A door at the end of the room led to a bathroom. The entire place smelled of cigarettes and sweat. The cigarettes were just cigarettes; the sweat was probably fear. For that matter, the cigarettes were probably fear too. The little machine didn't look very forgiving, and it wasn't hard to imagine the anxiety of being hooked up to it and asked questions about the most intimate aspects of your life. I'd once been scared half to death by a psychiatrist, and at least I could lie to her.
I sat on the metal chair nearest the wall, where I figured the person who was being Listened to would sit. I picked up the cuffs: Velcro snaps clasped them together. I put one idly around my left wrist and sat there thinking about Sally Oldfield sitting in a room like this one, pouring her heart out to someone she'd never met, someone who nodded and smiled encouragingly and watched the dials. Sally Oldfield, fresh out of Utica, New York, and lost in the city, looking for the key to her life in the eyes of a stranger. Telling that stranger something very dangerous.
Peeling off the cuff, I looked at my recently reset watch. Twelve noon. I didn't think I wanted to see much more of the Listening Centre. Unless I was very wrong, it was just more of the same.
As I got up, my attention was caught by a sudden pop and whine from the television set sitting on a little table behind the Listener's seat, right where the-the what? the Talker? the Listenee? — would have been forced to look at it. Cartoons? The soaps? News of the World? Alistair Cooke? None of them sounded very likely. And none of them, so far as I knew, had the power to turn on sets automatically, although I was sure that somewhere some producer was working on it. I sat back down as the screen came to life.
I was watching something called "Celebrity Corner," if the large sparkly sign hanging on the back wall of the set was to be believed. On chairs that looked much more comfortable than anything to be found in room eight, three familiar-looking people sat smiling into the camera. One of them was Skippy Miller, one was an actress whose name I couldn't remember, and the third was an anemic-looking young man with shoulder-length hair. The other two chairs were occupied by Angel and Mary Claire Ellspeth.
"… sharing gains," Mary Claire was saying. "Not all of them, of course," she added with a smile. "We've only got an hour."
The three celebrities beamed. Angel looked slightly fuddled, as if she wondered why she wasn't in school. "Clive," Mary Claire said to the anemic-looking young man, "why don't we begin with you?"
"Wul," he said delightedly in an accent that was pure Midlands English, "why don't we, then?"
"Now, you're an extremely successful young man," Mary Claire said. Clive gestured in a self-deprecatory fashion. "Gold records, fans all over the world, a promising movie career." She consulted a small card in her hand. "Homes in Los Angeles, London, and the Bahamas. What kind of gains could the Church deliver to someone like you?"
"Meself," Clive said promptly. "And that's the important thing, in't it?"
Depends, I thought.
"Of course it is," Mary Claire said coaxingly. Clive nodded. Mary Claire smiled. Clive smiled back. "Um," Mary Claire said. She wasn't very good at this. "You told me, just before we went on the air, a very interesting story about how you found the Church. Would you share it with our viewers?"
"I was in the limo after a show," Clive said with uncommon nasal resonance. His adenoids must have been bigger than Univac. "You know, everybody thinks that rock stars must feel great after a show, but for me that was always the lowest time. It was like my whole life was over, like I didn't have any more reason for being alive. The better the show was, the lower I felt. You know what I mean?"
"Of course," Mary Claire said, rapt. There was really something very unattractive in the looseness of her mouth. "With a triumph in the past, what can the present hold?"
"Yeah," Clive said. "That's it. I was low. So I told the driver to turn on the radio."
"This was in New York," Mary Claire said, "so that meant you were listening to our affiliate there, WHOP-FM. Good gain, WHOP." She pronounced it "W-HOPE" rather than "WHOP" She clasped her hands over her head in praise of WHOP.
"I guess so," Clive said a bit impatiently. He was a lot more interested in himself than he was in the good folks at WHOP. "And I heard this little angel's voice."
"Our little Angel," Mary Claire said. She stroked her daughter's hair, and Angel pulled away slightly. Her eyes wandered away beyond the cameras. I found myself wondering again about the two little girls who had Spoken before her. Had they gotten bored? Had they suddenly become problems?
Then I heard voices in the hall, a man and a woman.
I stood up and waited. The voices became louder, and I opted for discretion and went quickly into the bathroom. Leaving the door open, I stepped into the bathtub and drew the shower curtain.
The man and the woman came into the other room.
"… should be closed," the man said.
"He probably went over to the studio to watch the broadcast," the woman said. "You know how the new ones are."
"That doesn't make it right. Put him down for discipline. Doors are supposed to be closed when the rooms aren't in use."
"He just wanted to see Angel in person."
"Well, it'll be a while before he sees her again," the man said. "Basement him."
The man's voice grew nearer.
"You can't basement him," the woman said. "He hasn't been here long enough. You'll lose him."
"Then we lose him," the man said. He was at the bathroom door. "We can handle him if he gets smart. There's no room for carelessness." He flicked on the bathroom light.
On the TV, Clive droned on. I bent my knees into a half-crouch and brought my hands up, ready to go for the eyes if the man opened the curtain.
"Let's go," the woman said. "I want to see the show."
"See it on tape. We've got the rest of the floor to check."
"Only because you were late," the woman said. "We should be done by now. Sometimes I wonder about you. Sometimes I wonder why you're in the Church."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"None of it seems to mean anything to you. Not even Angel."
"Don't be silly," he said, but there was an edge of wariness in his tone. "Of course she means something to me."
"Well, it doesn't seem like she does," the woman said calmly.
"What do I have to do, drop to my knees?"
"Then let's go watch her. Come on, it's the only show of the day."
The man drew his breath in and let it out. Then he snapped off the light. "Okay," he said, "but if they ask you, we checked the whole floor, right?"
"Sure, sure," she said. "Come on." After a moment the outer door closed behind them.
I stayed in the bathtub for a full three minutes, watching the second hand on my wristwatch. Only when the third minute was up did I step out and cross the room. I shut the door silently behind me and headed for the elevator.
There was no one in sight. It seemed likely that most of the faithful were glued to the tube, watching the testimonies of the rich and famous. Even the lad at the desk had deserted his post, although the rock star could be seen on the screen of a set hung above the elevators.