Counter-Clock World

7

You and I, when we argue, are made in each other. For when I understand what you understand, I become your understanding, and am made in you, in a certain ineffable way.

--Erigena

Out cruising his beat in his roving prowlcar, Officer Joseph Tinbane got the call over the police radio. "A Mrs. Lotta Hermes asks you to get in touch with her. Is this police business?"

"Yes," he said, lying; what else could he say. "Okay," he said, "I'll phone her. I have the number; thanks."

He waited until four o'clock, the end of his shift, and then, out of uniform, called her from a pay vidphone booth.

"I'm so relieved to hear from you," Lotta said. "You know what? We have to get all the info we can on that Ray Roberts who heads that Udi cult. You were just at the Library looking him up, and I thought I could get it from you and not have to go back to the Library." She gazed at him entreatingly. "I've already gone there once today; I just can't go back, it's so awful, everybody looking at you, and you have to be quiet."

Tinbane said, "I'll meet you for a tube of sogum. At Sam's Sogum Palace; do you know where that is, and can you get there?"

"And then you'll tell me all about Ray Roberts? It's getting late in the day; I'm afraid the Library will be closing. And then I Won't be able to--"

"I can tell you all you need to know," Tinbane said. And a great deal more besides, he thought.

He hung up, then buzzed over to Sam's Sogum Palace on Vine. As yet, Lotta had not arrived; he took a booth in the rear where he could watch the door. And presently she appeared, wearing a much too large wintery coat, eyes dark with concern; glancing about, she made her way hesitantly into the palace, not seeing him, afraid he wasn't really there, etc. So he rose, waved to her.

"I brought a pen and paper to write it down." She seated herself breathlessly across from him, so pleased to find him... as if it was a miracle, some special dispensation of fate, that they had contrived to appear at the same place at roughly the same time.

"Do you know why I wanted to meet you here?" he said. "And be with you? Because," he said, "I'm falling in love with you."

"Oh God," she said. "Then I have to go to the Library after all." She leaped up, picked up her pen and paper and purse.

Also standing, he assured her, "That doesn't mean I don't have the info on Ray Roberts or won't give it to you. Sit down. Be calm; it's all right. I just thought I should tell you."

"How can you be in love with me?" she said, reseating herself. "I'm so awful. And anyhow I'm married."

"You're not awful," he said. "And marriages are made and broken; they're a civil contract, like a partnership. They begin; they end. I'm married, too."

"I know," Lotta said. "Whenever we run across you you're always talking about how mean she is. But I love Seb; he's my whole life. He's so responsible." She gazed at him attentively. "Are you really in love with me? Honestly? That's sort of flattering." It seemed, somehow, to make her more at ease; plainly it reassured her. "Well, let's have all the data on that creepy Ray Roberts. Is he really as bad as the 'papes say? You know why Sebastian wants the info on him, don't you? I guess it won't hurt to tell you; you already know the one secret thing I wasn't supposed to say. He wants the info on Roberts because--"

"I know why," Tinbane said, reaching out and toucbmg her hand; she drew it away instantly. "I mean," he said, "we all want to know Roberts' reaction to Peak's rebirth. But it's a police matter; as soon as Peak is old-born it's automatically our responsibility to protect him. If my superiors knew your vitarium had located Peak's body they'd send in their own team to dig him right up." He paused. "If that happened, your husband would take a great loss. I haven't told Gore. George Gore is my superior in this. I probably should." He waited, studying her.

"Thank you," Lotta said. "For not telling Mr. Gore."

He said, "But I may have to."

"At the Library you said it was as if I hadn't told you; you said, 'Don't even tell me,' meaning that officially as a policeman you hadn't heard me. If you tell Mr. Gore--" She blinked rapidly. "Sebastian will figure out how you found out; he knows how dumb I am; I'm always the one; it's always me."

"Don't say that. You're just not constituted for deceit; you say what's on your mind, which is normal and natural. You're an admirable person and very lovely. I admire your honesty. But it is true. Your husband would be sore as hell."

"He'll probably divorce me. Then you can divorce your wife and marry me."

He started; was she joking? He couldn't tell. Lotta Hermes was a deep river, unfathomable. "Stranger things," he said cautiously, "have happened."

"Than what?"

"What you said! Our eventually getting married!"

"But," Lotta said earnestly, "if you don't tell Mr. Gore then we won't have to get married."

Baffled, he said, "True." In a sense it was logical.

"Don't tell him, please." Her tone was imploring, but with overtones of exasperation; after all, as she pointed out, he had made it clear that he hadn't--officially--heard. "I don't think," she went on, "that you and I are suited; I need someone older who I can cling to; I'm very clinging. I'm not really grown up any more, and that damn Hobart Phase is making it more true every day." She made assorted scratches on the pad of paper with her pen. "What a thing to look forward to: childhood. Being a baby again, being helpless, waited-on. Every day I try to be more grown up; I fight all the time against it, the way ladies used to fight being old, getting middle-aged, fat, with wrinkles. Well, I don't have to worry about that. But see, Sebastian will be an adult still when I'm a child, and that's good; he can be my father and protect me. But you're the same age as I; we'd just be children together, and what's in that?"

"Not much," he agreed. "But listen to me. I'll make a deal with you. I'll give you the info on Ray Roberts and I won't tell Gore about Anarch Peak's body being in your vitarium's possession. Sebastian won't know that you told me."

"Told both of you," Lotta amended. "That librarian, too."

He continued, "My deal. Do you want to hear it?"

"Yes." She listened obediently.

Plunging into it, he said hoarsely, "Could you spread any of your love in my direction?"

She laughed. With malice-free delight. And that _really_ mystified him; now he hadn't the foggiest idea of where he stood or what--if anything--he had achieved. He felt depressed; somehow, despite her girlishness, her inexperience, she was controlling the conversation.

"What does _that_ mean?" she asked.

It means, he thought, going to bed with me. But he said, "We could meet like this from time to time. See each other; you know. Go out, maybe during the day. I can get my shift changed."

"You mean while Sebastian is down at the store."

"Yes." He nodded.

To his incredulity, she began to cry; tears ran down her cheeks and she made no effort to stifle them; she cried like a child.

"What's the matter?" he demanded, reflexively getting out a handkerchief and dabbing at her eyes.

Lotta said chokingly, "I was right; I do have to go back to the Library. Food." She stood up, gathered her pen and paper and purse, moved away from the table. "You don't know," she said, more calmly, "what you've done to me. Between you and Seb; both of you. Making me go back there for a second time today. I know what's going to happen; I know this time I'll meet that Mrs. McGuire; I would have before if you hadn't helped me to find Mr. Appleford."

"You can find him again. You know where his office is; go there, where we were before, where I took you."

"No." She shook her head drearily. "It won't work out that way; he'll be out to sogum or finished for the day."

He watched her depart, unable to think of anything to say, feeling totally futile. He thought, she's right; I am sending her off to face that. Something and someone she can't face. Between us, between Sebastian Hermes and me, we did it; he could have gone; I could have given her the info. But he didn't go and I wouldn't tell her without something in return. God, he thought; and hated himself. What have I done?

And I say I love her, he thought. And so does Sebastian; he "loves" her, too.

He stood watching until she was out of sight, and then he went quickly to the payphone on the far side of the sogum palace; he looked up the Library's number and dialed it.

"People's Topical Library."

"Let me talk to Doug Appleford."

"I'm sorry," the switchboard girl said. "Mr. Appleford has left for the day. Shall I connect you with Mrs. McGuire?"

He hung up.

Glancing up from the manuscript she had been reading, Mrs. Mavis McGuire saw a frightened-looking young woman with long dark hair standing in front of her desk. Irritated by the interruption, she said, "Yes? What do you want?"

"I'd like what info you have on Mr. Ray Roberts." The girl's face was waxen, without color, and she spoke mechanically.

"'The info we have on Mr. Ray Roberts," Mrs. McGuire said mockingly. "I see. And it's now--" She glanced at her wristwatch. "Five-thirty. Half an hour before closing. And you want me to gather all the sources together for you. Just hand them to you, all assembled and in order. So all you have to do is sit down and read them over."

"Yes," the girl said faintly, her lips barely moving.

"Miss," Mrs. McGuire said, "do you know who I am and what my job is? I'm Chief Librarian of the Library; I have a staff of almost one hundred employees, any one of whom could help you--if you had come here earlier in the day."

The girl whispered, "They said to ask you. The people at the main desk. I asked for Mr. Appleford but he's gone. He helped me before."

"Are you from the City of Los Angeles? From any civic body?"

"No. I'm from the Flask of Hermes Vitarium."

Mrs. McGuire said harshly, "Is Mr. Roberts dead?"

"I--don't think so. Maybe I better go." The girl turned away from the desk, hunching her shoulders together, drawing herself together like a sick, crippled bird. "I'm sorry..." Her voice trailed off.

"Just a minute." Mavis McGuire beckoned her back. "Turn around and face me. _Somebody_ sent you; your vitarium sent you. Legally, you have the right to use the Library as a reference source. You have a perfect right to search for info here. Come into the inner office; follow me." She stood up, briskly led the way through two outer offices, to her most private quarters. At her own desk she pressed one of the many buttons on her intercom system and said, "I'd appreciate it if one of the Erads who's free could come down here for a few minutes. Thank you." She turned, then, to confront the girl. I am not letting this person out of here, Mavis McGuire said to herself, until I find out why she's been sent by her vitarium to get info on Ray Roberts.

And if I can't get the information from her, the Erad can.