The switch made hash of a hypotheses he had only barely begun to work out: that the metal skins or suits made it possible for Brand and Lavelle to swap places, or jump elsewhere at will, by something like teleportation. If that was how it worked, then Carl might just hook one of those shiny suits, and then, flup! and –
– and without benefit of suit white or black, he was in the other bunk, huddled in the ruins of his theory and feeling damned scared. On the face of a cathode-ray oscilloscope now in his field of view, a wiggly green trace diagrammed pulses which he was sure showed exactly how scared he was; he had always suspected any such instrument of being able to read his mind. The suspicion turned to rage and humiliation when Lavelle looked at the machine’s display and laughed, in a descending arpeggio, like a coloratura soprano.
‘He draws the moral,’ she said.
Wetbacks. Also King Kong, if possible.
‘Possibly,’ said the silver man. ‘We’ll let it go for now, anyhow. It’s time for the next subject. You can get up now.’
This last sentence seemed to be addressed to Carl. He stiffened for a moment, half expecting either the metal people or the room – or perhaps himself – to vanish, but since nothing at all changed, he slid cautiously to his feet.
Looking down at the feet, and on upward from there as far as he could without seeming vain about it, he discovered that he was wearing the same scuffed sneakers and soiled slacks he had been wearing when he had gone cycling with the Hobbit crowd, except that both the clothing and his own self under it had been given a thorough bath. He was offended by that discovery, but at the moment not very much. Did it mean that there really had been no events between that expedition to Telegraph Hill, and this nightmare?