Sutton pointed. «There they are,» he said.
Looking in the direction of the pointing finger, Latimer could see nothing unusual. «What? Where?» he asked.
«On top of the hill, just beyond the northern gate.»
After a moment Latimer saw them, a dozen squatting creatures on top of the hill down which, a few hours ago, he had run for the gate and safety.
They were too distant to be seen clearly, but they had a faintly reptilian look and they seemed to be coal-black, but whether naturally black or black because of their silhouetted position, he could not determine.
«The ones I told you about,» said Sutton. «It’s nothing unusual. They often sit and watch us. I suspect they are as curious about us as we are about them.»
«The intelligences?» asked Latimer.
«Yes, that is right,» said Sutton.
Someone, some distance off, cried in a loud voice—no words that Latimer could make out, but a cry of apprehension, a bellow of terror. Then there were other cries, different people taking up the cry.
A man was running across the park, heading for its northeast corner, running desperately, arms pumping back and forth, legs a blur of scissoring speed. He was so far off that he looked like a toy runner, heading for the four-foot fence that stood inside the higher fence. Behind him were other runners, racing in an attempt to head him off and pull him down.
«My God, it’s Breen,» gasped Sutton. His face had turned to gray. He started forward, in a stumbling run. He opened his mouth to shout, but all he did was gasp.
The running man came to the inner fence and cleared it with a leap. The nearest of his pursuers was many feet behind him.
Breen lifted his arms into the air, above his head. He slammed into the electrified fence. A flash blotted him out. Flickering tongues of flame ran along the fence—bright and sparkling, like the flaring of fireworks. Then the brightness faded and on the fence hung a black blot that smoked greasily and had a fuzzy, manlike shape.
A hush, like an indrawn breath, came upon the crowd. Those who had been running stopped running and, for a moment, held their places. Then some of them, after that moment, ran again, although some of them did not, and the voice took up again, although now there was less shouting.
When he looked, Latimer saw that the hilltop was empty; the dinosaurs that had been there were gone. There was no sign of Sutton.
So it was Breen, thought Latimer, who hung there on the fence. Breen, head of the evaluation team, the one man, Gale had said, who could tell him why he had been lured to Auk House. Breen, the man who pored over psychological evaluations, who was acquainted with the profile of each suspected personage, comparing those profiles against economic charts, social diagnostic indices, and God knows what else, to enable him to make the decision that would allow one man to remain in prime world as he was, another to be canceled out.
And now, thought Latimer, it was Breen who had been canceled out, more effectively than he had canceled any of the others.
Latimer had remained standing where he had been when Sutton and he had first sighted the running Breen, had stood because he could not make up his mind what he should do, uncertain of the relationship that he held or was expected to assume with those other persons who were still milling about, many of them perhaps as uncertain as he of what they should do next.
He began to feel conspicuous because of just standing there, although at the same time he was certain no one noticed him, or if they did notice him, almost immediately dismissed him from their thoughts.
He and Sutton had been on their way to get a drink when it had all happened, and thinking of that, Latimer realized he could use a drink. With this in mind, he headed for the building. Few noticed him, some even brushing against him without notice; others spoke noncommittal greetings, some nodded briefly as one nods to someone of whose identity he is not certain.
The lounge was almost empty. Three men sat at a table in one corner, their drinks before them; a woman and a man were huddled in low-voiced conversation on a corner of a davenport; another man was at the self-service bar, pouring himself a drink.
Latimer made his way to the bar and picked up a glass.
The man who was there said to him, «You must be new here; I don’t remember seeing you about.»
«Just today,» said Latimer. «Only a few hours ago.»
He found the Scotch and his brand was not among the bottles. He selected his second choice and poured a generous serving over ice. There were several trays of sandwiches and other snack items. He found a plate, put two sandwiches on it.
«What do you make of Breen?» asked the other man.
«I don’t know,» said Latimer. «I never met the man. Gale mentioned him to me.»
«Three,» said the other man. «Three in the last four months. There is something wrong.»
«All on the fence?»
«No, not on the fence. This is the first on the fence. One jumped, thirteen stories. Christ, what a mess! The other hanged himself.»
The man walked off and joined another man who had just come into the lounge. Latimer stood alone, plate and glass in hand. The lounge still was almost empty. No one was paying the slightest attention to him. Suddenly he felt a stranger, unwanted. He had been feeling this all the time, he knew, but in the emptiness of the lounge, the feeling of unwantedness struck with unusual force. He could sit down at a table or in one of a group of chairs or on the end of an unoccupied sofa, wait for someone to join him. He recoiled from the thought. He didn’t want to meet these people, talk with them. For the moment, he wanted none of them.
Shrugging, he put another sandwich on the plate, picked up the bottle, and filled his glass to the top. Then he walked out into the hallway and took the elevator to his floor.
In his room, he selected the most comfortable chair and sat down in it, putting the plate of sandwiches on a table. He took a long drink and put down the glass.
«They can all go to hell,» he told himself.
He sensed his fragmented self pulling back together, all the scattered fragments falling back into him again, making him whole again, his entire self again. With no effort at all, he wiped out Breen and Sutton, the events of the last hours, until he was simply a man seated comfortably in his room.
So great a power, he thought, so great and secret. Holding one world in thrall, planning to hold others. The planning, the foresight, the audacity.
Making certain that when they moved into the other worlds, there would be no silly conservationists yapping at their heels, no environmentalist demanding environmental impact statements, no deluded visionaries crying out in protest against monopolies. Holding steadily in view the easy business ethic that had held sway in that day when arrogant lumber barons had built mansions such as Auk House.
Latimer picked up the glass and had another drink. The glass, he saw, was less than half full. He should have carried off the bottle, he thought; no one would have noticed. He reached for a sandwich and munched it down, picked up a second one. How long had it been since he had eaten? He glanced at his watch and knew, even as he did, that the time it told might not be right for this Cretaceous world. He puzzled over that, trying to figure out if there might be some time variance between one world and another.
Perhaps there wasn’t—logically there shouldn’t be—but there might be factors … he peered closely at the watch face, but the figures wavered and the hands would not stay in line. He had another drink.
He woke to darkness, stiff and cramped, wondering where he was. After a moment of confusion, he remembered where he was, all the details of the last two days tumbling in upon him, at first in scattered pieces, then subtly arranging themselves and interlocking into a pattern of reality.