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diff --git a/32256-h/32256-h.htm b/32256-h/32256-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f61c502 --- /dev/null +++ b/32256-h/32256-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8300 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Big Time, by Fritz Leiber + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + h1 {text-align: left; margin-top: 1em; line-height: 1.5;} + h2,h3,.center {text-align: center;} + h3 {margin: 1.5em auto 2em;} + hr {width: 45%; margin: 1em auto; visibility: hidden;} + .chp {width: 65%; margin: 3em auto; visibility: visible;} + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .blockquot {margin: 1em 10%;} + .rgt {text-align: right;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + .figc {margin: 1em auto; width: 650px;} + .figr {float: right; clear: right; margin: 1em 0 1em 1em; padding: 0; width: 388px;} + .poem {margin: 0 auto; text-align: left; width: 20em;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + img {border: none;} + a:link,a:visited {text-decoration: none;} + p.cap:first-letter {float: left; margin-right: .05em; padding-top: .05em; font-size: 300%; line-height: .8em; width: auto;} + .dcap {text-transform: uppercase;} + .bk1 {background: url("images/001.png") top left no-repeat; width: 608px; height: 550px; margin: 0 auto; overflow: hidden;} + .bk2 {padding-top: 140px; width: 200px;} + .bk2 h2 {text-align: left;} + .bk3 {width: 608px; margin: 0 auto 2em;} + .figtl {float: left; clear: left; margin: 15px; padding: 0; width: 149px;} + .figtr {float: right; clear: right; margin: 15px; padding: 0; width: 146px;} + .trn {border: solid 1px; margin: 3em 15%; min-height: 230px;} + .trn p {margin: 15px;} + .bk4 {margin-top: 2em; line-height: 2; padding-bottom: 2em;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Big Time, by Fritz Reuter Leiber + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Big Time + +Author: Fritz Reuter Leiber + +Illustrator: Virgil Finlay + +Release Date: May 5, 2010 [EBook #32256] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BIG TIME *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="bk1"><div class="bk2"> +<h2><small>By FRITZ LEIBER</small></h2> +<h1><big>THE<br /> +BIG<br /> +TIME</big></h1> +</div></div> + +<div class="bk3"> +<div class="rgt"><b><small>Illustrated by FINLAY</small></b></div> +<div class="bk4"><p><i><big><b>You can't know there's a war on—for the Snakes +coil and Spiders weave to keep you from knowing +it's being fought over your live and dead body!</b></big></i></p></div></div> + +<h2>CHAPTER 1</h2> + +<div class="poem" style="width: 14em;"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When shall we three meet again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In thunder, lightning, or in rain?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When the hurlyburly's done.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the battle's lost and won.<br /></span> +</div> + +<div class="rgt">—Macbeth</div></div> + +<h3>ENTER THREE HUSSARS</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">My</span> name is Greta Forzane. +Twenty-nine and a party +girl would describe +me. I was born in Chicago, of +Scandinavian parents, but now I +operate chiefly outside space and +time—not in Heaven or Hell, if +there are such places, but not in +the cosmos or universe you know +either.</p> + +<p>I am not as romantically entrancing +as the immortal film star +who also bears my first name, but +I have a rough-and-ready charm of +my own. I need it, for my job is +to nurse back to health and kid +back to sanity Soldiers badly +roughed up in the biggest war going. +This war is the Change War, +a war of time travelers—in fact, our +private name for being in this war +is being on the Big Time. Our +Soldiers fight by going back to +change the past, or even ahead to +change the future, in ways to help +our side win the final victory a +billion or more years from now. +A long killing business, believe +me.</p> + +<p>You don't know about the +Change War, but it's influencing +your lives all the time and maybe +you've had hints of it without +realizing.</p> + +<p>Have you ever worried about +your memory, because it doesn't +seem to be bringing you exactly +the same picture of the past from +one day to the next? Have you +ever been afraid that your personality +was changing because of +forces beyond your knowledge or +control? Have you ever felt sure +that sudden death was about to +jump you from nowhere? Have +you ever been scared of Ghosts—not +the story-book kind, but the +billions of beings who were once +so real and strong it's hard to believe +they'll just sleep harmlessly +forever? Have you ever wondered +about those things you may call +devils or Demons—spirits able to +range through all time and space, +through the hot hearts of stars +and the cold skeleton of space between +the galaxies? Have you ever +thought that the whole universe +might be a crazy, mixed-up dream? +If you have, you've had hints of +the Change War.</p> + +<p>How I got recruited into the +Change War, how it's conducted, +what the two sides are, why you +don't consciously know about it, +what I really think about it—you'll +learn in due course.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> place outside the cosmos +where I and my pals do our +nursing job I simply call the Place. +A lot of my nursing consists of +amusing and humanizing Soldiers +fresh back from raids into time. +In fact, my formal title is Entertainer +and I've got my silly +side, as you'll find out.</p> + +<p>My pals are two other gals and +three guys from quite an assortment +of times and places. We're +a pretty good team, and with Sid +bossing, we run a pretty good Recuperation +Station, though we have +our family troubles. But most of +our troubles come slamming into +the Place with the beat-up Soldiers, +who've generally just been +going through hell and want to +raise some of their own. As a matter +of fact, it was three newly arrived +Soldiers who started this +thing I'm going to tell you about, +this thing that showed me so much +about myself and everything.</p> + +<p>When it started, I had been on +the Big Time for a thousand sleeps +and two thousand nightmares, and +working in the Place for five hundred-one +thousand. This two-nightmares +routine every time you lay +down your dizzy little head is +rough, but you pretend to get used +to it because being on the Big +Time is supposed to be worth it.</p> + +<p>The Place is midway in size +and atmosphere between a large +nightclub where the Entertainers +sleep in and a small Zeppelin hangar +decorated for a party, though +a Zeppelin is one thing we haven't +had yet. You go out of the Place, +but not often if you have any sense +and if you are an Entertainer like +me, into the cold light of a morning +filled with anything from the +earlier dinosaurs to the later spacemen, +who look strangely similar +except for size.</p> + +<p>Solely on doctor's orders, I have +been on cosmic leave six times +since coming to work at the Place, +meaning I have had six brief vacations, +if you care to call them +that, for believe me they are busman's +holidays, considering what +goes on in the Place all the time. +The last one I spent in Renaissance +Rome, where I got a crush +on Cesare Borgia, but I got over +it. Vacations are for the birds, anyway, +because they have to be fitted +by the Spiders into serious operations +of the Change War, and you +can imagine how restful that +makes them.</p> + +<p>"See those Soldiers changing the +past? You stick along with them. +Don't go too far up front, though, +but don't wander off either. Relax +and enjoy yourself."</p> + +<p>Ha! Now the kind of recuperation +Soldiers get when they come +to the Place is a horse of a far +brighter color, simply dazzling by +comparison. Entertainment is our +business and we give them a bang-up +time and send them staggering +happily back into action, though +once in a great while something +may happen to throw a wee +shadow on the party.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I am</span> dead in some ways, but +don't let that bother you—I +am lively enough in others. If you +met me in the cosmos, you would +be more apt to yak with me or try +to pick me up than to ask a cop +to do same or a father to douse +me with holy water, unless you +are one of those hard-boiled reformer +types. But you are not likely +to meet me in the cosmos, because +(bar Basin Street and the +Prater) 15th Century Italy and +Augustan Rome—until they spoiled +it—are my favorite (Ha!) vacation +spots and, as I have said, I +stick as close to the Place as I can. +It is really the nicest Place in the +whole Change World. (Crisis! I +even <i>think</i> of it capitalized!)</p> + +<p>Anyhoo, when this thing started, +I was twiddling my thumbs on +the couch nearest the piano and +thinking it was too late to do my +fingernails and whoever came in +probably wouldn't notice them anyway.</p> + +<p>The Place was jumpy like it +always is on an approach and the +gray velvet of the Void around +us was curdled with the uneasy +lights you see when you close your +eyes in the dark.</p> + +<p>Sid was tuning the Maintainers +for the pick-up and the right shoulder +of his gold-worked gray doublet +was streaked where he'd been wiping +his face on it with quick ducks +of his head.</p> + +<p>Beauregard was leaning as close +as he could over Sid's other shoulder, +one white-trousered knee +neatly indenting the rose plush of +the control divan, and he wasn't +missing a single flicker of Sid's old +fingers on the dials; Beau's co-pilot +besides piano player. Beau's face +had that dead blank look it must +have had when every double eagle +he owned and more he didn't were +riding on the next card to be +turned in the gambling saloon on +one of those wedding-cake Mississippi +steamboats.</p> + +<p>Doc was soused as usual, sitting +at the bar with his top hat pushed +back and his knitted shawl pulled +around him, his wide eyes seeing +whatever horrors a life in Nazi-occupied +Czarist Russia can add +to being a drunk Demon in the +Change World.</p> + +<p>Maud, who is the Old Girl, and +Lili—the New Girl, of course—were +telling the big beads of their +identical pearl necklaces.</p> + +<p>You might say that all us Entertainers +were a bit edgy; being +Demons doesn't automatically +make us brave.</p> + +<p>Then the red telltale on the +Major Maintainer went out and +the Door began to darken in the +Void facing Sid and Beau, and +I felt Change Winds blowing hard +and my heart missed a couple of +beats, and the next thing three +Soldiers had stepped out of the +cosmos and into the Place, their +first three steps hitting the floor +hard as they changed times and +weights.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">They</span> were dressed as officers +of hussars, as we'd been advised, +and—praise the Bonny Dew!—I +saw that the first of them was +Erich, my own dear little commandant, +the pride of the von Hohenwalds +and the Terror of the +Snakes. Behind him was some +hard-faced Roman or other, and +beside Erich and shouldering into +him as they stamped forward was +a new boy, blond, with a face like +a Greek god who's just been touring +a Christian hell.</p> + +<p>They were uniformed exactly +alike in black—shakos, fur-edged +pelisses, boots, and so forth—with +white skull emblems on the shakos. +The only difference between them +was that Erich had a Caller on his +wrist and the New Boy had a +black-gauntleted glove on his left +hand and was clenching the mate +in it, his right hand being bare like +both of Erich's and the Roman's.</p> + +<p>"You've made it, lads, hearts of +gold," Sid boomed at them, and +Beau twitched a smile and murmured +something courtly and +Maud began to chant, "Shut the +Door!" and the New Girl copied +her and I joined in because the +Change Winds do blow like crazy +when the Door is open, even +though it can't ever be shut tight +enough to keep them from leaking +through.</p> + +<p>"Shut it before it blows wrinkles +in our faces," Maud called in her +gamin voice to break the ice, looking +like a skinny teen-ager in the +tight, knee-length frock she'd +copied from the New Girl.</p> + +<p>But the three Soldiers weren't +paying attention. The Roman—I +remembered his name was Mark—was +blundering forward stiffly +as if there were something wrong +with his eyes, while Erich and the +New Boy were yelling at each +other about a kid and Einstein and +a summer palace and a bloody +glove and the Snakes having +booby-trapped Saint Petersburg. +Erich had that taut sadistic smile +he gets when he wants to hit me.</p> + +<p>The New Boy was in a tearing +rage. "Why'd you pull us out so +bloody fast? We fair chewed the +Nevsky Prospekt to pieces galloping +away."</p> + +<p>"Didn't you feel their stun guns, +<i>Dummkopf</i>, when they sprung the +trap—too soon, <i>Gott sei Dank</i>?" +Erich demanded.</p> + +<p>"I did," the New Boy told him. +"Not enough to numb a cat. Why +didn't you show us action?"</p> + +<p>"Shut up. I'm your leader. I'll +show you action enough."</p> + +<p>"You won't. You're a filthy Nazi +coward."</p> + +<p>"<i>Weibischer Engländer!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Bloody Hun!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Schlange!</i>"</p> + +<p>The blond lad knew enough +German to understand that last +crack. He threw back his sable-edged +pelisse to clear his sword +arm and he swung away from +Erich, which bumped him into +Beau. At the first sign of the quarrel, +Beau had raised himself from +the divan as quickly and silently +as a—no, I won't use that word—and +slithered over to them.</p> + +<p>"Sirs, you forget yourselves," he +said sharply, off balance, supporting +himself on the New Boy's upraised +arm. "This is Sidney Lessingham's +Place of Entertainment +and Recuperation. There are +ladies—"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">With</span> a contemptuous snarl, +the New Boy shoved him +off and snatched with his bare +hand for his saber. Beau reeled +against the divan, it caught him +in the shins and he fell toward +the Maintainers. Sid whisked them +out of the way as if they were a +couple of beach radios—simply +nothing in the Place is nailed down—and +had them back on the coffee +table before Beau hit the floor. +Meanwhile, Erich had his saber +out and had parried the New +Boy's first wild slash and lunged +in return, and I heard the scream +of steel and the rutch of his boot +on the diamond-studded pavement.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Beau</span> rolled over and came up +pulling from the ruffles of his +shirt bosom a derringer I knew +was some other weapon in disguise—a +stun gun or even an Atropos. +Besides scaring me damp for Erich +and everybody, that brought me +up short: us Entertainers' nerves +must be getting as naked as the +Soldiers', probably starting when +the Spiders canceled all cosmic +leaves twenty sleeps back.</p> + +<p>Sid shot Beau his look of command, +rapped out, "I'll handle this, +you whoreson firebrand," and +turned to the Minor Maintainer. I +noticed that the telltale on the +Major was glowing a reassuring +red again, and I found a moment +to thank Mamma Devi that the +Door was shut.</p> + +<p>Maud was jumping up and +down, cheering I don't know which—nor +did she, I bet—and the New +Girl was white and I saw that the +sabers were working more businesslike. +Erich's flicked, flicked, +flicked again and came away from +the blond lad's cheek spilling a +couple of red drops. The blond lad +lunged fiercely, Erich jumped back, +and the next moment they were +both floating helplessly in the air, +twisting like they had cramps.</p> + +<p>I realized quick enough that +Sid had shut off gravity in the +Door and Stores sectors of the +Place, leaving the rest of us firm +on our feet in the Refresher and +Surgery sectors. The Place has +sectional gravity to suit our Extraterrestrial +buddies—those crazy +ETs sometimes come whooping in +for recuperation in very mixed +batches.</p> + +<p>From his central position, Sid +called out, kindly enough but taking +no nonsense, "All right, lads, +you've had your fun. Now sheathe +those swords."</p> + +<p>For a second or so, the two +black hussars drifted and contorted. +Erich laughed harshly and neatly +obeyed—the commandant is used +to free fall. The blond lad stopped +writhing, hesitated while he glared +upside down at Erich and managed +to get his saber into its scabbard, +although he turned a slow +somersault doing it. Then Sid +switched on their gravity, slow +enough so they wouldn't get +sprained landing.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Erich</span> laughed, lightly this +time, and stepped out briskly +toward us. He stopped to clap the +New Boy firmly on the shoulder +and look him in the face.</p> + +<p>"So, now you get a good scar," +he said.</p> + +<p>The other didn't pull away, +but he didn't look up and Erich +came on. Sid was hurrying toward +the New Boy, and as he passed +Erich, he wagged a finger at him +and gayly said, "You rogue." Next +thing I was giving Erich my "Man, +you're home" hug and he was kissing +me and cracking my ribs and +saying, "<i>Liebchen! Doppchen!</i>"—which +was fine with me because +I do love him and I'm a good lover +and as much a Doubleganger as +he is.</p> + +<p>We had just pulled back from +each other to get a breath—his +blue eyes looked so sweet in his +worn face—when there was a +thud behind us. With the snapping +of the tension, Doc had fallen off +his bar stool and his top hat was +over his eyes. As we turned to +chuckle at him, Maud squeaked +and we saw that the Roman had +walked straight up against the +Void and was marching along there +steadily without gaining a foot, like +it does happen, his black uniform +melting into that inside-your-head +gray.</p> + +<p>Maud and Beau rushed over to +fish him back, which can be tricky. +The thin gambler was all courtly +efficiency again. Sid supervised +from a distance.</p> + +<p>"What's wrong with him?" I +asked Erich.</p> + +<p>He shrugged. "Overdue for +Change Shock. And he was nearest +the stun guns. His horse almost +threw him. <i>Mein Gott</i>, you should +have seen Saint Petersburg, <i>Liebchen</i>: +the Nevsky Prospekt, the +canals flying by like reception carpets +of blue sky, a cavalry troop +in blue and gold that blundered +across our escape, fine women in +furs and ostrich plumes, a monk +with a big tripod and his head under +a hood—it gave me the horrors +seeing all those Zombies flashing +past and staring at me in that +sick unawakened way they have, +and knowing that some of them, +say the photographer, might be +Snakes."</p> + +<p>Our side in the Change War is +the Spiders, the other side is the +Snakes, though all of us—Spiders +and Snakes alike—are Doublegangers +and Demons too, because +we're cut out of our lifelines in +the cosmos. Your lifeline is all of +you from birth to death. We're +Doublegangers because we can +operate both in the cosmos and +outside of it, and Demons because +we act reasonably alive while doing +so—which the Ghosts don't. +Entertainers and Soldiers are all +Demon-Doublegangers, whichever +side they're on—though they say +the Snake Places are simply ghastly. +Zombies are dead people whose +lifelines lie in the so-called past.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">"What</span> were you doing in +Saint Petersburg before the +ambush?" I asked Erich. "That is, +if you can talk about it."</p> + +<p>"Why not? We were kidnapping +the infant Einstein back from the +Snakes in 1883. Yes, the Snakes +got him, <i>Liebchen</i>, only a few +sleeps back, endangering the West's +whole victory over Russia—"</p> + +<p>"—which gave your dear little +Hitler the world on a platter for +fifty years and got me loved to +death by your sterling troops in +the Liberation of Chicago—"</p> + +<p>"—but which leads to the ultimate +victory of the Spiders and +the West over the Snakes and +Communism, <i>Liebchen</i>, remember +that. Anyway, our counter-snatch +didn't work. The Snakes had +guards posted—most unusual and +we weren't warned. The whole +thing was a great mess. No wonder +Bruce lost his head—not that +it excuses him."</p> + +<p>"The New Boy?" I asked. Sid +hadn't got to him and he was still +standing with hooded eyes where +Erich had left him, a dark pillar +of shame and rage.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ja</i>, a lieutenant from World +War One. An Englishman."</p> + +<p>"I gathered that," I told Erich. +"Is he really effeminate?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Weibischer?</i>" He smiled. "I had +to call him something when he +said I was a coward. He'll make +a fine Soldier—only needs a little +more shaping."</p> + +<p>"You men are so original when +you spat." I lowered my voice. +"But you shouldn't have gone on +and called him a Snake, Erich +mine."</p> + +<p>"<i>Schlange?</i>" The smile got +crooked. "Who knows—about any +of us? As Saint Petersburg showed +me, the Snakes' spies are getting +cleverer than ours." The blue eyes +didn't look sweet now. "Are you, +<i>Liebchen</i>, really nothing more than +a good loyal Spider?"</p> + +<p>"Erich!"</p> + +<p>"All right, I went too far—with +Bruce and with you too. We're +all hacked these days, riding with +one leg over the breaking edge."</p> + +<p>Maud and Beau were supporting +the Roman to a couch, Maud +taking most of his weight, with Sid +still supervising and the New Boy +still sulking by himself. The New +Girl should have been with him, +of course, but I couldn't see her +anywhere and I decided she was +probably having a nervous breakdown +in the Refresher, the little +jerk.</p> + +<p>"The Roman looks pretty bad, +Erich," I said.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Mark's tough. Got virtue, +as his people say. And our little +starship girl will bring him back +to life if anybody can and if ..."</p> + +<p>"... you call this living," I filled +in dutifully.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> was right. Maud had fifty-odd +years of psychomedical +experience, 23rd Century at that. +It should have been Doc's job, but +that was fifty drunks back.</p> + +<p>"Maud and Mark, that will be +an interesting experiment," Erich +said. "Reminiscent of Goering's +with the frozen men and the naked +gypsy girls."</p> + +<p>"You are a filthy Nazi. She'll be +using electrophoresis and deep suggestion, +if I know anything."</p> + +<p>"How will you be able to know +anything, <i>Liebchen</i>, if she switches +on the couch curtains, as I perceive +she is preparing to do?"</p> + +<p>"Filthy Nazi I said and meant."</p> + +<p>"Precisely." He clicked his heels +and bowed a millimeter. "Erich +Friederich von Hohenwald, <i>Oberleutnant</i> +in the army of the Third +Reich. Fell at Narvik, where he +was Recruited by the Spiders. Lifeline +lengthened by a Big Change +after his first death and at latest +report Commandant of Toronto, +where he maintains extensive baby +farms to provide him with breakfast +meat, if you believe the handbills +of the <i>voyageurs</i> underground. +At your service."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Erich, it's all so lousy," I +said, touching his hand, reminded +that he was one of the unfortunates +Resurrected from a point in their +lifelines well before their deaths—in +his case, because the date of +his death had been shifted forward +by a Big Change after his Resurrection. +And as every Demon finds +out, if he can't imagine it beforehand, +it is pure hell to remember +your future, and the shorter the +time between your Resurrection +and your death back in the cosmos, +the better. Mine, bless Bab-ed-Din, +was only an action-packed ten +minutes on North Clark Street.</p> + +<p>Erich put his other hand lightly +over mine. "Fortunes of the Change +War, <i>Liebchen</i>. At least I'm a +Soldier and sometimes assigned +to future operations—though why +we should have this monomania +about our future personalities back +there, I don't know. Mine is a +stupid <i>Oberst</i>, thin as paper—and +frightfully indignant at the <i>voyageurs</i>! +But it helps me a little if I +see him in perspective and at least +I get back to the cosmos pretty +regularly, <i>Gott sei Dank</i>, so I'm +better off than you Entertainers."</p> + +<p>I didn't say aloud that a Changing +cosmos is worse than none, but +I found myself sending a prayer to +the Bonny Dew for my father's +repose, that the Change Winds +would blow lightly across the lifeline +of Anton A. Forzane, professor +of physiology, born in Norway +and buried in Chicago. Woodlawn +Cemetery is a nice gray spot.</p> + +<p>"That's all right, Erich," I said. +"We Entertainers Got Mittens too."</p> + +<p>He scowled around at me suspiciously, +as if he were wondering +whether I had all my buttons on.</p> + +<p>"Mittens?" he said. "What do +you mean? I'm not wearing any. +Are you trying to say something +about Bruce's gloves—which incidentally +seem to annoy him for +some reason. No, seriously, Greta, +why do you Entertainers need +mittens?"</p> + +<p>"Because we get cold feet sometimes. +At least I do. Got Mittens, +as I say."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">A sickly</span> light dawned in his +Prussian puss. He muttered, +"Got mittens ... <i>Gott mit uns</i> ... +God with us," and roared softly, +"Greta, I don't know how I put up +with you, the way you murder +a great language for cheap laughs."</p> + +<p>"You've got to take me as I am," +I told him, "mittens and all, thank +the Bonny Dew—" and hastily explained, +"That's French—<i>le bon +Dieu</i>—the good God—don't hit +me. I'm not going to tell you any +more of my secrets."</p> + +<p>He laughed feebly, like he was +dying.</p> + +<p>"Cheer up," I said. "I won't be +here forever, and there are worse +places than the Place."</p> + +<p>He nodded grudgingly, looking +around. "You know what, Greta, +if you'll promise not to make some +dreadful joke out of it: on operations, +I pretend I'll soon be going +backstage to court the world-famous +ballerina Greta Forzane."</p> + +<p>He was right about the backstage +part. The Place is a regular +theater-in-the-round with the Void +for an audience, the Void's gray +hardly disturbed by the screens +masking Surgery (Ugh!), Refresher +and Stores. Between the +last two are the bar and kitchen +and Beau's piano. Between Surgery +and the sector where the +Door usually appears are the +shelves and taborets of the Art +Gallery. The control divan is stage +center. Spaced around at a fair +distance are six big low couches—one +with its curtains now shooting +up into the gray—and a few small +tables. It is like a ballet set and +the crazy costumes and characters +that turn up don't ruin the illusion. +By no means. Diaghilev would +have hired most of them for the +Ballet Russe on first sight, without +even asking them whether they +could keep time to music.</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 2</h2> + +<div class="poem" style="width: 11em;"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Last week in Babylon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Last night in Rome,<br /></span> +</div> + +<div class="rgt">—Hodgson</div></div> + +<h3>A RIGHT-HAND GLOVE</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Beau</span> had gone behind the bar +and was talking quietly at +Doc, but with his eyes elsewhere, +looking very sallow and professional +in his white, and I thought—Damballa!—I'm +in the French +Quarter. I couldn't see the New +Girl. Sid was at last getting to +the New Boy after the fuss about +Mark. He threw me a sign and I +started over with Erich in tow.</p> + +<p>"Welcome, sweet lad. Sidney +Lessingham's your host, and a fellow +Englishman. Born in King's +Lynn, 1564, schooled at Cambridge, +but London was the life and death +of me, though I outlasted Bessie, +Jimmie, Charlie, and Ollie almost. +And what a life! By turns a clerk, +a spy, a bawd—the two trades +are hand in glove—a poet of no +account, a beggar, and a peddler of +resurrection tracts. Beau Lassiter, +our throats are tinder!"</p> + +<p>At the word "poet," the New +Boy looked up, but resentfully, +as if he had been tricked into it.</p> + +<p>"And to spare your throat for +drinking, sweet gallant, I'll be so +bold as to guess and answer one of +your questions," Sid rattled on. +"Yes, I knew Will Shakespeare—we +were of an age—and he was +such a modest, mind-your-business +rogue that we all wondered +whether he really did write those +plays. Your pardon, 'faith, but that +scratch might be looked to."</p> + +<p>Then I saw that the New Girl +hadn't lost her head, but gone to +Surgery (Ugh!) for a first-aid +tray. She reached a swab toward +the New Boy's sticky cheek, saying +rather shrilly, "If I might ..."</p> + +<p>Her timing was bad. Sid's last +words and Erich's approach had +darkened the look in the young +Soldier's face and he angrily swept +her arm aside without even glancing +at her. Erich squeezed my +arm. The tray clattered to the floor—and +one of the drinks that Beau +was bringing almost followed it. +Ever since the New Girl's arrival, +Beau had been figuring that she +was his responsibility, though I +don't think the two of them had +reached an agreement yet. Beau +was especially set on it because +I was thick with Sid at the time +and Maud with Doc, she loving +tough cases.</p> + +<p>"Easy now, lad, and you love +me!" Sid thundered, again shooting +Beau the "Hold it" look. "She's +just a poor pagan trying to comfort +you. Swallow your bile, you +black villain, and perchance it will +turn to poetry. Ah, did I touch +you there? Confess, you are a +poet."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">There</span> isn't much gets by Sid, +though for a second I forgot +my psychology and wondered if +he knew what he was doing with +his insights.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm a poet, all right," the +New Boy roared. "I'm Bruce Marchant, +you bloody Zombies. I'm +a poet in a world where even the +lines of the King James and your +precious Will whom you use for +laughs aren't safe from Snakes' +slime and the Spiders' dirty legs. +Changing our history, stealing our +certainties, claiming to be so blasted +all-knowing and best intentioned +and efficient, and what does it lead +to? This bloody SI glove!"</p> + +<p>He held up his black-gloved left +hand which still held the mate and +he shook it.</p> + +<p>"What's wrong with the Spider +Issue gauntlet, heart of gold?" Sid +demanded. "And you love us, tell +us." While Erich laughed, "Consider +yourself lucky, <i>Kamerad</i>. +Mark and I didn't draw any gloves +at all."</p> + +<p>"What's wrong with it?" Bruce +yelled. "The bloody things are +both lefts!" He slammed it down +on the floor.</p> + +<p>We all howled, we couldn't help +it. He turned his back on us and +stamped off, though I guessed he +would keep out of the Void. Erich +squeezed my arm and said between +gasps, "<i>Mein Gott, Liebchen</i>, +what have I always told you about +Soldiers? The bigger the gripe, the +smaller the cause! It is infallible!"</p> + +<p>One of us didn't laugh. Ever +since the New Girl heard the name +Bruce Marchant, she'd had a look +in her eyes like she'd been given +the sacrament. I was glad she'd +got interested in something, because +she'd been pretty much of +a snoot and a wet blanket up until +now, although she'd come to +the Place with the recommendation +of having been a real whoopee +girl in London and New York in +the Twenties. She looked disapprovingly +at us as she gathered +up the tray and stuff, not forgetting +the glove, which she placed on +the center of the tray like a holy +relic.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Beau</span> cut over and tried to talk +to her, but she ghosted past him +and once again he couldn't do +anything because of the tray in his +hands. He came over and got rid +of the drinks quick. I took a big +gulp right away because I saw +the New Girl stepping through the +screen into Surgery and I hate +to be reminded we have it and +I'm glad Doc is too drunk to use +it, some of the Arachnoid surgical +techniques being very sickening +as I know only too well from a +personal experience that is number +one on my list of things to be +forgotten.</p> + +<p>By that time, Bruce had come +back to us, saying in a carefully +hard voice, "Look here, it's not +the dashed glove itself, as you very +well know, you howling Demons."</p> + +<p>"What is it then, noble heart?" +Sid asked, his grizzled gold beard +heightening the effect of innocent +receptivity.</p> + +<p>"It's the principle of the thing," +Bruce said, looking around sharply, +but none of us cracked a smile. +"It's this mucking inefficiency and +death of the cosmos—and don't tell +me that isn't in the cards!—masquerading +as benign omniscient authority. +The Spiders—and we don't +know who they are ultimately; it's +just a name; we see only agents +like ourselves—the Spiders pluck +us from the quiet graves of our +lifelines—"</p> + +<p>"Is that bad, lad?" Sid murmured, +innocently straight-faced.</p> + +<p>"—and Resurrect us if they can +and then tell us we must fight another +time-traveling power called +the Snakes—just a name, too—which +is bent on perverting and +enslaving the whole cosmos, past, +present and future."</p> + +<p>"And isn't it, lad?"</p> + +<p>"Before we're properly awake, +we're Recruited into the Big Time +and hustled into tunnels and burrows +outside our space-time, these +miserable closets, gray sacks, puss +pockets—no offense to this Place—that +the Spiders have created, maybe +by gigantic implosions, but no +one knows for certain, and then +we're sent off on all sorts of missions +into the past and future to +change history in ways that are +supposed to thwart the Snakes."</p> + +<p>"True, lad."</p> + +<p>"And from then on, the pace is +so flaming hot and heavy, the +shocks come so fast, our emotions +are wrenched in so many directions, +our public and private metaphysics +distorted so insanely, the +deepest thread of reality we cling +to tied in such bloody knots, that +we never can get things straight."</p> + +<p>"We've all felt that way, lad," +Sid said soberly; Beau nodded his +sleek death's head; "You should +have seen me, <i>Kamerad</i>, my first +fifty sleeps," Erich put in; while +I added, "Us girls, too, Bruce."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know I'll get hardened +to it, and don't think I can't. It's +not that," Bruce said harshly. "And +I wouldn't mind the personal confusion, +the mess it's made of my +spirit, I wouldn't even mind remaking +history and destroying +priceless, once-called imperishable +beauties of the past, if I felt it +were for the best. The Spiders +assure us that, to thwart the +Snakes, it is all-important that the +West ultimately defeat the East. +But what have they done to achieve +this? I'll give you some beautiful +examples. To stabilize power in +the early Mediterranean world, +they have built up Crete at the +expense of Greece, making Athens +a ghost city, Plato a trivial fabulist, +and putting all Greek culture +in a minor key."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">"You</span> got time for culture?" +I heard myself say and I +clapped my hand over my mouth +in gentle reproof.</p> + +<p>"But <i>you</i> remember the dialogues, +lad," Sid observed. "And +rail not at Crete—I have a sweet +Keftian friend."</p> + +<p>"For how long will I remember +Plato's dialogues? And who +after me?" Bruce challenged. +"Here's another. The Spiders want +Rome powerful and, to date, +they've helped Rome so much that +she collapses in a blaze of German +and Parthian invasions a few +years after the death of Julius +Caesar."</p> + +<p>This time it was Beau who +butted in. Most everybody in the +Place loves these bull sessions. +"You omit to mention, sir, that +Rome's newest downfall is directly +due to the Unholy Triple Alliance +the Snakes have fomented between +the Eastern Classical World, Mohammedanized +Christianity, and +Marxist Communism, trying to +pass the torch of power futurewards +by way of Byzantium and +the Eastern Church, without ever +letting it pass into the hands of +the Spider West. That, sir, +is the Snakes' Three-Thousand-Year +Plan which we are fighting +against, striving to revive Rome's +glories."</p> + +<p>"Striving is the word for it," +Bruce snapped. "Here's yet another +example. To beat Russia, the +Spiders kept England and America +out of World War Two, thereby +ensuring a German invasion of +the New World and creating a +Nazi empire stretching from the +salt mines of Siberia to the plantations +of Iowa, from Nizhni Novgorod +to Kansas City!"</p> + +<p>He stopped and my short hairs +prickled. Behind me, someone +was chanting in a weird spiritless +voice, like footsteps in hard snow.</p> + +<p>"<i>Salz, Salz, bringe Salz. Kein' +Peitsch', gnädige Herren. Salz, +Salz, Salz.</i>"</p> + +<p>I turned and there was Doc +waltzing toward us with little tiny +steps, bent over so low that the +ends of his shawl touched the +floor, his head crooked up sideways +and looking through us.</p> + +<p>I knew then, but Erich translated +softly. "'Salt, salt, I bring +salt. No whip, merciful sirs.' He +is speaking to my countrymen in +their language." Doc had spent +his last months in a Nazi-operated +salt mine.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> saw us and got up, straightening +his top hat very carefully. +He frowned hard while my +heart thumped half a dozen times. +Then his face slackened, he +shrugged his shoulders and muttered, +"<i>Nichevo</i>."</p> + +<p>"And it does not matter, sir," +Beau translated, but directing his +remark at Bruce. "True, great civilizations +have been dwarfed or +broken by the Change War. But +others, once crushed in the bud, +have bloomed. In the 1870s, I +traveled a Mississippi that had +never known Grant's gunboats. I +studied piano, languages, and the +laws of chance under the greatest +European masters at the University +of Vicksburg."</p> + +<p>"And you think your pipsqueak +steamboat culture is compensation +for—" Bruce began but, +"Prithee none of that, lad," Sid interrupted +smartly. "Nations are as +equal as so many madmen or +drunkards, and I'll drink dead +drunk the man who disputes me. +Hear reason: nations are not so +puny as to shrivel and vanish at +the first tampering with their past, +no, nor with the tenth. Nations are +monsters, boy, with guts of iron +and nerves of brass. Waste not +your pity on them."</p> + +<p>"True indeed, sir," Beau pressed, +cooler and keener for the attack on +his Greater South. "Most of us enter +the Change World with the +false metaphysic that the slightest +change in the past—a grain of +dust misplaced—will transform the +whole future. It is a long while +before we accept with our minds +as well as our intellects the law +of the Conservation of Reality: +that when the past is changed, the +future changes barely enough to +adjust, barely enough to admit the +new data. The Change Winds +meet maximum resistance always. +Otherwise the first operation in +Babylonia would have wiped out +New Orleans, Sheffield, Stuttgart, +and Maud Davies' birthplace on +Ganymede!</p> + +<p>"Note how the gap left by +Rome's collapse was filled by the +imperialistic and Christianized Germans. +Only an expert Demon historian +can tell the difference in +most ages between the former +Latin and the present Gothic +Catholic Church. As you yourself, +sir, said of Greece, it is as if an +old melody were shifted into a +slightly different key. In the wake +of a Big Change, cultures and individuals +are transposed, it's true, +yet in the main they continue +much as they were, except for the +usual scattering of unfortunate but +statistically meaningless accidents."</p> + +<p>"All right, you bloody savants—maybe +I pushed my point too far," +Bruce growled. "But if you want +variety, give a thought to the rotten +methods we use in our wonderful +Change War. Poisoning +Churchill and Cleopatra. Kidnapping +Einstein when he's a baby."</p> + +<p>"The Snakes did it first," I reminded +him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and we copied them. How +resourceful does that make us?" +he retorted, arguing like a woman. +"If we need Einstein, why don't +we Resurrect him, deal with him +as a man?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Beau</span> said, serving his culture +in slightly thicker slices, "<i>Pardonnez-moi</i>, +but when you have +enjoyed your status as Doubleganger +a <i>soupcon</i> longer, you will +understand that great men can +rarely be Resurrected. Their beings +are too crystallized, sir, their +lifelines too tough."</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, but I think that's +rot. I believe that most great men +refuse to make the bargain with +the Snakes, or with us Spiders +either. They scorn Resurrection +at the price demanded."</p> + +<p>"Brother, they ain't that great," +I whispered, while Beau glided +on with, "However that may be, +you have accepted Resurrection, +sir, and so incurred an obligation +which you as a gentleman must +honor."</p> + +<p>"I accepted Resurrection all +right," Bruce said, a glare coming +into his eyes. "When they pulled +me out of my line at Passchendaele +in '17 ten minutes before +I died, I grabbed at the offer of life +like a drunkard grabs at a drink +the morning after. But even then +I thought I was also seizing a +chance to undo historic wrongs, +work for peace." His voice was +getting wilder all the time. Just +beyond our circle, I noticed the +New Girl watching him worshipfully. +"But what did I find the +Spiders wanted me for? Only to +fight more wars, over and over +again, make them crueler and +stinkinger, cut the swath of death +a little wider with each Big Change, +work our way a little closer to +the death of the cosmos."</p> + +<p>Sid touched my wrist and, as +Bruce raved on, he whispered to +me, "What kind of ball, think you, +will please and so quench this fire-brained +rogue? And you love me, +discover it."</p> + +<p>I whispered back without taking +my eyes off Bruce either, "I know +somebody who'll be happy to put +on any kind of ball he wants, if +he'll just notice her."</p> + +<p>"The New Girl, sweetling? 'Tis +well. This rogue speaks like an +angry angel. It touches my heart +and I like it not."</p> + +<p>Bruce was saying hoarsely but +loudly, "And so we're sent on +operations in the past and from +each of those operations the +Change Winds blow futurewards, +swiftly or slowly according to the +opposition they breast, sometimes +rippling into each other, and any +one of those Winds may shift the +date of our own death ahead of the +date of our Resurrection, so that +in an instant—even here, outside +the cosmos—we may molder and +rot or crumble to dust and vanish +away. The wind with our name +in it may leak through the Door."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Faces</span> hardened at that, because +it's bad form to mention +Change Death, and Erich flared +out with, "<i>Halt's Maul, Kamerad!</i> +There's always another Resurrection."</p> + +<p>But Bruce didn't keep his mouth +shut. He said, "Is there? I know +the Spiders promise it, but even +if they do go back and cut another +Doubleganger from my lifeline, +is he me?" He slapped his +chest with his bare hand. "I don't +think so. And even if he is me, with +unbroken consciousness, why's he +been Resurrected again? Just to +refight more wars and face more +Change Death for the sake of an +almighty power—" his voice was +rising to a climax—"an almighty +power so bloody ineffectual, it +can't furnish one poor Soldier +pulled out of the mud of Passchendaele, +one miserable Change +Commando, one Godforsaken Recuperee +a proper issue of equipment!"</p> + +<p>And he held out his bare right +hand toward us, fingers spread a +little, as if it were the most amazing +object and most deserving of +outraged sympathy in the whole +world.</p> + +<p>The New Girl's timing was perfect. +She whisked through us, and +before he could so much as wiggle +the fingers, she whipped a black +gauntleted glove on it and anyone +could see that it fitted his hand +perfectly.</p> + +<p>This time our laughing beat the +other. We collapsed and slopped +our drinks and pounded each other +on the back and then started all +over.</p> + +<p>"<i>Ach, der Handschuh, Liebchen!</i> +Where'd she get it?" Erich gasped +in my ear.</p> + +<p>"Probably just turned the other +one inside out—that turns a left +into a right—I've done it myself," +I wheezed, collapsing again at the +idea.</p> + +<p>"That would put the lining outside," +he objected.</p> + +<p>"Then I don't know," I said. +"We got all sorts of junk in Stores."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter, <i>Liebchen</i>," +he assured me. "<i>Ach, der Handschuh!</i>"</p> + +<p>All through it, Bruce just stood +there admiring the glove, moving +the fingers a little now and then, +and the New Girl stood watching +him as if he were eating a cake +she'd baked.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">When</span> the hysteria quieted +down, he looked up at her +with a big smile. "What did you +say your name was?"</p> + +<p>"Lili," she said, and believe you +me, she was Lili to me even in +my thoughts from then on, for the +way she'd handled that lunatic.</p> + +<p>"Lilian Foster," she explained. +"I'm English also. Mr. Marchant, +I've read <i>A Young Man's Fancy</i> +I don't know how many times."</p> + +<p>"You have? It's wretched stuff. +From the Dark Ages—I mean my +Cambridge days. In the trenches, +I was working up some poems +that were rather better."</p> + +<p>"I won't hear you say that. But +I'd be terribly thrilled to hear the +new ones. Oh, Mr. Marchant, it +was so strange to hear you call it +Passiondale."</p> + +<p>"Why, if I may ask?"</p> + +<p>"Because that's the way I pronounce +it to myself. But I looked +it up and it's more like Pas-ken-DA-luh."</p> + +<p>"Bless you! All the Tommies +called it Passiondale, just as they +called Ypres Wipers."</p> + +<p>"How interesting. You know, +Mr. Marchant, I'll wager we were +Recruited in the same operation, +summer of 1917. I'd got to France +as a Red Cross nurse, but they +found out my age and were going +to send me back."</p> + +<p>"How old were you—are you? +Same thing, I mean to say."</p> + +<p>"Seventeen."</p> + +<p>"Seventeen in '17," Bruce murmured, +his blue eyes glassy.</p> + +<p>It was real corny dialogue and +I couldn't resent the humorous +leer Erich gave me as we listened +to them, as if to say, "Ain't it nice, +<i>Liebchen</i>, Bruce has a silly little +English schoolgirl to occupy him +between operations?"</p> + +<p>Just the same, as I watched Lili +in her dark bangs and pearl necklace +and tight little gray dress that +reached barely to her knees, and +Bruce hulking over her tenderly +in his snazzy hussar's rig, I knew +that I was seeing the start of something +that hadn't been part of me +since Dave died fighting Franco +years before I got on the Big Time, +the sort of thing that almost made +me wish there could be children +in the Change World. I wondered +why I'd never thought of trying +to work things so that Dave got +Resurrected and I told myself: +no, it's all changed, I've changed, +better the Change Winds don't disturb +Dave or I know about it.</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't die in 1917—I +was merely Recruited then," Lili +was telling Bruce. "I lived all +through the Twenties, as you can +see from the way I dress. But let's +not talk about that, shall we? Oh, +Mr. Marchant, do you think you +can possibly remember any of +those poems you started in the +trenches? I can't fancy them bettering +your sonnet that concludes +with, 'The bough swings in the +wind, the night is deep; Look at +the stars, poor little ape, and +sleep.'"</p> + +<p>That one almost made me +whoop—what monkeys we are, I +thought—though I'd be the first to +admit that the best line to use on +a poet is one of his own—in fact, +as many as possible. I decided I +could safely forget our little Britons +and devote myself to Erich or +whatever needed me.</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 3</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Hell is the place for me. For to +Hell go the fine churchmen, and +the fine knights, killed in the +tourney or in some grand war, +the brave soldiers and the gallant +gentlemen. With them will +I go. There go also the fair +gracious ladies who have lovers +two or three beside their lord. +There go the gold and the silver, +the sables and ermine. There +go the harpers and the minstrels +and the kings of the earth.</p> + +<div class="rgt">—Aucassin</div></div> + +<h3>NINE FOR A PARTY</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I exchanged</span> my drink for +a new one from another tray +Beau was bringing around. The +gray of the Void was beginning +to look real pleasant, like warm +thick mist with millions of tiny +diamonds floating in it. Doc was +sitting grandly at the bar with a +steaming tumbler of tea—a chaser, +I guess, since he was just putting +down a shot glass. Sid was talking +to Erich and laughing at the same +time and I said to myself it begins +to feel like a party, but something's +lacking.</p> + +<p>It wasn't anything to do with +the Major Maintainer; its telltale +was glowing a steady red like a +nice little home fire amid the tight +cluster of dials that included all +the controls except the lonely and +frightening Introversion switch that +was never touched. Then Maud's +couch curtains winked out and +there were she and the Roman +sitting quietly side by side.</p> + +<p>He looked down at his shiny +boots and the rest of his black +duds like he was just waking up +and couldn't believe it all, and he +said, "<i>Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur +in illis</i>," and I raised my +eyebrows at Beau, who was taking +the tray back, and he did proud +by old Vicksburg by translating: +"All things change and we change +with them."</p> + +<p>Then Mark slowly looked +around at us, and I can testify that +a Roman smile is just as warm as +any other nationality, and he finally +said, "We are nine, the proper +number for a party. The couches, +too. It is good."</p> + +<p>Maud chuckled proudly and +Erich shouted, "Welcome back +from the Void, <i>Kamerad</i>," and +then, because he's German and +thinks all parties have to be noisy +and satirically pompous, he jumped +on a couch and announced, "<i>Herren +und Damen</i>, permit me to introduce +the noblest Roman of +them all, Marcus Vipsaius Niger, +legate to Nero Claudius (called +Germanicus in a former time +stream) and who in 763 <span class="smcap">A.U.C.</span> +(Correct, Mark? It means 10 <span class="smcap">A.D.</span>, +you meatheads!) died bravely +fighting the Parthians and the +Snakes in the Battle of Alexandria. +<i>Hoch, hoch, hoch!</i>"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">We</span> all swung our glasses and +cheered with him and Sid +yelled at Erich, "Keep your feet +off the furniture, you unschooled +rogue," and grinned and boomed +at all three hussars, "Take your +ease, Recuperees," and Maud and +Mark got their drinks, the Roman +paining Beau by refusing Falernian +wine in favor of scotch and +soda, and right away everyone was +talking a mile a minute.</p> + +<p>We had a lot to catch up on. +There was the usual yak about the +war—"The Snakes are laying mine +fields in the Void," "I don't believe +it, how can you mine nothing?"—and +the shortages—bourbon, bobby +pins, and the stabilitin that would +have brought Mark out of it faster—and +what had become of people—"Marcia? +Oh, she's not around +any more," (She'd been caught in +a Change Gale and green and +stinking in five seconds, but I +wasn't going to say that)—and +Mark had to be told about Bruce's +glove, which convulsed us all over +again, and the Roman remembered +a legionary who had carried a gripe +all the way to Octavius because +he'd accidentally been issued the +unbelievable luxury item sugar instead +of the usual salt, and Erich +asked Sid if he had any new Ghostgirls +in stock and Sid sucked his +beard like the old goat he is. "Dost +thou ask me, lusty Allemand? Nay, +there are several great beauties, +amongst them an Austrian countess +from Strauss's Vienna, and if it +were not for sweetling here ... +Mnnnn."</p> + +<p>I poked a finger in Erich's chest +between two of the bright buttons +with their tiny death's heads. "You, +my little von Hohenwald, are a +menace to us real girls. You have +too much of a thing about the unawakened, +ghost kind."</p> + +<p>He called me his little Demon +and hugged me a bit too hard to +prove it wasn't so, and then he +suggested we show Bruce the Art +Gallery. I thought this was a real +brilliant idea, but when I tried to +argue him out of it, he got stubborn. +Bruce and Lili were willing +to do anything anyone wanted +them to, though not so willing to +pay any attention while doing it. +The saber cut was just a thin red +line on his cheek; she'd washed +away all the dried blood.</p> + +<p>The Gallery gets you, though. +It's a bunch of paintings and sculptures +and especially odd knick-knacks, +all made by Soldiers recuperating +here, and a lot of them +telling about the Change War from +the stuff they're made of—brass +cartridges, flaked flint, bits of ancient +pottery glued into futuristic +shapes, mashed-up Incan gold +rebeaten by a Martian, whorls of +beady Lunan wire, a picture in +tempera on a crinkle-cracked thick +round of quartz that had filled a +starship porthole, a Sumerian inscription +chiseled into a brick from +an atomic oven.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">There</span> are a lot of things in +the Gallery and I can always +find some I haven't ever seen before. +It gets you, as I say, thinking +about the guys that made them +and their thoughts and the far +times and places they came from, +and sometimes, when I'm feeling +low, I'll come and look at them so +I'll feel still lower and get inspired +to kick myself back into a good +temper. It's the only history of the +Place there is and it doesn't change +a great deal, because the things +in it and the feelings that went into +them resist the Change Winds better +than anything else.</p> + +<p>Right now, Erich's witty lecture +was bouncing off the big ears +I hide under my pageboy bob and +I was thinking how awful it is that +for us that there's not only change +but Change. You don't know from +one minute to the next whether a +mood or idea you've got is really +new or just welling up into you +because the past has been altered +by the Spiders or Snakes.</p> + +<p>Change Winds can blow not +only death but anything short of +it, down to the featheriest fancy. +They blow thousands of times +faster than time moves, but no +one can say how much faster or +how far one of them will travel +or what damage it'll do or how +soon it'll damp out. The Big Time +isn't the little time.</p> + +<p>And then, for the Demons, +there's the fear that our personality +will just fade and someone else +climb into the driver's seat and us +not even know. Of course, we Demons +are supposed to be able to +remember through Change and +in spite of it; that's why we are +Demons and not Ghosts like the +other Doublegangers, or merely +Zombies or Unborn and nothing +more, and as Beau truly said, there +aren't any great men among us—and +blamed few of the masses, +either—we're a rare sort of people +and that's why the Spiders have +to Recruit us where they find us +without caring about our previous +knowledge and background, a Foreign +Legion of time, a strange kind +of folk, bright but always in the +background, with built-in nostalgia +and cynicism, as adaptable as +Centaurian shape-changers but +with memories as long as a Lunan's +six arms, a kind of Change People, +you might say, the cream of the +damned.</p> + +<p>But sometimes I wonder if our +memories are as good as we think +they are and if the whole past +wasn't once entirely different from +anything we remember, and we've +forgotten that we forgot.</p> + +<p>As I say, the Gallery gets you +feeling real low, and so now I +said to myself, "Back to your lousy +little commandant, kid," and gave +myself a stiff boot.</p> + +<p>Erich was holding up a green +bowl with gold dolphins or spaceships +on it and saying, "And, to +my mind, this proves that Etruscan +art is derived from Egyptian. Don't +you agree, Bruce?"</p> + +<p>Bruce looked up, all smiles from +Lili, and said, "What was that, +dear chap?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Erich's</span> forehead got dark as +the Door and I was glad the +hussars had parked their sabers +along with their shakos, but before +he could even get out a Jerry cussword, +Doc breezed up in that +plateau-state of drunkenness so +like hypnotized sobriety, moving +as if he were on a dolly, ghosted +the bowl out of Erich's hand, said, +"A beautiful specimen of Middle +Systemic Venusian. When Eightaitch +finished it, he told me you +couldn't look at it and not feel +the waves of the Northern Venusian +Shallows rippling around your +hoofs. But it might look better inverted. +I wonder. Who are you, +young officer? <i>Nichevo</i>," and he +carefully put the bowl back on its +shelf and rolled on.</p> + +<p>It's a fact that Doc knows the +Art Gallery better than any of us, +really by heart, he being the oldest +inhabitant, though he maybe picked +a bad time to show off his knowledge. +Erich was going to take out +after him, but I said, "Nix, <i>Kamerad</i>, +remember gloves and +sugar," and he contented himself +with complaining, "That <i>nichevo</i>—it's +so gloomy and hopeless, <i>ungeheuerlich</i>. +I tell you, <i>Liebchen</i>, +they shouldn't have Russians working +for the Spiders, not even as +Entertainers."</p> + +<p>I grinned at him and squeezed +his hand. "Not much entertainment +in Doc these days, is there?" I +agreed.</p> + +<p>He grinned back at me a shade +sheepishly and his face smoothed +and his blue eyes looked sweet +again for a second and he said, "I +shouldn't want to claw out at people +that way, Greta, but at times +I am just a jealous old man," +which is not entirely true, as he +isn't a day over thirty-three, although +his hair is nearly white.</p> + +<p>Our lovers had drifted on a few +steps until they were almost fading +into the Surgery screen. It was +the last spot I would have picked +for the formal preliminaries to a +little British smooching, but Lili +probably didn't share my prejudices, +though I remembered she'd +told me she'd served a brief hitch +in an Arachnoid Field Hospital before +being transferred to the Place.</p> + +<p>But she couldn't have had anything +like the experience I'd had +during my short and sour career +as a Spider nurse, when I'd acquired +my best-hated nightmare +and flopped completely (jobwise, +but on the floor, too) at seeing a +doctor flick a switch and a being, +badly injured but human, turn +into a long cluster of glistening +strange fruit—ugh, it always makes +me want to toss my cookies and +my buttons. And to think that dear +old Daddy Anton wanted his Greta +chile to be a doctor.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Well</span>, I could see this wasn't +getting me anywhere I wanted +to go, and after all there was a +party going on.</p> + +<p>Doc was babbling something at +a great rate to Sid—I just hoped +Doc wouldn't get inspired to go +into his animal imitations, which +sound pretty fierce and once seriously +offended some recuperating +ETs.</p> + +<p>Maud was demonstrating to +Mark a 23rd Century two-step and +Beau sat down at the piano and +improvised softly on her rhythm.</p> + +<p>As the deep-thrumming relaxing +notes hit us, Erich's face brightened +and he dragged me over. +Pleasantly soon I had my feet off +the diamond-rough floor, which we +don't carpet because most of the +ETs, the dear boys, like it hard, +and I was shouldering back deep +into the couch nearest the piano, +with cushions all around me and a +fresh drink in my hand, while my +Nazi boy friend was getting ready +to discharge his <i>Weltschmerz</i> as +song, which didn't alarm me too +much, as his baritone is passable.</p> + +<p>Things felt real good, like the +Maintainer was just idling to keep +the Place in existence and moored +to the cosmos, not exerting itself +at all or at most taking an occasional +lazy paddle stroke. At times +the Place's loneliness can be happy +and comfortable.</p> + +<p>Then Beau raised an eyebrow +at Erich, who nodded, and next +thing they were launched into a +song we all know, though I've +never found out where it originally +came from. This time it made me +think of Lili, and I wondered why—and +why it's a tradition at Recuperation +Stations to call the new +girl Lili, though in this case it happened +to be her real name.</p> + +<div class="poem" style="width: 27em;"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Standing in the Doorway just outside of space,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Winds of Change blow 'round you but don't touch your face;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>You smile as you whisper tenderly,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>"Please cross to me, Recuperee;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The operation's over, come in and close the Door."</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 4</h2> + +<div class="poem" style="width: 19em;"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">De Bailhache, Fresca, Mrs. Cammel, whirled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In fractured atoms.<br /></span> +</div> + +<div class="rgt">—Eliot</div></div> + +<h3>SOS FROM NOWHERE</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I realized</span> the piano had deserted +Erich and I cranked my +head up and saw Beau, Maud and +Sid streaking for the control divan. +The Major Maintainer was blinking +emergency-green and fast, but +the code was plain enough for even +me to recognize the Spider distress +call and for a second I felt +just sick. Then Erich blew out his +reserve breath in the middle of +"Door" and I gave myself another +of those helpful mental boots at +the base of the spine and we hurried +after them toward the center +of the Place along with Mark.</p> + +<p>The blinks faded as we got there +and Sid told us not to move because +we were making shadows. +He glued an eye to the telltale and +we held still as statues as he +caressed the dials like he was making +love.</p> + +<p>One sensitive hand flicked out +past the Introversion switch over +to the Minor Maintainer and right +away the Place was dark as your +soul and there was nothing for me +but Erich's arm and the knowledge +that Sid was nursing a green +light I couldn't even see, although +my eyes had plenty time to accommodate.</p> + +<p>Then the green light finally +came back very slowly and I could +see the dear reliable old face—the +green-gold beard making him look +like a merman—and then the telltale +flared bright and Sid flicked +on the Place lights and I leaned +back.</p> + +<p>"That nails them, lads, whoever +and whenever they may be. Get +ready for a pick-up."</p> + +<p>Beau, who was closest of course, +looked at him sharply. Sid shrugged +uneasily. "Meseemed at first it was +from our own globe a thousand +years before our Lord, but that indication +flickered and faded like +witchfire. As it is, the call comes +from something smaller than the +Place and certes adrift from the +cosmos. Meseemed too at one +point I knew the fist of the caller—an +antipodean atomicist named +Benson-Carter—but that likewise +changed."</p> + +<p>Beau said, "We're not in the +right phase of the cosmos-Places +rhythm for a pick-up, are we, sir?"</p> + +<p>Sid answered, "Ordinarily not, +boy."</p> + +<p>Beau continued, "I didn't think +we had any pick-ups scheduled. +Or stand-by orders."</p> + +<p>Sid said, "We haven't."</p> + +<p>Mark's eyes glowed. He tapped +Erich on the shoulder. "An octavian +denarius against ten Reichsmarks +it is a Snake trap."</p> + +<p>Erich's grin showed his teeth. +"Make it first through the Door +next operation and I'm on."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">It</span> didn't take that to tell me +things were serious, or the +thought that there's always a first +time for bumping into something +from really outside the cosmos. +The Snakes have broken our code +more than once. Maud was quietly +serving out weapons and Doc +was helping her. Only Bruce and +Lili stood off. But they were watching.</p> + +<p>The telltale brightened. Sid +reached toward the Maintainer, +saying, "All right, my hearties. Remember, +through this Doorway +pass the fishiest finaglers in and out +of the cosmos."</p> + +<p>The Door appeared to the left +and above where it should be and +darkened much too fast. There +was a gust of stale salt seawind, +if that makes sense, but no +stepped-up Change Winds I could +tell—and I had been bracing myself +against them. The Door got +inky and there was a flicker of gray +fur whips and a flash of copper +flesh and gilt and something dark +and a clump of hoofs and Erich +was sighting a stun gun across his +left forearm, and then the Door +had vanished like that and a tentacled +silvery Lunan and a Venusian +satyr were coming straight +toward us.</p> + +<p>The Lunan was hugging a pile +of clothes and weapons. The satyr +was helping a wasp-waisted woman +carry a heavy-looking bronze chest. +The woman was wearing a short +skirt and high-collared bolero +jacket of leather so dark brown it +was almost black. She had a two-horned +<i>petsofa</i> hairdress and she +was boldly gilded here and there +and wore sandals and copper +anklets and wristlets—one of them +a copper-plated Caller—and from +her wide copper belt hung a short-handled +double-headed ax. She +was dark-complexioned and her +forehead and chin receded, but the +effect was anything but weak; she +had a face like a beautiful arrowhead—and +a familiar one, by golly!</p> + +<p>But before I could say, "Kabysia +Labrys," Maud shrilly beat me +to it with, "It's Kaby with two +friends. Break out a couple of +Ghostgirls."</p> + +<p>And then I saw it really was +old-home week because I recognized +my Lunan boy friend Ilhilihis, +and in the midst of all the confusion +I got a nice kick out of +knowing I was getting so I could +tell the personality of one silver-furred +muzzle from another.</p> + +<p>They reached the control divan +and Illy dumped his load and +the others let down the chest, and +Kaby staggered but shook off the +two ETs when they started to support +her, and she looked daggers +at Sid when he tried to do the +same, although she's his "sweet +Keftian friend" he'd mentioned to +Bruce.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">She</span> leaned straight-armed on +the divan and took two gasping +breaths so deep that the ridges +of her spine showed through her +brown-skinned waist, and then she +threw up her head and commanded, +"Wine!"</p> + +<p>While Beau was rushing it, Sid +tried to take her hand again, saying, +"Sweetling, I'd never heard +you call before and knew not this +pretty little fist," but she ripped +out, "Save your comfort for the +Lunan," and I looked and saw—Hey, +Zeus!—that one of Ilhilihis' +six tentacles was lopped off halfway.</p> + +<p>That was for me, and, going to +him, I fast briefed myself: "Remember, +he only weighs fifty +pounds for all he's seven feet high; +he doesn't like low sounds or to +be grabbed; the two legs aren't tentacles +and don't act the same; uses +them for long walks, tentacles for +leaps; uses tentacles for close vision +too and for manipulation, of +course; extended, they mean he's +at ease; retracted, on guard or +nervous; sharply retracted, disgusted; +greeting—"</p> + +<p>Just then, one of them swept +across my face like a sweet-smelling +feather duster and I said, "Illy, +man, it's been a lot of sleeps," and +brushed my fingers across his muzzle. +It still took a little self-control +not to hug him, and I did +reach a little cluckingly for his +lopped tentacle, but he wafted it +away from me and the little voice-box +belted to his side squeaked, +"Naughty, naughty. Papa will fix +his little old self. Greta girl, ever +bandaged even a Terra octopus?"</p> + +<p>I had, an intelligent one from +around a quarter billion <span class="smcap">A.D.</span>, but I +didn't tell him so. I stood and let +him talk to the palm of my hand +with one of his tentacles—I don't +savvy feather-talk but it feels good, +though I've often wondered who +taught him English—and watched +him use a couple others to whisk +a sort of Lunan band-aid out of +his pouch and cap his wound with +it.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the satyr knelt over +the bronze chest, which was decorated +with little death's heads and +crosses with hoops at the top and +swastikas, but looking much older +than Nazi, and the satyr said to +Sid, "Quick thinkin, Gov, when +ya saw the Door comin in high n +soffened up gravty unner it, but +cud I hav sum hep now?"</p> + +<p>Sid touched the Minor Maintainer +and we all got very light +and my stomach did a flip-flop +while the satyr piled on the chest +the clothes and weapons that Illy +had been carrying and pranced +off with it all and carefully put it +down at the end of the bar. I decided +the satyr's English instructor +must have been quite a character, +too. Wish I'd met him—her—it.</p> + +<p>Sid thought to ask Illy if he +wanted Moon-normal gravity in +one sector, but my boy likes to +mix, and being such a lightweight, +Earth-normal gravity doesn't +bother him. As he said to me +once, "Would Jovian gravity bother +a beetle, Greta girl?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I asked</span> Illy about the satyr +and he squeaked that his name +was Sevensee and that he'd never +met him before this operation. I +knew the satyrs were from a billion +years in the future, just as +the Loonies were from a billion in +the past, and I thought—Kreesed +us!—but it must have been a real +big or emergency-like operation to +have the Spiders using those two +for it, with two billion years between +them—a time-difference that +gives you a feeling of awe for a +second, you know.</p> + +<div class="figc" style="width: 600px;"><img src="images/002.png" width="600" height="528" alt="" title="" /></div> + +<p>I started to ask Illy about it, but +just then Beau came scampering +back from the bar with a big red-and-black +earthenware goblet of +wine—we try to keep a variety of +drinking tools in stock so folks +will feel more at home. Kaby +grabbed it from him and drained +most of it in one swallow and then +smashed it on the floor. She does +things like that, though Sid's tried +to teach her better. Then she stared +at what she was thinking about +until the whites showed all around +her eyes and her lips pulled way +back from her teeth and she looked +a lot less human than the two ETs, +just like a fury. Only a time traveler +knows how like the wild +murals and engravings of them +some of the ancients can look.</p> + +<p>My hair stood up at the screech +she let out. She smashed a fist into +the divan and cried, "Goddess! +Must I see Crete destroyed, revived, +and now destroyed again? +It is too much for your servant."</p> + +<p>Personally, I thought she could +stand anything.</p> + +<p>There was a rush of questions +at what she said about Crete—I +asked one of them, for the news +certainly frightened me—but she +shot up her arm straight for silence +and took a deep breath and began.</p> + +<p>"In the balance hung the battle. +Rowing like black centipedes, the +Dorian hulls bore down on our +outnumbered ships. On the bright +beach, masked by rocks, Sevensee +and I stood by the needle gun, +ready to give the black hulls silent +wounds. Beside us was Ilhilihis, +suited as a sea monster. But +then ... then ..."</p> + +<p>Then I saw she wasn't altogether +the iron babe, for her voice +broke and she started to shake +and to sob rackingly, although her +face was still a mask of rage, and +she threw up the wine. Sid stepped +in and made her stop, which I think +he'd been wanting to do all along.</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 5</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Whenever I take up a newspaper +and read it, I fancy I see +ghosts creeping between the +lines. There must be ghosts all +over the world. They must be +as countless as the grains of the +sands, it seems to me.</p> + +<div class="rgt">—Ibsen</div></div> + +<h3>SID INSISTS ON +GHOSTGIRLS</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">My</span> Elizabethan boy friend put +his fists on his hips and laid +down the law to us as if we were +a lot of nervous children who'd +been playing too hard.</p> + +<p>"Look you, masters, this is a Recuperation +Station and I am running +it as such. A plague of all +operations! I care not if the frame +of things disjoints and the whole +Change World goes to ruin, but +you, warrior maid, are going to +rest and drink more wine slowly +before you tell your tale and your +colleagues are going to be properly +companioned. No questions, anyone. +Beau, and you love us, give +us a lively tune."</p> + +<p>Kaby relaxed a little and let +him put his hand carefully against +her back in token of support and +she said grudgingly, "All right, Fat +Belly."</p> + +<p>Then, so help me, to the tune +of the Muskrat Ramble, which I'd +taught Beau, we got girls for those +two ETs and everybody properly +paired up.</p> + +<p>Right here I want to point out +that a lot of the things they say +in the Change World about Recuperation +Stations simply aren't so—and +anyway they always leave +out nine-tenths of it. The Soldiers +that come through the Door are +looking for a good time, sure, but +they're hurt real bad too, every +one of them, deep down in their +minds and hearts, if not always in +their bodies or so you can see it +right away.</p> + +<p>Believe me, a temporal operation +is no joke, and to start with, +there isn't one person in a hundred +who can endure to be cut from his +lifeline and become a really wide-awake +Doubleganger—a Demon, +that is—let alone a Soldier. What +does a badly hurt and mixed-up +creature need who's been fighting +hard? <i>One individual</i> to look out +for him and feel for him and patch +him up, and it helps if the one is +of the opposite sex—that's something +that goes beyond species.</p> + +<p>There's your basis for the Place +and the wild way it goes about its +work, and also for most other Recuperation +Stations or Entertainment +Spots. The name Entertainer +can be misleading, but I like it. +She's got to be a lot more than a +good party girl—or boy—though +she's got to be that too. She's got +to be a nurse and a psychologist +and an actress and a mother and +a practical ethnologist and a lot +of things with longer names—and a +reliable friend.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">None</span> of us are all those things +perfectly or even near it. We +just try. But when the call comes, +Entertainers have to forget grudges +and gripes and envies and jealousies—and +remember, they're lively +people with sharp emotions—because +there isn't any time then +for anything but <i>help and don't +ask who</i>!</p> + +<p>And, deep inside her, a good +Entertainer doesn't care who. Take +the way it shaped up this time. +It was pretty clear to me I ought +to shift to Illy, although I wasn't +quite easy in my mind about leaving +Erich, because the Lunan was +a long time from home and, after +all, Erich was among anthropoids. +Ilhilihis needed someone who was +<i>simpatico</i>.</p> + +<p>I like Illy and not just because +he is a sort of tall cross between +a spider monkey and a persian cat—though +that is a handsome combo +when you come to think of it. +I like him for himself. So when +he came in all lopped and shaky +after a mean operation, I was the +right person to look out for him. +Now I've made my little speech +and know-nothings in the Change +World can go on making their +bum jokes. But I ask you, how +could an arrangement between Illy +and me be anything but Platonic?</p> + +<p>We might have had some octopoid +girls and nymphs in stock—Sid +couldn't be sure until he +checked—but Ilhilihis and Sevensee +voted for real people and I +knew Sid saw it their way. Maud +squeezed Mark's hand and tripped +over to Sevensee ("Those are +sharp hoofs you got, man"—she's +picked up some of my language, +like she has everything else), +though Beau did frown over his +shoulder at Lili from the piano, +maybe to argue that she ought to +take on the ET, as Mark had been +a real casualty and could use live +nursing. But it was plain as day +to anybody but Beau that Bruce +and Lili were a big thing and the +last to be disturbed.</p> + +<p>Erich acted stiffly hurt at losing +me, but I knew he wasn't. He +thinks he has a great technique with +Ghostgirls and he likes to show +it off, and he really is pretty slick +at it, if you go for that sort of +thing and—yang my yin!—who +doesn't at times?</p> + +<p>And when Sid formally wafted +the Countess out of Stores—a real +blonde stunner in a white satin +hobble skirt with a white egret +swaying up from her tiny hat, way +ahead of Maud and Lili and me +when it came to looks, though +transparent as cigarette smoke—and +when Erich clicked his heels +and bowed over her hand and +proudly conducted her to a couch, +black Svengali to her Trilby, and +started to German-talk some life +into her with much head cocking +and toothy smiling and a flow of +witty flattery, and when she began +to flirt back and the dream +look in her eyes sharpened hungrily +and focused on him—well, +then I knew that Erich was happy +and felt he was doing proud by the +<i>Reichswehr</i>. No, my little commandant +wasn't worrying me on +that score.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Mark</span> had drawn a Greek +hetaera, name of Phryne; I +suppose not the one who maybe +still does the famous courtroom +striptease back in Athens, and he +was waking her up with little sips +of his scotch and soda, though, +from some looks he'd flashed, I +got the idea Kaby was the kid he +really went for. Sid was coaxing +the fighting gal to take some high-energy +bread and olives along with +the wine, and, for a wonder, Doc +seemed to be carrying on an animated +and rational conversation +with Sevensee and Maud, maybe +comparing notes on the Northern +Venusian Shallows, and Beau had +got on to Panther Rag, and Bruce +and Lili were leaning on the piano, +smiling very appreciatively, but +talking to each other a mile a +minute.</p> + +<p>Illy turned back from inspecting +them all and squeaked, "Animals +with clothes are so refreshing, dahling! +Like you're all carrying banners!"</p> + +<p>Maybe he had something there, +though my banners were kind of +Ash Wednesday, a charcoal gray +sweater and skirt. He looked at +my mouth with a tentacle to see +how I was smiling and he squeaked +softly, "Do I seem dull and commonplace +to you, Greta girl, because +I haven't got banners? Just +another Zombie from a billion +years in your past, as gray and +lifeless as Luna is today, not as +when she was a real dreamy sister +planet simply bursting with air +and water and feather forests. Or +am I as strangely interesting to +you as you are to me, girl from a +billion years in my future?"</p> + +<p>"Illy, you're sweet," I told him, +giving him a little pat. I noticed +his fur was still vibrating nervously +and I decided the heck with +Sid's orders, I'm going to pump +him about what he was doing with +Kaby and the satyr. Couldn't have +him a billion years from home and +bottled up, too. Besides, I was +curious.</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 6</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Maiden, Nymph, and Mother +are the eternal royal Trinity of +the island, and the Goddess, who +is worshipped there in each of +these aspects, as New Moon, +Full Moon, and Old Moon, is +the sovereign Deity.</p> + +<div class="rgt">—Graves</div></div> + +<h3>CRETE CIRCA 1300 B.C.</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Kaby</span> pushed back at Sid some +seconds of bread and olives, +and, when he raised his bushy eyebrows, +gave him a curt nod that +meant she knew what she was doing. +She stood up and sort of took +a position. All the talk quieted +down fast, even Bruce's and Lili's. +Kaby's face and voice weren't +strained now, but they weren't relaxed +either.</p> + +<p>"Woe to Spider! Woe to Cretan! +Heavy is the news I bring you. +Bear it bravely, like strong women. +When we got the gun unlimbered, +I heard seaweed fry and +crackle. We three leaped behind +the rock wall, saw our gun grow +white as sunlight in a heat-ray of +the Serpents! Natch, we feared we +were outnumbered and I called +upon my Caller."</p> + +<div class="figc" style="width: 600px;"><img src="images/003.png" width="600" height="393" alt="" title="" /></div> + +<p>I don't know how she does it, +but she does—in English too. +That is, when she figures she's got +something important to report, and +maybe she needs a little time to +get ready.</p> + +<p>Beau claims that all the ancients +fit their thoughts into measured +lines as naturally as we pick +a word that will do, but I'm not +sure how good the Vicksburg language +department is. Though why +I should wonder about things like +that when I've got Kaby spouting +the stuff right in front of me, +I don't know.</p> + +<p>"But I didn't die there, kiddos. +I still hoped to hurt the Greek +ships, maybe with the Snake's own +heat gun. So I quick tried to outflank +them. My two comrades +crawled beside me—they are males, +but they have courage. Soon we +spied the ambush-setters. They +were Snakes and they were many, +filthily disguised as Cretans."</p> + +<p>There was an indignant murmur +at this, for our cutthroat +Change War has its code, the Soldiers +tell me. Being an Entertainer, +I don't have to say what +I think.</p> + +<p>"They had seen us when we +saw them," Kaby swept on, "and +they loosed a killing volley. Heat- and +knife-rays struck about us in +a storm of wind and fire, and the +Lunan lost a feeler, fighting for +Crete's Triple Goddess. So we +dodged behind a sand hill, steered +our flight back toward the water. +It was awful, what we saw there: +Crete's brave ships all sunk or +sinking, blue sky sullied by their +death-smoke. Once again the +Greeks had licked us!—aided by +the filthy Serpents.</p> + +<p>"Round our wrecks, their black +ships scurried, like black beetles, +filth their diet, yet this day they +dine on heroes. On the quiet sunlit +beach there, I could feel a +Change Gale blowing, working +changes deep inside me, aches and +pains that were a stranger's. Half +my memories were doubled, half +my lifeline crooked and twisted, +three new moles upon my sword-hand. +Goddess, Goddess, Triple +Goddess—"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Her</span> voice wavered and Sid +reached out a hand, but she +straightened her back.</p> + +<p>"Triple Goddess, give me courage +to tell everything that happened. +We ran down into the water, hoping +to escape by diving. We had +hardly gotten under when the heat-rays +hit above us, turning all the +cool green surface to a roaring +white inferno. But as I believe I +told you, I was calling on my +Caller, and a Door now opened to +us, deep below the deadly steam-clouds. +We dived in like frightened +minnows and a lot of water with +us."</p> + +<p>Off Chicago's Gold Coast, Dave +once gave me a lesson in skin-diving +and, remembering it, I got +a flash of Kaby's Door in the dark +depths.</p> + +<p>"For a moment, all was chaos. +Then the Door slammed shut behind +us. We'd been picked up in +time's nick by—an Express Room +of our Spiders!—sloshing two feet +deep in water, much more cramped +for space than this Place. It was +manned by a magician, an old coot +named Benson-Carter. He dispelled +the water quickly and reported on +his Caller. We'd got dry, were +feeling human, Illy here had shed +his swimsuit, when we looked at +the Maintainer. It was glowing, +changing, melting! And when Benson-Carter +touched it, he fell backward—death +was in him. Then +the Void began to darken, narrow, +shrink and close around us, so I +called upon my Caller—without +wasting time, let me tell you!</p> + +<p>"We can't say for sure what was +it slowly squeezed that sweet Express +Room, but we fear the dirty +Snakes have found a way to find +our Places and attack outside the +cosmos!—found the Spiderweb that +links us in the Void's gray less-than-nothing."</p> + +<p>No murmur this time. This reaction +was genuine; we'd been hit +where we lived and I could see +everybody was scared as sick as +I was. Except maybe Bruce and +Lili, who were still holding hands +and beaming gently. I decided they +were the kind that love makes +brave, which it doesn't do to me. +It just gives me two people to +worry about.</p> + +<p>"I can see you dig our feelings," +Kaby continued. "This thing +scared the pants off of us. If we +could have, we'd have even Introverted +the Maintainer, broken all +the ties that bind us, chanced it +incommunicado. But the little old +Maintainer was a seething red-hot +puddle filled with bubbles big +as handballs. We sat tight and +watched the Void close. I kept +calling on my Caller."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I squeezed</span> my eyes shut, but +that made it easier to see the +three of them with the Void shutting +down on them. (Was ours +still behaving? Yes, Bibi Miriam.) +Poetry or no poetry, it got me.</p> + +<p>"Benson-Carter, lying dying, +also thought the Snakes had done +it. And he knew that death was +in him, so he whispered me his +mission, giving me precise instructions: +how to press the seven +death's hands, starting lockside +counterclockwise, one, three, five, +six, two, four, seven, then you have +a half an hour; after you have +pressed the seven, do not monkey +with the buttons—get out fast +and don't stop moving."</p> + +<p>I wasn't getting this part and I +couldn't see that anyone else was, +though Bruce was whispering to +Lili. I remembered seeing skulls +engraved on the bronze chest. I +looked at Illy and he nodded a +tentacle and spread two to say, I +guessed, that yes, Benson-Carter +had said something like that, but +no, Illy didn't know much about +it.</p> + +<p>"All these things and more he +whispered," Kaby went on, "with +the last gasps of his life-force, telling +all his secret orders—for he'd +not been sent to get us, he was +on a separate mission, when he +heard my SOSs. Sid, it's you he +was to contact, as the first leg of +his mission, pick up from you +three black hussars, death's-head +Demons, daring Soldiers, then to +wait until the Places next match +rhythm with the cosmos—matter of +two mealtimes, barely—and to tune +in northern Egypt in the age of the +last Caesar, in the year of Rome's +swift downfall, there to start an +operation in a battle near a city +named for Thrace's Alexander, +there to change the course of battle, +blow sky-high the stinking Serpents, +all their agents, all their +Zombies!</p> + +<p>"Goddess, pardon, now I savvy +how you've guided my least footstep, +when I thought you'd gone +and left me—for I flubbed your +three-mole signal. We've found +Sid's Place, that's the first leg, and +I see the three black hussars, and +we've brought with us the weapon +and the Parthian disguises, salvaged +from the doomed Express +Room when your Door appeared +in time's nick, and the Room around +us closing spewed us through before +it vanished with the corpse of Benson-Carter. +Triple Goddess, draw +the milk now from the womanhood +I flaunt here and inject the +blackest hatred! Vengeance now +upon the Serpents, vengeance +sweet in northern Egypt, for your +island, Crete, Goddess!—and a victory +for the Spiders! Goddess, +Goddess, we can swing it!"</p> + +<p>The roar that made me try to +stop my ears with my shoulders +didn't come from Kaby—she'd +spoken her piece—but from Sid. +The dear boy was purple enough +to make me want to remind him +you can die of high blood pressure +just as easy in the Change World.</p> + +<p>"Dump me with ops! 'Sblood, +I'll not endure it! Is this a battle +post? They'll be mounting operations +from field hospitals next. +Kabysia Labrys, thou art mad to +suggest it. And what's this prattle +of locks, clocks, and death's heads, +buttons and monkeys? This brabble, +this farrago, this hocus-pocus! +And where's the weapon you prate +of? In that whoreson bronze casket, +I suppose."</p> + +<p>She nodded, looking blank and +almost a little shy as poetic possession +faded from her. Her answer +came like its faltering last +echo.</p> + +<p>"It is nothing but a tiny tactical +atomic bomb."</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 7</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>After about 0.1 millisecond (one +ten-thousandth part of a second) +has elapsed, the radius of the +ball of fire is some 45 feet, and +the temperature is then in the +vicinity of 300,000 degrees Centigrade. +At this instant, the luminosity, +as observed at a distance +of 100,000 yards (5.7 +miles), is approximately 100 +times that of the sun as seen at +the earth's surface ... the ball +of fire expands very rapidly to +its maximum radius of 450 feet +within less than a second from +the explosion.</p> + +<div class="rgt">—Los Alamos</div></div> + +<h3>TIME TO THINK</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Brother</span>, that was all we +needed to make everybody +but Kaby and the two ETs start +yelping at once, me included. It +may seem strange that Change +People, able to whiz through time +and space and roust around outside +the cosmos and knowing at +least by hearsay of weapons a billion +years in the future, like the +Mindbomb, should panic at being +shut in with a little primitive +mid-20th Century gadget. Well, +they feel the same as atomic scientists +would feel if a Bengal tiger +were brought into their laboratory, +neither more nor less scared.</p> + +<p>I'm a moron at physics, but I +do know the Fireball is bigger than +the Place. Remember that, besides +the bomb, we'd recently been presented +with a lot of other fears we +hadn't had time to cope with, especially +the business of the Snakes +having learned how to get at our +Places and melt the Maintainers +and collapse them. Not to mention +the general impression—first Saint +Petersburg, then Crete—that the +whole Change War was going +against the Spiders.</p> + +<p>Yet, in a free corner of my +mind, I was shocked at how badly +we were all panicking. It made +me admit what I didn't like to: +that we were all in pretty much +the same state as Doc, except that +the bottle didn't happen to be our +out.</p> + +<p>And had the rest of us been +controlling our drinking so well +lately?</p> + +<p>Maud yelled, "Jettison it!" and +pulled away from the satyr and +ran from the bronze chest. Beau, +harking back to what they'd +thought of doing in the Express +Room when it was too late, hissed, +"Sirs, we must Introvert," and +vaulted over the piano bench and +legged it for the control divan. +Erich seconded him with a white-faced +"<i>Gott in Himmel, ja!</i>" from +beside the surly, forgotten Countess, +holding, by its slim stem, an +empty, rose-stained wine glass.</p> + +<p>I felt my mind flinch, because +Introverting a Place is several degrees +worse than foxholing. It's +supposed not only to keep the +Door tight shut, but also to lock +it so even the Change Winds can't +get through—cut the Place loose +from the cosmos altogether.</p> + +<p>I'd never talked with anyone +from a Place that had been Introverted.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Mark</span> dumped Phryne off his +lap and ran after Maud. The +Greek Ghostgirl, quite solid now, +looked around with sleepy fear +and fumbled her apple-green +chiton together at the throat. She +wrenched my attention away from +everyone else for a moment, and +I couldn't help wondering whether +the person or Zombie back in the +cosmos, from whose lifeline the +Ghost has been taken, doesn't at +least have strange dreams or +thoughts when something like this +happens.</p> + +<p>Sid stopped Beau, though he almost +got bowled over doing it, and +he held the gambler away from +the Maintainer in a bear hug and +bellowed over his shoulders, +"Masters, are you mad? Have you +lost your wits? Maud! Mark! Marcus! +Magdalene! On your lives, unhand +that casket!"</p> + +<p>Maud had swept the clothes +and bows and quivers and stuff +off it and was dragging it out from +the bar toward the Door sector, +so as to dump it through fast when +we got one, I guess, while Mark +acted as if he were trying to help +her and wrestle it away from her +at the same time.</p> + +<p>They kept on as if they hadn't +heard a word Sid said, with Mark +yelling, "Let go, <i>meretrix</i>! This +holds Rome's answer to Parthia +on the Nile."</p> + +<p>Kaby watched them as if she +wanted to help Mark but scorned +to scuffle with a mere—well, +Mark had said it in Latin, I guess—call +girl.</p> + +<p>Then, on the top of the bronze +chest, I saw those seven lousy +skulls starting at the lock as plain +as if they'd been under a magnifying +glass, though ordinarily +they'd have been a vague circle +to my eyes at the distance, and I +lost my mind and started to run +in the opposite direction, but Illy +whipped three tentacles around +me, gentle-like, and squeaked, +"Easy now, Greta girl, don't you +be doing it, too. Hold still or Papa +spank. My, my, but you two-leggers +can whirl about when you +have a mind to."</p> + +<p>My stampede had carried his +featherweight body a couple of +yards, but it stopped me and I +got my mind back, partly.</p> + +<p>"Unhand it, I say!" Sid repeated +without accomplishing anything, +and he released Beau, though he +kept a hand near the gambler's +shoulder.</p> + +<p>Then my fat friend from Lynn +Regis looked real distraught at +the Void and blustered at no one +in particular, "'Sdeath, think you +I'd mutiny against my masters, +desert the Spiders, go to ground +like a spent fox and pull my hole +in after me? A plague of such +cowardice! Who suggests it? Introversion's +no mere last-ditch device. +Unless ordered, supervised +and sanctioned, it means the end. +And what if I'd Introverted ere +we got Kaby's call for succor, +hey?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">His</span> warrior maid nodded with +harsh approval and he noticed +it and shook his free hand at +her and scolded her, "Not that I +say yea to your mad plan for that +Devil's casket, you half-clad lackwit. +And yet to jettison.... Oh, ye +gods, ye gods—" he wiped his hand +across his face—"grant me a minute +in which I may think!"</p> + +<p>Thinking time wasn't an item +even on the strictly limited list +at the moment, although Sevensee, +squatting dourly on his hairy +haunches where Maud had left +him, threw in a dead-pan "Thas +tellin em, Gov."</p> + +<p>Then Doc at the bar stood up +tall as Abe Lincoln in his top hat +and shawl and 19th Century duds +and raised an unwavering arm for +silence and said something that +sounded like: "Introversh, inversh, +glovsh," and then his enunciation +switched to better than perfect as +he continued, "I know to an absolute +certainty what we must do."</p> + +<p>It showed me how rabbity we +were that the Place got quiet as a +church while we all stopped whatever +we were doing and waited +breathless for a poor drunk to +tell us how to save ourselves.</p> + +<p>He said something like, "Inversh +... bosh ..." and held our +eyes for a moment longer. Then +the light went out of his and he +slobbered out a "<i>Nichevo</i>" and +slid an arm far along the bar for +a bottle and started to pour it +down his throat without stopping +sliding.</p> + +<p>Before he completed his collapse +to the floor, in the split second +while our attention was still +focused on the bar, Bruce vaulted +up on top of it, so fast it was almost +like he'd popped up from +nowhere, though I'd seen him start +from behind the piano.</p> + +<p>"I've a question. Has anyone +here triggered that bomb?" he said +in a voice that was very clear and +just loud enough. "So it can't go +off," he went on after just the +right pause, his easy grin and brisk +manner putting more heart into me +all the time. "What's more, if it +were to be triggered, we'd still have +half an hour. I believe you said +it had that long a fuse?"</p> + +<p>He stabbed a finger at Kaby. +She nodded.</p> + +<p>"Right," he said. "It'd have to +be that long for whoever plants it +in the Parthian camp to get away. +There's another safety margin.</p> + +<p>"Second question. Is there a +locksmith in the house?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">For</span> all Bruce's easiness, he was +watching us like a golden eagle +and he caught Beau's and Maud's +affirmatives before they had a +chance to explain or hedge them +and said, "That's very good. Under +certain circumstances, you two'd +be the ones to go to work on the +chest. But before we consider that, +there's Question Three: Is anyone +here an atomics technician?"</p> + +<p>That one took a little conversation +to straighten out, Illy having +to explain that, yes, the Early Lunans +had atomic power—hadn't +they blasted the life off their planet +with it and made all those ghastly +craters?—but no, he wasn't a technician +exactly, he was a "thinger" +(I thought at first his squeakbox +was lisping); what was a thinger?—well, +a thinger was someone who +manipulated things in a way that +was truly impossible to describe, +but no, you couldn't possibly thing +atomics; the idea was quite ridiculous, +so he couldn't be an atomics +thinger; the term was worse than +a contradiction, well, really!—while +Sevensee, from his two-thousand-millennia +advantage of the Lunan, +grunted to the effect that his culture +didn't rightly use any kind +of power, but just sort of moved +satyrs and stuff by wrastling space-time +around, "or think em roun ef +we hafta. Can't think em in the +Void, tho, wus luck. Hafta have—I +dunno wut. Dun havvit anyhow."</p> + +<p>"So we don't have an A-tech," +Bruce summed up, "which makes it +worse than useless, downright dangerous, +to tamper with the chest. +We wouldn't know what to do if +we did get inside safely. One more +question." He directed it toward +Sid. "How long before we can jettison +anything?"</p> + +<p>Sid, looking a shade jealous, yet +mostly grateful for the way Bruce +had calmed his chickens, started to +explain, but Bruce didn't seem to +be taking any chance of losing his +audience, and as soon as Sid got +to the word "rhythm," he pulled +the answer away from him.</p> + +<p>"In brief, not until we can effectively +tune in on the cosmos +again. Thank you, Master Lessingham. +That's at least five hours—two +mealtimes, as the Cretan officer +put it," and he threw Kaby a +quick soldierly smile. "So, whether +the bomb goes to Egypt or elsewhere, +there's not a thing we can +do about it for five hours. All right +then!"</p> + +<p>His smile blinked out like a +light and he took a couple of steps +up and down the bar, as if measuring +the space he had. Two or three +cocktail glasses sailed off and +popped, but he didn't seem to notice +them and we hardly did either. +It was creepy the way he kept +staring from one to another of us. +We had to look up. Behind his +face, with the straight golden hair +flirting around it, was only the +Void.</p> + +<p>"All right then," he repeated suddenly. +"We're twelve Spiders and +two Ghosts, and we've time for a +bit of a talk, and we're all in the +same bloody boat, fighting the +same bloody war, so we'll all know +what we're talking about. I raised +the subject a while back, but I +was steamed up about a glove, and +it was a big jest. All right! But +now the gloves are off!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Bruce</span> ripped them out of his +belt where they'd been tucked +and slammed them down on the +bar, to be kicked off the next time +he paced back and forth, and it +wasn't funny.</p> + +<p>"Because," he went right on, +"I've been getting a completely +new picture of what this Spiders' +war has been doing to each one +of us. Oh, it's jolly good sport to +slam around in space and time and +then have a rugged little party +outside both of them when the +operation's over. It's sweet to know +there's no cranny of reality so narrow, +no privacy so intimate or +sacred, no wall of was or will be +strong enough, that we can't shoulder +in. Knowledge is a glamorous +thing, sweeter than lust or gluttony +or the passion of fighting and +including all three, the ultimate +insatiable hunger, and it's great +to be Faust, even in a pack of +other Fausts.</p> + +<p>"It's sweet to jigger reality, to +twist the whole course of a man's +life or a culture's, to ink out his +or its past and scribble in a new +one, and be the only one to know +and gloat over the changes—hah! +killing men or carrying off women +isn't in it for glutting the sense of +power. It's sweet to feel the Change +Winds blowing through you and +know the pasts that were and the +past that is and the pasts that may +be. It's sweet to wield the Atropos +and cut a Zombie or Unborn out +of his lifeline and look the Doubleganger +in the face and see the +Resurrection-glow in it and Recruit +a brother, welcome a newborn fellow +Demon into our ranks and decide +whether he'll best fit as Soldier, +Entertainer, or what.</p> + +<p>"Or he can't stand Resurrection, +it fries or freezes him, and you've +got to decide whether to return +him to his lifeline and his Zombie +dreams, only they'll be a little +grayer and horrider than they were +before, or whether, if she's got that +tantalizing something, to bring her +shell along for a Ghostgirl—that's +sweet, too. It's even sweet to have +Change Death poised over your +neck, to know that the past isn't +the precious indestructible thing +you've been taught it was, to know +that there's no certainty about the +future either, whether there'll even +be one, to know that no part of +reality is holy, that the cosmos itself +may wink out like a flicked switch +and God be not and nothing left +but nothing!"</p> + +<p>He threw out his arms against +the Void. "And knowing all that, +it's doubly sweet to come through +the Door into the Place and be +out of the worst of the Change +Winds and enjoy a well-earned +Recuperation and share the memories +of all these sweetnesses I've +been talking about, and work out +all the fascinating feelings you've +been accumulating back in the cosmos, +layer by black layer, in the +company of and with the help of +the best bloody little band of fellow +Fausts and Faustines going!</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's a sweet life, all right, but +I'm asking you—" and here his eyes +stabbed us again, one by one, fast—"I'm +asking you what it's done +to us. I've been getting a completely +new picture, as I said, of what +my life was and what it could have +been if there'd been changes of the +sort that even we Demons can't +make, and what my life is. I've +been watching how we've all been +responding to things just now, to +the news of Saint Petersburg and +to what the Cretan officer told +beautifully—only it wasn't beautiful +what she had to tell—and mostly +to that bloody box of bomb. +And I'm simply asking each one +of you, what's happened to you?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> stopped his pacing and +stuck his thumbs in his belt +and seemed to be listening to the +wheels turning in at least eleven +other heads—only I stopped mine +pretty quick, with Dave and +Father and the Rape of Chicago +coming up out of the dark on the +turn and Mother and the Indiana +Dunes and Jazz Limited just behind +them, followed by the unthinkable +thing the Spider doctor +had flicked into existence when I +flopped as a nurse, because I can't +stand that to be done to my mind +by anybody but myself.</p> + +<p>I stopped them by using the old +infallible Entertainers' gimmick, a +fast survey of the most interesting +topic there is—other people's +troubles.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Offhand</span>, Beau looked as if he +had most troubles, shamed +by his boss and his girl given her +heart to a Soldier; he was hugging +them to himself very quiet.</p> + +<p>I didn't stop for the two ETs—they're +too hard to figure—or for +Doc; nobody can tell whether a +fallen-down drunk's at the black +or bright end of his cycle; you +just know it's cycling.</p> + +<p>Maud ought to be suffering as +much as Beau, called names and +caught out in a panic, which always +hurts her because she's plus +three hundred years more future +than the rest of us and figures she +ought to be that much wiser, which +she isn't always—not to mention +she's over fifty years old, though +her home-century cosmetic science +keeps her looking and acting teenage +most of the time. She'd backed +away from the bronze chest so as +not to stand out, and now Lili came +from behind the piano and stood +beside her.</p> + +<p>Lili had the opposite of troubles, +a great big glow for Bruce, proud +as a promised princess watching +her betrothed. Erich frowned when +he saw her, for he seemed proud +too, proud of the way his <i>Kamerad</i> +had taken command of us panicky +whacks <i>Führer</i>-fashion. Sid still +looked mostly grateful and inclined +to let Bruce keep on talking.</p> + +<p>Even Kaby and Mark, those +two dragons hot for battle, standing +a little in front and to one side +of us by the bronze chest, like its +guardians, seemed willing to listen. +They made me realize one reason +Sid had for letting Bruce run on, +although the path his talk was leading +us down was flashing with danger +signals: When it was over, +there'd still be the problem of what +to do with the bomb, and a real +opposition shaping up between Soldiers +and Entertainers, and Sid +was hoping a solution would turn +up in the meantime or at least was +willing to put off the evil day.</p> + +<p>But beyond all that, and like the +rest of us, I could tell from the +way Sid was squinting his browy +eyes and chewing his beardy lip +that he was shaken and moved by +what Bruce had said. This New +Boy had dipped into our hearts +and counted our kicks so beautifully, +better than most of us could +have done, and then somehow +turned them around so that we had +to think of what messes and heels +and black sheep and lost lambs +we were—well, we wanted to keep +on listening.</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 8</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Give me a place to stand, +and I will move the world.</p> + +<div class="rgt">—Archimedes</div></div> + +<h3>A PLACE TO STAND</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Bruce's</span> voice had a faraway +touch and he was looking up +left at the Void as he said, "Have +you ever really wondered why the +two sides of this war are called +the Snakes and the Spiders? +Snakes may be clear enough—you +always call the enemy something +dirty. But Spiders—our name for +ourselves? Bear with me, Ilhilihis; +I know that no being is created +dirty or malignant by Nature, but +this is a matter of anthropoid feelings +and folkways. Yes, Mark, I +know that some of your legions +have nicknames like the Drunken +Lions and the Snails, and that's +about as insulting as calling the +British Expeditionary Force the +Old Contemptibles.</p> + +<p>"No, you'd have to go to bands +of vicious youths in cities slated +for ruin to find a habit of naming +like ours, and even they would try +to brighten up the black a bit. +But simply—Spiders. And Snakes, +for that's their name for themselves +too, you know. Spiders and Snakes. +What are our masters, that we give +them names like that?"</p> + +<p>It gave me the shivers and set +my mind working in a dozen directions +and I couldn't stop it, although +it made the shivers worse.</p> + +<p>Illy beside me now—I'd never +given it a thought before, but he +did have eight legs of a sort, and +I remembered thinking of him as +a spider monkey, and hadn't the +Lunans had wisdom and atomic +power and a billion years in which +to get the Change War rolling?</p> + +<p>Or suppose, in the far future, +Terra's own spiders evolved intelligence +and a cruel cannibal culture. +They'd be able to keep their +existence secret. I had no idea of +who or what would be on Earth +in Sevensee's day, and wouldn't +it be perfect black hairy poisoned +spider-mentality to spin webs secretly +through the world of thought +and all of space and time?</p> + +<p>And Beau—wasn't there something +real Snaky about him, the +way he moved and all?</p> + +<p>Spiders and Snakes. <i>Spinne und +Schlange</i>, as Erich called them. +S & S. But SS stood for the Nazi +<i>Schutzstaffel</i>, the Black Shirts, and +what if some of those cruel, crazy +Jerries had discovered time travel +and—I brought myself up with +a jerk and asked myself, "Greta, +how nuts can you get?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">From</span> where he was on the +floor, the front of the bar his +sounding board, Doc shrieked up +at Bruce like one of the damned +from the pit, "Don't speak against +the Spiders! Don't blaspheme! +They can hear the Unborn whisper. +Others whip only the skin, but +they whip the naked brain and +heart," and Erich called out, +"That's enough, Bruce!"</p> + +<p>But Bruce didn't spare him a +look and said, "But whatever the +Spiders are and no matter how +much whip they use, it's plain as +the telltale on the Maintainer that +the Change War is not only going +against them, but getting away +from them. Dwell for a bit on the +current flurry of stupid slugging +and panicky anachronism, when +we all know that anachronism is +what gets the Change Winds out +of control. This punch-drunk +pounding on the Cretan-Dorian +fracas as if it were the only battle +going and the only way to work +things. Whisking Constantine from +Britain to the Bosporus by rocket, +sending a pocket submarine back +to sail with the Armada against +Drake's woodensides—I'll wager +you hadn't heard those! And now, +to save Rome, an atomic bomb.</p> + +<p>"Ye gods, they could have used +Greek fire or even dynamite, but +a fission weapon.... I leave you +to imagine what gaps and scars +that will make in what's left of history—the +smothering of Greece +and the vanishment of Provence +and the troubadours and the Papacy's +Irish Captivity won't be in it!"</p> + +<p>The cut on his cheek had +opened again and was oozing a +little, but he didn't pay any attention +to it, and neither did we, as +his lips thinned in irony and he +said, "But I'm forgetting that this +is a cosmic war and that the +Spiders are conducting operations +on billions, trillions of planets and +inhabited gas clouds through millions +of ages and that we're just +one little world—one little solar +system, Sevensee—and we can hardly +expect our inscrutable masters, +with all their pressing preoccupations +and far-flung responsibilities, +to be especially understanding or +tender in their treatment of our pet +books and centuries, our favorite +prophets and periods, or unduly +concerned about preserving any of +the trifles that we just happen to +hold dear.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps there are some sentimentalists +who would rather die +forever than go on living in a +world without the <i>Summa</i>, the +Field Equations, <i>Process and +Reality</i>, <i>Hamlet</i>, Matthew, Keats, +and the <i>Odyssey</i>, but our masters +are practical creatures, ministering +to the needs of those rugged +souls who want to go on living +no matter what."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Erich's</span> "Bruce, I'm telling +you that's enough," was lost +in the quickening flow of the New +Boy's words. "I won't spend much +time on the minor signs of our +major crack-up—the canceling of +leaves, the sharper shortages, the +loss of the Express Room, the use +of Recuperation Stations for ops +and all the other frantic patchwork—last +operation but one, we were +saddled with three Soldiers from +outside the Galaxy and, no fault +of theirs, they were no earthly +use. Such little things might happen +at a bad spot in any war and +are perhaps only local. But there's +a big thing."</p> + +<p>He paused again, to let us wonder, +I guess. Maud must have +worked her way over to me, for I +felt her dry little hand on my +arm and she whispered out of the +side of her mouth, "What do we +do now?"</p> + +<p>"We listen," I told her the same +way. I felt a little impatient with +her need to be doing something +about things.</p> + +<p>She cocked a gold-dusted eyebrow +at me and murmured, "You, +too?"</p> + +<p>I didn't get to ask her me, too, +what? Crush on Bruce? Nuts!—because +just then Bruce's voice +took up again in the faraway range.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever asked yourselves +how many operations the +fabric of history can stand before +it's all stitches, whether too much +Change won't one day wear out +the past? And the present and the +future, too, the whole bleeding +business. Is the law of the Conservation +of Reality any more than +a thin hope given a long name, a +prayer of theoreticians? Change +Death is as certain as Heat Death, +and far faster. Every operation +leaves reality a bit cruder, a bit +uglier, a bit more makeshift, and +a whole lot less rich in those details +and feelings that are our +heritage, like the crude penciled +sketch on canvas when you've +stripped off the paint.</p> + +<p>"If that goes on, won't the cosmos +collapse into an outline of +itself, then nothing? How much +thinning can reality stand, having +more and more Doublegangers cut +out of it? And there's another +thing about every operation—it +wakes up the Zombies a little more, +and as its Change Winds die, it +leaves them a little more disturbed +and nightmare-ridden and frazzled. +Those of you who have been on +operations in heavily worked-over +temporal areas will know what I +mean—that look they give you out +of the sides of their eyes as if to +say, 'You again? For Christ's sake, +go away. We're the dead. We're the +ones who don't want to wake up, +who don't want to be Demons and +hate to be Ghosts. Stop torturing +us.'"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I looked</span> around at the Ghostgirls; +I couldn't help it. They'd +somehow got together on the control +divan, facing us, their backs +to the Maintainers. The Countess +had dragged along the bottle of +wine Erich had fetched her earlier +and they were passing it back and +forth. The Countess had a big +rose splotch across the ruffled +white lace of her blouse.</p> + +<p>Bruce said, "There'll come a day +when all the Zombies and all the +Unborn wake up and go crazy together +and figuratively come +marching at us in their numberless +hordes, saying, 'We've had +enough.'"</p> + +<p>But I didn't turn back to Bruce +right away. Phryne's chiton had +slipped off one shoulder and she +and the Countess were sitting +sagged forward, elbows on knees, +legs spread—at least, as far as the +Countess's hobble skirt would let +her—and swayed toward each other +a little. They were still surprisingly +solid, although they hadn't +had any personal attention for a +half hour, and they were looking +up over my head with half-shut +eyes and they seemed, so help me, +to be listening to what Bruce was +saying and maybe hearing some of +it.</p> + +<p>"We make a careful distinction +between Zombies and Unborn, between +those troubled by our operations +whose lifelines lie in the past +and those whose lifelines lie in the +future. But is there any distinction +any longer? Can we tell the +difference between the past and +the future? Can we any longer +locate the now, the real now of the +cosmos? The Places have their +own nows, the now of the Big +Time we're on, but that's different +and it's not made for real living.</p> + +<p>"The Spiders tell us that the +real now is somewhere in the last +half of the 20th Century, which +means that several of us here are +also alive in the cosmos, have lifelines +along which the now is traveling. +But do you swallow that story +quite so easily, Ilhilihis, Sevensee? +How does it strike the servants of +the Triple Goddess? The Spiders +of Octavian Rome? The Demons +of Good Queen Bess? The gentlemen +Zombies of the Greater +South? Do the Unborn man the +starships, Maud?</p> + +<p>"The Spiders also tell us that, +although the fog of battle makes +the now hard to pin down precisely, +it will return with the unconditional +surrender of the Snakes +and the establishment of cosmic +peace, and roll on as majestically +toward the future as before, quickening +the continuum with its passage. +Do you really believe that? +Or do you believe, as I do, that +we've used up all the future as +well as the past, wasted it in premature +experience, and that we've +had the real now smudged out of +existence, stolen from us forever, +the precious now of true growth, +the child-moment in which all life +lies, the moment like a newborn +baby that is the only home for +hope there is?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> let that start to sink in, +then took a couple of quick +steps and went on, his voice rising +over Erich's "Bruce, for the last +time—" and seeming to pick up a +note of hope from the very word +he had used, "But although things +look terrifyingly black, there remains +a chance—the slimmest +chance, but still a chance—of +saving the cosmos from Change +Death and restoring reality's richness +and giving the Ghosts good +sleep and perhaps even regaining +the real now. We have the means +right at hand. What if the power +of time traveling were used not +for war and destruction, but for +healing, for the mutual enrichment +of the ages, for quiet communication +and growth, in brief, to bring +a peace message—"</p> + +<p>But my little commandant is +quite an actor himself and knows +a wee bit about the principles of +scene-stealing, and he was not going +to let Bruce drown him out +as if he were just another extra +playing a Voice from the Mob. +He darted across our front, between +us and the bar, took a running +leap, and landed bang on the +bloody box of bomb.</p> + +<p>A bit later, Maud was silently +showing me the white ring above +her elbow where I'd grabbed her +and Illy was teasing a clutch of his +tentacles out of my other hand +and squeaking reproachfully, +"Greta girl, don't ever do that."</p> + +<p>Erich was standing on the chest +and I noticed that his boots carefully +straddled the circle of skulls, +and I should have known anyway +you could hardly push them in +the right order by jumping on +them, and he was pointing at +Bruce and saying, "—and that +means mutiny, my young sir. <i>Um +Gottes willen</i>, Bruce, listen to me +and step down before you say +anything worse. I'm older than +you, Bruce. Mark's older. Trust +in your <i>Kameraden</i>. Guide yourself +by their knowledge."</p> + +<p>He had got my attention, but I +had much rather have him black +my eye.</p> + +<p>"You older than me?" Bruce +was grinning. "When your twelve-years' +advantage was spent in +soaking up the wisdom of a race +of sadistic dreamers gone paranoid, +in a world whose thought-stream +had already been muddied +by one total war? Mark older than +me? When all his ideas and loyalties +are those of a wolf pack of +unimaginative sluggers two thousand +years younger than I am? +Either of you older because you +have more of the killing cynicism +that is all the wisdom the Change +World ever gives you? Don't make +me laugh!</p> + +<p>"I'm an Englishman, and I come +from an epoch when total war was +still a desecration and the flowers +and buds of thoughts not yet +whacked off or blighted. I'm a +poet and poets are wiser than anyone +because they're the only people +who have the guts to think and +feel at the same time. Right, Sid? +When I talk to all of you about a +peace message, I want you to think +about it concretely in terms of +using the Places to bring help +across the mountains of time when +help is really needed, not to bring +help that's undeserved or knowledge +that's premature or contaminating, +sometimes not to bring anything +at all, but just to check with +infinite tenderness and concern +that everything's safe and the +glories of the universe unfolding +as they were intended to—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are a poet, Bruce," +Erich broke in. "You can tootle +soulfully on the flute and make +us drip tears. You can let out the +stops on the big organ pipes and +make us tremble as if at Jehovah's +footsteps. For the last twenty +minutes, you have been giving us +some very <i>charmante</i> poetry. But +what are you? An Entertainer? +Or are you a Soldier?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Right</span> then—I don't know +what it was, maybe Sid clearing +his throat—I could sense our +feelings beginning to turn against +Bruce. I got the strangest feeling +of reality clamping down and +bright colors going dull and dreams +vanishing. Yet it was only then I +also realized how much Bruce had +moved us, maybe some of us to +the verge of mutiny, even. I was +mad at Erich for what he was +doing, but I couldn't help admiring +his cockiness.</p> + +<p>I was still under the spell of +Bruce's words and the more-than-words +behind them, but then +Erich would shift around a bit and +one of his heels would kick near +the death's-head pushbuttons and +I wanted to stamp with spike heels +on every death's-head button on +his uniform. I didn't know exactly +what I felt yet.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm a Soldier," Bruce told +him, "and I hope you won't ever +have to worry about my courage, +because it's going to take more +courage than any operation we've +ever planned, ever dreamed of, to +carry the peace message to the +other Places and to the wound-spots +of the cosmos. Perhaps it will +be a fast wicket and we'll be +bowled down before we score a +single run, but who cares? We may +at least see our real masters when +they come to smash us, and for +me that will be a deep satisfaction. +And we may do some smashing +of our own."</p> + +<p>"So you're a Soldier," Erich +said, his smile showing his teeth. +"Bruce, I'll admit that the half-dozen +operations you've been on +were rougher than anything I drew +in my first hundred sleeps. For +that, I am all honest sympathy. +But that you should let them get +you into such a state that love and +a girl can turn you upside down +and start you babbling about peace +messages—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, by God, love and a girl +have changed me!" Bruce shouted +at him, and I looked around at Lili +and I remembered Dave saying, +"I'm going to Spain," and I wondered +if anything would ever again +make my face flame like that. "Or, +rather, they've made me stand up +for what I've believed in all along. +They've made me—"</p> + +<p>"<i>Wunderbar</i>," Erich called and +began to do a little sissy dance on +the bomb that set my teeth on +edge. He bent his wrists and elbows +at arty angles and stuck out +a hip and ducked his head simperingly +and blinked his eyes very +fast. "Will you invite me to the +wedding, Bruce? You'll have to +get another best man, but I will +be the flower girl and throw pretty +little posies to all the distinguished +guests. Here, Mark. Catch, Kaby. +One for you, Greta. <i>Danke schön. +Ach, zwei Herzen in dreivierteltakt +... ta-ta ... ta-ta ... ta-ta-ta-ta-ta ...</i>"</p> + +<p>"What the hell do you think a +woman is?" Bruce raged. "Something +to mess around with in your +spare time?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Erich</span> kept on humming "Two +Hearts in Waltz Time"—and +jigging around to it, damn him—but +he slipped in a nod to Bruce +and a "Precisely." So I knew +where I stood, but it was no news +to me.</p> + +<p>"Very well," Bruce said, "let's +leave this Brown Shirt <i>maricón</i> to +amuse himself and get down to +business. I made all of you a proposal +and I don't have to tell you +how serious it is or how serious +Lili and I are about it. We not only +must infiltrate and subvert other +Places, which luckily for us are +made for infiltration, we also must +make contact with the Snakes and +establish working relationships with +their Demons at our level as one +of our first steps."</p> + +<p>That stopped Erich's jig and got +enough of a gasp from some of us +to make it seem to come from +practically everybody. Erich used +it to work a change of pace.</p> + +<p>"Bruce! We've let you carry +this foolery further than we should. +You seem to have the idea that +because anything goes in the Place—dueling, +drunkenness, <i>und so +weiter</i>—you can say what you +have and it will all be forgotten +with the hangover. Not so. It is +true that among such a set of +monsters and free spirits as ourselves, +and working as secret agents +to boot, there cannot be the obvious +military discipline that would +obtain in a Terran army.</p> + +<p>"But let me tell you, Bruce, let +me grind it home into you—Sid +and Kaby and Mark will bear me +out in this, as officers of equivalent +rank—that the Spider line of +command stretches into and +through this Place just as surely +as the word of <i>der Führer</i> rules +Chicago. And as I shouldn't have +to emphasize to you, Bruce, the +Spiders have punishments that +would make my countrymen in +Belsen and Buchenwald—well, +pale a little. So while there is still +a shadow of justification for our +interpreting your remarks as utterly +tasteless clowning—"</p> + +<p>"Babble on," Bruce said, giving +him a loose downward wave of his +hand without looking. "I made you +people a proposal." He paused. +"How do you stand, Sidney Lessingham?"</p> + +<p>Then I felt my legs getting weak, +because Sid didn't answer right +away. The old boy swallowed and +started to look around at the rest +of us. Then the feeling of reality +clamping down got something awful, +because he didn't look around, +but straightened his back a little. +Just then, Mark cut in fast.</p> + +<p>"It grieves me, Bruce, but I +think you are possessed. Erich, he +must be confined."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Kaby</span> nodded, almost absently. +"Confine or kill the coward, +whichever is easier, whip the woman, +and let's get on to the Egyptian +battle."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, yes," Mark said. "I +died in it. But now perhaps no +longer."</p> + +<p>Kaby said to him, "I like you, +Roman."</p> + +<p>Bruce was smiling, barely, and +his eyes were moving and fixing. +"You, Ilhilihis?"</p> + +<p>Illy's squeak box had never +sounded mechanical to me before, +but it did as he answered, "I'm a +lot deeper into borrowed time +than the rest of you, tra-la-la, but +Papa still loves living. Include me +very much out, Brucie."</p> + +<p>"Miss Davies?"</p> + +<p>Beside me, Maud said flatly, +"Do you think I'm a fool?" Beyond +her, I saw Lili and I thought, +"My God, I might look as proud +if I were in her shoes, but I sure +as hell wouldn't look as confident."</p> + +<p>Bruce's eyes hadn't quite come +to Beau when the gambler spoke +up. "I have no cause to like you, +sir, rather the opposite. But this +Place has come to bore me more +than Boston and I have always +found it difficult to resist a long +shot. A very long one, I fear. I am +with you, sir."</p> + +<p>There was a pain in my chest +and a roaring in my ears and +through it I heard Sevensee grunting, +"—sicka these lousy Spiders. +Deal me in."</p> + +<p>And then Doc reared up in front +of the bar and he'd lost his hat and +his hair was wild and he grabbed +an empty fifth by the neck and +broke the bottom of it all jagged +against the bar and he waved it +and screeched, "<i>Ubivaytye Pauki—i +Nyemetzi!</i>"</p> + +<p>And right behind his words, Beau +sang out fast the English of it, +"Kill the Spiders—and the Germans!"</p> + +<p>And Doc didn't collapse then, +though I could see he was hanging +onto the bar tight with his other +hand, and the Place got stiller, +inside and out, than I've ever +known it, and Bruce's eyes were +finally moving back toward Sid.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">But</span> the eyes stopped short of +Sid and I heard Bruce say, +"Miss Forzane?" and I thought, +"That's funny," and I started to +look around at the Countess, and +felt all the eyes and I realized, +"Hey, that's me! But this can't +happen to me. To the others, yes, +but not to me. I just work here. +Not to Greta, no, no, no!"</p> + +<p>But it had, and the eyes didn't +let go, and the silence and the feeling +of reality were Godawful, and +I said to myself, "Greta, you've +got to say something, if only a +suitable four-letter word," and then +suddenly I knew what the silence +was like. It was like that of a big +city if there were some way of +shutting off all the noise in one +second. It was like Erich's singing +when the piano had deserted him. +It was as if the Change Winds +should ever die completely ... +and I knew beforehand what had +happened when I turned my back +on them all.</p> + +<p>The Ghostgirls were gone. The +Major Maintainer hadn't merely +been switched to Introvert. It was +gone, too.</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> + +<div class="figc"><img src="images/004.png" width="650" height="313" alt="" title="" /></div> + +<h2>CHAPTER 9</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"We examined the moss between +the bricks, and found it undisturbed."</p> + +<p>"You looked among D——'s +papers, of course, and into the +books of the library?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly; we opened every +package and parcel; we not only +opened every book, but we turned +over every leaf in each volume...."</p> + +<div class="rgt">—Poe</div></div> + +<h3>A LOCKED ROOM</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Three</span> hours later, Sid and +I plumped down on the +couch nearest the kitchen, though +too tired to want to eat for a while +yet. A tighter search than I could +ever have cooked up had shown +that the Maintainer was not in the +Place.</p> + +<p>Of course it had to be in the +Place, as we kept telling each +other for the first two hours. It +had to be, if circumstances and the +theories we lived by in the Change +World meant anything. A Maintainer +is what maintains a Place. +The Minor Maintainer takes care +of oxygen, temperature, humidity, +gravity, and other little life-cycle +and matter-cycle things generally, +but it's the Major Maintainer that +keeps the walls from buckling and +the ceiling from falling in. It is +little, but oh my, it does so much.</p> + +<p>It doesn't work by wires or radio +or anything complicated like that. +It just hooks into local space-time.</p> + +<p>I have been told that its inside +working part is made up of +vastly tough, vastly hard giant +molecules, each one of which is +practically a vest-pocket cosmos +in itself. Outside, it looks like a +portable radio with a few more +dials and some telltales and +switches and plug-ins for earphones +and a lot of other sensory thingumajigs.</p> + +<p>But the Maintainer was gone +and the Void hadn't closed in, yet. +By this time, I was so fagged, I +didn't care much whether it did +or not.</p> + +<p>One thing for sure, the Maintainer +had been switched to Introvert +before it was spirited away +or else its disappearance automatically +produced Introversion, take +your choice, because we sure were +Introverted—real nasty martinet-schoolmaster +grip of reality on my +thoughts that I knew, without trying, +liquor wouldn't soften, not a +breath of Change Wind, absolutely +stifling, and the gray of the Void +seeming so much inside my head +that I think I got a glimmering +of what the science boys mean +when they explain to me that the +Place is a kind of interweaving of +the material and the mental—a +Giant Monad, one of them called +it.</p> + +<p>Anyway, I said to myself, +"Greta, if this is Introversion, I +want no part of it. It is not nice +to be cut adrift from the cosmos +and know it. A lifeboat in the +middle of the Pacific and a starship +between galaxies are not in it for +loneliness."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I asked</span> myself why the Spiders +had ever equipped Maintainers +with Introversion switches +anyway, when we couldn't drill +with them and weren't supposed to +use them except in an emergency +so tight that it was either Introvert +or surrender to the Snakes, +and for the first time the obvious +explanation came to me:</p> + +<p>Introversion must be the same +as scuttling, its main purpose to +withhold secrets and materiel from +the enemy. It put a place into a +situation from which even the +Spider high command couldn't +rescue it, and there was nothing +left but to sink down, down (out? +up?), down into the Void.</p> + +<p>If that was the case, our chances +of getting back were about those +of my being a kid again playing in +the Dunes on the Small Time.</p> + +<p>I edged a little closer to Sid +and sort of squunched under his +shoulder and rubbed my cheek +against the smudged, gold-worked +gray velvet. He looked down and +I said, "A long way to Lynn Regis, +eh, Siddy?"</p> + +<p>"Sweetling, thou spokest a +mouthful," he said. He knows very +well what he is doing when he +mixes his language that way, the +wicked old darling.</p> + +<p>"Siddy," I said, "why this gold-work? +It'd be a lot smoother without +it."</p> + +<p>"Marry, men must prick themselves +out and, 'faith I know not, +but it helps if there's metal in it."</p> + +<p>"And girls get scratched." I took +a little sniff. "But don't put this +doublet through the cleaner yet. +Until we get out of the woods, I +want as much you around as +possible."</p> + +<p>"Marry, and why should I?" he +asked blankly, and I think he +wasn't fooling me. The last thing +time travelers find out is how they +do or don't smell. Then his face +clouded and he looked as though +he wanted to squunch under my +shoulder. "But 'faith, sweetling, +your forest has a few more trees +than Sherwood."</p> + +<p>"Thou saidst it," I agreed, and +wondered about the look. He +oughtn't to be interested in my +girlishness now. I knew I was a +mess, but he had stuck pretty close +to me during the hunt and you +never can tell. Then I remembered +that he was the other one who +hadn't declared himself when +Bruce was putting it to us, and it +probably troubled his male vanity. +Not me, though—I was still grateful +to the Maintainer for getting +me out of that spot, whatever other +it had got us all into. It seemed +ages ago.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">We'd</span> all jumped to the conclusion +that the two Ghostgirls +had run away with the Maintainer, +I don't know where or why, +but it looked so much that way. +Maud had started yipping about +how she'd never trusted Ghosts +and always known that some day +they'd start doing things on their +own, and Kaby had got it firmly +fixed in her head, right between the +horns, that Phryne, being a Greek, +was the ringleader and was going +to wreak havoc on us all.</p> + +<p>But when we were checking +Stores the first time, I had noticed +that the Ghostgirl envelopes looked +flat. Ectoplasm doesn't take up +much space when it's folded, but I +had opened one anyway, then another, +and then called for help.</p> + +<p>Every last envelope was empty. +We had lost over a thousand Ghostgirls, +Sid's whole stock.</p> + +<p>Well, at least it proved what +none of us had ever seen or heard +of being demonstrated: that there +is a spooky link—a sort of Change +Wind contact—between a Ghost +and its lifeline; and when that +umbilicus, I've heard it called, is +cut, the part away from the lifeline +dies.</p> + +<p>Interesting, but what had bothered +me was whether we Demons +were going to evaporate too, because +we are as much Doublegangers +as the Ghosts and our apron +strings had been cut just as surely. +We're more solid, of course, but +that would only mean we'd take a +little longer. Very logical.</p> + +<p>I remember I had looked up at +Lili and Maud—us girls had been +checking the envelopes; it's one of +the proprieties we frequently maintain +and anyway, if men check +them, they're apt to trot out that +old wheeze about "instant women" +which I'm sick to death of hearing, +thank you.</p> + +<p>Anyway, I had looked up and +said, "It's been nice knowing you," +and Lili had said, "Twenty-three, +skiddoo," and Maud had said, +"Here goes nothing," and we had +shook hands all around.</p> + +<p>We figured that Phryne and the +Countess had faded at the same +time as the other Ghostgirls, but +an idea had been nibbling at me +and I said, "Siddy, do you suppose +it's just barely possible that, +while we were all looking at Bruce, +those two Ghostgirls would have +been able to work the Maintainer +and get a Door and lam out of +here with the thing?"</p> + +<p>"Thou speakst my thoughts, +sweetling. All weighs against it: +Imprimis, 'tis well known that +Ghosts cannot lay plots or act on +them. Secundo, the time forbade +getting a Door. Tercio—and here's +the real meat of it—the Place +folds without the Maintainer. +Quadro, 'twere folly to depend on +not one of—how many of us? ten, +elf—not looking around in all the +time it would have taken them—"</p> + +<p>"I looked around once, Siddy. +They were drinking and they had +got to the control divan under their +own power. Now when was that? +Oh, yes, when Bruce was talking +about Zombies."</p> + +<p>"Yes, sweetling. And as I was +about to cap my argument with +quinquo when you 'gan prattle, I +could have sworn none could touch +the Maintainer, much less work it +and purloin it, without my certain +knowledge. Yet ..."</p> + +<p>"Eftsoons yet," I seconded him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Somebody</span> must have got a +door and walked out with the +thing. It certainly wasn't in the +Place. The hunt had been a lulu. +Something the size of a portable +typewriter is not easy to hide and +we had been inside everything +from Beau's piano to the renewer +link of the Refresher.</p> + +<p>We had even fluoroscoped +everybody, though it had made +Illy writhe like a box of worms, as +he'd warned us; he said it tickled +terribly and I insisted on smoothing +his fur for five minutes afterward, +although he was a little +standoffish toward me.</p> + +<p>Some areas, like the bar, kitchen +and Stores, took a long while, but +we were thorough. Kaby helped +Doc check Surgery: since she last +made the Place, she has been stationed +in a Field Hospital (it turns +out the Spiders actually are mounting +operations from them) and +learned a few nice new wrinkles.</p> + +<p>However, Doc put in some +honest work on his own, though, +of course, every check was observed +by at least three people, not +including Bruce or Lili. When the +Maintainer vanished, Doc had +pulled out of his glassy-eyed drunk +in a way that would have surprised +me if I hadn't seen it happen +to him before, but when we +finished Surgery and got on to the +Art Gallery, he had started to putter +and I noticed him hold out +his coat and duck his head and +whip out a flask and take a swig +and by now he was well on his +way toward another peak.</p> + +<p>The Art Gallery had taken time +too, because there's such a jumble +of strange stuff, and it broke my +heart but Kaby took her ax and +split a beautiful blue woodcarving +of a Venusian medusa because, although +there wasn't a mark in the +paw-polished surface, she claimed +it was just big enough. Doc cried +a little and we left him fitting the +pieces together and mooning over +the other stuff.</p> + +<p>After we'd finished everything +else, Mark had insisted on tackling +the floor. Beau and Sid both tried +to explain to him how this is a one-sided +Place, that there is nothing, +but nothing, under the floor; it +just gets a lot harder than the +diamonds crusting it as soon as +you get a quarter inch down—that +being the solid equivalent of +the Void. But Mark was knuckle-headed +(like all Romans, Sid assured +me on the q.t.) and broke +four diamond-plus drills before he +was satisfied.</p> + +<p>Except for some trick hiding +places, that left the Void, and +things don't vanish if you throw +them at the Void—they half +melt and freeze forever unless you +can fish them out. Back of the Refresher, +at about eye-level, are +three Venusian coconuts that a +Hittite strongman threw there during +a major brawl. I try not to look +at them because they are so much +like witch heads they give me the +woolies. The parts of the Place +right up against the Void have +strange spatial properties which +one of the gadgets in Surgery +makes use of in a way that gives +me the worse woolies, but that's +beside the point.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">During</span> the hunt, Kaby and +Erich had used their Callers +as direction finders to point out the +Maintainer, just as they're used in +the cosmos to locate the Door—and +sometimes in the Big Places, +people tell me. But the Callers +only went wild—like a compass +needle whirling around without +stopping—and nobody knew what +that meant.</p> + +<p>The trick hiding places were the +Minor Maintainer, a cute idea, but +it is no bigger than the Major and +has its own mysterious insides and +had obviously kept on doing its +own work, so that was out for +several reasons, and the bomb +chest, though it seemed impossible +for anyone to have opened it, +granting they knew the secret of +its lock, even before Erich jumped +on it and put it in the limelight +double. But when you've ruled out +everything else, the word impossible +changes meaning.</p> + +<p>Since time travel is our business, +a person might think of all sorts +of tricks for sending the Maintainer +into the past or future, permanently +or temporarily. But the +Place is strictly on the Big Time +and everybody that should know +tells me that time traveling +<i>through</i> the Big Time is out. It's +this way: the Big Time is a train, +and the Little Time is the countryside +and we're on the train, unless +we go out a Door, and as Gertie +Stein might put it, you can't time +travel through the time you time +travel in when you time travel.</p> + +<p>I'd also played around with the +idea of some fantastically obvious +hiding place, maybe something that +several people could pass back and +forth between them, which would +mean a conspiracy, and, of course, +if you assume a big enough conspiracy, +you can explain anything, +including the cosmos itself. Still, +I'd got a sort of shell-game idea +about the Soldiers' three big black +shakos and I hadn't been satisfied +until I'd got the three together +and looked in them all at +the same time.</p> + +<p>"Wake up, Greta, and take +something. I can't stand here forever." +Maud had brought us a +tray of hearty snacks from then +and yon, and I must say they were +tempting; she whips up a mean +hors d'oeuvre.</p> + +<p>I looked them over and said, +"Siddy, I want a hot dog."</p> + +<p>"And I want a venison pasty! +Out upon you, you finical jill, you +o'erscrupulous jade, you whimsic +and tyrannous poppet!"</p> + +<p>I grabbed a handful and snuggled +back against him.</p> + +<p>"Go on, call me some more, Siddy," +I told him. "Real juicy ones."</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 10</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shakes so my single state of man that function<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But what is not.<br /></span> +</div><div class="rgt">—Macbeth</div></div> + +<h3>MOTIVES AND +OPPORTUNITIES</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">My</span> big bad waif from King's +Lynn had set the tray on +his knees and started to wolf the +food down. The others were finishing +up. Erich, Mark and Kaby +were having a quietly furious argument +I couldn't overhear at the +end of the bar nearest the bronze +chest, and Illy was draped over +the piano like a real octopus, listening +in.</p> + +<p>Beau and Sevensee were pacing +up and down near the control divan +and throwing each other a +word now and then. Beyond them, +Bruce and Lili were sitting on the +opposite couch from us, talking +earnestly about something. Maud +had sat down at the other end of +the bar and was knitting—it's one +of the habits like chess and quiet +drinking, or learning to talk by +squeak box, that we pick up to +pass the time in the Place in the +long stretches between parties. Doc +was fiddling around the Gallery, +picking things up and setting them +down, still managing to stay on his +feet at any rate.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Lili</span> and Bruce stood up, still +gabbing intensely at each other, +and Illy began to pick out with +one tentacle a little tune in the +high keys that didn't sound like +anything on God's earth. "Where +do they get all the energy?" I +wondered.</p> + +<p>As soon as I asked myself that, +I knew the answer and I began to +feel the same way myself. It wasn't +energy; it was nerves, pure and +simple.</p> + +<p>Change is like a drug, I realized—you +get used to the facts never +staying the same, and one picture +of the past and future dissolving +into another maybe not very different +but still different, and your +mind being constantly goosed by +strange moods and notions, like +nightclub lights of shifting color +with weird shadows between shining +right on your brain.</p> + +<p>The endless swaying and jogging +is restful, like riding on a +train.</p> + +<p>You soon get to like the movement +and to need it without knowing, +and when it suddenly stops +and you're just you and the facts +you think from and feel from are +exactly the same when you go +back to them—boy, that's rough, +as I found out now.</p> + +<p>The instant we got Introverted, +everything that ordinarily leaks +into the Place, wake or sleep, had +stopped coming, and we were +nothing but ourselves and what we +meant to each other and what we +could make of that, an awfully +lonely, scratchy situation.</p> + +<p>I decided I felt like I'd been +dropped into a swimming pool full +of cement and held under until it +hardened.</p> + +<p>I could understand the others +bouncing around a bit. It was a +wonder they didn't hit the Void. +Maud seemed to be standing it the +best; maybe she'd got a little preparation +from the long watches +between stars; and then she is +older than all of us, even Sid, +though with a small "o" in "older."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> restless work of the search +for the Maintainer had masked +the feeling, but now it was beginning +to come full force. Before the +search, Bruce's speech and Erich's +interruptions had done a passable +masking job too. I tried to remember +when I'd first got the feeling +and decided it was after Erich +had jumped on the bomb, about +the time he mentioned poetry. +Though I couldn't be sure. Maybe +the Maintainer had been Introverted +even earlier, when I'd +turned to look at the Ghostgirls. +I wouldn't have known. Nuts!</p> + +<p>Believe me, I could feel that +hardened cement on every inch +of me. I remembered Bruce's +beautiful picture of a universe +without Big Change and decided +it was about the worst idea going. +I went on eating, though I wasn't +so sure now it was a good idea to +keep myself strong.</p> + +<p>"Does the Maintainer have an +Introversion telltale? Siddy!"</p> + +<p>"'Sdeath, chit, and you love me, +speak lower. Of a sudden, I feel +not well, as if I'd drunk a butt of +Rhenish and slept inside it. Marry +yes, blue. In short flashes, saith +the manual. Why ask'st thou?"</p> + +<p>"No reason. God, Siddy, what +I'd give for a breath of Change +Wind."</p> + +<p>"Thou can'st say that eftsoons," +he groaned. I must have looked +pretty miserable myself, for he +put his arm around my shoulders +and whispered gruffly, "Comfort +thyself, sweetling, that while we +suffer thus sorely, we yet cannot +die the Change Death."</p> + +<p>"What's that?" I asked him.</p> + +<p>I didn't want to bounce around +like the others. I had a suspicion +I'd carry it too far. So, to keep +myself from going batty, I started +to rework the business of who had +done what to the Maintainer.</p> + +<p>During the hunt, there had been +some pretty wild suggestions +tossed around as to its disappearance +or at least its Introversion: a +feat of Snake science amounting +to sorcery; the Spider high command +bunkering the Places from +above, perhaps in reaction to the +loss of the Express Room, in such +a hurry that they hadn't even time +to transmit warnings; the hand of +the Late Cosmicians, those mysterious +hypothetical beings who are +supposed to have successfully resisted +the extension of the Change +War into the future much beyond +Sevensee's epoch—unless the Late +Cosmicians are the ones fighting +the Change War.</p> + +<p>One thing these suggestions had +steered very clear of was naming +any one of us as a suspect, whether +acting as Snake spy, Spider political +police, agent of—who knows, +after Bruce?—a secret Change +World Committee of Public Safety +or Spider revolutionary underground, +or strictly on our own. +Just as no one had piped a word, +since the Maintainer had been +palmed, about the split between +Erich's and Bruce's factions.</p> + +<p>Good group thinking probably, +to sink differences in the emergency, +but that didn't apply to +what I did with my own thoughts.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Who</span> wanted to escape so bad +they'd Introvert the Place, +cutting off all possible contact and +communication either way with +the cosmos and running the very +big risk of not getting back to the +cosmos at all?</p> + +<p>Leaving out what had happened +since Bruce had arrived and stirred +things up, Doc seemed to me to +have the strongest motive. He knew +that Sid couldn't keep covering up +for him forever and that Spider +punishments for derelictions of +duty are not just the clink of a +firing squad, as Erich had reminded +us. But Doc had been flat on the +floor in front of the bar from the +time Bruce had jumped on top +of it, though I certainly hadn't had +my eye on him every second.</p> + +<p>Beau? Beau had said he was +bored with the Place at a time +when what he said counted, so +he'd hardly lock himself in it maybe +forever, not to mention locking +Bruce in with himself and the babe +he had a yen for.</p> + +<p>Sid loves reality, Changing or +not, and every least thing in it, +people especially, more than any +man or woman I've ever known—he's +like a big-eyed baby who +wants to grab every object and +put it in his mouth—and it was +hard to imagine him ever cutting +himself off from the cosmos.</p> + +<p>Maud, Kaby, Mark and the +two ETs? None of them had any +motive I knew of, though Sevensee's +being from the very far future +did tie in with that idea about +the Late Cosmicians, and there +did seem to be something developing +between the Cretan and the +Roman that could make them want +to be Introverted together.</p> + +<p>"Stick to the facts, Greta," I reminded +myself with a private +groan.</p> + +<p>That left Erich, Bruce, Lili and +myself.</p> + +<p>Erich, I thought—now we're +getting somewhere. The little commandant +has the nervous system +of a coyote and the courage of a +crazy tomcat, and if he thought +it would help him settle his battle +with Bruce better to be locked in +with him, he'd do it in a second.</p> + +<p>But even before Erich had +danced on the bomb, he'd been +heckling Bruce from the crowd. +Still, there would have been time +between heckles for him to step +quietly back from us, Introvert the +Maintainer and ... well, that was +nine-tenths of the problem.</p> + +<p>If I was the guilty party, I was +nuts and that was the best explanation +of all. Gr-r-r!</p> + +<p>Bruce's motives seemed so obvious, +especially the mortal (or +was it immortal?) danger he'd put +himself in by inciting mutiny, that +it seemed a shame he'd been in +full view on the bar so long. Surely, +if the Maintainer had been Introverted +before he jumped on the +bar, we'd all have noticed the +flashing blue telltale. For that matter, +I'd have noticed it when I +looked back at the Ghostgirls—if +it worked as Sid claimed, and he +said he had never seen it in operation, +just read in the manual—oh, +'sdeath!</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">But</span> Bruce didn't need opportunity, +as I'm sure all the +males in the Place would have told +me right off, because he had Lili +to pull the job for him and she +had as much opportunity as any +of the rest of us. Myself, I have +large reservations to this woman-putty-in-the-hands-of-the-man-she-loves-madly +theory, but I +had to admit there was something +to be said for it in this case, and +it had seemed quite natural to me +when the rest of us had decided, by +unspoken agreement, that neither +Lili's nor Bruce's checks counted +when we were hunting for the +Maintainer.</p> + +<p>That took care of all of us and +left only the mysterious stranger, +intruding somehow through a Door +(how'd he get it without using our +Maintainer?) or from an unimaginable +hiding place or straight out +of the Void itself. I know that last +is impossible—nothing can step +out of nothing—but if anything +ever looked like it was specially +built for something not at all nice +to come looming out of, it's the +Void—misty, foggily churning, +slimy gray....</p> + +<p>"Wait a second," I told myself, +"and hang onto this, Greta. It +should have smacked you in the +face at the start."</p> + +<p>Whatever came out of the Void, +or, more to the point, whoever +slipped back from our crowd to +the Maintainer, Bruce would have +seen them. He was looking at the +Maintainer past our heads the +whole time, and whatever happened +to it, he saw it.</p> + +<p>Erich wouldn't have, even after +he was on the bomb, because he'd +been stagewise enough to face +Bruce most of the time to build +up his role as tribune of the people.</p> + +<p>But Bruce would have—unless +he got so caught up in what he +was saying....</p> + +<p>No, kid, a Demon is always an +actor, no matter how much he +believes in what he's saying, and +there never was an actor yet who +wouldn't instantly notice a member +of the audience starting to walk out +on his big scene.</p> + +<p>So Bruce knew, which made him +a better actor than I'd have been +willing to grant, since it didn't look +as if anyone else had thought of +what had just occurred to me, +or they'd have gone over and put +it to him.</p> + +<p>Not me, though—I don't work +that way. Besides, I didn't feel up +to it—Nervy Anna enfold me, I +felt like pure hell.</p> + +<p>"Maybe," I told myself encouragingly, +"the Place is Hell," but +added, "Be your age, Greta—be +a real rootless, ruleless, ruthless +twenty-nine."</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 11</h2> + +<div class="poem" style="width: 21em;"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With bombs and guns and shovels and battle gear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lines of gray, muttering faces, masked with fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They leave their trenches, going over the top,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists<br /></span> +</div><div class="rgt">—Sassoon</div></div> + +<h3>THE WESTERN FRONT, 1917</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">"Please</span> don't, Lili."</p> + +<p>"I shall, my love."</p> + +<p>"Sweetling, wake up! Hast the +shakes?"</p> + +<p>I opened my eyes a little and +lied to Siddy with a smile and +locked my hands together tight +and watched Bruce and Lili quarrel +nobly near the control divan +and wished I had a great love to +blur my misery and provide me +with a passable substitute for +Change Winds.</p> + +<p>Lili won the argument, judging +from the way she threw her +head back and stepped away from +Bruce's arms while giving him a +proud, tender smile. He walked +off a few steps; praise be, he didn't +shrug his shoulders at us like an +old husband, though his nerves +were showing and he didn't seem +to be standing Introversion well +at all, as who of us were?</p> + +<p>Lili rested a hand on the head +of the control divan and pressed +her lips together and looked around +at us, mostly with her eyes. She'd +wound a gray silk bandeau around +her bangs. Her short gray silk +dress without a waistline made her +look, not so much like a flapper, +though she looked like that all +right, as like a little girl, except +the neckline was scooped low +enough to show she wasn't.</p> + +<p>Her gaze hesitated and then +stopped at me and I got a sunk +feeling of what was coming, because +women are always picking +on me for an audience. Besides, +Sid and I were the centrist party +of two in our fresh-out-of-the-shell +Place politics.</p> + +<p>She took a deep breath and +stuck out her chin and said in a +voice that was even a little higher +and Britisher than she usually +uses, "We girls have often cried, +'Shut the Door!' But now the Door +is jolly well shut for keeps!"</p> + +<p>I knew I'd guessed right and I +felt crawly with embarrassment, +because I know about this love +business of thinking you're the +other person and trying to live +their life—and grab their glory, +though you don't know that—and +carry their message for them, and +how it can foul things up. Still, +I couldn't help admitting what she +said wasn't too bad a start—unpleasantly +apt to be true, at any +rate.</p> + +<p>"My fiance believes we may yet +be able to open the Door. I do +not. He thinks it is a bit premature +to discuss the peculiar pickle in +which we all find ourselves. I do +not."</p> + +<p>There was a rasp of laughter +from the bar. The militarists were +reacting. Erich stepped out, looking +very happy. "So now we have +to listen to women making +speeches," he called. "What is this +Place, anyhow? Sidney Lessingham's +Saturday Evening Sewing +Circle?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Beau</span> and Sevensee, who'd +stopped their pacing halfway +between the bar and the control +divan, turned toward Erich, and +Sevensee looked a little burlier, +a little more like half a horse, than +satyrs in mythology book illustrations. +He stamped—medium +hard, I'd say—and said, "Ahh, +go flya kite." I'd found out he'd +learned English from a Demon +who'd been a longshoreman with +syndicalist-anarchist sympathies. +Erich shut up for a moment and +stood there grinning, his hands on +his hips.</p> + +<p>Lili nodded to the satyr and +cleared her throat, looking scared. +But she didn't speak; I could see +she was thinking and feeling something, +and her face got ugly and +haggard, as if she were in a Change +Wind that hadn't reached me yet, +and her mouth went into a snarl +to fight tears, but some spurted out, +and when she did speak her voice +was an octave lower and it wasn't +just London talking but New York +too.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how Resurrection +felt to you people, because I'm new +and I loathe asking questions, but +to me it was pure torture and I +wished only I'd had the courage to +tell Suzaku, 'I wish to remain a +Zombie, if you don't mind. I'd +rather the nightmares.' But I accepted +Resurrection because I've +been taught to be polite and because +there is the Demon in me I +don't understand that always +wishes to live, and I found that I +still felt like a Zombie, although +I could flit about, and that I still +had the nightmares, except they'd +grown a deal vivider.</p> + +<p>"I was a young girl again, seventeen, +and I suppose every woman +wishes to be seventeen, but I wasn't +seventeen inside my head—I was +a woman who had died of Bright's +disease in New York in 1929 and +also, because a Big Change blew +my lifeline into a new drift, a woman +who had died of the same +disease in Nazi-occupied London +in 1955, but rather more slowly +because, as you can fancy, the +liquor was in far shorter supply. I +had to live with both those sets of +memories and the Change World +didn't blot them out any more than +I'm told it does those of any +Demon, and it didn't even push +them into the background as I'd +hoped it would.</p> + +<p>"When some Change Fellow +would say to me, 'Hallo, beautiful, +how about a smile?' or 'That's a +posh frock, kiddo,' I'd be back at +Bellevue looking down at my +swollen figure and the light getting +like spokes of ice, or in that dreadful +gin-steeped Stepney bedroom +with Phyllis coughing herself to +death beside me, or at best, for a +moment, a little girl in Glamorgan +looking at the Roman road and +wondering about the wonderful life +that lay ahead."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I looked</span> at Erich, remembering +he had a long nasty +future back in the cosmos himself, +and at any rate he wasn't smiling, +and I thought maybe he's getting +a little humility, knowing someone +else has two of those futures, +but I doubted it.</p> + +<p>"Because, you see," Lili kept +forcing it out, "all my three lives +I'd been a girl who fell in love +with a great young poet she'd +never met, the voice of the new +youth and all youth, and she'd told +her first big lie to get in the Red +Cross and across to France to be +nearer him, and it was all danger +and dark magics and a knight in +armor, and she pictured how she'd +find him wounded but not seriously, +with a little bandage around his +head, and she'd light a fag for him +and smile lightly, never letting him +guess what she felt, but only being +her best self and watching to +see if that made something happen +to him....</p> + +<p>"And then the Boche machine +guns cut him down at Passchendaele +and there couldn't ever have +been bandages big enough and the +girl stayed seventeen inside and +messed about and tried to be +wicked, though she wasn't very +good at that, and to drink, and she +had a bit more talent there, though +drinking yourself to death is not +nearly as easy as it sounds, even +with a kidney weakness to help. +But she turned the trick.</p> + +<p>"Then a cock crows. She wakes +with a tearing start from the gray +dreams of death that fill her lifeline. +It's cold daybreak. There's the +smell of a French farm. She feels +her ankles and they're not at all +like huge rubber boots filled with +water. They're not swollen the least +bit. They're young legs.</p> + +<p>"There's a little window and the +tops of a row of trees that may be +poplars when there's more light, +and what there is shows cots like +her own and heads under blankets, +and hanging uniforms make large +shadows and a girl is snoring. +There's a very distant rumble and +it moves the window a bit. Then +she remembers they're Red Cross +girls many, many kilometers from +Passchendaele and that Bruce +Marchant is going to die at dawn +today.</p> + +<p>"In a few more minutes, he's going +over the top where there's a +crop-headed machine-gunner in +field gray already looking down +the sights and swinging the gun a +bit. But she isn't going to die today. +She's going to die in 1929 and +1955.</p> + +<p>"And just as she's going mad, +there's a creaking and out of the +shadows tiptoes a Jap with a woman's +hairdo and the whitest face +and the blackest eyebrows. He's +wearing a rose robe and a black +sash which belts to his sides two +samurai swords, but in his right +hand he has a strange silver pistol. +And he smiles at her as if they +were brother and sister and lovers +at the same time and he says, +'<i>Voulez-vous vivre, mademoiselle?</i>' +and she stares and he bobs his +head and says, 'Missy wish live, +yes, no?'"</p> + +<div class="figc"><img src="images/005.png" width="650" height="429" alt="" title="" /></div> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Sid's</span> paw closed quietly around +my shaking hands. It always +gets me to hear about anyone's +Resurrection, and although mine +was crazier, it also had the Krauts +in it. I hoped she wouldn't go +through the rest of the formula and +she didn't.</p> + +<p>"Five minutes later, he's gone +down a stairs more like a ladder +to wait below and she's dressing +in a rush. Her clothes resist a +little, as if they were lightly +gummed to the hook and the +stained wall, and she hates to +touch them. It's getting lighter and +her cot looks as if someone were +still sleeping there, although it's +empty, and she couldn't bring herself +to put her hand on the place +if her new life depended on it.</p> + +<p>"She climbs down and her long +skirt doesn't bother her because +she knows how to swing it. Suzaku +conducts her past a sentry who +doesn't see them and a puffy-faced +farmer in a smock coughing and +spitting the night out of his throat. +They cross the farmyard and it's +filled with rose light and she sees +the sun is up and she knows that +Bruce Marchant has just bled to +death.</p> + +<p>"There's an empty open touring +car chugging loudly, waiting for +someone; it has huge muddy wheels +with wooden spokes and a brass +radiator that says 'Simplex.' But +Suzaku leads her past it to a dunghill +and bows apologetically and +she steps through a Door."</p> + +<p>I heard Erich say to the others +at the bar, "How touching! Now +shall I tell everyone about my +operation?" But he didn't get much +of a laugh.</p> + +<p>"That's how Lilian Foster came +into the Change World with its +steel-engraved nightmares and its +deadly pace and deadlier lassitudes. +I was more alive than I ever +had been before, but it was the +kind of life a corpse might get +from unending electrical shocks +and I couldn't summon any purpose +or hope and Bruce Marchant +seemed farther away than ever.</p> + +<p>"Then, not six hours ago, a Soldier +in a black uniform came +through the Door and I thought, +'It can't be, but it does look like +his photographs,' and then I +thought I heard someone say the +name Bruce, and then he shouted +as if to all the world that he was +Bruce Marchant, and I knew there +was a Resurrection beyond Resurrection, +a true resurrection. Oh, +Bruce—"</p> + +<p>She looked at him and he was +crying and smiling and all the +young beauty flooded back into +her face, and I thought, "It has to +be Change Winds, but it can't be. +Face it without slobbering, Greta—there's +something that works bigger +miracles than Change."</p> + +<p>And she went on, "And then the +Change Winds died when the +Snakes vaporized the Maintainer +or the Ghostgirls Introverted it +and all three of them vanished so +swiftly and silently that even Bruce +didn't notice—those are the best +explanations I can summon and I +fancy one of them is true. At all +events, the Change Winds died and +my past and even my futures became +something I could bear lightly, +because I have someone to bear +them with me, and because at +last I have a true future stretching +out ahead of me, an unknown +future which I shall create by living. +Oh, don't you see that all of us +have it now, this big opportunity?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Hussa</i> for Sidney's suffragettes +and the W.C.T.U.!" Erich cheered. +"Beau, will you play us a medley +of 'Hearts and Flowers' and 'Onward, +Christian Soldiers'? I'm +deeply moved, Lili. Where do the +rest of us queue up for the Great +Love Affair of the Century?"</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 12</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Now is a bearable burden. What +buckles the back is the added +weight of the past's mistakes and +the future's fears.</p> + +<p>I had to learn to close the front +door to tomorrow and the back +door to yesterday and settle down +to here and now.</p> + +<div class="rgt">—Anonymous</div></div> + +<h3>A BIG OPPORTUNITY</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Nobody</span> laughed at Erich's +screwball sarcasms and still +I thought, "Yes, perish his hysterical +little gray head, but he's +half right—Lili's got the big thing +now and she wants to serve it up +to the rest of us on a platter, only +love doesn't cook and cut that +way."</p> + +<p>Those weren't bad ideas she had +about the Maintainer, though, especially +the one about the Ghostgirls +doing the Introverting—it +would explain why there couldn't +be Introversion drill, the manual +stuff about blue flashes being window-dressing, +and something disappearing +without movement or +transition is the sort of thing that +might not catch the attention—and +I guess they gave the others +something to think about too, for +there wasn't any follow-up to +Erich's frantic sniping.</p> + +<p>But I honestly didn't see where +there was this big opportunity being +stuck away in a gray sack in +the Void and I began to wonder +and I got the strangest feeling and +I said to myself, "Hang onto your +hat, Greta. It's hope."</p> + +<p>"The dreadful thing about being +a Demon is that you have all +time to range through," Lili was +saying with a smile. "You can +never shut the back door to yesterday +or the front door to tomorrow +and simply live in the present. +But now that's been done for us: +the Door is shut, we need never +again rehash the past or the future. +The Spiders and Snakes can never +find us, for who ever heard of a +Place that was truly lost being +rescued? And as those in the know +have told me, Introversion is the +end as far as those outside are +concerned. So we're safe from the +Spiders and Snakes, we need never +be slaves or enemies again, and +we have a Place in which to live +our new lives, the Place prepared +for us from the beginning."</p> + +<p>She paused. "Surely you understand +what I mean? Sidney and +Beauregard and Dr. Pyeshkov are +the ones who explained it to me. +The Place is a balanced aquarium, +just like the cosmos. No one knows +how many ages of Big Time it +has been in use, without a bit of +new material being brought in—only +luxuries and people—and +not a bit of waste cast off. No one +knows how many more ages it may +not sustain life. I never heard of +Minor Maintainers wearing out. +We have all the future, all the +security, anyone can hope for. We +have a Place to live together."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">You</span> know, she was dead right +and I realized that all the time +I'd had the conviction in the back +of my mind that we were going to +suffocate or something if we didn't +get a Door open pretty quick. I +should have known differently, if +anybody should, because I'd once +been in the Place without a Door +for as long as a hundred sleeps +during a foxhole stretch of the +Change War and we'd had to start +cycling our food and it had been +okay.</p> + +<p>And then, because it is also +the way my mind works, I started +to picture in a flash the consequences +of our living together all +by ourselves like Lili said.</p> + +<p>I began to pair people off; I +couldn't help it. Let's see, four +women, six men, two ETs.</p> + +<p>"Greta," I said, "you're going to +be Miss Polly Andry for sure. +We'll have a daily newspaper and +folk-dancing classes, we'll shut the +bar except evenings, Bruce'll keep +a rhymed history of the Place."</p> + +<p>I even thought, though I knew +this part was strictly silly, about +schools and children. I wondered +what Siddy's would look like, or +my little commandant's. "Don't go +near the Void, dears." Of course +that would be specially hard on +the two ETs, but Sevensee at least +wasn't so different and the genetics +boys had made some wonderful +advances and Maud ought to know +about them and there were some +amazing gadgets in Surgery when +Doc sobered up. The patter of +little hoofs ...</p> + +<p>"My fiance spoke to you about +carrying a peace message to the +rest of the cosmos," Lili added, +"and bringing an end to the Big +Change, and healing all the wounds +that have been made in the Little +Time."</p> + +<p>I looked at Bruce. His face was +set and strained, as will happen to +the best of them when a girl starts +talking about her man's business, +and I don't know why, but I said +to myself, "She's crucifying him, +she's nailing him to his purpose as +a woman will, even when there's +not much point to it, as now."</p> + +<p>And Lili went on, "It was a wonderful +thought, but now we cannot +carry or send any message and +I believe it is too late in any event +for a peace message to do any +good. The cosmos is too raveled by +change, too far gone. It will dissolve, +fade, 'leave not a rack behind.' +We're the survivors. The +torch of existence has been put in +our hands.</p> + +<p>"We may already be all that's +left in the cosmos, for have you +thought that the Change Winds +may have died at their source? We +may never reach another cosmos, +we may drift forever in the Void, +but who of us has been Introverted +before and who knows what +we can or cannot do? We're a seed +for a new future to grow from. +Perhaps all doomed universes cast +off seeds like this Place. It's a seed, +it's an embryo, let it grow."</p> + +<p>She looked swiftly at Bruce and +then at Sid and she quoted, +"'Come, my friends, 'tis not too +late to seek a newer world'."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I squeezed</span> Sid's hand and +I started to say something to +him, but he didn't know I was +there; he was listening to Lili quote +Tennyson with his eyes entranced +and his mouth open, as if he were +imagining new things to put into +it—oh, Siddy!</p> + +<p>And then I saw the others were +looking at her the same way. Ilhilihis +was seeing finer feather forests +than long-dead Luna's grow. The +greenhouse child Maud ap-Ares +Davies was stowing away on a +starship bound for another galaxy, +or thinking how different her life +might have been, the children she +might have had, if she'd stayed on +the planets and out of the Change +World. Even Erich looked as +though he might be blitzing new +universes, and Mark subduing +them, for an eight-legged <i>Führer-imperator</i>. +Beau was throbbing up +a wider Mississippi in a bigger-than-life +sidewheeler.</p> + +<p>Even I—well, I wasn't dreaming +of a Greater Chicago. "Let's not +go hog-wild on this sort of thing," +I told myself, but I did look up +at the Void and I got a shiver +because I imagined it drawing +away and the whole Place starting +to grow.</p> + +<p>"I truly meant what I said about +a seed," Lili went on slowly. "I +know, as you all do, that there are +no children in the Change World, +that there cannot be, that we all +become instantly sterile, that what +they call a curse is lifted from us +girls and we are no longer in bondage +to the moon."</p> + +<p>She was right, all right—if +there's one thing that's been proved +a million times in the Change +World, it's that.</p> + +<p>"But we are no longer in the +Change World," Lili said softly, +"and its limitations should no +longer apply to us, including that +one. I feel deeply certain of it, +but—" she looked around slowly—"we +are four women here and I +thought one of us might have a +surer indication."</p> + +<p>My eyes followed hers around +like anybody's would. In fact, +everybody was looking around except +Maud, and she had the silliest +look of surprise on her face +and it stayed there, and then, very +carefully, she got down from the +bar stool with her knitting. She +looked at the half-finished pink bra +with the long white needles stuck +in it and her eyes bugged bigger +yet, as if she were expecting it to +turn into a baby sweater right then +and there. Then she walked across +the Place to Lili and stood beside +her. While she was walking, the +look of surprise changed to a quiet +smile. The only other thing she +did was throw her shoulders back +a little.</p> + +<p>I was jealous of her for a second, +but it was a double miracle for +her, considering her age, and I +couldn't grudge her that. And to +tell the truth, I was a little frightened, +too. Even with Dave, I'd +been bothered about this business +of having babies.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Yet</span> I stood up with Siddy—I +couldn't stop myself and I +guess he couldn't either—and +hand in hand we walked to the +control divan. Beau and Sevensee +were there and Bruce, of course, +and then, so help me, those Soldiers +to the death, Kaby and Mark, +started over from the bar and I +couldn't see anything in their eyes +about the greater glory of Crete +and Rome, but something, I think, +about each other, and after a moment +Illy slowly detached himself +from the piano and followed, +lightly trailing his tentacles on the +floor.</p> + +<p>I couldn't exactly see him hoping +for little Illies in this company, +unless it was true what the jokes +said about Lunans, but maybe he +was being really disinterested and +maybe he wasn't; maybe he was +simply figuring that Illy ought to +be on the side with the biggest battalions.</p> + +<p>I heard dragging footsteps behind +us and here came Doc from +the Gallery, carrying in his folded +arms an abstract sculpture as big +as a newborn baby. It was an agglomeration +of perfect shiny gray +spheres the size of golf balls, shaping +up to something like a large +brain, but with holes showing +through here and there. He held +it out to us like an infant to be +admired and worked his lips and +tongue as if he were trying very +hard to say something, though not +a word came out that you could +understand, and I thought, "Maxey +Aleksevich may be speechless +drunk and have all sorts of holes +in his head, but he's got the right +instincts, bless his soulful little +Russian heart."</p> + +<p>We were all crowded around the +control divan like a football team +huddling. The Peace Packers, it +came to me. Sevensee would be +fullback or center and Illy left end—what +a receiver! The right number, +too. Erich was alone at the +bar, but now even he—"Oh, no, this +can't be," I thought—even he came +toward us. Then I saw that his face +was working the worst ever. He +stopped halfway and managed to +force a smile, but it was the worst, +too. "That's my little commandant," +I thought, "no team +spirit."</p> + +<p>"So now Lili and Bruce—yes, +and <i>Grossmutterchen</i> Maud—have +their little nest," he said, and he +wouldn't have had to push his +voice very hard to get a screech. +"But what are the rest of us supposed +to be—cowbirds?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">He</span> crooked his neck and flapped +his hands and croaked, "Cuc-koo! +Cuc-koo!" And I said to myself, +"I often thought you were +crazy, boy, but now I know."</p> + +<p>"<i>Teufelsdreck!</i>—yes, Devil's +dirt!—but you all seem to be infected +with this dream of children. +Can't you see that the +Change World is the natural and +proper end of evolution?—a period +of enjoyment and measuring, an +ultimate working out of things, +which women call destruction—'Help, +I'm being raped!' 'Oh, what +are they doing to my children?'—but +which men know as fulfillment.</p> + +<p>"You're given good parts in +<i>Götterdämmerung</i> and you go up +to the author and tap him on the +shoulder and say, 'Excuse me, Herr +Wagner, but this Twilight of the +Gods is just a bit morbid. Why +don't you write an opera for me +about the little ones, the dear +little blue-eyed curly-tops? A plot? +Oh, boy meets girl and they settle +down to breed, something like that.'</p> + +<p>"Devil's dirt doubled and +damned! Have you thought what +life will be like without a Door +to go out of to find freedom and +adventure, to measure your courage +and keenness? Do you want to +grow long gray beards hobbling +around this asteroid turned inside +out? Putter around indoors to the +end of your days, mooning about +little baby cosmoses?—incidentally, +with a live bomb for company. +The cave, the womb, the little gray +home in the nest—is that what +you want? It'll grow? Oh, yes, like +the city engulfing the wild wood, a +proliferation of <i>Kinder</i>, <i>Kirche</i>, +<i>Küche</i>—I should live so long!</p> + +<p>"Women!—how I hate their +bright eyes as they look at me +from the fireside, bent-shouldered, +rocking, deeply happy to be old, +and say, 'He's getting weak, he's +giving out, soon I'll have to put +him to bed and do the simplest +things for him.' Your filthy Triple +Goddess, Kaby, the birther, bride, +and burier of man! Woman, the +enfeebler, the fetterer, the crippler! +Woman!—and the curly-headed +little cancers she wants!"</p> + +<p>He lurched toward us, pointing +at Lili. "I never knew one who +didn't want to cripple a man if +you gave her the chance. Cripple +him, swaddle him, clip his wings, +grind him to sausage to mold another +man, hers, a doll man. You +hid the Maintainer, you little +smother-hen, so you could have +your nest and your Brucie!"</p> + +<p>He stopped, gasping, and I expected +someone to bop him one on +the schnozzle, and I think he did, +too. I turned to Bruce and he was +looking, I don't know how, sorry, +guilty, anxious, angry, shaken, +inspired, all at once, and I wished +people sometimes had simple suburban +reactions like magazine +stories.</p> + +<p>Then Erich made the mistake, +if it was one, of turning toward +Bruce and slowly staggering +toward him, pawing the air with +his hands as if he were going to +collapse into his arms, and saying, +"Don't let them get you, Bruce. +Don't let them tie you down. Don't +let them clip you—your words +or your deeds. You're a Soldier. +Even when you talked about a +peace message, you talked about +doing some smashing of your own. +No matter what you think and +feel, Bruce, no matter how much +lying you do and how much you +hide, you're really not on their +side."</p> + +<p>That did it.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">It</span> didn't come soon enough or, +I think, in the right spirit to +please me, but I will say it for +Bruce that he didn't muck it up +by tipping or softening his punch. +He took one step forward and his +shoulders spun and his fist connected +sweet and clean.</p> + +<p>As he did it, he said only one +word, "Loki!" and darn if that +didn't switch me back to a campfire +in the Indiana Dunes and my +mother telling me out of the Elder +Saga about the malicious, +sneering, all-spoiling Norse god +and how, when the other gods +came to trap him in his hideaway +by the river, he was on the point +of finishing knotting a mysterious +net big enough, I had imagined, +to snare the whole universe, and +that if they'd come a minute later, +he would have.</p> + +<p>Erich was stretched on the floor, +his head hitched up, rubbing his +jaw and glaring at Bruce. Mark, +who was standing beside me, +moved a little and I thought he +was going to do something, maybe +even clobber Bruce in the old +spirit of you can't do that to my +buddy, but he just shook his head +and said, "<i>Omnia vincit amor.</i>" I +nudged him and said, "Meaning?" +and he said, "Love licks everything."</p> + +<p>I'd never have expected it from +a Roman, but he was half right at +any rate. Lili had her victory: +Bruce clearing the field for the +marriage by laying out the woman-hating +boy friend who would be +trying to get him to go out nights. +At that moment, I think Bruce +wanted Lili and a life with her +more than he wanted to reform the +Change World. Sure, us women +have our little victories—until +the legions come or the Little Corporal +draws up his artillery or the +Panzers roar down the road.</p> + +<p>Erich scrambled to his feet and +stood there in a half-slump, half-crouch, +still rubbing his jaw and +glaring at Bruce over his hand, but +making no move to continue the +fight, and I studied his face and +said to myself, "If he can get a +gun, he's going to shoot himself, I +know."</p> + +<p>Bruce started to say something +and hesitated, like I would have +in his shoes, and just then Doc +got one of his unpredictable inspirations +and went weaving out +toward Erich, holding out the sculpture +and making deaf-and-dumb +noises like he had to us. Erich +looked at him as if he were going +to kill him, and then grabbed the +sculpture and swung it up over +his head and smashed it down on +the floor, and for a wonder, it +didn't shatter. It just skidded along +in one piece and stopped inches +from my feet.</p> + +<p>That thing not breaking must +have been the last straw for Erich. +I swear I could see the red surge +up through his eyes toward his +brain. He swung around into the +Stores sector and ran the few steps +between him and the bronze bomb +chest.</p> + +<p>Everything got very slow motion +for me, though I didn't do any +moving. Almost every man started +out after Erich. Bruce didn't, +though, and Siddy turned back +after the first surge forward, while +Illy squunched down for a leap, +and it was between Sevensee's +hairy shanks and Beau's scissoring +white pants that I saw that under-the-microscope +circle of death's +heads and watched Erich's finger +go down on them in the order +Kaby had given: one, three, five, +six, two, four, seven. I was able to +pray seven distinct times that he'd +make a mistake.</p> + +<p>He straightened up. Illy landed +by the box like a huge silver spider +and his tentacles whipped futilely +across its top. The others surged +to a frightened halt around them.</p> + +<p>Erich's chest was heaving, but +his voice was cool and collected +as he said, "You mentioned something +about our having a future, +Miss Foster. Now you can make +that more specific. Unless we get +back to the cosmos and dump this +box, or find a Spider A-tech, or +manage to call headquarters for +guidance on disarming the bomb, +we have a future exactly thirty +minutes long."</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 13</h2> + +<div class="poem" style="width: 22em;"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But whence he was, or of what wombe ybore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of beasts, or of the earth, I have not red:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But certes was with milke of wolves and tygres fed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="rgt">—Spenser</div></div> + +<h3>THE TIGER IS LOOSE</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I guess</span> when they really push +the button or throw the switch +or spring the trap or focus the +beam or what have you, you don't +faint or go crazy or anything else +convenient. I didn't. Everything, +everybody, every move that was +made, every word that was spoken, +was painfully real to me, like a +hand twisting and squeezing things +deep inside me, and I saw every +least detail spotlighted and magnified +like I had the seven skulls.</p> + +<p>Erich was standing beyond the +bomb chest; little smiles were +ruffling his lips. I'd never seen him +look so sharp. Illy was beside him, +but not on his side, you understand. +Mark, Sevensee and Beau +were around the chest to the nearer +side. Beau had dropped to a knee +and was scanning the chest minutely, +terror-under-control making him +bend his head a little closer than +he needed to for clear vision, but +with his hands locked together behind +his back, I guess to restrain +the impulse to push any and everything +that looked like a disarming +button.</p> + +<p>Doc was sprawled face down on +the nearest couch, out like a light, +I suppose.</p> + +<p>Us four girls were still by the +control divan. With Kaby, that +surprised me, because she didn't +look scared or frozen, but almost +as intensely alive as Erich.</p> + +<p>Sid had turned back, as I'd said, +and had one hand stretched out +toward but not touching the Minor +Maintainer, and a look on his +beardy face as if he were calling +down death and destruction on +every boozy rogue who had ever +gone up from King's Lynn to Cambridge +and London, and I realized +why: if he'd thought of the Minor +Maintainer a second sooner, he +could have pinned Erich down +with heavy gravity before he could +touch the buttons.</p> + +<p>Bruce was resting one hand on +the head of the control divan and +was looking toward the group +around the chest, toward Erich, I +think, as if Erich had done something +rather wonderful for him, +though I can't imagine myself being +tickled at being included in +anybody's suicide surprise party. +Bruce looked altogether too +dreamy, Brahma blast him, for +someone who must have the same +steel-spiked thought in his head +that I know darn well the rest of +us had: that in twenty-nine minutes +or so, the Place would be a +sun in a bag.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Erich</span> was the first to get down +to business, as I'd have laid +any odds he would be. He had the +jump on us and he wasn't going +to lose it.</p> + +<p>"Well, when are you going to +start getting Lili to tell us where +she hid the Maintainer? It has to +be her—she was too certain it +was gone forever when she talked. +And Bruce must have seen from +the bar who took the Maintainer, +and who would he cover up for +but his girl?"</p> + +<p>There he was plagiarizing my +ideas, but I guess I was willing to +sign them over to him in full if he +got us the right pail of water for +that time-bomb.</p> + +<p>He glanced at his wrist. "According +to my Caller, you have +twenty-nine and a half minutes, +including the time it will take to +get a Door or contact headquarters. +When are you going to get +busy on the girl?"</p> + +<p>Bruce laughed a little—deprecatingly, +so help me—and started +toward him. "Look here, old man," +he said, "there's no need to trouble +Lili, or to fuss with headquarters, +even if you could. Really not at +all. Not to mention that your surmises +are quite unfounded, old +chap, and I'm a bit surprised at +your advancing them. But that's +quite all right because, as it happens, +I'm an atomics technician +and I even worked on that very +bomb. To disarm it, you just have +to fiddle a bit with some of the +ankhs, those hoopy little crosses. +Here, let me—"</p> + +<p>Allah il allah, but it must have +struck everybody as it did me as +being just too incredible an assertion, +too bloody British a bare-faced +bluff, for Erich didn't have to +say a word; Mark and Sevensee +grabbed Bruce by the arms, one +on each side, as he stooped toward +the bronze chest, and they weren't +gentle about it. Then Erich spoke.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Bruce. Very sporting +of you to try to cover up for your +girl friend, but we aren't going to +let ourselves be blown to stripped +atoms twenty-eight minutes too +soon while you monkey with the +buttons, the very thing Benson-Carter +warned against, and pray +for a guesswork miracle. It's too +thin, Bruce, when you come from +1917 and haven't been on the Big +Time for a hundred sleeps and +were calling for an A-tech yourself +a few hours ago. Much too +thin. Bruce, something is going to +happen that I'm afraid you won't +like, but you're going to have to +put up with it. That is, unless Miss +Foster decides to be cooperative."</p> + +<p>"I say, you fellows, let me go," +Bruce demanded, struggling experimentally. +"I know it's a bit thick +to swallow and I did give you the +wrong impression calling for an +A-tech, but I just wanted to capture +your attention then; I didn't +want to have to work on the bomb. +Really, Erich, would they have ordered +Benson-Carter to pick us up +unless one of us were an A-tech? +They'd be sure to include one in +the bally operation."</p> + +<p>"When they're using patchwork +tactics?" Erich grinningly quoted +back at him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Kaby</span> spoke up beside me and +said, "Benson-Carter was a +magician of matter and he was going +on the operation disguised as +an old woman. We have the cloak +and hood with the other garments," +and I wondered how this cold fish +of a she-officer could be the same +girl who was giving Mark slurpy +looks not ten minutes ago.</p> + +<p>"Well?" Erich asked, glancing +at his Caller and then swinging his +eyes around at us as if there must +be some of the old <i>Wehrmacht</i> +iron somewhere. We all found ourselves +looking at Lili and she was +looking so sharp herself, so ready +to jump and so at bay, that it was +all <i>I</i> needed, at any rate, to make +Erich's theory about the Maintainer +a rock-bottom certainty.</p> + +<p>Bruce must have realized the +way our minds were working, for +he started to struggle in earnest +and at the same time called, "For +God's sake, don't do anything to +Lili! Let me loose, you idiots! +Everything's true I told you—I +can save you from that bomb. +Sevensee, you took my side against +the Spiders; you've nothing to +lose. Sid, you're an Englishman. +Beau, you're a gentleman and you +love her, too—for God's sake, +stop them!"</p> + +<p>Beau glanced up over his shoulder +at Bruce and the others surging +around close to his ankles and he +had on his poker face. Sid I could +tell was once more going through +the purgatory of decision. Beau +reached his own decision first and +I'll say it for him that he acted +on it fast and intelligently. Right +from his kneeling position and before +he'd even turned his head +quite back, he jumped Erich.</p> + +<p>But other things in this cosmos +besides Man can pick sides and +act fast. Illy landed on Beau midway +and whipped his tentacles +around him tight and they went +wobbling around like a drunken +white-and-silver barber pole. Beau +got his hands each around a tentacle, +and at the same time his +face began to get purple, and I +winced at what they were both +going through.</p> + +<p>Maybe Sevensee had a hoof in +Sid's purgatory, because Bruce +shook loose from the satyr and +tried to knock out Mark, but the +Roman twisted his arm and kept +him from getting in a good punch.</p> + +<p>Erich didn't make a move to +mix into either fight, which is my +little commandant all over. Using +his fists on anybody but me is +beneath him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Then</span> Sid made his choice, but +there was no way for me to tell +what it was, for, as he reached for +the Minor Maintainer, Kaby contemptuously +snatched it away from +his hands and gave him a knee in +the belly that doubled me up in +sympathy and sent him sprawling +on his knees toward the fighters. +On the return, Kaby gave Lili, +who'd started to grab too, an effortless +backhand smash that set her +down on the divan.</p> + +<p>Erich's face lit up like an electric +sign and he kept his eyes fixed +on Kaby.</p> + +<p>She crouched a little, carrying +her weight on the balls of her feet +and firmly cradling the Minor +Maintainer in her left arm, like a +basketball captain planning an offensive. +Then she waved her free +hand decisively to the right. I didn't +get it, but Erich did and Mark +too, for Erich jumped for the Refresher +sector and Mark let go of +Bruce and followed him, ducking +around Sevensee's arms, who was +coming back into the fight on +which side I don't know. Illy un-whipped +from Beau and copied +Erich and Mark with one +big spring.</p> + +<p>Then Kaby twisted a dial as +far as it would go and Bruce, Beau, +Sevensee and poor Siddy were +slammed down and pinned to the +floor by about eight gravities.</p> + +<p>It should have been lighter near +us—I hoped it was, but you +couldn't tell from watching Siddy; +he went flat on his face, spread-eagled, +one hand stretched toward +me so close, I could have touched +it (but not let go!), and his mouth +was open against the floor and he +was gasping through a corner of +it and I could see his spine trying +to sink through his belly. Bruce +just managed to get his head and +one shoulder up a bit, and they +all made me think of a Dore illustration +of the <i>Inferno</i> where the +cream of the damned are frozen up +to their necks in ice in the innermost +circle of Hell.</p> + +<p>The gravity didn't catch me, although +I could feel it in my left +arm. I was mostly in the Refresher +sector, but I dropped down flat too, +partly out of a crazy compassion I +have, but mostly because I didn't +want to take a chance of having +Kaby knock me down.</p> + +<p>Erich, Mark and Illy had got +clear and they headed toward us. +Maud picked the moment to make +her play; she hadn't much choice +of times, if she wanted to make +one. The Old Girl was looking it +for once, but I guess the thought +of her miracle must have survived +alongside the fear of sacked sun +and must have meant a lot to her, +for she launched out fast, all set +to straight-arm Kaby into the +heavy gravity and grab the Minor +Maintainer with the other hand.</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 14</h2> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust.<br /></span> +</div><div class="rgt">—Webster</div></div> + +<h3>"NOW WILL YOU TALK?"</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Cretans</span> have eyes under +their back hair, or let's face it, +Entertainers aren't Soldiers. Kaby +weaved to one side and flicked a +helpful hand and poor old Maud +went where she'd been going to +send Kaby. It sickened me to see +the gravity take hold and yank +her down.</p> + +<p>I could have jumped up and +made it four in a row for Kaby, +but I'm not a bit brave when things +like my life are at stake.</p> + +<p>Lili was starting to get up, acting +a little dazed. Kaby gently +pushed her down again and quietly +said, "Where is it?" and then +hauled off and slapped her across +the face. What got me was the matter-of-fact +way Kaby did it. I can +understand somebody getting mad +and socking someone, or even deliberately +working up a rage so as +to be able to do something nasty, +but this cold-blooded way turns +my stomach.</p> + +<p>Lili looked as if half her face +were about to start bleeding, but +she didn't look dazed any more +and her jaw set. Kaby grabbed +Lili's pearl necklace and twisted it +around her neck and it broke and +the pearls went bouncing around +like ping-pong balls, so Kaby +yanked down Lili's gray silk bandeau +until it was around the neck +and tightened that. Lili started to +choke through her tight-pressed +lips. Erich, Mark and Illy had +come up and crowded around, but +they seemed to be content with the +job Kaby was doing.</p> + +<p>"Listen, slut," she said, "we have +no time. You have a healing room +in this place. I can work the +things."</p> + +<p>"Here it comes," I thought, wishing +I could faint. On top of everything, +on top of death even, they +had to drag in the nightmare personally +stylized for me, the horror +with my name on it. I wasn't going +to be allowed to blow up peacefully. +They weren't satisfied with +an A-bomb. They had to write my +private hell into the script.</p> + +<p>"There is a thing called an Invertor," +Kaby said exactly as I'd +known she would, but as I didn't +really hear it just then—a mental +split I'll explain in a moment. "It +opens you up so they can cure your +insides without cutting your skin +or making you bleed anywhere. It +turns the big parts of you inside +out, but not the blood tubes. All +your skin—your eyes, ears, nose, +toes, all of it—becoming the lining +of a little hole that's half-filled with +your hair.</p> + +<p>"Meantime, your insides are exposed +for whatever the healer +wants to do to them. You live for +a while on the air inside the hole. +First the healer gives you an air +that makes you sleep, or you go +mad in about fifty heartbeats. We'll +see what ten heartbeats do to you +without the sleepy air. Now will +you talk?"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I hadn't</span> been listening to her, +though, not the real me, or I'd +have gone mad without getting the +treatment. I once heard Doc say +your liver is more mysterious and +farther away from you than the +stars, because although you live +with your liver all your life, you +never see it or learn to point to it +instinctively, and the thought of +someone messing around with that +intimate yet unknown part of you +is just too awful.</p> + +<p>I knew I had to do something +quick. Hell, at the first hint of Introversion, +before Kaby had even +named it, Illy had winced so that +his tentacles were all drawn up like +fat feather-sausages. Erich had +looked at him questioningly, but +that lousy Looney had un-endeared +himself to me by squeaking, "Don't +mind me, I'm just sensitive. Get on +with the girl. Make her tell."</p> + +<p>Yes, I knew I had to do something, +and here on the floor that +meant thinking hard and in high +gear about something else. The +screwball sculpture Erich had tried +to smash was a foot from my nose +and I saw a faint trail of white +stuff where it had skidded. I +reached out and touched the trail; +it was finely gritty, like powdered +glass. I tipped up the sculpture +and the part on which it had +skidded wasn't marred at all, not +even dulled; the gray spheres were +as glisteningly bright as ever. So I +knew the trail was diamond dust +rubbed off the diamonds in the +floor by something even harder.</p> + +<p>That told me the sculpture was +something special and maybe Doc +had had a real idea in his pickled +brain when he'd been pushing the +thing at all of us and trying to tell +us something. He hadn't managed +to say anything then, but he had +earlier when he'd been going to tell +us what to do about the bomb, and +maybe there was a connection.</p> + +<p>I twisted my memory hard and +let it spring back and I got "Inversh +... bosh ..." Bosh, indeed! +Bosh and inverse bosh to all boozers, +Russki or otherwise.</p> + +<p>So I quick tried the memory +trick again and this time I got +"glovsh" and then I grasped and +almost sneezed on diamond dust +as I watched the pieces fit themselves +together in my mind like a +speeded-up movie reel.</p> + +<p>It all hung on that black right-hand +hussar's glove Lili had produced +for Bruce. Only she couldn't +have found it in Stores, because +we'd searched every fractional +pigeonhole later on and there +hadn't been any gloves there, not +even the left-hand mate there +would have been. Also, Bruce had +had two left-hand gloves to start +with, and we had been through the +whole Place with a fine-tooth +comb, and there had been only the +two black gloves on the floor where +Bruce had kicked them off the +bar—those two and those two only, +the left-hand glove he'd brought +from outside and the right-hand +glove Lili had produced for him.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">So</span> a left-hand glove had disappeared—the +last I'd seen of it, +Lili had been putting it on her tray—and +a right-hand glove had appeared. +Which could only add up +to one thing: Lili had turned the +left-hand glove into an identical +right. She couldn't have done it by +turning it inside out the ordinary +way, because the lining was different.</p> + +<p>But as I knew only too sickeningly +well, there was an extraordinary +way to turn things inside out, +things like human beings. You +merely had to put them on the Invertor +in Surgery and flick the +switch for full Inversion.</p> + +<p>Or you could flick it for partial +Inversion and turn something into +a perfect three-dimensional mirror +image of itself, just what a right-hand +glove is of a left. Rotation +through the fourth dimension, the +science boys call it; I've heard of +it being used in surgery on the +highly asymmetric Martians, and +even to give a socially impeccable +right hand to a man who'd lost +one, by turning an amputated right +arm into an amputated left.</p> + +<p>Ordinarily, nothing but live +things are ever Inverted in Surgery +and you wouldn't think of doing +it to an inanimate object, especially +in a Place where the Doc's +a drunk and the Surgery hasn't +been used for hundreds of sleeps.</p> + +<p>But when you've just fallen in +love, you think of wonderful crazy +things to do for people. Drunk with +love, Lili had taken Bruce's extra +left-hand glove into Surgery, partially +Inverted it, and got a right-hand +glove to give him.</p> + +<p>What Doc had been trying to +say with his "Inversh ... bosh ..." +was "Invert the box," meaning we +should put the bronze chest +through full Inversion to get at the +bomb inside to disarm it. Doc too +had got the idea from Lili's trick +with the glove. What an inside-out +tactical atomic bomb would +look like, I could not imagine and +did not particularly care to see. +I might have to, though, I realized.</p> + +<p>But the fast-motion film was still +running in my head. Later on, +Lili had decided like I had that +her lover was going to lose out +in his plea for mutiny unless she +could give him a really captive +audience—and maybe, even then, +she had been figuring on creating +the nest for Bruce's chicks and ... +all those other things we'd believed +in for a while. So she'd taken the +Major Maintainer and remembered +the glove, and not many seconds +later, she had set down on +a shelf of the Art Gallery an object +that no one would think of +questioning—except someone who +knew the Gallery by heart.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I looked</span> at the abstract sculpture +a foot from my nose, at +the clustered gray spheres the size +of golf balls. I had known that the +inside of the Maintainer was made +up of vastly tough, vastly hard +giant molecules, but I hadn't +realized they were quite <i>that</i> big.</p> + +<p>I said to myself, "Greta, this is +going to give you a major psychosis, +but you're the one who has +to do it, because no one is going +to listen to your deductions when +they're all practically living on +negative time already."</p> + +<p>I got up as quietly as if I were +getting out of a bed I shouldn't +have been in—there are some +things Entertainers are good at—and +Kaby was just saying "you go +mad in about fifty heartbeats." +Everybody on their feet was looking +at Lili. Sid seemed to have +moved, but I had no time for him +except to hope he hadn't done +anything that might attract attention +to me.</p> + +<p>I stepped out of my shoes and +walked rapidly to Surgery—there's +one good thing about this hardest +floor anywhere, it doesn't creak. +I walked through the Surgery +screen that is like a wall of opaque, +odorless cigarette smoke and I +concentrated on remembering my +snafued nurse's training, and before +I had time to panic, I had the +sculpture positioned on the gleaming +table of the Invertor.</p> + +<p>I froze for a moment when I +reached for the Inversion switch, +thinking of the other time and +trying to remember what it had +been that bothered me so much +about an inside-out brain being +bigger and not having eyes, but +then I either thumbed my nose at +my nightmare or kissed my sanity +good-by, I don't know which, and +twisted the switch all the way over, +and there was the Major Maintainer +winking blue about three +times a second as nice as you +could want it.</p> + +<p>It must have been working as +sweet and steady as ever, all the +time it was Inverted, except that, +being inside out, it had hocused +the direction finders.</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 15</h2> + +<div class="poem" style="width: 11em;"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">black legged spiders<br /></span> +<span class="i0">with red hearts of hell<br /></span> +</div><div class="rgt">—marquis</div></div> + +<h3>LORD SPIDER</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">"Jesu!"</span> I turned and Sid's face +was sticking through the +screen like a tinted bas-relief hanging +on a gray wall and I got the +impression he had peered unexpectedly +through a slit in an arras +into Queen Elizabeth's bedroom.</p> + +<p>He didn't have any time to linger +on the sensation, even if he'd +wanted to, for an elbow with a +copper band thrust through the +screen and dug his ribs and Kaby +marched Lili in by the neck. Erich, +Mark and Illy were right behind. +They caught the blue flashes and +stopped dead, staring at the long-lost. +Erich spared me one look +which seemed to say, so you did +it, not that it matters. Then he +stepped forward and picked it up +and held it solidly to his left side +in the double right-angle made by +fingers, forearm and chest, and +reached for the Introversion switch +with a look on his face as if he +were opening a fifth of whisky.</p> + +<p>The blue light died and Change +Winds hit me like a stiff drink +that had been a long, long time in +coming, like a hot trumpet note +out of nowhere.</p> + +<p>I felt the changing pasts blowing +through me, and the uncertainties +whistling past, and ice-stiff +reality softening with all its duties +and necessities, and the little memories +shredding away and dancing +off like autumn leaves, leaving +maybe not even ghosts behind, +and all the crazy moods like Mardi +Gras dancers pouring down an +evening street, and something inside +me had the nerve to say it +didn't care whether Greta Forzane's +death was riding in those +Winds because they felt so good.</p> + +<p>I could tell it was hitting the +others the same way. Even battered, +tight-lipped Lili seemed to +be saying, you're making me drink +the stuff and I hate you for it, +but I do love it. I guess we'd all +had the worry that even finding +and Extroverting the Maintainer +wouldn't put us back in touch with +the cosmos and give us those +Winds we hate and love.</p> + +<p>The thing that cut through to +us as we stood there glowing was +not the thought of the bomb, +though that would have come in a +few seconds more, but Sid's voice. +He was still standing in the screen, +except that now his face was out +the other side and we could just +see parts of his gray-doubleted +back, but, of course, his "Jesu!" +came through the screen as if it +weren't there.</p> + +<p>At first I couldn't figure out +who he could be talking to, but +I swear I never heard his voice +so courtly obsequious before, so +strong and yet so filled with awe +and an under-note of, yes, sheer +terror.</p> + +<p>"Lord, I am filled from top to +toe with confusion that you should +so honor my poor Place," he said. +"Poor say I and mine, when I +mean that I have ever busked it +faithfully for you, not dreaming +that you would ever condescend ... +yet knowing that your eye was +certes ever upon me ... though I +am but as a poor pinch of dust +adrift between the suns ... I +abase myself. Prithee, how may I +serve thee, sir? I know not e'en +how most suitably to address thee, +Lord ... King ... Emperor +Spider!"</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I felt</span> like I was getting very +small, but not a bit less visible, +worse luck, and even with the +Change Winds inside me to give +me courage, I thought this was +really too much, coming on top +of everything else; it was simply +unfair.</p> + +<p>At the same time, I realized +it was to be expected that the big +bosses would have been watching +us with their unblinking beady +black eyes ever since we had Introverted +waiting to pounce if we +should ever come out of it. I tried +to picture what was on the other +side of the screen and I didn't like +the assignment.</p> + +<p>But in spite of being petrified, +I had a hard time not giggling, +like the zany at graduation exercises, +at the way the other ones in +Surgery were taking it.</p> + +<p>I mean the Soldiers. They each +stiffened up like they had the old +ramrod inside them, and their faces +got that important look, and they +glanced at each other and the floor +without lowering their heads, as +if they were measuring the distance +between their feet and mentally +chalking alternate sets of footprints +to step into. The way Erich +and Kaby held the Major and +Minor Maintainers became formal; +the way they checked their Callers +and nodded reassuringly was positively +esoteric. Even Illy somehow +managed to look as if he were +on parade.</p> + +<p>Then from beyond the screen +came what was, under the circumstances, +the worst noise I've ever +heard, a seemingly wordless distant-sounding +howling and wailing, +with a note of menace that +made me shake, although it also +had a nasty familiarity about it I +couldn't place. Sid's voice broke +into it, loud, fast and frightened.</p> + +<p>"Your pardon, Lord, I did not +think ... certes, the gravity ... I'll +attend to it on the instant." He +whipped a hand and half a head +back through the screen, but without +looking back and snapped his +fingers, and before I could blink, +Kaby had put the Minor Maintainer +in his hand.</p> + +<p>Sid went completely out of sight +then and the howling stopped, and +I thought that if that was the way +a Lord Spider expressed his annoyance +at being subjected to incorrect +gravity, I hoped the bosses +wouldn't start any conversations +with me.</p> + +<p>Erich pursed his lips and threw +the other Soldiers a nod and the +four of them marched through the +screen as if they'd drilled a lifetime +for this moment. I had the +wild idea that Erich might give +me his arm, but he strode past me +as if I were ... an Entertainer.</p> + +<p>I hesitated a moment then, but +I had to see what was happening +outside, even if I got eaten up +for it. Besides, I had a bit of the +thought that if these formalities +went on much longer, even a Lord +Spider was going to discover just +how immune he was to confined +atomic blast.</p> + +<p>I walked through the screen with +Lili beside me.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">The</span> Soldiers had stopped a +few feet in front of it. I looked +around ahead for whatever it was +going to turn out to be, prepared +to drop a curtsy or whatever else, +bar nothing, that seemed expected +of me.</p> + +<p>I had a hard time spotting the +beast. Some of the others seemed +to be having trouble too. I saw +Doc weaving around foolishly by +the control divan, and Bruce and +Beau and Sevensee and Maud on +their feet beyond it, and I wondered +whether we were dealing +with an invisible monster; ought to +be easy enough for the bosses to +turn a simple trick like invisibility.</p> + +<p>Then I looked sharply left +where everyone else, even glassy-eyed +Doc, was coming to look, +into the Door sector, only there +wasn't any monster there or even +a Door, but just Siddy holding +the Minor Maintainer and grinning +like when he is threatening to +tickle me, only more fiendishly.</p> + +<p>"Not a move, masters," he cried, +his eyes dancing, "or I'll pin the +pack of you down, marry and +amen I will. It is my firm purpose +to see the Place blasted before +I let this instrument out of +my hands again."</p> + +<p>My first thought was, "'Sblood +but Siddy is a real actor! I don't +care if he didn't study under anyone +later than Burbage, that just +proves how good Burbage is."</p> + +<p>Sid had convinced us not only +that the real Spiders had arrived, +but earlier that the gravity in the +edge of Stores had been a lot +heavier than it actually was. He +completely fooled all those Soldiers, +including my swelled-headed +victorious little commandant, and +I kind of filed away the timing +of that business of reaching out the +hand and snapping the fingers +without looking, it was so good.</p> + +<p>"Beauregard!" Sid called. "Get +to the Major Maintainer and call +headquarters. But don't come +through Door, marry go by Refresher. +I'll not trust a single Demon +of you in this sector with me +until much more has been shown +and settled."</p> + +<p>"Siddy, you're wonderful," I said, +starting toward him. "As soon as +I got the Maintainer unsnarled +and looked around and saw your +sweet old face—"</p> + +<p>"Back, tricksy trull! Not the +breadth of one scarlet toenail +nearer me, you Queen of Sleights +and High Priestess of Deception!" +he bellowed. "You least of all do +I trust. Why you hid the Maintainer, +I know not, 'faith, but later +you'll discover the truth to me or +I'll have your gizzard."</p> + +<p>I could see there was going to +have to be a little explaining.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Doc</span>, touched off, I guess, by +Sid waving his hand at me, +threw back his head and let off +one of those shuddery Siberian +wolf-howls he does so blamed well. +Sid waved toward him sharply and +he shut up, beaming toothily, but +at least I knew who was responsible +for the Spider wail of displeasure +that Sid had either called +for or more likely got as a gift +of the gods and used in his act.</p> + +<p>Beau came circling around fast +and Erich shoved the Major Maintainer +into his hands without making +any fuss. The four Soldiers +were looking pretty glum after +losing their grand review.</p> + +<p>Beau dumped some junk off one +of the Art Gallery's sturdy taborets +and set the Major Maintainer +on it carefully but fast, and quickly +knelt in front of it and whipped +on some earphones and started to +tune. The way he did it snatched +away from me my inward glory +at my big Inversion brainwave so +fast, I might never have had it, +and there was nothing in my mind +again but the bronze bomb chest.</p> + +<p>I wondered if I should suggest +Inverting the thing, but I said to +myself, "Uh-uh, Greta, you got no +diploma to show them and there +probably isn't time to try two +things, anyway."</p> + +<p>Then Erich for once did something +I wanted him to, though I +didn't care for its effect on my +nerves, by looking at his Caller +and saying quietly, "Nine minutes +to go, if Place time and cosmic +time are synching."</p> + +<p>Beau was steady as a rock and +working adjustments so fine that +I couldn't even see his fingers +move.</p> + +<p>Then, at the other end of the +Place, Bruce took a few steps +toward us. Sevensee and Maud +followed a bit behind him. I remembered +Bruce was another of +our nuts with a private program +for blowing up the place.</p> + +<p>"Sidney," he called, and then, +when he'd got Sid's attention, "Remember, +Sidney, you and I both +came down to London from Peterhouse."</p> + +<p>I didn't get it. Then Bruce +looked toward Erich with a devil-may-care +challenge and toward +Lili as if he were asking her forgiveness +for something. I couldn't +read her expression; the bruises +were blue on her throat and her +cheek was puffy.</p> + +<p>Then Bruce once more shot +Erich that look of challenge and +he spun and grabbed Sevensee by +a wrist and stuck out a foot—even +half-horses aren't too sharp about +infighting, I guess, and the satyr +had every right to feel at least as +confused as I felt—and sent him +stumbling into Maud, and the two +of them tumbled to the floor in a +jumble of hairy legs and pearl-gray +frock. Bruce raced to the +bomb chest.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Most</span> of us yelled, "Stop him, +Sid, pin him down," or something +like that—I know I did because +I was suddenly sure that he'd +been asking Lili's pardon for blowing +the two of them up—and all +the rest of us too, the love-blinded +stinker.</p> + +<p>Sid had been watching him all +the time and now he lifted his +hand to the Minor Maintainer, but +then he didn't touch any of the +dials, just watched and waited, and +I thought, "Shaitan shave us! Does +Siddy want in on death, too? Ain't +he satisfied with all he knows about +life?"</p> + +<p>Bruce had knelt and was twisting +some things on the front of +the chest, and it was all as bright +as if he were under a bank of +Klieg lights, and I was telling myself +I wouldn't know anything +when the fireball fired, and not believing +it, and Sevensee and Maud +had got unscrambled and were +starting for Bruce, and the rest of +us were yelling at Sid, except that +Erich was just looking at Bruce +very happily, and Sid was still +not doing anything, and it was +unbearable except just then I felt +the little arteries start to burst in +my brain like a string of fire-crackers +and the old aorta pop, and +for good measure, a couple of +valves come unhinged in my ticker, +and I was thinking, "Well, now I +know what it's like to die of heart +failure and high blood pressure," +and having a last quiet smile at +having cheated the bomb, when +Bruce jumped up and back from +the chest.</p> + +<p>"That does it!" he announced +cheerily. "She's as safe as the +Bank of England."</p> + +<p>Sevensee and Maud stopped +themselves just short of knocking +him down and I said to myself, +"Hey, let's get a move on! I +thought heart attacks were fast."</p> + +<p>Before anyone else could speak, +Beau did. He had turned around +from the Major Maintainer and +pulled aside one of the earphones.</p> + +<p>"I got headquarters," he said +crisply. "They told me how to +disarm the bomb—I merely said +I thought we ought to know. What +did you do, sir?" he called to +Bruce.</p> + +<p>"There's a row of four ankhs +just below the lock. The first to +your left you give a quarter turn +to the right, the second a quarter +turn to the left, same for the +fourth, and you don't touch the +third."</p> + +<p>"That is it, sir," Beau confirmed.</p> + +<p>The long silence was too much +for me; I guess I must have the +shortest span for unspoken relief +going. I drew some nourishment +out of my restored arteries into +my brain cells and yelled, "Siddy, +I know I'm a tricksy trull and the +High Vixen of all Foxes, but what +the Hell is Peterhouse?"</p> + +<p>"The oldest college at Cambridge," +he told me rather coolly.</p> + +<hr class="chp" /> +<h2>CHAPTER 16</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Familiar with infinite universe +sheafs and open-ended postulate +systems?—the notion that everything +is possible—and I mean everything—and +everything has happened. +<i>Everything.</i>"</p> + +<div class="rgt">—Heinlein</div></div> + +<h3>THE POSSIBILITY-BINDERS</h3> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">An</span> hour later, I was nursing a +weak highball and a black eye +in the sleepy-time darkness on the +couch farthest from the piano, half +watching the highlighted party going +on around it and the bar, while +the Place waited for rendezvous +with Egypt and the Battle of +Alexandria.</p> + +<p>Sid had swept all our outstanding +problems into one big bundle +and, since his hand held the joker +of the Minor Maintainer, he had +settled them all as high-handedly +as if they'd been those of a bunch +of schoolkids.</p> + +<p>It amounted to this:</p> + +<p>We'd been Introverted when +most of the damning things had +happened, so presumably only we +knew about them, and we were +all in so deep one way or another +that we'd all have to keep quiet +to protect our delicate complexions.</p> + +<p>Well, Erich's triggering the +bomb did balance rather neatly +Bruce's incitement to mutiny, and +there was Doc's drinking, while +everybody who had declared for +the peace message had something +to hide. Mark and Kaby I felt +inclined to trust anywhere, Maud +for sure, and Erich in this particular +matter, damn him. Illy I +didn't feel at all easy about, but +I told myself there always has to +be a fly in the ointment—a darn +big one this time, and furry.</p> + +<p>Sid didn't mention his own dirty +linen, but he knew we knew he'd +flopped badly as boss of the Place +and only recouped himself by that +last-minute flimflam.</p> + +<p>Remembering Sid's trick made +me think for a moment about the +real Spiders. Just before I snuck +out of Surgery, I'd had a vivid picture +of what they must look like, +but now I couldn't get it again. +It depressed me, not being able to +remember—oh, I probably just +imagined I'd had a picture, like a +hophead on a secret-of-the-universe +kick. Me ever find out anything +about the Spiders?—except +for nervous notions like I'd had +during the recent fracas?—what a +laugh!</p> + +<p>The funniest thing (ha-ha!) was +that I had ended up the least-trusted +person. Sid wouldn't give +me time to explain how I'd deduced +what had happened to the +Maintainer, and even when Lili +spoke up and admitted hiding it, +she acted so bored I don't think +everybody believed her—although +she did spill the realistic detail +that she hadn't used partial Inversion +on the glove; she'd just turned +it inside out to make it a right and +then done a full Inversion to get +the lining back inside.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">I tried</span> to get Doc to confirm +that he'd reasoned the +thing out the same way I had, but +he said he had been blacked out +the whole time, except during the +first part of the hunt, and he didn't +remember having any bright ideas +at all. Right now, he was having +Maud explain to him twice, in detail, +everything that had happened. +I decided that it was going to take +a little more work before my reputation +as a great detective was established.</p> + +<p>I looked over the edge of the +couch and just made out in the +gloom one of Bruce's black gloves. +It must have been kicked there. +I fished it up. It was the right-hand +one. My big clue, and was I +sick of it! Got mittens, God forbid! +I slung it away and, like a +lurking octopus, Illy shot up a tentacle +from the next couch, where +I hadn't known he was resting, and +snatched the glove like it was a +morsel of underwater garbage. +These ETs can seem pretty shuddery +non-human at times.</p> + +<p>I thought of what a cold-blooded, +skin-saving louse Illy had been, +and about Sid and his easy suspicions, +and Erich and my black +eye, and how, as usual, I'd got +left alone in the end. My men!</p> + +<p>Bruce had explained about being +an A-tech. Like a lot of us, +he'd had several widely different +jobs during his first weeks in the +Change World and one of them +had been as secretary to a group of +the minor atomics boys from the +Manhattan-Project-Earth-Satellite +days. I gathered he'd also absorbed +some of his bothersome +ideas from them. I hadn't quite +decided yet what species of heroic +heel he belonged to, but he was +thick with Mark and Erich again. +Everybody's men!</p> + +<p>Sid didn't have to argue with +anybody; all the wild compulsions +and mighty resolves were dead +now, anyway until they'd had a +good long rest. I sure could use +one myself, I knew.</p> + +<p>The party at the piano was getting +wilder. Lili had been dancing +the black bottom on top of it +and now she jumped down into +Sid's and Sevensee's arms, taking +a long time about it. She'd been +drinking a lot and her little gray +dress looked about as innocent on +her as diapers would on Nell +Gwyn. She continued her dance, +distributing her marks of favor +equally between Sid, Erich and the +satyr. Beau didn't mind a bit, but +serenely pounded out "Tonight's +the Night"—which she'd practically +shouted to him not two minutes +ago.</p> + +<p>I was glad to be out of the party. +Who can compete with a highly +experienced, utterly disillusioned +seventeen-year-old really throwing +herself away for the first time?</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Something</span> touched my +hand. Illy had stretched a tentacle +into a furry wire to return +me the black glove, although he +ought to have known I didn't want +it. I pushed it away, privately calling +Illy a washed-out moronic +tarantula, and right away I felt a +little guilty. What right had I to +be critical of Illy? Would my own +character have shown to advantage +if I'd been locked in with +eleven octopoids a billion years +away? For that matter, where did +I get off being critical of anyone?</p> + +<p>Still, I was glad to be out of +the party, though I kept on watching +it. Bruce was drinking alone +at the bar. Once Sid had gone over +to him and they'd had one together +and I'd heard Bruce reciting +from Rupert Brooke those deliberately +corny lines, "For England's +the one land, I know, Where +men with Splendid Hearts may +go; and Cambridgeshire, of all +England, The Shire for Men who +Understand;" and I'd remembered +that Brooke too had died young +in World War One and my ideas +had got fuzzy. But mostly Bruce +was just calmly drinking by himself. +Every once in a while Lili +would look at him and stop dead +in her dancing and laugh.</p> + +<p>I'd figured out this Bruce-Lili-Erich +business as well as I cared +to. Lili had wanted the nest with +all her heart and nothing else +would ever satisfy her, and now +she'd go to hell her own way and +probably die of Bright's disease +for a third time in the Change +World. Bruce hadn't wanted the +nest or Lili as much as he wanted +the Change World and the chances +it gave for Soldierly cavorting and +poetic drunks; Lili's seed wasn't his +idea of healing the cosmos; maybe +he'd make a real mutiny some day, +but more likely he'd stick to bar-room +epics.</p> + +<p>His and Lili's infatuation +wouldn't die completely, no matter +how rancid it looked right now. +The real-love angle might go, but +Change would magnify the romance +angle and it might seem to +them like a big thing of a sort if +they met again.</p> + +<p>Erich had his <i>Kamerad</i>, shaped +to suit him, who'd had the guts +and cleverness to disarm the bomb +he'd had the guts to trigger. You +have to hand it to Erich for having +the nerve to put us all in a +situation where we'd have to find +the Maintainer or fry, but I don't +know anything disgusting enough +to hand to him.</p> + +<p>I had tried a while back. I had +gone up behind him and said, +"Hey, how's my wicked little commandant? +Forgotten your <i>und so +weiter</i>?" and as he turned, I clawed +my nails and slammed him across +the cheek. That's how I got the +black eye. Maud wanted to put +an electronic leech on it, but I +took the old handkerchief in ice +water. Well, at any rate Erich had +his scratches to match Bruce's, not +as deep, but four of them, and I +told myself maybe they'd get infected—I +hadn't washed my hands +since the hunt. Not that Erich +doesn't love scars.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Mark</span> was the one who helped +me up after Erich knocked +me down.</p> + +<p>"You got any omnias for that?" +I snapped at him.</p> + +<p>"For what?" Mark asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, for everything that's been +happening to us," I told him disgustedly.</p> + +<p>He seemed to actually think for +a moment and then he said, "<i>Omnia +mutantur, nihil interit.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Meaning?" I asked him.</p> + +<p>He said, "All things change, but +nothing is really lost."</p> + +<p>It would be a wonderful philosophy +to stand with against the +Change Winds. Also damn silly. +I wondered if Mark really believed +it. I wished I could. Sometimes +I come close to thinking it's +a lot of baloney trying to be any +decent kind of Demon, even a +good Entertainer. Then I tell myself, +"That's life, Greta. You've +got to love through it somehow." +But there are times when some of +these cookies are not too easy to +love.</p> + +<p>Something brushed the palm of +my hand again. It was Illy's tentacle, +with the tendrils of the tip +spread out like a little bush. I +started to pull my hand away, but +then I realized the Loon was +simply lonely. I surrendered my +hand to the patterned gossamer +pressures of feather-talk.</p> + +<div class="figr"><img src="images/006.png" width="388" height="550" alt="" title="" /></div> + +<p>Right away I got the words, +"Feeling lonely, Greta girl?"</p> + +<p>It almost floored me, I tell you. +Here I was understanding feather-talk, +which I just didn't, and I was +understanding it in English, which +didn't make sense at all.</p> + +<p>For a second, I thought Illy +must have spoken, but I knew he +hadn't, and for a couple more +seconds I thought he was working +telepathy on me, using the feather-talk +as cues. Then I tumbled to +what was happening: he was playing +English on my palm like on +the keyboard of his squeakbox, and +since I could play English on a +squeakbox myself, my mind translated +automatically.</p> + +<p>Realizing this almost gave my +mind stage fright, but I was too +fagged to be hocused by self-consciousness. +I just lay back and let +the thoughts come through. It's +good to have someone talk to you, +even an underweight octopus, and +without the squeaks Illy didn't +sound so silly; his phrasing was +soberer.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">"Feeling</span> sad, Greta girl, because +you'll never understand +what's happening to us all," +Illy asked me, "because you'll +never be anything but a shadow +fighting shadows—and trying to +love shadows in between the battles? +It's time you understood +we're not really fighting a war at +all, although it looks that way, +but going through a kind of evolution, +though not exactly the kind +Erich had in mind.</p> + +<p>"Your Terran thought has a +word for it and a theory for it—a +theory that recurs on many +worlds. It's about the four orders +of life: Plants, Animals, Men and +Demons. Plants are energy-binders—they +can't move through space +or time, but they can clutch energy +and transform it. Animals are +space-binders—they can move +through space. Man (Terran or +ET, Lunan or non-Lunan) is a +time-binder—he has memory.</p> + +<p>"Demons are the fourth order of +evolution, possibility-binders—they +can make all of what might be part +of what is, and that is their evolutionary +function. Resurrection is +like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar +into a butterfly: a third-order +being breaks out of the chrysalis +of its lifeline into fourth-order +life. The leap from the ripped cocoon +of an unchanging reality is +like the first animal's leap when +he ceases to be a plant, and the +Change World is the core of meaning +behind the many myths of immortality.</p> + +<p>"All evolution looks like a war +at first—octopoids against monopoids, +mammals against reptiles. +And it has a necessary dialectic: +there must be the thesis—we call +it Snake—and the antithesis—Spider—before +there can be the +ultimate synthesis, when all possibilities +are fully realized in one +ultimate universe. The Change +War isn't the blind destruction it +seems.</p> + +<p>"Remember that the Serpent +is your symbol of wisdom and the +Spider your sign for patience. The +two names are rightly frightening +to you, for all high existence is a +mixture of horror and delight. And +don't be surprised, Greta girl, at +the range of my words and +thoughts; in a way, I've had a billion +years to study Terra and +learn her languages and myths.</p> + +<p>"Who are the real Spiders and +Snakes, meaning who were the +first possibility-binders? Who was +Adam, Greta girl? Who was Cain? +Who were Eve and Lilith?</p> + +<p>"In binding all possibility, the +Demons also bind the mental with +the material. All fourth-order beings +live inside and outside all +minds, throughout the whole cosmos. +Even this Place is, after its +fashion, a giant brain: its floor is +the brainpan, the boundary of the +Void is the cortex of gray matter—yes, +even the Major and Minor +Maintainers are analogues of the +pineal and pituitary glands, which +in some form sustain all nervous +systems.</p> + +<p>"There's the real picture, Greta +girl."</p> + +<p>The feather-talk faded out and +Illy's tendril tips merged into a +soft pad on which I fingered, +"Thanks, Daddy Longlegs."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="cap"><span class="dcap">Chewing</span> over in my mind +what Illy had just told me, I +looked back at the gang around +the piano. The party seemed to +be breaking up; at least some of +them were chopping away at it. +Sid had gone to the control divan +and was getting set to tune in +Egypt. Mark and Kaby were there +with him, all bursting with eagerness +and the vision of ranks on +ranks of mounted Zombie bowmen +going up in a mushroom +cloud; I thought of what Illy had +told me and I managed a smile—seems +we've got to win and lose +all the battles, every which way.</p> + +<p>Mark had just put on his Parthian +costume, groaning cheerfully, +"Trousers again!" and was striding +around under a hat like a fur-lined +ice-cream cone and with the +sleeves of his metal-stuffed candys +flapping over his hands. He waved +a short sword with a heart-shaped +guard at Bruce and Erich and +told them to get a move on.</p> + +<p>Kaby was going along on the +operation wearing the old-woman +disguise intended for Benson-Carter. +I got a half-hearted kick out +of knowing she was going to have +to cover that chest and hobble.</p> + +<p>Bruce and Erich weren't taking +orders from Mark just yet. Erich +went over and said something to +Bruce at the bar, and Bruce got +down and went over with Erich to +the piano, and Erich tapped Beau +on the shoulder and leaned over +and said something to him, and +Beau nodded and yanked "Limehouse +Blues" to a fast close and +started another piece, something +slow and nostalgic.</p> + +<p>Erich and Bruce waved to Mark +and smiled, as if to show him that +whether he came over and stood +with them or not, the legate and +the lieutenant and the commandant +were very much together. +And while Sevensee hugged Lili +with a simple enthusiasm that +made me wonder why I've wasted +so much imagination on genetic +treatments for him, Erich and +Bruce sang:</p> + +<div class="poem" style="width: 33em;"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>To our brothers in the tunnels outside time,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Sing three Change-resistant Zombies, raised from death and robot-crammed,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And Commandos of the Spiders—</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Here's to crime!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>We're three blind mice on the wrong time-track,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Hush—hush—hush!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>We've lost our now and will never get back,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Hush—hush—hush!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Change Commandos out on the spree,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Damned through all possibility,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Ghostgirls, think kindly on such as we,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i4"><i>Hush—hush—hush!</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>While they were singing, I +looked down at my charcoal skirt +and over at Maud and Lili and I +thought, "Three gray hustlers for +three black hussars, that's our +speed." Well, I'd never thought of +myself as a high-speed job, winning +all the races—I wouldn't feel comfortable +that way. Come to think +of it, we've got to lose and win +all the races in the long run, the +way the course is laid out.</p> + +<p>I fingered to Illy, "That's the +picture, all right, Spider boy."</p> + +<div class="rgt"><b>—FRITZ LEIBER</b></div> + +<div class="trn"><div class="figtl"><a href="images/007-2.jpg"><img src="images/007-1.jpg" width="149" height="200" alt="" title="" /></a></div> +<div class="figtr"><a href="images/008-2.jpg"><img src="images/008-1.jpg" width="146" height="200" alt="" title="" /></a></div> + +<p class="center"><big><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></big></p> + +<p>This etext was produced from <i>Galaxy Science Fiction</i> March and April 1958. +Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. +copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and +typographical errors have been corrected without note.</p></div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Big Time, by Fritz Reuter Leiber + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BIG TIME *** + +***** This file should be named 32256-h.htm or 32256-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/2/5/32256/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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