Dayworld

"My God! It's all over!"

Mudge said, "Keep your voice down. And act natural, whatever that is. No more questions."

"Was Snick behind this?"

"I said ... no more questions."

They started down the hall as a door three apartments away from his opened and a loud drunken couple, a man and a woman, staggered out. Mudge steered away from them as if he might get dirty if he got too near. "Hey, Charlie," the man said. "We'll see you at The Isobar."

"Maybe," Ohm said. "I got urgent personal business to attend to. I don't know if I'll make it to work on time."

"We'll drink to your happiness and success," the woman said.

"Do that."

When they got into the elevator cage, Charlie said, "I know you don't want me to ask questions. But am J going to get to work? If I don't, what excuse do I use?"

"That'il be taken care of, I suppose."

"Well, maybe it won't be important by then."

Mudge stared at him and said, "You'd better get hold of yourself, fellow. Jesus, you don't act like an immer."

Just before the elevator stopped, Mudge, unable to control his curiosity and ignoring his own command, said, "Why in hell would an immer live here?"

"No questions, remember."

How could he tell him that he had built, no, grown, a persona for each day? And that each was based on certain character elements that had coexisted, though not harmoniously, when he had been only Jeff Caird? He had been a conservative and a liberal, a puritan and a flesh-potter, a nonreligionist and a longer for faith, an authoritarian and a rebel, a priss and a slob. Out of the many conflicting elements of character, he had grown seven different ones. He had been able to do many things that would have been denied him if he had lived on only one day. He had contained many in one body, and each man had been given a chance to be what he wanted to be. Charlie Ohm, though, might have been, surely was, the case of going too far.

Just as they stepped out into the underground garage, he flashed the dream that he had tried to recall. He had seen all seven of him in Central Park, riding horses in a fog. They came in from the dimness from different directions and reined in their horses so that the hindquarters formed a seven-pointed star. Or a bouquet of horseflesh.

Jeff Caird had said, "What're we doing on this bridal path?"

Father Tom Zurvan had said, "Getting married, of course."

Charlie Ohm had laughed hollowly and said, "We act more like we've been divorced. First the divorce, then the marriage. Sure!"

Jim Dunski had pulled a sword from somewhere, held it aloft, and had shouted, "All for one and one for all!"

"The seven musketeers!" Bob Tingle had yelled.

"May the best man win!" Will Isharashvili had said.

"And the devil take the hindmost!" Charlie Ohm had chortled.

They had fallen silent because they heard the clip-clop of a horse's hooves approaching in the fog. They waited for they knew not what, and presently the figure of a giant man on a giant horselike figure loomed in the fog. Then the dream had ended.

Ohm did not have time to try to plumb its meaning. He was hustled by Mudge out of the building onto the sidewalk. They walked swiftly down the sidewalk past a yardful of screaming children at play and some adults. Ohm had no doubt that some of the infants had no IDs and that they had not been registered in the data bank. Mudge glanced at his wristwatch and muttered, "One minute to go." Ohm, looking around, could see no sign of the organics. But when they got to Womanway Boulevard, he saw thirty men and women, all in civilian clothing, standing by several cars. That they were unmarked meant that they were organic. When would the organics learn that everybody knew that?

There would be other raiders collected at other points near the building.

I need a drink, he thought.

But that's the last thing you need just now, someone said.

Nevertheless, as they walked north on Womanway and passed the big dark window of The Isobar, he felt as if some gyroscope inside him was leaning toward the entrance. Leaning also toward the path of least resistance and of hard-to-change habit.

He was sweating, though that was easily accounted for by the heat. That did not account for all the dryness of his mouth. What were today's organics doing about the discovery of Repp's dummy? The first shift would have read the recording left by Friday's last shift. The organics would have taken action on such a serious matter. What action? He was not going to know until he reached his unknown destination.

He felt the weight of the gun in his handbag. Though he had fallen so completely into today's persona, he had automatically transferred the weapon to Ohm's bag. Its presence reassured him, though not much. If Mudge had something bad in mind for him, he would have taken the gun from the bag. But then Mudge did not know much about him, and whoever had sent Mudge would not have told him to disarm Ohm. That would have warned Ohm that the councillors did not want him just to talk to.

I'm really getting suspicious, he told himself. However, I have good reason to be so. I may be a very grave danger to the family.

"Don't get out from under the tree," Mudge said. "Stay out of the clear area."

Charlie had been about to step into the sunshine between the oak trees along the curb and the buildings on the east side of the sidewalk. He said, "Sorry."

Eventually, though, they would have to leave the leafy roof and venture out where the sky-eyes could see them. These would record that two men in such-and-such colors and shapes of hats and of kilts had gone under the shield of the trees at such-and-such a point and had emerged at such-and-such a point. This would mean nothing, of course, unless the organics had a reason to track the two men.

Mudge halted when they got to the corner of Womanway and Waverly Place. He looked around-for what, Ohm did not know-and then said, "Wait a minute, then follow me." Ohm watched him pull a short plastic-wrapped stick from his bag. He pressed on its butt, and a parasol expanded. Holding it above his head, Mudge walked across the sidewalk and into the GI food store at the corner. Mudge should have brought along a parasol large enough to shield both of them. Then, if they escaped the side-angle sky-eye, the vertical one would have recorded only a parasol under which walked one or two men or women or a mixed couple.

Of course, if the organics were to study the recording, they would observe that a parasol had emerged from under cover where no parasol had entered. No, they could not be sure. At least a dozen parasol bearers had gone under the branches or were standing around. Four of these parasols were the same yellow as Mudge's. And so was the folded parasol slapped into Ohm's hand by a woman who walked on casually as if she were not part of some relay. She, too, held a yellow parasol over her head.

Charlie unfolded the parasol and started toward the store but had to stop when a man stepped in front of him. The man thrust his teddy bear at Ohm, said, "Take it!" and strolled on. He stopped, however, a few paces away and leaned against a news-strip post. Charlie noted that the man had the same shape and color of hat and color of kilt as his. A man his build and with similar clothes and minus a teddy bear would walk out from under the cover of the leaves. Unless the organics computer-analyzed the man's gait, they would think that he was the same as the teddy-bearless man who had gone under the trees.

In two minutes, he had seen more immers than at any one time previous.

Charlie Ohm went into the store and folded the parasol. Mudge, standing near the rear of the store, turned and went into the P & S. Besides Mudge and himself, there were five men and two women there. A medium-sized man with very broad shoulders handed Mudge and Ohm a ball of plastic clothing. He hurried out. Mudge said, softly, "Go into a stall and change."