"Then," von Einem said witheringly, "why is it that I fail to recall his existence?"

"The UN wep-x tacticians," operator Behren said, "have not as yet placed him there."

Within his anti-prolepsis membrane — the environ­ment manufactured by Krupp und Sohnen years ago which permitted him to collaborate with the convention­ally time-oriented personalities linked indirectly to him — the warped, inspired protégé of Sepp von Einem contemplated the message-packets discharged at intervals by the data-storing houses of his intricate mechanism. As always, he felt weary; the release of stimuli came too frequently for his overtaxed metab­olism... the adjusting of periodic discharge control gate lay unfortunately outside his manual reach.

What reached him, at the moment, consisted of what seemed the most miserable idiocy he had ever en­countered; bewildered, he attempted to focus his depleted attention on it, but only ill-formed fragments of the intel-repo material constellated for his menta­tional scrutiny.

"... fettered fetus of homemade apples lurching... searching... something like pataradical outfits of lace. Iron beds of red hot sabratondea flashes jut jib FRIB — "

Resignedly, Gregory Gloch listened on helplessly, wondering what transistorized turret-control of the chamber had gone astray this time.

"... medicine ice

"man.

"cone-shaped melting dripping

"away — away — "

As apathy began to seep over him an interval of almost startling meaning abruptly caught his ear; he awoke, paid rapt attention.

"Operator Behren, here, with really thrilling data on ol' Charley Falks, who, you'll remember, was placed in the formative years of Herr von Einem on an alternate time-path by the UN wep-x tacticians in order to deflect Herr von Einem from his chosen — and militarily signifi­cant — profession to a relatively harmless vocation, that of — " And then, to his chagrin, the lucid segment of verbal data faded and the meaningless chatter — with which he had, over the years, become so familiar — resumed.

"... fiber-glassed. Windows

"stained with grease

"off a polyhemispheric double-overhead-cam

"EXTERNAL compulsion engine

"floating out

"into the vast gigantic money-thing-making machine

"... diaperashis phenomenon disintegrating

"into foul fierce

"pressure

"spinning spinning

"lifting harsh

"harsh — a breath, a beat — a being still present

" — thank god..."

And, in the midst of this, the steady but interrupted by the far stronger signal-strength of the babble, the authentic intel-repo continued to make its vital point; he brought his internal attention to bear on it and managed to follow its thread of meaning.

Evidently fly-technician Behren had gathered at last the crucial material as to the UN's disposition of its near-absolute device. With vigorous, virtually relentless logic, Jaimé Weiss, the top-strategist now working under Horst Bertold — he who at one time had been von Einem's most brilliant and promising new discovery in the field of weapons inventiveness, but who had turned: gone over to the better-paying other side — this renegade had come up with the correct answer to the UN's stra­tegic needs.

To kill off Sepp von Einem was now pointless; Telpor existed. But to abolish von Einem sometime in the past, before his discovery of the basic mechanism of telepor­tation...

A less skilled manipulation of past-time factors would have sought as its objective cheap outright murder — the total physical elimination of Sepp von Einem. But this, of course, would simply have left the field open to others, and if one man could locate the principle on which teleportation could be effectively based, then so, eventually, given enough time, could someone else. Telpor, not Sepp von Einem, had to be blocked — and it would require the presence of a uniquely strong per­sonality to block it. Jaimé Weiss and Bertold could not do it; they were not that formidable. In fact, probably only one man in the world could manage it... suc­cessfully.

Sepp von Einem himself.

To himself Gregory Gloch thought, It's a good idea. This, his professional, official appraisal of the tactical plan which the UN had put in motion to abort the evolution of the Telpor instrument, had now to be said aloud; Gloch, selecting his words carefully, spoke into the recording microphone permanently placed before his lips, simultaneously activating the tape-transport.

"They want for their disposal," he declared, "the use of yourself, Herr von Einem — nothing else is adequate. A compliment... but one which you could no doubt do without." He paused, considered. Meanwhile, the tape-reel moved inexorably, but it was dead tape; he felt the pressure on him to produce a counter-tactic in response to what those opposed to his superior had so artfully — and skillfully — advanced. "Umm," he murmured, half to himself. He felt, now, even more truly out of phase in the time-dimension: he felt the gulf between himself and those, everyone else in the universe of sentient life, beyond his anti-prolepsis chamber. "In my estimate," he continued, "your most profitable avenue of action — " And then abruptly he ceased. Because once again the random word-salad noise had burbled into seeming spontaneous existence in his ears.

This, however, appeared to be a radically different — startling so — interference than was customary.

Rubbish that it was it nonetheless made sense... sense, but it had obliterated — for the time being, at least — his counter-tactical idea.

Could this be a UN electronic signal deliberately beamed so as to disrupt the orderly functioning of his chamber?

The thought, theoretical as it was, chilled him as he involuntarily, without the possibility of evasion, lis­tened to the curious mixture of nonsense and — mean­ing. Of the highest order.

"... I think, though, I see why Zoobko lards, but­ters, marginates and otherwise fattens up the word 'spore' into the rather sinister male spore slogan. Their house brochure in Move-E 3-D kul-R is directed (heh-heh) at women consumers, to fumble lewdly a meta­phor, ahem, no offense meant (gak). More fully articu­lated, it would read, 'The male spore, my dears, is as we well know tireless in its half-crazed struggle — against all sanity and moral restraint — to reach the female egg. That's the way men are. Right? We all realize it. Give a male (sic) spore half an inch and he'll take seventy-two-and-a-sixth miles. BE PREPARED! ALWAYS READY! A HUGE, SLIMY, SLANT-EYED YEL­LOW-SKINNED MALE SPORE MAY BE WATCH­ING YOU THIS VERY MINUTE! And, considering his almost demonic ability to wiggle for miles upon miles, you may at this moment be in dire, severe danger! To quote Dryden: 'The trumpet's loud clamor doth call us to arms,' etc. (And don't forget, ladies, the hand­some prize awarded yearly by Zoobko Products, Incor­porated for the greatest number of dead male (sic) spores mailed (pun) to our Callisto factory in an old Irish linen pillow case, attesting to (one) your tenacity in balking the evil damned things and (two) the fact that you're buying our lather-like goo in one-hundred-pound squirt cans. Also remember: if you are unable to ade­quately prepare yourself with a generous, expensive por­tion of Zoobko patented goo in the proper place, ahem, in advance of marital lawful pawing, then merely squirt the spray can with nozzle directed directly into the grimacing fungiform's ugly face as it hovers six feet high in the air above you. Best range — "

"Best range," Gregory Gloch said aloud, against the din of the obsessive noise in his ears, "approximately two inches."

" — 'two inches,' " the tinny, mechanical racket reeled off, accompanying him, " 'from his eyes. Zoobko's patented goo is not only — ' "