LITMIR.BIZ

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yesterday. The Director’s gaze sized up Tinker levelly. “Come in.”

      Thorngate re-entered his office and Tinker followed.

      The secretary shut the door.

      An avian odor smote Tinker. He had forgotten momentarily about the birds.

      Thorngate’s office was filled with greenery and caged songbirds suspended from the ceiling. They hopped and twittered and pecked incessantly, forming a continuous undercurrent to any conversation. Thorngate doted on them, and would frequently take the time to introduce a visitor to his latest acquisition.

      Today, with Tinker, he indulged in no such niceties.

      “Sit down, Don,” said the Director, from behind his desk.

      Tinker complied, and took the time to study Thorngate for any changes that would enable him to get a better grasp on the man.

      Thorngate was a small, slim man who always dressed impeccably. His curly salt-and-pepper hair was trimmed short. A goatee gave him a caprine air, like a defiant, self-assured satyr. His oldish face was taut and tanned. Before becoming Director of the NIS, he had been Secretary of State. Before that, a VP at the Bechtel Corporation.

      Thorngate, sitting now with fingers steepled, said, “I’ve agreed to see you, Don, for one reason only: curiosity. I wondered precisely what you felt you had to say to me that we haven’t covered already.”

      Fighting down his anger at Thorngate’s supercilious tone, Tinker replied, “I want back into the program, Ed. If not as a flasher, then at least in my old role of historical consultant. I feel the whole program is going wildly adrift. You’re too isolated in here. You can’t see it. I’ve been out there for several months now, and what I’ve seen has been horrendous. The Institute and its discoveries are tearing society apart. You need a new perspective on what to release and what to hold back. I can provide that. “

      Tinker found that he had been leaning forward in his chair with anxiousness. Now he sat back, trying to make himself relax, feeling he had stated his case as best he could.

      Thorngate contemplated his own finely manicured nails for a moment before speaking. Finally he said, “Don, you just saw who left. There’s someone who, I dare say, is better informed about the condition of the world then you are from the streetlevel, and who has the exact perspective you are urging me to employ. Now, he has no problems with what the Institute is doing. He is completely satisfied that all our releases are helping to make a new and better society. Naturally, there is a little turmoil out there at the moment. You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, if I can employ a cliche. But we are confident that eventually things will settle down. Anyone who has seen reality with the assistance of CEEP—as you and I have—should be sure of that. “

      Tinker tried to make Thorngate understand. “That’s exactly the trouble, Ed. You have to come down from the mountain to see exactly what’s happening out there. I’ve been off the drug for some time now, and have a better picture of things than you. “ A sudden intuition struck Tinker. “The President—he’s taking cheep too, isn’t he?”

      Thorngate smiled. “Surely you can’t expect me to confirm or deny such an assertion, Don. Such intelligence is granted on a strict need-to-know basis.”

      “Damn,” said Tinker, experiencing an abysmal sense of frustration. “I can’t believe the stupidity of it all.”

      Thorngate chose to ignore the outburst. “As for choosing what to release to the public, you may rest assured that we extensively think through all possible repercussions of what we license. There are plenty of discoveries we have kept back, for reasons of national security and potential destabilizing tendencies.”

      “Bullshit!” said Tinker. “You’re all crazy. You haven’t thought anything through.”

      Behind Thorngate’s smile an iron mask appeared. “Don, I detect hostility and quite ignoble personal motives in your decision to request re-admittance to the program. In fact, I believe that you are after nothing other than easy access to a steady diet of CEEP, having found just how much you need it. No, we have already secured your replacement without any difficulty, and I am afraid I must deny your petition.”

      “I could kill you now,” said Tinker, his mind a white inferno.

      Thorngate just smiled, as if the threat meant nothing.

      Tinker flashed then—in a primitive way—on the reason behind the Director’s easy affability in the face of such a threat. All the loose pieces, rumors and glimpses behind closed doors, fell into a pattern.

      “You’ve done it,” Tinker said softly. “You’ve proven the reality of life after death. “

      “Perhaps, “ gloated Thorngate. “Perhaps.

      “Holy Christ,” whispered Tinker.

      “Not precisely,” said Thorngate. The director stood and Tinker followed suit automatically. Thorngate showed him to the door.

      “Goodbye, Don. Just sit tight, and watch what happens. “

      He gave Tinker a nudge toward the corridor.

      Beyond the secretary’s position, Tinker stopped and turned for a final look at Thorngate, through his open door. The small man was peering into a birdcage, coaching a bird to sing.

      “Cheep,” he said. “Cheep, cheep.”

      * * * *

      Tinker stood in the lobby of the NIS like a Medusa-stricken man. Somehow he had gotten down from the fifth floor. His conscious mind had played no part in his movements, and whatever had brought him here had abandoned him. His mind seemed to be whirling apart now from the various blows he had lately taken. The loss of his job, and the loss of a Helen newly regained; his battle with Thorngate to make the Director see sense, during which the revelation had slipped about a life beyond this one; the mounting tide of psychosis that was engulfing the world—all these things were burdens he found suddenly insupportable. How he had ever hoped to discharge them, to make a difference, to free even so much as a little finger from the morass of personal and global despair—this he could no longer say..

      There was nothing left for him here, Tinker realized, and he willed himself to move. Nothing happened. He felt ambivalent about this sudden failure. Perhaps it was better not to move at all.

      Then the world started to come apart, as his senses deserted him. The busy scene before him suddenly disintegrated into various splotches of color, some of which moved in and out of his field of vision, like fragmented ghosts. Silence cloaked him.

      This was it, Tinker had time to think. Aparadigmatic psychosis had claimed him.

      A hand on his shoulden—a human touch among the noiseless alien shapes—reclaimed him for a time.

      The world redonned its familiar guise, hiding its secret chaotic face.

      Tinker turned.

      Behind him stood Bill Witkin.

      The man was stout and pudgy. He wore thick glasses on a perpetually nervous face. A few lonely strands of hair crossed his bald pate. As usual, he was having trouble keeping his shirt-tails in his bursting waistband.

      Once Tinker had considered him a good friend, and felt that Witkin had reciprocated, sharing something more than the common bond of flashing. But that had been before Tinker’s betrayal of the trust of the Institute. How Witkin felt about him now, Tinker couldn’t guess.

      But Witkin’s words and tone of voice seemed to signify that nothing had changed.

      “My God, Don. Are you okay? I saw you from across the lobby and didn’t even recognize you for a minute. You look like hell. “

      Tinker wiped acrid sweat from his brow, and spoke more bitterly than he had intended. “I’m all right now. As for looking like hell, I take it you haven’t been out much lately. This is the latest fashion now.”

      Witkin seemed honestly

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