MINDKILLER

by

Spider Robinson

BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK
            
An excerpt from this book appeared in Omni magazine
under the title, "God Is an Iron."
The song "$29," from the album Blue Valentine
  (Asylum 6E-162) by Tom Waits,
is copyright O 1978 by Fifth Floor Music, Inc., ASCAP,
and is excerpted by permission of the composer/artist.
This Berkley book contains the compote
text of the original hardcover edition.
It has been completely reset in a typeface
designed for easy reading, and was printed
         from new film.
           MINDKILLER
A Berkley Book/publishd by arrangement with
   Holt, Rinehart and Winston
        PRINTrNG HISTORY
Holt, Rinehart edition/Septembr 1982
  Berkley dition/November 1983
      All rights reserved.
Copyright O 1982 by Spider Robinson.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,
by mimeograph or any other means, without percussion.
For information address: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
383 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10017.
       ISBN: 0425-06288-0
   A BERKLEY BOOK ~ TM 757,375
Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
                
This book is dedicated
   to Psyche
and to Allison.
       
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,

In writing this novel I
have borrowed from the
ideas, insights, and
observations of many
people. In no particular
order, they are:

  Dr. km Lynch, my oldest
friend, who first put me
onto brain reward; Larry
Niven, whose novella
"Death by Ecstasy" is
probably the definitive
story on the subject; Dr.
ferry Pournelle, Dr. Adam
Reed of Rockefeller
University; Bob Shaw;
Aryeh Routtenberg, whose
article in the November
1978 Scientific American
was the final spark for
the creation of this
book; John D. MacDonald;
Robert A. Heinlein; and
of course Olds and
Milner, who started the
whole thing by poking
electrodes into rat
brains at McGill
University in the l950s.
None of these gentlemen
is to blame for what I
have done with their
ideas; as I write, only
two are even aware that I
have borrowed from them.

Research assistance was
given me by Bob Atkinson,
Bill vii

viii Spider Robinson

Jones, John Bell, George Allanson,
and Andrew Gilbert; Bob Atkinson
typed more than half the manuscript
while my arm was in a cast.
Invaluable suggestions were made by
my editor, Donald Hutter of Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, and by my
agent, Kirby McCauley. Jeanne, my
other leg, read the whole thing in
progress, called me back from the
blind alleys, and helped me patch the
leaks. Heartfelt thanks to them all.
Oh, and thanks to the Gunner in
Brattleboro for the Atcheson Assault
Twelve and to the Sea Breeze Inn in
St. Margaret's Bay for the hos-
pitality.

  Any resemblance between characters
in this book and real people, living
or dead, is unintentional. A
character's opinions should never
necessarily be taken to be those of
the author, but I would like at this
time to specifically repudiate any
derogatory opinions about the city of
Halifax expressed by characters
hereinafter. It is the nicest city I
have ever inhabited. But try
persuading a New Yorker of that!

  For those interested in influences,
this book was written on a steady
diet of Charlie Parker, Jon
Hendricks, Frank Zappa, John Lennon,
Tom Waits, and the Dixie Dregs.

 HALIFAX, 1 98 1

1

1 994 Halifax Harbor at night is a
beautiful sight, and June usually
finds the MacDonald Bridge lined
with lovers and other appreciators.
But in Halifax even June can turn on
one with icy claws.

  A thermometer sheltered from the
brisk wind would have shown a little
below Centigrade zero. Norman Kent
had the magnificent scenery all to
himself.

  He was aware of the view; it was
before his face, and his eyes were
not closed. He was aware of the cold
too, because occasionally when he
worked his face frozen tears would
break and fall from his cheeks.
Neither meant anything to him. He
was even vaguely aware of the sound
of steady traffic behind him,
successive dopplers like the
rhythmic moaning of some wounded
giant. They meant nothing to him
either. On careful reflection Norman
could think of nothing that did mean
anything to him, and so he put one
leg over the outer rail.

                  1
                  
2 Spider Robinson

A voice came out of the night. "Hey,
Cap, don't!"

  He froze for a long moment.
Running footsteps approached from
the Dartmouth end of the bridge.
Norman turned and saw the man coming
up fast in the wash of passing
headlights, and that decided him. He
got the other leg over and stood
teetering on the narrow ledge, the
wind full in his face. His hat blew
off, and insanely he spun around
after it and incredibly he caught
it, and was caught himself at wrist
and forearm by two very strong
hands. They dragged him bodily back
over the rail again, nearly breaking
his ann, and deposited him hard on
his back on the pedestrian walkway.
His breath left him, and he lay
there blinking up at bridge
structure and midnight sky for
perhaps half a minute.

  He became aware that his unwanted
rescuer was sitting beside him, back
against the rail and to the wind,
breathing heavily. Norman rolled his
head, felt cold stone bite his
cheek, saw a large man in a shabby
coat, silhouetted against a pool of
light. From the frosted breath he
knew that the large man was shaking
his head.

  Norman lifted himself on his
elbows and sat beside the other,
lifting his collar against the cold.
He fumbled out a pack of Players
Light and lit one with a blameless
lighter. He held it out to the man,
who accepted it silently, and lit
another for himself.

  "My wife left me," Norman said.
"Six years this August, and she left
me. Six years! Said she married too
soon, she had to 'fmd herself.' And
the semester's almost over, I've
bitched it all up, nothing at all
lined up for the summer, and there's
a really good chance I won't be
hired back in September. Old MacLeod
with his hoary hints about austerity
and sacrifices and a department
chairman's heavy responsibility, he
wouldn't even come right out and
tell me! Firul herself, for Christ's
stinking sake! Got herself a
nineteen-year-old plumbing student,
be's going to help her find
herself." He broke off and smoked
for a while. When he could speak
again he said, "Perhaps I could have
handled either one, but the two
together is . . . it's only fair to
tell you, I'm going to try again,
and you can't stop me forever."

The other spoke for the first time.
His voice was deep and

MINDKILLER3

gravelly and dispassionate. "Don't
let me stop you."

  Norman turned to stare. "Then
why_r' He stopped then, for the knife
picked up the oncoming headlights
very well.

  "I never meant to stop you, Cap," the
large man said calmly. "Just, uh heh,
heh hold you up a little."

  He was not even troubling to keep
the knife hidden from the traffic.
Norman glanced briefly at the
oncoming cars; as in a slapstick
movie sequence he saw four drivers,
one after the other, do the identical
single-take and then return their
eyes grimly to the road. He yanked
his own eyes back to the liaise. It
was quite large and looked sharp. The
large man held it as though he knew
how, and all at once it came to
Norman that he had cashed a check
today, and had two hundred New
dollars in twenties in his wallet.

  He let go of his cigarette and the
wind took it. He put his gloved left
hand palm up on his lap. On it he
placed his wallet, his cigarettes, a
half-amply pack of joints, and the
small lighter. As he peeled the watch
from the inside of his wrist he noda
d that both hands were shaking badly.
Oh, yes, he told himself, that's
right, it is very cold. He added the
watch to the pile, worked the right
glove off against his hip, and took
his pocket change in that hand.

  "On my lap, brother," the large man
directed. "Then go. Back to town or
over the side, it's all the same to
me."

  Nonnan sighed deeply, and flung
everything high and to his right.
Nearly all of it went over the rail
and into the harbor, a few bills were
blown into traffic and toward the
other rail.

  The large man sat motionless. His
eyes did not follow the loot but
remained fixed on Norman, who stared
back.

  At last the large man got to his
feet. "Cap," he said, shaldag his
head again, "you got a lot of hard
bark on you." The knife disappeared.
"Sorry I bothered you." He turned and
began walking back toward Dartmouth,
hunching against the wind, still
smoking Norman's cigarette.

  "You gutless bastard," Norman
whispered, and wondered who he was
talking to.

Norman Kent was thirty years old. He
was one hundred and sixty-five
centimeters tall and weighed
fifty-five kilograms

4 Spider Robinson

although, having been horn in
America in 1965, he habitually
thought of himself as five-five and
a hundred and twenty pounds. Despite
his actual stature, people usually
remembered him as being of average
height: there was a solidity to his
body and movements. It implied a
strength and physical conditioning
he had not actually possessed since
leaving the United States Anny six
years before. His face was passable,
with wide-set grey eyes, a perfect
aquiline nose, and a chin that would
have seemed strong if it had not
been topped by a mouth a fraction
too wide. Overdeveloped folds at
each corner of the mouth made it
seem, when at rest, to be a faint,
smug smile.

  One could have flattered him most
by calling him elegant. He had
shaved for his suicide. The suit was
tasteful enough to befit an
assistant professor of English it
was his best suit  and the topcoat
was pure quality. At thirty his
hairline had not yet receded
visibly. He wore his hair moderately
long; the wind had whipped it into a
fantastic sculpture and kept
revising the design. The only
nonconformist indulgence he
permitted himself was his necktie,
which looked like a riot in a paint
shop.

  After a time he put his glove back
on, got stiffly to his feet, and
left the bridge at the Halifax end,
stamping his feet to restore
circulation. He had not known
genuine physical fear in six years,
and he had forgotten the
exhilaration that comes with
survival. It was a twenty-minute
walk home, and he savored every
step. The smell of the harbor, the
seedy waterfront squalor of Hollis
Street, the brave, forlorn hookers
too frozen to display their wares,
the fake stained glass in the front
windows of Skipper's Lounge, the
special and inimitable color of
leaves backlit by a street light,
the clacking sounds of traffic
lights and the laboring power plant
of Victoria General Hospital  all
were brand new again, treasures to
be appreciated for the first time.
He wallced happily, mindless as a
child. When he reached his apartment
tower on Wellington Street, he was
whistling. On the way up in the
elevator, he graduated to humming,
and by the time he reached his floor
he was singing the words too,
whereupon he was amused to discover
that the tune he had been humming so
merrily was the old Tom Lehrer song,
"Poisoning Pigeons in the Park."

Half the lights were out in the
hall, as usual, including the

MINDKILLER 5

one by his door, but he did not care.
He felt preternaturally observant, as
though all his organs of perception
had been recently fine-tuned and the
gain stepped up, and along with this
came such a feeling of euphoria that
when he reached his apartment door
and perceived coming out from under
it not the sounds of the tuner, which
he had left on, but the soft light of
the lamp, which he had not, the
implications failed to disturb him in
the slightest. Got to be junkies, he
thought calmly, Lois is off on the
Mountain for the weekend. Ho ho.
Ought to go right back downshaft and
wake up old Julius, have him phone
this in. Yes indeed.

  As recently as the night before, he
would have done precisely that, while
congratulating himself on being too
much of an old soldier to walk
unheeding into danger.

  Still singing, he took his keys
from his pocket, malting a noisy
production of it. He was heartened to
notice that the security camera over
his door was intact, as were the ones
at either end of the hall his
antagonists must be idiots. Ibe
cameras did not depend on visible
light. Let's see, he thought, the gun
is in the bottom left-hand drawer of
the desk: one long run and I'm there,
claw it open from underneath, kick
the legs out from under the bookcase
to spoil their aim, and roll behind
the corner sofa it'll stop bullets.
Then try to negotiate.

  A part of his mind was starded to
learn that a mild-_d assistant
professor could undertake anything
like this so checrily it had been a
long time but he was in no wise
afraid. It was not fear that made
time slow so drastically for him now,
but something more like joy. He
shucked off topcoat, jacket, tie, and
gloves. He unlocked the door, dropped
into a sprinter's crouch so as to
convey his head into the room at an
unexpected height, and threw the door
open hard, but not so hard that it
would rebound into him. He got a good
start, clearing the frame just as the
door got out of his way, staying low
and gaining speed with every step,
still singing lustily about poisoning
pigeons in the park.

  The room was poorly lit by the
lamp, but he saw the desk at once,
unrifled, drawers all closed, gun
presumably undiscovered. Glance left:
no hostiles visible. Glance right:
one in deep shadow, very long hair,
half hidden by thecouch, possibly

6 Spider Robinson

more in the hall or other rooms. He
wanted to study the one he could see
for at least another tenth of a
second, because both hands were
beginning to come up and he wanted
to know what was in them, but his
subconscious insisted on yaolting
his gaze back in front of him again.
It was very nearly in tune, but by
the time he saw the Village Voice
lying where he had left it on the
floor, he was committed to stepping
on it. His feet went out from under
him and he went airborne. He lowered
his head automatically, and even
managed to get both hands up in
front of him, with the net result
that the top of his shall impacted
with great force against both fists.
He dropped heavily on his face on
the carpet.

  Remarkably, he was unstunned. He
sprang to his knees at once and
yanked the drawer open, expecting at
any second to experience some kind
of impact. The gun seemed to spring
into his hand; he whirled on one
knee and located the longhaired one,
frozen in an attitude of shock.
"Hold it right there," Norman
rapped.

  The other burst into sudden,
uproarious, unmistakably feminine
laughter.

  Now he was stunned. He lowered the
gun involuntarily, then simply let
go. It landed unheeded and safely,
the safety still locked. He fell off
his heels and sat down hard on the
carpet.

  "Jesus Christ in rhinestones," he
said hoarsely. "Maddy. What are you
doing here?"

  She could not stop laughing.
"Don't . . . don't kill me,
brother," she managed, and doubled
over.

  He found that he was giggling
himself, and it felt very good, so
he let it build into deep laughter
until he too was doubted over. The
aching of his hands and the
throbbing of his head were
hilarious. The shared laughter went
on for a long dmc, and when it might
have stopped she said, "Poisoning
pigeons," and they were off again.
It was one of the great laughs.

  At last she came around from
behind the couch and sat in front of
him, taldng both his hands. "Hello,
old younger brother," she said in a
Swiss French accent. "It is very
good to see you again."

  "It is incredibly good to see
you," he responded enthusiastically,
and hugged her close.

MINDKILLER 7

  Madeleine Kent was four years older
than her brother, and a good eight
centimeters taller. The resemblance
was fairly pronounced: she had his
audiotape-colored hair, his perfect
nose and perfect teeth, and on her
the overwidc mouth looked good. But a
different character had built on
those features; a polite stranger
would have called her not elegant but
bold. Or possibly daring . . . but
not quite reckless, there was too
much wry wisdom in the eyes for that.
The facial difference between the
siblings was subtle but unmistakable.
Norman looked like a man who had been
around; Madeleine looked like a woman
who had been around and still was.
Her voice was deeper than he
remembered, a throaty contralto that
was quite sexy. Her clothes were
impeccable and expensive. Her arms
were-strong.

  The hug stretched out, and then
they both became selfconscious and
disengaged. Madeleine smiled
uneasily, then got to her feet and
stepped back a few paces. She turned
away and put both hands on a
bookcase.

  "I'm a little bit embarrassed at
how good it is to see you," she said.

"You speak English like a Swiss," he
said, getting up.

  She started. "Do 1? Why, I do." She
made an effort and dropped the
accent. "Habit, I guess. An American
is not a good thing to be in
Switzerland these days."

  "Why is it that I'm embarrassed
too? At how good it is to see you."

  She pulled a volume at random from
the bookcase and appeared to examine
it closely. "Why I am embarrassed is
that you and I have never been the
very best of friends."

"Maddy "

  "Let me say it, no? It's been ten
years, I don't write many letters.
I'll be honest, in that ten years I
might have thought of you ten times.
Well, give or take five."

He had to smile. "Much the same with
me."

  She turned to face him, and smiled
when she saw his smile. But hers was
tight, unconvincing. "Now here I am
on your doorstep. Past your doorstep,
there are four suitcases in your
bedroom. I needed a place to be, and
it came to me that you are the only
close family I have left in all the
world, and Norman, I need close
family very badly right now. Can I
stay here for a while?"

8 Spider Robinson

  Norman was skill smiling, but his
eyes glistened in the lamplight.
"Maddy,if you haven't written much
in ten years, you haven't left any
letters unanswered either. I have
this crazy impulse to apologize
because I didn't pop up and see you
when I was in Africa. I will confess
here and now that if you had called
ahead first, I would have tried to
put you off. But the moment I
recognized you, it came to me that
you are all the family I have left
in the world. As you speak, I
realize that I need close family
very badly now too. Please stay."

  Relief showed in her face, and
they hugged again, without
reservation this dme.

  "Have you eatenr' he asked,
fetching his outer clothes from the
hallway.

  "No. I showed the security guard
downstairs Julius, is its. my
identification and got him to let me
in, but I didn't feel right prowling
around in your home while you "

"Our home. Let's eat."

"Well coffee? Black and sweet?"

"And toasted English, lots of jam,
Irish in the coffee."

"Merveilleux~ Go ahead, I'll join
you in a minute."

  She was true to her word; he had
only just finished producing two
cups of fresh coffee and toast, a
sixty-second job, when she came into
the kitchen, carrying a package of
unmistakable shape: a disc.

  "A present for you," she said. "It
was quite a job getting it past
customs."

  Norman finished pouring hastily
and unwrapped his present, wondering
what program she had brought him.
But it was not a floppy disc, but an
old-fashioned vinyl audio-only
record.

  It was a copy of Lambert,
Hendricks, and Ross's first Co
lumbia recording, "The Hottest New
Group in razz." Not the 1974
reissue, the original. It was older
than he was, one of the first stereo
jazz albums. The cardboard jacket
was also original, in impeccable
condidon.

"Holy God," he breathed.

  The inner sleeve was new, a
paper-and-plastic disc prey server.
He took it from the jacket and slid
the record out with a practiced
hand, touching it only at the rim
and label. The disc was immaculate.
It did not appear ever to have been
played,

MINDKILLER 9

it had that special sheen. He could
not guess at its worth in dollars.
Not many people bothered with the
obsolete disc format for their music
these days; simply as an artifact,
the thing was priceless.

She saw his awe. "I chose wisely,
thenT'

  "Dear God, Maddy, it's " Words
failed him. '1hank you. Thank you.
God, if they'd caught you at customs,
they'd have had your bloody head."

  'A remembered that you liked their
music, and I didn't tbinlc you had
this one in your collection. I was
certain you didn't have it in disc
form."

  'Y've heard it through twice in my
life. It's never been accessed. There
might be half a dozen copies in North
Amenca, and none of them would be
virgin. Maddy, where did you gal it? Now
did you get its'

  "A present from from a friend.
Forget it. Where do I sleep tonight,
the couch?" She picked up her coffee
and looked far sugar.

  He fetched it, and found that he
was terrified of drippy his new
treasure but could not bear to set it
down anywhere in the kitchen.
"Nonsense, I've got a bed set up in
the den, I'll doss there and you take
the queen-size." He went to the
living room, stored the record safely
by the antique turntable, loolced at
it and sighed, and returned to the
kitchen. She had already demolished
her English muffin and finished half
her coffee. He thought: She was
really hungry and she waited for me
to get back home. Maybe this is going
to work out okay.

''Listen," he said, "I don't know how
to thank you."

She smiled. "I'm glad you're
pleased."

  Her smile seemed to fade a bit too
quickly. "Hey, I'm sorry. You spoke
of bed."

"Oh, I didn't mean right now,
necessarily . . . unless you "

  "Wait a minute now, let me get the
chronology straight. It's " He tried
to look at his watch, but it was not
there.

"Ten o'clock," she supplied.

  "Then it must be the middle of the
morning by your internal clock. You
must be dead on your feet...or have I
got it backwards?"

"Here, it's simple. I left my
apartment in Zurich at 4:30

10 Spider Robinson

P.M., flew straight to London, and
caught an Air Canada flight to here.
Total transit time, ten hours, eight
of that in the air. I got here half
an hour ago, at 9:30 Atlantic
Standard Time. By my clock it s 3:00
A.M.

'When let's get you to bed "

  "Hold it. First of all, my
customary bedtime is about 2:00 A.M.

"But jet lag "

  " is not so bad traveling west as
it is traveling east. I chased the
sun all day, so for me it has only
been a few hours since sunset. I'm
not sleepy yet." She Hmished her
coffee. "But that's not it. You
don't look at all sleepy. . ."

He considered it. "No. Not at all."

  ". . . and somehow I get the
impression that you have a good deal
on your mind that you want very much
to talc about."

He considered that. "Yes, I do. How
did you know?"

  She hesitated. "Well, partly from
the fact that Lois isn't here and
there's no trace of her in the
apartment and you haven't said a
word about her."

  He winced. "Ah, yes," he said, in
halfhearted imitation of W. C.
Fields, but dropped it at once. "And
there would, I suppose, be a general
overall spoor of the bachelor male
in his anguish about the place,
wouldn't there? Laundry all about,
bed unmade, ashtrays full "

" bottles empty," she agreed. "If
you've been having any

  fun lately, it hasn't been here."

"It hasn't been anywhere. Till you
showed up."

  "Norman, if . . . look, if you need
any money, just to tide you over, I
can "

  "Money? What gave you the idea I
needed money? That's the only
problem I don't have."

  "Well, you've no hat your hair
looks like something out of Dali.
And I know you pawned your watch I
can see the little stickum patch
where it used to be on your wrist."

  He looked blank for a second, and
then suddenly burst into laughter.
"I will be go to hell!"

She looked politely puzzled.

  "That's just too perfect." He gave
himself to his laughter for a
moment. "No, it's all right, I'll
tell you. Look, let's go

MINDKILLER 1 1

into the living room; this is going
to take a while."

  They took freshened cups of coffee
refaced with Bushrnill's. It was
excellent coffee, and he was faintly
miffed that she had not commented on
it. Perhaps in the circles she'd been
traveling in, fret-rate coffee was
taken for granted.

'Now, what's so funny?" she said when
they were seated.

  '7he watch and the hat. The watch
is at this moment lying on the bottom
of Halifax Harbor, and the hat is
almost certainly floating somewhere
in the selfsame harbor. That's the
funny part. If it wasn't for that
hat, I'd undoubtedly be down there
with the watch do you know I simply
never gave it a thought until you
mentioned it?" He chuckled again.

  "What do you mean?" she said, and
being self-involved he missed the
urgency in her tone.

  "Well, it's kind of embarrassing.
What I was doing about the time you
were talking Julius into letting you
in here, I think I was committing
suicide."

  He glanced down at his coffee, and
so he failed to notice that at that
last word she actually relaxed
slightly.

  "Seems silly now, but it made sense
at the time. I wasn't toying-with the
idea, I was tucking well doing it until
I was stopped by a Bad Samaritan."

  He narrated the story of lds
interrupted suicide, cheerily and in
some detail.

  "You see?" he finished. "If I
hadn't tried to save that idiot hat,
he'd never have gotten me, I'd have
been over the side and gone The
damned thing was important enough to
give up dying for, and from that
instant until the time you mentioned
it, I never gave it another thought.
It must have blown off the bridge
while I was being mugged!"

  He began to laugh again, and to his
utter astonishment the fourth "ha"
came out "oh!" as did the 95th and sixth,
each harsher and louder than the
last, by which time he was jackknifed
so drastically that he fell forward
between his own knees. She had begun
to move on the second "oh!"; her knees
hit the carpet at the same instant as
his, and she caught him before he
could land on his face. With
unsuspected strength she heaved him
up into a kneeling position and
wrapped her arms around him. It broke
the stuttering rhythm of his
diaphragm, and line

12 Spider Robinson

an engine catching he settled into
great cyclic sobs that filled and
emptied his chest.

  They rocked together on their
knees, clutching like a pair of
Frowners, and his sorrow was a long
time draining. Well before awareness
returned to him, his hips began to
move against her in the unconscious
instinct of one who has been too
near death, but she did something
neither verbal nor physical, that
was neither acceptance nor
rejection, and something in him
understood and he stopped. It did
not come to his conscious attention
because he had none then; his memory
banks were in playback mode. Firmly
but not suddenly, she moved so that
she was sitting on the rug and he
was lying across her lap, and he
flowed like quicksilver into the new
embrace without knowing it.
Something about the position changed
his weeping, or perhaps it was sheer
lack of air, the sobs came shorter
and closer together, the pitch rose
and fell wildly. He had been weeping
as a man does; now he wept as a
child. It might have been neither
the position nor anoxia, just
childhood imprinting of the smell of
Big Sister, who has time for your
smashed toe when Mother is at work
and Dad is drinking. More than one
species of pain left him in that
weed ing, more than one wound or one
kind of wound closed over and began
to scab. After a time his sobs
trailed off into deep slow
breathing, and she stroked his hair.

  His first conscious thought was
that something was hurting his
cheek. It was one of the silver
cashew-shaped buttons of her blouse,
and when he moved he knew it had
left an imprint that would last an
hour or more. With that, reality
came back in a rush, and he rolled
away and sat up. Her arms, which had
been so strong a moment ago, fell
away at once when he moved, and she
met a searching gaze squarely. He
looked for scorn or amusement or
pity, and found none of them. As an
afterthought he looked within
himself for scorn or shame or
self-pity, and again came up empty.

  "Lord have mercy," he said
shakily. "I thought I got it all out
in that laugh before." He grinned
experimentally. 'Thanks, sis."

She had found Kleenex. "Sure. Here."

Why do people always roll up their
eyes when they wipe

MINDKILLER 1 3

away tears? he wondered, and thought
at once of the last time he had
wondered that. 'God, I missed you at
the funeral, Mad."

She smiled briefly.

  "I'm sorry, stupid thing to say, of
course you couldn't come. I just
meant "

  "It's all right, Norman. Really."
She patted his hand. "I said goodbye
to both of them in my heart before I
left for Europe, and they to me."

"Yes." They both smiled now.

"Can you tell me about it now?" she
asked.

"Why I was trying to do myself in
tonight? I think so."

  He sat on the couch again and lit a
cigarette. Seeing this, she produced
a pack of Gauloise from her vest and
raised an inquiring eyebrow. This
surprised and pleased him. To a
smoker of North American cigarettes,
Gauloise smell like a burning
outhouse a fact of which most
Gauloise smokers are sublimely
unaware. She had not smoked since she
arrived, had not even asked until she
was sure that he smoked himself.

  He nodded permission at once, and
she lit up gratefully. "Now we're
even," he said, making them both gun.

  "All right," he went on. "Lois. I
suppose I should start from the
beginning. I'm just not certain where
that is."

"Then do it backwards. Where does she
live now?"

  Norman pointed toward the living
room window. "About a thousand meters
that way and eight floors down. A
secondand-third-story duplex
apartment across the street. They're
away for the moment, at Lois's place
in the Valley. She's living with a
third-year plumbing student named,
God help us all, Rock, and she's
still working at the V.G. Hospital up
the street from here. She's got a
floor now, Neurosurgery."

"How long has she been gone?"

He smiled. "That's another of those
difficult questions."

"When did she move out?" she amended
patiently.

  "Well, over a period of several
months, but she took her TV six
months ago. I've always sort of
considered that conclusive. After
that she came by about twice a week
for a while, to pick up something or
other or share some new insight, and
since then she seems to find some
reason to drop by on the average of
every other week. Her appearances are
always un

14 Spider Robinson

announced and usually inconvenient
for me, and I always let her in. I
would estimate that we fuck two
visits out of three. She is always
gone in the morning. It's a lot like
having a leg rebrolcen every time
it's begun to knit." His voice was
calm

unemotional.

"What is this Rock like?"

  "Aside from biographical trivia,
location of aunts and so forth, all
Lois has ever seen fit to tell me is
that he is nineteen, that he lets
her be herself, and that he is a
better lover than me. From my own
experience I can report only that he
is very large and very fast and all
over hair and has knuckles like pig
Iron.''

"You fought with him?"

  "Oh, yes. As you saw from my
entrance tonight, I haven't lost
that fine edge of physical
conditioning I had in the army. The
trained killing machine. I lost a
tooth I was fond of, and a suit I
wasn't. So I sucker-punched him.
Lois gave me hell, and carried him
offstage cooing sympathetically."

"Why did she leave you?"

He made no answer, did not move a
muscle.

"Why did she say she was leaving?"

  The answer was slow in coming. "As
nearly as I can understand it, her
gist was that in living with her for
six years I have acquired some sense
of who she is and what she's lice.
This, to her way of thinking, limits
her. Makes it impossible for her to
become something new."

"You disagree."

  "Not at all. I see and concede the
point. People tend to behave the way
you expect them to, in direct ratio
to your certainty and their own
insecurity. It is why marriages
often require extended solo
vacations. I would happily have
given her one if she'd asked for it.
Instead she "

"Perhaps she didn't want to ask."

" had to go and what?"

"Nothing."

  " to go and throw everything away,
smash the whole business. I came
home one night at the usual time and
found her in bed with another man.
Absolutely the first I knew of any
serious discontent, and my God, the
blowup we had. You

MINDKILLER 1 5

know, she had never once yelled at me
before, never once lost her temper
and told me to I she walked out and
didn't come back for a week. I this
is only my perspective, my biased  I
don't believe that I ever got a
single opening, from that day on. She
never gave me a chance. You should
smoke the new ashless kind."

  She carefully conveyed her hand to
the ashtray beside her chair, flicked
ash into it.

  "I know," he went on, "to be
surprised by the whole thing implies
that I had blinders on for years. How
well could I have known her, to be so
stunned? Well, I've run that mental
loop about six million times, and I
can't buy it. Oh, to some extent, of
course you can't be fooled that well
for that long without wanting to be
fooled. But God, Maddy, I swear there
were no clues to be seen, no hints to
be picked up. She never paid me the
compliment of telling me what she
disliked about me and our life, never
trusted me to help anything. I could
have tried. n He stubbed out his
cigarette angrily. "I would have."

  She sat perfectly still. He lit
another cigarette, drew on it
harshly, and during this she was
motionless and silent. Norman felt
that his relationship with his sister
had come to another crux. For all of
his life Madeleine had been four
years older, smarter, stronger, more
knowledgeable, and by the time he was
twenty and the age difference would
have begun to mean less, she was gone
to Europe. At the time of her
departure they had been on friendly
terms, but not friends. He had not
seen her since, had seldom heard from
or of her, had never had an occasion
or an opportunity to put aside a
lifetime of subconscious resentment.
And from the moment of her reentry
into his life he had behaved like an
idiot, blundering into his own fists,
waving a safetied gun like a spastic
desperado, weeping in her lap. Norman
perceived his resentment now, to
which he had not given a conscious
thought in years, tasted it afresh
and in full. Against it he balanced
the fact that she was an extremely
well-mannered house guest who had
brought him an extremely valuable
guest's gift.

  No. It was more than that. It was
valuable to him. She had remembered
his tastes in music, picked one that
would have endured for the decade she
had been gone.

16 Spider Robinson

He hadn't the remotest idea what her
tastes in music were. "That came out
rather glibly, didn't it7' His
decision process had lasted the span
of a deep drag on his new cigarette.

  "She's been gone for six months,"
she said at once. "The story gets
polished with repetition."

  He smiled. "Almost enough to be
really convincing. Thanks, Maddy,
but I'm a liar. The signs were
there. Some of them were there the
day I met her. I chose not to see
them."

"And she chose to let you."

  He nodded. "That's true." He got a
thoughtful look, and she led him
with it, finishing her coffee.
Presently he said, "And ever since
she left I've been behaving like a
perfect jackass. It hasn't seemed
like it. I haven't felt as though
I've even had any choices more as if
I were on tracks. But what I've been
doing is systematically harvesting
every opportunity for pain that the
situation affords. Because. . .
because she enjoys it, and I I seem
to feel I owe it to her. I've known
this all along. Why didn't I know I
knew it?"

"You weren't ready yet."

  "It has been harder saying this to
you than it was weeping on your
collar. Why is that, I wonder?"

  She thought about it. "It is hard
for a person, especially a man
perhaps, to admit to being in pain.
But I think for you it has always
been even harder to admit stupidity.
I think you got that from me."

  At the last sentence he sat up
straighter. He remembered for the
first time that upon her arrival she
had tacitly admitted to being in
pain herself. "I could certainly
have used you, these ten years
past," he said suddenly. "You're a
good sister, Madeleine. And aver
thirty years I think it is past time
I became your friend. You've helped
me to see clearer. Perhaps it's time
I looked past my own nose. What
brings you to Halifax?"

  It was not quite a bodily flinch.
Her face acquired the expression of
one suppressing a sneeze.
"Norman..." She paused. "Look, the
bare outline is easy. I loved I
love a man. I've given him half a
year of my life. And then I found
out . . . things that make me
suspect he is not . . . not who I
thought him to be, not what I
thought him to be. I found out that
I had been closing my eyes too, like
you. I think I have. It's hard to be

MINDKILLER 1 7

certain. But if I'm right, I've been
giving my love to to a  to someone
unworthy." She hesitated. "But that's
just the bare outline. And I'm afraid
it's all I can tell you now, Norman."
She hod up a hand. "Wait. I'm not
trying to cheat you, honestly I'm
not. I,m not too proud to swap
stupidity stories with you  and if
what I fear is true, I've made you
look like a genius. But I mustn't speak
about it yet. Will you trust me,
brother? For perhaps as long as a
week or two?"

  But maybe I can help! was what he
started to say, but something in her
face stopped him. "Are you sure
that's what you wantT'

"I'm sure."

  "You know," he said cheerfully and
at once, "ever since you got here
I've been trying to put my finger on
exactly what the hell the
'continental look' is. Because you've
got it I'd never have taken you for
an American. It's more than just the
accent. Something about the way you
carry yourself."

  It was her first smile of its kind,
unplanned and soft at the edges; it
destroyed temporarily the "look" to
which he had just alluded. For the
first time she reminded him
powerfully of the Maddy he had known
as a child. "A friend of mine said
something very like that once," she
murmured wistfully. "His theory was
that Americans make a fetish of
appearing strong, and Europeans just
naturally are." Norman saw her pursue
that line of thought and find
something that made her hastily
retrace her steps. "I'm not sure
about Canadians."

  "Oh, Canadians are insecure and
don't care who knows about it,"
Norman said with a grin. "Look at
Halifax, capital of this great
province. No Sunday news programming,
no Saturday postal service, and
within fifteen minutes' drive you can
find whole communities with outdoor
plumbing, sound-only phones, and one
communal terminal in the general
store. There's no opera, next to no
dance, a shocking amount of fake
country music, and from one end of
the city to the other there might be
two hundred people who have ever
heard of Miles Davis. You can draw a
blank with Ray Charles.

  "And do you know what? I love this
town. I've been walking the streets
unarmed for over five years, and
tonight was only the second time I've
been hit on it almost made me homesick

18 Spider Robinson

for New York, but not quite.
Ordinary glass is good enough for
windows here, and you can drink tap
water with the right filter. Police
service is still voluntary; you can
enter a mall without having to go
through a god damned metal detector.
You never have to wait for computer
time. Even though a goodly amount of
North America's heroin enters at
this port, none of it stays you
could fit all the junkies in town
into three or four squad cars. For a
city it's pretty pleasant, in other
words."

  "Compared to Zurich, it sounds
like paradise. I can live without
opera."

  "Well, at least we've got good
music here thanks to you. What say
we heat up the old turntable, if the
drive band hasn't rotted by now? I
keep having this feeling that I
should get that ccord on tape before
lightning strikes it."

  "That sounds wonderful. They are
the ones who wrote 'Shiny
Stockings,' aren't they?"

  "Jon Hendricks did, yes," he said,
getting up and retrieving both their
empties. "With a guy named. . ." He
stopped. He stood as if listening
for a moment, then cleared his
throat and met her eyes. "Madeleine,
I know I said this already, but it's
awfully good to have you here."

"It's good to have here to be."

It was 4:00 A.M. for him, and 9:00 A.M.
for her, when they finally broke it
up and went to bed; fortunately it
was Saturday. That set the pattern
for the next week: every hour not
occupied by mundane necessities they
spent talking together. Some of the
talk was catching up on the ten
years they had spent apart,
essentially a swapping of
accumulated anecdotes. Another, per-
haps larger part of the talk
involved reliving their respective
childhoods, each giving their own
perspective on the formative years
of the other, and comparing their
memories of shared experiences. By
the end of the week, Norman felt
that he knew himself better than he
ever had, and knew that Madeleine
felt something similar. A kind of
tension went out of both of them as
they talked, to be replaced by
something like peace.

  This mutual spiritual progression
was not accomplished smoothly in
tandem, but more the way a tractor
operator wades

MINDKILLER19

his way out of deep mud, feeding
power to alternate wheels in fits and
starts. It was their firm connection
that made any progress possible.

  By the second week, conversation
had achieved about an it could on its
own. He began introducing her,
carefully and thoughtfully, to
certain of his friends, and was
satisfied with the results. The
end-of-term madness was beginning to
snowball at the University, and he
was startled to discover how little
it troubled him. Dr. MacLeod, the
department chairman, actually paid
him a grudging compliment. Norman met
an attractive and interesting woman,
a single parent who had come to his
office to discuss her son's prospects
of passing his course, and saw small
signs that his interest was returned.
One night he dug out the
half-forgotten, half-finished
manuscript of The Book and read it
through; he threw out half the
chapters and made extensive notes for
the replacement.

  Madeleine fit right into the
rhythms of his home life, cnhancing
it in many small ways and disrupting
nothing he cared about. She had a
fanatic neatness learned in a country
where living space was at a premium,
and an easy tolerance of his own
looser standards. She was seriously
impressed by parts of his music
library, which flattered him, and one
day she came home with an armful of
tapes that startled him just as pled
curably. They swapped favorite books
and videotapes, favorite recipes and
jokes. She displayed no inclination
to look for weds, but she used her
free time to do household maintenance
chores he had been forced to neglect.
And she did not appear to lack for
money indeed, he had to be quite firm
before she would let him reimburse
her for half of the groceries and
staples she bought. She respected his
privacy and welcomed his company,
cleaned up her own messes and left
his the hell alone.

  The only thing that bothered him
was concern for the private pain of
which she still would not tell him,
and which she could not altogether
hide. She did not tantalize him with
it; he acquired only by accident some
idea of the depth and extent of her
hurt, when he woke quite late one
rainy night and heard her weeping in
the next room. He nearly went to her
then, but something told him that it
was the wrong thing to do. He waited,
listening. He heard her moan, in a
voice softer than

20 Spider Robinson

her sobs but still plainly audible:
"Jacques, who are you? What are
you?" Then her weeping became
wordless again, and after a time it
was over and they both slept. In the
morning she was so relaxed and jolly
that he wondered if he had been
dreaming.

  He noted certain subtle signs that
she was becoming attracted to his
good friend Charlie, who lived eight
blocks away with three male
roommates. Norman gave the chemistry
careful thought, and decided that he
approved. On the twenty-first day of
her residence he saw to it that they
were both invited to a party at
Charlie's, and that night when it
was time to go he announced that a
whole day of processing final exams
had tired him out, why didn't she go
along without him? He was going to
turn in at once and sleep the night
away, would doubtless be sound
asleep whenever she might return,
early or late. He smiled to himself
at how she tried to keep the
pleasantness of her surprise from
showing, bundled her out the door,
and retired at once to his bed in
the den, where he lay with the
lights out. In point of fact he was
wide awake, but he resolved to lie
there in the dark till sleep did
come. Charlie, he knew, was not a
slow worker, and Madeleine seemed to
have a European directness of her
own.

  Nonetheless, they had not showed
up by the time he finally fell
genuinely asleep at midnight.

  In the morning he tiptoed about,
trying to make breakfast as quietly
as possible so as not to wake them .
. . until he noticed that the
bedroom door was open. He found that
she had not come home the night
before, and went off to work
wondering what the hell Charlie had
done with his three roommates and
the party.

  She was not home when he returned,
which did not surprise him
inordinately, but she had left no
message in the phone, which did. He
swallowed his prurient curiosity and
a solitary dinner and put his
attention on the work he had brought
homer for the weekend. To his
credit, it was eleven-thirty before
he

broke down and phoned Charlie's
place.

  Charlie answered the phone. The
screen showed him in bed with a
pleasant-looking Oriental woman whom
Noun vagueb recognized. Charlie was
quite certain of his facts.
Madeleine had arrived at the party,
had not been overly depressed at

M!NDKlLLER 21

finding Charlie already paired off
with Mei-Ling, had stayed and drunk
and smoked and laughed and danced
with several men without settling on
any of them. She had sung them all a
devastating impromptu parody of the
new Mindfuckers single. She had left
the party, unquestionably alone,
cheerful and not overly stoned, at
about one in the morning.

  In his guts, Norman knew before he
had hung up the phone. But it was a
full three days before he could get
it through his head as well that
Madeleine was never going to come
back.

2 - -
1 999 I smelled her
before I saw her.
Even so, the first
sight was shocking.

  She was sitting in
a tan
plastic-surfaced
armchair, the kind
where the front
comes up as the back
goes down. It was
back as far as it
would go. It was
placed beside the
large living room
window, which was
transparent. A
plastic block table
next to it held a
digital clock, a
dozen unopened
packages of self-
lighting Peter
Jackson cigarettes,
an empty ashtray, a
full vial of
cocaine, and a lamp
with a bulb of at
least a hundred and
fifty watts. It
illuminated her with
brutal clarity.

  She was naked. Her
skin was the color
of vanilla pudding.
Her hair was in
rats, her nails
unpainted and
untended, some
overlong and some
broken. There was
dust on her. She sat
in a ghastly sludge
of feces and urine.
Dried vomit was
caked on her chin
and between her
breasts, and down
her ribs to the
chair.

         23
          
24 Spider Robinson

  These were only part of what I had
smelled. The predominant odor was of
fresh-baked bread. It is the smell
of a person who is starving to
death. The combined effluvia me to
find a senior citizen, paralyzed by
a stroke or some such crisis.

I judged her to be about twenty-five
years old.

  I moved to where she could see me,
and she did not see me. That was
probably just as well, because I had
just seen the two most horrible
things. The Bust was the smile.-They
say that when the bomb went off at
Hiroshima, some people's shadows
were baked onto walls by it. I think
that smite got baked on the surface
of my brain in much the same way. I
don't want to tank about that smile.

  The second horrible thing was the
one that explained all the rest.
From where I now stood, I could see
a triple socket in the wall beneath
the window. Into it were plugged the
lamp, the clock, and her.

  I knew about wireheading, of
course I had lost a couple of
acquaintances and one friend to the
juice. But I had never seen a
wirehead. It is by definition a
solitary vice, and all the public
usually gets to see is a sheeted
figure being carried out to the
wagon.

  The transformer lay on the floor
beside the chaff, where it had been
dropped. The switch was on, and the
timer had been jiggered so that
instead of providing one five- or
ten- or fifteensecond jolt per hour,
it allowed continuous flow. That
timer is requffed by law on all
juice rigs sold, and you need
special tools to defeat it. Say, a
nail file. The input cord was long,
and fell in crazy coils from the
wall socket. The output cord
disappeared beneath the chaff, but I
knew where it ended. It ended in the
tangled snarl of her hair, at the
crown of her head, in a miniplug.
The plug was snapped into a jack
surgically implanted in her skull,
and from the jack tiny wiles snaked
their way through the wet jelly to
the hypothalamus, to the specific
place in the medial forebrain bundle
where the major pleasure center of
her brain was located. She had sat
there in total transcendent ecstasy
for at least five days.

  I moved finally. I moved closer,
which surprised me. She saw me now,
and impossibly the smile became a
bit wider. I

MINDKILLER25

was marvelous. I was captivating. I
was her perfect lover. I could not
look at the smile; a small plastic
tube ran from one corner of the smile
and my eyes followed it gratefully.
It was held in place by small bits of
surgical tape at her jaw, neclc, and
shoulder, and from there it ran in a
lazy curve to the big fifty-liter
water cooler bottle on the floor. She
had plainly meant her suicide to
last: she had arranged to die of
hunger rather than thirst, which
would have been quicker. She could
take a drink when she happened to
think of it; and if she forgot, well,
what the hell.

  My intention must have shown on my
face, and I Mink she even understood
it the smile began to fade. That
decided me. I moved before she could
force her neglected body to react,
whipped the plug out of the wall, and
stepped back warily.

  Her body did not go rigid as if
galvanized. It had already been so
for many days. What it did was the
exact opposite, and the effect was
just as striking. She seemed to
shrink. Her eyes slammed shut. She
slumped. Well, I thought, it'll be a
long day and a night before she can
move a voluntary muscle again, and
then she hit me before I knew she had
left the chair, breaking my nose with
the heel of one fist and bouncing the
other off the side of my head. We
cannoned off each other and I managed
to keep my feet; she whirled and
grabbed the lamp. Its cord was
stapled to the floor and would not
yield, so she set her feet and yanked
and it snapped off clean at the base.
In near-total darkness she raised the
lamp on high and came at me and I
lunged inside the arc of her swing
and punched her in the solar plexus.
She said gaff!! and went down.

  I staggered to a couch and sat down
and felt my nose and fainted.

  I don't think I was out very long.
The blood tasted fresh. I woke with a
sense of terrible urgency. It took me
a while to work out why. When someone
has been simultaneously starved and
unceasingly stimulated for days on
end, it is not the best idea in the
world to depress their respiratory
center. I lurched to my feet.

  It was not completely dark, there
was a moon somewhere out there. She
lay on her back, arms at her sides,
perfectly relaxed. Her ribs rose and
fell in great slow swells. A pulse

26 Spider Robinson

showed strongly at her throat. As I
knelt beside her she began to snore,
deeply and rhythmically.

  I had time for second thoughts
now. It seemed incredible that my
impulsive action had not killed her.
Perhaps that had been my
subconscious intent. Five days of
wire-heading alone should have
killed her, never mind sudden cold
turkey.

  I probed in the tangle of hair,
found the empty jack. The hair
around it was dry. If she hadn't
torn the skin in yanking herself
loose, it was unlikely that she had
sustained any more serious damage
within. I continued probing, found
no soft places on the skull. Her
forehead felt cool and sticky to my
hand. The fecal smell was
overpowering the baking bread now.

  There was no pain in my nose yet,
but it felt immense and pulsing. I
did not want to touch it, or to
think about it. My shirt was soaked
with blood; I wiped my face with it
and tossed it into a corner. It took
everything I had to lift her. She
was unreasonably heavy, and I say
that having carried drunks and
corpses. There was a hall off the
living room, and all halls lead to a
bathroom. I headed that way in a
clumsy staggering trot, and just as
I reached the deeper darkness, with
my pulse at its maximum, my nose
woke up and began screaming. I
nearly dropped her then and clapped
my hands to my face; the temptation
was overwhelming. Instead I
whimpered like a dog and kept going.
Childhood feeling: runny nose you
can't wipe. At each door I came to,
I teetered on one leg and kicked it
open, and the third one gave the
right small-room, acoustictile echo.
The light switch was where they
almost always are; I rubbed it on
with my shoulder and the room
flooded with light.

  Large aquamarine tub, Styrofoam
recliner pillow at the head end,
nonslip bottom. Aquamarine sink with
ornate handles, cluttered with
toiletries and cigarette butts and
broken shards of mirror from the
medicine cabinet above. Aquamarine
commode, lid up and seat down. Brown
throw rug, expensive. Scale shoved
back into a corner, covered with
dust in which two footprints showed.
I made a massive effort and managed
to set her reasonably gently in the
tub. I rinsed my face and hands of
blood at the sink, ignoring the
broken glass, and stuffed the
bleeding nostril with toilet paper.
I adjusted her head, -fixed the chin
strap. I held both feet away from
the fawet

MINDKILLER 27

until I had the water adjusted, and
then left with one hand on my nose
and the other beating against my hip,
in search of her liquor.

  There was plenty to choose from. I
found some Metaxa in the kitchen. I
took great care not to bring it near
my nose, sneaking it up on my mouth
from below. It tasted like bunting
lighter fluid, and made sweat spring
out on my forehead. I found a roll of
paper towels, and on my way back to
the bathroom I used a great wad of
them to swab most of the sludge off
the chair and rug. There was a
growing pool of water siphoning from
the plastic tube, and I stopped that.
When I got back to the bathroom the
water was lapping over her bloated
belly, and horrible tendrils were
weaving up from beneath her. It took
three rinses before I was satisfied
with the body. I found a
hose-and-spray under the sink that
mated with the tub's faucet, and that
made the hair easy.

  I had to dry her there in the tub.
There was only one towel left, none
too clean. I found a fret-aid spray
that incorporated a good topical
anesthetic, and put it on the sores
on her baclc and butt. I had located
her bedroom on the way to the Metaxa.
Wet hair slapped my arm as I carried
her there. She seemed even heavier,
as though she had become waterlogged.
I eased the door shut behind me and
tried the light-switch trick agam,
and it wasn't there. I moved forward
into a footlocker and lost her and
went down amid multiple crashes,
putting all my attention into
guarding my nose. She made no sound
at all, not even a grunt.

  The light switch turned out to be a
pull-chain over the bed. She was on
her side, still breathing slow and
deep. I wanted to punt her up onto
the bed. My nose was a blossom of
pain. I nearly couldn't lift her the
third time. I was moaning with
frustration by the time I had her on
her led side on the ~gsize mattress.
It was a big brass four-poster bed,
with satin sheets and pillow cases,
all dirty. The blankets were shoved
to the bottom. I checked her skull
and pulse again, peeled up each
eyelid, and found uniform pupils. Her
forehead and cheelc still felt cool,
so I covered her. Then I kicked the
footlocker clear into the corner,
turned out the light, and left her
snonag like a chain saw.

***

28 Spider Robinson

Her vital papers and documents were
in her study, locked in a strongbox
on the closet shelf. It was an
expensive box, quite sturdy and
proof against anything short of
nuclear explosion. It had a
combination lock with all of
twenty-seven possible combinations.
It was stuffed with papers. I laid
her life out on her desk like a
losing hand of solitaire, and
studied it with a growing
frustration.

  Her name was Karen Scholz, but she
used the name Karyn Shaw, which I
thought phony. She was twenty-two.
Divorced her parents at fourteen,
uncontested no-fault. Since then she
had been, at various times,
waitress, secretary to a lamp sales-
man, painter, free-lance typist,
motorcycle mechanic, and unlicensed
masseuse. The most recent paycheck
stub was from the Hard Corps, a
massage parlor with a cut-rate
reputation. It was dated almost a
year ago. Her bank balance combined
with paraphernalia I had found in
the closet to tell me that she was
currently self-employed as a
tootlegger, a cocaine dealer. The
richness of the apartment and
furnishings told me that she was a
foolish one. Even if the narcs
missed her, very shortly the IRS was
going to come down on her like a ton
of bricks. Perhaps subconsciously
she had not expected to be around.

  Nothing there; I kept digging. She
had attended community college for
one semester as an art major, and
dropped out failing. She had
defaulted on a lease three years
ago. She bad wrecked a car once, and
been shafted by her insurance com-
pany. Trivia. Only one major trauma
in recent years: a year and a half
ago she had contracted out as
host-mother to a couple named
Lombard/Smyth. It was a pretty good
fee she had good hips and the right
rare blood type but six months into
the pregnancy they had caught her
using tobacco and canceled the
contract. She fought, but they had
photographs. And better lawyers,
naturally. She had to repay the
advance, and pay for the abortion,
of course, and she got socked for
court costs besides.

  It didn't make sense. To show
clean lungs at the physical, she had
to have been off cigarettes for at
least three to six months. Why
backslide, with so much at stake?
Like the mirtor traumas, it felt
more like an effect than a cause.
Self-destructive behavior. I kept
looking.

MINDKILLER 29

  Near the bottom I found something
that looked promising. Both her
parents had been killed in a car
smash when she was eighteen. Their
obituary was paperclipped to her
father's will.That will was one of
the most extraordinary documents I
have ever read. I could understand an
angry father cutting off his only
child without a dime. But what he had
done was worse. He had left all his
money to the church, and to her "a
hundred dollars, the going rate."

  Damn it, that didn't work either.
So-there suicides don't wait four
years. And they don't use such a
garish method either, it devalues the
tragedy. I decided it had to be
either a very big and dangerous coke
deal gone bad, or a very reptilian
lover. No, not a coke deal. They
would never have left her in her own
apartment to die the way she wanted
to. It could not be murder: even the
most unscrupulous wire surgeon needs
an awake, consenting subject to place
the wire correctly.

  A lover, then. I was relieved,
pleased with my sagacity, and
irritated as hell. I didn't know why.
I chalked it up to my nose. It felt
as though a large shark with rubber
teeth was rhythmically bidag it as
hard as he could. I shoveled the
papers back into the box, locked and
replaced it, and went to the
bathroom.

  Her medicine cabinet would have
impressed a pharmacist. She had lots
of allergies. It took me five minutes
to find aspirin. I took four. I
picked the largest shard of mirror
out of the sink, propped it on the
toilet tank, and sat down backward on
the seat. My nose was visibly
displaced to the right, and the
swelling was just hitting its stride.
I removed the toilet-dssue plug from
my nostril, and it resumed bleeding.
There was a box of Kleenex on the
floor. I ripped it apart, took out
all the dssues, and stuffed them into
my mouth. Then I grabbed my nose with
my right hand and tugged out to the
left, simultaneously flush ing the
toilet with my left hand. The
flushing coincided with the scream,
and my front teeth met through the
Kleenex. When I could see again, the
nose looked straight and my breathing
was unimpaired. When the bleeding
stopped again I gingerly washed my
face and hands and left. A moment
later I returned; something had
caught my eye. It was the glass and
toothbrush holder. There was only one
toothbrush in it. I looted through

30 Spider Robinson

the medicine chest again, and
noticed this time that there was no
shaving cream, no razor, no
masculine toiletries of any kind.
All the prescriptions were in her
name.

  I went thoughtfully to the
kitchen, mixed myself a Preacher's
Downfall by moonlight, and took it
to her bedroom. The bedside clock
said five. I lit a match, moved the
footlocker in front of an armchair,
sat down, and put my feet up. I
sipped my drink and listened to her
snore and watched her breathe in the
feeble light of the clock. I decided
to run through all the
possibilities, and as I was
formulating the first one, daylight
smacked me hard in the nose.

My hands went up reflexively and I
poured my drink on my head and hurt
my nose more. I wake up hard in the
best of times. She was still
snoring. I nearly threw the empty
glass at her.

  It was just past noon, now; light
came strongly through the heavy
curtains, illuminating so much mess
and disorder that I could not decide
whether she had trashed her bedroom
herself or it had been tossed by a
pro. I finally settled on the
former: the armchair I'd slept on
was intact. Or had the pro found
what he wanted before he got that
far?

  I gave it up and went to make
myself breakfast. The milk was bad,
of course, but I found a tolerable
egg and makings of an omelet. I
don't care for black coffee, but
lavanese brewed from frozen beans
needs no augmentation. I drank three
cups.

  It took me an hour or two to clean
up and air out the living room. The
cord and transformer went down the
oubliette, along with most of the
perished items from the fridge. The
dishes took three full cycles for
each load, a couple of hours all
told. I passed the time vacuuming
and dusting and snooping, learning
nothing more of significance. The
phone rang. She had no answering
program in circuit, of course. I
energized the screen. It was a young
man in a business tunic, wearing the
doggedly amiable look of the
stranger who wants you to accept the
call anyway. After some thought I
did accept, audio-only, and let him
speak first. He wanted to sell us a
marvelous building lot in Forest
Acres, South Dakota. I was making up
a shopping list about fifteen
minutes later when I heard her moan.
I reached her bedroom door in
seconds, waited in the doorway with
both

MINDKILLER 31

hands in sight, and said slowly and
clearly, "My name is Joseph
Templeton, Karen. I am a friend. You
are all right now."

Her eyes were those of a small,
tormented animal.

  "Please don't try to get up. Your
muscles won't work prom erly and you
may hurt yourself."

No answer.

"Karen, are you hungry?"

  "Your voice is ugly," she said
despairingly, and her own voice was
so hoarse I winced. "My voice is
ugly," she added, and sobbed gently.
"It's all ugly." She screwed her eyes
shut.

  She was clearly incapable of
movement. I told her I would be right
back, and went to the kitchen. I made
up a tray of clear strong broth,
unbuttered toast, tea with maltose,
and saltine crackers. She was staring
at the ceiling when I got back, and
apparently it was vile. I put the
tray down, lifted her, and made a
backrest of pillows.

"I want a drink."

"After you eat," I said agreeably.

"Whotre youT'

"Mother Templeton. Eat."

  "The soup, maybe. Not the toast."
She got about half of it down, did
nibble at the toast, accepted some
tea. I didn't want to overfill her.
"My drink."

  "Sure thing." I took the tray back
to the kitchen, finished my shopping
list, put away the last of the
dishes, and put a frozen steak into
the oven for my lunch. When I got
back she was fast asleep.

  Emaciation was near total; except
for breasts and bloated belly, she
was all bone and taut skin. Her pulse
was steady. At her best she would not
have been very attractive by con-
ventional standards. Passable. Too
much waist, not enough neck, upper
legs a bit too thick for the rest of
her. It's hard to evaluate a starved
and unconscious face, but her jaw was
a bit too square, her nose a trifle
hooked, her blue eyes just the least
little bit too far apart. Animated,
the face might have been
beautiful any set of features can
support beauty but even a superb
makeup job could not have made her
pretty. There was an old bruise on
her chin, another on her left hip.
Her hair was sandy blonde, long and
thin; it had dried in snarls that
would take hours to comb out. Her
breasts were magluBicent,

32 Spider Robinson

and that saddened me. In this world,
a woman whose breasts are her best
feature is in for a rough time.

  I was puking together a picture of
a life that would have depressed
anyone with the sensitivity of a
rhino. Back when I had first seen
her, when her features were alive,
she had looked sensitive. Or had
that been a trick of the juice?
Impossible to say now.

  But damn it all to hell, I could
find nothing to really explain the
socket in her skull. You can hear
worse life stories in any bar, on
any street corner. Wireheads are
usually addictive personalities, who
decide at last to skip the small
shit. There were no tracks on her
anywhere, no nasal damage, no sign
that she used any of the coke she
sold. Her work history, pitiful and
fragmented as it was, was too steady
for any kind of serious jones; she
had undeniably been hiking the sauce
hard lately, but only lately.
Tobacco seemed to be her only
serious addiction.

  That left the hypothetical bastard
lover. I worried at that for a while
to see if I could make it fit. To
have done so much psychic damage, he
would almost have to have lived with
her. . . but where was his spoor?

  At that point I went to the
bathroom, and that settled it. When
I lifted the seat to urinate, I
found written on the underside with
magic marker: "It's so nice to have
a man around the house!" The
handwriting was hers. She had lived
alone.

  I was relieved, because I hadn't
relished thinking about my
hypothetical monster or the
necessity of tracking and killing
him. But I was irritated as hell
again.

I wanted to understand.

  For something to do, I took my
steak and a mug of coffee to the
study and heated up her terminal. I
tried all the typical access codes,
her birthdate and her name in
numbers and such, but none of them
would unlock it. Then on a hunch I
tried the date of her parents'
death, and that did it. I ordered
the groceries she needed, instructed
the lobby door to accept delivery,
and tried everything I could think
of to get a diary or a journal out
of the damned thing, without
success. So I punched up the public
library and asked the catalog for
Britannica on wireheading. It
referred me to brain-reward,
autostimulus of. I

MINDKILLER 33

skipped over the history, from
discovery by Olds and others in 1956
to emergence as a social problem in
the late eighties, when surgery got
simple; declined the offered
diagrams, graphs, and technical
specs; finally found a brief section
on motivations.

  There was indeed one type of
typical user I had overlooked. The
terminally ill.

  Could that really be it? At her
age? I went to the bathroom and
checked the prescriptions. Nothing
for heavy pain, nothing indicating
anything more serious than allergies.
Back before telephones had cameras I
might have conned something out of
her personal physician, but it would
have been a chancy thing even then.
There was no way to test the
hypothesis.

  It was possible, even plausible but
it just wasn't lint enough to satisfy
the thing inside me that demanded an
explanation. I dialed a game of
four-wall squash, and made sure the
computer would At me win. I was
almost enjoying myself when she
screamed.

It wasn't much of a scream; her
throat was shot. But it fetched me at
once. I saw the problem as I cleared
the door. The topical anesthetic had
worn off the large sores on her back
and buttocks, and the pain had woken
her. Now that I thought about it, it
should have happened earlier; that
spray was only supposed to be good
for a few hours. I decided that her
pleasure-pun system was weakened by
overload.

  The sores were bad; she would have
scars. I resprayed them, and her
moans stopped nearly at once. I could
devise no means of securing her on
her belly that would not be
nightmareinducing, and decided it was
unnecessary. I thought she was out
again, and started to leave. Her
voice, muMed by pillows, stopped me
in my tracks.

  "I don't know you. Maybe you're not
even real. I can tell you."

"Save your energy, Karen. You "

"Shut up. You wanted the kharma, you
got it."

I shut up. ~~

  Her voice was flat, dead. "All my
friends were dating at twelve. He
made me wait until fourteen. Said I
couldn't be trusted.

34 Spider Robinson

Tommy came to take me to the dance,
and he gave Tommy a hard time. I was
so embarrassed. The dance was nice
for a couple of hours. Then Tommy
started chasing after Jo Tompkins.
He just left me and went off with
her. I went into the ladies' room
and cried for a long time. A couple
of girls got the story out of me,
and one of them had a bottle of
vodka in her purse. I never drank
before. When I started tearing up
cars in the parking lot, one of the
girls got ahold of Tommy. She gave
him shit and made him take me home.
I don't remember it, I found out
later."

  Her throat gave out and I got
water. She accepted it without
meeting my eyes, turned her face
away and continued.

  "Tommy got me in the door somehow.
I was out cold by then. He'd been
fooling around with me a little in
the car, I think. He must have been
too scared to try and get me
upstairs. He left me on the couch
and my underpants on the rug and
went home. The next thing I knew, I
was on the floor and my face hurt.
He was standing over me. Whore he
said. I got up and tried to explain
and he hit me a couple of times. I
ran for the door but he hit me hard
in the back. I went into the stairs
and banged my head real hard."

  Feeling began to come into her
voice for the first dme. The feeling
was fear. I dared not move.

  "When I woke up it was day. Mama
must have bandaged my head and put
me to bed. My head hurt a lot. When
I came out of the bathroom I heard
him call me. Him and Mama were in
bed. He started in on me. Wouldn't
let me talk, and he kept getting
madder and madder. Finally I
hollered back at him. He got up off
the bed and started in hitting me
again. My robe came off. He kept
hitting me in the belly and tits,
and his fists were like hammers.
Slut, he kept saying. Whore. I
thought he was going to kill me so I
grabbed one arm and bit. He roared
like a dragon and threw me across
the room. Onto the bed. Mama jumped
up. Then he pulled down his
underpants and it was big and
purple. I screamed and screamed and
tore at his back and Mama just stood
there. Her eyes were big and round,
just like in cartoons. His breath
stank and I screamed and screamed
and "

She broke off short and her
shoulders knotted. When she

MINDKILLER 35

continued, her voice was stone dead
again. "I woke up in my own bed
again. I took a real long shower and
went downstairs. Mama was making
pancakes. I sat down and she gave me
one and I ate it, and then I threw it
up right there on the table and ran
out the door. She never said a word,
never called me back. After school
that day I found a Sanctuary and
started the divorce proceedings. I
never saw either of them again. I
never told this to anybody before."

  The pause was so long I thought she
had fallen asleep. "Since that time
I've tried it with men and women and
boys and girls, in the dark and in
the desert sun, with people I camd
for and people I didn't give a damn
about, and l have never understood
the pleasure in it. The best it's
ever been for me is not
uncomfortable. God, how I've wondered
. . . now I know." She was starting
to drift. "Only thing my whole life
turned out better'n cracked up to
be." She snorted sleepily. "Even
alone."

  I sat there for a long time without
moving. My legs bumbled when I got
up, and my hands trembled while I
made supper.

That was the last time she was lucid
for nearly forty-eight hours. I plied
her with successively stronger soups
every time she woke up, and once I
got a couple of pieces of tea-soggy
toast into her. Sometimes she called
me by others' names, and sometimes
she didn't know I was there, and
evening she said was disjointed. I
listened to her tapes, watched some
of her video, charged some books and
games to her computer account. I
tools a lot of her aspirin. And drank
surprisingly little of her booze.

  It was frustrating. I still
couldn't make it all fit together.
There was a large piece missing. The
animal who sired and raised her had
planted the charge, of course, and I
perceived that it was big enough to
blow her apart. But why had it taken
eight years to go off? If his death
four years ago had not triggered it,
what had? I could not leave until I
knew.

  Midway through the second day her
plumbing started woricing again; I
had to change the sheets. The next
morning a noise woke me and I found
her on the bathroom floor on her
knees in a pool of urine. I got her
clean and back to bed, and just as I
thought she was going to drift off
she started yelling at me. "Lousy son
of a bitch, it could have been over!
I'll never have

36 Spider Robinson

the guts again now! How could you do
that, you bastard, it was so nice!" She
turned violently away from me and
curled up. I had to make a hard
choice then, and I gambled on what I
knew of loneliness and sat on dhe
edge of dhe bed and stroked her hair
as gently and impersonally as I knew
how. It was a good guess. She began
to cry, in great racking heaves
first, then dhe steady wail of total
heartbreak. I had been praying for
this, and did not begrudge dhe
strength it cost her.

  By the time she fell off the edge
into sleep, she had cried for so
long that every muscle in my body
ached from sitting still. She never
felt me get up, stiff and clumsy as
I was. There was something different
about her sleeping face now. It was
not slack but relaxed. I limped out,
feeling as close to peace as I had
since I arrived, and as I was
passing The living room on die way
to d e liquor, I heard dhe phone.

  As I had before, I looked over The
caller. The picture was un~rc~ and
snowy; it was a pay phone. He looked
like an immigrant construction
worker, massive and florid and
neclcless, almost brutish. And, at
The moment, under great stress. He
was crushing a hat in his hands,
mortally embarrassed. I mentally
shrugged and accepted.

  "Sharon, don't hang up," he was
saying. "I gotta find out what this is
all about."

Nodding could have made me hang up.

  "Sharon? Sharon, I know you're
there. Jo Ann says you ain't there,
she says she called you every day
for almost a week and banged on your
door a few times. But I know you're
Deere, now anyway. I walked past
your place an hour ago and I seen
die bathroom light go on and off.
Sharon, will you please tell me what
the hell is going on? Are you
listening to me? I know you're
listening to me. Look, you gotta
understand, I thought it was all
set, see? I mean I Thought it was set.
Arranged. I put it to Jo Ann, cause
she's my regular, and she says not
me, lover, but I know a gal. Look,
was she lying to me or what? She
told me for anodher bill you play
them kind of games, sometimes."

  Regular two-hundred-dollar bank
deposits plus a cardboard box full
of scales, vials, razor, motor, and
milk powder makes her a coke
dealer right, Travis McGee? Don't be
misled by

MINDKILLER37

the fact that the box was shoved in a
corner, sealed with tape, and covered
with dust. After all, the only other
illicit profession that pays regular
sums at regular intervals is hoover,
and two bills is too much for
squarejawed, hook-nosed, wide-eyed
little Karen, breasts or no breasts.

For a garden-variety hooker. . .

  "Dammit, she told me she called you
and set it up, she give me your
apartment number." He shook his head
violently. "I can't make no sense out
of this. Dammit, she couldn't be
lying to me. It don't figure. You let
me in, didn't even turn the camera on
first, it was all ananged. Then you
screamed and. . . I was real careful
not to really hurt you, I know I was.
Then I put on my pants and I'm
putting the envelope on the dresser
and you bust that chair on me and
come at me with that }wife and I
hadda bust you one. It just don't
make no sense, will you goddammit say
something to me? I'm twisted up
inside going on two weeks now. I
can't even eat."

  I went to shut off the phone, and
my hand was shaking so bad I missed,
spinning the volume knob to minimum.
"Sharon you gotta believe me," he
hollered from far far away, "I'm into
rape fantasy, I'm not into rape!" and
then l had found the right switch and
he was gone.

  I got up very slowly and toddled
off to the liquor cabinet, and I
stood in front of it taking pulls
from different bottles at random
until I could no longer see his
face his earnest, baffled,
half-ashamed face.

  Because his hair was thin sandy
blond, and his jaw was a bit too
square, and his nose was a trifle
hooked, and his blue eyes were just
the least little bit too far apart.
They say everyone has a double
somewhere. And Fate is such a witty
little motherfucker, isn't he?

I don't remember how I got to bed.

I woke later that night with the
feeling that I would have to bang my
head on the floor a couple of times
to get my heart started again. I was
on my makeshift doss of pillows and
blankets beside her bed, and when I
fmally peeled my eyes open she was
sitting up in bed staring at me. She
had fixed her hair somehow, and her
nails were trimmed. We ladled at each

38 Spider Robinson

other for a long time. Her color was
returning somewhat, and the edge was
off her bones.

She sighed. "What did lo Ann say
when you told her?"

I said nothing.

  "Come on, lo Ann's got the only
other key to this place, and she
wouldn't give it to you if you
weren't a friend. So what did she
say?"

  I got painfully up out of the,
tangle and walked to the window. A
phallic church steeple rose above
the low-rises a couple of blocks
away.

"God is an iron," I said. "Did you
know that?"

  I turned to look at her and she
was staring. She laughed
experimentally, stopped when I
failed to join in. "And I'm a pair
of pants with a hole scorched
through the ass?"

  "If a peon who indulges in
gluttony is a glutton, and a person
who commits a felony is a felon,
then God is an iron. Or else He's
the dumbest designer that ever
lived."

  Of a thousand possible snap
reactions, she picked the most
flattering and hence most
irritating. She kept silent, kept
looking at me, and thought about
what I had said. At last she said,
"I agree. What particular design
screwup did you beve in mind?"

  "The one that nearly left you dead
in a pile of your own shit," I said
harshly. "Everybody talks about the
new menace, wireheading, eighth most
common cause of death in less than a
decade. Wireheading's not new it's
just a technical refinement."

"I don't follow."

  "Are you familiar with the old
cliche, 'Everything in the world I
like is either illegal, immoral, or
fattening'?"

"Sure."

  "Didn't that ever strike you as
damned odd? Wbat's the most
nutritionally useless and
physiologically dangerous 'food'
substance in the world? White sugar.
Glucose. And it-seems to be beyond
the power of the human nervous
system to resist it. They put it in
virtually all the processed food
there is, which is next to all the
food there is, because nobody can
resist it. And so we poison
ourselves and whipsaw our
dispositions and rot our teeth.
Maltose is just as sweet, but it's
less popular, precisely because it
doesn't kick your blood sugar in the
ass

MINDKILLER 39

and then depress it again. Isn't that
odd? There is a primitive programming
in our skulls that rewards us,
literally overwhelmingly, every time
we do something damned silly. Lilts
smoke a poison, or eat or drink or
snort or shoot a poison. Or overeat
good foods. Or engage in complicated
sexual behavior without procreative
intent, which, if it were not for the
pleasure, would be pointless and
insane. And which, if pursued for the
pleasure alone, quickly becomes
pointless and insane anyway. A
suicidal brain-reward system is built
into us."

"But the reward system is for
survival."

  "So how the hell did ours get wired
up so that survivalthreatening
behavior gets rewarded best of all?
Even the pro survival pleasure
stimuli are wired so that a dangerous
overload produces the maximum pleasure.
On a purely biological levy, man is
programmed to strive hugely for more
than he needs, more than he can
profitably use. Add in intelligence
and everything goes to hell. Man is
capable of outgrowing any ecological
niche you put him in he survives at
all because he is The Animal That
Moves. Given half a chance he kills
himself of surfeit."

  My knees were trembling so badly I
had to sit down. I felt feverish and
somehow larger than myself, and I
knew I was talking much too fast. She
had nothing whatever to say with
voice, face, or body.

  "It is illuminating," I went on,
fingering my aching nose, "to note
that the two ultimate refinements of
hedonism are the pleasure of cruelty
and the pleasure of the despoliation
of innocence. Consider no sane person
in search of sheerly physical sexual
pleasure would select an
inexperienced partner. Everyone knows
that mature, experienced lovers are
more competent, confident, and
skilled. Yet there is not a skin mag
in the world that prints pictures of
men or women over twenty if they can
possibly help it. Don't tell me about
recapturing lost youth: the root is
that a fantasy object over twenty
cannot plausibly possess innocence,
can no longer be corrupted.

  "Man has historically devoted much
more subtle and ingenious thought to
inflicting cruelty than to giving
others pleasure which, given his
gregarious nature, would seem a much
more survival-oriented behavior. Poll
any hundred people at

40 Spider Robinson

random and you'll find least twenty
or thirty who know all there is to
know about psychological torh~re and
psychic castration and maybe two who
know how to give a teniflc backrub.
That business of your father leaving
all his money to the church and
leaving you 'a hundred dollars, the
going rate'  that was artistry. I
can't imagine a way to make you feel
as good as that made you feel ronen.
But for him it must have been pure
pleasure."

 - "Maybe the Puritans were right,"
she said. "Maybe pleasure is the
root of all evil. Oh, God! but life
is bleak without it."

  "One of my most precious
possessions," I went on blindly, "is
a button that my friend Slinky John
used to hand-paint and sell below
cost. He was the only practicing
anarchist I ever met. The button
reads: 'GO, LEMMINGS, GO!' A lemming
surely feels intense pleasure as he
gallops to the sea. His self-
desbuctdon is programmed by nature,
a part of the very same life force
that insisted on being conceived and
born in the first place. If it feels
good, do it." I laughed, and she
flinched. "So it seems to me that
God is either an iron, or a colossal
jackass. I don't know whether to be
admiring or contemptuous."

  All at once I was out of words,
and out of strength. I yanked my
gaze away from hers and stared at my
knees for a long dme. I felt vaguely
ashamed, as befits one who has
thrown a tantrum in a sickroom.

After a time she said, "You talk
good on your feet."

  I kept looking at my knees. "I
think I used to be an actor once."

"I would have Sues "

Hiatus.

  I was standing by the door, facing
out into the hall, and she was skill
speaking. 'A said, will you tell me
somethingT'

"If I can."

"What was the pleasure in putting me
back together againT'

I flinched. ~-

  "Look at me. There. I've got a
half-ass idea of what shape I was in
when you met me, and I can guess
what it's been like since. I don't
know if I'd have done as much for lo
Icon, and she's my best friend. You
don't look like a guy your favorite
kick is sick fems, and you sure as
hell don't look like you're

MINDKILLER41

so rich you got time on your hands.
So what's been your pleasure, these
last few days?"

"Trying to understand," I snapped.
"I'm nosy."

"And do you understand?"

"Yeah. I put it together."

"So you'll be going now?"

"Not yet," I said automatically.
"You're not "

And caught myself.

  "There's something else besides
pleasure," she said. "Another system
of reward, only I don't think it has
much to do with the one I got wired
up to my scalp here. Not
brain-reward. Call it mind-reward.
Call it . . . joy. The thing like
pleasure that you feel when you've
done a good thing or passed up a real
tempting chance to do a bad thing. Or
when the unfolding of the universe
just seems especially apt. It's
nowhere near as flashy and intense as
pleasure can be. Believe me! But it's
got something going for it. Something
that can make you do without
pleasure, or even accept a lot of
pain, to get it.

  "That stuff you're talking about,
that's there, that's true. But you
said yourself, Man is the animal that
outgrows and moves. Evolution works
slow, is all." She pushed hair back
from her face. "It took a couple of
hundred million years to develop a
thirsting ape, and you want a smart
one in a lousy few hundred thou? That
lemming drive you're talking about is
there but there's another kind of
drive, another kind of force that's
working against it. Or else there
wouldn't still be any people and
there wouldn't be the words to have
this conversation and " She paused,
looked down at herself. "And I
wouldn't be here to say them."

"That was just random chance."

She snorted. "What isn't?"

   "Well, that'stne," I shouted.
"That'sfine. Since the world is saved
and you've got everything under
control I'll just be going along."

  I've got a lot of voice when I yell.
She ignored it utterly, continued
speaking as if nothing had happened.
"Now I can say that I have sampled
the spectrum of the pleasure system
at both ends none and all there
is and I think the rest of my life I
will dedicate myself to the middle of
the road and see

42 Spider Robinson

how that works out. Starting with
the very weak tea and toast I'm
going to ask you to bring me in
another ten minutes or so. With
maltose. But as for this other
stuff, this joy thing, that I would
like to begin learning about, as
much as I can. I don't really know
a God damned thing about it, but I
understand it has something to do
with sharing and caring and what did
you say your name was?"

"It doesn't matter," I yelled.

"All right. What can I do for you?"

"Nothing!"

"What did you come here for?"

  I was angry enough to be honest.
'To burgle your fucking apartment!"

  Her eyes opened wide, and then she
slumped back against the pillows and
laughed until the tears came, and I
tried and could not help myself and
laughed too, and we shared laughter
for a long time, as long as we had
shared her tears the night before.

  And then, straight-faced, she
said, "Wait'll I'm on my feet;
you're gonna need help with those
stereo speakers. Butter on the
toast."

~ - -
1 994 The room was ripe with the
pungencies of sex and sweat.
Darkness was total, and now that
their pulse and breathing had
slowed, the stillness was complete.
Norman tensed his stomach muscles
briefly, felt the warm honeyed
weight of Phyllis from his left shin
theft shoulder, felt the barely per-
ceptible movement with which she
nestled a breast more comfortably
into his armpit, tasted the sour
sweetness of her breath. Idly he
moved his left hand up and down the
smooth length of her, reflected on
how pleasant it was to caress a body
whose dimensions were not precisely
and thoroughly known, how very
pleasant to encounter unfamiliar
swellings and taperings, and in the
encountering to trigger
unpredictable responses and
quickenings.

  This caused him to wonder why, in
all his five years of marriage to
Lois, he had never been seriously
tempted to be unfaithful. He had
been experienced when he met her,
aware

                 43
                  
44 Spider Robinson

of the sweetness of novelty, and
during the course of their marriage
perhaps a dozen women had inspired
lust in him at one time or another.
But he had allowed only a handful of
those temptations to progress even
as far as the fantasy stage  and in
retrospect those were the only ones
where actual fulfillment of the
fantasy was out of the question.
Ever since their estrangement he had
sought no other partner until now.
From the vantage point of satiation,
he wondered why he had waited so
long.

  Well, he answered himself, if you
consistently pass up a chance at
something very pleasant, it must be
because you're afraid of risking
something else, something that's
better than very pleasant. There
must be something about long-term
intimacy, about familiarity, that is
sweeter than variety; something more
to life than that spiciest of its
spices.

  He considered the lovemaking just
now finished, and he thought, Well,
that was definitely more . . .
explosive than anything Lois and I
have had in years. But he didn't
know if he could say it was more
satisfying. There had been
clumsinesses, false starts, and
missed signals. It is a tricky,
finicky road to orgasm, different
for everyone on Earth. If this woman
and he remained lovers for any
length of time, they would have to
learn each other's ways such a
clumsy, self-conscious process.

  And then Norman understood the
sweetness of familiarity. Some say
it breeds contempt, but he saw now
that there was a tremendous security
in having someone who knew you
inside and out, who had found it
worth the time and trouble to learn
where your buttons were and when and
how to push them, and whose own
personal buttons you could find in
the dark. It was worth some loss of
mystery. In that moment he learned
what h had been about his marriage
that was so sweet that, over the
past half-year, he had bartered away
most of his self-respect for
occasional morsels of counterfeit.

  And with that learning he knew
that the thing he still yearned for
so badly having someone so close to
you that they become your other
leg was gone for good, and that
counterfeit was all he would ever
have of it again from Lois that it
was finally and forever over,
irretrievably lost, and that he must
find some

MINDKILLER 45

one else and work five more years
ever to have anything like it again.
The last scrap of hope, nourished for
so long, left him at last. His heart
turned over inside him, and his eyes
stung fiercely.

  Phyllis rolled away from him
suddenly. It was a single quick
movement, but it was made up of many
subtle parts, the drag of breast
across his chest, the pleasant
pulling apart of flashes cemented by
dried sweat, tiny tugs of
intertangled hairs separating, moist
sounds from her loins. She left a
hand palm up on his belly to maintain
contact between them, and rummaged in
the tangle of clothing beside the
bed. She struggled up into a sitting
position, replaced the hand with a
leg across his leg, and used both
hands to shatter the darkness with a
struck match.

  The effect was rather like that of
a star shell going off over a
deserted battlefield, for Norman's
bedroom was a mess. But he saw only
her, the sudden and terrible beauty
of her nakedness. She was
flat-chasted compared to Lois, but he
was not comparing her to Lois; Lois
was gone from his mind, and his
sorrow with her. This was Phyllis,
and she was lovely. When her weight
had come off him he had automatically
taken a deeper breath; now he could
not exhale it.

  The sight lasted only long enough
for her to light two Player's and
pass one to him; then she whipped the
match flame to death. But he took the
opportunity to take several mental
photographs, apply fixatives and
store for easy access. In the sudden
return of darkness, his breath left
him whistling. He replaced it with
tobacco smoke.

"That," she said softly, "was good
enough to be illegal."

"Madam, your son just passed
Victorian Poetry."

  She chuckled. "You bastard.
'Passed'? That was B-plus at the very
least."

  "He'll graduate Mama Cum Loudly," he
assured her, and she pinched him.

  "Seriously, Norman . . ." She drew
on her cigarette, and her face and
one shoulder reappeared briefly and
ectoplasmically. "I don't make a
habit of bolstering my lovers' egos,
but that was extraordinary."

  "Wasn't my doing. Wasn't even our
doing. We were both privileged to be
present at an extraordinary event."

46 Spider Robinson

  "Bullshit. It may have taken me
till five-thirty in the morning to
seduce you, but it was worth waiting
for. You're a very good lover, don't
you know that?"

  A flip answer died on his tongue
and left a strange taste. "No," he
said finally, "I didn't."

  "Well, then, let me tell you: in
the last hour or so you fulfilled
just about every fantasy I had left,
and showed me at least one erogenous
zone I didn't know I had. Listen,
I'll be honest: I've had better. But
I've never had a better first time,
and I doubt I ever will."

He could think of nothing to say.

  "Hey, look, I don't want to
belabor this. I didn't mean to make
you self-conscious. I just. . . I
guess I just wanted to say thanks.
It's . . . well, there's been a long
line of guys who couldn't have cared
less if I'd been awake or not."

  It startled him. "Why the hell
would anyone want to have fun alone?
Given an alternative like you?"

  "The ultimate test of cool.
Maintain independence even in the
ultimate sharing. You, now: you've
got more guts than that. You've
given me a piece of yourself, and
for all you know I might rip you
off."

  "Phyllis," he said gently, butting
out his smoke, "my checkbook and
credit cards are on the bureau.
Clean me out and we'll be about
even. You've done me a world of
good." He sat up, and she hugged
him.

  When they separated again, he
realized that he could dingily see
her outlines now; a warm glow was
faintly visible at the edges of the
window shade. "Jesus. It's come
morning." All at once, and for the
first time in many hours, he was
immensely tired. He lay back down
and closed his eyes.

  "Norman?" she began, and from the
tone in her voice he knew at least
in general where she was going, and
started to protest his fatigue, but
she kept on talking, saying, "Do you
have any unfulfilled fantasies?"

Fatigue gone. "Uh . . . sexual
fantasies, you mean?"

  "Chicken. Come on, be honest.
Aren't there any secret wishes I can
make come true for you?" Her hand
found him, began working gently.

"Well . . ."

MINDKILLER 47

  "Come on, you're stalling, trying
to think of something else plausible
to ask me for, in place of whatever
you first thought of."

  Even Lois had not pushed all his
buttons. He made his decision. "How
do you feel about being tied up?"

  Even in the semidarkness he could
tell she was frowning; her hand
stopped.

"Further than you wanted to go?" he
asked after a while.

  "You know," she said slowly, "I'm
not sure." She lit another cigarette,
cupping it so that all the light was
reflected down away from her face. "I
had a friend, once. She and her
husband were into master-slave stuff,
I mean they were incredible. She wore
a collar around her neck, had whip
scars, and I swear to God she was as
proud and happy as hell. I thought it
was sick."

"Jesus," he said, "so do 1."

  "I used to ask her how she could
stand to be degraded like that. She
said it was like the ultimate proof
of her love for him. I asked her if
he ever proved his love, and she said
it didn't work that way, that she
gave him what he needed and he gave
her what she needed."

"Christ on a skateboard. They still
together?"

  "Of course not. After a while she
had no more proofs to give him, so he
dumped her. I haven't seen either of
'em in years."

  "Uh . . . that's considerably
stronger than what I had in mind. I
don't think I'd go for bullwhips and
pain and abuse."

  It was light enough now to see her
grin as her hand squeezed. "But
hearing about it got you hard, didn't
it?"

He could not deny it.

  "I'll tell you something. I think
she was off the wall, I mean
industrial-strength crazy. . . but
once in a long while I think about it
and I get wet myself. Isn't that
sick?"

  "First tell me what 'sick' means
when applied to a normal condition.
Nobody leaves the TV for a snack
during the rape scene. That does not
necessarily mean that anybody wants a
rape for Christmas." He took another
cigarette himself, and she lit it for
him with hers. "Look, my subconscious
is as screwed up as anyone's. Just
from the little I've told you about
Lois and me, you must be able to see
that there's probably a

48 Spider Robinson

lot of hostility toward women buried in
me right now, certainly toward one
woman. But well, I don't know if this
will make any sense or not, but a
fantasy is not necessarily a wish."

  "All right, then," she said, and began
gently stroking his penis. 'Yell me
about your wishes." He could make out
her features now, and she was looking
him square in the eye. He could not look
away. Involuntarily his back began to
arch, his buttocks to clench.

  "I would like to tie you down to this
bed," he said thickly, "and tease,
tantalize, and otherwise titillate your
fair young body until you scream for
mercy. The only kind of pain I have in
mind beyond the occasional pinch or
scratch we've already tried is the sweet
agony of wanting to come so badly you
can't see straight or remember your
name."

 Her busy hand paused, and she grinned
suddenly. 'That                   ~-
does sound more interesting than
scrambled eggs and coffee.
I just don't know if I understand the
tying-up part."

  He disposed of his cigarette and she
followed suit. "Well, partly it's the
symbolic trust, of course, which is
fairly heady stuff. But most of it is a
sheerly muscular thing. I mean, sex is a
process of allowing tension to build to
a peak and then release, right?"

"When you're doing it right."

  "All right but ordinarily there's a
certain point beyond which your
subconscious will not let you build that
tension  because if you did, the sheer
intensity of the climax would break your
partner's back, or nose, or whatever.
But when you're restrained, you can
exert total effort safely. Every muscle
in your body can turn into steel cable,
and it's okay."

  She was looking thoughtful. "You sound
as if you've had it done to you."

"Once, a long time ago. A woman I lived
with."

"You enjoyed it?"

"Very much."

"How come only that once, then?"

  "She didn't want to talk about it
afterward. I think she was deeply
disturbed by how much she enjoyed it.
Which was her privilege; I didn't push
it."

"But you'd try it again?"

MINDKILLER 49

  "Well, I have to admit that these
days it's not what I'd call one of my
premier urges. I guess I just feel
like I've had my fill of being
helpless, this last year. But if you
wanted to, I guess I could get behind
it."

  "Another time, perhaps," she said
softly, and lay down spread-eagled on
her back. "Right now I'm yours on
toast. Bring on your ropes."

He used neckties, and was careful
about circulation.

  "Norman," she said as he was
securing the last knot, "can you see
my handbag?"

"Sure, what do you need?"

"In the inside compartment there's a
vibrator."

  "Oh." He fetched it, stopped on the
way back to the bed. "You know, this
is a hell of a first date."

All the tension blew away in their
shared laughter.

  He opened the shade, and it was well
and truly morning now, an impossibly
rosy dawn from some Tourist Bureau
postcard. He spared it only a glance,
then brought his gaze back to her
vulnerable nakedness.

  "You know," she said, "there Is
something thrilling about being
helpless. . . when your subconscious
is convinced that there's nothing to
be really afraid of."

  "Thank you," he said. He tried the
vibrator: it sounded like an alarm
clock buzzer. He grinned at her.
"Never tried one of these."

  "The single mother's home companion.
It'll be a learning experience for
both of us."

"That it will."

  After fifteen minutes she begged for
a gag. "Honest to God, I've gotta
scream so bad, I'll wake up the whole
building." He insisted that they work
out signals first by which she could
communicate the concepts "stop doing
that" and "I need a breather." Half
an hour later he still had not
allowed release to either of them.
His penis was iron-hard and
uncharacteristically standing
completely upright against his belly,
and she was in a state somewhere
beyond babbling incoherency, when the
doorbell rang.

  He ignored it, of course. It
penetrated his attention only just
far enough to cause him to tuck the
vibrator under a sheet,

50 Spider Robinson

muffling it, and continue manually.
Phyllis was beyond noticing anything
external.

  Of course the bell rang again; he
was expecting that, and paid it no
more mind that he had the first
time. From somewhere Phyllis had
found the strength to begin
whimpering again.

  But the thW time it rang, long and
hard, he began idly wondering who it
could be that was not going to get
access to Nonnan Kent's attention
that morning. Certainly not Lois.
From nine at night or two or three
in the morning was her visiting
range one reason it had taken
Phyllis so long to seduce him. Not
Spandrell, he'd have given up after
the second ring. Little George could
scarcely be imagined ambulatory
before noon, and the Bobcat was gone
south for the summer. Some stranger?
Norman's rhythm faltered slightly.

The fourth time it rang it didn't
stop.

  Anger welled in him, and his hands
ceased work altogether. In ten or
twenty seconds Phyllis's eyes had
unrolled and she heard it too. By
that time he had found his slippers.
He was blazing mad, but he did not
want the first thing she saw to be
an angry face, so he made a terrific
effort and produced a fair smile.
"It's all right, darling," he said,
caressing her cheek. "Some
impertinent idiot. I'll blow him out
into the hall and be back in thirty
seconds."

  She nodded and he rose and left
the room. He stuck his head back in,
said, "Now, don't go away," and
closed the bedroom door carefully
and firmly behind him. As it clicked
shut, her leg spasmed; the vibrator
dropped to the floor and lay
buzzing.

  Norman went to the door naked and
fully hard, fervently hoping that
whoever was on the other side would
prove to be shockable. Already
composing his opening blast, he
slipped the locks and flung the door
open, and his breath left him.

  Lois took her finger off the bell.
"Good morning," she said brightly.

"God damn it," he said, and lost his
voice again.

  She glanced at his erection and
grinned. "Got you up, I see." She
gripped it briefly, in a proprietary
way, and stepped into the apartment,
starched whites rustling. "You
always did wake up hard."

MINDKILLER 51

  Somewhere in his highly educated
brain were the words he wanted now,
needed now, but all that came to mind
was "Get out of here. I don't want to
see you now," and he could not say
those words to Lois. Moreover, he
knew she would not obey them.

"God, this place is a wreck. That's
not like you, Norman."

  "Lois " His throat and mouth were
too dry to produce speech; hastily he
went to the fridge and threw orange
juice past his teeth. "Lois, listen to me "

  "Jesus Christ, you must have been
on some binge last night, you've
slept right through your alarm. I
hear it buzzing."

"NO!"

  Too late, she was already halfway
down the hall, he dropped the orange
juice and ran flat out but she was
already opening the bedroom door.

"Lois, God damn it "

She screamed.

  Through the door came the muffled
sound of Phyllis screaming too, and
with weirdness incredible the screams
harmonized. As Norman crashed into
his ex-wife he roared himself, a
great bellow of unendurable
frustration, and when they had landed
in a mock-obscene tangle on the
hallway floor and the last of his
bellow had left him, in that moment
of stillness before the world could
come crashing down around all of
them, the doorbell rang again.

  Lois heaved him off her and headed
for the door in a stumbling,
scrabbling run, nurse's cap askew.
For an insane moment he wondered why
she should want so badly to answer
the doorbell, why anyone would ever
want to answer a doorbell. Such was
not Lois's intention. To her the door
was not a gadget for letting people
in; it was a gadget for letting them
out. Norman heard a loud crash,
Lois's war cry ascending the scale,
sounds of violent body contact, an
astonishing chorus of voices
expressing shock and/or indignation,
and Lois's footsteps rapidly receding
in the direction of the elevator. By
then he was on his hands and knees,
shaking his head in a perfectly
futile attempt to clear it.

'Mime out," he said plaintively to
the universe in general.

"It's okay," one of his unseen
callers told the rest. "He says

52 Spider Robinson

he'll be right out." Thus reassured,
they began entering the
apartment perhaps a dozen of them, by
the sound.

  Norman had started this overtired. He
yearned most to race to Phyllis, but he
did not want to leave a large number of
strangers alone in his apartment until
he had at least examined them and
learned their business. On the other
hand, he was loath to greet them naked.
In a few seconds they would have
progressed far enough into the
apartment to command a view of the
hallway. If only the God damned
vibrator would stop buzzing

  All human brains have a component
that takes over problemsolving when the
conscious mind is stunned. Often it
does as well or better. Norman's had
gotten him out of the jungle alive six
years before, and it did its best now.

  "Hang on, Phyllis," he said urgently,
and got to the bathroom a split second
before the first uninvited guest came
even with the hallway. It should have
been the work of a moment to deploy a
towel, but incredibly he was still
erect. Cold water, he thought wildly,
and raced for the sink, but halfway
there he decided that the noises coming
from the living room sounded somehow
technological in nature, and he
recalled that there was a
two-thousand~ollar sound-and-video
system in the living room. He
whimpered, spun on his heel, and left
the bathroom, doing the best he could
with the towel.

  There is no way to evaluate a dozen
people quickly. They looked like a
dozen people. The first thing that
registered was the source of the
technological sounds. Three
golf-cart-type video packs with
appropriate color cameras, four still
cameras, and five audiocassette decks.
Every outlet in the room was in use,
and two people were setting up
high-intensity lights.

Norman stared at the people, and the
people stared at him.

  An extremely fat lady with a single
eyebrow recovered first. "You were
expecting us?"

"No."

"Oh, dear. I am Alexandra Saint
Phillip."

  He had never heard of her. It was
obvious that he had never heard of her.
She could not believe he had never
heard of her.

  "Alexandra Saint Phillip, " she
explained. "And this is Rend
G6rin-LaJoie." She indicated a short
dapper man with a mon

1

MINDKILLER 53

ocle. "And Harry Doyle, of course,
and Gloria Delemar, and "

  Norman had never heard of any of
these people, and every second he
left Phyllis alone lowered the
already-low probability of his ever
seeing her again. "What do you want?"

  "The story, of course," Gerin-Woie
said impudently. "Today, if possible.
There's a fire over on Spring Garden
Road we could be covering."

  Is that so? Norman thought. "What
story? Hold it," he added as a
bearded man began to walk down the
hall in search of another outlet. The
man paused expectantly.

  "You are the young man whose sister has
disappeared?" Saint Phillip asked in
astonishment.

  In the two and a half weeks since
Maddy had failed to come home, there
had literally not been a waking hour
in which she was absent from his
thoughts until ten o'clock the
previous night. Being reminded was
like being slapped in the face with a
two-by-four.

"Oh," he said weakly. "Oh, my." Pain
twisted his face.

  "This kitchen's all over orange
juice," complained a dwarf with a
fake Oxford accent and a Nagra stereo
deck.

  "He's the one, Alex," Gerin-Laloie
said. "And we couldn't all have
gotten the appointment wrong so
MacLeod musthave failed to reach
him." He turned to Norman. "Obviously
our names ring no bell, Monsieur.
Perhaps it is more helpful to say
that I am ATV News, and Alex is CBC.
These other people are the other
major Halifax media. We have come at
the behest of your department
chairman to publicize He dis-
appearance of Madeleine Kent."

  "Wait here," Norman said suddenly.
"Please, wait right here. I most go,
I'll be back in a moment. Make coffee
if " The phone rang. The new
picturephone in the bedroom. 'Y)h,
slithering Jesus."

"I'll get it," the technician in the
hallway said helpfully.

  "NO!" Norman screamed, stopping him
in his tracks. Alexandra Saint
Phillip's single eyebrow became a
circumflex, and Gerin-Laloie's ears
seemed to grow points. "Please wait
here."

  Norman hurried to the bedroom,
losing his towel just as he got the
door safely shut behind him. Phyllis
was bright red;

54 Spider Robinson

whether with fury or shame was
unclear. He saw at once that it was
MacLeod on the phone, in the process
of recording a message.

  " concerned after our last
conversation," the department
chairman was saying, "and then your
estranged wife came to see me. She
told me a bit more about your
situation, and  well, I called in a
few favors. I hope you're there,
Norman, they'll be arriving any
minute now. Lois said she'd drop by
and warn you on her way to work, but
I wasn't "

  With what was intended as a
reassuring smile at Phyllis, Norman
spun the phone carefully away from
her, adjusted the camera to show him
only from the collarbone up, and
activated his end. "Yes doctor
they're here right now I have to go
thank you very much," he said, and cut
the connection.

  He expected MacLeod's image to
look startled as it faded out of
existence. But: that startled?
Instinctively, Norman glanced over
his shoulder. There was the bureau
mirror, perfectly angled to catch
Phyllis's reflection.

He literally fell down laughing.

  The horror fed the laughter in the
vicious feedback loop of hysteria.
He made a last massive effort and
beat at his head with his fists,
barely succeeded in disrupting the
loop. Even before he had his breath
back he was hunching across the
floor toward her like a brokenbacked
snake.

  He said no word as he untied her
bonds, partly from an awareness that
it is impossible to apologize to a
captive audicnce, and partly because
he could not conceive of anything to
say. She stared fixedly at the
ceiling until he was done, then
rolled convulsively from the bed.

  Of course her legs would not
support her. No more would her hands
break her fall; she landed heavily
on her face.

  "Are you all right, Mr. Kent?" the
technician called from the hallway.

  Sure thing, Jimmy, Norman thought
for the millionth time in his life,
just changing into Superman. "Yes," he
roared. "Right out."

  "That's what he said the last
time," Norman heard the dwarf
complain.

He managed to heave Phyllis up onto
the bed. She bit him

MINDKlEEER 55

as he did so, and he let her. When
she let go, he began dressing at
once. "Phyllis, listen. Stay right
there. Get dressed when you can,
leave when they're gone. There's no
second choice. There's a gun in my
desk, I'd appreciate it if you could
blow my tucking brains out before you
go."

She had the gag down now. "Do it
yourself, mother-fucker."

  He shook his head. "If I had the
guts I'd never have waited this
long." He finished sealing his
trousers and decided slippers
eliminated the need for socks.
"Phyllis, I have to talk to these
people, now. That's CBC and ATV and
both papers and most of the FMs out
there, they want to know about Maddy.
I might it could she could be " His
jaw worked. "Phyl, for the love of
God wait until they're gone. If you
go out there now with rope marks on
your wrists they're going to think I
killed Maddy and ate her. I've got to
get her picture on the air.',

  Without waiting for an answer he
left the room, returned at once, shut
off the vibrator, left again.

He held up his hands as he entered
the living room, partly to head off
conversation and partly to save his
eyesight his living room was now
hellbright. "Hold it, ladies and
gentlemen. I'm skill not here yet, it
just looks like it. Is coffee mader'

"Let's just get a reading on you,
darling," the dwarf said.

  "No," he said finely. "I'm a
different color when I've had my
coffee."

"See here "

  "No, you see here. Every piece of
equipment in this room has its own
battery pack, and you're all draining
my wall outlets. I'll accept that,
because I want the opportunity to
shout with your voice. But I will
damned well have coffee first."

  One of them had figured out the
machine; ten cups of coffee were
ready. Norman took his cup back into
the glare of video lights.

  "Now," he said, sithug in his desk
chair, "explain something to me. Dr.
MacLeod has a good deal of influence
in this town  but this big a turnout
is ridiculous. I ignore news myself,
but you people are obviously the
first string. Since when does the
first string cover a simple
missing-persons story'"

56 Spider Robinson

  "Since Samantha Ann Bent was found
dead in a stand of alders outside of
Kentville," Gerin-Woie said, coming
back with his coffee.

  Norman's ears began to buzz. "I
don't believe I " The dwarf thrust a
light meter in his face and clipped
a mini-mike to his shirt.

  "She disappeared from Halifax two
days after your sister. She was. . .
it was a sex crime. A very ghastly
sex crime."

  Coffee slopped on his legs. He set
the cup down on the desk with
exquisite care and lit a cigarette.
"Where was she last seen?" he asked
mildly.

  "Kempt Road," Saint Phillip
supplied. "Near the all-night donut
place, at about four o'clock in the
morning."

"What did she look like?"

"Mr. Kent, I don't know if you want
to "

"Before, dammit!"

  "Oh. She was blonde, dyed blonde,
and rather short. About seventeen or
eighteen, but she looked younger, I
should say. Perhaps fifty kilos. A
rather bad complexion, and a sort of
teenybopper figure, with "

'~They searched the area where her
body was found?"

  "For others, you mean? Yes, I
imagine so. Probably still at it
now."

"Any leads on the killer?"

  "Nothing yet," from Gerin-Woie.
"Except that he is very sick."

  Norman let out a great slow
breath, and worked his shoulders
briefly. "All right. I think it's
okay. I don't think the same man got
Maddy."

  Gerin-Woie murmured something into
his cassette deck. "Why not,
Monsieur Kent?"

  "Well, I'm not positive but it
doesn't feel right. My understanding
is that sex killers pick a type and
stick with it. Maddy
was is thirty-four years old, brown
hair exactly the same shade as mine,
about three inches taller than I am,
and a good sixty-five kilos. Her
figure was excellent anti her skin
superb. When I last saw her she was
not dressed remotely line the way
seventeen-year-olds dress these
days. She dressed sensibly,
tastefully. Her clothes were
European, with those loose lines,
and that air of durability we
stopped respecting over here

MINDKILLER 57

a long time ago." He ran down
awkwardly.

  "Sex criminals don't always stay
with a type," G6rin-Laloie said. "So
ne like variety."

  "The circumstances don't match. This
Bent girl was way over at the North
End at 4:00 A.M. Maddy was last seen
downtown, on Argyle Street, planning
to walk down one block to Barrington
and catch a bus, at a little after
midnight. The whole MO is different."
He puffed on his cigarette and
frowned. "Perhaps I shouldn't be
telling you all this. If a tie-in
gives it more news value "

  "Mr. Kent," Saint Phillip said,
"when two women disappear off the
streets of Halifax within forty-eight
hours, it is news even if one is
built like a hippo and the other a
giraffe. It is not inconceivable that
two killers independently " She broke
off. "I'm sorry, I "

  "No, you're right." Norman's face
was stony. "None of this makes things
look any brighter for Maddy. But at
least I don't think it was your
butcher-crazy that got her."

  "Monsieur Kent," G6rin-LaJoie said,
"forgive me please, I have not had a
chance to familiarize myself with
your case. Is there no chance that
your sister could have. . . taken it
into her head to "

  "I don't think so." Norman frowned.
"Look, in your business you must hear
a lot of people tell you, 'but she
had no reason to.' Maddy not only had
no reason to, she had reason not to.
It's too long a story to explain,
but will you just accept it that
Sergeant Amesby down at Missing
Persons believes she was abducted?
He's a rather skeptical man."

  "HelJ yes," the dwarf agreed. "If
Amesby says she was snatched "

  "Hadn't she been in Switzerland for
ten years?" asked Saint Phillip, who
had plainly done her homework.
"Couldn't she have "

  "Leaving everything she owned? It's
been almost three weeks, and Interpol
comes up empty," Norman said.

  The bedroom door opened, and Phyllis
entered the living room. She wore her
own jeans and one of his shirts, with
the sleeves buttoned. "Goodbye,
Norman," she said icily, and exited.
There was a brief pause.

"Look, are you ready to tape?" Norman
asked.

58 Spider Robinson

"Yes."

  He ran his hands through his hair.
"Okay." He looked at the largest of
the videocameras, told himself it
was an old and understanding friend
who happened to have one round eye.
"My deepest sympathies go to the
family of Samantha Ann Bent. I think
I know something of what they are
feeling now. But I don't believe
that the beast who took their girl
got my sister Madeleine. Their
physical types and the manner of
their disappearances are too
dissimilar. I'm all the family Maddy
has left and I don't know what has
happened to her." He took a folder
from his top desk drawer, selected a
large color glossy. He held it up to
the cameras, which all trucked in.
"This is my sister, Madeleine Kent.
She is thirty-four. She was last
seen on June twelfth near Barrington
and Argyle, wearing a tan
calf-length skirt, matching jacket
and pale yellow blouse, carrying a
yellow purse. She had just returned
from ten years in Switzerland, and
she tended to speak as though
English were a learned language,
although she was losing the
tendency. I you have any information
which could help us locate her, I
beg you to contact Sergeant Amesby
of the Halifax police, or the RCMP.
Complete anonymity can be
guaranteed.

  "My sister has been gone for
eighteen days. I am worried sick. If
you know anything at all, if you saw
anything unusual near Argyle or
Barrington streets on Friday, June
twelfth, please . . . call Missing
Persons. I " His voice broke. "I
need your help. Thank you." He
sucked hard on his cigarette.
"OkayT'

  "In the can." "Got it." "Good
take." At once all the video people
and half the others lit cigarettes.

  "All right." He drained the
coffee, set it on the desk, and
took/a folio from the same drawer.
Most of the journalists came closer,
gathered round the desk. "You
newspaper people, here is a dossier
I've compiled on Madeleine. I gave a
copy to Sergeant Amesby, but he
won't have let you see it. It
contains everything I know or was
able to fmd out about Maddy, every-
thing known about her last evening.
Statements from people who were at
the party. A copy of the posters I
distributed to all the cab
companies. Still shots of Maddy, ten
years out of date. She had a home
videocassette in her belongings that
seems fairly recent. I've had some
stills made up from that. You can

MINDKILLER 59

see that she hasn't changed a great
deal in ten years."

  "More worldly-wise," Saint Phillip
said. "A faint flavor of cynical
amusement. Of self-assurance. She was
a very beautiful woman, Mr. Kent."

Norman clenched his teeth. "And skill
is, so far as I know."

"Oh, my God, I'm sorry. Of course
she "

  "As for you print and radio people,
perhaps it would save us all a good
deal of time if I simply ran off
several copies of this dossier for
you to take with you. Then if you
have any questions you can phone me;
I have full-range audio."

  "Can we borrow these photos, Mr.
Kent?" one of the print journalists
asked.

  "I'll fax them to you, if you'll
all be so kind as to give me your
access." He started a notepad
circulating. "If there are no more
questions, I'll start these through
the copier. Please feel free to start
a fresh pot of coffee, and there are
munchables in the first cabinet on
the left."

  He collated the dossier and took it
down the hall to the library. As
paper was stacking in the output
hopper, he became aware that he was
not alone.

"Mr. Kent?" Alexandra Saint Phillip
said.

He did not turn.

  "Mr. Kent, it is my business to
listen to sad stories all day long.
In my darker hours I think of myself
as a sob-sucker. I know how to give
sincere condolences to people I don't
give a damn about. 1. . .I just. . .
I'm sorry, Mr. Kent. I'm sorry for
your sister, who looks like she is a
hell of a woman. But most of all I'm
sorry for you. Whatever happened to
her, at least she knows it."

  He kept feeding sheets into the
copies, perhaps a little more
clumsily.

  "I've been a journalist a long
time, Mr. Kent. You start to get a
feeling. I can't be sure, of course,
but I don't think you are ever going
to know any more than you do now. I
don't think she'll ever be found."

  Norman stopped feeding the machine.
His shoulders knotted. "I don't think
so either."

  "You are either going to learn how
to live with that, or you aren't. I
read you as the kind of man who has
what it takes to

60 Sp;.er Robinson

survive something like this.
But forgive me, aren't you in the
midst of a divorce right now?"

'What was my ex who greeted you at
the door."

  "Yes. Look, I have no wish to pry.
I'm not trying to get a juicier
story, this is off the record. But I
think if you own a gun you should
throw it away. If you own a straight
razor, buy an electric one instead.
Perhaps I tank too much. I if
there's anything at all I can
do well, here."

  He turned to see her offering a
card. Past her he saw the dwarf
looking through the open bedroom
door. "Get the hell out of there,"
he barked.

"Certainly, old man. Thought it was
the loo."

  "Try the one I came out of wearing
a towel," Norman suggested bitterly.

"Sorry."

  Norman turned back to Saint
Phillip. "Madam," he said slowly, "I
don't know if I'm the kind of man
who can take a lifetime of this. But
I value your opinion. And your
concern. Thank you very much."

  She smiled, a very sad smile.
'Wake the card. It's the one with
office and home numbers. I don't
give it out ohen. My husband's name
is Willoughby. Go on with your
copying."

  Aher they all led he noticed that
the orange juice had been mopped
from the kitchen floor, and knew
that she had done it.

  That evening he took another walk
out onto the MacDonald Bridge. He
watched the clouds slide past the
moon for several hours, and once he
sang a song, and at eleven-thirty he
threw his gun over the side into the
harbor.

4 - -
1 999 I woke the next morning with
less headache than I deserved. The
nose hurt worse. I was alone in the
bedroom. I heard distant kitchen
sounds, smelled something burnt. I
found I was irritated. I had not
cleared Karen for solo flight yet.
That made me laugh sourly at myself,
and any kind of laugh will do to get
a morning started.

  I found her sitting on a pillow in
the dining area adjacent to the
kitchen. She did not acknowledge my
arrival. She was staring
expressionlessly at what she had
intended to be an omelet. It was the
toast that had burned, and these
days it's hard to burn toast.

  Breakfast with a stranger is
always awkward. You come upon each
other before you have had time to
buckle on your armor. And so the
question becomes, how urgent is the
need? Even if you made love the
night before it doesn't necessarily
help: you can get to know someone
better than you wanted to

                 61
                  
62 Spider Robinson

over first breakfast. Neither of us
was capable of making love, but I
knew Karen fairly well, in terms of
the pattern of her history. But the
Karen I knew had died, had committed
suicide. The new Karen I had created
by aborting her suicide I did not
know at all.

  I found that I wanted to know her.
As a man who has accidentally caused
an avalanche cannot prevent himself
from watching to learn the full
extent of the damage, I needed to
know, now that it was too late, what
I had done by my meddling. I wanted
to like her. That would make me a
hero.

  I took the omelet and toast from
in front of her. She started
indignantly, a good sign. I dumped
the stuff down the oubliette and
took new ingredients from the
fridge. On a hunch I went back and
took a sip of her coffee. I pitched
that too and got the grounds from
the freezer.

  I mixed and sliced and grated,
assembled and seasoned the
resultants, and arrayed them in the
cooker. I studied the controts. The
combination she had programmed was
straight out of the owner's manual,
with one plain error. I had figured
out the quirks of this particular
model extensive ones the first day I
had been in the apartment. She was a
rotten cook. I set it correctly and
initiated.

"I think I'm going to move out of
this dump," she said.

  I nodded. I did not ask where she
would go. I prepared cups to receive
coffee. Her sugar had been stored in
a cabinet, so she didn't take any.
Expensive cream was on her shopping
list, so she used it.

"Hey, that smells good."

  I dealt out onion-and-cheddar
omelets, bacon, crisped English
muffins. I put two straws in a quart
of orange juice and poured Antiguan
coffee. The shopping-list program
had been her own. She was in the
habit of ruining some very expensive
food. Well, she earned her money.
She started to dig in, pulled up
short. "You think I'm ready for a
meal this size?"

  I had reoriented her stomach with
tea, soup, and other soft foods. "If
it looks good to you, you should
certainly have at least a little of
everything."

  She fell to at once, but ate with
some caution. She did not tank while
she ate, which suited me. We paid
respectful atten

MINDKILLER 63

tion to the food. She made occasional
small sounds of enjoyment. I found
this remarkable. It did not seem that
any of the jelly of her hypothalamus
had been boiled away. Her pleasure
center was functional. Remarkable.

  While the food occupied her
attention, I studied her. Her hair
had been washed, dried, and brushed.
She looked squeaky clean. She wore a
glossy fluff-collar robe that covered
her to the chin. She wore no makeup,
no jewelry. Her hands were reasonably
steady, her color okay.

  After a while she caught me
studying her. Without hesitation she
began to study me right back. For a
few seconds it got like two kids
trying to outstare each other, but
there is a limit to the amount of
time two chewing people can do that
and keep a straight face. We shared a
small explosion of laughter, then
smiled at each other for a few
seconds more and went back to our
food.

  I had given her a portion a third
the size of my own. Though she chewed
much more slowly, she finished first.
At once she reached for a nearby
package of Peter Jackson. I did not
react, kept eating. She looked down,
saw her fingers taking a cigarette
from the pack, and put it back.
Though I still gave no sign of
noticing, I chalked up a point for
her.

  When I was done, she took the
cigarette back out and touched it
alight on the side of the pack.
"Gasper?" she asked, offering me the
pack.

"Don't use it, thanks."

"Grass in the freezer."

"That either."

She was surprised. "You don't get
high?"

  "'Reality is for those who don't
have the strength of character to
handle drugs,"' I quoted. "That's
me."

  She pursed her lips, nodded.
"Uh-huh." She took a deep drag.
"You're a good cook, foe. Thanks.
Very much."

"Yeah."

  She held her cigarettes down
between middle and ring fingers. It
seems like one of those meaningless
affectations, until you notice that
with each puff, half of the face is
hidden. The inverse is to hold the
cigarette like a home-rolled joint
between thumb and forefinger tips,
minimizing facial courage. Now

64 Spider Robinson

that I saw her with her hair
brushed, on a head held upright, I
saw that the hair too was styled for
maximum concealment, in long bangs
and forward-sweeping wings. If she'd
been a man she'd have worn a full
beard.

"foe what? I forget."

Embarrassing. So did I. "Nixon," I
tried at random.

'*Temple something. Templar . . .
Templeton."

  "Well, I knew it was a rat's
name," I said. She didn't laugh, of
course. She had been a small child
when the pack brought Nixon down,
and nobody reads Charlotte's Web
anymore these days. But she could
tell that I thought I'd said
something witty, so she smiled. She
had manners.

  "You don't have to tell me the
real one," she lied. "It doesn't
matter."

  Do you ever learn things from your
mouth? I have a hundred glib
evasions and outright lies on file
for the question "What is your
name?" To my astonishment I heard
myself tell her the truth.

"There is no real one."

"Eh?"

"I don't exist."

  She could tell I had stopped
kidding, even if she still didn't
understand. "You lost me. I'm dumb
in the morning."

  Nothing to do for it now. "I'm not
on file. I'm not on tape. The
government and I don't recognize
each other. I'm a nonperson."

  "No shit?" Though she had hidden
it well, she had been just a trifle
annoyed, thinking I was withholding
my real name out of mistrust. Now
she was realizing how much I did
trust her. So was I. "God, that's
fantastic. How did you do it?" She
caught herself. "I'm sorry. That's
not a proper question."

  I was beginning to like her. "It's
okay, Karen. I have told two people
what I just told you. Both of them
asked me how I pulled it off, I told
them both the truth, and neither one
believed me. Not at first, or ever.
So I don't mind telling you."

"Okay. How'd you do it?"

"I haven't the faintest idea."

  She thought about it. "Yeah. Yeah,
that's kind of laard to get a handle
on, all right." She puffed on her
cigarette. "I tales

I\4INDKILLER 65

it there's about a two-hour rap that explains it."

"Yeah. It gets less probable with each sentence."

  She nodded. "And you don't especially feel like going into
it right now."

  Definitely beginning to like her. "Another. Why'd you stop
dealing coke?"

  Her eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. 'Tossed the place,
eh? I liked it too much. The toot and the loot. Contentment is
not in my pattern, if you dig. I'm a Pisces. When the
situation's been comfortable too long, I find some way to kick
it apart. There are so many. In this case I got involved with
my supplier, and when the relationship went sour, so did the
career. Of course I couldn't have predicted this without going
to the trouble of thinking about it for a second. I believe
you, by the way."

"I know."

  There went her no-hitter. I hate people who do that, look
you in the eye and tell you matter-of-factly how screwed up
they are. I have this conviction that screwed-up people are
supposed to be embarrassed about it. It's as common a
vice as smoking these days, and at least as much nuisance to
those around you. It lowers the general morale.

  On the other hand, I make a habit of bitterly criticizing
every aspect of reality except myself which is~also bad
for general morale.

  "After a while I found myself owing considerable money to
some very sandy people," she said. "Well, I'd always told
myself I could hook if times got bad. I thought it out and
made my move, and it didn't work out very well. I mean, I got
paid all three Ames, but I could tell they weren't real happy.
They weren't repeat business, they weren't word-of-mouth. A
girl could starve that way.

  "The fourth one set me straight. We talked afterwards, and
he was nice. I told him just a little about me, just that my
first time was a rape. 'That's it,' he says. 'You're not a bad
little actress, but SeAorita, no why will you ever convince
anyone that you like it.' About a day and a half later it hit
Nile that that wasn't a drawback, it was an advantage, and I
changed my PR and tripled my price. I paid off my people in a
week. So

66 Spider Robinson

that's" she grinned bitterly "that's
what a bimbo like me is doing in a
class joint like this." She took a
last puff, pinched the filter harder
than necessary, and tossed the butt,
before it had quite finished going
out, in the general direction of the
oubliette.

  I sat perfectly still. I had
scrubbed that floor on my hands and
knees but not by invitation. You
don't own the place, I reminded
myself, you're just robbing it.

  But if I had not been irritated
(I'm embarrassed to admit), if the
effort of not wrinkling up my nose
hadn't made it throb, I might have
been humane enough to save the
obvious next question for another
day or two.

"What will you do now?"

  She visibly flinched, and dropped
her gaze. Of course I felt like a
jerk at once. Of course that
irritated me more. She rose suddenly
from the table. I was between her
and one exit, so she took the other.
Into the living room.

  When she stiffened, I opened my
mouth, slapped myself in the
forehead, and raced after her. I was
days too late. There in the same
position between the lamp and the
plastic table, from which I had
never thought to move it, was the
God damned armchair. Framed and lit
like a tableau at Madame Tussaud's,
lacking only a waxy body. . .

  A moist noise in her throat
decided not to be a word after all.
She looked around, hesitated. She
was not going to sit those bedsores
on the chair that had put them
there. But if she sat on the couch
she had to look at the chair. I
stepped past her, turned the chair
so that it faced away from the
window, and tilted it back as far as
it would go, bringing up the
footrest. With some throw pillows
from the couch, the result was a
cushioned flat surface about thirty
degrees from horizontal, the high
end facing the window.

  "Come here," I said in what I
hoped was a kindly but firm tone.
She did not move. "I'll clear the
window. Lie on your belly and watch
the sun try to brighten the Hudson
Sewer." She still didn't move. "What
do you do when you fall off a horse,
Karen?"

  She nodded, crossed the room, and
stretched out without further
hesitation. I dialed the window
transparent and fetched

                      MINDKILLER 67
her cigarettes. She lit one
gratefully. "leer

"Yah."

  "Would you rub some more of that
anesthetic gunk on my ass? And could
I have some rum?"

  "lust what your system needs. How
about some aspirin? If I can find any
in that haystack."

She sighed. "Okay."

  I fetched cream, aspirin, and water
from the bathroom and pulled a
footstool near her chair. She lay
with her face toward me while I
applied the cream, and though she
sucked air a few times she didn't cry
out. One excellent test of trust is
the ability to receive a butt-massage
unselfconsciously, and she paid me
that compliment. As I worked up to
the sores on her back I looked around
the room. I had given her story-tapes
a B-minus. A boxed set of historical
romances had cost her points. On die
other band, she kept a handful of
real books, good ones. Maybe the set
was a gift. She had a fairly good
multipurpose music collection,
deficient in classical but overwise
sound; Deere were items I had already
stolen. Her video library was
strictly tapeof-dhe-mondh club, but
widh d e incongruous addition of some
classic early Emsh. An overall rating
was hard to decide. A C-plus would
have been strictly fair, but a
B-minus could have been justified to
die. . .

Hiatus.

  I was sitting on die couch widh
half a dank in my hand, and she was
looking out die window, smoking a
cigarette I didn't remember her
lighting. The sun was high over the
river now. It looked hot out there.
I saw a gull mane a dead-stick
landing on a distant roof and lay
where it hit. What boils up off die
Hudson at mid-day would take pages
just to catalog. How come pigeons
have adapted to pollution and gulls
haven't?

  After a while she pinched out a
cigarette, dropped it on the rug. She
got up and put the robe back on. She
walked over to the window and stood
staring out over lower buildings,
watch ing faraway boats trying to
slice the water. "One doing for sure,
I've gotta get out of dais pit. I
always wanted to live in a place like
dais. My old man's life savings
couldn't have bought a month in a
place like this. The week before last
I found myself sitting in front of
die video widb die stereo playing and
a story

68 Spider Robinson

on the reader on my lap. I looked
around and on the table next to me
was a burning cigarette, a burning
joint of Supreme, a couple lines of
coke j and a drink with the ice all
melted. Four kinds of munchies. It
came to me that I was bored. I
couldn't think of one thing on earth
to do that I would enjoy." She
turned around, leaned back against
the window, and surveyed the room.
"It's kind of like that now. I need
to change the channel. This just
isn't the kind of place where you
figure out what to do with the rest
of your life."

  She was as close as she could come
to asking. I was reluctant. "What
about, uh, Jo Ann?"

"She lives with two other girls,
it's like Times Square."

  So think about it. Crazy little
hooker with a socket in her scalp,
miserable cook, slob, sexual
cripple, two kinds of smoker.

  Tough as a Harlem rat, in both
mind and body. With pretty good
manners. She had respected my
privacy considerably more than I had
respected hers. And she knew what
you do when you fall off a horse. In
many ways she was the ideal roommate
for someone like me, at least for a
while. Maybe my own life had gotten
a little boring.

  "You can crash at my place," I
said. "I'll put up with tobacco, but
no grass. I do all the cooking, you
do all the dishes, I do all the rest
of the housework. You can bring five
percent of the contents of that
medicine cabinet."

  Relief was plain on her face. "I'm
grateful, Joe. Really grateful.
You're sule it's okay," she added,
not quite making it a question. I
answered it anyway.

"Sure."

"I won't be putting you out any?"

  "Karen, why don't you just figure
out what questions you want to ask
me and ask me? I don't promise to
answer any, but we'll save time that
way."

She smiled. "Fair enough. You live
alone?"

"Yeah."

"Involved with anybody?"

"No."

"Born New Yorker?"

"I don't think so."

She blinked, but let it pass. "Got
any family?"

MINDKILLER 69

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Next question."

"How come you burgle?"

  "It's the only job my background
has prepared me for. I'm trying to
furnish a flat."

"How'd your nose get all broke up
like that?"

  "I don't know how I got the first
break. You broke it the second time,
when I unplugged you."

  "Jesus wept and died. I'm sorry, foe,
I how can you not know how you broke
your nose?"

"I wish to God I knew."

"Jesus."

  That ended the Twenty Questions for
a while. She paced and thought about
what I had said, absently lighting
another smoke. I could see her
working it out. Most of what I had
told her made no sense. Lord, who
knows better than 1? But I had not
been smiling when I had said it, so
she believed me implicitly. Therefore
there had to be a startling but
logical explanation, and I must have
reasons of my own for not wanting to
go into it.

I wished that were so.

  It was a little annoying, how
implicitly she trusted me. Perhaps it
is vaguely unflattering to be
considered harmless. Or a little too
flattering: more responsibility than
I liked.

  I was just as annoyed at how
implicitly I seemed to trust her. I
depend on my instincts I have to in
my position but sometime soon I was
going to have to sit down with them
and ask them exactly why they had had
me offer my two most dangerous
secrets to her. I must stand to gain
something from the ultimate risk but
what?

  "Look," she said, still pacing,
"maybe there's one thing more we
should " She saw my face and stopped.
"No," she said thoughtfully. "No, I
guess I don't have to discuss that
with you. Okay, look. Can you wait
another day or two? I know I promised
to help you with these speakers, but
honest to God I don't think I could
make it to the corner right now. If I
don't lay down soon, I'll "

"Go to bed, Karen. I'll get the
dishes. Maybe the day after

70 Spider Robinson

tomorrow, maybe the day after that.
My time is my own." Something made
that last sentence taste bitter in
my mouth.

"Thanks, foe. Thanks a lot."

'make two more aspirin."

  After she left I got up from the
couch and selected one of her better
audiotapes. I intended to steal it,
or at least dub it onto my home
system, but my subconscious felt
like hearing it now: Waits's classic
Blue Valentine. I adjusted the headphones
and sat back.

  His courageous version of
"Somewhere" made me smile sadly as
always. For all us losers and
thieves and junkies and nighthawks
there is a place, somewhere. But: my
place? The next track also seemed
apropos, "Christmas Card from a
Hooker in Minneapolis," but only in
that Karen could have written such a
letter. It did not explain why I had
answered as I had. I drifted through
the next track, and then my ears
woke me up again in the middle of
the hypnotic blues "529," and I had
it. Waits's whiskey-and-Old-Gold
rasp filled my head.

When the streets get hungry baby You can almost hear 'cm
growl Someone's settin' a place for you When the dogs
begin to howl When the streets are dead They creep up and
take whatever's Left on the bone Suckers always make
mistakes Far away from home Chicken in the pot Whoever
gets there first Gonna Bet himself $29 and an alligator
purse . . .

  I had already taken all her cash
myself, and planned to take other
items. Sdll, there were other
thieves on the street who would
consider me shockingly wasteful. If
I left her here to work out her
destiny, I was morally certain that
she would drift back to hooking
within a week or two. The money is
addictive. But she had been working
as an independent for a surprisingly
long time. Such luck could not last;
luck had never lasted for

MINDKILLER 71

Karen. One day soon she would come to
the attention of an entrepreneur.
When his training period was over,
even a woman as tough and strong as
she would be docile, obedient, and
tremblingly eager to please. In this
largest city in the land of the free,
it happens every day.

  I could not leave her to the
slavers. I hated and feared slavery
too much myself.

But it was more than that.

  I had meddled. I had forcibly
prevented her from ending her life
when and as she wished. Stated that
way, my action was morally repugnant
to me; as a kid I had canvassed and
petitioned vigorously for Right to
Death, and cheered when it became law
of the land. I had no defense now, no
excuse: I had acted out of
"instinctive" revulsion, which is
never an excuse for overriding
morality. She had been fleeing from a
life that was misery occasionally
leavened with horror. If I simply
returned her to that life and washed
my hands, I was a monster.

  I hoped it would not take her too
long to find some new kind of
direction, some kind of plan or
purpose. Because I was stuck with her
until she did.

  I found myself cursing her for
having been so inconsiderate as to
pick a slow, pleasant death, and
laughed out loud at myself. And went
to do the breakfast dishes.

It was actually three days before I
clouted a delivery van over on
Broadway, and drove us and the
plunder I had selected to my place.
What I didn't want she left behind.
The rent would keep paying itself,
the lights would go on and off in
random patterns simulating
inhabitance, the rugs would clean
themselves once a week, from now
until her lease ran out in another
two years or her credit balance
dropped too low. That was the rent
she paid to stay at my place: the
maintenance of a legal address
elsewhere on all the proper punch
cards.

  I had told her almost nothing about
the place. So few people ever see it
that it's fun to savor the reactions.

  She was neither impressed nor
dismayed when we pulled up behind the
warehouse. It was a moonless night
and there were no lights, but a
warehouse does not look impressive
even

72 Spider Robinson

in the daytime. The daytime
appearance of mine is, in fact,
particularly weatherbeaten and
long-abandoned, even for the
neighborhood.

  It was probably just about what
she had expected, and I would guess
she had lived in worse circumstances
before. "Do we unload now?" was all
she said.

"Yeah."

  We took the swag in the back way
and by candlelight we stacked it,
for the moment, where burglar's
plunder should be stored, in a
corner where casual random search of
the warehouse would probably not
find it.

  An office module formed a block in
the center of the warehouse. I led
her toward it through the black maze
by memory, having left the candles
where they would be useful. Most
people being led through total
darkness are a pain in the ass, but
she knew how to move in the dark. As
we rounded a stack of packing crates
something subliminal warned me. I
tightened my grip on her hand and
flung her bodily into an aisle
between two rows of boxes. That
changed the position of my head, so
the sap came down on the point of my
extended shoulder. My right arm
died. There is no good way to get a
gun from under your left armpit with
your left hand. For me to have tried
it would have presented my one
remaining elbow to that sap. I
back-pedaled, spun, and bugged out.

  He followed. Not many could have
followed me through my own turf in
the dark, but he was one of the few.
I tried angling toward the crowbar
pile, but he guessed it and moved to
cut me off. He pressed me too
closely to give me a chance to spill
the gun and pick it up. I took us to
a cleared space large enough to
allow room to work and spun at bay,
feeling pessimistic. He pulled up
just out of reach and puffed and
chuckled. I kicked one shoe up into
the air, sent the other in another
direction, hoping to misdirect him.
He flinched as the first one hit,
but by the second he had figured it
out. He chuckled some more.

  "I couldn't get in your place . .
. this time either, Sammy," he
puffed. "But you'll take me in . . .
won't you? You'll beg for the
chance."

His sap arm would be behind him; no
matter where or how

MINDKILLER 73

I hit him, he'd have a terrific shot at my
head. I should have saved one shoe to flip
into his face. Dumb.

  "Hey, thanks for throwing in the fem.
Sam. She'll never find her way outta here
in the dark. You saved me another twenty
bucks."

  I had to make my move soon, he was
getting his breath back. Go for the gun?
Try to yank my belt free 1eft-handed?
Charge and hope for a break? They all
sucked.

"Hey, no hard feelings, huh?"

  A shinbone was the least risk; I got
ready to try a kick rehearsing what I
would do after he broke my 1eg. "No hard
feelings, Wishbone."

  If it is possible to grunt above high C,
that is what he did then. He came at me in
a shambling walk, hissing, and when he
cannoned into me he embraced me. I was too
startled to react. The hiss ended in the
word "Shit," and then he slid slowly down
me.

  God damn it, was my whole house full of
armed hostiles? I stepped out of his arms,
bent and searched hastily for the sap
without success.

"'Twenty bucks, huh?" Karen said. "Mother
tucker."

I got slowly to my feet. "What the hell
did you do to him?"

  "Put a fist through his goddam kidney.
Son of a bitch. Help me find his crotch,
I want to kick it."

"Take it easy. Your honor is satisfied."

 -   "But "

"He sapped me. It's my turn."

"Oh. Are you okay?"

  "1'11 be okay for another couple of
minutes, until this arm comes back to
life. Then I will be very disconsolate for
a 10ng time."

"How can I help?"

"Help me drag him over here."

  We arranged him on a low flatbed
handtruck. He was making mewing sounds. He
wanted to scream, but he would give

   up the idea long before he had the
breath. I was glad she had

hit one only a glancing blow that first
day; full strength and
she might have killed me, and wouldn't
that have made interesting copy for the
Daily News?

74 Spider Robinson

"Who the hell is he?"

  "Wishbone Jones. Small-tdme mugger
and a little of this and that.
Skinny as a stork and stronger than
I am. Lives down by the wharf. Not
bright, but a good fighter. We've
tangled." By now I had my gun out. I
gave it to her and sat down on the
handtruck beside him. My arm and
shoulder were just beginning to
catch fire, but that was mitigated
to some extent by the exhilaration
of survival. "Hello, Wishbone."

"H hi, Sam." He was getting back
under control.

"Bad day at the track, Wishbone?"

"Nuh. . . no."

"Then it's got to be basketball or
poker."

"Neither one. My ex from Columbus
caught up with me."

  "Yep. That's kharma for you. Well,
I believe we discussed this the last
dme?"

  He grimaced. "Aw, shit, Sam. If I go
to the hospital they give me the
cure."

"We did discuss it."

He shook his head. "Ah, shit. Yeah."
He gave me his arm.

"No hard feelings, Wish?"

  "No hard feelings." He closed his
eyes and I broke the arm across the
edge of the handtruck as quickly and
cleanly as I could. He screamed and
fainted.

  Karen had not uttered a sound when
I had suddenly flung her into the
darkness, but she yelped now.

  I slumped, exhausted and
unutterably depressed. I wanted to
vomit, and I wanted to scream from
the pain in my shoulder, and I
wanted to cry. I stood up. "Let's go
inside."

  It took one metal key and a
five-number combination to get us
into the office module. The windows
are not boarded, they're plated. The
door is too heavy to batter and the
roof is reinforced. Still, it is no
more secure than the average New
York apartment. A cleverer cracksman
than Wishbone could have opened it
in fifteen minutes with the right
tools. There is no such thing as an
unbeatable lock, just incompetent
craftsmen.

"What about him?" she asked as we
stepped in.

  "Wishbone will find his way home.
To the hospital if he's smart. But
Wishbone's not smart. Damn his
eyes." I sealed the door and turned
on the light.

MINDKILLER75

  She was looking at me expressionlessly.
She came suddenly close, took my face in
her hands, and studied it. Nearly at once
she nodded. "You hated it."

  "God damn you, did you think I enjoyed
it?" I yelled, flinging her hands away.

  She shook her head. "No. Not for a
second." She backed away one step. "But
for just a minute there I was scared to
death that you didn't give a dawn, one
way or the other."

  I dropped my eyes. "Fair enough." I
turned around and walked a few steps.
"Simulating total ruthlessness is, I
guess, the hardest thing I've ever had to
do in my life. Sometimes it's necessary."

"Yeah. I know."

  I whirled, ready to flare up at any
sign of pity or sympathy, but there was
neither. Only a total understanding of,
and agreement with, what I had said.

  "Come on," I said. "I'll show you
around." My shoulder ached like hell, but
as I said, I wanted to see her reaction.

  The room we were in had not been
substantially altered since the last time
it was used as an office, perhaps fifteen
or twenty years ago. The alterations I
had made had not involved cleaning. There
wasn't much to see that was worth looking
at, unless she had a thing for busts of
President Kennedy the Second. I led her
into the back, throwing on lights as we
went.

 -   It was obvious that a bachelor
burglar of no great fastidi
ousness lived here. Three inner offices
were converted to living
space, furnished with things too
rickety, threadbare, or ugly
to fence. Empties lay here and there,
and all the wastebaskets
were overflowing. The "kitchen" could
produce anything from
peanut butter on moldy white bread to a
tolerable mulligan,
and not much in between, if you didn't
count the beer. The
office with the toilet had perforce
become the master bedroom.
A truly astonishing calendar hung on
the wall. The mattress
lay on the floor, and the sheets had
that lived-in look. A rancid
glass of orange juice sat beside the
bed, next to a sound-only
phone and a disorderly pile of recent
newspapers an opened to
the society page.

  She really did have manners. She kept
a poker face, made no comment at anything
she saw, just looked around at each

76 Spider Robinson

room and nodded. Perhaps she had
lived in worse. Finally my shoulder
hurt too much. I decided I had
milked-it for all it was worth and
took her back to the outer office.

  She lit a Peter Jackson. "By the
way, how many names have you got,
Sam?" I.

"How many are there? Sit over on
that desk, 'Sharon."'

She complied.

  "Now lift your feet off the floor,
completely, and keep them there."

  I waited until she had done so.
Initiating dislock sequence while
there is ad&tonal human-size mass
anywhere in the room except on the
four places where those desk legs
meet the floor will cause the room
to be blown out of the warehouse.
When she was seated correctly I
turned to the desk nearest me. I
opened the middle drawer. Then I
crossed the room and flipped the
switch for the ventilation fan that
no longer works. On, off, on. I went
back to the desk and closed the
drawer. What looked just like a
buffered old Royal manual typewriter
sat on a rubber pad on the desk's
typing shelf; I typed some words.
Karen watched all this without
expression, but I could tell that
she was wondering if I had sustained
any head injuries in the scuffle
with Wishbone.

  I walked over in front of the bust
of Kennedy and smiled at it. Its
right eye winked at me. A large
section of floor hinged back and up
like a snake sitting up,
soundlessly. Carpeted stairs led
down into a place of soft lights.

"Now I'll show you where I really
live."

"You bastard," she said.

I bowed and gestured: after you.

"You bastard," she said again
softly. "This you did enjoy."

  I lost control and grinned hugely.
"Bet your ass." I gestured again.
"Come on. You can get down off there
now. Or do you want to spend the
night up here?"

  She came off the desk with a
you'll-get-yours grin, tugged her
skirt around, and whacked dust from
it. "The secret temple of Karnak. Do
I have to take my shoes off?"

  "Not even your dress." Perhaps an
indelicate joke, but I had found
that she liked being kidded about
her occupation.

She grimaced. "That's another buck
for ironing, chump."

MINDKILLER77

She came to the stairs and went down.
I followed. I didn't crash into her
on the bottom step because I was
expecting her to stop dead. I waited
while she stared, and when she
finally stepped into the living room
I moved past her.

  She was still staring around her,
with an astonishment that refused to
fade. No matter where she looked, she
could find nothing unremarkable. I
drank her astonishment thirstily.

  Perhaps I am excessively
houseproud. But I have some reason to
be. The location is a large part of
its value, of course  but as a
conventional apartment it was worth
two and a half of hers, and she had
not been living cheaply by any means.
I seldom indulge my weakness; Karen
was the fifth person to come down
those stairs with me. Almost all of
the others had lived with me upstairs for
at least a week before I let them
into my real house.

She would not say a word.

  "This is the living room," I said,
and she jumped. "If you'll step this
way . . . ?" Oh, l was disgusting.

  She remained resolutely silent
during the rest of the tour, but it
cost her. It took a good ten minutes;
my house has a little more than twice
the cubic of the office complex that
sits on it.

  As we walked I flipped switches and
brought the house back up to active
status, started the coffee program,
and turned up the fans to accommodate
her inevitable cigarettes.

  The message light on the phone
panel was not lit. Maybe one day I
will come home and find it lit. When
that happens I will drop to the floor
and pray that the end is quick.

  At last my shoulder made me cut it
short. I led us back to the living
room and dropped into the nearest
Lounger, drawing its attention to my
shoulder. "Excuse me," I said. "This
won't wait any longer."

  She nodded. The chair began doing
indescribable things to my shoulder
girdle, and I closed my eyes. When I
could open them again, she was
standing on the same spot in the same
stance, looking at me with the same
lack of expression. My chair cut back
to subliminal purring. I tried the
shoulder and winced, but decided
against repeating the massage cycle.

"Joe," she said finally, "you are a
good burglar."

78 Spider Robinson

"I'm a very good burglar."

  "If that grin gets any bigger,
you're gonna split your face clear
back to your ears. lust before that
happens, would it be all right if I
were to ask some of the obvious
questions?"

"1'11 tell you anything I can."

  "All right." She took out
cigarettes and lit up. Then she put
her fists on her hips. "What the fuck is this
place?"

  "Are you familiar with the
expression, 'to go to the mat-
tresses'?"

  "Sure. Are you trying to tell me
that all this" she swept her hand
around the room "is some kind of
gangster's command post?"

  "No. But I am telling you that big
multinationals sometimes have to go
to the mattresses too."

  Her eyes widened. "But that's
silly. Multinationals don't have
shooting w well, yes they do, but
not in New York."

  "Not on page one, no. They tend to
be much neater, much subtler."

  She thought it through. "So it's a
corporate command bunker. What
corporation?"

"I don't know."

  "It looks like it would make a
great fortress. How come the
original owners aren't here?"

  "My guess is undeclared war, a
sneak attack. The secret of this
place would naturally be known only
by a few presumably 'one grenade got
them all.' I estimate that it has
been abandoned.for almost fifteen
years, since about '85. I found it
about ten years back, and nobody's
come around since, that I know of.
Could happen any time, of course."

  "So how the hell could you happen
to 'stumble across' that
song-and-dance routine you did
upstairs to open the door?"

"I can't imagine."

  She frowned. "Conversation with
you certainly has a lot of
punctuation. Forget I asked." She
looked around again. '~Who pays the
utilities? Since you don't exist, I
mean."

"Nobody."

  "What do I look like, an idiot?
That's a full-service phone over
there, and two powered chairs, and
your tape console alone must draw .
. . not to mention that terminal in
the bed

MINDKILLER 79

room, and lights and climate
and don't tell me. There's an
inconspicuous solar collector on top
of the abandoned warehouse, no bigger
than Washington Square."

  I smiled. "I misspoke myself. I
should have said 'everybody.' I get
my power and phone from the same
place you do I just don't pay for
it."

  "But they've got hunter programs
monitoring for unmetered drain "

  "Programs written and administered
by corruptible, fallible human
beings. Whoever built this place
built it well. I never get a bill."

  "I'll be damned." She stared at the
phone. "But how can anybody call you?
You can't have a number, the
switching syst "

"Nobody can call me. It's the perfect
phone."

  Her grin was sudden. "I'll be go to
hell. So it is." She took off her
rucksack and checked to make sure she
had broken or crushed nothing when
she fell. "Where should I stash my
stuffy'

"I'll do it. Sit down."

  I gestured toward the other
Lounger. She put down the sack and
went to it, stroked the headrest
reverently. "For years I've wanted
one of these. Never could afford it."
She shook her head. "I guess crime
pays."

"No, but the perks are terrific. Go
on, try it."

  She sat, made a small sound as she
realized that it did not hurt her
sores, then made another as the chair
adjusted to her skeletal shape and
body temperature. I set it for gentle
massage and took her bag to the spare
bedroom. When I got back I had her
chair mix a Preacher's Downfall for
me and a rum-andrum for her. (I had
satisfied myself by then that
wireheading had cured her of
compulsive overbooking. A marvelous
therapeutic tool, save that its side
effects included death.)

  She did not see me at once; her
eyes were rolled back~into her head.
But after a while her ears told her
that ice cubes were clinking nearby,
and she came slowly back to the
external world. "Joe," she said,
smiling happily, "you're a good bur-
glar."

  It was nice to see her sitting back
in a chair, with a smile that I liked
on her face.

80 Spider Robinson

  We drank and talked for an hour or
so. Then on impulse I put on some
Brindle to see if she knew the
difference between music you talk
over and music you don't. Sure
enough, three bars in she shut up
and smiled and sat back to listen.
When the tape was through she was
ready to admire my bathroom, and
then I showed her her bedroom. By
then she was too tired to admire
anything. I started to head for my
own room, but she caught my arm.

  "foe . . ." She looked me in the
eye. "Would you sleep with me
tonight?"

  I studied her face until I was
sure the question was meant
literally. "Sure."

  "You're a good burglar," she
murmured, peeling out of her tunic.

  It did feel almighty good to have
arms around me in bed. I fell asleep
no more than five seconds after we
had achieved a comfortable spoon.
She beat me by several seconds. From
that day on, if we slept at the same
time it was together.

I introduced her to the bust of
Kennedy, who filed her in his
permanents. I showed her the defense
systems and emergency exits. I
showed her my meditation place down
by the river, and how to get there
and back safely. She started
spending a lot of time alone there,
even though she couldn't smoke while
filtered and goggled. She did not
discuss what she thought about
there, and I did not ask. I could
search her home, rifle her
strongbox, and milk her terminal but
some things are personal. Four days
went by this way.

  I was sitting in the Lounger
having my neck rubbed and planning
my next job when I heard the dislock
sequence inidate. I glanced up,
expecting Karen. But when the door
cycled up h was the Fader who came
down the stairs, with a tape in his
hand.

  Fader Takhalous is fiftyish and
just as nondescript as a man can be.
I have mistaken half a dozen
strangers for him, and once failed
to recognize him until he spoke to
me. He could mug you in broad
daylight and rent a room from you
the next day. I held much the same
relationship to him that Karen held
to me, except four years further
along. I only saw him two or

MINDKILLER 81

three times a year, and was surprised
to see him now; I hadn't been
expecting him for another few months.

  But the tape explained it. He
nodded hello on his way to the
stereo; I nodded back, but he didn't
see it. He fed the tape to the heads
and turned the treble back to flat.
He sat in the other Lounger, leaving
it turned off, and stared at the
cdling. I dialed the lights down and
shut my own chair off. The music was
almost unbearably good, a synthesizer
piece that was alternately stark and
lush, spare and majestic; that took
chances and succeeded. It reminded me
of early-period Rubbico ~ Spangler.
The Fader smoked a joint while we
listened, and for once I didn't mind
the faint buzz that breathing his
waste smoke brought; the music made
it okay.

  And about the tame I could tell
that the unknown composer was
building to the finish, Karen did
come home, the music masking the
noise of her arrival. I had not
thought this through. As she came
down the stairs she took in the
scene, threw me a hello smile, and
headed for the kitchen, carrying
groceries.

  When she returned she sat on the
couch without a word and listened,
staring at the ceiling. The Fader
raised an approving eyebrow, then
returned his own attention to the
music.

  When it had ended we awarded it ten
seconds of silence. Then the Fader
rose from his chair. He bowed to
Karen. "You listen well, Miss "

"Karyn Shawl That was worth listening
to."

  "They call me the Fader. Which is
what I'm about to do. A pleasure to
meet you." She offered her hand and
he kissed it. Then he turned to me.
"Pop me that tape, son. I'll bring it
back for duping another time. I just
remembered I left the kettle on."

I got the tape and gave it to him.
"What's your hurry?"

"A small matter of business." His
eyes slid briefly to Karen.

"She's okay, Fader. She's a friend.
She's here, right?"

  He relaxed slightly. "I've got a
mark up to Phase Two, and I just now
thought of a way I could take him
straight to Phase Four in one jump.
If it works it cuts down the
seed-money investment
substantially but it has to happen now.
I'll lm you know how it turns out."

I grinned. "Ah, the delicious urgency
of the creative im

82 Spider Robinson

pulse. Good luck." He smiled and
nodded at Karen again, and was gone.

  "Nice old duck," she said when the
door had closed behind him. "I get
the funny feeling maybe I. . .
frightened him away somehow. I'm
sorry if I did, that music was
nice."

  "You're the sorriest thing I've
seen-all day," I said. "What did you
buy us for dinner, and why aren't
you pouring it?"

  "Whups." She left and came back
with whiskey and cashews and
raisins. "I'm cooking stew."

'1he hell you say."

  "God damn it, Joe. I know I'm no
good with a microwave. My folks were
too poor to have micro. But you've
got that old-fashioned stove that
still works in there, and a
perfectly good pressure cooker, and
that's what I learned at my mother's
knee. So shut up and wait till you
taste it before you "

"All right, all right, I'll take a
chance."

  She found the Fader's joint on the
rug, which thank heaven is
burnproof, and looked up
inquiringly. I nodded, and she toked
it back to life. After two or three
deep puffs, she set it down on what
we still call an "ashtray" even
though it's been years since
cigarettes or joints produced ashes,
probably because "buttress" seems
indelicate. "Hey, Joe. Guess what? I
think I figured out what I want to
do when I grow up."

  I sat up straighter and felt
myself smiling. 'Nell me about it."
It was the best news I'd had in a
long while. I hadn't been sure
whether her meditation was helping
or hurting her.

  "You remember that conversation we
had back at my place, back on Day
One? About joy? As distinguished
from pleasured'

"Sure."

  "So there's two kinds: the kind
from doing a good thing, and the
kind from passing up a real tempting
chance to do a bad one. The second
kind's easy. It is really tempting
to go back to the life, the money's
fabulous and it's giving me great
joy not to, because the life is a
bad thing."

  "You don't rationalize that it's
therapeutic for the customers?"

  "If acting out aggression drained
it, there'd be fistfights before
football games instead of after. I
did my customers no favor, and I
charged 'em plenty for it.

MINDKILLER 83

  "But dumping that is only a kind of
negative joy. I've beck looking for a
good thing to do. Something really
worthwhile, something to benefit the
world in a significant way, and com-
mensurate with my talents and
background."

"Uh-huh."

  "Well, that's the hard part. I've
never learned how to do anything
really useful except fuck and fix
motorcycles, and I can't go back to
bikes because I can't stand working
on the junk they make nowadays.
Besides, the existence of motorcycles
in good running order isn't all that
great a boon to mankind. I figure I
can do better than that."

"I'm sure of it," I agreed. "What
have you selected?"

  "Well, I got to thinking about this
socket in my skull. I got to thinking
about people who have 'em put there,
and why. Self-destruction's too quick
an answer. I've been over it in my
head a lot, and I can't be certain,
but I think if that option hadn't
been there if there hadn't been a
friendly neighborhood wireshop all of
six blocks away if wireheading hadn't
come along and presented itself, I do
not think I would have just found
some other way to suicide. Other than
tobacco and a risky lifestyle, I
mean.

  "I mean, I don't think dying is
what I wanted at all. I don't think
hardly any of the people the juice
has killed wanted to die, as such,
exactly. I think we just. . . just
wanted to have it all, just for once,
just for a little while to have it
all and not be hungry anymore. And if
dying was the ticket price, well,
okay."

  I wasn't certain I agreed, but then
I'd never asked a wirehead's opinion.
Very few people ever get to. I
remembered the great lengths she had
gone to with the water bottle to
prolong her own last ride as far as
possible.

  "So it seems to me, now, that the
existence of that option is an evil
thing. An attractive nuisance, like
the swimming pools and old
refrigerators little kids get into.
It makes it so that people past a
certain point of instability are
unbearably tempted. Maybe I'm
rationalizing, trying to shift some
blame for what I did from myself."

  She finished her drink and lit a
Peter Jackson, masking the last
fragrances of the Fader's joint. "So
what I'd like to do is

84 Spider Robinson

everything I can to remove that
option."

I sat there trying not to frown.
"How, exactly?"

"I haven't exactly got detailed
plans yet "

  "Phone your congresscritter? Write
a letter to The Village Voice? Shoot
every wire-surgeon in townT'

  "The shock does don't matter one
way or another. They'd just as soon
be botching abortions and faking
draft deferments. It's the
corporations that make and market
the hardware that are the real
villains."

"Anybody can put together a juice
rig."

  '1he wire and transformer,
sure but the droud itself, the
microfilaments and the technology to
place them properly, that's not
workbench stuff. Without the
corporations, wireheading just
wouldn't happen."

  "Do you have any idea how many
corporations are involvedT' I asked
sarcastically. I had no firm idea
myself.

"Three."

"Nonsense. There have to be at
least "

  "Three. The shock doe I picked
took it out in trade, and he felt
talkative afterward. I didn't think
I was listening at the time, but I
was. There are over a dozen
juice-rig models on the market, but
they all get their basic modules
from one of three corporations.
There used to be five, but two of
them went under. And the doe said he
had his eyes and ears open, and he
had a hunch that two of the three
were really different arms of a
single outfit that nobody knows."

"How could a juice-head company go
broken'

  "How should I know? Sampling the
merchandise, maybe. Anyway, all the
basic patents are held by a Swiss
outfit, so that makes a total of
three targets and four avenues of
approach."

"Infiltrate and destroy, huh?"

"Something like that. Free-lance
industrial espionage."

  "I repeat, what's your plan? See
how many executives you can poison
before they get you?"

"I thought of it," she admitted.

  "Pointless and stupid. Honey, you
start killing sharks, they just
start showing up faster than you can
kill them."

  "Yeah, but that's not why I gave
up the idea. I don't think I've got
it in me to kill."

MINDKILLER 85

  That impressed me. Most of the
children of television ale convinced
that they have in them what it takes
to murder in cold blood. The
overwhelming majority of them are
wrong. Surprisingly few have what it
takes to murder in hot blood, or even
self-defense. "Congratulations."

  "But there are other ways. There's
no such thing as an honest
corporation. A hooker often learns
things, without even trying, that the
IRS would love to know. Or the
Securities and Exchange Commission.
Or the justice Department, or "

  "Or Newsday, right. They pay the
best, you might as well get a
terrific coffin out of the deal. I'm
certainly glad to hear that you have
no death-wish."

  "I'm not especially afraid of
death. Not anymore. Someday, no
matter what I do, random chance is
going to strike me dead. I might as
well be doing something worthwhile at
the time. It should be a shame that I
died."

  "It sure will be. Karen, the kind
of people you're talking about have
all the access they could ever want,
and more leverage than you can
believe. There is no way you can sell
that kind of information and not be
traced. Hell, they'll be able to
follow the path of the check."

"I won't sell the information, then.
I'll give it away."

"Don't be silly. Who'd trust free
information?"

"But I could "

  "Damn it to hell, listen to me. I
was professionally trained to
infiltrate and destroy once, by
experts. I've been on the con for a
long time now, and I have a unique
advantage you don't share. I can't be
traced. If my life depended on it, I
wouldn't get within a hundred miles
of a scam like this. With a clack
team of about a dozen, and an
unlimited bankroll, you could maybe
put a big bruise on people like that
and live to admire it. No way is
anybody going to bring them down. Let
alone a single commando, let alone a
crusading hooker with a how in her
head. Get serious, will you "

"Shut the Suck up!"

  I am not used to being outshouted.
I hadn't even known I was shouting.

  "Don't talk down to me! I don't
care how old you are, don't talk down
to me. I'm sick of peat shit. I don't
have to listen to that. I have been
around, chump. I've been in on enough

86 Spider Robinson

scams to know what I can do. I'm
pretty smart and I'm pretty tough,
and I don't scare worth a damn. God
damn it, I've been hooking for
almost a year in this town and
nobody owns me. I'm a tucking
independent, do you know that? Do
you know what that means?"

  Of course I did but I had never
thought it through, never considered
the cleverness and strength it
implied. She saw me working it out
and grimed. "There's a sucker out on
the street now with three new
creases on his face. One that I put
there, and two from worrying about
where I might put the next one. foe,
I know the way things are. I know
this job is too big for me, and I
expect to enjoy it right up to the
end, and I don't need any lectures.
Oh, Jesus, the stew!"

  She leaped up and galloped to the
kitchen. I sat there with my empty
glass, listened to the squeal and
hiss and clatter of the silly
obsolete pressure cooker, listened
to oh-shit noises turn to dubious
mmms and finally to mollified nnns
and a last triumphant ha.

  Once I blew a radiator hose on the
highway. A Good Samaritan stopped to
help me. He acted very knowledgeable
about cars. While I was getting the
spare hose out of the trunk, he
helpfully topped off my transmission
fluid for me. With the brake fluid I
kept behind the right headlight.
"Oh, it's all the same stuff," he
assured me. "They just put in
different dyes and charge you more
money." It took me three days to get
a traMy shop to flush and refill the
system, and for those three days the
transmission slipped so badly that I
nearly went crazy. The engine would
roar smoothly in response to the
accelerator, while the car crept
along in fits and starts as it
slipped in and out of gear. It was a
helpless, frustrated feeling. I had
all the horsepower in the world, and
it took me two city blocks to coax
her up to thirty.

  At the moment that was the inside
of my head. High revs, but it
wouldn't go anywhere. I attributed
it to the pot smoke I had breathed.
The thought train went like so:

  (I'm much too agitated.) (Well,
sure I am, my new friend is plaMing
something dangerous and stupid.)
(No, there's more to it than that.)
(Something else?) (Yes.) (What
else?) (. . . my new friend is
plaMing something dangerous and
stupid.) (No,

MINDKILLER 87

there's more to it than that.) (What
else?) (. . . my new friend is
planning. . .)

Pull back on the accelerator and try
again.

  (Why must there be something else?)
(Because I'm much too agitated.)
(Why?) (Because my new. . .)

Same loop. Try again.

  (Why do I feel my agitation is "too
much"?) (Because if I were only
concerned about my friend, I'd be
trying to persuade her to drop her
plans.) (And . . . ?) (And getting
agitated is the wrong way to persuade
her.) (Sure?) (Yes; it will only
strengthen her resolve.)
(Conclusion?) (I'm not really trying
to talk her out of it.) (What am I
doing, then?) (Getting very
agitated.) (Why?) (My new friend is
planning something. ..)

Christ.

  The aroma of stew struck like a
symphony, disrupting the inner loop.
I heard silverware being assembled,
bowls being ladled full. I saw the
cigarette she had left burning give
one last puff of smoke and expire.
Stop the brain, put it away, maybe
after dinner. . .

  (What should I be doing?) (Talking
her out of it.) (How1) (By going
along with the gag.) (By ?) (Wait for
her own doubts to emerge, wait for
her to falter and~she will and then
nudge.) (Con my friend?) (That, or
stubborn her up and send her out
there alone. There's no third
choice.) (I can't do that.) (Why
not?) (It's dangerous.) (What do you
mean, dangerous?) (It makes me very
agitated.) (Why?) (My new friend is
planning to. . .)

(I'm trying to talk myself out of
it!)

  She brought two bowls into the
room, and the symphony of smells
crescendoed. She put them on the
coffee table, left, and reentered
with a jug and two glasses. She
poured for us. She left again for
garlic-and-butter-toasted French
bread, and then she sat opposite me.
I started to dig in.

"foe? It should cool a little first."

"Right."

  "Look. . . I just did some
thinking. I had no call to blow up at
you that way, no right. It's just
that you came on kind of . . .
paternal, and you're about forty."
That made me wince. In my head I'm
twenty-eight. "About the same age as
he was

88 Spider Robinson

when . . . I'm sorry I yelled at
you."

"I'm sorry I yelled too. I don't
know why I did."

We ate the stew. It was superb, and
I told her so.

"foe .?"

"Yeah."

  "Look, you've done an awful lot
for me. You saved-my life, you put
me "

"Please."

  " back together again, let me say
it, you gave me this place to come
to and a warm had every night, you
never ask when I'm gonna get it
together and do something, you give
me all this and I give you bupkiss."

"My ass. I got all your cash and a
terrific pair of speakers."

  "You're a good man, foe, and only
a selfish bitch would ask you for
anything more."

"The way you're about to?"

"The way I'm about to."

  I tried to sigh, but a belch
spoiled it. "Ask away, honey. Your
stew has softened my heart."

  "Your terminal has just about all
the access there is. I want you to
Ret me readings on all my targets."

  The fear was back, a muMed
yammering in a distant compartment
of my skull.

  "Just give me a deep reading of
each one. That's all. I'm not asking
you to come in on the scam. It's not
personal with you, it's not your
crusade. But you could save me weeks
of legwork mayh months."

"I'm sorry, Karen. I can't."

"Why not?"

  (Why not?) "The kind of
information you're talking about is
ringed around with alarms, tricky
ones. If I trip one, a tracer
program could start hunting me
back."

"So what? You don't exist, not on
tape."

  "Exactly. How come you're still an
independent? Forget about how tough
and smart you are what's the main
reasonT'

  She frowned. "Well . . . my johns
don't talk much. Not even to their
host friends."

  "Bullseye. How long do you think
you'd last in this town if The Man
heard about you and decided he could
use you? A

                          MiNDKILLER 89

couple of gentlemen would call on you,
and when they were done you'd be
terribly, terribly anxious to do any
little thing that might please them. Now
suppose that you're a big-time corporate
shark. The kind whose attention The Man
himself tries not to attract. Somebody
tries to crack your shields, and when you
investigate you discover that the
interloper has no legal existence. Could
you not find uses for such a person?
Important uses? Would it not be worth a
lot of time and trouble to track him down
and enslave him? Honey, I continue to
exist as an independent for the same
reason you do, or anybody else with
something special to offer. The bastards
haven't noticed me yet. Should I stick my
nose in their window and start sniffing?"

  We both listened to the argument as it
came out of my mouth. It convinced her,
and it should have convinced me. My
subconscious had done a good job on it.
It was a pretty good argument, with only
a couple of holes in it, and it was
indeed something to be afraid of. But it
wasn't what I feared. I could tell.

  But she bought it. She didn't even
bother poking at the hops in the logic to
see what I had them stuffed with. If a
good friend doesn't want to do you a
favor, there's no point in arguing.

  "I guess you're right. I hadn't thought
it through." She sat crestfallen for a
moment, then squared her shoulders.
"Well, there are other keyboard men in
town."

  - "Sure. Professionals with equipment
almost as good as mine. Better connected,
better protected. But Karen . . . listen,
no maker how you go about this, it's
suicide city, I'm telling you. Giw it
up."

  "Two weeks ago I was willing to die
just to find out what pleasure was like."

  "If all you want is a socially useful
kamikaze mission, just stop paying off
your draft board. You'll be on the New
York police force the next day, and stiff
in the South Bronx before the year is
out."

  "And chase guys like you? And chippies
like me? Don't be silly. Look, I've got
to piss you stay here till I get back.
Surprise dessert in the kitchen." She
leaped up and was gone.

90 Spider Robinson

I sat there trying to figure out
what I was really afraid of. It was
astonishingly, frustratingly
difficult. I knew that the answer
was in my possession, that some part
of my mind held the knowledge. I
could even tell in what "direction"
that part lay. But every time I
steered that way and gave her the
gas, the transmission slipped. It
could run away faster than I could
pursue. Stubbornly, hopelessly, I
stalked it, knowing only that it
tasted like nightmares.

  Something yanked me out of my
brown study; the outside world was
demanding my attention. But why?
Everything looked okay. I smelled
nothing burning, all I heard was the
distant sound of Karen urinating. .
.

  I played back tape, and discovered
that I had been hearing that sound
for an impossibly long time.

  I didn't even bother to run. She
had found a small length of hose
under the sink, and used adhesive
tape to run a siphon from the toilet
tank, to simulate the sound of
urination. Then she had left, by the
second of my two emergency exits.
The one I had not told her about. On
the face of the lid she had left a
lipstick message: "Enjoy the
speakers, foe. I'm glad that fucker
landlord didn't get them. Thanks for
everything."

  I nodded my head. "You're
welcome," I said out loud. I went to
the kitchen, made a pitcher of
five-to-one martinis, frowned,
dumped it in the sink, made a
pitcher of six-to-one martinis,
nodded and smiled, brought it into
the living room, and hurled it
carefully through the television
screen. Then I rummaged in the
ashtray for the Fader's roach, and
got three good deep takes out of it
before I burned my lip. I had not
smoked in many years; it smacked me
hard.

  "Lady," I said to her empty stew
bowl, "if you can con me that well,
maybe just maybe you've got a
snowball's chance."

5 - -
1 9 9 4 Norman halted just outside
the front door of his apartment
building, let it close behind him,
and sighed. Pall had always seemed
to him a silly time to begin the new
school year. Like hibernating bears,
scholars sealed themselves away from
the world just when it was at its
most beautiful. A farmer would have
been his most involved with the
outdoors now, trying to outguess the
frosts and prepare his home for
winter. Norman could not even yield
to the temptation to kick apart
heaps of rainbow leaves in his path,
for an assistant professor in public
can no more take off his dignity
than his trousers.

  It was only a block to the campus,
but Norman was running late. He
sneered at his briefcase, turned
right, and began the walk to work.
As he passed the underground garage
ramp it blatted at him and emitted a
Toyota. Norman watched the car as he
got out of its way, wondering for
the thousandth time why anyone
living in this city would want to
own a car. Walking

                 91
                  
92 Spider Robinson

was much cheaper, much less
trouble and healthier too.

  If you're such a health nut, he
asked himself, why have you let
yourself get so badly out of shape?
In the six years since he had left
the army, Norman's only sustained
regular exercise had been this daily
two blocks' walk to and from the
university. He had long since given
up even pretending that he was trying
to control his tobacco habit, and he
knew he weighed more than he should.
He could remember what it had felt
like in the army, to be in shape, and
wondered why he had let such a good
feeling go out of his life upon
his.discharge, without a backward
glance. He had known an echo of that
easy confidence, that readiness for
anything, the night when Maddyarrived
and he had thought her a prowler. But
the absurd failure of his charge that
night proved that it was only an
echo, an adrenalin memory, that he no
longer deserved that confidence.
Norman resolved to begin a rigorous
program of calisthenics that very
night, and to sign up for swimming
privileges at the university pool
that very afternoon, whereupon he lit
a cigarette. ,

  This whole thought-train had
occupied only the space of time
necessary to glance at the puffing
Toyota and then down into his jacket
pocket for his cigarettes. His cupped
hands came away from his face, and
the one holding the match began to
shake it out, and instead held the
match upside down long enough to burn
him. Lois stood before him on the
pavement  tall, slim and
beautiful frosting at the mouth and
shivering. She wore no coat. Her hair
and makeup were impeccable, and her
expression was somewhere between
afraid and exhilarated.

  "I'm late," he said at once, and
then, "Ouch." He disposed of the
match, making his hundredth mental
note to switch to the new
self-lighting cigarettes.

  "I know. I nearly froze my face off
waiting in my lobby for you to come
by." She could not meet his eyes,
though not for lack of trying.

"Lois, for God's sake, it's the first
day. I've got "

  "I planned it this way. First I
thought I'd have you over for coffee
and spend about three hours leading
you around to it, and then I decided
that would be dishonest and you'd
resent being manipulated, so I
thought I'd just say it bang and let
you

\

MINDKILLER 93

have time to think about it before
you say anything. That way you sort
of don't just say something, like,
spontaneously, and then feel like you
have to live up to it or something."

  This was a more or less familiar
ritual with them. When she had, say,
lent five hundred (Old) dollars they
couldn't spare to a friend who
couldn't possibly be imagined
repaying them, she would begin the
news like this. And he would think,
What is the most horrible thing she
could possibly say next? and then he
would be relieved when it wasn't
that. So he thought now of the most
horrible thing she could possibly say
next, and she said it.

"I want to come back to you."

  He stared at her, waited for a
punchline, for the alarm clock to go
off, for a freak meteorite to come
and drill him through the heart.

  "I'm off today at three, I'll be
home all night, call me when you're
ready."

She was gone.

  Since his path was no longer
blocked, he resumed walking. At this
particular time her proposition no,
damn it, her proposal was simply and
literally unthinkable. He placed it
firmly out of his mind and walked on,
thinking of pushups versus situps and
wondering if the bookstore had gotten
his texts in yet. When he had gone
about twenty steps he paused, spun on
his heels, and roared at absolute
maximum volume, "What about the
plumber, then?"

  Across the street a second-floor
landing window slid open on Lois's
building. "He moved out a week ago,"
she called back, and closed the
window.

  A handful of students on either
side of the street were motionless,
staring at Norman with some
apprehension. He glared back, and all
but one resumed their own migrations.
That one continued to stare, quite
expressionlessly, past glasses that
doubled the apparent size of his
eyes.

  "Moved out of his own apartment, by
God," Norman mutterea to himself. He
puffed furiously on his cigarette.
There had to be some way to make that
insolent bookstore manager show a
little respect. Norman couldn't
complain to MacLeod . . . but perhaps
he could mention it to someone who
would

94 Spider Robinson
tell MacLeod. Yes, that idea had
promise. . .

He walked on.

  His first sight of the campus
delighted his sense of irony. The
original layout designer had placed
concrete walkways where he thought
they would look nice. Generations of
students had taken more convenient
paths, destroying grass and creating
muddy ruts. Generations of
administrators had taken this as a
personal affront, and had struck
back with strict, unenforceable
prohibitions. The current
administration had faced reality:
all the previous summer they had
torn up and reseeded the walkways,
poured new ones where the students'
ruts were. Now Norman saw at once
that the majority of the upper-class
students were ignoring the new
walkways and following the old paths
they had always scorned, through the
new grass. In one place a small
circular flower plot stood precisely
on a no longerextant path; Norman
watched a student walk directly to
it, circle its perimetercarefully,
and continue on the imaginary
walkway.

  Having just made himself a public
spectacle before students who might
well be his own, Norman walked where
he was meant to walk. But he
resented having to do so.

  He picked up memos and schedule
revisions at the department office,
stored his hat and coat in his
office, and went to deal with the
bookstore. By a stroke of luck the
assistant departmental chairman was
present when Norman said in a
slightly raised voice, "Another
month? But these were ordered in
March. Of last year." The assistant
chairman glanced up, and Norman had
the satisfaction of hearing the
store manager hastily give an excuse
that was not only patently false,
but checkably false: a memo from the
Chancellor would reach the manager
within twenty-four hours, and
Norman's students would have their
textbooks before the close of the
add-drop period. He reached his
first class, Introduction to Joyce,
in a cocky, go-to-hell state of
mind, and when he looked about the
room and saw at least a dozen
versions of the same mask eager
interest mixed with respectful
politeness something clicked in his
head and he made an impulsive
decision. Norman had always been
rather conservative for an English
teacher, had never needed to be
given MacLeod's Number Three Lecture
on The Irresponsibility of the
Maverick, had always respected even
the forms

MINDKILLER95

and traditions which he personally found
silly. Ever since the army he had been
willing to pay lip service to any
ritual-system that promised stability or
even only familiarity. But all at once
he heard himself say to his students the
very same words that had nearly ended
his father's career twenty-five years
before.

"Is there anyone here who does not want
an A?"

Total silence.

  "I say, is there anyone here who
objects to being given an A in this
course, for the semester, here and now?"

  One hand rose near the back, a
skeptical woman sensing some kind of
trap. (Norman's father had drawn three
of them.)

  Norman nodded. "Okay. Come see me in my
office sometime, we'll discuss it. The
rest of you' you've all got an A in this
course. You can go home now."

  Pandemonium. Hands shot up all over,
and no one moved from their seats.
(Twenty-five years before, several
students had whooped with glee and left
the room by this point.) When the
general outcry reached its first lull,
Norman spoke up and overrode it.

  "I am perfectly serious. Those of you
who signed up for this course because
you needed another three credits in
English may now leave, satisfied.. You
have what you paid for, and are spared
six months of diligent hypocrisy."

  "And When when we take you up on it and
leave, you fail us, right? said the
woman who had first raised her hand.

  Norman frowned. "You have nearly
managed to insult me, Ms...."

"Porter."

  "Ms. Porter. Let me assure you: I say
what I mean, and vice versa. Those who
choose to leave have my blessing, and my
thanks. I will not even make a list of
your names, since everyone except Ms.
Porter is getting the same grade. I will
not so much as look with private
disapproval on those of you who choose
to go. I fully understand that the
existing system pressures you to
matriculate at the expense of learning
about anything you're interested in, and
acquiring a necessary job credential
seems to me as valid a reason as any for
attending

 a university. God help us. If that is
your purpose, accept it and          i

96 Spider Robinson

be proud of it and do it efficiently.
And don't clutter up my classroom.
Because you see, I happen to be
enormously interested in and greatly
confused by the writing of James Joyce.
Some of the things he wrote stir up my
brains and haunt my off-hours, and
other things he wrote mystify or bore
me to tears. And I propose to spend a
couple of hours a week for the next
several months in the exclusive company
of people who are also enormously
interested in the writing of lames
Joyce. I believe this will increase my
own knowledge and appreciation of
Joyce, and I'm confident that it will
increase yours."

  A young man who wore the only necktie
in the room besides Norman's spoke up
in a nasal voice. "Will there be any
tests?"

  "Well, I should hope there will be at
least one or two in every classroom
period, but not the way you mean, no."

"Papers?" asked a short rat-faced
woman.

  "Anytime you feel you have the
makings of a paper, cogent or
otherwise, write it up and leave it in
my office. The very best I will help
you to have published, if you're
interested. Those and the second best
will be photocopied, distributed, and
discussed. The bad ones will be
discussed privately. They'll all get
A's."

  The necktied young man supplied
Norman with the straight line he'd been
hoping for. "But Dr. K,ent, if we've
all got A's . . . what's supposed to
motivate us to work?"

  Happily, Norman again quoted his late
father. "Why, bless you, the intrinsic
interest of the material itself."

  Blank faces stared at him. He waited,
and after a few moments a third of the
class left the room. Ms. Porter was
among them. Most of the remaining
two-thirds looked mightily interested.

Be damned, Norman thought, history does
repeat itself.

  He repeated the procedure at
Victorian Poetry, his only other class
that day, with similar results.

  At nine o'clock that night he stubbed
out an expensive marijuana cigarette,
set his phone for record, shook his
head at it, and said, "Not a chance."
He played it back, nodded, and punched
Lois's number. When his board told him
that she had answered, he fed the
recording on a loop. His own screen
stayed dark, and after a while she hung
up. He put Lambert,

,.:

MINDKILLER97

Hendricks, and Ross on the stereo, lit another of the cigarettes,
and after some while cried himself to sleep.

The next morning history continued to repeat itself. The summons
was waiting on his desk, and the reaming was thorough. It did not
help at all that MacLeod knew the story about Norman's father.
MacLeod had made all the allowances he was going to make for
Norman's personal misfortunes; for the rest of the semester, and
perhaps the year, Norman was on suddendeath overtime. The next
mistake would be his last. He was obliged to contact all the
students who had left and advise them that he had been overruled.
No part of that was fun.

  Thoroughly sobered at last, lusting again for any kind of
security, Norman became over the next three or four months a
model teacher that is, a tireless and blindingly efficient robot.
He shouldered a tremendous course load including two freshman
World Lit courses and a two-night-a-week seminar, and performed
brilliantly in all of them. He completed and published an
exemplary paper on Dwyer's 1978 "Ariana Olisvos" hoax, which was
anthologized nearly at once. He took over the campus literary
magazine when old Coxwell died, restructured the staff to
tremendous effect, and figured out a way to get the printing done
at half cost. He kept his promise to himself: he spent every hour
not used for work or sleep in hard exercise at either the gym or
the pool. He gave up tobacco and cannabis and cut down on
alcohol. Good physical condition came back hard at his age, after
nearly seven years of neglect, but he pursued it hard. His
students either loved or hated him; none was indifferent. MacLeod
allowed himself to become friendly again.

  To those around him Norman came to seem almost unnaturally
aled and rational. In fact, he was in a kind of trance, the peace
of the dervish.

At Christmastime came Minnie and the Bear. ,/

  Both sets of parents had guessed wrong. A man christened
Chesley WithbeM should not be very tall, very broad, in

mensely strong, and covered all over with curly black ha'
is unfair to those tempted to laugh. His inevitable

98 Spider Robinson

was first given to him at age eight.
Similarly, a woman born Minnie
Rodentashould not be five feet high
and mouse-faced, but no nickname had
been found for her yet that was not
worse. To Norman they were beloved
friends, not seen in three years and
frequently missed. He was greatly
cheered by their arrival in that
loneliest of all seasons, which of
course was why they had come.

  Norman and the Bear had served
together in Africa; each had saved
the other's life once. Norman had
been wounded and discharged first,
but by the time he was out of the
hospital the Bear too was out of the
army, and had moved to Nova Scotia.
While Norman was sitting in New
York, pondering what the hell to do
with his life, he got a letter from
the Bear, inviting him up to Halifax
for a couple of weeks. Halifax is
one of the few remaining North
American cities from which one can
reach raw nature in ten minutes'
drive; by the middle of the second
week Norman knew that he could never
go back to New York. There was a
regional shortage of trained English
teachers, the only job for which his
prewar degree had prepared him; he
overcame his lack of experience with
a brilliant interview and was hired.
Presently the Bear and his new
lover, M - Die, introduced him to a
girl Minnie worked with at Victoria
General Hospital. Named Lois. Both
couples spent a great deal of time
together, swapped twice
experimentally, and gave it up when
it seemed to interfere with their
friendship. They were married within
three months of each other.

  Then three years ago Minnie's work
had taken her to Toronto. Bear had
by then established himself as a
copy-hack, and was earning a fair
living knocking out tees, sits and
scifis for several software
networks; he had no strong objection
to moving. Since that time the two
couples had communicated largely by
birthday phone call, and in the last
year even that had been interrupted
by the collapse of Norman's and
Lois's marriage. The reunion now was
explosively enthusiastic on both
sides.

  "Jesus," the Bear rumbled as he
released Norman from one of his
classic hugs. "You're in great
shape, man."

  Norman's grin flickered
momentarily. "Some ways, brother,
some ways," he said, and then Minnie
was taking her hug. Her

MINDKILLER 99

first words were, "Sorry it took us
so long, Norm. It's been crazy out."

  "Nonsense. I'dtve been too busy to
be a proper host if you'd come
sooner. God, it's good to see you
two. I've been on eleventerhooks ever
since you called." He took their
suitcases' showed them where to put
their coats and boots and where to
find the liquor cabinet. As soon as
they were all seated in the living
room he raised his glass high. "To
great friendship," he said, drained
the glass, and flung it across the
room. It smashed on the baseboard
heater.

  Minnie and the Bear broke up. They
faced each other, said in unison,
"We've missed him," and followed his
example.

  "Missed me again," he said
exultantly, and then, "Oh, God, I've
been hanging out with ordinary people
for so long. Thank you two."

  "There are crazies in Hogtown,"
Minnie said, "but few with your
elegance." Norman rose from his
chair, bowed, and produced more
glasses, threading his way carefully
through the scatter of glass on the
carpet.

  "This is fantastic," he said
wonderingly. "You two have been here
less than a minute, and it's as
though you'd never left. All the time
between has just disappeared." He
giggled. "How thoughtful of it."
Suddenly he looked away.

  The Bear lay in magnificent repose
in one of Norman's huge beanbag
chairs, looking rather like a beached
whale cove~d with colorful tarpaulins
and black seaweed. He made a joint
appear, tapped it alight, and sucked
hugely. "So? Which side brings the
other up to date first?" He passed
the joint.

  Norman hesitated, decided training
was shot to hell anyway, and took a
toke. "Is yours cheerful?" he
croaked, passing the joint to Minnie.
With her nose wrinkled up she looked
even more mouselike.

  The Bear looked thoughtful. "Yeah,
on the whole. A coupe of real bright
spots, and one genuine tall tale."

"Then we'll save it for catharsis,
okay?"

  The two nodded at once. "Lois?"
Minnie asked econornically.

  "Yes and no," Norman said. "Not
really; I think I've got that under
control now. It's more Madeleine.
And, I suppose,

100 SpideF Robinson

mostly it's me. It's been a
hard-luck voyage, mates. I you
didn't get here any too soon."

  "Damn straight," the Bear agreed.
"I still see double yellow lines and
headlights coming at me. So talk."

  Norman brought them up to date,
beginning with Lois's first request
for a separation and including his
botched suicide, Maddy's arrival and
disappearance, and subsequent
events. The Bear interrupted
frequently with questions, Minnie
more seldom.

  "Argyle, Barrington area, huh?
Pedestrians around there all night
long on a Saturday."

  "And a little bit of residential.
Enough so that a scream could not go
unheard."

  The Bear nodded. "Two blocks over
nobody'd pay any attention. But
right there it'd cause phone calls.
And you're sure she didn't know
anyone in Halifax well enough to get
into a car with them at 1:00 A.M.?"

  "No one in North America. Except
Charlie, who was occupied."

  "And alibied by many witnesses,"
Bear clarified. "So, that leaves two
possibilities."

"Psycho cabbie or rogue cop."

  "Right. Nowhere except in the crap
I write do you take an armed and
able-bodied citizen off a public
street with no fuss at all. Only a
fool would try it. And from what you
say, she could take care of herself.
You checked out both angles?"

  Norman produced a file folder from
his desk, tools two sheets of paper
out, and gave one to each. "This is
the poster I put up everywhere a
cabbie might conceivably see one.
It's got a good recent picture, her
description and the circumstances of
her disappearance, and my phone
number. While I was putting them up
I questioned all the dispatchers and
half the drivers in town. I pieced
together people's memories and
accounted for every driver seen in
that area during that time, with
some computer assistance."

"That leaves a cop." The Bear
frowned. "Hard to track."

  "Sergeant Amesby at Missing
Persons brought up that theory
before I could think of a graceful
way to phrase it. He's been running
his own check with a lot better
data, and he comes up empty too."

MINDKILLER 1 01

"Yeah, but is he really looking?"

  "I've been living in Amesby's
pocket for months. I know him. He
looked."

"A cop with no partner can fake his
whereabouts."

  "Not so Amesby couldn't catch it.
Believe me, Bear, he's good."

  "Most fortunate. We'll dismiss the
notion of a citizen in a cop suit."

  'What he sewed himself, right." He
passed them the rest of the folder's
contents, mostly press clippings and
blowup facials of Madeleine taken
over a period of fifteen years. "The
firm she worked for in Zurich
supplied some company videotapes with
footage of Maddy in them, and I had
stills made."

"You got terrific coverage," Minnie
observed.

  "Saturation. A woman named Saint
Phillip has been very helpful. No
woman in the Maritimes has died
mysteriously without a paragraph
mentioning that police do not believe
this case is connected with the
disappearance of Madeleine Kent,
followed by a three-paragraph
synopsis. I've been on all three
local stations and the CBC twice
each. Lots of results, none worth
talking about."

  The Bear finished off the joint and
lay back thoughtfully into the chair.
"Well," he said, gazing at the
ceiling, "when you have eliminated
the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, et cetera. So a
total nut pulls up to the curb,
shoots a total stranger in the head
with a silenced get "

  "In the back of the head. She went
armed, and she was fast."

  "Right. Yanks her into his car
before anybody comes around the
corner, and departs at a moderate
speed, takes her out up into the
maples. He's local, woods-wise enough
to find a spot where no one will
walk which is much harder than a city
killer could imagine and he's
immensely strong, because he can haul
the corpse of a pretty big woman to
that spot without aid. In the dark.
Oh, goat berries, I don't believe it
for a second." He grimaced
ferociously.

  "Wait a minute," Minnie objected.
"Why does it have to be woods, just
because there's so much of 'em around
here? flow about that business from
your last, darling? The newly poured
concrete?"

102 Spider Robinson

  The Bear nodded. "And the psycho who
happens to have unrestricted access.
You will recall that I didn't put my
own name on that one."

  "But I mean what about some urban or
suburban disposal site?"

The Bear looked pained. "Darling, this
was summer."

"Oh. That's right. Well, what about the
harbor?"

  "Darling, remember how many summer
Friday nights we tried to find a spot
along the water uncrowded enough to
make love? Imagine trying to dump a
corpse. You might pull it off  but
would you bet on it?"

  Norman suddenly smiled. "You know,
except for Arnesby, you two are the
first people I've spoken to since Maddy
left that don't use euphemisms. I can't
tell you how grateful I am."

  The Bear grinned back at him. "Damn
straight. Not many people are
understanding enough not to be
understanding. You, for instance, are
not one of those offensively
oversolicitous hosts, who fusses about
making sure one's glass is full and
offering one coffee and such."

  Norman shook his head sadly. "How can
you live with such a snide bastard,
Min?" He got up and headed for the
coffeemaker.

"I beat him regularly."

  "Damn straight," the Bear agreed. "I
keep thinking: this time I'm gonna fill
that straight."

  "You fill practically anything,
dear." They grinned lewdly at each
other.

  "I'm about ready to fill a
straitjacket myself," Norman called
from the kitchen. "You two skill take
cinnamonT'

     "Yeah."

  He came back with three coffees and
cake on a tray. "60 what all this comes
d what are you doingT'

  The Bear was lighting another joint.
"Dr. Withbert's famous bluesectomy
procedure. First get nuked with good
friends, then . . . haven't we done
this beforeT'

  Norman hesitated. It was a Friday
night, but. . ."I've been keeping
myself on a short leash the last few
months. The accumulated stash "

"Is what we came a thousand miles to
drain," Minnie said

MINDKILLER 1 03

firmly. "Listen to the doctor."

  "Remember the Ukrainian proverb,"
the Bear boomed. "'The church is
near but the roads are icy. The
tavern is far but I will walk
carefully.' How long has it been
since your last confession, my son?"

  Norman remembered, and set down the
coffee. "Gimme that joint."

  "So what this all left me with," he
went on a few puffs later, "was the
natural logarithm of one."

  "I still like the rogue-cop idea,"
Bear said, gulping coffee. "Who else
could be confident of getting away
with it?"

  "Maybe," Minnie said, "but the
trouble with any psycho theory, cop
or civilian, is that psychos usually
aren't one-shots. They keep on
performing until they get caught. But
you say there's been nothing with a
similar MEW"

  "Psychos make their own patterns,
my love," the Bear said drily. "Maybe
he takes six months to wind up to
each one. Maybe he's wealthy and does
this in a different city each week
for span."

"I don't buy either one," Minnie
persisted.

"So what's left?"

  "Well, if it's not a flat-out
killcrazy, it's got to be someone
she'd lower her guard for. Norm, how
would she react if, say, a earful of
women offered her a lift?"

  "She's like me, she loves to walk.
It was a beautiful night. She'd spent
the last ten years in Europe, Minnie. I
don't think she'd accept a ride from
any stranger."

  "Hey," the Bear said, sitting erect
with some difficulty. "How about
that? Spmebody from Switzerland?" He
frowned again. "He locates her at
1:00 A.M. on a Friday night.without
asking memorable questions of anyone
she knew here. Bear, you are a
jackass. Forgive me."

Norman squinted at the Bear. "That
last joint get you higher'

  His old friend recognized the
beginning of a litany that had been
written in the jungle years before,
grinned, and gave the antiphon. "Nah.
You?"

Norman frowned and stuck out his
lower lip. "Nah."

The Bear shook his head sadly. "Cheap
weed."

"Blackskin man give me bad deal."

104 Spider Robinson

"Burned again."

"Yeah, Sarge."

"Only one thing to do."

"Check."

  The Bear produced the pack, and
they chorused, "Smoke some more!"

  Minnie had endured all this with
patience and, since she had not
heard it in three years, some
amusement. "Count me out, thanks.
I'm not about to try and keep up
with you two."

  But by the time the third joint
was half consumed, the smiles had
faded and the topic remained. "I
kind of liked the Switzerland angle
myself. She was hanging around with
some very comfortably flexed people,
and she dropped a few teasers about
an unhappy affair. But Amesby's got
some friends at Interpol that he
respects, and anybody Amesby
respects I respect, and they come up
empty. As near as we can learn, no
one she dealt with in business had
any motive to have her kidnapped or
hit. It wasn't that kind of
business. Electrical supply,
micro-electronics widgetry and
software, related items. They have
an excellent reputation, as a
stodgily honest old firm, just big
enough to be unambitious.
Harbin-Schellmann is the name, I
think. They were sorry to see her
go, but not that kind of sorry.
Anyway, as you say, a Swiss hit
squad passing through town would be
bound to leave spoor. So that's out
too." He took the last take, held it
awhile with his eyes closed. "So I
consulted a couple of psychics."

  The Bear opened his mouth and then
closed it firmly. Minnie only
nodded. "What'd you get?" she asked.

  "The first one was recommended by
the PCMP, they'd worked with him
several times with pretty good
results. He was about sixty and
looked like a grocery store clerk,
dressed like one, everything. He was
very irritable, very disinclined to
try and like you. That made me suspect
he might be into something."

  Minnie nodded. "Nurses have to
learn that one. Patients are
clients, problems you try hard to
solve. You become their friend only
if they've got to have one, and then
you get chewed up some."

  "I saw it happen with Lois. I
think she got a shade too good at
disassociating."

MINDKILLER 1 05

  "We'll carve that one next," Minnie
said firmly. "Let's close up this one
first. What did the psychic say?"

"How much did he ask?" the Bear wanted
to know.

  "He got every known salient fact out of
me he said straight out that as far as
he was concerned his only talent was for
having very reliable hunches, which
required all available data at a
minimum. He got things out of me about
Maddy that I hadn't known I remembered.
Then he . . . well, it sounds anti-
climacdc, but he just seemed to sit
there and think about it awhile."

"While you were watching?" Bear asked.

  "I saw him forget me. Except as part of
the puzzle, I mean. After about ten
extremely boring minutes he told me that
Maddy was in a house, a private home, on
the order of a hundred and fifty klicks
from here. Direction uncertain. Two men
were with her. He said he didn't feel
any hostility or violence or agg~ession
in them, but their relationship to Maddy
was not clear. He said she came through
as so passive that she might have been
drugged or simply ill. She had not been
physically harmed or mistreated, and she
wasn't being interrogated. He said there
was a large body of water right out in
front of the house, but he couldn't tell
whether it was the Bay of Fundy or the
Atlantic or what. One other house in
sight nearby, uninhabited. He-told me
that it was a very beautiful spot, woods
all amund the house and a brook nearby
that was unsafe to drink. He said he had
not felt any fear from Madeleine. He
apologized for the fact that all this
information was perfectly useless, and
he charged me fifteen dollars for an
hour of his time."

  "Do you think he was into something?"
the Bear asked, leaning forward
intently.

  Norman shook his head. "I don't know.
I don't know, llear. I was straining not
to be skeptical, and I found I didn't
have to strain so hard. I'll stipulate
that he's sincere. But I just don't
know. The damned evidence always turns
out to be unobtainable, doesn't it? But
I keep getting this funny feeling. Like
the story maces so little sense that it
makes sense." He giggled. "Does that
make sense?"

  "It butters no parsnips," the Bear
said, sitting back. "What'd the second
one say?"

"The second one was recommended by some
friends of

 .                     . f

106 Spider Robinson

Lois's, which made it harder to be
open-minded. But I was desperate. He
religioned it up a good deal more.
He said 'cosmic' and 'universal' a
bit too often to suit me, but "

"So did Gandhi," Minnie interjected.

  "Right. He shaved his head and wore
fake Tibetan clothes from Eaton's
and one gold earring and he had no
last name, but I have no really
valid reason to sneer at any of
those things either. And even if I
did, nothing says a jerk can't be
psychic." Norman rubbed the bridge
of his nose. "He was strange. Kind
of . . . well, I started to say
'wild-eyed,' but that's not
accurate. He looked. . . subtly wrong
somehow, off-register in some in-
definable way. You had the feeling
that at any moment you

-would put your finger on it. It kept
you just a little bit off balance,
but he didn't seem to realize that
or exploit it in-any way.

  "Anyway. His rap. . ." Norman
consulted some notes from the
folder. "He said she was in a motel,
no idea where or how far away but
deEmitely not in Halifax Metro. Two
men were with her, and she loved
them both very much. He thought they
might be her brothers until I told
him she had none but me. Anyway, she
was not being held against her will,
she very much wanted to be there and
was having a wonderful time. She had
not been in the motel for very long,
she had been brought there recently
from the country."

  The Bear's eyes flashed and he
shifted his weight in the beanbag
chair.

  "Right. Let's see, right at that
point he reversed himself a little
on location, said the motel was
definitely somewhere in the
Annapolis Valley. I asked him how he
knew and he said he 'recognized the
spiritual flavor of the region.' He
said she had just come from
somewhere up over the mountain, very
close to the Bay. He repeated that
she loved and trusted the two men
very much."

"Mid he mention if they were Swissr'

  "He said he couldn't feel them at
all directly, only Maddy's
perceptions of them. I told him a
little about her background and
asked if he could get their
nationality, but all he could say
was that she thought about them m
English. All the rest of this, by
the way, he gave me with no
information whatsoever, using

MINDKILLER 1 07

only a picture of her and a rosary of
hers he had me fetch along."

  "All he had to do was read a paper
or watch die news," the Bear noted.

  "I know, I know. He said he hadn't,
but who knows? But honesdy, it was
hard to picture him reading dhe crime
news. Anyway, he "

"What's this about a rosary?" Minnie
interrupted.

  "He'd asked me over dhe phone if I
had access to any small 'religious
objects' belonging to dhe missing
person. She had a rosary our modher
gave her when she was a tilde girl,
I'd run across it in her things. He
said that would be fine, bring it
along."

"Point for him," she muttered. "Go
on."

  Norman consulted his notes. '1hat's
about it. Oh, wait, he said one man
seemed to be the dominant one,
smarter or stronger Ghan dhe other.
The ocher deferred to him. That was
all he got, and for his fee he made
me donate two hundred New dollars to
dhe UN Disaster Fund. He wouldn't
take a cent himself."

"A motel in the valley. . ." Minnie
said thoughtfully.

  "A week later," Norman continued,
"the first man caned me back. He said
he'd seen the same house again, in a
dream this time. He said it was empty
now, but it was a very clear night
and so now he could make out New
Brunswick on the horizon, pick out
the lights of a large city against
the sky."

  "Fundy shore," dhe Bear breathed.
"Up over die mountain from die
Annapolis Valley. It fits." He
interlocked his big fingers and
played tug-of-war widh himself; his
triceps bulged, then relaxed. "No
help. Blue sky pieces."

"Eh?"

  "You know him and puzzles," Minnie
said. "The two stokes don't
contradict; they interlock pretty
good, like jigsaw pieces. But they're
blue sky pieces: no useful
informational content."

  "Except in context," dhe Bear
agreed. "Which we don't have yet. I
assume your Lieutenant Amesby checked
widh Valley RCMP?"

  "Sergeant. Of course he did I tell
you, dhe man is good at what he does.
Good enough that I can't understand
what he's doing in die Halifax Police
Department. In addition to

108 Spider Robinson

that, I had copies of the poster put
in every bank, credit union, post
office, and Liquor Commission outlet
from Digby to Wolfville. Result: the
cube root of fuck-all."

  "Plus the number of sentient
beings in Parliament," the Bear
agreed. He placed his knuckles
together, this time it was his
biceps that swelled alarmingly.
"Well, my son, this is some hard
bananas you bring me, but
fortunately you've come to the right
man. A trivial problem, really,
although I can see that some of its
subtler aspects might well have
eluded a mere trained professional
such as Amesby or a workaday genius
like yourself, Norman for several
months. 'Watson, you know my
methods?"'

  MiMie nodded. "Certainly, Holmes."
She turned to Norman. "He comes up
with the cube root of fuck-all."

  The Bear beamed. "Excellent,
Watson. A very concise summary."

  Norman felt all his breath leave
him with a rush. "Bear, you don't
know how much I hoped you'd come up
with a decent hunch," he said
bleakly. "I've gone over it and over
it until my head spins, I wake up in
the morning trying to mate it make
sense, and nothing. You two have got
maverick and supple brains, and I
was hoping you'd see something
Amesby and I missed. Day= it, there
is no probable answer. Least
improbable would I guess be some
variant of the randompsycho
theory and at this point I'm afraid
I'd be grateful if I could just
believe it and get started with the
mourning. But it's so bloody
unlikely." A brandy decanter stood
nearby; he uncapped it and drank,
passed the bottle.

  She Bear looked greatly distressed
now. "Compadrc, I'm sorry to say I don't
even have suggestions, and the day I
can't give bad advice. . ." He smote
both thighs with his fists, hard
enough to make the beanbag chair
start violently.

"I've got suggestions," Minnie said.

Both men looked at her.

"Two of them. First, can we all stop
lying to each otherT'

Norman and the Bear flinched
guiltily.

  "All three of us know better. When
there is no logic, you go on
feelings, and I think we all have
the same hunch, am I right?"

MINDKILLER1 09

  The two men exchanged glances. "All
right," they said together.

  "Allow me," Norman said to his
friend. "Okay, the only reasonable
hunch is Switzerland. Someone from
there, call him. . . well, for the
sake of argument let's call him
Jacques. Maddy mentioned that name
once. If the psychics are even close
to accurate, it has to be Jacques.
Nobody else could have the resources
Even if the psychics are both frauds,
it has more logic than the
lone-psycho theory. Okay so far?" His
friends nodded. "So the logical next
step "

  " is to go to Switzerland and nose
around," Minnie flnished. "And you're
hesitating."

  "I'm right on the fence," Norman
agreed. "Have been for a couple of
weeks. I was hoping you two would
help me decide one way or the other "

  " and instead, he who defecates in
arboreal regions here tried to play
dumb. And you let him," Minnie said.
"And now he and I are being as
neutral as we can manage. All right,
you're doing great, keep going: Why
are we being neutral?"

  "Because I've got a job and
responsibilities, and if you agree
with me that Switzerland is the key,
I'd dump the job in a minute and blow
my career on a hunch. And you're
friends, so you don't want "

"Think again," the Bear said grimly.

Nonnan looked puzzled.

  "Brother," the Bear went on, "if
that's the only reason you can think
of, I just got you down off that
fence. On this side."

"I-don't follow."

  "Exactly. Look, postulate Jacques.
For reasons unknown he reaches across
an ocean, locates a particular person
without the slightest difficulty,
leaving no trail, and puts on her a
snatch so perfect that a pro like
Amesby doesn't smell him. Jacques
tap-dances around everybody from
Interpol on down and vanishes without
a trace. Now tell me, and this will
sting a little but hang on, it's the
killer: What has a guy like that got
tofeat from an English teacher?"

  Norman opened his mouth, closed it,
and seemed to deflate. He looked
down. "I can take care of myself."

"Norman, look at me. Listen to me. We
were in cocky

110 Spider Robinson

khaki together, and I'll certify
that you were sudden death with both
hands, okay? lust looking at you I
can see that you're in real good
shape, maybe almost as good as you
were when you were a kid, even.
Norman, our whole platoon couldn't
have made Jacques uneasy. Not with
full combat ordnance and the air
support we never used to get. The
best you can accomplish is quick
suicide."

  Norman's face was in his hands.
"But Bear," he said hoarsely, "she
could still be alive."

  "Certainly. That's why suicide is
the best you could accomplish. Look,
if he's got her, best guess is she's
involved in something he wants kept
secret with a capital S. If she's
still alive, it's because he doesn't
absolutely need her to be dead. But
if you come poking around . . ."

"But maybe I could "

  "FORGET IT, NORMAN!" the Bear
thundered, and furniture danced.

  "Your subconscious made the right
decision," Minnie went on in what
seemed a murmur by comparison, "even
if it didn't keep you informed.
There is nothing you can do that
will help. We could all be wrong it
might be a nut that got your sister
and if so there's no point in
blowing your job. If we're right you
might endanger Maddy. If you ever
get proof that she's dead, and that
a Swiss did it, then maybe I'd say
it's time to go lose your life in
something too big for you. But not
now  you don't dare."

Norman was silent.

  The Bear shifted his weight
uneasily. "My dear, a while back you
said you had two suggestions. I've
only heard one."

  Minnie's face lost all expression.
"There's only one thing you can do,
Norman."

"Go on," he said.

"Kill her."

Norman jumped.

  Her voice was mercilessly hard.
"Sit back in a comfortable chair.
Get thoroughly stoned. Pick a psycho
killer from Central Casting and
replay Madeleine's murder in your
mind. In complete and vivid detail,
3-D stereo, a couple of instant
replays. Feel the pain and the fear
and the unfairness of it. Pick a

MINDKILLER 111

possible method of corpse disposal
and walk him through it  say, he
walks her out onto the MacDonald
Bridge to where he has wire and
weights waiting. Picture her drifting
in the currents under the harbor,
bloating and being chewed, and when
pie horror is more than you can bear,
cut it off. Sharp. Get drunk. Have
her declared dead, and have a
symbolic funeral. Picture her in that
empty coffin, throw flowers on it,
and begin formal mourning. Say
goodbye to her in your heart, Norman,
and get on with your~own life. Pray
that they catch the poor crazy before
he does it again, but say goodbye to Maddy.

"Otherwise you'll " She caught
herself. "You could crack."

  Norman sat perfectly still, features
expressionless. But his skin was pale
and his palms were sweaty. There was
a moment of silence.

  "God, this is depressing," the Bear
boomed finally. "What a party. Let's
talk about something cheerful for a
change. How'd your marriage come
apart?"

  Norman broke up, and his friends
joined him. The laugh went on for
some time, faltered, steadied, became
one of the great laughs, one of those
where every time it starts to pause
for breath, someone gasps out another
punchline and it's off again. A great
laugh with the Bear participating
took on epic proportions.

  Whereafter in due course Norman
documented the decline and fall of
his marriage, Minnie described life
in the Neuro Ward of a big-city
hospital, and the Bear narrated an
intricate and hilarious story of
revenge on a critic, which had
generated income as a side effect.
Having compared the water lately gone
under their respective bridges, they
let their conversation become more
general, and by the time the brandy
was annihilated and they had switched
to Irish coffee they had remembered
and retold all the jokes, puns, and
anecdotes they had been saving for
each other, and were waxing
philosophical. The Bear propounded
his Leech Theory of Economic
Dislocation; arguing-that no organism
can survive without some control of
the size of its parasites, he called
for the establishment of a legal
Maximum Wage. Then Minnie tried to
explain in layman's terms why the
researchers attempting to crack the
information-storage code of the human
brain, who had been so

1 12 Spider Robinson

confident fifteen years before,
were now frankly stymied.

  That triggered Norman to bring up
the newest and mast alarming campus
problem: a few students were having
a plug surgically inserted in the
skull, which allowed direct stimulus
of the hypothalamus. Wireheading
baffled Norman to the soles of his
feet, and he said so. Minnie spoke
at length about medical and
psychological aspects of the new
phenomenon, and the Bear described
it as the natural bastard child of
the two cultural imperatives be
happy and be efficient, with a
postscript on why wireheading would
not be made illegal as lysergic acid
had been thirty years before. That
led them into recounting old drug
experiences, which they gradually
came to realize everyone present had
already heard anyway, and by then
the coffeepot was empty and the hour
was late. Norman showed them the
guest room, bathroom, and location
of breakfast makings, hugs were
again exchanged, and all three went
to bed.

  Norman hovered on the edge of
sleep for what seemed a long time
before he heard his door click open.
He rolled over slowly, and found his
arms full of Minnie.

"Where's Bear?" he asked sleepily.

  "Too tired," she whispered. "Heavy
driving plus heavy drinking zonks
him out. lust as well, this bed's
too small anyway."

"Heavy drinking zonks me out too."

  Her lips touched him delicately at
a place where neck joined shoulders,
and simultaneously two of her
fingernails found a certain precise
spot with a facility that, all
things considered, implied either
terrific tactile memory or a high
compliment. She pulled back and
examined the results. "Wrong."

"Uh, I take a long time when I'm
drunk."

  "No, love. You give a long time
when you're drunk. 1 remember. Now
stop being so bucking polite and
shut up."

"Make me," he punned, and she did.

~ -
1 9 9 9 I sat there for an
indeterminate time after Karen had
left, paralyzed by internal
confusion: the slipping-trans
mission phenomenon mentioned
earlier, except that now there were
several thought loops cycling
simultaneously. Intuitively I felt
that something urgent needed doing,
but I could not for the life of me
imagine what it might be.

  No matter how many times I ran it
through, I got the same answer: I
had discharged all my moral
obligations to Karen Scholz. She and
I were square, all debts paid. I had
meddled in her suicide, an immoral
act. In reparation I had done all I
could to ease her transition back
into living. I had made her a
present of my most essential
secrets, given her the power to
tamper with my own obituary date if
she so chose. I had supponed and
maintained her at the absolute peak
of creature comfort while she took
stock and decided what to do next.
When what she came up with was a
more elaborate form of

                1 1 3
                  
114 Spider Robinson

suicide, I had done my best to talk
her out of it. Perhaps I had been
small in refusing to get her the
computer readings she wanted, but
the procedure really was uniquely
dangerous for me, and any of a dozen
other professionals in New York
could oblige her with less risk.

  She would have her crusade, and
perhaps she would manage to die with
joy, and perhaps it would be better
than dying with pleasure.

  In any case, it was her choice and
my responsibility was ended. It
saddened me that she intended to
kamikaze, but I had no rights in the
matter. She had made it plain that
she did not want my advice or
assistance. Case closed. Exit Karen,
urinating.

Exit Karen.

  Yes, that was the way of it; she
would surely fall. As a fighter she
was all heart and no style at all;
they would crush her like a bug.
More likely sooner than later. Dona
Quixote on a spavined horse, armored
in rust, fielding a balsa lance
against a twenty-megawatt,
high-torque Wind Energy Module, in
defense of righteousness. In defense
of the right of people not to be
tempted to their deaths. She wanted
to slay the Sirens, she who had
heard their Song and lived.

  She was welcome to try. If she saw
herself as Dona Quixote, that was
her business. I saw no percentage in
playing Pancho Sanza. I am not
capable of that kind of love. I
think I was once, but something
happened to me in a jungle. Enough
brushes with death will permanently
inhibit your urge to place your life
on the line for any cause. When that
final day came, when I heard the
click-snap-spun"! and saw the mine
pop up to head height and ducked to
try and take it on the helmet, I had
a very clear idea of the sacrifice I
had made for my country. When, much
later, I discovered that I had
survived the event, and the war, it
left a lasting impression. As
Monsieur Rick said, I stick my neck
out for nobody. (And I never burgle
veterans.)

  Furthermore, I was not at all
certain that I approved of her
crusade. If I had been wrong to
meddle in her suicide, what right
had she to tamper with the suicides
of the hundreds, perhaps thousands,
who would plug themselves in over
the

MINDKILLER 115

next few years? People wanted juice
rigs. It seemed to me a
self-correcting problem: in a few
generations all the people who could
be tempted by pushbutton ecstasy
would be bred out of the race.

People like Karen...

  Who, let's face it, was a loser.
The term loser does not necessarily
denote incompetence, stupidity, or
major personality defect. It says
that you lose a lot. She had been,
through no fault of hers that I could
discern, consistently unlucky all her
life long. That can break even the
toughest fighting spirit.

  Perhaps wireheading bred the race
not just for competence and survival
drive. . . but for luck?

  If so, was I that strict a
Malthusian? Misfortune was no
stranger to me, and might remember me
at any moment. Out there in the
jungle I had smoked opium admixed
with heroin, though I had known it
was insane. What would I have done if
someone had offered me a juice rig
then? What would any of us in my unit
have done?

  This was stupid. Stipulating that
the existence of the wirehead trade
was undesirable, Karen's silly
secret-agent stunt was the wrong way
to go about abolishing it. Lone
operators do not bring down big
multinationals. At best she would
bring about a restructuring of
personnel, a redivision of the pie. I
did not see any effective way to put
the egg back into the shell.
Certainly, prohibiting wireheading
could accomplish nothing useful, and
I couldn't design an effective way to
regulate it.

  Regardless of whether or not I
could see any right answer, I knew
Karen's way was a wrong answer. So I
certainly did not want to chase after
her to join her. There was no point
in chasing after her to try and
dissuade her; I'd had one fair try at
that and failed. And there was no way
in hell I was going to chase after
her and forcibly restrain her. I had,
in short, w visible motive to chase
after her.

  And I wanted to get up from my
chair and track her. It scared me to
death.

  If we had even once made love, or
even tucked, I could have attributed
it to my glands. I had never so much
as had an erection over her.

What in Heats name was wrong with me?

1 16 Spider Robinson

  After a time I got tired of running
it through, and decided to snap out
of it. Find something useful to do.

  It was not hard. As soon as I let
my eyes see what they were looking
at, my search was ended. My
television was a total loss. Its
gaping glassfanged face had long
since ceased to drool good gin on
the carpet beneath. The air
conditioning had left only a memory
of a very bad smell.

  I got up and dried the carpet,
cleaned up the glass, and
disconnected the tube from the
system, not bothering to reset all
the tripped circuit breakers. The
way I had it wired, not only had I
lost phone, commercial and cable TV
programming, computer display and
storyscreen, but I would not have
stereo until I could scare up some
more patchcords. The most efficient
system design is not necessarily the
best. All I had left was books and
booze.

  So the first thing to do . . . no,
the first was to dispose of the dead
telly. That took me fifteen minutes.
The second was to steal another.

  It was a good plan. It steadied my
mind, for while I am working I do
not chew over my problems. I give it
my full attention, by long habit.

  First I had my computer ask the
power company computer for a list of
customers whose power-consumption
profile had been identical for more
than five consecutive days, just as
usual save that I had to work with
printouts instead of display. When
the list was filed down to a
twenty-block radius from my home
turf, it contained eighteen
possibles. I had the computer dial
all eighteen phone numbers and
strike from the list those that had
a record-a-message program active.
Those absentee tenants probably
planned to be home soon. The
no-answers numbered seven. I asked
the NYPD computer for information on
defensive structures of those seven
buildings, and selected the one that
was hardest to crack. That tenant
would have the most expensive TV.
Standard procedure would then have
been to tell that building's
security cameras to recognize me as
a bona fide tenant, and take it from
there. But this particular building
also employed live guards in the
lobby. Still no problem: the pigeon
had recorded a message-program in
his own voice, it just wasn't in
service. I hooked in the voder and
had my com

MINDKILLER 117

puter use his phone and a fair
imitation of his voice to call
downstairs. It told the door guard to
expect a TV repairman from TH
Electronics. The guard welcomed it
home, and it thanked him. It hung up
and printed out a work order for me.

  My computer has so many interesting
capabilities that to use it for
something as trivial as grand larceny
is almost a crime. But to exploit
anything like its full potential I
would have to compromise an even
greater asset: invisibility. I am the
man no one is looking for, and I like
that a lot.

  I am deeply curious to know more
about the extraordinary person who
had that machine built and
programmed. Almost I yearn to meet
him or her. My recurring fear is that
I shall: intuitively I know I would
not survive the encounter.

  But surely he or she must be long
dead. That's what I tell myself when
I wake up sweaty.

  I wiped all records of my
transactions at both ends, stood up,
and got disguise number four from the
closet. Faded green coveralls, a GI
jungle cap, grimy work boots laced
with speaker cable, a tool belt that
would have made Batman laugh out
loud, and a stained shoulder satchel
bulging with assorted electronic
testing gear. I checked the picture
ID in the wallet that went with the
outfit, and corrected my facial
appearance to match. It is a part of
my job I really enjoy: trying on new
faces. None of them, even the one I
start and end with, ever locals
familiar. I can't imagine what would.

  I spilled coffee on the work order,
blotted it with a dirty cloth, wadded
it up and stuffed it in my breast
pocket, and left. I was back within
two hours with the tube and a couple
of interesting audiocassettes from
the van I'd clouted. I wired the new
glass teat into the system, ran a few
tests, and made a few adjustments. I
punched for news display and sat down
in front of it. I had the chair make
me a bourbon and distilled water.
After two sips I killed the news
readout and concentrated on the
drink. I had nearly finished it
before I allowed myself to ask me:

What is the next thing to do?

  (Follow Karen, of course. Do what
you said earlier play along and wait
for her own momentum to falter, then
give her something to distract her
attention. Once she gets the readings

1 18 Spider Robinson

she wants from someone else, the
immediate danger to you is past.)

  Yeah, but getting those readings
from anybody could make her hot. I
could catch something meant for her.

  (Yeah, you're really hooked on a
safe, sedentary lifestyle. I can see
that.)

All right, I find a moderate amount
of risk stimulating. . .

  (And you won't do something
stimulating to save a friend's
neck?)

But how do I know she'd let me

  (She's used to you meddling in her
life. For some reason she doesn't
mind.)

Yeah. Father figure.

  (Okay, jerk. You adopted her. Be a
responsible father. You're in loco
parentis. just like )

Hiatus.

  I was sitting at the terminal
keyboard, fingers at rest on my lap.
I didn't recall resolving the
internal debate, but evidently my
subconscious thought it was settled.
I even had some idea what I intended
to program. Instead I swore, spun
the chair around, hugged myself, and
folded over until I hit the floor.
My mouth was wide open, my teeth
clenched tight, my forehead knotted,
and I snarled softly in the back of
my throat. When I could, I pounded
the rug with my fist and wept.

  I hate them. Those sudden gaps in
my life, those sudden jump-cuts like
slipshod editing, like little bits
of tape snipped out of my recording.
It must be much like this to have
epilepsy, except that I never seem
to convulse, or hurt myself while
I'm blacked out. Some sort of
automatic pilot cuts in; other
people rarely even notice. But I
resent those missing bits of tape.
One of them is six years long.

It all comes of being careless in
jungles, I guess.

  I was pretty used to it by now. I
rarely threw that kind of
frustration tantrum anymore, never
when I was not alone. But I was
about to involve myself in something
that I could sense was much more
dangerous than my average heist, and
it was maddening to be reminded that
I did not have guaranteed access to
my own brains.

But eventually I had cursed and
cried out all the fury and

MINDKILLER 11 9

frustration. I got up off the rug and
sat back down at the terminal. I had
wasted enough dme.

  Karen's credit account showed no
activity, either savings or charge,
since she had left her apartment to
move in with me. She had left my
place with enough cash to rent a
flop, but she had not yet paid a
deposit to a keyboard man. I set up a
monitor on her credit, so that when
she did pay I would know who she
hired. I knew, or knew of, perhaps
half the boys in town, and I could
locate the rest and pick up her
trail. If she paid in advance, as she
almost certainly would have to, there
was an excellent chance I could "tap
the line" and listen in on whatever
her operator found out. That would be
less dangerous than initiating the
probe myself although more dangerous
than simply trying to trail her
physically from the site. If her
operator did trip a guard program, it
might be sophisticated enough to
notice me "listening on the
extension." I wondered if it was
worth the risk. If I knew what she
knew, I could figure the first place
she'd go and get there first, be
waiting for her. It would be a good
argument for taking me on as a
partner.

  I realized something and cursed.
Karen didn't have to touch her
credit. If no friend was willing to
lend her a couple hundred, she would
surely know how to locate at least a
few of her regular customers. They
would be happy to make any requested
donation, and they would prefer to use
cash. I wasn't thinking clearly.

  Damn it, that left me flat. There
was nothing she had to do that had to
appear on tape somewhere in the
network. She could get her sightings,
pick a target, and skip town without
leaving a trace in the system. She
couldn't get through a dragnet, but I
am not a dragnet. I could not find
Karen if she did not wish to be
found, not quickly anyway.

  Perhaps I would after all have to
run the inquiry program she had asked
me for.

  That decision could be postponed.
"If she did not wish to be found . .
." That was the key. I suddenly
recalled the wording of the goodbye
message she had scrawled on my toilet
seat; she had not written, "Don't
bother to try and come after me."
Could I assume that she was trying to
prevent me from trailing her?

120 Spider Robinson

  I decided to see how the hand
played out. I left my watchdog
program monitoring her credit
account, wired to light and sound
alarms. Any withdrawal or deposit
would bring me out of a sound sleep.
If she wanted to be found, or didn't
care one way or the other, she'd
trip that alarm. If she was actively
trying to shake me off, if she
hadn't touched her credit or
reentered her apartment within, say,
twenty-four hours . . . well, then I
could sit down and decide whether I
wanted to catch up with her badly
enough to stick my neck out. I told
her apartment terminal to notify me
if it was used.

  I nodded and got up from my
terminal, rotating my head to pop my
neck. What's the next thing to do?

  It was a tight contest between go
to sleep and get piefaced drunk. I
didn't feel remotely sleepy, and I
didn't want to answer that alarm
drunk or hung over. But finally I
was forced to admit that I was so
wound up I would probably be more
effective hung over. And I might not
have to answer any alarm. . .

Nor did I. The hangover was
somewhere between average and
classic. I could find no music that
would soothe it. Finally I gave up
and took aspirin. It muted the
headache and increased the
queasiness. I let the Lounger rub my
neck for almost an hour, and as my
strength came trickling back I used
it to get agitated again. After a
while I became aware that I had for
the past ten minutes been composing
variations on the expression "hair
of the dog." Puppy fuzz. Cur fur.
Pug rug. Toupe du chien. I said a
powerful ward out loud and went out
for a walk. I knew I would not drink
among strangers and I wanted to go
see some people, in the same way
that other people infrequently feel
like going to the zoo.

  And on the streets I found signs
and wonders, things strange and
different. I saw a man with one leg
walking a dog with three. I saw two
women dancing together on the roof
of a station wagon; oddly, neither
one seemed to be enjoying it. I
passed three young toughs in leather
and mylar, cheeks tattooed and noses
pierced, the oldest of them perhaps
fourteen. (This is the first
generation of 'juvenile delinquents"
whose resignation from society is
irrevocable. They cannot change
their minds when they get older. It
will be interesting to see how

MINDKILLER121

that works out.) I saw a pimp feeding
cocaine to his golden retriever. On a
sloping street I saw a short squat
ancient woman in a black print dress
and babushka stop on the opposite
sidewalk, sigh, squat a little more,
and begin urinating copiously. A vast
puddle gathered at her feet and
rushed down the hill. I stood frozen,
as though at some personal religious
revelation, vouchsafed to me alone.
It was not that everyone else on that
street ignored the woman. They
literally did not see her. People
sidestepped the rushing river without
noticing it. The hair stood up on the
back of my neck and my head throbbed.
The old woman urinated for a full
minute; then the flood ceased, she
straightened, sighed again, and
resumed walking uphill, leaving damp
footprints of orthopedic shoes. A few
minutes later I shook off my trance
and resumed my own walk.

I passed a sidewalk cockfight;
noticed that they were betting Old
dollars. I passed an alley in which a
young whore was on her knees before a
cop, paying her weekly insurance
premium. He was looking at his watch.
I passed six pawnshops in a row, then
a political party's precinct
headquarters, then four pornshops in
a row. I rounded a corner and nearly
tripped over a wirehead sitting on
the sidewalk in front of a
hole-in-the-wall hardware store.

He was new to it: the air had not
yet grown in around his droud, and he
had obviously just learned the one
about wiring in a third battery to
produce a threshold overdose. He
grinned at me and I saw Karen in his
face. I hurried past; almost
immediately my stomach knotted and I
had to sit down on a stoop with my
face in my hands. Out of the corner
of my eye I saw the hardware shop
proprietor stick his head out of his
shop, look around furtively. He bent
over the wirehead and extracted his
wallet. The boy blinked up at him,
grinning, then suddenly understood
and roared with laughter. "Right,
man," he said, "square deal," and he
laughed and laughed.

I found myself walking toward the
proprietor with no idea why. He
flinched when he saw me, flinched
again when he saw my face, then
became aggressive. "This man owes me
money you just heard him say so. Mind
your own " He shifted gears, held out
the wallet, and said "please," and
then I jacked one up under his ribs,
his gut should feel like mine.

122 Spider Robinson

As he went down and backwards the
wallet flew into my hands. I took
all the money that was in it and
tore it into tiny shreds, tossed the
shreds down a sewer. The wirehead
laughed and laughed. I threw the
wallet in his face and walked away.
Behind me I could hear him, ripping
up all his identification and photos
and giggling.

I bought a Coke at a dog-stand. It
tasted like burbled sugar. I used it
to wash down four drugstore aspirins
and decided to go home and check my
alarms. Automatically I took a
different route toward home, and so
passed something genuinely unique:

A wirehead shop with a large sign
taped in its window saying "FREE
SAMPLES."

I stopped in my tracks and stared
at that sign.

Free samples? How in God's name
could you give free samples of
radical neurosurgery? And what if it
were true?

I entered the shop.

The shock doe was old and thin and
red-nosed. His clothes were baggy
everywhere they weren't shiny. His
hands shook at rest. They were
almost the only sign of life; his
face and eyes looked newly dead. A
potential customer was gibbeting and
gesticulating at him like a speed
freak, babbling something about
installment plans, and he was not
reacting in any way at all, not
laughing or anything. Eventually the
customer realized he was wasting his
time and went for his gun. It was a
sure sign that he was stone
crazy was he going to hold a gun on
the doc through surgery9. and l
started to backflip out the door.
But the doe stood his ground; one of
those shaking hands shot up and
slapped the man, crack, crack,
forehand and backhand. They stared
at each other over the gun. The
excited man was no longer excited,
he was quite calm. He put his piece
away, spun, and brushed past me on
his way out. His expression made me
think of Moses traveling away from
the Promised Land. When I turned
back to the doe he was giving me
precisely the same dead stare he had
given my predecessor.

Now I noticed that his other hand
was in his pocket. It was not alone
in there. He looked me over very
carefully before he took it out,
empty.

I was doing my best to look like a
man at the very end of

MINDKILLER1 23

his rope; con man's chameleon reflex.
The room helped. Surely to God his
operating theater was bright and well
lit, but this off~ce-anteroom was
dingy and dark and depressing as
hell. Unnaturally depressing; I
suspected subsonics at high gain. The
predominant color was black, and it's
not true that a black wall can't look
dirty. Even the storefront window was
blacked ova; the only illumination
came from a forty-watt bulb on the
ceiling. There was no decor. Behind
the doc an L-shaped affair that might
have been either a counter or a desk
grew out of the wall, a chair on
either side. One had to pass the
thing to get to the door that must
lead to the operating theater. On the
opposite side of the doorway from the
desk was a tall steel cabinet with a
good lock. A black box sat on top of
the desk, and connected to it by
telephone cord was what looked like
an oversized black army helmet.

I shamed my feet. "I, uh. . . good,
uh. . ."

"You saw the new sign and you want
to ask me some questions," he said.
His voice was flat, sepulchral. "That
sign is going to make me rich."

I have known cripples and cops and
killers, people who must learn how to
get numb and stay that way, and I
have never met anyone remotely so
inhuman as that man. It was
impossible to picture him as a child.

"I, uh, always understood there was
no way to. . ."

"Until this year that was correct,"
he agreed. "It still can't be done
anywhere but here. Yet. The device
that makes it possible is my own
invention." He displayed no visible
sign of pride. Or, for that matter,
shame.

"How does it, uh. . r

"It is based on inductance
principles. I do not intend to
discuss it further. My patent
application went in this week; that
sign has only been up for an hour."

"Well, but I mean, how would I. . ."
I trailed off.

He stared at me for a long time,
hands shaking. "Step over there
against that wall. Behind the
sonoscope."

Hesitantly, heavily, I obeyed. The
sonoscope looked just like the one in
every emergency room, rather like an
old fluoroscope, except that the face
of the display had a fine-mesh grid
inscribed on it. I stood in the
proper spot while he candled my

124 Spider Robinson

head with ultrasonics. He grunted at
his first look. "Trauma there. And
there."

I nodded. "War wound."

"Hold your head still. I will have
to offset the droud a bit "

"Hey, listen," I interrupted, "I'm
not sure I'm going to do this. I
just "

His shoulders slumped a little
more. "Of course. The sample first.
This way."

He led me to the desk counter, sat
me down, and went around behind it.
He made three adjustments to the
black box, one to the inside of the
"army helmet." He passed it to me.
"Put this on. That way front."

I eyed h dubiously.

He did not sigh. "When I activate
this unit, it will set up a
localized inductance field in the
area where I calculate your medial
forebrain bundle to be. For a period
of five seconds you will experience
intense pleasure. The effect will be
almost precisely half as strong as
that produced by a conventional
droud from standard house current."

"What if my medial thing isn't where
everybody else's is?"

"That is unlikely. If so, the most
probable result would be that you
would feel nothing, and I would
recalibrate and try again."

"What about least probable? Are there
any potentially dangerous
near-misses?"

"Not lethal ones, no. There is a
chance, which I compute as less than
five percent, that you might
experience a feeling of either
intense heat or intense cold. If so,
tell me and I'll disconnect."

"This thing has been tested a
lot?" I temporized. "I mean, you
said your patent thing just went in
this week."

"Exhaustively tested, by me, for a
year at Bellewe."

I raised an eyebrow. "Volunteers?"

"Mental patients." No, in other
words.

I kept on looking at the damned
helmet.

What was I doing here? Research?
Investigating the subject of Karen's
crusade, so that I could understand
it better, understand her better?
What was to be gained here that was
worth sticking my head into a giant
homemade light socket?

MINDKILLER 1 25

Was it really that tempting? To know
pure pleasure for once, for just this
once, to let go all the way and find
out what happens when you let go? If
I did let go, could I find my way
baclc?

"Doctor, do you consider
conventional wireheading addictive?"

He didn't flinch. "Yes."

"Is this addictive?"

"No."

"Is it habituating?"

"It can't be. One free sample per
customer. I am not a candy store."

I had a thought. "Can you cut it
back to one-quarter droud strength?"

"Yes. That would still be your only
sample."

Still I waited and debated. He was
making no slightest effort to
influence my decision either way, or
to hurry it along. He was dead. I
thought of Karen in the harsh light
of her living room lamp, and of the
young wirehead I had left shredding
his identification. I thought of what
Karen wanted to do. She wanted to
commit financial and/or physical
violence on the people who ran this
industry. She wanted to abolish this
practice. I intended to try and con
her out of it. I had to know what it
was like.

I put my hands on the helmet, and I
closed my eyes and tried to imagine
what ecstasy would feel like, and

Hiatus.

I was halfway out of my chair,
rising, spinning toward the door, all
in slow motion. The helmet was in
mid-bounce. just before the shock
doe's face slid out of my peripheral
vision, I thought I saw the mildest,
most feeble trace of relief fliclcer
across it. I was conscious of every
muscle-action of running toward the
exit. Someone was screaming; I didn't
know his name. My time sense was so
stretched out that I was able to open
the door at a dead run, leaning out
to pull it towards me, yanking my
torso back away from it as it opened,
pivoting on the handle so that I
flung myself into the street. I hit
the pavement feet first, perfectly
banked for my turn; after three
skidding steps I had my stride back
and within ten I was settled into it.
Shortly I had to brake for a busy
intersection. As I did, my time sense
suddenly snapped back to normal. I
sat down

126 Spider Robinson

- on the curb, rushing traffic a meter
from my shoes, and bent over and
puked and puked into the gutter. The
nausea lasted, off and on, through
four or five light-changes. When it
passed I sat there for another
couple, and then I heard cat feet
approaching and looked up to see who
was desperate enough to roll a drunk
in broad daylight. So I happened to
be looking in the direction of the
wireshop, a full block behind me,
when its front wall danced across
the street, hotly pursued by
brightness intolerable, and struck
the vacant storefront opposite like
some monstrous charge of
Brobdingnagian buckshot.

I flung myself back and sideways, away
from traffic and into blast shadow,
and the sound reached me as my face
hit the pavement. I stayed down
until it seemed like everything that
was in the air had landed, then
rolled to my feet fast.

My would-be mugger was glancing
back and forth from me to the
smoking wreckage, clearly of two
minds. I put my hand on my gun butt.
"Not today," I said, and he licked
his lips and sprinted for the shop.
He had delayed too long; five or ten
people were already gingerly
entering the store, wrapping various
things around their hands so they
wouldn't burn their fingers. They
were a gang; two of them stood
guard.

I joined the rest of the crowd. We
stayed a half-block away on either
side and stared and cursed the
looters for getting there first and
swapped completely bogus eyewitness
reports. I decided it probably had
not been an accidental explosion. It
had taken artistry and skill to
place a charge that would utterly
wreck the wireshop without bringing
down the floors above or seriously
damaging the adjoining buildings.
God is an iron, but He is seldom
that finicky in his irony. That left
me in three simultaneous states of
mind. I was impressed. I was scared.
And, strongest of all

I was enormously intrigued.

I made my way home quickly, and
when I smiled at President Kennedy
he winked his left eye. I had a
guest. One that Kennedy had
recognized and admitted, or he would
have winked both eyes several times.
I am allergic to surprises, and
never more so than that afternoon.
My first thought was that anyone
smart enough to crack my house was
smart enough to tell the

-                  MINDKILLER 127

President which eye to wink. I
wondered why I had never thought of
that. I pulled my gun and made sure
the collar wasn't in the way of the
knife and told myself that it was
purest paranoia to think the wireshop
bombing could have anything to do with
me. The hypothesis yielded a bomber of
infinite resources, great ingenuity,
and complete incompetence. More likely
my guest was the Fader, who was about
due. Or Old fake, come with his guitar
to play me a new song. . .

And when the door raised itself,
music did indeed come drifting up the
stairs. But it wasn't Old Jake. It was
the Yardbird, these forty-four years
dead.

Whoever was down there was a friend.

It was Karen who sat in my living
room, crosslegged on her usual chair.
Even if the music had masked the
sounds of my arrival she could not
have helped seeing me peripherally,
but she gave no sign, kept staring at
the place where the far wall met the
ceiling. I sat down quietly in the
other Lounger, dialing for tea.

She was' listening to one of the last
Dial sessions at WOR, in '47, when
Bird fmally got the band he wanted in
New York. Miles and Max Roach and Duke
Jordan. And all the smack he wanted.
There's a Mingus piece, usually called
"Gunslingin' Bird," whose full title
is "If Charlie Parker Was a
Gunslinger, There'd Be a Lot of Dead
Copycats." As my tea arrived, the
thought jumped into my head: if
Charlie Parker had been a wirehead,
all those copycats would have had to
work for a living.

When the last note of "Bird of
Paradise" cut off, and not a moment
before, Karen turned the stereo not
down, but off. I remembered that the
Fader had liked her.

"Hi, Joe."

"Hello, Karen."

"Anticlimax. The runaway child comes
back home."

"Why?"

She took her time answering. "I don't
know if I can put it into words. You .
. . you've done . . . a lot for me,
and, and that means that you must . .
. care about me some and I'm gonad go
do something that's gonna get sticky
and you wanted to talc me out of it
and I didn't give you a chance, I got
defensive

128 Spider Robinson

and took it personal and cut you
right off." She paused for air. "I
mean, I'm gonna do this anyway but I
just thought you'd feel better if
you did your best to talk me out of
it first, you know, like you'd be
easier in your mind. It was wrong of
me to leave like that, it was . . .
it was like . . ." She was slowing
down again. ". . . like not caring
about you."

I was looking at my hands. "And
you're not afraid I'll try to
prevent you?"

"No. You're not my father."

"Have you hired a reader yet?"

"Not yet. I've been thinking."

I looked up and met her gaze. I
had decided on the way home. "Good.
You don't need one anymore."

She twitched her shoulders
violently. "I you but " She stopped
herself and closed her eyes. She
drew in a big lungful of air, pursed
her lips, and blew it sl-o-owly
through her teeth, ssshhhoooooo, did
it again slower. Then she opened her
eyes and said, "Thank you, loe."

My hangover was gone.

"When do we start?" she asked after
a moment.

"Have you eaten?"

"I brought cornbread, and some
pretty good preserves, and some Java
coffee."

"We start after brunch."

As we were setting the table she
took me by the shoulders an&looked
at me for a long moment. Her
expression was faindy quizzical.
Suddenly she closed in and came up
on tiptoe and was kissing me
thoroughly, her fingers digging into
the back of my head. I had salad
bowls in either hand and could
neither resist nor cooperate. She
did not kiss me dhe way a whore
kisses her biggest spender. She
kissed me the way a wife kisses a
husband who remembered their fifth
anni

Hiatus.

She was two meters away, leaning
back against the wall with her hands
outspread. Her eyes were round.
Salad dressing stained her blouse
and dripped from her cheek, and
there was lettuce all to hell and
gone between us. I looked up at the
ceiling. "Dammit," I cried bitterly,
"that one wasn't fair!"

"foe, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I
didn't "

MINDKILLER 1 29

"I wasn't talking to you!" I
stopped myself. I tried her exhaling
trick and it helped a lot. "Karen,
I'm sorry. That had nothing to do
with you, nothing at all. It was "

"I know. Somebody in your past."

I shrugged. "It could be. I
honestly don't know." I told her
about my blackout condition. I had
never told anyone before  but she and
I were going to go to war together,
and she had a right to know.

When I was done explaining, all she
said was, "Let me see if there's a
safe dosage," and then she came into
my arms and hugged me and kissed me,
the way a friend kisses a friend, and
that was just fine.

And we ate, and that was just fine
too, and then we adjourned to the
living room. Where I pulled the
terminal out of the wall recess and
heated it up. And the next two hours
were interesting indeed.

There are many better keyboard men
than me. I came quite late to
programming, and will never have the
genius level of aptitude that some
are born with. On my good days I
consider myself a talented amateur.
There are enormous holes in my
knowledge of computers, and probably
always will be. But blind chance
gifted me with a computer the equal
of any in North America, with
programmed-in owner's manual, at a
point in my life during which I had
nothing better to do than study it.
It is so supple and flexible a
machine that I have never been
tempted to anthropomorphize it. It
can interface with almost any network
while remaining effectively
invisible. Its own capacity is four
terabytes, four times ten to the
twelfth bytes.

Karen watched for the first half
hour, but after the first ten minutes
she was just being polite. Finally I
told her to go dig Bird on the
headphones, and she did. At that
point l was only puzzled.
Subsequently I did some things with
that most versatile of computers that
would have shocked the IRS, a few
that would have fascinated the CIA,
and even one or two that might have
surprised the computer's original
owner if he or she were still alive.
I went from puzzled through intrigued
to mystified, stayed there for about
an hour, then moved on to baffled,
proceeding almost at once to
frustrated. Karen heard me swearing
and came over to sit wordlessly
beside me with her hand

130 Spider Robinson

at the base of my neck. Within
another fifteen minutes, frustrated
modulated into vaguely alarmed, and
stayed there.

Finally I ordered hard copy
printout and cleared. "'You got it,
buddy,"' I growled in my best Tom
Waits imitation. "'The large print
giveth, and the small print taketh
away."'

"What is it, foe?"

"I'm damned if I know, and I'm sure
I can't explain it very well. You
haven't studied economics, let alone
business economics. It's " I broke
off, groping for an analogy within
her experience. "Like a motorcycle.
You can break down what a motorcycle
does, chart the path and interaction
of different forces and materials,
follow the power flow. If you can
visualize the motorcycle as a series
of power relationships, you can
locate its weak points where it can
be most disabled with least effort.
That's what I've been trying to do
with the wirehead industry. But I
can't get a computer-model that
works. If you built a motorcycle like
this it would whistle 'blight In
Tunisia,' make a pot of coffee, and
explode. I can't make sense of the
power flow . . . and it seems to have
only the most peripheral

  relationship to the money flow . . .
damn it, there's nothing the IRS
could object to. Stupidity isn't
illegal. But it just. . .fecls wrong,
feels like something is being
juggled. But I can't understand how
or why or by whom. That makes me
highly nervous."

"So, since you can't diagram out
this motorcycle, you can't find the
weak points?"

"I can't be sure. We've got to get
inside and nose around, learn things
that aren't in any computer. Field
work."

She nodded. "Fine. Where?"

"That's another problem. There are
three major corporations, as your
source told you and by the way, if
two of them are really the same
outfit, I can't prove it. We might
get useful information at any of
three places."

"Where?"

"Germany, Switzerland, Nova Scotia."

"Which is better?"

"The biggest outfit is the West
German one, in Hamburg. That'd be the
hardest to crack. I don't speak
German "

"I do."

MINDKILLER 1 31

"Point The smallest of the three,
and that ain't small, is in Geneva.
We can get by with English in
Switzerland but I think there's the
least information to be had there.
The middle-size bear is in Halifax "

". . . and the Canadian border is a
joke. That settles that. My stuff's
still where I left it? I'll pack."

"Yes, do that," I said, and set
immediately to making my own
preparations for departure. I wasn't
sure why she was impatient to be
going, but I knew why I was. I could
not shake the nagging fear that I had
tripped some subtle watchdog program
without knowing it. There are ways to
avoid being backtracked, -and I
believed I knew. the best ones.

But I wasn't positive.

We took four days getting to Halifax.
We had to keep changing vehicles, and
one does not want to enter a strange
city exhausted from travel.
Especially not if one wishes to
vanish as quickly as possible into
the shadows of that strange city. We
found a cheap apartment house that
still accepted cash in the old part
of town, on a sorry, broken-down
sin-strip called Gottingen Street. If
you went up on the roof you could see
the harbor and the bridge to
Dartmouth. You could also leave the
building in any of three directions
without special equipment, which was
what closed the deal. We took a
year's lease on a twobedroom as Mr.
and Mrs. Something-or-Other, and by
the time I hitchhiked back from where
I'd dumped our final car, Karen had
us unpacked and food in the fridge,
coffee made.

"Oh, foe, this is exciting. This
town is so strange; I think I'm going
to like it. Let's go for a walk and
plan our first move."

"Wait," I said. "I don't think we
should do either one just yet. I
haven't needed to bring this up until
now, but. . . let me tell you what
happened to me on my last walk in New
York." I did not do that, but I did
give a brief outline of the wireshop
incident. Her eyes were wide when I
was done. "Do you see what I mean? It
has the same wrong feel as I got when I
took the readouts. That zombie was no
genius inventor. When I saw that
homemade helmet of his, I couldn't
believe someone else hadn't thought
of it five years ago. Hell, they
could have built

132 Spider Robinson

one of those in the eighties. he had
the only one I ever heard of. And he
got blown away, along with the Mark
I, the week his patent application
went in " I broke off end frowned.
"You can't burgle the Patent Office's
computer files. But maybe I can find
out whether anyone has made official
inquiries through channels about
that particular patent. That's
public record."

Before I had left my home I'd had
my computer select three different
acceptable but unused phone numbers
in Halifax, diddle the Atlantic Tel
computer into believing they were
highcredit subscribers in good
standing, initiate conference calls
from all three, and leave those
circuits open, on standby. Why not?
I wasn't paying for it. I dialed one
of those numbers now, and when I was
put through I got out the portable
terminal I travel with and clipped
its squeaker to the phone. I was
ioterfaced with my home computer.

I asked it my questions, frowned,
and rephrased my quesdons. This time
I got an answer, and it couldn't
have been on screen for more than
three seconds before I was ordering
the computer to break circuit,
wasting that means of access. I was
scared enough to wet my pants.

'where is no such application on
file," I said in a shaky voice. "No
patent remotely related to
wireheading or inductance or
anything to do with the goddam brain
has been sought by anybody in the
last year. Current to three o'clock
this afternoon."

"So either that shock doe was stone
crazy "

"Or someone can subvert the U.S.
Patent Office. And we know about it.
God's teeth. The only people with
interest enough and leverage enough
are the big wirehead outfits and why
the hell would they take risks like
that to suppress something that
would probably triple their income
or better?"

"Jesus."

"It's wrong, it feels wrong, it's
all just...off. And I'm getting very
nervous. Let's not go for that walk."

We watched TV instead, curled up
in the master bedroom, until we fell
asleep. I slept poorly. Bad dreams.

When a week had gone by without
incident or alarm, I began to relax.
Until that time we made believe that
we had neva

MINDKILLER 1 33

heard of wireheading, and kept to
ourselves. We talked a lot. The
entertainment facilities of our room
were a joke, and I was not going to
call home again until and unless I
had to. Part of our talk involved
practical matters of planning, a good
many hours inasmuch as we had almost
nothing to go on. We were able to
kill much time inventing new
contingencies. But there was a limit
to how far we could stretch that, and
finally there was nothing left for us
to talk about except the stories of
our lives.

Karen started it. She talked about
her childhood, starting with the
happy parts because they came first
chronologically. They didn't last
long. Her father had been a monster
in almost a biological sense. She
told me a great deal about him over
the course of perhaps a week, first
in a two-hour monologue she ended by
vomiting to exhaustion, and then in a
series of long conversations that
wandered everywhere but always led
back sooner or later to that
extraordinary man. I use that last
word reluctantly, but I can find no
legitimate excuse to disown him. I
wish I could. His death should have
been celebrated. Well, it had been by
Karen surely, and likely many others
but I mean nationally. Planetarily.

But although he had never been
especially intelligent, Wolfgang
Scholz had always had the animal
cunning never to hurt anyone who
could effectively complain about it.

About her mother, use, Karen told
me little, and most of that simply
involved incidents at which the woman
had been present. Apparently she was
one of those cipherlike people that
true sadists keep around. Having no
personality to destroy, they cannot
be used up.

The telling of her life was good
for Karen. She had told most of these
anecdotes to others over the
years but she had never told anyone
all of them. In telling them all
together, perhaps she was able to
perceive some kind of gestalt pattern
she had previously missed. Perhaps by
replaying every minute of her life
with her father she was better able
to exorcise him, one step closer to
being able to accept and forget him.
Every time you play the record, the
signal-to-noise ratio gets worse. Her
consumption of alcohol dropped
steadily to zero. She cut way back on
tobacco. She actually began to
display signs of

134 Spider Robinson

neatness, become more careful in
personal grooming.

And finally it was my turn.

And of course there was nowhere to
start but at the beginning.

I remember, as an infant remembers
womb dreams, the click and the sight
of the mine coming up like a
featureless jack-inthe-box and very
bright light and then very dark
dark. And then I was born.

When I realized that I was alive,
my first thought was that VA
hospitals were better than I'd
heard. I was in a powered bed in
what looked like the bedroom of a
captain of industry, with no medical
equipment in sight. My head did not
hurt nearly as badly as I thought it
should, and nothing else hurt at
all. Well, I said to myself, you've
managed to come up smelling like a
rose again, Corporal

And paused.

Because what I intended to end
that sentence with was my name. And
I did not know it anymore.

It was not really that much of a
shock, then. In all the books and
movies, amnesia is always temporary.
But I yelled. A man came in the door
with an icebag. A man so completely
nondescript that I could not tell
whether I knew him or not. I thought
that was symptomatic too at the
time, but of course it was the
Fader. He sat down and put the ice
on my head and told me that he had
gotten the son of a bitch.

I'm not sure which questions I
asked first, but within a couple of
days I had as much information as
the Fader could give me. By the end
of a month I knew almost all I was
ever going to know.

When the mine went off in the
jungle I was, as best I can
reconstruct it, twenty-four or
thereabouts. When I woke up in that
bed under the offices of that
deserted warehouse, for what I
believed was the first time, I
was again, best guess about thirty.

Of what I did, where I was, during
the intervening six years, I have no
slightest recollection.

Of my life before the mine went
off I have only random shards of
memory, disordered, fragmentary,
incomplete. I do

MINDKILLER 1 35

not for instance know my name, nor
have I been able to discover it.

It's like a million file cards
scattered across a great field, more
than half of them facedown. Random
bits of information are clear and
sharp, but there is no context. I
remember a family, remember childhood
incidents involving three vividly
recalled people, but I do not know
their names or what has become of
them. I remember growing up in a
small town; if I ever see it I'll
know it, but I doubt I'll ever find
it. I remember that we moved to New
York in my early adolescence, but in
the four years since the Fader put
that icebag on my head I have walked
through most of the five boroughs
without finding that street. Ten
years is a long time in New York. It
may not exist anymore.

I remember enlisting and bits of
Basic and there's a lot of chaotic,
badly edited video footage of the
horrors of war in fact, the army days
are probably the period I retain most
of. But to my sour amusement I cannot
recall my serial number.

What the Fader had to say was
mighty interesting. We had met a
couple of months before in a bar. I
had busted a stein over the head of
someone who was attempting to knife
him. We had become friends, and a
couple of weeks ago I had invited him
home, and a week ago I had showed him
my real home. The Fader stated that
he was a composer who, the times
being what they were, dabbled in the
small-time con (mostly variations on
the classic Man in the Street) and an
occasional mugging. He told me that I
was a burglar, apparently for the
sheer love of it since I obviously
had, as he put it, adequate
resources.

How had I found my home? How would
he know? He had been too polite to
ask, and I had not volunteered the
information. Or, unfortunately, much
else.

One guess suggests itself. One of
the two emergency exits from the
underground apartment is a long
tunnel, which at its far end is
camouflaged, quite realistically, as
an abandoned sewage outfall,
malodorous and unattractive to
inspection. Could I have been so
afraid of someone or something that I
tried to hide in there, and found
myself in Wonderland?

The Fader said that we had been
coming back from a large

136 Spider Robinson

"mutual adventure" when a hijacker
tried to take its proceeds from us.
The hijacker had laid a sock full of
potting against my skull, and the
Fader had killed him with his hands.
Then he had dragged me the rest of
the way home, and since he knew the
dislock sequence but had not been
filed in the germs yet, he had a
hell of a time propping me up in
front of Kennedy to get the door
open. (I added the weight-acdvated
explosives later.) He had been
nursing me for the past few days,
through delirium and nausea, had run
several medical texts through the
reader before he decided he could
safely refrain from taking me to a
hospital.

This last because I had told him
my secret: that I did not exist,
that I was an invisible man.

At some point during my missing
six years, and after I had stumbled
upon my home, I must have seen the
possibilities of its computer, and
decided to resign from the human
race. I had done a hellishly
efficient job. God is an iron.

In between talking with the Fader,
I watched and read a lot of news and
I heard nothing that made that
decision seem like a bad idea.

I could, to my only mild surprise,
think of no better place for me in
the world than the one I seemed to
have made and lucked into. Every
goal or dream I ever had that I can
recall was destroyed in the jungle.
I looked around me and found it
good, or at least tolerable. And I
could imagine no other occupadon or
lifestyle that was.

The Fader showed me what ropes he
knew, helped me relearn what life
was like in the underworld, steeled
me to the rogue. He helped me comb
through the ragbag of my mind for
scattered bits of memory; helped me
try, with the aid of the computer,
to find out who I was; helped me get
drunk enough on the night that I
finally accepted, emotionally, that
I might never know. He had done for
me what I later did for Karen, and
when he had finished it he politely
made his excuses and left me alone,
visiting frequently for a while and
then tapering off. He even found me
women, until it became clear that it
was a waste of everyone's dmc.
According to my memory shards I had
nothing against sex but now I found
myself as asexual as Karen herself.

MINDKILLER 1 37

"Jesus," Karen said at this point
in my narrative, speaking for the
first time in hours. "How could I
read it so wrong? You never wake up
hard in the morning, you never get
hard at all, and so I figure you must
be gay. What a jerk."

I looked away. "To be totally
accurate," I said tightly, "I'm a
little bit more than asexual. Maybe
antisexual is closer."

"How do you mean?"

"Arousal frightens me. Angers me. I
can remember enjoying sex in the
past, but now on the rare occasions
that I become aroused, I I usually
have one of those blackouts."

Karen shook her head. "Different
with me. I just don't get anything at
all. Not since I was a kid."

Suddenly I was crying, explosively,
convulsively, and she was holding me,
holding my head against her breast
and rocking me in her lap, and I was
hanging on to her for dear life. "I
thought I had it tough," I heard her
whisper, and I wept and wept. It was
the first time in a long while that I
had wept for anything but rage, and
it drained away an enormous amount of
pain and fear and left me spent.
Karen half-carried me to bed, and it
was like leaning on a rock with a
soft surface.

There was a new bond between us the
next day, and so it was late that
afternoon that Karen had her own
blowout, that her own psychic kettle
came to a boil. I think it was that
night that she finally forgave God
for creating her father, and I ended
up holding her until she fell asleep.
A deep and profound sleep, complete
exhaustion plus successful catharsis.
She never felt me undress her, never
noticed me leave the bed, never heard
the TV I watched as I mixed myself a
drink and finished it. I took another
one to the corner chair with the
directional reading light, and I
sipped while rereading computer
printouts for the thirtieth dme,
trying to make a sensible pattern out
of them.

The drink was long gone when I
heard the first sensual moan.

I looked up and dropped the
printout. She had worked the sheet
off in her sleep and lay writhing on
the bed. She was obviously having a
deeply erotic dream. I had never
known this to happen to her before,
had never expected it to. I felt a
trace of the faint distaste that
sexual arousal usually elicits in

138 Spider Robinson

me and wanted to look away.

But Karen scarred, frigid little
Karen, my true friend Karen was
whimpering with lust. Perhaps for
the first time in years.

Something had finally unlocked,
some door in her mind was opening.
If it could happen in sleep it could
happen in waking life. My patient
was at a crisis. But was it
happening? She thrashed on the bed,
clenching and unclenching her
thighs, making small sounds as she
searched for release. Her hands
flexed and grasped at her sides; she
had never learned to masturbate,
could not work it into whatever
fantasy was stimulating her.

Surely a lifetime of deprivation
should provide enough back pressure
to allow release without any
physical stimulus. But what if it
didn't? If this attempt at sexuality
ended in frustration, would it be
repeated? When would conditions ever
be better? Or as good?

I got up and approached her. She
did not seem to feel my weight come
on the bed. I looked her over from
head to toe, dispassionately, as an
intellectual problem. I thought it
out. The more input I gave her, the
more she had to work into the script
of her dream; eventually the effort
might bring at least partial
awareness and failure. Her arousal
was coming in slow waves that built
to a peak, ebbed, then caught again.
When I sensed a peak coming I
reached out carefully. With infinite
gentleness I put the tip of an index
finger just above the top of her
vulva, so slowly that for her there
was probably no defined border
between not feeling it and feeling
it. As the peak arrived I moved my
finger delicately down the shaft of
her clitoris toward the glans. She
was breathing in gasps, whistling on
the exhale. As I approached the nub
I began using a little fingernail,
and when I had reached it my thumb
was beneath it, trapping it, and she
groaned and went over the edge.

It was not the spectacular,
backbreaking orgasm I had rather
expected. It was a mild thing, a
gentle upwelling. But it was
definite and unmistakable, and it
left her soft and buttery and
totally unconscious, all angles
rounded, all edges softened. It left
me with tears on my face and awe in
my heats and a hollow feeling that
hurt as bad as anything I've ever
known. My sleep

MINDKILLER1 39

that night was an endless round of
nightmares, and when I woke the sheet
was pasted to me.

Two nights later the sequence
essentially repeated. Except that she
woke up after orgasm, and figured out
what had jwt happened. We hugged and
cried then. I had no nightmares that
night. The next day she taught
herself to masturbate while I was out
shopping. She reported her success
proudly, and I smiled and
congratulated her, and was jovial as
hell all that day, but I believe she
caught on because she never again
mendoned it or did it in my presence.

But she started spending a lot of
time in the bathroom.

I was confused about my own
feelings. For her I felt genuinely
happy and gratified.. And relieved: I
never again remembered that there was
still a droud in her skull, which she
could skill use.

For me I felt nothing.

Then came the day when our impatience
overcame our paranoia and it was time
to begin our campaign. Karen had more
than one motive to return to her
profession now. Oh, she had caudoned
herself not to expect too much. Sex
with a random stranger whose only
known attribute is that he or she has
to pay for it is not liable to be
great. But whatever happened, she
could definitely abandon her former
specialty and switch to straight
whoring. She now knew, at least, how
to pretend enjoyment. And as it
turned out she was third-dine-lucky,
came several Ames, and refunded his
money. From then on she went about
one for three, as near as I could
tell.

My own cover identity was pimp,
part-dine second-sto~y man, and
occasional dope runner. If I was home
when she brought a client home, I
remained discreetly out of sight in
bee other bedroom, with my eyes on
the TV and my ears cocked for
trouble. I wasn't always there; I had
fish of my own to fry and she could
handle herself. A good part of what I
was doing was running down exactly
how, after we had established our
personae, we would begin expanding
her client list to include the people
we wanted to get to know better,
without its being too obvious that we
were moving in that direction. I had
to tail a couple of them to the homes
of the whores they did

140 Spider Robinson

patronize, learn what kind of women
they liked and what they liked to do
with them. I was able to get some
information from three women by
pretending to be looking for recNits
for my own stable. With one of them
it was necessary to express horror
and shame at my unprecedented attack
of impotence, and be laughed
scornfully out of her room. I tried
a fourth woman, and her man put a
notch in my ear and a trivial slice
on the back of my ann before I could
apologize sincerely enough to suit
him.

It was going well. We were both
acquiring authentic reputations in
the Halifax underworld, and I was
learning just what class of johns
our targets represented, so that we
could specialize in that type and
acquire them in the natural course
of events.

I had decided to actually move a
little coke for the sake of my
cover, and I returned from a
negotiating session in a pool hall
with a tentative commitment and a
good deal of optimism. When I got
home, two coats were on the living
room couch and the door to the
working bedroom was closed, so I
took coffee into the other room and
watched a TV special about a
zero-gravity dancer, in orbit. Very
interesting stuff, very beautiful. I
wondered why no one had ever thought
of it before. After a while I heard
the phone start to ring, but Karen
must have picked up the extension at
once because it cut off before I
could move. Shortly I heard her door
open, then the apartment door, then
a male voice in brief conversation
with Karen's, then the door closing.
I put my coffee down; Karen's
customer had gone and I wanted to
ask her some things.

Only the customer wasn't gone. She
and Karen sat at the kitchen table,
both dressed, portioning out the
pizza I had just heard being
delivered. I stopped and waited
diplomatically for my cue.

Karen looked up and brightened. I
could tell that this had been one of
the good ones. "Hi, baby. I didn't
know you were home. Want some pizza?
This is my old man," she said,
turning to the client, and then her
smile vanished.

The woman was not a regular. She
was about my age, blond and tall and
slim, quite beautiful by
conventional standards. In my first
glimpse of her, bending over the
pizza, I had noted

MINDKILLER 1 41

in her face and carriage small trace
indicators of self-indulgence and
bitterness, but I had also sensed
strength and courage and will. She
wore a starched white uniform, quite
unwrinkled and spotless except for
where it had been stained when the
pizza leaped from her fingers.

She was staring at me, mouth open,
eye bulging with shock, hands
gripping her elbows so tightly that
the knuckles were turning white. She
was looking at me as if I were death,
as if I were all horror and all evil,
and I could not for the life of me
imagine why.

"Lois," Karen cried, "what's wrong?"

Her mouth worked. She swallowed.
"Nonnan," she rasped and swallowed
again. "Oh, my sweet Jesus tucking
Christ you are alive." She tilted her
head as if she had heard something,
-and fainted dead away.

7

1 99 5 The last two
factors in the
complex causal~vent-
tree that killed
Norman Kent were
Semester Break and
an old address book.

Each factor by
itself was necessary
but not sufficient
cause. Norman might
have gotten through
Semester Break if it
had not been for the
address book; the
book would probably
not have killed him
at any other time of
the year. But the
two factors
coincided, and
Norman's death
ceased to be a
matter of
statistical
probability and
became virtually
inevitable.

He even knew this
when it happened.

He had followed the
advice given him.by
Minnie and the Bear,
had done his level
best to declare
Maddy dead in his
mind. He had gone so
far as to initiate
the lengthy process
of having her
declared legally
dead, which he had
been putting off.
The horrible
impersonality of the
procedure helped
make the idea

     143
      
144 Spider Robinson

of her death more real to him. In
his academic world the tendency was
to smother the unpleasant realities
of life in empty form in dozens of
empty forms, to be filled out in
quintuplicate. It seemed fitting and
correct that the bureaucratic world
should deal with that most
unpleasant reality of life death  in
the same way: by chanting the dry
cold facts over and over again, on
paper. It made it official, made it
real.

The lesson was clear: pain could
be buried, with enough shoveling.
Norman had allowed himself to relax
for the duration of his friends'
visit, because this let him
appreciate them. But when they left
he plunged gratefully into the work
that had backed up in a week of
relaxation, and was soon producing
like five driven men again.

His students began to transcend
themselves, reaching new plateaus of
insight and understanding almost
against their will. He published a
new paper, in which he coined a new
critical term of fourteen syllables
that meant nothing whatsoever and
was to remain in serious critical
usage for half a century after his
death. Under his direction the
campus literary magazine not only
doubled its circulation and
quintupled its readership, but
brought several of its contributors
reprint fees, and one a book
contract. Norman practiced, and even
came to enjoy, the art of Lunching
for Advancement, which he had
formerly considered an unpleasant
obligation. Three jealous colleagues
tried but failed to knife Norman;
one was ruined by boomerang effect.
Eighteen students, singly and in
groups, in series and in parallel,
failed to seduce him. Three
carefully selected faculty wives
succeeded. MacLeod, who was married
to one of them, began to publicly
praise his own sagacity in giving
Norman one more chance to Find
Himself, and dropped hints about
early Total Tenure. Even the
Chancellor deigned to nod to Norman
when they passed one day on the
quadrangle, both scrupulously
following the unnaturally natural
pathways.

Respect of a similar yet different
kind was given to Norman by other
teachers and students who were in no
way connected with the university.
Monday night was Fitness Canada
Night at the YMCA, the basic RCAF
program with assorted frills: Norman
was first made a class demonstrator
and then offered a part-time job,
which he declined. Tuesday night was
Jazz

MINOKILLER 1 45

Beginner class at DancExchange: he
was by now in the first row.
Wednesday night was T'ai Chi, that
splendid blend of dance and unarmed
combat. Thursdays had given Norman a
problem for a while: no course for
which he was eligible involving
physical exertion was offered
anywhere in the city on that night.
He settled for a pistol marksmanship
class given by the police department.
Friday night was unarmed-combat class
at the Forces post on South Street,
where again he was made a
demonstrator. He jogged to and from
all these activities  he jogged
everywhere he went off campus and did
some serious running on weekends down
at Point Pleasant Park. Every night
he slept like a dead man, a kind of
rehearsal.

He gave up forever tobacco and
alcohol and marijuana and reading for
pleasure and sex for pleasure. They
were all ways to relax, and he had no
wish to relax. He canceled the cable-
feed service that brought
entertainment and news to his video
console. He abandoned all social life
save that which would enhance his
professional position, and pursued
that with energy and something that
was frequently mistaken for gusto.

He attained, in short, as has been
said, a drastic kind of dynamic
stability, the peace of the dervish,
and maintained it for some time. As
the work pressure on campus swelled,
growing inevitably into the tidal
wave of Exam Week, he rode it like a
master surfer, until at last, when he
was humming along at absolute peak
velocity and efficiency, the wave
suddenly broke and deposited him,
shipwrecked, on the shores of Se-
mester Break.

All the work, all the students,
most of the faculty, all went away.
Norman was far too organized to need
to plan his next semester, and there
was no First Semester work left
undone. There was nothing to fill his
days.

His evening prospects were not much
better. Three of his five evening
classes were also suspended while the
students were away; marksmanship and
hand-to-hand would continue, but it
was easy to see that he would come
home from them insufficiently
exhausted. As for what might be
called his curricular extracurricular
activities, only one of his three
faculty wives had failed to leave
town for the vacation and by Murphy's
Law she was the least tiring, most
tiresome, and least

146 Spider Robinson

available of the three. There was
not much to fill Norman's nights.

For the first few nights he
bounced around his apartment like a
Ping-Pong ball in a blender, a
workaholic evading savage
withdrawal. He added final touches
to already exemplary housekeeping,
got his apartment looking like an
advertisement, then frowned and
rearranged virtually every piece of
furniture in it, three times. He
cooked himself elaborate meals that
required hours of preparation and
extensive cleanup then hours later
he would realize that he had
forgotten to enjoy them. He designed
a way to increase the efficiency of
his apartment's layout by testing
out a single wall, and gave it up
only when the building super proved
to him that the wall was
load-bearing  that every wall in the
massive tower was load-bearing. In
desperadon he dug out his novel, but
put it aside after an hour. Wddng
was hard work, but it was not the
kind of work that kept him from
being alone with his thoughts.

He cast his mind back to the days
when he had had both time and
inclination for a hobby. He had once
been something of a low-key computer
enthusiast, had in fact built his
own Other Head (a machine so
versatile that its brand name was
fast becoming a generic term) from a
kit. He spent two days familiarizing
himself with the state of the art,
then redesigned and rebuilt and
overhauled his system, hardware and
software. After a day of playing
with it he was again restless and
irritable. He found himself hurling
a glass against a wall because the
grapefruit juice in it had become
lukewarm.

Inanimate objects and total
strangers began to conspire to drive
him mad. An essential component of
his typewriter snapped under no
provocation at all the dingus that
held the paper against the
platen-roller (it irked him
immensely that he could not recall
the name of that dingus). Norman did
most of his typing on his processor,
but the few uses he still had for
the old IBM of ficial documents,
fill in the blank fonns, and the
like were just important enough to
make it a necessity. TYPEwriter
repairmen overcharged mercilessly.
Nor~-nan decided an epoxy repair
might just hold up and reached for
his epoxy. Used up in rebuilding his
Other Head. He went out into the
bitter cold and bought more. When he
opened it at home, the

- MINDKILLER 147

resin was solid throughout its tube;
he had been sold epoxy several years
old. Swearing, he went out again it
was snowing fiercely now to a
different store and purchased a cy-
anoacrylate adhesive, the kind that
bonds skin instantly. He found that
the tiny tube was too frail to
withstand the force required to break
the seal inside its tip, even with a
very sharp pin and much care; two of
his fingers bonded together before he
could react and instinctively he
yanked them apart, tearing the skin.
Adhesive dripped down the length of
his hand, dropped on his expensive
slacks. He wanted to clench his fist
in rage and did not dare. He bellowed
and ran to the bathroom, flushed his
hand as clean as possible, and
dressed the bleeding finger; when he
returned to his of lice the tube was
bonded to the desk. He pierced the
side of it to get some fresh
adhesive, and made his repair job.
The stuff claimed to bond in
"seconds," so he gave it an hour. The
join failed instantly on the first
test. With trembling hands, Norman
removed the tube of adhesive from the
desk, scarring the desk irreparably
and getting adhesive on his shoes. He
found himself in the living room,
holding the massive IBM over his
head, the power cord tangled on one
arm, and realized that he was looking
for the most satisfying object
through which to hurl the thing. He
set it down with great gentleness on
the rug, then stood erect and filled
his lungs. People who live in
apartment towers do not generally
visualize God as their upstairs
neighbor, but Norman looked upward
now and screamed, "What is it, then?"

Silence came for answer.

"You've got my attention, damn your
flabby heart! Now what the fuck are you trying to
tell me? I'm listening!" He swayed on the
balls of his feet, shoulders hunched,
breathing heavily. His head ached,
his fingers throbbed, his throat was
torn by the violence and volume of
his challenge. "Well?" he shrieked,
damaging it further.

At this third provocation the woman
living above Norman called out to her
husband. That man's name was Howard,
but there was a floor and a ceiling
and a perfunctory attempt at
insulation between the woman and
Norman, so that the word he heard
filtering down to him from on high
was:

" coward?"

-
14E3 Spider Robinson

His eyes bulged. The blood drained
from his head.

" coward, what's he doings,

He bent and grabbed the IBM,
heaved it up to chest height. But
the cord had his ankle now, so he
yanked his right foot out from under
him; he lost the IBM and went down
howling. He saw the great gray bulk
coming down at his face, rolled
convulsively out of the way, and
smacked his skull solidly into a kg
of the coffee table. It was excuse
enough to lose consciousness.

His awakening was strange, only
partial. He had no recollection of
the incident, did not ask himself
how he came to be lying on his
living room floor with a sore head
and assorted aches. He simply got
up, moved the typewriter to where he
kept the trash, and made coffee.
Thoughts of any kind came slowly and
far apart. One fragment of the
metaprogramming part of his mind
recognized that he was in shock, but
did not care. Decisions were handled
by something like a random-number
generator somewhere in the murky
cavern of his brain; Nomlan went
along for the ride, his
consciousness on hold, or perhaps
"on standby" would be more accurate.

He found himself seated at his
desk, rubbing a Anger uselessly over
the new scar as though it could be
erased. His coffee was cold. He
recalled that there was an immersion
coil in one of the desk drawers and
looked for it. He got sidetracked:
the desk badly needed straightening
out. Been meaning to get this
organized, he thought, and began
weeding out superfluous items.

One of the first was the address
book.

It was quite out of date. Nonnan
had built his Other Head on his
honeymoon, with wedding money; both
he and Lois had fed their address
and phone files into it and dumped
the original books and lists. This
was an old one that had been
overlooked. Nomman was about to
trash it it was surely obsolete and
then he hesitated. Some part of his
somnolent mind decided that he might
just run across the name of some
forgotten old friend or lover he
could call or look up, as a means of
harmlessly killing some time. There
might be one or two other items
worth adding to his computer fles.
He opened the hook and began
browsing.

MINDKILLER 1 49

The first twenty pages were just what he could have ex-
pected: a mildly bemusing, mildly depressing trip down memory
lane. I wonder if she ever forgave me. Say, I remember that
jerk. And Ed, so promising, yeah, dead in the Second Riot in
Philly. Old Ginny, wow, what are the odds she's still single?
On and on for twenty pages right up through the 1's. There was
nothing worth salvaging.

Then he turned the page and saw Madeleine's old address and
phone code in Switzerland.

The violence was all internal this time, too titanic to
escape his skull in any form whatever. The full recollection
of the evening past came crashing out of its cage, the surface
of his soul fissured and split to reveal something disgusting,
the last seven years of his life snapped suddenly into
meaningful pattern, agonizing pattern, he understood at once
that he must now undo every single day of that seven years and
that their undoing would almost certainly bring his death to
him within a period measured in days and an unobservant person
seated across the room would probably have failed to notice a
thing. Norman did not so much as flinch. He sat quite skill
for perhaps ten seconds, forgetting to breathe. Then, very
gently, he sighed.

"All right," he said, looking straight ahead at nothing. "I
hear you."

Then, sitting bolt upright, the address book skill perched
on his lap, he fell asleep in the chair.

Some hours later his eyes opened. It was just morning. He
rotated his head on its socket three slow Ames, cracked his
spine, put his hands on the desk, and stood carefully. The
book fell unnoticed from his lap; he would never notice it
again. He knew what he needed to do and what he needed to
learn and much of how to do it. Most of all he knew how much
it would cost him and was only glad he had the price.

It was quite simple. Somewhere in the African bush he had
decided to hell with self-worth, given it up as a lost cause,
settled for mere pride. A villain or a coward may have pride.
Academic life had gradually eroded most of that pride not
because he failed at it but because he succeeded at it, -
tu~n~og out generadoos of students whose imaginations had been
stim

150 Spider Robinson

ulated precisely where the
department chairman wanted them
stimulated and nowhere else. He had
sold everything for security, gelded
himself for security. Small wonder
his wife had left him for someone
more dangerous. When he had failed
to learn from that lesson, life had,
with the infinite patience of the
great teacher, spent more than a
year kicking him repeatedly in the
heart, brain, and balls. You didn't
need to catch Norman Kent between
the eyes with the million-pound
shit-hammer more than forty or fifty
times before he got the message:

Pride is not enough to get you
through this world. You have to have
self-worth too, or you won't be able
to take the gaff.

Sam Spade had hit the nail
squarely, more than half a century
before. When a man's partner is
killed, he's supposed to do
something about it. Madeleine Kent
had been, for a brief time but in
full measure, Norman's partner, and
someone had come and taken her away,
and Norman was supposed to do
something about it. Self-worth
required it.

To die in pursuit of self-worth is
much better than to live without it.
So said all his life since the
jungle days, now that he had the wit
to read it. The supersaturated
solution had at last crystallized,
all at once. Norman caught himself
humming as he headed for the door,
and realized on some preconscious
level that he was happy for the
first time in a long while.

He walked south to Point Pleasant
Park while he planned his campaign.
The horrid cold sharpened his
thought.

Known for certain: Madeleine was
gone. Period.

High probabilities, in order:
Maddy was dead. She had been killed
by a man known to her and perhaps
named Jacques, or by agents of that
man. Jacques was very puissant and
very clever, possessed of enormous
resources.

Slightly lower probability:
Jacques had been a colleague or
business associate of Madeleine in
Switzerland. Perhaps not  he could
be a tennis pro she had met in a
bar, or the man who came to fly the
microwave. But would she then have
felt it necessary to leave her job,
leave the career she had built so
painstakingly, leave her ten-year
home in Switzerland, and come to
Canada to avoid Jacques?

She had not left Switzerland because
she feared Jacques,

MINDKILLER 1 51

of that Norman was certain. She had
not been even half expecting to be
kidnapped or harmed. During her stay
with Norman, Maddy had sometimes
slipped and showed hurt; she had
never shown fear.

Assuming all this, she must without
realizing it have possessed
information that Jacques considered
damaging to him. No other motive made
sense; a lover spurned does not take
on Interpol and the RCMP. Norman
yearned mightily to possess
information that Jacques would
consider damaging.

How do you approach an enemy ten
times your size?

In disguise, smiling.

First step: locate Jacques. Without
being caught at it. Norman did not
intend to underestimate Jacques; he
assumed that his Other Head and his
credit account were bugged and mon-
itored. He could not afford to access
information about Maddy's firm from
any terminal in Halifax Metro, for
that matter, if he wanted to be
certain of coming up on lacques's
blind side. There must be no
evidential record even hinting at
Norman's interest in Jacques. One day
soon Jacques might have reason to
wonder if someone was taking a bead
on him, and if he could learn that
someone in Metro had been asking
questions about him at or shortly
after the time that Norman Kent had
dropped out of sight, he would add
two and two. Norman needed
information that had already been
accessed, which left only one way to
go, and so he gave ten dollars to the
first wino he met at Point Pleasant
Park.

He stood outside the phone booth,
watching a filthy superfreighter
belly up to the containerport across
from the park, while the wino phoned
up the city police and asked for
Sergeant Amesby. Norman kept better
track of missing-persons stories than
most citizens, had discussed most of
them at length with Amesby. Thus
briefed, the wine was able to
convince Amesby that he was in
possession of important information
regarding a recent case quite
unconnected with Maddy's, and
demanded a face-to-face meeting at a
remote spot near St. Margaret's Bay,
many kilometers to the west. He had
corroborative data not known to the
general public. Amesby went for it.
The drunk hung up grinning, and
Norman gave him the additional twenty
he had promised for a successful job.
With three of

152 Spider Robinson

Norman's ten-dollar bills in his
hand, the unshaven and tattered man
asked Norman for a quarter. He used
it to call a cab, to take him to the
Liquor Commission store.

Norman walked to police
headquarters. Amesby was gone when
he arrived. Norman was known there,
and had long ago made it a point to
be liked there; they brought him to
Amesby's office and let him wait.

Thank goodness for the cheapness
of the voters! Amesby's files were
actual files of paper, in big bulky
drawers, rather than electrical
patterns on tape or disc. Norman
used gloves, and within half an hour
he knew everything that Amesby knew
about Maddy's situation in
Switzerland, her acquaintances, and
the firm she had worked for. He used
Amesby's battered IBM to note down a
few addresses, phone numbers, and
bits of informadon.

Amesby was efficient, and had paid
attention when Norman told him about
Maddy's single cryptic mention of
the name Jacques. In the web of
acquaintances that Amesby had had
Interpol draw up for Madeleine,
there were two men named Jacques,
with dossiers for each.

The first and seemingly most
obvious candidate was her immediate
superior at Harbin-Schellman,
Jacques DuBois. But Norman rejected
him at once when he saw the
photograph. Maddy could not have
become emotionally involved with
that face. The second was a man
named Jacques LeBlanc. Norman could
read nothing at all from his face;
the man was nondescript. He was
executive vice-president of
Psytronics International, the much
larger consortium that had absorbed
Harbin-Schellman in the last year.
He apparently had had extensive
contact with Maddy in the course of
the takeover, would have been an
ideal candidate for a lover, save
that Interpol could not turn up even
a rumor of a romance between the
two. What made that lack of evidence
significant was that LeBlanc was not
married. If he and Maddy had become
involved, there would have been no
reason to conceal it. Unless . . .
could he have been using Maddy for
secret leverage in the takeover? No,
she would not have played along;
Maddy had old-fashioned ideas about
loyalty.

All right. lacques's last name was
LeBlanc, until events proved
otherwise.

MINDKILLER153

Amesby's copier was down the hall,
useless to Norman. He typed an
abbreviated version of LeBlanc's
dossier, removed all traces of his
work, and left. On his way out he
told the desk man it was nothing
important, not to bother telling
Amesby to phone him.

He stepped from the police station
into the incredible wall of wind that
howls past Citadel Hill in winter,
and leaned into it. With the
wind-chill factor, the sudden
temperature differential was on the
order of a hundred and ten Fahrenheit
degrees; Norman ignored it and
plodded on, making plans.

On his way home he got twenty
dollars worth of change from a bank.
He fed some into a sound-only pay
phone in the quiet basement of a
moribund restaurant and called
Zurich, where it was now three
o'clock in the afternoon.

It was necessary to locate Jacques;
according to Interpol, he traveled a
lot. It would be difficult enough for
Norman to get to Switzerland
untraceably but it would be stupid to
manage it and find that his quarry
was in Tokyo or Brasilia. The dossier
mentioned an interest that Jacques
shared with Norman, and it gave
Norman an idea. They both collected
classic jazz. He summoned up the New
York accent that he had by now almost
succeeded in obliterating, and
located in his wallet the number of
the illegal New York de-line that one
of his faculty wives had told him
about.

"DiscFinders, N'Yawk, callin' long
distance for Mr. lock Le Blank."

"One moment, please."

So Jacques was in Switzerland. That
was all Norman wanted to know but he
was curious to hear his enemy's
voice. He decided to try and sell
Jacques a rare Betty Carter side.

But the next voice was female.
"Monsieur LeBlanc's office, may I
'elp you?"

"Hullo, this is DiscFinders in
N'Yawk, femme speak to Masseur Le
Blank, please."

"I yam sorree, Monsieur LeBlanc is
out of the city at present."

Norman was glad he had waited.
"When's he comin' back?"

Slight hesitation. "Not for some
time. May I 'elp you?"

"Well, where is he?"

"I yam sorree, I cannot give out
that "

"Listen here, sister, what I got here
is a mint copy of Betty

154 Spider Robinson

Carter's birthday album, on her own
label, there can't be another one
mint innaworld. Five thousand bucks
expenses Mr. Le Blank fronted us to
find it, another fifteen on
delivery. I think he wants to hear
this record, what do you think?"

"If you will send it 'ere, we "

"Bullshit, lady, didn't you hear
me? Fifteen grand, New dollars, the
day Mr. blank gets this record in
his hand. You think I'm gonna ship
it over there and let some clown in
your mailroom leave it on the red
for a week before he forwards it
fourth class? I send it direct to Le
Blank by courier, personally, or I
peddle it elsewhere."

"Monsieur, I yam afraid I must "

"I awn the best recordfinder in
the world," Norman roared,
desperate. "I don't need this
bullshit. I know three other people,
old customers, 'ud buy this fuckin'
thing in a minute, I'll send Le
Blank a registered letter tellin'
him where his expense money went,
how did you say you spell your last
name?"

"Monsieur LeBlanc is vacationing
in Nova Scotia, in a place called
Phinney's Cove. The postmaster in
the town of 'Ampton can direct your
courier. 'Aye him say that Madame
Girardaux approved it. You
understand this information is to be
absolutely confidendal?"

"That's more like it. Pleasure
coin' business wit' ye, Miss
leerado." Dueling Accents. He hung
up.

His first reaction was elation at
his lucky break. Jacques was right
here in the province, a scant
hundred and fifty l~ilometers away.
Norman owned a small cottage and a
couple of acres not twenty klicks
from Phinney's Cove which community
comprised perhaps fifteen homes
along the Fundy Shore and knew the
area fairly well.

He had not been looking forward to
stalking Jacques on the latter's
home ground, in an unfamiliar
country, and he was immensely
cheered to find Jacques on something
like his own turf.

Then he had second thoughts. The
hair prickled on the back of his
neck. Jacques had been standing
unseen just behind his back for an
indeterminate dme; perhaps this was
not wonderful news after all. Could
Jacques be wondering if Maddy had
passed on something incriminating to
her brother before she'd been
killed? If so, he must by now have
concluded that Norman

MINDKILLER 1 55

did not know he had anything
incriminating. . . mustn't he? Or was
he even now deciding to play it safe
and have Norman killed too? Norman
went from joy to fear like a speeding
car thrown suddenly into reverse.

Then he had third thoughts. He
remembered what the two psychics had
told him about Maddy's surroundings
after her disappearance. The
descriptions given would fit
Phinney's Cove the city lights on the
horizon would be St. John, New
Brunswick, across the Bay of Fundy.
Perhaps Maddy was not dead!

He forced himself to leave the
restaurant at a slow walk. A block
away, after satisfying himself that
he was not being tailed, he did run
the remaining three blocks to his
home.

He had to take a small risk, then.
He needed information he could only
obtain from his own Other Head. But
it was not the sort of information
that Jacques would be likely to find
significant, even if he learned of
the accessing. From long years of
living with Lois, Norman still had a
line to the data banks of the
hospital just up the street. To play
it safe, he charged the tap to Lois's
code; someone reviewing the record
might reasonably suppose that she had
made a routine retrieval while
visiting her ax-husband.

The readout he got in response to
his query elated him. A male
Caucasian of Norman's approximate age
and size had died within the confines
of the hospital during the previous
forty-eight hours. More important,
the late Aloysius Butt had been a
pauper with no known relatives, was
awaiting burial by the province.
Since the demographics of Halifax
bulged markedly in Norman's age
bracket, this could not be considered
an incredible stroke of fortune, but
Norman definitely took it for a good
omen. Aloysius Butt was the one lucky
break Norman required for the plan he
was forming. Had Aloysius not had the
grace to die so timely, Norman would
have had to postpone his campaign
until a suitable candidate presented
himself, and Norman could not bear
the thought of enforced inactivity at
this point. He did not want too much
time for reflection, for doubt and
worry. Fortunately fate had given him
the one factor that his wits could
not provide, just when he needed it.
It was railroading time!

Now for traveling cash. Back out to
another pay phone.

156 Spider Robinson

"This is me, no need for names."

"Not if you say so," the other
said agreeably. "To what do I "

"I am prepared to sell you, under
certain conditions, my entire
collection. You know what they're
worth, can you get that much cash by
tonight?"

"What conditions?"

"You tell nobody where they came
from. I don't mean just Revenue
Canada Taxation or your mistress, I
mean nobody. You get them in different
jackets same goods, in Angel
sleeves, but the jacketstll be from
junk, I keep the original jackets.
And it has to go down tonight, at
3:00 A.M."

"Without the jackets, the resale
value depreciates. There would have
to be a small dis "

"No it doesn't and no there won't.
You have no intention of selling
them. Book value, take it or leave
it."

"I don't know if I can get that
much cash by tonight. Can I give you
a check for the last five thousand
or so? You know I am good for it."

"My friend, this is a
one-time-only offer, and nothing in
it is negotiable. The Swede wouldn't
treat these as well as you would, he
wouldn't appreciate them but I know
he'll have the cash at home."

The barest hesitation. "Come up
the back way and knock two
paradiddles. Thank you for thinking
of me."

Details filled the rest of the
afternoon. Norman picked out two
complete sets of clothing, put on
the first and folded the second into
a compact package He carefully
filled a backpack, his two prime
considerations being that the
backpack should sustain him for an
indeterminate time on the road, and
that no one subsequently searching
his apartment should be able to
deduce that such a backpack had been
filled. He did not, for instance,
pack his salt shaker, but poured
half its contents into an old
perfume vial of Lois's. Any
essential of which he could not
leave behind a convincing amount in
its original container he abandoned,
to be replaced out of his operating
capital on the road. When he was
done with his preparations he
examined his entire apartment in
detail and shook his head. I am, he
thought, an unreasonably neat man.
The apartment was, as

MINDKILLER 1 57

always, so neat and organized as to
give the impression that its owner
was away on vacation which was
exactly wrong. He un-neated it a
little, gave it a spurious kind of
lived-in look. He went so far as to
cook himself a dinner an
undistinguished one' when what he
wanted was a grand Last Feast, a
farewell to his gourmet's kitchen and
leave the dishes in the sink.

He spent the next six hours in his
armchair with headphones on, saying
goodbye to his music. At midnight he
shut off the system and transferred a
carton full of extremely rare jazz
records, many of them deathgifts from
his mother, into the jackets of cheap
ordinary records, and vice versa. He
put the disguised rare records into
another carton, then selected eight
more mundane records from his shelves
and put thematic their original
jackets, into the carton full of rare
records. In three unobserved trips,
he brought both cartons, his
backpack, and his spare set of
clothing down to the lobby, stashing
them in the dark community room.

One A.M. Lois should have just
returned home from work by now.

He flinched at the cold as he left
his building. He hurried across the
street, noting that the window he
wanted was lighted. He used a key he
had possessed for some time, but
never before used, to let himself
into the ancient three-story
apartment building. The hall heaters
were not working, and more than half
the lightbulbs were dead. There were
no security cameras to record comings
and goings. Norman climbed to the top
floor, located a door. He had a key
for this door too, but did not wish
to use it; he knocked.

Lois answered the door. She started
with surprise when she recognized
him. "Why, Norman!" she said in a
voice that seemed a bit too loud.
"What brings you here?" She made no
move to step aside and let him in.

"I've got to talk to you, Lois.
Business, very urgent."

"Can't it wait until tomorrow? I
just got in from work and "

"Sorry. It can't wait."

She hesitated.

"Come on, it's cold out here. It
won't take a second."

Still she hesitated.

158 Spider Robinson

"I always let you in."

She let him in. A woman, also in
nurse's uniform, was seated in
Lois's living room; as he saw her,
her hands were just coming down from
the top button of her smock. Pillows
were spread on the floor before her,
and he noted that the stockings
below her uniform were distinctly
non-regulation. He turned back to
Lois and, now that the light was
better, observed a lipstick smear on
the side of her throat. So Lois was
trying to change her luck, and was
embarrassed about it. Wonderful! She
would be flustered, anxious to get
rid of him, and the presence of her
lover would allow him to be as vague
as poss~ble.

"Leslie, this is Norman, my ex.
Norman, this is Leslie; she and I
have to prepare a report together by
tomorrow. What can I do for you?"

"Those records you borrowed. King
Pleasure, Ray Charles Trio, Lord
Buckley, the Lennon outtakes. I need
them all back, right away."

Lois bit her lip. "Uh. . . I
haven't had a chance to tape them
yet."

"It's been over a year."

"Well . . . can I borrow them back
and tape them laterr'

Lie. "Sure."

If she had been alone she would
have argued. "Well. . . wait here,
I'll get them."

She left the room. Norman smiled
sweetly at the other nurse, and sat
down across from her. "Hello,
Leslie. Or should I call you Lez?"
He was ashamed at once of the
cheap-shot, but it could not be
recalled.

Leslie started to speak, then
changed her mind and stood up.
"Excuse me," she said coldly, the
only words she had spoken since he
arrived. She left, following Lois,
and shortly he heard the buzz of low
conversation in the adjoining room.
Lois came back alone with eight
records, each jacket sprayed with
preservative plastic.

"Here. Take them and go."

Now for the dirtiest trick. Well,
it couldn't be helped. "Lois  let me
borrow your car for tonight."

"I need it tomorrow."

MINDKILLER 1 59

"No problem. I'll leave it under
the building, keys in the usual spot.
But I've got to do a lot of traveling
tonight, and a taxi just won't make
it."

She frowned.

"Lois, this cancels us, okay? I'll
never ask you for another favor.
Please."

Again she hesitated. Then: 'Nonnan
. . . promise that it won't be the
last favor you ever ask me, and
you've got a deal."

That one hurt; it was an effort not
to wince. "Okay," he lied at last.

She handed over her key ring, and
unexpectedly she kissed him a long,
smoldering kiss that was painfully
evocative. For the thousandth time in
his life, Norman wished there were
some truly effective way of erasing
memories. The worst of it was having
to cooperate in the kiss, to put a
false promise into it. "I'll be here
alone tomorrow night," Lois murmured
as the kiss ended. "Come tell me
about your night's travels." Norman
was silent, regretting. She searched
for words that would bind him to her,
and what she came up with was, "I
miss your prick." The regret faded;
he promised and made for the door.

Still he paused on the threshold.
"Lois . . . thanks."

"No problem, Norman, Dally."

"No, I mean . . . thanks for the good
Ames, all right?"

He turned and fled down the
hallway, annoyed with himself for
yielding to melodrama. That had
sounded too much like an exit line
for a suicide.

In case she was watching, he took
the car for a severalblock drive
before doubling back to their street,
where he parlGed in front of his own
building. Loading the car with
records, backpack, and clothing took
no appreciable time and, as far as he
could tell, went unobserved. Once
inside the car again, he switched
jackets between the eight records
Lois had returned and the eight
mundanes he had fetched. The mundane
records, now in jackets claiming that
they were rates, he put in the trunk
of the car.

Walter, the collector who
appreciatedjazz rarities, had been
able to acquire the cash Norman
demanded. As Norman had expected,
Walter accepted the jacket swapping
and other skull

160 Spider Robinson

duggery as a scheme to defraud
Revenue Canada, and was quite hapw
to collaborate, as Walter's own tax
position was chronically less than
optimal. He actually drooled as he
rummaged through the carton,
establishing the identity and con-
dition of each disc. His pudgy hands
trembled as he gave Norman the
suitcase full of used bills in low
denominations  but only because the
hands yearned to return to the
records. Norman did not bother to
open the case and count the money.
He forestalled the attempts at
conversation that Walter was really
too excited to make, and left as
soon as he decently could.

It was approaching four in the
morning when he reached the
hospital. His effortless success
there had very little to do with
luck. He knew the hospital layout
intimately, knew where to park and
where the few graveyard-shift
personnel could be expected to be
cooping and where spare uniforms
could be had. And of course he had
Lois's key ring. The late Aloysius
Bun never had a chance. His absence,
in fact, went unnoticed for several
days, and when discovered was
attributed to the notoriously
twisted sense of humor of interns,
so obviously was it an inside job.

By the time the sun was rising,
Norman had succeeded in hitching the
first in a series of rides, and was
well content. He wanted to go west,
and so he had hitched his first ride
east. His hair was parted on the
opposite side, and his hairline had
receded a full inch. He wore
entirely bogus eyeglasses that Lois
had once given him as a birthday
joke to make him look more
"professorial." Cheek inserts subtly
changed the shape of his face. His
dress did not match his station in
life, but looked at home on him. He
was unshaven, and could not possibly
have been mistaken for a dapper
academic. He had a suitcase full of
untraceable cash.

Behind him in Halifax, the local
newspaper, famed for many years as
not only the worst daily newspaper
in Canada, but very likely the worst
newspaper possible, was preparing to
misinform its readers on at least
one count for which, for a change,
it could not reasonably be blamed. A
story and photos on pages one and
three alleged that a local English
professor named Norman Kent had
crashed his wife's car into an oil

MINDKILLER 1 61

storage tank at the foot of the
hill by the waterfront, totally
destroying the tank, the car,
himself, and an extremely valuable
rare-record collection whose ruins
were discovered in the wreckage.

Norman was ready to hunt him some
Jacques.

o -o -
1 9 9 9 There was
one timeless frozen
instant in which l
could close my eyes
and murmur, "Oh,
shit."

Then Karen and I
were both in motion.
We got the uncon-
scious woman to a
couch. We laid her
out gently. Karen
loosened her uniform
collar. It has been
my experience that
fainters usually
revive at this
point, but she
showed no signs of
recovery at all. Her
color remained pale.
The pulse in her
throat fluttered.
Her breathing was
shallow.

"Jesus, Joe," Karen
said. "Jesus." Her
eyes were wide.

There was too much
in my head. I was
dangerously close to
fainting myself, and
dared not. "You sure
can pick 'em." I
turned slowly round,
looked at the room
and everything in
it. "Oh, my, yes."

"Joe, she's "

" big trouble,
right. No telling
how big." I went to
the table and sat
down. "Not until she
wakes up and before
then we have to
decide which way to
jump."

     163
      
164 Spider Robinson

"I what do you mean?"

I wanted to bark, kept my voice
low with an effort. "We are engaged
in a criminal conspiracy to wreck a
billion-dollar industry. We require
darkness and quiet. This client of
yours has taken me for someone she
knew and believed dead someone who
obviously meant a great deal to
her."

"Her-ax-husband, Norman. She talked
about him a lot."

"Oh,.fine. So as soon as she wakes
up she is going to turn on all the
searchlights and sound all the
alarms. 'Oh, you're not my dead
husband, Norman? Who are you, then?
Can you prove it? What a terrific
coincidence this is I must get to
know you better, there must be
dozens of little nuances of irony
here. I can't wait to tell all the
girls down at the hospital."' I
frowned. "We need this like an extra
bawd. You know what "

"Joe!"

I trailed off.

"How do you know you're not Norman?"

My face must have turned bright
red. I could feel my nostrils flair
as I sucked in enough breath for a
bellow. My teeth ached. It took all
the strength I possessed to keep my
vocal cords out of circuit while I
exhaled. A shout might wake the
sleeping nurse.

I gazed at her across the room.

Her uniform cap was askew. Her
blonde hair was mussed. Now that she
was unconscious, her face looked
petulant. I scrutinized the face
very carefully, and then the
generous body. I was prepared to
swear that I had never seen her
before in my life.

Which meant nothing.

Or did it? It depended on which
theory of amnesia you bought.
Amriesia the way it is in the
movies,.or amnesia the way you think
it really must be, or amnesia the
way it really is.

Movie amnesia: if this blonde fem
really was my wife once, I would
unquestionably have remembered her
at once, regaining my memory on the
spot. Love is stronger than brain
damage. Hate, too since she was
alleged to be an ar-wife.

Amnesia as one imagines it: no such
pat, instant abreac

MINDKILLER 1 65

lion but at least some few small
bells should ring. A spouse becomes
familiar on so many levels that you
almost relate to them from your
spinal column the way a pianist will
remember his way around his
instrument, regardless of whether or
not he can recall his name at the
moment. This woman was a stranger. In
odd hours I have tried to guess what
kind of woman I would want, if I
wanted women. As far as I could tell,
this ex-wife was not even my type.

Amnesia as documented: in 1924,
baker Benjamin Levy disappeared from
his home in Brooklyn. Two years later
a Catholic street sweeper named Frank
Lloyd flatly refused to believe he
had ever been a Jew, a baker, or
named Levy  even when they proved it
to him with fingerprints and hand-
writing analysis. He was quite
suspicious, and only when other
relatives were able to pick him out
of a crowd did he decide there might
be something to it. Reluctantly he
moved back in with his wife and
daughter in Brooklyn. He had to get
to know them all over again, and to
his dying day he claimed he had no
recollection of his early life as
Levy.

The mind is stranger than it can
imagine.

I had myself back in control now. I
looked up, saw Karen staring at me.

"What if I am?" I asked her calmly.

She started to explode.

I overrode her. "We are stalking
some very dangerous game, and we are
committed now. Maybe they know
someone is angling for them, maybe
they don't. We could be on borrowed
time right now. Suppose this woman
does hold the key to the missing half
of my brain is now the time to get
into it? Either way it blows my
cover, jerks me off the rails." I
grimaced. "In fact, there's a mighty
fuMy smell to the way she popped up
just at this time in our lives. A
nurse could be involved in
wireheading . . ."

"But if she was sent here she
wouldn't have fainted and that faint
is genuine."

"True . . ."

"You don't recognize her at all?"

I shook my head. "Proves nothing,
though."

"Jesus Christ, foe, aren't you
curious?"

166 Spider Robinson

"Not half as much as I am scared.
I want to defuse this one, fast. If
there's anything to it, I can always
come back to h when the job's done."

"You could die! You could die never
knowing!"

"So whatr' I snarled. "Maybe she
was the whole world to me once but
right now she's a live grenade on my
sofa. Let's try and get the pin back
in." I got up from my chair. I took
the headset off the phone and laid
it down on the end table. I punched
my New York number and put my
portable terminal next to the
headset. I told the computer to
record audio from this location at
maximum gain. I told it to transmit
a constant dial tone to the phone's
earpiece and filter it from both the
recording and the extension phone in
my bedroom here in Nova Scotia. I
gave the computer a one-syllable
audio-disconnect cue, which could
wipe the whole circuit and all
records save for the recording in
its own impregnable memory. Then I
switched off the terminal and put it
away. The phone now looked and
sounded as if it had been left off
the hook for privacy, rather than
for the opposite.

"I'm going into my room, so the
shock of seeing me when she comes to
doesn't start a loop. And so I can
eavesdrop on the extension. When she
comes around, convince her she made
a mistake and pump her for
everything you can get on this
Norman."

"She'll want to see you."

"And I won't want to upset her.
But when she really insists, I'll
have to come out and persuade her
I'm not Norman. Which is why you
have to get every drop of
information you canniest, so I can
do a convincing job. Keep her
talking."

"How do you keep someone talking?"

"Be fascinated. You can't fake it.
Find her every vagrant thought
interesting. Make small involuntary
sounds of wonder and sympathy. Nod
slightly from time to time. This
fern could get us both killed,
honey; be fascinated."

Karen took a deep breath. "I guess
you're right. We play it your way."
She shook her head slightly. "But I
just don't know . . ."

"The most probable answer is
coincidence. There's nothing unique
about my face. Remember your last
client in New York?

MINDKILLER 1 67

Lots of people, not enough faces to
go around."

The reminder jarred her. "Yeah. All
right split. I think she's coming
around."

I slipped into my room and closed
the door.

I knew the beginnings of the
conversation would be rather
predictable and of no value to me. I
found the Irish and pouted a stiff
one, and drank it down before I did
anything else. My pulse was racing. I
hoped the whiskey and the adrenalin
would meet in my bloodstream and
strike a bargain. That damned nurse
bothered me, scared me. And the
reasons I had given Karen were not
the whole of it. I did not know the
whole of it myself. I was only
intellectually sure that I wanted to.

The whiskey helped. I picked up the
phone.

Kgren: him a long time, honey. I'm
telling your this is the first time
he's been north of Boston in his
life.

Nurse: (pause) Then~pause) God, how
weird. I'd have  no, of course he
isn't. He didn't know me and Norman
never could act worth a damn.

K: (laughing) That describes foe,
too.

N: Listen, I'm sorry for the way I

K: No, no, that's cool

N.: Some prize customer I turn out
to

K: Really, it's all right.

N: Look, can I give you a little
extra for your

A: It's real nice of you to offer,
no, thanks.

N: But I feel as though I

K: Look, if you want to do
something for me, help me kill my
curiosity. How come you flipped?

N: I told you, he looks just like

K: a dead man, right. You told me
about him before, you even told me
what he looked like when you buried
hirn. If I buried a burned roast and
a few years later I saw a guy that
looked just like him, I'd think,
'Gee, he looks just like my ex.' But
what you said was, 'Norman you are
alive.' Like the idea wasn't new to
you.

N: (long pause) Karen, can I trust
you?

K: Look at me. I've hurt a few
people in my time. Now watch my lips.
I. Have. Never. Hurt anyone who
didn't hurt

16E3 Spider Robinson

me first. you ain't hurt me. You
made me feel good. Real good.

N: Do you have any pot? (sounds of
a joint being lit, then a longer
pause) I don't remember how much I
told you. Eight or nine months after
he threw me out, his sister,
Madeleine, came home from
Switzerland.

K: When was this?

N: Just as the '95 school year was
starting, it was. She'd been working
in Switzerland for years. A very
beautiful woman. (long take) Then a
few weeks later she just . . .
disappeared. All her things left
behind, she just didn't come home
one night. It was in all the papers
and such, Norman did an excellent
job of beadog the bushes, but no
trace of her was ever found. He took
it badly. I went to talk to him one
day, let myself in, and he . . .
hadawomantieddownonhisbed, alloaked
end . . . he . . . he changed, you
know? He turned cold to me, and he
got strange.

K: You think he had something going
with the sister?

N: Perhaps. I'm not sure. But her
disappearance affected him deeply.

K: And then?

N: A few months later, during
Semester Break, he knocked on my
door, unannounced, at one o'clock in
the morning. Hewoke me up. He wanted
me to return some of his old jazz

records.

K: What kind of records?

N: Oh, really old things. Charlie
Parker. lack Tcagarden. Lester
Young. Ray Charles Trio. Obscure
people King Pleasurc, Lord Buckley,
Jon Hendricks.

K: You gave them back?

N: There wasn't much else I could
do. He wouldn't explain. Then he
borrowed my car to transport them.
The son of a bitch. A few hours
later they called me up and told me
he was dead. He and the car both
burned to the frame. The ruins of
the record collection were in the
trunk.

BY: They didn't burn?

N: Oh, there was plastic soup
everywhere. But these were rare;
Norman had sprayed the jackets with
preservative, and it turned out to
be fireproof. The jackets weren't
entirely dcstroyed.

               MINDKILLER 1 69
K: So why aren't you sure he's dead?

N: The last thing he ever said to
me was, 'Thanks for all the good
times,' and then he left. I thought
it was a little odd at the time. Like
an exit line in a movie. Norman Maine
goes for a little swim. So when I
heard he'd crashed I thought the
bastard had decided to use my car to
suicide in. I'll tell you the truth,
my initial reaction, I wanted to kill
him. He could just as easily have
jumped off the roof of his building.
That little Chrysler cost me six
months of Neuro Ward.

BY: What changed your mind?

N: Little things at first. That
plastic soup in the trunk had scraps
of charred labels floating in it and
I happened to notice that one of the
labels was from a ghastly laser disc
one of his students had given him,
worthless from any standpoint. That
stuck in my mind. Later that day I
let myself into his apartment, and I
looked for the jacket to that record.
It was gone. Then I noticed that
there were too many empty spaces on
the shelves. He'd had about twenty
other rare records, in addition to
the eight I returned and there were
many more than that missing. Maybe
twice as many. And the other missing
records were utterly ordinary, of no
value.

K: So you figured he swapped jackets
and tried a switchedpackage con? And
maybe it blew up in his face?

N: Actually, I did think something
of the sort. You're very quick. I
almost went to the police, but . . .
I decided not to.

K: Sure.

N: Then a day or two later I went
back to work and the rumor was that
some crazy intern had swiped a
pauper's body from the morgue. Things
like that go on all the time. One
time . . . anyway, we all waited for
a few days for the other shoe to
drop for the corpse to turn up nude
in the ladies' room, or in Matemity,
or fully clothed with a magazine on
its lap in the lobby. Nothing
happened. After a few days, just as
everyone else was beginning to forget
it, I happened to remember that the
key ring I'd lent Nomman that night
had held all my keys.

K: Oh.

N: He knew that hospital as well as
anyone. Better than some. Once, just
after we were married, we . . . used
to meet

170 Spider Robinson

down in the morgue, in the small
hours, and make love. Anyway. So I
accessed the coroner's report on
Norman, and tried to compare it to
his X-rays and things.

K: Yeah?

N: I couldn't be sure. Not enough
data. It might have been Norman that
burned. It might have not been him.
And I couldn't get more data without
giving a reason. You can picture
that: "You say you think your dead
ex did what? He had a set of keys?
You gave them to him?" Dentals would
have sewn it up, but there were none
on file for the burnt corpse and I
didn't have access to Norman's.

K: Wow. What did you do?

N: I thought it over, and I went
to see a policeman I knew. A
Sergeant Amesby at Missing Persons.
I met him when Madeleine vanished, a
very good-looking man in an odd sort
of way. He impressed me a good deal,
and I trusted him. I brought my
suspicions to him.

K: How'd it turn out?

N: He heard me out, and then he
slapped his forehead and said
something about a wild-goose chase.
He called the front desk and asked
if Norman had been in looking for
him on the day he died, and they
said yes. He pulled the file on
Madeleine and nothing was missing.
He frowned and thought for a while.
All of a sudden he jumped out of his
chair and yelled and dove at the
wastebasket. I thought he'd gone
bug. He took a usedup IBM typewriter
ribbon out of it and began unreeling
die ribbon on the floor and
squinting at it. After a while he
growled and unreeled more slowly.

K: You mean ?

N: Norman had used Amesby's
typewriter to copy off some
information from Maddy's file.
Information about a man she'd worked
widh named Jacques LeBlanc.

K: Worked widh where? Here or in
Switzerland?

N: Switzerland. Not in her firm,
some related group. Uh, Psytronics
International, I dunk. Did I say
something wrong? No? Well, Norman
decided, for some reason, apparendy,
that this LeBlanc character was
involved in Madeleine's disap-
pearance.

K: I don't get it. Norman Thought
dhis guy had his sister

MINDKILLER 1 71

snatched. So he switched some
records, snatched a stiff, and died?

N: This LeBlanc is apparently a very
wealthy man. If Norman decided to go
after him, he'd need a new identity,
and untraceable cash. And some way to
account for his own disappearance.

K: Jesus. That's brilliant. You're
really smart.

N: Well, Sergeant Amesby did most of
the deduction.

K: After you got him started. Your
subconscious was smarter than his
conscious. Well? What happened?

N: Well, Amesby cautioned me to
keep quiet, of course, and said he'd
check into it. A few days later he
called up and said we were wrong.
He'd checked dental records, and it
was definitely Norman I had buried.
He'd investigated LeBlanc, and
positively cleared the man.

K: You didn't believe him.

N: (long pause) I didn't know. I
still don't. He was very convincing.
He offered to show me the denials.

K: But you couldn't help wondering
if maybe a phone call came down from
on high: lay off the rich guy.

N: Exactly. You are quick.

K: (slyly) Not as quick as you were.
. . an hour ago.

N: Oh! (pause) A tribute to your
talent, darling. And your beauty.

K: Why, you sweet thing! (rustling
sounds) Come here.

N: But I

K: Come on. A friendly freebee,
okay? I've been on my own time for
the last half hour. And you could use
some cuddling.

N: I

K: Couldn't you?

(sounds of embrace, wet slow kissing,
whispering fabric)

N: Wait.

K: Uh? Are you kidding?

N: Wait. Before we . . . God, I'm
inhibited. Verbally, I mean. Before
you suck me off and make me crazy
again, I want to see him. Meet your
Joe, I mean. Then maybe I can get all
this tangled old kharma out of my
mind. May I?

K: In the morning, maybe?

172 Spider Robinson

N.: Please, darling. I'll be able to
relax better. I'll make it worth
your while. (gasp) Oh! Not with
money, I mean I mean damn my
primness! What I mean to say is, I
believe I could make you crazy once
I get this out of my system.

(rustles)

K: (groaning) Oh, you naughty
bitch. All right, you've convinced
me. lust a second while Rustles,
sigh) There. Don't take long on
this, now, you've got me all hot.

N: I won't, darling

K: Mmmm, yes.

N: Stop, now. Say won't foe object
to a freebee, as you put it?

K: Naw. I told you, he's more of a
friend than a pimp. In fact, I got
him into the business. He's a
sweetheart. HEY, lOE!

I answered her second call. "lust
a see," I yelled. I drank more
whiskey from the bottle. I turned
the TV on, yanked out the earplug so
they could hear me turn the set off,
and joined them.

The room smelled of pot and of
girl. It made me edgy. "I'm terribly
sorry I frightened you, Miss. . ."

"Mrs. Kent," she murmured
automatically. "God, this is
fantastic! Oh forgive me. You didn't
frighten me, foe. I frightened
myself. Excuse me, but would you
mind stepping over here into the
light?"

"Sure." I moved closer. She rose and
approached me.

"Fantastic," she said again. "I
can see the differences now,
but foe, I mistook you for my
ax-husband. He's been dead for
almost five years now, and you look
remarkably like him. The corpse I
saw could have been anyone, it was
that bad. I mean, it was just barely
possible "

I looked astonished. "No wonder
you keeled over. Uh . . . how close
is the resemblance? Now that you can
see me better."

"Startlingly close. I can see now
that you couldn't possibly be him,
of course. For one thing, you're
much more than five years older than
he was when he died. But you could
be his older brother. Could you bend
your head downT'

I did so.

"Fantastic. You both have scars on
your scalps. Yours are

                 MINDKILLER 1 73
in different places, of course. His
were from an old war wound."

"MiQe are from a less official war."

"Could I ask you a terribly personal
question?"

"You can try."

"Well . . . are you circumcised.?"

An impulse uncommon to me made me
answer truthfully. "Yes."

She nodded. "That settles that
forever. Norman wasn't. And not for
any reason can I imagine him
disguising his penis with a knife.
Not that it wasn't settled already,
foe . . . I just meant "

"Look, Miz Kent "

"Call me Lois, please."

I grinned. "Lois Kent? Like Mrs.
Superman?"

She burst out lauglung. "Now that
settles it. Norman always said if he
heard that joke one more time he was
going to end up on Neuro with
hysterical deafness. Thanks,
foe you've put even my subconscious
at rest."

We laughed with her. I made my
excuses and left.

There was a chance that Karen might
get something more from her. I went
to the phone again.

Lois: to bring this up without
asking you about it first but. . . is
there some way I could persuade foe
to join us? It would be so much like
a fantasy I've had.

Karen: (startled) Wow. Hey, I see
what you mean. Sorry, honey Joe
doesn't go for girls.

L: Damn. What a shame. Oh . . .
(long pause, rustle of clothing)
Karen? Couldn't he be persuaded. . .
well, to just watch? That'd be almost
as

K: Sorry, honey. I don't think so.

L: I just don't understand
monosexuals. It just isn't natural.

K: Well, there you go. (pause) And
there you go. And there . . .

I put the phone down. The room was
very hot. I undressed and sat naked
on my bed. Something was wrong with
my stomach. I took a long gulp of
whiskey and sat on the bed clutching
my knees and shivered. The world
closed in around me and shimmered. It
was very much like a bad drug expe-
rience, too much strychnine in the
acid, and that made it a little

174 Spider Robinson

less scary. I found that if I
concentrated, I could make the world
shimmer at the same cyclic rate as
my shivering. Somehow that helped.

After a few hundred years the door
opened and Karen slipped in. She
looked and smelled well used. "She's
gone," she murmured, and found my
whiskey. I began to calm down.

"I think I convinced her to keep
her mouth shut, foe "

- "Great. She won't tell more than
fifteen other fems. I probably won't
hear the story in a bar any sooner
than the day after tomorrow."

She frowned but said nothing.

"I'm sorry, Karen. You done good.
Weird little fem  maybe she will
keep her mouth shut. It must be
tough to be a gay nurse or she
wouldn't have had to come to you in
the first place. Hell, she's
probably wishing she'd kept her
mouth shut herself, right now. You
pumped her good, Karen."

'Yhat's an awful pun, friend."

"Well. . ." I scratched my bare
thighs.

"You want to talk about it now or
later?"

I sighed. "Now. You caught the
name of the outfit this LeBlanc
character worked for?"

"Catch it? I thought I'd shit."

"Psytronics International. Our
target. I wonder why there's no
Jacques LeBlanc on our hit list?" I
reached out, got the phone, and
asked the computer. We watched the
readout on the terminal together.
"Retired, huh? Shortly after this
Norman Kent business. Hey, look!
Lives in Nova Scotia, by God. Where
the hell is Phinney's? Aha. Fundy
Shore. Maybe a hundred miles from
here. Hey!" Something struck me.
"Remember that old army buddy I told
you about that used to live in Nova
Scotia? The Bear?"

"Sure. You tried to look him up when
you got here."

"Yeah. No joy. Maybe he never came
home from the jolly green jungle.
But he used to live not far from
where this LeBlanc is supposed to
be." I scowled. 'The more I pick at
this, the more it bleeds. And the
worse it smells."

"foe? You can't be Norman, right? No
bells ring at all? Different scars,
no foreskin?"

"None of those things are
conclusive. You disguise scalp

- MINDKlEEER 175

scars with a skin graft that leaves
new scars. Circumcision's a simple
operation. are just too fucking many
coincidences. I look enough like
Norman to fool his wife in fairly
bright light. We both took head
wounds in the war. We both like
vintage jazz. We're both tricky that
switched-bodies scam was a beaus." I
scowled again. I was uncomfortable;
I slipped into tailor's seat. "And in
the end, we may have both met our
ends by trying to tackle Psytronics."
I finished my drink. "I don't like
this. If I am . . . if I used to be
Norman Kent, then this Jacques has
something that scares me to death.
The world's first genuinely effective
method of washing brains."

Karen was staring at the wall. "I
can't think of anything that's more
obscene."

"Neither can 1. Until half an hour
ago I would have said that was a
meaningless word. But if what
happened to me . . . was. . . was
done to me, by a human being "

She turned to me, and gasped. "foe!"

I looked at her, followed her gaze.

I had a powerful erection.

I stared at it for a long time. It
did not seem, did not feel, like a
true part of me. Then as I watched,
it started to. I was fascinated,
repelled. It swayed rhythmically with
my pulse, like an old tree in gale
winds. I had the idiot impulse to
throw my hands up and cry, Don't
shoot.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw
Karen's hand gingerly approaching,
fingers forming the ancient shape

"Leave it!"

She started at the volume and jerked
her hand back.

We sat in silence for a while,
watching the phenomenon together.
Gradually, but steadily, it subsided.
Each pulse raised it less than the
last, until it was only the familiar
flaccid appendage. After a while she
rose and went to the door.

"Karen?" I called after her.

She turned.

"We're going to kill that
motherfucker. You and 1."

Slowly she nodded. "Yes. We are. Get
some sleep."

She left, to sleep in her work-bed.

I found it surprisingly easy to take
her advice.

- o - -
1 9 9 5 Virtually every inch
of the Fundy Shore, Nova Scotia's
northern coast, is stunningly
beautiful at any time of day or
year, under any weather
conditions. But to sit on a sun-
warmed rock at the high-tide line
beside a brook that chuckles as it
covers the last few meters to the
Bay of Fundy, on the first really
nice day in weeks at sunset is
pure Beethoven. Norman had come
down to the water's edge for a few
minutes only, to pay his respects
to the Bay before going about his
business more than an hour ago.
The sun was almost down now, but
he knew the light-show in the sky
had a good half hour yet to run.
And then the stars! And the moon!
To one on the Fundy Shore, the
world is mostly sky; no grander
canvas exists anywhere on the
planet's surface. Norman had been
living without sky for too long,
and could not tear himself away.

Nova Scotia winter is savage and
merciless, and every year the same
thing happens: spring, heeding the
frantic prayers of the cabinbound,
comes forth to do battle with
winter much too

     177
      
178 Spider Robinson

early about the end of January or
early February and is utterly
destroyed within a week or two.
Thaw, as the period is called, is a
pleasant time, but subsequent to it,
winter returns with redoubled
ferocity and remains until about
mid-lune, when it suddenly gives way
to summer without transition. Norman
could not be sure, but it felt as
though this were one of the last
days of Thaw. Good reason to get up
and resume the hunt, before the
hammer came down and made everything
more complicated.

Yet he could not get up. Norman
Kent had not felt good in quite some
time, and right now he felt very
good. He had selfworth. He felt fast
and tricky-and lucky and dangerous.
He remembered flashes of a similar
feeling from eight years ago, from
his earliest days as a grunt in
Africa. But this was different, was
better. This time he understood what
he was fighting for, knew his enemy
to be genuinely evil, this time he
was a volunteer! The old skills were
coming back, he could feel it. All
the mad activity of the last several
months had formed a kind of Basic
Training, leaning him down and
toughening him up, and with the
return of good physical condition
came musclememories of deadly games
once taught him by weary old
professionals and by clever enemies.
He expected to die on this
venture but he was certain that
Jacques would predecease him. Norman
was even fairly sure that he could
manage to persuade Jacques to answer
a number of questions before dying.

At last he had drunk his fill of
the place. He rose as the sun's last
gleam winked out, stretched
carefully, and clambered up over
vast white driftwood mounds to the
marsh flats and the road beyond. He
made his way with care, for he did
not know this ground; although he
was in a beautiful spot, he was not
in Paradise.

Norman's own getaway cabin was in
Paradise. Its postal address was
Rural Route 2, Paradise, Nova
Scotia although in fact it was
situated well up over the North
Mountain from that sleepy and well
named little Annapolis Valley
community. The cabin could be
reached by foot, four-wheel drive,
or horseback. It was heated by wood,
powered by Canadian Tire solar
collector and wood-alcohol
combustion, had neither telephone
nor television. Norman never
considered going anywhere near it.
It is said around the Valley that if
a man breaks wind on

MINDKILLER 1 79

the North Mountain, noses will
wrinkle on the South Mountain. Norman
was entirely too well known around
Paradise, and even if he had reached
the cabin unobserved he could not
have hidden his chimMey smoke.

PhiMey's Cove, his target area, lay
about twenty kilometers west of his
cabin, just inside the radius within
which Norman could reasonably expect
to meet someone he knew along the
road, and thus come to the attention
of the jungle drums. So instead of
hitching the North Shore routes,
Norman had followed the province's
southern coast, then taken 8 North
past Kejimkujik National Park and
crossed the North Mountain at
Annapolis Royal, some fifteen klicks
west of PhiMey's Cove  avoiding the
region where he was known, and
approaching Jacques from the opposite
direction. He was now on a part of
the shore called Delap's Cove.

But the fact that he was not known
here did not mean that he did not
know anyone here. Civilization on the
North Mountain is spread thin,
scattered so widely that anyone who
has lived there for any length of
time comes to know at least a few
people who live many klicks from his
home. Norman had once needed water
found, and so he had come to know old
Bert Manchette.

He crossed the Shore Road (only the
Tourist Bureau called it "The Fundy
Trail" anymore) and entered the
woods. The ground rose steadily
before him; he was now climbing the
gentle slope of the Mountain's north
face. Fifty yards in from the road,
well out of sight of passing traffic
(perhaps one car per hour), he found
a distinctive stand of white birch.
He stopped, took two balled-up green
plastic garbage sacks from his back-
pack, and shook them out. He removed
a few hundred dollars from his
suitcase of cash, sealed the case
with a combination lock, and
double-bagged it tightly against
moisture. Then he rammed it beneath a
rotting deadfall and concealed it
with dead leaves and bark. He had
marked the spot where he had entered
the woods; nonetheless, knowing from
experience how hard it can be to
locate a particular patch of forest
again, he used the woodsman's knife
that now hung at his hip to blaze a
few of He surrounding birch about a
meter alcove eye level, where the
scores might go unnoticed by another.

He continued on uphill. The sun was
well and truly down

-1610 Spider Robinson

now, and the moon not yet risen; yet the
darkness was far from total. The sky was
clear, the branches naked overhead, and
a city dweller might be astonished by
the amount of starlight to be found in a
forest. And Norman could hardly have
gotten Iost. The directions to Bert's
were simple: proceed uphill until you
strike the old overgrown road, then
follow it east until you reach the ruins
of the mill. Straight uphill from there
half a klick to Bert's Ridge, and holloa
the house from just outside buckshot
range.

The walk gave rise to thoughts about
eternity and entropy. Once this whole
forest had been settled and populated.
The overgrown trail Nonnan walked had
once been a busy road, bustling with
carts and buggies and wagons and hitched
oxen and running children. Then, more
than sixty years ago, for reasons Norman
still did not fully understand, the
Mountain community had died back. The
people had all . . . gone away. Houses
fell in upon themselves. Cultivated
fields vanished under the alders.
Nature, which had been literally driven
away with a pitchfork a century before,
had returned as the Roman maxim
prophesied.

The region was actually less spooky by
night than by day. The bones did not
show the occasional glimpse of
foundation and sills in the undergrowth,
the odd bottle-and-can heap, every so
often an orange axe head or fitting or
fastening slowly oxidizing on the
ground. All of these were invisible in
the dark, and Norman was able to keep
mortality from the surface of his
thoughts for some time. The air was
inexpressibly clear and good, the smell
of woods had all the subtle nuances of
flavor of a truly great dessert, the
earth was springy beneath his feet.
Rotted leaves and branches and
occasional unmelted patches of snow
crunched under his boots, and the
quality of the sound told him the true
size of the room within which he walked.
He was aware of distant deer avoiding
him, and caught a brief glimpse of a
weasel silhouetted against the sky.

Then Norman heard the sound of the
stream that meant he was approaching the
ruined sawmill, and he was reminded of
all the ghosts that lived along this
road.

He forced the thought from his mind. He
drank from the stream with cupped hands,
and took time to enjoy the almost

MINDKILLER 1 81

forgotten taste of unchlorinated
water. Then he left the stream, which
cut sharply east, and struck straight
uphill giving the sawmill a wide
berth.

Norman had spent enough time in
jungles and woods to know how to move
without undue noise quietly enough to
sneak up on a city man, certainly but
he made no effort to use his skill as
he neared the Ridge. There was no
idling when old Bert might take a
notion to go grocery shopping, and
Norman was walking through Bert's
pantry. He even went so far as to
whistle, to remove the possibility of
being mistaken for a moose. No moose
bad walked the North Mountain for
twenty years or more but there was no
telling how good Bert's memory was
these days. If he still lived, of
which Norman was certain only
intuitively, he was a hundred and
four years old.

Norman had never, in the dozen or
so times he had visited old Bert, met
another guest on the Ridge, and he
knew Bert seldom left it. Nonetheless
the old man knew everything that
happened on the North or South
Mountains (he paid only slight
attention to "doings" in the more
civilized Valley or indeed, anywhere
else on the planet). Most every
mountain dweller at least knew of
him; he was a fixture, an area
landmark. Most people believed him to
be half crazy but no one laughed at
his dowsing rod. The cost of having a
well drilled ran upwards of thirty
dollars a meter these days, and a man
fool enough to sink a well without
consulting Bert might easily rack up
three or four thirty-meter dry holes
before getting lucky. Enough money
can make even the most cynical
superstitious.

Five years ago, Norman had heeded
the earnest counsel of his friend
Bear, and told the men to drill where
Bert said to drill. He had seen the
drill-boss's face change when he gave
the order, and so he had been
prepared when they struck sweet water
at four and a half meters. The next
day Norman had fetched a bottle of
good Cointreau up to Bert's Ridge,
and stayed long enough to annoy hell
out of Lois.

He smiled now as he replayed for
perhaps the hundredth time the
memory-tape of that first visit. He
had come upon old Bert, ninety-nine
years old then, chainsawing logs into
stovelength behind his house with
bedroom slippers on his feet.

182 Spider Robinson

Norman had been told, by several
different locals, that Ben was "some
strange," but this seemed to call
for comment. "Hey, Bert," he had
hollered over the yatter of the big
old StiM saw, "didn't you ever hear
of steel-toe boots?"

Bert had let the saw finish its
cut, then throttled back to idle,
thumbing the oil feed to lube the
chain. Idling, the ancient SdM
sounded like a motorcycle with no
muMer, but Bert's voice had carried
over it easily. "Yuh. Tried dem
once." He smiled evilly. "Dull too
many blades."

V-m~ooooom, back to cutting and
how the logs had danced!

The moon was coming up as Norman
reached the Ridge. From here one
could catch glimpses of the Bay
through the spruce and pine.'The sky
was clear enough for him to make out
the faint ribbon of light which was
the province of New Brunswick on the
horizon. The sight tempted him to
stop and gawk, but he kept walking.
He was pleased at how little winded
he was by the climb just past,
feeling his second wind strong in
his chest, eager to be about his
business. Bert would not mind being
kept up late, but it would be
impolite. Wind from the south, from
the Valley shit, that probably meant
snow by morning. Oh, well.

He was still whistling softly when
he first saw the lights of Bert's
house. An instant later the whistle
chopped off and he stopped in
midstride. A woman crying out in
pain. . .

He shrugged the backpack off his
shoulders and held it by its straps
in his led hand; his right pulled
the knife he had bought on Route 8.
He used all his woodcraft now,
approached Bert's house rapidly but
without ever exposing himself
needlessly to fire from any
direction. His awareness of the
world expanded spherically. The
cries came clearer as he neared the
house. Sounds like upstairs. Sounds
young. Sounds like someone's beating
hell out of her. Sounds like. . .

All at once Norman grabbed a maple
and stopped. His eyes widened. He
dropped pack and knife, slapped both
hands over his mouth, and quaked. He
dropped to his knees, then fell over
on his side.

The cries intensified, built to
one wrenching terminal shriek.
Norman curled up in a ball and bit
the heel of one fist while

MINDKILLER1 83

the other pounded the outside of his
thigh. Even so, he could not
completely stifle the sounds he
made but he did a creditable job. No
one more than three meters away could
have heard him laughing.

The smothered laughter was some
time in passing. When he had his
breath back, Norman sat up against
the maple and tried to light a
cigarette, but the giggles kept
returning and it took him three
matches. He smoked it down, then
leaned back against the tree with his
hands laced behind his head, and
waited.

Presently the door of Bert's house
opened and alcohol light spilled out.
A girl no older than fifteen emerged,
wearing jeans and a garment more
collar than coat. "Go on now," Bert's
voice came after her. "Your mudder be
mad if you late on a school night."

"Screw her," the girl said boldly.

"Not in twenny years, more's de
pity."

She laughed, blew him a kiss, and
left. Norman watched her disappear
into the forest, shaking his head and
grinning.

Bert was still alive, all right.

In 1755 the British kicked the
French the hell out of Nova Scotia.
The few Acadians who survived and
stayed were herded together, on the
French Shore, a godforsaken stretch
of the Fundy coast between Yarmouth
and Digby, some fifty to a hundred
and fifty klicks west of Bert's
Ridge. The region is one of the
proudest and most fiercely
self-suff~cient in the world. Norman
had only driven through the French
Shore  few Anglophiles are at home
there and so Bert was the only
Acadian he had ever met. Nothing
could make the old man divulge the
reason he had left the French Shore
so long ago.

But once in a while Norman believed
he could guess.

When he was sure the girl was
beyond earshot, Norman stood and
called out Bert's name, then
approached the house slowly. Bert
came to the door at once. Mountain
folk do not greet each other with
"Hello," or "Hi, how are you?" The
preferred greeting is an insulting
commentary on whatever the greetee
happens to be doing.

"Don't you ever poke yourself, Bert?"

184 Spider Robinson

Bert showed no surprise at finding
Norman at his door, betrayed his
pleasure only by the faintest of
smiles. "How you mean?"

"Getting the diapers back on 'em
afterwards."

The smile widened. "By de Jesus,
cat's true. Worth it, dough. Come on
in and set."

Norman came in, took off his
boots, and sat. There was a small
but elegant tea ritual, involving
both kinds of tea (Bert grew his own
marijuana), and a sharing of the
Cointreau that Norman had fetched in
his pack. The next step then would
have been a swapping of lies,
regarding what had happened to each
of them since their last meeting.
But Bert broke tradition.

"You got troubles, man?"

Norman took a deep breath. "Yes,
Bert. I do."

"Taught so, by Jesus."

Norman sipped Cointreau before
speaking again. "No reason to burden
you with them. But I need your
help."

"Yah?"

"Phinney's Cove, Bert. Two men and
a woman, a few months ago. She was
probably quite ill. Uh . . . woods
around the house and a stream hard
by, that isn't fit to drink. At
least one of the men is there now:
Jacques LeBlanc. Pas Acadien. A
Swiss. The only way I have of
locating them is to ask Wayne down
to the Hampton post office and I
mustn't let him, or anyone, so much
as know I'm in the area."

Bert nodded. "Shoor. You supposed to
be dead."

Norman stared. Bert had no radio,
no TV, and the only newspapers he
ever saw were donated firestarter,
months old. Norman's "death" had
taken place less than twenty-four
hours before. The old man was
uncanny.

"If anyone can help me, you can,
Bert."

"Shoor. De old DeMarco place. lust
past Lester and Beth's, hard by de
fisherman's markers, you know? One
man dere now, maybe de woman too, I
dunno. Big place, used to be painted
red, dere's a wreck out back used to
be a goat shed. You want to sneak up
on dem, you go through Lester's
woodlot to de bog, den go right
downhill when you reach de bust-up
tractor. Watch out for a 'lectric
fence."

A wave of relief spread over
Norman. "Bert, you're a godsend."

MINDKILLER 1 85

"Some say. What else?"

"I want your outlaw gun, the one
that isn't registered. And all the
dynamite you can spare. A meal I've
been on the road since sunup and a
place to crash, I guess." Bert nodded
imperturbably at each request. "Down
by the road, by the little stream,
there's a stand of white birch with
my mark about a meter above eye
level. You remember my mark['

"I know de birches."

"Right. There's a suitcase buried
there, combination lock. You remember
my birthdayT'

"Shoor. First of January you never
had a birthday party in your life.
Forget de year, dough."

"Sixty-five. Dial the numbers and
take whatever you think is fair for
the gun and dynamite. Stash the rest,
I may need it fast."

Bert nodded. "You look at the Bay
before you come upT'

Norman's heart sank. "Oh, hell.
Tell me." Bert could glance at the
Bay and, from its color alone (he
claimed), give you a weather forecast
for the next week, more accurate than
satellite tracking.

"In two hours hit begin to snow
like a bucker. Snow mebbe two, tree
days."

"Damn. Skip the crash, then, and
I'll need that gun and at least a
little dynamite right away."

"Eat first. Straighten you head."

"I can't, old friend. I have to
scout now, before I'll leave tracks.
I may be back around dawn, I may
not."

Bert frowned but did not argue. He
got up from his ancient rocker and
left the house, returning with an
ancient but impeccably maintained M-l
and a satchel. "Dynamite, detonators,
fuses, ammo for de gun. We ever get
time for a proper drunk, you and me?"

Norman hesitated, then answered
honestly. "I don't think so, Bert. I
don't expect to live through this."

Bert frowned again. "Like I taught.
De lady, she be your sister, eh?"

"I think so. I hope so." He took
the gun and satchel, got his pack,
and headed for the door. "Thanks,
Bert. Thanks more than I can say. I
should have come here months ago."

"No," Bert said surprisingly. "No,
you wasn't ready den.

186 Spider Robinson

You ready now. You always was a good
boy, Norman."

Norman found that his eyes stung. He
reached the door and put his boots back
on. "Hey, Bert," he said as he
straightened. "I always heard that as a
man gets older, his interest in the
ladies kind of diminishes. They say
sooner or later it goes away altogether.
You think there's any truth in thatr'

"Aw, shoot," Bert replied at once.
"God's boot, by de Jesus." He relit his
pipe full of homegrown. "You first
notice it come on, oh . . ." He paused
reflectively. ". . . oh, about ten
minutes after dey lay you in de ground."

Norman laughed. "Thanks again, Bert."
He shouldered his gear and left at once.
-

Bert called after him. "Hey,
Norman catch!" Norman saw something sail
at him-against the door light, stuck up
his free hand, and caught it. It was a
large hunk of ham. He smiled toward
Bert's silhouette in the doorway, and
chewed off a piece.

"Bon chance," the old man called. "Be careful,
Norman."

Norman took the advice to heart. The
gathering clouds overhead made him risk
a hitch up to Phinney's Cove, but once
in that region he stopped being in a
hurry. He finished the ham, and drank
from one of the many streams that seek
the Bay. He took to the trees on foot,
following Bert's directions, and moved
as cautiously as he knew how. He spotted
the electric fence in plenty of time
cleared it with practiced skill. Half a
klick farther downhill he located,
identified, and passed a sleeping guard.
He was expecting an infrared scanner; he
moved as a deer would move, walked where
a deer would walk. He did it very well;
he was actually in sight of the house
before they bagged him.

Suddenly he was very very happy.

-
10 -
1 9 9 9 Perhaps a cockroach
cleared its throat. I woke up on my
feet, in streetfighter's crouch,
hands and feet prepared to kill the
first thing that moved. A few
seconds passed. I tried to laugh at
myself, but the sound frightened me
even more. I made myself sit on the
floor and breathe deeply and slowly.
Soon I was calm enough to notice how
much my neck hurt. I decided that
was all the improvement I could
stand and left the bedroom.

The door to the medicine cabinet
stood ajar. While I was urinating I
caught sight of my face in the
mirror. It didn't look any more
familiar than ever. "Hi, Norman," I
said to it. It said the same thing
to me. Only one voice heard.
Conclusion unmistakable. Shake it
and flush, let's us both go have
breakfast.

Karen was waiting for me. She had
started the coffee. She knew better
than to attempt breakfast herself. I
mixed up things while the coffee
finished dripping, drank some while
I cooked.

             187
              
188 Spider Robinson

She had the table ready when the food was. We ate. She was
halfway through her cigarette when she broke the silence.

"Okay, let's break it down. What do we know for sure,
what do we guess, what do we propose?"

I nodded approvingly. "Good. Okay, known for sure..." I
paused. "Not much."

"We know you look like a man named "

"No, we don't."

"But oh. I see."

"Right. Who vouches for Lois Kent? What evidence did she
offer?"

"Um. None at all."

"So known for sure is: we are in Halifax, drawing a bead
on Psytronics Int. A woman has alleged that I look a lot,
but not completely, like her ax-husband. In support of this
proposition she offers a detailed circumstantial account
that she says convinces her that I am not this gent, but
which makes us suspect that I might be. Her story is
checkable on several major points, so before we go any
further, let's check it out. The whole story could be some
kind of ploy by PsyInt, to set us up for something."

"Okay."

I suppose I could have used my terminal. But I was
feeling paranoid; we took a bus to the library.

The newspaper morgue backed Lois Kent on the disap-
pearance of her ax-sister-in-law and the spectacular fiery
death of her ax-husband. There was a picture of the deceased
English teacher. He looked like me but like me ten or
fifteen years younger than I looked now, rather than three
or four. The sister had indeed worked for a company in
Switzerland, and shortly before she left it, it had been
absorbed by the Swiss wireheading outfit that I suspected of
being secretly allied to Psytronics International. There was
an extraordinary amount of followup for a missing-persons
case, even a beautiful female one. Norman Kent must have
been industrious.

What tore it were the photos of Madeleine Kent.

I knew her. That is, I had known her. She was the grownup
version of the sister I dimly remembered from my childhood
but could not name.

MINDKILLER1 89

"She's different," I told Karen.
"She looks like she grew up into a
nicer person than I remember. But
most kids do. That's my big sister."

"Does the name Madeleine or
Maddy ring a bell?"

"Not at all. But I do have a vague
recollection that my sister went away
somewhere when I was in college, and
I guess it could have been
Switzerland. Let's see. . . assuming
Norman's birthday is mine . . . yep,
dates match."

"Let's get out of here."

"In a minute."

I found a sound-only pay phone and
called the city police. I asked the
desk man for Missing Persons. Shortly
a voice said, "Missing Persons,
Amesby."

"Never mind, Officer he just came
in the door. Bobby, where have you
been?" I hung up. Another detail of
the nurse's story confirmed: there
was a Missing Persons cop named
Amesby.

"Now let's get out of beret"

We walked to Citadel Hill. It is an
amazing monument to the thought
processes of generals. I'd read the
brochure while dealing dope there.
The Citadel the first Citadel was
built by the British Army in 1749, to
protect settlers from Indian attack.
Nineteen days after its completion, a
group of woodcutters were attacked
and killed by Indians under its guns.
For some reason the settlers had
refused to help in its construction.
It was completely torn down and
rebuilt three times in the next
century, in response to the threats
of the American Revolution, Napoleon,
and the War of 1812, and each
rebuilding was obsolete well before
completion. There has never been a
day on which it was not obsolete. No
shot was ever fired in anger by or at
any of the four Citadels. Haligonians
are fiercely proud of this
boondoggle, which cost hundreds of
thousands of pounds. They say it was
an important base for the subjugation
of Quebec but was Quebec subjugated?
During World War I, it was a
detention camp for radicals and other
suspicious types. Leon Trotsky is
said falsely to have done time there.
It has been a tourist trap for over
forty years. High-rises block its
view of the harbor.

Perhaps I'm being harsh. Halifax is a
splendid port, and no

190 Spider Robinson

invader ever so much as tried to take it. Was that
because of the Citadel? You tell me.

But you can still see water and sky from there. The
entire Halifax Peninsula is laid out around you, the best
view in town. The obsolete fort, crumbling in the sun,
whispers of entropy and Herculean labor wasted. It is a good
spot for thinking.

Karen and I used it so.

That early on a workday, it was almost deserted. We
walked around to the southeast section, closed off for
repairs, and found that completely deserted. There was heavy
construction equipment here and there, but a strike had kept
all the workers home. By our standards it was chilly for
August, but not intolerably. The breeze was surprisingly
light for such an exposed location. Nonetheless, I shivered
as I thought.

After ten minutes I was done thinking.

A deep trench encircles the Citadel. It is perhaps twenty
feet deep and thirty across. It prevents access except by
the gate on the east or harbor side, and provides a
breastwork around the fort, which, like everything else, was
obsolete before completion. We were sitting a few yards from
the trench. On the far side an iron staircase gave access
from the floor of the trench to a sally port in the side of
the Citadel proper. I nudged Karen, got up, and went to the
trench. Fifteen feet below me, a construction flatbed of
some kind stood abandoned. I lay down on my stomach and
swung my legs over the stone lip of the trench.

"foe, what "

I shushed her. I lowered myself in stages until I was
hanging from the edge by my hands. There were footholds in
the stone block wall that any spider would have found more
than adequate. I glanced down, kicked slightly away from the
wall, and let go. I landed well, and waved her to join me,
holding a finger to my lips for silence.

Shaking her head, she followed my example. She also
landed well. We got down from the flatbed and sat
cross-legged on the ground facing each other.

"This strikes me as a hard spot to mike from a distance,"
I said.

"Oh. Good thinking. And we can go up those stairs to the
inside and out the main gate."

MINDKILLER 1 91

"So let's talk."

"Joe me first, okay?"

"Go ahead."

"I think we should go back to New
York, right away."

"Karen "

"Let me finish! The evidence says
that you already took on this Jacques
LeBlanc once and lost. Pretty
decisively. I can find something else
to do with my life."

"The man who took on LeBlanc five
years ago is dead. I -am not him. And
I carry none of the excess
baggage broken marriage, kidnapped
sister that he had." I chucked her
under the chin. "Plus, he didn't have
you. Or anybody."

"Then you think we may have a
chance?"

"Not for a second. We're dead;
question of when."

She didn't flinch. "Not even if we
cut and run?"

"Much too late. Think about it, baby.
Visualize the enemy. If he can erase
specific memories, no wonder the power
flow in the wireheading industry has
no relation to the money flow! What
the fuck would Jacques want with
money? If he can scrub brains, suck
memories, what is there that he
cannot do? We are to him as bacilli
to a whale."

"So maybe he'll overlook us."

"You're still not thinking. If I
am if I was once Nonnan Kent, whose
computer is that down in New York?"

Now she flinched. "Oh, my sweet. .
. and you recorded that whole scene
with Lois. . ."

"Yeah. The really surprising thing
is that we woke up this morning. And
are breathing now. We're blown,
baby."

"Maybe he's not monitoring maybe
we've got some time!"

"Unlikely. But it's hard to argue
with the fact that we're alive. But
we can't have much time."

"So what's our next move?"

"All-out attack. Crazed-wolverine
style. Get out of here, clout a good
car, run out to Phinney's Cove. Fake
it from there. Maybe turn the car
into a bomb and run it through his
kitchen. Maybe stick up the nearest
Mountie detachment for some automatic
weapons. Christ, I wish I had an atom
bomb. I wish I'd brought more ammo
when I left the house this morning. I
wish I hadn't paid the rent last
week, I'm never going to see the
place again. Well, let's "

192 Spider Robinson

"foe something we ought to do
first."

"Yeah?"

"Make a record of everything we
know."

"What, for leverage on Jacques? To
warn the world? Don't you und "

"No, no, for us."

"Huh?"

"Look, the evidence says, anyway
suggests, that Jacques doesn't kill.
Doesn't kill bodies, I mean. He
doesn't need to; he's the
mindkiller. Suppose he follows his
pattem: wipes our brains and turns
us loose. And then we find a record
we left for ourselves . . . get it?
He can't steal all our memories if
we stash a few. Maybe two or three
tries from now we kill him."

"No."

"But "

"One: no time. It'd take too long
to write out even the basics, we're
not holding enough cash for a
tapedeck, and there's no time to
steal one. Two: where would we leave
the record? Three: when the
mindkiller gets us, he opens up our
brains and finds out where we left
the record. Let's get moving."

"You're right. Maybe we'll get one
clear shot before we go down."

Someone yanked the sun across the
sky.

Shadows leaped, and froze where they
landed. The breeze changed direction
and speed radically. The temperature
dropped a couple of Celsius degrees
in an instant. Intemal changes were
subtler but no less perceptible. My
folded legs were suddenly stiffer.
My mouth tasted slightly different.
An exhalation was suddenly an
inhalation. My breakfast was
slightly farther along my gut.

The oddest part was the absence of
terror. A parallel example should
have been an earthquake. Humans
require constant sensory reassurance
of reality. When the solid earth
dances and a thousand dogs howl,
when the evidence of your senses is
suddenly placed in doubt, you
experience primeval terror. I re-
ceived, in a single instant, a
number of sensory reports that were
simply impossible and the terror did
not come. I seemed to be-too
exhausted to be terrified, as though
all my strength

MINDKILLER 1 93

had fled from me in that same
instant. Karen was gaping at me,
clearly as stunned as I.

"What " I croaked.

And then I got it. It was as well
that I was too exhausted for terror,
or my heart might have exploded then.

There is an old Zen conundrum: if a
tree falls and no one is there to
hear it, does it make a sound? Here
is a related question: if a man's
brain is awake, but his memories are
not allowed to form, is he conscious?
Does he, in fact, exist?

My (hiatus)es usually averaged five
to ten seconds in duration, with
fuzzy edges, like a sloppy job of
record-muting. This one had lasted at
least ten minutes, and it was a clean
splice. This one had not been
preprogrammed. This one had come from
the source. Jacques, or an agent of
his, had shut off our minds from a
distance.

"foe, God oh God Joe, God "

She was staring at the ground between
us.

A folded piece of
eight-and-a-half-by-eleven paper lay
there. Excellent paper, a heavy linen
parchment, cream-colored. The typing
on it was executive face, quite neat
and centered. It read:

I request the pleasure of your
company this evening at

my country retreat. Ask for the Old
DeMarco Place. Dress
informal; weapons optional. I
promise to give you both at

least temporary possession of any
information you desire.

 J.

It was unsigned.

My hands went instinctively to my
weapons. They were in place. I looked
around, pulled the gun, confirmed
that it was loaded and live, and put
it away. We both got stiffly to our
feet. I tucked the letter into my
shirt pocket.

"Well," I said.

Karen could not speak. She trembled
just perceptibly.

"Hay," came a voice from above our
heads.

I jumped a clear foot in the air,
came down with one arm

194 Spider Robinson

around Karen. I never even tried to
go for the gun. lust for her. We
gaped upward together.

A uniformed security guard stood
at the edge above, looking down at
us with detached interest. I was
glad I hadn't tried for my gun. All
the Citadel guards are experienced
war veterans. He seemed vaguely
relieved. He looked quite tidy and
dapper, and when he spoke his accent
said that he was British by birth,
of cultured origins, and had a sense
of humor about his job. His left
sleeve was pinned up to the
shoulder.

"You two seem on friendly enough
terms."

Instinct came to my rescue. Agree
with the nice policeman. "We are."

"What was all that screaming about
a minute ago, then? Two screams, one
from each of you. Sounded like black
murder being done; I heard you both
all the way over in the North
Ravelin. You haven't murdered
anyone, have you?"

Lie. "Yes."

He raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"My father. Well, actually, my
primal rage at my father. You're
familiar with Janov's workT'

"Can't say I think much of it.
Particularly in urban areas." He
turned his gaze to Karen. "I suppose
your father "

" makes his look like the Easter
Bunny," Karen said. Her voice
sounded okay. It held the ring of
sincerity.

"I suppose you know you're not
permitted to be down there, primal
screaming or otherwise?"

"We're just leaving," Karen said.

"Splendid. I'll just meet you
round at the Main Gate and see you
both safely on your way home."

He didn't buy our story for a
minute, but there was little he
could do. He checked our ID. I
always buy good ID. It's worth the
extra money. He arched his brow at
me a few times, admired Karen's ass,
and let us go.

There seemed no reason to go back
to the apartment. At a supermarket I
bought ammo, food, and common
household items with which I could
make a cottage-industry bomb capable
of converting a cottage into
splinters. I got lucky, stole a
fourwheel-drive with real muscle and
a rifle behind the seat. Neither of
us was hungry, but we ate anyway,
and then hit the highway.

MINDKILLER 1 95

It was sundown as we left the city
behind.

About ten miles farther on, I
pulled over at a place that was
wall-to-wall forest. We walked a ways
into the woods. We both sighted in
the rifle and practiced with it a
bit. Our unknown benefactor had
bequeathed us two full boxes of
slugs. The rifle was a thirty-oh-six
with good action. It threw high and
to the left. Karen, an indifferent
pistol marksman, turned out to be
damn good with a rifle. We got back
in the truck and drove on.

Neither one of us had had a thing
to say since we had left the Citadel,
barring short functional sentences.
There seemed nothing to say. As we
were.passing Wolfville, after an hour
of silence, I thought of something,
and said it.

"I'm sorry I got you into this,
baby."

Karen jumped. "Christ!"

"What?" The truck swerved.

"That's spooky, man. I was just
opening my mouth to say those
identical words to you."

"To me?" I growled. "What "

"Yeah," she snapped back. 'Jo you.
I'm sorry I got you into this."

"I was into this before I ever laid
eyes on "

"Well, if I hadn't dragged you into
this wirehead scam "

"If I hadn't spoiled a perfectly good
suicide "

"Dammit "

She stopped, and I stopped, and
there was a pause, and then we both
broke up. I laughed so hard I had to
pull over and put it in park. We held
each other awkwardly in the cramped
cab and laughed on each other's
shoulders.

After an immeasurable time I heard
her voice in my ear. "Don't be sorry,
Joe."

"You either. I might have lived out
my life in New York, never knowing
the Mindkiller existed. I might have
died never knowing what my mother
called me. Now at least I'm going to
get some answers before I die."
("Again," I did not add.)

"I'm satisfied too. I told you once
I want it should be a shame that I
died. Well, if I go down before I get
to shoot that mother-fucker in the
belly, it'll be the dirdest shame I
ever heard of."

196 Spider Robinson

"That it will."

"What do you suppose his game is?"

"Power. What else? As long as he
can snip sections out of
memory-tape, and keep a monopoly on
the secret, he's God. And it looks
like he can keep a monopoly on the
secret. It's that kind of secret. It
has to have something to do with
wireheading; remember the joint that
blew up just before we led New York,
and the inductance patent that
wasn't in the fibs?"

"Sure. Inductance that means
wireheading at a distance, right?
Jacques or his agent used some kind
of wirehead field to keep us docile
while he picked our brains and leR
us his invitation. That's why that
guard heard us screaming on Citadel
Hill. I bet I screamed first. And
loudest." She sat up and lit a
cigarette. "Do you know," she said,
dragging deeply, "that there is a
part of me that can't wait to get to
Phinney's Cove and get another dose
of the juice? Even if I don't get to
keep the memory?"

I shuddered slightly. I wanted to
say something to break the silence,
but nothing came. I listened to the
engine idling in the cool evening. I
rolled down the window to let her
smoke out, and heard some kind of
mournful bird call. I wondered if
that was an owl.

"Karen? I . . ." It wouldn't come
out right. "I'm I'm glad I've known
you."

She didn't react at once. She took
two more drags on her smoke, then
stubbed it out and turned to face
me. "I love you too, Joe."

We embraced again.

"Maybe," she said a while later,
"he'll turn us loose together . .
.,'

"No!" I said sharply, and
disengaged.

"Huh?"

"Don't think that way. Don't let
there be any favor he can do for us,
any boon he can grant, any hold over
us. I love you and in a couple of
hours we're going to die and that's
the end of it."

She thought. "Yeah. You're right.
God, I wish I could malce it with
you just once."

I kept my voice even. "Karen, I
accept the compliment, and

MINDKILLER 1 97

in theory I agree. But the thought
makes me twitchy."

'Yhat's cool," she said at once.
"1. . . I think I kind of know
exactly what you mean. I used to feel
that way when I was with someone I
loved."

"I think I could make you come."

"Yeah," she agreed. "But don't. Let's
drive."

I put the van in gear.

We took the main highway all the way
through the Annapolis Valley to
Bridgetown, then drove up over an
immense mountain. The road resembled
headphone cable hanging from the
ceiling, an endless upward zigzag. I
was glad I'd stolen a good vehicle.
Despite the extreme hairiness of the
road, we were twice overtaken and
passed on blind curves by farmers in
battered pickups. Just after the
second one yanked in front of us, a
half-ton loaded to the gunwales with
hardwood appeared round that blind
curve, plunging downhill at
terrifying speed. Its driver and the
driver of the pickup waved to each
other as they passed.

Eventually the road yanked around
one last vicious bend and leveled
out. It stayed level for a good two
hundred yards, then began sloping
down. About the time that the Bay of
Fundy became visible below us in the
moonlight, demanding our attention,
the slope suddenly became drastic. I
had my hands full there for a while.
Then the road went into rollercoaster
dips and rises for a bit before
settling down to a last long downward
plunge. There was a stop sign at the
bottom of it. I never considered
obeying it, but I was very
disconcerted to learn that the road
turned into gravel just past the stop
sign. We damn near went into a ditch.

I got us heading west on the Fundy
Trail. It was a lovely drive by
moonlight and must have been stunning
by day. I drank it in thirstily and
almost succumbed to the road's last
crafty attempt to kill us, with a
blind curve/vertical drop/vertical
ascent/blind curve pattern that must
have afforded the locals much
amusement in the tourist season.

A brief flurry of relatively modern
houses say, twentyfive to forty years
old called Hampton, then almost at
once we were in farmer and fisherman
country. Big spreads, houses

198 Spider Robinson

well over a hundred years old and
widely spaced. Some were kept up,
many were hulks. Some had as many as
a couple of dozen junked cars
scattered around them. All the ones
that looked inhabited had a woodpile
and a garden. I saw outhouses.
Barns. Fishing nets and traps. Great
fields of hay and corn. I nearly hit
a deer. The Bay was never more than
two hundred yards to our right,
sometimes as close as a hundred
feet. There was no other traffic,
and no one walking the road. Most of
the inhabitable homes had few or no
lights showing folks went to bed
early hereabouts. I began to wonder
how we would find the "Old DeMarco
Place."

Just then the headlights picked up
a pedestrian, walking in our
direction. I pulled up past him and
waited.

In the moonlight he looked two
hundred years old. He wore a
disreputable woodsman's cap and
carried some kind of odd stick in
his hand. Stick and hand were
equally gnarled.

"Excuse me, sir," I said, and he
came to the window.

"'Alto," he said. Up close his
face had so many wrinkles as to
preclude expression of any kind. He
was two hundred and fifty if he was
a day.

"We're looking for the old DeMarco
Place."

"Oh, shoor," he said. His breath
smelled of whiskey. "Hit be up
the.road some." He gestured with his
stick, and I realized with faint
amusement that it was a dowsing rod.
"Mebbe two, tree k'lometer. You been
dere before?"

"No. How'll I know it?"

"You got paper, I draw you a map."

"Are you going that far?" Karen
asked.

"A little ways past."

"Can we give you a lift?"

"Shoor ting."

He was slow getting in on her
side. In the sudden overhead light
he looked two hundred and
seventy-five. He studied Karen and
me dispassionately, and showed us a
smile comprising three teeth. We
drove on.

"What're those?" Karen asked,
pointing to what looked like three
tall billboards, facing the Bay in a
row, two to our left and one to our
right. The two we could see had
large, simple designs painted on
them.

MINDKILLER- 1 99

"Navigation markers for de
fishermen. Line dem tree up, you know
just where you are."

"What do they do when the fog rolls
in?" I asked.

"Navigate by potato."

"Beg pardon?"

"You keep a bunch of potatoes on de
bow. Every couple minutes, you t'row
one over de bow. If you don't hear no
splash~urn."

Karen and I chuckled politely.

"Dere," he said after some time,
pointing. A mailbox with no name
marked the beginning of a rude
mud-rush d path that disappeared into
the woods on the left. "You follow
dat up a k'lometer or so, you be
dere. Tanks for de ride." He got out.

As he walked on up the road, I
turned to Karen. "This is it."

She nodded.

I drove just far enough up that
trail to be out of sight of the road.
I turned the vehicle around to face
the road. I shut it down and arranged
the ignition wires so that it could
be jumpstarted again in a hurry.

We sat a moment in silence. My
window was down. I smelled fresh
sweet country smells I was too
ignorant to identify. I heard night
creatures I could not name, small
things. A car went by on the road.
Tall grasses and trees whispered. I
felt a sensation I remembered from
Africa. An eerie, unreasoning
certainty. Someone or something had
a dead bead on my head. It might be
a sniper with nightscope, or a
heat-seeking laser, or a small dark
man with a blowgun, or an ICBM silo
a hundred miles away, but I was
standing on the spot marked X.

Karen lit a smoke. "We're targets,
aren't wet'

"We're naked. Scanned, X-rayed,
doppler ultrasounded, and the
contents of our pockets inventoried.
You feel it took'

"Yeah. Was it like this in the war?"

"No. This is worse."

"I thought it was. Let's not bother
with weapons. They're cumbersome."

"He said they were optional."

We got out of the van, leaving the
firearms in it. I got out

200 Spider Robinson

both of my knives and the sap and
tossed them onto the front seat.
Karen added items, then came around
to my side.

We looked uphill. The road curved
up into forest. She took my hand and
we walked. After a few thousand
yards the woods gave way to an
immense cleared field, perhaps
twenty acres, most of it waist-high
in hay. At the far edge, where the
land turned back into forest and
began climbing again, stood a house.
It was a big three-story with four
chimneys, two of them in use. There
were lights on in the ground floor,
and a spotlight illuminating a yard
on the right. A jeep, a four-wheel
like ours, and a Jensen Interceptor
were parked in the light. There were
two outbuildings. A barn the size of
my New York warehouse home stood to
the right of the house, and a
smaller building lay to the right of
that. No people or defensive
structures were in evidence
anywhere, not so much as a
chain-link fence.

The moon was high above the
mountain. It made the scene as
pretty as a postcard, and would make
us tabletop targets all the way to
the house. The hay had been cut back
on either side of the path.

"Nice spot," Karen said, and we kept
walking.

After a while we became aware of
how much sky there was here. I could
not remember the last time my world
had held so much sky. I looked up,
and stopped walking, momentarily
stunoed. Karen kept on a few paces,
then turned and followed my gaze.
"Oh."

I had forgotten God made so many
stars.

We watched them for a few minutes
together until the temptation to lie
down on our backs and watch them
forever became acute. Then I dropped
my eyes, and saw Karen drop hers. We
looked at each other, sharing the
wonder.

"Been a long time," she said softly.

I nodded. "First time I ever shared
it."

I put my arm around her and we
continued on.

The house looked a hundred years old
and poorly kept up. It had no door
facing the Bay, but several windows,
one of them gigantic. We went around
to the lighted side and found toe
door. It had a brass knocker. I used
it. The door opened and the Fader
smiled at me.

MiNDKILLER 201

"Hi, loe."

"Hello, Jacques. You remember my
friend Karen."

"Enchanted, my dear. Please, both
of you, come in and make yourselves
comfortable."

11

1 995 Norman Kent no
longer wished he
could die. He had
stopped wishing that
hours ago. What he
wished now was that
he could have died,
many months
previously.

Preferably at the
moment when he had
stood on the edge of
the MacDonald
Bridge, ready to
jump. When his
biggest problems had
been a failed
marriage and disgust
for his chosen work.
When his death would
have meant no more
than the end of his
life.

That had been his
last golden
opportunity, and he
had thrown it away
for a hat. A half
hour after that,
Madeleine had come
back, so briefly,
into his life, and
started him on the
treadmill that led
to this place and
this time.

This time was late
evening. This place
was the most beau-
tiful, luxurious,
and comfortable cell
imaginable.

The clock, for
instance, which
apprised him of the
time,

     203
      
204 Spider Robinson

was a world standard chronograph of Swiss-lapanese manu-
facture, simple, elegant, and utterly accurate. The light by
which he saw both clock and room was artfully muted and
placed so as to complement the room. The furnishings chairs,
desk, shelves, tables, bar, tape system were quite expensive
and exquisitely tasteful. (The bar had not functioned since
his arrival; he was on limited fluid intake.) The books
lining the shelves were, in his professional judgment,
impeccable. So were the audio- and videotapes. The bed in
which he reclined was a rich man's powered bed, a distant
and highly evolved descendant of the hospital bed. The large
bay window to his leh offered a stupendous view of the Bay
of Fundy and a cloudstrewn sky, the faint glow of distant
New Brunswick serving to hold them apart.

It was very nearly the ideal room. Only two things were
immediately apparent as odd about it. First, that such a
triumph of wealth and leisure should exist in the most rural
part of a rural province, on the third floor of a
one-hundred-and-fiftyyear-old house that seemed, from the
outside, quite ramshackle. Second, that a room so carefully
appointed should lack any telephone equipment whatsoever.

That omission, and the fact that the bay window was shat-
terproof, and the fact that the door would not open at
Norman's will, made it a cell.

It contained means of suicide in abundance. But Norman
could not bring himself to use them. He knew that his end
was coming soon enough, and he knew that it would be more
p~unful, and more horrible, than anything he could devise
himself. It was interesting to learn that he was more afraid
of pain than of horror. It was the latest in a series of
unendurably interesting [earnings, and he knew it was
not quite the last.

The door slid open.

He lay motionless, head still turned toward the window,
but he stopped seeing the Bay.

"It has been twenty-four hours, Norman. I must ask for
your answer."

Norman turned his head slowly. He marveled again at the
absolute nondescriptness of Jacques LeBlanc. The man could
have been a fisherman or a night watchman or a bank teller
or

MINDKILLER205

a member of Parliament. An actor
would have killed for his face; he
could play any part simply by
dressing for it and altering his
accent. On any street in the world,
from the Bowery to Beverly Hills,
from the Reeperbahn to the River
Ganges, he could pass unnoticed
unless he chose to draw attention to
himself. For some reason the eye
wanted to subtract him.

"Why ask," Norman said, "when you
can bucking well We it?"

lacques's face remained impassive.
"Because I prefer to ask."

Norman considered lying. The lie
could not survive longer than ten
minutes but it might not need to. If
he could convince Jacques, just long
enough to lull the man into a
moment's unwariness, he might get a
single chance to. . .

But Jacques understood that, and
the object in his hand said that even
the attempt would be pointless.

Norman answered honestly. "I'm
against you. With my whole heart. I
think you're the greatest madman the
world has ever seen, and if I could
kill you now I would, whatever it
cost me."

Jacques nodded gravely. "I expected
as much. I hope you are wrong.
Goodbye, Norman."

And he activated the thing in his
hand, and Norman Kent became
ecstatic..

When Jacques turned on his heel and
left the room, the ecstasy went with
him, and Norman Kent followed it.
Doggedly. Mindlessly. Urgently. And,
since his legs were adequate to the
task of keeping up with ecstasy,
happily.

Jacques led him downstairs, and
through a living room that made
Norman's cell look like servants'
quarters. Jacques activated an
instrument board against one wall.
"Make sure the area is not under
observation," he muttered to himself,
summoning up reports from various
security installations. Shortly he
needed both hands. He put the device
that was the source of Norman's
ecstasy down on an end table, then
met Norman's eyes. "If you touch
this," he said, "it will stop
working."

Norman more than half believed that
Jacques was lying. But he did not
dare take the chance. He waited
patiently while Jacques monitored the
electromagnetic spectrum for Heisen

206 Spider Robinson

bergian observers who might seek to
interact with him by the process of
observation.

-None was apparent. Jacques
cleared the screen and retrieved

his ecstasy generator. He put on a
coat, and made Norman put
on his own. He opened the front door
onto a combination
woodshed/vestibule, which only a very
discerning eye would
have realized was also a serviceable
airlock. He led Norman
into it and thence to the world
outside.

It was very cold now. Norman laughed
and wept with joy at the sight of snow
falling from the sky. He watched in-
dividual snowflakes as he followed
Jacques, for he did not need eyes to
follow the ecstasy. Then he tripped
over a chopping block and roared with
laughter. The laughter changed in an
instant to a bleat of terror as he felt
happiness slipping away, and from then
on he used his eyes to help him follow
his perfect master.

They walked past the larger of the
two outbuildings, which seemed to be a
barn, to the second one, which Norman
had taken for some kind of workshop.
The rustic, poorly hung door, which
fastened with a piece of wood spinning
around a nail in the jamb, revealed
behind it a more substantial door with
a Yale lock. Jacques used a key in that
lock, then knocked two bars of "Take
Five" and said, "Open." The door gave
way and both men stepped through it.

They left their coats and snowy boots
in an anteroom that Norman did not
bother to examine. It gave onto a room
that strongly resembled an operating
theater. There were six fully equipped
tables, but no surgeon or support team
visible.

Jacques set down the ecstasy
generator. Norman stopped in his
tracks. "Sit down, please," Jacques
said, pointing to a table. Norman
complied at once, anxious that no
thought or deed of his should offend
the lord, from whom all blessings
flowed. Jacques touched an intercom.
"Come," he said.

Two people entered the room, gowned,
gloved, and masked in white. Norman
became slightly uneasy, but relaxed
when he saw that they were as loyal to
the master as he.

"Prepare him," Jacques said, and left
the room. An air conditioner clicked on
as the door closed.

The two undressed Norman with efficient
skill. He expe

MINDKILLER 207

rienced orgasm as they removed his
trousers and shorts. The only
reaction they displayed was to clean
him carefully with
disinfectant-impregnated toweling.
They helped him to lie down, and
arranged his head on a complicated
cradle. He felt supremely
comfortable, and grateful that his
ending place had been so thoughtfully
prepared for him. They strapped him
down at ankles, thighs, waist,
wrists, biceps, and head. The head
straps were complex and kept his
skull immobile. The shorter of the
two attendants carefully shaved
Norman's head to the scalp, then
painted that with disinfectant. When
this was done, the taller one caused
the table to "kneel" at one end, so
that Norman's cranium was raised to
working height and conveniently
deployed. The shorter one rolled a
large, ungainly machine from the wall
to a place near the table, and began
separating and arraying a series of
leads from the machine for easy
access. On Norman's other side, the
tall one prepared instruments of
neurosurgery.

Visualizing his death in
nuts-and-bolts detail for the first
time, Norman came again. A catheter
accepted his ejaculate.

Jacques reentered the room. He too
was surgically clothed now. Without
a word he took up a tool and laid
open Norman's scalp.

It felt wonderful. It felt exciting
and holy. The sensations of
craniotomy were nuggets of joy, and
when the living brain had been laid
bare and the first probes inserted,
Norman was slightly disappointed to
learn that there was no such extra
surge of pleasure; for the brain
cannot feel.

The mind, however, can, and there
was indeed some small place deep
within Norman's gibbering mind that
was horrified by everything that was
being done to him, something that
strove to fight ecstasy.

But the thrill of horror outweighed
the horror; that small portion of his
mind was like a single ensign in a
battleship full of mutineers, trapped
in the paint locker.

Then the first probe reached his
medial forebrain bundle, and it was
as if all the ecstasy clicked into
focus for the first time. This was
perfection, this was Nirvana. He
orgasmed a third time. As an
ejaculation it was insignificant, but
subjectively it was the fiery birth
of the macrocosmic universe; his

208 Spider Robinson

consciousness fled at lightspeed in all directions at
once.

From now on, his body would have an instinctive, mindless
revulsion for ecstasy.

It was several hours before Jacques required him to be con-
scions. Bliss gave way to pleasure, then to simple euphoria
and a dreamy, slow awareness of his surroundings. What a
nice dream that had been. And how nice to find Jacques
here upon awakening. It was going to be Sine day.

"Hi, Jacques."

"Hello. Listen to me. I must engage your subconscious mind
as well, so listen to me. If you evade my questions, if you
stop listening to my voice, I will take the pleasure away.
Ah, I see that you understand. Good. Listen to my voice.
What is your name?"

The ensign in the paint locker knew what would happen,
watched hopelessly as it happened. Your magic carpet will
perform flawlessly as long as you do not think of a blue
camel. Norman Kent's name leaped into his mind, in response
to the question and vanished.

It was not simply the name itself that vanished. With it
went the associations and mnemonics keyed to it in his
memory. Jokes from childhood about Superman, jokes from
adolescence about the Norman Conquest, jokes from the jungle
about the Norman Delnvasion. An old Simon Templar novel he
had read many years ago, and remembered all his life because
it featured a hero named Norman Kent, who laid down his life
for his friends. Certain times when the speaking of his name
had been a memorable event. The sight of his dogtags. The
nameplate on the desk in his office at the University. His
face in the mirror.

If you take a hologram of the word "love" and try to read
a page of print through it, you will see only a blur. But if
the word "love" is printed anywhere on that page, in any
typeface, you will see a very bright light at that spot on
the page. In much the same way, one of the finest computers
in the world riffled through the "pages" of Norman Kent's
memory, scanning holographs with a reference standard
consisting of the sound of his name. Each one that responded
strongly was taken from him.

MINDKILLER209

All this took place at computer speed. Without perceptible
hesitation the man on the table answered honestly and happily,
a puppy fetching a stick. "I don't know."

"Very good. What is your wife's name?" "I don't know."

"What were your parents' names?" "I don't know."

"Your sister's name?"

"What is your occupation?"

.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 ,...

"Where are we?"

"What is my name?" "You are. . ." What did you do when you
left the army?"

The questioning took several hours. It would be extremely
difficult to pinpoint just where in there Norman Kent ceased
to exist. But by the end of the interrogation he was unques-
tionably dead. As he had yearned to be since the long-gone
jungle days. The prayer he had prayed so fervently then was
retroactively answered at last: his memories now stopped
there. The paint locker was empty.

He was happier than he had been in years.

He remained on that table, cocooned in ultimate peace, for an
unmeasurable time, drifting in and out of sleep. Jacques
visited him from time to time, always alone. As intelligence
reports trickled in from Halifax and New York and Washington,
Jacques would ask him additional questions, covering
loopholes, sealing leaks. A microchip was wired into five of
the ultrafine filaments that skewered his brain, and tucked up
into a fissure in his skull. The whole assembly would escape
detection by anything short of a very thorough CAT scan, and
it would briefly scramble the recording circuits of his
short-term and long-term memory systems if certain thoughts
entered his mind. Any direct or associational clue that might
help him deduce his former identity would trigger a (hiatus).
Thoughtfully, Jacques had added a fail-safe: if someone else
ever suggested

210 Spider Robinson

to this man that he had once been
called Norman Kent, the microchip
would self-destruct, allowing him to
consider the idea dispassionately
without going into suspicious fits
of paralysis.

The man on the table experienced
all this through a haze of bliss.
But his memory-recording circuitry
was in "erase" mode; none of the
experience was retained. His
consciousness had a duration of
perhaps four seconds total. He
simply marinated in pleasure, for
what seemed like forever. His body
achieved orgasm every time it was
capable. At the end of a week he
developed a prepuce infection
necessitating circumcision. He never
knew it, it transpired in his sleep.

There came a time when he slept
and did not wake. His dreams were
confused and painful, but he could
not wake. He dreamed of plugs being
drawn from tight sockets in his
head, phonejack plugs and DIN plugs
and little RCA phone plugs. He
dreamed that a man without a face
was stirring his brains with a
spatula, as though they were
scrambled eggs that must not stick
to the pan. He dreamed that a woman
with blonde hair was holding him by
one hand over a harbor he could not
recognize, from a bridge he could
not name. He dreamed that a bear and
a mouse were calling a name that he
ought to recognize, but did not. He
dreamed that he was in his mother's
womb, and refused to leave. He
dreamed that he was a burglar, that
a dry voice on audiotape was
acquainting him with details of a
burglar's trade, and when he had
mastered the lessons the voice began
to teach him the rudiments of
high-level computer programming.

None of these memories recorded in
his conscious mind. They were
groundwork only: they would give a
false "echo" of familiarity when his
conscious mind "relearned" them.

At some point in his sleep the
ecstasy began to fade, so gradually
that he never experienced a distinct
"crash" state. Eventually it was
completely gone. And completely
forgotten.

He woke with a hell of a headache
in a strange place a very strange
place.

"It's good to see your eyes open,"
said a man he did not know. "You've
been out for a long time; for a
while there I was sure you'd bought
it. I got the son of a bitch, by the
way."

MINDKILLER 21 1

He knew his response was silly even as he said it. "What
son of a bitch? It was a mine, a Bouncing Betty."

Then his eyes took in the room around him and he knew
that he was somehow no longer in Africa.

~ -
1 999 Jacques led us
through the woodshed
into the house
proper.

"Sit down," he
said, smiling
warmly. "Can I offer
you refreshment?"

"Nothing for me,"
Karen said.

"Thank you. Coffee
for me."

"I have some
twelve-year-old
Irish whiskey "

"Perhaps another
time?"

That made his smile
sharpen at the
corners. "Well
phrased. Please make
yourselves
comfortable. I'll be
back in a moment."

I was bemused by my
host. He was
unquestionably the
man I had known as
Fader Takhalous in
New York. But his
whole manner was
different. He no
longer had a Bronx
accent. His speech
was accentless now,
newscaster's
English, but somehow
he was unmistakably
a European. The
Fader had been a
tired

     213
      
214 Spider Robinson

old cynic; this man was a vigorous
fiftyish with sparkling eyes. He
was, I could sense, smarter and
faster than the man I had been
subconsciously expecting to meet.

If he was leaving us alone in the
room, there was no point in
searching it. It was large enough to
have two distinct groupings of
furniture. The set to our left faced
a splendid bay window, now opaqued.
The second, to our right, faced a
large stone fireplace in which a
fire was crackling. To the left of
the hearth was a powered chair, the
equal of my own in New York; to the
right was a small sofa facing the
chair. Between them a much larger
couch and a second powered chair
faced the fireplace, but we never
considered sitting there. To do so
would present our backs to both the
front door and the door by which
Jacques had left the room. Karen
took the sofa; I sat down in the
chair and swiveled it to face the
room. I noticed that she moved the
sofa slightly before sitting on it.
It was a good idea, but my chair was
bolted down.

Jacques returned almost at once,
with nothing in his hands but a
remote terminal. A table followed
him. At his direction it rolled
itself up to the fireplace, between
Karen and me, and knelt, like a New
York bus, to coffee-table height.

"Slick," I said. "How does it
corner?"

He was surprised for a second. He
had forgotten that the table was
worthy of comment. He grinned then.
"Poorly. But the mileage is good."

The table contained coffee, cups,
spoons, sugar, honey, and cream. The
cream was at least twenty-percent
butterfat. The honey was local. The
sugar was unrefined. The cups were
lightweight plastic, double-walled
with vacuum between they would keep
coffee drinking temperature for half
an hour. The coffeepot too was
thermal. A trigger in its handle
operated the pour spout; there was
no way to make it disgorge all its
contents at once. Into someone's
face, say. The cups had half-lids,
open just enough to admit a spoon.
You could pour out their contents,
but not fling them. Jacques poured
all three cups, adulterated his own
to taste, and sat in the powered
chair.

I sipped my own coffee. As I had
expected, it was flesh brewed Blue
Mountain, with just a trace of an
excellent cinnamon. I usually take
coffee black, but I added a little
sugar.

MiNDKILLER 215

Jacques waited politely for us to
comment on the coffee.

"Why are we here?" I asked.

"To judge me."

'~To judge "

" you?" Karen finished.

"Yes."

"Guilty," she said at once. "Die."

Jacques smiled sadly. "I will
require you to go through the
formality of a trial first An old
American tradition: allowing the
accused to speak his piece before you
hang him."

"Do you seriously suggest," I
asked, "that there can be any
justification for the things you have
done? That would persuade us?"

"It is precisely because I cannot
answer that question that you are
both still alive. Consider this
question: How is the most powerful
man in the world to know whether he
is sane or not? For certain?"

It was a good question.

"Why would he care?" Karen asked.

That was another.

"That is a good question," Jacques
said. "I will give you an honest
answer, and if it sounds
melodramatic, I am sorry." His voice
changed. For the first time he
sounded like the Fader I had known.
"If I am mad, the human race has had
it."

"I am afraid," I said slowly, "that
I agree with you. But again, why
should you care?"

He sighed. "All humans with enough
imagination to understand that they
will die have an intolerable problem.
They must reconcile themselves to
extinction, or else work at something
larger than themselves, something
that will survive them. Their
children, most often. The identity
relationship between parent and child
is direct, demonstrable, basic. Some
are imaginative enough to see that
their children are as ephemeral as
they themselves, as susceptible to
chance destruction. So they transfer
allegiance and identity to something
more than human. To a nation, or a
notion, or a religion, or a school of
art."

I was almost beginning to enjoy
this. This was the Fader I knew. We'd
had a dozen of these raps together.
It was from him that I had picked up
the habit of arguing in precise,
fonnal

216 Spider Robinson

- language, like a lecturing
professor. I found that it clarified
thought.

Or had I picked it up from him?
Apparently I had once been a
professor.

"A few," he went on, "a very few,
are afflicted with the insight that
all those things too are mortal. For
these few there is no alternative
but to love their entire species above
all else, to love the idea of
sentient life." He paused and drank
coffee. "I am thus accursed. I have
thought it through. I will sacrifice
anything to preserve the human race.
Your lives. My life. Those I love.
Anything. Nothing else that I know,
not planets or stars or the universe
itself, has as good a chance of
living forever. It's the only game
in town."

I let a few seconds of silence go
by. 'The argument has been made
before," I said. 'The classic reply
is, 'Who appointed you preserver of
the human raced'

He nodded. "I call it random
chance. My lover says it was God.
You might split the difference and
say, 'Fate."'

"You, in other words."

The one time I had ever beaten him
at chess, I saw him smile just like
that. "Yes. I chose not to duck."

"Standard answer. But if I
understand you correctly, you doubt
your fitness for the job?"

'That is correct."

"Now that is something new." I
turned to Karen. "Which would you
say is worse, honey? A confident
megalomaniac, or an insecure one?
Generally speaking, I meant'

"Shut up, Joe. I'm starting to
like his vibes. Listen, Jacques  I
assume we're formally introduced,
yes? if I understand you, you're
telling us that you did not seek the
power you've got. It's kind of
something that happened to you?"

He looked sad. 'Y'd like to say
yes, but that's not strictly true. I
. . . saw that the power would come
into existence, would come to someone.
Once I knew that, I was obligated. I
fought the idea for almost a decade,
hoping that someone Use would emerge
more worthy of the power. No one
did, and my hand was forced. I live
for the day I can put down the
burden. But I took it voluntarily
and wield it ruthlessly."

"You know," I said, "I'd like to
believe that. I have always

MINDKILLER217

felt that the best candidate for a
position of power should be the one who
wants it least. But you have, however
reluctantly, wielded that power for at
least five years now "

"More like ten."

" and what little I personally know of
the accomplishments of your
administration smells rancid. You have
made money from the deaths of thousands,
perhaps hundreds of thousands, of
wireheads. Like my friend Karen. You have
learned how to make involuntary
wireheads, and used that ability to make
sure it stays exclusively yours. You blew
up a shock doe and his shop in New York,
suborned the Patent Office "

-"You scooped out loe's brains, and put
back the pieces that

suited you," Karen cut in. "You
kidnapped his sister "
"What did happen to her, Jacques?"
Karen saw my face. "Easy, loe."
"She is upstairs."
I blinked.
"She was not certain whether or not
she wished to meet
you. I don't believe she was certain
that she even wished to
monitor the video feed from this
room. She was-kidding back
tears when I left her." He saw my
expression and made that
pained smile again. "She is the
lover I mentioned, who thinks
that God did this to me."
I thought that over for a
measureless dme. "Why isn't her
opinion of your sanity good enough
for you?"
"She loves me. You two hate me."
"Huh." I burned my tongue, having
forgotten about die
rthermal cup. "Tell me something.
That shock doc in New
York that was your doing, yes?"
"The bombing on the lower West Side?
Yes. Pure chance
you were passing by. But it was not
luck that you were not
hurt. My agent had orders to wait
until he was certain there
was no one else in the blast zone."
That was true. "Okay. Now tell me:
why a bombing?
Wouldn't it have been simpler and
less risky to miodwipe him?"
He was shocked. "I have had to make
my own rules. One
of the most important is this: I
never mindwipe a man if I can
accomplish my purpose by merely
killing him."
I looked him square in the eye.
"That is a very good answer."

218- Spider Robinson

He relaxed and smiled. "For a
moment I thought you were serious.
The thought that I might have so
seriously misjudged you scared me
badly."

"Yeah. You know all about me. I want
to know about you."

He nodded. "And the most important
things I say will be the ones I
hadn't planned to say. Keep
prodding."

- "Why do you sell the wireT' Karen
asked. She got out cigarettes and
lighter, -and he watched her hands
carefully while replying.

"For cover, and for money."

"Cover?"

"It gave me a plausible and
legitimate reason for research into
brain-reward, which is the key to
memory and it gave me a plausible
and legitimate reason for keeping
the results of that research
secret."

"With mindwipe, what do you need
with money?" I asked.

"I have had mindwipe for a little
over four years. It was very
expensive. Projects now on the
drawing boards will be so immensely
expensive that I will need every
little billion."

"All right. We now know at least a
smattering of your means. Next
topic: What are the ends that you
contend justify those meansT'

He nodded. "Now we are getting
somewhere. Let me refill your cup.
This will take some time." He busied
himself with the pot. "I must start
from the beginning."

I accepted more coffee, and Karen
took a cup. Maximum alertness here.

"I was born into the midst of
planetary war. Literally the midst,
for Switzerland is bounded by
France, Germany, Austria, and Italy.
It was the eye of the storm, and by
the time I was old enough to truly
understand the danger, it was past.
When I was six, my father attempted
to explain to me something of the
significance of the atom bomb, which
had just annihilated Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. He was a director of what
was then Switzerland's fourth
largest banking firm, located in
Basel. I'm sure he made an effort to
soften the horror of it, he was not
trying to scare me. But when I
understood that one bomb had
destroyed a city the size of Zurich,
I was appalled. I had been taken
there twice, and believed it to be
the largest city on earth.

MINDKILLER 219

But my father told me that the bomb meant
the end of war. He said now the whole
world would have to be as smart as
Switzerland, would have to learn to live
together in peace, because the weapons
were now so terrible that it was too dan-
gerous to start a fight. 'What if they're
not?' I asked. As smart as Switzerland."
He paused a moment in thought. "Strange.
One of the things I admire the most about
my country is that nothing is done without
consensus. To raise taxes requires a
national referendum and a constitutional
amendment. We did not enfranchise women
until I was thirty-two years old and my
mother, a neurosurgeon, was dead. A
coalition of major parties has ruled for
nearly half a century, talking every issue
to death before anything is done. And now
1, a Swiss, am acting as unilaterally as
any tyrant in history. On a scale that
Genghis Khan could not have dreamed of."

"God is an iron," I said.

"Eh? Oh, yes, I remember the conceit. A
person who commits irony is an iron. God
knows, cold and hot iron have figured
prominently in His ironies. Yes, God is an
iron. Switzerland produced me. And my
Uncle Albert. Not really my uncle. A
friend of my mother's, a chemist who
worked in the big laboratory across town."

_.A jigsaw piece clicked into place.
"Jesus. Basel. Sandoz
-Laboratories. Dr. Albert Hofmann."

"It was the day after my fourth
birthday. Uncle Albert ingested what he
thought was an infinitesimal amount of LS~
25, climbed onto his bicycle to pedal
home, and took the world's first trip. The
day was beautiful; I was playing outside
with my new toys when he pedaled past.
Even at four years old I was aware that
something extraordinary was going on with
him. He seemed to shine. He saw me and he
smiled at me as he rode past. He did not
wave or call out; he only looked at me,
turning his head as he went by, and
smiled. You can think of the contact-high
phenomenon if it suits you. I say that for
those few seconds time stopped and we were
telepathic. I remember today the
exhilaration. . ." He frowned down at his
coffee and drank of it.

"My," Karen murmured.

"Never, even with my parents, had I felt
so close to another

220 Spider Robinson

human being, adult or child. There
was a bond between us. Eighteen
years later to the day, the day
after my twenty-first birthday, he
gave me my first dose of lysergic
acid diethylamide under controlled
conditions. It had been decided
before my birth, possibly before my
conception, that I was to be a
doctor. It was Uncle Albert who
suggested I go into neuroanatomy. At
that time there were less than a
dozen neuroanatomists on this
planet, and they were some of the
most eccentric men alive. I fit
right in. I was something of an odd
duck."

"I can imagine."

"By this dme, you see, I was
already deeply interested in the
interface between the brain and the
mind. Next to nothing was known
about the brain, and I felt that
better maps might be the key. It was
a wide-open field, an exciting
puzzle with the answers seemingly just
out of reach, possible of attainment.

"The year I began my medical
training, I read an article in
Scientific American about the work of two
men, lames Olds and Peter Milner, at
McGill University in Canada. They
had discovered that if you placed an
electrode in a certain part of the
brain of a rat "

"We know about Olds," Karen
interrupted. Her voice was harsh.

"Of course you do. Forgive me. I
worked with Olds, later, and with
others who followed him. Lilly,
Routtenberg, Collier, Penfield.
After a time I worked only with
myself. Routtenberg had put me onto
the connection between the
brain-reward system and memory
formation, and I was absolutely
fascinated by memory. I had decided
that life is the business of making
happy memories and I was offended as
a neurophysiologist to be completely
ignorant of the process by which
this most basic task was
accomplished.

"But I had no intention of
publishing my results in Scientific
American. Or anywhere else. I had
learned from John Lilly's
experiences with the CIA involving
brain-reward research, and Uncle
Albert's experiences with the same
group and others like it, that the
kinds of answers I was looking for
were dangerous answers."

"Tell me about your personal life
during all of this," Karen said.

i

MINDKILLER 221

He sighed and sipped coffee. He got
up and poked the fire with an
andiron, then put on more wood.
"While I was acquiring an M.D. and
becoming a neuroanatomist, there was
of course not much personal life to
talk about. I received my doctorate
at twenty-six. I had friends. I had
lovers, but only the friends lasted.
I don't think there was enough of me
left from my work to satisfy a lover,
to give to her. When I was thirty-two
I met Elsa. She was as stable as I
was wild. She calmed me, housebroke
me. She was a cyberneticist; she
could make a computer do anything,
and she was deeply interested in
holography. We learned from each
other. We were married and had six
wonderful years. Then "

He finished his coffee and put the
cup down with infinite care and
attention. Then the words came out a
little faster than before.

"Then a piece of equipment exploded
in her laboratory. Below and to the
side; a fragment evaded anything
vital and entered the skull. The
hippocampus and several associated
structures in both temporal lobes
were virtually destroyed. She lived.
With anterograde amnesia."

He was silent for a few moments.

"The skills and knowledge she had
acquired up until that time remained
largely intact. She seemed able to
register limited amounts of new
information. But she could no longer
retain it. Her short-term memory
system and her long-term storage had
been disconnected. She never again
learned to recognize anyone she had
not known before the accident, not
even the specialists who worked with
her daily. Each time she met them was
the first time. Her memory had a span
of perhaps ten minutes. She lived
another five years, perpetually
puzzled by the fact that the date
always seemed to be later than it
could possibly be. She never got more
than ten minutes past 1978, and it
seemed to confuse her a little, the
way the world went on ahead without
her. But she was fairly happy in
general.

"I was familiar with the syndrome
from correspondence with Milner. I
lived with h with her until she died,
working ferociously to understand her
condition so that I could alleviate
it. I failed. When she died I gave
myself to my work entirely, as a kind
of memorial. If that word is not too
ironic.

222 Spider Robinson

"She had given me many tools, many
leads. She had taught me more about
computers than any university could
have. She had taught me much about
holography. By the time of her
death, it was well established that
memory storage takes place in a
manner analogous to holography."

Karen frowned. "I don't think I
follow."

He seemed to come back from a far
place, to recall that he had
listeners and a reason for speaking.
"If you cut the corner off a
hologram transparency, you do not take
a corner off the image it yields.
Both it and the cut-off corner will
produce the complete, uncut image.
The former will be very slightly
fuzzier than before the mutilation;
the latter will be quite fuzzy, but
still complete. Similarly, you
cannot remove a given memory by
removing a specific portion of the
brain. Each memory is stored all over
the brain, in the form of a multiple
redundant pattern. Each neuron thus
represents many potential bits of
information and there are as many
neurons in a brain as there are
stars in the galaxy."

"So the question," I said, "is how
are the memories encoded and how are
they retrieved?"

"Precisely. Computer theory was
essential. And my hunch was right:
brain-reward was the key to the
puzzle. The brainreward aspect of
memory formation was the only one I
knew how to detect, and to measure
and track accurately. The task was
rather like a space explorer
studying purely economic data for a
planet, then trying to deduce or
infer the body of its inhabitants'
psychology. But I knew where I was
going, I had known for years, and I
was determined to be the first one
there. By that time I had
transferred my personal allegiance
to the human race. The last few
decades have not been such as to
encourage ethical behavior by
scientists, and a relatively large
number of people were chasing the
secrets I sought. A psychologist
stood up at a Triple-A-S meeting in
the mid-seventies and declared that
the informadon-storage code of the
human brain would be cracked within
ten years. That frightened me. While
pursuing my own researches, I did my
best to cripple the work of others
by feeding false data into the
literature. Red herrings, blind
alleys, false trails. I succeeded.
By the late 1980s, I was the only
one skill digging at the spot marked
X,

MINDKILLER 223

unnoticed by the crowd over at the
other end of the field. Simple
surgery and brain/computer interface
were the last tools I needed. By 1989
I had a rudimentary and cumbersome,
but fairly effective, version of
mindwipe. It was of some help to me
in CaptunQg the wirehead industry,
and concealing the extent of my own
involvement in it."

"You run the whole thing?" Karen
exploded.

"I am and plan to remain the whole
thing. I assure you that no OQe now
living can prove that
statement although you, Joe, guessed
or learned more than I would have
thought possible. But the whole
industry is and has been my personal
monopoly."

"How could you " she began, and ran
out of words. She had begun to like
him, and could not swallow the new
information.

"Most of the basic patents are
mine, under an assortment of names.
If I did not do it, someone else
would. Once it became possible, it
became inevitable. I accepted the
responsibility, destroyed all
would-be competitors, and kept the
industry just as small and stunted as
possible. Do you remember anything of
how fast marijuana and LSD spread in
the sixties and seventies, when
organized crime realized their
economic potential? Has the growth of
the wirehead industry been anything
like that?"

No. It had not. It got a lot of
talk in the media, but the numbers
said it was nothing like the social
problem alcohol or cocaine posed.
That had always struck me as odd.
People dumb enough to flirt with
heroin would not touch the wire; it
was strictly for born losers. Could
that be because the wire was simply
not being marketed aggressively?

"Those who seek pleasure at any
cost are those to whom ethics matter
least. I have been weeding the human
race of its most selfish and
self-indulgent."

"I'm selfish and self-indulgent,"
Karen said darkly.

He smiled. "Is that what brings you
to Nova Scoda?"

She got her knee out of the way in
dme; the spilt coffee landed on the
rug.

"Of course you were obsessed with
ecstasy, having been denied it all
your life. Once you tasted it in
full, you established

224 Spider Robinson

normal relations with it one of your
customers reports to me and turned
your attention to other things. To
an ethical task."

She frowned, but said nothing.

"And you, foe. I supplied you with
the most comfortable and carefree
existence that modern society
affords, no taxes, no mortgage, no
bills, and what did you do? You
dumped it all for a crusade. Or did
you ever seriously expect to survive
this?"

"No," I said. "Not once, even from
the beginning. But I had a
responsibility to Karen."

"To Karen? Why?"

"I meddled in her life, spoiled a
perfectly good and painless suicide.
I had to accept the con "

"Bullshit," Karen snapped.

"She is right, foe. Paramedics
spoil suicides every day, then punch
out and go home. You perceived a
responsibility. Because it suited
you. Underneath it is something
else. You saw the horror of Karen's
experience. In your heart, you
believe her cause is just. You
believe, like her, that every man's
death diminishes you. Don't you?"

I said nothing.

"I could be wrong, of course. It
could simply be emotional
involvement "

My voice was bleak. "You, of all
people, should know that I am unable
to love."

This smile reached his eyes. "I
don't know any such thing."

The sentence hit me like a
surprise slap in the face that
bewilders, hurts, and angers. "The
hell you don't!" I shouted.

"Your sex drive is disconnected,
yes. But these days sex and love
don't even write to each other much.
I think your love for Karen is very
much like the love your sister has
for me. And Karen's love for you is
much like mine for Madeleine."

I tried to gain control of my
emotions. "Perhaps I do agree with
Karen about wireheading. In any
case, I believe I'm ready now to
render the judgment you asked for."

"Be patient. I've given you the
background. I have yet to present my
defense."

MINDKILLER 22S

I had to admire his nerve.

"Proceed," Karen said after a
while. She struck another cigarette.

"Thank you. As to wireheading, you
must admit that the way I set up the
industry, it is something that can
only happen by choice. The subject
has to assist in the placement of the
wire. Inductance wireheading without
consent, from outside the skull is a
childishly simple refinement. I have
made it my business to kill any
entrepreneur who tries to introduce
it.

"Should I manufacture automobiles
instead, and kill more people than
wireheading does without the element of
choice?

"What you dislike about wireheading
is not the wire itself. There were
wirehead personalities long before the
wire existed. What it is that
horrifies you is what it displays:
the component of human nature that
wants the wire, that wants pushbutton
pleasure badly enough to pay any
price, that is so blind and afraid
that it will suicide with a smile.
You would like, rightly, to eliminate
that part of human nature. I tell you
that you cannot do that by eliminating the wire.

"My first mindwipe technique was a
very clumsy and primitive thing. I
could not erase a memory pattern, but
I could, in a sense, erase its
retrieval code. The memory remained
in the skull, but the mind could not
access it. I redoubled myefforts,
because I wanted direct access to
memory itself."

"True mindwipe," I said.

"If you will," he agreed. "But
recall this: the same man, Heinrich
Dreser, discovered both heroin and
aspirin. Consider an analogy, shall
we? You are an aborigine genius.
Someone gives you a good reel-to-reel
tape recorder. He explains electronic
theory in some detail, and you are so
bright you follow most of it. Then he
rips out the heads and all their
circuitry, destroys them, and
departs leaving behind tapes
containing directions to a buried
fortune. The tape transport still
functions, but the heads are gone.

"Now suppose, against all odds, you
somehow manage to make that tape
recorder functional again. Perhaps it
only takes you a few hundred years
and requires a complete
reorganization of your tribe. Forget
all that. Which will you succeed in reinventingfrst:
the record head or the erase head?"

226 Spider Robinson

Answering dhequestion took a split
second; it was seconds ~later before
the implications registered. Then I
was startled

speechless.

"The erase head, of course," he
said. "It is a much simpler device a
single blanket signal that disrupts
any and all frequencies. It is an
infinitely simpler task to destroy
information than to encode it in the
first place. Which is easier to do:
create a book, or burn its'

"My God," Karen cried. "You weren't
after mindwipe. You wanted "

"Mindfill," he said quietly, and dhe
room seemed to rock around me as my
beliefs began rearranging Themselves.

"To continue the analogy," he went on,
"I have recendy learned how to build
both record and playback heads.
Neidher process will ever be as
elegant and simple as the erasure
process." Suddenly there was a weapon
in his hand, so suddenly that neidher
Karen nor I jumped. It looked like a
water pistol. "With this I could
remove twenty-four hours from your
mind, and put your memory on hold. You
experienced a taste of the latter this
afternoon. To dub off a copy of chose
twenty-four hours' worth of memories
would require much more equipment,
power, and time. To play my memories
into your skull would take nearly
twice as much of all three. But I
could do both of those things.

"Understand me: to copy your
memories from last night to this
moment, I would have to wait several
hours, until the information has had
time to soak into long-term storage.
And any information chat your mind's
metaprogrammer elected not to store
would be lost."

"Then you haven't got a handle on
short-term memoryT' I said, watching
the water pistol.

"I know only how to erase it. Record
and playback heads for it will take
about fifteen years to develop . . .
if all goes well."

"And Then you'll have true telepadby,"
Karen breathed.

"That is correct. And I have devoted
my life to ensuring that no
individual, group, or government will
gain exclusive control of these
developments. At present, I have a
monopoly.

.

MINDKILLER 227

I live for the day when I can
responsibly abdicate. My secrets must
belong to all mankind or to no one."

He fell silent then. He put the
weapon away. I didn't even see where.
He let us have about five minutes of
silence, to think it through.

The first, and least important,
implication was that the deadly
threat of mindwipe could be at least
partially mitigated. By the record
head. If there is a memory you
especially want to ensure against
theft, make a recording of it and put
it in a safe place. If someone wants
to steal your memory of this moment,
right now, you have several hours to
try and escape him though that may be
difficult if he has a water pistol
that destroys your short-term memory
as it forms, holds you mindless and
happy.

But the second implication! The
playback head. . .

Suppose you could give a Hindu
peasant the memories of, say, a
scientific farmer? Not an account of
those memories, translated into words
and retranslated into print and
retranslated into Hindi but an
actual, experiential memory. What
soil looks like and smells like when
it is most fruitful. The sound of a
correctly tuned engine. The
difference between hand-tight and
wrench-tight. The smell of disease.
Principles of health care. They say
expedence is not just the best, but
the only teacher. What if it were
willing to travel?

Suppose you could give a student
the memories of a prod fessor. Log
tables. Tensor calculus.
Conversational Russian. The
extraordinary thing about Kemal
Ataturk. Pages of Shakespeare. The
Periodic Table.

Suppose you could give a child the
memories of an adult  of several
adults.

Suppose you could give an adult the
memories of a child fresh and vivid.

Suppose you could show a Ku Klux
Klanner what it is really like to be
black.

Suppose you could give a blind man
memories of sight. Give music to the
deaf. Give entrechats to a
paraplegic. Orgasms to the impotent.

Suppose the desire to know
everything about your lover could be
satisfied.

Suppose your need to share your own
life completely with

     228 Spider Robinson

your lover could be satisfied.

Suppose a historian had access to
the memories of Alger Hiss, or
Richard Nixon.

Suppose politicians were required
to submit to periodic memory audit.

Suppose accountants were.

Suppose you were.

Suppose a doctor could determine
incontrovertibly, in a matter of
hours, your innocence of a crime.

Or your guilt.

Suppose all these things became
the exclusive monopoly of anyone.
Like lacques's monopoly on
wireheading. . .

I opened my mouth to ask Jacques a
question. I don't remember what it
would have been. A board lit up on
the wall across the room, over his
terminal, and he gave it instant,
total attention. Almost at once he
relaxed slightly, but got up from
the chair nonetheless and walked to
the board.

"No reason to be alarmed," he
said. He punched a few bunons,
studied a readout, and nodded.
"Perfectly all right. For a moment I
thought we had uninvited guests, but
it is only an animal. No
sentience-signature in the brain
waves." He frowned. "Big animal,
though. I thought " Suddenly his
voice was urgent. "Fast animal!" He
punched more buttons in a great
hurry, and fire erupted in the night
outside through the big bay window.
Laser come a-hunting. He half turned
toward the window and it exploded
into the room in a spray of glass,
letting in fire and smoke and sudden
thunder. A man came headfirst
through the hole it left, rolled
when he hit the floor, and came up
on his feet. His gun covered all
three of us, settled on Jacques.

Karen and I sat very still, sudden
breeze fanning our hair.

13

1 9 9 9 His eyes were brown. Black
pants, turtleneck, and boots.
Nightsight goggles pushed up onto
his forehead. An odd headgear
covered everything but his eyes. He
seemed to have taken five yards of
heavy-duty metal foil, painted it
black, crumpled it until it was all
over wrinkles, and then molded it
around his head like a ski mask, in
multiple layem. It distorted the
shape and contours of his head. All
at once I understood it.

Iacques broke the silence. "My
guards?"

"I got them both."

Jacques looked very sad. I liked
his sadness. "Why are you here?"

His voice from under the foil was
vaguely familiar. "I'm here to kill
you, LeBlanc. And steal your magic."

"What do you know of my magic?"

"I know everything about you. For
instance, you have a

             229
              
Z30 Spider Robinson

weapon. Give it to me very
carefully. Very slowly."

Jacques complied.

'Y'vebeen tracking you for five
years. And you know nothing about
me."

"On the contrary, Sergeant Amesby.
I know you to be one of the finest
policemen in the world."

Amesby. The cop who had handled
Maddy's case. My mind went into
passing gear.

Being recognized rocked him a
little; he tried not to show it.
"I've put five years in on you, all
by myself, without letting anyone
else know what I was doing, because
I had some kind of notion of how
important you'd turn out to be. But
I've leR records where they'll be
found in the event of my untimely
death, so you daren't kill me even
if you could. And you can't
brainwipe me as long as I'm wearing
this helmet. And it isn't coming off
until one of us is dead. I know all
about you, LeBlanc."

"Who am I, then?"

"You are the first genuine ruler
of the world. And I'm your
successor."

Jacques burst our laughing. "You
will replace me?"

"Why not? As of tonight, everything you
know belongs to me."

Jacques's laughter chopped off
short.

"Why did you happen to pick
tonight?" he said at last.

"Kent, here."

I blinked. Me, he meant.

"He's how I got into this him and
his sister and he's the only part of
it I never understood. What the hell
he does for you that was worth all
the trouble you took, I can't for
the life of me figure out, and that
makes me uneasy. I did a lot of
sniffmg around in this neighborhood,
times you were off in Switzerland
and Washington and places. Mapping
your security perimeters, testing
the helmet, asking questions of the
locals. There's an old fart west of
here used to know Kent. He was the
last person to see Kent before he
disappeared. He called me tonight,
said he saw Kent and a woman come
here, and he said Kent acted like he
didn't know him anymore. float
puzzled me. I remembered a phone
call I got this morning, a voice
that

MINDKILLER 231

sounded familiar but I couldn't place
it. It just didn't add up. I had Kent
figured for dead. I've been thinking
about making my move for a couple of
months now. I decided if I did it
tonight I might get the only answers
I haven't got yet."

He turned to Karen and me.

The gun was a Yamaha Disruptor,
with solenoid trigger and
twenty-five-round capacity. A
sneezing cat makes more noise. A
slingshot has more recoil. The M 401
used in the jungle has about the same
stopping power. Two guards lay dead
outside, presumably good guards. He
had dodged a tracking laser. I feared
him.

While he was looking at us, Jacques
was situated at the extreme limit of
his peripheral vision. Jacques
shifted his stance very
slightly experimentally? hard to
say and Amesby, without moving his
eyes a millimeter, produced a second
Disruptor from a back-pocket holster
and drew a dead bead on lacques's
nose.

Oh, my mind scrabbled around in my
skull like a trapped rat.

Jacques had been right. This hick
cop was good, was seriously
dangerous. And he wanted answers I
did not have and he was going to kill
me if he didn't get them. Probably
even if he did. I sensed that Jacques
was worried, though he hid it well,
and that realization nearly panicked
me. If he had no ace up his sleeve, no
rabbit in the hat

Oh, God. He did have a rabbit he
was worried that the rabbit might be
foolhardy enough to take on the fox.
Maddy. Something about a video feed
from this room. . .

"All right, Norman, talk to me. How
do you figure in this business? lust
where the hell do you fit?''

Now, there was a question and the
clock running out. I yearned for the
comfort and security of a burglar's
life.

I could see Jacques looking at me,
wondering how I would play it. This
was the first moment that day that I
had not been under threat of instant
death from Jacques, and we both knew
that. If I could convince Amesby of
that, maybe we could deal. I might
convince him, too; I was sure he had
scouted our fourwheel and seen the
weapons we'd abandoned.

I think what decided me was the grief
that had splashed

232 Spider Robinson

across Jacques's features when he
heard that his two guards were dead.
I knew that he was one of the best
actors alive but the sadness had
been too spontaneous to be faked. He
cared when his employees died.

I took my face out of neutral. I
gave Amesby mild, sour amusement. A
very small smile, a slight shake of
the head, a suggestion of a sigh.
Then I turned away from him,
powering the chair around thirty
degrees to face Jacques. Because of
Amesby's solenoid trigger, I wanted
to do it very slowly. So I mashed
the button down and whipped the
chair around just as fast as it
could go. Both my hands remained in
sight; Amesby flinched but held
fire.

"Sometimes being half smart is
worse than being stupid." I smiled
wickedly at Jacques. "Who'd know
better than you, ehT'

Without waiting for his reaction,
I whipped the chair back to face
Amesby again. His flinch was not
visible this time, but I knew that
was twice he had decided not to kill
me. A habit to encourage He was now
conditioned to permit sudden move-
ments in front of his eyes.

I said, "I own you or I kill you,
sonny, there's no third way. Make up
your mind."

"You own T'

I sighed. "Loon at me, jerk."

He frowned and looked closer. The
timing was important. In the split
second before he got it I said, very
softly, "Am I Norman KentT'

"Jesus." He stared. "By Jesus,
you're not! But who "

I kept my eyes on his, held out my
left hand toward Karen. "Cigarette,
please," I murmured. And bless her,
she was with me, she said "Yes, sir"
quite smartly, struck a cigarette,
and placed it between my spread
fingers as smoothly as if she were
accustomed to it. It is much easier
to put across aristocratic
superiority if you have a cigarette
to work with. It is not necessary to
smoke it. ~

As this business ended, Amesby got
his first question'formulated in
words and drew breath to ask it.
"Shut up," I said, with absolutely
no whip-of-command in my voice. He
obeyed. "You don't know what's going
on, do you? You actually thought Le
Blank here was the top man. You
really thought I was

MINDKILLER 233

Kent." I shook my head. "I don't know
that you're bright enough to be worth
keeping. How long did you say you'd
been working on this? Five years?"

He was good. He was very good. His
mind must have been racing at a
thousand miles an hour, but his face
gave away nothing at all. I glanced
at the knuckles of his gun hand and
saw that he was wondering, But why
can't I just pull this trigger?

There were two places my sister
could be. She could be upstairs with
the video switched off, crying at the
thought of her crippled baby brother
down in the parlor. If so, she was
safe. If not, she was standing about
fifteen feet away, trying frantically
to think of something. Only one door
led from this room into the rest of
the house. It lay well within
Amesby's field of vision. I had been
observant when Jacques had come
through it with his coffee cart. It
opened on a long hallway, not much
wider than the doorway. The doorknob
was on the right. From Madeleine's
perspective it would be on the left,
and the door would open toward her.
She was right-handed. She could pull
the door open with her left hand,
wait for it to get out of her way,
and fire backhand. Or she could pull
the door with her right hand and try
a left-handed shot. Neither was very
good, against a man with one gun on
ha lover and another on her brother.
Could I sucker his gaze away from the
door? No, his instincts were too
good, it would be pushing him too
hard.

I knew she was there. I could feel
her there. I could hear her pleading
with me to come up with something. I
was running out of seconds.

"I'm a layer or two from the top,
sonny, and Le Blank here jumps when I
say frog. If he's all you've come up
with after five years, I don't think
the firm will be interested in your
services." I raised my voice.
"Madeleine, dear, come in here, will
your

Everyone turned to the door, and it
opened, not too fast and not too
slow, and Madeleine Kent walked into
the room with both hands prominently
empty. Her bearing was regal. Her
eyes swept the room, dismissed
everything but me. I did not
recognize her.

"Yes, sir?"

234 Spider Robinson

"Radio the ship. Tell them there
will be three bodies to be picked up
for disposal. Oh, and tomorrow
evening I want you to order a new
bay window from Halifax, and arrange
for something local until it
arrives." I dropped my cigarette on
lacques's expensive rug and trod it
out. "I think that's all."

"Very good, sir." She turned to go.

"Hold it right there,"
Amesbysnapped, his voice cracking on
the last word. One of his guns
tracked her, trembling just
perceptibly.

She came to a gradual stop, turned
slowly, and stared at him as though
he were something distasteful
written on a wall. His gun did not
even rate a glance. "Are you
speaking to men'

I had run this bluff just about as
far as I could. I had him off
balance, paranoid. I had kept him on
the trembling verge of pressing that
trigger for so long that his finger
had to be tired. One disadvantage of
a solenoid trigger. I had managed to
introduce a fourth person into the
room without provoking shots. Now he
had four threats to cover with two
guns. It takes an extraordinary mind
to handle more than three of
anything without time-sharing.

But he had an extraordinary mind.
And in my scale of evaluations, the
most expendable person in the room
was me. I wanted insurance.

"What I'm doing, lady," he said,
his voice dismayingly strong, "is
promising to shoot you in the belly
if you take a step or move some way
I don't like."

"Do you know why you're still
alive, AmesbyT' I asked. "It's a
matter of probabilities. I settled
it to my satisfaction in Africa, a
long time ago. Even if you put a
nice heavy highvelocity load right
on the money, just punch a couple of
vertebrae right out and bounce the
skull off the ceiling, there'll
still be about a
ten-to-fifteen-percent chance that
the corpse's trigger finger will
clench. Spasmodic nerve action, like
a head less chicken. Ten to fifteen
percent. I'll take those odds ff I
have to, if you even look like
actually pressing a trigger. But
frankly, I would rather negotiate."

He grinned. "Who's going to shoot
me? Her?."

"Did you happen to catch Le
Blank's face when you told him
'both' his guards were dead? How it
took him a second

MINDKILLER 235

to get a sad face on? You clown, you
misses the man." He did not turn to,
or even glance toward, the shattered
bay window to his dght. I had never
expected him to. Whether he bought
the bluff or not, there was no point
in turning to see. But he bought it,
I could see him buy it in his heart.
I had softened him up enough, hit him
from enough different directions in a
short enough time frame to give him
the feeling that he had stumbled into
a threshing machine. Now he had five
things to keep track of.

"So I've got a
ten-to-fifteen-percent chance of
negotiating a mutually satisfactory
settlement," he said at last. "Until
we do, the first one of you that
moves is catfood."

In that moment I respected him
enormously. I was glad, because I
knew he was going to kill me.

"The rest of you sit stiU," I ordered.
"I refuse to be killed by a headless
clown, if it can be avoided." I hoped
they would keep backing my play and
follow orders. "All right, Amesby,
what have you got to trade with?."

"I told you: I left evidence
behind, in enough different places
that even you can't find them all.
Kill one and you're blown."

I smiled politely. 'A don't think
I'll lose much sleep over the Halifax
Police Department once you're retired
from it."

"Yeah? How about Interpol and the "
He shut up and looked properly
disgusted at himself for giving away
information. "Believe me, you'll
never find all the stashes I left.
You'll blow LeBlanc, and that's got
to be at least a large part of your
organization."

I frowned and tried to look like I
was not worried. Casually, I put my
right foot up on the chair and rested
an elbow on my knee. Now I had one
foot under me. At last I waded. The
good executive makes decisions
without wasting time.

"All right. We'll make a place in
the firm for you. You can be one of
the lesser gods but you'll wear a
belly bomb just like the rest of us
and you'll take orders." I raised my
voice two notches. "If he puts up his
guns, let him live."

He took a full ten seconds making
up his mind. Then, slowly and
deliberately, he pointed both guns at
the ceiling and waited to see if he
was going to be shot by my imaginary
assassin.

Pointing at the ceiling wasn't good
enough. He was too far

236 Spider Robinson

away. I glanced toward the window,
widened my eyes, and roared,
"Dammit, no!"

I had to assume that this time he
would go for it. As he began to
pivot, I rocked forward and launched
myself. I expected him to check in
midstream and kill me, but I thought
I could immobilize one or both of
the guns long enough for Karen or
one of the others to find a weapon
and use it. I was so full of
adrenalin the seconds were passing
by like clouds.

There is a bit of movie film I
will carry around in my skull
forever. It is a silent movie, no
soundtrack at all. I am partway to
Amesby, in midair and in ultraslow
motion, arms coming up. One of the
Yamahas is arcing around toward me,
almost there, while the rest of him
continues to spin toward the window.
Suddenly a hole appears in the neck
of his helmet, under his Adam's
Apple, the size of a Mason jar lid.
I continue to drift toward him a few
more inches, and see two vertebrae
leave the back of his neck, one atop
the other in stately procession,
attended by gobbets of meat and
larynx. A moment later his body
begins to travel backward and his
head starts to come forward. The
body wins the uneven argument, but
as it drifts back out of my way I
see his nose hit his chest. The
coffeepot, thrown by Karen, passes
through the space his head used to
occupy, trailing drops of the
world's best coffee. I note with
approval that his hands have
reflexively opened; both guns are
airborne. The sound of the shot
arrives. I am still a few feet from
the point at which we would have met
if he had kept the appointment,
beginning to think about my landing,
when Madeleine slams into his shins
from the side. Her intent is to
knock his feet out from under him,
but the slug that killed him has
already made a pretty good start on
that. One of his feet swings high
and wide, impacts solidly on my left
temple. There is a sudden jump-cut
and I am on the floor on my belly,
all the wind knocked out of me.

God, what a team! I though as
reality returned to real-time. We all
got him! But where did Jacques have
that holdout hidden? I got one elbow
under me, craned my head around, and
took inventory. Amesby down.
Madeleine getting up. Karen bending
to retrieve one of Amesby's guns.
Jacques right where

MINDKILLER 237

I had left him, his mouth a comical
0, his hands empty at his sides His
gun had fallen to the floor, then.
No, it hadn't. But there wasn't
anywhere on him to conceal a gun
capable of blowing a spinal column in
two.

The voice came from the window.
"Corporal, that was the busiest
tucking seconds in the history of the
world."

I recognized the voice and I
recognized the words. Subjecdvely, I
had last heard both five years ago,
in a damp trench full of fresh
corpses on the Tamburure Plains.

- "Bear!"

I rolled and looked and indeed it
was him, face darkened with mud. He
stood just outside the ruined window
with weapon still extended. It was an
Atcheson Assault Twelve a twelvegauge
shotgun with a twenty-round drum and
automatic or semiautomatic fire. He
was ten years older than I remembered
him. "Sergeant Bear, if you please."
His eyes went to Jacques. "I assume
Joe passes the exam?"

Jacques blinked, drew a deep breath,
and nodded. "I would

say SOj yss~'!

He lowered the Atcheson then, and
stepped gingerly in the window.

"Joe," Karen called. "You know this
guy?"

"Bear Withbert. He saved my ass in
Africa once. I told you about him."
I smelled eucalyptus just seeing him.
You~crush the leaves and rub them on
your hide for insect protection in
the jungle. "If he's with Jacques, I
am."

"Honest to Christ, Corporal, you
damn near gave me fits for a while
there. First you blow Madeleine's
cover, and then you like to blow my
own. And you know perfectly well
there ain't more than a five-percent
chance of a spinal shot going wrong.
I couldn't figure out how the hell
you wanted me to play it. How did you
know I was out there?"

I got to my feet and worked my
shoulders. For the first time in a
very long while, I felt very good. "I
didn't. I was just trying to divide
up his attention too many ways."

He stared. "You were bluffing?" He
turned to Jacques again. "Sign this
one up, boss." He safetied the
shotgun and set it down against the
wall. He walked across the room,
pulling out a handkerchief. He picked
up Amesby's vertebrae in it. He

  238 Spider Robinson

rolled it up and tucked it into Amesby's
pants pocket. He lifted Amesby's
shoulders; the head dangled by the
stereo-mastoid muscles. The metal foil
made a crinkling sound. The features
were deformed by hydrostatic pressure,-
eyes burst. "I'm afraid this rug is
shot." He stripped off his black
rainproof poncho and used it to wrap the
upper portion of the body. He picked it
up in his big arms and headed for the
outside door. Madeleine held it open for
him, then got the outer door. She closed
and sealed both behind him.

"Madeleine," Jacques said, with just
the right amount of irony, "please radio
the ship and tell them there'll be three
for disposal. And would you order a new
window tomorrows'

Karen glared at me.

"I was bluffing, I tell you," I said
weakly. "It just seemed the logical way
to handle the ones you use up."

"Jacques, stop teasing him," Madeleine
said. "He was brilliant. I almost
believed him myself." She came close to
me, stopped, and looked me over
carefully. She nodded slightly to
herself. There were pain and guilt in
her eyes, but there was courage there
too. The pain was not crippling, the
guilt not shameful. She was sorry, but
unrepentant. "Thank you for saving
Jacques. For saving everything. You did
a good thing, Joe."

It was odd. With that last sentence she
reminded me for the first time of the
childhood sister I recalled; she had
said that to me a hundred times while I
was growing up. But she said "Joe," not
"Norman." With that one sentence it was
as though she were offering to transfer
her sisterhood from Norman Kent to Joe,
uh, Templeton. She saw that register on
me, and waited for my response. I
noticed that she had stopped breathing.
Jacques too was watching me intently.

"My pleasure, sis."

She exhaled and her whole face lit up.
Jacques relaxed. Karen got up and put an
arm around me and kissed me on the
cheek. I put an arm around her too. "So
we're bright enough to be offered jobs,
eh? Both of us?"

"I knew I wanted you both before I
invited you here. The question was, did
you want me? Yes, you're both in, and
you won't be 'like gods,' but you won't
wear belly bombs either.

             ~.

MINDKILLER 239

You probably will die unpleasantly,
like Reese and Cutter outside, but
you'll do it voluntarily."

"I knew that," I said. "I had to
make the pitch plausible to Amesby's
kind of man. Tell me something: how
come I pass now? Why did I fail four
and a half years agoT'

"I offered you the choice then.
Join my conspiracy or be mindwiped.
You chose the latter. I've never been
sure why."

It was hard to get a handle on.
"Can mindwipe change personality that
muchT'

"Personality is built with memories."

"Joe, let me try," Madeleine said.
"When I got to Nova Scotia fronn
Switzerland, you were in rotten shape.
The war had shattered you, busted
your philosophy of life apart. You
made a superficial adjustment, and in
a few years it started to go sour. It
all came apart on you. Your work,
your marriage, your self-respect. You
were suicidal when I arrived. I was
confused myself. We leaned on each
other. We became close. And so you
were set up for the coup de grace.

"I had left Switzerland because I
discovered, accidentally, that the
man I had come to love was someone I
did not know at all. I knew almost
nothing hints, little things that
didn't add up just enough to know
that Jacques was something more than
what he claimed to be. I presumed
this to be sinister. International
espionage, drugs, I suspected one of
those. I left him without telling him
I was leaving. I came to Canada,
where I thought he could not find me,
to think things through. And I
smuggled a present for you through
customs. A phonograph record.
Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross, mint
condition. It got past customs, but
an agent of Jacques scanned my
luggage more thoroughly and reported
the package to him. He had to assume
it was a floppy disc full of damaging
computer data that I was planning to
use against him."

"It hurt to think that," Jacques
said. "I had her watched very
carefully for a few weeks. She did
nothing alarming, but finally I
decided I could not afford to leave
the situation unresolved. I ordered
her kidnapped and taken into the
country. I planned to come at once
and interrogate her, but I was
delayed."

"An assassination attempt," Maddy
said drily. "He was a week recovering
in hospital. Then he came here and
told me

240 Spider Robinson

who and what he was, and . . . well,
we've been together ever since.

"But by that time it was too late
to undo my 'kidnapping.' There was
no explanation I could give you or
the police, and besides, I could be
of more use by remaining
underground. I had to leave you in the
dark; you were in no shape to handle
anything like this.

"So you had the last pillar
knocked out from under you. After a
while, all that sustained you was
fury at whoever had taken me from
you. You kept digging until you
found Jacques, and you came after
him with a gun. Much like Amesby did
tonight. Except that you were out
for vengeance rather than gain."

"You weren't as good as Amesby
then, Joe," Jacques said. "You never
got close. I must say you did a much
better job of stalking me the second
time."

"I had more information this time.
So you bagged me."

"By then," Maddy continued, "you
had too much invested in hating
Jacques. You couldn't shift gears.
You didn't want to. You knew
mindwipe was a kind of death, and
you'd been wanting to die for some
time."

"Jacques, why didn't you just kill
me? I would have."

"I begged him not to," Maddy said,
her voice firm and strong. "I argued
that if you were taken back to the
war years, and allowed to start all
over again, you might just take a
different path from there."

I grimaced. "So I spent four years
doing nothing whatsoever and then
became a crusader."

"Not so," Maddy insisted. "You
spent four years coming to terms
with the war."

"War can be exhilarating,
exciting," Jacques said. "That is
its dirty secret. A life-threatening
situation is stimulating. If you
know that, it is because you are the
one that survived. So, if you are an
introspective, sensitive man, you
may mistakenly decide that it is
killing that excites you when in
fact Me exciting part is
almost-being-killed. To encourage
you to stay underground, I gave you
enough illicit computer power to
plunder banks at will yet you chose
to become a burglar. To put yourself
on the line, to give your victims,
and the police, a

MINDKILLER241

fair crack at you. You used the
computer only to give you an edge. In
that four years you had some very
narrow squeaks, and you acquired some
interesting scars, and you never
killed anyone. Look at you: that
little dance you just did with Amesby
got you high, didn't it? The crucial
element that was missing in the war,
and that has been present in your
life since I set you down in New
York, is ethical confidence. You
believe in the causes you fight for
now. Or else you don't fight. I know
I can trust your commitment, because
you fought for me."

"How did the Bear come to work for
you?"

Madeleine answered. "He and his
wife, Minnie, moved to Toronto
shortly after you moved up here. They
came back to visit you before you
dropped out of sight. You told them
the whole story, and so when you did
disappear, Bear and Minnie decided
that Jacques had had you killed. It
bothered them both they both loved
Norman Kent but there was nothing
they could do. They couldn't go off
commandoing like you, they had
responsibilities. Minnie was tied to
her job, and Bear was inhibited by
Minnie's being pregnant. Then, four
months later, she was killed in an
auto accident. When he was over his
grief, Bear decided it would be good
therapy to go look up Jacques. He
went through much the same thing you
have today without the floor show.
He's been with us ever since."

There was no way to take this all
in; I filed it for later. Bear
married, and widowered. I wondered if
I had liked this Minnie, if Norman
would have mourned her. "Everything
has ripples, doesn't it?" I had a
sudden alarming thought. "Hey! How
badly is Amesby's planted evidence
going to mess us up?"

Jacques smiled. "Not too badly, I
think. You pumped him well; I believe
he led leads only with the RCMP and
Interpol, and we have both of them
undercontrol. It may even be possible
to recover the evidence before his
death is known."

"So where do we go from here?"

His smile widened. "Lots of places,
foe. Lots of places. I intend to
loose mindfill on the world, for good
or ill, in a little more than five
years. We will be busy."

I was shocked. "Five years?"

"That soon?" Karen gasped.

"I'd like it to be longer. But I
can't keep the lid on forever,

242 Spider Robinson

even with mindwipe to help. The leaks keep
getting harder to patch, and the assassins
keep getting better. As it is, I don't know
if I'll live to see even the first-order
results of what I have done."

"But how can you get the world ready for a
trauma like that in five years?" Karen shook
her head. "Sounds to me lilts World War Three
and a new Stone Age. You read the papers. The
world ain't ready."

Jacques nodded in agreement. "It will be
necessary," he said in a perfectly normal,
conversational tone of voice, "to conquer the
United States, the Soviet Union, the People's
Republic of China, and the Union of Africa,
without letting anyone know."

"Oh," she said weakly. "Well, as long as
you've got h worked out, okay."

"Jacques," Madeleine said reprovingly, "you
are an awful tease. Karen, honey, come here."
She led Karen to the couch and sat them both
down. "Who is the most powerful man in the
United States?"

She gestured with her head toward Jacques.
"Besides him?"

Madeleine smiled. "Yes, hon. Besides him."

"The President."

Madeleine kept smiling while she shook her
head. "No. It's the man who pulls the
President's strings, dear. For decades now,
it has been impossible for a man suited to
that power to be elected. Stevenson was the
last to try. The rest of them accepted the
inevitable and worked through electable
figureheads. There hasn't been a president
since Johnson who wasn't a ventriloquist's
dummy. Some of them never knew it. The
present incumbent, as a matter of fact, has
no idea that he is owned and operated by a
mathematician from Butler, Missouri. They've
never been introduced. But we know so we
needn't waste time and energy trying to get
past the Secret Service."

"I'm beginning to see how I can be of help
to you," Karen said.

"You're very quick."

They smiled at each other. They were going to
be friends.

I had reached that state of mind in which
nothing can surprise. If Amesby had walked
back into the room, on fire, I'd

fib                                  '

                 MINDKILLER 243
have offered him coffee. "So we
conquer the world. . ."

"A necessary first step," Jacques
agreed. "Then it gets harder." He
laughed suddenly. "Listen to me, eh,
Madeleine? All my life I have thought
of myself as a rational anarchist.
Albert Einstein said once, 'God
punished me for my contempt for
authority by making me an
authority."'

"Darling," my sister said, "lay out
the Grand Plan later. Right now foe
has a choice to make."

He blinked. "Yes, my dear. Quite
right."

Choice to make? Sure, anything, go
on, ask me anything.

"Joe, would you like your memories
back?"

I stopped moving. I stopped
breathing. I stopped seeing. I
stopped thinking. I kept hearing.

"You received the most primitive
form of mindwipe. I spoke of it
before. The memories themselves were
not actually erased. They . . . they
were hidden from your mind's
metaprogrammer. The access codes were
removed from the files. And placed,
as carefully as the state of the art
allowed, in my files. I can put them
back now if you want."

He waited in vain for a response.
He went on, his voice strained, "Some
damage will always remain. If I
restore your access to those
memories, they will . . ." He reached
for words. "foe, one day soon I will
play into your head a tape of my
memories of the last thirty years. It
will take a few hours. When I'm done,
you will have access to everything
I've done and seen and thought. You
will be able to recall it all, expe-
rience it through the eyes of the
viewpoint character. But you will not
confuse those memories with your own
experiences. The identity factor will
be attenuated. The memories will have
a kind of 'third person' feel the
experiences of someone notyou. Ego
knows its own work.

"Memory is a living
process continually shuffling and
rearranging itself. By fencing off
some of your memories for so many
years, I weakened them, blurred them
slightly. The gestalt they were part
of no longer quite exists. Those
years I stole from you will, at best,
always seem like something that
happened to someone else. But they
are not necessarily completely lost
to you."

He stopped talking again for a time.
Then: "It is the only

244 Spider Robinson

restitution I can offer for what I
have done to you. If you refuse, I
will understand."

Then he shut up completely.

I sat down on something. Hot
wetness occurred in my mouth. Coffee
the way I like it. I swallowed. My
vision cleared and I saw Karen
staring into my eyes from a foot
away. "Thanks," I said, and took the
cup from her.

She turned to Jacques, her
expression angry. "Will it make him
whole again? Or mess him up more?"

Madeleine answered. "Karen, listen
to me. I have in my skull the
memories of more than a hundred
people, in whole or in part. Jacques
has nearly three times that many.
Between us we know more about human
psychology than anyone now alive.
This will make him whole if anything
can. It will be up to him. It always
is."

I put down the cup. I got up and
went to Madeleine. She was standing
near the fire. It was only coals now,
but still quite warm. I put my hands
on her shoulders.

"Were there any good times in there
at all, Maddy?"

I recognized her now. The
expression on her face I had seen
often in childhood. When I broke my
tooth. When I failed Social Studies.
When I got mugged. When my first love
lefty me.

"Yes, little brother. A few, at
least, that I know of; I've never
audited your tapes. Not many, I won't
lie to you. Those were not your best
years, Norm foe. A man sets a mid"
that very nearly kills you, to
further a cause that he believes in,
and your mind can find no good excuse
to hate him and your heart can't help
it. That's hard to integrate. It got
worse from there, steadily. But yes,
there were good times. Just not
enough. We got to know each other, at
least, at last, and I loved you."

"Did I love you?"

"You needed me."

I turned to Jacques. "Do it. Tonight.
Now."

They took me to a white sterile place
like a cross between an operating
theater and the bridge of the Space
Commando's starship. They laid me
down on a very comfortable table.
They spoke soothingly to me. They
placed under my head and neck

MINDKILLER 245

what felt like a leather pillow. It
was comfortable. They folded parts of
it over across my forehead and
secured them. My heart was racing.

Karen's face appeared over mine.
Her voice was the only one that
didn't seem to be coming from
underwater.

"foe? Remember how I'd forgotten
most of that stuff about my father?
And then after I told you about it, I
could handle it? You're a brave son
of a bitch, Joe, and someday I want
to swap memories with you, if you're
willing."

My mouth was very dry. "I love you
too."

She kissed me, and her face
withdrew. A tear landed on my chin. I
tried to wipe it, but my arms seemed
to be restrained.

"Now, Jacques!"

Like two decks of cards being
shuffled together.

First, large cuts, thick stacks.

I fought in the jungle burgled
apartments taught English befriended
pimps and thieves bungled a marriage
found Karen in the living room found
Maddy in the living room hunted the
man behind her death tracked him to
Nova Scotia to Phinney's Cove died
killed.

Then individual cards.

The hoarse panting breath of the
mugger beside him on the MacDonald
Bridge. The terrible smile on Karen's
face as I cleared the doorway.
Weeping in Maddy's arms, the top of
his head bruised and sore. The smell
of Karen's cigarettes. Naked at the
door and Lois grinning at him from
the hallway. The sound Karen made
when she came the first time. Minnie
in his arms, calling his name.
" coward, what's he doing?" The nurse
calling me "Norman" and fainting. The
Bay of Fur dy as the sun goes down,
magnificent and indifferent and I
know I'm going to die soon. She's
sorry she got me into this, and the
sky is so full of stars! That
luxurious cell, Jacques will be here
soon for my decision. The flat,
anechoic sound of the shot that
killed Amesby. My God, what if
Maddy's never coming back? The bitch
broke my nose. God damn it, Sarge,
the poor bastard's dead we've got to bug out
now! He has to be the

:~6 Spider Robinson

spitting image of her old man, oh,
Christ. It's not really you I 'm
screwing, Mrs. MacLeod, it's your
husband. The shock dock has the
emptiest eyes I've ever seen. I'm
goons find that son of-a bitch and
kill him twice. This one's my size,
no relatives, he'll do just fine.
It's his corr~cr, Karen, we're
blown. We can really change the
world. I love you too, Karen.
Heinrich Dreser gave us both heroin
and aspirin. God is an iron.

This is my memory record of how I
came to join the conspiracy. Since
it is the third record you have
audited, you will probably
understand why I have ordered it as
I have. I want you to see the two
paths I took, and the choices they
led to. It will steed some light on
why, of two very similar people, one
will opt to join our conspiracy and
one will not. Later records will be
even more instructive in this
regard.

One of the very best things about
pooling memories is that it allows
us to learn from each otber's
mistakes. And from our own.

If we have not already met, I love
you for the choice you have made. We
will prevail!

Tomorrow's record will be that of my
wife, Karen.

               ~ -
         EX(=NG SCIENCE a

SI ~ I''

~ r.

STRAI`IGER IN A STRANGE LAND

Robert A Heinlein 06490-5 S3.SO

THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS

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and handling It one book is onJered; 2S$ per book for two or more not to
exceed

51.75. Callbrnia, ldinois, Never York and Tennessee reddr~a please arid sales
tax.

NAME
ADDRESS
CITY STATE/aP

(elbow em weeks for delivery.)Sal

~'                           C

; AWARD-
   WINNING

Science Fiction!

Thefollr~u~ing titles are u~inners f ~f the prestigious Nebula
orHug`'Au~araf ~r excellence fn.\cienceFietfon. A must

f ~r lor~rs t~fgrx~d science /iction ef - ,u~here!

O 47809-3 THfE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS,$2.95
Ursula K. LeGuin
O 79179-4 SWORDS AND DEVILTIRY, Fri'Q Leiber$2.75
O 06223-7 nlE slG nbE Frife Leiber$2.50
0 16651-2 THE DRAGON BAASTERS, Jack Vsoce$1.95
O 16706-3 n1E DRE4J4 1"STER, Roger Zelazny$2.25
    0 24905-1 FOUR FOR TOlilORROW, Roger Zelazny$2.25
    O 80697-X THIS I'BllblORTAL Roger Zelazny  $2.50

Avafboh at your local oooksfore or refum ~k romm fo:

                        ACE SaENCE RCnON

A Book Mailing Service
c!a P. o Box 690, Rockville Centre, NY 11571

Plassa aend me fNe titles chackerJ above. I enclose . h~clude 75 for poslage
and haarJling if one boox Is orrhred; 250 per boox for fwo or mon'nof fo oxc~d
51.7s California, Illinois, New York and Tr~nness" residenfs please add sales
f - L

f`44E
ADDRESS

 CITY                . . .STATE/ZIP-(alkow sex weeks tor delivery)f - B

   .. ..

