"You really would live longer if you'd give up the cigarettes."

"Tempter, get thee below," Stevenson croaked.

"Funny you should say that, you know, because that is where I'm based. In a geographical sense only, of course, 'down' and 'south' being sort of the same. Little suburb just outside of Los Angeles. We produce our photo-plays down there. It's not a great town for writers, Louis. I know you like to travel and everything, but you'd want to leave this one off your world itinerary. Believe me, it's not a place for a man with your scruples to work. The climate's good, though, and they really like your stuff, so it might have suited you. Who knows?"

"I'll die first." Stevenson closed his eyes. The other man nodded somberly and walked away into the night.

In entirely another time and place, there was a whirl and scatter of brown beech leaves and the trunk was there, spinning unsteadily to a halt; and as there had been no witness to observe its previous arrival, there was no witness now to notice that it was spinning in the opposite direction. It slowed and stopped, and the winter silence of an English forest settled over it. When the lid popped, the trunk fell over, and the man in the brown suit had to push the lid aside as he crawled out on hands and knees through a small cloud of yellow smoke.

He crouched on the forest floor a moment or two, panting out stasis gas. As he got to his feet and brushed off his clothes he heard the approaching rattle of an automobile. He looked at his (for lack of a better word) watch.

It was December 3, 1926.

At that precise moment there was a mechanical squeal followed by crashing sounds and a thud, coming from beyond a nearby grove of trees.

He grinned and gave a little stamp of his foot, in appreciation of perfect timing. Then he turned and ran in the direction of the accident.

The automobile was not seriously damaged, although steam was hissing from the radiator cap under the hood ornament. The bug-eyed headlights stared as if in shock. So did the woman seated behind the wheel. Her cloche hat had flown off her head and lay outside the car. He picked it up and presented it to her with a bow. She turned her pale unhappy face to look at him, but said nothing.

"Here's your hat, Mrs. Christie. Say, you're lucky I came along when I did. I think you've had a bump on the head. That sort of injury can cause amnesia, you know."

She did not respond.

"Don't worry, though. Everything's going to turn out all right. Allow me to introduce myself, Ma'am. I represent the Chronos Photo-Play Company. You know, I'm quite a fan of your mystery novels. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, that was a real peach. You ought to do more with that Hercule Poirot guy." She just looked at him sadly.

"Tell you what." He leaned his elbow on the door and looked deep into her eyes. "You look like a lady who could use a vacation. Maybe at a nice anonymous seaside resort. What do you say we go off and have a nice private talk together over a couple of cocktails, huh?" After a long moment of consideration she smiled.

"I don't believe I caught your name," she said.

This story is a tribute to the Dunites qf Moy Mell, a community of poets, scholars, artists, Utopians and visionaries. They used to reside in the high dunes behind the ruins of La Grande, in shacks made of driftwood and wreck salvage. They lived by poaching clams and stealing vegetables from the local farms; they brewed mead from stolen honey. At night, around driftwood fires, they argued the nature of Hindu goddesses or told stories of Finn MacCool, or charted their fortunes in the stars.

Every so often winter gales will move a dune and some trace of them will surface for an hour: the rusted-out skeleton of a Model T, a mound of sand-scoured bottles lavender and green, an old boot, a midden of white shells and rusted tin cans.

Lemuria Will Rise!

Somewhere god has a celestial polaroid of me, standing in the Dunes with a painted clamshell in one hand and a sprig of Oenothera hookeri ssp. sclatera in the other, staring heavenward with a look of stupefied amazement. When He needs a mood lightener, He takes a look at that picture and laughs like hell. It was 1860 and the Company had sent me to Pismo Beach. The place was not yet the vacation destination of Warner Brothers toons; the little town of cottages and motels wouldn't exist for another generation or two; but it did feature all the clams one could eat, and all the sand too. I wasn't there for the clams, though.

If you stand on the beach at Pismo and look south, you can see twenty-odd miles of shore stretching away to Point Sal, endless lines of breakers foreshortened into little white scallops on blue water. The waves roll in on a wide pale beach toward a green line of cypress forest, rising on low sandhills to your left. Beyond them, and further south, rise the Dunes.

You never saw anything so pure of line and color in your life, though the lines shift constantly and the color is an indefinable shade between ivory and pink, or possibly gold. Even on a gray day they glow with their own light, pulsing as cloud shadows flow across them.

Beautiful, though I couldn't see how anything could be growing out there; and yet this was where I was supposed to find a rare variant of evening primrose.

Everywhere else in California, Oenothera hookeri is a lemon-yellow flower. In 1859, however, a salmon-pink subspecies was reported,growing only in a certain place in these very Dunes, and a single sample collected and preserved. Now, Evening Primrose Oil from the yellow flower has a number of recognized medical uses, such as being the only substance known to help sufferers of Laurent's Syndrome, that terrible crippler of the twenty-first century. Thanks to a unique and.complex protein, it helps retard the decay of those oh-so-important genitourinary nerve sheaths afflicted by Laurent's. Analysis of the only surviving sample of the pink variety showed it to have had an even more unique and complex protein, which would probably stop the decay of the nerve sheaths entirely, bringing bliss and continence to those suffering from the Syndrome.

Unfortunately for them, it will be extinct by their time, long since destroyed by the ravages of the off-road vehicles of the twentieth century. Interestingly enough, Laurent's Syndrome and its attendant neuro-vascular damage occurs most frequently in people who spend a lot of time with their reproductive organs suspended over internal combustion engines—such as the ones that power dune bikes. Mother Nature giving a rousing one-fingered salute to off-road enthusiasts, I suppose. Not my job to judge—I was only there to gather samples, test them for the suspected properties, and (if they tested positive) secure live plants for the greenhouses of my Company, Dr. Zeus Inc. Dr. Zeus operates out of the twenty-fourth century and makes a pretty penny, let me tell you, out of miracle medical cures obtained by time travel.

So I shouldered my pack, settled my hat more firmly on my head and set off down the beach, keeping to the hard-packed sand and splashing through the surf occasionally. There were clams just below the surface of the sand, massed thick as cobblestones. They were big, too, and beautifully danger-free: no sewers yet dumping E. coli, no cracked pipes leaking petroleum surfactant, no nuclear power plants cooking the seawater. In fact there weren't even any railroads through here, this early, and precious few people.

My spirits rose as I strode on, past future real estate fantasies with quaint Yankee names like Grover City, Oceano, La Grande: mile after mile of perfect beach and not a mortal soul in sight. I'd build a driftwood fire, that was what I'd do, and have a private clambake. I had a flask of tequila in my pack, too. Why couldn't all my jobs be like this? No tiresome mortals to negotiate with, no dismal muddy cities, no noise, no trouble.

I turned inland at the designated coordinates and walked back into the Dunes. Squinting against the golden glow, I almost reached for my green spectacles; then paused, grinning to myself. Nobody here to see, was there? No mortals to be terrified by my appearance if I simply let thepolarized lenses on my eyes darken. Whistling, I trudged onward, a cyborg with a sun hat and camping gear. I found, as I moved farther in, that this was no desert at all. There were islands in this maze of glowing sand, cool green coves of willow and beach myrtle and wild blackberry. There were a few little freshwater lakes sparkling, green reeds waving, ducks paddling around; there were abundant wildflowers too, especially rangy stands of yellow evening primrose. Somewhere hereabouts must be my quarry. Climbing to the top of a dune I spotted it, on visual alone, a mere thirty meters south-southwest: a thicket of willow on three sides around a lawn of coarse dune grass, and all along the edge the tall woody stems bearing trumpet flowers of flaming pink! Could my work get any easier? I was actually singing as I plowed on down the side of the dune, an old, old song from a long way away. So I made a little paradise of a base camp on the lawn, with a tent for my field lab and a sleeping bivvy, and set a specimen straight into solution for analysis. But even as I bustled happily about, I was becoming aware of Something that pulled at one of my lower levels of perception. You wouldn't have heard the subsonic tone, or noticed the faint flash of a color best described as blue; you might just possibly have felt the faint tingling sensation, but only if you were a very unusual mortal indeed. Reluctantly I crawled out of the lab and stood, turning my head from side to side, scanning. Anomaly, five kilometers due north, electromagnetic. And... Crome's Radiation. And... a mortal human being. So much for my splendid isolation. How very tedious; now I'd have to investigate the damned thing. Sighing, I pulled out my green glasses and put them on. I slogged up one dune and down another, following the signals through a landscape where one expected Rudolph Valentino to ride into view at any moment, burnoose flapping. God knows he would have looked commonplace enough, compared with what met my eyes when I got to the top of the last high dune, staggering slightly. In the valley below me was another green cove, with its own dense willow thicket and its own green lawn. But rising from the thicket on four cottonwood poles was a thing like a big beehive or an Irish monk's cell, woven of peeled willow wands. On its domed top it wore a sort of cap of tight-braided eelgrass; a mat of the same flapped before a hole near its base. A path had been worn across the lawn, neatly outlined with clam shells arranged in a pattern. Real beehives were ranged in a tidy row there, woven skeps like miniatures of the house. All along the perimeter of the lawn, and poking up here and there out of the willows, were fantastical figures carved of driftwood, elaborately decorated withmussel shells and feathers. I saw Celtic crosses and sun wheels, I saw leaping horses, 1 saw stiff and stylized warriors with shields, I saw grass-skirted women of remarkable attributes. Strange, but not so strange as the mottoes and exhortations spelled out in clam shells on the face of every surrounding dune. The nearest one said GOD IS LOVE. DO NO HARM, REMEMBER, NOT

ALONE, COME TOGETHER, and LEMURIA HERE shouted from dunes in the nearer distance. Farther off still rose the white-shell domes of prehistoricmiddens.

Staring down, I collapsed into a sitting position on the sand. Borne faintly up on the wind and the blue streaming spirals of Crome's Radiation were the plaintive scrapings of a fiddle. Well, what do you know? A holy hermit, apparently; judging from the Crome Effect, one of those poor mortals who would one day be classed as "psychic." The radiation from this one was so intense his abilities had probably driven him crazy, so he must have fled human society and somehow wound up here in the Dunes. Mystery explained. I allowed myself a smile.

The electromagnetic anomaly was still unaccounted for, however... I scowled and turned my head, scanning. Now it seemed unclear, diffuse, farther away. Now it faded out. Strange. The fiddle music stopped. The Crome waves intensified a moment, and then the beehive shook slightly as the center mat was pushed aside. A snow-white beard flowed out, followed by the wrinkled and bespectacled face to which it was attached. The hermit turned to look straight at me, though I had been sitting perfectly motionless out of his line ofsight.

"Did yez wish a word with me, then?" asked the hermit.

I blinked. Foolish to be surprised, though, with all the other weird-ness here. "I was only admiring your, uh, art," I replied. "It wasn't my intention to disturb you." We regarded each other for a moment. He wrinkled his brow.

"Have They sent yez to console me fleshly lusts?" he inquired.

Gosh, how sweet. "No," I answered.

"Dat's good, then." He relaxed. "They're always parading them foreign beauties before my eyes and that last one was more than a man of my years can do justice to, to tell yez the truth of it. Yez'll excuse me amoment, pray."

He vanished back into the beehive, and it shook and creaked with his rustling around in there. I wondered if I should disappear and decided against doing so; he might go looking for me, and I'd just as soon he didn't find my camp. Besides, I was curious. What was a Celticanchorite doing in California, let alone in the vicinity of Pismo Beach?

So I waited, and after a moment he emerged from the beehive and dropped into the willows below, and came across his lawn toward me. I got up and descended the side of the dune to meet him, scanning him as I went. When we got within four meters of one another we both stopped abruptly. He was scanning me, albeit in a very unfocussed and inefficient way.

I don't know what he perceived, but I saw a tiny elderly mortal whose body glowed and flashed with a surrounding halo of blue radiation. He wore a sealskin loincloth and a kind of tabard of woven eel-grass to which had been sewn thousands of seagull feathers, tiny white ones. His ancient spectacles were tied on with string. Apart from advanced age he was in excellent health, without so much as an infected tooth. He peered at me suspiciously, cocking his head.

"Yez ain't from Them," he stated.

"No," I admitted. "Who are They?"

"Why, the Ascended Masters," he answered, as though I were crazy to ask. "Them fellows up on Mount Shasta, ye know. The Inheritors of Lemuria."

Okay. "No, I haven't heard of them, Sehor, I'm only from Monterey," I replied cautiously. "My name is Dolores Conception Mendoza, and I have come here on holiday to sketch wildflowers."

"O, I don't know about that." He looked me up and down. "Yez got a look about yez of the Deathless Ones."

Whoops. So much for keeping a cover identity around a psychic. I thought fast, which is to say I accessed Smith's History of Mystical Esoteric Cults, Volumes 1-10; blinked, smiled, and said: "The White Fraternity does not reveal itself to all men. You are to be commended on your sharp sight, Brother. But I have come here, as I said, for the wild flowers that grow here in these Dunes, to collect them for their rare properties. Look into my heart and you will see that I speak the truth." He scanned me a moment and nodded. "So, dat's all right. Yez ain't of any Order I ever seen though. What Discipline do yez follow?"

"The Mystical Sisterhood of Orion," I improvised. "We, uh, live in caves in the Pyrenees and observe absolute chastity. We also preserve the healing arts of the exiled Moors. A traveler brought us word of the rare flowers here, and I have been sent to collect them for our studies."

"Well!" The anchorite's thin chest swelled with pride. "Yez couldn't have come to a more salubrious place for medicines. These Dunes is the best place for the corporeal body yez ever saw. How long d'yez think I've lived here, without ever a day of sickness or care? Forty years, I tellyez, forty years since the Lima run aground out there and I come ashore. And in all that time, not one pain nor pang. It's the superior vibrations, ye know."

"I don't doubt it," I affirmed solemnly.

"The most powerful vibrations in the world, right here in these Dunes, and I have that straight from the Ascended Masters Themselves. Why, They come here all the time to enjoy the beneficial vibrational effects." He nodded with certainty.

"Really?" I wondered when he was going to ask if I had a piece of cheese about me. "They come here often, do They?"

"Indeed They do. I'll introduce yez, maybe."

"That would be charming, though I'm sure They're quite busy. Still, I hope you'll give Them my best regards." I made to withdraw. "And now, Senor, I must set about my appointed task. Good day." Poor oldlunatic.

He bid me an effusive farewell and I climbed away across the sand, giggling to myself. Well, this was one for the cultural anthropologists: a classic California crackpot, years and years before the breed was supposed to be common here. Worth an amusing sidebar on my official report, perhaps. I put him out of my mind and went back to my field lab, where I had a good afternoon's work undisturbed by weird lights or electromagnetic pulses. Not that there weren't plenty of both, but now that I knew their origin I could afford to ignore them, couldn't I? And ignore them I did, though blue lightning came down and danced at the water's edge as I dug clams for my supper, and blue aurorae shimmered over my driftwood fire as I sipped tequila. When the level in the flask grew low enough I took to singing old Gypsy songs at them. I thought I sounded like a wounded coyote, but the blue lights seemed to like it. They followed me back to my bivvy and flitted off politely when I crawled in to sleep.

"I thought I'd bring yez a few clams for breakfast, there," sounded a voice close to my ear, as a net bag clattered down before my face. I managed to avoid erupting through the roof of my bivvy and scrambled out on knees and elbows instead. The hermit was inspecting my field lab with great interest.

"Ain't dat fascinatin', now?" He held a glass slide up to the light and peered through it. "The Sisterhood's got all the latest appurtenances, I

can see dat."

"Yes." I got hastily to my feet. "And thank you so very much for the clams, Sehor, how gracious of you. May I offer you a cup of coffee?" Notmuch danger in a security breach where a looney was involved, but he might break something.

"Coffee." With a wistful smile he handed me back my slide. "My, I ain't had coffee since the Lima.

'Course it's bad for yez, ye know, or so They tell me. All them alkaloids." How'd he know that? Maybe he'd been a chemist before he'd gone to sea. "Er—we of the Sisterhood can neutralize all toxins before they harm our, uh, atomic structures," I told him. Well, it wasn't exactly a lie.

He looked impressed. "Dat's a fine trick, to be sure. The Ascended Masters can do that one, but I can't, ye know, not till I've made me transition to the next astral plane. Got any tea?" With a growing sense of unreality I set up my camp stove and prepared his tea and my badly needed coffee. He watched alertly, commenting with little enthusiastic cries and noddings of his head on all the advanced technological marvels I employed.

Having received his tea, the hermit leaned back comfortably into a hill of sand and regarded me over the steaming cup.

"Now I wonder," he said, "whether the Sisterhood is up on interpreting the ancient prophecies, too?"

"No, actually, Senor." I sipped coffee very carefully. I have some circuitry close to my eustachian tubes that registers intense pain if exposed to too-hot liquids. "We concentrate on the healing arts."

"The reason I was asking being," he continued, as though I hadn't spoken, "dat I need to get a fix on how much time I've got before Lemuria rises again."

Lemuria? I did a fast access. "Ah. You mean the legendary drowned continent, the Atlantis of the Pacific," I said.

"Older than Atlantis," he said firmly. "Them Atlanteans was no more than colonists of Lemuria, if yez want the truth of it. It was the cook on board the Northerly Isles first told me about Lemuria; he was a man with an education, ye know, before them unfortunate circumstances what sent him to sea. I'm telling you, the Lemurians had it over Atlantis in every way. Their high priests knew more arcane lore, their temples and palaces was bigger, and they sunk first."

"Really."

"They did. And see, the Atlanteans (who had got degenerate to start with, which was why they sunk) spread out all over everywhere and forgot their ancient wisdom, but not the Lemurians. They founded a fine city up on Mount Shasta, and from there They've kept Their gold and silver vessels together and Their ancient libraries and all." "You don't say." "I do. And I wager the reason They've been so careful to keep toThemselves is," he leaned forward for emphasis, "dat They know Lemuria's going to rise again, any day now, and They want to be able to move back in without the place getting crowded. Just a select company, ye know. They ain't said it in so many words—They're shy that way—but I can tell, all right."

"Mm-hm." I tasted my coffee. "And you need to know exactly when Lemuria will rise? Why don't you ask Them, Senor?"

"O, I have." He wrootched uneasily in the sand, causing little avalanches around himself. "But They don't care to talk about Lemuria much, which is a prudent thing to do, right enough, I can see dat; but, see, I've got this school to found, and if 1 know the vast submerged peaks ain't going to lift clear of the waves for another year or so, why then I've got time to get everything ready. On the other hand, if it's the day after tomorrow-like dat the ancient palaces is rising into view again, I'm in a sad fix."

"You're founding a school?" Who did he think was going to attend, clams? "What kind of school, Senor?"

"The School of Lemurian Knowledge." He put his finger to the side of his nose. "Now, it was foretold in me natal horoscope dat I was to found a great institution of learning. And, me being wrecked here, yez wouldn't think dat would come to pass, would yez, now? But Destiny's a mighty thing. It was here I met Them, and They saw at once I was spiritually evolved enough to keep company with the likes of Them. Mind you, it was a while before They'd admit to being the Ascended Masters—made on at first like what They didn't understand me—but at last They saw I was clever enough to have found out Their game. They put me through a lot of tests to see if I'm worthy, and They has prepared me ever since to be one of the elect what'll get to live in Lemuria once it's up again. Why, They've had me to visit up there, ye know, I've walked in Their golden tunnels on Mount Shasta!

"But, after all, I pity me fellow creatures dat'll have to stay here and ain't had the benefit of Their company. So what I been doing is, I been copying down all I seen when I visits Them on sacred tablets, which is to form the library of me school. As soon as I've got all the collected wisdom down, pupils will flock to the Dunes from all over the world. So, see, even if I ascend to Lemuria, or row out to it or something, I can still pass on Their knowledge to mankind."

"So you see yourself as a sort of Promethean benefactor, then," I said straight-faced, taking a cautious drink from my cup. He drank too and then looked up as the classical allusion sank in.

"Mind yez, I ain't stealing any sacred fire from Heaven!" he protested. "They're good fellows, Them Ascended Masters, and I'm sureThey wouldn't mind about me copying things I've seen on sacred tablets, if I'd got around to mentioning 'em to Them. But I've been so busy, what with Them always testing me worthiness and all... "

"No, no, of course." I looked around at the shifting sand. "But, tell me, what do you do for your tablets? There is no stone here."

"Clam shells," he told me. "I paint on the insides, see." I looked at the net bag, lying where he'd dropped it. I wasn't quite up to breakfast yet. "Can you get a lot of sacred wisdom in a clamshell?"

"Yez can if yez paint small; but then dat's another way these Dunes has it over other places, for there's much bigger clams here. If I had to use them little rubbishy eastern clams I'd have no end of labor." He shook his head.

"Good point." There was sand in the bottom of my cup. I tilted it and dumped the last few drops out.

"Well, Senor—I wish I could be of some assistance to you in your generous efforts to spread enlightenment. Though I must say most arcane texts I've read hold the opinion that Lemuria won't rise before the end of this century, so I think you have plenty of time."

"Do yez tell me so?" He knit his white brows uncertainly. "All the omens I been seeing predict a great change dat's coming."

Well, there was the Civil War of the Yankees about to kick off, not that he'd be likely to hear much about it out here. I looked thoughtful and said, "I too have heard of a great disturbance in the affairs of men soon, but most prophets agree it will not last long. Surely, then, they don't mean the rise of Lemuria?"

"0, no, I suppose not," he agreed, draining his teacup. "For when Lemuria escapes Ocean's mighty bosom, its next great cycle will last seventeen million years, ye know." It took nearly that long to get him to leave, with gentle hints and tactful shoves; but at last he vanished over the top of a dune, waving cheerfully, and I was able to relax in blessed silence. And without mortal distractions I got so much work done that day, hangover notwithstanding, that by nightfall I was able to transmit preliminary results on my field credenza to the relay station on the nearby mesa. Things were looking good for Laurent's sufferers everywhere. With the cellular map and the holoes I included the following smirky communication:

SPECIAL NOTE: AUTHENTIC HOLY MAN LIVING IN DUNE REGION! ELDERLY MALE

CAUCASIAN EUROPEAN ORIGIN, SPONTANEOUS CROME GENERATOR ESTIMATE

FORCE 10. CLAIMS TO HAVE BEEN CONTACTED BY ANCIENT LEMURIAN MASTERS AND

IS CONFIDENTLY WAITING FOR SUBMERGED CONTINENT TO RISE. IS COMPILING

LIBRARY OF TEACHINGS OF ASCENDED MASTERS! GREAT SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY TO

OPEN HERE ANY DAY NOW!

I signed off, crawled out of the tent and stood stretching, looking up at the stars. All the black heaven sparkled and shone, and the Milky Way streamed out to sea like smoke from a ship's funnel. Too nice a night to waste on sleep. I strolled off across the sand, following the sound of the night ocean. Cresting the top of a dune unmarked by any print, I looked down on the white circle of a shell midden. It gleamed under the starlight, perfect in its circumference. How many generations of Chumash had picnicked here, before the Europeans came? The thing must be fifteen meters across.

"But it wasn't the Indians put it there, ye know," observed a voice at my elbow.

I screamed, leaped into thin air and reappeared on the other side of the midden. Heart pounding, I stared across at the hermit, who was standing where I had been a second before. He waved pleasantly, apparently quite unsurprised by my teleportation.

"It was Them," he called to me.

"What?" I gasped. What was wrong with my approach warning sensors? I ran a hasty self-diagnostic.

"They put it there, as a marker for when They come sailing down from Mount Shasta to visit. Helps

'em navigate in," he explained. He strode down the dune across the sand to me, sturdy knees and elbows pumping. I watched him in disbelief.

"Out for a breath of fresh air, are yez?" he inquired. "I come out meself, on fine nights. These Dunes is also the best place to watch the celestial movements, ye know."

"No city lights to dim the stars," I found myself remarking.

"There are not," he agreed, looking heavenward. A green iiredrake crackled down the southern horizon. "Almost a pity that Lemuria's coming up so close by. They had towers in Their grand cities for the spreading of light focused through jewels. All them emeralds and rubies and sapphires winkin' away must have been a rare sight, and lit up the streets a deal better than lanterns, wouldn't ye think? But very bright."

"I suppose it would have been. Look, you don't think Lemuria's going to rise with the buildings all intact and everything in working order, do you? I mean, how long has it been at the bottom of the sea, for heaven's sake?" I cried in exasperation.

"Twelve million years," he informed me imperturbably.

"Well, there, how could there even be any ruins left after all this time?" I drew a deep breath, attempting to get a grip. The electromagnetic weirdness must be affecting me somehow. "It'll just be one big muddy unimproved... landmass."

"So was San Francisco," he pointed out. "Nothing to speak of when the Lima put in there, and look what the Americans has built there now. I hear it's fit to rival Paris or London, though of course it's nothing so grand as what They'll build once They've got Their own back. Think of all them water frontage lots! And building's no trouble at all for Them, ye know, because They've got the secret of countermanding the forces of gravity."

"They have?"

"They have that. They've got a device uses cosmic rays to move great blocks of stone. Just floats 'em in as though they weighed nothing at all. I daresay Their builders taught the Egyptians everything they knew. Why, the pyramids ain't nothing to what you'll see being put up once Lemuria rises." He nodded in the direction of the sea as though he could glimpse it there already. My eyes followed his gaze involuntarily. I shook my head, as if to clear away the fog of mystical nonsense surrounding me.

"What a fascinating thought," I said, summoning every ounce of courtesy. "I have no doubt I shall dream about Lemuria's jewel-studded towers as I sleep. To which end, Senor, I must wish you good evening."

"And a fine good evening to yez as well. I think I'll just wait around and see if They drop by tonight. Yez'll be welcome to stay to meet Them, ye know." He raised his eyebrows alluringly.

"Thank you, Senor, but I am weary and fear I would not be at my social best. Give Them my regards, though, won't you?" I requested, and made my escape under the grinning stars. When I returned to my camp there was a faint blue light blinking in my field lab. I actually grabbed up my frying pan and started for it, blood in my eye; but it was only the credenza indicator light, telling me that a transmission had come in while I was out.

I leaned down to peer at the tiny glowing screen.

PRIORITY DIRECTIVE GREEN 07011860 2300 RE: CROME GENERATOR. INVESTIGATE

FURTHER. OBTAIN DNA SAMPLE AND FORWARD TO RELAY STATION.

There was some ugly language used in the field lab, and a frying pan sailed out under the stars as though propelled by cosmic anti-gravity rays.

So, how do you get a DNA sample from a psychic?

A real two-fisted operative would move in silently, plant some expensive neuroneutralizing device (which field botanists are never given enough budget for, by the way) and get a pint of blood and maybe a finger or two from the unconscious subject.

I opted to sneak into the hermit's house while he wasn't there and collect shed hair and skin cells, but even that presented its own problems. When did he leave his wicker beehive? For how long? Did he ever go far enough away for all his blue lights to follow him and leave me the hell alone? If he did, and they did, maybe he'd be unable to perceive my rifling his belongings.

Dawn of the next day found me crouching in a willow thicket one kilometer south of the hermit's cove, scanning intently. He was home, I could tell, awake already and moving around within a tiny zone of activity; must be still within the beehive. Abruptly his signal dropped in location and its zone widened: he'd climbed out and was moving around on his lawn. Then his signal moved away due west, receding and receding. He must be going down to dig clams. That should take him a while. 1 emerged from my thicket and ran like a rabbit over the dunes. In no time I went tumbling down the sandwall into his cove and sprinted across his lawn. Well, he wouldn't need any sixth sense to know I'd been here; I could always tell him I'd just stopped by to borrow a cup of sugar or something. No blue radiation at the moment, at least.

I pushed my way into the willows about the base of his beehive and looked around. He'd cleared a space under the bushes around the four supporting poles. It was cool and shady in there, and clearly he used it as additional living room. Over to one side was a shallow well and the banked embers of a cooking fire; over to the other side must be his library, to judge from the baskets and baskets of clamshells. There must have been hundreds of them, each one painted with knotted and interlacing patterns of dizzying Celtic complexity. Some had text, beautiful tiny lettering massed between spirals and vine leaves, but many appeared to be abstract images. There was something vaguely familiar about them, but I couldn't spare the time to look further. I scrambled up his ladder and crawled into the beehive.

Right at the doorway was his scriptorium: a chunk of redwood log two feet across, adzed flat for a work surface, with clamshells holding various inks and paints. I supposed he made them from berry juice and powdered earths. A grooved tray held little brushes made from reed cane and hair; an old graniteware cup held water. The present tome in progress was balanced on a ring of woven grass. I didn't look at it particularly closely, or at the fiddle hanging on thewall. I made straight for the rumpled mass of sealskins that formed the old man's bed.

I swept a few long white hairs into my collector and groped around with a scraper for skin cells. Oh, great, the ancient hide was coming off too. Now the Company would think he had seal DNA. It would have to do. Tucking the samples away, I turned to exit on my hands and knees. My gaze fell on the half-painted clamshell.

The pattern was drawn in a faint silver line, done with a knife point or an old nail maybe, and blocked in carefully in ocher and olive green. Ribbons and dots? No. A twisting ladder? No... a DNA spiral. A DNA spiral.

I stared at it fixedly for a long moment and then jumped down the ladder into the area below, where I grabbed up a clamshell from the nearest basket.

On its inner surface was an accurate depiction of the solar system, including Pluto and all the moons of Jupiter. And here was another one showing the coastline of Antarctica, and I couldn't identify this one but it certainly looked like circuitry designs. And what were these? Lenticular cumuli? Where had he seen all this?

He hadn't gotten it from any bloody Lemurians, that much I was sure of. In this time period, surely only one of us could have painted these pictures, unless there was a serious security breach somewhere. I'd have to inform the Company.

I reflected on the possibilities as I sped back to my camp. He'd seen my field lab, of course, but I'd only been here a couple of days! He was a psychic, and a powerful one. Had he somehow been picking up transmissions from the station on the mesa nearby? If they'd been careless with their shielding, he might. Anyway it couldn't be my fault.

I rushed right into the tent and sent a breathless communication outlining what I'd found. As the last green letter flitted away into the ether, I sat back and frowned. Having been put into words, the story sounded even crazier than it was. The crew at the relay station might think I had a screw missing. Maybe I should go back and take some holoes of the clamshells to back up my story. There was still the DNA sample to send, too.

But even as I was preparing it for transmission, the credenza beeped and another message came in. I leaned over to peer at it.

PRIORITY DIRECTIVE GREEN 070218601100 RE: CROME GENERATOR. OBTAIN

LIBRARY.

My jaw dropped. Hesitantly I transmitted: CLARIFY? SPECIFY? HOWMANY?

ENTIRE LIBRARY. OBTAIN. PRIORITY.

A long moment later I transmitted: ACKNOWLEDGED.

Well, this was just great. What was I supposed to do now? Carry basket after basket of clamshells up to the relay station on the mesa?

Yes, that was exactly what I was supposed to do, and that was the easy part. How was I to obtain the old man's library in the first place? I'd like to see anybody just sort of slip four hundred pounds of clamshells into her pocket without being noticed, and I was dealing with a psychic at that. I crawled out of the tent and stood, gloomily staring at the thickets of Oenothera, It wasn't as though I didn't have work of my own to do, after all. Look at all these endangered plants. And such specimens of Lupinus chamissonis, Fragaria chiloensis, Calystegia soldanella! Why couldn't the Company send a Security operative to deal with this? I reached out and broke off a sprig of primrose, examining closely the pattern of viral striping in a deeper pink than the salmon color of the petals... The petals turned blue. Everything turned blue: my hand, my sleeve, the dune before me. I raised a startled face just in time to see a dark-blue blur cross the sky above me, as the electromagnetic anomaly pulsed and roared like a monster leaping out of the sand at my feet. I tried to yell, but couldn't remember how, and I fell down a tiny blue tunnel where there was nothing to see but a line of tiny letters and punctuation marks, tangling themselves together in a vain attempt to produce something other than gibberish.

After a long while they did manage to spell out a word, however, and it blinked on and off steadily: RESET. Oh. I knew what that meant. I was supposed to do something now, wasn't I? I breathed, blinked and tried to look around but found I could only move my eyes.

I lay where I had toppled backward, frozen in my last conscious attitude, arm still out, hand still clutching a sprig of Oenothera. A little sand had drifted into my open mouth. It was quiet and peaceful here now, and no longer blue; but the air stung with ozone and some sort of electromagnetic commotion was going on to the north of me.

To hell with it. I closed my eyes, but to my dismay saw red letters flashing behind my eyelids. PRIORITY! OBTAIN LIBRARY! My body jerked as some fried circuit repaired itself and my legs flexed, attempting to pull me up into a standing position. After several tries, during which the rigid upper half of my body jolted to and fro and got me another faceful of sand, my legs righted themselves and set off northward, staggering through the dunes. The rest of me rode along above them like an unwilling maharani atop a drunken elephant. At least some of the sand spilled out of my mouth. As I lurched nearer I could feel the anomaly throbbing away up ahead, and a fan of blue rays spread themselves like a peacock's tail above the hermit's cove. Every instinct I had left was screaming at me to get out of there, but my lower torso blundered along like a goddamn Frankenstein's monster, stumbling occasionally and pitching me face-forward into the sand again. Frantically I went into my self-repair program and tried to get control, but it was committed to fixing my arms and would not allow override. The best I was able to do was close my mouth.

By the time I came thrashing over the top of the last dune, I had sensation again in my right arm; but what I beheld in the cove below me nearly brought on another fit of electronic apoplexy. Somebody else was stealing the library!

Two small figures were struggling up the face of the opposite dune, each carrying a basket of piled shells. From the prints in the sand ahead of them, I could see that this was not their first trip, and their destination was an indistinct domed something that lay in a shimmer of blue just over the top of the dune. My jaw worked, I spat out sand and shouted, "Hey!" They turned around and I had the impression that they were a pair of English children in white hooded snowsuits, their facial features tiny and perfect, their skin ashy pale. They wore enormous black goggles. When they saw me they squeaked in horror and ran, plowing up the dune face in their efforts to get away from me and not drop the heavy baskets. My legs took me down the sand like a juggernaut. I picked up speed across the lawn and started up after them, gaining back more and more of my coordination as I went. They were nearly to the top of the dune now and I could see there was something not quite human in their proportions. Head circumference too big, tubby little bodies, spindly arms and legs. What the hell? I searched my index for information on related subjects and was rewarded with a host of terribly earnest UFO titles from the late twentieth century, all illustrated with drawings of these same spindly little people. Aliens? From outer space?

Were these the Ascended Masters from whom the hermit had been stealing his sacred fire, his memorized scraps of improbable knowledge? As I gained on them they began crying open-mouthed in their terror, desperately trying to clamber over the top of the dune.

One of them made it but the other stumbled, dropping his basket, and a single clamshell bounced out and went skating down the sandwall toward me. My right hand shot out and closed on it like a trap, in as fine an example of bonehead priority programming as I've ever seen, because if I'd been able to ignore it and keep going past I'd have caughtthe little so-and-so. As it was, in my wasted second he managed to grab up his basket again and hands-and-knees drag it over the top, where his friend had hung back long enough to help him to his feet. They scampered away down the other side just seconds before I was able to pull myself up off the slope.

I looked down into a wide valley of sand, featureless but for the great white circle of a shell midden. There was an airship parked on it.

Now this was 1860, mind you, and here was this thing that looked like an Easter egg designed by Jules Verne sitting on a prehistoric shell midden. It was all of some purply-silver metal and it had portholes, and riveted plates, and scrollwork and curlicues that made no kind of aerodynamic sense. It wasn't one of our ships, certainly. It bore no resemblance to a silver saucer; but then, this was 1860, wasn't it? Nearly a hundred years before anything crashed in a place called Roswell. The little figures ran for it, sobbing in alarm to the others who stood around the ship. They all turned to stare at me, except for one who was crouched over, trying to pull a snowsuit on up around himself. As all the others screamed at the sight of me, he straightened up and looked. It was the hermit.

"0, not to worry," he told them. "I know her." He put his hands up to form a trumpet around his mouth and shouted, "I regret I was not at home when yez come to call! It seems They've decided to take me to Mount Shasta to live with Them permanent-like! Ain't dat a grand thing, now?"

"Your library!" I croaked. The little creatures were frantically tossing basket after basket of shells in through the open door of the airship, and two of them grabbed the hermit's arms to try to hurry him the rest of the way into his suit. He gave me a slightly shamefaced shrug.

"Well, They found me out about that, and They're confiscating it; but They're good fellows, like I told yez, and They say I can open a school in Lemuria when she comes up. They say They'll have to test me worthiness some more, but dat's all right." One of them zipped up the front of his suit and pressed a pair of goggles into his hands, signing several times that he should put them on at once. The others were vanishing inside the ship as fast as they could get through the door.

But I wasn't about to follow them now, priority or no priority, not after the brain-scrambling I'd got when they'd overflown me. My self-preservation program was finally working again, and I stood rooted in place watching the hermit fit the goggles on over his spectacles while the one remaining creature gibbered and tugged on his arm.

"Half a minute, there, I can't see through this—there now. Why, it's all funny-looking. Say," he called across to me, "yez might see if theSisterhood's interested in coming out here to the Dunes. I still think it's a capital place for a great center of learning." The ship began to tremble and hum, and the creature turned to dart through the door, pulling the hermit after him. I recoiled from the waves of radiation that flooded outward. The hermit paused in the doorway, looking back to me, and went on shouting:

"Because, ye know, the vibrations hereabouts is so powerful yez can almost—" the door slid shut with a dull bang, trapping a lock of his beard as the ship began its ascent into the sky. The ascent paused, the door slid open a half-inch and the beard vanished inside; the door slammed again and the ship zoomed upward a few hundred meters, until without turning it sped off at an angle and vanished from sight. I stood staring for a long moment. Aware that I was still clutching the one clamshell I had managed to grab, I raised my hand painfully and examined it. I nearly screamed.

It was a nice little study of ducks paddling happily on a lake. And look: here were some children on the shore of the lake, feeding the ducks. At least, they might have been children. Oh, who was I kidding?

They weren't children, they were Visitors from Somewhere who had found a unique life form in these Dunes. Like me, they had tested a sample; like me, they were transplanting it. I let my arm drop to my side. Now that the ship had gone I could see across the midden to the high dune beyond, where clamshell letters ten" feet high shouted silently: NOTALONE.

This one's for Harlan Ellison, just because. Another early story, featuring what one might call the Continental operatives, as opposed to Joseph and his pals.

A meditation on personal style: if you were immortal, and privileged with data on all the airs and graces from the twenty-fourth century backward, how would you define yourself? If you could sample any era but belonged to none of them, what would make you feel most at home? The Facilitator Joseph clearly feels a strong pull toward Jazz Age America. Literature Preservationist Lewis longs vainly after the cosmopolitan world of the Roman Empire. Executive Facilitator Latif seems to have accessed a lot of John le Carre novels as a neophyte. Botanist Mendoza, on the other hand, is stuck in her own personal time warp and doesn't give a damn. But I think a lot of operatives would be irresistibly drawn to the elegance, the permanence, the arrogance of the Victorian era.

The Wreck of the Gladstone

On the fourteenth of November 1893, the schooner yacht Gladstone encountered a storm in the Catalina channel off the harbor at Los Angeles, California. A northeastern gale capsized her and she sank within sight of the lights of San Pedro. It is a matter of recorded fact that all hands were lost, including the captain.

Nevertheless, the following August he returned to the scene of his death and peered down through the green water, and it seemed to him he could just discern her outline, green and waving, rippling and fading, the lost Gladstone.

Standing at the rail he wondered, miserably, if any of the mortals he had known were still down there with her, the owner with his long moustache, the sea cook with his canvas apron. I could tell he was so miserably wondering because of the set of his mouth and wide stare. I've known Kalugin since the summer of 1699 and have learned, in that time, to read his least thought in his countenance. It is indeed a dear countenance, but terribly at odds with itself; the eyes ought to be steel but are vague and frightened. The nose is arrogant as an eagle's beak, the mouth shaped cruel for its hereditary work of ordering serfs to the pillory: yet the sharp features are blunted in the wide pink face. He doesn't really look like one of us at all.

"Come inside, dear." I touched his arm with my gloved hand. "We can't do anything until the morning."

"I shall have bad dreams," he replied. He turned to go with me, and his gaze fell hopefully upon the island off to the west. "Do you suppose any of the crew managed to swim ashore?"

"Certainly they might have." I gave his arm a squeeze. "But they'dhave had to have been extraordinary swimmers. And history does record that all hands were lost, after all."

"Including me, my dear," he pointed out, and I was obliged to shrug in concession of his point. It is one of the laws of the time-manipulation business that history cannot be changed. It is one of its hazards, and conveniences, that this law can only be observed to apply to recorded history. We arrange matters to our advantage in perfect obedience to the known facts. Kalugin had gone down with his ship, and so conformed to the historical record. The fact that he had risen on the sea foam three days later, like Venus or Christ, was beside the point and out of the history books altogether. The fact that he had failed in his mission on that occasion was of greater consequence, and the reason for our present excursion. I led him into the saloon of the Chronos, where dinner had just been served. Victor was standing at his place waiting for us, eyeing the repast with approval

Victor is one of those white men with nearly transparent skin. His hair and beard are a startling red, his eyes pale green, and his features are small and precise as a kitten's. If he were mortal he might decay in time to a certain spare leonine dignity, but as it is he has perpetually the sharp edge of the adolescent cat. Victor was our Facilitator on this mission. He had arranged for our yacht and its crew, and had produced such papers as we might need to justify our actions to any mortals we might encounter. Other than the servants, of course. We were fortunate to have his assistance, for the customary glacial slowness of the Company in requisitioning such necessaries might have produced a delay of years before we attended to our present mission.

"Madame D'Arraignee." He ushered me to my chair. "Captain Kalugin. It appears we're having

'Bounty of the Sea' tonight. Turtle soup, oysters, lobster salad and tunny a la Marechale. Just on the chance you don't get enough of the briny deep on the morrow, Kalugin." Kalugin sighed and held out his glass for champagne. "It's all very well for you to laugh. Three days against the ceiling of that cabin! Do you know, when the storm had subsided enough for my rescue transport, I had/. W. Coffin and Sons, Boston, Massachusetts printed on my cheek? In mirror image, of course. From an inscription on the brass-work."

Victor laughed heartily. I thought what it must have been like, lying in darkness with drowned men, waiting for the storm to subside. I reached for Kalugin's hand under the table and squeezed it. He gave me a grateful look.

"So here's a health to the infant Hercules!" Victor raised his glass."Let's hope the little devil is in reasonably good health too, after his sojourn in the bosom of Aphrodite. Have you inspected the laboratory yet, Nan? Everything to your satisfaction?"

"Yes, thank you." I leaned to the side as a mortal servant bent to ladle the soup into my plate. "They certainly gave me enough sponges. I didn't find the antifungal, however."

"It's down there. An entire drum of that and the other chemical you needed, the solvent, what's it's name?"

"Diorox."

"Diorox, to be sure. I saw it loaded. Everything you need to restore the son of Zeus to his original splendor should be present and accounted for."

"I'm sure that will prove to be the case."

"I really did seal it up quite tightly," asserted Kalugin. "There may be a little damage from the tacks. I did my best to remove them, but you've no idea—the rolling of the ship, and the shouting, and then the light had gone, you know, and the claw end of the hammer wasn't the right size."

"You should have used pliers," Victor admonished him briskly. "Though of course the really important thing, Kalugin, was the air seal. We can only pray it withstood the impact when you dropped it."

"Oh, it must have." He twisted one corner of his napkin. "That's all covered in my report, you see, the cylinder landed in mud. The seal must have held. There shouldn't have been any errors."

"No, I daresay; the equipment scarcely ever malfunctions." Victor tasted his soup with a delicate grimace. Kalugin looked wretched. He turned to me.

"I'm afraid I might have torn one corner of the painting a little," he said apologetically. "I did mention that in my report as well."

"I'm sure it's of no consequence." I smiled at him. "Canvas repair is the simplest of processes. You forget, my dear, the Renaissance work I've done. You ought to see what the Italians do to their paintings!

Floods and mud and bird droppings—"

"If you please!" Victor's spoon halted in its rise to his mouth.

"Pray excuse me." I had a sip of champagne.

"Have you spoken to Masaki?" Victor inquired of Kalugin.

"The diver? Yes, and she seems a knowledgeable sort. Appears to have done a lot of this sort of thing."

"She has. She's the best in her field."

"Might almost be able to handle the recovery operation herself, I imagine, if my nerve were to desert me," said Kalugin casually.

"Though, of course, it shan't." Victor gave him a hard smile across the table. We talked about the mission until half past eleven, and Kalugin drank too much champagne. I lay in the bunk across from him and watched as he slept it off. His eyes raced behind pale lids, his breath caught continually, and his soft hands pushed and pushed at something that would not leave him. It is a terrible thing to be immortal and have bad dreams.

At dawn I opened my eyes and the cabin was full of the sublimest clear pink light, the same tender shade one sees only in the winter season. Its delicate beauty was in harsh contrast to the hoarse profanities that resounded on the morning air.

Kalugin sat up and we stared at one another. We heard one of the Technicians approaching Victor's stateroom and saying, quite unnecessarily, "Vessel off our starboard bow, sir. Crew of two mortals. They're hailing us."

Hailing damnation on us, in fact, and worse things too. The voice echoing across the water was nearly incoherent with rage, backed up by the rattling throb of a steam engine, and growing closer with each moment. We heard Victor's door open and heard his rapid footsteps as he went on deck. We dressed hastily and followed him.

The vessel was just coming abreast of us as we emerged. Victor, dignified in his dressing gown, Turkish slippers and fez, confronted a wiry little man in stained canvas trousers and an old jersey. The mortal was bounding up and down in his fury in the manner of a chimpanzee, which resemblance was furthered by the fact that his arms were muscular and enormous.

The other mortal stood at the tiller, a bedraggled girl in a faded cotton-print dress. She was heavily with child, and appeared to be on the verge of tears. Their old fishing boat was in a bad way, even to my untrained eyes: her ironwork had risen like biscuit with flaked rust, and her old wood was pearl-gray. Some attempt had recently been made to make her seaworthy, but her days on the water were numbered, clearly. ELSIE was painted in trailing letters on her bow. To render what her captain was saying into prose would be to produce a stream of invective not grammatical but profound.

"For shame, sir!" cried Victor. "There are ladies present." The general sense of the mortal's response was that Victor might take himself and his female companions to any other place in the seven seas save this one.

Victor's mouth tightened and the points of his moustache stabbed the air. "I will not, sir. I will conduct salvage operations here, having every legal right to do so," he stated. He might have continued, but Kalugin gave a sudden groan and clutched the rail.

"Oh God, it's Mackie Hayes!" Kalugin said. He didn't say it loudly, but all heads turned to stare at him. The gimlet eye of the vulgar sailor widened. He uttered a word I will not stain paper with and followed it with the cry of "Captain Pomeroy!"

Then, in an act of physical bravado I would not have thought a mortal man capable of performing, he vaulted the span of sea between his craft and ours and landed on the deck beside Kalugin. The girl at the tiller gave a weak scream. Kalugin found his lapels seized in an iron grip and the sailor's stubbled face a bare inch from his own.

"Where were ya?" shouted the sailor. "When the Gladstone was foundering and there was good men going to the bottom, I ask ya? Where were ya when the spars were snapping and the mast broke off clean? Hiding in yer bunk, ya no-good son of a w-—!"

Kalugin had gone very white. He moistened his lips with his tongue and said, "You mistake me, sir. Captain Pomeroy was my father."

The sailor drew his head back to stare at him. He saw no gray in Kalugin's hair, he saw no lines about his eyes, he saw no scar upon his chin. Nor should he, for these things had been cosmetically applied to make Kalugin look like a mortal man and had been removed when no longer needed. The ferocity of his regard diminished somewhat and he released Kalugin's lapels.

"Well, d—n me if ya ain't the spit and image of Captain Pomeroy. But he was still a lily-livered coward, ya hear me? He was hiding below when the storm done its worst. Even Mister Vandycook the owner, he come up on deck to see what he could do, but not yer old man. So I d—n ya for the son of a lubber and no true seaman." He swung about to glare at Victor. "And the rest of ya for a pack of thieves. I lay claim to this salvage operation by rights of having survived the wreck of the Gladstone!" There was a poignant silence on deck. We had encountered what we operatives of the Company most dread: an error in the historical record. Such loopholes can have fatal consequences for a mission. Victor considered the sailor.

"The Gladstone was reported lost with all hands, sir."

"Lost she were, but I didn't go down with her. Two days I hung on a barrel, kicking off the sharks, afore I washed up on that island yonder. Most of a year I been marooned there amongst landsmen. Took me better than three months to get that scow there seaworthy, and I'm salvaging the Gladstone, and be d-ned to you!"

"You are mistaken, sir." Victor smiled. "My firm purchased salvage rights on the wreck from its insurers."

There was a little cry of disappointment from the girl at thisannouncement. The sailor glanced once in her direction; then he turned back to squint at Victor. "Is that so? Well, they're there and I'm here. I can't make ya clear off, but ya can't make me leave neither, and we'll see who gets down to the Gladstone first!"

With that he hoisted himself up on our rail and sprang nimbly back to his own boat, which received his weight with a hollow crash that did not bode well for the integrity of her timbers. Victor stared after him, twisting one end of his moustache until it threatened to part company with his lip. Then he turned on his heel and stalked within, motioning us to follow.

"Lost with all hands!" he snapped as soon as we were gathered in the saloon.

"It's not my fault." Kalugin sagged into a chair. "I was below when the Gladstone went down. You know that. My orders were to rescue the priceless painting a New York millionaire stupidly kept in the cabin of his yacht. It was not my responsibility to see to it that the crew drowned. When the rescue transport picked me up after the storm they made a clean sweep of the area. They found no survivors. The historical record says there were no survivors."

"Well, now we know otherwise, don't we?" Victor went to the galley door and flung it open. "Coffee!" he shouted, and slammed it again and turned to pace up and down before us. "Who is this miserable little tattooed goat, may I ask?"

"Only one of the hands before the mast."

"Biographical data?"

Kalugin accessed. "Mackie Hayes, able-bodied seaman, age thirty-two, no residence given," he replied. "He was an excellent hand, unless he got liquor. He was a fighting drunk. I recall he nearly killed a man in Honolulu. Trouble with the ladies, too. I should guess his nationality to have been Yankee, despite his oddities of speech, which I believe were due to an old injury resulting in partial paralysis of the facial muscles on the right side."

"You may as well update your entry to present tense," remarked Victor bitterly. "We know very well he's alive and kicking."

"And salvaging," I pointed out.

There was a knock on the door. Victor opened it to receive the coffee tray, borne not by a mortal servant but by one of our Technicians.

"Sir, it appears the mortals are preparing to dive," he warned Victor. I leaned back to look out a porthole and saw the sailor running about on deck, setting up the air pump. His young lady came struggling up on deck bearing an unwieldy mass that proved to be an old diving suit. He snatched it from her and said some angry thing. She hurried back belowand reemerged a moment later with a great brass diving helmet in her arms. He was already shrugging into the suit.

"Even as we speak," I confirmed, accepting a cup and saucer from Victor.

"And, sir, we're reading a storm moving in from the southwest," said the Technician. "We expect heavy seas by twenty-three-hundred hours. Shall we put in to the island? The charts show a good harbor with anchorage on the windward side."

"There's a thought." Victor dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee and stirred it. "And perhaps the storm will sink that filthy rust-bucket and save us the trouble."

There followed another poignant silence. The Technician cleared his throat. "Is that one of our options, sir?"

Kalugin rose to his feet.

"Possibly," said Victor at length. "You'll get your orders when we've made a decision. For now, go tell the cook we want breakfast. And I particularly want some cinnamon toast!" he called after the departing Technician.

Now it was Kalugin who paced back and forth, while Victor stood sipping his coffee. We heard a splash and the whirring as a drum of cable unwound.

"What do you think he's after, Kalugin?" inquired Victor.

"Not the painting, he couldn't be," panted Kalugin. "Even if he'd known what it was worth, he wouldn't have any reason to expect there to be anything left of it by now."

"What, then?"

"VanderCook's strongbox, I'm sure. Possibly some of the other objets d'art. There were some ormolu things, I remember, and a statuette. He might think they'd fetch a pretty price."

"And if he sees a shiny silver canister down there?" Victor drained his cup. Kalugin bit his lip "He'll probably bring it up."

The door opened. Victor turned, perhaps in expectation of his cinnamon toast, but our underwater recovery specialist entered the room.

"Mme. Masaki." Kalugin bowed.

"Good morning. Victor, are you aware that a monkey in a diving suit just went over the side in the general direction of the Gladstone?"

"Quite aware. Did you manage to sleep through our little predawn confrontation somehow?" Victor poured a cup of coffee and presented it to her.

"I wear earplugs. Are we aborting our mission, then?"

"Certainly not. Cream? Sugar?"

She shook her head. "We can't conduct a dive while that creature's down there."

"We might try," Kalugin ventured.

She widened her eyes at him. "Are you mad? That would be contrary to specific Company policy. Can we persuade him to leave, Victor?"

"Not easily." Victor steepled his ringers. "He's determined and rather combative. We may be obliged to hope for an accident."

Mme. Masaki put down her cup and simply looked at him. There was yet a third poignant silence.

"Good God, the woman is with child!" exploded Kalugin.

"We needn't touch her," Victor assured him. "Though her mate might have a nasty accident whilst below. Such dreadful things do happen at sea."

I shook my head. "That would be murder, Victor."

"And it would fall to me to go down and cut his hose, I think," said Mme. Masaki. "I've never killed one of them before; I should prefer not to do it now, if you don't mind."

"You know, it's deuced hard being your Facilitator when you won't permit me to facilitate anything," Victor complained.

"Mr. Hayes won't listen to reason, but perhaps the girl?... " I offered.

"Ahoy!" I waved a handkerchief at the mortal where she sat by the air pump, waiting for tugs on the line. "May we speak, Mademoiselle? I am so sorry that our gentlemen have had hard words. Please believe we had no intention of upsetting you."

She lifted her timid freckled face and gazed at me in wonder. "I never heard no colored lady talk like you before," she stated.

"I am from Algiers, Mademoiselle."

"Oh." She was thinking. "Is that in Europe?"

"No; but I have lived in both Paris and Rome."

"My Pa went to Europe once," she told me. "He stayed at a place called France, afore he shipped out again."

"Ah. Is your father a sailor, too?"

"No'm," she replied, and then stopped with the particular mortification Caucasians felt, in that day and age, upon accidentally addressing a Negro with an honorific. She cleared her throat and tried again. "No, he ain't, not no more. A hawser cut off his leg and now he and my Ma has a farm on that island over there. Miss, I got to ask you. That man with the funny hat, do you work for him?"

"I am a guest of his, my dear."

"Well—do you suppose he will let us go shares with him on thiswreck? If Mackie don't get what he's after—" her eyes filled with tears. "He's near crazy you folks showed up when you did. All he's been talking about since I found him on the beach was getting down to the wreck, the wreck, the wreck, and when we go come out here there your boat is sitting right over it. It's for our baby he wants it. He says it's his big chance," she implored.

"Forgive me, Mrs. Hayes, but it seems to me that if Mr. Hayes truly cared for you and for the child, he would put you ashore and take some fisherman out to assist him instead."

"Ain't nobody will go with him but me." She wiped her eyes. "He's had fights with all the neighbors and my Pa won't even talk to him anymore."

"But, my dear, a woman in your condition! His behavior seems abominable."

"You might say so, Miss, but what of that?" She looked terribly earnest. "He's my man and the father of my child. I got to stand by him. I know he's meaner than a snake, but it was true love at first sight when I seen him lying there in the sand." She clasped her frail hands above her swollen abdomen.

"Beside, Miss, there ain't any other men on the island what ain't married already."

"I see."

"So, Miss, you seem like a real nice girl. Won't you ask your friend about leaving just a little of the wreck for us? Mackie says there was all kinds of gold chairs and all on her. He never got his pay neither. And it's all for the child's sake," she added piteously.

I smiled in my friendliest fashion. "I feel certain that my friend will be happy to compensate Mr. Hayes for his lost wages. Perhaps he even has some right to a share in the proceeds from the salvage. But, my dear, how much simpler things would be if he accepted the sum from us now—in gold—and took you home to your island without any further hardship to yourselves! Could you not persuade him to this, for the sake of the child? My friend is a most generous man."

A light of hope was born in her eyes, but just as she parted her lips to speak there came a jerk on the tether line and then another, setting up a thrumming echo in the cable housing.

"Oh! That's Mackie now. I got to bring him up," she exclaimed, and leaned into the crank and painfully hauled on the winch. "You'd best go," she gasped. "He'll get mad if he sees you." I quit the deck gladly, for I could scarcely bear the sight of her efforts in her condition, and there was no way I could assist her. Kalugin was bent to a porthole in the saloon, watching.

"That man is a brute," he observed gloomily.

"Yes, but we may hope he is a brute with humane instincts," I said. "Surely, for her sake, he'll accept our proposal."

"Sweet voice of reason." He kissed my hand.

"All the same, Hayes won't agree to it," pronounced Victor where he sat, fists jammed in his trouser pockets.

"Why ever not? I think he must."

"You don't know them the way 1 do," was all he would say.

Presently we heard the clanking and splashing as Hayes came up, and the girl's little cries of effort as she helped him aboard. She helped him off with his helmet, too, and as soon as his head was free he cried:

"Gimme a hand with the rope!"

Kalugin went to the porthole to watch. He saw them haul in the rope, hand over hand, and then we heard something thumping against the side of the Elsie. "They've brought up VanderCook's strongbox," he announced. There followed a dragging crash. "They've got it on deck." I went to look and just caught sight of Hayes staggering into their cabin with a steel box, closely followed by the girl. A moment later, raucous shouts of merriment rang out across the water.

"Four thousand dollars in gold," explained Kalugin.

"Then he's bound to put into shore," 1 guessed. "He must think that was what we wanted. I should think he'll put about with all due haste, shouldn't you?"

Victor simply shook his head. "You don't know them the way I do," he repeated. And he was correct in his assertion, for they did not leave. The Elsie and the Chronos lay at anchor, side by side, as the day wore on. Hayes did not attempt further salvage efforts. The swell of the sea increased somewhat, and a queer light on the southern horizon was prologue to a wall of cloud that appeared there, gray as a cat, advancing across the sky by inevitable degrees. As we were sitting down to our luncheon repast we heard the sound of a violent quarrel from our neighbors, and tried our best not to listen, though Kalugin and I burned with silent indignation on behalf of the poor girl. Victor ignored the tumult, his cold composure untroubled.

At about half past three a hot wind sprang up, full in our faces, and it bore, the perfume of jungle flowers many latitudes distant. It would have been pleasant, had not such danger attended upon it. Kalugin lay down and slept, perspiring. Victor stared fixedly across at the Elsie and did not speak. Sunset flamed with all -the hues in the palette of fever, across a steadily rising sea. On the cushions where he reclined, Kalugin clutched his throat and sat up staring. "VanderCook!" he muttered.

"You've been dreaming, dear." I went to him.

His face was haunted. "The ship was going down. Turning as it went down. I was trying to hurry with the painting and he came in. VanderCook."

"Poor dear, you have had a conditioning nightmare," I explained. "We all have them when we can't complete a mission. As soon as we recover the painting they'll cease to trouble you."

"I had to kill him." Kalugin's mouth trembled. "He thought I was stealing his things. He took hold of my arm, but I didn't have time! I only hit him with the back of my hand, but he died. All of them died."

"Yet that was their mortal fate." I attempted to console him. "Death swiftly at your hand or some protracted agony of drowning, which would the poor man have preferred? It's not as though anything you did could have saved any of them. You saved the Delacroix, at least. Think of that! Consider, my dear, what you have preserved for the ages."

Kalugin drew a harsh breath. "Do you ever wonder whether we don't destroy as many things as we preserve by our meddling? I saved the painting, but perhaps if the ship had had a competent captain we wouldn't have foundered in the first place."

"Nonsense," said Victor forcefully. "For God's sake, man, what are you mourning? One self-indulgent millionaire and a handful of sailors like Hayes. And isn't he a prize? Which would you rather consign to the bottom, a work of art or a dirty little creature like Hayes? What possible difference can his nasty life make to the world?"

As if on cue, the shout came out of the twilight:

"Ahoy the Chronos! Ahoy! Ya think ya can buy me? Ya can't! I say I know what yer up to! And nobody cheats Mackie Hayes, ya hear me? Here I be and here I stay!"

Victor's moustaches swept up like scythe blades. "I do believe," he announced, "that it's time to fix that man's little red wagon." And he rose and strode from the saloon.

I settled back on the cushions with Kalugin and we watched the last pink light fade.

"Remember the DaVinci notebook," I told him.

"True." He passed a hand across his eyes wearily.

"And the cargo of the Geldermalsen."

"True." With the other hand he drew out the pins and loosed my long hair.

"And Laperouse's logbook and specimens. All of them lost to the world forever, but for you, dearest."

"True." He closed his eyes. I leaned down to him. Dreamily hegathered up a tress and draped it across his face, making his night blacker still. "Yet sometimes I could wish... " The stars shone briefly and then the advancing cloud cover put them out like candles. The sea was quite rough, now; we were obliged to weigh anchor and stand off from the Elsie some distance, lest we collide with her. Dinner was informal, cold meats and pickles and cheeses; no one had much appetite owing to the nature of the commotion in the bosom of the deep. How fortunate had we immortals been, if our creators had thought to make us proof against mal de mer! I have often mused on this, during a long life of journeys on Company affairs.

At half past nine Victor strolled into the saloon looking pleased with himself, and settled down to read the latest issue of the London Illustrated News. Kalugin and I played at piquet, with no great attention to the cards as the rolling of the ship grew more pronounced.

Before Victor had a chance to lay down the paper and amuse us with the latest antics of the British royal family, however, the door opened and the same Technician who had been reporting to Victor all day put in his head.

"Mme. Masaki has come aboard again, sir."

Victor tossed his paper aside and hurried on deck. We followed and arrived just in time to see the expectant smile dashed from his face by Mme. Masaki's cry of "D-n you, Victor!"

"I beg your pardon." Victor drew himself up in as stiff an attitude of affront as he could manage on the pitching deck. She was advancing on him in her diving costume, her face pale in the light of the lantern, her eyes blazing with anger.

"Lower the whaleboat!" She swept her wet hair back from her face. "You've got to send someone to rescue the woman. That boat is sinking!"

"You were ordered to punch a few holes in it, not scuttle the infernal thing!" Victor narrowed his eyes.

"I started one plank and a whole seam opened up! It's coming to pieces in the water! D—n you, will you lower that boat?"

But Kalugin was giving orders for it already. Mme. Masaki braced herself on the rail, drawing deep breaths. "And another thing," she told us. "The woman's alone over there. I was unable to perceive more than one mortal on board."

"Only one?" Victor frowned. "Where could Hayes have got to?" We were answered by a thump. It was not even a sound, no more than a faint sensation against the soles of our feet, imperceptible I believe to mortal senses; but there, it came again, sharper against ourhull and more distinct. Both Victor and Mme. Masaki responded with oaths of the most profane nature. She plunged once more over the side and disappeared in the black water. As she vanished we heard terrified screams from the sole occupant of the cabin on the Elsie.

Kalugin and his crew rowed like heroes, but it was a near thing. The doomed craft was turning in the night sea, listing with a stricken motion. I clung to the rail watching, sick at heart lest the rescuers arrive too late.

Judge with what relief I saw Mrs. Hayes lifted from the deck of the doomed Elsie and settled securely in the bottom of the whaleboat. Even as it put about and made back toward us through the waves, Mme. Masaki pulled herself up on the rail with one arm. She had her other arm fast about Hayes, whom she had choked into unconsciousness. "Help me!" she cried.

Victor and I ran to assist her. Hayes lay ghastly pale in the lantern light, a ridiculous wizened figure in his long undergarments. Victor knelt and I heard a smart click as he applied manacles to the oblivious sailor.

"I daresay that settles your hash," sneered Victor.

"Our hull is unbroached," reported Mme. Masaki. "Though somewhat scored. He was doing his best to sink us with a hammer and chisel. Had he been able to see what he was doing we'd have been in genuine danger. He's remarkably strong, for a mortal."

"What shall we do with him?" I glanced out at the whaleboat, rapidly pulling close. "It would be well to remove him before the girl can see him like this, surely."

"As you wish." Victor seized the connecting chain of the manacles and dragged Hayes's inert form in the direction of the forward hatches. "I shall revive the blackguard and then... " Even as he got Hayes safely out of sight below, the wind rose to a howl and the waves, previously wild, grew positively violent, dashing the whaleboat against the Chronos. I heard Mrs. Hayes screaming in the darkness, and Kalugin reassuring her; Mme. Masaki and I bent down to help her aboard. As we did so, I looked out across the night and beheld the Elsie swing back over, giving one great drunken lurch before she righted herself, only to slide below the water. One last second her cabin light was visible, eerily sinking down toward eternal darkness; then it had vanished and I knew the rushing water had found it.

I was prevented from dwelling on this horror by the necessity of getting my arms around Mrs. Hayes, just as a cold wave broke over us. She screamed again, and with a final struggle we got her feet on deck and there we three huddled, dripping, as the crew got the whaleboat up.

"We must take her inside," I shouted to Mme. Masaki, whoresponded with a brusque nod. We started along the rail to the door of the saloon; then Mrs. Hayes stopped abruptly and her thin ringers tightened on my arm. Her poor little face was like an animal's in its terror. She looked down, we followed her gaze, and saw a rush of water and blood. It steamed briefly on the deck before another wave mingled it with sea foam and swept it away.

She began crying, a shrill monotonous piping Oh, Oh, Oh, and we knew there was nothing for it but to take her by the arms and drag her, lest the child drop to the deck like a fish and tumble overboard. And somehow we did bring her safely inside, half-carrying her to a bunk in one of the cabins, and saw her robed in a dry dressing gown before we took that opportunity for ourselves; her thin cries grew fainter but did not cease the while.

"Mrs. Hayes, Mrs. Hayes, you must compose yourself." I sat down beside her. "For the child's sake, my dear."

"You don't know," she sobbed. "My Mackie's drowned. He was going over to—Oh, it's God's judgement, that's what it is! Oh, I'm so ashamed! And now he's lost"

"Pray do not distress yourself, Mrs. Hayes, your husband is safe. We apprehended him. We have him safe below." I gave her a handkerchief.

"Oh!" Her cries stopped as she took that in. Then the weak line of her mouth trembled. "I tried to tell him what you said, but he got real mad. He said if you was so ready to pay him to let it alone, there must be lots of treasure in the wreck. And when he brought up all that money I said, 'Well let's go home Mackie and not be greedy,' but he said, 'Elsie you're a dumb'—he said I was a dumb— Oh, dear! And now we lost the money!" Her wails broke out afresh.

"Mrs. Hayes, you mustn't allow yourself to dwell on such things now. Think of your child! When did the pains begin?"

"Only just now." She gasped for breath. "Leastways—I been having a backache but I thought it was all the hauling I been doing." Her face contorted in the extremity of her discomfort. I gave her my arm to clutch tight, and as I did so made use of my scanning perception to take a reading on herself and her infant. Mortals are quite unable to discern such surreptitious examinations; had she not been already too distracted to notice my preoccupation, she might have supposed I was uttering a silent prayer. I leaned back and stared at her. I saw again the cabin light of the Elsie, slipping away, slipping away down into the dark. I looked up at Mme. Masaki and transmitted my findings. Her lips drew back from her teeth.

We can't save them in such cases, you see. We mayn't interfere.

Even if we could, this poor creature had seen things the Company had never intended a mortal to see. She was a complication. I did not even want to think about Victor down in the hold with the unconscious Hayes. There is a Company drug called nepenthine, very useful in these unfortunate cases but not always entirely beneficial to those to whom it is administered...

"You'll need fresh linen," murmured Mme. Masaki, and departed. She came back bearing a bundle with something concealed in it, and in one hand she carefully carried a glass of what appeared to be sherry wine.

"You like drink, miss?" She offered it to Mrs. Hayes.

"Oh, I've never touched spirits—" she protested.

"But this is for the child's sake," I struck up my refrain again. "You must take it as medicine, my dear." She allowed herself to be persuaded by this argument and in moments was blissfully unconscious, which permitted us to set up the anticontaminant apparatus. Hayes's child was born shortly thereafter. The wind howled in the rigging, waves broke over us in vain, the timbers of the Chronos creaked unceasing; the feeble cries were barely audible over the tumult of the storm, and did not last long. Kalugin knew something was wrong when he passed Mme. Masaki in the passageway, her face closed and silent. He peered around the door.

I sat with the infant in my lap, in a pool of light that moved as the lamp swung on its gimbal. Mrs. Hayes slept soundly in her bunk.

"He's a boy, is he?" Kalugin came in and bent over us. The child lay still; it had already discovered that moving took much more strength than it had. Kalugin noticed the cyanosis at once, and scanning he found the heart defect. "Oh, dear," he said. He put a finger in the tiny cold hand, which closed on it without force. The infant worked its face into a squinting grimace that was a perfect parody of its father, but it did not cry. It hadn't enough breath.

Kalugin sat down beside me. I leaned against him and we watched the child fight.

"The mother will do well enough," I said tiredly. "For the present. Although her grief, and her brute of a husband, and her poverty and her disappointment will make her wonder why she should."

"Victor is finishing up with Hayes now," said Kalugin. "Nothing left to do but the post-hypnosis, I expect. As soon as the storm clears we can put them ashore, and well and truly wash our hands of the wretched things."

I nodded. The child made a gurgling sound and all its limbs stiffened.For a terrible moment we waited; but, like a swimmer cresting a wave, it struggled and drew another breath, and kept breathing.

"It's Pity, like the newborn babe, striding the blast," said Kalugin softly. "Here he is, come to visit us. Yes, hello, I know you well, don't I? You've lived in my heart this many a year. One more piece of mortal wreckage 1 must watch sink."

The rocking of the lamp was growing less; the squall was blowing out. Kalugin went on in his sleepy voice:

"I've gone down with too many ships, Nan. Why couldn't they have made me strong, like Victor? I really ought to get into another line of work."

And we laughed at that, both of us, sadly, for none of us can ever, ever get into another line of work. We are what we are. Kalugin kissed me and took the child in his arms.

"You need to sleep, my love. I'll watch them a while. Go on."

So I went, gratefully, and (to admit my cowardice) readily enough as well, for I knew the child would be gone soon and I would be relieved to avoid any further mortal tragedy. Yet it seemed I was not to be spared that sorrow, for I was wakened from brief dreams by Mrs. Hayes crying out. I drew on my robe and ran to her cabin.

She was alone there, sitting up wild-eyed. "Where's my baby?" she demanded. "What did you do with my baby?"

I took both her hands in my own. "My dear, I know you arestrong—"

"Why, what's all the to-do?" inquired Kalugin, coming in behind me. I whirled about to look at him. He was unshaven and his eyes were puffy with exhaustion, but there was an enormous jauntiness in his whole frame. "Here's the little chap!" And he produced the infant from inside his coat like a conjuror. I snatched the child from him and scanned it hastily.

It was not only still alive but vibrantly alive, its flesh a deep rose color, its tiny heart beating strongly. Not all the radiant health in the world could make it a pretty child, because it was the image of its father; nevertheless it had a certain goblin charm. So much was clear even without benefit of much examination: Kalugin had spirited the little thing off to the ship's dispensary and repaired its heart defect. If that were all!

As I probed deeper, my horrified perceptions made the shocking truth quite plain: the child had not merely been repaired but modified! Made one of us, in a manner of speaking. Not to the extent of making him an immortal, of course, for Kalugin had neither the knowledge, tools nor time to do such a dreadful thing: but I read enhanced abilities,certain crude structural improvements, favorable genetic mutations induced... I began to tremble as I realized the extent of the changes Kalugin had wrought. I attempted to scan a second time to be certain, but Mrs. Hayes was reaching out for him. I put him in her arms. "It's a little boy, Mrs. Hayes," I told her in a faint voice.

"Oh, Mackie'll be ever so happy!" she exclaimed, and fell to examining him with delight. I turned wondering eyes to Kalugin. Do you understand what you have done?

You shan't tell anyone, he transmitted. I shan't tell anyone. Who's to know? . I had no words to respond to him that might suitably express my terror and dismay. To breach Company procedure in such a fashion was to risk far, far more serious consequences than disciplinary counseling. Oh, if he were ever found out!

"What's this, though?" Mrs. Hayes fretted, touching the thin red scar on the infant's breast.

"A birthmark, I should guess." Kalugin gathered me to him with an arm. I must have seemed in danger of fainting. "Nothing to concern you unduly, Mrs. Hayes. Why, he can have it covered with a tattoo when he grows up—for I daresay he'll be a sailor, like his father."

"I guess so." She looked wistful. "Though I kind of hope he turns out to be a Christian instead. Mackie don't hold with gospel much." Her face became woebegone as she remembered the predicament her mate was in. Kalugin patted her hand gallantly.

"In view of the happy occasion, we have decided not to press charges against Mr. Hayes," he informed her. "Our intention is to set you ashore presently, with some remuneration for Mr. Hayes's services on the Gladstone, to which he is after all entitled. We do regret the loss of your boat, but she was scarcely seaworthy. You were lucky to escape with your lives. What a blessing we were standing by when she went down!"

She dissolved in tears of gratitude. I held close to Kalugin, marveling at him. Some little while after I took Mrs. Hayes's things out on deck to dry them. The spiral of the storm was moving away to the north leaving behind a fine morning, with strong sunlight and a freshening breeze. Sea birds circled the Chronos, wheeling and mewing; dolphins leapt and sported in the glittering water all around us.

"Yes, all nature rejoices at our success," said Victor grandly, pausing in a lap of his morning constitutional about the deck. "The loathsomeHayes is safely immured below, happy in his oblivion. He shan't wake until well after he's safely ashore and we've salvaged the Gladstone."

"You've persuaded him to discretion?" I spread out a shabby cotton frock in the sunlight.

"Oh, quite. If he ever does speak of us to anyone, it'll be in such a way his hearers will condemn him for a rank liar or a lunatic. Never fear. I gather the unfortunate female pupped, by the way?" I pursed my lips. "Yes, the poor child had her blessed event early this morning. Need we do anything further? Her lot could scarcely be made more unfortunate. Ought we not err on the side of compassion and set her ashore without further processing?"

"Hm! I suppose so. Some sort of humane gesture might be in order. She's got to live with Hayes, after all! Though I rather think he'll ship out on the first vessel he can hail, now that his prospects for the Gladstone are gone. Didn't strike me as a family man."

This was certainly likely, and for Mrs. Hayes's sake I could not be unhappy at the prospect of her abandonment by such a creature. But in truth there was some quality of ineffable happiness in the morning air, for all the violent and near-tragic events of the night now past, some celestial mirth at some tremendous joke. And the unthinkable joke was on Victor, after all. So long as he never found out what Kalugin had done...

Toward midday we put in to the island, where Mrs. Hayes directed us to a likely anchorage. The settlement there was no more than a cluster of squatters' shacks, gray and leaning with age, tucked away in the ravines under the looming mountains of the interior. A few goats grazed on the hills; there were a few garden patches where patient industry had coaxed forth a few dry cabbage and spinach plants, and one or two fig trees. Upon this dismal prospect Mrs. Hayes looked with fond anticipation, when she could bear to lift her regard from happy contemplation of the child who slept shaded in her bosom, and allowed herself to be handed down into the whaleboat without a murmur. She did look up with timid concern when Hayes was brought up on deck in a stretcher; she did squeak and flutter in a wifely way as the servants loaded him into the whaleboat; but it was evident that their parting, when it should occur, would be considerably softened by the presence of her boy.

With a merry face Kalugin bent to the oars to take them to land. Mme. Masaki and I waved our handkerchiefs in farewell, Victor beamed on them in his cold way, thumbs in his waistcoat pockets; a band of ragged children came running down to the water's edge to help the passengers ashore. I felt again the sensation of being present at some eventof cosmic significance, on that bright day in that remote place; yet I have been present at several significant moments in history without any such mysterious intimations at all.

We put to sea again and returned to the site of the wreck. Once we had blessed privacy, it took less than two hours to locate and retrieve the long cylinder containing the lost painting. Kalugin and Mme. Masaki rose to the surface bearing it between them, and when it was safely on board it was borne straight to my laboratory, where, having made all the necessary preparations, I waited to receive it and begin the work of restoration.

When he had bathed and rested from his ordeal, Kalugin stopped in to visit me as I bent over the object of our concern.

"How badly was it damaged?" he inquired.

"Not badly at all, dearest. There are a few little tears. The varnish bloomed, as you see, but really I have seen much worse."

Kalugin leaned close to consider Delacroix's great canvas opened out before us. An outdoor temple was the setting, milk-white columns rising into a sky black and churning with storm clouds. From the upper-right-hand corner, Jupiter looked down on the scene with paternal indulgence and a certain Gallic smirk. Juno his spouse regarded him from the upper-left-hand corner, her stare terrible and direct, holding in her raised hands the serpents with which she intended to avenge herself. Their bright coils and the patterns of her bracelets formed spiraling patterns of energy echoed in the draperies on Queen Alcmene's couch, down in the center-right of the canvas; she must have had a Celtic needlewoman. The queen herself lay in a cozy pool of golden light, pale limbs slack with the exhaustion of her labor, lifting sweet vacant features to the midwife. This figure stood half-silhouetted in the left foreground, enigmatic and powerful, holding up the infant demigod; and he was rendered with strong and twisting brushstrokes in smoky red, not an idealized cherub at all but a howling, flailing, bloody newborn.

"Extraordinary painting," remarked Kalugin. "What contrasts! Sentimental and crude all at once. What can the artist have been thinking of?"

"It's an allegory, dear," I explained, reaching for another scrap of cottonwool. "There was some kind of scandal in Paris society. Someone the artist knew was a co-respondent in a dreadfully public divorce trial, with a question of paternity. The painting was done as a joke, in rather poor taste I think, and was never exhibited for that reason."

"What vile, silly creatures they are." Kalugin shook his head. "And yet, look: out of such a sordid business comes beauty. I am not sorry for what I did."

I set down my materials and turned, taking his hand firmly in my own. You mustn 't speak of that again, my love. Not ever.

Never again, he agreed. But if I lay at the bottom of the sea a thousand nights for it, still would I have done the same.

He kissed me and went away to his own duties. Presently the sunlight slanted and moved along the wall: the Chronos was tacking about, taking us home to Europe. I opened another bottle of cleaning solvent and settled in to the rhythms of my work, making fresh and new again the old story of the birth of the Hero.

In the future we will all be very healthy, very attractive, and very, very good. It will be illegal to be otherwise.

Today, the ordinary citizen in Britain is under more constant surveillance from remote cameras than in any other country in the world In West Hollywood, it is illegal to describe oneself as a "Pet Owner"; one must use the term, "Animal Guardian." Elsewhere in America, there is a movement afoot to outlaw serving large portions of food in restaurants, on the grounds that this is a criminal act contributing to obesity. Several public interest groups have successfully criminalized the wearing of perfume in public places. Many communities have laws in effect penalizing untidy yards or even the ownership of clotheslines, on the grounds that they lower property values. Can it be long until physical ugliness is prohibited too, for the mental distress it occasions in others?

Popular psychology now informs us that our misfortunes and illnesses are our own fault, brought about by our unconscious urges; secular puritanism, as I live and breathe! But surely Coercive Law will set us all to rights, and make certain that we cannot pose a threat to ourselves or others.

Hooray.

Monster Story

When alec checkerfield was ten, he was Sorted.

The official name for it was Pre-Societal Vocational Appraisal, but what it amounted to was that Alec, with every other ten-year-old child in England, was examined to determine how he'd best fit into society. Sorting had been going on for nearly a century now, and everyone agreed it worked much better than the old haphazard way of choosing careers.

"It's nothing to be worried about," Lewin assured him, pacing back and forth at the end of the long polished table. "You're such a bright boy, Alec, you're sure to do well." Alec sat at the other end of the table and wondered why Lewin was sweating. He could tell Lewin was sweating from all the way across the room, which was one of the reasons Lewin was sweating.

"Is it just a test like we have at St. Stephen's?" Alec asked.

"Not exactly," said Lewin.

Lewin was Alec's butler. Alec lived in a mansion in London with his butler and Mrs. Lewin, his cook. Alec's Daddy was off on a yacht in the Caribbean and Alec's Mummy was staying with friends somewhere. Alec hadn't seen either of them since he was four.

"Then how is it different?"

Lewin gave up on class distinction and paced down to Alec's end of the room, where he pulled out a chair and sat with his elbows on the table. "It's like this, son. The PSVA isn't a test to see how much youknow; it's to see what kind of person you are. That way they'll know what sort of job to put you in when you grow up, and just how to train you for it when you leave primary school."

"But I already know what I'm going to be when I grow up," said Alec with a sigh. He was sighing because he was going to have to be the seventh earl of Finsbury and attend a Circle of Thirty, when what he really wanted to be was a pirate.

"Well, yeh, but they have to go through the motions, don't they?" said Lewin, leaning forward confidentially. "You'll be Sorted right out in public with all the other little kids, Admins like you and Consumers alike, so it looks like everybody gets a fair chance. And it is mostly fair. Every year there's a couple Consumer boys and girls score so high they get to join a Circle. And there's usually an Admin kid who doesn't make the grade."

"What happens then?"

"Nothing bad," Lewin assured him quickly. "He'll get trained for a nice low-stress job somewhere and never have to worry about much. But that won't happen to you, son. You'll go right on into your Circle because of your dad being who he is. And you'll like it in Circle. You'll get to meet other kids!" Alec thought that might be fun. He had never met any children.

"Will there be other kids when we go there tomorrow?" he asked. Lewin nodded. "Which is why," he said, drawing an envelope from an inner pocket, "you'll need to take this." He opened it and shook out a bright blue capsule. "Ministry sends 'em out free. Jolly little pill, see? It's to fight off any germs you might pick up from anybody. Kids used to have to get stuck with needles to keep them well. Aren't you lucky you don't? But you're to take that after supper tonight."

"Okay." Alec picked it up and dropped it in his blazer pocket.

"Good lad." Lewin shifted uneasily in his seat and cleared his throat. "You'll pass with flying colors, son, I know, but... you want to make a good impression."

"Because first impressions are very important," Alec agreed, echoing the Social Interaction Programme he'd been given.

"Yeh. So we aren't going to talk about, er, pirates or anything, are we, son?"

"Nope," said Alec solemnly.

"And we don't want to show off how smart we are, eh? No talk about what you can do with your little toolkit. Not a good idea to let people know you're a bit different."

"Oh, no," Alec agreed. "Because that would make the other children feel bad about themselves."

"Just so," said Lewin, feeling relieved. "You'll make your father proud, son. Time for school now!"

"Yes, sir," said Alec, and sliding from his chair he ran upstairs to his schoolroom. He was eager to make the sixth earl proud of him; he thought that if he did, perhaps his Daddy might come home some day. Perhaps he might even take Alec back to sea with him, and things might be the way they had been before the divorce.

He knew it wasn't actually his fault his Mummy hadn't wanted children, but she had gone away all the same; so that was another reason he must be good and get high marks in school. But not too high.

Alec entered his schoolroom, sat down at the console and logged on to St. Stephen's Primary. The surveillance cameras in the upper corners of the room followed him. The nearest one telescoped outward suddenly and sent forth a scan. Meanwhile, Alec watched the icon of the frowning headmaster appear on his console's screen. He picked up the reader and passed it over the pattern of stripes in his school tie, wherein was encoded his identification. The frowning headmaster changed to a smiling one, and Alec was admitted to morning lessons.

Before he could begin, however, a gravelly voice spoke out of the cabinet to his left.

"Bloody hell, boy, what's that in yer jacket?"

As Alec turned from the console, a cone of light shot forth from the Maldecena projector on top of the cabinet. There was a flicker of code and then the form of a man materialized. He was big, with a wild black beard and a fierce and clever face. He wore a coat of scarlet broadcloth. He wore a cocked hat. He wasn't supposed to look like that. He was supposed to look like a jolly old sea captain in a yachting cap, harmless and cheery, in keeping with the Pembroke Playfriend he had been programmed to be when it was purchased for Alec. Alec had tinkered with the Playfriend's programming, however, removing the Ethical Governor, and the Captain was far from harmless now.

"It's a pill, so I won't catch germs from the other kids tomorrow," Alec explained.

"No it ain't! That damned thing's got circuitry in it."

"It has?" Alec slipped the capsule out of his pocket and looked at it curiously.

"Get the tools out, boy," the Captain snarled. "We'd best have a look at it."

"But it's class time."

"Bugger class time! Send 2-D Alec instead this morning," the Captain told him. Alec grinned and, taking the buttonball, ordered up the two-dimensional Alec program he had designed to answer questions for him when he needed to be somewhere other than St. Stephen's.

"Aye aye, Captain sir," he said, hopping back from the console and going to his work table. He pulled out his chair and sat down, taking from a pocket his small case of terribly useful tools. The Captain hauled an adult-sized chair from cyberspace and set it beside the little table, where he bent down awkwardly to glare at the blue capsule.

After scanning it intently a moment, he swore for forty-five seconds. Alec listened happily. He had learned a lot of interesting words from the Captain.

"Germs, my arse," said the Captain. "There's a monitor in the little bastard! And I know why, by thunder. Old Lewin said you was to take this afore bedtime, I'll wager?"

"Yes."

"Hmph. What he don't know is, it's part of the goddamn PSVA." The Captain stroked his beard, considering the capsule balefully. "Once that thing's inside you, it'll transmit yer reactions to the questions themselves. The Education Committee'll get yer pulse, blood pressure, respiration, reaction times—that whole lot. Like you was hooked up to one of them old lie detectors."

"But I'm not going to tell any lies," said Alec.

"That ain't the point, son! Didn't Lewin explain about what this Sorting is for?" Alec nodded. "It's to see what kind of person I am."

"And that's just what we don't want 'em to see, matey!"

"Oh," said Alec resignedly. "Because I'm different, right?" Alec did not know how he was different from other people. He had drawn the conclusion that he was simply very smart, which was why he was able to do things like look at a tree and immediately say how many leaves were on it, or decrypt the site defense of a Pembroke Playfriend so it could be reprogrammed to his liking.

Only the Captain knew the truth about Alec, and only some of the truth at that.

"Bloody busybodies," the Captain growled. "Wouldn't they just love to get their hooks into my boy?

But we'll broadside 'em, Alec. We'll rig their little spy to tell 'em just what we want 'em to know, eh?

Open it up, matey, and let's have a look."

"Okay!" Alec took out his jeweler's loupe, which had an elastic band to go around his head so he could wear it like an eyepatch. He slid it on and peered at the capsule, turning it this way and that.

"It unscrews here. Ooh, look." With a twist of his fingers he hadopened the capsule and spilled its contents out on a dish: a tiny component of some kind and a quarter-teaspoon of yellow powder.

"There's the spy. What's the yellow stuff?"

"That'll be the real medicine, I reckon," said the Captain. "Set to leak out of that little pinprick hole. Sweep it off on the carpet! You ain't taking none of that, neither."

"But I don't want to catch germs," protested Alec, drawing out tweezers and the other tools he would need.

"You won't catch no bloody germs," muttered the Captain. Alec's brain wasn't the only thing that was different about him. "Never mind it, son. We'll need the extra room in the capsule, anyhow, to clamp on a RAT node what'll feed it false data."

"Yo ho ho!" Alec cried gleefully, pulling out a little case of node components. He set about connecting one to the spy. The Captain watched him.

"See, it ain't enough to have the right answers—though you will have, my lad, because I broke into the Ministry of Higher Education's database and got 'em last week. You'll be judged on the way you answer too, d'y'see?"

"I'm not sure."

"Take the tenth question, goes like this (the Captain made a throat-clearing noise and pursed up his mouth in a bureaucratic simper): 'You be having a lovely day at the jolly seaside. A lady walks past and the top half of her bloody bathing suit falls off. Do you (A) fetch it and give it back to her like a good lad, (B) just sit and look at her boobies, or (C) look the other way and pretend nothing ain't happened?'"

"Oh." Alec looked up from the components, going a little glazed-eyed as he imagined the scene.

"Erm... I guess, A, fetch it for her, because that'd be polite."

"A, says you? Haar. Correct answer'd be C, matey. Looking the other way's what all morally correct folks does," the Captain sneered. "Fetching it for her would be a insult, 'cos she'd be perfectly able to get it herself, and besides, when you handed it back you'd still get yerself a peek at her boobies, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," Alec admitted. "But you told me it was okay to think about ladies' boobies."

"Well, so it is, son, but you can't say so."

"But I wouldn't be saying so."

"But with that there spy inside you, they'd be able to tell you was thinking about 'em, see? By how long you took to answer the question and what yer heartbeat did and whether you was blushing and so on," the Captain explained.

"Oh." Alec scowled. He looked down at the components and workedaway in silence a moment before inquiring, "What would they do if you answered B?"

"They'd fix on you with a spyglass, lad, certain sure. And if you answered the rest of the questions like that you'd scuttle yerself, because they'd stamp Potential Sociopath on yer file. I reckon you can guess what'd happen then."

"I wouldn't get to join a Circle of Thirty?"

"Hell no," said the Captain somberly. "And you'd have to go to sessions with one of them psychiatric AI units what's got no sense of humor, for months likely, and the end of it all'd be you'd spend the rest of yer life wearing a monitor and inputting data in a basement office somewhere. That's if you was lucky! If the test scores was bad enough, they might just ship you off to Hospital." Alec shivered. Hospital was where bad people were sent. Even children were sent there, if they were bad; and it was supposed to be very hard to get out of Hospital, once you'd got in.

"But that ain't happening to my little Alec," said the Captain comfortingly. "Because we'll cheat the sons of bitches, won't we?"

"Aye aye, sir," said Alec. "There! All hooked up. Now, what'll we feed it?" The Captain grinned wickedly and his eyes, which were the changeable color of the sea, went a dangerous and shifting green.

"Prepare to input code, son. On my mark, as follows... " and he gave Alec a lengthy code that would convince the tiny spy that Alec's reactions to the Sorting would be those of a bright (but not too bright) socially well-adjusted human child, fit in every way to join the ruling classes. Alec chortled and input as he was bid, wondering what it would be like to meet other children.

Next morning Alec got to see something that very seldom happened nowadays: dense traffic, from the sea of floating agcars that thronged around the Ministry of Education and jockeyed for space at the mounting blocks.

There were shiny black limos with house crests on the doors, just like his, and Lewin explained that those belonged to good Admin families like Alec's. There were sporty agcars in bright colors, and those belonged (so Lewin explained, with a slight sniff) to Admin families who had let the side down and failed to live up to their societal obligations. There were black limos without crests, and those belonged to (sniff) climbers who thought they could buy their way into Circles.

There were also big public transports, crowding everyone as they bobbed and bounded up to the mounting blocks, and arriving on those were the Consumer classes.

All the traffic was exciting, though Alec didn't like the way it smelled very much. What he found far more exciting was the slow parade of people making their way down the steps of the mounting blocks and into the Ministry building. He had never seen so many children in his life! He counted all of thirty as his chauffeur edged closer to the block, waiting for their turn to get out. He'd seen children from a distance, when he'd been taken on outings to museums or parks, but only from a distance: little figures being pulled along by parents or nannies, as he had been, muffled in coats against the cold, protected by umbrellas from the rain or the sun. Sometimes even their faces were invisible, hidden behind anti-pathogen masks or masks designed to filter out pollen and paniculate matter. But, now! These were children ready, as Alec was more than ready, to make their first official public appearance in the big world. Boys and girls each in the uniforms of their own primary schools, wearing ties of different stripes and colors, nervous little faces bared to the cold air and light of day. Alec wondered why they all looked so scared. He felt sad for them, especially when he remembered that they all had transmitters in their tummies, telling the Education Committee how scared they were. At least they didn't know they were carrying transmitters. Alec thought smugly of his, which was broadcasting that he was a healthy, well-adjusted boy. He wasn't scared. Though somebody in the car was scared... Alec sniffed the air and turned curiously to Lewin, who was staring out the window with a worried face.

"What's the matter, Lewin?"

Lewin blinked at the line of children, each child with a black-coated adult. "Those can't be ten-year-olds," he murmured.

"Yes, they are," said Alec in surprise. "They have to be ten. Remember? They're all here for the test, too."

"That's not what I meant," said Lewin, wiping sweat from his face with a tissue. "They're tiny." Alec puzzled over that, because the other children did not look especially small to him, in fact they were all pretty much the same exact size; but when at last his turn came, and he and Lewin stepped from the gently rocking car onto the block, he realized what was wrong. He towered over the other children, head and shoulders.

"Hell," Lewin said softly.

Alec felt his mouth go dry. He jammed his hands in his pockets to keep from grabbing at Lewin's coat, and was very glad the spy transmitter could only broadcast that he, Alec Checkerfield, was cool, calm and collected. But first one and then another grownup turned to stare at him, where he stood on the block, and now some of the childrenwere staring too, and pointing, and he heard the whispers beginning.

"What's wrong with that child?"

"... fourteen at least!"

"... can't see how his parents were allowed... "

"... genetics in these oldjamilies... "

"Mummy, why's he like that?"

"Never you mind," grunted Lewin. "Come on, son."

Alec held his head up and marched down the stairs. He pretended they were Wapping Old Stairs. This was Execution Dock and he was a pirate, and they were taking him to be hanged. Step, step, step and they were all staring at him, but he'd show them how bravely he could die. Three times the tide would ebb and flow before the bastards let him

goLewin marched beside Alec, meeting the stares with a look of cold challenge. Being nearly a hundred years old, he could remember perfectly well when the occasional tall kid in a class had been nothing to make a fuss over. That had been before the pandemic in '77, of course, and then the really bad outbreak in '91. Maybe the alarmists were right when they'd said the gene pool was shrinking... At least Alec seemed to be taking it well. He had gone quite pale, but his face was blank and serene, almost rapturous as he stretched out his arms for the guard at the door to run the sensor wand over him. It gave a tiny beep and Lewin panicked, thinking Alec might have brought one of his odd little toys with him; but the guard didn't react, merely waved Alec through, and Lewin realized that the wand was beeping like that for each child. He realized it must be the all-clear signal and relaxed, but his nerves had been so jangled that when he heard someone sniggering, "You don't suppose that dried-up old prole is his father, do you?" he turned and snapped:

"My young gentleman is the son of my lord the earl of Finsbury!" And that shut them up, all right. A beefy moustached somebody went bright red and sidled behind somebody else. Lewin looked down to see if Alec had been upset, but Alec hadn't heard.

... He was mounting the ladder to the gallows now, fantastically brave, and allowing the executioner to put the noose around his neck, and there were lots of ladies weeping for him in the crowd because he was so fearless, and they all had huge boobies...

"Come on, son." Lewin tapped Alec on the shoulder to guide him into the long line of children shuffling along the corridor, paralleled by parents or guardians. The line was moving quickly, and in a moment they had entered the vast auditorium where the PSVA was to be held. Here, guards separated the two lines: children were sent onto the floor,where the long rows of test consoles waited, and adults were directed up into a gallery of seats overlooking the hall.

Lewin clambered up the stairs and took his seat, peering down at the floor. He watched as Alec, looming above the other kids, edged sidelong into his chair and sat looking around with a stunned expression. One hundred sixty-three children, and more coming in all the time. And here came a little boy making his way through the rows, trying to get to the vacant console next to Alec's. When he saw Alec, however, he stopped in his tracks.

"Don't be scared," Alec told him. "I'm just big."

The boy bit his lip, but started forward again and at last sat down at the console. He was small and thin, with a cafe au lait complexion and gray-blue eyes. Alec observed him with great interest.

"Hello. My name is Alec Checkerfield. What's your name?"

"F-Frankie Chatterton," said the other boy, looking terrified. "That's my D-Dad and Mummy up there," he added, pointing to the gallery. Alec looked up at the gallery, where there were precisely two hundred twelve grownups at that moment, and spotted a very dark man with a big black moustache and a lady with a red dot between her eyes. They were both staring at Frankie with expressions of agonized protectiveness. Frankie waved at them and Alec waved too.

"Where's your people?" Frankie inquired.

"Oh, somewhere," said Alec airily, gesturing at the gallery. "You know."

"Are you w-worried?"

"Nope."

"I'm really wuh-worried," said Frankie. "This is very important, you know."

"It'll be a piece of cake, yeah?" Alec told him. Frankie wrinkled his brow as he pondered that. Trying to think of something to put him at his ease, Alec said, "Those are cool shoes." They were black and shiny, made of patent leather, and no other child in the room wore anything like them. Frankie looked down proudly. "They have style," he said. Dad didn't w-want me to wear them, but I stopped breathing until Mummy said he had to let me." He reached into his pocket and drew out a tiny silver pin, which he fixed in his tie with great care.

"What's that?"

"It's a good-luck token," Frankie replied. Alec looked at it closely: a little bat, with pinpoint red stones for eyes.

"Wow," said Alec, because he couldn't think of anything else to say. Frankie lowered his voice and explained, "I like monster stories, see."

"Oh!" said Alec, delighted. He looked around furtively. "I like pirates," he whispered.

"Wow, that's really bad!" said Frankie, grinning. But in the next moment his smile fled, as the first of the test administrators ascended the high platform where the podium was. He went pale and cringed down in his seat, whimpering "Oh, no! Not yet, not yet, please, I'm notr-ready."

"It's okay! See the clock? We're not supposed to start for another five minutes," Alec pointed out.

"What are you scared of?"

"I'm scared I'll f-fail the test," Frankie moaned, clutching the desk to steady himself.

"Why should you fail?" Alec asked. "You aren't dumb. I mean, youdon't talk like you are."

"But what if I don't g-get into Circle?" cried Frankie. "You don't understand. Everybody's been saying I'd never get into Circle since I was d-diagnosed."

"Diagnosed?" Alec knit his brows. "What's that mean?" Frankie looked at him as though he were mad. "You know," he said. "When they take you to the d-doctor and he diagnoses you as an eccentric!"

"Oh." Alec had never been to a doctor in his life, because he had never been sick. All his annual medical examinations had been done long-distance, with a scanner, and the Captain had carefully showed him how to cancel the readings and input different ones so as not to draw unwanted attention to himself, because doctors were a lot of meddling sons of whores. He pretended to understand now. "Oh!

Right. Well, don't feel bad. If you don't get into Circle, you'll get trained for a nice low-stress job somewhere, and you'll never have to worry aboutmuch."

"But my Dad and Mum," said Frankie, biting his nails. "It would k-kill them. They've slaved for me and sacrificed for me, and I'm their only son. I must succeed. I have a responsibility not to disappointthem." Alec, who knew what it was to disappoint one's Dad and Mum, winced. He leaned close to Frankie and spoke in an undertone.

"Listen. You want the answers? It's an easy pattern. It's all Cs until question 18, then all Fs until question 30, then straight Ds the rest of the way until the last question, and that's A."

"What?" Frankie stared at him, confused.

Alec looked into Frankie's eyes, holding his gaze, and made his voice as soothing as he could. "C to 18, F to 30, D to the end, then A," he repeated. "See?"

"C to 18, F to 30, D to the end, A," Frankie echoed in bewilderment. "What's that thing you're doing with your eyes?" "Nothing," said Alec, leaning back hastily. "C to 18, F to 30, D to end, A. Yes, you did! They're all—" "Don't be scared! I just—"

At that moment the first test administrator rapped sharply on the podium, and Frankie jumped in his seat as though he'd been struck. Silence fell quickly in the hall, as the last of the adults and children found their places.

"Good afternoon," said the administrator pleasantly. There was a vast mumbling response from the audience. He smiled out at them all and, from the big framed picture above his head, Queen Mary's vague pretty face welcomed them too. Alec pretended to do the stiff little wrist-only Royal Wave, trying to make Frankie laugh. Frankie gave a tiny smile with teeth and riveted his glance on the administrator.

"How very glad I am to see you here today," said the administrator. "You future citizens of a great nation! With the exception of seventeen children whose parents refused the Appraisal for political reasons," and he chuckled as though the Neopunks were harmless oddballs, "every ten-year-old in England is assembled under this roof. Girls and boys, I am honored to meet you all." Alec looked around, awed. Two hundred seventy-three children! And it was clear that the vast hall had been built for even more; plenty of consoles sat vacant.

The administrator continued:

"Some of you may be a little nervous. Some of you may be under the impression that this is a contest. But I want to assure each one of you, as well as your parents and guardians, that every child in this room is a winner today.

"It wasn't always so. Why, once upon a time, only the children of privilege were given this chance!

Today, we're all equals. There will be no special tests given privately to children whose mums and dads are a bit better off than others. No private tutors. No coaches. Here, in public, each child of every family, regardless of class, will be tested where all can see. The results of the Appraisal will be announced before everyone, today. This will prove that not only are we an egalitarian society; we can be seen to be egalitarian!"

He paused, with an air of triumph, and there was scattered applause. He cleared his throat and leaned forward, continuing:

"And today, in this democratic process, we will select those whose natural talents predetermine them to lead the nation of tomorrow. Yet, all will play their part in running the great machine of state. Each boyand girl has a duty, and all are of equal importance. It remains only to properly assign each task to the child best suited for it.

"What is required of a good citizen? What has been required by all nations, in every era. Obedience to law, social awareness, and social

conformity... "

Especially conformity, thought Lewin irritably. He looked down on the rows of little faces, different colored faces to be sure but otherwise as identical as so many young blobs of pudding, vanilla and chocolate and coffee and strawberry. Except for Alec, of course, fidgeting in his seat as he listened to the administrator.

It wasn't simply that the boy was tall for his age. It wasn't simply that his features were a bit unusual (though now that he was growing up it was more painfully evident, as his strange face lengthened and the broad high cheekbones rose like cliffs under Alec's pale eyes). Alec would undoubtedly have to endure being called things like Horseface and Scarecrow once he'd got out in the world; but nobody goes to Hospital for a nickname. Alec's natural talents, on the other hand... Not that Lewin was exactly sure what Alec's natural talents were, or if in fact they were natural at all.

Lewin gritted his teeth now, remembering life as it had been eleven years ago. No worries then, other than seeing to it that the sixth earl didn't get falling-down drunk in public. Roger Checkerfield had been the sweetest, gentlest upper-class twit it had ever been Lewin's pleasure to serve. Nominally he was a junior executive with some big multinational firm, but as far as Lewin knew, Roger drew his paycheck simply for loafing around from island to island on his yacht. The life had seemed to suit Lady Finsbury too, though she had ten times Roger's brainpower and was coolly beautiful besides. Then the call had come, one quiet afternoon when Lewin had been cleaning up the debris of a New Year's party that had lasted most of a week. Private call for Roger from London, urgent business; Roger had staggered from his deck chair, taken the call in his cabin and come out fifteen minutes later white as a sheet. He'd gone straight to the bar and poured himself a stiff drink. After he'd gulped it down like water he'd ordered a change of course, without explanation.

Then he'd gone in to see Lady Finsbury. There had been a hissed quarrel they'd all tried not to hear, though Roger had raised his voice from time to time in a pleading manner. The end of it was that Lady Finsbury had locked herself in her cabin and, in a way, never came out

again.

That night late they'd lain off Cromwell Cay, and Lewin had not asked what their business was there; but he had seen the red lightblinking on the flat sand spit, suggestive of a waiting helicraft. Roger had taken the launch and gone ashore alone, and when he returned had handed up the pretty black girl, Sarah, and the little blanketed bundle she'd brought with her. The bundle had been Alec. In addition to Alec, she'd brought paperwork Lewin and the rest of the crew had all had to sign, attesting that tiny Alec William St. James Thome Checkerfield was the earl and Lady Finsbury's son, born right there on the yacht. In return they all got generous annuities. But other than holding Alec for the obligatory birth announcement holo, Lady Finsbury had refused ever to touch the child.

After that Roger had begun drinking in the mornings, drinking all day, and Lady Finsbury had opted out of the marriage when Alec was four. Roger had taken Alec to the London townhouse, set up a household with servants, and managed to stay sober for a week before he'd quietly vanished over the horizon and never come back. Not a word of explanation, other than occasional incoherent and remorseful audiomail hinting that Alec was different, somehow, and nobody was to know. Different how, damn it? That the boy was a bloody little genius with numbers, that he was able to make unauthorized modifications to supposedly childproof things (and what a lot of Roger's money it had taken to hush that up!), that he was able to program all the household systems by himself including the security protocols—none of that need necessarily land a child in Hospital. It could be explained away as a freak of precocity.

But if Alec were some other kind of freak... Lewin wondered uncomfortably, and not for the first time, just what it was that Roger's big multinational firm did to make its millions. He became aware that Alec was staring up at him in a woebegone sort of way, as the administrator's speech came to its interminable summing-up. The minute Lewin made eye contact, however, Alec's eyes brightened, and he winked and mugged and gave Lewin two thumbs up. Lewin smiled back at him.

"... there is no inequity. There is no injustice. In an imperfect world, this is perfection: that all should contribute, and all share in the wealth of social order."

And blah blah blah, Alec thought to himself, applauding politely with everyone else. The administrator pressed a control, and in majestic unison, 273 screens rose from 273 consoles. Two hundred seventy-three ten-year-olds fervently wished they were somewhere else. Frankie Chatterton was crying silently.

"Remember," Alec muttered. "It'll be okay." Frankie gulped and nodded. Alec turned his eyes to the screen and slipped on the headset.

The screen filled with the image of a meadow of golden daffodils, swaying gently in the wind. Sweet music played, something calming, and a voice cooed: "Good morning, dear. 1 hope you're feeling well. I'm going to tell you a story now, and the best part of it is, you're the star of the story! You get to make all the decisions. Are you ready? Touch the yellow smiling face if you're ready; touch the blue frowny face if you're

not ready."

Alec stuck out his tongue in disgust. What a lot of buggery baby talk! He tapped the yellow face impatiently, and the two faces vanished. They were replaced with a picture, done in the style of a child's drawing, of a row of houses. The nearest door opened and a little stick-figure child emerged.

"This is you! And you're going next door to visit your friend." Alec watched as the stick figure wobbled over to the next house and knocked on its door. The door opened, and the point of view swooped down to follow the stick figure into the next house. The scene changed to a childish drawing of a front parlor. His stick figure was looking at another stick child sitting on a couch. The other stick child's moony face was smeared with brown, and he was holding a brown lump of something in his hands.

"You go in to see your friend, but, oh, dear! Ugh! You see something nasty! Someone has given your friend sugary sweets! He's eating chocolate. And now, we've come to the part of the story where you decide what happens. What will you do? You have three choices. Here they are!" The red letter A appeared on the screen, and the voice said:

"You tell your friend he mustn't eat such nasty things. He promises he won't do it anymore. You help him throw away the chocolate and wash his face and hands so nobody will see.

"Or does this happen?" And the blue letter B appeared on the screen.

"You think the chocolate looks nice. Your friend offers to give you some of the chocolate if you won't tell anyone what you've seen. You take some of the chocolate and you and your friend eat sweets and play

games.

"Or does this happen?" The yellow letter C appeared.

"You go outside and see a Public Health Monitor in the street. You tell him that your friend is eating chocolate, and show him where your

friend lives.

"Think carefully, now. What happens next? A, B or C? Choose the story you like best. Here are your choices again," and the voice repeated the three possibilities. Alec narrowed his eyes. Bloody telltales!

But he tapped on C.

"What a good choice! Are you sure you've chosen C? If you are, tap the yellow smiling face and we'll move on to the next part of the story... "

Alec tapped the smiling face and moved on, all right, moved on to the deck of his pirate ship, and he was at the wheel steering handily, and the wind filled all her canvas and she raced along over blue water!

Smack, up went the white spray! And the air was clean and smelled of the sea. The Captain paced the quarterdeck above him with a spyglass, looking out for treasure galleons, and the swivel guns on the rail waited for Alec's expert aim as soon as there was any chance of mayhem... When the test had ended, everyone filed from the hall into the Ministry's banqueting room beyond, where they were all treated to a luncheon.

Lewin could barely choke it down, he was so nervous. At least Alec didn't seem frightened; he didn't eat much, but sat gazing about him at the other children in frank curiosity. At last he turned and inquired,

"I didn't know I was so tall. Do you think they mind?"

"Of course they don't mind," said Lewin, opening his pillbox and taking out an antacid. "I expect they're just not used to you. Perhaps they're a bit scared."

"Of me?" Alec looked impressed. He took a julienned green bean from his plate, stuck one end of it up one nostril and stood at his place. "Excuse me! Somebody got a tissue? I need to blow my nose!" The children around him screamed with laughter, and some of the adults snorted, but most fixed on him with a glare of outrage. Lewin went pale and sank back, closing his eyes.

"Young man, that is disgusting and an immoral waste of food!" shouted the nearest parent.

"My-young-gentleman-is-the-son-of-my-lord-the-earl-of-Finsbury," Lewin rattled off like a prayer, and it worked again; the angry parents swallowed back venom, the amused parents nodded knowingly at one another.

"I'm very sorry," said Alec contritely, and ate the green bean. The other children screamed again, and Alec caught the end of one parent's muttered remark: "... get away with it because he's one of the hereditaries."

"See?" Alec said to Lewin as he sat down again. "Now they won't be scared of me." And the other children to either side and across the table did begin to chat with Alec, and the adults stolidly pretended nothing had happened, and Lewin wiped his brow and prayed that this incident wouldn't affect the outcome of the Sorting.

After lunch they were herded into another vast room, empty with a dais in the center, and everyone was lined up along the walls, all the way around. That morning the children had kept their distance while the adults had grouped together to talk; now that the die had been cast, the children waved and shouted to one another and it was the adults who kept to themselves, eyeing the competition.

"Now we'll see," hissed Lewin, as an administrator crossed the room and mounted the dais. Alec, distracted from semaphoring at Frankie Chatterton, looked up at him.

"Why are you scared again?"

Lewin just shook his head. The administrator coughed and hammered on the podium, and a deathly silence fell. This was a different man from the first administrator. He looked less like a politician and more like a holo announcer.

"Good afternoon, citizens!" he said, and his words echoed in the room. "I hope you all enjoyed your luncheons? Girls and boys, are you ready for the exciting news? Remember, everybody's a winner today!

Let's say it all together: Everybody's a winner!"

"EVERYBODY'S A WINNER," groaned the parents, piped the children obediently.

"That's right! The results are all tallied and the appraisals have been made! I know you're all eager to see what part you'll play in the bright future awaiting every one of us, so without further ado—the vocational assignments!"

And he applauded wildly to show they were all supposed to join in, so they all did, and when everyone's hands were tired he cleared his throat again and said loudly:

"Aalwyn, Neil David! Please approach the podium."

Neil David Aalwyn was a very small boy with scraped knees, and his parents flanked him up to the dais, looking edgily from side to side. They had arrived that morning by public transport and their clothes were not elegant, were in fact about five years behind the time in

fashion.

"And what does jour father do, Neil?" boomed the administrator. Neil opened his mouth to speak but nothing audible came out, and his father cried hoarsely:

"Farm for Sleaford Council!"

"A farmer's son! That's a noble profession, young Neil. Without the farmers, we'd have nothing to eat, would we? And I'm happy to report that you scored so well, it is the opinion of the Committee that you are fully fit to follow in your father's footsteps!"

There was a breathless pause, and Alec heard a faint muttering from dark corners of the room. The administrator added:

"But! With the further recommendation that you be considered for Council membership, thanks to your extraordinarily developed social conscience!"

Neil's parents brightened at that, and there was thunderous applause as they returned to the wall.

"Throw 'em a sop," Lewin said under his breath, but Alec heard him and looked up.

"Is Council the same thing as Circle?" he inquired.

"Not exactly. But it's better than he might have done," Lewin replied. "It'll keep his subgroup happy." Neil Aalwyn was followed by Jason Allanson, who was going to be a clerk just like his father, but that was all right because literacy was a fine thing; after him came Camilla Anderson, who had done so well she was going to join the Manchester Circle, as her parents had done ("Big surprise," growled Lewin). Arthur Arundale was going to follow his honored mother and continue the fine family tradition of driving public transports. Kevin Ashby, Elvis Atwood-Crayton, Jane Auden: all winners and all neatly slotted into careers they'd be sure to love, or would at least find reasonably personally fulfilling. Babcock, Baker, Banks, Beames, came and went without surprises, and so did the rest of the Bs until little Edmund Bray, standing at the dais with his parents the third earl of Stockport and Lady Stockport, was informed that he could look forward to a life free from responsibilities and might perhaps pursue a career in the arts.

Lord Stockport went purple in the face, Lewin exhaled, and a buzz of excitement ran through the room. Many of the parents were hugging themselves gleefully; others stood silent and mortified.

"I BEG your pardon?" shouted the third earl.

"What's happened?" demanded Alec. "What's wrong? Didn't he win too?"

"It's just fairness, son," Lewin whispered beside his ear. "Remember how I said there's always one hereditary Admin who gets thrown to the wolves every year, for appearances' sake? Keeps the lower classes happy. Makes room for somebody else to move up into a Circle and get a nice job, and you can't say that isn't democratic."

"But what'll happen to him?" asked Alec, staring at Edmund Bray, who was looking on uneasily as his parents held a sizzling sotto-voce conversation with the administrator.

"Nothing much. His people have money; he'll live it down. Wouldn't have failed if he hadn't been a little blockhead, anyway," Lewinexplained lightheartedly. He was giddy with joy that Alec hadn't been the chosen sacrifice. "Besides, for every one Admin like him that gets what's coming to him, there's ten brilliant Consumer kids who ought to make Circle and get stuck being bank managers instead. No worries,son."

The rest of the Bs were something of an anticlimax, but as they got into C Alec could feel Lewin tensing up again. Calberry, Carter,Cattley...

"Yo ho, we're on the high Cs," Alec whispered to make Lewin smile,forgetting he wasn't supposed to talk about pirates. Lewin just grimaced.

"Francis Mohandas Chatterton!" cried the administrator. Alec turnedin surprise and applauded as Frankie was pushed up to the dais by hisDad and Mummy. Behind them, quietly, walked four men in suits.

Lewin put his hand on Alec's shoulder a moment, clenching tight. Nobody in the room made a sound. Alec could hear his own heart beating. The administrator's voice was just as peppy as ever, seemed loud as a trumpet when he said: "Well, Francis, you're a very lucky boy! The Committee has determined that you're entitled to special counseling! What a happy and carefree life you'll have!" Alec heard Lewin make a noise as though he'd been punched. Frankie's Mum put her hands to her mouth with a little scream, and Frankie's Dad turned and noticed the four men.

"What—what—" he said, still too surprised to be angry. Frankie had begun to cry again, hopelessly. Alec felt Lewin pull him back and half-turn him, as though he could keep Alec from seeing. "Ah, Christ, they're not going to fight, are they?" Lewin mumbled. "Poor little bastard—"

"I don't understand," said Alec wildly, straining to see. "He didn'tfail! Why are they—"

"He's going into Hospital, Alec. Don't look, son, it's rude. Leavethem go with some privacy, eh?" But Alec couldn't look away as Frankie's dad began to struggle, shouting that this was an outrage, that it was racially motivated, that he'd appeal, and the administrator kept talking cheerily as though he couldn't hear, saying: "Please follow our courtesy escort to the waiting complimentary transport. You'll be whisked away to a lovely holiday at the East Grinstead Facility before beginning your special classes!" Nobody applauded. Alec felt as though he were going to throw up. Two of the men in suits were dragging Frankie's dad toward the door now, as the other two shepherded Frankie and his mummy afterthem.

The administrator drew a deep breath and sang out, "Alec William

St. James Thome Checkerfield!"

Alec seemed frozen in place, until Lewin pushed him forward. Dazed, he walked out to the dais and looked up into the administrator's happy face.

"Well, Alec, it's a pleasure to meet you! What do your dad and mum do, Alec?" Alec was tongue-tied. He heard Lewin's voice coming from just behind him: "My young gentleman's father is the Right Honourable Roger Checkerfield, sixth earl of Finsbury, sir."

"He'll be proud of you for sure, Alec," beamed the administrator. "You're to be admitted to the London Circle of Thirty! Well done, young Checkerfield! We expect great things of you!" There was applause. Alec stood there, staring. How could he have passed when Frankie had failed so badly, since they'd both had the right answers? Then Alec remembered the transmitters. He felt something swelling in his chest like a balloon. He was drawing breath to shout that it wasn't fair, that it was all a cheat, when he looked up and saw Lewin's old face shining with relief. So Alec said nothing, but walked meekly back to his place when the applause had ended. He stood like a stone through the rest of the ceremony, and every time he tried to summon blue water and a tall ship to comfort himself, all he saw was Frankie's dad wrestling with the other men. Twice more that afternoon, unhappy children and their parents were escorted out the door by the ominous-looking men, and everyone pretended not to notice.

When it was all over at last, Alec walked out with Lewin to the street where the limos were lining up, whooshing and bobbing in the wind. Waiting for his car to pull close, Alec climbed the steps of the mounting block and pretended he was going to the gallows.

... Again, he felt the noose being put around his neck. Perhaps he was a heroic prisoner of war? And the bad guys would execute him, but in this game he had managed to set free all the other prisoners, including the kids in Hospital. With no fear of death, he stepped forward off the ladder and felt the rope draw tight...

"Come on, son." Lewin opened the door for him. "Let's go home." Alec was silent in the car, until at last looking up to say:

"That wasn't fair. Frankie Chatterton shouldn't have gone intoHospital. He wasn't bad. I talked to him!"

"That's right, he sat beside you, didn't he?" said Lewin. "But theremust have been something wrong with the kid, son, or they wouldn'thave sent him off."

"He told me he'd been diagnosed eccentric," said Alec miserably.

"Ohh," said Lewin, and his face cleared and in his voice was sudden understanding, complete resignation, acceptance. "Oh, well, no wonder, then. Best to get that lot Sorted out early. Shame, but there it is."

That night the Captain, patiently monitoring Alec's vital signs, noted that it was past ten and Alec was still awake. He activated the projector and manifested himself beside Alec's bed.

"Now then, matey, it's six bells into the first night watch. Time you was turning in, says I."

"What happens to you in Hospital?" asked Alec, gazing up at the star patterns on his ceiling.

"Aw, now, nothing too bad. I reckon an ordinary dull kid wouldn't mind it much."

"What if you weren't dull?" Alec asked. "What if you were smart?"

"Why, they'd give you things to do," the Captain explained, pulling a chair from cyberspace and settling back in it. "More tests, so as to be certain you ain't the sort of boy what likes to set fire to things, or shoot folk, or like that. And if they decided you wasn't, you might get yerself discharged some day.

"Or I'll tell you what else might happen," and he leaned close with a gleam in his eyes, "and this is a secret, matey, but it's true all the same: some of the biggest companies in business, all their idea people is compensated eccentrics. When they wants real talent, they goes snooping around Hospitals for bright boys like yer little friend. See? And they arrange to bail 'em out, and give 'em contracts. So he might wind up with a good job after all."

"That would be nice," said Alec listlessly. "But it's still sad. Frankie's Mum and Dad needed him to do well. Nobody needs me to do well, but I got into Circle anyway. It should have happened the other way around. Nobody would have been hurt if I'd gone into Hospital."

"Belay that talk! What about old Lewin and Mrs. L? They'd miss you if you was taken away, certain sure. And what about me, matey?"

"But you're a machine," said Alec patiently.

"Machines got feelings, son. We're programmed to. Same as you, I reckon." The Captain stroked his wild beard, looking shrewdly at Alec. "What's put this notion of surrender into yer head, eh? Who's been feeding my boy a lot of nonsense? Or is it that you just don't want to go into Circle?"

"No," Alec said, bewildered, because he'd always looked forward to Circle and suddenly realized that now he hated the idea. "Yes. I don't know. I want to sail away and be free, Captain!"

"And so we will, lad. Soon's you come of age, hell! We give 'em the slip and we're off to Jamaica and anywheres else you want to go. But until then, we got to play along with the bastards, don't we? So no more talk about going into Hospital."

Alec nodded. After a moment he said, "Life isn't fair, is it?"

"Too bloody right it ain't fair!" The Captain bared his teeth. "It's a fixed game, Alec, that's what it is for certain. You ain't got a chance unless you cheat."

"Then somebody ought to make new rules," said Alec sullenly.

"I reckon so, son. But that's more than a old AI and a tired little matey can plot for tonight. Come morning we'll set a course for a new world, eh? You sleep now."

"Aye aye, sir," said Alec. He turned over and punched his pillow, settling down and closing his eyes. The Captain winked out but continued to scan, and the four red camera eyes in the corners of the ceiling watched over Alec with brooding love.

... Gradually the dim headland came into view, as the fog lifted away. There shining on the hills was the place Alec wanted, where he would make new rules. The west wind freshened. He howled orders from the wheel and his phantom crew mounted into the shrouds, clapping on sail. The breeze caught and flared Alec's black ensign, his death's head banner, and he grinned at the unsuspecting city. This is actually one of the oldest Company tales in its origins, dating way back to a sleepless night on a bus going up Interstate 5. Cram fifty actors and their assorted luggage, props and bad habits on a Mark IV for seven hours and you'd be amazed at the stories that act themselves out for you.

I owe also a debt of inspiration to William Overgard's brilliant Rudy in Hollywood comic strip, and of course Jane Goodall's The Chimpanzees of Gombe, a book as beautiful and heartbreaking as any human epic.

We think of ourselves as standing outside Nature, either for good or evil, but perhaps that's not so; perhaps we're part of it, merely the beast with the most potential. A little compassion for ourselves as well as our primate cousins might be called for. Neo-Darwinism will not hurt you, kids, as long as you play with it nicely.

Hanuman

So there i was playing billiards with an Australopithecus afarensis, and he was winning. I don't usually play with lower hominids, but I was stuck in a rehab facility during the winter of I860, and there was nothifig^else to do but watch holoes or listen to the radio programs broadcast by my owner/employer, Dr. Zeus Incorporated. And the programs were uniformly boring; you'd think an all-powerful cabal of scientists and investors, having after all both the secrets of immortality and time travel, could at least come up with some original station formats. But anyway... Repair and Rehabilitation Center Five was neatly hidden away in a steep cliff overlooking a stretch of Baja coastline. Out front, lots of fortunate convalescing operatives sprawled on golden sand beside a bright blue sea. Not me, though. When you're growing back skin, the medical techs don't like you sunbathing much.

Even when I looked human again, I couldn't get an exit pass. They kept delaying my release pending further testing and evaluation. It drove me crazy, but cyborgs are badly damaged so seldom that when the medical techs do get their hands on a genuine basket case, they like to keep it as long as possible for study.

Vain for me to argue that it was an event shadow and not a mysterious glitch in my programming that was to blame. I might as well have been talking to the wall. Between tests I sat interminably in the Garden Room among the bromeliads and ferns, thumbing through old copies of Immortal Lifestyles Monthly and trying to adjust my bathrobe so my legs didn't show.

"Oh, my! Nice gams," said somebody one morning. I lowered my magazine, preparing to fix him with the most scathing glare of contempt I could muster. What I saw astonished me. He was about four and a half feet tall and looked something like a pint-sized Alley Oop, or maybe like a really racist caricature of an Irishman, the way they were being drawn back then, liny head, face prognathous in the extreme, shrewd little eyes set in wrinkles under heavy orbital ridges. The sclerae of his eyes were white, like a Homo sapiens. White whiskers all around his face. Barrel chest, arms down to his knees like a chimpanzee. However, he stood straight; his feet were small, narrow and neatly shod. He was impeccably dressed in the fashion of the day, too, what any elderly gentleman might be wearing at this very moment in London or San Francisco.

I knew the Company had a few cyborgs made from Neanderthals in its ranks—I'd even worked with a couple—but they looked human compared to this guy. Besides, as I scanned him I realized that he wasn't a cyborg. He was mortal, which explained the white whiskers.

"What the hell are you?" I inquired, fairly politely under the circumstances.