Counter-Clock World Read online

  “I can handle the job; matter of fact, I’ve already put in for a reassignment.” What’s hard, he thought, is you. “Let me disgorge in private, will you?” he said angrily. “Go off; read the ’pape.”

  “Will you be affected?” Bethel asked. “By Ray Roberts coming here to the Coast?”

  “Probably not,” he said. He did, after all, have a regular beat. Nothing ever seemed to change that.

  “They won’t have you out with your popgun protecting him?”

  “Protecting him?” he said. “I’d shoot him.”

  “Oh dear,” Bethel said mockingly. “Such ambition. And then you could go down in history.”

  “I’ll go down in history anyhow,” Tinbane said.

  “What for? What have you done? And what in the future do you intend to do? Keep on digging up old ladies out at Forest Knolls Cemetery?” Her tone lacerated him. “Or for being married to me?”

  “That’s right; for being married to you.” His tone was equally scathing; he had learned it from her, over the long, dead months of their alleged marriage.

  Bethel returned, then, to the living room. Left alone, he continued to disgorge, now left in peace. He appreciated it.

  Anyhow, he thought gloomily, Tilly M. Benton of South Pasadena likes me.

  3

  Eternity is a kind of measure. But to be measured belongs not to God. Therefore it does not belong to Him to be eternal.

  —St. Thomas Aquinas

  It had always been difficult for Officer Joe Tinbane to determine precisely what official rank George Gore held in the Los Angeles Police Department; he wore an ordinary citizen’s cape, natty turned-up Italian shoes, and a bright, fashionable shirt which looked even a bit gaudy. Gore was a relatively slender man, tall, in his mid-forties, Tinbane guessed. He came directly to the point, as the two of them sat facing each other in Gore’s office.

  “Since Ray Roberts is arriving in town, we’ve been asked by the Governor to provide a personal bodyguard . . . which we planned to do anyway. Four or possibly five men; we’re in agreement on that, too. You asked to be reassigned, so you’re one.” Gore shuffled some documents on his desk; Tinbane saw that they pertained to him. “Okay?” Gore said.

  “If you say so,” Tinbane said, feeling sullen—and surprised. “You don’t mean for crowd control; you mean all the time. Around the clock.” In proximity, he realized. By personal they meant personal.

  Gore said, “You’ll eat with him—excuse the expression; sorry—and sleep with him in the same room; all that. He has no bodyguard, normally. But we have a lot of people out here holding deep grudges toward the Uditi. Not that they don’t in the F.N.M., but that’s not our problem.” He added, “Roberts hasn’t asked for this, but we’re not about to consult him. Whether he likes it or not he’s going to get twenty-four-hour protection while he’s in our jurisdiction.” Gore’s tone was bureaucratic and stony.

  “I gather we won’t be relieved.”

  “You’ll stagger your wake-sleep cycle, the four of you. But no; except for that, you’ll be with him all the time. It’s only for forty-eight or seventy-two hours; whichever he chooses. He hasn’t decided. But you probably know that; you read the ’papes.”

  Tinbane said, “I don’t like him.”

  “Too bad for you. But that’s not going to affect Roberts much; I doubt if he cares. He’s got plenty of followers out here, and he’ll get the curiosity crowd. He can survive your opinion. Anyhow, what do you know about him? You’ve never met him.”

  “My wife likes him.”

  Gore grinned. “Well, he can probably endure that, too. I get your point, though. It is a fact that a major part of his following are women. That seems to be generally the case. I have our file on Ray Roberts; I think you should read it before he shows up. You can do it on your own time. You’ll be interested; there’re some strange things in there, things he’s said and done, what Udi believes. We’re allowing that communal drug experience, you know, even though it’s technically illegal. That’s what it is: a drug orgy; the religious aspect is just fabrication, just window-dressing. He’s a weird and violent man—at least so we view him. I guess his followers don’t find him so. Or maybe they do and they like it.” Gore tapped a locked green metal box at the far edge of his desk. “You’ll see when you’ve read this—all the crimes he’s sanctioned for those gunsels of his, those Offspring of Might, to do.” He pushed the box toward Tinbane. “And after this, I want you to go to the People’s Topical Library, Section A or B. For more.”

  Accepting the locked file, Tinbane said, “Give me the key and I’ll read this—on my own time.”

  Gore produced the key. “One thing, Officer. Don’t fall for the ’pape stereotype view of Ray Roberts. A lot’s been said about him, but most of it is fictitious, and what actually is true hasn’t been said . . . but it’s in there, and when you’ve read it you’ll understand what I’m referring to. In particular I mean the violence.” He leaned toward Joe Tinbane. “Look; I’ll give you a choice. After you’ve read the material on Roberts, come back and see me; give me your decision then. Frankly I think you’ll take the job; it’s officially a promotion, a step up in your career.”

  Standing, Tinbane picked up the key and the locked box. I don’t agree, he thought to himself. But he said, “Okay, Mr. Gore. I have how long?”

  “Call me by five,” Gore said. And continued to grin his acid, knowing grin.

  In Section B of the People’s Topical Library, Officer Joe Tinbane warily stood at the Chief Librarian’s desk; something about the Library intimidated him—and he did not know what it was or why.

  Several persons were ahead of him; he waited restlessly, glancing about and wondering as always about his marriage with Bethel and about his career with the police department, and then about the purpose of life and the meaning—if any— of it, what the old-borns experienced while they lay in the ground, and what it would be like, someday, to dwindle away as he eventually would, and enter a nearby womb.

  As he stood there a familiar person came up beside him; small, in a long cloth coat, with her dark, extensive brown hair tumbling: a pretty, but married girl, Lotta Hermes.

  “’Bye,” he said, pleased to run into her.

  Her face white, Lotta whispered, “I—can’t stand it in here. But I have to look up some information for Seb.” Her discomfort was palpable; her whole body was held rigidly, awkwardly, so that its natural lines were warped; her fear made her misshapen.

  “Take it easy,” he said, surprised at her apprehension; he wanted at once to make her feel better and he took her by the arm, led her away from the Chief Librarian’s desk, out of the immense, dully booming room and into the relatively stress-free corridor.

  “Oh god,” she said miserably. “I just can’t do it, go in there and face that woman, that awful Mrs. McGuire. Seb told me to ask for someone else, but I don’t know anyone. And when I get scared I can’t think.” She gazed up at him miserably, appealing to him for help.

  Tinbane said, “This place gets a lot of people down.” His arm around her waist, he steered her down the corridor toward the exit.

  “I can’t leave,” she said frantically, pulling away. “Seb said I have to find out about the Anarch Peak.”

  “Oh?” Tinbane said. He wondered why. Did Sebastian expect the Anarch to be old-born in the near future?

  That would shed a somewhat different light on the pilg by Ray Roberts; in fact an entirely new light: it would explain why now and why Los Angeles.

  “Douglas Appleford,” Tinbane decided. He knew the man; a stuffy, formal, but reasonably helpful person; certainly far more easily dealt with than Mavis McGuire. “I’ll take you to his office,” he said to the frightened girl, “and introduce you to him. As a matter of fact I’m here doing research myself. On Ray Roberts. So I need assistance, too.”

  Lotta said, gratefully, “You know just about everybody.” She looked much better, now; the twisted, hunched posture had left her, and again she s
truck him as vital and attractive. Hmm, he thought, and guided her down the hall, toward Douglas Appleford’s offices.

  When Douglas Appleford arrived at his office in Section B of the Library that morning he found his secretary, Miss Tomsen, trying to rid herself—and him, too—of a tall, sloppily dressed, middle-aged Negro gentleman with a briefcase under his arm.

  “Ah, Mr. Appleford,” the individual said in a dry, hollow voice as he made out Appleford, obviously recognizing him at once; he approached, hand extended. “How nice to meet you, sir. Goodbye, goodbye. As the Phase has taught us to say.” He smiled a flashbulb instantly vanishing smile at Appleford, who did not return it.

  “I’m quite a busy man,” Appleford said, and continued on past Miss Tomsen’s desk to open the inner door to his especially private office. “If you wish to see me you’ll have to make a regular appointment. Hello.” He started to shut the door after him.

  “This concerns the Anarch Peak,” the tall Negro with the briefcase said. “Whom I have reason to believe you’re interested in.”

  “Why do you say that?” He paused, irritated. “I don’t recall ever having felt or expressed any interest in a religious fanatic fortunately laid in his grave for two decades.” With sudden suspicion and aversion he said, “Peak isn’t about to be reborn, is he?”

  Again the tall Negro smiled his mechanical smile—and mechanical it was; Doug Appleford now perceived the small but brilliant yellow stripe sewed on the tall man’s coat sleeve. This person was a robot, required by law to wear the identifying swath so as not to deceive. Realizing this, Appleford’s irritation grew; he had a strict, deeply imbedded prejudice against robies which he could not rid himself of; which he did not want to rid himself of, as a matter of fact.

  “Come in,” Appleford said, holding the door to his absolutely pin-neat office open. The roby represented some human principal; it had not dispatched itself: that was the law. He wondered who had sent it. Some functionary of a European syndicate? Possibly. In any case, better to hear the thing out and then tell it to leave.

  Together, in the central work chamber of his suite of chambers, the two of them faced each other.

  “My card,” the roby said, extending its hand.

  Appleford read the card, scowling.

  Carl Gantrix

  Attorney-At-Law, W.U.S.

  “My employer,” the roby said. “So now you know my name. You may address me as Carl; that would be satisfactory.” Now that the door had shut, with Miss Tomsen on the other side, the roby’s voice had acquired a sudden and surprising authoritative tone.

  “I prefer,” Appleford said cautiously, “to address you in the more familiar mode as Carl Junior. If that doesn’t offend you.” He made his own voice more authoritative. “You know I seldom grant audiences to robots. A quirk, perhaps, but one concerning which I am notoriously consistent.”

  “Until now,” the robot Carl Junior murmured; it retrieved its card and placed it back in its wallet, a thrifty, robotish move. Then, seating itself, it began to unzip its briefcase. “Being in charge of Section B of the Library, you are of course an expert on the Hobart Phase. At least so Mr. Gantrix assumes. Is he correct, sir?” The robot glanced up keenly.

  “Well, I deal with it constantly.” Appleford affected a vacant, cavalier tone; it was always better to show a superior attitude when dealing with a roby. Constantly necessary to remind them in this particular fashion—as well as in countless others—of their place.

  “So Mr. Gantrix realizes. And it is to his everlasting credit that via such a profound realization he had inferred that you have, over the years, become something of an authority on the advantages, sir, the uses and also manifold disadvantages, of the Hobart reverse- or anti-time field. True? Not true? Choose one.”

  Appleford pondered. “I choose the first. Although you must take into account the fact that my knowledge is pragmatic, not theoretical. But I can correctly deal with the vagaries of the Phase without being appalled. And it is appalling, Junior, the things that pop into being under the Phase. Such as the deaders. That really doesn’t appeal all that much to me; that, in my opinion, is one of the greater disadvantages. The rest of them I can stand.”

  “Certainly.” The roby Carl Junior nodded its thermoplastic, quite humanoid head. “Very good, Mr. Appleford. Now down to business. His Mightiness, the Very Honorable Ray Roberts, is preparing to come out here to the W.U.S., as you may have read in your morning ’pape. It will be a major public event, of course; that goes without saying. His Mightiness, who is in charge of the activities of Mr. Gantrix, has asked me to come to Section B of your Library and, if you will cooperate, sequester all manuscripts still extant dealing with the Anarch Peak. Will you cooperate? In exchange, Mr. Gantrix is willing to make a sizable donation to assist your Library in prospering in forthcoming years.”

  “That is indeed gratifying,” Appleford acknowledged, “but I’m afraid I would have to know why your principal wishes to sequester the documents pertaining to the Anarch.” He felt tense; something about the roby put his psychological defenses into operation.

  The roby rose to its metal feet; leaning forward, it deposited a host of documents on Appleford’s desk. “In answer to your query I respectfully insist you examine those.”

  Carl Gantrix, by means of the video circuit of the robot’s system, treated himself to a leisurely inspection of the assistant librarian Douglas Appleford as that individual plowed through the wearying stack of deliberately obscure pseudo-documents which the robot had presented.

  The bureaucrat in Appleford had been ensnared by the bait; his attention distracted, the librarian had become oblivious to the robot and to its actions. Therefore, as Appleford read, the robot expertly slid its chair back and to the left side, close to a reference card case of impressive proportions. Lengthening its right arm, the robot crept its manual grippers of fingeroid shape into the nearest file of the case; this Appleford did of course not see, and so the robot then continued with its assigned task. It placed a miniaturized nest of embryonic robots, no larger than pinheads, within the card file, then a tiny find-circuit transmitter behind a subsequent card, then at last a potent detonating device set on a three-day command circuit.

  Watching, Gantrix grinned. Only one construct remained in the robot’s possession, and this now appeared briefly as the robot, eyeing Appleford sideways and cautiously, edged its extensor once more toward the file, transferring this last bit of sophisticated hardware from its possession to the Library’s.

  “Purp,” Appleford said, without raising his eyes.

  The code signal, received by the aud chamber of the file, activated an emergency release; the file closed in upon itself in the manner of a bivalve seeking safety. Collapsing, the file retreated into the wall, burying itself out of sight. And at the same time it ejected the constructs which the robot had placed inside it; the objects, expelled with electronic neatness, bounced in a trajectory which deposited them at the robot’s feet, where they lay in clear view.

  “Good heavens,” the robot said involuntarily, taken aback.

  Appleford said, “Leave my office immediately.” He raised his eyes from the pseudo-documents, and his expression was cold. As the robot reached down to retrieve the now-exposed artifacts he added, “And leave those items here; I want them subjected to lab analysis regarding purpose and source.” He reached into the top drawer of his desk, and when his hand emerged it held a weapon.

  In Carl Gantrix’s ears the phone-cable voice of the robot buzzed. “What should I do, sir?”

  “Leave presently.” Gantrix no longer felt amused; the fuddyduddy librarian was equal to the probe, was capable in fact of nullifying it. The contact with Appleford would have to be made in the open, and with that in mind Gantrix reluctantly picked up the receiver of the vidphone closest to him and dialed the Library’s exchange.

  A moment later he saw, through the video scanner of the robot, the librarian Douglas Appleford picking up his own phone in answer.r />
  “We have a problem,” Gantrix said. “Common to us both. Why, then, shouldn’t we work together?”

  Appleford answered, “I’m aware of no problem.” His voice held ultimate calmness; the attempt by the robot to plant hostile hardware in his work area had not ruffled him. “If you want to work together,” he added, “you’re off to a bad start.”

  “Admittedly,” Gantrix said. “But we’ve had difficulty in the past with you librarians.” Your exalted position, he thought; protected by the Erads and all. But he did not say it. “There is, in the wealth of material—accurate and inaccurate—one particular piece of info that we lack, that we are particularly anxious to acquire. The rest . . .” He hesitated, then gambled. “I’ll put you in mind of that fact, and perhaps you can direct us to a source by which to verify it. Where is the Anarch Peak buried?”

  “God only knows,” Appleford said.

  “Somewhere in your books, articles, religious pamphlets, city records—”

  “Our job here at the Library,” Appleford said, “is not to study and/or memorize data; it is to expunge it.”

  There was silence.

  “Well,” Gantrix admitted, “you’ve stated your position with clarity and admirable brevity. So we’re to assume that that fact, the location of the Anarch’s body, has been expunged; as a fact it no longer exists.”

  “It has undoubtedly been unwritten,” Appleford said. “Or at least such is a reasonable presumption . . . and in accord with Library policy.”

  Gantrix said, “And you won’t even check. You won’t research it, even for a sizable donation.” Bureaucracy, he thought; it maddened him; it was insane.

  “Good day, Mr. Gantrix,” the librarian said, and hung up.

  For a time Carl Gantrix sat in silence, keeping himself inert. Controlling his emotions.

  He at last picked up the vidphone receiver once more and this time dialed the Free Negro Municipality. “I want to speak to the Very Honorable Ray Roberts,” he told the operator in Chicago.