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served him as a place of business. He had a visitor waiting for him at home.
Germyn was still Citizen, and he could not break off the pleasant and
interminable discussion he was having with a prospective client over a
potential business arrangement not rapidly. He apologized for the interruption
caused by the message the conventional three times, listened while his guest
explained the plan he had come to propose in full once more, then turned his
cupped hands toward himself in the gesture of denial of adequacy. It was the
closest he could come to saying no.
On the other side of the desk, the Citizen who had come to propose an
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investment scheme immediately changed the subject by inviting Germyn and his
Citizeness to a Sirius-
Viewing, the invitation in the form of rhymed couplets. He had wanted to
transact his business very much, but he couldn't insist.
Germyn got out of the invitation by a Conditional Acceptance in proper form,
and the man left, delayed only slightly by the Four Urgings to stay. Almost
immediately Germyn dismissed his clerk and closed his office for the day by
tying a complex triple knot in a length of red cord across the open door.
When he got to his home he found, as he had suspected, that the visitor was
Haendl.
There was much doubt in Citizen Germyn's mind about Haendl. The man had nearly
admitted to being Wolf, and how could a Citizen overlook that? But in the
excitement of
Gala Tropile's Translation the matter had been less urgent than normally;
there had been no hue and cry: Germyn had permitted the man to leave. And now?
He reserved judgment. He found Haendl uncomfortably sipping tea in his living
room and attempting to keep up a formal conversation with Citizeness Germyn.
Germyn rescued him, took him aside, closed a door and waited.
He was astonished at the change in the man. Before Haendl had been bouncy,
aggressive, quick-moving the very qualities least desired in a Citizen, the
mark of the Son of the Wolf. Now he was none of these things, but he looked no
more like a Citizen for all that; he was haggard, fretful. He looked like a
man who had been through a very hard time.
He said, with an absolute minimum of protocol: "Germyn, the last time I saw
you there was a Translation. Gala Tropile, remember?"
"I remember," Citizen Germyn said economically. Remember! It had hardly left
his thoughts.
"And you said there had been others since. Have they still been going on?"
Germyn said: "There have." He was trying to speak directly, to match this man
Haendl's speed and forcefulness. It was hardly good manners, but it had
occurred to Citizen
Germyn that there were times when manners, after all, were not the most
important things in the world. "There were two in the past few days. One was a
woman Citizeness Baird;
her husband's a teacher. She was Viewing Through Glass with four or five other
women at the time. She just disappeared. I think she was looking through a
green prism at the time, if that helps."
"I don't know if it helps or not. Who was the other one?"
Germyn shrugged. "A man named Harmane. He was our Keeper. No one saw it. But
they heard the thunderclap, or something like a thunderclap, and he was
missing." He thought for a moment. "It is a little unusual, I suppose. Two in
one week, in one little town '
Haendl said roughly: "Listen, Germyn. It isn't just two. In the past thirty
days, within the area around here and in one other place, there have been at
least fifty. In two places, do you understand? Here and in Princeton. The rest
of the world no; nothing much; a few
Translations here and there, but no more than usual. But just in these two
communities, fifty. Does that make sense?"
Citizen Germyn thought. " No."
"No. And I'll tell you something else. Three of the well, victims have been
children under the age of five. One was too young to walk. And the most recent
Translation wasn't a person at all. It was a helicopter. Know what a
helicopter is? It's a flying machine, about the size of this house. The whole
damned thing went, bang. Now figure that out, Germyn.
What's the explanation for Translations?"
Germyn was gaping. "Why you meditate on connectivity. Once you've grasped the
essential connectivity of all things, you become One with the Cosmic Whole.
But I don't see how a baby or a machine "
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"Tropile's the link," Haendl said grimly. "When he got Translated we thought
it was a big help, because he had the decency to do it right under our eyes.
We got enough readings to give us a clue as to what, physically speaking,
Translation is all about. That was the first
real clue, and we thought he'd done us a favor. . . . Now I'm not so sure." He
leaned forward. "Every person I know of who was Translated was someone Tropile
knew. The three kids were in his class at the nursery school we put him onto
that for a while to keep him busy, when he first came to us. Two of the men he
bunked with are gone; the mess boy who served him is gone; his wife is gone.
Meditation? No, Germyn. I
know most of those people. Not a damned one of them would have spent a moment
meditating on connnecti-vity to save his life. And what do you make of that?"
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