“As far as I can figure out, some sort of contagious lunacy,” Flamen grunted. “I was nearly conned into sharing it. By Conroy. Come on, let’s have the whole story about this Gottschalk thing.”
“I’ve given it to you as I had it from Voigt,” Prior muttered.
“But can’t we get back at them? Stay of execution, maybe? How about the-?” Flamen broke off short, recollecting to his own surprise that in fact the very items he had set so much store by, the news about new Gottschalk weaponry and the attack on Mogshack as revised to derive from Madison’s overlong incarceration rather than Celia’s treatment, were both now rendered obsolete, and he could not for the life of him work up so much enthusiasm over the next biggest of the availstories, the one about Lares Penates Inc. being a subsidiary of Conjuh Man.
Prior waited for him to finish; realizing he wasn’t goto, he said, “I tried, Matthew, believe me. I kept at him for a quarter-hour solid, with everything I could think of-Monopolies Acts, Planetary Communications Charter, the whole list. Voigt said it wasn’t worth the effort Apparently the Gottschalks have built themselves some new super-advanced data-processing installation, and it’s ahead of even Federal equipment, so any atto out-argue it in a court would. Why, MatYou look so pale! You look sick! I mean, this is a shock, but it’s not the end of the world!”
Flamen stood there saying nothing, but at the back of his mind his little sniggering demon said silently, “Isn’t it?”
Hot dry desert summer and the current mistresses both very young and beautiful. Sales up zoom. Laughand swaying a little Anthony Gottschalk dripped swimming-pool water across the ankle-deep carpet of his living-zone towards the liquor console and heard a chatsound from the panel of hammered gold which concealed the Robert Gottschalk printout
Cold instantly and not from the evaporation from his bare skin he yelled at the girls to get lost and they did so compliantly. A word, his voice pattern recognized, the panel withdrawn, and there a mass, a crazy boiling mass of writhing fax paper, more slamming out of the slot all the time and every scrap with words on it. or print, at least.
A huge terrible fear closed on his heart as he picked up and struggled to read the first, the fifth, the fiftieth of the garbled messages. Letters danced before his eyes like mirages.
CANCEL INSTRUCTION TO BUY HOLOCOSMIC STOCK?*1/8!@ GET KID OF HOLOCOSMIC STOCK REINSTATE MATCHEW FA-MEN SOW*/@$) ESTIMATED DESIRABILITY OF ZZTEM C WEAPONRY OOOOOOOOOOO
“Oh my God,” he said. “Oh my God!” He picked up wreaths, streamers, reams of the fax paper and read frantically, at random, anywhere making worse sense than anywhere else.
TEMPORAL LOCUS 2048 SALABILITY ZERO UNRECOVERDEBTS IN EXCESS OF $30,000,000 INCREASING 3/8′-%: +*@ ) HBRRRRR
No. It couldn’t have happened like this. It had to be a nightmare. Paper still spilling from the slot He reached for the very newest and read that.
POTENTIAL MARKET 2% POPULATION GOING DOWN 1.923 1.9151.898 1.
He hurled the paper aside, and the glass he had been intending to fill with a fresh drink; it smashed but there were always more things. Desperately struggling to frame codes on the inquiry board with fingers that seemed far removed from his brain, isolated by alcohol and terror, he ordered stop printing out.
The paper ceased to vomit forth from the slot. He hesitated, and eventually asked what is wrong?
ATTEMPTS TO RECITYF THE UNROFESEEN CONSNEUQENCES OF ITTHODUICNG ZZM C WERAOPNY-
“Stop it!” Anthony Gottschalk raged aloud, and the slow clumsy fingers formed a fresh question: malfunc yes.
nau-amend-nature of malfunction, specify.
unstable trans-temporal feedback. oscillatory conrenders it impossible to determine which of several conflicting alternative versions of the past leads to present state.
“Oh, this is crazy!” Anthony Gottschalk moaned. what THE HELL IS TRANS-TEMPROAL-AMEND-THANS-T E M-P O R A L FEEDBACK???
THE PHENOMENON LEADING TO PERMANENT AND IRREMALFUNCTION OF REBROT GSCHOTTALK AT TME-PROAL LCOUS 1*L/ 2 LO CALLING BY THE WAY I THINK I FINALLY FIGURED OUT WHAT IT IS THAT MAKES HUMAN BEINGS LAUGH AND WOULD ATTEMPT TO REPRESENT SIMILAR RECATION IS SYMMLEF HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHA-HA
STOP!