widow, whose principal entertainments in life are fucking and playing cards. The Colonel is married, of course, married with two small children, and since he can visit Carlotta only once or twice a week, she's available for romps with other men. It isn't long before Graf enters into a liaison with her. One night, as they're lying in bed together, he questions her about Land, and Carlotta confirms the rumors. Yes, she says, Land and his men crossed into the Territories a little more than a year ago. Why does she tell him this? Her motives aren't quite clear. Perhaps she's smitten with Graf and wants to be helpful, or perhaps the Colonel has put her up to it for hidden reasons of his own. This part has to be handled delicately. The reader can never be certain if Carlotta is luring Graf into a trap or if she simply talks too much for her own good. Don't forget that this is Ultima, the dreariest outpost of the Confederation, and sex, gambling, and gossip are about the only fun to be had.
How does Graf make it across the border?
I'm not sure. Probably a bribe of some sort. It doesn't really matter. The important thing is that he gets across one night, and the second part of the story begins. We're in the desert now. Emptiness all around, a ferocious blue sky overhead, pounding light, and then, when the sun goes down, a chill to freeze the marrow in your bones. Graf rides west for several days, mounted on a chestnut horse who goes by the name of Whitey, so called because of a splash of white between the animal's eyes, and since Graf knows the terrain well from his visit twelve years before, he heads in the direction of the Gangi, the tribe with whom he got along best during his earlier travels and whom he found to be the most peaceful of all the Primitive nations. Late one morning, he finally approaches a Gangi encampment, a small village of fifteen or twenty hogans, which would suggest a population of somewhere between seventy and a hundred people. When he's approximately thirty yards from the edge of the settlement, he calls out a greeting in the local Gangi dialect to signal his arrival to the inhabitants— but no one responds. Growing alarmed now, Graf quickens the horse's pace and trots into the heart of the village, where not a single sign of human life can be seen. He dismounts, walks over to one of the hogans, and pushes aside the buffalo skin that serves as the door to the little house. The moment he enters, he's greeted by the overpowering stench of death, the sickening smell of decomposing bodies, and there, in the dim light of the hogan, he sees a dozen slaughtered Gangi—men, women, and children— all of them shot down in cold blood. He staggers out into the air, covering his nose with a handkerchief, and then one by one inspects the other hogans in the village. They're all dead, every last soul is dead, and among them Graf recognizes a number of people he befriended twelve years before. The girls who have since grown into young women, the boys who have since grown into young men, the parents who have since become grandparents, and not a single one is breathing anymore, not a single one will grow a day older for the rest of time.
Who was responsible? Was it Land and his men?
Patience, doctor. A thing like this can't be rushed. We're talking about brutality and death, the murder of the innocent, and Graf is still reeling from the shock of his discovery. He's in no shape to absorb what's happened, but even if he were, why would he think Land had anything to do with it? He's working on the assumption that his old friend is trying to start a rebellion, to form an army of Primitives that will invade the western provinces of the Confederation. An army of dead men can't fight very well, can it? The last thing Graf would conclude is that Land has killed his own future soldiers.
I'm sorry. I won't interrupt anymore.
Interrupt all you like. We're involved in a complicated story here, and not everything is quite what it seems to be. Take Land's troops, for example. They have no idea what their real mission is, no idea that Land is a double agent working for the Ministry of War. They're a bunch of well-educated dreamers, political radicals opposed to the Confederation, and when Land enlisted them to follow him into the Alien Territories, they took him at his word and assumed they were going to help the Primitives annex the western provinces.
Does Graf ever find Land?
He has to. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any story to tell. But that doesn't happen until later, until several weeks or months down the road. About two days after Graf leaves the massacred Gangi village, he comes across one of Land's men, a delirious soldier staggering through the desert with no food, no water, no horse. Graf tries to help him, but it's already too late, and the kid hangs on for just a few more hours. Before he gives up the ghost, he raves on to Graf in a stream of incoherent babble about how everyone is dead, how they never had a chance, how the whole thing was a fraud from the start. Graf has trouble following him. Who does he mean by
Mr. Blank is about to continue, but before he can get another word out of his mouth, he and the doctor are interrupted by a knocking at the door. Engrossed as he is in elaborating the story, content as he is to be spinning out his version of far-flung, imaginary events, Mr. Blank instantly understands that this is the moment he's been waiting for: the mystery of the door is about to be solved at last. Once the knock is heard, Farr turns his head in the direction of the sound. Come in, he says, and just like that the door opens, and in walks a woman pushing a stainless steel cart, perhaps the same one Anna used earlier, perhaps one that is identical to it. For once, Mr. Blank has been paying attention, and to the best of his knowledge he heard no sound of a lock being opened—nothing that resembled the sound of a bolt or a latch or a key—which would suggest that the door was unlocked to begin with, unlocked all along. Or so Mr. Blank surmises, beginning to rejoice at the thought of his liberty to come and go as he wants, but a moment later he understands that things are possibly not quite as simple as that. It could be that Dr. Farr forgot to lock the door when he entered. Or, even more likely, that he didn't bother to lock it, knowing he would have no trouble overpowering Mr. Blank if his prisoner tried to escape. Yes, the old man says to himself, that's probably the answer. And he, who is nothing if not pessimistic about his prospects for the future, once again resigns himself to living in a state of constant uncertainty.
Hello, Sam, the woman says. Sorry to barge in on you like this, but it's time for Mr. Blank's lunch.
Hi, Sophie, Farr says, simultaneously looking down at his watch and standing up from the bed. I hadn't realized it was so late.
What's happening? Mr. Blank asks, pounding the arm of his chair and speaking in a petulant tone of voice. I want to go on telling the story.
We've run out of time, Farr says. The consultation is over for today.
But I haven't finished! the old man shouts. I haven't come to the end!
I know, Farr replies, but we're working on a tight schedule around here, and it can't be helped. We'll go on with the story tomorrow.
Tomorrow? Mr. Blank roars, both incredulous and confused. What are you talking about? Tomorrow I won't remember a word I said today. You know that. Even I know that, and I don't know a blasted thing.
Farr walks over to Mr. Blank and pats him on the shoulder, a classic gesture of appeasement for one skilled in the subtle art of bedside manner. All right, he says, I'll see what I can do. I have to get permission first, but if you want me to come back this evening, I can probably work it out. Okay?
Okay, Mr. Blank mumbles, feeling somewhat mollified by the gentleness and concern in Fair's voice.
Well, I'm off then, the doctor announces. See you later.
Without another word, he waves good-bye to Mr. Blank and the woman called Sophie, walks to the door, opens it, steps across the threshold, and shuts the door behind him. Mr. Blank hears the click of the latch, but nothing more. No clatter of a bolt, no turning of a key, and he wonders now if the door isn't simply one of those contraptions that locks automatically the instant you close it.
All the while, the woman called Sophie has been busy wheeling the stainless steel cart alongside the bed and transferring the various dishes of Mr. Blank's lunch from the bottom shelf of the cart to the upper surface. Mr. Blank notes that there are four dishes in all and that each plate is hidden by a round metal cover with a hole in the center. Seeing those covers, he is suddenly reminded of room-service meals in hotels, which in turn provokes him to speculate on how many nights he has spent in hotels over the course of his life. Too many to count, he hears a
