Imperial Earth

“Frankly, that’s very difficult to say. How well does she know you?”

“We’ve not met for fifteen years, since she visited Titan.”

“Then whatever program she’s invited you to join will be fairly bland and innocuous, especially if it lasts only two days. Your chances of survival are excellent.”

“Thank you,” said Duncan. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

The van Hyatts, when he introduced himself to them a little later, were able to fill in a few more details. They were a friendly but rather highly strung couple in late middle age, which was itself some reassurance.

Calindy would hardly dump them in the heart of a desert with one canteen of water, or set them climbing Mount Everest. Duncan felt reasonably confident that he could handle whatever was in store for them.

“We’ve been instructed,” said Bill van Hyatt, “to wear old clothes and sturdy boots, and to carry raincoats. It also says here, “Hard hats will be provided when necessary.” What on Earth is a hard hat?”

The van Hyatts, Duncan decided, had led somewhat sheltered lives. “A hard hat,” he explained, “is a protective helmet of metal or plastic.

Miners and construction workers have to wear them.”

“That sounds dangerous,” said Millie van Hyatt, with obvious relish.

“It sounds like cave-exploring to me. I hate caves.”

“Then Enigma won’t send you into them. They have your profile, don’t they?”

“Yes, but sometimes they decide that what you don’t like may be good for you. Shock treatment. Remember what happened to the Mulligans.”

Duncan never did discover what happened to the Mulligans, as he thought it best not to intervene in what looked to be escalating into a family quarrel. He made hasty arrangements for a rendezvous at Washington airport next Thursday, signed off, and then sat wondering if he had done the right thing.

It was quite some time before he was suddenly struck by a curious omission on Calindy’s part—one that both surprised and saddened him.

She had never asked about Karl.,

MYSTERY TOUR

Only an expert on the history of aeronautics could have dated the vehicle that stood glistening in the late-afternoon light. Like sailing ships, though in less than a tenth of the time, aircraft had reached their technological plateau. Improvements in detail would continue indefinitely, but the era of revolutionary change was long past.

Bill van Hyatt was convinced that this flying machine was at least a hundred years old. “It’s powered by rubber bands,” he insisted. “When

we get inside, 152 there’ll be a big windlass and weT all have to walk round and round, winding it up.”

“Thank you, Mr. van Hyatt,” said the Enigma representative, who had met them at Washington airport. “That’s a very interesting idea. We’ll bear it in mind.”

There were twenty clients in the party, and they all seemed a little tense and expectant. The only person who was in complete control-in more ways than one -was the man from Enigma. He was a tough, selfassured character (“Just call me Boss-you may think of something else later”); Duncan would have guessed his age at about fifty. They never discovered his real name, but he had that indefinable air of authority that comes only from years of command; van Hyatt advanced the plausible theory that he was a spaceship captain, grounded for some technical misdemeanor. However, he showed no signs of concealing any secret disgrace.

Boss’s first order to his customers was completely unexpected, but set the tone of the whole enterprise.

“I must ask you,” he said, “to hand over all watches, radios, and communication devices. You won’t need them until you get home.”

He held up an admonitory hand at the chorus of protests.

“There’s a good reason for this-and for any other peculiar requests I may make. Remember, this whole program has been worked out for your benefit. If you won’t cooperate, you’re only cheating yourselves. Cameras and recorders-yes, of course. Use them as much as you like.”

There was a general sigh of relief at this. Duncan had noticed that most of his companions were festooned with equipment designed to capture every aspect of their experience. A couple were obviously “tapeworms,” those peculiar addicts who went through life accompanied by voice-actuated recorders, so that nothing they said-or heard-was ever lost. Unless they could do this, Duncan had been told, they did not believe that they had really and truly lived…. Such a

backward-looking obsession was typically 153 Terran. Duncan could not imagine anyone on his world trying to encapsulate his whole life so that whenever he wished he could recall any moment of the past. On Titan, it was the future that mattered.

As he walked to the aircraft, carrying his scanty baggage (toilet necessities, a change of underwear, raincoat), Duncan decided that van