Dayworld

Vermeulen church-steepled his fingers again.

"Today won't miss her. They'll think she's off on her own chase, if they'll think about her at all. Castor's kept them pretty busy. And what happens tomorrow? Will Snick appear at organics HQ with her visa and her orders from Sunday? No, she won't. So, how will Friday know that she's supposed to appear? It won't, and the following days won't know about her, either. Nobody will know that she's missing until Sunday comes and she doesn't report to her superiors. Sunday can do nothing about it except to leave inquiries for the following days. When Sunday comes again, it will get the news that Snick disappeared on Thursday. We'll have plenty of time to get ready for then, and we might not have to do anything at all."

"I hope so," Dunski said. He thought about Panthea Snick, cold and hard, stuck somewhere, perhaps for centuries, until she was found, if she was ever found.

"Poor man," Mia Baruch said, patting his hand.

Dunski looked at her, and she said, "Your wives ... murdered, so ghastly."

"He got his revenge, anyway," Vermeulen said.

She snatched her hand away and moved away from him. Of course. He had killed a man. It did not matter that he had done so in self-defense or that Castor should have been killed. She was repulsed by the idea of sitting so close to such a violent man.

"I know that revenge doesn't bring back the dead," Dunski said. "It's an old clichй. But revenge does have a certain satisfaction."

Baruch sniffed and moved further away. Dunski managed a tired grin and said, "What about Rupert von Hentzau, my wife?"

"She's been notified," Vermeulen said. "She'll set up your dummy for you in your cylinder. Or, as I suggested, she should leave the commune tonight, tell them that you and she are divorcing them. Some excuse. If she does leave, she'll go to an emergency stoner. She'll take your tomorrow's bag with her. Whether she leaves or not, she's made arrangements to get your bag to you. She sent her love to you and said she'll see you tomorrow. That is, next Thursday."

Dunski saw no reason to tell him that he had planted duplicate bags around the city.

Vermeulen paused, then said, "As for you, you'll stay here. There's no problem with that, is there?"

"You know that my wife, Friday's, is in South America on an archaeological dig?"

"Of course. I had to inquire about her because I had to make sure about your situation."

The man knew too much about him, but it could not be helped.

"I'm very tired," Dunski said. "I'd like to shower and then get to bed. It's been an ordeal."

Vermeulen stood up and said, "I'll show you to your room. When you wake up, we'll probably be gone. You can get yourself breakfast and let yourself out. I've left a message for your superior, tomorrow's, that is. I just told him that you'd transmit the relevant data. I suppose your superior will get in touch with you as quickly as possible."

"It depends on whether he thinks it's necessary."

The bedroom was luxurious and had a king-sized bed that could be let down by chains from the ceiling. Vermeulen pushed a button on a wall panel, and the bed lowered slowly, then settled on its legs, which had extended from the posts during its descent.

"If anything happens before Mia and I stone, I'll leave a message. That strip there," he pointed, "will be flashing. You can get a night robe from that closet."

"Very posh," Dunski said. "I'm not used to such high class."

"We have greater responsibilities, so we deserve more," Vermeulen said.

Dunski bade him good night. After Vermeulen had closed the door, Dunski tried the door. It was locked. He brushed his teeth with a disposable brush he found in the bathroom cabinet, showered, and got into bed. The sleep he had expected to come so quickly was not on schedule. Derailed somewhere. Images of Ozma, Nokomis, and Castor tramped through the hall of his mind. He began trembling. Tears flowed, though they did not last long. He got up and went to a small bar in a corner, another luxury, and poured four ounces of Social Delight No. 1, another luxury, into a glass. Fifteen minutes passed while he walked back and forth, his legs drained of strength but unable to stop moving, the drink in his hand. Just as he was downing the last of it, he saw Wyatt Repp, gri

Wyatt said, "I should have been in that glorious gunfight, Shootout on Jones Street, not you! I would've loved it!"

"It isn't midnight yet," Dunski muttered as Wyatt faded away.

After he got into bed, he began weeping. Images of Snick cold and hard as a diamond were reflected on all sides in the crazyhouse mirrors of his mind. As he floated into a gusty sleep, he thought, I shouldn't be grieving more for her than for the others. It isn't right.

Friday-World

VARIETY, Second Month of the Year

D5-W1 (Day-Five, Week-One)

Chapter 20

Wyatt Bumppo Repp strode from his apartment, went down the hail, and stopped before the elevator. His white ten-gallon hat, scarlet neckerchief, ruffle-necked and balloon-sleeved purple shirt, factory-grown black leather vest, huge belt with a massive buckle embossed with a cowboy on a bucking bronco, tight sky-blue jeans fringed with leather at the seams, and high-heeled white tooled leather boots bearing decals of crossed six-shooters were worn by only one man in Friday. Wyatt Repp, the great TV writer-director-producer of Westerns and historical dramas. The only item lacking-he was irked by this-were elegantly tooled holsters and elegantly embossed toy pistols. The government said no to that. If little boys could not play with toy weapons, why should this big boy? He would set a bad example.

Never mind that the government did not restrict the showing of weapons or violence on strips and in empathoria. This government, like all since the founding of Sumer, was splitbrained.

Though the tenants waiting for the elevator had seen him often, they stared at him admiringly and greeted him enthusiastically. Repp basked in the sun of their regard. At the same time, he felt a smidgen of shame because he was taking advan tage of their ignorance and was, in a sense, a sham. No real cowboy ever dressed like this, and real cowboys had never carried a shoulderbag. However, they should have known this, since his TV shows portrayed cowboys as realistically as research allowed.

The tenants greeted him loudly and exuberantly. Repp replied softly, true to the tradition of the low-voiced and gentle hero who was, nevertheless, as tough as they come. "Smile when you call me that, stranger."

On the way down in the elevator, he answered as best he could the questions of the passengers about his forthcoming drama. When they got to the lobby, all scattered and went their own ways. His heels clicking on the marble floor of the lobby, he strode out into the bright sun and cool air. He got into the waiting taxi, and replied softly to the driver's greeting. The driver, having been told via strip of Repp's destination, drove from the corner of East Twenty-third Street and Park Avenue to Second Avenue. He turned the taxi right and drove to the rear of the block building that had once been the site of the Beth Israel Medical Center. The Manhattan State Institute of Visual Arts was a six-story building looking more like a corkscrew than anything. This had, of course, given rise to jokes about what the institute was doing to the public.

The driver opened the door and said, "The storm sure cleared the air and cooled things off, Ras Repp."

"It cleared up and cooled off a lot of things," Repp said. "You have no idea, pardner."

Events were back in a steady and normal course. Castor was dead. Snick was hidden. The immers were covering up and straightening out the trail. Today could go as the days past had. He would have problems, but they would stem from his profession, not from the acts of criminals and organics pursuing those criminals. Although-he gri