'Do you have a pencil?' she asked the cab.

'Here miss.' From a slot in the seat-back ahead of her a tablet of paper with attached writing stylus appeared.

Carefully Kathy wrote: JJ-180 took me back to before I had a severe cut on finger. 'What day is this?' she asked the cab.

'May 18, miss.'

She tried to recall if that was correct, but now she felt muddled; it was already slipping away from her? Good thing she had written the note. Or had she written the note? On her lap the tablet lay with its stylus.

The note read: JJ-180 took me.

And that was all; the remainder dwindled into mere laboured convolutions without meaning.

And yet she knew that she had completed the sentence, whatever it had been; now she could recall it. As if by reflex she examined her hand. But how was her hand involved? 'Cab,' she said hurriedly, as she felt the balance of her personality ebbing away, 'what did I ask you just a moment ago?'

The date.'

'Before that.'

'You requested a writing implement and paper, miss.'

'Anything before that?'

The cab seemed to hesitate. But perhaps that was her imagination. 'No, miss; nothing before that.'

'Nothing about my hand?'

Now there was no doubt about it; the circuits of the cab did stall. At last it said creakily, 'No, miss.'

Thank you,' Kathy said, and sat back against the seat, rubbing her forehead and thinking. So it's confused, too. Then this is not merely subjective; there's been a genuine snarl in time, involving both me and my surroundings.

The cab said, as if in apology for its inability to assist her, 'Since the trip will be several hours, miss, would you enjoy to watch TV? It, the screen, is placed directly before you; only touch the pedal.'

Reflexively she lit the screen with the tip of her toe; it came to life at once and Kathy found herself facing a familiar image, that of their leader, Gino Molinari, in the middle of a speech.

'Is that channel satisfactory?' the cab asked, still apologetic.

'Oh sure,' she said. 'Anyhow when he gets up and rants it's on all channels. "That was the law.

And yet here, too, in this familiar spectacle, something strange absorbed her; peering at the screen, she thought, He looks younger. The way I remember him when I was a child. Ebullient, full of animation and shouting excitement, his eyes alive with that old intensity: his original self that no one has forgotten, although long since gone. However, obviously it was not long since gone; she witnessed it now with her own eyes, and was more bewildered than ever.

Is JJ-180 doing this to me? she asked herself, and got no answer.

'You enjoy to watch Mr Molinari?' the cab inquired.

'Yes,' Kathy said, 'I enjoy to watch.'

'May I hazard,' the cab said, 'that he will obtain the office for which he is running, that of UN Secretary?'

'You stupid autonomic robant machine,' Kathy said wither-ingly. 'He's been in office years now.' Running? she thought. Yes, the Mole had looked like this during his campaign, decades ago....erhaps that was what had confused the circuits of the cab. 'I apologize,' she said. 'But where the hell have you been? Parked in an autofac repair garage for twenty-two years?'

'No, miss. In active service. Your own wits, if I may say so, seem scrambled. Do you request medical assistance? We are at this moment over desert land but soon we will pass St George, Utah.'

She felt violently irritable. 'Of course I don't need medical assistance; I'm healthy.' But the cab was right. The influence of the drug was upon her full force now. She felt sick and she shut her eyes, pressing her fingers against her forehead as if to push back the expanding zone of her psychological reality, her private, subjective self. I'm scared, she realized. I feel as if my womb is about to fall out; this time it's hitting me much harder than before, it's not the same, maybe because I'm alone instead of with a group. But I'll just have to endure it. If I can.

'Miss,' the cab said suddenly, 'would you repeat my destination? I have forgotten it.' Its circuits clicked in rapid succession as if it were in mechanical distress. 'Assist me, please.'

'I don't know where you're going,' she said. That's your business; you figure it out. Just fly around, if you can't remember.' What did she care where it went? What did it have to do with her?

'It began with a C,' the cab said hopefully.

'Chicago.'

'I feel otherwise. However, if you're sure—' Its mechanism throbbed as it altered course.

You and I are both in this, Kathy realized. This drug-induced fugue. You made a mistake, Mr Corning, to give me the drug without supervision. Corning? Who was Corning?

'I know where we were going,' she said aloud. 'To Corning.'

'There is no such place,' the cab said flatly.

'There must be.' She felt panic. 'Check your data again.'

'Honestly, there isn't!'

'Then we're lost,' Kathy said, and felt resigned. 'God, this is awful. I have to be in Corning tonight, and there's no such place; what'll I do? Suggest something. I depend on you; please don't leave me to flounder like this – I feel as if I'm losing my mind.'

'I'll request administrative assistance,' the cab said. 'From top-level dispatching service at New York. Just a moment.' It was silent for a time. 'Miss, there is no top-level dispatching service at New York, or if there is, I can't raise them.'

'Is there anything at New York?'

'Radio stations, lots of them. But no TV transmissions or anything on the FM or ultra-high frequency; nothing on the band we use. Currently I am picking up a radio station which is broadcasting something entitled "Mary Marlin." A piano piece by Debussy is being played as theme.'

She knew her history; after all she was an antique collector and it was her job. 'Put it on your audio system so I can hear it,' she instructed.

A moment later she heard a female voice, retailing a wretched tale of suffering to some other female, a dreary account at best. And yet it filled Kathy with frantic excitement.

They're wrong, she thought, her mind working at its peak pitch. This won't destroy me. They forgot this era is my specialty – I know it as well as the present. There's nothing threatening or disintegrative about this experience for me; in fact it's an opportunity.

'Leave the radio on,' she told the cab. 'And just keep flying.' Attentively, she listened to the soap opera as the cab continued on.

EIGHT

It had – against nature and reason – become daytime. And the autonomic cab knew the impossibility of this; its voice was screechy with pain as it exclaimed to Kathy, 'On the highway below, miss! An ancient car that can't possibly exist!' It sank lower. 'See for yourself! Look!'

Gazing down, Kathy agreed, 'Yes. A 1932 Model A Ford. And I agree with you; there haven't been any Model A Fords for generations.' Rapidly and with precision she reflected, then said, 'I want you to land.'

'Where?' Decidedly, the autonomic cab did not like the idea.

'That village ahead. Land on a rooftop there.' She felt calm. But in her mind one realization dominated: it was the drug. And only the drug. This would last only so long as the drug operated within her cycle of brain metabolism; JJ-180 had brought her here without warning and JJ-180 would, eventually, return her to her own time – also without warning. 'I am going to find a bank,' Kathy said aloud. 'And set up a savings account. By doing so—' And then she realized that she possessed no currency of this period; hence there existed no way by which she could transact business. So what could she do? Nothing? Call President Roosevelt and caution him about Pearl Habor, she decided caustically. Change history. Suggest that years from now they not develop the atom bomb.