Counter-Clock World Read online

  “Hello,” Sebastian said, and hung up.

  “You feel so guilty for hitting me,” Ann said, “that you’re now punishing yourself. By giving up.”

  “Maybe so,” he said. But that price; he could hardly believe the Uditi could meet it. “I’ll raise the price,” he said, “when Gantrix gets here.”

  “No you won’t,” Ann said. “You’ll capitulate. Anyhow, you don’t know if you still have possession of the Anarch. I think you better let me handle this, Sebastian; you’ve had it.”

  “You want,” he said, “to handle everything.”

  “Why not? I’m intelligent; I’m highly educated; I’ve had a good deal of training in business procedure. You’re worn out. Go in the back of the shop and lie down; I’ll wake you when Gantrix gets here, and you can act as an adviser to me. You need someone who can take charge when you get dispirited like this. I don’t think Lotta could do that for you. That’s why she lost out.”

  He got up, left the store, walked across the dark street. Searching for the stake-out. For a time he stood, waving his arms, and then from a building to his right a man emerged, the man who had called him to warn him about Ann. “I need help,” Sebastian said.

  “In what regard?” the dark-haired Italian-looking man said. “To take care of that McGuire girl?”

  “You probably saw our aircar take off from our roof, a little while ago.”

  “Yes,” the man said, “and we saw the Library bus go after it.”

  Sebastian said, “I don’t know if we still have the Anarch or not.”

  “We’re waiting to hear about that,” the man said. “It looked to us, at the stake-out, as if your aircar had a headstart. And it was really moving. Your driver must be an expert.”

  That would be Bob Lindy, Sebastian thought. He drives like a maniac. “How will you know?” he asked the man. “I have to find out because a buyer, representing Ray Roberts, is on his way here.”

  “Gantrix,” the man said, nodding. “We monitored the vidcall from Gantrix; we know about that. That’s quite a price you set; is that your real price? Or was that just to tie up the Uditi?”

  Sebastian said, “I had no idea they could raise it.”

  “They can’t. Not in W.U.S. poscreds, anyhow. Gantrix will try to get you to take F.N.M. scrip; as you know, it’s virtually worthless.” He added, “You failed to specify.”

  “If we don’t still have the Anarch,” Sebastian said, “it doesn’t matter.”

  “I can notify you as soon as we hear. We sent one of our own cars after the Library’s; we should hear any time, now. Stall Gantrix until we phone you.”

  “Okay.” Sebastian nodded. Then, awkwardly, he said, “I appreciate all your help.”

  The man said, “You’ve got to get rid of that McGuire girl. Can’t you get control of her? She’s tough; she’s a pro—but you’re bigger than her.”

  “What good would throwing her out on the street do?” It seemed futile to him. Pointless. “She’s already told the Library what she found out; there isn’t any more harm she can do.”

  “She’ll tip your hand to Gantrix; that’s what she’ll do.” The man’s voice rose in indignation. “She’ll take charge of the negotiations and the first you know, she’ll have sold the Anarch and it’ll all be over.”

  A second dark figure emerged from the building on the right; the two stake-out men from the Rome syndicate conferred.

  “She’s using your store vidphone to call the Library,” the first man said to Sebastian. “Telling the Erad Council about Gantrix, his meeting with you at the vitarium.”

  The other man, earphones still on his head, added, “And she’s telling the Library that she’s planted a bomb—she brought it in as part of her phony tape recorder—somewhere on the premises. Which she can detonate by remote any time she feels like it.”

  “What’s that for?” the first man asked him. “To blow up who? Herself?”

  “She didn’t say. The Erad at the Library who took her call seemed to know. Wait.” He tapped his earphones. “She’s making a second call.” He was silent and then he said, “This is to her husband.”

  “Her husband,” Sebastian said. So even that part wasn’t true. He felt real hatred for her, deep and abiding.

  “This is very interesting,” the man with the headphones said after a time. “She has a whole bunch of projects humming away. First, she wants your wife, Mrs. Hermes, located and watched. Do you know where your wife is, Mr. Hermes?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Second,” the man continued, “she wants some man named Joe Tinbane killed. And lastly, if that happens, she wants the Erads to pick up your wife so she can’t come back to you. Annie McGuire intends to stick around you until the Library gets possession of the Anarch and then—” He glanced at Sebastian. “She says she intends to kill you. For what you did to her. What did you do to her, Mr. Hermes?”

  “I slapped her,” he said.

  “Not hard enough,” the man with the headphones said.

  Sebastian turned and made his way back across the street, to the vitarium. When he entered he found Ann seated a good distance from the vidphone; she smiled briskly at him. “And where did you go?” she asked. “I looked out but it was too dark; I couldn’t see.”

  “I walked around and thought,” he said.

  “And what did you decide?”

  “I’m still trying to decide,” he said.

  Ann said, “There’s really nothing for you to decide.”

  “Yes there is,” he said. “What to do about you. That’s what I have to decide.”

  “I’m helping you,” Ann said ingratiatingly. “Go lie down and get some rest. I’ll tell you when Gantrix gets here. And—” She rose, put her hand on his arm, patted him. “Don’t worry so. If you’ve lost the Anarch then the Library has him, and that’s not so bad; they’ll know what to do. And if you still have him—” She hesitated, calculating; her intense blue eyes flickered mightily. “I can handle that very well. The negotiations with Carl Gantrix.”

  Going into the rear of the store he lay down on the bed which the Anarch had so recently occupied; he stared up sightlessly at the ceiling. My whole store, he thought. She can destroy it and me, everything; there’s nothing about me she can’t get into and control. Why can’t I stop her? he asked himself. I have a gun now; I could kill her.

  But he was trained to bring people back to life, not to kill them; his whole orientation, everything he believed, involved bestowing life. On everyone possible, without distinction; the vitarium never asked for a pedigree on the old-born it dug up; it never inquired into whether they ought to live again.

  It’s not that easy to kill a person, he thought. That’s not what people do; there has to be another answer. But hitting her hadn’t affected her—except to get him placed on her permanent foodlist, to be paid back. I don’t think I can physically drive her away, he decided. Not if she intends to hang around; words have no influence on her, nor menace to her physical safety. He wondered, Where is the bomb? Here in this room? God, he thought. I have to do something; I can’t lie here; I have to act.

  In the front room the vidphone rang.

  He sprang up, thinking, I can’t let her get that. He sprinted, panting, into the receptionist’s area; there she sat, already the receiver against her ear—he grabbed it away from her.

  “They wouldn’t talk to me anyhow,” Ann said philosophically. “They said they’d talk only to you, whoever they are.” She added, “I didn’t like their tone or their voice; you really have some strange friends, if that’s what they are.”

  It was Bob Lindy. “Can she hear me?” Lindy asked.

  “No.” He carried the phone and the receiver as far away from her as the cord would allow. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “Can’t you get rid of her?” Lindy demanded.

  “Just go ahead,” he grated.

  Lindy said, “We ditched them. The car following us. It was a real dogfight, like World War One. I
looped back and around, and then they looped; I did an Immelmann a couple of times . . . finally I got them going north, with me going south. By the time they turned around I was out of there. We set down just now; he’s still in the car.”

  “Don’t tell me where you are,” Sebastian said.

  “Hell no, not with that screwy dame there. She isn’t scared of you a bit, is she? Women are never scared of men they’ve been to bed with. But she’s scared of me; I saw it in her eyes when I had that gun on her. You want me to come back? I can leave Sign with the Anarch and join you at the store, say in about forty minutes.”

  Sebastian said, “I’ve got to handle it myself. Thanks. Call me back two hours from now. Hello.” He rang off.

  Standing by the window with her arms folded, Ann said, “So you still have possession of the Anarch. Well, well.”

  “How do you know that?” he said.

  “When you told him, ‘Don’t tell me where you are.’” She turned away from the window and toward him. “What is it you’re going to handle yourself?”

  “You,” Sebastian said.

  12

  We do not know what God is . . . because He is infinite and therefore objectively unknowable. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything.

  —Erigena

  They faced each other.

  “I have a bomb hidden here in the vitarium,” Ann said. “So don’t try to use that gun on me. And even if you get me out of here, I can still detonate the bomb; I can kill you and Carl Gantrix, and if I do that the Uditi will go after your wife; they’ll blame you and they’re very vengeful.”

  He said thoughtfully, “You won’t detonate the bomb while you’re still here. Because that would kill you, too, and you’re too vital, too active, to deliberately die.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled her crinkly smile. “That’s flattering.”

  A tap sounded at the front door.

  “It’s Mr. Gantrix,” Ann said; she moved toward the door. “Shall I let him in?” In answer to her own question she said, “Yes, I think it would clear the air to have a third party here. Then you wouldn’t be making all sorts of violent threats.” She opened the door.

  “Wait,” he said.

  She glanced up questioningly.

  “Don’t do anything to Lotta,” he said, “and I’ll let you have the Anarch.”

  Her eyes ignited, flared violently, triumphantly.

  “But I want her back first,” he said. “Physically back in my possession, before I give you the Anarch. I don’t want your word.” To her, words meant nothing.

  Pushing the half-open door aside, a sloppily dressed, rather gaunt and tall Negro said tentatively, “Mr. Hermes? Sebastian Hermes?” He peered into the front room of the vitarium. “Good to finally meet you, sir, face to face. Goodbye, Mr. Hermes.” He walked toward Sebastian, his hand extended.

  “Just a moment, Mr. Gantrix,” Sebastian said, ignoring the proffered hand. To Ann he said, “You understand the agreement?” He fixed his gaze on her, trying to read her face; it was impossible to guess what was going on in her mind: he couldn’t gauge her response.

  “I can see I’m interrupting,” Gantrix said, jovially. “I’ll go take a seat—” He strode toward one of the chairs. “—and read, until you’re finished.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “But I do have to meet His Mightiness, Ray Roberts, in an hour.”

  Ann said, “No one has ‘physical possession’ of anyone else.”

  “Words,” Sebastian said. “You use them sadistically; you know what I mean. I just want her back, here, not somewhere else like a motel or the Library, but here in the vitarium.”

  “Is the Anarch Peak on the premises?” Gantrix spoke up. “Could I tiptoe in and have a look at him while you good people carry on your discussion?”

  “He’s not on the premises,” Sebastian said. “We were forced to move him. For purposes of safety.”

  “But you do have actual and legal custody,” Gantrix said.

  “Yes,” Sebastian said. “I guarantee it.”

  Ann said, “What makes you think I can deliver Lotta back to you? She left of her own free will. I have no idea where she is, except that somewhere in San—”

  “But you will find the motel,” he said. “Eventually. You phoned the Library and told the Erads to keep working until they located her.”

  The girl’s face blanched.

  “I know the content of both calls,” Sebastian said. “To the Library and to your husband.”

  “Those were strictly private,” Ann said sulkily and with indignation—but also, he noticed, with fear. For the first time she had lost control; she was afraid of him. And with reason. Having knowledge of the calls, of her real intentions, had changed him; he felt the newness in him, and Ann evidently could see it. “I was just griped,” she said. “Nobody’s going to kill Joe Tinbane; that was just talk. You upset me terribly when you hit me; no man has ever hit me in my entire life. And what I said about sticking with you—” She chose her words scrupulously. He could sense her sorting among the possibilities. “Frankly, I want to stay with you because I’m attracted to you. I had to give my husband an excuse; I had to tell him something.”

  “Get the bomb,” he said.

  “Hmm,” she said reflectively, again folding her arms. “I wonder if I ought to do that.” She seemed less frightened, now.

  His attention captured, Carl Gantrix again spoke up. “Bomb? What bomb?” He stood up nervously.

  “Turn the Anarch over to us,” Ann said, “and I’ll defuse the bomb.”

  Impasse.

  To Carl Gantrix, Ann said, “I brought the bomb in here when the Anarch was here. To kill him.”

  Staring at her with horror, Gantrix said, “W-why?”

  “I’m from the Library,” Ann said. Puzzled by his reaction, she said, “Doesn’t Ray Roberts want the Anarch killed?”

  “Oh my god no!” Gantrix said.

  Both Sebastian and Ann Fisher stared at him, now.

  “We revere the Anarch,” Gantrix said, stammering in his vehemence, his disclaim. “He’s our saint—the only one we’ve got. We’ve waited decades for his return; the Anarch will have all the ultimate wisdom of the afterlife; that’s the entire purpose of Roberts’ pilg: this is a holy journey, for the purpose of sitting at the feet of the Anarch and hearing his good news.” He walked toward Ann Fisher, now, his fingers clutching; she ducked away, avoiding him. “The news, ” Gantrix said. “The glorious news of the fusion in eternity of all souls. Nothing else matters but this news.”

  Ann said faintly, “The Library—”

  “You Erads,” Gantrix said; his voice was harsh, bleak with disdain. “Tyrants. Petty rulers of this earth. What business is it of yours? You intend to eradicate the news which he has brought back?” He turned to Sebastian. “The Anarch, you say, is physically safe, now?”

  “Yes,” Sebastian said. “They tried to get him; in fact they almost did.” Had he been wrong about Roberts? Was this true? He had a strange, eerie feeling of unreality, as if Carl Gantrix was not actually here, not genuinely saying anything; it was like a dream, Gantrix’s words, his dismay and outrage, his avowed dislike of the Library. But if it were true, he thought, then we can do business; we can go ahead and purvey the Anarch to him. Everything is changed.

  To Sebastian, Carl Gantrix said, “Does she have the detonator of the bomb on her?”

  “The Library can detonate the bomb,” Ann said huskily.

  “No,” Sebastian said. “It’s on her.” To Ann he said, “That’s what you said in your vidcall to the Library.”

  “Do you think she would let herself be killed by it?” Gantrix asked him.

  “No,” Sebastian said. “I’m positive; she meant to get out of here first.”

  Gantrix said, “Then we can proceed this way: I’ll hold her arms while you search for the detonator.” He gripped the girl, then, in an iron-rigid hold. Too rigid, Sebastian thought; he noted that. And then he understood his se
nse of unreality about Gantrix; it was a robot, operating on remote.

  No wonder “Gantrix” was not frightened by the bomb, now that he—or rather his operator—knew that the Anarch was away and safe. It’s only me, Sebastian realized, who’ll be killed; me and Ann Fisher McGuire.

  “I suggest,” the roby said, “that you search her as quickly as you can.” Its voice was firm with authority.

  Sebastian said, “Annie, don’t detonate it. For your own sake. It won’t accomplish anything; this isn’t a man—it’s only a robot. The Uditi won’t seek blood because of the destruction of a robot.”

  “Is that true?” she asked “Gantrix.”

  “Yes,” it said. “I am Carl Junior. Please, Mr. Hermes; get the triggering device away from her. We have business to conduct and I have less than an hour.”

  He found the mechanism in her purse. After a fifteenminute search. Thanks to the robot’s tight grip on the girl she had no chance of reaching it; they had never genuinely been in danger.

  “You have that, now,” Ann said, with stilted composure, “but my instructions to the Library still stand. About Joe Tinbane and about your wife.” She faced him defiantly, now, as the robot released her.

  “And about me, too?” Sebastian asked. “Sticking to me, staying with me, to—”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” she said, massaging her arms. She brushed her hair back, smoothed it, shook her head vigorously. “I think he’s lying,” she said, making a quick, furtive gesture at Carl Junior. “If you turn the Anarch over to him you’ll get nothing but worthless F.N.M. poscreds and then they’ll announce in a few weeks that the Anarch is ailing, and then he’ll disappear. He’ll be dead. A little while ago, before it came, you offered me a quid pro quo. I’ll now accept; you’ll get Lotta back—as you specified, physically here at the vitarium. And we receive the Anarch.” She studied him, waiting for his answer.

  He said, “But if Udi gets the Anarch—”

  “Oh, you conceivably might see Lotta again anyhow. I’m not threatening you; I’m offering you an absolute guarantee.” Once again Ann seemed poised, in control of herself. “We’ll put the resources of the Library behind persuading her to leave Joe Tinbane and return to you; it won’t be coercion; it’ll be nothing more than making her appreciate how much you care for her. How much you’ve given up for her sake. You gave up forty-five billion poscreds to get her back; she’ll understand that . . . some of the Erads are very good at making intricate issues clear.”