"Yep," Mary Anne said.

"How many are in it?"

"Oh, thousands," Mary Anne—or rather the vug—said. Despite what he saw he knew it to be a vug. "Just thousands and thousands. All over the planet."

"But not everyone's in on it," Pete said. "Because you still have to hide from the authorities. I think I will tell Hawthorne."

Mary Anne laughed.

Reaching into the glove compartment, Pete fumbled about.

"Mary Anne removed the gun," the car informed him. "She was afraid if the police stopped you and they found it they'd put you back in jail."

"That's right," Mary Anne said.

"You people killed Luckman. Why?"

She shrugged. "I forget. Sorry."

"Who's next?"

"The thing."

"What thing?"

Mary Anne, her eyes sparkling, said, "The thing growing inside Carol. Bad luck, Mr. Garden; it's not a baby."

He shut his eyes.

The next he knew, they were over the Bay Area.

"Almost home," Mary Anne said.

"And you're just going to let me off?" he said.

"Why not?"

"I don't know." He was sick, then, in the corner of the car, like an animal would be. Mary Anne said nothing after that and he said nothing either. What a terrible night this had been, he thought to himself. It should have been wonderful; my first luck. And instead—

And now he could not reasonably dwell on the theme of suicide, because the situation had become worse, was too bad for that to be a solution. My own problems are problems of perception, he realized. Of understanding and then ac-

cepting. What I have to remember is that they're not all in it. The detective E. B. Black isn't in it and Doctor Philipson; he or it isn't in it, either. I can get help from something, somewhere, sometime.

"Right you are," Mary Anne said,

"Are you a telepath?" he said to her.

"I very much certainly darn right am."

"But," he said, "your mother said you weren't."

"My mother lied to you."

Pete said, "Is Nats Katz the center of all this?"

"Yes," she said.

"I thought so," he said, and lay back against the seat, trying not to be sick again.

Mary Anne said, "Here we are." The car dipped down, skimmed above the deserted pavement of a San Rafael street. "Give me a kiss," she said, "before you get out." She brought the car to a halt at the curb and looking up he saw his apartment building. The light was on in his window; Carol was still up, waiting for him, or else she had fallen asleep with the lights on.

"A kiss," he echoed. "Really?"

"Yes really," Mary Anne said, and leaned expectantly toward him.

"I can't," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because," he said, "of what you are, the thing that you are."

"Oh how absurd," Mary Anne said. "What's the matter with you, Pete? You're lost in dreams!"

"I am?"

"Yes," she said, glaring at him in exasperation. "You took dope tonight and got drunk and you were terribly excited about Carol and also you were afraid because of the police. You've been hallucinating like mad for the last two hours. You thought that psychiatrist, Doctor Philipson, was a vug, and then you thought I was a vug." To the car, Mary Anne said, "Am I a vug?"

"No, Mary Anne," the Rushmore circuit of the car answered, for the second time.

"See?" she said.

"I still can't do it," he said. "Just let me out of the car." He found the door handle, opened the door, stepped out on the curb, his legs shaking under him.

"Good night," Mary Anne said, eyeing him.

"Good night." He started toward the door of the apartment building.

The car said, after him, "You got me all dirty."

"Too bad," Pete said. He opened the apartment building door with his key and passed on inside; the door shut after him.

When he got upstairs he found Carol standing in the hall in a short, sheer yellow nightgown. "I heard the car drive up," she said. "Thank god you're back! I was so worried about you." She folded her arms, self-consciously blushing. "I should be in my robe, I know."

"Thanks for waiting up." He passed on by her, went into the bathroom and washed his face and hands with cold water.

"Can I fix you something to eat or drink? It's so late now."

"Coffee," he said, "would be fine."

In the kitchen she fixed a pot of coffee for both of them.

"Do me a favor," Pete said. "Call Pocatello information, the vidphone autocorp, and find out if there's a Doctor E. R. Philipson listed."

"All right." Carol clicked on the vidphone. She talked for a time with a sequence of homeostatic circuits and then she rang off. "Yes."

"I was seeing him," Pete said. "It cost me one hundred and fifty dollars. Their rates are high. Could you tell from what the vidphone said if Philipson is a Terran?"

"They didn't say. I got his number." She pushed the pad toward him.

"I'll call him and ask." He clicked the vidphone back on.

"At five-thirty in the morning?"

"Yes," he said, dialing. A long time passed; the phone, at the other end, rang and rang. " 'Walkin' the dog see-bawh, see-bawh,'" Pete sang. " 'He have-um red whisker, he have-um green paw.' Doctors expect this," he said to Carol. There was a sharp click, then, and on the vidscreen

a face, a wrinkled human face, formed. "Doctor Philipson?" Pete asked.

"Yes." The doctor shook his head blearily, then scrutinized Pete. "Oh, it's you."

"You remember me?" Pete said.

"Of course I do. You're the man Joe Schilling sent to me; I saw you for an hour earlier tonight."

Joe Schilling, Pete said to himself. I didn't know that. "You're not a vug, are you?" Pete said to Doctor Philipson.

"Is that what you called me up to ask?"

"Yes," Pete said. "It's very important."

"I am not a vug," Doctor Philipson said, and hung up.

Pete shut off the vidphone. "I think I'll go to bed," he said to Carol. "I'm worn out. Are you okay?"

"Yes," she said. "A little tired."

"Let's go to bed together," he said to her.

Carol smiled. "All right. I'm certainly glad to have you back; do you always do things like this, go out on binges until five-thirty A.M.?"

"No," he said. And I'll never do it again, he thought.

As he sat on the edge of the bed removing his clothes he found something, a match folder stuffed into his left shoe, beneath his instep. He set the shoe down, held the match folder under the lamp by the bed and examined it. Carol, beside him, had already gotten into bed and apparently had gone directly to sleep.

On the match folder, in his own hand, penciled words: WE ARE ENTIRELY SURROUNDED BY BUGS RUGS

VUGS

That was my discovery tonight, he remembered. My bright, crowning achievement, and I was afraid I'd somehow forget it. I wonder when I wrote that? In the bar? On the way home? Probably when I first figured it out, when I was talking to Doctor Philipson.

"Carol," he said, "I know who killed Luckman."

"Who?" she said, still awake.

"We all did," Pete said. "All six of us who've lost our memories. Janice Remington, Silvanus Angst and his wife, Clem Gaines, Bill Calumine's wife and myself; we did it acting under the influence of the vugs." He held out the

match folder to her. "Read what I wrote, here. In case I didn't remember; in case they tampered with my mind again."

Sitting up, she took the match folder and studied it. " 'We are entirely surrounded by vugs.' Excuse me—but I have to laugh."

He glared at her grimly.

"That's why you placed that call to the doctor in Idaho and asked him what you did; now I understand. But he isn't a vug; you saw him yourself on the screen and heard him."

"Yeah, that's so," he admitted.

"Who else is a vug? Or, as you started to write it—"

"Mary Anne McClain. She's the worst of them all."

"Oh," Carol said, nodding. "I see, Pete. That's who you were with, tonight. I wondered. I knew it was someone. Some woman."