Dayworld

"Tell me something I don't know," Tingle muttered. More loudly, he said, "I'm going to look for Snick. I have an idea where she might be. Call you later."

By law, at least one building in every block had to have four extra stoners. These were mostly used for emergencies such as immediately stoning people who had been injured in the neighborhood streets or for the use of organics who had just made an arrest. Stoning a suspected criminal was a far superior restraining method to handcuffing.

Tingle went to the basement door, nodding at a couple who had just come down the staircase. Fortunately, he had put the gun back under the blouse. Even so, they looked suspiciously at him, though that might be his excited imagination. He walked down the steps into another recreation room. A TV strip was shedding its ghostly light; someone had forgotten to turn it off. Whoever had done it was going to be reprimanded and perhaps fined, if the culprit could be identified. Tingle turned it off.

The emergency cylinders stood in a corner of the utility room. Tingle went by them to a wall panel marked EMER CYL PWR and slid it into the recess. The number-three button was glowing. Tingle punched it, and the light went out. He went to the cylinder marked NO. 3 and opened the door. Snick was slumped down in it, her head against her drawn-up knees. She was gray-blue and hard and cold as metal to the touch. A bruise on her forehead indicated that Castor had knocked her senseless. Or perhaps he had killed her. In any event, he had not had time to mutilate her, if he meant to, as he had Doctor Atlas.

Tingle shut the cylinder door, returned to the control panel, punched the number-three button, and then turned the PWR rheostat to ON. A second later, the rheostat automatically returned to the OFF position. He went to the cylinder, swung the door open, bent down, and put a finger on her jugular. It was pulsing feebly. Good! Or was it good? Alive, she was a danger, though not if she could be hidden away someplace.

After stoning her again, he stood thinking for a moment, then called Paz over his wristwatch. The tiny scrambler in the watch would make the transmission unintelligible to anyone listening in except Paz. The government had the right to tap into any transmission; it had also given its citizens the right to use scramblers, providing them with the illusion of freedom. Put a leash on the dog but make it happy by making the leash a long one.

He told Paz just what had happened.

Paz said, "I'll send two agents to get her out of the house."

He said, "I have to know where she's being taken."

Paz said sharply, "Why is that?"

"I have to question her, find out what she's up to. I won't feel safe until I do so. Not about her, I mean. Castor's another matter."

"We'll take care of that."

"I don't like working in the dark," Tingle said. "Anyway, you really need me for the interrogation."

Paz sighed. After a pause, he said, "Very well. As soon as the situation's stable, I'll notify you."

He sounded as if his mouth was full of food. He had probably stuffed it as soon as he realized that Tingle was going to argue about his orders.

After being told to stay in his apartment until he heard from

Paz, Tingle went upstairs. He called the Department of Repairs and Plumbing and ordered a new code-lock installed. He was told that that could not be done until tomorrow. That is, next Wednesday. Tingle canceled the order. He called Paz, who was begi

"This is getting worse and worse," Paz said. "I hope you don't have any more difficulties."

"I don't make them," Tingle said, and he cut Paz off. Paz was begi

Tingle shrugged. He was not so calm and relaxed and in control of himself. Who was he to throw stones at Paz?

He went into the bathroom and turned up the power on his watch so that he could hear it above the shower water. The bathroom door was locked, and his weapon lay on a rack to one side of the shower. Though he did not think that Castor would return, he was not going to be careless.

Then he heard a shrilling and saw orange flashing. He swore. The sound and light came, not from his watch, but from the strip on the wall opposite the shower cubicle. The soap slipped out of his hands. He started to pick it up, clianged his mind, turned the water off, and pulled the shower door back. Who could it be? Nokomis? If she came home early for some reason, he would have a hard time getting away from her to call Paz.

He felt the soap under his foot, and he fell backward.

When he awoke, he was in a hospital bed. Nokomis' broad but beautiful face hung above him.

"No, I'm not going to be careless," he muttered.

Nokomis said, "What did you say, dear?"

His mind felt jellied, though not so much that he could not understand her when she told him what had happened. She had been called from the stage during a crucial point in the rehearsal. But he was not to worry about it. He was far more important to her than her career. The producer and most of the cast were furious with her, but he was not to be disturbed by that. To hell with them. The hospital had called her, and she had rushed down in a taxi. And she was so happy that he had not been killed.

However, she was puzzled because, so the hospital said, it had gotten an anonymous call. The anonym had spoken through a strainer, which removed all possibility of identifying the caller by a voiceprint. After saying that Tingle was unconscious in his shower, the caller gave the address and turned off the strip. When the paramedics got to the apartment, they found the door unlocked-she said nothing about the lock mechanism-and Tingle was lying senseless in the shower. The whole thing was so strange.

By the time she was through, Nokomis looked more suspicious than concerned. Tingle said that all he knew was that he had slipped on a bar of soap.

The attendants brought up a machine and subjected him to various tests. After a while, a doctor came in and read the results. He told Tingle that he had no serious injury and that he could go home as soon as he felt strong enough. However, a few minutes later two organics came to question him. Tingle repeated what he had told Nokomis. They looked grave, and one said that he would see Tingle again next Wednesday.

After they had left, Tingle groaned. When Wednesday rolled around, he would be questioned again. If he did not have an explanation to satisfy the organics, and he probably would not, he would be given the ultimate inquisition. Truth mist would be sprayed at him, and, after he had breathed that, he could not lie. He would tell the organics all that they asked.

And he and the other immers would humpty-dumpty into utter ruin.

"One bad thing after another, each worse than the one before it!" he muttered.

"What, dear?" Nokomis said.