidden to their class. A remarkable woman in many ways, he thought with admiration.

He said to her, ‘Don’t be so harsh, Molly.’

Without glancing up, Molly said, ‘I hate Be wit.’

The ‘copter started; guiding it expertly, Jim Planck soon had them in the air. They moved north, over the coastal highway and the Imperial Valley with its criss-crossed endless miles of canals stretching as far as one could see.

‘It’s going to be a cosy flight,’ Nat said to Molly. ‘I can make that out already.’

Molly murmured, ‘Don’t you have to sprinkle your worm or something? Frankly I’d prefer to be left alone if you don’t mind.’

‘What do you know about the personal tragedy in Kongrosian’s life?’ Nat asked her.

She was silent a moment and then she said, ‘It has something to do with the fallout of the late ‘90s. I think it’s his son. But no one knows for certain; I have no inside information, Nat. They say, though, that his son is a monster.’

Once more Nat felt the chill of fear which he had experienced at the idea of visiting Kongrosian’s home.

‘Don’t let it get you down,’ Molly said. ‘After all, there’ve been so many special births since the fallout of the ‘90s. Don’t you see them meandering about all the time? I do. Maybe, though, you prefer not to look.’

She shut her book, marking the place with a dogear. ‘It’s the price we pay for our otherwise unblemished lives. My god, Nat, you can adjust to that thing, that Ampek recorder, and that positively gives me the creeps, all shimmering and alive like it is. Perhaps the child’s deformation is due to factors derived from his father’s Psionic faculty; maybe Kongrosian blames himself, not the fallout. Ask him when you get there.’

‘Ask him!’ Nat echoed, appalled.

‘Certainly. Why not?’

‘It’s a hell of an idea,’ Nat said. And, as frequently in the past in his relations with Molly, it seemed to him that she was an exceptionally harsh and aggressive, almost masculine woman; there was a bluntness in her which did not much appeal to him. And on top of that Molly was far too intellectually oriented; she lacked her father’s personal, emotional touch.

‘Why did you want to come on this trip?’ he asked her. Certainly not to hear Kongrosian play; that was obvious. Perhaps it had to do with the son, the special child; Molly would be attracted to that. He felt revulsion, but he did not show it; he managed to smile back at her.

‘I enjoy Kongrosian,’ Molly said placidly. ‘It would be very gratifying to meet him personally and listen to him play.’

Nat said, ‘But I’ve heard you say there’s no market right now for Psionic versions of Brahms and Schumann.’

‘Aren’t you able, Nat, to separate your personal life from company business? My own individual tastes run to Kongrosian’s style, but that doesn’t mean I think he’ll sell. You know, Nat, we’ve done rather well with all sub-types of folk music for the last few years. I’d tend to say that performers like Kongrosian, however popular they may be at the White House, are anachronisms and we must be highly alert that we don’t step backward into economic ruin with them.’ She smiled at him, looking lazily for his reaction. ‘I’ll tell you another reason I wanted to come. You and I can spend a good deal of time together, tormenting each other. Just you and me, on a trip ... we can stay at a motel in Jenner. Did you think of that?’ Nat took a deep, unsteady breath.

Her smile increased. It was as if she were actually laughing at him, he thought. Molly could handle him, make him do what she wanted; they both knew that and it amused her. ‘Do you want to marry me?’ Molly asked him. ‘Are your intentions honourable, in the old twentieth-century sense?’

Nat said, ‘Are yours?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe I like monsters. I like you, Nat, you and your worm-like F-a2 recording machine that you nourish and pamper, like a wife or a pet or both.’

‘I’d do the same for you,’ Nat said. All at once he felt Jim Planck watching him and he concentrated on watching the earth below them. It obviously embarrassed Jim, this exchange. Planck was an engineer, a man who worked with his body -- a mere Be as Molly had called him, but a good man. Talk of this sort was tough on Jim.

And, Nat thought, on me. The only one of us who really enjoys it is Molly. And she really does; it’s not an affectation.

The autobahn fatigued Chic Strikerock, with its centrally-controlled cars and wheels spinning up invisible runnels in massed procession. In his own individual car he felt as if he were participating in a black-magic ritual -- as if he and the other commuters had put their lives into the hands of a force better left undiscussed. Actually it was a simple homeostatic beam which justified its position by making ceaseless references to all other vehicles and the guide-walls of the road itself, but he was not amused. He sat in his car reading the morning New York Times.

He kept his attention on the newspaper instead of the grinding, never-stopping environment which surrounded him, meditating on an article dealing with a further discovery of unicellular fossils on Ganymede.

Old-time civilization, Chic said to himself. The next layer down, just on the verge of being uncovered by the autoshovels operating in the airless, near-weightless void of midspace, of the big-planet moons.

We’re being robbed, he decided. The next layer down will be comic books, contraceptives, empty Coke bottles. But they -- the authorities -- won’t tell us. Who wants to find out that the entire solar system has been exposed to Coca Cola over a period of two million years? It was, for him, impossible to imagine a civilization -- of any kind of life form that had not contrived Coke. Otherwise, how could if authentically be called a ‘civilization’? But then he thought, I’m letting my bitterness get the better of me. Maury won’t like it; better curb it before I arrive. Bad for business. And we must have business as usual. That’s the watchword of the day -- if not of the century. After all, that’s really ail that separates me from my younger brother: my ability to face fundamentals and not get lost in the maze of external rituals.

If Vince could do that then he’d be me.

And he’d perhaps have his wife back.

And Vince would have been in on Maury Frauenzimmer’s scheme, put by Maury to Sepp von Lessinger in person at a conference of ersatz engineers in New York in 2023, to make use of von Lessinger’s time travel experiments to send a psychiatrist back to 1925 to cure Fuhrer Hitler of his paranoia. As a matter of fact, von Lessinger had made some attempt in that direction, apparently, but the Ges kept the results to themselves -- of course. Leave it to the Ges to protect their privileged status, Chic thought to himself. And now von Lessinger was dead.

Something sizzled to the right of him. A commercial, made by Theodorus Nitz, the worst house of all, had attached itself to his car.

‘Get off,’ he warned it. But the commercial, well-adhered, began to crawl, buffeted by the wind, towards the door and the entrance crack. It would soon have squeezed in and would be haranguing him in the cranky, garbagey fashion of the Nitz advertisements.

He could, as it came through the crack, kill it. It was alive, terribly mortal; the ad agencies, like nature, squandered hordes of them.

The commercial, fly-sized, began to buzz out its message as soon as it managed to force entry. ‘Say! Haven’t you sometimes said to yourself, I’ll bet other people in restaurants can see me! And you’re puzzled as to what to do about this serious, baffling problem of being conspicuous, especially -- ‘

Chic crushed it with his foot.

The card told Nicole Thibodeaux that the Prime Minister of Israel had arrived at the White House and now waited in the Camellia Room. Emil Stark, slender, tall, always knowing the latest Jewish joke (‘One day God met Jesus and Jesus was wearing -- ‘ or however it went; she could not remember -- she was too sleepy). Anyhow, today she had a joke for him. The Wolff Commission had brought in its report.

Later, in a robe and slippers, she drank coffee, read the morning Times, then pushed the paper away and picked up the document which the Wolff Commission had presented her. Whom had they selected? Hermann Goering; she leafed through the pages and wished she could fire General Wolff.

The army brass had picked the man in the Age of Barbarism to deal with; she knew that, but the Washington authorities had agreed to follow General Wolff’s recommendation, not realizing at the time what a typical military fathead he was.

It demonstrated the power of the army’s GHQ within purely political areas, these days.

She called to Leonore, her secretary, ‘Tell Emil Stark to come on in.’ No use delaying it; anyhow Stark probably would be pleased. Like so many others, the Israeli Prune Minister no doubt imagined that Goering had been a simple clown. Nicole laughed sharply. They hadn’t digested the War Crimes Trial documents of World War Two, if they believed that.

‘Mrs Thibodeaux,’ Stark said, appearing, smiling.

‘It’s Goering,’ Nicole said.

‘Of course.’ Stark continued to smile.

‘You damn fool,’ she said. ‘He’s too smart for any of us -- don’t you know that? If we try to do business with him -- ‘

‘But towards the end of the war Goering lost favour,’ Stark said urbanely, seating himself at the table facing her. ‘He was involved in the losing military campaign, whereas the Gestapo people and those close to Hitler gained in power, Bormann and Himmler and Eichmann, the blackshirts. Goering would understand -- did understand -- what losing the military part of the Party’s campaign meant.’

Nicole was silent. She felt irritable.

‘Does this bother you?’ Stark said smoothly. ‘I know I find it difficult. But we have a simple enough proposition to put to the Reichsmarschall, don’t we? It can be phrased in a single sentence, and he’ll understand it.’

‘Oh yes,’ she agreed. ‘Goering will understand. He’ll also understand that if we’re turned down we’ll accept less, then even less that that, finally -- ‘ She broke off. ‘Yes, this does bother me. I think that von Lessinger was right in his final summation: no one should go near the Third Reich. When you deal with psychotics you’re drawn in; you become mentally ill yourself.’

Stark said quietly, ‘There are six million Jewish lives to be saved, Mrs Thibodeaux.’

Sighing, Nicole said, ‘All right!’ She eyed him with harsh anger, but the Israeli Premier met her gaze; he was not afraid of her. It was not customary for him to cringe before anyone; he had come a long way to this post, and success for him would not have been possible if he had been made any other way but this. His was not a position for a coward; Israel was -- had always been -- a small nation, existing among huge blocks that could, at any given moment, efface her. Stark even smiled back slightly; or did she imagine it? Her anger increased. She felt impotent.

‘We need not settle this matter right now,’ Stark said, then. ‘I’m sure you have other matters on your mind, Mrs Thibodeaux. Planning the evening White House entertainment, perhaps. I received an invitation,’ Stark tapped his coat pocket, ‘as I’m sure you’re aware. We are promised a fine parade of talent, are we not? But that is always true.’

His voice was a murmur, gentle and soothing. ‘May I smoke?’ From his pocket he brought a little flat gold case from which he removed a cigar. ‘I am trying these for the first time. Philippine cigars, made from Isabela leaf. Handmade, as a matter of fact.’

‘Go ahead,’ Nicole said grumpily.

‘Does Herr Kalbfleisch smoke?’ Stark inquired.

‘No,’ Nicole said.

‘He does not enjoy your musical evenings either, does he? That is a bad sign. Recall Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. Something about “I distrust him for he hath no music.” Recall? “He hath no music” Does this describe the present der Alte? I have never met him, unfortunately. In any case it is a pleasure to deal with you, Mrs Thibodeaux; believe me.’ Emil Stark’s eyes were grey, extremely bright.

‘Thanks,’ Nicole groaned, wishing he would leave. She felt his domination of their colloquy and it made her weary and restless.

‘You know,’ Stark continued, ‘it is very difficult for us for us Israelis -- to deal with Germans; I would no doubt have difficulty with Herr Kalbfleisch.’ He puffed cigar smoke; the smell made her wrinkle her nose with distaste.

‘This one resembles the first der Alte, Herr Adenauer, or so I gather from history tapes shown me as a boy in school. It is interesting to realize that he ruled far longer than the entire period of the Third Reich ... which was intended to last a thousand years.’

‘Yes,’ she said, dully.

‘And perhaps, if we assist it through von Lessinger’s system, we will enable it to do so.’ His eyes were oblique, now.

‘You think so? And yet you’re still willing to -- ‘

‘I think,’ Emil Stark said, ‘that if the Third Reich is given the weapons it needs it will survive its victory by perhaps five years -- and very possibly not even that long. It’s doomed by its very nature; there’s absolutely no mechanism in the Nazi Party by which a successor to der Fuhrer can be produced. Germany will fragment, become a collection of small, nasty, quarrelling states as it was before Bismark. My government is convinced of this, Mrs Thibodeaux. Remember Hess’s introduction of Hitler at one of the great Party rallies. “Hitler ist Deutschland.” “Hitler is Germany.” He was correct. Hence after Hitler what? The deluge. And Hitler knew it. As a matter of fact, there is some possibility that Hitler deliberately led his people to defeat. But that is a rather convoluted psychoanalytic theory. I personally find it too baroque for credence.’

Nicole said thoughtfully, ‘If Hermann Goering is brought out of his period, here to us, do you want to confront him and participate in the discussions?’

‘Yes,’ Stark said. ‘In fact I insist on it.’

‘You -- ‘ She stared at him.

‘Insist?’

Stark nodded.

‘I suppose,’ Nicole said, ‘that’s because you’re the spiritual embodiment of World Jewry or of some such mystic entity as that.’

‘Because I am an official,’ Stark answered, ‘of the State of Israel, its highest official, in fact.’ He was silent then.

‘Is it true,’ Nicole asked, ‘that your people are about to launch a probe to Mars?’

‘Not a probe,’ Stark said. ‘A transport. We will set up our first kibbutz there, one of these days. Mars is, so to speak, one great Negev. We will have orange trees growing some day.’

‘Lucky little people,’ Nicole said, under her breath.

‘Pardon?’ Stark cupped his ear; he had not heard.

‘You’re lucky. You have aspirations. What we have in the USEA is -- ‘ She reflected. ‘Norms. Standards. It’s very mundane, and I don’t mean that as a pun having to do with space travel. Damn you, Stark -- you rattle me. I don’t know why.’

‘You should visit Israel,’ Stark said. ‘It would interest you. For instance -- ‘

‘For instance I could become converted,’ Nicole said. ‘Change my name to Rebecca. Listen, Stark; I’ve talked long enough with you. I don’t enjoy this Wolff Report business -- I think it’s too risky, this idea of tinkering with the past on a grand scale, even if it might mean saving six or eight or even ten million innocent human lives. Look what happened when we tried to send assassins back to kill Adolf Hitler in the early days of his career; something or someone baulked us every time, and we tried seven times! I know I’m convinced -- that it was agents from the future, from our time or past our time. If one can play with von Lessinger’s system, two can. The bomb in the beerhall, the bomb in the prop plane -- ‘

‘But this attempt,’ Stark said, ‘will delight neo-Nazi elements. You will have their co-operation.’

Nicole said bitterly, ‘And that’s supposed to ease my worry? You, of all people, should see what a malign harbinger that is.’

For an interval Stark said nothing; he smoked his Philippine handmade cigar and regarded her sombrely. Then he shrugged. ‘I will bow out. I think, Mrs Thibodeaux, at this point. Perhaps you are right. I’d like to ponder this and also confer with other members on my staff. I’ll see you at the musicale tonight, here at the White house then. Will there be any Bach or Handel? I enjoy both composers.’

‘We’ll have an all-Israeli night, just for you,’ Nicole said.

‘Mendelssohn, Mahler, Bloch, Copeland; all right?’ She smiled, and Emil Stark smiled back.

‘Is there a copy of General Wolff’s report which I can take?’ Stark asked.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s Geheimnis -- top secret.’

Stark raised an eyebrow. And ceased smiling.

‘Even Kalbfleisch is not going to see it,’ Nicole said.

She did not intend to budge in her position, and Emil Stark could undoubtedly perceive that. After all, the man was professionally astute. Going to her desk she seated herself. Waiting for him to go, expecting him to, she sat examining a folio of abstracts which had been placed for her attention by her secretary, Leonore. They were boring -- or were they? She read the top abstract once more, carefully.

It informed her that White House talent scout Janet Raimer had been unable to sign the great morbidly-neurotic concert pianist Richard Kongrosian for tonight after all, because Kongrosian had suddenly left his summer home at Jenner and gone voluntarily into a sanatorium for electron-shock therapy. And no one was supposed to know.

Goddam, Nicole said to herself, bitterly. Well, that puts an end to this evening; I might as well go to bed right after dinner. For Kongrosian was not only the foremost interpreter of Brahms and Chopin but was in addition an eccentric flashing, colossal wit.

Emil Stark puffed on his cigar, regarding her with curiosity.

‘Does the name “Richard Kongrosian” mean anything to you?’ she demanded, looking up.

‘Certainly. For certain Romantic composers -- ‘

‘He’s sick again. Mentally. For the hundredth time. Or didn’t you know about that? Hadn’t you heard the rumours?’ Furiously she spun the abstract away from her; it slipped to the floor. ‘Sometimes I wish he would finally kill himself or die from a perforated colon or whatever it is he’s really got. This week.’

‘Kongrosian is a major artist.’ Stark nodded. ‘I can appreciate your concern. And in these chaotic times, with such elements as the Sons of Job parading in the streets, and all the vulgarity and mediocrity which seems ready to rise up and reassert itself -- ‘

‘Those creatures,’ Nicole said quietly, ‘will not last long. So worry about something else.’

‘You believe you understand the situation, then. And have it firmly under control.’ Stark permitted himself a brief, cold grimace.

‘Bertold Goltz is as Be as it’s possible to be. Out, un and Be; he’s all three. He’s a joke. A clown.’

‘Like Goering, perhaps?’

Nicole said nothing. But her eyes flickered; Stark saw that, the sudden, temporary doubt. He grimaced again, this time involuntarily. A grimace of concern. Nicole shuddered.

5

In the little building at the back of Jalopy Jungle Number Three, Al Miller sat with his feet up on the desk, smoking an Upmann cigar and watching passers-by, the sidewalk and people and stores of downtown Reno, Nevada. Beyond the gleam of the new jalopies parked with flapping banners and streamers cascading from them he saw a shape waiting, hiding beneath the huge sign that spelled out LOONY LUKE.

And he was not the only person to see the shape; along the sidewalk came a man and woman with a small boy trotting ahead of them, and the boy, with an exclamation, hopped up and down, gesturing excitedly. ‘Hey, Dad, look! You know what it is? Look, it’s the papoola.’

‘By golly,’ the man said with a grin, ‘so it is. Look, Marion, there’s one of those Martian creatures hiding there under the sign. What do you say we go over and chat with it?’ He started in that direction, along with the boy. The woman, however, continued along the sidewalk.

‘Come on, Mom!’ the boy urged.

In his office, Al Miller lightly touched the controls of the mechanism within his shirt. The papoola emerged from beneath the LOONY LUKE sign, and Al caused it to waddle on its six stubby legs towards the sidewalk, its round, silly hat slipping over one antenna, its eyes crossing and uncrossing as it made out the sight of the woman. The tropism being established, the papoola trudged after her, to the delight of the boy and his father.

‘Look, Dad, it’s following Mom! Hey Mom! Hey Mom, turn around and see!’

The woman glanced back, saw the platter-like organism with its orange bug-shaped body, and she laughed.

Everybody loves the papoola, Al thought to himself. See the funny Martian papoola. Speak, papoola; say hello to the nice lady who’s laughing at you.

The thoughts of the papoola, directed at the woman, reached Al. It was greeting her, telling her how nice it was to meet her, soothing and coaxing her until she came back up the sidewalk towards it, joining her boy and husband so that now all three of them stood together, receiving the mental impulses emanating from the Martian creature which had come here to Earth with no hostile plans, no capacity to cause trouble. The papoola loved them, too, just as they loved it; it told them so right now -- it conveyed to them the gentleness, the warm hospitality which it was accustomed to on its own planet.

What a wonderful place Mars must be, the man and woman were no doubt thinking, as the papoola poured out its recollections, its attitude. Gosh, it’s not cold and schizoid, like Earth society; nobody spies on anybody else, grades their endless relpol tests, reports on them to building Security Committees week in, week out. Think of it, the papoola was telling them as they stood rooted to the sidewalk, unable to pass on. You’re your own boss, there, free to work your farm land, believe your own beliefs, become yourself.

Look at you, afraid even to stand here listening. Afraid to.

In a nervous voice the man said to his wife, ‘We’d better ... go.’

‘Oh no,’ the boy said pleadingly. ‘I mean, gee, how often do you get to talk to a papoola? It must belong to that jalopy jungle there.’ The boy pointed, and Al found himself under the man’s keen, observing scrutiny.

The man said, ‘Of course. They brought it here to sell jalopies. It’s working on us right now, softening us up.’ The enchantment visibly faded from his face. ‘There’s the fellow sitting in there operating it.’

But the papoola thought, what I tell you is still true. Even if it is a sales pitch. You could go there, to Mars, yourself. You and your family can see with your own eyes -- if you have the courage to break free. Can you do it? Are you a real man? Buy a Loony Luke jalopy; buy it while you still have the chance, because you know that some day, maybe not so long from now, the NP is going to crack down. And there will be no more jalopy jungles. No more crack in the wall of the authoritarian society through which a few -- a few lucky people -- can escape.

Fiddling with the controls at his mid-section, Al turned up the gain. The force of the papoola’s psyche increased, drawing the man in, taking control of him. You must buy a jalopy, the papoola urged. Easy payment plan, service warranty, many models to choose from. This is the time to sign; don’t delay. The man took a step towards the lot. Hurry the papoola told him. Any second now the authorities may close down the lot and your opportunity will be gone forever.

‘This -- is how they work it,’ the man said with difficulty. ‘The animal snares people. Hypnosis. We have to leave.’ But he did not leave; it was too late: he was going to buy a jalopy, and Al, in the office with his control box, was reeling the man in.

Leisurely, Al rose to his feet. Time to go out and close the deal. He shut off the papoola, opened the office door and stepped outside on to the lot. And he saw a once-familiar figure threading its way among the jalopies, towards him. It was his one-time buddy, Ian Duncan and he had not seen him in years. Good grief, Al thought. What’s he want? And at a time like this!

‘Al,’ Ian Duncan called, gesturing. ‘Can I talk with you a second? You’re not too busy, are you?’ Perspiring and pale, he came closer, looking about in a frightened way. He had deteriorated since Al had last seen him.

‘Listen,’ Al said, with anger. But already it was too late; the couple and their boy had broken away and were moving rapidly on down the sidewalk.

‘I didn’t, um, mean to bother you,’ Ian mumbled.

‘You’re not bothering me,’ Al said as he gloomily watched the three prospects depart. ‘Well, what’s the trouble, Ian? You sure as hell don’t look very well. Are you sick? Come on inside the office.’ He led him inside and shut the door.

Ian said, ‘I came across my jug. Remember when we were trying to make it to the White House? Al, we have to try once more. Honest to god, I can’t go on like this. I can’t stand to be a failure at what we agreed was the most important thing in our lives.’ Panting, he mopped at his forehead with his handkerchief, his hands trembling.

‘I don’t even have my jug any more,’ Al said presently.

‘You must. Well, we could each record our parts separately on my jug and then synthesize them on one tape, and present that to the White House. This trapped feeling, I don’t know if I can go on living with it. I have to get back to playing. If we started practising right now on the “Goldberg Variations” in two months we -- ‘

Al broke in, ‘You still live at that place? That big Abraham Lincoln establishment?’

Ian nodded.

‘And you still have that job with that Bavarian cartel? You’re still a gear inspector?’ He could not understand why Ian Duncan was so upset. ‘Hell, if worst comes to worst you can emigrate. Jug-playing is out of the question. I haven’t played for years, since I last saw you, in fact. Just a minute.’

He dialled the knobs of the mechanism which controlled the papoola; near the sidewalk the creature responded and began to return slowly to its spot beneath the sign.

Seeing it, Ian said, ‘I thought they were all dead.’

‘They are,’ Al said.

‘But that one out there moves and -- ‘

‘It’s a fake,’ Al said, ‘a simulacrum, like those things they use for colonizing. I control it.’ He showed his old-time buddy the control box. ‘It brings in people off the sidewalk. Actually, Luke is supposed to have a genuine one on which these are modelled. Nobody knows for sure and the law can’t touch Luke. The NP can’t make him cough up the real one, if he does have it.’ Al seated himself and lit his pipe. ‘Tail your relpol test,’ he said to Ian. ‘Lose your apartment and get back your original deposit. Bring me the money and I’ll see that you get a damn fine jalopy that’ll take you to Mars. How about it?’

‘I tried to fail my test,’ Ian said, ‘but they won’t let me. They doctored the results. They don’t want me to get away. They won’t let me go.’

‘Who’s “they”?’

‘The man in the next apartment at The Abraham Lincoln. Edgar Stone, his name is -- I think. He did it deliberately. I saw the expression on his face. Maybe he imagined he was doing me a favour ... I don’t know.’ He glanced around him. ‘This is a nice little office you have here. You sleep in it, don’t you? And when it moves, you move with it.’

‘Yes,’ Al said, ‘we’re always prepared to take off.’ The NP had almost got him a number of times, even though the lot could obtain orbital velocity in six minutes. The papoola detected their approach, but not sufficiently far in advance for a comfortable escape; generally it was hurried and disorganized, with part of his inventory of jalopies being left behind.

‘You’re barely one jump ahead of them,’ Ian mused. ‘And yet, it doesn’t bother you. I guess it’s all in your attitude.’

‘If they get me,’ Al said, ‘Luke will bail me out.’ So what did he have to worry about? His employer was a powerful man; the Thibodeaux clan limited their attacks on him to deep-think articles in popular magazines harping on Luke’s vulgarity and the shoddiness of his jalopies.

‘I envy you,’ Ian said. ‘Your poise. Your calmness.’

‘Doesn’t your building have a skypilot? Go talk to him.’

Ian said bitterly, ‘That’s no good. Right now it’s Patrick Doyle and he’s as badly off as I am. And Don Tishman, our chairman, is even worse off; he’s a bundle of nerves. In fact our whole building is shot through with anxiety. Maybe it has to do with Nicole’s sinus headaches.

Glancing at him, Al saw that he was actually serious. The White House and all it stood for meant that much to him; it still dominated his life, as it had years ago when they had been buddies in the Service. ‘For your sake,’ Al said quietly, ‘I’ll get my jug out and practice. We’ll make one more try.

Speechless, Ian Duncan gaped at him.

‘I mean it,’ Al said, nodding.

With gratitude, Ian whispered, ‘God bless you, Al.’

Sombrely, Al Miller puffed on his pipe.

Ahead of Chic Strikerock the small factory at which he worked grew to its full but meagre proportion; this was as large as it was going to get -- this hatbox-like structure -- of late a light green, modern enough if one’s standards were not too critical. Frauenzimmer Associates. Soon he would be in his office, at work, and fussing with the blinds of the window in an effort to restrict the bright morning sun. Fussing, too, at Miss Greta Trupe, the elderly lady secretary who served both him and Maury.

It’s a great life, Chic thought. But perhaps, since yesterday, the firm had gone into receivership; it would not have surprised him -- and it probably would not have much saddened him, either. Although, of course, it would be a shame for Maury, and he liked Maury, despite their ubiquitous clashes. After all, a small firm was much like a small family. Everyone rubbed elbows in close, personal fashion and on many psychological levels. It was much more elaborately intimate than the depersonalized human relationship held by employees and employers of cartel-sized Operations.

Frankly, he preferred it. Preferred the closeness. To him there was something horrible about the detached and highly reified bureaucratic interpersonal activity in the halls of the mighty, within the geheimlich powerful corporations. The fact that Maury was a small-ltime operator actually appealed to him. It was a bit of the old world, the twentieth century still extant.

In the lot he parked, manually, beside Maury’s elderly wheel, got out and walked, hands in his pockets, to the familiar front entrance.

The small cluttered office -- with its heaps of unopened unanswered mail, coffee cups, work manuals and crumpled invoices, tacked-up girly type calendars -- smelled dusty, as if its windows had never at any time been opened to fresh air and the light of day. And, at the far end, taking up most of the available space, he saw four simulacra seated in silence, a group: one in adult male form, its female mate and two children. This was a major item of the firm’s catalogue; this was a famnexdo.

The adult male style simulacrum rose and greeted him with civility. ‘Good morning, Mr Strikerock.’

‘Maury arrived yet?’ He glanced around.

‘In a limited sense, yes,’ the adult male simulacrum answered. ‘He’s down the street getting his morning cup of coffee and doughnut.’

‘Jolly,’ Chic said, and removed his coat. ‘Well, are you folks all ready to go to Mars?’ he asked the simulacra. He hung up his coat.

‘Yes, Mr Strikerock,’ the adult female said, nodding.

‘And we’re cheerful, too. You can count on that.’ Obligingly she smiled in a neighbourly way at him. ‘It will be a relief to leave Earth with its repressive legislation. We were listening OH the FM to the news about the McPhearson Act.’

‘We consider it dreadful,’ the adult male said.

‘I have to agree with you,’ Chic said. ‘But what can one do?’ He looked around for the mail; as always it was lost somewhere in the mass of clutter.

‘One can emigrate,’ the adult male simulacrum pointed out.

‘Um,’ Chic said absently. He had found an unexpected heap of recent-looking bills from parts suppliers; with a feeling of gloom and even terror he began to sort through them. Had Maury seen these? Probably. Seen them and then pushed them away immediately, out of sight. Frauenzimmer Associates functioned better if it was not reminded of such facts of life. Like a regressed neurotic, it had to hide several aspects of reality from its percept system in order to function at all. This was hardly ideal, but what really was the alternative? To be realistic would be to give up, to die. Illusion, of an infantile nature was essential for the tiny firm’s survival, or at least so it seemed to him and Maury. In any case both of them had adopted this attitude. Their simulacra -- the adult ones -- disapproved of this; their cold, logical appraisal of reality stood in sharp contrast, and Chic always felt a little naked, a little embarrassed, before the simulacra; he knew he should set a better example for them.

‘If you bought a jalopy and emigrated to Mars,’ the adult male said, ‘We could be the famnexdo for you.’

‘I wouldn’t need any family next-door,’ Chic said, ‘if I emigrated to Mars. I’d go to get away from people.

‘We’d make a very good family next-door to you,’ the female said.

‘Look,’ Chic said, ‘you don’t have to lecture me about your virtues. I know more than you do yourselves.’ And for good reason. Their presumption, their earnest sincerity, amused but also irked him. As next-door neighbours this group of sims would be something of a nuisance, he reflected. Still, that was what emigrants wanted, in fact needed, out in the sparsely-populated colonial regions. He could appreciate that; after all, it was Frauenzimmer Associates’ business to understand.

A man, when he emigrated, could buy neighbours, buy the simulated presence of life, the sound and motion of human activity -- or at least its mechanical near-substitute to bolster his morale in the new environment of unfamiliar stimuli and perhaps, god forbid, no stimuli at all. And in addition to this primary psychological gain there was a practical secondary advantage as well. The famnexdo group of simulacra developed the parcel of land, tilled it and planted it, irrigated it, made it fertile, highly productive. And the yield went to the human settler because the famnexdo group, legally speaking, occupied the peripheral portions of his land. The famnexdo were actually not next-door at all; they were part of their owner’s entourage. Communication with them was in essence a circular dialogue with oneself; the famnexdo, it they were functioning properly, picked up the covert hopes and dreams of the settler and detailed them back in an articulated fashion. Therapeutically, this was helpful, although from a cultural standpoint it was a trifle sterile.

The adult male said respectfully, ‘Here is Mr Frauenzimmer now.’

Glancing up, Chic saw the office door swing slowly open; carefully carrying his cup of coffee and doughnut, Maury appeared.

‘Listen, buddy,’ Maury said in a hoarse voice. He was a short, round, perspiring man, like a reflection in a bad mirror. His legs had an inferior look, as if they just barely managed to support him; he teetered as he moved forward.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I guess I got to fire you.’

Chic stared at him.

‘I can’t make it any longer,’ Maury said. Gripping the handle of his coffee cup with his blunt, work-stained fingers he searched for a place to set it and the doughnut down, among the papers and manuals littering the surface of the desk.

‘I’ll be darned,’ Chic said. In his ears his voice sounded weak.

‘You knew it was coming.’ Maury’s voice had become a bleak croak. ‘We both did. What else can I do? We haven’t turned over a major order in weeks. I’m not blaming you. Understand that. Look at this famnexdo group hanging around here -- just hanging. We should be able to unload them long before now.’ Getting out his immense Irish linen handkerchief, Maury mopped his forehead. ‘I’m sorry Chic.’ He eyed his employee anxiously.

The adult male simulacrum said, ‘This is indeed a distressing exchange.’

‘I feel the same way,’ its mate added.

Glaring at them, Maury spluttered, ‘Tough, I mean, mind your own darn business. Who asked for your artificial, contrived opinion?’

Chic murmured, ‘Leave them alone.’ He was stunned at the news; emotionally, he had been caught totally by surprise, despite his intellectual forebodings.

‘If Mr Strikerock goes,’ the adult male simulacrum stated, ‘we go with him.’

Sourly, Maury grunted at the simulacra, ‘Aw, what the hell, you’re just a bunch of artefacts. Pipe down while we thrash this out. We have enough troubles without you getting involved.’ Seating himself at the desk he opened the morning Chronicle.

‘The whole world’s coming to an end. It’s not us, Chic, not just Frauenzimmer Associates. Listen to this item in today’s paper: “The body of Orley Short, maintenance man, was discovered today at the bottom of a six-foot vat of gradually hardening chocolate at the St Louis Candy Company.”‘ He raised his head. ‘You get that “Gradually hardening chocolate” -- that’s it. That’s the way we live. I’ll continue. “Short, 53, failed to come home from work yesterday, and -- “‘

‘Okay,’ Chic interrupted. ‘I understand what you’re trying to say. This is one of those times.’

‘Exactly. Conditions are beyond any individual’s power. It’s when you got to be fatalistic, you know: resigned-like. I’m resigned to seeing Frauenzimmer Associates close forever. Frankly, that’s next.’ He eyed the famnexdo group of simulacra moodily. ‘I don’t know why we constructed you fellows. We should have slapped together a gang of street hustlers, floozies with just enough class to interest the bourgeoisie. Listen, Chic, this is how this terrible item in the Chronicle ends. You simulacra, you listen, too. It’ll give you an idea of the kind of world you’ve been born into.

“Brother-in-law Antonio Costa drove to the candy factory and discovered him three feet down in the chocolate, St Louis police said.”‘ Maury savagely closed up the newspaper. ‘I mean, how are you going to work an event like that into your Weltanschauung? It’s just too damn dreadful. It unhinges you. And the worse part is that it’s so dreadful it’s almost funny.’

There was silence and then the male adult simulacrum, no doubt responding to some aspect of Maury’s subconscious, said, ‘This is certainly no time for such a bill as the McPhearson Act to come into effect. We require psychiatric help from whatever quarter we can obtain it.’

‘ “Psychiatric help,” ‘ Maury mocked. ‘Yeah, you’ve put your finger on it, Mr Jones or Smith or whatever we named you. Mr Next-door Neighbour, whoever you are. That would have saved Frauenzimmer Associates -- right? A little psychoanalysis at two hundred dollars an hour for ten years ... isn’t that how long it generally takes? Keerist.’

He turned away from the simulacra, disgusted, and ate his doughnut.

Presently Chic said, ‘Will you give me a letter of recommendation?’

‘Of course,’ Maury said.

Maybe I’ll have to go to work for Karp und Sohnen, Chic thought. His brother Vince, a Ge employee there, could get him put on; it was better than nothing, better than joining the pitiful jobless, the lowest order of the vast Be class, nomads who roamed the face of the Earth, now too poor even to emigrate. Or perhaps he should emigrate. Perhaps the time had at last come; he should face it squarely. For once give up the infantile ambitions upon which he had traded for so long.

But Julie. What about her? His brother’s wife made matters hopelessly complex; for example was he now responsible financially for her? He would have to thrash it out with Vince, meet him face to face. In any case. Whether he sought a position with Karp u. Sohnen Werke or not.

It would be awkward, to say the least, approaching Vince under these circumstances; the business with Julie had happened at a bad time.

‘Listen, Maury,’ Chic said. ‘You can’t lay me off, now. I’ve got a problem; as I related to you on the phone, I have a girl now who -- ‘

‘All right.’

‘P-pardon?’

Maury Frauenzimmer sighed. ‘I said all right; I’ll keep you on a little longer. So it hastens the bankruptcy of Frauenzimmer Associates. So what. He shrugged massively.

‘So ist das Leben: that’s life.’

One of the two children simulacra said to the adult male, ‘Isn’t he a good man, Daddy?’

‘Yes, Tommy,’ the adult male answered, nodding. ‘He most certainly is.’ It patted the boy on the shoulder. The whole family beamed.

‘I’ll keep you on until next Wednesday,’ Maury decided. ‘That’s the best I can do, but maybe it’ll help a little. After that -- I just don’t know. I can’t foresee anything. Even though I am slightly precognitive, as I’ve always said. I mean to a certain extent I’ve generally had valid hunches as to the future. Not in this case, though, not one damn bit. The entire thing is a mass of confusion, as far as I’m concerned.’

Chic said, ‘Thanks, Maury.’

Grunting, Maury Frauenzimmer resumed reading the morning paper.

‘Maybe by next Wednesday something good’ll come along,’ Chic said. ‘Something we don’t expect.’ Maybe, as sales manager, I can bring in a huge order, he thought.

‘Say, maybe so,’ Maury said. He did not sound very convinced.

‘I’m really going to try,’ Chic said.

‘Sure,’ Maury agreed. ‘You try, Chic, you do that.’ His voice was low, muffled by resignation.

6

To Richard Kongrosian the McPhearson Act was a calamity because in a single instant it erased his great support in life, Dr Egon Superb. He was left at the mercy of his lifelong illness-process, which, right at the moment, had assumed enormous power over him. This was why he had left Jenner and voluntarily checked in at Franklin Aimes Neuropsychiatric Hospital in San Francisco, a place deeply familiar to him; he had, during the past decade, checked in there many times.

However, this time he probably would not be able to leave. This time his illness-process had advanced too far.

He was, he knew, an anankastic, a person for whom reality had shrunk to the dimension of compulsion; everything he did was forced on him -- there was for him nothing voluntary, spontaneous or free. And, to make matters worse, he had tangled with a Nitz commercial. In fact, he still had the commercial with him; he carried it about with him in his pocket.

Getting it out now, Kongrosian started the Theodorus Nitz commercial up, listening once more to its evil message.

The commercial squeaked. ‘At any moment one may offend others, any hour of the day!’

And in his mind appeared the full-colour image of a scene unfolding; a good-looking black-haired man leaning towards a blonde, full-breasted girl in a bathing suit in order to kiss her. On the girl’s face the expression of rapture and submission all at once vanished, was replaced by repugnance. And the commercial shrilled, ‘He was not fully safe from offensive body odour! You see?’

That’s me, Kongrosian said to himself. I smell bad. He had, due to the commercial, acquired a phobic body odour; he had been contaminated through the commercial, and there was no way to rid himself of the odour; he had for weeks now tried a thousand rituals of rinsing and washing, to no avail.

That was the trouble with phobic odours; once acquired they stayed, even advanced in their dreadful power. At this moment he did not dare get close to any other human being; he had to remain ten feet away so that they would not become aware of the odour. No full-breasted blonde girls for him.

And at the same time he knew that the odour was a delusion, that it did not really exist; it was an obsessive idea only. However, that realization did not help him. He still could not bear to come within ten feet of another human being -- of any sort whatsoever. Full-breasted or not.

For instance, at this very moment Janet Raimer, chief talent scout from the White House, was searching for him. If she found him, even here in his private room at Franklin Aimes, she would insist on seeing him, would force her way close to him -- and then the world would, for him, collapse.

He liked Janet, who was middle-aged, had a waggish sense of humour and was cheerful. How could he bear to have Janet detect the terrible body odour which the commercial had passed on to him? It was an impossible situation, and Kongrosian sat hunched over at the table in the corner of the room, clenching and unclenching his fists, trying to think what to do.

Perhaps he could call her on the phone. But the odour, he believed, could be transmitted along the phone wires; she would detect it anyhow. So that was no good. Maybe a telegram? No, the odour would move from him to that, too, and from it to Janet.

In fact, his phobic body odour could contaminate the entire world. Such was at least theoretically possible.

But he had to have some contact with people; for instance, very soon now he wanted to call his son Plautus Kongrosian at their home in Jenner. No matter how hard one tried one could not entirely suspend inter-personal relationships, desirable as it might be.

Perhaps A.G. Chemie can help me, he conjectured. They might have a new ultra-powerful synthetic detergent which will obliterate my phobic body odour, at least for a time.

Who do I know there that I can contact? He tried to recall.

On the Houston, Texas, Symphony Board of Directors there was ...

The telephone in his room rang.

Carefully, Kongrosian draped a handtowel over the screen. ‘Hell,’ he said, standing a good distance from the phone, hoping thereby not to contaminate it. Naturally, it was a vain hope, but he had to make the attempt; he was still trying.

‘The White House in Washington, D.C.,’ a voice from the phone stated. ‘Janet Raimer calling. Go ahead, Miss Raimer. I have Mr Kongrosian’s room.’

‘Hello, Richard,’ Janet Raimer said. ‘What have you put over the phone screen?’

Pressed against the far wall, with as much distance between himself and the phone as possible, Kongrosian said, ‘You shouldn’t have tried to reach me, Janet. You know how ill I am. I’m in an advanced compulsive-obsessive state, the worst I’ve ever experienced. I seriously doubt if I’ll ever be playing publicly again. There’s just too much risk. For instance, I suppose you saw the item in the newspaper today about the workman in the candy factory who fell into the vat of hardening chocolate. I did that.’

‘You did? How?’

‘Psionicly. Entirely involuntarily, of course. Currently, I’m responsible for all the psychomotor accidents taking place in the world -- that’s why I’ve signed myself in here at the hospital for a course of electroconvulsive shock. I believe in it, despite the fact that it’s gone out of style. Personally I get nothing from drugs. When you smell as bad as I do, Janet, no drugs are going to -- ‘

Janet Raimer interrupted. ‘I don’t believe you really smell as badly as you imagine, Richard. I’ve known you for many years and I can’t imagine you smelling really genuinely badly, at least enough to force a termination of your brilliant career.’

‘Thanks for your loyalty,’ Kongrosian said gloomily, ‘but you just don’t understand. This is no ordinary physical odour. This is an idea type odour. Some day I’ll mail you a text on the subject, perhaps by Bingswanger or some of the other existential psychologists. They really understood me and my problem, even though they lived a hundred years ago. Obviously they were precogs. The tragedy is that although Minkowski, Kuhn, and Binswanger understood me, there’s nothing they can do to help me.’

Janet said, ‘The First Lady is looking forward to your quick and happy recovery.’

The inanity of her remark infuriated him. ‘Good grief don’t you understand Janet? At this point I’m thoroughly delusional. I’m as mentally ill as it’s possible to be. It’s incredible that I can communicate with you at all. It’s a credit to my ego-strength that I’m not at this point totally autistic.

Anyone else in my situation would be.’ He felt momentary, justified pride. ‘It’s an interesting situation that I’m facing, this phobic body odour. Obviously, it’s a reaction-formation to a more serious disorder, one which would disintegrate my comprehension of the Umwelt, Mitwelt and Eigenwelt. What I’ve managed to do is -- ‘

‘Richard,’ Janet Raimer interrupted, ‘I feel so sorry for you. I wish I could help you.’ She sounded, then, as if she were about to cry; her voice wavered.

‘Oh well,’ Kongrosian said, ‘who needs the Umwelt, Mitwelt and Eigenwelt? Take it easy, Janet. Don’t get so emotionally involved. I’ll be out of here, just as before.’ But he did not really believe that. This time was different. And evidently Janet had sensed it. ‘However,’ he went on, ‘I think in the meantime you’re going to have to search elsewhere for White House talent. You’ll have to forget me and strike out into entirely new areas. What else is a talent scout for, if not to do exactly that?’

‘I suppose so,’ Janet said.

My son, Kongrosian thought. Maybe he could appear in my place. What a weird, morbid thought that was; he cringed from it, horrified that he had let it enter his mind.

Really, it demonstrated how ill he was. As if anyone could be interested, take seriously, the unfortunate quasi-musical noises which Plautus made ... although perhaps in the largest, most embracing sense, they could be called ethnic.

‘Your current disappearance from the world,’ Janet Raimer said, ‘is a tragedy. As you say, it’s my job to find someone or something to fill the void -- even though I know that’s impossible. I’ll make the try. Thank you, Richard. It was nice of you to talk to me, considering your condition.

I’ll right off now, and let you rest.’

Kongrosian said, ‘All I hope is that I haven’t contaminated you with my phobic odour.’ He broke the connection, then.

My last tie with the interpersonal world, he realized. I may never speak on the phone again; I feel my world contracting even more. God, where will it end? But the electroconvulsive shock will help; the shrinkage process will be reversed or at least stalled.

I wonder if I ought to try to get hold of Egon Superb, he said to himself. Despite the McPhearson Act. Hopeless; Superb no longer exists -- the law has obliterated him, at least as far as his patients are concerned. Egon Superb may still exist as an individual, in essence, but the category ‘psychoanalyst’ has been eradicated as if it never existed.

But how I need him! If I could consult him just one more time -- damn A.G. Chemie and their enormous lobby, their huge influence. Maybe I can get my phobic odour to spread to them.

Yes, I’ll put through a call to them, he decided. Ask about the possibility of the super detergent and at the same time contaminate them; they deserve it.

In the phone book he looked up the number of the Bay Area branch of A.G. Chemie, found it, and by psychokinesis dialled.

They’ll be sorry they forced passage of that act, Kongrosian said to himself as he listened to the phone connection being put through.

‘Let me talk to your chief psych-chemist,’ he said, when the A.G. Chemie switchboard had responded.

Presently a busy-sounding male voice came on to the line, the towel placed over the screen of the phone made it impossible for Kongrosian to see the man but he sounded young, competent, and thoroughly professional. ‘This is B Station. Merrill Judd speaking. Who is this and why do you have the vid portion blocked?’ The psych-chemist sounded irritable.

Kongrosian said, ‘You don’t know me, Mr Judd.’ And then he thought, Now it’s time to contaminate them.

Stepping close to the phone he whisked the towel from the screen.

‘Richard Kongrosian,’ the psych-chemist said, eyeing him. ‘Yes, I know you, know your artistry at least.’ He was a young man, with a competent no-nonsense expression, a thoroughly detached schizoid person indeed. ‘It’s an honour to meet you sir. What can I do for you?’

‘I need an antidote,’ Kongrosian said, ‘for an abominable Theodorus Nitz offensive body odour commercial. You know the one which begins: “In moments of great intimacy with ones we love, especially then does the danger of offending become acute,” and so forth.’ He hated even to think about it; his body odour seemed to become more powerful when he did so, if such was possible. He longed, then, for genuine human contact; he felt violently conscious of his encapsulation. ‘Do I scare you?’ he asked.

Regarding him with his wise, professional intensity, the A.G. Chemie official said, ‘I’m not worried. Naturally I’ve heard discussions of your endogenous psychosomatic ailment, Mr Kongrosian.’

‘Well,’ Kongrosian said tightly, ‘let me tell you that it’s exogenous; it’s the Nitz commercial that started it.’ It depressed him to realize that strangers, that the entire world was aware of -- was talking about -- his psychological situation.

‘The predisposition must have been there,’ Judd said, ‘for the Nitz commercial to so influence you.’

‘On the contrary,’ Kongrosian said. ‘And as a matter of fact I’m going to sue the Nitz Agency, sue them for millions -- I’m totally prepared to start litigation. But that’s beside the point right now. What can you do, Judd? You smell it by now, don’t you? Admit you do, and then we can explore the possibilities of therapy. I’ve been seeing a psychoanalyst, Dr Egon Superb, but thanks to your cartel that’s over, now.’

‘Hmm,’ Judd said.

‘Is that the best you can do? Listen, it’s impossible for me to leave this hospital room. The initiative has got to come from you. I’m appealing to you. My situation is desperate. If it worsens -- ‘

‘An intriguing request,’ Judd said. ‘I’ll have to ponder for a while. I can’t answer you immediately, Mr Kongrosian. How long ago did this contamination by the Nitz commercial take place?’

‘Approximately one month ago.’

‘And before that?’

‘Vague phobias. Anxieties. Depression, mostly. I’ve had ideas of reference, too, but so far I’ve managed to abort them. Obviously, I’m struggling against an insidious schizophrenic process that’s gradually eroding my faculties, blunting their acuity.’ He felt glum.

‘Perhaps I’ll drop over to the hospital.’

‘Ah,’ Kongrosian said, pleased. That way I can be certain of contaminating you, he said to himself. And you, in turn, will carry the contamination back to your company, to the entire malign cartel which is responsible for shutting down Dr Superb’s practice. ‘Please do,’ he said aloud. ‘I’d very much like to consult you tête-à-tête. The sooner the better. But I warn you: I won’t be responsible for the outcome. The risk is entirely yours.’

‘Risk? I’ll take the risk. What about this afternoon? I have a free hour. Tell me which neuropsychiatric hospital you’re in, and if it’s local -- ‘ Judd searched for a pen and tablet of paper.

They made good time to Tenner. Late in the afternoon they set down at the ‘copter field on the outskirts of the town; there was plenty of time to make the drive by road to Kongrosian’s home in the surrounding hills.

‘You mean,’ Molly said, ‘we can’t land at his place? We have to -- ‘

‘We hire a cab,’ Nat Flieger said. ‘You know.’

‘I know,’ Molly said. ‘I’ve read about them. And it’s always a local rustic who acquaints you with the local gossip, all of which can be put in a gnat’s eye.’ She closed her book and rose to her feet. ‘Well, Nat, maybe you can find out from the cab driver what you want to know. About Kongrosian’s secret basement of horrors.’

Jim Planck said huskily, ‘Miss Dondoldo -- ‘ He grimaced. ‘I think a lot of Leo but honest to god -- ‘

‘You can’t stand me?’ she inquired, raising her eyebrows.

‘Why, I wonder why, Mr Planck.’

‘Cut it out,’ Nat said as he lugged his gear from the ‘copter and set it down on the damp ground. The air smelled of rain; it was heavy and clinging and he instinctively rebelled against it, against the innate unhealthiness of it. ‘This must be grand for asthmatics,’ he said, looking around. Kongrosian, of course, would not meet them; it was their job entirely to find his place -- and him. They would be lucky, in fact, if he received them at all; Nat was well aware of that.

Stepping gingerly from the ‘copter (she was wearing sandals) Molly said, ‘It smells funny.’ She took a deep breath, her bright cotton blouse swelling. ‘Ugh. Like rotting vegetation.’

‘That’s what it is,’ Nat said as he helped Jim Planck with his gear.

‘Thanks,’ Planck murmured. ‘I believe I got it, Nat. How long are we going to be up here?’ He looked as if he wanted to re-enter the ‘copter and start right back; Nat saw on the man’s face overt panic. ‘This area,’ Planck said, ‘always makes me think of -- like in the kids’ book about the three billygoats gruff. You know.’ His voice grated. ‘Trolls.’

Molly stared at him and then sharply laughed.

A cab rolled up to greet them, but it was not driven by a local rustic; it was a twenty-year-old autonomic, with a mute self-guidance system. Presently they had their recording and personal equipment aboard and the auto-cab was rolling from the field, on its way to Richard Kongrosian’s home, the address in the instruction-well of the cab acting as the tropism.

‘I wonder,’ Molly said, watching the old-fashioned houses and stores of the town pass by, ‘what they do for entertainment up here?’

Nat said, ‘Maybe they come down to the ‘copter field and watch the outsiders who occasionally wander in.’ Like us, he thought, seeing people along the sidewalk here and there glance up curiously.

We’re the entertainment, he decided. There certainly did not appear to be much else; the town looked as it must have before the fracas of 1980; the stores had tinted glass and plastic fronts, now chipped and in disrepair beyond belief.

And, by a huge, abandoned, obsolete supermarket, he saw an empty parking lot: space for surface vehicles which no longer existed.

For a man of ability to live here, Nat decided, it must be a form of suicide. It could only be a subtle self-destructiveness that would cause Kongrosian to leave the vast and busy urban complex of Warsaw, one of the brightest centres of human activity and communication in the world, and come to this dismal, rain-drenched, decaying town. Or -- a form of penance. Could that be it? To punish himself for god knew what, perhaps something to do with his special-birth son ... assuming that what Molly said was correct.

He thought about Jim Planck’s joke, the one about the psychokineticist Richard Kongrosian being in a pubtrans accident and growing hands. But Kongrosian had hands; he simply did not need to employ them in his music. Without them he would obtain more nuances of tonal colouring, more precise rhythms and phrasing. The entire somatic component was bypassed; the mind of the artist applied itself directly to the keyboard.

Do these people along these deteriorating streets know who lives among them? Nat wondered. Probably not. Probably Kongrosian keeps to himself, lives with his family and ignores the community. A recluse, and who wouldn’t be, up here? And if they did know about Kongrosian they would be suspicious of him, because he was an artist and because he was also a Psi; it was a double burden to bear. No doubt in his concourse with these people -- when he bought at the local grocery store -- he eliminated his psychokinetic faculty and used his manual extremities like everyone else. Unless Kongrosian had even more courage than Nat realized ...

‘When I get to be a world famous artist,’ Jim Planck said, ‘The first thing I’m going to do is move to a backwater boondock like this.’ His voice was laden with sarcasm. ‘It’ll be my reward.’

‘Yes,’ Nat said, ‘it must be nice to be able to cash in on one’s talent.’ He spoke absently; ahead he saw a throng of people and his attention had turned that way. Banners and marchers in uniform ... he was seeing, he realized, a demonstration by political extremists, the so-called Sons of Job, neo-Nazis who seemed to have sprung up everywhere, of late, even here in this god-forsaken town in California.

And yet wasn’t this actually the most likely place for the Sons of Job to show themselves? This decadent region reeked of defeat; here lived those who had failed, Bes who held no real role in the system. The Sons of Job, like the Nazis of the past, fed on disappointment, on the disinherited. Yet these backwater towns which time had bypassed were the movement’s authentic feeding-ground ... it should not have surprised him, then, to see this.

But these were not Germans; these were Americans.

It was a sobering thought. Because he could not dismiss the Sons of Job as a symptom of the ceaseless, unchanging derangement of the German mentality, that was too pat, too simple. These were his own people marching here today, his countrymen. It could have been him, too; if he were to lose his job with EME or suffer some crushing, humiliating social experience …

‘Look at them,’ Molly said.

‘I am looking,’ Nat answered.

‘And you’re thinking, “It could be me.” Right? Frankly I doubt if you have the guts to march in public in support of your convictions; in fact I doubt if you have any convictions. Look. There’s Goltz.’

She was correct. Bertold Goltz, the Leader, was present here today. How oddly the man came and went; it was never possible to predict where and when he might pop up.

Perhaps Goltz had the use of von Lessinger’s principle.

The use of time travel.

That would give Goltz, Nat reflected, a certain advantage over all the charismatic leaders of the past, in that it would make him more or less eternal. He could not in the customary fashion be killed. This would explain why the government had not crushed the movement; he had wondered about that, why Nicole tolerated it. She tolerated it because she had to.

Technically, Goltz could be murdered, but an earlier Goltz would simply move into the future and replace him; Goltz would go on, not ageing or changing, and the movement would ultimately benefit because they would have a leader who could be counted on not to go the way of Adolf Hitler: who would not develop paresis or any other degenerative disease.

Jim Planck, absorbed in the sight, murmured, ‘Handsome son-of-a-gun, isn’t he?’ He, too, seemed impressed. The man could have a career in the movies or TV, Nat reflected. Been that sort of entertainer, rather than the kind he was. Goltz had style. Tall, clouded-over in a sort of tense gloom ... and yet, Nat noticed, just a trifle too heavy. Goltz appeared to be in his mid-forties and the leanness, the masculinity of youth, had abandoned him. As he marched he sweated. What a physical quality the man had; there was nothing ghostly or ethereal about him, no spirituality to offset the stubborn beef.

The marchers turned, came head-on towards their autocab.

The cab halted.

Molly said caustically, ‘He even commands the obedience of machines. At least the local ones.’ She laughed briefly, uneasily.

‘We’d better get out of the way,’ Jim Planck said, ‘or they’re going to be swarming over us like Martian column ants.’ He fiddled with the controls of the auto-cab. ‘Damn this worn-out contraption: it’s dead as a doornail.’

‘Killed by awe,’ Molly said.

The first line of marchers contained Goltz, who strode along in the centre, transporting a flowing, multi-coloured cloth banner. Seeing them, Goltz yelled something. Nat could not catch it.

‘He’s telling us to get out of the way,’ Molly said. ‘Maybe we’d better forget about recording Kongrosian and step out and join him. Sign up for the movement. What do you say, Nat? Here’s your chance. You can rightfully say you were forced to.’ She opened the door of the cab and hopped lightly out on to the sidewalk. ‘I’m not giving up my life because of a stalled circuit in an auto-cab twenty years out of date.’

‘Hail, mighty leader,’ Jim Planck said shortly, and also hopped out to join Molly on the sidewalk, out of the path of the marchers, who were now, as a body, shouting angrily and gesturing.

Nat said, ‘I’m staying here.’ He remained where he was surrounded by the recording equipment, his hand reflexively resting on his precious Ampek F-a2; he did not intend to abandon it, even to Bertold Goltz.

Coming rapidly down the street, Goltz all at once grinned.

It was a sympathetic grin, as if Goltz, despite the seriousness of his political intentions, had room left in his heart for a trace of empathy.

‘You got troubles, too?’ Goltz called to Nat. Now the first rank of marchers -- including the Leader -- had reached the old, stalled auto-cab; the rank divided and dribbled past, raggedly, on both sides. Goltz, however, halted. He brought out a rumpled red handkerchief and mopped the shiny, steaming flesh of his neck and brow.

‘Sorry I’m in your way,’ Nat said.

‘Heck,’ Goltz said, ‘I was expecting you.’ He glanced up, his dark, intelligent, luminous eyes alert. ‘Nat Flieger, head of Artists and Repertoire for Electronic Musical Enterprise of Tijuana. Up here in this land of ferns and frogs to record Richard Kongrosian ... because you don’t happen to know that Kongrosian isn’t home. He’s at Franklin Aimes Neuropsychiatric Hospital in San Francisco.’

‘Christ,’ Nat said, taken aback.

‘Why not record me instead?’ Goltz said. Amiably.

‘Doing what?’

‘Oh, I can shout or rant a few historic slogans for you. Half an hour’s worth or so ... enough to fill up a small record. It may not sell well today or tomorrow, but one of these days -- ‘ Goltz winked at Nat.

‘No thanks,’ Nat said.

‘Is your Ganymedean creature too pure for what I have to say?’ The smile was empty of warmth, now; it was fixed starkly in place.

Nat said, ‘I’m a Jew, Mr Goltz. So it’s hard for me to look on neo-Nazism with much enthusiasm.’

After a pause Goltz said, ‘I’m a Jew, too, Mr Flieger. Or more properly, an Israeli. Look it up. It’s in the records. Any good newspaper or media news morgue can tell you that.’

Nat stared at him.

‘Our enemy, yours and mine,’ Goltz said, ‘is the der Alte system. They’re the real inheritors of the Nazi past. Think about that. They, and the cartels. A.G. Chemie, Karp und Sohnen Werke ... didn’t you know that? Where have you been, Flieger? Haven’t you been listening?’

After an interval Nat said, ‘I’ve been listening. But I haven’t been very much convinced.’

‘I’ll tell you something, then,’ Goltz said. ‘Nicole and the people around her, our Mutter, is going to make use of von Lessinger’s time travel principle to make contact with the Third Reich, with Hermann Goering, as a matter of fact. They’ll be doing it soon. Does this surprise you?’

‘I’ve -- heard rumours.’ Nat shrugged.

‘You’re not a Ge,’ Goltz said. ‘You’re like me, Flieger, me and my people. You’re forever on the outside. We’re not even supposed to hear rumours. There shouldn’t have been a leak. But we Bes are not going to talk -- do you agree! Bringing Fat Hermann from the past into our time is just too much, wouldn’t you say?’ He studied Nat’s face, waiting for his reaction.

Presently Nat said, ‘If it’s true -- ‘

‘It’s true, Flieger.’ Goltz nodded.

‘Then it puts your movement in a new light.’

‘Come and see me,’ Goltz said. ‘When the news is made public. When you know it’s true. Okay?’

Nat said nothing. He did not meet the man’s dark intense gaze.

‘So long, Flieger.’ Goltz said. And picking up his banner, which had been resting against the auto-cab, he strode on down the street to rejoin his marching followers.

7

Seated together in the business office of The Abraham Lincoln, Don Tishman and Patrick Doyle studied the application which Mr Ian Duncan of number 304 had just now filed with them. Ian Duncan desired to appear in the twiceweekly building talent show, and at a time when a White House talent scout was present.

The request, Tishman saw, was routine. Except that Ian Duncan proposed to perform his act in conjunction with another individual who did not live at The Abraham Lincoln.

Pondering, Doyle said, ‘It’s an old buddy of his from the Military Service. He told me once; the two of them used to have this act years ago. Baroque music on two jugs. A novelty.’

‘What apartment house does his partner live in?’ Tishman inquired. Approval of the application would depend on how relations stood between The Abraham Lincoln and the other building.

‘None. He sells jalopies for that -- Loony Luke -- you know. Those cheap little vehicles that just barely manage to get you to Mars. He lives on the lot, I understand. The lots move around; it’s a nomadic existence. I’m sure you’ve heard.’

‘Yes,’ Tishman agreed, ‘and it’s totally out of the question. We can’t have that act on our stage, not with a man like that involved in it. There’s no reason why Ian can’t play his jug; I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a satisfactory act. But it’s against our tradition to have an outsider participate; our stage is for our own people exclusively, always has been, and always will. So there’s no need even to discuss this.’ He eyed the skypilot critically.

‘True,’ Doyle said, ‘but it’s legal for one of us to invite a relative to watch the talent shows ... so why not an army buddy? Why not let him participate? This means a lot to Ian: I think you know he’s been failing lately. He’s not a very intelligent person. Actually, he should be doing a manual job, I suppose. But if he has artistic ability, for instance this job concept -- ‘

Examining his documents, Tishman saw that the highest White House scout would be attending a show at The Abraham Lincoln, Miss Janet Raimer. The top acts at the building would of course be scheduled that night ... so Duncan & Miller and their baroque jug band would have to compete successfully in order to obtain that privilege, and there were a number of acts which -- Tishman thought were probably superior. After all, jugs ... and not even electronic jugs, at that.

‘All right,’ he decided aloud. ‘I agree.’

‘You’re showing your human side,’ Doyle said, with an expression of sentimentality which disgusted Tishman. ‘And I think we’ll all enjoy the Bach and Vivaldi as played by Duncan & Miller on their inimitable jugs.’

Tishman, wincing, nodded.

It was old Joe Purd, the most ancient resident of the building, who informed Vince Strikerock that his wife -- or more exactly his ex-wife -- Julie was living upstairs on the top floor with Chic. Had been all this time.

My own brother, Vince said to himself, incredulous.

The time was late evening, almost eleven o’clock, close to curfew. Never the less, Vince headed at once for an elevator and a moment later was ascending to the top floor of The Abraham Lincoln.

I’ll kill him, he decided. Kill both of them, in fact.

And I’ll probably get off, he conjectured, before a jury selected at random from among the residents of the building, because after all I’m official identification reader; everybody knows me and respects me. I have their confidence.

And what position does Chic hold, here? And also I work for a really huge cartel, Karp u. Sohnen, whereas Chic works for a flea-sized outfit on the verge of collapse. And everyone here knows that, too. Facts like that are important. You have to weigh them, take them into account. Whether you approve of it or not.

And in addition, the pure unadulterated fact that Vince Strikerock was a Ge and Chic was not would alone positively ensure his acquittal.

At the door of Chic’s apartment he paused, not knocking but merely standing there in the hall, uncertainly. This is awful, he said to himself. He was actually very fond of his older brother, who had helped raise him. Didn’t Chic really mean more to him than even Julie? No. Nothing and no one meant more to him than Julie.

Raising his hand he knocked.

The door opened. There stood Chic, in his blue dressing gown, a magazine in one hand. He looked a little older, more tired and bald and depressed, than usual.

‘Now I realize why you haven’t dropped by and tried to cheer me up,’ Vince said, ‘during these last couple of days. How could you, with Julie living up here?’

Chic said, ‘Come on in.’ He held the door wide. Wearily, he led his brother into the small living room. ‘I suppose you’re going to give me a hard time,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘As if I didn’t have enough already. My goddam firm’s about to close down -- ‘

‘Who cares,’ Vince said, panting. ‘It’s what you deserve.’

He looked around for Julie but did not see her or any sign of her belongings. Could old Joe Purd have been wrong? Impossible. Purd knew everything that went on in the building; gossip was his whole life. He was an authority.

‘I heard something interesting on the news tonight,’ Chic said as he seated himself on the couch facing his younger brother. ‘The government has decided to allow an exception in the application of the McPhearson Act. A psychoanalyst named Egon -- ‘

‘Listen,’ Vince broke in. ‘Where is she?’

‘I’ve got troubles enough without you jumping on me.’

Chic eyed his younger brother. ‘I’ll flip you for her.’

Vince Strikerock choked with rage.

‘A joke,’ Chic murmured woodenly. ‘Sorry I said it; don’t know why I said it. She’s out somewhere buying clothes. She’s expensive to keep, isn’t she? You should have warned me. Put up a notice on the building’s bulletin board. But I’ll tell you seriously what I propose. I want you to get me into Karp und Sohnen Werke. Ever since Julie showed up here I’ve been thinking about this. Call it a deal.’

‘No deal.’

‘Then no Julie.’

Vince said, ‘What kind of job do you want with Karp?’

‘Anything. Well, anything in public relations, sales or promotion; not in the engineering or manufacturing end. The same type of work I’ve been doing for Maury Frauenzimmer. Clean hands type of work.’

His voice shaking, Vince said, ‘I’ll get you in as assistant shipping clerk.’

Chic laughed sharply. ‘That’s a good one. And I’ll give you back Julie’s left foot.’

‘Jesus.’ Vince stared at him, unable to believe his ears. ‘You’re depraved or something.’

‘Not at all. I’m in a very bad position, careerwise. All I have to bargain with is your ex-wife. What am I supposed to do? Sink obligingly into oblivion? The hell with that; I’m fighting to exist.’ Chic seemed calm, fully rational.

‘Do you love her?’ Vince said.

Now, for the first time, his brother’s composure seemed to leave him. ‘What? Oh sure, I’m out of my mind with love for her -- can’t you perceive that? How can you ask?’ His tone was violently bitter. ‘That’s why I’m going to trade her back to you for a job at Karp. Listen Vince, she’s a cold, hostile cookie -- she’s out for herself and no one else. As far as I can ascertain she came up here merely to hurt you. Ponder that. I tell you what. We’ve got a bad problem here, you and I, with Julie; it’s ruining our lives. You agree? I think we should take it to an expert. Frankly it’s too much for me. I can’t solve it.’

‘What expert?’

‘Any expert. For instance the building marital guidance counsellor. Or let’s take it to the last remaining psychoanalyst in the USEA, that Dr Egon Superb they told about on the TV. Let’s go to him before they shut him down, too. What do you say? You know I’m right; you and I’ll never manage to thrash this out.’ He added. ‘And come out alive, anyhow the two of us.’

‘You go.’

‘Okay.’ Chic nodded. ‘I’ll go. But you agree to abide by his decision. Okay?’

‘Hell,’ Vince said. ‘Then I’ll go along, too. You think I’m going to depend on your verbal report of what he says?’

The door of the apartment opened. Vince turned. There in the doorway stood Julie, with a package under her arm.

‘Come back later,’ Chic said to her. ‘Please.’ He rose to his feet and walked towards her.

‘We’re going to see a psychiatrist about you,’ Vince said to Julie. ‘It’s settled.’ To his brother he said, ‘You and I’ll split the fees. I’m not going to get stuck with the whole tab.’

‘Agreed,’ Chic said, nodding. Awkwardly -- or so it seemed to Vince -- he kissed Julie on the cheek, patted her shoulder. To Vince he said, ‘And I still want that Job at Karp und Sohnen Werke, no matter how this comes out, no matter which of us gets her. You understand?’

Vince said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He spoke grudgingly, with massive resentment. It seemed to him too much to ask.

But after all, Chic was his brother. There was such a thing as family.

Picking up the telephone, Chic said, ‘I’ll call Dr Superb right now.’

‘At this time of night?’ Julie said.

‘Tomorrow, then. Early.’ With reluctance Chic set the phone down again. ‘I’m anxious to get started; this whole business weighs on my mind, and I’ve got other problems that are more important.’ He glanced at Julie. ‘No offence meant.’

Stiffly, Julie said, ‘I haven’t agreed to go to a psychiatrist or abide by anything he says. If I want to stay with you -- ‘

‘We’ll do what Superb says,’ Chic informed her. ‘And if he says for you to go back downstairs and you don’t then I’ll get a court order to bar you from my apartment. I mean it.’ Vince had never heard his brother sound so hard; it surprised him. Probably it was due to Frauenzimmer Associates folding up. Chic’s job was his whole life, after all.

‘A drink,’ Chic said. And crossed to the liquor cabinet in the kitchen.

To her talent scout, Janet Raimer, Nicole said, ‘Where did you manage to dig up that?’

She gestured towards the folk singers twanging their electric guitars and nasally intoning away at the microphone in the centre of the Camellia Room of the White House. ‘They’re really awful.’ She felt thoroughly unhappy.

Businesslike and detached, Janet answered brightly, ‘From the conapt building Oak Farms in Cleveland, Ohio.’

‘Well, send them back,’ Nicole said, and signalled Maxwell Jamison who sat, bulky and inert, on the far side of the large room. Jamison at once clambered to his feet, stretched, and made his way to the folk singers and their microphone.

They glanced at him. Apprehension showed on their faces and their droning song began to trail off.

‘I don’t want to hurt your feelings,’ Nicole said to them, ‘but I guess I’ve had enough of ethnic music for this evening. Sorry.’ She gave them one of her radiant smiles; wanly they smiled back. They were finished. And they knew it.

Back to Oak Farm Conapts, Nicole said to herself. Where you belong.

A uniformed White House page approached her chair.

‘Mrs Thibodeaux,’ the page whispered. ‘Assistant State Secretary Garth McRae is now waiting in the Easter Lily Alcove for you. He says you’re expecting him.’

‘Oh yes,’ Nicole said. ‘Thank you. Give him some coffee or a drink and tell him I’ll be in shortly.’

The page departed.

‘Janet,’ Nicole said, ‘I want you to play back that tape you made of your phone conversation with Kongrosian. I want to see for myself just how sick he is; with hypochondriacs you can never be certain.’

‘You understand there’s no vid portion,’ Janet said. ‘Kongrosian had a towel -- ‘

‘Yes, I realize that.’ Nicole felt irritable. ‘But I know him well enough to tell by his voice alone. He gets that reticent, introverted quality when he’s genuinely in distress. If he’s just feeling sorry for himself he becomes garrulous.’ She stood up, and at once the guests stood, too, here and there in their places throughout the Camellia Room. There were not many of them tonight; the hour was late, almost midnight, and the current programme of artistic talent was slender.

This was distinctly not one of the better evenings.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ Janet Raimer said archily. ‘If I can’t do better than this, than the Moonrakers -- ‘ She gestured at the folk singers, who now were glumly packing up their instruments. ‘I’ll arrange a programme entirely of the best of Ted Nitz’ commercials.’ She smiled, showing her stainless steel teeth. Nicole winced. Janet, sometimes, was just too much the witty professional woman. Just too amusing and poised, and wholly identified with this powerful office; Janet could be sure of herself any time and this bothered Nicole. There was no way to get at Janet Raimer.

No wonder every aspect of life had become for Janet a kind of game.

On the raised dais, a new group had replaced the defunct folk singers. Nicole examined her programme. This was the Las Vegas Modern String Quartet; they would in a moment, be playing a Haydn work, despite their august title. Maybe I’ll go see Garth now, Nicole decided. Haydn seemed to her, with all the problems she had to cope with, a bit too nice. A bit too ornamental, not substantial enough.

When we get Goering here, she thought, we can bring in a brass band, street style, to play Bavarian military marches. I must remember to tell Janet that, she told herself. Or we could have some Wagner. Didn’t the Nazis dote on Wagner? Yes, she was sure of that. She had been studying history books about the period of the Third Reich; Dr Goebbels, in his diaries, had mentioned the reverence felt by high Nazi officials at a performance of The Ring.

Or perhaps it was Meistersinger.

We could have the brass band play arrangements of themes from Parsifal, she decided with a secret spasm of amusement. In march tempo, of course. A sort of proctological version, just right for the Ubermenschen of the Third Reich.

Within twenty-four hours the von Lessinger technicians would have the conduits to 1944 completed. It was weird but perhaps by tomorrow at this time Hermann Goering would be here in this era, plucked from his own time period by the most wily of the White House negotiators, skinny, small, elder Major Tucker Behrans. Practically a der Alte himself, except that Army Major Behrans was alive and genuine and breathing, not a mere simulacrum. At least not as far as she knew. Although sometimes it seemed that way, seemed to her that she existed in the centre of a milieu comprised entirely of artificial creations of the cartel system, of A.G. Chemie conspiring with Karp u. Sohnen Werke in particular. Their commitment to ersatz reality ... it was frankly too much for her. She had, over the years of contact with it, developed a sense of pure dread.

‘I have an appointment,’ she said to Janet. ‘Excuse me,’ she rose, left the Camellia Room; two NP men fell in behind her as she made her way down the corridor to the Easter Lily Alcove where Garth McRae waited.

In the alcove Garth sat with another man whom she recognized -- by his uniform -- as a top official of the higher police. She did not know him. Evidently he had arrived with Garth; the two of them were consulting in low tones, unaware of her arrival.

‘Have you informed Karp und Sohnen?’ she asked Garth.

At once both men were on their feet, respectful and attentive. ‘Oh yes, Mrs Thibodeaux,’ Garth answered. ‘At least,’ he added quickly, ‘I informed Anton Karp that the Rudi Kalbfleisch simulacrum is going to be discontinued soon. I -- haven’t informed them that the next simulacrum will be obtained through other channels.’

‘Why not?’ Nicole asked.

Glancing at his companion, Garth said, ‘Mrs Thibodeaux, this man is Wilder Pembroke, new Commissioner of the NP. He’s warned me that Karp und Sohnen have held a closed, secret meeting of their top executive personnel and have discussed the possibility that the contract for the next der Alte will be let somewhere else.’ Garth explained, ‘The NP of course has a number of individuals employed at Karp -- needless to say.’

Nicole said to the police official, ‘What will Karp do?’

‘The Werke will make public the fact that the der Altes are constructs, that the last living der Alte held office fifty years ago.’ Pembroke cleared his throat noisily: he appeared singularly ill at ease. ‘This is a clear violation of basic law, of course. Such knowledge constitutes a state secret and cannot be brought before the Bes. Both Anton Karp and his father Felix Karp are perfectly aware of that; they discussed these legal aspects at their conference. They know that they -- and anyone else at policy level at the Werke -- would be instantly liable to prosecution.’

‘And yet they’d go ahead,’ Nicole said, and thought to herself, So we’re correct; the Karp people are already too strong. Already possess far too much autonomy. And they won’t abandon this without a fight.’

‘Individuals high in cartel circles are peculiarly stiffnecked,’ Pembroke said. ‘The last of the true Prussians, perhaps. The Attorney General has asked that you contact him before going ahead in this matter; he will be glad to outline the direction of the state’s litigation against the Werke, and he’s anxious to discuss several sensitive aspects with you. By and large, however, the Attorney General is prepared to move in at any time. As soon as he receives notification. However -- ‘ Pembroke glanced at her sideways.

‘I wonder. It’s the summation of all data reaching me that the cartel system as a whole is simply too enormous, too sturdily constructed and interlocked, to be brought down. That, instead of direct action against it, some sort of quid pro quo should be brought about. Such appears to me to be much more desirable. And feasible.’

Nicole said, ‘But that’s up to me.’

Both Garth McRae and Pembroke nodded in unison.

‘I will discuss this with Maxwell Jamison,’ she said finally.

‘Max will have a relatively clear idea as to how this information about the der Alte will be received by the Bes, by the uniformed public. I have no idea how they would react. Would they riot? Would they find it amusing? Personally I find it amusing. I’m sure it would appear that way to me if I were, say, a rather minor employee of some cartel or government agency. Do you agree?’

Neither man smiled; both remained tense and sombre.

‘In my opinion, if I may say so,’ Pembroke said, ‘release of this information will topple the entire structure of our society.’

‘But it is amusing,’ Nicole persisted. ‘Isn’t it? Rudi is a dummy, an ersatz creation of the cartel system, and yet he’s the highest elected official in the USEA. These people voted for him and for the der Alte before him and so on back for fifty years -- I’m sorry, but it has to be funny; there’s no other way to look at it.’ She was laughing now; the idea of not knowing this Geheimnis, this state secret and suddenly finding it out, was too much for her. ‘I think I’ll go ahead,’ she told Garth. ‘Yes, I’ve made up my mind; contact the Karp Werke tomorrow morning. Talk directly with both Anton and Felix. Tell them, among other things, that we will arrest them instantly if they try to betray us to the Bes. Tell them that the NP is ready to move on them.’

‘Yes, Mrs Thibodeaux,’ Garth said, with gloom.

‘And don’t take it so hard,’ Nicole said. ‘If the Karps do go ahead and release the Geheimnis, we’ll still survive -- I think you’re wrong: it won’t mean the end of our status quo at all.’

Garth said, ‘Mrs Thibodeaux, if the Karps release this information, no matter how the Bes react, there can never be another der Alte. And legally speaking, you hold your position of authority only because you’re the wife. It’s hard to keep that in mind, because -- ‘ Garth hesitated.

‘Say it,’ Nicole said.

‘Because it’s clear to everyone, Bes and Ges alike, that you are the ultimate authority in the establishment. And it’s essential to maintain the myth that somehow, indirectly at least, you were placed here by the people, by mass public vote.’

There was silence.

Pembroke said finally, ‘Perhaps the NP should move in on the Karps before they can put out their white paper. Thereby we’d cut them off from the organs of communication.’

‘Even under arrest,’ Nicole said, ‘the Karps would manage to gain access to at least one of the media. Better face that fact.’

‘But their reputation, if they’re under arrest -- ‘

‘The only solution,’ Nicole said thoughtfully, half to herself, ‘would be to assassinate those officers of the Werke who attended the policy meeting. In other words, all the Ges of the cartel, no matter how many there are. Even if the numbers ran up into the hundreds.’ In other words, she said to herself, a purge. Such as one generally only witnessed in times of revolution.

She shrank from the idea.

‘Nacht und Nebel,’

Pembroke murmured.

‘What?’ Nicole said.

‘The Nazi term for the invisible agents of the government who deal in murder.’ He faced Nicole calmly. ‘Night and fog. They were the Einsatzgruppen. Monsters. Of course our police, the NP has nothing like that. I’m sorry; you’ll have to act through the military. Not through us.’

‘I was joking,’ Nicole said.

Both men studied her.

‘There are no more purges,’ Nicole said. ‘There haven’t been any since World War Three. You know that. We’re too modern, too civilized, for massacres now.’

Pembroke, frowning, his lips twitching nervously, said, ‘Mrs Thibodeaux, when the technicians from the von Lessinger Institute bring Goering to our period, perhaps you can arrange for an Einsatzgruppe to be brought, too. It could assume responsibility vis-à-vis the Karps and then return to the Age of Barbarism.’

She stared at him open-mouthed.

‘I’m serious,’ Pembroke said, stammering slightly. ‘It certainly would be better -- for us at least -- than allowing the Karps to make public the information they possess. That’s the worst alternative of all.’

‘I agree,’ Garth McRae said.

‘It’s insane,’ Nicole said.

Garth McRae said, ‘Is it? Through von Lessinger’s principle we have access to trained assassins, and, as you pointed out, in our era no such professionals exist. I doubt if it would mean the destruction of scores or hundreds of individuals. I’d guess it could be limited to the board of directors, the executive vice-presidents of the Werke. Possibly as few as eight men.’

‘And,’ Pembroke pointed out eagerly, ‘these eight men, these top officers at Karp, are de facto criminals; they’ve deliberately met and conspired against the legal government. They’re on a par with the Sons of Job. With that Bertold Goltz. Even though they wear black bow ties every evening and drink vintage wine and don’t squabble in the gutters and streets.’

‘May I say,’ Nicole said drily, ‘that all of us are de facto criminals. Because this government -- as you pointed out is based on a fraud. And of the most primary magnitude.’

‘But it’s the legal government,’ Garth said. ‘Fraud or not. And the so-called “fraud” is in the best interests of the people. We’re not doing it to exploit anyone -- as the cartel system does. We’re not out to engorge ourselves at somebody else’s expense.’

At least, Nicole thought, that’s what we tell ourselves.

Pembroke said respectfully, ‘Having talked just now to the Attorney General I know how he feels about the rising power of the cartels. Epstein feels they must be cut down. It’s essential!’

‘Perhaps,’ Nicole said, ‘you have a trifle too much respect for the cartels. I don’t. And -- perhaps we should wait a day or so until Hermann Goering is with us and we can ask for an opinion from him.’

Now the two men were staring at her open-mouthed.

‘I’m not serious,’ she said. Or was she? She did not know, herself. ‘After all,’ she said, ‘Goering founded the Gestapo.”

‘I could never approve of that,’ Pembroke said, with hauteur.

‘But you don’t make policy,’ Nicole said to him. ‘Technically, Rudi does. That is, I do. I can compel you to act on my behalf in this matter. And you’d do it ... unless, of course, you’d prefer to join the Sons of Job and march up and down the streets throwing rocks and chanting.’

Both Garth McRae and Pembroke looked uneasy. And acutely unhappy.

‘Don’t be frightened,’ Nicole said. ‘Do you know what the true basis of political power is? Not guns or troops but the ability to get others to do what you want them to do. By whatever means are appropriate. I know I can get the NP to do what I want -- despite what you personally feel. I can get Hermann Goering to do what I want. It won’t be Goering’s decision; it’ll be mine.’

‘I hope,’ Pembroke said presently, ‘that you’re right, that you will be able to handle Goering. I admit that on a strictly subjective level I’m frightened, frightened of this entire experiment with the past. You may open the floodgates. Goering is not a clown.’

‘I’m well aware of that,’ Nicole said. ‘And don’t presume to give me advice, Mr Pembroke. It’s not your place.’

Pembroke flushed, was silent a moment and then said in a low voice, ‘Sorry. Now, if it’s all right with you, Mrs Thibodeaux, I’d like to bring up one other matter. It has to do with the sole remaining psychoanalyst now practising in the USEA. Dr Egon Superb. In explanation of the NP’s reason for allowing him to -- ‘

‘I don’t want to hear about it,’ Nicole said. ‘I just want you to do your job. As you must know, I never did approve of the McPhearson Act in the first place. So you can hardly expect me to object when it is not fully applied.’

‘The patient in question -- ‘

‘Please,’ she said sharply.

Pembroke, his face impassive and set, shrugged in obedience.