And yet Maddy had the uneasy feeling that she was already infinitely far away. Out here she had been thrown into the company of people whose dreams and ambitions and daily lives were so far removed from her own that they seemed incomprehensible. Odder yet, listening to them had made her own ambitions just as hard to understand. For the first time since she was fifteen years old, Maddy was not consumed by the immediate pressures of the here and now. She had been provided with a fatal indulgence: time to think.

Did she want to be the head of the Argos Group? Would she take Gordy Rolfe’s job, even if he (unlikely thought) went down on his knees and begged her?

A month ago, she had thought she had the best job in the world and Gordy was a genius. He was still a genius in electronics and robotics, but more and more he was also an obvious lunatic. She had spent the past nine years trying to get close to him, doing whatever pleased him, clawing her way up the Argos Group ladder so that she could be a lunatic, too.

Surely there had to be more to life than that.

Drearily Maddy lifted out of her chair and began the solitary trek back to her rooms. The four o’clock blues. They came as easily in space as back on Earth. A few hours of sleep would probably make a difference.

After that, sooner or later, would come the unsought meeting with Seth Parsigian. They had roamed Sky City together, with no result. What else did he want from her — and could she wriggle out of it?

Probably not. Maddy saw before her the rough-cut hair, the bullet head, and the wary brown eyes. It was a close call, but in his own way Seth perched as far up the tree of lunacy as Gordy Rolfe.

23

From the private diary of Oliver Guest.

I agreed to contact Seth Parsigian only in an emergency. There has been no emergency, and it is eight days since we last spoke to each other.

For all I know, Seth could be dead, although I would hate to be the one who sought to bring about that event. Seth is a man with a tenacious hold on life.

Where is he? Presumably he is still on Sky City, but I cannot even be sure of that. Occasionally I have donned the RV helmet, and been rewarded only with a view of the interior of his apartment. The jacket has obviously been left to hang on the wall. Wherever Seth is, and whatever he is doing, he feels no desire to share his experiences with me.

That is an attitude with which I sympathize. I am impatient for results on the Sky City murders, but were Seth to call me at this instant I would be able to report negligible progress in my thinking. I know the murderer, yet I cannot suggest a foolproof method of capture.

In truth, my thinking has been embarrassingly limited about the whole problem. My mind has been otherwise engaged. Although I can point to no one overriding concern, we have seen several distracting events.

The term we offers its own ambiguities. The meaning extends from the single elevated personage — “We are not amused” — to a family or local group, and thence the whole human race — “We are not alone.”

My comment concerning recent distracting events does not refer to our race, or, more correctly, our species, although it might well have. One might assume that the collective human mind of Earth would at this time be concentrated on the single issue of its own possible demise. The great swarm of particles generated by the Alpha Centauri supernova advances steadily, and no human power can halt or slow it. The most recent reports point to the arrival of a devastating sleet from space sooner than expected, just a few weeks or months from now. A new way of protecting Earth will be implemented, Sky City is already on the move toward the end of the space shield, the timing of everything is touch and go, and we (the species) could be wiped out or find our civilization sent back millennia.

And so one looks around the world. Are people consumed by contemplation of cosmic catastrophe, obsessed by their own potential demise?

I scanned the news leads this morning. Look on these words, ye mighty, and despair.

Scientists Prove Alpha Centauri Supernova Was “Hand of God”

According to Star Vjansander, sexy young Australian super physicist, a superbeing created the 2026 supernova of Alpha Centauri. The superbeing is being carried here in a cloud of superparticles and will shortly reach Earth.

Ghost of Lucille DeNorville Haunts Sky City

Psychic Marion Mentorian, in contact with the soul of the murder victim whose body was recently discovered, is asking funding from the wealthy DeNorville family to visit Space City and reveal the identity of the killer.

Clones of Bill Gates, Queen Victoria, Announce Plans to Marry

“True love knows no boundaries of space or time,” declares the smitten pair.

Energy from Nothing, Electricity “Too Cheap to Meter”

Inventor Raoul Segura today revealed a new form of engine that draws its power directly from the cosmic consciousness. He promises an era of “endless plenty and universal wealth” as soon as final tests are completed and government backing is guaranteed.

The Missing Money: Where Did It Go?

Officials of the Golden Ring consortium Fortune Today pronounce themselves baffled by vanished assets that apparently exceed the total net worth of the organization. They promise a full investigation and a worldwide search for missing financial executive Lloyd Persil.

In truth, we (the species we) can tolerate but a little reality. I wonder if we (the individual we that is I) can tolerate much more.

In the last eight days, Paula and Amity reached menarche, apparently simultaneously; Gloria announced her undying love for and intention to marry Michael O’Brien, a witless seventeen-year-old from Derrybeg; and Beth, Dawn, and Willa disappeared from the castle.

For Paula and Amity it was a natural and irreversible event. In the case of Gloria, I suspected that sanity would reassert itself in a month or two-she so surpasses her professed lifelong love in wit and intellect that it would be like marrying a monkey.

Therefore, the last must be first. I had to concentrate on Beth, Dawn, and Willa. It was not until midday that I realized the three ten-year-olds were not present at lunch. Missing a meal was, especially for Willa, an unprecedented event and one that immediately caused me concern.

For most people in the world, this was a problem with a simple and immediate solution. If I forwarded the girls’ digital DNA records to GSARS, the Global Search-And-Rescue System would tune its network to those signatures and use the body resonance patterns to locate each missing person to within twenty feet.

There were, however, obvious problems. GSARS was integrated into GGDB, the General Global Data Base, and the complete DNA patterns of my darlings might already be stored there. What alarm bells would go off if the genome of a ten-year-old matched, nucleotide base by nucleotide base, the genome of a pubescent girl who had been murdered more than thirty years ago?

I dared not take that risk. After a hurried lunch the other girls fanned out across the countryside to begin the search. I stayed behind, filled with my own presentiments. Had I made a mistake? Should I have asked for help from GSARS?

The call, when it came, was as good and yet as bad as it could be.

“We found ’em. They’re all right, but they’ve got stuck on the cliffs. We’ll need a rope.” It was Gloria, red hair darkened by rain and eyebrows beaded with droplets. “Come on. Be sure to put your coat on-it’s pissing down out there.”