"Say how?"
"No. Maybe on another page. That's the way it is with fragments."
"And of course it didn't indicate what becomes of the proprietor?"
"Right."
I stretched slowly, reached out and drew her to me. "So what's to do?"
"Wait and watch and try to protect him," she said. "I wish I knew more about you." So I kissed her.
Later, looking down upon her, I recalled an old poem I had once written. I recited it:
She stared up into my eyes. Then, "I have never heard that rendered into English before," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"It is a famous Eighth Millennium, Pan-Galactic Era love poem," she told me, "applicable to many species. You couldn't have written it."
"I thought I did."
"Even if you were there you couldn't have. Colosodians don't write poetry."
I shook my head and smiled. "Who knows?" I said. "I don't. Kiss me, Glory."
At some point many hours later there came a scratching on our door. I got up and opened it.
Adam stood before me, casually dressed, smiling. "All," he said. "I want you to let us out. Would you put on a garment and come down and throw the Switch for us? Prandy and I want to get away, outside, somewhere, for a time, together. Then you can flip the Switch again and sleep for as long as you want."
"Sure thing," I said, snatching up my trousers from the floor, shaking them out, holding them just right, and performing my favorite gymnastic feat. It was seldom I had an audience for it. ...
Afterwards, our gazes met and held for a moment.
"Most impressive," he said. "That's the first time I've really seen someone put on a pair of pants, both legs at once."
"... And to answer your question, no," I told him. "The skill is not up for trade. I spent too long learning it when I should have been studying."
I walked him down the stairs, nodded to Prandy, and asked, "Uh, how long you plan on being gone? What I'm getting at is do you want us to be open for business while you're away?"
"Hell, yes," he said. "You've got to throw the Switch sooner or later and get into the timestream just to be able to let us back in. Anyway, you've learned the meet-the-public stuff real well, and Nan will do all the psyche cutting and pasting. She might even start you in on the simpler procedures. It'll be good for you." He glanced at Prandy. "A few days, perhaps," he added. "Maybe even a week or so."
Prandy nodded and glanced at the door. I reached into the niche and threw the Switch and saw them on their way. Sunny day.
When I crawled back into bed Glory asked me, "What was that all about?"
"They wanted to go off, outside, and be together for a few days."
She yawned.
"Always happens," she told me.
"... And we're supposed to run the place—maybe further my education in the Hellhole."
"Good idea," she said, drawing me to her. "No problem."
I wondered what she had been dreaming, as there were green stains on her pillow and around her mouth. Venom is like olives, though. You can develop a taste for it.
There was a lot of business in the days that followed. As usual, much of it was mundane and some of it interesting. The ones that light up in my memory are the Case of the Man with the Invisible Appendage, the Woman Who Was Too Acid, the Human-Tuned Portian, the Man Who Broadcast Moods, the Involuntary Teleporter, the Lady Whose Looks Could Kill, the Case of the Double Doppelganger, the Man Who Dreamed Upside Down, the Village in a Rigelian Crystal, the Girl Who Stole Blue, the Seven Bonded Muzwachians and their Unusual Spatial Orientation, the Rudwhorvian Who Was Too Courteous, the Greatest Lover on Peridip, the Vendetta Flowers, and the Bland Augur.
Every day, though, come Rudwhorvians or the absence of blue, I repaired to the John for five minutes or so and practiced my mini-teleports, finally picking up a little facility with them—though I still couldn't manage the smile bit. But smiles could wait for later.
Things went well enough. Glory did let me operate a little, and one day I realized I was actually starting to like the work. Sure enough, though, Glory was upstairs and not available for immediate assistance the day Cagliostro appeared, adding a faint whiff of sulfur and brimstone to the air. He clasped my shoulder and clasped my hand, looking past me the while. "Bonjour, M'sieur. How are you? Is M'sieur Maser in, is le Maitre in?" he asked.
"Afraid not. Perhaps I can help you, Count."
"Is he expected back soon?"
"I'm not sure when he'll be back. He's taking care of a little personal business."
"Ah, c'est damage, but perhaps you will serve," the Count said, turning his attention to me. "How goes our project?"
"Oh, it's coming along very nicely," I told him. "A great number of the ingredients have been collected—and some, as Adam said, were already in stock. I don't think it will be too much longer before he has them all and can assemble the iddroid."
Cagliostro wrinkled his nose.
"Son mot," he said. "M'sieur Maser's word. I'm not overjoyed with it."
"Why not?"
"It's Freudian. The id is an idee Freudian, the space psychological where the primal sexual energy—the libido—is wild and strong, driving the rest of the mind—"
"I know," I said. "I've read Freud. What's wrong with his term?"
"The psychology of Freud is mainly about the young, people still defining themselves sexually, people whose hormones aren't settled yet. Once their chemistry and their life experiences lay down regular patterns it becomes apparent where the real power lies."
"Jung?" I said. "For the more mature? Individuation and all that? Your collective unconscious is a Jungian term. By the way, Adam's found you the one you needed. Traded it off an interstellar headhunter from a million or so years back."
"Oui.The man is terribly efficient."
"Yes."
"Mais non, it was not Jung that I was thinking of. It was Adler."
"Power drives?"
"Power. Oui. The drive to dominate, to command, to be le premier, the boss. That's where all the energy psychique goes after the youthful sex drives have had their fun."
"Maybe for every psychologist there's an equal and opposite psychologist," I offered.
He chuckled. "Non, non," he said. "M'sieur Alf, look around you. Look inside yourself. Life is all power games. Everyone wants to be the God of something, tout le monde. It's just a question of how big a kingdom we can each carve ourselves, how high we can rise."
"So you don't like 'Iddroid.' What do you want to call it?"
"Dominoid," he said.
I nodded. "'Dominoid.' Has a nice sound to it. What's in a name, anyway?"