Margery Underhill was twenty six and heavyset with long blond hair and a square pretty face. Erwin Smith was the same age as Underhill, moderate in stature, strong and slender, with fine mouse brown hair and a perpetual quizzical expression.
Their colleagues, Karl Anderson and David Wilson, waited patiently for their assignments. Karl was the youngest, twenty five, tall and very thin with a forward cut wave of jet black hair. David was a sleepy looking man of thirty, balding and pudgy-faced.
Martin looked them over critically but could find no fault other than what he found in himself. What had Albigoni promised them? Now was certainly not the time to ask. “Karl, David, you’ll be in the second team. You’ll keep constant watch on the interfaces and electronics. You’ll replace Carol and me in an emergency—or you’ll enter the Country and extricate us.
“We’re missing the buffer and we can’t replace it, so there won’t be any actual time delay. We’ll be completely immersed in Goldsmith.”
Albigoni came into the observation room. He looked exhausted and lost. Martin gestured for him to take a seat beside him. Albigoni nodded gratefully, sat down and pursed his hands in front of him.
“We’re going to begin interviewing Goldsmith in a few minutes,” Martin said. “Margery and Erwin will ask some questions designed to give us clues about the nature and configuration of Goldsmith’s Country.” Martin handed Albigoni the five-page list. “The exploration team will listen and watch. I call this shell mapping. When that’s done, Carol and I will enter as pure observers, not interacting. We’ll see if we can match the shell map with what we observe. Then, sometime late tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we’ll do a brief interactive entry. If that goes well, we’ll take a break, discuss our plan, relax for a while and then begin the full triplex probe. That shouldn’t take more than two hours. If it does last longer, well…We should finish the probe anyway. Carol, what was the maximum anybody ever spent in Country?”
“I’ve spent three and a half hours in machine Country in Jill,” Carol said.
“In humans?” Martin asked, slightly irked. He still didn’t think the comparison was useful.
“Two hours ten minutes. You and Charles Davis, working with Dr. Creeling.”
Martin nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
Albigoni lifted his hand like a student in class. “Selectors have been on Goldsmith’s trail since the day after the murders. Sources tell me he’s a prime candidate; they want to get to him before the pd finds him. They don’t know where he is but I don’t trust all the people I’ve had to work with to make these arrangements; Selectors have been flashing around some very impressive funding recently. Within four days they’ll probably know we have him and where he is. We can’t go to the pd for help, obviously. Now, if they have to, our security people can keep Selectors away from here, but I doubt that a siege will make this any easier.”
“We’ll be done within three days,” Martin said.
“Good.”
“You’ll turn him over to the pd then?”
Albigoni nodded. “We’ll arrange it so that pd intercept him.” His face was tight and bloodless. “Right now they’re searching for him in Hispaniola. We’re not sure why.”
Martin looked at the others in the room. “We’re as ready as ever. Give us the word, Mr. Albigoni.”
Albigoni looked puzzled.
“Tell us to begin. You’re the boss here.”
Albigoni shook his head then lifted his hand. “Go to it,” he said.
Lascal suggested he should take a nap. “You’re looking very tired, sir.”
Albigoni went through the observation room door. Walking down the hall, they heard him say, “I’m coming out of shock, Paul. God help me. It’s starting to hit me now.”
Martin closed the door, lifted his watch and tapped it. “It’s four o’clock. We can question Goldsmith for an hour, break for supper, resume this evening.”
Goldsmith was exercising slowly in the patient room. Bend and twist, leg lifts, touch-toes. Lascal knocked on his door. Goldsmith said, “Come in,” and sat on the bed rubbing his hands on his knees. Behind Lascal came Margery and Erwin wearing ageless white lab coats, unfailing stimulators of patient assurance. “We’d like to begin, Mr. Goldsmith,” Margery said.
Goldsmith nodded to each of them and shook the hands of all but Lascal. “I’m ready,” he said.
David, Karl, Carol and Martin sat before the screen in the observation room. Martin’s eyes narrowed. Something missing. “Why isn’t he worried?” he murmured.
“He hasn’t got anything to lose,” David observed. “Either that or he’s ashamed.”
In the patient room, Margery sat in one of the three chairs. Erwin sat next to her but Lascal remained standing.
“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to, Paul,” Goldsmith said softly. “I believe I’m in good hands.”
“Mr. Albigoni wants me to watch everything.”
“That’s fine too,” Goldsmith said.
Margery began. “First we’re going to ask you a series of questions. Answer as truthfully as you can. If you’re too embarrassed or upset to answer just tell us. We won’t force you to answer anything.”
“All right.”
Margery held up her slate. “What was your father’s name?”
“Terence Reilly Goldsmith.”
“And your mother’s name?”
Martin watched the timer in the lower left corner of the screen.
“Maryland Louise Richaud. Maryland, like in the state. R-I-C-H-A-U-D. Her maiden name. She kept it.”
“Did you have any brothers and sisters?”
“Tom knows all this,” Goldsmith observed. “Didn’t he tell you?
“It’s part of the procedure.”
“No brothers. I would have had a sister, but she was stillborn when I was fifteen. Medical mistake, I think. I was an only child.”
“Do you remember being born?”
Goldsmith shook his head.
Erwin asked a question now. “Have you ever seen a ghost, Mr. Goldsmith?”
“All the time, when I was ten. I don’t try to convince anybody else, of course.”
“Did you recognize the ghost?”
“No. It was a young boy, younger than me.”
“Did you miss having a brother or sister?”
“Yes. I made up friends. I made up an imaginary brother who played with me until Mama told me that was sick and I was acting crazy.”
Martin made a note: Early access to personality modeling levels through projection.
“Do you ever have recurring dreams?” Erwin asked.
“Like, the same dream?”
“Yes.”
“No. My dreams are usually different.”
“How do you mean, usually?”
“There are places I come back to. They’re not always the same, exactly, but I recognize them.”
“Can you describe one of these places to me?”
“One’s a big shopping center, an indoor shopping center like they used to have. I sometimes dream I’m going into all the shops. The shops are always different, and the colors, but…it’s the same.”
“Any other places that repeat in your dreams?”
“Several. I dream I’m going back to my street in Brooklyn. I never quite get there. Well, that’s not true. I got there once a long time ago. Mostly I go and never quite reach it. I get lost on the subway or in the streets, or I get chased.”
Martin itched to break in and ask Goldsmith what he saw when he returned to his old home and what or who chased him but that would break procedure. His fingers fairly danced over the slate keyboard, making notes.
“Do you have any vision or image that you use to calm yourself when you’re upset?” Margery asked.
Goldsmith paused. The pause continued for several seconds. Martin noted the time precisely. “Yes. It’s sunset and snow is falling in San Francisco. The snow is golden. The entire sky seems to be a warm gold color and the wind isn’t blowing. The snow is just falling.” He dropped his hand in a slow lazy wobble.