Counter Clock World

"I can notify you as soon as we hear. We sent one of our own cars after the Library's; we should hear any time, now. Stall Gantrix until we phone you."

"Okay." Sebastian nodded. Then, awkwardly, he said, "I appreciate all your help."

The man said, "You've got to get rid of that McGuire girl. Can't you get control of her? She's tough; she's a pro--but you're bigger than _her_."

"What good would throwing her out on the street do?" It seemed futile to him. Pointless. "She's already told the Library what she found out; there isn't any more harm she can do."

"She'll tip your hand to Gantrix; that's what she'll do." The man's voice rose in indignation. "She'll take charge of the negotiations, and the first you know, she'll have sold the Anarch and it'll all be over."

A second dark figure emerged from the building on the right; the two stake-out men from the Rome syndicate conferred.

"She's using your store vidphone to call the Library," the first man said to Sebastian. "Telling the Erad Council about Gantrix, his meeting with you at the vitarium."

The other man, earphones still on his head, added, "And she's telling the Library that she's planted a bomb--she brought it in as part of her phony tape recorder--somewhere on the premises. Which she can detonate by remote any time she feels like."

"What's that for?" the first man asked him. "To blow up who? Herself?"

"She didn't say. The Erad at the Library who took her call seemed to know. Wait." He tapped his earphones. "She's making a second call." He was silent and then he said, "This is to her husband."

"Her husband," Sebastian said. So even that part wasn't true. He felt real hatred for her, deep and abiding.

"This is very interesting," the man with the headphones said after a time. "She has a whole bunch of projects humming away. First, she wants your wife, Mrs. Hermes, located and watched. Do you know where your wife is, Mr. Hermes?"

"No," he said.

"Second," the man continued. "she wants some man named Joe Tinbane killed. And lastly, if that happens, she wants the Erads to pick up your wife so she can't come back to you. A

"I slapped her," he said.

"Not hard enough," the man with the headphones said.

Sebastian turned and made his way back across the street, to the vitarium. When he entered he found A

"I walked around and thought," he said.

"And what did you decide?"

"I'm still trying to decide," he said.

A

"Yes there is," he said. "What to do about you. That's what I have to decide."

"I'm helping you," A

Going into the rear of the store he lay down on the bed which the Anarch had so recently occupied; he stared up sightiessly at the ceiling. My whole store, he thought. She can destroy it and me, everything; there's nothing about me she can't get into and control. Why can't I stop her? he asked himself. I have a gun now; I could kill her.

But he was trained to bring people back to life, not to kill them; his whole orientation, everything he believed, involved bestowing life. On everyone possible, without distinction; the vitarium never asked for a pedigree on the old-born it dug up; it never inquired into whether they ought to live again.

It's not that easy to kill a person, he thought. That's not what people do; there has to be another answer. But hitting her hadn't affected her--except to get him placed on her permanent foodlist, to be paid back. I don't think I can physically drive her away, he decided. Not if she intends to hang around; words have no influence on her, nor menace to her physical safety. He wondered, Where is the bomb? Here in this room? God, he thought. I have to do something; I can't lie here; I have to act.

In the front room the vidphone rang.

He sprang up, thinking, I can't let her get that. He sprinted, panting, into the receptionist's area; there she sat, already the receiver against her ear--he grabbed it away from her.

"They wouldn't talk to me anyhow," A

It was Bob Lindy. "Can she hear me?" Lindy asked.

"No." He carried the phone and the receiver as far away from her as the cord would allow. "Go ahead," he said.

"Can't you get rid of her?" Lindy demanded.

"Just go ahead," he grated.

Lindy said, "We ditched them. The car following us. It was a real dogfight, like World War One. I looped back and around, and then they looped; I did an Immelma

"Don't tell me where you are," Sebastian said.

"Hell no, not with that screwy dame there. She isn't scared of you a bit, is she? Women are never scared of men they've been to bed with. But she's scared of me; I saw it in her eyes when I had that gun on her. You want me to come back? 1 can leave Sign with the Anarch and join you at the store, say in about forty minutes."

Sebastian said, "I've got to handle it myself. Thanks. Call me back two hours from now. Hello." He rang off.

Standing by the window with her arms folded, A

"How do you know that?" he said.

"When you told him 'Don't tell me where you are.'" She turned away from the window and toward him. "What is it you're going to handle yourself?"

"You," Sebastian said.

12

We do not know what God is... because He is infinite and therefore objectively unknowable. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything.

--Erigena

They faced each other.

"I have a bomb hidden here in the vitarium," A

He said thoughtfully, "You won't detonate the bomb while you're still here. Because that would kill you, too, and you're too vital, too active, to deliberately die."

"Thank you." She smiled her crinkly smile. "That's flattering."

A tap sounded at the front door.

"It's Mr. Gantrix," A

"Wait," he said.

She glanced up questioningly.

"Don't do anything to Lotta," he said, "and I'll let you have the Anarch."

Her eyes ignited, flared violently, triumphantly.

"But I want her back first," he said. "Physically back in my possession, before I give you the Anarch. I don't want your word." To her, words meant nothing.