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‘You see,' Bertold Goltz said to Nicole, ‘Herr Goering is accustomed to dealing with Juden. Right, Herr Goering? You don't have to answer; I've observed it for myself.'
Goering glared at him sourly.
‘Now this deal -- ‘ Goltz began.
‘Bertold,' Nicole interrupted savagely, ‘get out of here! I've let your street fighters roam at will -- I'll have them rounded up if you interfere with this. You know what my objective is here. You of all people ought to approve.'
‘But I don't,' Goltz said.
One of the Army advisors snapped, ‘Why not?'
‘Because,' Goltz said, ‘once the Nazis have won World War Two by your aid, they will massacre the Jews anyhow.
And not just those in Europe and White Russia but in England and the United States and Latin America as well.' He spoke calmly. After all, he had seen it, had explored, by means of his von Lessinger equipment, several of these dreadful alternative futures. ‘Remember, the objective in the war for the Nazis was the extermination of World Jewry; it was not merely a byproduct.'
There was silence.
To the NP man, Nicole said, ‘Get him now.'
The NP man, pointing his gun, fired at Goltz.
Goltz, timing it perfectly, at the same instant the gun was pointed at him made contact with the von Lessinger effect surrounding him. The scene, with its participants, blurred and was lost. He remained in the same room, the Bog Orchid, but the people were gone. He was alone, yet now in the midst of the elusive ghosts of the future, summoned by the device.
He saw, in deranged procession, the psychokinetic Richard Kongrosian involved in weird situations, first with his rituals of cleansing and then with Wilder Pembroke; the Commissioner of the NP had done something, but Goltz could not make out what. And then he saw himself, first holding vast authority and then abruptly, unaccountably, dead. Nicole, too, drifted past his range of vision, altered in various new ways which he could not comprehend. Death seemed to exist everywhere in the future, a potential awaiting everyone it seemed. What did this signify? An hallucinosis? The collapse of certitude appeared to lead directly to Richard Kongrosian. It was an effect of the psychokinetic power, a distortion of fabric of the future produced by the man's parapsychological talent.
If Kongrosian knew, Goltz thought. Strength of this sort a mystery even to the owner. Kongrosian, tangled in the maze of his mental illness, virtually unable to function and yet still imposing, still looming vastly on the landscape of the tomorrows, of our days ahead. If I could only penetrate this, Goltz realized. This man who is -- will become -- the cardinal enigma for all of us ... then I would have it. The future would no longer consist of imperfect shades, blended in configurations which customarily reason -- mine, anyhow -- can never manage to untangle.
In his room at Franklin Aimes Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Richard Kongrosian declared aloud, ‘I am totally invisible now.' He held up his hand and arm, saw nothing. ‘It's come,' he added. And he did not hear his voice; that, too, was imperceptible. ‘What should I do now?' he asked the four walls of his room.
There was no response. Kongrosian was completely alone; he no longer had any contact with other life.
I've got to get out of here, he decided. Seek help -- I'm not getting any help, here; they've been unable to arrest the illness-process.
I'll go back to Je
See my son.
There was no point in seeking out Dr Superb or any other medical man, chemically-oriented or not. The period of seeking therapy was over. And now -- a new period. What did it consist of? He did not know, yet. In time he would know, however. Assuming that he lived through it. And how could he do that when, for all intents, he was already dead? ‘That's it, he said to himself. I've died. And yet I'm still alive.
It was a mystery. He did not understand it.
Perhaps, he thought, what I must seek then is a rebirth.
Effortlessly -- after all, no one could see him -- he made his way from his room and down the corridor to the stairs, down the stairs and out the side entrance of Franklin Aimes Hospital. Presently he was walking along the sidewalk of an unfamiliar street, somewhere in a hilly section of San Francisco, surrounded by vastly high apartment buildings, many of them dating from before World War Three.
By avoiding stepping on any cracks of cement pavement he cancelled, for the time being, the trail of noxious odour which otherwise he would have left in his wake.
I must be getting better, he decided. I've found at least a temporary ritual of purification to balance my phobic body odour. And except for the fact that he was still invisible. How am I going to play the piano this way? he asked himself. This means, evidently, the end of my career.
And then all at once he remembered Merrill Judd, the chemist with A.G. Chemie. Judd was supposed to be going to help me, he recalled; I completely forgot about it, in the excitement of becoming invisible.
I can go by auto-cab to A.G. Chemie.
He hailed an auto-cab which was passing, but it failed to see him. Disappointed, he watched it go on by. I thought I was still visible to purely electronic sca
Can I walk to an A.G. Chemie branch? he asked himself.
I guess I'll have to. Because of course I can't board the ordinary pubtrans; it wouldn't be fair to the others.
I've got quite a task for Judd, he realized. Not only must the man eradicate my phobic body odour but he has to make me invisible once more. Discouragement filled Kongrosian's mind. They can't do it, he realized. It's too much; it's hopeless. I'll just have to keep on trying for rebirth.
When I see Judd I'll ask him about it, see what A.G. Chemie can do for me in that line. After all, next to Karp they're the most powerful economic syndrome in the entire USEA. I'd have to go back to the USSR to find a greater economic entity.
A.G. Chemie is so proud of its chemical therapy; let's see if they have a drug which promotes rebirth.
He was walking along, thinking those thoughts while avoiding stepping on the cracks in the pavement, when all at once he realized that something lay in his path. An animal, flat, platter-shaped, orange with black spots, its ante
‘Rebirth ... yes, a new life. Begin over, on another world.'
Mars!
Kongrosian halted and said, ‘You're right.' It was a papoola, there on the sidewalk before him. He looked around and saw, sure enough, a jalopy jungle parked not far off, the shiny jalopies sparkling in the sunlight. There, in the centre of the lot, in a little office building, sat the operator of the lot, and Kongrosian moved step by step towards him. The papoola followed, and as it followed it communicated with him.
‘Forget A.G. Chemie ... they can't do anything for you.'
Right, Kongrosian thought. It's entirely too late for that.
If Judd had come up with something right away it would have been different. But now. And then he realized something.
The papoola could see him.
Or at least it could sense him with some organ or apperception, in some dimension or other. And -- it did not object to his smell.
‘Not at all,' the papoola was telling him. ‘You smell perfectly wonderful to me. I have no complaints at all, absolutely none.'
Kongrosian halting, said, ‘Would it be that way on Mars? They could see me -- or at least perceive me -- and I wouldn't offend them?'
‘There are no Theodoras Nitz commercials on Mars,' the papoola's thoughts came to him, forming in his eager mind.
‘You will gradually shed your contamination, there. In that pure, virgin environment. Enter the office, Mr Kongrosian, and speak to Mr Miller, our sales representative. He is eager to serve you. He exists to serve you.'