The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

XXVIII

"The majority is never right."

L. LONG 1912-

We rode back to the house, Hazel up front with Uncle Jock, Pixel and me back with the packages. As a favor to Pixel, the replica Model T moved as silently as a ghost. (Do ghosts really move silently? How do such cliches get started?) The gate opened to Uncle Jock's voice and no lethal defenses were actuated. If there were any. Knowing Uncle Jock I suspect that there were-but not the ones posted.

We were met on the front veranda by Aunt Til and Aunt Cissy. While Uncle Jock went inside, my aunts welcomed my bride into the family with all the warmth of country manners. Then I passed the kitten to Hazel and I was greeted by them much as Hazel had greeted Uncle but with no time loop to confuse us. Golly, it was good to be home! Despite my some-rimes stormy adolescence the happiest memories of my life were associated with this old house.

Aunt Cissy looked older today, in 2177, than I recalled her looking the last time I had seen her-2183, was it? Was this a clue as to why Aunt Til had always looked the same age? An occasional trip to Boondock could work wonders.

Were all three-no, all four, including Aunt Belden-serving fifty-year enlistments with the Fountain of Youth as one of the perks?

Was Uncle Jock metabolically about thirty while maintaining the face and neck and hands of an old man in order to support a charade? (None of your business, Richard!)

"Where's Aunt Belden?"

"She's gone to Des Moines for the day," Aunt Til answered. "She'll be home for supper. Richard, I thought you were on Mars?"

I consulted a calendar in my head. "Come to think about it,I am."

Aunt Til looked at me keenly. "Are you looped?"

Uncle Jock came back out just in time to say, "Stop it! That sort of talk is forbidden. You all know it; you all are subject to the Code."

I said quickly, "I'm not subject to the Code, whatever it is.

Yes, Aunt Til, I'm looped. Back from 2188."

Uncle Jock fixed me with a look that used to scare me when I was ten or twelve. "Richard Colin, what is this? Dr. Hubert gave me to understand that you were under orders to report to Time Headquarters. Just this minute I stepped inside and phoned him about your arrival. But no one goes to Headquarters who is not sworn in and ruled by the Code. Leastwise, if he did, he wouldn't come out again. You said earlier that you weren't in trouble but you can stop lying now and tell me about it. I'll help you if I can; blood is thicker than water. So let's have it."

"I'm not in any trouble that I know of. Uncle, but Dr. Hubert keeps trying to hand me some. Are you seriously suggesting that reporting to Time Headquarters could result in my not coming out alive? I'm not swom into the Time Corps and I am not subject to its code. If you are serious, then I should not report to the Time Corps' headquarters. Aunt Til, is it all right for us to spend the night here? Or would that embarrass you? Or Uncle Jock?"

Without consulting Uncle Jock even by eye. Aunt Til answered, "Of course you'll stay here, Richard; you and your darling bride are welcome tonight and as long as you'll stay and whenever you come back. This is your home and always has been." Uncle shrugged, said nothing.

"Thanks! Where shall I drop these packages? My room? And I need to make arrangements for this fierce feline. Is there a sandbox around from the last litter? And, while Pixel has had his breakfast, I think he could use some milk."

Aunt Cissy stepped forward. 'Til, I'll take care of the kitten. Isn't he a pretty one!" She reached for Pixel; Hazel passed him over.

Aunt Til said, "Richard, your room has a guest in it, a Mr. Davis. Mmm, I think, this being July, that the north room on the third floor would be the most comfortable for you and Hazel-"

"'Hazel'!" Uncle Jock interjected. "That was the test word Dr. Hubert gave me. Major Sadie, is that one of your names?"

"Yes. Hazel Davis Stone. Now Hazel Stone Campbell."

"'Hazel Davis Stone,'" Aunt Til put in. "Are you Mr. Da-vis's little girl?"

My bride suddenly perked up. "Depends. A long time ago I was Hazel Davis. Is this 'Manuel Davis'? Manuel Garcia O'Kelly Davis?"

"Yes."

"My papa! He's here?"

"He'll be here for supper. I hope. But- Well, he has duties."

"I know. I've been in the Corps forty-six years subjective and Papa about the same, I think. So we hardly ever see each other, the Corps being what it is. Oh, goodness! Richard, I'm going to cry. Make me stop!"

"Me? Lady, I'm just waiting for a bus. But you can use my handkerchief." I offered it to her.

She accepted it, dabbed at her eyes. "Brute. Aunt Til, you should have spanked him oftener."

"Wrong aunt, dear. That was Aunt Abigail, now gone to her reward."

"Aunt Abby was brutal," I commented. "Used a peach switch on me. And enjoyed it."

"Should have used a club. Aunt Til, I can't wait to see Papa Mannie. It's been so long."

"Hazel, you saw him right here- Right there," I said, pointing at a spot halfway to the old barn, "only three days ago." 1 hesitated. "Or was it thirty-seven days? Thirty-nine?"

"No, no, Richard! Neither. By my time, subjective, it's over two years." Hazel added, to the others, "It's all still new to Richard. He was recruited, his subjective time, just last week."

"But I wasn't recruited," I objected. "That's why we're here."

"We'll see, dear. Uncle Jock, that reminds me- I want to tell you something and I must bend the Code a bit to do so. That doesn't worry me; I'm a Loonie and never obey laws I don't like. But are you really so regulation that you won't listen to 'coming attractions' talk?"

"Well-" Uncle Jock said slowly. Aunt Til snickered. Uncle Jock turned to her and said, "Woman, what are you laughing at?"

"Me? I wasn't laughing."

"Mmrrph. Major Sadie, my responsibilities and duties require a certain latitude in interpreting the Code. Is this something I need to know?"

"In my opinion, yes."

"That's your official opinion?"

"Well, if you put it that way-"

"Never mind. Perhaps you had better tell me and let me be the judge."

"Yes, sir. On Saturday the fifth of July eleven years forward, 2188, THQ will transfer to New Harbor on time line five. You will go along. All your household, I think."

Uncle Jock nodded. "That is exactly the sort of loop-derived information the Code is designed to suppress. Because it can so easily create positive feedback and result in heterodyning and possible panic. But I can take it calmly and make good use of it. Uh... may I ask why the move? As it seems unlikely that I would go along-and surely not my household. This is a working farm, no matter what it conceals."

I interrupted. "Uncle, I'm not bound by any silly code. Those West Coast hotheads finally quit talking and seceded."

His eyebrows shot up. "No- Really? I didn't think they would ever get off the pot."

"They did. May Day '88. By the day Hazel and I were here, Saturday July the fifth, the Angeleno Phalanges had just captured Des Moines. Bombs were dropping all around here. You may think-today-that you wouldn't pull out. But I know that you were about to do so then; I was there. Will be there. Ask Dr. Hubert-Lazarus Long. He thought this place was too dangerous to hang around any longer. Ask him." "Colonel Campbell!"

I knew that voice; I turned and said, "Hi, Lazarus." "That sort of talk is strictly forbidden. Understand me?" I took a deep breath, then said to Hazel, "He'll never learn"- then to Lazarus, "Doc, you've been trying to make me stand at attention ever since we first met. It won't work. Can't you get that through your head?"

Somewhere, somewhen, Lazarus Long had had some sort of formal training in emotional control. I could now see him calling on it to help him. It took him about three seconds to invoke whatever it was he used, then he spoke quietly, in a lower register:

"Let me try to explain. Such talk is dangerous to the person you talk to. Making predictions, I mean, from knowledge gained from a loop. It is an observed fact that, again and again, it turns out to be a disservice to the person you inform when you tell him something in his future that you have learned in your past.

"As to why this is true, I suggest that you consult one of the mathematicians who deal with time-Dr. Jacob Burroughs, or Dr. Elizabeth Long, or anyone from the Corps' staff of mathematicians. And you should consult the council of historians for examples of the harm it does. Or you could look it up in our headquarters library-file 'Cassandra' and file 'Ides of March,' for starters, then see file 'Nostradamus.'"

Long turned to Uncle Jock. "Jock, I'm sorry about this. I pray that you will not let the troubles of '88 make your household gloomy during the forward years till then. I never planned to bring your nephew here not yet trained in the disciplines of Time-I never planned to bring your nephew here at all. We do need him, but we expected to recruit him at Boondock with no need to bring him to Headquarters. But he refused to enlist. Do you want to try to change his mind?"

"I'm not sure I have any influence over him, Lafe. How about it, Dickie? Want to hear what a good deal a career in the Time Corps can be? You could say that the Time Corps supported you throughout your childhood-you could say it because it's true. The sheriff was about to auction this farm right out from under us... when I joined up. You were just a tad ... but you may remember a time we ate corn bread and not much else. Then things got better and stayed better-do you remember? You were about six."

I had some long thoughts. "Yes, I remember. I think I do. Uncle, I'm not against joining. You're in it, my wife is in it, several of my friends are in it. But Lazarus has been trying to sell me a pig in a poke. I've got to know what it is they want | me to do and why they want me to do it. They say they want me for a job with the chances only fifty-fifty that I get out of it alive. With those odds there is no point in talking about retirement benefits. I don't want some chairwarmer in Headquarters being that casual about my neck. I must know that it makes sense before I'll accept those odds."

"Lafe, just what is this job you have for my boy?" "It's Task Adam Selene in Operation Galactic Overlord."

"I don't think I've heard of it." "And now you should forget it, as you don't figure into it and it has not been mounted as of this year."

"That makes it difficult for me to advise my nephew. Shouldn't I be briefed?"

Hazel intervened. "Lazarus! Knock it off!" "Major, I'm discussing official business with the THQ stationkeeper."

"Pig whistle! You are again trying to chivvy Richard into risking his life without his knowing why. When I agreed to try to do so, I had not yet met Richard. Now that I know him- and admire him; he is sans pew et sans reproche-I'm ashamed that I ever tried. But I did try... and almost succeeded. But you barreled your way in... and mucked it up, as was predictable. I told you then that the Circle would have to convince him, I told you! Now you are trying to get Richard's closest relative-his father in all that counts-to pressure him in your place. Shame on you! Take Richard to the Circle. Let them explain it... or let him go home! Quit stalling! Do it!"

What I had always thought of as a closet in Uncle's den turned out to look like an elevator inside. LAzarus Long and I went into it together; he closed the door and I saw that, where an elevator usually has floor numbers with touchplates for each number, there was a display of lighted symbols-signs of the Zodiac I thought, then changed my mind, as there is no bat in the Zodiac, no black widow spider, certainly no stegosaurus.

At the bottom, by itself, was a snake eating its own tail- the world snake, Ouroboros. A disgusting symbol at best.

Lazarus placed his hand over it.

The closet, or elevator cage, or small room, changed. How, I am not certain. It simply blinked and was different. "Through here," Lazarus said, and opened a door on the far side.

Stretching from that door was a long corridor that would never fit inside my uncle's house. But views I could see through windows that lined that long passageway did not fit his farm, either. The land looked like Iowa, yes-but Iowa untouched by the plow, never cleared for farming.

We stepped into this passage and were at once at its far end. "Through there," Lazarus said, pointing.

An archway melted out of a stone wall. The passage beyond it was gloomy. I looked around to speak to Lazarus; he was gone.

I said to myself, Lazarus, I told you not to play games with me... and turned around to go back down the long passage, back through Uncle Jock's den, find Hazel and leave. I had had it, fed up with his games.

There was no passage behind me.

I promised Lazarus a clop in the head and followed the only available route. It remained gloomy but always with a light a little farther ahead. Shortly, five minutes or less, it ended in a small, comfortable lounge, well-lighted from nowhere. A brassy uninflected voice said, "Please sit down. You will be called."

I sat down in an easy chair and laid my cane aside. A small table by it held magazines and a newspaper. I glanced at each one, looking for anachronisms, but found none. The periodicals were all ones that I recalled as available in Iowa in the seventies;

they carried dates of July 2177 or earlier. The newspaper was the Grinnell Herald-Register, dated Friday, June 27, 2177.

I started to put it down, as the Herald-Register is not exactly exciting. Uncle subscribed to a daily printout from Des Moines and, of course, the Kansas City Star, but our local paper was good only for campus notes, local notices, and the sort of "news" and "society" items that are published to display as many local names as possible.

But an ad caught my eye: On Sunday, July twentieth, one night only, at Des Moines Municipal Opera House, the Halifax Ballet Theater will present Midsummer Night's Dream, with the sensational new star Luanna Pauline as Titania.

I read it twice... and promised myself that I would take Hazel to see it. It would be a special anniversary: I had met Mistress Gwendolyn Novak at Golden Rule's Day One Ball, Neil Armstrong Day, July twentieth a year ago (never mind that silly time loop) and this would make a delightful reprise of the gala eve of our wedding day (without, this time, some unmannerly oaf crashing our party and dying at our table).

Would a one-gravity performance be disappointing after having seen the Queen of Fairies cutting didoes high in the air? No, this was a sentimental journey; it would not matter. Besides, Luanna Pauline had made (would make, will make) her reputation dancing in one gravity-it would be a fascinating contrast. We could go backstage and tell her that we saw her dance Titania at one-third gravity in the Circus Room of Golden Rule. Oh, certainly-when Golden Rule does not yet exist for another three years! I began to understand why the Code had limitations on loose talk.

Never mind. On Neil Armstrong Day I would gift my beautiful bride with this sentimental celebration.

While I was looking at the Herald-Register, an abstract design on the wall changed to a motto in glowing letters: A Stitch in Time Saves Nine Billion While I watched, it changed to: A Paradox Can Be Paradoctored Then: The Early Worm Has a Death Wish Followed by: Don't Try TOO Hard; You Might Succeed

I was trying to figure out that last one when it suddenly changed to "Why Are You Staring at a Blank Wall?"-and it was a blank wall. Then on it appeared, large, the World Snake, and, inside the circle it made by its nauseating way of eating, letters were chasing themselves. Then they leveled out into a straight line:

Making Order Out of Chaos Then under that:

THE CIRCLE OF OUROBOROS

This was displaced by another archway; that brassy voice said: "Please enter."

I grabbed my cane and went through the archway and found myself translated to the exact center of a large circular room. There is such a thing as too much service.

There were a dozen-odd people seated around the room on a dais about a meter high-a theater in the round, with me in the leading role... in the sense in which an insect pinned to the stage of a microscope is the star of the show. That brassy voice said, "State your full name."

"Richard Colin Ames Campbell. What is this? A trial?"

"Yes, in one sense."

"You can adjourn court right now; I'm not having any. If anyone is on trial, it is all of you-as I want nothing from you but you seem to want something from me. It is up to you to convince me, not the other way around. Keep that clear in your mind."

I turned slowly around, looking over my "judges." I found a friendly face, Hilda Burroughs, and felt enormously better. She threw me a kiss; I caught it and ate it. But I was enormously surprised, too. I would expect to find this tiny beauty at any gathering requiring elegance and grace... but not as a member of a group that had been represented to me as being the most powerful council in all history and any universe.

Then I recognized another face: Lazarus. He nodded; I returned his nod. He said, "Please don't be impatient. Colonel. Allow protocol to proceed."

I said, "Protocol is either useful or it should be abolished. I am standing and all of you are seated. That is protocol establishing dominance. And you can stuff it! If I don't have a chair in ten seconds I am leaving. Your chair will do."

That invisible robot with the brassy voice placed an upholstered easy chair back of my knees so fast that I had no excuse to leave. I sank back into it and put my cane across my knees. "Comfortable?" Lazarus inquired.

"Yes, thank you." "Good. The next item is protocol, too-introductions. I do not think you will find it objectionable."

The brassy voice started in again, naming members-"Companions"-of the Circle of Ouroboros, governing body of the omniversal Time Corps. Each time one was named, my chair faced that companion. But I felt no movement.

"Master Mobyas Toras, for Barsoom, time line one, coded

'John Carter.'"

"Barsoom"? Poppycock! But I found myself standing up and bowing in answer to a gentle smile and a gesture suggesting a blessing. He was ancient, and hardly more than skin and bones. He wore a sword but I felt sure that he had not wielded one in generations. He was huddled in a heavy silk wrap much like that worn by Buddhist priests. His skin was polished mahogany, more strongly red than any North American "redskin"-in short he looked exactly like the fictional descriptions in the tales of Barsoom... a result easy to achieve with makeup, a couple of meters of cloth, and a prop sword.

So why did I stand up? (Because Aunt Abby had striped my calves for any failure whatever in politeness to my elders?

Nonsense. I knew that he was authentic when I laid eyes on him. That my conviction was preposterous did not alter it.)

"Her Wisdom Star, Arbiter of the Ninety Universes, composite time lines, code 'Cyrano.'"

Her Wisdom smiled at me and I wiggled like a puppy. I'm no judge of wisdom but I am certain that males with high blood pressure and any history of cardiac problems or T.I.A. should not be too close to her. Star, Mrs. Gordon, is as tall or taller than I, weighs more and all of it muscle but her breasts and that slight layer that smooths female body lines. She was wearing too little for Poweshiek County, quite a lot for Boondock.

Star may not be the most beautiful woman in all her many universes but she may be the sexiest-in a sultry. Girl Scout fashion. Just walking through a room she is in should change a boy into a man.

"Woodrow Wilson Smith, Senior of the Howard Families, time line two, code 'Leslie LeCroix.'" Lazarus and I again exchanged nods.

"Dr. Jubal Harshaw, time line three, code 'Neil Ann-strong.'"

Dr. Harshaw raised his hand in a half salute and smiled; I answered the same way-and made a note to buttonhole him, back in Boondock perhaps, about the many legends of the "Man from Mars." How much was truth, how much was fiction?

"Dr. Hilda Mac Burroughs, time line four, code 'Ballox O'Malley.'" Hilda and I exchanged smiles.

"Commander Ted Smith, time line five, code 'DuQuesne.'" Commander Smith was a square-jawed athlete with ice-blue eyes. He was dressed in an undecorated gray uniform, carrying a bolstered hand gun, and wearing a bejeweled heavy bracelet.

"Captain John Sterling, time line six, code "Neil Armstrong alternate time line.'" I looked at my boyhood hero and considered the possibility that I was asleep and having a vivid dream. Hazel had told me and told me again that the hero of her space opera was real... but not even the repeated use of the code phrase "Operation Galactic Overlord" had convinced me... and now here he was: the foe of the Overlord.

Or was it he? What proof?

"Sky Marshal Samuel Beaux, time line seven, code 'Fair-acre.'" Marshal Beaux was over two meters tall, massed at least a hundred and ten kilos, all of it muscle and rhinoceros hide. He was dressed in a midnight black uniform and a frown, and was as beautiful as a black panther. He stared at me with jungle eyes.

Lazarus announced, "I declare quorum. The Circle is closed. Dr. Hilda Burroughs now speaks for the Circle."

Hilda smiled at me and said, "Colonel Campbell, I have been conscripted to explain to you our purposes and enough of our methods to enable you to see how the job you are being asked to do fits into the master plan, and why it must be done. Don't hesitate to interrupt, or to argue, or to demand more details. We can continue this discussion from now until lunch-time. Or for the next ten years. Or for a truly long time. As long as necessary."

Sky Marshal Beaux cut in with: "Speak for yourself, Mrs.

Burroughs. I'm leaving in thirty minutes."

Hilda said, "Sambo, you really should address the chair. I can't let you leave until you speak your piece, but, if you need to leave, you can speak now. Please explain what you do and why."

"Why is this man being coddled? I've never been asked to explain my duties to a raw recruit before. This is ridiculous."

"Nevertheless I ask you to do so." The sky marshal settled back in his chair and said nothing. Lazarus said, "Sambo, I know this is without precedent but all the Companions including the three who are not here have agreed that Task Adam Selene is essential to Operation Galactic Overlord, that Overlord is essential to Campaign Boskone, that Boskone is essential to our Plan Long View... and that Colonel Campbell is essential to Task Adam Selene. The Circle is closed on this, no dissent. We need Campbell's services, given fully and freely. So we must persuade him. You need not go first ... but, if you expect to be excused from the Circle in thirty minutes, you had better speak up." "And if I don't choose to?" "Your problem. You are free to resign; all of us are, anytime. And the Circle is free to terminate you."

"Are you threatening me?"

"No." Lazarus glanced at his wrist. "You've stalled for four minutes against the unanimous decision of the Circle. If you expect to comply with the Circle's decision, you are running out of minutes."

"Oh, very well. Campbell, I am commanding officer of the armed forces of the Time Corps-"

"Correction," Lazarus Long interrupted. "Sky Marshal Beaux is the chief of staff of-"

"It's the same thing!"

"It is not the same thing and I knew exactly what I was doing when I set it up that way. Colonel Campbell, the Time Corps sometimes intervenes in key battles in history. Histories. The Corps' board of historians seeks to identify cusps where judicious use of force might change history in fashions that we believe, in our limited wisdom, would be better for the human race-and this policy strongly affects and is affected by Task Adam Selene, I must add. If the Circle closes on a recommendation by the historians, military action is mounted, and a commander in chief for that operation is selected by the Circle."

Lazarus turned and looked directly at Beaux. "Sky Marshal Beaux is a highly skilled military commander, perhaps the best in all history. He is usually selected to command. But the Circle picks the commander of each task force. This policy keeps ultimate power out of the hands of military commanders. I must add that the Chief of Staff is an auditor without a vote; he is not a Companion of this Circle. Sambo, do you have anything to add?"

"You seem to have made my speech."

"Because you were stalling. You are free to correct, amend, and elaborate."

"Oh, never mind. You should give elocution lessons."

"Do you now wish to be excused?"

"Are you telling me to leave?"

"No."

"I'll hang around awhile as I want to see what you do with this joker. Why didn't you simply conscript him and assign him to Task Selene? He's an obvious criminal type; look at his skull, note his attitude toward authority. On my home planet we never use anything as sloppy and unreliable as volunteers ... and we don't have a criminal class because we draft them into the forces as fast as they show their heads. There are no better fighters than the criminal type if you catch 'em young, rule them with iron discipline, and keep them more scared of their sergeants than they can possibly be of the enemy."

"That will do. Sambo. Please refrain from expressing opinion uninvited."

"I thought you were the great champion of free speech?"

"I am. But there is no free lunch. If you want to make a speech, you can hire your own hall; this one is paid for by the Circle. Hilda. Speak up, dear."

"Very well. Richard, most interventions recommended by our historians and mathematicians are not brute force, but actions far more subtle, carried out by individual field operatives ... such as your gal Hazel, who is a real fox when it comes to robbing a henhouse. You know what we are trying to do in Task Adam Selene; you don't know what it is for, I believe. Our methods of prognosticating the results of a change introduced into history are less than perfect. Whether it's digging in on one side in a key battle, or something as simple as supplying a high school student with a condom some midnight and thereby avoiding the birth of a Hitler or a Napoleon, we can never predict the results as well as we need to. Usually we have to do it, then send a field operative down that new time line to report the changes."

"Hilda," said Lazarus, "may I offer a horrible example?" "Certainly, Woodie. But make it march. I plan to finish before lunch."

"Colonel Campbell, I come from a world identical with yours to about 1939. Divergence, as usual, showed most at the start of space flight. Both your world and mine showed a tendency toward religious hysteria. In mine it peaked with a television evangelist named Nehemiah Scudder. His brand of fire and brimstone and scapegoatism-Jews of course; no novelty-peaked at a time when unemployment also peaked and public debt and inflation got out of hand; the result was a religious dictatorship, a totalitarian government as brutal as my world has ever seen.

"So this Circle set up an operation to get rid of Nehemiah Scudder. Nothing as crass as assassination; the specific method Hilda mentioned was used. A high school boy without a rubber was provided with one by a field operative, and the little bastard who became Nehemiah Scudder was never bom. So time line two-mine-was split and time line eleven was created, allee samee but without Nehemiah Scudder, the Prophet. Bound to be better, right?

"Wrong. In my time line World War Three, the nuclear war-sometimes known by other names-badly damaged Europe but did not spread; North America under the Prophet had opted out of international affairs. In time line eleven the war started a little sooner, in the Middle East, spread to all the world overnight... and a hundred years later it was still impossible to find any life superior to cockroaches on the land masses of what had once been the cool green hills of Earth. Take it, Hilda."

"Thank you, too much! Lazarus leaves me with a planet glowing in the dark to show why we need better prediction methods. We hope to use Adam Selene-supervising computer Holmes IV known as 'Mike'-the programs and memories that make him unique-to tie the best computers of Tertius and some other planets into a mammoth logic that can correctly project the results of a defined change in history... so that we won't swap Nehemiah Scudder-who can be endured-for a ruined planet that cannot be endured. Lazarus, should I mention the supersnooperscope?"

"You just did, so you had better."

"Richard, I'm way out of my depth; I'm just a simple housewife-"

A groan went up in that hall. Lazarus may have led it but it seemed to be unanimous.

"-who lacks a technical background. But I do know that engineering progress depends on accurate instruments, and that accurate instruments ever since the twentieth century-my century-have depended on progress in electronics. My number-one husband Jake Burroughs and Dr. Libby Long and Dr. Deety Carter are whipping up a little doozy combining Jake's space-time twister with television and the ordinary snooper-scope. With it you will be able not only to watch what your wife is doing while you are away overnight but also to watch what she will be doing ten years from now. Or fifty. Or five hundred.

"Or it could let the Circle of Ouroboros see what would be the result of an intervention before it is too late to refrain. Maybe. With the unique power of Holmes IV-maybe yes. We'll see. But it is as certain as anything can be in this quicksand world that Mike Holmes IV can improve the performance of the Circle of Ouroboros enormously even if the supersnooperscope never comes on line.

"Since we are trying hard to make things better, more decent, happier for everyone, I hope that you will see that Task Adam Selene is worth doing. Any questions?"

"I have one, Hilda."

"Yes, Jubal?"

"Has our friend Richard been indoctrinated in the concept of the World as Myth?"

"I barely mentioned it, once, in telling him how we four- Zeb and Deety, Jake and I-were hounded off our planet and erased out of the script. I think Hazel has done better. Richard?" "Not anything I could get my teeth into. Nothing that made sense. And-forgive me, Hilda-I found your story hard to swallow."

"Of course, dear; I don't believe it myself. Except late at night. Jubal, you had better take it."

Dr. Harshaw answered, "Very well. The World as Myth is a subtle concept. It has sometimes been called multiperson solipsism, despite the internal illogic of that phrase. Yet illogic may be necessary, as the concept denies logic. For many centuries religion held sway as the explanation of the universe- or multiverse. The details of revealed religions differed wildly but were essentially the same: Somewhere up in the sky-or down in the earth-or in a volcano-any inaccessible place- there was an old man in a nightshirt who knew everything and was all powerful and created everything and rewarded and punished... and could be bribed.

"Sometimes this Almighty was female but not often because human males are usually bigger, stronger, and more belligerent; God was created in Pop's image.

"The Almighty-God idea came under attack because it explained nothing; it simply pushed all explanations one stage farther away. In the nineteenth century atheistic positivism started displacing the Almighty-God notion in that minority of the population that bathed regularly.

"Atheism had a limited run, as it, too, explains nothing, being merely Godism turned upside down. Logical positivism was based on the physical science of the nineteenth century which, physicists of that century honestly believed, fully explained the universe as a piece of clockwork.

"The physicists of the twentieth century made short work of that idea. Quantum mechanics and Schrodringer's cat tossed out the clockwork world of 1890 and replaced it with a fog of probability in which anything could happen. Of course the intellectual class did not notice this for many decades, as an intellectual is a highly educated man who can't do arithmetic with his shoes on, and is proud of his lack. Nevertheless, with the death of positivism, Godism and Creationism came back stronger than ever.

"In the late twentieth century -correct me when I' m wrong, Hilda-Hilda and her family were driven off Earth by a devil, one they dubbed 'the Beast.' They fled in a vehicle you have met. Gay Deceiver, and in their search for safety they visited many dimensions, many universes... and Hilda made the greatest philosophical discovery of all time."

"I'll bet you say that to all the girls!"

"Quiet, dear. They visited, among more mundane places, the Land of Oz-"

I sat up with a jerk. Not too much sleep last night and Dr. Harshaw's lecture was sleep-inducing. "Did you say 'Oz'?"

"I tell you three times. Oz, Oz, Oz. They did indeed visit the fairyland dreamed up by L. Frank Baum. And the Wonderland invented by the Reverend Mr. Dodgson to please Alice. And other places known only to fiction. Hilda discovered what none of us had noticed before because we were inside it: The World is Myth. We create it ourselves-and we change it ourselves. A truly strong myth maker, such as Homer, such as Baum, such as the creator of Tarzan, creates substantial and lasting worlds ... whereas the fiddlin', unimaginative liars and fabulists shape nothing new and their tedious dreams are forgotten. On this observed fact, Richard-not religion but verifiable fact-is based the work of the Circle of Ouroboros. Hilda?"

"Only a short time until we should break for lunch. Richard, do you have any comment now?"

"You won't like it."

LAzarus said, "Spill it, Bub."

"I not only will not risk my life on wordy nonsense, I will do all that I can to keep Hazel from doing so. If you really want, and need, the programs and memories of that out-of-date Lunar computer there are at least two better ways to get them."

"Keep talking."

"One way simply uses money. Set up a front organization, an academic fakery. Funnel money into Galileo University as grants, and walk in the front door of the computer room, and take what you want. The other way is to use enough force to do a real job. Don't send an elderly married couple to try to watergate it. You cosmic do-gooders have not convinced me."

"Let's see your ticket!"

It was Little Black Sambo, the sky marshal. "What ticket?" "The one that entitles you to unscrew the inscrutable. Show it. You are just a lily-livered coward, too yellow to do your plain duty."

"Really? Who appointed you God? Look, boy, I'm mighty glad that your skin color matches mine."

"Why so?" "Because, if it didn't, I would be called a racist for the way I despise you."

I saw him draw his side arm, but my cane, damn it!, had slid to the floor. I was reaching for it when his bolt hit me, low on the left.

As he was hit from three sides, two to the heart, one to the head, by John Sterling, by Lazarus, by Commander Smith- three crack gunmen, where one would have sufficed.

I didn't hurt yet. But I knew I was gut-shot-bad, final bad, if I didn't get help fast.

But something was happening to Samuel Beaux. He leaned forward and fell off his chair, dead as King Charles-and his body began to disappear. It didn't fade out; it disappeared in swipes, through the middle, then across the face, as if someone had taken an eraser to a chalkboard. Then he was gone completely; not even blood was left. Even his chair was gone.

And the wound in my gut was gone.