It all happened so quickly there was hardly time to wonder if it would hurt. It didn't. There wasn't any pain at all. They inventoried his clothing and the contents of his pockets, gave him a claim check for the baggage that had been transmitted on ahead, and pointed to a door. He went through it, expecting a waiting room. It wasn't a waiting room. It was a tiny chamber, close as a coffin, and the door slid terminally shut behind him. A sweet electronic voice urged him simply to stand still. He closed his eyes on the studded walls and then, even through closed lids, saw a brilliant flash of searing blue light. His skin tingled. He heard one sharp crack, like a jumping spark. A bittersweet sensation washed through his mouth, and he caught a stinging whiff of something acrid and strange—ammonia? Something worse?
And then it was over.
Something shifted all his senses. The sensory illusions were gone. The electronic voice announced that the transmission cycle was complete. A door opened, not the same one, and Jen Babylon pushed through into the foyer of the Base.
He caught the stout man's scarlet sleeve. "Is that— I mean, is it all—"
The man looked at him pityingly. "Your first time? Yes. It's over. Go about your business."
Babylon let go, taking a deep breath of the air of the world he had been about to leave—the world that one of him had already and irretrievably left. It tasted very sweet.
He gazed around the foyer with pleasure. The last of the prisoners was just being conducted out through the double doors, and Zara Gentry and her son were gone. The voice of the man in the scarlet suede suddenly erupted from behind, lashing at an assistant: "Can't you keep count? There were fifty-seven of them, it says so right here!"
"Fifty-eight," the assistant said doggedly, waving at a luminous-number counter on the wall.
"Fifty-eight including him," snarled the stout man, jerking his head toward Babylon.
"No. Fifty-nine including him. See for yourself, chief."
"Ah, what's the use?" demanded the man. "How can they expect us to do a good job when the traffic piles up like this? That whole party for Sun One is due for transmission right now, and we're not realigned! If we could just get this crowd cleared out . . ."
He was staring nastily at Babylon, who took the hint and strode briskly across the foyer and out the double doors.
There it was! Earth! He was still there! The grass- fringed bank of the Charles had never looked more beautiful, and even the last of the convicts, now being herded back into the hovervans, looked merely pathetic. Or most of them did. Strangely, one of them was looking directly at Jen Babylon. It was one of the big, dark-skinned men, easily two meters tall and muscled in proportion. Babylon could not make out the expression on the man's face. But there was an expression, and there should have been none.
FOUR
A sweet electronic voice urged Jen Babylon to stand still. He closed his eyes on the studded walls and then, even through closed lids, saw a brilliant flash of searing blue light. His skin tingled. He heard one sharp crack, like a jumping spark. There was a moment of strain and vertigo, and then a door opened and he pushed through into the— Into a place where he had never been! No time had transpired for him. He felt no sense of change. The thought in his mind was, Ah, well, that's done, now I can call Sheryl about that dinner with the dean—
And then he saw where he was; the thought perished, and something trapped in terror inside his mind screamed, Dear loving God, what have You done? This is mel A harsh flood of light stung his eyes. He tasted a dry, sour tang at the back of his throat. He was floating! There was nothing under his feet, nothing but air. He felt a terrifying sense of falling. As any .organism will when first deprived of the comforting anchor of its home gravity, his body spasmed in panic. He flailed wildly. His glasses went flying. One hand struck something light and fragile, and a sharp reek of vinegar struck his nostrils. He bounced against some sort of machine, caught an edge of it, and stared around. A creature with filmy wings and the tiny, hideous face of a bat was twittering shrilly at him. The creature was too tiny to be frightening, no larger than a crow, but it was furious. "Did I hit you? Sorry," he said. It stared angrily at him out of an excessive number of eyes and flew out of sight.
He caught his breath. The truth was all beginning to penetrate. Good-bye Sheryl. Good-bye comfortable little apartment, good-bye hopes of becoming dean. All those things now belonged to the life of someone named Jen Babylon; but he was not that Jen Babylon. He never would be again.
He shifted position, lost his grip, and floated, tumbling, out into the room again. It was disorienting, but his mind was too full of sudden rage to care. It was a fraud! He had been cheated! It was not some disposable duplicate that was condemned to live out the sorry tatters of a useless life on Cuckoo—
It was himself!
From just outside his range of vision a voice spoke:
"Ah, welcome, dear fellow Earthman! Allow me to assist you."
Long, dry, leathery fingers gripped his shoulder and stopped his tumble, and Babylon saw his rescuer. At first he thought it was an organ-grinder's monkey, escaped from some antiquarian zoo: red vest, hat with a bright green feather, bright shoe-button eyes. A chimpanzee!
But the creature lacked the broad, protruding lips of the circus animal, and it spoke in easy English. "You did, I'm afraid, upset the T'Worlie," it chattered, "and we're both a little bit in the way here. Allow me to assist you. Your first experience in free-fall, no doubt? Yes, I remember the feeling. But we don't bother much with gravity here. Not here," it chattered, courteously tugging Babylon toward a corridor lined with handholds, "and not anywhere around here. Not even on that great clumsy ball out the window— Oh, of course; there's no window in the tachyon chamber, is there? But not to worry. You'll see all you want of Cuckoo, I promise. And more."
He clapped a skinny black hand to his unsimian high forehead. "My manners! I'm Napoleon Chimsky, Dr. Babylon. You can call me Doc Chimp. Now we'd better move along. Have you got everything?"
"I didn't bring anything," Babylon said bitterly. "Some stuff was sent on ahead—and, oh, yes!" He clapped his hand to the bridge of his nose. "My glasses. They came off when I came out of that machine—"
He stopped, suddenly aware that, for the first time in a score of years, he was seeing clearly without them. The chimpanzee chuckled. "You've notice^ eh?"
"I can see!" Babylon cried.
The chimpanzee bobbed his high-domed head. "A little service of the management," he said largely. "As long as you were being coded for transmission it was easy enough to make some, ah, minor improvements. It's called editing. Things like eye readjustments, minor circulatory problems, even malignancies—they can all be edited out automatically. I think you'll find there's not a plaque of cholesterol anywhere in your system, Dr. Babylon." His stare became thoughtful. "It's little enough to do for us, everything considered," he said obscurely, and then, "But please come along! It's really not a good idea to stay here."
With one hand dexterously catching at handholds, the other tugged Babylon gently down a corridor. Babylon involuntarily shrank back at the entrance. There was neither up nor down, and the corridor looked like an endless deep well dropping away beneath him. "Disconcerting? But you'll get used to it!"