On the last three words I beat my fist on that desk, each time harder, until the last time the two phones jumped in their cradles.

Mayor had heard me out without expression. Now he moved plumply in his chair. He said in his surprisingly mellow voice, “Señor Hakluyt, you are excited. I well understand the shock you have suffered; this is not the first violent death to which you have been a witness since arriving here. But it is our duty to present facts to the public.”

I said, “Facts! Facts! Lies aren’t facts!”

“It’s a fact that this slum under the monorail central is a place where a suspected murderer can hide, isn’t it? Or do you deny that self-evident truth?”

“Suspected! He wasn’t condemned or even tried, except in the minds of the people who believe your falsehoods, and now he never can be tried. That’s a fact — and you haven’t given that to the public, have you? You and your ‘most governed country,’ Mayor — let’s face it, you’ve degraded yourself into a mouthpiece for government propaganda, and this television service you’ve created is no more than a megaphone for an arrogant dictator, with hypnotic attachments! ‘Know the truth and the truth shall make you free’ — hide the truth and you get what you’re after: a country where everyone believes what they’re told and never gets an inkling of the dirty truth behind the pretty lies!”

Mayor’s face was purpling; before he could speak and before I could formulate the climactic insult I needed to finish my tirade, Dalban’s rich voice cut across the room.

“Señor Hakluyt, I here and now apologize to you. To bribe or threaten you was ill-judged. I believe you are an honest man. I have often desired to say exactly what you have said to this corrupt barrel-of-wind Mayor. But even with my not inconsiderable prestige I have dared do little more than remonstrate — as I came here to remonstrate tonight. Now I do not care any more. I think you are perfectly correct. I think Mayor is a dangerous megalomaniac, and Ciudad de Vados is an unhealthy town in which to live so long as he is forcing his perverted propaganda on our citizens. He and the professor of so-called social sciences Cortes who foists the same predigested pap on our intelligent young students to stop them from saving themselves would be better — off — dead.”

I felt vaguely embarrassed; maybe it was the drink. Or it was the unmistakable sincerity in Dalban’s tone, which made me feel that I had been looking at him up to now through some officially issued dark glasses.

“I do not any longer think we need speak of your leaving Aguazul,” Dalban continued thoughtfully. “Dr. Mayor, you have heard what I said; now you have heard what Señor Hakluyt said. Are you prepared to undo the effects of your vicious lies?”

Mayor sat very still; we looked at him. I was vaguely aware that the receptionist, male, muscular, was standing in the doorway with a helpless expression, as if waiting for a command to remove us both. I thought at first Mayor might yield, for sweat pricked out on his forehead and two bright red spots burned high on his cheekbones.

But when he at last spoke, his voice was hard and firm. “My broadcasting service is the organ of our government,” he said. “It is not to be controlled by the whim of private individuals. Señor Hakluyt, you are a distinguished visitor doing a valuable service for our city; you are likewise a stranger, and at the moment you are very drunk. We — and when I say we, I speak for the cabinet — we can overlook this breach of manners. You are fortunate in your privileged position. But I will not withdraw anything that has been said.”

“I’ve sold your government nothing except my services,” I said harshly. “Whatever you may be able to do with your own puppet-citizens, you can’t do it to me.”

He ignored me. “As for you, Dalban!” His gaze shifted, and I suddenly felt that I was looking at a man who wielded conscious and astonishing power. “You have been a damnable nuisance for too long. The patience of the government is great, but not inexhaustible, and this time you have overreached yourself. You are finished.”

He just sat there when he was done. I felt a hand on my shoulder; the tough male receptionist had come up to me and jerked a thumb to indicate the door. Dalban, with dignity, was rising to his feet.

“On the contrary, Dr. Mayor,” he said quietly, “I am just about to begin.”

And he strode from the room.

I followed, wishing I had not drunk quite so much. A million things I wanted to say to Mayor boiled in my skull, but none of them would come to my tongue. What was left of my ability to think logically directed that I should obey the command to leave; if I stayed, it was inevitable that my frustration would drive me to attack Mayor physically — I should have liked to strangle him with the cord of his telephones. But that wouldn’t have solved anything. And I’d have been thrown out bodily.

Outside, in the cool night air, with the illuminated fagade of the building looming above us, Dalban stopped and turned back to me.

“Again I will apologize, Señor Hakluyt,” he said, curiously humble.

“I’ll accept that,” I said. “But I don’t undertake to forget that you threatened me. I thought that honor was at a premium here. And yet—”

He gave a somehow ghastly chuckle. “And yet your encounter with Mayor has perhaps disillusioned you, no?”

“I’d like to — oh, hell, I don’t know what I’d like to do to him. I thought he was a sound man; maybe he was when he was just a political theorist. But — corrupted by power, maybe. I don’t know.”

“This country may owe its twenty years of peace to his methods,” said Dalban, and glanced up toward the lighted windows. “But Mother of God, it has cost us dearly!”

“What will you do now?” I said.

“Who knows? We will find a way, señor. The worst things in the world cannot endure.”

There didn’t seem to be anything to say after that, so I went back to my car and drove, very slowly, with cool air on my face, back down the mountainside into the city.

XX

Something howled, screamed, and rattled past the hotel. I blinked wildly at the pattern of lights drifting across my ceiling — I always prefer to sleep with the curtains open — interpreting them into nonsense.

I got out of bed and stared down toward the street.

A fire engine, its siren crying like a soul in torment (I thought of Brown’s wife at her husband’s death), swung around a corner and tore off into darkness. A helicopter buzzed past, seeming so close that I could have jumped up beside the pilot. Two police patrol cars took the same route as the fire engine.

By this time I was beginning to understand what was going on, and I lifted my eyes toward the hills. There was a glare up there — a red, shifting glare that was patently no sort of street lighting. A plane crashed into the mountainside was my first guess; then I realized that it wasn’t necessary to implicate a plane. The broadcasting center was on fire.

I glanced at my watch as I went to fetch my binoculars. Three-tena.m. A dead time of night. From the way it showed up, the blaze had had plenty of time to take hold before it was discovered. Perhaps there was no one in the entire building.

But surely there would be sprinkler systems in a place like that, and probably also an alarm system connected directly with fire headquarters -

I stopped myself making empty guesses, because whether or not there were sprinklers and alarms, they hadn’t saved the place. Through the glasses it was an impressive sight. The antennae, stilted and stiff atop the hard square outline of the building, seemed to be walking with vast deliberation into the mouth of hell. A section of wall and roof would slip; accordingly, one leg of one of the masts would dip, like a man taking a short step forward. After that, the mast would wait, as children do when playing Red Light, for an opportunity to move again.