THE SWORD SWALLOWER

RON GOULART

Ron Goulart has a sharp sense of the absurd, and has displayed it in his fiction for ten years now, much to the delight of his readers, One of his most genial creations is Ben Jolson, a member of the interstellar Chameleon Corps, which has trained him to change shapes at will, sort of like Plastic Man. He still has his problems, though, as witness this adventure on a graveyard planet that is the antithesis of the one in Roger Zelazny’s story in this volume.

The old man danced on the wall. He grew larger, flickered, was gone. The peach colored office became light, the projector whirred to silence and the Head blinked his round wide eyes. Til tell you who that was,” he said. He flicked a yellow disc out of a filigreed pill box and put the disc on his tongue.

Ben Jolson, slouching slightly on the visitor’s side of the low black desk, said, “It’s the man you want impersonated.”

“That’s it,” said Head Mickens, swallowing and brightening. He rested a fingertip in the depression beneath his left eye. “The pressures that go with this job have increased so much lately, Ben. Due to all the trouble in the War Bureau.”

“The disappearances.”

“Exactly, First General Moosman, then Admiral Rockisle. A week later Bascom Lamar Taffler, the father of Nerve Gas #26. And this morning, about the break of day, Dean Swift himself.”

Jolson sat up. “The Chairman of the War Bureau is missing?”

“It hasn’t been on the news yet. I’m breaking it to you, Ben. Swift was last seen in the north corner of his rose garden. He’s a great rose man.”

“I saw a documentary about it,” said Jolson. “You people in the Political Espionage Office have called on the Chame-

leon Corps because of the disappearances?” ““Yes,” nodded Head Mickens. He unwrapped a blue and gold spantial and dropped the foil in the dispozhole next to his desk. “It’s an explosive situation, Ben. It goes without saying thej Barnum System of planets can’t afford another peace scare.”

“You suspect pacifists?”

The Head put his thumb in his ear and half rotated his palm. “We have little to go on, precious little. I’ll admit there is a tendency on the part of PEO to see pacifists everywhere. As you know, there’s some objection to the way the War Bureau is handling Barnum’s colonization of the Terran planets.”

“Especially when they demolished North Carolina.”

“One little state.” The Head popped the spantial into his mouth. “At any rate, you have to admit that when key War Bureau people, and their affiliates, start vanishing … well, it could be pacifists.”

“Who was the old man in the film?”

“Leonard F. Gabney,” said the Head. He tapped the desk top with his spread fingertips. “I’m supposed to take something for the side effects.”

Jolson reached down and picked a pill roll off the peach rug. “These?” he asked, tossing.

“Let’s hope so. Now. Gabney himself is not important, just an old gentleman you’ll be impersonating. You’ll be sleep-briefed on him. We’ll get to the actual assignment.” Head Mickens tore a pill off the roll. “The important man here is Wilson A. S. Kimbrough.”

Jolson shook his head. “Wait. Kimbrough is the Ambassador to the planet Esperanza, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he runs the Barnum Embassy in the capital there.”

“I don’t want to go to Esperanza.”

“Don’t want to go?” asked the Head. “You have to go, it’s in your contract. Once a CC man, always a CC man. Duty before business. Plus which, we can fine you. We can get the lease on your ceramics plant canceled/’

When he was not on assignment with the Chameleon Corps, JoJson ran a pottery plant in the suburbs of Keystone City. He’d been picked for the CC when he was twelve. After a dozen years of training and conditioning, he became a full fledged Chameleon agent. That was ten years ago. There was no way to quit. “Esperanza would unsettle me,” said Jolson, slumping.

“They have to bury people someplace, Ben.”

“But a whole planet that’s nothing but cemeteries,” said Jolson.

“There are five hundred thousand people on Esperanza,” Head Mickens told him. “Alive people. Not to mention, let me see, ten million tourists and nearly six million mourners visiting Esperanza each year.” He held a memo up.

Jolson looked away. “The whole planet smells of floral pieces.”

“Let me,” said the Head, “outline the problem. There is a slight possibility—and this is based on material gathered by far flung PEO people—that Ambassador Kimbrough is linked up with this wave of abductions. Admiral Rockisle was actually on Esperanza when he vanished.”

“Went to put a wreath on the grave of the Unknown Commando,” said Jolson. “I know.”

“If Kimbrough is a weak link, we have to establish it. This is one of many leads we are checking out,” said Head Mickens. “Starting next week he’ll be spending a vacation at Nepenthe, Inc., just outside Esperanza City.”

“Nepenthe, Inc. The rejuvenated spa for old tycoons?”

“A refuge for time worn industrial and political leaders, yes. You become this old boy, Gabney, and we slip you into Nepenthe,” said Head Mickens. “You won’t have any trouble changing into old Gabney, will you?”

The Chameleon Corps had made Jolson into a shape changer. He could turn into any person, nearly anything. “No.” He bowed his head over a palmed fist. “You want me just to listen?”

“No. We want you to get Kimbrough alone and hit him with a battery of truth drugs. Find out what he knows, whom he’s tied in with.”

Jolson rocked back once. “Okay. I guess I have to do it. Who’s my contact on Esperanza?”

“I can’t tell you now because of security procedures. You’ll be approached there.” “How?”

Head Mickens felt around on his desk top. “I have a special identifying phrase here someplace.” He found a blue memo. “Here. 15-6-1-24-26-9-6. Someone will say, or more likely whisper, that to you.”

“How come numbers? What happened to the poetry tes?” Mickens said, “Security thought they were too controversiall. And it’s not masculine to have agents running around saying, ‘With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb’st the skies’ and such.”

“What’s the length of my stay at Nepenthe, Inc., going to be?”

“We’ve booked you in for a week,” said Head Mickens. “Though we expect results before that. Long before that.” He noticed a green memo card. “The place costs $10,000 a week, Ben. We had to siphon money out of the Political Espionage Office’s recreation fund to pay the tab.” “There goes the new handball court.” “Not to mention our hot lunch fund for computer programmers,” said Mickens. “But this is a crisis. Then what isn’t? You can report to Briefing Central now, Ben. First though, help me find a vial of raspberry colored liquid. I was supposed to take a spoonful half an hour ago.” They both got down on their hands and knees.

His senior citizen suite in the Esperanza Plaza Hotel kept calling him gramps. Jolson, who now seemed to be eighty-four years old, stooped and spotted, was in a relaxing chair on the balcony of his living room. He’d requested, as apparently many old men did, a view of something besides the cemeteries beyond the capital. Gabney, the real Gabney, controlled telekinesis for all the Barnum planets, and his name had enough influence to get him a room with a view of the business district. At nightfall a cruiser from Nepenthe, Inc. would call for Jolson.

“Souvenir postcards, pappy?” asked a grid under his chair. “Artistic views of eleven famous crypts. Illusion of depth.”

“Balderdash,” said Jolson in his raspy Gabney voice. “Where’s that drink I ordered?”

“Your medical card says no hard stuff, gramps,” replied the grid. “Why don’t you try the soup dispenser in your bedroom?”

“Thunderation,” said Jolson.

“Venusian gumbo’s the specialty today. Or would you prefer a bowl of real London gruel?”

Jolson drummed the fingers of one freckled hand on the flesh-like arm of his chair. “I recall a suite at the Keystone Ritz where I could bribe the servos.”

“You might drop ten dollars down the shoeshine outlet, granddaddy,” the grid told him. “It might produce a sco< on the rocks/’

Jolson used his blackstick cane to swivel himselt up out of the chair. He was poised over the shoe hole when the door of the suite chimed. “Yes?” he said.

“Welcome to Esperanza on behalf of the Barnurr,; Embassy/” called a girl’s voice. “I have a basket of reconstituted fruit for you, Mr. Gabney.”

“Well, well,” said Jolson as he opened the door.

A young willowy brunette was standing there, slightly on tiptoe. She had sharply angled cheekbones and short straight hair. Her dress was lemon yellow, on her arm was a Barnum Embassy armband, and across her forehead in lipstick was written 15-6-1-24-26-9-6. She winked carefully and wiped her tan forehead clean with a tissue. “We come out and greet all the important Barnum visitors to Esperanza,” she said, coming sideways into the suite. “I’m Jennifer Hark, Mr. Gabney.”

“Indeed you are, my dear,” said Jolson. The door closed and he added, “So?”

She jerked her head negatively and walked out onto the balcony. The afternoon wind flicked at her hair. Putting the basket of fruit down on the relaxing chair, she motioned Jolson out. “The basket is an anti-bug. It’ll kill any pickups around here.”

“Who’d be listening to me?” he asked when he joined her. “Besides the senior citizen andies.”

“We have to take precautions.”

“The hotel might get suspicious.”

“I’m only here for a few minutes,” she told him, handing him a runt apricot. “Keep this. If you get in trouble at Nepenthe, squeeze it and I’ll help you out of the fix.”

“Wait,” said Jolson. “I don’t need lady daredevils to help me.” He thumbed the fruit back to her.

She pushed it to him. “Orders. Keep it with you at all times.”

Til look silly at the spa carrying a lousy apricot around.” “Tell them it’s a fetish. Old men have lots of those,” she said. Jennifer cocked her head and studied him. “This is really wonderful. You look ninety.”

“Eighty-four. And don’t call me gramps.” One long fingered hand spun out and touched at his face. “You really seem old. How do you do it?”

“With twelve years of processing. It’s a knack.” “I never cease to be amazed by the Chameleon Corps.” she clapped her hands together once. “I’ve found something.We’ree starting to pick up veiled references to something called Group A.” “Behind the snatches?” “It’s possible. See what Kimbrough says.” “You really work for his embassy?”

“It’s my cover,” said the girl. “Well, good luck on your mission, li all goes well report to me before you return to Barnum. Go into the New Rudolph Florist Shop on Solitude Way and say the numbers. Got it?” “Sure,” said Jolson.

“You get in any trouble out at the rejuvenation place and you yell.”

Jolson returned her fruit basket to her. “Thank you for your visit, my dear. Now I’m afraid it’s time for my nap.” “Very convincing,” she murmured, leaving.

Jolson stepped out of the cruiser and into a pool of hot mud. He sank down to chin level, rose up and noticed a square-faced blond man squatting and smiling on the pool’s edge.

The man extended a hand. “We start things right off at Nepenthe. Shake. That mud immersion has taken weeks of aging off you already, Mr. Gabney. I’m Franklin T. Tripp, Coordinator and Partial Founder.”

Jolson gave Tripp a muddy right hand. His cruiser pilot had undressed him first, so he’d been expecting something. “I admire your efficiency, sir.”

“You know, Mr. Gabney,” Tripp confided in a mint-scented voice, “I’m nearly sixty myself. Do I look it?”

“Forty at best.”

“Every chance I get I come out here and wallow.” Tripp extracted Jolson from the pool and guided him down a tiled pathway. It was a quiet dark night and Nepenthe, all low, pale blue buildings, was on top of a plateau miles beyond Esperanza City. The wind that moved across it was warm and dry. “Let me take you inside and introduce you around/’

Behind them an attendant in a blue jumpsuit was unloading Johons luggage. Jolson glanced at the heat pad case that had the truth kit hidden in it, then back at Tripp. I don t mingle at my best when f m naked and muddy.”

“We have no conventions here/’ said Tripp. “However, you’ll have a shower and get into one of our universal robes first. Afterwards you can report to the health lounge on Lev One.” He rubbed some mud off the dial of his watch. “T hen you’ll turn in. We rise at dawn here at Nepenthe. Actually I owe the fact that I still have the mind and boody of a boy to getting up with the sun, Mr. Gabney./’

“That and mud.”

“Exactly.” Tripp pushed him through a bronzed door marked Welcoming Shower.

The shower room was long and green, the floor a soft warm material. The room was empty, flanked by two dozen shower outlets.

Sitting on a straightback nearwood chair just outside the far doorway was a wide, short-haired man in a blue coverall. He had an old-fashioned papercovered book steepled on his knee. “Where’s your health sandals, old man ?”

“I just arrived, young fellow,” said Jolson.

The man got up, flexing various parts of himself, gently placing the open book on the chair seat. “Nat Hockering is my name, old man. Where’s your health shoe sandals, I asked you?” ^

Jolson clenched his weathered stringy hands, hunched. “I’m newly arrived. Escorted here by your Mr. Tripp.”

“Nobody takes a shower without special sandals. It’s a health hazard otherwise.”

“I’d like to get this mud off.”

“Sure you would, old man. But you’re not going to. Exit the way you came.”

“Perhaps,” said Jolson, taking a deep breath, “I could purchase the proper shoes.” He didn’t want to blow his cover so soon. Booting Hockering would do that.

“Where you got the money hidden, granpappy?”

“I need hardly point out that a man without means would not come here.”

“Give me twenty bucks at the start of the obstacle course tomorrow at seven sharp. A deal, old manF “You have the word of Leonard F. Gabney.” “For what that’s worth.” Hockering reached around iris doorway, got a pair of compo sandals and skimmed them over the floor to Jolson. “Seven sharp.”

Jolson bent and tugged the shoes on. “I had expected more cordiality.”

“You’ll get it. Not from me, though. I’m just biding my time here until I can get to a good accredited university and study architecture.” He waved the book. “Do you know anything about balustrades?”

“As much as the next man.” Jolson moved under an outlet. The meud starting to cake. He scratched his plump stomach and pushed the ON button. Nothing happened. “How does one go about getting water?”

“Hot or cold?” asked Hockering, who was sitting again.

“Warm.”

“Five dollars for warm water after official closing time.”

“What time do the showers close?”

“About five minutes before you got here.”

“Put it on my tab.’

“I guess I can trust you,” said Hockering.

Three old men were in the Level One health lounge, a domed gray room with tubular chairs and a juice dispenser.

“My name is Leonard F. Gabney,” Jolson said, sinking down in a chair and adjusting his gray knee length robe. “Newly arrived. Home planet is Barnum.”

The youngest old man, pink and round, grinned and made a toasting motion with his juice glass. “Phelps H. K. Sulu from Barafunda. In the moss development line. You?”

“Telekinesis.”

“How,” asked a straight, bronzed old man, “do you stand?”

“On what?”

“Start anywhere,” said the stiff man. “Well have to complete the whole profile eventually.”

“This is Wing Commander Eberhardt,” explained Sulu. “He has a preoccupation with political shadings. Been here, at his family’s expense, for five and one-half years.”

“Take our commitment in the Terran situation,” said the Wing Commander. “What are your feelings about that, sir?”

“I probably agree with your stand,” said Jolson.

“And where do you stand in regard to the fact that there s a small green bug crawling along the tip of your nose?

Jolson made a flicking motion.

Wing Commander Eberhardt, rising up, said, I believe in turning in at approximately this time. If there is no opposition.” He nodded and moved out of the room.

“Let me welcome you,” said the third old man. He was a lanky, dusky man withr close cropped gray hair. “I haven t had a chance to speak until now. As a native of Barnum, Im happy to greet you. I’m Wilson A. S. Kimbrough serving as Ambassador to Esperanza. I will be happy to help you any way I can, Mr. Gabney.”

Jolson smiled.

As they both sailed over the low hurdle, Franklin T. Trippp said, “Running and jumping, Mr. Gabney, if only we didj more of it. I really think that I’m often misjtaken for a youthl of twenty-eight because of the large amount of running and jumping I do.”

Jolson hit the turf, panting an old man’s wheeze. “I imagine the sweating has something to do with it.” A dozen old men were working around a half-mile track that was studded with hurdles and water obstacles. They all wore sky blue sweat suits.

“Sweating,” said Tripp, who didn’t seem to be winded. “Four entire years were wiped from my age by sweating and perspiring alone, Mr. Gabney.”

An old man who’d introduced himself as Olden Grilse at breakfast that morning screamed someplace behind them. Tripp slowed to a trot, “Another one of Grilse’s seizures,” he explained. “You solo from this point, and 111 clear the old^”””’-” fellow from the course.”

Alone, Jolson stepped up his pace, trying quietly to catch up with Kimbrough, who was several hundred yards ahead of him. He jumped a three-foot metal barrier, sprinted, leaped a box hedge. Found himself alongside Wing Commander Eberhardt.

“How do you stand,” asked the Wing Commander, “on thermometers?”

“I’m neutral.”

The Wing Commander’s elbows swung up chin high as he trotted. “They stuck one in me at sunrise. Say I can’t be trusted with them orally. Tend to champ the ends off.”

“You have a fever?”

“No, I have no use for that sort of thing.”

Jolson dashed ahead, leaped a pond.

He didn’t get a chance to talk to Kimbrough until they were put side by side in steam cabinets that afternoon. “Is the whole day programmed for us?” he asked the Ambassador.

“There is,” answered the steaming Kimbrough, “a free recreational period after the afternoon’s enforced nap. You don’t by any chance happen to be an archery buff, Gabney?”

Jolson said, “My first love, Kimbrough.”

“I’ve had the devil’s own time finding anyone to get out on the range with me. Yesterday I had the whole area to myself.”

“Oh, so?” said Jolson. “Maybe we could share the sport this afternoon. To make it more interesting we could wager on bull’s eyes.”

“Excellent,” said Ambassador Kimbrough.

The heavy mist rolled and tumbled between them and the straw-backed target. Jolson could still see the trio of many branched trees to their left. Taped to his side, under the blue sweatshirt, was the smuggled-in truth kit. He ran his arrow nock along his front teeth and then said, “Perhaps a little something to warm the bones.”

Kimbrough’s bow twanged, an arrow disappeared into the fog. “After I hear the thunk.”

They waited as the mist closed in, but no sound came. Jolson inched a small flask out of the gunmetal kit. “Brandy?”

“Well,” said Ambassador Kimbrough. “I believe a splash of brandy would go well about now.” He took the flask, unscrewed the lid and drank. “You?”

“I carry it for friends,” said Jolson, slipping the flask away.

Kimbrough cleared his throat and fitted another arrow to his bow. “You know, Gabney,” he said, lowering bow and arrow, “when I was a boy I attended the John Foster Dulles Academy on Earth. I feel I must tell you that. Here’s the secret, Gabney. When I was thirteen, I paid Norman L. Matson five dollars to write my paper on late 20th Century billboards.”

“How about Group A?” asked Jolson. He caught the Ambassador below the elbow and headed him for the trees.

“When I was fourteen, I kissed Estelle Banderman in the appliance complex of her maternal grandmother’s senior city tower. What do you think of that, Gabney?”

“Group A,” prodded Jolson. “Dean Swift. General Moosman, Admiral Rockisle.” The misty wind rattled the dry leaves.

“This is the truth,” said Kimbrough, squinting at Jolson. “I really did borrow that dictadesk back.on Barafunda. At the hearing I said I’d never heard of it. Not so, Gabney.”

“Do you know anything about who’s taking members of the War Bureau, Ambassador?” Jolson hesitated, got a syringe out of the kit and jammed it into the soft part of the Ambassador’s upper arm.

“Those testimonial dinners on Barnum,” said the swaying Kimbrough. “I took all the cash and bought a solar-powered motel on Murdstone. Thing spins like a merry-go-round when the sun shines. Tourists like it. I never spent the money on my campaign.” Kimbrough backstepped until he was braced by the nearest tree.

“Swift.”

“Well,” said the Ambassador, “I passed on the information. The money’s too good. Naturally I know the comings and goings of the War Bureau.”

Jolson edged closer. PEO was right. “Whom do you tell?”

“In the fringe.”

^Where?”

“Esperanza City. The fringe area. A young man.”

“His name?”

“Son Brewster, Jr. He’s a truly wonderful and delightful entertainer. Barely twenty and much more honest and upright than our generation, Gabney. I pass the news on to Son Brewster, Jr.”

“Why?”

Kimbrough was breathing through his mouth, swaying. “Earth, Gabney.”

^Huh?”

“Earth supreme. They want someday, Earth supreme.”

“Is Brewster the boss?”

“No, A. Group A. No names.”

“Where is Group A?”

Kimbrough straightened and his eyes and nostrils fluttered. “Not used to uncut liquor these days. What a jolt.”

Jolson said, “The recreation period’s about up, Kimbrough. Let’s head home.”

“One thing first,” said the Ambassador.

“Yes?”

“I want to go and see if that arrow found its target.” He chuckled and bobbed away into the fog.

Nat Hockering wheeled the hair dryer across the smaU gray cell. “Exercise can only do so much, Mr. Gabney. Same with intelligent dieting. To really chop away the years we have to fall back on the cosmetic aids.”

Jolson was tilted back in a medical looking chair with his head under a faucet and over a basin. “How much is it going to cost me, Hockering?”

“Don’t let my grumpiness last night set you off your stride, Mr. Gabney. In the daylight and early evening hours I’m affable.” He massaged soap into Jolson’s thin white hair, forcing his head further back.

“Certainly makes the scalp tingle,” said Jolson.

Resting one hand lightly on Jolson’s throat Hockering said, “Let me say one thing.”

“Yesr~

“Fingerprints.”

Jolson tensed. “Oh?”

“You slipped up. You don’t have the real Leonard F. Gabney fingerprints.” His wide fingers tightened around Jolson’s Adam’s apple. “We got a man with a tap on the PEO dispozhole. Found a triplicate of a memo asking for a Chameleon Corps man to work on the War Bureau case. Been waiting, just in case PEO had any whiff of us.”

“Tripp in this?” asked Jolson, gasping.

“The two of us. Plus old Kimbrough.” He swung his other hand up to fend off Jolson’s clutching fingers. “Going to strangle you now, fake Mr. Gabney. Sink you in the mud pool. Very good for the appearance.”

Jolson concentrated. His neck grew and stretched some six inches, thinning away from Hockering’s grip. He elongated his fingers and jabbed them into the thick man’s eyes.

There were certain advantages to being processed by the Chameleon Corps. Jolson shrunk down a foot now and knifed out of the chair. He caught his balance against the hair dryer. Picked the metal pole up and swung the headpiece. It smashed hard over Hockering’s skull. Hockering’s chin slapped against the basin edge, and he sank down the wall, his spread hands making small circles on the tiles.

In his blue sweatsuit Jolson hit the corridor, mingled. He moved toward an exit, dodged out of the majn building and across the grounds. He ran for a moored supply cruiser.

Somebody was calling numbers to him. Wabbling down out of the twilight sky was a private cruiser, dangling a ladder.

“Who?” yelled Jolson.

“Me, Jennifer Hark. Hurry on up.”

“Damn it” said Jolson, jumping and catching the ladder. Inside the small compartment he said, “I told you not to interfere.”

“You squeezed it.”

“What” He eased into a passenger chair.

“The apricot with the warning device inside.” She let the cruiser climb a slow arc away from Nepenthe. “It sent me a warning signal three good hours ago. I came out to extricate you.”

Jolson didn’t bother to ask her how she’d have done that. “I didn’t touch the thing. They must have searched my luggage this afternoon and fooled with it.”

Jennifer grinned, which made her cheekbones stand out even more. “But you did keep it with you.”

“I haven’t had any opportunities to jettison an apricot since I saw you last.”

“Did you get to question Ambassador Kimbrough?”

They were flying back toward Esperanza City, high over the colored lights of the cemeteries. “Sure,” said Jolson. He told the girl about Tripp and Hockering, filled her in on what he’d drugged out of the Ambassador.

“I had a coded memo from Head Mickens. You’re to pursue any leads you’ve uncovered to their logical end. Adopting whatever new identities are necessary.”

“I know. I always do that anyway,” said Jolson. “Tell PEO to watch Nepenthe, follow Tripp and Hockering if they skip, which they probably will do now. But I don’t want them brought in until I find out more about Group A.”

“We’ve got two agents in a crypt above the place, living on picnic sandwiches and observing.” She flicked a radio toggle. “I’ll alert them.”

Jolson slumped, eyes closed, while she made the call. Then he said, “I want you to drop me off at the fringe.”

“You have to be young to fit in there,” said Jennifer. “Besides which you haven’t even been briefed on the styles and fashions of the area.”

“I’ll assimilate it as I go along.” Jolson rested his face in his cupped hands for a moment, exhaled, became twenty. “This okay.”

She glanced over at him, her eyebrows flickering. “I’m not used to this. Let’s see. Hair longer. Usually streaked on the left side. What about clothes?”

“You can lend me some money, and I’ll pick up some in the fringe.”

The girl said, “Do I ever get to see you as yourself. As Ben Jolson?”

Jolson watched the colored lights. “Afterwards,” he said.

The two player pianos collided on the diamond-shaped dance floor of the Ultimate Chockhouse, and the foot pedal of the orange one ejected and hit the old woman who sold hallucinations, knocking her into her barrow. The other three pianos kept racing around the low basement room, all playing different tunes. Jolson ordered another antihistamine and watched the girl who was suspended from the ceiling pump the wheels of her silver bicycle.

“Bless you, addlecove,” said a turn-collared man. He was keeping himself from falling with the help of the empty chair at Jolson’s green plyo table. “Haven’t laid gagers on you before. You new?”

“Beat it, autumn bawler,” said Jolson, using one of the phrases he’d picked up in his two days in the fringe.

“I’m a man of the cloth, yes.” He was small and big chested, with a bobbing chin. “I’d like to sit and wag the velvet with you.”

“Don’t overload my wattles.’

“They call me Rev Cockspur,” said the reverend. He toppled into the empty chair, stroked a crumb of scrambled egg off his worn elbow. “That’s a nice, benjamin you’re sporting.”

“I gooseberried it,” said Jolson.

Rev Cockspur smiled, massaging his thick neck. “We all have our weaknesses, my body.”

“What’s your lay, Rev?”

“I’ll order a bingo first.”

“Not on my tab.”

The reverend shook both hands. “I have an arrangement here at the Chockhouse. Free.” He signaled the chrome-plated waitress.

When his drink came the reverend said, “I don’t suppose you’d care to be converted?”

Jolson shook his long-haired head. “That what you do?”

“Originally,” said Rev Cockspur, tossing down the green liquor with both hands. “Came out to Esperanza three years ago. Sent by my religious association to convert the young folks here in the fringe. Bring them under the wing.” He waved for another drink, then pinched his nose twice and wagged his head. “Wish I had a little of the balsam. Then I could get my daddies on a journey.”

“You’re addicted?”

The reverend’s eyes looked into his glass. “Well, initially Td decided I wouldn’t have a chance to reach the young people unless I learned their gob. Otherwise they’d think me a joskin. So I picked up their way of talking. After that I acquired their drinking habits, which brought me closer to them. To really get in close I started using the same drugs they do. So now I have reached the position where I can really talk to them and I’m an alcoholic, a drug addict, a prescription pill fiend, and I’m living with two albino nymphomaniacs in a ghetto down the street.”

Jolson shifted the antihistamine pill around in his mouth. “It’s a setback sure enough, Rev.”

“At least it’s been good experience,” said Rev Cockspur. His head flicked back and he laughed. “There’s the old Son himself.”

At the beaded doorway was a slender boy with his white hair braided and scarlet ribbon tied. He was wearing silver flecked clothes and fawn boots. Strapped to his back was a mandolin and swinging in his left hand an amplifier.

“Son Brewster?” Jolson asked.

“None other,” said Rev Cockspur. “Who else has got a handle like that?”

“Muck,” said Son Brewster, Jr., angrily swinging the mandolin to the front and dropping his amplifier to the stairs.

“He’s going to do a protest,” said the reverend, lowering his voice.

The wheeling pianos quickly parked and Son picked at the mandolin. “I was sittin across the street gettin’ my hair trimmed,” he sang. “An’ the barber dropped a hot towel down my damn neck. What kind of a universe have you money-grubbin’ bastards made when a thing like-a that can happen?”

“Delightful,” said Rev Cockspur.

“How come it doesn’t rhyme?”

The reverend leaned toward him. “That’s an odd question.”

Son was moving toward their table. “Hello, Rev. Need any ned?”

“I could use some, Son. My nock’s twitching for a journey/’

“Hold out your fams and 111 slip you a few rags, Rev.” Son drew a folding of bills out of his trouser slit and gave the money to Rev Cockspur. “Who’s the sam?”

“Friend of mine/’ The reverend fisted the cash into his tunic.

Jolson said, “I’m Will Roxbury. You?”

“Son Brewster, Jr.,” said the boy. He sucked in his cheeks, narrowed his eyes. “You new in the fringe?”

“Yeah.”

“Play a game of zenits with me?”

Jolson shrugged. “How much, cans or dews?”

“Ten at least. Dews,” said Son. He carefully got out of his mandolin. “Watch this, Rev.” To the dozen young people in the shadowy room he said, “The sam with the fancy charley prescot and I are a-goin’ to play a quick game of zenits.”

Up above the girl stopped her bike and a redheaded boy said, “Snitchel him, Son.”

Zenits turned out to be square cards with pictures of the major cemeteries on them. You pitched them against the wall and whoever got nearest won the toss. In half an hour Jolson was eighty dollars to the good. “Enough?” he asked Son.

Son tugged at one of his braids, sucked his tongue. He took the cards from Jolson and walked back to his mandolin. Sitting down opposite Rev Cockspur, he began to sing. “When I went walkin’ into the Free Barnum Information Library this mornin’ they tol’ me my book was three days overdue, huh. What kind of sodbustin’ universe is it when things like-a that can happen to a man?” He handed the mandolin to Rev and returned to Jolson, who was leaning against a silent piano. “Doin’ anything tonight?”

Jolson said, “No. Why?”

“Know where the Sprawling Eclectic is?”

”Sure.”

“Meet me there at dinner time. We’ll have some bingo and sawney. Okay?”

Jolson turned away. “Maybe so,” he said as he headed for the door.

In the alley he bumped into an old woman who was selling used wreaths. “If you know any deceased person named Axminster, I’ve got a bargain,” the woman said.

Jolson hooked his fingers around her arm and guided her to the street. “Makeup never works, Jennifer. Stop tailing me.”

“You shouldn’t blurt out my name without giving the number code first.”

“Why, I know it’s you under that lousy disguise. Now get the hell back to your embassy before Brewster and everybody else in Group A drops on you.” ”

“Tripp, Hockering and the Ambassador are holed up in the fringe now, too.”

“All the more reason. Now get going.”

“Are you making progress?”

“Some,” said Jolson. A tourist barge was landing on the street, and he waited until it had opened its doors. “Mingle in the crowd. Quick.”

“You CC people are sure independent.” She handed him a carnation. “How did you know it was me?”

“You have nice cheekbones. You can’t hide them with white powder.” He refused the flower and walked away from her.

Two tourists called to him to pose for a picture but he kept moving.

Son Brewster, Jr., flicked his thumbnail with a mandolin pick and said, “Not a bad flash panny as flash pannies go, uh?”

Jolson leaned back in the booth, glanced at the twenty or so young people scattered around the realboard walled room. “Fair.”

“Here comes a harp I know,” said Son, cocking an eye at a tall dark girl who was moving toward the table.

“Who’s the sam?” The girl rested her buttocks on their table.

“Says he’s a-goin’ into the high-pad line out in the subs.”

“Dance?” the girl asked Jolson. She put a warm palm against his cheek. “Where you from, rabbit?”

“Tarragon,” said Jolson.

“Good. I know all the dances from there.”

Jolson didn’t. And they had an odd time on the heart-shaped dance floor.

Son Brewster wasn’t in the booth after the dancing. “I’d better get over to the venus and earn some rhino. Bye, Will.”

“Okay.” Jolson watched her go.

“Friends of mine.” Son slid in across. He pointed to the ebony entertainment platform where four white-haired young men were replacing the all-girl group. The boys were all tall and wide with their hair worn like Son’s. They had on gold clothes and ivory boots.

“Call themselves the Ford Foundation. Do mostly my material, protest stuff.”

“Two weeks ago I went into a cafeteria and was orderin’ hash,” sang the quartet. “An’ they tol’ me they were all out of hash. What kind of godawful universe is it when they can talk to a man like-a that?”

The listeners applauded. But about ten of them stood and drifted out.

After the second protest number there were only two Venusians left in the Sprawling Eclectic. When they went, Son inclined his head toward the platform.

The Ford Foundation dropped their instruments and jumped. They ringed the booth, easing out bright knives.

“You’re a fake, Will.” Son backed into a standing position. “Tripp warned me there was a CC loose. So I’ve been a-testin’ strangers. You played zenits with the wrong rules and never corrected me. You let Mimi con you into thinkin’ you were a-doin’ dances from Tarragon, your supposed to be home planet. But they weren’t. You haven’t even got our velvet down perfect.”

Jolson jumped up on the bench he’d been sitting on. Did a back flip into the next booth.

“Snitchel him,” shouted Son.

Jolson ran across the dance floor and leaped up on the platform. Behind him he heard the Ford Foundation stalking. He grabbed up an illuminated bass fiddle, swung it into the first of the quartet who tried to clutch at him.

“He’s pullin’ a mingus,” said Son, still in the booth.

The second boy slashed up straight armed. Jolson jumped to the floor, shrinking down in size. He planted himself and swung up with locked fists. The boy yelled and doubled over.

The two remaining Foundation boys dived together, knives taut. Jolson stretched out his left arm and wound it around and around the neck of one of them. He unwound sharply and the boy spun into his partner. While the pair was on the floor, stumbling upward, Jolson grew to his regular size and booted them in the head in turn. Then he hurdled them and knocked out the two earlier assassins.

Brushing back his hair, he turned to Son Brewster.

“I protest,” said Son. “I don’t fight.”

Staying where he was, Jolson shot out an arm and roped in the boy. “Tell me about Group A, Son.”

“No.”

Jolson tightened his coiled arm. “Come on.”

“Go easy. They’ve got your girl.”

“What?”

“That one with the funny cheekbones. Jennifer Hark. We spotted her tagging around.”

“Where is she?”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“Ouch. On her way to the isle.”

“What isle?”

“Beyond the cemeteries. Three hundred miles from here. Where they keep the frozen ones. The isle.”

“Who’s got her?”

“You better go easy, sam. They froze her solid over an hour ago and if you make any trouble shell stay that way forever.”

Jolson almost choked the boy. He got control and slackened. “Who took her there?”

“Some of Group A. Took her in a hoodoo wagon. They don’t allow no cruisers to fly over the main cemeteries, spoils the tourist runs. She’ll be there late tonight, early tomorrow.”

“Your part, what is it?”

“After the snatchers get the target, I provide transportation. We use some of the cut-rate funeral wagons that operate out of the fringe. Deliver the frozen people to the isle.”

“And who’s on the isle?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“Yes you can.”

“Muck,” said Son, trying to swallow. “His name’s Purviance. Maxwell Purviance. And he believes in Earth supreme.”

“What’s he after, peace?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. Ouch. I don’t.”

Jolson chopped his free hand against Son’s head and the boy passed out. His truth kit also contained a simple knockout drug, and he took time to give each of the boys an injection. Then he dragged them one by one into a supply room behind the platform. It should give him some hours before any alert would go out.

In under an hour he was moving out of the fringe on a mourners’ bus.

Tombstones blinked red and yellow and green outside the bus windows. This was one of the wealthier cemeteries, built half a century ago when the trend had been toward equestrian monuments. On each side of the dark roadway stretched row on row of mounted figures, their simulated marble color rotating from red to yellow to green as the ground level spotlights went through their color cycle.

The two-chinned woman next to Jolson was sobbing into a reusable plyo handkerchief. “Going to visit a close relative?*’ Jolson asked, in an attempt to soothe her into quiet.

“No. I don’t know anybody on the whole planet.”

“I noticed you were crying.”

“I’m fond of horses. Whenever I see so many of them depicted it breaks me down.”

A bald man in front of them turned around. “You two folks on the Econ?”

“No,” said Jolson.

“I’m on a Three Weeks On Three Planets tour,” said the heavy woman as she wiped her puffed eyes.

“My name’s Lowenkopf,” the man said. The lights from outside turned his head green. “I take an Econ to Esperanza once a year when there’s a slack at the little pornography shop I run on Barafunda. This year I’m doing chemists.”

“Chemists?” asked Jolson, wondering if there was a vacant seat further back.

“I’m visiting the tombs of famous chemists. Last year I did actors. Chopped a chunk off Hasselbad’s crypt. You remember Hasselbad, called The Man With The Kissable Ears. Very big on TV back in my youth.”

“I always come for the flowers,” said the woman. “Flowers and horses are my two driving interests in life.”

“One year I just rode the rollercoasters,” said the bald man and turned back toward the front.

“Palomino,” said the woman, nudging the window.

After they had passed the Tomb of the Unknown Commando and the heavy woman had read its open all night sign, the bus pulled off the road. In a cul-de-sac between two cemeteries was a sprawling rustic inn. Its blinking sign said it was The Eternal Sleep Motel.

“Six hours for rest and recreation,” called the bus driver, who was dressed all in black.

When Jolson passed him he asked, “Suppose I want to keep moving?”

“Switch to the next express that deadheads straight through to the slum cemeteries. It won’t be by until nearly dawn, though. We’ll be pulling out just an hour after that/’

“Damn,” said Jolson.

“You’ll have fun here,” said the driver. “In the pub they have a continual wake going.”

Jolson stepped down into the night.

Against a smoky wall of the pub, as far from the organized wailing and keening as possible, Jolson drank his dark ale. When the barmaid came by with a tray of funeral meats, he shook his head negatively.

He was watching a leathery, stringy man who was leaning over the darkwood bar. The man had come in a few minutes before, mentioning his truck full of flowers parked outside. If no other sign of transportation showed, Jolson would swipe the truck and move on.

Someone tapped his side. Jolson turned to the group at the wooden table to his right. They were decked with cameras and recording equipment. “Yeah?” He was still in his twenty-year-old shape, and there might be people out this far from the fringe who didn’t like youth.

“Would you mind,” said the blonde woman who’d tapped him, “picking up that film cartridge that’s rolled under your foot, young man?”

Jolson bent and retrieved the film. “You people in the communications field?”

“Show some respect for your elders,” said the widest of the three men.

“Bert doesn’t like lamentations much,” said the woman, smiling up at Jolson. She was in her early forties, moderately attractive.

A thin man in too small clothes said, “I don’t mind telling you who I am, I’m Floyd Janeway,” He lifted his ale glass and emptied it. “And I’m here on a special assignment. Of the kind that has made me universally known, well known. Right?”

“Right,” said the woman. “Now hush.”

“Go away, kid,” said the one who didn’t like Jolson.

The third man was freckled and busy. He ordered more ale, including a glass for Jolson. “Just keep quiet, Floyd. Have an ale with us, kid, and then go away.”

“Why be diplomatic?” said the big one.

“You have heard of me, haven’t you?” asked Janeway as he reached for the newly arrived ale.

“Sure,” said Jolson. “Journalist. Work for 9 Planet News in the Earth system and Barnum Telecom out here. What are you covering?”

“Bigger than Janeway With The Barafunda Insurgents. Bigger than Janeway Explains The Tarragon Harbor Fiasco. Bigger than Janeway Lives A Month With The Turmeric Rebels.”

“Quiet, Floyd,” said the blonde.

“Janeway Interviews Purviance. Haven’t heard of him yet, have you? Two weeks, months of string pulling to set this up. He’ll be big soon.”

The big man said, “Go away, kid.”

Janeway swilled ale. “Well change the subject, Jerry. Are you good at games, kid?”

“Some.”

“Do you young guys out here still play zenits?”

Jolson grinned, said, “Sure. Is this a challenge?”

Janeway stood up. “We’ll play over there next to the dashboard, use some tomb postcards for zenits.”

“Play, don’t talk,” said Jerry.

Alongside the reporter, walking across the room, Jolson asked, “When are you due at the Purviance interview, sir?”

“Tomorrow afternoon I begin it. I go in solo, just Janeway and his golden mind. We’re pulling out of this hole after lunchtime. I don’t function in the morning hours much at all.”

Jolson stumbled, caught hold of Janeway, elongated his fingers and extracted the man’s ID packet from inside his tunic. “Sorry, slipped.”

“Have to be more agile than that to beat me at zenits.”

Jolson was clumsy again after they’d been playing nearly a half hour. The truth kit skittered out of his tunic and bounced into Janeway. “You young people and your drug experiences,” smiled the reporter. He picked the metal kit up and handed it back.

Jolson won sixty-three dollars from Janeway, even playing zenits with the correct rules. He said goodnight, went carefully out to the yard and stole the florist’s truck. He had Janeway’s identification papers and the fingerprints of his right hand. When he hit the road that would take him to the isle, he was Floyd Janeway, down to the fingertips.

The lake was a smooth,’ chill blue. In its center, dotted with circling white birds, was a bright green island. There were ferns, palms, twisting vines, spilling flowers, all sharp and clear in the early morning. At the top of a low incline was a softly yellow building, with columns and fret work and curling marble leaves.

Glowing white swans drifted across the lake’s stillness. Sitting on a jetty was a bearded man, small, in a thick, brown overcoat. He watched over a padded shoulder as Jolson strode up a curved flagstone path.

“Got a load of popsicles for me to ferry across?” asked the man.

Jolson said, “I’m a bit early for my appointment. I’m Floyd Janeway.”

The bearded man selected a flat stone from a small pile between his booted feet. He flipped the stone out at the water, and it bounced over a swan. “All we handle here is storage for frozen bodies, mister.”

“Floyd Janeway, the reporter,” said Jolson. “Tell Purviance I’m here.”

The man hunkered, made a single flap of the elbows and stood. His gnarled boots scattered the flat stones. “Stand right there. Very slow you get out your IDs and skim them across the sward to me, mister. Three lasers are aimed at your ass right this minute, not to mention two that’ll frizzle your head.”

Jolson tossed the identification packet. “That a tattoo on your hand?”

The shaggy man held up the hand for Jolson to look at while he flipped through the IDs with the other hand. “My entire body is tattooed, mister. All pictures of tombs and crypts. I had a morbid streak in my youth. Well, it still makes a nice memento mori. At one time I was quite a tourist attraction.”

“You’d look great under a red spotlight.”

The bearded man shuffled closer to Jolson. “Hold up your right-hand thumb, mister.” He looked from the identification packet to Jolson’s thumb. A dove fluttered down and landed on the thick overcoat’s left shoulder. The man reached up with his tattooed hand and pulled the bird’s chest open. A small mike came erect. “He’s who he says. Send a cruiser.” While Jolson stood on the jetty waiting, the man said, “I don’t take many showers anymore. It depresses me to soap myself down.”

“I figured/’ said Jolson.

From the columned building rose a scarlet cruiser. It came to a stop hovered over Jolson.

The rocking chair was cluttered with eagles. They were carved all over it, twisting and interlocking, black with spread wings. In the chair, which ticked slightly and slowly, was a tight mouthed man, wearing some kind of pullover cloth pants and a wide brimmed straw hat. His fingers were square and smooth, holding a yellow bowled pipe. He was a large man, big faced, and even relaxing in the rocker, he held himself tight. “Understand I mean you no insult,” he said, forcing the pipe between his teeth. “But am I right in assuming you are not Earth born?”

Jolson shifted on the padded chair across from Maxwell Purviance. Janeway had been born on Barnum. “Yes,” he said.

The small room was clothbound, there were thick flowered rugs on the floor, heavy drapes on the wall. Backstop-ping Pursuance’s rocker was a half ring of many legged tables, carved and encrusted, bird and ball footed. Just behind his head was an embroidered Earth Supreme sign. “I can always tell.” His nostrils bellowed out once. “I sense such things.”

“Maybe what you smell is the dead cat under your chair,” suggested Jolson, motioning with his foot.

“No, it’s a fresh cat,” said Purviance. “I use them to test my meals. Apparently my breakfast was poisoned. Personal poisoning is always easier to catch than organized governmental poisoning. There are nineteen separate poisons in tap water. Ten put there to kill you should you get out of line, five to induce you to take up a decadent way of life and unconventional dance steps and four which persuade you to vote for candidates with a socialist voting record. I never drink water.”

“What, then?”

Purviance tapped his signet ring against the pitcher on the nearest table. “Applejack. An old Earth beverage. I don’t eat or drink universe food, Mr. Janeway. Merely and only Earth food. You notice I call you mister with respect, even though you give off an aura of the out planets. In my files I have all the planets classified as to the way their inhabitants are scented. Naturally the planets in the Earth system have a more pleasing fragrance.”

“No smell like Earth,” said Jolson. “What are your plans for the rest of the universe, Mr. Purviance?” “Before or after I take over?” “Tell me about the before first.”

Purviance took a blade of grass from a front pocket on the chest of his shirt and hooked it over his lower teeth. “Well, sir, the universes were meant to be ruled from Earth. Due to an unfortunate so-called intelligence lag of 20,000 years, Earth was taken advantage of by other planet systems. My job is to simply take back all the planets and rule them from Earth. I believe in a strong central Earth, Mr. Janeway, as well as Earth’s rights. I’m also against any tax on a man’s income, most toothpaste, and the parking meter.”

“I had a notion,” said Jolson, watching the leader of Group A rock, “you were a sort of pacifist, a man aimed at cutting down wars.”

“I’m interested in cutting down wars I don’t start, yessir,” said Purviance. A lock of his straight hair had edged down over his wide forehead, and he reached up to pat it. “I’ll teH you something off the record, Mr. Janeway. I’m recruiting a very large group of military advisors. I’ve also had a very prominent fashion designer teleported all the way from a place called Paris on Earth. To design a uniform for Group A. We had the devil’s own time getting him, too, because I insisted to my lieutenants the man must not be a fairy. I wanted a ballsy masculine designer.”

“You found one?”

“Frankly, he’s actually not from Paris. He’s from a place called Nebraska. But he was spending his vacation in Paris and we grabbed him. You ought to see what he can do with epaulets.”

“How many people live here with you?”

Purviance reached down absently and stroked the dead cat. “I want a drink of cider, but I don’t have anything to test it on. I don’t suppose you… ?”

Jolson said, “No. About these military advisors. And fashion designers.”

“Yes sir,” said Purviance, “I’ve got them here. I’ve got them on ice.”

^Frozen?”

“That’s my cover. I inherited this freezer thing from my late father. We’ve got him in a freezer, too, but he’s dead and gone. Little tag says Our Founder. Ill tell you another thing sub rosa, Mr. Janeway. I really don’t like dead people.

Even deep freeze people. Give me the heebie Jeebies. But we’re still on a budget, and I can live here rent free and make a little profit, what the Tax Authority doesn’t grab. Some mornings, though, I throw aside the counterpane and hop out to do the chores and I say to myself, ‘Maxwell, as far as the eye can see there ain’t anything but stiffs.’ It gets you, Mr. Janeway.”

Jolson kneaded the chin of his Janeway face. “Could we look around your plant here?”

“Some of it, the unclassified parts,” said Purviance as he inclined up out of the black rocker. “Remember, you’ll be under continual scrutiny. In danger of instant disintegration should you make one false move.”

“How many of you are there in Group A here?”

Purviance moved to the doorway. “That’s a restricted figure, Mr. Janeway. I can tell you this. Lots.” He went out into the chill corridor and Jolson followed.

The storage room was cold and pastoral. Mist trailed from Purviance’s mouth and he said, “The walls were my father’s idea. Except for the designs, all the rooms are pretty much the same. This is the Sylvan Room, shepherds and fields and lambs. Then we have a desert room and two jungle ones. Famous scenes from Earth history, celebrities and one of fuzzy animals.”

“Cheered my father up, I guess. He wouldn’t ever tell me.” Purviance touched a cubicle door. “If the walls were all white, I suppose you’d get the notion you were shrank down and spending your life inside a refrigerator.”

Jolson studied the high misty room. “Where are the guys with guns trained on us?”

“Oh, you can’t see them. They’re too cleverly concealed.” Purviance tapped his fingers in sequence on the small door. “Have a famous bocce ball player in here. Waiting.”

Slowly Jolson moved over closer to the Group A head. “For how long?”

“We have orders to defrost him at the start of the next century,” said Purviance. “During the bocce ball season.”

Jolson Jumped, made himself thin out and slid between Purviance and the wall. He hooked an arm around the man’s neck and spun him so that the front of Purviance was shielding him. He had waited until they were near an un-doored corner and he yanked Purviance into it. Jolson ad-

justed his body so that none of it stuck out beyond the perimeter of the Group A head. “I want the girl, Jennifer Hark, and the War Bureau men. Order them thawed and brought here or I tighten the arm until you choke.”

“You parajournalists have strange methods, Mr. Janeway,” said Purviance. “Stop throttling me or you’ll be rayed to dust.”

“Along with you.”

“There is that.”

Jolson contracted his arm. “Come on. The girl and the others. Tell your men to get in here fast and turn over their weapons.”

“All my men?”

“We can start with the ones behind the walls here.”

“Who are you? PEO, CC?”

Jolson tightened. “Now.”

The yellow pipe dropped to the misty floor as Purviance gagged slightly. “I could have them ray us both.”

“You don’t like death, remember?”

Purviance coughed. “Pehaps I ought to explain something.”

“Give the orders. Hurry.”

“Come in here, Rackstraw.”

Across the room one of the lower cubicle doors flapped out, and the shaggy man in the overcoat came in, a blaster rifle held gingerly in front of him. “Tyler’s taking a bath,” he said.

“Who’s Tyler?” asked Jolson.

“He flew you over in the cruiser,” said Purviance, trying to lower his chin. “He’s my other man.”

“Other man?”

“We’re down to sort of a skeleton crew here,” said Purviance. “Just Rackstraw, Tyler and myself and Mrs. Nash, who fixes our meals and tidies up.”

“Don’t try to con me, Purviance. Group A isn’t four people.”

“No. We have a considerable membership. But few of them live in. The problem is most of the money I make off the freezer business goes to paying kidnappers and assassins and to bribing politicians. I just don’t have the funds to maintain a large standing army. That will come. I know once I’ve assimilated all the major war minds in this system, in all the systems, once I have swallowed them up I won’t have any trouble. Ill have such a war machine and such a Just cause that thousands of people will flock. Money will pour.”

“How long is all that going to take?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Purviance. “I can always go on ice while my minions iron out the tedious details of taking over the universe.”

“You’re not a big threat, then,” said Jolson. “You’re not a pacifist. You’re just another nitwit.”

“I’m not going to bother to refute you. It’s too difficult to rationally discuss a major issue when one is being strangled.”

“Rackstraw,” ordered Jolson. “Toss that blaster rifle over and then go reanimate the prisoners.”

“Very well,” said the bearded Rackstraw. “I’ll feel like a traitor to Group A, but in a way that appeals to my morbid side.” He handed over the weapon and left.

“It will take an hour,” said Purviance. “Can’t we go back and sit in rockers?”

Jolson shoved Purviance away and brought the rifle up aiming at him. “Sit on the floor. We’ll wait here.”

Purviance sat down.

The sand was fine and white, the ocean a smooth green. Jennifer Hark rested her hands on her narrow hips. “See? No view of cemeteries, cities or even people.”

Jolson walked, barefooted, down to the water’s edge. “That damned Purviance,” he said.

Near him the girl said, “He’s all locked away now. Group A is almost rounded up.”

Jolson frowned into the sun. “I was hoping he really had a way to stop the wars, that that’s what he was up to.”

“It won’t happen,” said Jennifer. “Probably ever.”

“Just another nitwit,” said Jolson. He started walking again, keeping at the border of the sea.

“I appreciate your saving me,” said Jenniffer. “I appreciate your deciding to stay another few days on Esperanza, letting me show you things.”

“As long as it’s okay with Head Mickens.”

“And,” said the girl, catching his hand, “I’m glad you’re Ben Jolson.”

^What?”

“The way you look now. You’re yourself, aren’t you?”

Jolson reached up and touched his face. “I guess so,” he said, still walking.

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