The Game-Players Of Titan

X

ROUSED FROM HER sleep, Freya Gaines groped for the switch of the vidphone; groggily she found it and snapped it on.

" 'Lo," she mumbled, wondering what time it was. She made out the luminous dial of the clock beside the bed. Three A.M. Good grief.

Carol Holt Garden's features formed on the vidscreen. "Freya, have you seen Pete?" Carol's voice was jerky, anxiety-stricken. "He went out and he still hasn't come back; I can't go to sleep."

"No," Freya said. "Of course I don't know where he is. Did the police let him go?"

"He's out on bail," Carol said. "Do—you have any idea what places he might stop at? The bars are all closed, now; I was waiting for two o'clock thinking he'd show up no later than two-thirty. But—"

"Try the Blind Lemon in Berkeley," Freya said, and started to cut the connection. Maybe he's dead, she thought. Threw himself off one of the bridges or crashed his ear-finally.

Carol said, "He's celebrating."

"Good god why?" Freya said.

"I'm pregnant."

Fully awake, Freya said, "I see. Astonishing. Right away. You must be using that new rabbit-paper they're selling."

"Yes," Carol said. "I bit a piece tonight and it turned green; that's why Pete's out. I wish he'd come back. He's so emotional, first he's depressed and suicidal and then—"

"You worry about your problems, I'll worry about mine," Freya cut in. "Congratulations, Carol. I hope it's a baby." And then she did break the connection; the image faded into darkness.

The bastard, Freya said to herself with fury and bitterness. She lay back, supine, staring up at the ceiling, clenching her fists and fighting back the tears. I could kill him, she said to herself. I hope he's dead; I hope he never comes back to her.

Would he come here? She sat up, stricken. What if he does? she asked herself. Beside her, in the bed, Clem Gaines snored on. If he shows up here I won't let him in, she decided; I don't want to see him.

But, for some reason, she knew Pete would not come here anyhow. He's not looking for me, she realized. I'm the last person he's looking for.

She lit a cigarette and sat in bed, smoking and staring straight ahead of her, silently.

The vug said, "Mr. Garden, when did you first begin to notice these disembodied feelings, as if the world about you is not quite real?"

"As long ago as I can remember," Pete said.

"And your reaction?"

"Depression. I've taken thousands of amitriptyline tablets and they only have a temporary effect."

"Do you know who I am?" the vug asked.

"Let's see," Pete said, cogitating. The name Doctor Phelps floated through his mind. "Doctor Eugen Phelps," he said hopefully.

"Almost right, Mr. Garden. It's Doctor E. R. Philipson. And how did you happen to look me up? Do you perhaps recall that?"

Pete said, "How could I help looking you up?" The answer was obvious. "Because you're there. Or rather, here."

"Stick out your tongue."

"Why?"

"As a mark of disrespect."

Pete stuck out his tongue. "Ahhh," he said.

"Additional comment is unnecessary; the point's made. How many times have you attempted suicide?"

"Four," Pete said. "The first when I was twenty. The second when I was forty. The third—"

"No need to go on. How close did you come to success?"

"Very close. Yes sir. Especially the last time."

"What stopped you?"

"A force greater than myself," Pete said.

"How droll." The vug chuckled.

"I mean my wife. Betty, that was her name. Betty Jo. She and I met at Joe Schilling's rare record shop. Betty Jo had breasts as firm and ripe as melons. Or was her name Mary Anne?"

"Her name was not Mary Anne," Doctor E. R. Philipson said, "because now you're speaking of the eighteen-year-old daughter of Pat and Alien McClain and she has never been your wife. I am not qualified to describe her breasts. Or her mother's. In any case you scarcely know her; all you know about her in fact is that she devoutly listens to Nats Katz whom you can't stand. You and she have nothing in common."

"You lying son of a bitch," Pete said.

"Oh no. I'm not lying. I'm facing reality and that's exact-

ly what you've failed to do; that's why you're here. You're involved in an intricate, sustained illusion-system of massive proportion. You and half of your Game-playing friends. Do you want to escape from it?"

"No," Pete said. "I mean yes. Yes or no; what does it matter?" He felt sick at his stomach. "Can I leave now?" he said. "I think I've spent all my money."

The vug Doctor E. R. Philipson said, "You have twenty-five dollars in time left."

"Well, I'd rather have the twenty-five dollars."

"That raises a nice point of professional ethics in that you have already paid me."

"Then pay me back," Pete said.

The vug sighed. "This is a stalemate. I think I will make the decision for both of us. Do I have twenty-five dollars worth of help left that I can give you? It depends on what you want. You are in a situation of insidiously-growing difficulty. It will probably kill you shortly, just as it killed Mr. Luckman. Be especially careful for your pregnant wife; she is excruciatingly fragile at this point."

"I will. I will."

Doctor E. R'. Philipson said, "Your best bet, Garden, is to bend with the forces of the times. There's little hope that you can achieve much, really; you're one person and you do, in some respects, properly see the situation. But physically you're powerless. Who can you go to? E. B. Black? Mr. Hawthorne? You could try. They might help you; they might not. Now, as to the time-segment missing from your memory."

"Yes," Pete said. "The time-segment missing from my memory. How about that?"

"You have fairly well reconstructed it by means of the Rushmore Effect mechanisms. So don't fret unduly."

"But did I kill Luckman?"

"Ha ha," the vug said. "Do you think I'm going to tell you? Are you out of your mind?"

"Maybe so," Pete said. "Maybe I'm being naive." He felt even sicker, now, too sick to go on any further. "Where's the men's room?" he asked the vug. "Or should I say the human's room?" He looked around, squinting to see. The

colors were all wrong and when he tried to walk he felt weightless or at least much lighter. Too light. He was not on Earth. This was not one-G pulling at him; it was only a fraction.

He thought, I'm on Titan.

"Second door to the left," the vug Doctor E. R. Philipson said.

"Thank you," Pete said, walking with care so that he would not float up and rebound from one of the white-painted walls. "Listen," he said, pausing. "What about Carol? I'm giving up Patricia; nothing means anything to me except the mother of my child."

"Nothing means anything, you mean," Doctor E. R. Philip-son said. "A joke, and a poor one. I'm merely commenting on your state of mind. 'Things are seldom what they seem; Skim-milk masquerades as cream.' A wonderful statement by the Terran humorist W. S. Gilbert. I wish you luck and I suggest you consult E. B. Black; he's reliable. You can trust him. I'm not sure about Hawthorne." The vug called loudly after Pete, "And close the bathroom door after you so I won't have to listen. It's disgusting, when a Terran is sick."

Pete shut the door. How do I get out of here? he asked himself. I've got to escape. How'd I get here to Titan in the first place?

How much time has passed? Days—weeks, perhaps.

I have to get home to Carol. God, he thought. They may have killed her by now, the way they killed Luckman.

They? Who?

He did not know. It had been explained to him ... or had it? Had he really gotten his one hundred and fifty dollars' worth? Perhaps. It was his responsibility, not theirs, to retain the knowledge.

A window, high up in the bathroom. He moved the great metal paper towel drum over, stood on it and managed to reach the window. Stuck shut, painted shut. He smashed upward against its wooden frame with the heels of his hands.

Creaking, the window rose.

Room enough. He hoisted himself up, squeezed through. Darkness, the Titanian night ... he dropped, fell, listening

to himself whistle down and down like a feather, or rather like a bug with large surface-area in proportion to mass. Whooeee, he shouted, but he heard no sound except the whistle of his falling.

He struck, pitched forward, lay suffering the pain in his feet and legs. I broke my goddam ankle, he said to himself. He hobbled up to his feet. An alley, trashcans and cobblestones; he hobbled toward a street light. To his right, a red neon sign. Dave's Place. A bar. He had come out the back, out of the men's washroom, minus his coat. He leaned against the wall of a building, waiting for the numbing pain in his ankles to subside.

A Rushmore circuit cruising past, automatic policeman. "Are you all right, sir?"

"Yes," Pete said. "Thank you. Just stopped to—you know what. Nature called." He laughed. "Thanks." The Rushmore cop wheeled on.

What city am I in? he asked himself. The air, damp, smelled of ashes. Chicago? St. Louis? Warm, foul air, not the clean air of San Francisco. He walked unsteadily down the street, away from Dave's Place. The vug inside, cadging drinks, clipping Terran customers, rolling them in an educated way. He felt for his wallet in his pants' pocket. Gone. Jesus Christ! He felt at his coat; there it was. He sighed in relief.

Those pills I took, he thought, didn't mix with the drinks, or rather did mix; that's the problem. But I'm okay, not hurt, just a little shaken up and scared. And I'm lost. I've lost myself and my car. And separately.

"Car," he called, trying to summon its auto-auto mech system. Its Rushmore Effect. Sometimes it responded; sometimes not. Chance factor.

Lights, twin beams. His car rolled along the curb, bumped to a halt by him. "Mr. Garden. Here I am."

"Listen," Pete said, fumbling, finding the door handle. "Where are we, for chrissakes?"

"Pocatello, Idaho."

"For chrissakes!" "It's god's truth, Mr. Garden; I swear it."

Pete said, "You're awfully articulate for a Rushmore cir-

cuit, aren't you?" Opening the car door he peered in, blinking in the glare of the dome light. Peered suspiciously, and in fright.

Someone sat behind the tiller.

After a pause the figure said, "Get in, Mr. Garden."

"Why?" he said.

"So I can drive you where you want to go."

"I don't want to go anywhere," he said. "I want to stay here."

"Why are you looking at me so funny? Don't you remember coming and getting me? It was your idea to do the town—do several towns, as a matter of fact." She smiled. It was a woman; he saw that now. "

"Who the hell are you?" he said. "I don't know you."

"Why, you certainly do. You met me at Joseph Schilling's rare record shop in New Mexico."

"Mary Anne McClain," he said, then. He got slowly into the car beside her. "What's been going on?"

Mary Anne said calmly, "You've been celebrating your wife Carol's pregnancy."

"But how'd I get mixed up with you?"

"First you dropped by the apartment in Marin County. I wasn't there because I was at the San Francisco public library doing research. My mother told you and you flew to San Francisco, to the library, and picked me up. And we drove to Pocatello because you had the idea that an eighteen-year-old girl would be served in a bar in Idaho, and she isn't in San Francisco as we found out."

"Was I right?"

"No. So you went in alone, to Dave's Place, and I've been sitting out here in the car waiting for you. And you just now came out of that alley and began yelling."

"I see," he said. He lay back against the seat. "I feel sick. I wish I was home."

Mary Anne McClain said, "I'll drive you home, Mr. Garden." The car now had lifted into the sky; Pete shut his eyes.

"How'd I get mixed up with that vug?" he said, after a time.

"What vug?"

"In the bar. I guess. Doctor something Philipson."

"How would I know? They wouldn't let me in."

"Well, was there a vug in there? Didn't you see in?"

"I saw in; I went in at first. But there was no vug while I was there. But of course I came right out; they made me leave."

"I'm quite a heel," Pete said. "Staying inside drinking while you sat out here in the car."

"I didn't mind," Mary Anne said. "I had a nice conversation with the Rushmore unit. I learned a lot about you. Didn't I, car?"

"Yes, Miss McClain," the car said.

"It likes me," Mary Anne said. "All Rushmore Effects like me." She laughed. "I charm them."

"Evidently," Pete said. "What time is it?"

"About four."

"A.M.?" He couldn't believe it. How come the bar was still open? "They don't allow bars open that late, in any state."

"Maybe I looked at the clock wrong," Mary Anne said.

"No," Pete said. "You looked at it right. But something's wrong; something's terribly wrong."

"Ha ha," Mary Anne said.

He glanced at her. At the tiller of the car sat the shapeless slime of the vug. "Car," Pete said instantly. "What's at the tiller? Tell me."

"Mary Anne McClain, Mr. Garden," the car said.

But the vug still sat there. He saw it.

"Are you sure?" Pete said.

"Positive," the car said.

The vug said, "As I said, I can charm Rushmore circuits."

"Where are we going?" Pete said.

"Home. To take you back to your wife Carol."

"And then what?"

"And then I'm going to bed."

"What are you?" he said to it.

"What do you think? You can see. Tell someone about it; tell Mr. Hawthorne the detective or better yet tell E. B. Black the detective. E. B. Black would get a kick out of it."

Pete shut his eyes.

When he opened them again it was Mary Anne McClain sitting there beside him, at the tiller of the car.

"You were right," he said to the car. Or were you? he wondered. God, he thought; I wish I was home, I wish I hadn't come out tonight. I'm scared. Joe Schilling, he could help me. Aloud he said, "Take me to Joe Schilling's apartment, Mary Anne or whatever your name is."

"At this time of night? You're crazy."

"He's my best friend. In all the world."

"It'll be five A.M. when we get there."

"He'll be glad to see me," Pete said. "With what I have to tell him."

"And what's that?" Mary Anne said.

Cautiously, he said, "You know. About Carol. The baby."

"Oh yes," Mary Anne said. She nodded. "As Freya said, 'I hope it's a baby.'"

"Freya said that? Who to?"

"To Carol."

"How do you know?"

Mary Anne said, "You telephoned Carol from the car before we went into Dave's Place; you wanted to be sure she was all right. She was very upset and you asked why and she said that she had called Freya, looking for you, and Freya had said that."

"Damn that Freya," Pete said.

"I don't blame you for feeling like that. She's a hard, schizoid type, it sounds like. We studied about that in psych."

"Do you like school?"

"Love it," Mary Anne said.

"Do you think you could be interested in an old man of one hundred arid fifty years?"

"You're not so old, Mr. Garden. Just confused. You'll feel better after I get you home." She smiled at him, briefly.

"I'm still potent," he said. "As witness Carol's impregnation. Whooee!" he cried.

"Three cheers," Mary Anne said. "Just think: one more Terran in the world. Isn't that delightful?"

"We don't generally refer to ourselves as Terrans," Pete said. "We generally say 'people.' You made a mistake."

"Oh," Mary Anne said, nodding. "Mistake noted."

Pete said, "Is your mother part of this? Is that why she didn't want the police to scan her?"

"Yep," Mary Anne said.

"How many are in it?"

"Oh, thousands," Mary Anne—or rather the vug—said. Despite what he saw he knew it to be a vug. "Just thousands and thousands. All over the planet."

"But not everyone's in on it," Pete said. "Because you still have to hide from the authorities. I think I will tell Hawthorne."

Mary Anne laughed.

Reaching into the glove compartment, Pete fumbled about.

"Mary Anne removed the gun," the car informed him. "She was afraid if the police stopped you and they found it they'd put you back in jail."

"That's right," Mary Anne said.

"You people killed Luckman. Why?"

She shrugged. "I forget. Sorry."

"Who's next?"

"The thing."

"What thing?"

Mary Anne, her eyes sparkling, said, "The thing growing inside Carol. Bad luck, Mr. Garden; it's not a baby."

He shut his eyes.

The next he knew, they were over the Bay Area.

"Almost home," Mary Anne said.

"And you're just going to let me off?" he said.

"Why not?"

"I don't know." He was sick, then, in the corner of the car, like an animal would be. Mary Anne said nothing after that and he said nothing either. What a terrible night this had been, he thought to himself. It should have been wonderful; my first luck. And instead—

And now he could not reasonably dwell on the theme of suicide, because the situation had become worse, was too bad for that to be a solution. My own problems are problems of perception, he realized. Of understanding and then ac-

cepting. What I have to remember is that they're not all in it. The detective E. B. Black isn't in it and Doctor Philipson; he or it isn't in it, either. I can get help from something, somewhere, sometime.

"Right you are," Mary Anne said,

"Are you a telepath?" he said to her.

"I very much certainly darn right am."

"But," he said, "your mother said you weren't."

"My mother lied to you."

Pete said, "Is Nats Katz the center of all this?"

"Yes," she said.

"I thought so," he said, and lay back against the seat, trying not to be sick again.

Mary Anne said, "Here we are." The car dipped down, skimmed above the deserted pavement of a San Rafael street. "Give me a kiss," she said, "before you get out." She brought the car to a halt at the curb and looking up he saw his apartment building. The light was on in his window; Carol was still up, waiting for him, or else she had fallen asleep with the lights on.

"A kiss," he echoed. "Really?"

"Yes really," Mary Anne said, and leaned expectantly toward him.

"I can't," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because," he said, "of what you are, the thing that you are."

"Oh how absurd," Mary Anne said. "What's the matter with you, Pete? You're lost in dreams!"

"I am?"

"Yes," she said, glaring at him in exasperation. "You took dope tonight and got drunk and you were terribly excited about Carol and also you were afraid because of the police. You've been hallucinating like mad for the last two hours. You thought that psychiatrist, Doctor Philipson, was a vug, and then you thought I was a vug." To the car, Mary Anne said, "Am I a vug?"

"No, Mary Anne," the Rushmore circuit of the car answered, for the second time.

"See?" she said.

"I still can't do it," he said. "Just let me out of the car." He found the door handle, opened the door, stepped out on the curb, his legs shaking under him.

"Good night," Mary Anne said, eyeing him.

"Good night." He started toward the door of the apartment building.

The car said, after him, "You got me all dirty."

"Too bad," Pete said. He opened the apartment building door with his key and passed on inside; the door shut after him.

When he got upstairs he found Carol standing in the hall in a short, sheer yellow nightgown. "I heard the car drive up," she said. "Thank god you're back! I was so worried about you." She folded her arms, self-consciously blushing. "I should be in my robe, I know."

"Thanks for waiting up." He passed on by her, went into the bathroom and washed his face and hands with cold water.

"Can I fix you something to eat or drink? It's so late now."

"Coffee," he said, "would be fine."

In the kitchen she fixed a pot of coffee for both of them.

"Do me a favor," Pete said. "Call Pocatello information, the vidphone autocorp, and find out if there's a Doctor E. R. Philipson listed."

"All right." Carol clicked on the vidphone. She talked for a time with a sequence of homeostatic circuits and then she rang off. "Yes."

"I was seeing him," Pete said. "It cost me one hundred and fifty dollars. Their rates are high. Could you tell from what the vidphone said if Philipson is a Terran?"

"They didn't say. I got his number." She pushed the pad toward him.

"I'll call him and ask." He clicked the vidphone back on.

"At five-thirty in the morning?"

"Yes," he said, dialing. A long time passed; the phone, at the other end, rang and rang. " 'Walkin' the dog see-bawh, see-bawh,'" Pete sang. " 'He have-um red whisker, he have-um green paw.' Doctors expect this," he said to Carol. There was a sharp click, then, and on the vidscreen

a face, a wrinkled human face, formed. "Doctor Philipson?" Pete asked.

"Yes." The doctor shook his head blearily, then scrutinized Pete. "Oh, it's you."

"You remember me?" Pete said.

"Of course I do. You're the man Joe Schilling sent to me; I saw you for an hour earlier tonight."

Joe Schilling, Pete said to himself. I didn't know that. "You're not a vug, are you?" Pete said to Doctor Philipson.

"Is that what you called me up to ask?"

"Yes," Pete said. "It's very important."

"I am not a vug," Doctor Philipson said, and hung up.

Pete shut off the vidphone. "I think I'll go to bed," he said to Carol. "I'm worn out. Are you okay?"

"Yes," she said. "A little tired."

"Let's go to bed together," he said to her.

Carol smiled. "All right. I'm certainly glad to have you back; do you always do things like this, go out on binges until five-thirty A.M.?"

"No," he said. And I'll never do it again, he thought.

As he sat on the edge of the bed removing his clothes he found something, a match folder stuffed into his left shoe, beneath his instep. He set the shoe down, held the match folder under the lamp by the bed and examined it. Carol, beside him, had already gotten into bed and apparently had gone directly to sleep.

On the match folder, in his own hand, penciled words: WE ARE ENTIRELY SURROUNDED BY BUGS RUGS

VUGS

That was my discovery tonight, he remembered. My bright, crowning achievement, and I was afraid I'd somehow forget it. I wonder when I wrote that? In the bar? On the way home? Probably when I first figured it out, when I was talking to Doctor Philipson.

"Carol," he said, "I know who killed Luckman."

"Who?" she said, still awake.

"We all did," Pete said. "All six of us who've lost our memories. Janice Remington, Silvanus Angst and his wife, Clem Gaines, Bill Calumine's wife and myself; we did it acting under the influence of the vugs." He held out the

match folder to her. "Read what I wrote, here. In case I didn't remember; in case they tampered with my mind again."

Sitting up, she took the match folder and studied it. " 'We are entirely surrounded by vugs.' Excuse me—but I have to laugh."

He glared at her grimly.

"That's why you placed that call to the doctor in Idaho and asked him what you did; now I understand. But he isn't a vug; you saw him yourself on the screen and heard him."

"Yeah, that's so," he admitted.

"Who else is a vug? Or, as you started to write it—"

"Mary Anne McClain. She's the worst of them all."

"Oh," Carol said, nodding. "I see, Pete. That's who you were with, tonight. I wondered. I knew it was someone. Some woman."

Pete clicked on the vidphone by the bed. "I'm going to call Hawthorne and Black, those two cops. They're not in on it." As he dialed he said to Carol, "No wonder Pat McClain didn't want to be scanned by the police."

"Pete, don't do it tonight." She reached out and cut the circuit off.

"But they may get me tonight. Any time."

"Tomorrow." Carol smiled at him coaxingly. "Please."

"Can I call Joe Schilling, then?"

"If you want. I just don't think you should talk to the police right now, the way you're feeling. You're in so much trouble with them already."

He dialed information, got Joe Schilling's new number in Marin County.

Presently Schilling's hairy, ruddy face formed on the screen, fully alert. "Yes? What is it? Pete—listen, Carol called and told me the good news, about your luck. My god, that's terrific!"

Pete said, "Did you send me to a Doctor Philipson in Pocatello?"

"Who?"

Pete repeated the name. Joe Schilling's face screwed up in bafflement. "Okay," Pete said. "Sorry I woke you. I didn't think you did."

"Wait a minute," Schilling said. "Listen, about two years ago when you were at my shop in New Mexico we had a conversation—what was it about? It was something about the side effects of a methamphetamine hydrochloride. You were taking them then, and I warned you against them; there was an article in Scientific American by a psychiatrist in Idaho; I think it was this Philipson you mentioned, and he said that the methamphetamines can precipitate a psychotic episode."

"I have a dim memory," Pete said.

"Your theory, your answer to the article, was that you were also taking a trifluoperazine, a dihydrochloride of some sort which you swore compensated for the side effects of the methamphetamines."

Pete said, "I took a whole bunch of methamphetamine tablets, tonight. 7.5 milligram ones, too."

"And you also drank?"

"Yes."

"Oy gewalt. You remember what Philipson said in his article about a mixture of the methamphetamines and alcohol."

"Vaguely."

"They potentiate each other. Did you have a psychotic episode, tonight?"

"Not by a long shot. I had a moment of absolute truth. Here, I'll read it to you." To Carol, Pete said, "Hand me back that match folder." She passed it to him and he read from it. "That was my revelation, Joe. My experience. 'There are vugs all around us.' "

Schilling was silent a moment and then he said, "About this Doctor Philipson in Idaho. Did you go to him? Is that why you ask?"

"I paid one hundred and fifty dollars to him tonight," Pete said. "And in my opinion I got my money's worth."

After a pause, Schilling said, "I'm going to suggest something to you that'll surprise you. Call that detective, Hawthorne."

"That's what I wanted to do," Pete said. "But Carol won't let me."

"I want to talk to Carol," Joe Schilling said.

Raising to a sitting position in the bed, Carol faced the vidscreen. "I'm right here, Joe. If you think Pete should call Hawthorne—"

"Carol, I've known your husband for years. He has suicidal depressions. Regularly. To be blunt, dear, he's a manic-depressive; he has an affective psychosis, periodically. Tonight, because of the news about the baby, he's gone into a manic phase and I for one don't blame him. I know how it feels; it's like being reborn. I want him to call Hawthorne for a" very good reason. Hawthorne has had more to do with vugs than anyone else we know. There's no use my talking to Pete; I don't know a damn thing about vugs; maybe they are all around us, for all I know. I'm not going to try to argue Pete out of it, especially at five-thirty in the morning. I suggest you follow the same course."

"All right," Carol said.

"Pete," Joe Schilling said. "Remember this, when you talk to Hawthorne. Anything you say may turn up later on in the prosecutor's case against you; Hawthorne is not a friend, pure and simple. So go cautiously. Right?"

"Yes," Pete agreed. "But tell me what dp you think; was is the mixture of methamphetamines and alcohol?"

Joe Schilling said, sidestepping the question, "Tell me something. What did Doctor Philipson say?"

"He said a lot of things. He said, for one, that he thought this situation was going to kill me as it had Luckman. And for me to take special care of Carol. And he said—" He paused. "There's little I can do to change matters."

"Did he seem friendly?"

"Yes," Pete said. "Even though he's a vug." He broke the connection, then, waited a moment and dialed the police emergency number. One of the friendly ones, he said to himself. One who's on our side, maybe.

It took the police switchboard twenty minutes to locate Hawthorne. During that time Pete drank coffee and felt more and more sober.

"Hawthorne?" he said at last, when the image formed. "Sorry to bother you so late at night. I can tell you who killed Luckman."

Hawthorne said, "Mr. Garden, we know who killed Luck-

man. We've got a confession. That's where I've been, at Carmel headquarters." He looked drawn and weary,

"Who?" Pete demanded. "Which one of the group?"

"It was nobody in Pretty Blue Fox. We moved our investigations back to the East Coast, where Luckman started out. The confession is by a top employee of Luckman's, a man named Sid Mosk. As yet we haven't been able to establish the motive. We're working on that."

Pete clicked off the vidphone and sat in silence.

What now? he asked himself. What do I do?

"Come to bed," Carol said, lying back down and covering herself up with the blankets.

Shutting off the lamp, Pete Garden went to bed.

It was a mistake.