Counter-Clock World

17

But time present how do we measure, seeing it bath no space? It is measured while passing, but when it shall have passed, it is not measured; for there will be nothing to be measured.

--St. Augustine

Seizing a rifle from one of the slowed-down Library guards Sebastian Hermes scampered toward the stairs. As he reached them he heard voices below, echoing up. Maybe they're below the next floor down, he hoped; he descended rapidly. And found himself unopposed.

The corridor of the next floor down, like that above, teemed with halting, heavily weighed armed men. He saw, as through a glass clearly, Ann Fisher, a great distance off, standing by herself. So he hurried in that direction, evading without difficulty those who languidly tried to intercept him... and then, as before, he confronted her; once again she blanched in recognition.

Slowly, matching his words to her time-sense, he said, "I-- can't--get--out. So--I--will--kill--you." He raised the rifle.

"Wait," she said, "I'll--make--a--deal--with--you--right--here-and--now." She peered at him, trying to make him out, as if she perceived him only dimly. "You--let--me-- go," she said, "and--you--can--take----Lotta--and--leave."

Did she mean it? He doubted it. "You--have--the--authority--to--order--that?" he asked.

"Yes." She nodded.

"But I'm taking you along," he said. "Until she and I are out of here."

"Pardon?" She strained, trying to follow his too-rapid discourse. "Okay," she said finally, evidently having deciphered what he had said. She seemed fatalisticaily resigned; surprisingly so.

"You're afraid," he said.

"Well _of course_ I am;" Astonishingly, her speech did not seem slowed, now; evidently the injection had begun to wear off. "You come bursting in here and running about berserk, lobbing grenades and threatening everyone. I want to get you out of the Library and I don't care how I do it." She spoke, then, into her lapel microphone. "Put Lotta Hermes into an aircar on the roof. I'll join her there."

"You have the authority?" he asked, amazed.

"My father is pro tern Chairman of the Erad Council. And you've met my mother. Shall we go up to the roof?" She seemed calmer now, with a good deal of her old poise. "I don't want to get killed by some psychotic," she said patiently. "I know you, don't forget. I just happened to be very much afraid you'd do this, exactly what you've done. I would have stayed away from the Library entirely, but in the present complex situation--"

"Let's get up to the roof," he interrupted. "Come on." He goaded her, with the rifle, toward the nearby elevator.

"Calm down," Ann said, frowning reprovingly. "Nothing's going to happen except for what we agreed on: Lotta will be waiting. If you go mad and fire off that rifle it's she that might be killed, and you don't want that."

"No," he agreed. She was right; he had, now, to get control of himself. The elevator arrived and Ann Fisher motioned the armed guards out of it. "Get lost," she told them brusquely. "Guns," she said disdainfully to Sebastian as he and she ascended. "And the kind of people who use them. Compensates for a weak ego. Look at you with that thing; all of a sudden you're not afraid of anything, because you can make anyone do anything you want. Vox dei, as the Udi commandos call guns. The voice of God." She reflected. "I suppose it was a mistake to seize your wife and detain her for a second time; we were pressing our luck."

"Killing Officer Tinbane," Sebastian said, "was a dreadful act of wanton cruelty. What did he ever do to you?"

"He did what you did," Ann Fisher said. "He burst in here with a gun and shot it out with a few harmless old Erads-- unarmed Erads."

"Vengeance for that," Sebastian said bitterly. "I assume you're going to go after me, now, for what I've done today. Until you get me, too."

"We'll see," Ann Fisher said with tranquility. "The Council will have to meet and vote on it. Or else they can vote to let me make the decision." She eyed him.

"The Library," he said, "respects violence."

"Oh yes; we certainly do. In fact we're very much afraid of it; we know what it can accomplish. We employ it ourselves, not gladly, but in admission of its efficacy. Look what _you_ accomplished, today." They had reached the roof; the elevator had stopped and the doors now slid soundlessly open. "Where did you get that rifle?" she asked curiously. "It looks like one of ours."

"It is," he said. "I came here unarmed."

"Well," Ann said resignedly, "guns have no loyalty; they're not like dogs." The two of them stepped out onto the Library's roof field. "There she is," Ann said, straining to see. "They're just leaving her off. Come on." She strode long-legged ahead of him; he hurried to catch up. The guards who had brought Lotta to the roof field furtively ducked off and disappeared; he paid no attention to them: Ann Fisher and his wife alone concerned him.

As soon as he and Ann reached the parked aircar, Lotta said, "Did you get the Anarch out, Sebastian? I overheard them talking; they have him down there, too."

At once Ann Fisher said briskly, "No deal on that."

Stoically, Sebastian herded her into the front seat of his car, got in behind the wheel and handed Lotta the rifle. "Keep this pointed at Miss Fisher," he instructed her.

Hesitantly, Lotta said, "I--"

"Your life," he said, "depends on it, and so does mine. Remember what they did to Joe Tinbane? It was this woman's decision to do that; she gave the order. Now will you keep the rifle pointed at her?"

"Yes," Lotta whispered; he saw the barrel of the rifle come up: realization about Joe Tinbane had done it. "But what about the Anarch?" she asked again.

"I can't get him out," Sebastian said, his voice rising hoarsely. "I can't work miracles. I'm incredibly lucky to get you and me out. So will you lay off me?"

Behind him, Lotta nodded in mute obedience.

He turned on the car's motor and in a moment they were in the air above the Library, joining in with the mid-morning shoppers' traffic.

Parking briefly on the roof of a downtown public building Sebastian Hermes let off Ann Fisher--taking her lapel microphone with him. Again he sent the aircar up into the sky; he and Lotta rode in silence for a time and then Lotta said, "Thanks for coming to get me."

"I was lucky," he said shortly. He did not tell her that he had given up, that he intended only to destroy Ann Fisher. That saving his wife had, in effect, been virtually an accident. But one, however, which he rejoiced in; he appreciated it. "The news about Joe Tinbane got flashed on the TV," he said. "So that's how we knew. And the TV said he had been with a woman who disappeared after the crime."

"I'll never get over his death," Lotta said wanly.

"I don't expect you to. Not for a long time."

Lotta said, "They killed him right in front of me. I saw it happen, all of it. Children, from the Library... it was grotesque, like a dream. He fired at them but he's used to firing up high, at a full grown adult; so his shots passed right over their heads." Again she fell silent.

Roughly, wanting to make her feel better, he said, "Anyhow you're out of the Library. This time it'll be permanent."

"Will the Uditi be mad at you?" she asked. "For not getting the Anarch out? That's really a shame... he's so important a person, and I'm not; it seems so unfair."

"You're important to me," Sebastian pointed out. "Where did you get all those devices you were using? That speeded you up, and that LSD smoke bomb; I heard them discussing it; it took them completely by surprise. You don't normally have possession of LSD and--"

"Udi gave them to me," he broke in harshly. "They outfitted me. Arranged a pretext for getting me in and up to Section B."

"Then they _will_ be sore," Lotta said, with perception. "They did it expecting you to haul the Anarch out, didn't they?"

He didn't answer; he concentrated on driving the car and watching to make certain they were not followed.

"You don't have to say," Lotta said. "I can tell. Don't the Uditi have those Offspring of Might, those killer commandos? I've read about them... do they really exist?"

"They exist," he admitted. "To some extent. I suppose." Speculatively, Lotta said, "Maybe Mr. Roberts will send them into the Library and not after you. That's what they should have done; it's not your job to get the Anarch out. You're not a commando."

"I wanted to go," he said.

"Because of me?" She studied him; he could feel the intensity of her scrutiny. "Because you didn't get me out the first time? Now you've made up for it, haven't you?"

"I tried to," Sebastian said. That had been the idea.

"Do you love me?" Lotta asked.

"Yes." Very much. More than ever before; he realized that as he sat beside her here in the aircar. Just the two of them.

"Are you--resentful? About me visiting Joe Tinbane?"

"About the motel?" he said. "No." It had, after all, been his own fault. And there had been his journey with Ann Fisher. "I'm just sorry Joe got killed," he said.

"I'll never get over it," Lotta said. As if promising. "What did they do to you at the Library?" he asked, and prepared himself.

"Nothing. They had scheduled me to see a psychiatrist they keep; he would have done something to my mind. And that woman, that Miss or Mrs. Fisher--she showed up and talked to me awhile."

"About what?"

"About you." In her characteristic small voice Lotta continued, "She claimed that you and she had been intimate. That you--hopped into bed together. She claimed a lot of things like that." She added, "But of course I didn't listen to her."

"Good for you," he said, and felt the burden of the lies--his lies--weighing upon him. First to his wife and then, shortly, to Ray Roberts; he would have to give them a story, too. Everyone had to be placated... that's the style of life, Sebastian realized, that I've begun to lead. As bad as R.C. Buckley, who does it naturally. But for me, he thought, it isn't natural. And yet-- here I am.

"It wouldn't have bothered me," Lotta said, "even if what she said about you and her turned out to be true. After all, look what I did. .. the motel, I mean. I wouldn't hold it against you; I couldn't."

"Well, it's not true," he said laconically.

"She's very attractive with that absolutely black hair and those blue eyes. A lot more attractive than me."

Sebastian said, "I detest her."

"Because of Joe?"

"That, and other reasons." He did not amplify.

"Where are we going now?" Lotta asked.

"Back to our conapt."

"Are you going to call Udi? And tell them--"

"They'll call me," Sebastian said, stoically resigned.