be able to quit using the drug altogether.
All was well with his world — and the wondrously heartening aspect of it was that things could only get better…
Mathieu adjusted the hang of his jacket to his satisfaction, smiled at his reflection in the mirror, and sauntered back to his desk.
Chapter 10
Dallen had endured the emptiness and quietness of the house for as long as his temperament would allow, and now he had begun to get a last-man-in-the-world feeling.
From the front window he could see most of one shallow slope of the city's North Hill, and there was no sign of movement anywhere in that expanse of nostalgic blue dusk. The progressive appearance of lights — distant speckles of gold, peach and amber — provided little comfort, because he knew that automatic switches were producing exactly the same effect in the uninhabited districts of Limousin, Scottish Hill and Gibson Park. Everything looked right for the tourists gliding down from orbit on the evening shuttle, but from where Dallen stood it was almost possible to believe that Earth's last citizens had been spirited away while he was dozing.
The words of the old song tried to invade his mind…
But he blocked them off, turning away from the window to walk through silent rooms in which his imagination still detected a hint of urine. Yesterday there had been a message from Roy Picciano explaining that he had, in view of Dallen's late return, taken Cona to the clink for extra tests which would last at least three days. Give yourself a break, the recording had concluded, take a couple of days off.
At first Dallen had been unable to accept the advice. The sortie to Cordele had left him physically tired, but he had driven to the clinic and spent time with Cona and Mikel. She had been bored and then angered by his attempts to get her to speak, and the boy had been asleep in his cot in the adjoining room, one hand clutching a tiny yellow truck. Dallen sought consolation in the fact that Mike! still had a special liking for toy vehicles, but it was a desperately thin lifeline. The infant personality had been erased before it had properly formed — so how could it ever be retrieved? You want a replacement for your baby son, sir? Must have a fondness for miniature cars? Wait just a moment, sir — we've got the exact mode! you need…
Dallen had left the clinic with a tearing pain in his throat and a dark chill gathering in his mind. He could go to the chief of police with a new theory about the five-week-old crime, but Lashbrook would seize on the lack of obvious motive as an excuse to take no action. In any case, Dallen reminded himself, he had no wish for the culprit to be taken by the authorities and shipped off to Botany Bay. The punishment would have to be much more drastic, person-airy administered, a venting of suppurative poison, and for that he would have to find the guilty person unaided.
And there still remained the enigma of the motive. Glib words about a Luddite Special being its own motive explained everything and nothing. What he needed was a credible reason for somebody who worked in City Hall to use such a device on an innocent woman and child, and his brain seemed quite unequal to the task. Grief, bitterness and undirected hatred were no aids to analytical thought.
It was in that state of mind that Dallen had fallen asleep in an armchair after reaching home. When he had wakened in the middle of the night there had seemed no point in transferring to a lonely bed, so he had stayed in the chair till morning. A full day spent in brooding, snacking and dozing had further reduced his drive, and now he felt too dispirited to think at all. The house had become a tomb, a prison, a place from which he had to escape. Ceasing his aimless drifting, he took a cool shower, shaved and changed into fresh clothing, all the while telling himself that he had no definite plans, that he might be going to the gymnasium or to a bar or to his office. It was not until he had actually started the engine of his car and had to choose a destination that he acknowledged he was going to see Silvia London.
He drove south with the top down, following the route he had traversed the previous day with Rick Renard. A few major stars were visible through the city's canopy of diffused light, forming a sparse background to Polar Band One, which was nearing zenith. The north-south line of space stations and parked ships had once been a brilliant spectacle in the night sky, but it had dimmed as the era of the great migrations had drawn to a close. Now it was mainly composed of irreparable hulks, many of which had been partially cannibalised to enable other ships to make final departures for Orbitsville. Dallen could only see it as a symbol of Earth's decline and he had no regrets when turning west removed the thinly jewelled braid from his field of view.
Lights were on all over the London residence and its extensions, and the presence of at least twenty cars on the apron of gravel added to the impression that there was a sizable party going on inside. Dallen, who had been expecting a much smaller gathering, swung his car into a vacant space and got out, discovering that he was dose to Renard's gold Rollac. He hesitated for a second, suddenly dubious about entering the house, then noticed Silvia at a ground-floor window in animated conversation with someone he could not see. The vertical rays from an overhead lamp emphasised the pouting fullness of her lower Up and highlighted her breasts, making her look impossibly voluptuous, like a sexist illustration on a cassette cover. He watched her for a moment, feeling like a voyeur, and went into the house.
'Welcome to this informal meeting of Anima Mundi Foundation!' His voice came from a thin, high-shouldered man of about sixty who was standing in the centre of the square hail. He was casually dressed in slacks and floral shirt, but his silver-bearded face had a conscious dignity which would have been more in keeping with donnish robes. A bar of unnaturally high colour reached from cheekbone to cheekbone across the saddle of his nose.
'Is this your first visit to one of our discussion evenings?' he said, giving Dallen a formal smile.
'Yes, but I only came to…' Dallen broke off as he realised he was speaking to a holomorph. The visual illusion was perfect, only betrayed by a slight studio quality to the voice. It had been beamed at Dallen's ears too accurately, robbing it of any acoustic interaction with the considerable volume of sound coming from rooms on either side of the hall.
'In that case let me introduce myself,' the holo-morph said. 'I am Karal London, and I offer you some wonderful news — you, my friend, are going to live for ever.'
'Is that a fact?' Dallen replied uneasily, loathe to converse with the unseen computer which was directing the holomorph's responses.
'Not only is it a fact, my friend — it is the single most important truth in the cosmos. You will have ample opportunity to discuss it during the evening — and there is a comprehensive range of study aids, all available to you free of charge — but let me begin by asking you one vital question. What is…?'
The question was lost to Dallen as the door at his right opened and the buoyantly curvaceous figure of Rick Renard appeared, martini glass in hand. He grinned on seeing Dallen, walked straight to the holomorph and shoved his knee into the vicinity of its groin.
'Out of the way, you silly old fart' he commanded, stepping into the solid image and causing it to flow and fragment. 'This really balls the whole system. Old Karal programmed the set-up himself before he left for Orbitsville, but he was too conceited to allow for anybody being disrespectful enough to stand right inside him. The computer just doesn't know how to react.'
'I'm not surprised,' Dallen said, reluctantly amused.
'Wait to you see this.' Renard edged backwards a little, allowing London's image to reassemble itself in front of him, now apparently with four arms, two of which belonged to Renard and were waving like those of a Balinese dancer.
'…long been postulated that mind is a universal property of matter, so that even elementary particles would be endowed with it to some degree,' the grotesque image was saying in London's voice. 'We now know that mind
