'What?' Startled, he gaped. 'Why would—'

'The 'Starmen consider us harmless, unworthy of their military attention, only .so long as our leader is palpably feeble. Quite visibly unable to discharge his responsibilities – in other words, in no sense a rival to them, a threat.'

After a pause Eric said, 'I don't believe this.'

'Well,' Festenburg said, shrugging, 'it's an interesting idea from the ivory tower, intellectual standpoint. Don't you agree?' He walked toward Eric, swirling the contents of his glass. Standing very close to him, Festenburg breathed his noxious breath into Eric's face and said, 'It could be. And until you actually subject Gino to an intensive physical examination you won't know, because everything in that file you read – it could all be faked. Designed to validate a gross, well-worked-out swindle.' His eyes twinkled with merciless amusement. 'You think I'm out of my mind? I'm just playing, like a schizoid, with ideas for the fun of it, without regard to their actual consequences? Maybe so. But you can't prove what I just now told you is untrue, and as long as this remains the case—' He took a massive swallow of his drink, then made a face. 'Don't deplore what you saw on that Ampex video tape. Okay?'

'But as you say,' Eric said, 'I'll know as soon as I have a chance to examine him.' And, he thought, that will come soon. 'So if you'll excuse me I'd like to end this conversation. I haven't yet had time to set up my conapt here satisfactorily.'

'Your wife – what's her name? Kathy? – isn't coming, is she?' Don Festenburg winked. 'You can enjoy yourself. I'm in a position to give you a hand. That's my department, the land of the illicit, the feral, and the – let's just call it the peculiar. Instead of the unnatural. But you come from Tijuana; I probably can't teach you a thing.'

Eric said, 'You can teach me to deplore not only what I saw on the video tape but—' He broke off. Festenburg's personal life was, after all, his own business.

'But its creator as well,' Festenburg finished for him. 'Doctor, did you know that in the Middle Ages the ruling courts had people who lived in bottles. Spent their entire lives ... all shrunken, of course, put in while babies, allowed to grow – to some extent, anyhow – within the bottle. We don't have that now. However – Cheyenne is the contemporary ranking seat of kings; there are a few sights that could be shown you, if you're interested. Perhaps from the purely medical standpoint — a sort of professional, disinterested—'

'I think whatever it is you want to show me would only make me less pleased with my decision to come to Cheyenne,' Eric said. 'So frankly I don't see what profit it would serve.'

'Wait,' Festenburg said, holding up his hand. 'One item. Just this particular exhibit, all properly sealed hermetically, bathed in a solution that maintains the thing ad infinitum, or, as you probably will prefer, ad nauseam. May I take you there? It's in what we at the White House call Room 3-C.' Festenburg walked to the door, held it open for Eric.

After a pause Eric followed.

Hands in the pockets of his rumpled, unpressed trousers, Festenburg led the way down one corridor after another until at last they stood on a subsurface level, facing two high-ranking Secret Service men stationed at a metal reinforced door marked TOP SECRET, NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL PERMITTED.

'I'm authorized,' Festenburg said genially. 'Gino's given me the run of the warren; he has great trust in me, and because of this you're going to see a state secret which you normally would never in a thousand years be allowed to view.' As he passed by the uniformed Secret Service men and pushed open the door he added, 'However, there will be one disappointing aspect of this; I'm going to show it to you but not explain it. I'd like to explain it but – very simply I can't.'

In the center of the murky, cold room Eric saw a casket. As Festenburg had said, it was hermetically sealed; a pump throbbed dully, at its task of maintaining at extreme low temperatures whatever lay within the casket.

'Look at it,' Festenburg said sharply.

Deliberately pausing, Eric lit a cigarette, then walked over.

In the casket, supine, lay Gino Molinari, his face locked in agony. He was dead. Blood could be seen, dried drops on his neck. His uniform was torn, stained with mud. Both hands were lifted, the fingers writhing, as if trying even now to fight back at whatever — whoever – it was that had murdered him. Yes, Eric thought. I'm seeing the results of an assassination; this is the leader's corpse, flailed with bullets emanating from a weapon with notably high muzzle velocity; the man's body had been twisted, almost torn apart. It had been a savage assault. And – successful.

'Well,' Festenburg said, after a time, taking in a deep rush of breath, 'there are several ways this item – which I like to think of as Exhibit One of the Cheyenne Freak Show – can be explained. Let's assume it's a robant. Waiting here in the wings for the moment that Gino needs it. Built by GRS Enterprises, the inventive Dawson Cutter, whom you must meet someday.'

'Why would Molinari need this?'

Festenburg, scratching his nose, said, 'Several reasons. In case of an attempted assassination – one which failed – this could be exhibited, taking the heat off Gino while he hid out. Or – it could be for the benefit of our sanguine ally; Gino may have it in the back of his mind that some incredibly complex, baroque plan will be necessary, something involving his retirement from office under the pressure they're exerting on him.'

'You're sure this is a robant?' To Eric the thing in the casket looked real.

'I don't even think it is, let alone know.' Festenburg jerked his head and Eric saw that the two Secret Service men had entered the room; obviously it would not be possible to inspect the corpse.

'How long has it been here?'

'Only Gino knows and he won't say; he just smiles slyly. "You wait, Don," he says in his secretive fashion. "I got a big use for it."'

'And if it's not a robant—'

Then it's Gino Molinari lying there ripped apart by machine-gun slugs. A primitive, outmoded weapon but it certainly can kill its victim beyond the possibility of even org-trans repair; you can see that the brain case has been punctured – the brain is destroyed. If it is Gino, then where's it from? The future? There is a theory, having to do with your firm, TF&D. A subsidiary has developed a drug which permits its user to move freely in time. You know about that?' He studied Eric intently.

'No,' Eric admitted. The rumor was more or less new to him.

'Anyhow, here's this corpse,' Festenburg said. 'Lying here day after day, driving me nuts. Perhaps it's from an alternate present in which Gino has been assassinated, driven out of office the hard way by a splinter political group of Terrans backed by Lilistar. But there's a further ramification of this theory, one which really haunts me.' Festenburg's tone now was somber; he was no longer in a joking mood. 'That would imply something about the virile, strutting Gino Molinari who made that video tape; that's not a robant either and GRS Enterprises did not manufacture it because it too is an authentic Gino Molinari from an alternate present. One in which war didn't come about, one perhaps in which Terra didn't even get mixed up with Lilistar. Gino Molinari has gone into a more reassuring world and plucked his healthy counterpart over here to assist him. What do you think, doctor? Could that be it?'

Baffled, Eric said, 'If I knew anything about that drug—'

'I assumed you would. I'm disappointed; that was my reason for bringing you here. Anyhow – there's one other possibility... logically. Suggested by this assassinated corpse, here.' Festenburg hesitated. 'I hate to mention it because it's so bizarre that it makes my other conjectures look tainted by association.'