Through the noise and darkness of the Fox’s Lair he followed the light-emitting useful nipple-assist of the waitress. By table after table they walked, and then, all at once, Genet halted.
There, seated in silence, smoking a cigarette, sat Freya Holm.
“You understand,” Rachmael said as he took the chair beside her, “that this is the second time. That I’ve met you here.” From her pack he took a cigarette, read the health-warning sticker, then lit up. At least it is for me, he realized. But I suppose not for you.
“No,” Freya said, shaking her head. “I don’t understand. Do you want to explain it to me, or do you enjoy mystifying young ladies? ”
Reaching into his pocket he groped for the tin of Yucatan prophoz . . .
And found nothing.
“Of course,” he said, feeling hot prickles of chagrin ignite the back of his reddening neck. “I’m now back too far.” Before the U.N. wep-x people provided me with it, he realized. So I can’t use it again; I’m on my own, now. Exactly as I was when I sat here before. It was a darkly sobering realization; the rapprochement with Horst Bertold had not taken place—and possibly never would. The future—and that important moment had again become a portion of the future, not the past—was always in absolute flux. Everything that had been accomplished with Bertold—in fact everything that had been done period—had been expunged, wiped away.
Everything, too, which had gone wrong. That had been obliterated as well—hence his return, here to this spot, to this moment in his life, the moment when the first successful sortie against them had been carried out: the moment when Freya Holm had failed to transfer the deep-sleep components from her possession to his.
“. . . There is a strip of titanium within the righthand overleaf of the menu,” Freya was saying softly to him. “The container of scent within my purse has a titanium-tropic ambulation-circuit; it will within one or two seconds register the presence of the strip and will then rotate itself out of my purse, which I’ve left open on purpose. It will travel across the underside of the menu. Do you see?”
“I see,” Rachmael said, “but I can tell you that it’s all a damn waste of technog and time; a robot operating for Ferry’s interest is going to intercept the components and I’ll never get my hands on them. Take my word for it.” Because I know, he said savagely to himself, with overpowering wrath.
“In that case we have another plan.” Freya Holm did not appear perturbed. “The Omphalos will be systematically disassembled, reduced to sections small enough to pass through a Telpor station as luggage. On the far side, at Whale’s Mouth, technicians from Lies Incorporated will reassemble the ship, and, from the Fomalhaut system, you will travel across deep space back to Terra. How do you feel about that? Would you compromise in that extent? If we can’t manage to get the components to you, as you say—”
“Be quiet.” He had spotted the busboy who, carrying the chest-high load of dishes, would bump him at the crucial instant and acquire the vital deep-sleep components before he could transfer them to his cloak pocket. Now that I know, he mused, is it possible that I can deflect it? Does my advance knowledge equip me to deal with this action on the part of Theo Ferry? He did not know enough about time travel to be sure. But if the knowledge proved useless, then why did the UN regard the time-warping construct as a major weapon?
He had to assume—by the logical of the situation—that his prior knowledge would constitute, at least potentially, a decisive new factor; the original scene would not unroll mechanically, to the same termination.
Based on this realization it seemed evident that he should make at least one overt try to thwart the robot busboy. And if he failed—then he was no worse off then before, at the original encounter. And he had made a successful escape from the class of weevils, from the threat
See Note on page V
I can still obtain the deep-sleep components, he realized. Despite what the menu says. But—
Do I still want them?
There was nothing now to learn about Whale’s Mouth; he had been there, seen it all.
Or had he?
“All I’ve seen,” he said slowly, aloud, “is one para-world after another.” Chilled, he realized, I still don’t know which is real. The class, through its Control Sheila Quam, had been on the verge of determining which of the several possibilities was the authentic one. Had he waited fifteen minutes longer he would have found out.
A weak shock made his right hand tingle; the container of deep-sleep components within Freya’s purse had responded to the strip of titanium in the menu and had already crawled across the underside of the page to make physical contact with him.
With his fingers he pried it, clam-like, loose from its grip, its tropism; the object dropped into his lap and he experienced its real, actual weight. After a pause he reached out with his left hand to transfer it sight unseen, even by him, to the pocket of his cloak . . .
“Oops—sorry.” The robot busboy had stumbled against him as it conveyed its chest-high load of dirty dishes back to the kitchen.
At once Rachmael leaped up; seizing the artificial candle in the center of his table he brought it down with all his strength onto the metal head of the robot.
Without hesitation the robot busboy kicked him in the groin.
“It’s got the components,” he gasped to Freya, shuddering in abysmal pain. “Don’t—let it—get away!”
Swiftly reacting, Freya clouted the robot busboy with her purse. A torrent of metal and plastic parts rained from it, and out of its hand fell the circular container of deep-sleep components; Rachmael, despite his agony, managed to close his fingers around it.
“What’s going on here?” Caspar, the maitre d’ yelled, striding toward the three of them, his face dark with outrage.
“Come on,” Rachmael said, seizing Freya by the arm. “Let’s get out of here.” He led her among the squeezed-together tables, toward one of the exits; the other diners gaped at them in bewilderment.
“I got it,” he said as he and Freya stepped out into the deserted, faintly misty street, the looming downtown section of San Diego; a few for-hire flapples jogged and fluttered past, but that was all—the two of them had gotten away. With, this time, the components.
“You’re going to make the trip?” Freya asked as they walked on, away from the Fox’s Lair, toward a lighted main intersection.
“Yes,” he said, nodding. So everything was changed. He would go to Whale’s Mouth, but not as before; not via Telpor. This time he would make the trip across deep space to Fomalhaut as he had intended all along. The way I wanted it from the start, he realized. And no one can stop me, now; not Ferry, not von Einem—not even Lupov, whichever side he’s on, if not both sides simultaneously.
The air, in his lungs, the cool cloudy scent of the city, tasted good; he inhaled deeply, and strode on at an increased pace.
Freya said, “It’s a very good thing you’re doing. Very brave. I admire you for it.” She wiggled her hand beneath his arm so that she was hanging onto him, admiringly; he felt her keen, appraising gaze.
“It’s a good thing,” he agreed. But, he realized, not so brave; in fact not brave at all, in comparison to what I encountered—and would have to encounter again—by direct teleportation to Whale’s Mouth. Theodoric Ferry, the dead, resurrected monster that claimed once to have been Matson Glazer-Holliday—this flight, long as it is, eighteen vast and empty light-years of it, will be much easier. And, he thought, I won’t even know its tedious length because at last I have this. His hand, in the pocket of his cloak, closed over and tightly squeezed the cylinder of deep-sleep components, engagingly marked Eternity of Sexual Potency Fragrance #54.
And, he realized, during the intervals in which I am conscious, when it’s necessary to recorrect the trajectory of the Omphalos, I could have someone with me for company. Someone I like—and know I would like increasingly better as time goes on . . . goes its regular path, undisturbed. This, he realized, is the genuine solution. Finally. This—and not the UN’s time-warping device or any device at all.
Thinking that, he paused before entering the area of light; in the darkness of the side street, unnoticed by passers-by, he scrutinized Freya Holm a long, long period.
“Hmm,” he said, half aloud. Contemplatively.
“What are you thinking about?” Freya asked shyly, her dark, full lashes trembling as she returned his stare. “The years of deep sleep ahead of you?”
“Not quite that,” Rachmael answered. “Something a little more this side of sleep. But connected with it.” He put his arm around her.