Baffled, Rachmael said, "I don't get it."
"All right." The eye-eater's tone was now harsh. "Read the book purely for educational purposes, then. So be it. You want to know the origin of this form which I have taken. Well, everyone will take it, sooner or later. We all do; this is how we become after we die."
He stared at it.
"While you ponder," the eye-eater continued, "I'll delight you with a few more Thingisms of Dr. Bloode's. This one I always enjoy. "The vidphone company let me off the hook.' How was that? Or this one: 'The highway construction truck tore up the street at forty miles an hour.' Or this: 'I am not in a position to enjoy sexual relations.' Or — "
Shutting his ears, ignoring the prolix eye-eater, Rachmael examined the book, finding a page at dead-random. The text swam, then set into clear focus for him.
A zygote formed between the indigenous inhabitants of Fomalhaut IX and Homo sapiens gives us evidence of the dominant aspect of the so-called 'Mazdast' genetic inheritance. From the twin radically opposing strains arises what nominally appears to be a pure 'Mazdast,' with the exceptional reorganization of the organs of sight, the cephalopodic entity otherwise manifesting itself intact and in its customary fashion.
"You mean," Rachmael said, glancing up from the book, stunned, "that when you say you're Matson Glazer-Holliday you mean you're an offspring of his and a — "
"And of a female Mazdast," the eye-eater said calmly. "Read on, Mr. ben Applebaum. There's much more there to interest you. You'll find that each of the paraworlds is explained; the structure of each is displayed so that the logic constituting each is clearly revealed. Look in the index. Select the paraworld which most interests you."
He turned at once to Paraworld Blue.
"And Freya Holm," the eye-eater said, as Rachmael leafed shakily through the volume for the cited page.
"You wish to find her; this is your primary motive for coming here to Fomalhaut IX. Possibly there's an entry regarding Miss Holm; had you thought of that, sir?"
Huskily, with disbelief, Rachmael said, "You're kidding." It was impossible.
"Merely test out what I say. Look under Holm comma Freya."
He did so.
The index informed him that there existed two entries regarding Freya. One on page fifty. The second further in, deep into the book: on page two-hundred-and-ten.
He chose the earlier one first.
Freya saw, then, into the grave and screamed; she ran and as she ran, struggled to get away she knew it for what it was: a refined form of nerve gas that — and then her coherent thoughts ceased and she simply ran.
"It details," the eye-eater informed him, "Miss Holm's actions on this side of the Telpor gate. Up to the present. If you want to know what became of her, simply read on. And," it added sourly, "what became of me."
His hands shaking, Rachmael read on. He had now swiftly turned to the later citation on page two-hundred-and-ten; before his eyes danced the black bug-like words, details of Freya's fate here at Newcolonizedland. He held, read, understood what he had come for; this, as the eye-eater said, contained what he wanted.
Facing the deformed entity which she had once known as the human 'wash psychiatrist Dr. Lupov, Freya whispered ashenly, "So the transformation is arranged by means of your techniques and all of those damned gadgets you use to keep people thinking along the exact lines you want. And I thought it was a biological sport; I was so completely convinced." She shut her eyes in deep, overpowering fatigue. And realized that this was the end; she would go the way of Mat, of Rachmael ben Applebaum, of
"What way?" Rachmael demanded, lifting his eyes from the page and confronting the creature before him. "You mean become like you?" His body cringed; he retreated physically from even the notion of it, let alone its presence here before him.
"All flesh must die," the eye-eater said, and giggled.
Almost unable to hold onto Dr. Bloode's volume, Rachmael once more turned to the index. This time he selected the entry:
ben Applebaum, Rachmael
And again read on. Grimly.
To the sharp-featured, intent young man beside him, Lupov said, "I think we can consider Reconstruct Method Three to be successful. At least in its initial phase."
Jaimé Weiss nodded. "I agree. And you have the alternate versions of the text available? As the other persons are brought in?" He did not take his eyes from the vid screen; he missed nothing of the activity that at slowed-velocity passed before the magnetic scanning-heads of the replay deck for his and Dr. Lupov's scrutiny.
"Several are ready." It did not seem urgent to Lupov to have all alternates of the text which Rachmael ben Applebaum now read available at the same time; after all... certain changes in the other versions might be indicated, depending on which way ben Applebaum jumped. His reaction to this text — in particular the part dealing with his own "death" — would come in any moment, now.
On the small screen Rachmael ben Applebaum slowly closed the book, stood uncertainly, and then said to the creature facing him, "So that's how I'm going to get knocked off. Like that. Just like that."
"More or less," the eye-eater answered, carelessly.
"It's a good job," Jaimé Weiss commented with approval.
"Yes." Lupov nodded. "It will probably function satisfactorily with this ben Applebaum person, anyhow." But the girl, he thought. Miss Holm... so far it had failed with her. So far. But that did not indicate for a certainty that it would continue to fail. She had put up a protracted expert struggle — but of course she was a pro. And ben Applebaum was not. Like the pilot Dosker, Miss Holm knew her business; it would not be easy — was not at this moment easy, in fact — to recon her mentality by means of a variety of (as she had asserted in the pseudo-spurious text) "damned gadgets you use to keep people thinking along the exact lines you want."
A good description of our instrumentalities, Lupov reflected. This Weiss person has ability. His composition, this initial variant of the so-called Dr. Bloode Text — masterful. A powerful weapon in this final vast conflict.
Of most interest would be a later response to one of the versions of the text. The reaction by Theodoric Ferry.
It was this that both Jaimé Weiss and Dr. Lupov looked toward.
And — it would not be long, now. Theodoric Ferry would soon be located where the text could be presented to him. At this moment, Ferry loitered on Terra. But —
At six-thirty, three hours from now, Ferry would make a secret trip to Newcolonizedland, one of many; like Sepp von Einem, he crossed back and forth at will.
This time, however, he would make a one-way crossing.
Theodoric Ferry would never return to Terra.
At least not sane.
14
In the darkness of gathering fright Freya Holm wandered, trying to escape insight, the awareness of absolute nonbeing which the intricate weapon manned by the two veteran police of Lies Incorporated had thrust onto her — how long ago? She could not tell; her time sense, in the face of the field emanating from the weapon, had like so much else that constituted objective reality totally vanished.
At her waist a delicate detection meter clicked on, registered a measured passage of high-frequency current; she halted, and the gravity of this new configuration slapped her into abrupt alertness. The meter had been built to record one sole sub-variety of electrical activity. The flux emanating from —
A functioning Telpor station.
She peered. And, gathering in the dense haze that occluded her sight, she made out what normally would have passed for — and beyond any doubt had been designed deliberately to pass for — a mediocre construct: a peripatetic bathroom. It appeared to have landed nearby, undoubtedly to give aid and comfort to some passerby; its gay, bright neon sign winked on and off invitingly, displaying the relief-providing slogan: