Good riddance, she decided.

A moment later she had entered the great ship — Theo Ferry's post from which he — obviously — operated when on Fomalhaut IX.

"Kill her," a voice said.

She ducked. A laser beam cut past her head; in­stantly she rolled, spun to one side, thinking, They did it to Mat, but not to me; they can't do it to me. A second last try for us, she thought desperately; if Rachmael can do anything. I can't. "Ferry," she gasped. "Please!"

The prayer proved worthless. Four THL agents, in military brown, deployed strategically at several com­pass points of the ship's central cabin, aimed at her emotionlessly, while at the controls, his face a dull mask of almost indifferent concentration, sat Theodoric Ferry. And, she realized, this was the man himself; this did not constitute a simulacrum.

"Do you know," Ferry said to her quietly, "where Rachmael ben Applebaum is at this moment?"

"No," she gasped. Truthfully.

At that Ferry nodded toward the four THL agents; the man to his

See Note on page V

pseudopodia several remaining unchewed eyes, and these it had placed close to its stomach in order to see properly. "Yes, it's still in there — and you can have it, free! No, but seriously, folks, the twentieth edition is worth a lot more to a collector than the seventeenth; get it while the getting's good or this free money-back offer expires forever."

After a pause Rachmael shut his eyes and reached his hand gropingly into the midsection of the cephalopodic life form.

"Fine, fine," the eye-eater chortled. "That feels really cool, as the ancients said. Got hold of it yet? Reach deeper, and don't mind if the digestive juices destroy your sleeve; that's show biz, or whatever it was they formerly said. Tee-hee!"

His fingers touched something firm within the gela­tinous, oozing mass. The edge of the book? Or — something else. It felt very much as if — incredibly — it consisted of the crisp, starched, lower edge of a woman's bra.

"For god's sake!" a female voice declared furiously. And at the same instant a small but wildly intent hand grabbed his, forced it back toward him.

Immediately he opened his eyes. The eye-eater glowered at him in indignation. But — it had changed. From it long strands of women's hair grew; the eye-eater had a distinctly female appearance. Even its paw­ful of eyes had altered; they now appeared elongated, graceful, with heavy lashes. A woman's eyes, he realized with a thrill of terror.

"Who are you?" he demanded, almost unable to speak; he jerked his hand back in revulsion and the pseudopodium released him.

The pseudopodia of the eye-eater, all of them, ter­minated in small, delicate hands. Like the hair and the eyes, distinctly female.

The eye-eater had become a woman. And, near the center of its body, it wore — ludicrously — the stiff white bra.

The eye-eater said, in a high-pitched voice, almost a squeal of indignation, "I'm Gretch Borbman, of course. And I frankly don't believe it's very funny to — do what you did just now." Breathing hotly, the eye-eater glowered even more darkly.

"I'm — sorry," he managed to say. "But I'm lost in damn paraworld; it's not my fault. So don't condemn me."

"Which paraworld is it this time?" the eye-eater demanded. "The same one as before?"

He started to answer... and then noticed something which froze him into silence where he stood. Other eye-eaters had begun to appear, slowly undulating toward him and Gretch Borbman. Some had the distinct cast of masculinity; some obviously were, like Gretch, female.

The class. Assembling together in response to what Gretch had said.

"He attempted to reach inside me," the eye-eater calling itself Gretchen Borbman explained to the rest of them. "I wonder which paraworld that would in­dicate."

"Mr. ben Applebaum," one of the other eye-eaters, almost certainly Sheila Quam by the sound of her voice, said. "In view of what Miss Borbman says, I think it is virtually mandatory for me to declare a special emer­gency Computer Day; I would say that beyond a reason­able doubt this situation which you've created calls for it."

"True," the eye-eater named Gretch agreed; the others, to varying degrees, also nodded in unison. "Have his paraworld gestalt fed in so it can be examined and compared. Personally I don't think it's like anyone else's, but of course that's up to the computer to deter­mine. Myself, I feel perfectly safe; I know that whatever he saw, or rather sees, bears absolutely no resemblance to anything I ever perceived."

"What did he do just now," an eye-eater which reminded him of Hank Szantho said, "that made you yip like that?"

The Gretch Borbman thing said in a low, sullen voice, "He attempted to diddle me."

"Well," the Hank Szantho eye-eater said mildly, "I don't see where that alone indicates anything; I might even attempt that myself, some day. Anyhow, as long as Sheila feels it's called for — "

"I've already got the forms ready," the one whom he had identified as Sheila Quam said. To Rachmael she said, "Here is 47-B; I've already signed it. Now, if you'll come with me — " She glanced toward the Gretchen Borbman eye-eater. "Miss Borbman already knows her paraworld... I hope her confidence is vin­dicated; I hope that what you perceive, Mr. ben Apple­baum, is not congruent with hers."

"I hope so, too," the Gretchen Borbman thing agreed faintly.

"As I recall," the Sheila Quam eye-eating entity declared, "Mr. ben Applebaum's initial delusional ex­perience, set off by the LSD dart, consisted of involve­ment with the garrison state. Do you remember clearly enough to voluntarily testify to that, Mr. ben Apple­baum?"

"Yes," he said huskily. "And then the aquatic — "

"But before that," Sheila interrupted. "When you first crossed by Telpor. Before the dart — before the LSD."

Hazily, he said, "It's a blur to me, now." Reality, for him, had slipped and floundered too much; he could not be absolutely sure of the sequence of events. With a vast final effort he summoned his waning attention, focussed on his past — it seemed a billion light-years ago, and yet in actuality the experience with the garrison state had been reasonably recent. "It was before," he said, then. "I perceived the garrison state, the fighting; then a THL soldier shot me. So the experience with the garrison state came first; then, after the LSD, the aquatic nightmare-shape."

Hank Szantho said thoughtfully, "You may be inter­ested to know, Mr. ben Applebaum, that you are not the first person among us to live with that hallucina­tion — I refer to the prior one, that of the garrison state. If your delusional gestalt, when you present it to the computer, comes out on those lines, I can assure you that a tru bi-personal view of a paraworld will have been established... and this, of course, is what we fear, as you well know. Do you want to see the garrison state world established as the authentic reality?" His voice lifted harshly. "Consider."

"The choice," Sheila Quam said, "is not his; it's mine. I therefore officially declare this late Wednes­day afternoon and Computer Day, and I order Mr. ben Applebaum to accept this form I hold here, to fill it out, and then return it to me, as Control, to sign. You understand, Mr. ben Applebaum? Can you think clearly enough to follow what I'm saying?"

Reflexively, he accepted the form from her. "A pen?" he asked.

"A pen." Sheila Quam, plus all the other eye-eating quasi-forms, began to search about their bulb-like bodies — to no avail.

"Chrissake," Rachmael said irritably, and searched his own pockets. Not only to be compelled to fill out the 47-B form, but to come up with his own pencil —