Counter-Clock World

11

Nothing can be predicated of God literally or affirmatively. Literally God is _not_, because He transcends being.

--Erigena

By cab they flew across Burbank, to the Flask of Hermes Vitarium.

From the outside the store looked empty and closed and dark, and totally deserted for the night. Seeing it, he had trouble believing that the Anarch Peak lay on a makeshift bed inside, presumably with at least Dr. Sign in attendance.

"This is exciting," Ann Fisher said, pressing her lean body close against him and shivering. "It's cold; let's hurry and get inside. I'm dying to see him; you have no idea how much I really appreciate this."

"We can't stay long," Sebastian said, as he unlocked the door. The door swung open. And there, pointing a pistol at him, stood Bob Lindy, blinking like an owl and at least as watchful.

"It's me," Sebastian said; he was startled, but it gratified him that his staff was so prepared. "And a friend." He shut and locked the door after them.

"That gun scares me," Aim Fisher said nervously.

Sebastian said, "Put it away, Lindy. That wouldn't stop anybody anyhow."

"It might," Lindy said. He led the way back to the work area; the inner door opened and all at once light shone out. "He's much stronger; he's been dictating to Cheryl." He surveyed Ann Fisher critically, and with cynical caution. "Who's she?"

"A customer," Sebastian said. "Negotiating for Mrs. Tilly M. Benton." He walked over to the bed; Ann Fisher followed, breathlessly. "Your Mightiness," he said formally. "You're coming along okay, I hear."

The Anarch, his voice much stronger now, said, "I have so much I want to get down; why don't you own a tape recorder? Anyhow, I can't tell you how much I appreciate Miss Vale's facility as an amanuensis. In fact, all the hospitality and attention you've afforded me."

"Are you actually the Anarch Peak?" Ann Fisher asked, in an awed voice. "It was so long ago... do you feel that way, too?"

"I only know," the Anarch said dreamily, "that I've had a priceless opportunity. God has provided me--and others, too-- with more than he allowed Paul to witness. I _must_ get it all down." He appealed to Sebastian. "Don't you suppose you could get me a tape recorder, Mr. Hermes? I feel myself forgetting... it's vanishing from within my grasp, melting away." He clenched his fists spasmodically.

To Bob Lindy, Sebastian said, "It ought to be possible to round up a tape recorder. We used to have one; what happened to it?"

"The lifters jammed," Lindy said. "It's back where we got it, being serviced."

"That was months ago," Cheryl Vale said severely.

"Well," Lindy said, "nobody's had the time to pick it up. We can get it tomorrow morning."

"But it's departing," the Anarch wailed. "Please help me."

Ann Fisher said, "I own a tape recorder. Back at my conapt. Not a very good one--"

"For voice recording," Sebastian said, "fidelity doesn't matter." He made a quick decision. "Could you be prevailed on to go get it? And bring it back here?"

"Don't forget tape," Lindy said. "Around twelve seven-inch reels."

"I'd love to," Ann Fisher said, her eyes intense. "To be able to help in something as wonderful as this--" She squeezed Sebastian's arm briefly, then started at a trot toward the front of the store. "You will let me in when I get back here with it, won't you?"

"We need it," Bob Lindy said. To Sebastian he said, "The old guy's talking so fast Cheryl can't really get it down; it's coming out a mile a minute." He added, mystified, "None of the others rattled away like this. They usually just sort of sputter a while and then give up."

Sebastian said, "He wants to be understood." He wants to do, he realized, what I wanted to do--and what I, like the others, gave up trying for. He'll wheedle and pester us until we can get it down. To him it was impressive. And as he let Ann Fisher out onto the sidewalk he could see by her feverish, illuminated expression that it impressed her, too.

"Half an hour," she toId him. And departed; her sharp heels clicked across the pavement; he saw her waving down an aircab and then he shut and locked the door once again.

Dr. Sign, seated in a corner, taking a brief rest, said to him, "I'm surprised, you bringing that girl here."

"She's a girl," Sebastian said, "who incorporated a baby nine months ago and she got me to go to bed with her tonight. She'll bring her tape recorder here, leave it off, and we'll probably never see her again."

The vidphone rang.

Lifting an eyebrow, Sebastian reached for the receiver. Perhaps it was Lotta. "Goodbye," he said, hopefully.

On the screen an unknown man's face formed. "Mr. Hermes?" His voice was slow, extremely methodical. "I'm not going to identify myself because it isn't necessary. My companion and I have this stake-out across the street from your vitarium."

"Oh?" Sebastian said; he made his own voice casual. "So?"

"We photographed the girl when you entered the building with her," the man continued. "The one who just now left by cab. We transmitted the photo to Rome and ran an ident-scan through our archives on it. I have here the info, back from Rome." The man studied a sheet of paper; it obscured his face as he read from it. "Her name's Ann McGuire; she's the daughter of the Chief Librarian at the People's Topical Library. The Erads use her from time to time in this area."

"I see," Sebastian said mechanically.

"So they've got to you," the man finished. "You'll have to get the Anarch right out and somewhere else. Before they make a flying-wedge raid on you. The Erads, I mean. Okay, Mr. Hermes?"

"Okay," he said, and hung up.

Presently Dr. Sign said, "Maybe my house."

"Maybe it's hopeless," Sebastian said.

Bob Lindy, who had also listened in on the vidcall, said, "Get the old man into an aircar; we've got three on the roof. _Get him out of here_--move!" His voice rose to a shout.

"You do it," Sebastian said thickly.

Both Dr. Sign and Bob Lindy disappeared into the back; standing inert, Sebastian heard them getting the Anarch out of bed; he heard the Anarch protesting--he wanted to keep dictating--and then he heard them making their way up the stairs to the roof field.

The noise of an aircar motor. Then silence.

Cheryl Vale approached him. "They're gone. The three of them. Do you think--"

"I think," Sebastian said, "that I'm a mouth-hole."

"And with you married," Cheryl said. "To that sweet little girl."

Ignoring her, Sebastian said, "That buyer in Italy. Giacometti. I think he's going to be our customer."

"Yes, you owe them something."

And I was just in bed with her, he thought. An hour ago.

How can anybody do that? Use themselves like that? "You can see," he said, "why Lotta left me." He felt totally futile. And defeated, in a way new to him. Not a conventional defeat, but something intimate and personal; something which reached deep within him, as a man and as a human being.

I will sometime see that woman again, he said to himself. And I will do something to her. In return.

"Go home," he said to Cheryl.

"I intend to." She gathered up her coat and purse, unlocked the door and disappeared out into the night darkness. He was alone.

In one day, he thought, they got to both of us; they got Lotta and then they got me.

He hunted around the store until he found Lindy's gun, left behind, and then he seated himself by the front counter where he could watch the door. Time passed. For this I returned from death, he thought. To do infinite harm in a finite world. He continued to wait.

Twenty minutes later a tap-tap sounded on the front door. He rose, put the gun in his coat pocket, and went stiffly to answer it.

"'Bye," Ann Fisher said, gasping for breath as he opened the door and she squeezed into the store carrying her tape recorder, plus a box of tapes. "Shall I take it in the back?" she asked. "Where he is?"

"Fine," he said; again he seated himself at the counter. Ann Fisher passed on by him, lugging her load; he made no move to help her. He merely sat waiting, as he had been doing.

After a moment she returned; he sensed her standing by him, tall and lithe, not saying anything.

"He's gone," Ann said at last.

"He never was here. It was faked. For your benefit." He had to play it by ear. Strangely, he felt frightened. Weak and scared.

"I don't get it," Ann said.

"We received a tip," he said. "About you."

"Oh?" Her voice sharpened; it underwent a fundamental, almost metabolic change. "Just what did they have to say about me?" He did not answer. "I'd appreciate knowing," Ann said. "Anonymous information--I have a right know." He still said nothing. "Well," she said, then, "I guess you don't need my tape recorder. Or me. If you don't trust me."

He said, without looking up, "What did your mother do to my wife at the Library today?"

"Nothing," she said, matter-of-factly; she seated herself in one of the customers' chairs, her legs crossed. Presently she fished out a package of cigaret butts and lit one, inhaling, breathing out, inhaling.

"It was enough," he said, "to cause her to leave me."

"Oh, they got frightened, she and her cop-friend. She didn't leave you because of what mother did; that cop's been trying to get her into bed for months. We know where they are; they're holed up in a motel somewhere in San Fernando."

"As you and I were," he said. "A little while ago."

She had no comment about that; she merely continued smoking: the cigaret grew longer and longer. "So now what?" Ann asked finally. "You moved him; we find him. There're only a finite number of places he can be. And we have a tail on that aircar that left here; I presume you have him in that."

"There was no Arnold Oxnard Ford," he said. "Was there?"

"In a sense, yes. That was the name of my first husband. He left me last year." She sounded noncommittal, as if nothing of importance were taking place. And perhaps, he thought, she's right. He rose to his feet, walked toward her. Glancing up, she said, "And now?"

"Get out of my store," he said.

"Look," Ann said, "be intelligent. We're a buyer. We want to be in a position to erad everything he says; that's all we want... we're not going to injure him. We don't need to do that; it's your cop-friend who uses a gun, and that technician of yours. Where is that gun now?"

"I have it," he said. "So get out." He held the door to the street open. Waiting.

Ann sighed. "I see no barrier to our relationship. Lotta is shacking up with someone else; you're alone. I'm alone. What's the problem? We've done nothing illegal; your wife is a phobic child, scared by everything--you're making a mistake, taking her neurotic fears seriously; you ought to tell her, swim or drown. I would." She lit another cigaret. "It's that cop-friend of yours, that Joe Tinbane, you ought to be after; doesn't it make you sore, him sleeping with your wife? That's what they're doing right now, and you're mad at me." Her tone was brittle and accusing, but without heat or even color. A neutral stating of facts. Devastating, he thought. I can't stand much more of it; this isn't the same woman I slept with; nobody can change that much. "I think," Ann said, "you and I ought to forget this quarrel--it isn't doing either of us any good, and then--" She shrugged. "Pick up where we left off. We could have a very rewarding relationship, very wholesome and complete. Despite your age."

He gave her a brutal, violent smack across the mouth.

Unruffled, she bent to retrieve her cigaret; she was, however, shaking. "Your marriage," she continued, "is finished, whether you like it or not. Your old life is over and a new one--"

"With you?" he said.

"It could be. I find you attractive--after a fashion. If we can get this matter regarding the Anarch out of the way, then--" She gestured. "I don't see what would obstruct a gainful and quite mutually satisfying relationship between us. Except for this one problem, that of the Anarch, about which you have so much hostility and distrust, I still think we were off to a quite good beginning. Despite your hitting me. I can even overlook that; I don't think you're really like that; that's not you."

The vidphone rang.

"Aren't you going to answer it?" Ann Fisher inquired.

"No," he said.

Going over to the vidphone, Ann lifted the receiver. "Flask of Hermes Vitarium," she said, with professional resonance. "We're closed, now; could you call back in the morning?"

A male voice, unfamiliar to Sebastian, said, "Mrrrrr." He caught the sound but not the words; he sat impassively, weighed down, his mind drifting. Not Lotta, he thought. The thing is, Ann Fisher is right; my marriage is over because she can _make_ it be over. All she has to do is find Lotta and tell her about our going to bed together. And she will paint it as she has just now: as the beginning of something enduring.

In one evening, he thought, this girl has imperiled both my business and my life as I lead it. A day ago I couldn't have believed this.

To him, Ann Fisher said, "It's a Mr. Carl Gantrix."

"I don't know him," he said.

She put her hand over the receiver. "He knows you have the Anarch Peak; it's about that. I think he's a customer." She held the receiver of the vidphone toward him.

There was no choice. He got up, came over, accepted the receiver. "Goodbye," he said. Listlessly.

"Mr. Hermes," Mr. Gantrix said. "Nice to have known you."

"Likewise."

"I am contacting you," Gantrix said, "officially, for His Mightiness, Ray Roberts, who, at this moment, I am happy to say, is aboard a jet on his pilg to the W.U.S.; he will arrive in Los Angeles ten minutes from now."

Sebastian said nothing. He merely heard.

"Mr. Hermes," Gantrix said, "I've called at this unusual hour on the offchance hope that you'd be on your premises. I would in fact speculate that you are busily at work, reviving and caring for the Anarch; am I right in this regard?"

"Who told you," Sebastian said, "that we have the Anarch?"

"Ah... that would be telling." Gantrix's face on the vidscreen was sly.

"Your informant was wrong," Sebastian said.

"No, I don't think so." Again the almost bantering, teasing slyness, as if Gantrix was playing with him. As if Gantrix held all the cards and knew it. "I, myself," Gantrix said, "am already here in the W.U.S., in Los Angeles, where I will shortly again join Mr. Roberts. I do have time, however, to conduct this business matter with you; His Mightiness, Mr. Roberts, has instructed me to negotiate for the purchase of the Anarch, and I am so doing. What is he listed at in your catalog?"

"Forty billion poscreds," Sebastian said.

"That's rather high."

"Forty-five billion," Sebastian said, "with the salesman's commission."

Standing behind him, Ann Fisher leaned down and said, "You made a mistake, naming a price."

"It's a preposterous price," Sebastian said. "Nobody could pay it. Not even the Uditi."

"Not really," Ann said. "Not for them. Not for what they're getting."

"I'll be by your place shortly," Gantrix said, "and we can perhaps shave the price a trifle." He did not seem phased. Ann was right. "Hello, then, Mr. Hermes, for the time being."

"Hello," Sebastian said, and hung up.

"You feel so guilty for hitting me," Ann said, "that you're now punishing yourself. By giving up."

"Maybe so," he said. But that price; he could hardly believe the Uditi could meet it. "I'll raise the price," he said, "when Gantrix gets here."

"No you won't," Ann said. "You'll capitulate. Anyhow, you don't know if you still have possession of the Anarch. I think you better let me handle this, Sebastian; you've had it."

"You want," he said, "to handle everything."

"Why not? I'm intelligent; I'm highly educated; I've had a good deal of training in business procedure. You're worn out. Go in the back of the shop and lie down; I'll wake you when Gantrix gets here, and you can act as an adviser to me. You need someone who can take charge when you get dispirited like this. I don't think Lotta could do that for you. That's why she lost out."

He got up, left the store, walked across the dark street. Searching for the stake-out. For a time he stood, waving his arms, and then from a building to his right a man emerged, the man who had called him to warn him about Ann. "I need help," Sebastian said.

"In what regard?" the dark-haired Italian-looking man said. "To take care of that McGuire girl?"

"You probably saw our aircar take off from our roof, a little while ago."

"Yes," the man said, "and we saw the Library bus go after it." Sebastian said, "I don't know if we still have the Anarch or not."

"We're waiting to hear about that," the man said. "It looked to us, at the stake-out, as if your aircar had a headstart. And it was really moving. Your driver must be an expert."

That would be Bob Lindy, Sebastian thought. He drives like a maniac. "How will you know?" he asked the man. "I have to find out because a buyer, representing Ray Roberts, is on his way here."

"Gantrix," the man said, nodding. "We monitored the vidcall from Gantrix; we know about that. That's quite a price you set; is that your real price? Or was that just to tie up the Uditi?"

Sebastian said, "I had no idea they could raise it."

"They can't. Not in W.U.S. poscreds, anyhow. Gantrix will try to get you to take F.N.M. scrip; as you know, it's virtually worthless." He added, "You failed to specify."

"If we don't still have the Anarch," Sebastian said, "it doesn't matter."

"I can notify you as soon as we hear. We sent one of our own cars after the Library's; we should hear any time, now. Stall Gantrix until we phone you."

"Okay." Sebastian nodded. Then, awkwardly, he said, "I appreciate all your help."

The man said, "You've got to get rid of that McGuire girl. Can't you get control of her? She's tough; she's a pro--but you're bigger than _her_."

"What good would throwing her out on the street do?" It seemed futile to him. Pointless. "She's already told the Library what she found out; there isn't any more harm she can do."

"She'll tip your hand to Gantrix; that's what she'll do." The man's voice rose in indignation. "She'll take charge of the negotiations, and the first you know, she'll have sold the Anarch and it'll all be over."

A second dark figure emerged from the building on the right; the two stake-out men from the Rome syndicate conferred.

"She's using your store vidphone to call the Library," the first man said to Sebastian. "Telling the Erad Council about Gantrix, his meeting with you at the vitarium."

The other man, earphones still on his head, added, "And she's telling the Library that she's planted a bomb--she brought it in as part of her phony tape recorder--somewhere on the premises. Which she can detonate by remote any time she feels like."

"What's that for?" the first man asked him. "To blow up who? Herself?"

"She didn't say. The Erad at the Library who took her call seemed to know. Wait." He tapped his earphones. "She's making a second call." He was silent and then he said, "This is to her husband."

"Her husband," Sebastian said. So even that part wasn't true. He felt real hatred for her, deep and abiding.

"This is very interesting," the man with the headphones said after a time. "She has a whole bunch of projects humming away. First, she wants your wife, Mrs. Hermes, located and watched. Do you know where your wife is, Mr. Hermes?"

"No," he said.

"Second," the man continued. "she wants some man named Joe Tinbane killed. And lastly, if that happens, she wants the Erads to pick up your wife so she can't come back to you. Annie McGuire intends to stick around you until the Library gets possession of the Anarch and then--" He glanced at Sebastian. "She says she intends to kill you. For what you did to her. What did you do to her, Mr. Hermes?"

"I slapped her," he said.

"Not hard enough," the man with the headphones said.

Sebastian turned and made his way back across the street, to the vitarium. When he entered he found Ann seated a good distance from the vidphone; she smiled briskly at him. "And where did you go?" she asked. "I looked out but it was too dark; I couldn't see."

"I walked around and thought," he said.

"And what did you decide?"

"I'm still trying to decide," he said.

Ann said, "There's really nothing for you to decide."

"Yes there is," he said. "What to do about you. That's what I have to decide."

"I'm helping you," Ann said ingratiatingly. "Go lie down and get some rest. I'll tell you when Gantrix gets here. And--" She rose, put her hand on his arm, patted him. "Don't worry so. If you've lost the Anarch then the Library has him, and that's not so bad; they'll know what to do. And if you still have him--" She hesitated, calculating; her intense blue eyes flickered mightily. "I can handle that very well. The negotiations with Carl Gantrix."

Going into the rear of the store he lay down on the bed which the Anarch had so recently occupied; he stared up sightiessly at the ceiling. My whole store, he thought. She can destroy it and me, everything; there's nothing about me she can't get into and control. Why can't I stop her? he asked himself. I have a gun now; I could kill her.

But he was trained to bring people back to life, not to kill them; his whole orientation, everything he believed, involved bestowing life. On everyone possible, without distinction; the vitarium never asked for a pedigree on the old-born it dug up; it never inquired into whether they ought to live again.

It's not that easy to kill a person, he thought. That's not what people do; there has to be another answer. But hitting her hadn't affected her--except to get him placed on her permanent foodlist, to be paid back. I don't think I can physically drive her away, he decided. Not if she intends to hang around; words have no influence on her, nor menace to her physical safety. He wondered, Where is the bomb? Here in this room? God, he thought. I have to do something; I can't lie here; I have to act.

In the front room the vidphone rang.

He sprang up, thinking, I can't let her get that. He sprinted, panting, into the receptionist's area; there she sat, already the receiver against her ear--he grabbed it away from her.

"They wouldn't talk to me anyhow," Ann said philosophically. "They said they'd talk only to you, whoever they are." She added, "I didn't like their tone or their voice; you really have some strange friends, if that's what they are."

It was Bob Lindy. "Can she hear me?" Lindy asked.

"No." He carried the phone and the receiver as far away from her as the cord would allow. "Go ahead," he said.

"Can't you get rid of her?" Lindy demanded.

"Just go ahead," he grated.

Lindy said, "We ditched them. The car following us. It was a real dogfight, like World War One. I looped back and around, and then they looped; I did an Immelmann a couple of times... finally I got them going north, with me going south. By the time they turned around I was out of there. We set down just now; he's still in the car."

"Don't tell me where you are," Sebastian said.

"Hell no, not with that screwy dame there. She isn't scared of you a bit, is she? Women are never scared of men they've been to bed with. But she's scared of me; I saw it in her eyes when I had that gun on her. You want me to come back? 1 can leave Sign with the Anarch and join you at the store, say in about forty minutes."

Sebastian said, "I've got to handle it myself. Thanks. Call me back two hours from now. Hello." He rang off.

Standing by the window with her arms folded, Ann said, "So you still have possession of the Anarch. Well, well."

"How do you know that?" he said.

"When you told him 'Don't tell me where you are.'" She turned away from the window and toward him. "What is it you're going to handle yourself?"

"You," Sebastian said.