“Yes.” He rolled over to face her.
She asked him, “What are you thinking?”
“Of how to get out of this place.”
“This place? You mean the living complex?”
“I mean this world.”
“How can you get out of the world? That’s silly.”
“No, it isn’t. I know a way to get to a different world.”
“A different world,” she said dreamily. “Do you think there are worlds other than this one?”
“Yes, there are any number of them. And I can get you to a pretty nice one. It’s just a matter of getting outside the city a little ways.”
“How would you do that?”
“I don’t know. Walk, take a bus. Steal a vehicle. It doesn’t matter. The main question in my mind is, can I do it without InnerVoice interfering?”
“You should be able to. You wouldn’t be able to sleep with me if you still had InnerVoice.”
“How could you get pregnant if no one was able to sleep with you?”
“If they had an order, they could.”
“You need an order?”
“Sure. You didn’t find the order to impregnate someone on your schedule, did you?”
“No.”
“Well, then. You wouldn’t be able to sleep with me unless InnerVoice was dead inside you.”
“Then that means there’s nothing preventing me from leaving.”
“Not if you actually have someplace to go. You say you do, but I don’t understand how. InnerVoice is in control outside the city, too.”
“I can get to a place where no one ever heard of InnerVoice.”
“Is there such a place? There are stories, rumors.”
“Rumors of what?”
“That there are Outpersons who wage war against InnerVoice.”
“Where?”
“No one knows. It’s rarely talked about. Just sometimes on the Information Specials they’ll mention something about ‘socially irresponsible outside elements.’ That’s how they phrase it, usually.”
“Rebels? An opposing military force of some kind?”
“Don’t know.”
It suddenly struck him that he didn’t even know this woman’s name. Wait; she didn’t have a name, only a nonsensical and dehumanizing jumble of letters and numbers. He really didn’t want to know what her cognomen was, much less her omnicode.
“Alice.”
She said, “What did you say?”
“I just gave you a name. Alice. You look like one.”
“‘Alice.’ That’s pretty.”
“So are you.”
“That’s unsocial. No one is better looking than anyone else.”
“That’s a lie. Alice, listen. I’m going to leave here and I want to take you with me. Do you want to come?”
“Go with you?”
“Yes.”
“To this other place, this other world you talked about?”
“Yes. Do you want to come with me?”
She was silent for a long time.
Then she said: “You know, I was thinking about doing it tonight. Jumping into the river.”
“You wanted to kill yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. But I think about it a lot. Just jumping in and letting the water carry me away.”
“Drowning.”
“Of course. Killing yourself is the most unsocial thing you can do, and I wanted to do it tonight. And then … I met you. And now you want to take me away.”
“Come with me, Alice. We’ll live in a big castle.”
“What’s a castle?”
“A big house.”
“A big house.” She inhaled deeply and sighed. “Yes, I’ll go with you.”
“Let’s leave now.”
She kissed him. “Tomorrow. Let’s try to get me pregnant again.”
“All right, Alice. By the way, my name is Gene.”
“Gene.” She laughed. “Gene. It sounds funny.”
“Laugh all you want. It sounds wonderful.”
Twenty
Laboratory
Jeremy sat huddled over the terminal keyboard, typing away. His eyes were fixed on the screen, his fingers graceful dancers performing a complex choreography. Isis stood behind him, watching, one slender white hand on his shoulder. Osmirik sat at another section of the workstation, paging through an ancient leather-bound tome.
Jeremy’s fingers did a finale. Then he sat back and sighed.
“That’s the coding,” he said. Reaching, he jabbed at a few more keys. “Now we compile it, debug it, and see if it runs.”
“I am not sure,” Osmirik said, “that the spell will be effective until after we have subjected it to extensive evaluation and analysis. Casting a computer-aided spell is a science, a very new and untried one, whereas casting spells in the ancient manner is a very highly developed art. Art can compensate for much uncertainty.”
“Yeah, but I can’t do diddly-squat the old-fashioned way,” Jeremy said. “What magic I can do, I gotta do with computers. Crazy, but there it is.”
“I did not mean to imply that there was not an element of artistry in what you do, Jeremy. You are obviously an adept in your own right.”
“Yeah. But it’s still crazy.”
“There you go again,” Isis said.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t do that. Yeah, I’m pretty good, pretty good. Thank God my life’s not a total waste.”
Isis hugged his neck. “You’re doing a terrific job, Jeremy.”
“Thanks,” he said, blushing a bit. “Hey, you had a lot to do with all this.”
“I’m only doing my job.”
“And Ozzie here, he really did all the —”
A sharp rapping came from the laboratory door. The three froze.
Voices outside, then loud knocking.
“That may be —” Osmirik began.
Someone began pounding.
Osmirik rose and hurried to the door.
“Who is it?” he called.
“Guard!” came a voice from the other side. “Open up!”
“By whose authority are you acting?” Osmirik asked.
“Lord Incarnadine’s, you fool, who else’s? Now, open this door or we’ll break it down.”
“I am His Excellency the Royal Librarian. We are engaged in a task commissioned by His Majesty himself. We are not to be disturbed. Do you hear?”
“We hear. To the devil with your commission. Lord Incarnadine has ordered all castle personnel to report to the Guest Residence immediately.”
“On the contrary,” Osmirik stated. “Lord Incarnadine has ordered no such thing. We have been in direct communication with His Majesty, and he is nowhere in the castle at the moment. Your orders come from an impostor.”
There came cursing and general mumbling.
Osmirik turned toward the workstation. “Is the compilation process completed?”
Jeremy checked the screen. “Yeah.”
“Then we had best run the program and cast the spell.”
“I thought you said —?”
A sharp thwack came against the door. Another, then a flurry of them. The door shook under their impact.
“Axes,” Osmirik said. “The door is heart-of-oak, but they will make short work of it. Run the protective spell program.”
“But the bugs …?”
“Vermin or none, you must run it now.”
“Right. Okay, here goes nothing.”
Jeremy tapped out a few characters and slapped RETURN.
The arrangement of strange components that was the mainframe computer began to whir softly. The sound increased in pitch until it faded out of audible range. Lights flashed on panels, glass tubes pulsed, and sparks arced between electrodes.
Jeremy studied the screen. “Going pretty good, it looks like.”
The sound of the axes suddenly ceased.
Head cocked forward, Osmirik listened. There was silence on the other side. Then he put his ear against the door.
“Anything?” Jeremy asked.
Osmirik turned. “The spell has been efficacious. Unfortunately it seems the effects were rather more harsh than circumstances warranted.”