Hank Szantho said brusquely, "Tell him what the paraworlds are."
The room, then, was silent.
"Good question," the middle-aged, bony, hard-eyed man said presently.
To Rachmael, Szantho said, "It's von Einem's doing."
"You don't know that," Sheila said quietly.
"He's got some razzle-dazzle gadget he's been playing around with at the Schweinfort labs," Szantho continued. "Undoubtedly stolen from the UN, from where it tests its new top-secret weapons. Okay, I don't, know that, not like I saw it in action or a schematic or something. But I know that's what's behind all this damn paraworld stuff; the UN invented that time-warping device recently and then Gregory Floch — "
"Ploch," Miss de Rungs corrected.
"Gloch," Sheila said bitingly. "Gregory Arnold Gloch. Anyhow, Gloch, Floch, Ploch; what does it matter?" To Rachmael she said, "That freak who switched sides. Possibly you remember, although all the news media because of really incredible UN pressure more or less squelched it, right down the line."
"Yes," he said, remembering. "Five or six years ago." Greg Gloch, the peculiar UN progeny prodigy, at that time beyond doubt the sole genuinely promising new wep-x designer at the Advance-weapons Archives, had, obviously for financial reasons, defected to a private industrial concern which could pay considerably better: Trails of Hoffman. And from there had beyond question passed directly to Schweinfort and its mammoth research facilities.
"From that time-warpage wingding," Hank Szantho continued, appealing to each of them with jerky, rapid gesticulations. "What else could it be? I guess nobody can say because there isn't nothing; it has to be that."
He tapped his forehead, nodding profoundly.
"Nonsense," Miss de Rungs retorted. "A variety of alternate explanations come to mind. Its resemblance to the UN's time-warpage device may be merely — "
"To be fair about this," the middle-aged, hard-eyed man said in a quiet but effective monotone, "we must acquaint this newcomer with each of the major logical alternatives to Mr. Szantho's stoutly defended but only theoretically possible explanation. Most plausible of course — Szantho's theory. Second — in my opinion, at least — the UN itself, since they are the primary utilizers of the device... and it is, as Mr. Szantho pointed out, their invention, merely pirated by Gloch and von Einem. Assuming it was obtained by von Einem at all, and proof of this either way is unfortunately not available to us. Third — "
"From here on," Sheila said to Rachmael, "the plausibility swiftly diminishes. He will not recount the stale possibility that the Mazdasts are responsible, a frightening boogyman we've had to live with but which no one seriously believes, despite what's said again and again. This particular possible explanation properly belongs in the category of the very neurotic, if not psychotic."
"And in addition," Miss de Rungs said, "it may be Ferry alone, with no help from anyone; from von Einem or Gloch. It may be that von Einem is absolutely unaware of paraworlds per se. But no theory can hold water if it assumes that Ferry is ignorant."
"According to you," Hank Szantho muttered.
"Well," Sheila said, "we are here, Hank. This pathetic colony of weevils. Theo Ferry put us here and you know it. THL is the underlying principle governing the dynamics of this world, whatever category this world falls into: pseudo-para or real or full para." She smiled grimacingly at Hank Szantho who returned her brilliant, cold glare dully.
"But if the paraworlds are derived via the UN's time-warpage gadget," the hard-faced middle-aged man said, "then they would constitute a spectrum of equally-real alternative presents, all of which split off at some disputed episode in the past, some antediluvian but critical juncture which someone — whoever it is — tinkered with through the damn gadget we're discussing. And so in no sense are they merely 'para.' Let's face that honestly; if the time-warpage gadget is involved then we might as well end all speculation as to which world is real and which are not, because the term becomes meaningless."
"Meaningless theoretically," Miss de Rungs answered, "but not to anyone here in this room. Or in fact anyone in the world." She corrected herself, "Anyone in this world. We have a massive stake in seeing to it that the other worlds, para or not, stay as they are, since all are so very much worse than this one."
"I'm not even certain about that," the middle-aged man said, half to himself. "Do we know them that thoroughly? We're so traumatized about them. Maybe there's one that's better, to be preferred." He gestured in the direction of the living room with its logorrheic flow of TV noise, the pompous, unending, empty spouting-forth of jejune trash by the nonreal president of what Rachmael — as well as everyone else on Terra — knew to be a nonreal, deliberately contrived and touted hoax-colony.
"But this world can't be para," Gretchen Borbman said, "because we all share it, and that's still our sole criterion, the one point we can hang onto." To Rachmael she said, "That's so important. Because what no one has laid on you yet, mercifully, is the fact that if two of us ever agree at the same time — " She lapsed into abrupt silence, then. And regarded Sheila with a mixture of aversion and fear. "Then out come the proper forms," she went on, at last, with labored difficulty. "Form 47-B in particular."
"Good old 47-B," the curly-haired youth said gratingly, and instantly grimaced, his face contorted. "Yes, we just love it when that's trotted out, when they run their routine check of us."
"The control," Gretchen continued, "signs 47-B after he or she — she, right now — feeds someone's para-world gestalt in on Computer Day, which is generally late Wednesday. So after that it becomes public property; it isn't simply a subjective delusional realm or a subjective anything; it's like an exhibit of antique potsherds under glass in a museum; the entire damn public can file past and inspect it, right down to the last detail. So there would hardly be any doubt if ever two individual paraworlds agreed simultaneously."
"That's what we dread," the fold-fleshed older woman with lifeless dyed hair said in a toneless, mechanical voice, to no one in particular.
"That's the one thing," Gretchen said, "that really does scare us, Mr. ben Applebaum; it really does." She smiled, emptily, the expression of acute, unvarying apprehension calcified into sterile hopelessness over all her features, a mask of utter despair closing up into immobility her petite, clear-hewn face — clear-hewn, and frozen with the specter of total defeat, as if what she and the rest of them dreaded had crept recently close by, far too close; it was no longer theoretical.
"I don't see why a bi-personal view of the same paraworld would — "Rachmael began, then hesitated, appraising Sheila. He could not, however, for the life of him fathom her contrived, cool poise; he made out nothing at all and at last gave up. "Why is this regarded as so — injurious?"
"Injurious," Hank Szantho said, "not to us; hell no — not to us weevils. On the contrary; we'd be better able to communicate among each other. But who gives a gruff about that... yeah, who cares about a little miniscule paltry matter like that — a validation that might keep us sane."
Sheila said, remotely, " 'Sane.' "
"Yes, sane," Hank Szantho snarled at her.
"Folie à deux," Sheila said mildly. To Rachmael she said, "No, not injurious to us, of course. To them." She once more indicated the empty living room — empty except for the din of Omar Jones' recorded unending monolog. "But you see," she explained to Rachmael, raising her head and confronting him tranquilly, "it wouldn't just be real; that is, real in the experiential sense, the way all LSD and similar psycheletic drug-experiences are... they're real, but if one of the experiences is common to more than a single individual the implications are quite great; being able to talk about it and be completely understood is — " She gestured faintly, as if her meaning at this point was obvious, scarcely worth articulating.