“I know all I need to know.”
“Not many people can make a claim like that,” Keith said with overt irony.
“It seems to me that…” Gretana, about to protest at being lectured, left the sentence unfinished as an earlier thought returned to her mind. Was it possible that she knew Keith under a different name?
“It seems to you that my stylus is stuck? Repeating a thing doesn’t make it untrue.”
“It isn’t the repetition, it’s the over-simplification.” Gretana strove to marshal unfamiliar arguments. “Does anybody ever do anything for a single, clear-cut reason?”
“Probably not. The Bureau’s main reason for being so solidly in favour of non-intervention—they don’t try to conceal it, don’t even see it as something that ought to be concealed—is that they want their sociological data to remain quote valid unquote. The Warden’s idea is to stand the uncertainty principle on its head, to observe without having any effect on the subject, and in that way to learn so much about the processes of macro-history that they’ll be able to preserve Mollanian society unchanged, exactly the way it is now, for ever. The fact that you can’t embalm a body until it’s dead doesn’t bother them.”
The smile, the sardonic twist to Keith’s lips, acted as a trigger which released ponderous mechanisms in Gretana’s memory. An image was retrieved, compared with that of the man sitting opposite to her, and a new name appeared in the forefront of her consciousness—Lorrest tye Thralen. Its psychological impact was so great that she almost moaned aloud.
You must act as though nothing had happened, she told herself amid the clamour of mental alarms. Act naturally…get close to the door…
“Isn’t that a one-sided view?” she said. “Can outside contact never harm a developing culture?”
“What I’m saying is that there are circumstances which not only justify intervention, but which cry out for it. How many worlds did Vekrynn tell you the Bureau was observing? A hundred?”
“I think so.” Gretana spoke casually while she tried to remember which of the locks on the apartment’s outer door were actually secured. It would be madness to run for the door and then have to waste valuable seconds fumbling with the locks.
“That figure is slightly historical,” Kelth/Lorrest said. “Four civilisations out of the original hundred no longer exist. We stood by and allowed four planetary cultures to founder.”
Gretana scarcely heard. All her attention was on the task of raising a spoonful of soup to her lips and, in the most natural manner possible, pretending to find something wrong with it.
“This has gone cold,” she said lightly. “It wasn’t one of my best efforts, anyway.” She got to her feet, picked up the two plates and carried them into the kitchen, her mind still grappling with the enormity of her problem. Crime of any sort was rare on Mollan, and murder was so unthinkable, so contrary to the basic tenets of Mollanian thought, that no case had been reported in Karlth during her six decades in the city. That showed that the memories relating to her visitor were the result of an educational imprint received during the induction given by the Bureau. The initial identification of Lorrest tye Thralen had been slowed by the intervening twenty-three years of experience and overlaid memories, but now that it had been achieved supplementary details were all too readily available:
Lorrest tye Thralen, member of a radical political group (usually known as 2H), opposed to Motion’s non-intervention policy in general and the work of the Bureau of Wardens in particular. One of several 2H agents who infiltrated the Bureau for subversive reasons…others were detected, arrested and put in detention, but Lorrest escaped by murdering a guard. He made his way to Earth, the only place where—with his surgically-altered features—he could avoid recapture, and since then has successfully concealed himself among the planet’s population masses. N.B. One Bureau worker who reported seeing him in South America subsequently vanished without trace a short time later and has been presumed dead…
The flurry of decades-old memories concerning Lorrest served to increase Gretana’s alarm. She had no idea why he had sought her out, but merely being near him was eroding her self-control at a frightening rate. It was imperative that she get out of the apartment quickly, before losing the slight advantage she had. A Mollanian who could kill was, by definition, an unpredictable psychotic, and the only reaction of which she was capable was to run away. Her instincts craved the sweet sensations of flight.
She rearranged saucepans on the cooker, making sure the actions were audible, glanced around the kitchen and felt a pang of relief as she saw that her pocketbook and gloves were on a stool near the door which led into the hall. Her credit cards and money were in the pocketbook, which meant that once she was safely out of the apartment she could travel nonstop for a long distance, all the way to the Cotter’s Edge nodal point if necessary. The trick was to get outside, quickly and without any fuss.
“That would happen,” she exclaimed with a show of homely annoyance. “I’m completely out of celery salt. Damn!”
“It doesn’t matter.” Lorrest spoke without turning his head towards the kitchen door. “I don’t mind.”
She laughed. “It’s obvious that you’re no cook—I don’t go to all the trouble of making greencakes and then serve them without celery salt. Not ever.”
“There’s no need to…”
“No, please…I’m going to leave you on your own for sixty seconds while I run next door and borrow some from the Harpers. Do you mind?” Gretana was studying Lorrest’s back as she spoke. He seemed completely relaxed, at ease with his surroundings, and it occurred to her that he would find her disappearance pretty bizarre if it turned out that she had mistaken his identity. Was that possible? How reliable was a memory imprinted twenty-three years earlier by…?
“I guess I can endure the solitude.” Lorrest stretched contentedly and placed his hands on the back of his neck, intertwining the fingers.
“Sixty seconds,” Gretana said. She strode silently to the other end of the kitchen, picked up her pocketbook and gloves, and did a rapid sidestep which took her into the hall. There was a silhouette, an unexpected presence. She gave a low sob as she saw that Lorrest was standing at the apartment’s outer door, barring her exit, his eyes filled with watchful reproach.
“You startled me,” she said hopelessly, aware that he had not been deceived, and that the speed with which he had reached the door proved she was physically outclassed. “I’ve just remembered that I owe Joanie Harper ten dollars, so I’m bringing my…”
She broke off, transfixed, as the tall man’s shoulders slowly drew up to the level of his ears. He stooped forward, face rapidly darkening, and it came to her that he was embarking on one of his harrowing bouts of laughter. She backed into the kitchen doorway and stood with one hand raised to her throat, unable to guess what might come next.
“I’m sorry,” Lorrest said, controlling his breathing with some difficulty, “but you did it again. I saw the exact moment you realised who I was, and I guessed you’d make an excuse and go into the kitchen and another excuse to leave the apartment. The only bit I got wrong was the celery salt—I was betting on ordinary salt or sugar or coffee.”
“I want to leave,” Gretana said in a fear-dulled voice. “Please let me go.”