The Simulacra

‘He will be very dignified,' Nicole said stiffly.

There was a sudden noise behind her; she turned and found herself facing Wilder Pembroke, the NP man. Pembroke looked agitated but pleased. ‘Mrs Thibodeaux, we've caught Richard Kongrosian. As Dr Superb predicted, he was at a jalopy jungle preparing to depart for Mars. Shall we bring him to the White House? The San Francisco squad is waiting for instructions; they're still at the lot.'

‘I'll go there,' Nicole decided, on impulse. And ask him, she said to herself, to give up the idea of emigrating. Voluntarily. I know I can persuade him -- we won't have to resort to blunt force.'

‘He says he's invisible,' Pembroke said, as he and Nicole hurried along the White House corridor towards the offtrans field on the roof. ‘The squad however says he appears perfectly visible, at least to them.'

‘Another of his delusions,' Nicole said. ‘We ought to be able to clear that right up; I'll tell him he's visible and that will be that.'

‘And his smell -- ‘

‘Oh, the hell with it,' Nicole said. ‘I'm tired of his ailments. I'm tired of having him pamper himself in his hypochondriacal obsessions. I'm going to toss the entire power and majesty and authority of the state at him, tell him pointblank that he's got to give his imaginary diseases up.'

‘I wonder what that will do to him,' Pembroke mused.

‘He'll comply, of course,' Nicole said. ‘He won't have any choice; that's the whole point -- I'm not asking him, I'm going to tell him.'

Pembroke glanced at her, then shrugged.

‘We've fooled around with this too long,' Nicole said.

‘Smell or not, invisible or not, Kongrosian is an employee of the White House; he's got to appear on schedule and perform, or else. He can't sneak away to Mars or Franklin Aimes or Jenner or anywhere else.'

‘Yes ma'am,' Pembroke said hollowly, preoccupied with his own convoluted thoughts.

When Ian Duncan reached Jalopy Jungle Number Three in downtown San Francisco he found that he was too late to warn Al. Because the NP had already arrived; he saw parked police cars and grey-clad NP men swarming over the lot.

‘Let me out here,' he instructed his auto-cab. He was a block away from the lot; that was close enough.

He paid the cab and then set out, warily, on foot. A small knot of curious passers-by with nothing else to do had formed, and Ian Duncan joined them, rubber-necking at the NP men, pretending to wonder why they were there.

‘What's up?' the man next to Ian asked him. ‘I thought they weren't going to crack down on these jalopy lots yet. I thought -- ‘

‘Must be a change in govpol,' the woman on Ian's left said.

‘ "Govpol," ‘ the man echoed, puzzled.

‘A Ge term,' the woman said haughtily. ‘Government policy.'

‘Oh,' the man said. He nodded meekly.

Ian said to him, ‘Now you know a Ge term.'

‘That's so.' The man perked up. ‘So I do.'

‘I knew a Ge term, once,' Ian said. He caught sight now of Al, inside the office, seated facing two NP men. Another man was with Al; in fact two other men. One, Ian decided was Richard Kongrosian. The other -- he recognized him; it was a fellow-inhabitant of The Abraham Lincoln Apartments, Mr Chic Strikerock from the top floor. Ian had run into him a number of times at meetings and in the cafeteria.

His brother Vince was currently their identification reader.

‘The term I knew,' he murmured, ‘was allost.'

‘What's "allost" mean?" the man beside him asked.

‘All's lost,' Ian said.

The term applied right now. Obviously, Al was under arrest; so in fact were Strikerock and Kongrosian, but Ian did not care about them -- he was thinking about Duncan & Miller, Classical Jugs; about the future which had opened up when Al had decided to play once more; the future which now had closed so decisively in their faces. I should have expected this, Ian said to himself. That just before we got to the White House the NP would step in and arrest Al, put an end to it all. It's the luck that's tracked me all my life. No reason why it should relent now.

If they've got Al, he decided, they might as well have me, too. Pushing through the knot of onlookers, Ian stepped up on to the lot and approached the nearest NP man.

‘Move on,' the grey-clad NP man said to him, motioning.

‘Take me,' Ian said. ‘I'm in on it.'

The NP man glared at him. ‘I said get going.'

Ian Duncan kicked the NP man in the groin.

With a curse the NP man groped in his coat, whipped out his pistol. ‘Damn you, you're under arrest!' His face had turned green.

‘What's going on here?' another NP man, higher in rank, demanded, walking up.

‘This jerk just kicked me in the crotch,' the first NP man said, holding his gun pointed at Ian Duncan and trying to keep from being ill.

‘You're under arrest,' the higher-in-rank NP man informed Ian.

‘I know,' Ian said, nodding. ‘I want to be. But eventually this tyranny will fall.'

‘What tyranny, you jerk?' the higher-in-rank NP man said. ‘Obviously you're confused. You'll cool off in jail.'

From the office in the centre of the lot Al appeared; he walked over sombrely. ‘What are you doing here?' he asked Ian. He did not look very pleased to see him.

Ian said, ‘I'm going along with you and Mr Kongrosian and Chic Strikerock. I'm not going to be left behind. There's nothing here for me, now.'

Opening his mouth, Al started to say something. But then a government ship, a gleaming silver and yellow offtrans vehicle, appeared overhead and began, with a tremendous series of noises, carefully to land. The NP men at once cleared everyone back; Ian found himself herded along with Al, over to a corner of the lot, still under the dark scrutiny of the first NP man, the one whom he had kicked in the groin, the one who now had it in for him.

The offtrans ship landed and from it stepped a young woman. It was Nicole Thibodeaux. And she was beautiful slim and beautiful. Luke had been wrong or lying. Ian gaped at her, and, beside him, Al grunted in surprise and said under his breath, ‘How come? I'll be darned; what's she doing here?'

Accompanied by an NP man of evidently colossal rank, Nicole bobbed across the lot to the office, she hurried up the steps, entered and approached Richard Kongrosian.

‘It's him she wants,' Al said in an aside to Ian Duncan. The piano player. That's what all this is about.' He got out an Algerian briar pipe and a pouch of Sail tobacco. ‘Can I smoke?' he asked their NP guard.

‘No,' the NP man said.

Putting his pipe and tobacco away, Al said wonderingly, ‘Imagine her coming here to Jalopy Jungle Number Three. I never would have figured on that.' Suddenly he grabbed Ian by the shoulder and squeezed violently. ‘I'm going over to her and introduce myself.' Before their NP guard could say anything Al started off at a trot; he threaded his way among the parked jalopies and in a split second he had vanished.

The NP man cursed impotently and prodded Ian with his gun. A moment later Al reappeared, at the entrance to the small office building in which Nicole stood talking to Richard Kongrosian. Al opened the door and pushed inside.

Richard Kongrosian was saying as Al opened the office door, ‘But I can't play for you; I smell too bad! You're far too close to me -- please, Nicole, dear, stand back, for chrissakes!' Kongrosian retreated from Nicole, glanced up and saw Al, and said appealingly, ‘Why did you take so long demonstrating that jalopy? Why couldn't we just have taken right off?'

‘Sorry,' Al said. To Nicole he said, ‘I'm Al Miller. I operate this lot.' He held out his hand to her. She ignored the hand, but she was looking his way. ‘Mrs Thibodeaux,' Al said, ‘let the guy go. Don't stop him. He has a right to emigrate if he wants. Don't make people into wooden slaves.'