THE WRONG END OF TIME BY JOHN BRUNNER

She stared for a long frozen moment. Then she let the curtain fall and spun on her heel. Spotting her dress tossed over a chair, she ducked into it-a slow job, because her arms kept coming out through the wrong openings. But she managed it in the end.

Shoes? Oh, yes: left them in the car. But where the hell had she left the car with them in?

She rushed to the window: grimy, reinforced with wire, veiled with cheap semi-translucent curtains. Below, on the opposite side of the street, a car that looked like hers the right make and model, anyway. Thank goodness.

Toilet?

The reeky turd! I’ll use his shower!

She turned it on, reluctantly, when she’d finished, and got splashed. The noise of running water aroused Danty, and he gave her a sleepy grin and said, “Hello, Loral” “Good-bye!” she snapped, and stormed out. The exit door gave a satisfactory slam.

That was what woke Magda. When she pushed aside the curtain, she found Danty at the window, watching Lora on the way to her car. She said, “Hi, Danty. Was it the Turbinate?”

“Hi, Magda.” He didn’t look around. “Yes.”

“Slumming, hm?” She approached and gave him a peck on a cheek stubbly with new beard.

“Yes, I guess so. And apparently regretting it this morning. But last night she had a terrific time.” He uttered a sad chuckle. “You’ll never believe this, but it’s gospel. She managed to have me photographed with Prexy!”

Magda drew back half a step, staring. Abruptly she burst into helpless laughter.

“Dantyl Oh, baby! That’s the end, the ultimate end”

“Shit, you’ll be a White House consultant yet, honey,” Danty said. The car below moved off, and he turned back

from the window. “Fix some coffee, hm? I’ll go take a shower. I need one. That kid has-uh-variegated tastes in BCT.”

“She doesn’t call it that, does she?” Magda demanded in disbelief.

“No, she doesn’t. But she confided that her mother does -or did, at least, to explain her lovers to her kids when they were young. `Body contact therapy,’ straight up.” He yawned and stretched. “Tell you about it in a moment.”

By the time he was through showering and shaving, there was coffee in big mugs and Magda had put on a robe. She said as Danty sat down, “Tell me, did it work out?”

“Yes.” Sipping his coffee, he suddenly unfocused his eyes in the disconcerting fashion he had, which made him seem to be peering into another world.

“You don’t sound very happy about it.”

“Hell, no It gets bigger and more terrifying. It’s like being in a car witl- ‘he governor shorted out, and some crazy fool at the wheel who wants to prove he’s as good as a machine at a hundred-fifty. I mean-hell! I knew I had to be at the scrap yard, but I didn’t know why until I saw Josh and Shark and Potatohead getting ready to strip, and kill her. So I fish her out of trouble with this busted rifle, so she invites me to this party, so I meet this Canuck who’s a house-guest of her father’s. Says he’s in timber up in Manitoba. Piss on that. He can quote the Gita. I heard him. Hell, I made him And I looked around the garage while Lora was getting out her car, and right next to it was her father’s, and I saw it before. It was the car waiting to pick up the man from the sea.”

“You think it’s Holtzer.”

“It’s Holtzer, no shit.” Danty drew a deep breath; when he let it out again she heard his teeth rattle. “Magda, I am goddamned scared now! I do weirder and weirder things for subtler and subtler reasons, and I daren’t not do them, and what frightens me worst-”

He broke off. Magda reached across the table and clasped his hand.

“Well, this,” he said after a pause. “What do I do when I reach the point where I feel what I must do, and I can’t do it, because I’m like sick, or weak, or tired out? Won’t I know I’m-well-trapped?”

“You ever felt that’s come close to happening?” Magda asked in a commonsensical tone. Danty pondered for a moment.

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