The Library

The Town centers around a semicircular plaza directly north of the Old Bridge. The other semicircular fragment, that is, the lower half of the circle, lies across the river to the south. These two half-circles are known as the North and South Plazas respectively.

Regarded as a pair, the two can impress one only as complete opposites, so unlike each other as they are. The North Plaza is heavy with an air of mystery, laden with the silence of the surrounding quarter, whereas the South Plaza seems to lack any atmosphere at all.

What is one meant to feel here? All is adrift in a vague sense of loss. Here, there are relatively fewer households than north of the Bridge. The flowerbeds and cobblestones are not well kept.

In the middle of the North Plaza stands a large Clock-tower piercing skyward. To be precise, one should say it is less a clocktower than an object retaining the form of a clocktower. The clock has long forfeited its original role as a timepiece.

It is a square stone tower, narrowing up its height, its faces oriented in compass fashion toward the cardinal directions. At the top are dials on all four sides, their hands frozen in place at thirty-five minutes past ten. Below, small portals give into what is likely a hollow interior. One might imagine ascending by ladder within but for the fact that no entrance is to be found at the base. The tower climbs so high above the plaza that one has to cross the Old Bridge to the south even to see the clock.

Several rings of stone and brick buildings fan out from the North Plaza. No edifice has any outstanding features, no decorations or plaques. All doors are sealed tight; no one is seen entering or leaving. Here, is this a post office for dead letters? This, a mining firm that engages no miners? This, a crematorium without corpses to burn? The resounding stillness gives the structures an impression of abandonment. Yet each time I turn down these streets, I can sense strangers behind the facades, holding their breath as they continue pursuits I will never know.

The Library stands in one block of this quarter. None the more distinguished for being a library, it is an utterly ordinary stone building. There is nothing to declare it a library.

With its old stone walls faded to a dismal shade, the shallow eaves over the iron-grilled windows and the heavy wooden doors, it might be a grain warehouse. If I had not asked the Gatekeeper to explain the way there in some detail, I would never have recognized it as a library.

"Soon as you get settled, go to the Library," the Gatekeeper tells me my first day in town.

"There is a girl who minds the place by herself. Tell her the Town told you to come read old dreams. She will show you the rest."

"Old dreams?" I say. "What do you mean by 'old dreams'?"

The Gatekeeper pauses from whittling a round peg, sets down his penknife, and sweeps the wood shavings from the table. "Old dreams are… old dreams. Go to the Library. You will find enough of them to make your eyes roll. Take out as many as you like and read them good and long."

The Gatekeeper inspects the pointed end of his finished peg, finds it to his approval, and puts it on the shelf behind him. There, perhaps twenty of the same round pegs are lined.

"Ask whatever questions you want, but remember, I may not answer," declares the Gatekeeper, folding his arms behind his head. "'There are things I cannot say. But from now on you must go to the Library every day and read dreams. That will be your job. Go there at six in the evening. Stay there until ten or eleven at night. The girl will fix you supper. Other times, you are free to do as you like. Understand?"

"Understood," I tell him. "How long am I to continue at that job?"

"How long? I cannot say," answers the Gatekeeper. "Until the right time comes." Then he selects another scrap of wood from a pile of kindling and starts whittling again.

"This is a poor town. No room for idle people wandering around. Everybody has a place, everybody has a job. Yours is in the library reading dreams. You did not come here to live happily ever after, did you?"

"Work is no hardship. Better than having nothing to do," I say.

"There you are," says the Gatekeeper, nodding squarely as he eyes the tip of his knife.

"So the sooner you get yourself to work, the better. From now on you are the Dreamreader. You no longer have a name. Just like I am the Gatekeeper. Understand?"

"Understood," I say.

"Just like there is only one Gatekeeper in this Town, there is only one Dreamreader. Only one person can qualify as Dreamreader. I will do that for you now."

The Gatekeeper takes a small white tray from his cupboard, places it on the table, and pours oil into it. He strikes a match and sets the oil on fire. Next he reaches for a dull, rounded blade from his knife rack and heats the tip for ten minutes. He blows out the flame and lets the knife cool.

"With this, I will give you a sign," says the Gatekeeper. "It will not hurt. No need to be afraid."

He spreads wide my right eye with his fingers and pushes the knife into my eyeball. Yet as the Gatekeeper said, it does not hurt, nor am I afraid. The knife sinks into my eyeball soft and silent, as if dipping into jelly.

He does the same with my left eye.

"When you are no longer a Dreamreader, the scars will vanish," says the Gatekeeper, putting away the tray and knife. "These scars are the sign of the Dreamreader. But as long as you bear this sign, you must beware of light. Hear me now, your eyes cannot see the light of day. If your eyes look at the light of the sun, you will regret it. So you must only go out at night or on gray days. When it is clear, darken your room and stay safe indoors."

The Gatekeeper then presents me with a pair of black glasses. I am to wear these at all times except when I sleep.

So it was I lost the light of day.

It is in the evening a few days later that I go my way to the Library. The heavy wooden door makes a scraping noise as I push it open. I find a long straight hallway before me.

The air is dusty and stale, an atmosphere the years have forsaken. The floorboards are worn where once tread upon, the plaster walls yellowed to the color of the light bulbs.

There are doors on either side of the hallway, each doorknob with a layer of white dust.

The only unlocked door is at the end, a delicate frosted glass panel behind which shines lamplight. I rap upon this door, but there is no answer. I place my hand on the tarnished brass knob and turn it, whereupon the door opens inward. There is not a soul in the room.

A great empty space, a larger version of a waiting room in a train station, exceedingly spare, without a single window, without particular ornament. There is a plain table and three chairs, a coal-burning iron stove, and little else besides an upright clock and a counter. On the stove sits a steaming, chipped black enamel pot. Behind the counter is another frosted glass door, with lamplight beyond. I wonder whether to knock, but decide to wait for someone to appear.

The counter is scattered with paperclips. I pick up a handful, then take a seat at the table.

I do not know how long it is before the Librarian appears through the door behind the counter. She carries a binder with various papers. When she sees me, her cheeks flush red with surprise.

"I am sorry," she says to me. "I did not know you were here. You could have knocked. I was in the back room, in the stacks. Everything is in such disorder."

I look at her and say nothing. Her face comes almost as a reminiscence. What about her touches me? I can feel some deep layer of my consciousness lifting toward the surface.

What can it mean? The secret lies in distant darkness.

"As you can see, no one visits here. No one except the Dreamreader."

I nod slightly, but do not take my eyes off her face. Her eyes, her lips, her broad forehead and black hair tied behind her head. The more closely I look, as if to read something, the further away retreats any overall impression. Lost, I close my eyes.

"Excuse me, but perhaps you have mistaken this for another building? The buildings here are very similar," she says, setting her binder down by the paperclips. "Only the Dreamreader may come here and read old dreams. This is forbidden to anyone else."

"I am here to read dreams," I say, "as the Town tells me to."

"Forgive me, but would you please remove your glasses?"

I take off my black glasses and face the woman, who peers into the two pale, discolored pupils that are the sign of the Dreamreader. I feel as if she is seeing into the core of my being.

"Good. You may put your glasses on." She sits across the table from me.

"Today I am not prepared. Shall we begin tomorrow?" she says. "Is this room comfortable for you? I can unlock any of the other reading rooms if you wish."

"Here is fine," I tell her. "Will you be helping me?" "Yes, it is my job to watch over the old dreams and to help the Dreamreader."

"Have I met you somewhere before?" She stares at me and searches her memory, but in the end shakes her head. "As you may know, in this Town, memory is unreliable and uncertain. There are things we can remember and things we cannot remember. You seem to be among the things I cannot. Please forgive me."

"Of course," I say. "It was not important." "Perhaps we have met before. This is a small town." "I arrived only a few days ago."

"How many days ago?" she asks, surprised. "Then you must be thinking of someone else.

I have never been out of this Town. Might it have been someone who looks like me?" "I suppose," I say. "Still, I have the impression that elsewhere we may all have lived totally other lives, and that somehow we have forgotten that time. Have you ever felt that way?"

"No," she says. "Perhaps it is because you are a Dreamreader. The Dreamreader thinks very differently from ordinary people."

I cannot believe her.

"Or do you know where this was?"

"I wish I could remember," I say. "There was a place, and you were there."

The Library has high ceilings, the room is quiet as the ocean floor. I look around vacantly, paperclips in hand. She remains seated.

"I have no idea why I am here either," I say.

I gaze at the ceiling. Particles of yellow light seem to swell and contract as they fall. Is it because of my scarred pupils that I can see extraordinary things? The upright clock against the wall metes out time without sound.

"I am here for a purpose, I am told."

"This is a very quiet town," she says, "if you came seeking quiet."

I do not know.

She slowly stands. "You have nothing to do here today. Your work starts tomorrow. Please go home to rest."

I look up at the ceiling again, then back at her. It is certain: her face bears a fatal connection to something in me. But it is too faint. I shut my eyes and search blindly.

Silence falls over me like a fine dust.

"I will return tomorrow at six o'clock in the evening," I say.

"Good-bye," she says.

On leaving the Library, I cross the Old Bridge. I lean on the handrail and listen to the the River. The Town is now devoid of beasts. The Clocktower and the Wall that surrounds the Town, the buildings along the riverbank, and the sawtooth mountains to the north are all tinged with the blue-gray gloom of dusk. No sound reaches my ears except for the murmur of the water. Even the birds have taken leave.

If you came seeking quiet—I hear her words.

Darkness gathers all around. As the streetlights by the River blink on, I set out down the deserted streets for the Western Hill.

Tabulations, Evolution, Sex Drive

While the old man went back above ground to rectify the sound-removed state in which he'd left his granddaughter, I plugged away in silence at my tabulations.

How long the old man was gone, I didn't really know. I had my digital alarm clock set to an alternating one-hour-thirty-minutes-one-hour-thirty-minutes cycle by which I worked and rested, worked and rested. The clock face was covered over so I couldn't read it.

Time gets in the way of tabulations. Whatever the time was now, it had no bearing on my work. My work begins when I start tabulating and it ends when I stop. The only time I need to know about is the one-hour-thirty-minutes-one-hour-thirty-minutes cycle.

I must have rested two or three times during the old man's absence. During these breaks, I went to the toilet, crossed my arms and put my face down on the desk, and stretched out on the sofa. The sofa was perfect for sleeping. Not too soft, not too hard; even the cushions pillowed my head just right. Doing different tabulation jobs, I've slept on a lot of sofas, and let me tell you, the comfortable ones are few and far between. Typically, they're cheap deadweight. Even the most luxurious-looking sofas are a disappointment when you actually try to sleep on them. I never understand how people can be lax about choosing sofas.

I always say—a prejudice on my part, I'm sure—you can tell a lot about a person's character from his choice of sofa. Sofas constitute a realm inviolate unto themselves.

This, however, is something that only those who have grown up sitting on good sofas will appreciate. It's like growing up reading good books or listening to good music. One good sofa breeds another good sofa; one bad sofa breeds another bad sofa. That's how it goes.

There are people who drive luxury cars, but have only second- or third-rate sofas in their homes. I put little trust in such people. An expensive automobile may well be worth its price, but it's only an expensive automobile. If you have the money, you can buy it, anyone can buy it. Procuring a good sofa, on the other hand, requires style and experience and philosophy. It takes money, yes, but you also need a vision of the superior sofa. That sofa among sofas.

The sofa I presently stretched out on was first-class, no doubt about it. This, more than anything, gave me a warm feeling about the old man. Lying there on the sofa with my eyes closed, I thought about him and his quirks, his hokey accent, that outlandish laugh.

And what about that sound-removal scheme of his? He bad to be a top-rank scientist.

Sound removal wouldn't even occur to your ordinary researcher. And another thing—you always hear about these oddball scientificos, but what kind of eccentric or recluse would build a secret laboratory behind a subterranean waterfall just to escape inquisitive eyes?

He was one strange individual.

As a commercial product, his sound-alteration technolo-gies would have all sorts of applications. Imagine, concert hall PA equipment obsolete—no more massive amps and speakers. Then, there was noise reduction. A sound-removal device would be ideal for people living near airports. Of course, sound-alteration would be ripe for military or criminal abuse. I could see it now: silent bombers and noiseless guns, bombs that explode at brain-crushing volumes, a whole slew of toys for destruction, ushering in a whole new generation of refinements in mass slaughter. The old man had obviously seen this too, giving him greater reason to hide his research from the world. More and more, I was coming to respect the old guy.

I was into the fifth or sixth time around in the work cycle when the old man returned, toting a large basket.

"Brought you fresh coffee and sandwiches," he said. "Cucumber, ham, and cheese. Hope that's all right." "Thanks. Couldn't ask for more," I said. "Want't'eat right away?" "No, after the next tab-cycle."

By the time the alarm went off, I'd finished laundering five of the seven pages of numeric data lists. One more push. I took a break, yawned, and turned my attention to food.

There were enough sandwiches for a small crowd. I devoured more than half of them myself. Long-haul tabulations work up a mean appetite. Cucumber, ham, cheese, I tossed them down in order, washing the lot down with coffee. For every three I ate, the old man nibbled at one, looking like a terribly well-mannered cricket.

"Have as many as you like," said the old man. "When you get't'my age, your eatin' declines. Can't eat as much, can't work as much. But a young person ought't'eat plenty.

Eat plenty and fatten up plenty. People nowadays hate't'get fat, but if you ask me, they're looking at fat all wrong. They say it makes you unhealthy or ugly, but it'd never happen 'tall if you fatten up the right way. You live a fuller life, have more sex drive, sharpen your wits. I was good and fat when I was young. Wouldn't believe it't'look at me now. Ho-ho-ho."

The old man could hardly contain his laughter. "How 'bout it? Terrific sandwiches, eh?"

"Yes, indeed. Very tasty," I said. The sandwiches really were very tasty. And I'm as demanding a critic of sandwiches as I am of sofas.

"My granddaughter made them. She's the one deserves your compliments," the old man said. "The child knows the finer points of making a sandwich."

"She's definitely got it down. Chefs can't make sandwiches this good."

"The child'd be overjoyed to hear that, I'm sure. We don't get many visitors, so there's hardly any chance't'make a meal for someone. Whenever the child cooks, it's just me and her eatin'."

"You two live alone?"

"Yessiree. Just us two loners, but I don't think it's so healthy for her. She's bright, strong as can be, but doesn't even try't'mix with the world outside. That's no good for a young person. Got't'let your sex drive out in some constructive way. Tell me now, the child's got womanly charms, hasn't she?"

"Well, er, yes, on that account," I stammered.

"Sex drive's decent energy. Y' can't argue about that. Keep sex drive all bottled up inside and you get dull-witted. Throws your whole body out of whack. Holds the same for men and for women. But with a woman, her monthly cycle can get irregular, and when her cycle goes off, it can make her unbalanced."

"Uh, yes."

"That child ought't'have herself relations with the right type of man at the earliest opportunity. I can say that with complete conviction, both as her guardian and as a biologist,"said the old man, salting his cucumbers.

"Did you manage with her to… uh… did you get her sound back in?" I asked. I didn't especially feel like hearing about people's sex drive, not while I was still in the middle of a job.

"Oh yes, I forgot't'tell you," said the old man. "I got her sound back't'normal, no trouble. Sure glad you thought't'remind me. No telling how many more days she would've had't'be without sound like that. Once I hole up down here, I don't generally go back up for a few days. Poor child, livin' without sound." "I can imagine."

"Like I was sayin', the child's almost totally out of contact with society. Shouldn't make much difference for the most part, but if the phone were't'ring, could be trouble."

"She'd have a hard time shopping if she couldn't speak." " Tosh, shoppin' wouldn't be so bad," said the old man. "They've got supermarkets out there where you can shop and not say a word. The child really likes supermarkets, she's always going to them. Office to supermarket, supermarket to office. That's her whole life." "Doesn't she go home?"

"The child likes the office. It's got a kitchen and a shower, everything she needs. At most she goes home once a week." I drank my coffee.

"But say, you managed't'talk with her all right," the old man said. "How'd you do it? Telepathy?"

"Lipreading. I studied it in my spare time."

"Lipreading, of course," the old man said, nodding with approval. "A right effective technique. I know a bit myself. What say we try carrying on a silent conversation, the two of us?"

"Mind if we don't?" I hastened to reply.

"Granted, lipreading's an extremely primitive technique. It has shortcomings aplenty, too. Gets too dark and you can't understand a thing. Plus you have't'keep your eyes glued to somebody's mouth. Still, as a halfway measure, it works fine. Must say you had uncanny foresight't'learn lipreading."

"Halfway measure?"

"Right-o," said the old man with another nod. "Now listen up, son. I'm tellin' this to you and you alone: The world ahead of us is goint'be sound-free."

"Sound-free?" I blurted out.

"Yessir. Completely sound-free. That's because sound is of no use to human evolution. In fact, it gets in the Way. So we're going't'wipe sound out, morning to night."

"Hmph. You're saying there'll be no birds singing or brooks babbling. No music?"

"'Course not."

"It's going to be a pretty bleak world, if you ask me."

"Don't blame me. That's evolution. Evolution's always hard. Hard and bleak. No such thing as happy evolution," said the old man. He stood up and walked around his desk to retrieve a pair of nail clippers from a drawer. He came back to the sofa and set at trimming all ten fingernails. "The research is underway, but I can't give you the details. Still, the general drift of it is… well, that's what's comin'. You musn't breathe a word of this to anyone. The day this reaches Semiotec ears, all pandemonium's goint'break loose."

"Rest easy. We Calcutecs guard our secrets well."

"Much relieved't'hear that," said the old man, sweeping up his nail clippings with an index card and tossing them into the trash. Then he helped himself to another cucumber sandwich. "These sure are good, if I do, say so myself."

"Is all her cooking this good?"

"Mmm, not especially. It's sandwiches where she excels. Her cooking's not bad, mind you, but it just can't match her sandwiches."

"A rare gift," I said.

"Tis," the old man agreed. "I must say, I do believe it takes someone like you to fully appreciate the child. I could entrust her to a young man like you and know I'd done the right thing."

"Me?" I started. "Just because I said I liked her sandwiches?"

"You don't like her sandwiches?"

"I'm very fond of her sandwiches."

"The way I see it, you've got a certain quality. Or else, you're missin' something."

"I sometimes think so myself."

"We scientists see human traits as being in the process of evolution. Sooner or later you'll see it yourself. Evolution is mighty gruelin'. What do you think the most gruelin' thing about evolution is?"

"I don't know. Tell me," I said.

"It's being unable to pick and choose. Nobody chooses to evolve. It's like floods and avalanches and earthquakes. You never know what's happening until they hit, then it's too late."

I thought about this for a bit. "This evolution," I began, "what does it have to do with what you mentioned before? You mean to say I'm going to lose my powers of speech?"

"Now that's not entirely accurate. It's not a question of speaking or not speaking. It's just a step."

"I don't understand." In fact, I didn't understand. On the whole, I'm a regular guy. I say I understand when I do, and I say I don't when I don't. I try not to mince words. It seems to me a lot of trouble in this world has its origins in vague speech. Most people, when they go around not speaking clearly, somewhere in their unconscious they're asking for trouble.

"What say we drop the subject?" said the old man. "Too much complicated talk. It'll spoil your tabulations. Let's leave it at that for now."

No complaints from this department. Soon after, the alarm rang and I went back to work.

Whereupon the old man opened a drawer and pulled out what looked like a pair of stainless-steel fire tongs. He walked over to the shelves of skulls and, like a master violinist examining his Stradivarius collection, picked up one or another of them, tapping them with the fire tongs to listen to their pitch. They gave out a range of timbre and tones, everything from the clink you might get from tapping a whiskey glass, to the dull thud from an oversized flower pot. To think that each skull once had skin and flesh and was stuffed with gray matter—in varying quantities—teeming with thoughts of food and sex and dominance. All now vanished.

I tried to picture my own head stripped of skin and flesh, brains removed and lined up on a shelf, only to have the old guy come around and give me a rap with stainless-steel fire tongs. Wonderful. What could he possibly learn from the sound of my skull? Would he be able to read my memories? Or would he be tapping into something beyond memory?

I wasn't particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don't have to die the next. All quite simple, if you want to look at it that waVrjfe's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with. Hence I can live with it.

But after I'm dead, can't I just lie in peace? Those Egyptian pharoahs had a point, wanting to shut themselves up inside pyramids.

Several hours later, the laundry was finally done. I couldn't say how many hours it had taken, but from the state of my fatigue I would guess a good eight or nine hours. I got up from the sofa and stretched my stressed muscles. The Calcutec manual includes how-to illustrations for limbering up a total of twenty-six muscle groups. Mental wear-and-tear takes care of itself if you relieve these stress points after a tab-session, and the working life of your Calcutec is extended that much longer.

It's been less than ten years since the whole Calcutec profession began, so nobody really knows what that life expectancy ought to be. Some say ten years, others twenty; either way you keep at it until you the day you die. Did I really want to know how long? If it's only a matter of time before you burn yourself out, all I can do is keep my muscles loose and my fingers crossed.

After working the knots in my body out, I sat back down on the sofa, closed my eyes, and slowly brought my right brain and left brain together again. Thus concluded all work for the day. Manual-perfect.

The old man had a large canine skull set out on his desk and was taking measurements with slide calipers, noting the figures on a photo of the specimen.

"Finished, have you?" asked the old man.

"All done."

"You put in a very hard day," he said.

"I'll be heading home to sleep now. Tomorrow or the next day I'll shuffle the data and have it back to you by noon two days later. Without fail. Is that satisfactory?"

"Fine, fine," said the old man, nodding. "But remember, time is absolutely critical. If you're later than noon, there'll be trouble. There'll be real trouble."

"I understand."

"And I beg of you, make certain no one steals that list. If it gets stolen, it'll be both our necks."

"Don't worry. We receive quite thorough training on that count. There'll be no inadvertent straying of tabulated data."

I withdrew a flex-metal document cache from a pocket behind my left knee, inserted the data list, and locked it.

"I'm the only one who can open this. If someone tampers with the lock, the contents are destroyed."

"Mighty clever," the old man said.

I slipped the document cache back behind my knee.

"Say now, sure you won't have any more to eat? There're a few sandwiches left. I don't eat much when I'm caught up in research. Be a shame't'let them go to waste."

I was still hungry, so I squared away the remaining sandwiches. The old man poured me a fresh cup of coffee.

I climbed back into rain gear, pulled on my goggles, took flashlight in hand, and headed back into the subterranean passage. This time the old man didn't come along.

"Already put out ultrasonic waves't'drive those INKlings away, so shouldn't be any of them sneakin' around for the time bein'," the old man reassured me.

Apparently, these INKlings were some kind of subterranean entity, which made me feel a bit squeamish about walking all alone out there in the dark. It didn't help that I didn't know a thing about INKlings, not their habits nor what they looked like nor how to defend myself against them. Flashlight in my left hand, knife in my right, I braced myself for the return trip.

When I saw the chubby pink-suited young woman waving her flashlight and coming my way, I felt saved. I made it over toward her. She was saying something which I couldn't hear over the rumble of the de-sound-removed river. Nor could I see her lips in the darkness.

Up the long aluminum ladder we went, to where there was light. I climbed/first, she followed. Coming down, I hadn't been ableTiTsee anything, so there was nothing to be afraid of, relatively speaking, but going back up was something else entirely. I could picture the height only too well—a two- or three-story drop. I wanted to stop to regather my wits, but she was on my tail. Safety first, I always say, so I kept climbing.

We made it through the closet back into the first room and stripped off our rain gear.

"Work go well?" she asked. Her voice, now audible for the first time, was soft and clear.

"Well enough, thanks."

"I really appreciate your telling Grandfather about my sound-removal. I would have been like that for a whole week."

"Why didn't you tell me that in writing? You could have been straightened up a lot sooner, and I wouldn't have been so confused."

She did a quick turn around the table without a word, then adjusted both of her earrings.

"Rules are rules," she said.

"Against communicating in writing?"

"That's one of them."

"Hmph."

"Anything that might lead to devolution."

"Oh," I said. Talk about precautions.

"How old are you?" she asked out of the blue.

"Thirty-five. And you?"

"Seventeen. You're the first Calcutec I've ever met. But then, I've never met any Semiotecs either."

"You're really only seventeen?" I asked, surprised.

"Yes, why should I lie? I'm really seventeen. I don't look seventeen, though, do I?"

"No, you look about twenty."

"It's because I don't want to look seventeen," she said. "Tell me, what's it like to be a Calcutec?"

"We're normal ordinary people, just like everyone else."

"Everyone may be ordinary, but they're not normal."

"Yes, there is that school of thought," I said. "But there's normal and then there's normal. I mean the kind of normal that can sit down next to you on the train and you wouldn't even notice. Normal. We eat food, drink beer—oh, by the way, the sandwiches were great."

"Really?" she said, beaming.

"I don't often get good sandwiches like that. I practically ate them all myself."

"How about the coffee?"

"The coffee wasn't bad either."

"Really? Would you like some now? That way we could sit and talk a little while longer."

"No thanks, I've had more than enough already," I said. "I don't think I can manage another drop. And besides, I need to get myself home to bed quick."

"That's too bad."

"Too bad for me, too."

"Well, let me at least walk you to the elevator. The corridors a-e extremely complex. I bet you couldn't find your way on your own."

"I doubt it myself."

The girl picked up what looked like a round hatbox, sealed several times over with wide adhesive tape, and handed it to me.

"What's this?" I asked.

"A gift for you from Grandfather. Take it home and open it."

I weighed the box in my hapds. It was much lighter than I would have guessed, and it would have had to be an awfully big hat. I shook the box. No sound.

"It's fragile, so please be careful with it," the girl cautioned.

"Some kind of souvenir?"

"I don't know. You'll find out when you open it, won't you?" /

Then the girl opened her pink handbag and gave me an envelope with a Bank check.

Filled out for an amount slightly in excess of what I'd expected. I slipped it into my wallet.

"Receipt?"

"No need," she said.

We exited the room and walked the same long maze of corridors back to the elevator. Her high heels made the same pleasant clicking on the floor, but her plumpness didn't make as strong an impression as it had at first. As we walked along together, I almost forgot about her weight. Given time, I'd probably even get used to it.

"Are you married?" she asked, turning to me.

"No, I'm not," I said. "I used to be, but not now."

"Did you get divorced because you became a Calcutec? I always hear how Calcutecs don't have families."

"That's not true. Some Calcutecs are fine family men. Though certainly, most seem to pursue their careers without a home life. It's a nerve-racking line of work, sometimes very risky. You wouldn't want to endanger a wife and kids."

"Is that how it was with you?"

"I became a Calcutec after I got divorced. The two had nothing to do with each other."

"Sorry for prying. It's just that you're my first Calcutec and there're so many things I don't know."

"I don't mind."

"Well then, I've also heard that Calcutecs, when they've finished a job, that they get all pumped up with sex drive."

"I couldn't… umm… really say. Maybe so. We do work ourselves into a very peculiar mental condition on the job."

"At those times, who do you sleep with? A special somebody?"

"I don't have 'a special somebody'."

"So then, who do you sleep with? You're not one of those people who have no interest in sex. You're not gay or anything, are you?"

"No, I'm not," I said.

"So who do you sleep with?"

"I guess I sleep with different women."

"Would you sleep with me?"

"No. Probably not."

"Why not?"

"That's just the way I am. I don't like to sleep with people I know. It only complicates things. And I don't sleep with business contacts. Dealing with other people's secrets like I do, you have to draw the line somewhere."

"Are you sure it's not because I'm fat or I'm ugly?"

"Listen, you're not that overweight, and you're not ugly at all," I said.

She pouted. "If that's the way you feel, then, do you simply pick up someone and go to bed with her?"

"Well… yes."

"Or do you just buy a girl?"

"I've done that too."

"If I offered to sleep with you for money, would you take me up on it?"

"I don't think so," I replied. "I'm twice your age. It wouldn't be right."

"It'd be different with me."

"Maybe so, but no offense intended, I'd really rather not. I think it's for the best."

"Grandfather says the first man I sleep with should be over thirty. He also says if sex drive builds up to a particular point, it affects your mental stability."

"Yes, I heard this from your grandfather."

"Do you think it's true?"

"I'm afraid I'm not a biologist."

"Are you well endowed?"

"I beg your pardon?" I nearly choked.

"Well, it's just that I don't know anything about my own sex drive yet," she explained.

"So I'd like to try lots of different things."

We reached the elevator. It waited with open doors. What a relief! /

"Until next time, then," she said.

I got in theVelevator and the doors slid shut without a sound. I leaned against the stainless-steel wall and heaved a big sigh.

Matter is leached of whatever color it might originally have had. The jutting jaw is locked slightly open, as if suddenly frozen when about to speak. The eye sockets, long bereft of their contents, lead to the cavernous recesses behind.

The skull is unnaturally light, with virtually no material presence. Nor does it offer any image of the species that had breathed within. It is stripped of flesh, warmth, memory. In the middle of the forehead is a small depression, rough to the touch. Perhaps this is the vestige of a broken horn.