"How so?

"You will know what I mean if you get a look at his room in the morning. He is going to have a big bill here. He'll tear that place apart."

"Hasn't he ever seen a physician about it?"

"Not that I know of."

"There must be some very good ones in the high Cs."

"Indeed. But he won't see one. He'll be all right in the morning, though—a little tired, perhaps, and there may even be a personality change. But he'll be all

right."

"What sort of personality change?" "Hard to say. You'll see."

"Here's our room. You sure you want to try this?" "I'll tell you inside."

Two

In the room with walls bound like books in large. grained, crushed morocco, Chadwick and Count Donatien Alphonse Francois, marquis de Sade, sat in high-backed chairs playing chess at a C Fifteen moneychanger's table. Standing, Chadwick was six feet in height. Standing or sitting, he weighed about twentyfive stone. His hair was a helmet of pale curls above a low brow over gray eyes with dark smudges beneath them, blue eyeshadow above; broken veins crossed his

wide nose and underlay his cheeks like bright webs. His neck was thick, his shoulders broad; his sausage-like fingers were steady and deft as he removed the other's. pawn from the board and dropped his bishop onto its square.

He turned to his right, where a pale-blue lazy Susan containing a circular rack of aperitif glasses drifted. Turning it, he sipped in quick succession of an orange a green, a yellow and a smoky gold, almost in time to the music of horns and strings. The glasses were instantly refilled as he replaced them.

He stretched and regarded his companion, who was reaching for his own beverage carousel.

"Your game is improving," he said, "or mine is degenerating. I'm not certain which."

His guest sipped from the clear, the bright red, the amber and again the clear liqueurs.

"In light of your activities on my behalf, he replied, "I could never acknowledge the latter."

Chadwick smiled and flipped his left hand palmupward for a moment.

"I try to bring interesting people to teach at my writing workshops," he said. "It is extremely rewarding when one of them also proves such fine company."

The marquis returned his smile.

"I do find it a considerable improvement over the circumstances from which you removed me last month, and I must confess I would like to extend my absence from my own milieu for as long as possible—preferably indefinitely."

Chadwick nodded.

"I find your views so interesting that it would be hard to part with you."

"... And I am enthralled by the development of letters since my own time. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarme, Verlaine—and that wonderful man Artaud! I saw it all coming, of course."

"I am certain."

"Particularly Artaud, as a matter of fact."

"I would have guessed as much."

"His call for a theater of cruelty—what a fine and noble thing!"

"Yes. There is much merit to it."

"The cries, the sudden terror! I—"

The marquis produced a silk handkerchief from his sleeve and blotted his brow. He smiled weakly.

"I have my sudden enthusiasms," he stated.

Chadwick chuckled.

... Such as the game in which you are engaged— this, this black decade. It makes me think of the wonderful Jan Luyken plates you showed me the other evening. From your descriptions, I almost feel party to it...."

"It is about time for a progress report," Chadwick remarked. "Let us see how things are going."

He rose and crossed the pelt-strewn floor, approaching a black marble sphinx to the left of the smoldering fireplace. Halting before it, he muttered a few words and it extruded a long paper tongue. He tore this off and returned with it to his seat, where he held it before him like a scroll, his brows furrowed, and slowly unrolled it.

He reached for a glass containing an ounce of straight Kentucky bourbon, drained it and replaced it in the rack.

"Old Red made it past the first one," he said. "Killed the man we'd sent. This was not unexpected. It was a rather crude effort. Just to serve him notice, so to speak."

"A question ..."

"Yes?"

"You definitely wanted the quarry to be aware that this game had commenced?"

"Sure. Makes him sweat a lot more that way."

"I see. Then what happened?"

"Things began in earnest. A tracking device was placed on his vehicle and traps were set for him in a number of places to which he might flee. But the record becomes confused at this point. He did proceed into one of the ambush areas where one of the better assassins—a man for whom I had great hopes—had what sounded like an excellent arrangement for concluding things. It is not clear what occurred there. But the assassin disappeared. Our follow-up men learned that there had been some sort of altercation—but the innkeeper on whose grounds it took place did not even know its exact nature—and Red departed, after removing the tracking device and leaving it behind."

The marquis smiled.

"And so the second stroke fails. It makes the game more interesting, does it not?"

"Perhaps. Though I wouldn't have minded seeing it end there. I am disturbed by the third one, however. It must count against me as an attempt, as I'd registered the assassin with the Games Board-but it doesn't seem as though the attempt was actually made."

"Which one was that?"

"The woman with the deadly hands and the custom you found so delightful. She simply vanished. Went off with a new boyfriend and never came back. My man waited several days for her. Nothing. I am going to call him away from that phase of the operation and write

her off." , , ,

"Pity. Sad to lose a creature of such character. But tell me, when you say 'several days,' how do you measure them if you are not certain where—or should I say when?—she has gone?"

Chadwick shook his head.

"They are 'drift' days," he explained. "My man is at a fixed point on the Road. A day there corresponds to the passage of a day at most of the exits. If he were to remain there for ten years and then wish to return to the exit point of ten years previous, he would have to head down the Road and take a different exit."

"Then there is a drift to the exits themselves?"

"Yes', that's one way of regarding it. But there appear to be an infinite number of them advancing. We change the signs periodically, but most of the travelers who go in for long runs rather than local hops carry small computers—those thinking machines I told you about—to keep track of these matters."

"So you could restore me to my own age at an earlier time, a later time, or the same time as you recovered me?"

"Yes, any of those could be arranged. Have you a

preference?"

"Actually, I would like to learn to operate one of your vehicles—and one of those computers. Could I

travel it alone then? Could I find my way back here again from another age?"

"Once you have traveled the Road, there does seem to be some sort of physical alteration permitting you to find it and do it again," Chadwick acknowledged "But I'll have to think about it. I am not ready to sacrifice your company to your sightseeing whims or to your desire to murder your grandfather."

The marquis chuckled.

"Nor am I an ungracious guest, I assure you. But once I learn to deal with the drift, I could see all the sights I want and return to just about now—could I not?"

"I'd rather discuss this later. Shall we leave it at that?"

The marquis smiled and sipped absinthe.

"For now," he said. Then, "So your quarry is temporarily invisible?"

"He was, until he foolishly betrayed his position around C Twelve by placing a bet on himself. Perhaps he does not realize that betting records in these matters have recently been centralized. And, of course, it could also be some sort of a trap."