Counter Clock World

"Will the police try to stop you, do you think?"

"Uh, no," Leopold Haskins said, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "The L.A. police, they hate the Library bad as we do."

"And why is that, sir?"

"The L.A. police know," Haskins said, "that it was the Library that kilt that policeman yesterday, that Officer Tinbane."

"We were told--"

"I know what you were told," Haskins said excitedly, his voiôe rising to a falsetto, "but it wasn't any 'religious fanatics' like they said. They know who did it and we know who did it."

The camera switched, then, to focus on an ill-at-ease very thin Negro wearing a white shirt and dark trousers. "Sir," the TV a

"Jonah L. Sawyer," the thin Negro said in a rasping voice.

"And why are you here today, sir?"

"The reason I'm here," Sawyer said, "is because that Library won't listen to no reason and won't let the Anarch out."

"And you're assembled here to get him out."

"That right, sir; we here to get him out." Sawyer nodded earnestly.

The TV a

"Well, we got our elite organization, the Offspring of Might, and they in charge; they the ones that ask us to come here today. I of course not know specifically what they plan to do, but--"

"But you think they can do it."

"Yes, I think they can do it." Sawyer nodded.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Sawyer," the TV a

The screen now showed a thick-necked white, with pocked skin and codfish eyes, wearing a uniform and glancing about slyly as he wet his lips to speak. "The People's Topical Library," he intoned in a loud, assertive voice, as if making a formal speech, "have made no such request. We have made various attempts to contact them, but our understanding is that at approximately four-thirty this afternoon all Library perso

"_Is_ the Anarch Peak in there, Chief Harrington?" the TV a

"To our knowledge," the L.A. police chief answered, "the Anarch Peak may well be in there. We do not know for sure." His voice faded off, as if he had his mind somewhere else; continually he glanced at something or someone out of the corner of his eye. "No, we have no knowledge of that one way or another."

"If the Anarch were in there," the a

"We regard this crowd," Chief Harrington said, "as constituting an unlawful assembly, and we have already made several arrests. At the present time we are attempting to persuade them to disband."

Again the a

Sebastian shut the TV set off.

"It's a good thing," Lotta said thoughtfully. "The Library disappearing. I'm glad it's gone."

"It's not gone. They'll rebuild. The whole staff and all the Erads got out; you heard what the TV said. Don't get your hopes up." He rose from the couch where he had been sitting and began to pace.

"We're probably safe for a little while," Lotta pointed out. "The Offspring are tied up trying to get into the Library; they're probably so busy they've forgotten about us."

"But they'll remember us again," he said. "When they're through with the Library." He thought, I wonder if by some miracle they could possibly reach the Anarch before he's killed. My god, he thought; I wonder... it's theoretically possible, at least.

But he knew, in his heart, that it would not work out that way. The Anarch would never be seen again alive; he knew it, the Anarch had known it, and the Uditi knew it. Ray Roberts and the Uditi knew it most of all.

"Turn the news back on," Lotta requested, restlessly.

He did so.

And saw, on the screen, the face of Mavis McGuire.

"Mrs. McGuire," the TV a

Mrs. McGuire said in her severe, frigid voice, "Early today, we called in representatives of the news media and read them a prepared statement. I will read it to you again, if you wish; will somebody--thanks." She received a sheet of paper, glanced over it, and then began to read in her crisp, no-nonsense Library voice. "'Because of the presence of Mr. Ray Roberts in Los Angeles at this time, religious bigotry has been fa

"Oh God," Lotta said, clapping her hands to her ears and gazing at him with stricken fear. "That voice; that awful voice, babbling away at me--" She shuddered.

"We aLso talked to Miss A

"--that it appears to have been pla

"You think, then," the a