Counter-Clock World

13

Man is an animal, that is his genus, but man is a species, reasoning, that is the difference, capable of laughter, that is his property.

--Boethius

In the small hotel room, Officer Joe Tinbane lounged in such a fashion that he could see outside. In case anyone showed up. His wife Bethel, Sebastian Hermes, Library commandos--he had to be ready for any and all of them. No combination would have surprised him.

Meanwhile, he read the latest edition of the most lurid 'pape in North America, the Chicago _Monday-Herald_.

DRUNKEN FATHER EATS OWN BABY

"You never know how life is going to work out for you," he said to Lotta. "When you're either new-born or old-born--I'll bet this guy never expected he'd wind up this way, a headline in the _Monday-Herald_."

"I don't see how you can read that," Lotta said nervously; she sat combing her long dark hair, on a chair on the far side of the room.

"Well, as a peace officer I see a lot of this. Not exactly this bad--this one, where this father eats his own baby, is rare." He turned the page, inspected the headline on page two.

CALIFORNIA LIBRARY KILLS AND KIDNAPS:

A LAW UNTO ITSELF, SAFE FROM REPRISAL

"My god," Tinbane said. "This could be about us; here's an article on the People's Topical Library. About it doing what they tried with you--holding you hostage." He read the article, interested.

How many Los Angeles citizens have disappeared behind the grim gray walls of this forbidding structure? Public authorities make no official estimate, but privately, guesses are running as high as three unexplained disappearances each month. The motives of the Library are not well-understood and are believed to be complex. A desire to erad in advance writings which.

"I don't believe it," Tinbane said. "They couldn't get away with it. Take my case, for instance; if anything happened to me my boss George Gore would spring me. Or, if I was dead, he'd pay them back." Thinking about Gore he remembered that Ray Roberts was due any minute now; Gore was probably trying to get hold of him for the special bodyguard detail. "I better call in," he said to Lotta. "I forgot about all that."

Using the motel apartment's vidphone he called Gore.

"A message came in for you," the police switchboard operator told him, when he identified himself. "Anonymous. Library agents are out after you, he states. Does this mean anything to you?"

"Hell yes," Tinbane said. To Lotta he said, "Library agents are searching for us." To the police operator he said, "Let me talk to Mr. Gore."

"Mr. Gore is at the Los Angeles airport, supervising security precautions for Ray Roberts," the operator said.

"Tell Mr. Gore when he comes back that if anything happens to me," Tinbane said, "it was the Library that did it, and if I'm missing to look for me in the Library. And especially if I'm dead, they did it." He rang off, feeling depressed.

"Do you think they can find us here?" Lotta asked.

"No," he said. He pondered awhile, and then he rooted through the drawers of the motel room's dresser until he found the vidphone book; he leafed through it glumly until at last he found Douglas Appleford's home phone number; several times he had called it in the past, and had usually found Appleford in.

He called that number now.

"Goodbye," Appleford said presently, appearing on the screen.

"Sorry to bother you at home," Tinbane said, "but I need your immediate personal help. Can you get hold of your superior, Mrs. McGuire?"

"Possibly," Appleford said. "In an emergency."

"I consider this an emergency," Tinbane said. He explained the situation, as he knew it, to the librarian. "See?" he said in conclusion. "I'm really in a difficult spot; they really have reason to be hostile to me. If they do show up here where I am, somebody's going to get killed; probably them. I'm in touch with the L.A. police department; as soon as I'm in trouble I'll be reinforced. My superior, Gore, knows my situation and he's sympathetic. They have a prowl car--at least one--floating around in the neighborhood, at all times. I just don't want an incident; I have a lady with me, and on her account I'd prefer to see no violence--as far as I personally am concerned, I couldn't care less. After all, it's my job."

"Where exactly are you?" Appleford asked.

"Oh no," Tinbane said. "I'd be nuts to tell you that."

Appleford acknowledged, "I suppose you would." He, too, pondered; his face was vague. "There's not much I can do, Joe. I don't make Library policy; that's up to the Erads. I can put in a good word for you, tomorrow when I run into Mrs. McGuire."

"Tomorrow," Tinbane said, "is too late. In my professional opinion, this is going to come to a head tonight." After all, virtually every L.A. police officer was tied up guarding Ray Roberts; this would be the ideal time for the Library to pick him off. There most decidedly was _not_ a prowl car cruising about overhead, nor would there be one; at least not until he had hold of Gore.

"I can tell them," Appleford said, "that you're expecting them. And that of course you're armed."

"No, they just would send a bigger team. Tell them to forget it; I regret having had to do what I did--going in there at gunpoint to get Mrs. Hermes out--but I had no option; they were detaining her."

"Oh, did the Erads do that?" Appleford said, obviously uncomfortable. "Are they still--"

"Tell them," Tinbane interrupted, deciding, "that I stopped at the police arsenal and picked up a weapon that fires a slug the size of a land mine. And it's rapid-fire, one of those Skoda lightweight monsters. _I_ can operate it openly, because I'm a police officer; I can use any weapon available. But they've got to skulk around; they're severely limited, and tell them I know it. Tell them I'm looking forward to seeing them show up. It'll be a pleasure. Hello." He hung up.

Still combing her hair, Lotta said, "Do you really have a gun like that?"

"No," he said. "I have a pistol." He whapped his belt holster. "And in the car," he said, "I have a regulation issue rifle. Maybe I better go get it." He started toward the door.

"Who do you think the anonymous caller was?" Lotta asked.

"Your husband." He hobbled out of the motel room, across the sidewalk to the on-street parking lot, and got his rifle from the car.

The night seemed cold and empty, with no life, no activities; he sensed the lack of ominousness. Everybody is at the airport, he thought. Where I ought to be. I'll probably get hell from Gore for this, he thought. For not having shown up for the bodyguard detail. But that's the least of my worries, what I've done to my career.

He returned to the motel room, locking the door behind him.

"Did you see anyone?" Lotta asked softly.

"Nothing. So relax." He checked the magazine of the rifle, made sure it held a full clip.

"Maybe you should call Sebastian."

"Why?" he said irritably. "I got his message. No," he said, "I don't feel up to talking directly to him. Because of you; I mean, because of our relationship." He felt embarrassed. This sort of activity came with difficulty to him. In fact he had never done anything such as this--hiding in a motel room with someone else's wife--before in his life. He mulled it over, his attention turned inward.

"You're not ashamed, are you?" Lotta inquired.

"Just--" He gestured. "It's delicate. I wouldn't know what to say to him." He eyed her. "If you want to, you can call him; I'll listen in."

"I--still think I'd rather write him." She had already begun laboriously composing a letter; a paragraph and a half, scrawled across a folded page, lay on the bed, a pen beside it: she had ceased working for the time being. Evidently the task confronting her had been overwhelming.

"Okay," he said. "You write to him; he'll get it next week."

She gazed about unhappily. "Do you have anything to read in your car?" she asked.

"Read this." He tossed her the _Monday-Herald_.

Shrinking away, Lotta said, "Oh no. Not ever."

"Are you already bored with me?" Tinbane asked, still irritable.

"I always read, about this time in the evening." She wandered around the room, poking here and there. On the table by the bed she found a Gideon Bible. "I could read this," she said, reseating herself. "I'll ask it a question and then open it at random; you can use the Bible that way. I do it all the time." She concentrated. "I'll ask it," she decided, "if the Library is going to get us." Opening the book, she put her finger, eyes closed, on the top left-hand page. "'Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women?'" she read aloud, studiously. "'Whither is thy beloved turned aside?" She glanced up, eyes solemn. "You know what that means? You're going to be taken away from me."

"Maybe it means Sebastian," he said, half-jokingly.

"No." She shook her head. "I'm in love with you. So it must refer to you." Once more consulting the book she asked, "Are we in a safe place, here at the motel, or should we hide somewhere else?" Again she opened at random, blindly found a passage. "Psalm 91," she informed him. "'He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.'" She reflected. "I guess this is a secret place. So we're as safe here as anywhere... but they're going to get us, even so. There's nothing we can do about it."

"We can shoot our way out," Tinbane offered.

"Not according to the Book. It's hopeless."

Amused, but also indignant at her passivity, he said, "If I had that attitude I'd have been dead years ago."

"It's not my attitude; it's--"

"Sure it's your attitude. You make it mean what you subconsciously want it to mean. In my opinion, a human being, a man, controls his own fate. Maybe it's not true about women."

"I think in connection with the Library," Lotta said sadly, "it doesn't make any difference."

"There is a fundamental difference in the thinking of men versus that of women," Tinbane declared. "In fact there's a fundamental difference between various types of women. Consider yourself in comparison to Bethel my wife. You haven't met her, but the difference between the two of you is enormous; consider just as an example the way in which you give your love. You do it unconditionally--the man, me in this case, doesn't have to do anything or be anything in particular. Now, Bethel, on the other hand, demands certain criteria be upheld. In the matter of how I dress, for example. Or how many times I take her out as for instance to a sogum palace three times a week. Or whether I--"

Lotta said, fearfully, "I hear something on the roof."

"Birds," he said. "Running across."

"No. It's larger."

He listened. And heard it too. Patter on the roof; someone or something scrambling. Children. "It's kids," he said.

"Why?" Lotta said. Now she stared fixedly at the window. "They're looking in," she said.

He turned swiftly, saw a pinched little face earnestly pressed to the window of the motel room. "The Library," he said thickly, "uses them. From its Children's Department." He got out his pistol. Going to the door he put his hand on the knob. "I'll get them," he said to Lotta. He opened the door.

His shot, aimed too high, aimed at an adult, passed over the head of the tiny child standing there. Adult agents who have dwindled, he realized as he took aim again. Can I kill a child? But it's going back into a womb anyhow; its time is short. He started to fire again at the four of them darting about outside the motel

Lotta squalled in a travesty of adult fright, which annoyed him. "Get down!" he yelled at her. One of the small children was aiming a tube at him, and he recognized the weapon: an old wartime laser beam, not intended for domestic matters; its use was denied even the police departments. "Put that thing down," he said to the child, aiming his gun at the child. "You're under arrest; you're not supposed to have one of those." He wondered if the child knew how to operate it; he wondered--.

The laser beam glowed its adequate ruby red, its old intentional color. The beam reached out.

And Tinbane died.

Cowering behind the big double bed of the motel room, Lotta saw the laser beam kill Joe Tinbane; she saw more and more children, a dozen of them, working silently, their faces transfigured with glee. You horrible little creeps, she thought in terror. "I give up, please," she called to them in a wavering voice not her own. "Okay?" She stood up awkwardly, stumbled against the bed and almost fell. "I'll come back to the Library; okay?" She waited. And the laser beams did not come on again; the children seemed satisfied: now they were speaking into their intercoms, with their superiors. Telling them what had happened and getting instructions. Oh god, she thought, looking down at Joe Tinbane. I knew they'd do it; he was so sure of himself, and that always means the end. That's when you're destroyed.

"Mrs. Hermes?" one of the children piped shrilly.

"Yes," she said. Why pretend? They knew who she was. They had known who Joe Tinbane was--the man who had attacked the Erads and gotten her out of the Library.

An adult appeared, now. It was the motel man who had rented them the room; he was, she realized, an informer for the Library. The man conferred with the children, then raised his head and beckoned to her.

"How could you shoot him?" she asked, in dazed wonder; she stepped past Joe Tinbane, lingered; maybe she should stay here with him, get shot as he had--maybe that was better than returning to the Library.

The motel man said, "He attacked us. First at the Library and then here. He boasted to Mr. Appleford that he could handle us; it was his declaration." The man nodded in the direction of a park VW airbus. "Would you get in, Mrs. Hermes?" On the side of the bus the lettering read: PEOPLE'S TOPICAL LIBRARY. An official, marked bus.

Stumblingly, she got inside; the children, sweaty and breathing excitedly, piled in after her and crowded around her. They did not speak to her, however; they chattered in low, exultant tones among themselves. They were so pleased, she realized. So glad to still be of use to the Library, even in their dwindled state. She hated them.