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By Root 1940 0

erred before. You could have run Czarina-Kluster. Instead you let your control slip, and now the Queen's Advisors, those Mechanist"—Navarre stopped short, noticing the dogs accompanying Gomez—"gentlemen, are running things with their customary efficiency. But politics aside, this nonsense is ruining C-K's ability to do decent science! Real research, that is; the kind that brings new patents to armor C-K against its enemies. Terraforming squanders our resources, while Mech and Shaper militants scheme relentlessly against us. Yes, I admit your dreams are pretty. Yes, they even serve a social use as a relatively harmless state ideology. But in the end they'll collapse and take C-K with them." Wellspring's eyes glittered. "You're overworked, Yevgeny. You need a new perspective. Take ten years off, and see if time won't change your mind." Navarre flushed angrily. He turned to Lindsay. "You see? Cataclysm! That remark meant ice assassination, you heard him allude to it! Come, Milosz, surely you can't hold with these boondoggles!"

Lindsay said nothing. There had been a time when he might have twisted the conversation to his advantage. But now his skill was gone. And he no longer wanted it.

Words were useless. He had grown impatient with words. They could no longer hold him.

Suddenly he knew he had to step outside the rules.

He floated out of his chair and began stripping off his clothes. Navarre left at once, insulted and flustered. Lindsay's clothes drifted off in free-fall, his jacket and trousers pinwheeling slowly over other tables. The customers ducked, laughing. Soon he was naked. The crowd's nervous laughter died down into puzzled unease. They moved away from Gomez's dogs and muttered together in disconcerted awe.

Lindsay ignored them. He folded his legs in midair and gazed at the wall. Wellspring's students deserted the bar, mumbling excuses and glancing back over their shoulders. Even Wellspring was nonplused. When Wellspring left he took the last of the crowd with him.

Lindsay was left alone with the bar servo, young Gomez, and his dogs. Gomez edged closer. "Czarina-Kluster isn't like I'd thought it was, in the Republic."

Lindsay meditated on the landscape.

"They put these dogs on me. Because supposedly I might be dangerous. You don't mind the dogs, do you? ... No, I see that you don't." Gomez sighed tremulously. "After three months, the others still keep me at arm's length. They won't initiate me into their Clique. You saw the girl, didn't you?

Melanie Omaha, Dr. Omaha from the Kosmosity? Fire, she's fantastic, isn't she?

But she doesn't care for men under the dogs; who would, knowing Security's watching? I'd give my right arm for ten minutes in a discreet with her. Oh, sorry." He looked in embarrassment at Lindsay's mechanical arm. Gomez wiped red streaks of facepaint from his cheeks. "You remember me telling you about Abelard Lindsay? Well, rumor says you're him. And I think I believe it. You are Lindsay. You're him."

Lindsay drew a deeper breath.

"I understand," Gomez said. "You're telling me that it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the Cause. But listen to this!" He pulled a notebook from inside his willow-printed coat. He read loudly, desperately. "

'A dissipative self-organizing system evolves along a coherent sequence of space-time structures. We may distinguish between four different dimensional frameworks: au-topoiesis, ontogeny, phylogeny, anagenesis.' " He crumpled the paper in anguish. "And this is from my poetry class!" There was a moment's silence. Then Gomez burst out: "Maybe it's the secret of life! But if it is, can we bear it? Can we meet the goals we set ourselves? Over centuries? What about the simple things? How can I find any joy in a single day when the specters of these centuries loom over me. ... It's all too huge, yes, even you ... You! You, who brought me here. Why didn't you tell me you were Wellspring's friend? Was it modesty? But you're Lindsay!

Lindsay himself! I didn't believe it at first. When I decided it was true, it terrified me. Like hearing your own shadow