Dayworld

Instead of going onto the front porch, Caird walked along one side of the house, the weapon in one hand, a flashlight in the other, looking for signs of breaking and entering. He saw nothing suspicious, and the back door was locked. He went to the other side and moved slowly, looking for signs of entry there. Nothing. As he walked back to the rear, the lights in the house began flashing, and he could hear, faintly, the siren moaning inside it.

It was now 11:30.

All over the city, all over this time zone, in every inhabited building, lights were flashing and sirens were moaning. And so were the street lights and sirens.

The seniors and the juniors now had less than five minutes to enter their stoners before power was applied to them. If they had not gone into them by now, and most had, because of lifelong conditioning, they should hurry, hurry. Never mind if thзy had to go to the toilet. Never mind if some were in the midst of having a baby. Never mind what. Get into the stoner.

Those cylinders with closed doors would automatically get the power. Those with open doors would not. From 11:30 to 11:35 P.M. was a grace period. A citizen could still get into one and close the door and be stoned sixty seconds later. After that, no power until next Tuesday at fifteen minutes after midnight, and that was destoning power, which had a field quite different from the stoning power.

The lights and the sirens lasted for sixty seconds and would be the last warning of three. At 11:00, when Caird had been traveling south on the Manhattan streets, the lights had blinked and the sirens had whooped. Fifteen minutes later, the second citywide warning had occurred.

Before the lights in the house had darkened again, Caird was at the back door and had inserted the ID tip in the slot. He had the door open before the warning was over. If Castor was inside, he would not be able to distinguish the entry warning light from the others. But, as soon as the warning lights quit, he would see the flashing orange light above the door in the front room. And he would know that someone was entering the back door. Unless Caird got in in time to close the back door.

He did so, and the hall and front room lights went out. The kitchen light stayed on, though it no longer blinked. He walked down the hall with his weapon set at maximum charge. The hall lit up as he left the kitchen, the light of which went dark. Castor, if he were here, would see the light and know that someone had entered.

The light should also be on in whichever room Castor was. Castor, however, would be intelligent enough to have overridden the automatic light with the manual switch. But he must also know that if Caird went into a room and the light did not go on, then Caird would know that it had. been manually turned off.

Caird told himself that he should not get spooked and shoot at anything that moved. It was possible that Ozma was still up. On the other hand, Caird did not want to give Castor a break by hesitating too long.

He stood listening. The house was silent, except for his subjective impression that it was breathing and also straining to hear something. Weapon held ready, finger on the button, he resumed walking. He passed the sliding closet doors on his left and a bathroom door and children's bedroom on his right. All the doors were shut. Since Castor could be behind any of them, Caird kept looking back.

He was also sharply aware that Castor could approach him from the rear through the kitchen. The dining room door opened onto the kitchen. Castor could come from the dining room and circle behind him.

The big front room lit up. He looked up the dark stairs to his right at the end of the hall. Then he put his hand over the bottom steps. The stairwell sprang into illumination. No one was there, and no shadowy face was looking from around the corner at the top of the steps. There were no signs of forced entry, and it was highly unlikely that Castor could have used some electronic means to get in. On the other hand, how had he gotten out of the Tamasuki institute?

He looked behind every piece of furniture in the front and dining rooms. Then he went through the kitchen again and down the long hall. He walked up the steps and went into the bathroom and two bedrooms there and looked into every closet.

It was midnight when he entered the basement. Fifteen minutes to go. The game room and the utility room and the PPC, the personal possessions closet, were empty of human though not of insect life. A big daddy-longlegs scuttled toward a refuge under the pool table. He would have to leave a recording for the cleaning squad when he had time for less important matters. No. The squad was not responsible for such matters. He would have to attend to a possible web under the table himself come next Tuesday. It was his turn to see to the minor cleaning.

He looked through the porthole of Ozma's cylinder. Her eyes looked lifelessly into his. Most people closed their eyes before power came on. Ozma had the crazy idea that her unconscious could see what was going on in the room, and she did not want to miss out on a thing.

He was happy with relief though still sweating from fear. Actually, the strain was not over yet, but that which he felt now was minor. It would become major if he did not get going.

He went to the cylinder which bore a plaque with his name and ID data. He put his shoulderbag on the floor, opened it, and took from a compartment a small flesh-colored object attached to a small cylinder. After opening the stoner door, he set the object and cylinder on the stoner floor. He turned a dial at the end of the cylinder. The object unfolded, swelling, and ballooned into an air-inflated and full-sized replica of himself.

He pinched the big right toe of the replica, pulled the small compressed-air cylinder from the valve in the toe, and screwed a cap onto the valve. He dropped the cylinder into a compartment of his shoulderbag. His neck-chain with the attached ID star came off his neck and was put on the dummy's. Though they weighed less than an ounce, they were heavy enough to topple the dummy forward. However, steel balls glued inside the feet of the replica compensated for the weight. The replica would not lean until its face was pressing against the window.

He took the Wednesday ID from the bag and dropped the neck-chain over his head and onto his neck. He picked up the gun, which he had placed on the floor, and stuck it between the waistband and his body. He placed the bag on the stoner floor and closed the door. Inside the great cylinder was what had so far always passed as the relatively molecularly motionless body of Jefferson Cervantes Caird.

Soon enough, it would be stoned.

Blowing a kiss to Ozma as he left, he ran upstairs, opened the front door, closed it, sprang over the railing at the end of the front porch, and hastened under the trees to the east fence. Leaped over the white picket fence with a hand on it. Ran across the yard and under the trees. Up the front steps of the big building with many white columns that looked so much like Scarlett O'Hara's mansion. Stopped at the front door to insert one tip of the ID star into the hole. Saw the light come on in the apartment lobby. Pushed in on the door and let it swing shut. Sped across the lobby to the wide staircase and up it to the second floor. Ran down the thickly carpeted corridor to Number 2E. Inserted the star tip again and entered the apartment living room. Raced down a narrow hail to the stoner room and darted to the left through a doorway. Fourteen cylinders here, much more closely spaced than in the basement of the house he had just left.

Ten minutes after midnight.

Never had he cut it so close. Never again would he have to, he hoped.