"If the situation is such that she can't be killed on the spot, whoever sees her will notify his contacts, and they will go after her. You will pass on this message to all your contacts, and you will describe her. You will do this every day until you are told to stop."
The man paused again and said, "It was assumed that her mission was the search for and arrest of Morning Rose Doubleday. But since she is still conducting a search, that assumption may not be correct. It is possible that she had a multipurpose mission and that Doubleday was only one mission. Or it may be that she is looking for other members of Doubleday's organization, though the organics have received no such report from Snick. That is, the lower echelons of the organics have received no such report or data. She must have transmitted data to today's higher officials that has resulted in permission to continue her mission, whatever that is. And she will transmit this to tomorrow's officials.
"If tomorrow's council hears anything that may immediately affect you re Snick, you will be notified as soon as possible."
The man spoke as if he were a receiver-transmitter spewing forth organic officialese.
"One more item before message is finished," the man said.
"We do have a highly placed official in Saturday. That official will endeavor to find out exactly what Snitk's mission is. Meanwhile, keep a low profile. Snick will be living in this area. She will move into an apartment in Washington Mews Block Building."
"Got you," Repp said. "She's taken an apartment in this area because whoever she's looking for is in this area. At least, she thinks so."
"Good luck," the man said. He looked around at the trash. "How do you stand this?" He turned and walked toward the ramp before Repp could reply.
"Thanks, I'll need it," Repp called softly after him. He turned. The elevator door was still open, waiting for him. He entered the cage and punched the button for his floor. Though he was rising physically, he was sinking emotionally. Wyatt Repp, he was thinking, had ridden high all day. And now, shortly before midnight, he had tumbled hard. Very hard.
As he reached his floor, his spirits surged upward, though briefly. Snick's face had flashed like a mental meteorite through his dark thoughts. Why should he feel joy? Because she was alive. That was very strange and needed looking into. Especially since he was supposed to kill her if he got the chance.
Saturday-World
VARIETY, Second Month of the Year
D5-W1 (Day-Five, Week-One)
Chapter 22
"Ohm-mani-padme-hum!"
The deep male voice droned the chant. Charles Arpad Ohm batted at it as if it were a gnat flying around his ear.
"Ohm-mani-padme-hum!"
"Go away!" Charlie said. "I've got a hell of a hangover!"
"Ohm-mani-padme-hum!"
"Shut up!" Charlie said, and he put the pillow over his head. The voice came through the pillow faintly but insistently. It was as if a Tibetan monk was speaking a ritual to awaken the dead, as if he, Charlie Ohm, was buried but not beyond resurrection.
The voice stopped. Charlie, knowing what was coming, cursed. The female voice that succeeded the male was very loud and shrill, the essence of shrew, termagant, and nag. It was his ex-wife's, programed into the alarm strip by Charlie because it was the only voice that could get him out of bed. It made him angry, raised his blood pressure, and brought him up and out of desirable sloth. Not so desirable if he was to get to work on time.
"You lazy slob! Bum! Drunk! Lech! Sickening weedie! Get your goldbricking ass into gear! Malingering mutt! Pig! Parasite! Dirt balls! There's only one thing you can get up in the morning, and I want none of that! See if you can't hoist the rest of you, your alcohol-soaked carcass, the desecrated and ruined temple you call your body, out of your trough-bed! Get up now or I'll pour cold water on you. God knows you need a bath, crud faucet!"
"That does it!" Charlie cried, and he rolled over, lifted the pillow, and tossed it at the alarm strip. His ex-wife's snarling face was displayed on it. She yelled, "That's right! Throw things at me, you unreasonable facsimile of a facsimile! You couldn't hit an elephant's rear!"
Charlie had recorded some of his wife's rantings and had excised various bits and put them together in an unharmonious whole. Some irrational wish to be punished-after all, the divorce had been partly his fault-had made him submit himself in early mornings to her decibelish devilings.
Charlie rolled groaning out of bed, stood up somewhat shakily, and shambled to the bathroom. On the way, he kicked aside a crumpled candy-bar wrapper. He swore at the occupant who had failed to drop it in the disposer. Passing the row of cylinders, he shook his fist at the face in the window of Friday's stoner.
"Slob!"
At least Friday had changed the bedclothes. This time. More than once, Charlie had fallen into a bed smelling of sweat, and, once, of vomit. Despite this, he had not complained to the authorities. That was against the unwritten code of the weedies. But he would leave a nasty message for Robert Chang Selassie.
When he was finished in the bathroom, he went through the door that led into the living room. Beyond the pool table, standing against the eastern wall, was the row of seven cylinders. The only one who inspired a thought in Charlie was Sunday's occupant, Tom Zurvan, who stared through the window. His fierce expression, long hair, and long and thick beard made him look like an Old Testament prophet, a Jeremiah of the fourteenth-century New Era. Charlie blessed him ironically, sure that Zurvan never left anyihing for others to clean up. Charlie also felt sure that Zurvan would not have approved of him.
His ex-wife's voice had stopped, but it would screech out again if he went back to bed or lay down on the sofa or the floor. It was programed to pounce upon him, if necessary, until he had had his first cup of coffee.
He walked down the hall, passing by strips that had been automatically activated. Their voices were a medley and a babel.
" ... learned today that ten thousand more square miles have been reclaimed from the Amazon Basin Desert ..
" ... the bad news is that London, despite enormous efforts, is sinking again at the rate of two inches an obyear ..
" ... answer the Number Seven question, and you will win forty more credits, fully government-authorized. What year, in both pre-New Era and New Era dates, did the Battle of Dallas take place?"
" ... the ancient philosopher, Woody Allen, said that we are all monads without windows. There is some dispute among the historians about the exactness of the reading of the ancient records. Some claim that Allen said nomads, not monads. In which case ..
" ... a vote for Nuchal Kelly Wang is a vote against the continued use of contraceptive chemicals in our drinking water. Stop this obsolete and unwarranted method of birth control! We have room on this great planet for more people! A vote for Wang is a vote for the future! People are crying for children, yet ... "
A reminder strip, one of several, displayed that Charlie was scheduled to take a voter-qualification test next Saturday.
STUDY HARD, YOU DUMMY. REMEMBER THAT YOU FAILED THE TEST LAST TIME.
"What's the difference?" Charlie growled. "Wang is the only one I'd vote for, and he doesn't have a chance."
A news strip in the kitchen greeted him with a view of Pope Sixtus the Eleventh on the porch of his bungalow in Rome. This had been recorded last Saturday during the installation of Ivan Phumiphon Yeti as today's head of the Roman Catholic Church. The camera swept over the fifty or so of the faithful on the small lawn and passed into the house. Ohm paused to watch while getting a stoned four-cup cube of coffee from his PP cabinet. The strip showed the faces of the other six vicars of Christ in their cylinders in a tiny room. They were the faces of old men who looked as if they had suffered much.