Tom Monteleone, visiting one afternoon, pointed out tome that I had not written a short story in over twoyears. So I did this one right after he left to prevent theinterval's growing any longer.

Let me tell you of the creature called the Bork. It wasborn in the heart of a dying sun. It was cast forth uponthis day from the river of past/future as a piece of timepollution. It was fashioned of mud and aluminum, plasticand some evolutionary distillate of seawater. It had spundangling from the umbilical of circumstance till, severedby its will, it had fallen a lifetime or so later, coming torest on the shoals of a world where things go to die. Itwas a piece of a man in a place by the sea near a resortgrown less fashionable since it had become a euthanasiacolony.

Choose any of the above and you may be right.

Upon this day, he walked beside the water, poking withhis forked, metallic stick at the things the last night's stormhad left: some shiny bit of detritus useful to the weird sisters in their crafts shop, worth a meal there or a dollop ofpolishing rouge for his smoother half; purple seaweed fora salty chowder he had come to favor; a buckle, a button,'a shell; a white chip from the casino.

The surf foamed and the wind was high. The heavenswere a blue-gray wall, unjointed, lacking the graffiti ofbirds or commerce. He left a jagged track and one footprint, humming and clicking as he passed over the palesands. It was near to the point where the forktailed icebirds paused for several days—a week at most—in theirmigrations. Gone now, portions of the beach were still dotted with their rust-colored droppings. There he saw thegirl again, for the third time in as many days. She hadtried before to speak with him, to detain him. He had ignored her for a number of reasons. This time, however,she was not alone.

She was regaining her feet, the signs in the sand indicating flight and collapse. She had on the same red dress,torn and stained now. Her black hair—short, with heavybangs—lay in the only small disarrays of which it wascapable. Perhaps thirty feet away was a young man fromthe Center, advancing toward her. Behind him drifted oneof the seldom seen dispatch-machines—about half the sizeof a man and floating that same distance above theground, it was shaped like a tenpin, and silver, its bulboushead-end faceted and illuminated, its three ballerina skirtstinfoil-thin and gleaming, rising and falling in rhythmsindependent of the wind.

Hearing him, or glimpsing him peripherally, she turnedaway from her pursuers, said, "Help me" and then shesaid a name.

He paused for a long while, although the interval wasundetectable to her. Then he moved to her side andstopped again.

The man and the hovering machine halted also.

"What is the matter?" he asked, his voice smooth, deep,faintly musical."They want to take me," she said,

••Well?"

"I do not wish to go."

"Oh. You are not ready?"

"No, I am not ready."

"Then it is but a simple matter. A misunderstanding."

He turned toward the two.

"There had been a misunderstanding," he said. "Sheis not ready."

"This is not your affair, Bork," the man replied. "TheCenter has made its determination."

"Then it will have to reexamine it. She says that she isnot ready."

"Go about your business, Bork."

The man advanced. The machine followed.

The Bork raised his hands, one of fiesh, the others ofother things.

"No," he said.

"Get out of the way," the man said. "You are interfering."

Slowly, the Bork moved toward them. The lights in themachine began to blink. Its skirts fell. With a sizzlingsound it dropped to the sand and lay unmoving. The manhalted, drew back a pace.

"I will have to report this—"

"Go away," said the Bork.

The man nodded, stopped, raised the machine. Heturned and carried it off with him, heading up the beach,not looking back. The Bork lowered his arms.

"There," he said to the girl. "You have more time."

He moved away then, investigating shell-shucks anddriftwood.

She followed him.

"They will be back," she said.

"Of course."

"What will I do then?"

"Perhaps by then you will be ready."

She shook her head. She laid her hand on his humanpart.

*'No," she said. "I will not be ready.""How can you tell, now?"

"I made a mistake," she said. "I should never havecome here."

He halted and regarded her."That is unfortunate," he said. "The best thing that Ican recommend is to go and speak with the therapists atthe Center, They will find a way to persuade you thatpeace is preferable to distress."

"They were never able to persuade you," she said.

"I am different. The situation is not comparable."

"I do not wish to die."

"Then they cannot take you. The proper frame of mindis prerequisite. It is right there in the contract—ItemSeven."

"They can make mistakes. Don't you think they evermake a mistake? They get cremated the same as theothers."

'They are most conscientious. They have dealt fairlywith me."

"Only because you are virtually immortal. The machines short out in your presence. No man could lay handson you unless you willed it. And did they not try to dispatch you in a state of unreadiness?"

"That was the result of a misunderstanding."

"Like mine?"

"I doubt it."

He drew away from her, continuing on down the beach.

"Charles Eliot Borkman," she called.

That name again.

He halted once more, tracing lattices with his stick, poking out a design in the sand.

Then, "Why did you say that?" he asked.

"It is your name, isn't it?"

"No," he said. "That man died in deep space when aliner was jumped to the wrong coordinates, coming outtoo near a star gone nova."

"He was a hero. He gave half his body to the burning,preparing an escape boat for the others. And he survived."

"Perhaps a few pieces of him did. No more."

"It was an assassination attempt, wasn't it?"

"Who knows? Yesterday's politics are not worth thepaper wasted on its promises, its threats."

"He wasn't Just a politician. He was a statesman, a humanitarian. One of the very few to retire with morepeople loving him than hating him."

He made a chuckling noise.

"You are most gracious. But if that is the case, then theminority still had the final say. I personally think he wassomething of a thug. I am pleased, though, to hear thatyou have switched to the past tense."

"They patched you up so well that you could last forever. Because you deserved the best."

"Perhaps I already have lasted forever. What do youwant of me?"

"You came here to die and you changed your mind—"

"Not exactly. I've just never composed it in a fashionacceptable under the terms of Item Seven. To be atpeace—"

"And neither have I. But I lack your ability to impressthis fact on the Center."

"Perhaps if I went there with you and spoke tothem..."

"No," she said. "They would only agree for so long asyou were about. They call people like us life-malingerersand are much more casual about the disposition ot ourcases. I cannot trust them as you do without armor ofmy own."

"Then what would you have me do—girl?"

"Nora. Call me Nora. Protect me. That is what I want.You live near here. Let me come stay with you. Keepthem away from me."

He poked at the pattern, began lo scratch it out

"You are certain that this is what you want?"

"Yes. Yes, I am."

"All right. You may come with me, then."

So Nora went to live with the Bork in his shack by thesea. During the weeks that followed, on each occasionwhen the representatives from the Center came about, theBork bade them depart quickly, which they did. Finally,they stopped coming by.