"I hope none of us will be like Doubleday!" Blonde said.

"I hope none of us have to find out if we are," Dark said. Dunski wondered if he would have the guts. Jeff Caird would do it. Tingle might. But would Dunski? And tomorrow, what would Wyatt Repp do? Probably find a perverse exaltation, satisfaction, anyway, in dying like a hero. The others? He did not know about them. At the moment, they were too remote from him, ectoplasm, not flesh.

"We know," Gaunt said, "that Snick wanted to question you as Tingle because she wanted to put some of Wednesday's data bankers to work for her. You weren't the only banker she talked to. But she was cagey, she didn't tell you what her mission was because she had to check you out first. For all she knew, you might be a member of the revolutionaries. She didn't get back to you because she thought she had a hot lead on Doubleday and she spent too much time on it. It turned out that the lead wasn't too hot."

"You talk too much," Dunski said. "Blondie here is a deaf-mute compared to you."

Scowling, Gaunt rose from the chair.

"What do you mean?"

"You haven't told me your names. With good reason. But you just said the name of my Wednesday identity. That's stupid, Oom Gaunt!"

"Gaunt?"

"My nickname for you. You chew out Blonde for running off at the mouth, yet she didn't say anything dangerous to us. But you ... "

Gaunt tried to smile.

"You're right. That was stupid, a slip of the tongue, anyway. I apologize. I won't do it again. But there's no real harm done. She"-he pointed at Snick-"can't hear us."

"Her unconscious can. The organics' scientists are working on ways to get information out of the unconscious. One of these days, they might find out how to do it. If they do, then they could run off the interrogation, our conversation, what she heard when she was unconscious, even what she saw if her eyes were open while she was drugged."

Gaunt sighed, and he said, "They won't be able to get anything out of the dead."

Blonde gasped. Dark stared wide-eyed at him.

Dunski felt sick and a little faint. He broke the silence by saying, "You meant all along to kill her?"

Gaunt bit his lip and looked at Snick. Her mouth was closed now; she looked as if she were sleeping. And she really looks beautiful, Dunski thought. A study in brown, as soft and innocent as a seal pup. Yet, according to her bio-data, she was a swift and determined and sometimes ingenious tracker of criminals.

"I don't want to," Gaunt said. "I've never killed before; I loathe the idea of killing. I will do it only if there is nothing else to do, no other way out. But I can't let somebody else make the decision, dodge the responsibility by letting a superior assume it for me. I..

He was silent for a moment. Dunski had another attack of faintness. It was not caused, however, by reaction to Gaunt's decision. Something flashed. A burst of light and great warmth surrounded him. Though the "interruption"-how describe it as other than an interruption, something breaking in and then out?-was brief, he felt a great love for Gaunt, who was thinking of murdering, and a great love for Snick, who might be murdered.

The light, warmth, and faintness passed. He shook his head slightly as if he were trying to shake off water. What the hell had happened then?

The thought that perhaps Father Tom Zurvan had thrust through for a second swelled and faded. He did not want to think about that. That Zurvan could do that was a weakness in his, Dunski's, defense, a fault in mental fencing. It also showed him-again, something he did not wish to dwell upon-that the selves more widely separated by the day of the week were as near as, perhaps nearer than, those closer in terms of days. Traveling through time was not always done chronologically.

Whatever had caused this, the ballooning glow was now a fast-shrinking flicker.

"I don't think that she has to be killed," Dunski said. "Look at what she knows. She was trailing Castor, and he knocked her out. She wakes up in a stoner and sees only a masked man who makes her unconscious again. For all she knows, the man who knocked her out again is Castor. She-"

"Is Castor the same height and build as I am?" Gaunt said. "Was he wearing the same clothes?"

"No," Dunski said slowly. "But she only glimpsed you. The door partly hid your body. Anyway, she doesn't have the slightest idea that anybody but Castor is involved. What could she tell the authorities if she was found and destoned?"

He paused to swallow and said, "Does she even have to be stoned permanently? Wouldn't it work out better-for us-if she's found tomorrow, no, wait a minute, she might not be found until next Thursday."

He turned to Blonde. "How long will they -- Martin and Bunblossom-be on vacation?"

"They'll be back tomorrow, I mean, their tomorrow, next Thursday."

"That gives us a week before she's found," Dunski said, turning to Gaunt.

"Not us, you," Gaunt said. "The rest of us get stoned before midnight."

"By us, I mean immers," Dunski said. "We should have Castor out of the way before then. We'd better; we have to get him today. We're wasting time with Snick. We should all be out looking for Castor."

Gaunt looked down on the gently breathing woman. He turned toward the others but looked directly at Dunski.

"You haven't really thought this out," Gaunt said. "You're letting your humane feelings kill your logic, you sense of duty and of right, what's right for us.

"Castor is our out for this problem. I mean by that, the Snick problem. The organics here know he's killed and mutilated two women. If ... if Snick is found dead and mutilated, the organics will think that Castor did it. That diverts suspicion from anyone else. And it'll be next Sunday before its government sends out a replacement. If it does."

Blonde, her hand to her mouth, said softly, "Oh, God! You're going to butcher her!"

Chapter 17

"You ... can't ... do ... that," Dunski said.

Gaunt mocked him. "And ... why ... not?"

"That's not very prosocial behavior," Blonde said.

Dunski found himself laughing hysterically at that.

"Oh, my God, prosocial behavior!" he said, choking. "We're talking about a human being here."

"Yes," Gaunt said. "But it's for the greater good. All right! No more talk! I've never seen such a gabby bunch, parrots, my God! You're supposed to be immers, but you ... you ...

Dunski had managed to get hold of himself almost literally. He felt invisible hands, coming from somewhere, placed upon something somewhere within himself. Father Tom?

Gaunt said, "I've made up my mind, and I'm the leader here. You have to do what I tell you."

"I haven't been told that you're in command," Dunski said. "What's your authority?"

Gaunt's nostrils flared; his face got red.

"Your superior didn't tell you that I'd be in command?"

"My superior tells me as little as possible," Dunski said coldly. "Apparently, he told me less than he should. Anyway ..

He turned and walked to his shoulderbag, which was on the floor in a corner. He picked it up, opened it, and put the strap over his right shoulder. Though Gaunt was furious, he was cool enough to realize that Dunski had made a threatening, if subtle, move. Gaunt had not forgotten that Dunski had a gun.

Gaunt's voice was firm, though his head shook a little. "As you said, we don't have time to discuss this. And I am in command here. We will dispose of Snick as I said we would because it's the only logical thing to do. And because I said so."

"Are you going to mutilate her or are you going to get someone else to do it?" Dunski said.

"What does it matter who does it!" Gaunt said, his voice louder. "It'll be done!"

He had looked at his shoulderbag, which was on a small table near the end of the sofa close to Snick's feet. Dunski supposed that Gaunt had a weapon in his bag. He asked himself what he would do if the man went for the gun. Was he really prepared to shoot a fellow immer to stop him from killing an organic? He would not know until the time came, and he did not want that time to come.