The Simulacra

14

As soon as she understood the situation Nicole Thibodeaux gave the order for the Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goering, to be killed.

It was necessary. Very possibly the revolutionary clique had ties with him; in any case she could not take the risk.

Far too much was involved.

In a hidden courtyard of the White House a squad of soldiers from the nearby Army base did the required job; she listened absently to the faint, almost inaudible sound of their high-powered laser rifles, thinking to herself that this -- the death of this man -- proved how little power he had held in the Third Reich. For his death caused no alteration in her time, in the present; the event did not produce even a ripple of alteration. It was a commentary on the governmental structure of Nazi Germany.

Next, she called in NP Commissioner Wilder Pembroke.

‘I want a report,' she informed him, ‘as to exactly what support the Karps are drawing from. In addition to their own resources. Obviously, they wouldn't have gone ahead with this unless they felt they could count on allies.' She eyed the top NP official with deliberate, rigorously calculated intensity. ‘How do the National Police stand?'

Wilder Pembroke said calmly, ‘We're ready to deal with the plotters.' He did not seem disturbed; in fact, she thought, he was even more self-possessed than usual. ‘As a matter of fact we've already begun rounding them up. Karp employees and executives, and the personnel of the Frauenzimmer outfit. And anyone else who's involved; we're working on that aspect, using von Lessinger's equipment.'

‘Why weren't you prepared for this by means of the von Lessinger principle?' Nicole asked sharply.

‘Admittedly, this was there. But only as the most meagre possibility. One in a million, of the possible alternative futures. It never occurred to us -- ‘

‘You've just lost your job,' Nicole said. ‘Send in your staff. I'll choose a new police commissioner from among them.'

Colouring, incredulous, Pembroke stammered, ‘But at every given moment there's a raft of dangerous alternatives so malign that if we -- ‘

‘But you knew,' Nicole said, ‘that I was under attack. When that thing, that Martian animal, bit me it should have warned you. From then on you should have been expecting an all-out attack, because that was the beginning.'

‘Shall -- we pick up Luke?'

‘You can't pick up Luke. Luke is on Mars. They all got away, including the two that were here in the White House. Luke came and got them.' She tossed that report to Pembroke. ‘And anyhow, you no longer have any authority.'

There was a strained, unpleasant silence.

‘When that thing bit me,' Nicole said, ‘I knew we were in for a time of difficulty.' But in one respect it was a good thing it had bitten her; it had made her alert. Now she could not be taken by surprise -- she was ready, and it would be a long time before something, or someone -- would bite her again.

Metaphorically or literally.

‘Please, Mrs Thibodeaux -- ‘ Pembroke began.

‘No,' she said. ‘Don't whine. You're out. That's it.'

There's something about you I don't trust, she said to herself. Maybe it's because you let that papoola animal get to me. That was the beginning of your decline, of your career downfall. From then on I was suspicious of you.

And, she thought, it was almost the end of me.

The door of the office opened and Richard Kongrosian appeared, beaming. ‘Nicole, ever since I moved that A.G. Chemie psych-chemist down to the laundry room I've become fully visible. It's a miracle!'

‘Fine, Richard,' Nicole said. ‘However, we're having a closed conference in here, at this moment. Come back later.'

Now Kongrosian made out Pembroke. The expression on his face at once changed. Hostility ... she wondered why.

Hostility -- and fear.

‘Richard,' she said suddenly. ‘How would you like to be NP Commissioner? This man -- ‘ She pointed at Wilder Pembroke. ‘He's out.'

‘You're joking,' Kongrosian said.

‘Yes,' she agreed. In a way, at least. But in a way, no.' She needed him, but in what fashion? How could she make use of him and his abilities? At the moment she simply did not know.

Pembroke said stiffly, ‘Mrs Thibodeaux, if you change your mind -- ‘

‘I won't,' she said.

‘In any case,' Pembroke said in a measured, prepared tone of voice, ‘I'll be glad to return to my position and serve you.'

Thereupon he left the room; the door shut after him.

At once Kongrosian said to her, ‘He's going to do something. I'm not sure what it is. Can you tell who's loyal to you at a time like this? Personally, I don't trust him; I think he's part of the planet-wide network of conspiracy scheming against me.' Hastily he added, ‘And against you, too, of course. They're after you, too. Isn't that right?'

‘Yes, Richard.' She sighed.

Outside the White House a news machine squalled; she could hear it vending details about Dieter Hogben. The machine possessed the entire story. And it was exploiting it for all it was worth. She sighed again. The ruling council, those shadowy, ominous figures who stood directly behind every move she made, were undoubtedly thoroughly aroused, now, as if wakened from their sleep. She wondered what they would do. They had a lot of wisdom; collectively, they were quite old. Like snakes they were cold and silent, but very much alive. Very active and yet always obscured from sight.

They never appeared on TV, never gave guided tours.

At the moment she wished she could trade places with them.

And then all at once she realized that something had happened. The news machine was vending something about her.

Not about the next der Alte, Dieter Hogben, but some other Ge entirely.

The news machine -- she went to the window to hear better -- was saying that ... She strained to hear.

‘Nicole dead!' the machine shrilled. ‘Years ago! Actress Kate Rupert in her place! Entire governing apparatus a fraud, according to ... ‘ And then the news machine moved on. She could no longer hear it, no matter how hard she tried.

His face wrinkled with confusion and uneasiness, Richard Kongrosian asked, ‘Wh-what was that, Nicole? It was saying you're dead.'

‘Do I look dead?' she asked tartly.

‘But it said an actress was taking your place.' Kongrosian, bemused, stared at her, his face working with incomprehension. ‘Are you just an actress, Nicole? An impostor, like der Alte? He continued to stare, looking as if he were about to burst into grief-stricken baffled tears.

‘It's merely a sensational newspaper story,' Nicole said firmly. She felt, however, frozen all over. Numbed with dark, somatic dread. Everything was out now; some highlyplaced Ge, someone even more an intimate of the White House circle than the Karps, had leaked this last, great secret.

There was now nothing left to conceal. Hence there was no longer a distinction between the many Bes and the few Ges.

There was a knock at the door and without waiting Garth McRae entered, looking grim. He held a copy of The New York Times.

‘That psychoanalyst, Egon Superb, informed a reporting machine,' he said to Nicole. ‘How he found out I don't have the slightest idea -- he's hardly in a position to know first-hand about you; obviously someone must have deliberately spilled it to him.' He studied the newspaper, his lips moving. ‘A patient. A Ge patient confided in him and for reasons that we may never know he called the newspaper.'

Nicole said, ‘I suppose there's no use arresting him now. I'd like to find out who's using him; that's what I'm interested in.' It was no doubt a hopeless wish, doomed to disappointment. Probably Egon Superb would never say; he would take the pose that it was a professional secret, something given him in sanctified privacy. He would pretend he did not want to get his patient into jeopardy.

‘Even Bertold Goltz,' McRae said, ‘didn't know that. Even though he roams around here at will.'

‘What we're going to see a demand for now,' Nicole said, ‘is a general election.' And it would not be she who would be elected, not after this disclosure. She wondered if Epstein, the Attorney General, would consider it his job to take action against her. She could count on the Army, but what about the High Court? It might rule that she was not legally in power. Actually it could be doing that at this very moment.

The council would have to emerge, now. Admit in public that it and no one else held the actual governmental authority.

And the council had never been voted into office of any sort. It was paralegal entirely.

Goltz could say, and truthfully, that he had as much right to rule as the council.

Perhaps even more so. Because Goltz and the Sons of Job had a popular following.

She wished, suddenly, that over the past years she had learned more about the council. Knew who comprised it, what they were like, what their aims were. As a matter of fact she had never even seen it in session; it had dealt with her indirectly, through elaborate screening devices.

‘I think,' she said to Garth McRae, ‘that I had better go before the TV cameras and address the nation. If they actually see me perhaps they'll take this news less seriously.'

Perhaps the potency of her presence, the old magical power of her image, would prevail. After all, the public was accustomed to seeing her. They believed in her, from decades of conditioning. The tradition-sanctified whip and carrot might still function, at least to a limited extent. At least partially.

They'll believe, she decided, if they want to believe. Despite the news being hawked by the news machines. Those cold, impersonal agencies of ‘truth.' Of absolute reality, without human subjectivity.

‘I'm going to keep on trying,' she said to Garth McRae.

All this time Richard Kongrosian had continued to stare at her. He did not seem able to take his eyes from her. Now he said hoarsely, ‘I don't believe it, Nicole. You're real, aren't you? I can see you, so you must be real!' He gaped at her piteously.

‘I'm real,' she said, and felt sad. A lot of people were in Kongrosian's position, trying desperately to maintain their view of her undamaged, unaltered from that which they were accustomed to. And yet -- was this enough? How many people, like Kongrosian, could break with the reality principle? Believe in something they knew intellectually was an illusion? Few people, after all, were as sick as Richard Kongrosian.

To stay in power she would have to rule a nation of the mentally ill. And the idea did not very much appeal to her.

The door opened and Janet Raimer stood there, small, wrinkled and businesslike. ‘Nicole, please come along with me.' Her voice was dry and faint. But authoritative.

Nicole rose. The council wanted her. As was customary with them they were operating through Janet Raimer, their spokesman.

‘All right,' Nicole said. To Kongrosian and Garth McRae she said, ‘I'm sorry; you'll have to excuse me. Garth, I want you to act temporarily as NP Commissioner; Wilder Pembroke has been busted -I did that just now before you came in. I trust you.' She passed by them, then, and followed after Janet Raimer, out of the office and up the corridor. Janet moved briskly and she had to hurry to keep up.

Flapping his arms miserably, Kongrosian called after her, ‘If you don't exist I'm going to become invisible again or even worse!'

She continued on.

‘I'm afraid,' Kongrosian shouted, ‘of what I might do! I don't want it to happen!' He came a few steps out into the corridor after her. ‘Please help me! Before it's too late!'

There was nothing she could do. She did not even look back.

Janet led her to an elevator. ‘This time they're waiting two levels down,' Janet said. ‘They've assembled, all nine of them. Because of the gravity of the situation this time they'll talk to you face to face.'

The elevator slowly descended.

She stepped out, following Janet, in what had been in the previous century the H-bomb shelter for the White House.

Its lights were on and she saw, seated at a long oak table, six men and three women. All but one of them were strangers to her, blank and totally unfamiliar faces. But in the centre she made out to her disbelief a man whom she knew. He appeared, from the seating, to be the chairman of the council.

And his manner was a trifle more imposing, a little more confirmed than that of the others.

The man was Bertold Goltz.

Nicole said, ‘You. The street brawler. I never would have anticipated this.' She felt weary and frightened; across from the nine members of the council she hesitantly seated herself in a wooden straight-backed chair.

Frowning at her, Goltz said, ‘But you knew I had access to von Lessinger equipment. And all time-travel equipment constitutes a monopoly of the government. So obviously I had some form of contact at a very high level. However, that doesn't matter now; we have more urgent business to discuss.'

Janet Raimer said, ‘I'll go back upstairs again.'

‘Thank you,' Goltz said, nodding. To Nicole he said sombrely, ‘You're a rather inept young woman, Kate. However, we'll try to pick up and go on with what we have. The von Lessinger apparatus shows one highly distinct alternative future in which Police Commissioner Pembroke rules as an absolute dictator. This leads us to infer that Wilder Pembroke is involved with the Karps in their effort to unseat you. I think you should have him taken out immediately and shot.'

‘He's lost his post,' Nicole said. ‘Not more than ten minutes ago I relieved him of his duties.'

‘And let him go?' one of the female members of the council asked.

‘Yes,' Nicole admitted reluctantly.

Goltz said, ‘So now it's probably too late to take him into custody. However, let's continue. Nicole, your first action must be against the two monster-cartels, Karp and A.G. Chemie. Anton and Felix Karp are particularly dangerous; we've previewed several alternative futures in which they manage to destroy you and hold power -- at least for a decade or so. We've got to prevent that, regardless of what else we do or do not do.'

‘All right,' Nicole said, nodding reasonably. It seemed a good idea to her. She would have acted against the Karps anyhow, without advice from these individuals.

‘You look,' Goltz said, ‘as if you're thinking that you don't need us to tell you what to do. But actually you need us very badly. We're going to tell you how to save your life, physically, literally, and secondarily your public office. Without us you're dead right now. Please believe me; we've used the von Lessinger equipment and we know.'

‘It's just that I can't get used to the idea of it being you,' Nicole said to Bertold Goltz.

‘But it's always been me,' Goltz said. ‘Even though you didn't know it. Nothing has changed except you've found out, and that's really very little in all this, Kate. Now, do you want to stay alive? Do you want to take instructions from us? Or do you want to be stood up against a wall somewhere by Wilder Pembroke and the Karps and be executed?' His tone was harsh.

Nicole said, ‘Of course. I'll co-operate.'

‘Good enough.' Goltz nodded and glanced around at his colleagues. ‘The first order you give -- naturally through Rudi Kalbfleisch -- is that Karp und Sohnen Werke throughout the USEA has been nationalized. All Karp assets now are the property of the USEA government. Instruct the military this way: it's their task to seize the Karps' various branches; it'll have to be done with armed units and possibly heavy mobile equipment. It should be done right away, possibly before tonight.'

‘All right,' Nicole said.

‘A number of army generals, three or four at least, should be sent to the main Karp installations in Berlin; they should arrest the Karp family personally. Have the Karps taken to the nearest military base, have them tried by a military tribunal and executed immediately, also before tonight. Now, as to Pembroke. I think it would be better if the Sons of Job sent commando assassins to get Pembroke; we'll leave the military out of this aspect of the situation.' Goltz's tone changed. ‘Why that expression on your face, Kate?'

‘I have a headache,' Nicole said. ‘And don't call me "Kate." As long as I'm in power you should continue to call me Nicole.'

‘All this distresses you, doesn't it?'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I don't want to murder anybody, even Pembroke and the Karps. The Reichsmarschall was enough -- more than enough. I didn't murder those two jug-players who brought that papoola into the White House so it could bite me, those two underlings of Loony Luke. I let them emigrate to Mars.'

‘It can't all be handled that way.'

‘Evidently not,' Nicole agreed.

Behind Nicole the door of the shelter opened. She turned, expecting to see Janet Raimer.

Wilder Pembroke, with a group of NP men, stood in the doorway, pistol in hand. ‘You're all under arrest,' Pembroke said. ‘The lot of you.'

Leaping to his feet, Goltz groped inside his coat.

With a single shot Pembroke killed him. Goltz toppled backward, plucking at his chair; the chair slammed back as it overturned and Goltz lay on his side beyond the oak table.

No one else moved.

To Nicole, Pembroke said, ‘You're coming upstairs; you're going to make a TV appearance. Right away.' He waved the barrel of his gun shakily at her. ‘Hurry up! The TV-cast begins in ten minutes.' From his pocket he managed to bring forth a much-folded sheet of paper. ‘Here's what you'll say.' He added, grimacing in what seemed almost a tic, ‘It's your resignation from office, or rather so-called office. And in it you admit that both news stories are true, the one about der Alte and the one about yourself.'

Nicole said, ‘Whom do I abdicate in favour of?' Her own voice sounded thin in her ears but at least it was not pleading. She was glad of that.

‘An emergency police committee,' Pembroke said. ‘Which will supervise the forthcoming general election, and then of course resign.'

The stunned, passive remaining eight members of the council started to follow Nicole.

‘No,' Pembroke said to them. ‘You're all staying down here.' His face was white. ‘With the police team.'

‘You know what he's going to do, don't you?' one of the council members said to Nicole. ‘He's given orders to have us killed.' The man's words were hardly audible.

‘There's nothing she can do about it,' Pembroke said, and once more waved his gun at Nicole.

‘We previewed this on the von Lessinger apparatus,' a female member of the council said to Nicole. ‘But we couldn't believe it would happen. Bertold dismissed it. As too improbable. We thought such practices had died out.'

With Pembroke, Nicole entered the elevator. The two of them ascended to the ground-level floor.

‘Don't kill them,' Nicole said. ‘Please.'

Examining his wristwatch Pembroke said, ‘By now they're already dead.'

The elevator doors slid open; the elevator had stopped.

‘Go directly to your office,' Pembroke instructed her.

‘You'll deliver the telecast from there. It's interesting, isn't it, that the council did not take seriously the long-shot possibility that I might get them before they got me. They were so convinced of their own absolute power that they assumed I'd go like a sheep to my own destruction. I doubt if they even took the trouble to preview these last few moments. They must have known there was a reasonably good chance that I'd gain power but they evidently didn't follow up the situation and learn precisely how.'

‘I can't believe,' Nicole said, ‘that they could be so foolish. In spite of what they said and you said. With the von Lessinger equipment at their disposal -- ‘ It seemed impossible to her that Bertold Goltz and the others had simply let themselves be killed; logically, they should have been beyond reach.

‘They were frightened,' Pembroke said. ‘And frightened people lose the ability to think.'

Ahead lay Nicole's office.

On the floor before the doorway lay an inert form. It was Janet Raimer.

‘We found ourselves in a position where we were coerced into doing that,' Pembroke said. ‘Or rather -- let's face it we wanted to do it. Let's be honest with each other, finally. No, I don't have to. Taking care of Miss Raimer was an act of pure, enjoyable volition.' He stepped over Janet's body and opened the door to Nicole's office.

In the office stood Richard Kongrosian. ‘Something terrible's happening to me,' Kongrosian wailed, as soon as he spied the two of them. ‘I no longer can keep myself and my environment separate; do you comprehend how that feels? It's awful!' He came towards them, visibly quaking; his eyes rolled with abject fear and sweat stood out on his neck and forehead and hands. ‘Can you understand?'

‘Later,' Pembroke said to him, nervously. Again she saw the tic, the involuntary grimace. To her Pembroke said, ‘First, I want you to read over that material I gave you. Get started on it right away.' Once more he examined his wristwatch. ‘The TV technicians should have been here and set up by now.'

Kongrosian said, ‘I sent them away. They made it even more difficult for me. Look -- see that desk? I'm now part of it and it's part of me! Watch and I'll show you.' He scrutinized the desk intently, his mouth working. And, on the desk, a vase of pale roses lifted, moved through the air towards Kongrosian. The vase, as they watched, passed into Kongrosian's chest and disappeared. ‘It's inside me now,' he quavered. ‘I absorbed it. Now it's me. And -- ‘ He gestured at the desk. ‘I'm it!'

In the spot where the vase had been Nicole saw, forming into density and mass and colour, a complicated tangle of interwoven organic matter, smooth red tubes and what appeared to be portions of an endocrine system. A section, she realized, of Kongrosian's internal anatomy. Perhaps, she thought, his spleen and circulatory configurations that maintained it. The organ, whatever it was, regularly pulsed; it was alive and active. How elaborate it is, she thought; she could not take her eyes from it, and even Wilder Pembroke was gazing fixedly at it.

‘I'm turning inside out!'

Kongrosian wailed. ‘Pretty soon if this keeps up I'm going to have to envelop the entire universe and everything in it, and the only thing that'll be outside me will be my internal organs and then most likely I'll die!'

‘Listen, Kongrosian,' Pembroke said harshly. He turned the gun towards the psychokinetic concert pianist. ‘What do you mean by sending the TV crew out of here? I need them in this office; Nicole's going to address the nation. You go and tell them to come back.' He gestured at Kongrosian with the gun. ‘Or get a White House employee who -- ‘

He broke off. The gun had left his hand.

‘Help me!' Kongrosian howled. ‘It's becoming me and I have to be it!' The gun vanished into Kongrosian's body.

In Pembroke's hand a spongy, pink mass of lung-tissue appeared; instantly he dropped it and at once Kongrosian shrieked with pain.

Nicole shut her eyes. ‘Richard,' she moaned gratingly.

‘Stop it. Get control of yourself.'

‘Yes,' Kongrosian said, and giggled helplessly. ‘I can get hold of myself, pick myself up, the organs and vital parts all around me, lying on the floor; maybe I can stuff them back inside, somehow.'

Opening her eyes, Nicole said, ‘Can you get me out of here, now? Move me a long way off, Richard. Please.'

‘I can't breathe,' Kongrosian panted. ‘Pembroke has part of my breathing-apparatus and he dropped it; he didn't take care of it -- he let me fall.' He made a gesture towards the NP man ...

Quietly, his face drained of colour and the ordinary hopefulness of the process of life, Pembroke said, ‘He's shut off something inside me. Some essential organ.'

‘That's right!' Kongrosian shrieked. ‘I shut off your -- but I'm not going to tell you.' Slyly, he poked a finger at Pembroke, waggling it in his direction. ‘Only this; I'll say this: you'll live for about, oh, say, four more hours.' He laughed. ‘What do you say to that?'

‘Can you turn it back on?' Pembroke managed to say.

Pain had infiltrated his features now; he was suffering.

‘If I want,' Kongrosian said. ‘But I don't want to because I don't have time. I've got to collect myself.' He scowled in rapt concentration. ‘I'm busy evicting every foreign object that's managed to enter me,' he explained to Pembroke and Nicole. ‘And I want myself back; I'm going to make myself come back inside.' He glowered at the pink spongy mass of lung tissue. ‘You're me,' he told it. ‘You're part of the I-world, not the non-I. Understand?'

‘Please take me a long way from here,' Nicole said to him.

‘Okay, okay,' Kongrosian agreed irritably. ‘Where do you want to be? In another city entirely? On Mars? Who knows how far I can move you -- I don't. As Mr Pembroke said, I haven't really learned the political uses of my ability, even after all these years. But anyhow now I'm in politics.' He chuckled with delight. ‘What about Berlin? I can move you from here to Berlin; I'm confident of that.'

‘Anything,' Nicole said.

‘I know where I'll send you.' Kongrosian exclaimed suddenly. ‘I know where you'll be safe, Nicky. Understand, I want you to be safe; I believe in you, I know you exist. No matter what those damn news machines say. I mean, they're lying. I can tell. They're trying to shake my confidence in you; they've all ganged up, saying exactly the same thing.'

He added by way of explanation, ‘I'm sending you to my home in Jenner, California. You can stay with my wife and my son. Pembroke can't get you there because he'll be stone dead by then; I've turned off another organ inside him, now, and this one -- never mind which it is -- this one is even more vital than the other. He won't live another six minutes.'

Nicole said, ‘Richard, let him -- ‘ She ceased, then, because they were gone. Kongrosian, Pembroke, her office in the White House, everything had whipped out of existence and she stood in a gloomy rain forest. Mist drizzled from the shiny leaves; the ground underfoot was soft, impregnated with dampness. She heard no one. The moisture-saturated forest was utterly silent.

She was alone.

Presently she began to walk. She felt stiff and old and it was an effort to move. She felt as if she had stood there in the silence and rain for a million years. It was as if she had been there forever.

Ahead, through the vines and tangle of wet shrubbery she saw the outlines of a dilapidated, unpainted redwood building. A house. She walked towards it, her arms folded, shivering from the cold.

When she pushed the last branch aside she saw, parked ahead of her, an archaic-looking auto-cab in the centre of what appeared to be the house's driveway.

Opening the door of the auto-cab she said, ‘Take me to the nearest town.'

The mechanism of the cab did not respond. It remained inert, as if it were moribund.

‘Can't you hear me?' she said loudly to it.

A woman's voice came to her, from a distance. ‘I'm sorry, miss. That cab belongs to the record people, it can't respond because it's still under hire to them.'

‘Oh,' Nicole said, and straightened up, closing the door of the cab. ‘Are you Richard Kongrosian's wife?'

‘Yes, I am,' the woman said, descending the board steps of the house. ‘Who are -- ‘ She blinked. ‘You're Nicole Thibodeaux.'

‘I was,' Nicole said. ‘Can I come indoors and get something hot to drink? I don't feel too well.'

‘Of course,' Mrs Kongrosian said. ‘Please. Did you come here to find Richard? He's not here; the last I heard from him he was at a neuro-psychiatric hospital in San Francisco, Franklin Aimes. Do you know it?'

‘I know it,' Nicole said. ‘But he's not there now. No, I'm not looking for him.' She followed Mrs Kongrosian up the steps to the front porch of the house.

‘The record people have been here three days,' Mrs Kongrosian said. ‘Recording and recording. I'm beginning to think they're never going to leave. They're nice people and I enjoy their company; they've been staying here at night. They showed up originally to record my husband playing, under an old contract with Art-Cor, but as I said, he's gone.' She held the front door open.

Nicole said, ‘Thank you for your hospitality.' The house, she discovered, was warm and dry; it was a relief from the dreary landscape outside. A fire burned in the fireplace and she went over to it.

‘I heard the strangest garbling thing over the TV just now,' Mrs Kongrosian said. ‘Something about you; I couldn't make any sense out of it. Something having to do with you -- well, not existing, I think. Do you know what I'm talking about? What they were talking about?'

‘I'm afraid I don't,' Nicole said, warming herself.

Mrs Kongrosian said, ‘I'll go and fix the coffee. They Mr Flieger and the others from EME -- should be back fairly soon, now. For dinner. Are you alone? Nobody's with you?' She seemed bewildered.

‘I'm entirely alone,' Nicole said. She wondered if Wilder Pembroke was dead by now. She hoped so, for her own sake.

‘Your husband,' she said, ‘is a very fine person. I owe him a great deal.' My life, as a matter of fact, she realized.

‘He certainly thinks a lot of you, too,' Mrs Kongrosian said.

‘Can I stay here?' Nicole said suddenly.

‘Of course. For as long as you wish.'

‘Thanks,' Nicole said. She felt a little better. Maybe I'll never go back, she thought. After all, what's there to go back to? Janet is dead, Bertold Goltz is dead, even Reichsmarschall Goering is dead, and of course Wilder Pembroke; he's dead by now, too. And the entire ruling council, all the half-concealed figures who had stood behind her. Assuming of course that the NP men had carried out their orders, which no doubt they had.

And, she thought, I can't rule any longer; the news machines have seen to that in their blind, efficient, mechanical way. They and the Karps. So now, she decided, it's the Karps' turn; they can hold power for a while. Until they in turn are preempted, as I was.

She thought, I can't even go to Mars. At least not by jalopy! I saw to that myself. But there are other ways. Big legal commercial ships and government ships as well. Very fast ships which belong to the military; perhaps I could commandeer one of those. I could work through Rudi, even though he is -- or it is -- on its deathbed. Legally, the army has sworn an oath to him; they're supposed to do what he, or it, tells them.

‘Coffee? Are you all right? Are you ready for it?' Mrs Kongrosian peered at her intently.

‘Yes,' Nicole answered, ‘I am.' She followed Mrs Kongrosian into the kitchen of the big old house.

Outside the house the rain fell heavily, now. Nicole shivered and tried not to look directly at it. The rain frightened her; it was like an omen. A reminder of some evil fate to come.

‘What are you afraid of?' Mrs Kongrosian said suddenly, acutely.

‘I don't know,' Nicole confessed.

‘I've seen Richard like this. It must be the climate, here. It's so dismal and monotonous. But I thought from his description of you that you'd never be this way. He always made you sound so brave. So forceful.'

‘I'm sorry to disappoint you.'

Mrs Kongrosian patted her on the arm. ‘You don't disappoint me. I like you very much. I'm sure it is the climate that's getting you down.'

‘Maybe so,' Nicole said. But she knew better. It was more than the rain. Much more.