“Your dark-skinned companion’s advice is good,” the moratorium owner chimed in.

“What advice?” Joe said.

“To calm yourself.” Von Vogelsang opened the glove compartment of the chopper’s control panel; he handed Joe a merry multicolored box. “Chew one of these, Mr. Chip.”

“Tranquilizing gum,” Joe said, accepting the box; reflexively he opened it. “Peach-flavored tranquilizing gum.” To Al he said, “Do I have to take this?”

“You should,” Al said.

Joe said, “Runciter would never have taken a tranquilizer under circumstances of this sort. Glen Runciter never took a tranquilizer in his life. You know what I realize now, Al? He gave his life to save ours. In an indirect way.”

“Very indirect,” Al said. “Here we are,” he said; the chopper had begun to descend toward a target painted on a flat roof field below. “You think you can compose yourself?” he asked Joe.

“I can compose myself,” Joe said, “when I hear Runciter’s voice again. When I know some form of life, half-life, is still there.”

The moratorium owner said cheerily, “I wouldn’t worry on that score, Mr. Chip. We generally obtain an adequate protophasonic flow. At first. It is later, when the half-life period has expended itself, that the heartache arises. But, with sensible planning, that can be forestalled for many years.” He shut off the motor of the chopper, touched a stud which caused the cabin door to slide back. “Welcome to the Beloved Brethren Moratorium,” he said; he ushered the two of them out onto the roof field. “My personal secretary, Miss Beason, will escort you to a consultation lounge; if you will wait there, being subliminally influenced into peace of soul by the colors and textures surrounding you, I will have Mr. Runciter brought in as soon as my technicians establish contact with him.”

“I want to be present at the whole process,” Joe said. “I want to see your technicians bring him back.”

To Al, the moratorium owner said, “Maybe, as his friend, you can make him understand.”

“We have to wait in the lounge, Joe,” Al said.

Joe looked at him fiercely. “Uncle Tom,” he said.

“All the moratoriums work this way,” Al said. “Come on with me to the lounge.”

“How long will it take?” Joe asked the moratorium owner.

“We’ll know one way or another within the first fifteen minutes. If we haven’t gotten a measurable signal by then—”

“You’re only going to try for fifteen minutes?” Joe said. To Al he said, “They’re only going to try for fifteen minutes to bring back a man greater than all of us put together.” He felt like crying. Aloud. “Come on,” he said to Al. “Let’s—”

“You come on,” Al repeated. “To the lounge.”

Joe followed him into the lounge.

“Cigarette?” Al said, seating himself on a synthetic buffalo-hide couch; he held his pack up to Joe.

“They’re stale,” Joe said. He didn’t need to take one, to touch one, to know that.

“Yeah, so they are.” Al put the pack away. “How did you know?” He waited. “You get discouraged easier than anyone I ever ran into. We’re lucky to be alive; it could be us, all of us, in that cold-pac there. And Runciter sitting out here in this lounge with these nutty colors.” He looked at his watch.

Joe said, “All the cigarettes in the world are stale.” He examined his own watch. “Ten after.” He pondered, having many disjointed and unconnected brooding thoughts; they swam through him like silvery fish. Fears, and mild dislikes, and apprehensions. And all the silvery fish recirculating to begin once more as fear. “If Runciter were alive,” he said, “sitting out here in this lounge, everything would be okay. I know it but I don’t know why.” He wondered what was, at this moment, going on between the moratorium’s technicians and the remains of Glen Runciter. “Do you remember dentists?” he asked Al.

“I don’t remember, but I know what they were.”

“People’s teeth used to decay.”

“I realize that,” Al said.

“My father told me what it used to feel like, waiting in a dentist’s office. Every time the nurse opened the door you thought, It’s happening. The thing I’ve been afraid of all my life.”

“And that’s what you feel now?” Al asked.

“I feel, Christ, why doesn’t that halfwit sap who runs this place come in here and say he’s alive, Runciter’s alive. Or else he’s not. One way or another. Yes or no.”

“It’s almost always yes. Statistically, as Vogelsang said—”

“In this case it’ll be no.”

“You have no way of knowing that.” l

Joe said, “I wonder if Ray Hollis has an outlet here in Zurich.”

“Of course he has. But by the time you get a precog in here we’ll already know anyhow.”

“I’ll phone up a precog,” Joe said. “I’ll get one on the line right now.” He started to his feet, wondering where he could find a vidphone. “Give me a quarter.”

Al shook his head.

“In a manner of speaking,” Joe said, “you’re my employee; you have to do what I say or I’ll fire you. As soon as Runciter died I took over management of the firm. I’ve been in charge since the bomb went off; it was my decision to bring him here, and it’s my decision to rent the use of a precog for a couple of minutes. Let’s have the quarter.” He held out his hand.

“Runciter Associates,” Al said, “being run by a man who can’t keep fifty cents on him. Here’s a quarter.” He got it from his pocket, tossed it to Joe. “When you make out my paycheck add it on.”

Joe left the lounge and wandered down a corridor, rubbing his forehead blearily. This is an unnatural place, he thought. Halfway between the world and death. I am head of Runciter Associates now, he realized, except for Ella, who isn’t alive and can only speak if I visit this place and have her revived. I know the specifications in Glen Runciter’s will, which now have automatically gone into effect; I’m supposed to take over until Ella, or Ella and he if he can be revived, decide on someone to replace him. They have to agree; both wills make that mandatory. Maybe, he thought, they’ll decide I can do it on a permanent basis.

That’ll never come about, he realized. Not for someone who can’t manage his own personal fiscal responsibilities. That’s something else Hollis’ precog would know, he realized. I can find out from them whether or not I’ll be upgraded to director of the firm. That would be worth knowing, along with everything else. And I have to hire the precog anyhow.

“Which way to a public vidphone?” he asked a uniformed employee of the moratorium. The employee pointed. “Thanks,” he said, and wandered on, coming at last to the pay vidphone. He lifted the receiver, listened for the dial tone, and then dropped in the quarter which Al had given him.

The phone said, “I am sorry, sir, but I can’t accept obsolete money.” The quarter clattered out of the bottom of the phone and landed at his feet. Expelled in disgust.

“What do you mean?” he said, stooping awkwardly to retrieve the coin. “Since when is a North American Confederation quarter obsolete?”

“I am sorry, sir,” the phone said, “the coin which you put into me was not a North American Confederation quarter but a recalled issue of the United States of America’s Philadelphia mint. It is of merely numismatical interest now.”

Joe examined the quarter and saw, on its tarnished surface, the bas-relief profile of George Washington. And the date. The coin was forty years old. And, as the phone had said, long ago recalled.

“Having difficulties, sir?” a moratorium employee asked, walking over pleasantly. “I saw the phone expel your coin. May I examine it?” He held out his hand and Joe gave him the U.S. quarter. “I will trade you a current Swiss ten-franc token for this. Which the phone will accept.”

“Fine,” Joe said. He made the trade, dropped the ten-franc piece into the phone and dialed Hollis’ international toll-free number.