The Simulacra

Maybe it's just the police mentality, he conjectured as the two of them descended.

Or maybe it's more.

Nicole, he thought. You know darn well I could never do anything to you; it's utterly out of the question -- my entire world would collapse. It would be like injuring my own mother or sister, someone sacred.

I've got to keep my talent in check, he realized. Please, dear Lord, help me keep my psychokinetic ability in check whenever I'm around Nicole. Okay? As the elevator descended he waited, fervently, for an answer.

‘By the way,' Pembroke broke into his thoughts suddenly. ‘About your smell. It seems to be gone.'

‘Gone!' And then the implication of the NP man's remark struck him. ‘You mean you could detect my phobic body odour? But that's impossible! It can't actually be -- ‘ He ceased talking, confused. ‘And you say now it's gone.' He did not understand.

Pembroke eyed him. ‘I would certainly have noticed it here, cooped up with you in this elevator. Of course, it may come back. I'll be glad to let you know if it does.'

‘Thank you,' Kongrosian said. And thought, Somehow this man is getting the upper hand over me. Constantly. He's a master psychologist ... or is it that, by his definition, he's a master political strategist?

‘Cigarette?' Pembroke extended his pack.

Horrified, Kongrosian leaped back. ‘No. They're illegal too dangerous. I wouldn't dare smoke one.'

‘Always danger,' Pembroke said, as he lit up. ‘Right? A constantly dangerous world. You must be ceaselessly careful. What you need, Kongrosian, is a bodyguard. A squad of hand-picked, rigorously-trained NP men, with you at all times.' He added, ‘Otherwise -- ‘

‘Otherwise you don't think I have much of a chance.'

Pembroke nodded. ‘Very little, Kongrosian. And I say this on the basis of my use of the von Lessinger apparatus.'

From then on the two of them descended in silence.

The elevator stopped. The doors slid back. They were in the subsurface level of the White House. Kongrosian and Pembroke stepped out into the hall. A man, whom both of them recognized, stood waiting for them. ‘I want you to listen, Kongrosian,' Bertold Goltz said to the pianist.

Swiftly, in a fraction of a second, the NP Commissioner had his pistol out. He aimed at Goltz and fired.

But Goltz had already vanished.

A piece of folded paper lay on the floor where he had stood. Goltz had dropped it. Stooping, Kongrosian reached for it.

‘Don't touch that!' Pembroke said sharply.

It was too late. Kongrosian had it, was unfolding it. It read: Pembroke leads you to your death.

‘Interesting,' Kongrosian said. He passed the slip of paper to the NP man; Pembroke put his pistol away and accepted it, scrutinizing it, his face distorted with outrage.

From behind them, Goltz said, ‘Pembroke has waited months for you to be taken into custody, here at the White House. Now there isn't any time left.'

Spi

Time left for what? he wondered. What's going to happen? Goltz seemed to know and probably Pembroke knows, too; they have identical equipment available to them.

And, he thought, how does it involve me? Me -- and my talent, which I've sworn to keep in check.

Does this mean I'm going to use it? He had no intuition that this was precisely what it meant.

And there was probably little he could do about it.

From outside the house Nat Flieger heard children playing.

They chanted some sort of dirge-like rhythm, unfamiliar to him. And he had been in the music business all his life. No matter how hard he tried he could not make out the words; they were strangely blurred, run-together.

‘Mind if I look?' he asked Beth Kongrosian, rising to his feet from the creaky wicker chair.

Turning pale, Beth Kongrosian said, ‘I -- would rather you didn't. Please don't look at the children. Please!'

Nat said gently, ‘We're a recording company, Mrs Kongrosian. Anything and everything in the way of music is our business.' He absolutely could not refrain from going to the window to look; the instinct, right or wrong, was in his blood -- it came before civility or kindness, before all else. Peering out, he saw them, seated in a circle. And they were all chuppers. He wondered which was Plautus Kongrosian. They all looked so much alike to him. Perhaps the little boy in yellow shorts and T-shirt off to the side. Nat motioned to Molly and Jim; they joined him at the window.

Five Neanderthal children, Nat thought. Plucked out of time; a sequence from the past snipped out and pasted here in this day and age, in the present, for us of EME to overhear, to record. I wonder what sort of an album cover our art department will want to put on this. He shut his eyes, no longer wishing to face the scene outside the window.

But we will go ahead, he knew. Because we came here to get something; we can't -- or at least we don't want to -- go back with nothing at all. And this is important.

This has to be dealt with, professionally. Perhaps it's more important even than Richard Kongrosian, good as he is. And we can't afford the luxury of paying attention to our delicate sensibilities.

‘Jim,' he said presently. ‘Get out the Ampek F-a2. Right away. Before they stop.'

Beth Kongrosian said, ‘I won't let you record them.'

‘We will,' Nat said to her. ‘We're used to this, in folk music sessions done on the spot. It's been tested in USEA courts many times and the recording firm has always won.'

He followed after Jim Planck, in order to help assemble their recording gear.

‘Mr Flieger, do you understand what they are?' Mrs Kongrosian called after him.

‘Yes,' he said. And continued on.

Presently they had the Ampek F-a2 set up; the organism pulsed sleepily, undulating its pseudopodia as if hungry. The moist weather seemed to have affected it little; it was, if anything, torpid.

Appearing beside them, composed, her face rigid with determination, Beth Kongrosian said in a low voice, ‘Listen to me, please. At night, in fact tonight in particular, there's going to be a gathering of them. The adults. At their hall, back in the woods very near here, on the red-rock side road they all use; it belongs to them, their organization. There will be a great deal of dancing and singing. What you want exactly. Much more than what you'll find here with these little children. So please; wait and record that instead.'

Nat said, ‘We'll get both.' And signalled Jim to carry the Ampek F-a2 towards the circle of children.

‘I'll put you up for the night, here in the house,' Beth Kongrosian said, hurrying after him. ‘Very late, around two in the morning, they sing wonderfully -- it's hard to understand the words but -- ‘ She caught hold of his arm. ‘Richard and I have been trying to train our child away from this. The children, as young as they are, don't really participate; you won't get the real thing from them. When you see the adults -- ‘ She broke off and then finished drably, ‘Then you'll see what I mean.'

Molly said to Nat, ‘Let's wait.'

Hesitating, Nat turned to Jim Planck. Jim nodded.

‘Okay,' Nat said to Mrs Kongrosian. ‘If you'll take us to their hall, where they meet. And see that we get in.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘I will. Thank you, Mr Flieger.'

I feel guilty, Nat said to himself. But he said aloud, ‘Okay. And you -- ‘ His guilt overcame him, then. ‘Heck, you don't have to put us up. We'll stay in Je

‘I'd like to,' Beth Kongrosian said. ‘I'm terribly lonely; I need the company, when Richard's away. You don't know what it means to have people from -- the outside come in here for a little while.'