Ohm took his hat off and tossed it on the floor. Mudge raised his eyebrows and looked sternly at Ohm.
"I"ll put it away later," Ohm said. "You said we don"t have much time. Besides, if the organics come in, they have to find some untidiness. They might get suspicious if they don"t."
They started toward the door. Ohm, a step behind Mudge, said, "Can"t you tell me anything about this?"
"Yes." Mudge opened the door and went into the hail. When Ohm had joined him, Mudge said, softly, "I was to tell you this only if you asked. The Repp dummy has been discovered. It was found at ten to midnight yesterday. Friday, I suppose."
"My G.o.d! 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 h.e.l.l 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 wrist.w.a.tch 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 pa.s.sed 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 rea.s.sured 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 b.u.t.t, 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-a.n.a.lyzed 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."
A few minutes later, Mudge and Ohm strolled out of the store. Mudge wore a big-brimmed scarlet hat and a green kilt. Ohm, a few paces behind Mudge, wore a"black sombrero with crimson feathers and a green kilt. He followed Mudge up the escalator to the pedestrian bridge across Womanway, went across the bridge, and down the escalator to Waverly Place. They walked west until they came to Fifth Avenue, where they turned north. Ohm scanned Washington Square, which was to his left, but he did not see Yankev Gril. The man could be playing chess somewhere deeper in the square. He could have stayed home because of the heat. Most probably, he had been picked up by the organics. Ohm was curious about the man"s motives for daybreaking, though not as curious as Jeff Caird would have been.
Mudge crossed the bridge in front of the square building called the Washington Mews (the Mews had long been gone). Ohm followed him to the west side of Fifth. As he did so, he recalled that Panthea Snick now had an apartment in the Mews building. She must be out in this area now, looking for him. Perhaps. The Friday organics might have had time to run Repp"s ID through the data bank and then have pa.s.sed on the findings to Sat.u.r.day. If Friday had not done this, Sat.u.r.day would have.
Which meant one of two actions. One, the Sat.u.r.day organics would be looking for a daybreaker resembling him, an ordinary, run-of-the-a.s.sembly-line breaker. Or, two, they might have tried to match Repp"s ID with similar IDs from all of the days. There would have been some delay before the organics could get permission from the North American Superorganic Council for Sat.u.r.day. But there had been enough time for that. The hounds could know all and be on his scent.
If the latter had happened, what could he do? What had the immer council planned for him?
Mudge walked north on Fifth under the trees. Ohm followed him for a few paces, then stopped. The building on his left was one of the older ones, built before the ship-shape craze. It housed, on Sat.u.r.day, anyway, Orthodox Jews who used the building gymnasium as a synagogue, worshiping their G.o.d amid the odor of sweat socks and sweat shirts. A man was looking out of a second-story window. Yankev Gril.
The strong handsome face appeared only for a minute. Its expression changed subtly, but Ohm could not read it. Was it a sudden but suppressed recognition of him? Not of Charlie Ohm but of Jim Dunski, who had stood for a while by the table in Washington Square and watched Gril play chess? Or was it just suspicion that Ohm might be an organic looking for him?
Whatever it was, Gril was certainly taking chances by being in that building. It would be one of the first places the organics would search. However, Gril might have moved into it after the search. Or he might just be visiting, perhaps to take part in a religious ceremony.
Bob Tingle, the data banker, had ascertained that there were only approximately half a million Orthodox Jews and two million of the Reformed in all of the seven days. The rest had been absorbed, their ident.i.ty diffused in the Gentile society. Ohm himself had a Jewish great-grandmother, though she was Jewish by courtesy only. She had not practiced the religion.
The government had no public official policy against Jews. It professed toleration of all religions, but it did push a subtle form of persecution of Jews. It was unlawful for parents to arrange marriages of their children or to use any form of coercion to ensure that the children married within the faith. Since it was also forbidden for any group to claim superiority to any other group for religious reasons, the Jews were not allowed to state in words or in writing that they were "the chosen of G.o.d."
That would be antisocial and nonegalitarian. Orthodox males also had to delete from their morning prayer their thanks to G.o.d that they were not born as wdmen. That att.i.tude was even more antisocia"l and nonegalitarian.
All of the sacred or revered writings of the Jews were legally available only in recordings. These had been censored, though not heavily, and interspersed frequently with comments by the officials of the Bureau of Religious Freedom.
For the same reasons, Christians were forbidden to claim that Jesus was the Son of G.o.d except in the sense that all h.o.m.o sapiens were the children of G.o.d. Who, the government said, did not exist. The New Testament was also lightly censored but heavily annotated by the bureau.
The thirteen-story Tower of Evolution looked like a corkscrew. The bright green threadings of its exterior were supposed to suggest the spiraling of life toward higher evolution. Atop the point were the statues of a man and of a woman holding a baby above her head. The baby had its hands raised as if it was trying to grasp something in the sky.
Charlie Ohm followed Mudge into the vast well-lighted lobby and got in line a few people behind him. While waiting, he looked at the outer edge of the circular lobby. Through the plastic walls, he could see the boiling thick-looking liquid and the holograph images of thunder clouds and lightning striking the waters. This was a representation of the primal soup, Earth"s oceans, billions of years ago. Here, the numerous strips said, was where life had begun, conceived in violent intercourse by the lightning and out of carbon compounds floating in the thick "soup." The first life forms, very basic indeed, had begun in this simple though splendid rape.
Charlie had no idea why Mudge had gotten into the line of sightseers, but he a.s.sumed that Mudge knew what he was doing. He moved forward swiftly, though, and was glad of it. Tourists from all over the world jammed the lobby, and the chatter was, if not deafening, annoying.
Charlie finally got to the credit machine standing on a pole at the entrance to an aisle made.by posts coni~iected to chains. He inserted the tip of his ID disc-star into the hole, saw the display, ACCEPTED, and pa.s.sed on into the aisle. He saw Mudge go by the elevator and step onto the stairway to the second floor. Pressed by a man ahead and a woman behind, a close contact Charlie had to endure, he moved slowly up the steps. At the top, he found Mudge waiting for him.
Charlie glanced at the vast and mostly hollow interior rising twelve stories to the top. He had seen this before at least a dozen times, yet he still felt somewhat awed. The exhibits were in tall and wide recesses in the wall in a staggered ascending arrangement. The visitors traveled on winding escalators that went slanting upward around and around the walls past the sea- and landscapes with the figures of fish, birds, insects, animals, and plants appropriate to the particular geological time. Standing on the escalator, their alt.i.tude ever increasing, the visitors would travel from Pre-Cambrian time (plants and animals with soft tissues) to the Cambrian (the backboneless ocean creatures of the first stage of the Paleozoic Era). Then, moving upward diagonally, they would go past the Ordovician (the first primitive fishes). They would continue through the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras, oohing and aahing at the life-sized animated dinosaur robots, and they would end up near the top where h.o.m.o sapiens of the New Era was the prime exhibit. They would get off into a recess there and take elevators down to the lobby. Along the corkscrew way, they could step off for a while into recesses to one side of the exhibits to view the curiosities.
Mudge did not get onto the escalator. He turned and went into a doorway to a hall. Pa.s.sing the two men stationed there, Mudge nodded his head at them. This must have been a signal to let Ohm also pa.s.s into the hall. It was not more than ten feet long, ending in a wide strip displaying a montage of some of the life forms on the upper levels. Mudge said something be- fore Ohm got near enough to hear him. Ohm started slightly as the strip before him slid up into a slot in the ceiling and a hallwide strip slid down behind him from a ceiling slot. For a moment, the two were in a box three feet wide.
Mudge stepped through the entrance, which had been hidden by the wall strip, into an elevator cage. He turned and beckoned Ohm to follow him. Ohm got into it. Mudge said, "Up." The doors closed, and the cage rose swiftly. Evidently, since there was no display of floor numbers, the elevator went to one floor only. When it stopped, Mudge got behind Ohm and gently nudged him out. Charlie did not like it that Mudge, who had been in front of him almost all the way, now was behind him. He could do nothing about it and was not sure that he had any reason to try to do something.
They stepped out, facing south, into a large but low-ceilinged room with unactivated wall strips and a thick expensivelooking green carpet. Mudge told him to move on. Charlie went to the only door, which led west. Here was a curving hallway about ten feet wide with another thick carpet and deadscreen strips. As they walked along it, Charlie Ohm saw doors closed on his right. He doubted that these were tenanted. Whoever lived here had plenty of extra rooms and must, therefore, be a very important person indeed.
At the end of a curving three hundred feet, they stopped before a large door. Mudge inserted an ID tip into the code-hole. A few second later, a voice told them to come in. Mudge stepped behind Ohm again and told him to go in. Ohm pulled the door open and went in. He was in a large anteroom with plenty of comfortable-looking chairs and davenports. Obviously, he was to go into the next room. He opened the door to that and entered a very large room. Its windows gave him a view of the Hudson River and of the forest covering the part of New Jersey that he could see. There was a lot of furniture, though not too much for this room. On the wall, s.p.a.ced among the activated strips, were paintings in the ancient Chinese manner. Ohm wondered if these were originals and not copies. The furnishings and the furnitur.e were certair~ly Chinese. One of the objets d"art that caught his eye was a big bronze Buddha in a niche.
The man sitting in a chair at the end of the room, near a window, was wearing scarlet pajamas and slippers and a Kellygreen morning robe. He was large and dark-skinned and had prominent epicanthic folds. His nose was large and hawkish; his eyebrows, heavy; his chin, ma.s.sive. He looked familiar, but it was not until Ohm was a few feet from him that Ohm realized why. Decrease the epicanthic folds by half. Change the blue eyes to brown. He would look much like Jeff Caird. . . Father Tom Zurvan ... himself.
Mudge said, "You may stop here." Meaning, "You must." Ohm did so, and Mudge said, "I"ll take your bag."
Reluctantly, Ohm handed it over. He had intended to see just where Mudge put it, but the man arose from the chair and bowed slightly, shaking hands with himself. That was Tuesday"s greeting, which meant that this man could be that day"s citizen. Or it could mean that he was indicating that he knew Ohm"s primal persona. Or it could mean both.
The man smiled and said, "Welcome, grandson."
Ohm stared, felt his blood rushing from his head, and said, "Grandson?"
"Also my great-great-grandson in your paternal and maternal lines."
Though shaken, Ohm had recovered quickly. Aware that he had not returned the formal greeting, he did so. And he said, "You have the advantage of me."
That was not quite true. Only one man in the world could be his great-great-grandfather and still be living. But he had died.
That was what the vital statistics of the World Data Bank recorded. However, who knew better than Ohm that the data bank held many lies?
"Advantage?" the man said. He gestured that Ohm should sit down. Ohm, as was proper, waited until the older man seated himself first. Before taking the chair offered, he glanced around. Mudge was standing by a table ten feet behind him. The shoulderbag was on the table but unopened. Mudge, of course, would know by its weight that it contained a gun.
Ohm also scanned the strips, each of which displayed some of the exhibits in the tower.
Ohm sat down, looked steadily into the man"s eyes, and said, "All right, no advantage. You did take me by surprise, I admit that. I had no idea. . . we"ve all been told that the founder was killed in a laboratory accident."
"Blown to bits," the man said. "It was not difficult to grow skin and organs and bones from my own cells, even hands, which had, of course, my fingerprints, and one eyeball that was not destroyed by the explosion. By design, of course. There were a lot of of courses."
"Your intimates were wondering why you looked so young," Ohm said. "You finally had to seem to die, and then you took a new ID."
Gilbert Ching Immerman nodded and said, "My permanent residence is not in this country. It won"t hurt for you to know that. You may also know that Sat.u.r.day is not my official citizenship day. I flew here to straighten this mess out."
Whatever Immerman"s name was now, it was that of a very high official, Ohm thought. Probably he was a world councilbr. Only a man of that rank and influence could have a personal apartment-such a large one, too-that he rarely used. And only a very high official could break day when he pleased. Ohm wondered what his coverup story was. Not that that mattered. What did matter was why Immerman was here.
"Grandfather," Ohm said. He paused. "May I call you Grandfather?"
"I"d like that," Immerman said. "No one has ever done that. I had to deny myself the pleasure of my grandchildren"s corn- pany. But, of course, I also did not have to be involved in the sometimes painful and distressing troubles thaf come with the joys of grandchildren. Yes, you may call me Grandfather."
He stopped, smiled.
"But what do I call you?"
Ohm said, "What. . . ? Oh! I see. Today"s Sat.u.r.day. Call me Charlie, please."
Immerman shook his head slightly, then made a gesture. Mudge appeared by Ohm"s side and said, "Yes, sir."
"Would you get us some tea. Our guest may be hungry, also. Would you like some food, Charlie?"
"Some protein cookies would be nice," Ohm said. "I had a very light breakfast."
"I would imagine you would," Immerman said. "The way of life you lead . . . today, that is. You are amazing, Charlie. Not quite unique in being a daybreaker sanctioned as such by the immer council. But unique in your roles. And in the intensity with which you have adopted these roles. . . personae, rather. I believe that you actually become a new man each day. Admirable, in some respects. In others, dangerous."
Here it comes, Ohm thought. Now we"re getting to the reason I"m here. This is not meant to be a family reunion.
"May I walk around a little while we"re waiting for the tea and cookies?" Charlie said. "I didn"t get my accustomed exercise. I"m tight and sluggish. I can think better with the muscles loose and the blood flowing."
"Be my guest."
Feeling somewhat self-conscious, Charlie got up and strode up and down the room. He stopped at the entrance, turned, and went as far as a few feet from Immerman before turning again. The old man-old man, he did not look more than five years older than his grandson!-sat with folded hands and watched. He was smiling very faintly. While Charlie paced back and forth, he saw a huge seal-point Siamese cat enter from a doorway. It paused, looked intently with enormous blue eyes at Ohm, then trotted to Immerman and leaped upon his lap. It curled down there while Immerman gently stroked it.
"Ming is my first and only pet," Immerman said softly. "Ming the Merciless. I doubt you know the reference. He"s almost as old as I am. In obyears, that is. From time to time, I stone him."
Charlie took his gaze away from the wall strips, though he had seen something in one that had startled him. He said, "Even so, Ming must have been given the elixir for him to live so long. Right?"
"Right," Immerman said. "Only . . . it"s not an elixir. It"s a biological form, a genuine life form, though artificial in origin. It cleanses the plaque from the arteries, does many things. It also partially suppresses the inherent aging agent in our cells. I don"t know how it does it, though I"ve been trying to find out for a long time."
Ohm was not pleased by the confidences. They could imply that his grandfather did not care what his grandson learned. Charlie Ohm was not going to be able to pa.s.s on the information. But could a man be so objective, so hard-hearted, that he would rid himself-and the family-of his own flesh and blood? The answer was, of course, that he could. The immer family had survived this long because its leaders had been objective and logical. It might grieve Immerman to dispose of his own grandson, but he would do it if he had to. The family came first; its individuals, a long second place behind.
"I"ve wondered about that," Charlie said. A little hole in the blackness inside his brain seemed to open. A little light shone briefly through it. Wyatt Repp? Repp seemed to be telling him something. Then he knew, and he spoke it aloud before the knowledge vanished back into the darkness.
"Ming the Merciless," he said. "He was a character, the chief villain, in an ancient comic book and movie series. Flash Gordon. That was the name of the hero of the series."