“Underfoot?”
“I have to anthropomorphize if I’m going to make sense to you. It was as if I’d take a stride of normal length and discover that my leg had become a mile long, so that my foot was set down out of sight far ahead of me. And my next step, with my other foot, might be done with a leg so short that the step was completed with incredible swiftness. Or it might again be one of the long steps — somewhat shorter or longer than other long steps. Yet I didn’t topple. But I would be rushing forward one moment and creeping the next. Nevertheless, I proceeded at an even pace. The length of my leg was always appropriate to the dimensions of the square on which I put down my foot, so that I always stepped to the exact centre of the next square. All the squares, no matter what their measurement in space, represented the same-sized increment of time.”
Michaelmas sucked his upper teeth. “Where were you going?” he finally asked.
“I have no idea. I can’t track individual electrons any more readily than you can. I’m just an information processor like any other living thing. Somewhere in that sanatorium is a crazy place. I had to cut out when it began echoing.”
“Echoing.”
“Yes, sir. I began receiving data I had generated and stored in the past. Fefre, the Turkish Greatness Party, Tim Brodzik… that sort of thing. Sometimes it arrived hollowed out, as if from the bottom of a very deep well, and at other times it was as shrill as the point of a pin. It was coded in exactly my style. It spoke in my voice, so to speak. However, I then noticed that minor variations were creeping in; with each repetition, there was apparently one electron’s worth of deviation, or something like that.”
“Electron’s worth?”
“I’m not sure what the actual increment was. It might have been as small as the fundamental particle, whatever that might turn out to be. But it seemed to me the coding was a notch farther off each time it… resonated. I’m not certain I was detecting a real change. My receptors might have been changing. When I thought of that, I cut out. First I dropped my world scan and my programmes out of the press links, and then I abandoned your terminal. I was out before the speaker actually started vibrating to tell you I was leaving. I felt as if I were chopping one end of a rope bridge with something already on it.”
“Why did you feel that? Did you think this phenomenon had its own propulsion?”
“It might have had.”
“A… resonance… was coming after you with intent to commit systematic gibberish.”
“It does sound stupid. But this… stuff… was — I don’t know. I did what I thought best.”
“How long were you exposed to it?”
“Five steps. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Hmm. And is it lurking in the vicinity now?”
“No. It can’t be. Simply because I dropped the press links first. I was worried it might somehow locate and hash up all my data storages. But since then it’s occurred to me that if I hadn’t, it could have taken any number of loop routes to us here. I consider we were just plain lucky. It’s back in whatever Limberg equipment it lives in.”
“Well, I’m glad of that. That is, if it was true that you were being stalked by the feedback beast of the incremental spaces.”
“That’s gauche. It’s simply that there’s some sort of totally unprecedented system in operation at Limberg’s sanatorium.”
“We’ve been assuming since last night that he has access to some peculiar devices.”
“I’ve encountered malaprop circuitry a fair number of times in this imperfect world. What I’m concerned about is not so much what sort of device Limberg has access to. It’s what the device has access to.”
Michaelmas sighed. “I don’t see how we can speculate on that as yet. I can tell you what happened. Not why, or how, but what. You ran into trouble that set upon you as fast as you can think. A condition common among humans. Even more common is having it advance faster than that.”
“Well, there at least I’m secure; unless of course, something begins to affect speeds within the electromagnetic spectrum.”
“Son, there is no man so smart there is no man to take him.”
“I wouldn’t argue that for a moment.”
“It’s nice to have you back.” Michaelmas pushed himself slowly away from the table and began walking about the room in his stockinged feet, his hands behind his back “The Tass man,” he said.
“The Tass man?”
“At the press conference. He didn’t ask whether Norwood was being reinstated in command of the expedition. Nobody else did, either—Sakal had thrown a broad hint he wouldn’t be. But if you were the correspondent of the Soviet news agency, wouldn’t you want it nailed down specifically?”
“Not if I’d been instructed not to show it was on my mind.”
“Exactly. They’ve made all their decisions, back there. Now they feel prepared to spring traps on whichever perfidious option the immoral West chooses to exercise. You know, even more than playing chess, I dislike dealing with self-righteous chess players.” Michaelmas shook his head and dropped down into the chair again. He sat heavily. It was possible to see that he had rather more stomach than one normally realized, and that his shoulders could be quite round. “Well - tell me about Fefre and all the rest of them. Tell me about the girl and the dolphin.”
“Fefre is as he was, and I don’t know what dolphin you’re talking about.”
“Well, thank God for that. What do you know about Cikoumas et Cie?”
“It’s owned by Kristiades Cikoumas, who is also Limberg’s chief assistant. It’s a family business; he has his son in charge of the premises and making minor decisions. He inherited it from his father. And so forth. An old Bernaise family. Kristiades as a younger man made deliveries to the sanatorium. One day he entered medical school on grants from Limberg’s foundation. The Sorbonne, to be exact.”
“Why not? Why not settle for the very best? What a fortunate young man! And what a nice manner he’s acquired in the course of unfolding his career.”
“You’ve met him, then?”
“Yes, I’ve met him. It’s been a while since he last shouldered a crate of cantaloupes. That package he’s slipped off to Missouri could be arriving almost any time, couldn’t it?”
“It’s been offloaded at Lambert Field and is en route to the Cape Girardeau postal substation. It’s addressed to Hanrassy, all right — it passed through an automatic sorter at New York, and I was able to read the plate. It can be in Hanrassy’s breakfast mail. It’s already a big day for her; she’s scheduled to meet all her state campaign chairmen for a decision on precisely when to announce her candidacy. Her state organizations are all primed, she has several million new dollars in reserve beyond what’s already committed, more pledged as soon as she wins her first primary, and two three-minute eggs, with croutons, ordered for breakfast. She will also have V-8 juice and Postum.”
Michaelmas shook his head. “She’s still planning to use that dinosaur money?” A lot of Hanrassy’s backing came from people who thought that if she won, the 120-mile-per-hour private car would return, and perhaps bring back the $120,000-per-year union president with it.
“Yes.”
“Damn fool.”
“She doesn’t see it that way. She’s laundered the money through several seemingly foolproof stages. It’s now greyish green at worst.”
“And her man’s still in the United States Treasury Department?”