same sense of chauvinism is there, and a roiling muck of
nationalistic fantasies. You can bet the Alliance factions
will break down in a monumental squabble once this war
is over. The Russians against us, a real Armageddon. They
have the taste of blood, and the old hates have been
resurrected on all sides.”
“And nothing can be done?”
He didn’t answer me, aware that it was an unanswer-
able question. He just drove and looked morose and con-
tributed to my flagging spirits.
This was the age of instant history. More could happen
in a week than happened in a year in the previous centu-
ry. Everything moved, relentlessly, determinedly, and we
were all caught up by it, swept along, either to be
drowned in the swell or carried to a foreign shore on the
wave crests.
I had a feeling I was going to be one of those to drown.
I was valuable to the war machinery. And even when the
war was over, I could serve the junta with my esp, help to
oppress those at home who would not appreciate the
beauty of a military nation. And I didn’t know whether I
could do that, for I might be one of those rebelling
myself. All my life I had been floundering from one
emotional disaster to another, drawing in and in and in
upon myself. And then I had met Melinda, had been
treated by my Porter-Rainey Solid-State headshrinker, and
had opened myself to the world for the first time, had
tasted pure freedom and enjoyed it. The loss of my sanity
within Child’s mind and the long attempt to get free of
him had interrupted my enjoyment of that new-found
peace. And now that I was back, now that Melinda and a
pleasant future lay within my grasp, the world was in the
hands of the madmen who threatened to tear it apart.
But I couldn’t drown. I had to ride those wave crests,
had to survive to keep Melinda surviving. Damn them and
their bombs and their war lusts!
As we drove, I felt my rage grow, swell, encompass my
entire mind. And I realized that it would not be good
enough to ride those crests. At most, the two of us would
come out alive, washed ashore after the apocalypse, with
each other. But our world would be destroyed and useless,
and we would have no freedom, then, at all. Life would
be a constant battle for survival in a society thrown back
to barbarism. No, what I was going to have to do was
forget about riding the crests of the waves—and find some
way to direct the tides of the entire damn ocean of our
future!
“Not that I don’t find your company perfectly marvel-
ous,” I told Harry, “but could you take me to Melinda’s
place instead of yours?”
He hesitated before he said it, but he said it just the
same. “She isn’t at her place, Sim. She’s been arrested.
She’s a political prisoner.”
It took long seconds for the words to sink in. When
they did, my rage became godly wrath, and I began to
seek someone upon whom to vent it. I was not afraid for
her safety. I basked in the certainty of my power. I still
did not see that I was bound up in the same flawed
philosophy that had brought me to ruin so many times
before….
III
I stood by the window of Harry’s den, holding a glass
of brandy which I had not yet tasted. Beyond the win-
dow: a copse of trees, snow-covered grass, white-bearded
hedgerows. The stark, wintry vista matched my thoughts,
as I considered what Harry had told me on the way over.
Melinda had become engaged in writing pamphlets for
some revolutionary group and had been under surveil-
lance. Upon the magazine publication of the first part of
her biography of my life—the childhood years in the AC
complex—she had been arrested for questioning in con-
nection with the death of a copper and the destruction of
a howler some two weeks before. Whether there had been
any questioning or not, no one would know; she was still