Then it stopped, just as suddenly as it had started. He also found that he was more than a dozen yards farther up the road. It was like a sudden jump in a film. Something was wrong. A much greater part of him was now detached from the Christ personality.

The things around him were also changed. The visual images seemed washed out, insubstantial, almost transparent. The sound was fuzzy and muffled. There was enough of Francis Xavier Barstow outside of the feelie to know that something was wrong. There wasn't enough of him to know what to do. He felt he ought to scream or thrash about. There ought to be an alarm, a button he could push or a lever he could pull. Instead he just kept plodding toward the Place of the Skull, until the pain started again.

If anything, it was worse than the first time. The colors and the noise were even more violent. The detached part of his mind wasn't detached enough not to suffer. It felt as though a blowtorch was being run lovingly over every nerve ending in his body. He was convinced he was about to die.

Then it stopped again. The color and noise vanished as though it had never existed. There had been another jump. He was lying spread on the cross. Two Roman soldiers knelt beside him. There was something reassuring about the burnished bronze, well-polished leather, and coarse red fabric of the uniforms. Francis Xavier had asked for their forgiveness so many times that they almost felt like friends. He even knew their faces. One had a deep brown, earthy face with a broad flattened nose like an ex-boxer. The other's was thinner, more sensitive… But it wasn't. He wasn't the same. He had a ridiculous false mustache and eyebrows. A fat cigar was clenched between his teeth. The absurd eyebrows were jerked rapidly up and down. The face split into an insane grin.

"Would you mind crossing your feet? We've only got three nails!"

SAM LET HIMSELF INTO HIS MINUSCULE room. Max the black and white cat was lying curled up on the bed with his tail draped around the tip of his nose. He woke up, yawned, and then got to his feet stretching languidly. He padded toward Sam, flexing his claws and digging them into the covers. Sam sat down on the bed. The cat butted his upper arm. Sam smiled and patted him.

"Hi, Max, how you been?"

The cat yowled.

"Hungry, huh?"

The cat yowled again. Sam picked him up.

"You better keep the noise down, or we'll both be in trouble."

He tried to pet the cat, but Max squirmed out of his arms. Still yowling, he ran to the small alcove the landlord liked to call a kitchenette, and then back to Sam.

"Will you shut up, Max? When are you going to realize you're against the rules?"

Sam climbed reluctantly to his feet, still trying to hush the cat. Max danced around his feet, alternately yelling and purring loudly. Sam opened a small wall cupboard with a cracked glass door and took out a pack of Kitty Krunch. He filled a small plastic bowl. The bowl was red and bore the legend "Present from Rio de Janeiro." Sam couldn't remember where the bowl had come from. He had certainly never been to Rio. He set the bowl down in front of the cat. Max threw himself, single-mindedly, into the task of eating. It was the high point of his day.

Sam went back to the bed and sat down. He watched the cat. In between mouthfuls, it would pause to purr joyfully. Cats, in fact pets of all kinds, were totally outlawed from all cheap-lease rooms. The rules had been made some ten years before, when an urban rabies scare had started City Hall on a vast antipet drive. The campaign had not worked, but the rules remained. Max was Sam's single, but continuous, act of rebellion.

Sam worried about Max. The cat had been with Sam for almost three years. Nobody had said a word about Max, but still Sam worried. As well as his sole act of rebellion, the cat was also his main source of companionship. Sometimes Sam wondered how he would survive without Max.

When those thoughts started, he would take a Serenax. The room was drab and as clean as it was possible to make a cheap-lease, where the war against roaches alone was a full-time occupation. The yellowing walls didn't bother Sam. He found them kind of restful. It actually was not hard to keep the room neat. Sam didn't have very much. Aside from the bed, two chairs, a small table, a built-in wall TV, and a selection of cooking utensils, there was just a small nest of shelves that held the meager mementoes of a life of very limited expectations. There was a blue plastic lunch box from an ancient TV show called "The Galaxy Rangers" that Sam had watched as a child, a Michael Jackson funeral mug, a glow-in-the-dark figurine of Batman with one arm missing, a group of lead spacemen, a neat row of books, and a framed black-and-white photograph of May Marsh, the star of "Penal Colony." He really didn't know why he kept that picture. He didn't actually like "Penal Colony."

Sam wondered if he should fix himself a meal. Somehow he couldn't be bothered. He had taken too many pills already. He just didn't have the motivation. Instead, he went to the same cupboard that held the Kitty Krunch and took down a jar of cookies. The cat looked up at him. Max had a keen interest in anything to do with food. Sam looked at him sadly.

"I only saw her once today, the girl in the vault, the one I told you about."

He munched absently on a cookie, carrying the jar with him as he went back to the bed.

"I have to go and see her when Ralph's off drinking, otherwise he gives me a hard time."

The cat sat down and began to wash himself.

"It's difficult with Ralph. I mean, he's my partner, and I like him, but when he drinks, he can get real mean. I tell myself it ain't his fault, but it still ain't easy. I like to look at the girl."

The cat was totally involved in its toilet. Max always did a thorough job.

"I sure hope nothing happens to her."

Sam started on another cookie. As he chewed, he stared at the cat.

"You're just not interested, are you?"

Sam reached out and turned on the TV. One of the consolations of a cheap-lease was the way almost everything could be reached from the bed.

The screen came to life. It was channel 45, "Earth News." It was in the middle of an item about a subway riot. Sam was glad he didn't use the subway. It was worth the extra fare to take the monorail and know he was fairly safe. On the subway, anything could happen.

The picture on the screen seemed to be proving Sam's point. It was shaky and hand held. It showed a seven-man CRAC squad clubbing a subway car full of fighting passengers into some semblance of order. The commentary mentioned Lincoln Avenue station.

"I hope Ralph wasn't involved."

Sam flipped the channel. On 48 someone was getting his head kicked in an ancient western. Sam turned off the set. He didn't like violence.

He reached for the bookshelf. Sam was reading two books at the moment. One was The House at Pooh Corner, the other was Moby Dick. Sam didn't feel like dealing with Herman Melville, so he picked up Pooh Corner. He opened the book, took out a marker, and settled back to read. The cat climbed on his chest and rolled onto the open book. Sam smiled and poked the cat in the stomach.

"What's the matter, don't you want me to read?"

The cat waved its legs in the air and tried to bite him.

"Maybe you want to watch television?"

WANDA-JEAN SAT UP IN THE HUGE BED. She felt a little dizzy. She had drunk too much, earlier in the evening. Over on the other side of the bed, Bobby Priest was fast asleep.

She looked over at him. In repose, he was very different from the character she had come to know on the studio floor. Without the surface layer of fast-talking energy, he looked weak, vulnerable, almost petulant, more like a spoiled little boy than the big TV star.