“I’m leaving this building for a while,” Al said. “Think of a city or a town at random, one that none of us have anything to do with, one where none of us ever go or have ever gone.”

“Baltimore,” Joe said.

“Okay, I’m going to Baltimore. I’m going to see if a store picked at random will accept Runciter currency.”

“Buy me some new cigarettes,” Joe said.

“Okay. I’ll do that too; I’ll see if cigarettes in a random store in Baltimore have been affected. I’ll check other products as well; I’ll make random samplings. Do you want to come with me, or do you want to go upstairs and tell them about Wendy?”

Joe said, “I’ll go with you.”

“Maybe we should never tell them about her.”

“I think we should,” Joe said. “Since it’s going to happen again. It may happen before we get back. It may be happening now.”

“Then we better get our trip to Baltimore over as quickly as possible,” Al said. He started out of the office. Joe Chip followed.

Chapter 9

They selected the Lucky People Supermarket on the periphery of Baltimore.

At the counter Al said to the autonomic, computerized checker, “Give me a pack of Pall Malls.”

“Wings are cheaper,” Joe said.

Irritated, Al said, “They don’t make Wings any more. They haven’t for years.”

“They make them,” Joe said, “but they don’t advertise. It’s an honest cigarette that claims nothing.” To the checker he said, “Change that from Pall Malls to Wings.”

The pack of cigarettes slid from the chute and onto the counter. “Ninety-five cents,” the checker said.

“Here’s a ten-poscred bill.” Al fed the bill to the checker, whose circuits at once whirred as it scrutinized the bill. “Your change, sir,” the checker said; it deposited a neat heap of coins and bills before Al. “Please move along now.”

So Runciter money is acceptable, Al said to himself as he and Joe got out of the way of the next customer, a heavy-set old lady wearing a blueberry-colored cloth coat and carrying a Mexican rope shopping bag. Cautiously, he opened the pack of cigarettes.

The cigarettes crumbled between his fingers.

“It would have proved something,” Al said, “if this had been a pack of Pall Malls. I’m getting back in line.” He started to do so—and then discovered that the heavy-set old lady in the dark coat was arguing violently with the autonomic checker.

“It was dead,” she asserted shrilly, “by the time I got it home. Here; you can have it back.” She set a pot on the counter; it contained, Al saw, a lifeless plant, perhaps an azalea—in its moribund state it showed few features.

“I can’t give you a refund,” the checker answered. “No warranty goes with the plant life which we sell. ‘Buyer beware’ is our rule. Please move along now.”

“And the Saturday Evening Post,” the old lady said, “that I picked up from your newsstand, it was over a year old. What’s the matter with you? And the Martian grubworm TV dinner—”

“Next customer,” the checker said; it ignored her.

Al got out of line. He roamed about the premises until he came to the cartons of cigarettes, every conceivable brand, stacked to heights of eight feet or more. “Pick a carton,” he said to Joe.

“Dominoes,” Joe said. “They’re the same price as Wings.”

“Christ, don’t pick an offbrand; pick something like Winstons or Kools.” He himself yanked out a carton. “It’s empty.” He shook it. “I can tell by the weight.” Something, however, inside the carton bounced about, something weightless and small; he tore the carton open and looked within it.

A scrawled note. In handwriting familiar to him, and to Joe. He lifted it out and together they both read it.

Al said, “So he knows about Wendy. Well, maybe that means it won’t happen again, to the rest of us.”

“A random carton of cigarettes,” Joe said, “at a random store in a city picked at random. And we find a note directed at us from Glen Runciter. What do the other cartons have in them? The same note?” He lifted down a carton of L&Ms, shook it, then opened it. Ten packs of cigarettes plus ten more below them; absolutely normal. Or is it? Al asked himself. He lifted out one of the packs. “You can see they’re okay,” Joe said; he pulled out a carton from the middle of the stacks. “This one is full too.” He did not open it; instead, he reached for another. And then another. All had packs of cigarettes in them.

And all crumbled into fragments between Al’s fingers.

“I wonder how he knew we’d come here,” Al said. “And how he knew we’d try that one particular carton.” It made no sense. And yet, here, too, the pair of opposing forces were at work. Decay versus Runciter, Al said to himself. Throughout the world. Perhaps throughout the universe. Maybe the sun will go out, Al conjectured, and Glen Runciter will place a substitute sun in its place. If he can.

Yes, he thought; that’s the question. How much can Runciter do?

Put another way—how far can the process of decay go?

“Let’s try something else,” Al said; he walked along the aisle, past cans, packages and boxes, coming at last to the appliance center of the store. There, on impulse, he picked up an expensive German-made tape recorder. “This looks all right,” he said to Joe, who had followed him. He picked up a second one, still in its container. “Let’s buy this and take it back to New York with us.”

“Don’t you want to open it?” Joe said. “And try it out before you buy it?”

“I think I already know what we’ll find,” Al said. “And it’s something we can’t test out here.” He carried the tape recorder toward the checkstand.

Back in New York, at Runciter Associates, they turned the tape recorder over to the firm’s shop.

Fifteen minutes later the shop foreman, having taken apart the mechanism, made his report. “All the moving parts in the tape-transport stage are worn. The rubber drive-tire has flat spots on it; pieces of rubber are all over the insides. The brakes for high-speed wind and rewind are virtually gone. It needs cleaning and lubricating throughout; it’s seen plenty of use—in fact, I would say it needs a complete overhaul, including new belts.”

Al said, “Several years of use?”

“Possibly. How long you had it?”

“I bought it today,” Al said.

“That isn’t possible,” the shop foreman said. “Or if you did they sold you—”

“I know what they sold me,” Al said. “I knew when I got it, before I opened the carton.” To Joe he said, “A brand-new tape recorder, completely worn out. Bought with funny money that the store is willing to accept. Worthless money, worthless article purchased; it has a sort of logic to it.”

“This is not my day,” the shop foreman said. “This morning when I got up my parrot was dead.”

“Dead of what?” Joe asked.

“I don’t know, just dead. Stiff as a board.” The shop foreman waggled a bony finger at Al. “I’ll tell you something you don’t know about your tape recorder. It isn’t just worn out; it’s forty years obsolete. They don’t use rubber drive-tires any more, or belt-run transports. You’ll never get parts for it unless somebody handmakes them. And it wouldn’t be worth it; the damn thing is antiquated. Junk it. Forget about it.”

“You’re right,” Al said. “I didn’t know.” He accompanied Joe out of the shop and into the corridor. “Now we’re talking about something other than decay; this is a different matter. And we’re going to have trouble finding edible food, anywhere, of any kind. How much of the food sold in supermarkets would be good after that many years?”