Beyond Bedlam

had felt when she learned, a few years ago, that her own

hypoalter, Clara, and his hypoalter, Conrad, had obtained

from the Medicorps a special release to marry. Such rare

marriages in which the same bodies lived together on both

halves of a shift were something to snicker about. They

verged on the antisocial, but could be arranged if the bat-

teries of Medicorps tests could be satisfied.

Perhaps it had been the very intensity of Helen's shame

on learning of this marriage, the nauseous display of con-

formity so typical of his wife, that had first given Bill the

idea of seeking out Clara, who had dared convention to make

such a peculiar marriage. Over the years, Helen had continued

blaming all their troubles on the fact that both egos of him-

self were living with, and intimate with, both egos of her-

self.

So Bill had started cutting down on his drugs, the curiosity

having become an obsession. What was this other part of

Helen like, this Clara who was unconventional enough to

want to marry only Bill's own hypoalter, in spite of almost

certain public shame?

He had first seen Clara's face when it formed on a visio-

phone, the first time he had forced Conrad to shift prema-

turely. It was softer than Helen's. The delicate contours were

less purposefully set, gayer.

'Clara Manz?' Bill had sat there staring at the visiophone

for several seconds, unable to continue. His great fear that

she would immediately report him must have been naked on

his face.

He had watched an impish suspicion grow in the tender

curve of her lips and her oblique glance from the visiophone.

She did not speak.

'Mrs. Manz,' he finally said. 'I would like to meet you in

the park across from your home.'

To this awkward opening he owed the first time he had

heard Clara laugh. Her warm, clear laughter, teasing him,

tumbled forth like a cloud of gay butterflies.

'Are you afraid to see me here at home because my hus-

band might walk in on us?'

Bill had been put completely at ease by this bantering indi-

cation that Clara knew who he was and welcomed him as an

intriguing diversion. Quite literally, the one person who could

not walk in on them, as the ancients thought of it, was his

own hypoalter, Conrad Manz.

Bill finished retouching his make-up and hurried to leave

the apartment. But this time, as he passed the table where

Mary's dinner was set out, he decided to write a few words

to the child, no matter how empty they sounded to himself.

The note he left explained that he had some early work to do

at the microfilm library where he worked.