He chatted of other matters until we each had finished one cup. I refilled his cup, did not myself take another; he resumed business. "Friday, you changed names and credit cards so many times that we were always one jump behind you. We might not have traced you to Vicksburg had not your progress suggested something about your plan. Although it is not my practice to interfere with an agent no

matter how closely he is being watched, I might have decided to head you off from going up the riverÄknowing that that expedition was doomedÄ "Boss, what was that expedition? I never believed the song and

dance."

"A coup d'etat. A clumsy one. The Imperium has had three Chairmen in two weeks... and the current one is no better and no more likely to survive. Friday, a well-run tyranny is a better base for my work than is any form of free government. But a well-run tyranny is almost as scarce as an efficient democracy. To resumeÄyou got away from us in Vicksburg because you moved without hesitation. You were aboard that comic-opera troopship and gone before our Vicksburg agent knew that you had signed up. I was vexed with him. So much so that I have not yet disciplined him. I must wait."

"No reason to discipline him, Boss. I moved fast. Unless he breathed down my neckÄwhich I notice and always take stepsÄhe could not have kept up with me."

"Yes, yes, I know your techniques. But I think that you will agree that I was understandably annoyed when it was reported to me that our man in Vicksburg actually had you physically in sight... and twenty-four hours later he reports you dead."

"Maybe, maybe not. A man got too close on my heels coming into Nairobi earlier this yearÄbreathed down my neck and it was his last breath. If you have me shadowed again, better warn your agents."

"I do not ordinarily use a shadow on you, Friday. With you, point checks work better. Fortunately for all of us you did not stay dead. While the terminals of my contact agents in Saint Louis have all been tapped by the government, I still get some use from them. When you attempted to report in, three times and never got caught, I heard of it at once and deduced that it had to be you, then knew it with certainty when you reached Fargo."

"Who in Fargo? The paper artist?"

Boss pretended not to hear. "Friday, I must get back to work. Complete your report. Make it brief."

"Yes, sir. I left that excursion boat when we entered the Imperiurn, proceeded to Saint Louis, found your contact call codes

trapped, left, visited Fargo as you noted, crossed into British Canada twenty-six klicks east of Pembina, crossed to Vancouver and down to Bellingham today, then reported to you here."

"Any trouble?"

"No, sir."

"Any novel aspects of professional interest?"

"No, sir."

"At your convenience tape a detailed report for staff analysis. Feel free to suppress facts not yours to disclose. I will send for you some time in the next two or three weeks. You start school tomorrow morning. Oh-nine hundred."

"Huh?"

"Don't grunt; it is not pleasing in a young woman. Friday, your work has been satisfactory but it is time you entered on your true profession. Your true profession at this stage, perhaps I should say. You are woefully ignorant. We will change that. Nine o'clock tomorrow."

"Yes, sir." (Ignorant, huh? Arrogant old bastard. Gosh, I was glad to see him. But that wheelchair fretted me.)

xxii

Pajaro Sands used to be a resort seaside hotel. It's a nowhere place on Monterey Bay outside a nowhere city, Watsonville. Watsonville is one of the great oil export ports of the world and has all the charm of cold pancakes with no syrup. The nearest excitement is in the casinos and bawdy houses of Carmel, fifty kilometers away. But I don't gamble and am not interested in sex for hire, even the exotic sorts to be had in California. Not many from Boss's headquarters patronized Carmel as it was too far away to go by horse other than for a weekend, there was no direct capsule, and, while California is liberal in authorizing power vehicles, Boss did not release his APVs for anything but business.

The big excitements for us at Pajaro Sands were the natural attractions that caused it to be built, surf and sand and sunshine.

I enjoyed surfboarding until I became skilled at it. Then it bored me. I usually sunned a bit each day and swam a little and stared out at the big tankers suckling at the oil moles and noted with amusement that the watchstander aboard each ship often was staring back, with binoculars.

There was no reason for any of us to be bored as we had full individual terminal service. People are so used to the computer net today that it is easy to forget what a window to the world it can beÄ and I include myself. One can grow so canalized in using a terminal only in certain waysÄpaying bills, making telephonic calls, listen-

ing to news bulletinsÄthat one can neglect its richer uses. If a subscriber is willing to pay for the service, almost anything can be done at a terminal that can be done out of bed.

Live music? I could punch in a concert going on live in Berkeley this evening, but a concert given ten years ago in London, its conductor long dead, is just as "live," just as immediate, as any listed on today's program. Electrons don't care. Once data of any sort go into the net, time is frozen. All that is necessary is to remember that all the endless riches of the past are available any time you punch for them.

Boss sent me to school at a computer terminal and I had far richer opportunities than any enjoyed by a student at Oxford or the Sorbonne or Heidelberg in any earlier year.

At first it did not seem to me that I was going to school. At breakfast the first day I was told to report to the head librarian. He was a fatherly old dear, Professor Perry, whom I had met first during basic training. He seemed harriedÄunderstandably, as Boss's library was probably the bulkiest and most complex thing shipped from the Imperium to Pajaro Sands. Professor Perry undoubtedly had weeks of work ahead before everything would be straightened outÄand in the meantime all Boss would expect would be utter perfection. The work was not made easier by Boss's eccentric insistence on paper books for much of his library rather than cassettes or microfiche or disks.

When I reported to him, Perry looked bothered, then pointed to a console over in one corner. "Miss Friday, why don't you sit down over there?"

"What am I to do?"

"Eh? That's hard to say. No doubt we'll be told. Urn, I'm awfully busy now and terribly understaffed. Why don't you just get acquainted with the equipment by studying anything you wish?"

There wasn't anything special about the equipment except that there were extra keys giving direct access to several major libraries such as Harvard's and the Washington Library of the Atlantic Union and the British Museum without going through a human or network linkupÄplus the unique resource of direct access to Boss's library, the one right beside me. I could even read his bound paper

books if I wanted to, on my terminal's screen, turning the pages from th~ keyboard and never taking the volume out of its nitrogen

environment. -

That morning I was speed-searching the index of the Tulane University library (one of the best in the Lone Star Republic), looking for history of Old Vicksburg, when I stumbled onto a cross-reference to spectral types of stars and found myself hooked. I don't recall why there was such a cross-referral but these do occur for the most unlikely reasons.

I was still reading about the evolution of stars when Professor Perry suggested that we go to lunch.

We did but I made some notes first about types of mathematics I wanted to study. Astrophysics is fascinatingÄbut you have to talk the language.