Counter-Clock World

12

We do not know what God is... because He is infinite and therefore objectively unknowable. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything.

--Erigena

They faced each other.

"I have a bomb hidden here in the vitarium," Ann said. "So don't try to use that gun on me. And even if you get me out of here, I can still detonate the bomb; I can kill you and Carl Gantrix, and if I do that the Uditi will go after your wife; they'll blame you and they're very vengeful."

He said thoughtfully, "You won't detonate the bomb while you're still here. Because that would kill you, too, and you're too vital, too active, to deliberately die."

"Thank you." She smiled her crinkly smile. "That's flattering."

A tap sounded at the front door.

"It's Mr. Gantrix," Ann said; she moved toward the door. "Shall I let him in?" In answer to her own question s"he said, "Yes, I think it would clear the air to have a third party here. Then you wouldn't be making all sorts of violent threats." She opened the door.

"Wait," he said.

She glanced up questioningly.

"Don't do anything to Lotta," he said, "and I'll let you have the Anarch."

Her eyes ignited, flared violently, triumphantly.

"But I want her back first," he said. "Physically back in my possession, before I give you the Anarch. I don't want your word." To her, words meant nothing.

Pushing the half-open door aside, a sloppily dressed, rather gaunt and tall Negro said tentatively, "Mr. Hermes? Sebastian Hermes?" He peered into the front room of the vitarium. "Good to finally meet you, sir, face to face. Goodbye, Mr. Hermes." He walked toward Sebastian, his hand extended.

"Just a moment, Mr. Gantrix," Sebastian said, ignoring the proffered hand. To Ann he said, "You understand the agreement?" He fixed his gaze on her, trying to read her face; it was impossible to guess what was going on in her mind: he couldn't gauge her response.

"I can see I'm interrupting," Gantrix said, jovially. "I'll go take a seat--" He strode toward one of the chairs. "--and read, until you're finished." He glanced at his wristwatch. "But I do have to meet His Mightiness, Ray Roberts, in an hour."

Ann said, "No one has 'physical possession' of anyone else."

"Words," Sebastian said. "You use them sadistically; you know what I mean. I just want her back, here, not somewhere else like a motel or the Library, but here in the vitarium."

"Is the Anarch Peak on the premises?" Gantrix spoke up. "Could I tiptoe in and have a look at him while you good people carry on your discussion?"

"He's not on the premises," Sebastian said. "We were forced to move him. For purposes of safety."

"But you do have actual and legal custody," Gantrix said.

"Yes," Sebastian said. "I guarantee it."

Ann said, "What makes you think I can deliver Lotta back to you? She left of her own free will. I have no idea where she is, except that somewhere in San--"

"But you will find the motel," he said. "Eventually. You phoned the Library and told the Erads to keep working until they located her."

The girl's face blanched.

"I know the content of both calls," Sebastian said. "To the Library and to your husband."

"Those were strictly private," Ann said sulkily and with indignation--but also, he noticed, with fear. For the first time she had lost control; she was afraid of him. And with reason. Having knowledge of the calls, of her real intentions, had changed him; he felt the newness in him, and Ann evidently could see it. "I was just griped," she said. "Nobody's going to kill Joe Tinbane; that was just talk. You upset me terribly when you hit me; no man has ever hit me in my entire life. And what I said about sticking with you--" She chose her words scrupulously. He could sense her sorting among the possibilities. "Frankly, I want to stay with you because I'm attracted to you. I had to give my husband an excuse; I had to tell him _something_."

"Get the bomb," he said.

"Hmm," she said reflectively, again folding her arms. "I wonder if I ought to do that." She seemed less frightened, now.

His attention captured, Carl Gantrix again spoke up. "Bomb? What bomb?" He stood up nervously.

"Turn the Anarch over to us," Ann said, "and I'll defuse the bomb."

Impasse.

To Carl Gantrix, Ann said, "I brought the bomb in here when the Anarch was here. To kill him."

Staring at her, with horror, Gantrix said,, "W-why?"

"I'm from the Library," Ann said. Puzzled by his reaction, she said, "Doesn't Ray Roberts want the Anarch killed?"

"_Oh my god no!_" Gantrix said.

Both Sebastian and Ann Fisher stared at him, now.

"We revere the Anarch," Gantrix said, stammering in his vehemence, his disclaim. "He's our _saint_--the only one we've got. We've waited decades for his return; the Anarch will have all the ultimate wisdom of the afterlife; that's the entire purpose of Roberts' pilg: this is a holy journey, for the purpose of sitting at the feet of the Anarch and hearing his good news." He walked toward Ann Fisher, now, his fingers clutching; she ducked away, avoiding him. "The _news_," Gantrix said. "The glorious news of the fusion in eternity of all souls. _Nothing else matters but this news_."

Ann said faintly, "The Library--"

"You Erads," Gantrix said; his voice was harsh, bleak with disdain. "Tyrants. Petty rulers of this earth. What business is it of yours? You intend to eradicate the news which he has bro ught back?" He turned to Sebastian. "The Anarch, you say, is physically safe, now?"

"Yes," Sebastian said. "They tried to get him; in fact they almost did." Had he been wrong about Roberts? Was this true? He had a strange, eerie feeling of unreality, as if Carl Gantrix was not actually here, not genuinely saying anything; it was like a dream, Gantrix's words, his dismay and outrage, his avowed dislike of the Library. But if it were true, he thought, then we can do business; we can go ahead and purvey the Anarch to him. Everything is changed.

To Sebastian, Carl Gantrix said, "Does she have the detonator of the bomb on her?"

"The Library can detonate the bomb," Ann said huskily.

"No," Sebastian said. "It's on her." To Ann he said, "That's what you said in your vidcall to the Library."

"Do you think she would let herself be killed by it?" Gantrix asked him.

"No," Sebastian said. "I'm positive; she meant to get out of here first."

Gantrix said, "Then we can proceed this way: I'll hold her arms while you search for the detonator." He gripped the girl, then, in an iron-rigid hold. Too rigid, Sebastian thought; he noted that. And then he understood his sense of unreality about Gantrix; it was a robot, operating on remote.

No wonder "Gantrix" was not frightened by the bomb, now that he--or rather his operator--knew that the Anarch was away and safe. It's only me, Sebastian realized, who'll be killed: me and Ann Fisher McGuire.

"I suggest," the roby said, "that you search her as quickly as you can." Its voice was firm with authority.

Sebastian said, "Annie, don't detonate it. For your own sake. It won't accomplish anything; this isn't a man--it's only a robot. The Uditi won't seek blood because of the destruction of a robot."

"Is that true?" she asked "Gantrix."

"Yes," it said. "I am Carl Junior. Please, Mr. Hermes; get the triggering device away from her. We have business to conduct and I have less than an hour."

He found the mechanism in her purse. After a fifteen minute search. Thanks to the robot's tight grip on the girl she had no chance of reaching it; they had never genuinely been in danger.

"You have that, now," Ann said, with stilted composure, "but my instructions to the Library still stand. About Joe Tinbane and about your wife." She faced him defiantly, now, as the robot released her.

"And about me, too?" Sebastian asked. "Sticking to me, staying with me, to--"

"Yes, yes, yes," she said, massaging her arms. She brushed her hair back, smoothed it, shook her head vigorously. "I think he's lying," she said, making a quick, furtive gesture at Carl Junior. "If you turn the Anarch over to him you'll get nothing but worthless F.N.M. poscreds and then they'll announce in a few weeks that the Anarch is ailing, and then he'll disappear. He'll be dead. A little while ago, before it came, you offered me a quid pro quo. I'll now accept; you'll get Lotta back--as you specified, physically here at the vitarium. And we receive the Anarch." She studied him, waiting for his answer.

He said, "But if Udi gets the Anarch--"

"Oh, you conceivably might see Lotta again anyhow. I'm not threatening you; I'm offering you an absolute guarantee." Once again Ann seemed poised, in control of yerself. "We'll put the resources of the Library behind persuading her to leave Joe Tinbane and returning to you; it won't be coercion; it'll be nothing more than making her appreciate how much you care for her. How much you've given up for her sake. You gave up forty-five billion poscreds to get her back; she'll understand that

... some of the Erads are very good at making intricate issues clear."

"I'll take you elsewhere," Sebastian said to the robot Carl Junior. "Where we can work the sale out." He seized Ann Fisher by the arm, led her in one swift motion from the store and out onto the sidewalk. The robot Carl Junior silently followed.

As he locked up the vitarium, Ann said, "You stupid foodhead. You stupid, stupid foodhead." Her voice rang sharply, as he and Carl Junior started toward the rickety outside stairs which led to the roof and his parked car.

"We have always pitted ourselves against the Library," Carl Junior said as they ascended the unpainted wooden stairs. "They want to erad the new teachings of the Anarch; they want to expunge every trace of the transcendental doctrine which he has brought back. Which I _presume_ he has brought back. Is that so, Mr. Hermes? Has his discourse so far indicated a religious experience of magnitude and depth?"

"Very much so," Sebastian said. "He's been dictating and talking from the moment we revived him, to everyone in sight."

They reached his parked car; he unlocked the door and the robot got inside.

"What power does the Library have over your wife?" Carl Junior asked as the car shot up into the night. "As much as that girl alleged?"

"I don't know," Sebastian said. He wondered how well Joe Tinbane could protect Lotta, while she remained with him. Probably fairly well, he decided. Joe Tinbane had gotten her out of the Library in the first place... he could therefore be expected, reasonably, to keep her from being hauled back. How persistent, really, would the Library be? After all, this was a side issue, a vendetta on the part of Ann Fisher, not a fundamental aspect of Library policy.

And it appeared to be the Erad Council which dictated policy, not Ann.

"A threat," he said aloud to the robot. "Intimidation. A power-oriented woman always hints at violence unless you do what she says." He thought about Lotta, and how different she was; how impossible it would be for her to utilize the intimidation of hinted-at force to get what she wanted.

I'm lucky, he thought, to have a wife like that. Or _was_ lucky. Whichever it turns out to be. With the help of God.

"If the Library injures your wife," the robot seated beside him said, "you will probably retaliate. Against that girl personally. Am I wrong or am I right? Choose one."

Sebastian said tightly, "You're right."

"That girl must realize that. It will probably deter her."

"Probably," he agreed. A bluff, he thought; that's what it is; Ann Fisher must know what I'd do to her. "Let's talk about other topics," he said to the robot; he was afraid to think further in that direction. "I'm taking you to my conapt," he said. "The Anarch is not there, but we can work out price and the method of custody-transfer. We have a standard operating procedure; I see no reason why it can't be applied in this case."

'We trust you," the robot said warmly. "But of course we'll need to see the Anarch before we pay over the money. To certify that you do in fact have possession of him and that he's alive. And we'd like to talk briefly with him."

"No," Sebastian said. "You can see him but not talk to him."

"Why not?" The robot regarded him curiously.

"What the Anarch has to say," Sebastian said, "isn't a factor in this sale. It never is; the business of a vitarium isn't conducted on that basis."

After a pause the robot said, "So we must take your word for it that the Anarch brought something of value back."

"That's correct," he agreed.

"At the price you're asking--"

"It makes no nevermind," Sebastian said. He always had a canny sense about this aspect of his business; he never budged.

The robot said, "Payment will be made to you in our own currency. In banknotes of the Free Negro Municipality."

As Ann Fisher warned me, Sebastian thought with a chill. In this instance she told the truth. And the Rome party--they warned me, too. "In W.U.S. notes," he said.

"We deal only in our own specie." The robot's voice was flat. Final. "I have no. power to negotiate on any other basis. If you insist on W.U.S. notes, then let me off. I'll have to report to His Mightiness Mr. Roberts that we couldn't reach an agreement."

"Then he goes to the People's Topical Library," Sebastian said. And, he thought, I get my wife back.

"The Anarch would not want that," Carl Junior said.

True, Sebastian realized. However, he said, "We're required to make the decision; we possess the legal right, in these cases."

"There has never been a case like this before," the robot said, "in the history of the world. Except," he hastily amended, "once. But that happened long ago."

"Can't you help me get my wife back?" Sebastian demanded. "Don't the Uditi have a corps of commandos for operations like this?"

"The Offspring exist only for vengeance," the robot said dispassionately. "And anyhow we are not strong in the W.U.S. Back home it would be different."

Lotta, he thought. Did I lose you? To the Library?

And then, strangely, he found himself contemplating--not his wife--but Ann Fisher. The earlier hours, when they had walked the evening streets window-shopping. When they had fiercely besported themselves in bed. I shouldn't remember that, he realized. That was faked; she had been given a job to do.

But it had proved good, for a time. Before the power-play manifested itself, and the chic, soft exterior ebbed away to reveal the iron.

"An attractive girl, that Library agent," the robot said, acutely.

"Misleading," he said gruffly.

"Isn't it always? You buy the wrappings. It's always a surprise. I personally found her typical of Library people, attractive and otherwise. Have you decided to let me off, or will you accept F.N.M. currency?"

"I'll accept it," he said. It didn't really matter; the ritual of business, which he had maneuvered through for so many years, meant nothing, now. Considering the greater context.

Maybe I can reach Joe Tinbane by way of the police radio system, he conjectured. Warn him. That would be enough; if Joe Tinbane knew that the Library was seeking him he'd do the rest... for himself and Lotta. And isn't that what matters? Not whether I get her back?

He lifted the receiver of his car's vidphone and dialed the number of Joe Tinbane's precinct station. "I want to get hold of an Officer Tinbane," he informed the police switchboard operator, when he had her. "He's off duty, but this constitutes an emergency; his personal safety is involved."

"Your name, sir." The police operator waited.

Food, Sebastian thought. Joe'll think I'm trying to track him down to retrieve Lotta; he won't acknowledge my call. So there's no way I can get through, at least not via the police. "Tell him," he said to the operator, "that Library agents are out after him. He'll understand." He rang off. And wondered bleakly if the message would be conveyed.

"Is he your wife's paramour?" the robot inquired.

Sebastian, soundlessly, nodded.

"Your concern for him is most Christian," the robot acknowledged. "You are to be commended."

Sebastian said curtly, "This is the second calculated risk I've taken in less than two days." Digging up the Anarch in advance of his rebirth had been risky enough; now he gambled that the Library wouldn't reach out and squash Tinbane and Lotta. It made him ill: he did not possess the mental constitution for such ventures, one right after the other. "He'd do the same for me," he said.

"Does he have a wife?" the robot asked. "If so, perhaps you could arrange to make her your mistress, while he has Mrs. Hermes."

"I'm not interested in anyone else. Only Lotta."

"You found that Library girl exciting. Even though she threatened you." The robot's tone was all-knowing. "_We want the Anarch before you run into her again_. I, at remote, have conferred by phone with His Mightiness Ray Roberts; I am instructed to obtain custody tonight. I am to stay with you rather than meeting His Mightiness."

Sebastian said, "You think I'm that vulnerable to Ann Fisher?"

"His Mightiness thinks so."

I wouldn't be surprised, Sebastian thought unhappily, if His Mightiness were right.

At his conapt he switched on the phone relay; Bob Lindy's call-back to the vitarium would be switched here. All he had to do was wait. Meanwhile he prepared a quantity of prime sogum from his reserve, extra-special stock, imbibed it in an effort to raise both his physical energy-level and his morale.

"A weird custom," the robot said, observing him. "Before the Hobart Phase you would never have performed such an act before the eyes of another."

"You're only a robot," he said.

"But a human operator perceives through my sensory apparatus."

The vidphone rang. So soon? he thought, glancing at his watch. "Goodbye," he said tensely into the receiver.

On the screen the image formed. It was not Bob Lindy; he faced the negotiator for the interested Rome party, Tony Giacometti. "We followed you to your conapt," Giacometti said. "Hermes, you are deeply in spiritual debt to us; if it hadn't been for our stake-out, Miss Fisher would have blown up the Anarch with her bomb."

"I realize that," he said.

"In addition," Giacometti continued, "you would not have known the contents of the two phone calls she made from your vitarium. So we may have saved your wife's life and possibly yours."

He repeated, "I realize that." The Rome buyer had him. "What do you want me to do?" he said.

"We want the Anarch. We know he's with your technician, Bob Lindy. When Lindy got in touch with you we put a trace on the call; we know where he and the Anarch are. If we wanted to take the Anarch forcibly we could do that, but that's not the approach we traditionally favor. This purchase must be accomplished on an aboveboard ethical basis; Rome is not the People's Topical Library nor the Uditi--we do not, under any circumstances, operate as they do. You understand?"

"Yes." He nodded.

Giacometti said, "Morally, therefore, you are obliged to make your sale to us, rather than to Carl Gantrix. May we send our buyer to your conapt to negotiate the transfer? We can be there in ten minutes."

"Your method of operation," he conceded, "is effective." What else could he do? Giacometti was right. "Send your buyer over," he said, and hung up.

The robot Carl Junior had observed the conversation and had heard his end. But, oddly, it did not appear perturbed.

"Your Anarch," Sebastian said to it, "would be dead, now. If they hadn't--"

"What you're forgetting," the robot said patiently, as if explaining to a naive child, "that the disposition of the Anarch depends on his own preference. That is the binding moral obligation. Your solution will be this: suspend the negotiations until your technician phones in, and then inquire of the Anarch as to whom he wishes to be sold." It concluded confidently, "We are certain that it will be ourselves."

"Giacometti may not agree," Sebastian said.

The robot said, "The decision is not his. All right; the Rome people have placed this on an ethical basis; we are delighted. However, our ethical basis is superior to theirs." It beamed.

Religion, Sebastian thought wearily. More ins and outs, more angles, than ordinary commerce. The casuistry had already gone beyond him; he gave up. "I'll let you explain it to Giacometti when his buyer arrives," he said. And imbibed, to fortify himself, an additional ten ounces of sogum.

"The Rome party," the robot said, "has had centuries more experience than we. Their buyer will be clever. I entreat you to avoid various diverse pitfalls which he may dig for you, as the expression goes."

"You talk to him," Sebastian said wearily. "When he gets here. Explain to him what you spelled out to me."

"Gladly."

"You feel capable of out-arguing him?"

The robot said, "God is on our side."

"Is that what you're going to tell him?"

Pondering, the robot decided, "He would cite apostolic succession. Free will, I believe, is the best argument. Civil law regards an old-born individual as the chattel of the vitarium which revives it. This however is not in accord with theological considerations; a human being cannot be owned, old-born or otherwise, since both possess a soul. I will therefore first establish the fact that the old-born Anarch has a soul, which the Rome buyer will admit, and then deduce from that premise that only the Anarch can dispose of himself, which is our position." Again it pondered. For quite some time. "His Mightiness, Mr. Roberts," it declared at last, "agrees with this line of reasoning. I am in touch with him. If the Rome buyer can counter it-- which is unlikely--then Mr. Roberts himself, rather than I, Carl Gantrix, will operate Carl Junior; it will become Ray Junior. You can now see that we were prepared for this development from the beginning; for this, His Mightiness, Mr. Roberts, has traveled to the West Coast. He will not return to the F.N.M. empty-handed."

"I wonder what Ann Fisher is doing," Sebastian said, brooding.

"The Library is no longer a factor. The conflict as to who is the proper buyer has been reduced to two principals: ourselves and Rome."

"She won't give up." For her it would be impossible. He walked to the window of his living room, gazed out on the dark street below. Often, he and Lotta had done this; every object in the conapt reminded him of her, every object and every spot.

A knock sounded at the living room door.

"Let him in," Sebastian said to the robot. He seated himself, picked up a cigaret butt from the ashtray, lit it, and prepared to endure the imminent debate.

"Goodbye, Mr. Hermes," Anthony Giacometti said, entering; he had come himself... for the same reasons which had prompted Carl Gantrix to bring in _his_ principal. "Goodbye, Gantrix," he said sourly to the robot.

"Mr. Hermes," the robot declared, "has asked me to inform you of the position he takes. He is tired and very worried about his wife--so he would rather not attempt to discuss this matter himself."

To Sebastian, and not to the robot, Giacometti said, "What does it mean? We came to an agreement on the phone."

"Since then," the robot said, "I have informed him that only the Anarch can promise delivery."

"Scott versus Tyler," Giacometti said. "Two years ago, the Superior Court of Contra Costa County. Judge Winslow presiding. The option of disposal of an old-born belongs to the owner of the reviving vitarium, not to his salesman, not to the old-born himself, not to--"

"We have here, however," the robot interrupted, "a spiritual matter. Not a juridical one. The civil law regarding old-borns is two hundred years out of date. Rome--yourselves--recognizes an old-born as possessing a soul; this is proved by the rite of Supreme Unction conferred when an old-born is severely injured or--"

"The vitarium does not dispose of a soul; it disposes of the soul's possessor: its body."

"Negative," the robot disagreed. "A deader, before the soul reenters it and reanimates it, cannot be dug up by a vitarium. When it is only a body, a corpse of flesh, the vitarium cannot sell or--"

"The Anarch," Giacometti said, "was illegally dug up before returning to life. The Flask of Hermes Vitarium committed a crime. Under civil law, the Flask of Hermes Vitarium does not in fact own the Anarch. Johnson versus Scruggs, the California Supreme Court, last year."

"Then who does own the Anarch?" the robot asked, puzzled. "You claimed," Giacometti said, and his eyes kindled, "that this is not a juridical matter but a spiritual one."

"Of course it's juridical! We need to establish legal ownership before either of us can buy."

"Then you concede," Giacometti said quietly, "that Scott versus Tyler is the precedent for this transaction."

The robot was silent. And then, when it resumed, there was a subtle but real difference in its voice. A deepening into greater power. His Mightiness Mr. Roberts, Sebastian decided, was now operating it; Carl Gantrix had been snared by the argument of the Rome party and hence had been retired. "If the Flask of Hermes Vitarium does not own the old-born Anarch Peak," it declared, "then according to law the Anarch is ownerless, and holds the same legal status as an old-born who, as occasionally happens, manages to open his own coffin, claw the dirt aside, and exhume himself without external aid. He is then considered the proprietor of himself, and his own opinion as to his disposition is the sole factor obtaining. So we Uditi still maintain that as an ownerless old-born the Anarch alone can legally sell himself, and we are now waiting for his decision."

"Are you certain you dug up the Anarch too soon?" Giacometti asked Sebastian, cautiously. "Do you actually stipulate that you acted illegally? It would mean a severe fine. I advise you to deny it. If you so stipulate, we'll refer this to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office."

Sebastian said woodenly, "I--deny we dug up the Anarch prematurely. There's no proof that we did." He was positive of that; only his own crew had been involved, and they wouldn't testify.

"The real issue," the robot said, "is spiritual; we must determine and agree on the precise moment at which the soul enters the corpse in the ground. Is it the moment when it is dug up? When its voice is first heard from below, asking for aid? When the first heart beat is recorded? When all brain tissue has formed? In the opinion of Udi the soul enters the corpse when there has been total tissue regeneration, which would be just prior to the first heart action." To Sebastian he said, "Before you dug the Anarch up, sir, did you detect heart action?"

"Yes," Sebastian said. "Irregular. But it was there."

"Then when the Anarch was dug up," the robot said triumphantly, "he was a person, having a soul; hence--"

The vidphone rang.

"Goodbye," Sebastian said into the receiver.

This time Bob Lindy's leathery, tense features formed. "They got him," he said. He ran his fingers shakily through his hair. "Library agents. So that's that."

"You can end your theological argument," Sebastian said to the robot and Giacometti.

It was unnecessary; the argument had already ended.

The living room of his conapt, for the first time in quite a while, was silent.