"Still, these two lived so long ago that historical anachronism is of little importance. In which case, why didn't you drag Robin Hood in? Though I suppose that he would have turned out to be Maid Marian!"
The audience hooted and roared.
"Do not all these repetitions ofa theme, your inability to use a different idea, your constant hammering at the problem of identity, betray your insecurity and doubts about your own identity? Doesn't that undoubted mental instability require examination by the government psychicists?"
The audience was in an uproar. Repp was taken aback by this unexpected disclosure about his drama. While he should have been thinking about his reply, he was wondering which of his colleagues had leaked the information about the movie.
As the cries and boos trailed away, he decided that he would have to start his own inquisition next Friday. After work hours, of course. Meanwhile, he had better take care of Lundquist.
He rose from the chair, stuck his thumbs in his big belt, and swaggered across the platform to the "pulpit." Standing, he was able to stare down at Lundquist despite the host's elevated chair. Lundquist was still smiling, but he blinked furiously. He did not like having to look up at his guest.
"Pilgrim, those are hard words, and I'm glad you smiled when you said them. Now, if these were the old days, I'd punch you in the nose."
Lundquist and the audience gasped.
"But these are nonviolent and civilized times. I've contracted not to sue you for anything you say about me. And you can't sue me, either. It's a no-holds-barred, kick-in-the-nuts-or-what-have-you, gouge-eyes-out, half-alligator, half-bear-wrestling-and-ear-chewing show. Verbally, that is.
"So, I say you're a liar and a word-twister and a fact-bender. Out of sixty movies I've made, only nine have been about shape-changing and role-exchanging. Any fool can see that I'm not hung up or obsessed with the problem of identity. Any fool but you, I reckon. As for your careless and malicious remark about my mental instability, if I did have a screw loose, I would've popped you one. See how calm I am? See this hand? Is it shaking? It's not, but if it did, who'd blame me?
"What I am, Ras Lundquist, is the Bach of the drama. I play infinite variations on a single theme."
"Bach is turgid," Lundquist said, sneering.
All in all, it was a good show. The viewers were delighted with the violence of the dialog and enchanted by the threat of physical violence. According to the monitor, exactly 200,300,181 were watching the show. It would be rerun next Friday so that those who were now sleeping could get a chance to view it.
Repp walked out jauntily into the corridor, stopped for a while to say his name into the recorders thrust at him by fans, and then swaggered to the elevator. He taxied to his apartment, drank a bourbon, and went to bed. At 11:02, he was awakened by the alarm strip. After setting up his dummy and changing clothes, he put his bag over his shoulder and went down to the basement to get a bike from the vehicle-pool. The air was warmer than it had been the previous evening; another heat wave was heading toward Manhattan. A few light clouds were moving slowly eastward. The streets were almost empty. Several organic cars passed him. The occupants looked at him but went on. On the sidewalks were stacks of one-foot cubes, the compacted and stoned garbage-trash put out by Friday's
State Cleaning Corps. Saturday's would pick it up. Aside from infrequent data, the only thing passed on from one day to the next was garbage-trash. The cubes had several uses, one of which was as building blocks. It was said, with only some exaggeration, that half of the housing in Manhattan was garbage. "So, what's changed?" was the usual retort.
At 11:20 P.M., Repp stopped in front of an apartment building on Shinbone Alley. He looked around the brightly illuminated area before going down the ramp leading to the basement. He did not want to be seen entering the building by organics. They might think that he was just a late-coming tenant, but they also stopped every seventh person they saw out this late for a quick checkup.
No vehicle was in sight, and he could not hear the singing of tires on pavement. He turned and rode down the well-lighted ramp to its end and into the bicycle garage. After putting the bicycle in a rack, he walked toward the elevator door, twice kicking trash on the floor. "Damn weedies!" he muttered. He stopped and took from the bag his Saturday's star-disc. It was not supposed to open the elevator door until after midnight, but he had made alterations to admit him. Though not a professional electronics technician, he had taken enough courses to be one.
Just as he inserted the tip into the hole, he heard a low voice behind him. He jumped, pulling the tip from the hole, and whirled. "Jesus, you scared me!" he shouted. "Where'd you come from? Why'd you sneak up on me like that?"
The man gestured with a thumb at the four empty emergency cylinders at the far end of the garage. "Sorry," he said in a low gravelly voice. "I had to get near enough to make sure who you were."
He wore an orange tricorn hat and light-purple robe decorated with black cloverleaf figures, the uniform of Friday's organic patrollers. For a second, Repp had thought that he was done for. All was lost unless he could get the gun in his bag out in time to use it. The intruder was too big for Repp to tackle with only his hands. And he would have shot the man. He had not had time to think about the consequences of the act. His desperation would have taken over him as if he were a robot.
What had kept him from going for his weapon was that the man was alone. Organics always traveled by twos. So this one must be an immer.
"As soon as you get your color back, I'll give you the message," the man said. "By the way, that was a good show you gave tonight. You really told that snobbish bastard."
Repp's heart was slowing down, and he could breathe almost normally. He said, "If you know me, why'd you come up so quietly?"
"I told you I had to make sure. You aren't in your Western outfit."
"What's the message?"
"This evening, at 10:02 P.M., the organics observed and pursued a wanted daybreaker, Morning Rose Doubleday. I was told that you will know of her. Ras Doubleday fled and took refuge in a house that, unfortunately, was next to the house where a woman named Snick, Panthea Snick, had been hidden after she had been stoned.
"When the woman, Doubleday, was cornered in this house, she refused to surrender. She committed suicide by detonating a minibomb implanted in her body. The resulting explosion not only killed the organics pursuing her and the family then occupying the house, but also destroyed the buildings on both sides."
"Why didn't I hear it?" Repp said. "Where did this take place?"
"That's not relevant," the man said, "but it was on West Thirty-fifth Street. Message continued.
"During the search of the wrecked buildings, the organics found the stoned body of Snick. They destoned her, and she told her story."
The man paused and looked at Repp as if he expected him to say something. When Repp shook his head, the man said, "I guess you know what that means. I don't. Message continued. All immers will be or have been notified that Snick is again a grave danger to us. Her description is being passed on. I was told that I didn't have to give it to you.
"All immers are to keep a lookout for Panthea Snick. If she can be killed without attracting attention, she is to be killed at once and the body disposed of. The council suggests putting it in a G-T compacter.