No, delicious though it was, it simply wouldn't do. Mishkin and his engine part had to get together, the original problem had to be solved, all promises and premises had to be kept. After that was done, everything could be blown up but not before.

So there it was again: The Man of a Thousand Disguises still had the unhappy duty of accomplishing the job for which he had created himself.

He thought. Nothing intruded upon his disastrous solitude. Stray conceptions clouded his mind: "Any drug that fucks you up is good". "Depression is inevitable". "Concomitants".

"Paris".

With an effort The Man forced his attention towards the engine part. Where was the damned thing now? In some dusty warehouse on Earth, presumably, awaiting extrication for the delectation of the patient reader.

"But who needs a reader who's a patient?" The Man snarled. Nevertheless, there it was: He was under contractual obligation to himself to construct a ballet for catatonics.

The Man tried to pull himself together. "I am losing my mind."

"Nonexistent problems have the maximum reality."

"Not exactly what we had in mind."

How true it was! People who live in glass psyches shouldn't cast words.

To work: The Man of a Thousand Disguises picked up his analogic slide rule and inferential stylus. Now then: engine part become eagle heart, standing start, running water, ice. So much for the J series. Again now: treasure in the earth, crystal goblet, lathe, laughter, bat, slink, reduction gear.

More like it!

Moving with more confidence now, The Man put all the available data into the recycler and let it stand for three revolutions. Then he pressed the Outcome button. Up came an antelope mounted on a polar bear. Worthless! But wait a minute now— polar bear —yes, it's coming: polarity bears ante lope!A yin function breach delivery, definitely productive.

Now to put it all through the constructs simulator.

64. The Reality Principle Revisited

Johnny Allegro was feeling out of sorts that morning. He set the derby on his black glossy hair. Carefully, he straightened the cuffs of his chocolate mohair shirt. Now he was ready for business.

The telephone rang. Allegro pounced on it. "Allegro speaking."

"Johnny? This is Harry van Orlen."

Allegro pictured the big-bellied, slack-jawed gunman with the heavily stubbled jaws and the grimy fingernails.

"Well, what is it?" Johnny snapped. He hated cheap gunsels, even though his work frequently required him to spend eighteen hours a day with them.

"It's like this, Johnny. Do you remember that job we did on South Main Street?"

"Yeah," Johnny snarled, recognizing at once the euphemism referring to the recent burglary of the Wel-Rite Storage Company on Varick Street.

"Well, we found buyers for all the inventory except one piece of hardware we're still stuck with."

"What kind of a product is it?" Johnny asked.

"It's some sort of gadget labelled Spaceship Engine Part L-1223A. It was supposed to be sent to some guy named Mishkin in some place called Harmonia."

"So, sell it."

"Nobody wants it."

"Then dump it somewhere." Johnny slammed down the telephone, scowling. He hated it when his underlings bothered him with questions that an ape would be able to solve while going downhill on roller skates. But he also hated unwarranted initiative.

Just then a thought occurred to him: Maybe he should send that engine part to that guy, what was his name, that Mishkin, thus acquiring for himself the reputation of an eccentric philanthropist. Then he could do a few more nice things and maybe after that run for elected office.

This notion suited Johnny's strange notions of noblesse oblige.He reached for the telephone.

Just then the door burst open and three policemen and an author burst into the room with drawn guns.

Johnny snarled in rage. His lightning-quick reflexes enabled him to dive beneath the desk before the policemen's bullets ripped through the space where he had just been.

"Get him!" screamed the author. "He knows where the part is!"

But Johnny had already pushed the blue button under his desk. A section of floor opened under him and Johnny fell through a chute that led to the garage where his Mercedes SL 300 was waiting, its motor ticking over quietly.

65

Some days later, on the cool, raffia-covered veranda of the large, weather-beaten house on lower Key Largo, Professor John O. MacAllister was undergoing a moment of severe perplexity. This was unusual for the tall, strongly built, sandy-haired physicist from Rockport, Maine. Beside him was Lois, his tall, attractive, chestnut-haired wife. She had just entered the veranda.

Before Lois had a chance to speak, towheaded Tyie Oliver ran up on to the cool veranda with a five ball in his hand. "Pool, anyone?" he asked fatuously.

"Not just now, Tyie," said Professor MacAllister in quiet tones.

Tyie turned to go. But then it became apparent, even to his untrained and unobservant eye, that there was something strange and unnatural in the bearing of the two people he had known for only a month but already prized more than anyone in the world.

"Is anything the matter?" Tyie asked.

Before anyone could answer, Lois MacAllister's younger sister, Patty, came down the inner steps and out on to the veranda. Not yet seventeen, Patty was singularly developed for her age. She sat down in a faded green armchair and crossed the long, generously curved legs that fell from the slender waist below her ample and delicately shaped breasts.

"Yes, John," she said, tart-sweet, "isanything the matter?"

Professor MacAllister went a shade pale beneath the healthy glow of his tan. He noted that his wife's grey eyes had widened. Quietly, he said, "Now, wait just a minute…"

The kitchen door opened. Out on to the veranda came Chang, the Chinese cook, Kyoto, the Philippine houseboy, and Mary Lou, the Jamaican housekeeper. They ranged themselves silently along the wall. And now it was Patty's turn to go pale.

There was a long silence. Then Tyie said, "Uh, I guess I'd better be getting home. The paint on the birdcage is probably dry by now, and I…"

"Don't rush away, Tyie," said Lois MacAllister. "There's someone here I think you should meet."

The cellar door opened and out on to the veranda came a bald, one-eyed dwarf, a thin man in a black suit, and a pair of giggling, blonde, female twins.

"Now I think we can clear this thing up," MacAllister said. "First, as to the so-called mysterious package that Ed Whittaker found in the bilge of the garbage scow, Clotilda,just two days before his disappearance…"

"Yes?" Patty breathed.

"It contained nothing more than an engine part for a spaceship. It was supposed to be sent to a Mr Mishkin of Harmonia, and in the presence of Judge Clarke I forwarded it to the Dade County Emergency Expediting Service."

Patty slumped back, her body slack with relief. "Well, that takes care of that! We've all been a pack of fools!"

"Maybe," said Lois MacAllister. "But we still haven't heard any explanation for the rest of it."

Professor MacAllister looked thoughtfully at the people on the veranda. "That," he said, "may take a little longer." He went to the sideboard and poured himself a drink.

66

The sign on the door read: CONTINUITIES, INC. Uncle Arnold went inside and was shown to the office of Thomas Grantwell.