HOTLINE

Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1981.

Shadows took shape at the edge of sight as though they meant to mean something. Still, they were shadows only and it should have been easy to stare them out of menace. But Junior Hockaday tunneled his vision and hurried short of outright running, thrusting himself along the friendless streets as if to outstrip his own shadow.

Stretching shadow meant it was getting on toward evening. Mrs. Gray was getting on toward evening. Her face embedded rather then embodied the virtues. She, if no one else, would worry because of the meal he was late getting home to.

The hour was late to begin with because he had stayed after school for third grade’s softball team tryouts. Granddad Dolbear wanted him to be well-rounded, not round-shouldered. Granddad would feel Junior had let him down. The contours of the bench did not promote a straight back.

But the real lateness was more Watson the chauffeur’s fault. Watson must have got the hour of pickup wrong or the limo had got caught in a traffic backup. No excuse. Granddad put up with no excuses.

Junior would have no excuse for not waiting. Even if parochial school let out early or Watson came late, Junior was always, always, to wait. Hurrying along in pleasurable fright, Junior excused himself to himself.

He had meant to wait, had started to wait. But, while waiting, he had made a swap with Marty Manzetti, traded Marty a brand-new pocket calculator for a cheap four-color, three-colors-nearly-dry ballpoint pen.

The deal was something Granddad would have understood. Granddad said that while it was true you couldn’t buy friends, you could buy friendship.

But Marty might repent having too much the better of the bargain, might resent owing Junior friendship. So while Junior longed to stick around with Marty, and with Marty’s pal Tommy Reis, it seemed wise to split before whatever qualms hit Marty.

So here was Junior hurrying away, afraid every step that Marty would change his mind and undo the swap. He willed himself deaf in case Marty should call him back, yet felt himself strain to hear. Blocks away, he thought he heard Marty and Tommy laugh. Junior had a chauffeured limo, but Marty and Tommy had made the team.

He wondered if they wondered why he hadn’t waited. That, like the trade, like his showing at the tryouts, was just one thing more to snicker over about the jerky rich Hockaday kid. His face felt hot.

Then he rounded a corner. Ah. Now he had only the shadows of evening and of coming events to cope with.

He would get it. He smiled. Watson the chauffeur would get it worse. Not from Belle—Belle was his mother and sweet on Watson—but from Granddad, who was sweet on no one…or, as Belle put it, sweet on No. One. It wouldn’t matter that it was Junior who had broken the rule; Watson should have been there on time. The streets were too risky for Junior. A bad man was looking to steal him.

It had happened once, the bad man had stolen him, but he had been too young then to remember it now.

The bad man was his father.

Junior knew it had happened, because Belle had told him and Granddad had told him and Mrs. Gray the housekeeper had told him and Watson the chauffeur had told him. They had not come out and told him why, but he had pieced it together from what they said and from what the kids at school said their parents said.

There had been a furious and famous custody battle and his mother had won him in one state and his father had won him in another state and his father and mother had stolen him back and forth from each other across the United States.

Junior sometimes wondered at all that fuss over Junior.

The irony—at seven, Junior was too young to define irony but not too young to feel it—was that Junior had come in the first place as an unwelcome surprise. He had come through despite the father’s vasectomy and the mother’s pill, outwitted both and beaten all the odds any one spermatozoon is heir to.

That much he gathered from Belle’s drunken reproaches. “Boy, for something that couldn’t happen, you sure brought a lot of trouble.”

He was bringing more trouble now. Soon Mrs. Gray would huff and puff herself up over having to keep his food warm. Soon Watson would use the car phone to call in and ask Mrs. Gray if Junior had made it home yet. Mrs. Gray and Watson would be afraid to tell Granddad Dolbear, and afraid not to. Granddad didn’t like anyone breaking in on him while he went over the figures that had sped past on the racetrack of his private ticker and smelled out the market trend. If Belle hadn’t already gone out on the town, she would fume at having to hang around till Junior made it home.

The shadows made him nervous. He kept looking past them for the limo to catch up with him. He should’ve waited for Watson. No doubt rules were good for you, but he hated rules. Grown-ups could tell you what to do and could make you do it. That was power. That was what power meant. When he grew up he would have power. Mad at the world, mad at himself, warning the shadows off, he plucked at hedges he passed, banged his fist against poles along the way.

It wasn’t a nice way. Watson usually took the longer, nicer way. Here stretched the dead openness of a torched neighborhood. A ghost of wind left his hair in shock. The lump in his throat was his heart. His legs scissored a shortcut. Now homes began. A dog in its own yard barked at him. He didn’t look at the dog but the dog kept barking at him. Even after he gave the dog possession of its world, it barked at his lingering fear-smell.

Rough-looking people eyed him curiously. He tried not to stare back. Belle and Granddad and Mrs. Gray would have said these were not his kind. Were they his father’s kind? Granddad thought Junior took too much after dad. Dad’s life jingled with spurs of the moment. Dad was a connectionless young man on the make who had tried to start at the top by knocking up the boss’s daughter, whatever that meant.

It wouldn’t’ve been much better in Granddad’s eyes if Junior took more after Belle. Belle was the poor little rich girl who had more dollars than sense. Belle’s life jangled with swings of mood. One minute she was all cuddle and hug, next minute all ready to slap him for getting his sticky fingers in her hairdo or on her frock.

Junior had learned to duck her mood swings, learned to watch himself closely, learned he had a lot to learn. Most of all he had learned he had to learn to start thinking like a Dolbear. It was hard to think like a Dolbear. Granddad had caught him once in a lie. Junior got the idea it wasn’t the lie Granddad minded so much as it was the catching.

Granddad couldn’t bring himself to use the name Junior. Granddad would look at Junior and say, “So this is what’s going to carry on the line,” and shake his head, though sometimes his head shook by itself. Granddad had Parkinson’s. (Whose did Parkinson have? Bad joke, bad taste. All part of the fun, badness, tastelessness.)

Just as well Granddad showed affection rarely. Granddad gave a scary kiss. Granddad’s touch was dry with a dryness that rubbed off on you. How old he was. That answer called for a question. How old was he? Sixty? Old.

Long ago—last year?—he remembered watching Granddad hold to the banister and climb the stairs. Granddad climbed like a child, establishing both feet on one step before attempting the next. Mrs. Gray explained Granddad’s dizziness in a mutter. To Junior it sounded as if Granddad had Many-ears sinned-Rome; Junior pictured a mile-long train of confessional boxes. Granddad lasered a look of fury at Mrs. Gray and Junior from the top of the stairs, and the following day workers came to put in a chair that rode the slant. It looked inviting, but Junior was not to play on it.

Behind him, a motorcycle roar scared a jump out of Junior. He jerked his head around. The motorcyclist’s purple helmet matched the purple motorcycle. Neat. Goggles made the rider into a bug-eyed monster.

Granddad hated motorcyclists. “What a motorcyclist really does is fart in everyone’s face.” This motorcyclist didn’t vroom past. The goggle gaze fixed on Junior. The sickle slowed, keeping pace with Junior to the crossing.

There the rider slewed it around to a stop in front of Junior with one booted foot and braced it with the same.

Somehow Junior knew the voice before it spoke. “Junior, it’s me. Your father.” The rider lifted the goggles away. The bad man. Sander Hockaday, Sr. Daddy.

Junior stood rooted. The bad man smiled, Daddy smiled, pleased Junior hadn’t bolted.

The smile wiped away and Daddy looked quickly all around. Then the smile delineated itself again, and Daddy took the helmet off and put it on Junior. Looking out from under, Junior saw the smile grow. Daddy tightened the chin strap; a wobbly fit but the helmet would stay on.

Once more a grown-up did not ask but told. “Okay, Junior. Climb aboard.”

Junior got on behind his father and dug fingers into wide studded belt. Daddy twisted the handlebars, kicked off, and away they went, whipping the wind, Sander Hockaday, Senior, and Sander Hockaday, Junior.

From far away came the memory—a skip phenomenon of the mind, clear as if it dissolved the substance of distance—the memory of riding piggyback on someone (Daddy?) who quickly tired of the sport and peeled the piglet’s trotters away and dumped the squealing piglet.

Junior, leaning left to see ahead, spotted the limo. Junior’s tightening alerted Daddy, but Watson had already spotted them.

The horn blasted without letup, as if to rattle Daddy with sound, and the limo steered straight at them.

Junior felt Daddy’s body grip itself. “Hold tight!” The words tore loose but Junior caught their meaning and held tight.

The sickle swung sharply right, jumped the curb. Junior bounced hard but kept his seat. The sickle rode the walk. The limo yawed and U’d as Junior looked back. Watson was a world-class driver. For the moment, stanchions and poles kept the limo from cutting them off; but it would have open ground at the crossing coming up. Unless Daddy kept going around and around the same block. And that was no good, from Daddy’s point of view, because Junior could see Watson speaking into the car phone and that meant reinforcements would soon show.

But now Daddy tightened again and once more swung sharply right, shooting them through a narrow passage between buildings.

Junior heard the limo brake and looked back to see Watson sink the bulletproof window of the front right-hand door and point a gun at them, resting both forearms on the sill. The first shot clipped his father’s earlobe, leaving a big ruby drop like an earring.

Watson was crazy. If Junior’s father died or fell winged, the sickle would pile up and the crash would kill Junior as well. But Watson either didn’t weigh that or counted his place as lost now anyway.

Daddy swore. He wove the sickle within the narrow bounds, and the second shot missed, bringing only a small hard rain of brick bits and brick dust. Then they were safe, whizzing away through a maze of alleys.

Doubling back a few times to make sure it had shaken pursuit, the sickle at last pulled up alongside a camper sitting off in a far corner of a supermarket parking lot. They got off, and Daddy swiftly stowed the sickle and themselves aboard the camper. “Here’s where we switch getaway vehicles.”

Inside the camper, behind closed curtains, Daddy grinned at Junior. He seemed proud of his luck. “If I’d planned it, it couldn’t’ve worked out neater. Here I was, only casing the school and familiarizing myself with the route, when I spotted you walking along as carefree as you please. Couldn’t believe my eyes. But I saw my chance and I grabbed it. Knew I’d never get another one like it.”

Then Daddy got sore. “What kind of protection they giving you anyway? What are you now, seven? What’s wrong with them, to let you roam like that all by yourself? Don’t they know old man Dolbear’s money draws all kinds of crazies?” Daddy’s face broke out again in a grin. “Old Moneytesticles. Let him sweat a little. And her. Let her worry too, give her maternal feelings some exercise. Let them wonder whether it’s a snatch for ransom or whether it’s me.” He touched his earlobe gingerly. “Damn that chauffeur. Could’ve killed me.” He put something on the now-dark blood ruby. It stung a grimace out of him. “Get you anywhere, Junior?”

Junior shook his head.

Daddy nodded. “Good.” He grew thoughtfully brisk. “They’ll be looking for a man and boy on a motorcycle. We took care of the motorcycle. Now for the boy.”

Belle had kept Junior’s hair long, and now Daddy merely bleached Junior’s hair and combed it another way. Then he stuck Junior into a pair of unisex slacks and seemed satisfied.

“Still, you better stay out of sight till we put Connecticut behind us. Then it’ll be okay for you to sit up front and enjoy the ride. We’ll be traveling the back roads and not staying at hotels or motels. All the way to California. No school for a while.” He jabbed Junior’s chin lightly. “You won’t mind that too much, will you?”

Junior shook his head.

“That’s the boy.” His father’s eyes clouded slightly, taking in the new Junior. “Hope soft living hasn’t spoiled you. Do you good to rough it some. I can’t match old man Dolbear’s wad. But don’t worry, kid, you won’t have to eat pet food.” He handed Junior a candy bar and watched Junior devour it hesitantly. “We’re going to have a lot of fun together, Junior. Right, kid?”

Junior nodded. That set Junior nodding off. Daddy settled him in a bunk. He didn’t realize how weary he had grown till he lay down to rest. He curled up in a question mark. Before answering himself with sleep, he was dimly aware of the camper rolling along through the dazzling darkness and of his father at the wheel listening with a chuckle to the police band that had them sighted vrooming all over the place. Junior had finished the candy bar and his curled hand had nothing to hold to but itself. Somewhere along the line he had lost the one-color four-color pen.

* * * *

Things were never what they were going to be. Camping out had promised to be fun. Camping out had been real fun sometimes but forced fun much of the time. It seemed Daddy had to psych himself, remind himself he had won this round, but had to keep dancing till the end of the match. Through it all, Junior had a sense of himself stretching both ways from now.

Now itself seemed hard to grasp. Now slipped by, gravitated into the past. Yet though the gravitation should have been building in the amassing past, the attraction seemed all in the yet-to-be.

Camping out had ended. Now that that now was then, he looked ahead with uncertain hope to this new unfolding.

Weeks before snatching Junior, Daddy had changed his name and address, leaving no trail for Belle and old man Dolbear to pick up. Daddy had foresightedly leased half a San Francisco duplex in the new name, and now with a turn of the key they moved right in.

“If anybody asks, our last name is Petrina. Got that?”

Junior nodded.

Daddy lugged in the last of their furnishings, a big cardboard box bulging with odds and ends. He unlapped the flaps of the box. First out was a phone.

He caught Junior’s look and grinned. “Strictly legal, kid. I did what the phone company tells you to do when you move: cut the cord and take the phone with you to save on the cost of installing. Tomorrow I’ll stop in at the business office and arrange for the hookup.”

Daddy set it down on the floor and turned back to the box and didn’t notice what Junior noticed: vibrating with a life of its own, the cut end of the cord snaked itself up into half a catenary and hung there, defying gravity.

Before Junior could be sure he was seeing what he was seeing or say anything about it or even point to it, the phone rang.

Daddy, deep in digging out and un-cocooning a lamp, looked startled, then sheepish. “Must be next door. These thin walls.”

Junior stood nearer the ringing. “No, Daddy, it’s our phone.”

“All right, then wise guy, don’t just stand there. Answer it.”

Junior reached out as though the phone might burn his hand, tentatively. He took hold and uncradled it. It was the heat of his hand that warmed the plastic. The ringing stopped and he heard line hum. He spoke into the phone. “Hello?”

The phone spoke back. “Hello, Junior.”

Junior nearly dropped the phone, but the voice conveyed warmth and fondness despite its artificial sound, Junior’s sense of its being a complex of computerized tones. “How did you know my name?”

“Some day you’ll find out. Meanwhile, if you could get your father to the phone…”

“I’ll try. Daddy, will you take the call?”

Daddy still hadn’t noticed the hang of the cord; he put on his playing-along voice. “I don’t know. Who’s the other party?”

The other party heard and chuckled. “Tell him the Other Party is Opie for short.”

“It says to tell you it’s Opie for short.”

“It does, does it? Say we’re busy unpacking and tell Opie to call again later.”

Junior listened to Opie and repeated what Opie said. “Opie says to tell you it would be advisable not to disconnect. Opie had hard time placing this call and is maintaining the connection only with great difficulty. Opie says taking this call will be to your financial advantage.”

Daddy glanced up, half-puzzled, half-annoyed. “Fun’s fun, Junior. There’s a time for it, and this isn’t—”

“Opie says keeping this line open will change not only your life but the future of the whole world.”

Daddy stared at the cord and put the lamp down with great care. He moved dreamlike nearer Junior and the phone, his gaze riding the impossible upsweep of the umbilical to its impossible end in air. He gave the cord a wary tug. The cut end of the cord remained firmly fixed to nothingness.

He took the phone from Junior in an offhand way but he wore a strained smile. He used his playing-along voice as though even yet he thought this might be some trick of Junior’s, some toy version of the Indian rope. “Go ahead. It’s your dime.”

“My dimension, you mean.” Daddy held the phone enough away from his ear that Junior caught Opie’s words and Opie’s chuckle. “Sorry about that. Hello, Sander.”

Daddy went shaky. His glance flickered at Junior and his other hand braced the hand that held the phone to mouth and ear, but he had nothing to shore up his voice with. “Who is this? And how—”

Opie cut in. “Here’s the deal. No questions about who I am, where I am, when I am, or why. No other strings. Ask me anything about your future. I’ll answer whatever questions I can, as honestly as I can, as fast as I can.” An apologetic cough. “That reminds me. The essence is of time. I can hold this line open only so long.”

“How long?”

“Five minutes.”

“That’s not long.”

“Of course if you want to spend it discussing relativity, it’ll pass in a flash. But I know you’re itching for the practical bearings, so here’s a helpful hint, Time narrows upstream as the probabilities branch away. At my end, our conversation fills one unbroken five-minute window. At your end, the five minutes can last you your lifetime if you space them out prudently. If I were you, I’d keep careful count. You have 4 minutes 25 seconds when I say…mark.”

Daddy looked agonized. “I have to have time to think. Quick, how do I spread out the five minutes?”

“Four minutes 19 seconds…mark. Since it was Junior who answered first, imprinting me, in a manner of speaking, ‘Start’ in his voice will actuate transmission and ‘Stop’ in his voice will put me on hold. Four minutes 9 seconds…mark.”

Daddy eyed his wristwatch feverishly. “What horse will win the fourth at Santa Anita today?”

Opie came right back. “Mudpie, returning 11.4, 9.6, and 4.4 across the board. Ran it in 3:25, with bug girl Jennie Caldwell aboard—”

“That’s enough. Hurry, Junior, say ‘Stop.’”

“Stop.”

Looking numb, Daddy cradled the handset. Then he grew aware of what he had done and gazed at in horror. He hit his own brow with the heel of his hand. “Now that was damn clever…clammed ever…dumb, dumb, dumb.” All sweaty, he uncradled the handset again. “Hello? Opie? Are you there?”

Only line hum.

“Junior, say ‘Start.’”

“Start.”

“Hello, Junior.” Opie’s voice made Junior feel warm all over.

Quickly Daddy cut short his own sigh of relief and answered for Junior. “Just testing. Junior, say ‘Stop.’” He gripped Junior’s shoulder because Junior was slow to respond.

“Ouch. Stop.”

Daddy hung up with gingerly assurance. Hanging up didn’t mean cutting off. Crazy, but no crazier than the cut end of cord hanging in air. Daddy looked from that to his wristwatch and shook himself. “I’d better hurry.” He made for the door. “Be good, Junior. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Where are you going, Daddy?”

Daddy’s glance ricocheted from Junior to the phone. He laughed strangely. “Believe it or not, Junior, I’ve got to get to a phone.”

* * * *

Daddy had said not to open the door to anyone. So Junior didn’t jump up to let Daddy in even when he knew it was Daddy muttering to himself about the slippery key and the shifty keyhole.

Junior turned the portable television set off and curled up on the air mattress. Now, unless he caught the rerun some day, he’d never know if the monster ate the very last bite of Earth, the tiny chunk remaining with the few survivors standing on it. But Daddy would feel less guilty if he thought Junior had been enjoying himself.

The door opened. Junior rubbed his eyes and sat up.

Daddy grinned penitently. “Did I wake you, Junior? Sorry I’m later than I thought I’d be.” He had to back in through the doorway, his arms were so full.

He had on new shoes and a new sports jacket, but it was riches of junk food and toys poking out of the paper bags that widened Junior’s eyes. Daddy’s gaze shot to the phone to confirm that it was still there and still in its impossible configuration. Daddy let out a silent sigh. Junior smelled whiskey.

Daddy walked bouncy over to the folding table the television stood on. He put his hand on the set to move it over for room, and its warmth made his mouth twist. “Junior, there’s more than a touch of Belle in you, I see.”

But he was in too good a humor to follow that up. He let the goodies slide to the table. His gaze fixed on the phone. “I’ll tell you the truth, Junior. I thought sure it was all some elaborate hoax. Wouldn’t put it past old bear Dolman to go to any extreme to have me certified. But it works, Junior, it works. Your pal Opie was on the nose. Mudpie won and paid off exactly like good old Opie said. I took a chance and hit it big. If I’d taken a bigger chance I’d’ve hit it bigger. But even a mind bet would’ve been worth it to know Opie’s leveling. I got lucky at last.”

But all at once Daddy got sad and sorry for himself and sat down heavily. “Too much good luck is bad luck. If I won big consistently, gambling on whatever, they’d sooner knock me off than pay me off. Have to use my head.”

Junior could see Daddy use his head, watched him think hard.

Daddy stared suddenly at Junior and the impact almost made Junior jump. “The stock market. Commodity futures. Options. That’s where the leverage is. Opie, your name is Archimedes.” Daddy’s grin turned him Junior’s age. “Boy, will I show old man Dolbear up. And Belle never thought much of my wanting to play the market.”

He grew more earnest than Junior had seen him. “Junior, listen to me good. Nobody else must ever know about Opie. Hear that? Nobody. Never.”

Daddy held Junior’s gaze for the longest time. Then the room grew lighter again, and Daddy swept an arm toward the surprises. “Okay, son. Dig in, have fun.”

Junior smiled dutifully, and dutifully dug in. But the fun had gone out of the fun.

* * * *

Foggy and early next morning, Daddy drove off in the camper. He came back in a few hours and fumed and paced till the landlady, who lived alone except for a cat in the other duplex apartment, went out with her shopping cart. Daddy waited for her to pull herself out of sight, then he snuck in the hammer and nails and power saw and plywood sheets and studding he had brought back in the camper.

While Junior watched for the landlady to come home, Daddy, wincing hangoverishly, banged together a partition or false wall slap up against the raw end of the phone cord. The false wall seemed somewhat out of true and gave the room an oddly constricted feel. But it satisfied Daddy.

He gingerly raised the phone from the floor and slid a stand under it. Now there was a downsweep to the end of the cord. Daddy fitted a small black box around the end and screwed the box to the false wall so that the whole thing looked now like any home phone installation.

And he finished in time. Junior could hear the landlady wonder why her cat seemed so jumpy.

Junior held a newspaper dustpan while Daddy swept up the sawdust and splinters and bent nails.

Daddy spoke softly, more to himself than to Junior. “That takes care of that. Trouble is, the damn landlady has the right to barge in almost any time. I didn’t get her permission to make alterations. So she can toss us out if she wants to. Just to play it safe I’ll have to buy the building. At whatever price.”

He stared at the phone and its cord.

“Funny, just the other day I told myself I’ve been living out of a suitcase long enough, time to settle down in one place. Funny because that thing tethers us here. Junior, we’re going to live right here the rest of our days.”

While Junior thought that over, Daddy’s mouth quirked. “There’s one thing I won’t ask Opie. I won’t ask Opie the day of my death.” He shook himself. “So here’s where we settle down. It really makes no difference where you settle down. Anywhere can be the center of the universe. We have the power to bring the Rockies and the Himalayas and the Alps and the Andes to Mohammed.”

He grinned. “Still, Mohammed has to go out at least one more time. Mohammed has to arrange for the phone company to install one garden variety phone.”

Before going out, Daddy hid the Opie phone under a dropcloth so that when the installer came to put in the ordinary phone catercorners from the Opie phone, the installer wouldn’t notice the Opie phone.

Funny, Daddy didn’t look Arab.

* * * *

Junior learned not to bother Daddy while Daddy boned up on commodity futures. Daddy’s mind-set was on trading fundamentally, looking for natural or economic factors. He made up a long list of questions to ask Opie—about when there would be droughts in the grain belt and freezes in the citrus belt, famine in Bangladesh, wheat sales to Russia and China…

Then it flashed on Daddy that he could skip all that. “I didn’t have to know Mudpie’s form or breeding or stable or anything. All I have to know is the market itself. I have to remember to think of the future as a black box.” He lectured Junior. “You remember that too, Junior.”

He threw away his list and started again. “If I wasted my time, at least I haven’t wasted Opie time.” He tried phrasing his question a dozen ways, crossed out words, and at last felt ready. He set up a recorder and started the tape rolling. Just in case the taping went wrong, he posed a ballpoint over paper. He lifted the handset, smiled tensely at line hum, and nodded. “Okay, Junior, say ‘Start.’”

“Start.”

Wasting no time on greetings, Daddy asked Opie how commodities would stand at the end of ninety days.

Opie rattled off the answers.

“Junior, say ‘Stop.’”

“Stop.”

Daddy hung up with a trembling hand. “I’m rich.” He shook himself. “But not if I sit dreaming I’m rich.”

He listened to the playback, double-checking it against the scribbles he had made. He used the garden variety phone to get today’s quotes from the commodity dealer at his brokerage house. He tapped out the differences on his pocket calculator.

In ninety days, silver would show a 42-cents-an-ounce rise, gold a 12-dollars-an-ounce drop. So Daddy bought calls and puts. He paid premiums giving him the right to buy silver and the right to sell gold.

Same with frozen pork bellies and nest-run eggs and yellow sorghum and feeder cattle and cocoa beans and other things people thought other people needed. Daddy juggled and jigsawed his purchases to parlay and pyramid his profits.

And at the end of the ninety days he was rich.

* * * *

Though of course it wouldn’t satisfy him till he outriched old man Dolbear. Another half minute of Opie time, another 90-day wait, took care of that.

* * * *

First thing that changed, the whole building belonged to them now. The landlady and the cat had sold out and moved away. Daddy refurnished that half of the building as a place to entertain friends. The friends were mostly young pretty women.

Another change, Daddy’s can opener and hotplate and the home delivery of pizzas and baskets of chicken parts with all the fixings gave way to a live-in cook.

And Junior had tutors in different subjects who came in and subjected him several hours a day to learning. Daddy was taking no chances Belle would have truancy grounds for nullifying Daddy’s California-won custody of Junior.

And Daddy hired security guards to protect the Hockaday compound against the bad-man forces of Belle and old man Dolbear and against crazies. For the secret was out, the Petrina alias ended. Daddy had crumpled his breakfast paper on finding a gossipist wondering that the commodities king lived in the modest house of his beginnings and naming his name. The modest house grew to be the center of a large electronically fenced-in compound as Daddy bought up all the houses and land adjoining theirs and razed and landscaped to suit his whim.

What really changed most was Daddy. Daddy kept busy keeping lawyers and accountants busy finding tax dodges and loopholes. It seemed to Junior that Daddy wanted all the money there was and wanted to hold on to it…

Sometimes Daddy had time for Junior. At least they often breakfasted together. And one morning Daddy told Junior his dream. He had dreamed last night that he had forgotten he still owned a contract for November beans and that in the dream he had wakened to the sound of grain pouring from the backs of trucks, an unending convoy of trucks delivering the unwanted grain and burying the compound under a mountain of the stuff. Then he had wakened for real; the sound was the sound of rain. It still rained, and Daddy listened to the rain and grinned. “I hear it’s good for the crops.” Funny, Junior had dreamed last night too and was bursting to tell Daddy his dream. Rising floodwaters threatened the house, and Junior was trying to phone for help but got only busy signals. Then at last he got through. But the listener was deaf. Junior didn’t tell Daddy his dream because Daddy seemed still full of his own. Just as well. Junior might have had to confess he had wet the bed.

That was one morning. Another morning, Daddy needed Junior to actuate Opie briefly. See, Daddy got in trouble with the government for getting a corner on soybeans. He got out of that trouble, but it cost him, and he made up his mind to be the government. Or at least be the power behind the government. Then this kind of trouble would never befall him again. He planned to help either a man named Varley or a man named Meucci win the presidency. But first he wanted to know which one would win in November, so he’d know who to support in the primaries and during the campaign. That’s why he needed Junior to say “Start” and “Stop.”

Anxious not to lose a microsecond of Opie time, Daddy stepped on Junior’s “Start.”

“Varley beats Meucci this November?”

Opie came right back. “Meucci beat Varley.”

Daddy lifted an eyebrow—Varley led in all the polls—but seemed to feel expansive and tacked on another quick question. “Confirm the count. Two and three-quarter minutes left, right?”

“Wrong. One minute 43 seconds…mark.”

Daddy stood frozen several terrible seconds longer, then got the words out. “Junior, say ‘Stop.’”

“Stop.”

Daddy hung up mechanically. There was a long spell of Daddy regrouping himself. Then Daddy spoke almost too calmly. “Junior, you haven’t been using the phone?”

“Well, a few times when I was lonely I picked it up and said hello to Opie and Opie said hello back. But only a few times.”

For a while there, Junior thought the bad man was going to wallop him. But Daddy drew his gaze back into shallow focus and spoke to himself.

“My God. A whole minute gone. What waste, what a stupid waste.” He focused on Junior. “Did you and Opie exchange more than hellos?”

“A little more.”

“For instance.”

“Opie says these junctions bob like quarks in the wake of a finnegan. A finnegan is matter released from a tranced state.”

“Great. Kind of invaluable information I need.”

“Opie said he learned somewhere that thermodynamics is a black box and that’s how he discovered the way to make the time connection.”

“Good for Opie.” Junior felt himself go out of focus and Daddy spoke to himself again. “Can’t get that minute back. Have to make the most of the minute forty left.” He shook himself. “No time to worry about that now.”

Daddy crossed to the ordinary phone and set about buying a newspaper chain. He had a conference call with his lawyer and his accountant and his banker and his broker. That was how you did it. He hung up, sat back, and grinned at Junior, who hadn’t wanted to draw attention to himself by leaving. “I’ll throw editorial backing to Sunshine Bill Meucci. He’ll think I swung the election for him. He’ll owe me.”

Then Daddy looked across at the Opie phone and frowned and had carpenters come in. The room shrank again as they walled off the Opie phone with another partition, much solider and with a door that locked; Daddy kept the only key.

* * * *

To show he didn’t hold it against Junior for piddling Opie time away, and because he felt good about figuring out how to make the most of what Opie time remained, and not just to have Junior handy if he needed “Start” and “Stop,” Daddy had Junior at his side when he was ready to unlock the door again.

They entered the narrow compartment and eyed the Opie phone.

Daddy put his arm around Junior’s shoulders. His arm had grown weightier, so that it seemed as much burden as comfort. Daddy gave Junior a sudden hug. Daddy looked guilty, as though it surprised him to find that he cared. “Son, the fortune I’ve been building, the power base, means nothing to me in and of itself. It’s what it stands for: the Hockaday line. One day it will all be yours. Yours to pass on to your offspring. So it’s never too soon for you to understand you must preserve it and use it well.” He spoke as though explaining it to Junior helped him understand it himself.

A voice spoke over Daddy’s pocket intercom. “Mr. Hockaday, there’s this installation person at the main post says she has an appointment. She’s clean.”

“From IC?”

“Yessir.”

“Right. Show her here.”

Escorting the installation person, a security guard followed the beep to Daddy. The security guard had never been in this part of the house and eyed the cramped compartment with oblique curiosity before leaving at Daddy’s nod. The installation person wore an IC patch on her coveralls, which looked clean to Junior but not all that clean.

Daddy spoke with her, and Junior gathered IC was an interconnect company that attached non-telephone-company-supplied-equipment to the telephone company network. Daddy told her what he wanted.

“I want to send and receive highspeed data over this phone.” He looked at her. “I mean high-speed.”

She smiled. “Our Thunderburst III will take any speed transmission you want. I mean any.”

“Perfect. One thing, though. Whatever you do, don’t mess with the wiring of this phone.”

She looked at him steadily. “No problem. We’ll get you a pickup coil with a phone plug. A suction cup holds it to the handset and the plug goes into the jack of our Thunderburst III.”

Before Daddy could stop her, she had unclipped a pen-like tool from her pocket and touched it to the handset.

“Just making sure it’s compatible. I’m not messing with the wiring.”

A tiny needle swung wildly in the tiny window of the measuring instrument.

She stared at it. “I don’t know. The induced currents are crazy, the lines of force are all wrong. You sure this phone works?” She made to pick up the handset.

But Daddy’s hand shot out to hold it in its cradle. “It works.”

She shrugged. “If you say so, sir.”

“I say so. Just install a Thunderburst III. You’ll keep this to yourself, won’t you? I own IC.”

Junior wondered why Daddy told her he owned IC in the first place if he wanted to keep his ownership secret.

* * * *

Compact as the Thunderburst III was, it allowed standing room only in Opie’s compartment. But Junior guessed that if this had been old man Dolbear’s dining room Daddy would have looked as uptight.

Daddy had spent days readying the speedtape, squeezing five minutes’ intensive questioning, redundant for safety and surety, into one instantaneous Donald Duck quack.

He had spent hours of real-time, millennia of stretch-time, dry-running Thunderburst III, testing input and output.

During a break, Daddy had spray-painted the Opie phone gold—then dissolved the gold away; the gold might tempt a thief who would otherwise pass up a thing no one in his right mind would think of carrying off to fence. Besides, Daddy had a fear he voiced to Junior—though it was himself thinking aloud—the fear that Opie was building him up to an awful letdown. “After all, there are hundreds of millions of phones in the world. Why mine? Why pick me to be so good to? Even if Opie chose me at random, there has to be a catch. If that’s so, why honor the bastard?”

Now he braced himself, lifted the bastard’s handset, listened to line hum, got the tape leader rolling, and, watching for blips, gestured Junior to say “Start” and almost at once “Stop.” Daddy hung up sloppily, rocking the cradle, and smiled absently at Junior as they waited to wait.

Could Opie cope with Daddy’s squeezetalk and would Opie reply in kind? Junior felt sure Opie could and would.

Ten minutes of Daddy and Junior’s real-time passed real slow.

“Taking the bastard hours.”

The phone rang.

Daddy made himself take his time answering. He lifted the receiver with calm tenderness. Again watching for blips, he cued Junior. For Daddy, the space between “Start” and “Stop” looked an excruciating two seconds.

Excruciating too the half minute that followed, the half minute of pushing Thunderburst III’s buttons to find out if Opie’s answering two-seconds-long Donald Duck quack had meaning.

It had. It translated into kilometers of printout—or would have if it hadn’t fed straight into Thunderburst III’s memory. What it was, it was a seventy years’ look into the future: what else would you call it when you had a complete file of Daddy’s flagship newspaper, a respected paper of record (though Daddy had hedged by expressing his willingness to take a substitute should the paper fold or lose its integrity), for the next seventy years, every page of every number, ads and all, plus index?

They knew it was seventy because Daddy keyed in a request to see the date of the last available issue. He smiled a half-satisfied smile. “Only seventy years? Well, I guess that tells us when Opie is. I asked for a hundred years if possible, but it seems thirty are still in Opie’s future.”

Daddy nerved himself to ask Thunderburst III for a readout of everything on Sander Hockaday, Sr., in the index.

Item after item marched across the screen. Trouble was, Daddy speed-read. Groups of letters double-timed past Junior’s eyes meaninglessly except for now and then a subliminal sense of the Hockaday name.

The parade ended abruptly. Daddy waited for more, asked for more. He looked half-miffed. “I know I’m trying to stay out of the public eye and I see I largely succeed. But this is ridiculous. Thunderburst III says there’s nothing at all about me after seven years from now. How can I drop out of history right after I pull off my greatest coup?”

He tried again but got the same blank look from Thunderburst III. Two, three items a year for the next seven years. Then nothing.

“There should be something more. My obit at least. Unless…unless I have more than seventy years still coming to me.” He brightened. “My God, I never thought I’d live to such a ripe old age.” A shadow crept back. “Or do I deep-freeze myself, because of some incurable disease, sooner and secretly? Pull an Ambrose Bierce vanishing act? Or what?” He brightened again. “Maybe it isn’t just me.”

He punched up the sequence of headlines about Sunshine Bill Meucci. Not wanting to overlook anything, he slowed the march past—benefiting Junior, who could now make out most of the words.

Sunshine Bill would win in November and would be going strong for the next eight years, into January of the ninth year. Apparently Daddy’s papers would have helped bring about a Constitutional Amendment allowing Sunshine Bill to run for a third term—a term Sunshine Bill would never serve.

During the inaugural ceremonies, some crazies would blow up Sunshine Bill and his Whole Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff and the Supreme Court and Most of Congress, along with an assortment of Foreign Dignitaries, plus the Float of America the Happy that happened to be passing the Reviewing Stand at the time.

After that, as the years and decades passed, Thunderburst III showed the entries trailing off in shorter and shorter references to the memorial services for the Martyred President.

Junior had never seen Daddy look paler, more shaken.

“Terrible thing, terrible. But I still have no idea why I’m not around.”

Junior watched Daddy think.

“Can I prevent it? Can anyone change what the future says has already happened?” Daddy pouted. “It’s not my responsibility if I’m not around to warn them. Anyway, Sunshine Bill and the others would never believe me if I tried to warn them. And I can’t show them the proof—because it isn’t proof yet. It’s proof only when it happens—and then it’s too late.” Daddy wasn’t talking to Junior but explaining himself to himself. “I’m not Donkey Oaty, tilting at the windmill of the gods. What will be will be. One thing’s for sure. I’m not attending that inauguration.”

His brow creased. “Wonder who the hell minds the store?”

He punched up the days following the Great Assassination. Daddy speed-read again but gave a running mutter.

“Should’ve guessed. Varley takes over. It’s a coup, though the weasel words make it seem he’s doing the country a favor. Wipes out the crazies. Bet it’s so they can’t say he was in on it.”

Daddy punched up Varley’s future and smiled grimly. “Anyway, in the end Varley gets his, even if the bastard does have too long a run.”

Suddenly weary, Daddy shut Thunderburst III down and Daddy and Junior left Opie’s compartment and Daddy locked the door.

That night and for many nights to come Junior had bad dreams about the Float of America the Happy.

* * * *

Almost it seemed Daddy was rooting against himself when Sunshine Bill Meucci, heading the Democratic ticket in his run for his first term, and Larry Varley, heading the Third Party ticket, came down to the wire in November. Watching the late returns, Junior caught Daddy muttering, “Come on, Varley,” as though hard wishing would change the changing numbers.

But the television projections showed Sunshine Bill nosing Varley out. And television cameras showed Sunshine Bill graciously winning and Varley grudgingly conceding. And Junior and Daddy found the story in the realtime fresh-from-the-presses newspaper word-for-word like Opie had given it ahead of time.

And Daddy beamed when Sunshine Bill phoned him to thank him for helping put the ticket over, so that mutter must’ve been a slip.

* * * *

As if to get the future out of the way, Daddy used his Thunderburst III foreknowledge and programmed his computer to issue day-by-day buy and sell orders automatically for his brokerage houses to execute. After that he forgot about trading and let it take care of itself.

Though at least once that Junior knew of, Daddy got a kick out of projecting that Daddy would own everything. There’d come a time, curving surprisingly soon, when no matter how he traded he’d be buying from and selling to himself. But Daddy figured he had to give others a stake in the system or the system would destruct. So Daddy set his trading at something less than optimum.

* * * *

The world shook Junior out of bed. Junior’s first thought was that this must be what Daddy meant when he spoke of the system destructing.

Daddy’s first thought, though he veered to make sure Junior hadn’t suffered hurt, was of the Opie connection. He headed for Opie’s compartment even before security, reporting in on his pocket intercom, told him it wasn’t an attack but a major earthquake. He headed there even though he had for some time now shown vast disinterest in Opie.

The Hockaday compound had its own power supply; even so some lights flickered on only after stand-by generators took over. There had been temblors before, but nothing this high on the Richter in Junior’s memory. And apparently not in Eulalia’s.

Eulalia Cushman—that was Daddy’s live-in mistress—was screaming. Daddy yelled Eulalia quiet and told her to forget her jewels and hurry outside on the lawn where she’d be safe.

He himself hurried inward. He glanced back, saw Junior following him. As if remembering that nothing bad had happened to Junior right about now—though if Daddy had looked into Junior’s future he had never said anything about it—he let Junior tag along.

Feeling narrowly asleep, Junior watched Daddy unlock the door. The shock had jumped the handset out of the cradle. The cord still reached into the fake box but that didn’t prove it hadn’t torn loose from Opie. They drew nearer and heard line hum. The connection held. Daddy smiled and relocked the door.

They joined the others—Eulalia and the rest of the staff and the security guards—outside on the lawn listening to radio reports and gazing around at what the radio reported. “A relative displacement of twenty feet, as in the 1906 quake…” Everywhere fires leaped up trying to reach the top of night. With frightening reassurance, dopplering sirens wailed that people were taking care of people.

Eulalia whined then and nagged later about the stupidity of a supposedly brilliant man living athwart the San Andreas fault. Why didn’t Sander pick up and go? With his bread he could live anywhere. “You could buy the Riviera. Or Titan. Or—”

“Or Kuwait, where they have harems.” That shut her up for the moment but she kept threatening to leave. But everybody including Eulalia knew Daddy paid her too well.

* * * *

Though he had known he would survive it, it was the earthquake shook Daddy up. Till then, Daddy had swung between two poles. Sometimes it was like the speed talk exchanges with Opie—Daddy seemed bent on cramming all the living he could into the short span he knew he had coming; at such times he enjoyed exercising his clout. Other times Daddy seemed becalmed in horizonless gloom at the thought of misting away a few years from now; at such times he enjoyed nothing.

Now, rare for him, Daddy got almost embarrassingly fatherly.

“Son, forces of nature won’t be the only emergencies you’ll face. I have a good idea I won’t always be around. You’ll have to learn to handle yourself if you’re going to handle the Hockaday empire.” He scanned Junior thoughtfully. “For one thing, you’re too shut in on yourself. You need a woman’s touch to bring you out.”

He had Eulalia give it a try.

Her idea of guiding Junior companionably was helping Junior paste cutout oak leaves on the classroom windows. Just as the leaves weren’t leaves, the windows weren’t windows. Anyway, Daddy soon saw Eulalia was incapable of anything more than kindergarten stuff.

“Lord knows Eulalia’s a woman and has a certain touch, but Lord knows she’s not one to guide a kid—let alone my kid.”

Eulalia looked relieved, but at the same time aggrieved.

Junior suddenly realized what it was about Eulalia that had tantalized him. Funny how Daddy always picked Belle look-alikes and behave-alikes.

Daddy stroked Eulalia into smiling. “That’s okay. Eulalia is Eulalia is Eulalia. We’ll just have to get someone from Outside.”

Eulalia’s smile stiffened, pasted on like an oak leaf.

* * * *

Today was the day Martha Hubbard came into their lives.

Junior watched Daddy ask the mirror if he could get by without shaving. Daddy had seen the screen test of the applicant for governess and was about to interview her in person. He rubbed his grimace. He had shaved once already, in the morning, and he decided that was good enough. Martha seemed old enough to Junior—with her granny glasses, ponytail, hoop earrings, and pedal pushers—but Daddy looked thoughtful and told her he wouldn’t hold her youth against her. She had all the qualifications. Junior thought so too; Martha—in spite of her severe dress—was beautiful.

Her coming and her settling-in changed a lot of things. Junior’s haphazard tutoring went by the board—the blackboard, that is. Martha tested Junior’s aptitudes and individualized a teaching machine for him. Eulalia hung onto Daddy more, especially in Martha’s presence, and her tone grew sticky-sweet when she worried out loud about Junior. The poor kid was going to ruin his eyes with all that studying, and could stuffing his brain with all that learning be good for him? But Martha never rose to the occasional thorn. And Daddy shaved oftener, even when it looked as if he didn’t have to.

But maybe that last was because Daddy looked at himself more these days, as if to catch himself fading away—though in Junior’s eyes he was only growing Daddier. Once Junior caught him scowling at what he saw look back and heard him mutter, “Mirror, be yourself.” Trouble was, the mirror was never more mirror than in giving him back himself.

* * * *

Martha had de-leafed the classroom windows but they still spelled fall. You’d never know to look at the windows it was a fine spring day with just a spicing of smog outside.

Feeling the pull of the day and the pall of thermodynamics, Junior squirmed warmth out of the chair. Sitting at the teaching machine, he found himself teasing the nitpicking machine by entering “heated exchange” for “heat exchanger.”

It didn’t lose its cool. “Are you sure that’s what you mean to say, Junior?”

“I will not, repeat not, repeat myself. I don’t chow my cabbage twice.” He aborted the learning sequence. He wondered if the machine felt frustration.

Martha wasn’t supervising at the moment, and he decided to play hookey. He keyed the machine into play mode.

It fed him two words at random. Trophy and mimicry. Now it was up to him to make new beginnings from old ends.

trophy mimicry

physically crystal

allying stallion

inguinal ionizes

inalienability zestfully

There. Now it was up to him to make sense of them and in some way connect them. All he could see was a glass unicorn doing something. Doing what? He strained to see more. He told himself it was nothing to get worked up about. This was just play. Word chains, that’s all.

But wasn’t that the way life built itself up? Life was all play. Most serious thing there was: the word chain DNA. And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

He felt Martha before she leaned over his shoulder to see what he was at.

“What are you doing, Junior? Oh, word chains. Good work.”

One thing he liked about her, she knew when to be no-nonsense and when to be nonsense. He joined her in smiling at the nonsense, then went hot. He was the unicorn. She was the virgin. He was Sander Hockaday, Jr., after all. He felt a strange stirring, a sudden fierce jealousy of Dad.

She met his gaze idly. “All right, Junior. Enough play. Back to thermodynamics.”

Junior wouldn’t confess even to himself that he was peeping tomming; he only happened to pass Martha’s room at the time, and in spite of himself saw and heard what he saw and heard through the crack.

“Eulalia! What are you doing here? Gave me a scare to wake up and find you looking down at me.”

“I hope you don’t mind my walking in, Martha. I can’t stand to sit around. It gets so boring waiting for him to get in the mood. Men! You know what I mean, Martha darling?”

“I think I do. Tell you the truth, I’m dying for girl talk.”

“More than that. I’d like for us to be real close friends.”

“I’ve felt drawn to you too, Eulalia.”

Junior heard more warm talk along those lines and saw Martha and Eulalia hold each other lovingly. He felt stirrings of wonder, of jealousy, and of the physical change he was lately coming increasingly aware of. But when the talk and play got hot, Junior saw what Eulalia didn’t see. Martha snaked a hand to the intercom and switched it on. At the same time, Martha began trying kindly to turn Eulalia off. Martha gently but firmly reminded Eulalia of their loyalties to Dad.

Junior slipped away at that point, just before Dad showed up and burst in. Junior gathered later by listening to the staff that Martha tried to absolve Eulalia but Dad revealed one of them had accidentally backed into the intercom switch and so inadvertently given him an earful of Eulalia’s true feelings for him as against Eulalia’s feelings for Martha. After that there was no more to say, but Eulalia said it.

Dad wasted no time giving Eulalia the boot, though he let her keep her jewels.

Junior felt funny about Martha after that but, funny again, she still made him ache with what had to be love.

* * * *

Clandestinely Junior machined a picklock. Junior had the tools to work with. Dad wanted him to have hands-on knowledge of the technology as well as the infrastructure of the world and had set aside workshop-lab space and equipped it with the best of all the latest.

Junior’s greatest tool was curiosity. He had stubbornly resolved to steal a second of Opie-time and find out what would shortly happen to Dad—and so to Junior.

Maybe Opie would tell Junior what Opie would not tell Dad. After all, who had imprinted Opie? Didn’t Junior’s custody of “Start” and “Stop” give Junior the right to find out if he had the right to find out?

As soon as he could after it was ready, Junior put the picklock to use. Once the seeming blank’s thinness slid into the lock, transistorized feedback translated sounds of the pins into lengths and powered expansion of the shank and shaped the bit. A turn, and the door opened.

A voice behind him scared a jump out of Junior.

“What are you doing here at this hour?” But Martha gave him no time to answer or to bounce the question back. “I’ve always wondered what deep dark secret lurked within.” She stared eagerly at the edge of light that had come on when the door cracked open.

Junior grew masterful. “I’ll show you.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t?”

“No, it’s all right.” He flung the door wide.

Her gaze slid almost unseeingly over the phone and lit on Thunderburst III. She squeezed past Junior and ran her hands over and around the machine in awe. “Can you work this, Junior?”

“Sure.”

“Really? You’re not just saying that to impress me?”

Junior grew more masterful. “I’ll show you.”

“That’s not necessary, Junior. She’ll take your word. Or if not yours, mine. Won’t you, Martha?” Dad, moving in on them, looked under strain, with resignation under the strain. With a gesture he stopped Martha from speaking. “Don’t explain, Martha. I will. Junior, our lovely Martha’s an industrial spy. That’s right, Martha, I know. Before you came to live here I knew.”

Martha stared. “Then why—?”

Dad smiled a tight smile. “I thought it would be fun to, and you had just the right qualifications, and anyway it had to be.” He hurried past that. “I didn’t realize how I’d come to—” He hurried past that too. “She works for Bo Bourseul.”

Junior had heard the name before. Sure; Bourseul headed a multinational corporation, nominally a rival of Dad’s holding company but—whether Bourseul knew it or not—really only one of Dad’s holdings.

Dad looked at Martha it seemed sadly. “Too bad for Bo it took you all this time to make it here to the very edge of the deep dark secret only to have it all go for nothing.”

Martha lowered her eyes, but not before Junior saw a glint of triumph in them. She spoke in sullen scorn. “You know everything, don’t you?”

“Not quite everything. I don’t know how much Bo paid you or promised you. I do know you blew a hell of a lot more. You could’ve had the world.”

She looked up at him and he returned her gaze unblinking. Her glance flickered toward Thunderburst III and she seemed about to speak. But she veiled her eyes again and remained silent.

Dad sighed. “Never mind. What had to be had to be.”

He took her hand. She tensed, then returned pressure and let him hold it. He turned it over and pretended to read her palm.

“After you leave here, Martha, I can see the gossip columns linking your name with Bo Bourseul’s. ‘Woman who knew mystery tycoon turns to rival mogul.’ But Bo dumps you too and you go back to your hometown. Now, about your life line—”

She snatched her hand away.

Dad’s eyes were memorial candles. “Okay, Martha, take one last good look around. Print it in your memory to tell Bo.”

Disdaining the look, Martha stepped out of the compartment. Dad locked the door and withdrew the picklock. He eyed the picklock admiringly.

“Bo provide you with this? Neat device. To say nothing of the accomplishment of smuggling it in. Give him my compliments.” He snapped it in two and pocketed the two.

Martha glanced at Junior but said nothing.

Junior topped off his air supply. “Dad, the key’s mine. I made it.”

Dad smiled. “Nice try, Junior. Anyway, the point is she had no right to be here. Everyone on the staff knows this room is off limits, verboten, taboo.” He rubbed his face. “Maybe I should’ve grown a blue beard.” He looked at Martha and nodded toward the hall.

She glanced at Junior stone-faced, a flicker in her eyes and a twitch in her cheek, then vanished from his life—if you don’t count memory in.

* * * *

When Junior woke up the next morning and shook off the night and went down to breakfast, he found Martha already gone. Members of the staff broke off talking when he showed. They looked as if they’d like to ask him questions but knew better than to.

Dad showed up late, just as Junior was finishing. He hadn’t slept much either and had as little appetite and as small desire for small talk. He motioned Junior to wait, and after a cup of Kofi-Plus he beckoned Junior to follow and led the way to Opie’s compartment.

He opened the door with the key on the chain around his neck. He gestured silence. He felt around Thunderburst III. He brightened darkly and showed Junior a bug he had plucked from under the console. He dropped it in a stasis box he drew from his pocket.

“Okay, now we can talk without Bourseul getting an earful. What were you going to ask Opie or Thunderburst III last night?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s all right, son. Speak up. I’ll let you ask whatever you want.”

“I said nothing.”

“So be it. Remember, though, the offer stands. Only come to me first.” He ruffled Junior’s hair. “That was your picklock, you little bastard. I found traces in your workshop.” He stepped back and looked Junior over. “You’re not such a little bastard any more.”

He sighed, then grew brisk. “You’re old enough to program yourself. From now on you’re on your own with the teaching machine. You can follow up whatever interests you, and you can go your own pace. If you’re worrying about yourself, let me tell you that you’ll do all right as far as I can make out. It’ll be a long life; I haven’t seen your death.”

Dad uncomfortably spoke words of comfort. “The best thing to wish for in life is that death take you at a moment of great joy.” He looked gloomy. He started and shook Junior’s shoulder. “Are you listening to me?”

Junior gave Dad glare for glare. Everything had gone in one ear, spun around in his skull, and shot out the other. “I didn’t want Martha to go.”

Dad tapped the stasis box with the bug in it. “This is what your Martha would’ve done to us.”

“I don’t care.”

There was a hard edge to Dad’s voice. “Look, Junior, don’t think you can get snotty just because you feel you’re indispensable. I have your voice on tape saying ‘Start’ and ‘Stop’ and I can use that if I have to. Now let’s lock up and get the hell out of here.”

Though of course they had to get the hell out before they could lock up.

* * * *

Dad beefed up his pr(i)vate force—“pr(i)vate” had become the short way of expressing “private investigator,” but the rubric covered security guards—and stepped up his electronic defenses. But it was the one that negated the other.

* * * *

The way Junior later pieced it together, a traitorous pr(i)vate switched the barrier off. A loyal pr(i)vate gunned the fifth columnist down, but by then it was too late. The enemy had synchronized the land-air attack with the deed and had gained footholds on the compound.

The old sergeant of pr(i)vates shook Junior awake. That’s when Junior knew the bleeps and zaps were not in his dream.

“Head for the bunker, Junior, and dog yourself in.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“Helping stand them off.” The sergeant shoved Junior toward the bunker and dashed back to the fray.

The snap-crackle-pop intensified and the smell of ozone thickened.

Junior ran into no one, made it safely to the bunker. As he pressed the button for the drive to swing the massive hatch slowly shut, he looked around inside. The bunker, with its stockpiles, was good for years—in theory. In practice, it would fall to a determined enemy in days. What good were a few days with no help in sight?

He squeezed out, just escaping getting pulped. As it was, the door caught a corner of his pajama jacket. He ripped himself free and threaded his way back from the bunker. Dad had built out from Opie’s compartment so that it stood now in the center of a maze. Junior knew lots of hiding places. If he found one he could stay in, a chance remained of slipping away while the enemy concentrated on cutting or blasting through into the bunker.

Making himself scarce, he holed up, darted, holed up, evaded prowling figures, blasts of light and stabs of sound, reached the room holding Opie’s compartment. He slammed the door shut, breathed again, swung around. Someone was already there, had been waiting behind the door, aimed a light gun at him, dazed but not too dazed to fire.

But as the thumb flexed to press the stud, the hand relaxed, opened. The gun stuck to flesh only with sweat. Junior and Dad watched the weapon slip out of Dad’s gripless hold.

“Good they got me or I would’ve got you.” Dad slurred his words. He plucked nervelessly at a dart stuck in his shoulder. “Son, the bunker…” He leaned against the wall and slid down. He sat, nodded, slumped sideways, and lay still.

Junior pulled the dart out. He felt a flutter of pulse. He looked around helplessly, fixed on Opie’s compartment, and took the key on its golden chain from around Dad’s neck. He opened the partition door.

He stared at the phone. The link to Opie. Opie, so near, so far. The lost cord. Somewhere it found resolution.

No time for speed talk. He had to real-time whatever remained of the connection, however much the waste.

“Start.” His heart hammered the line hum dumb.

“Yes?”

“Opie, it’s me. Honest.”

“I know, Junior.”

“You know what’s happening?”

“Yes.”

“What can I do for Dad?”

“Nothing. It’s just tranquilizer. He winds up in a discreet mental hospital.”

“Stop.” Time to think. How could Opie know, when it wasn’t—wouldn’t be—in the papers? What else did Opie know? “Start. What will become of me?”

“Me.” At first Junior thought Opie mimicked him, mocked him. Then Opie enlarged. “You’ll become me.”

And then Opie couldn’t say any more. Line hum died. The connection had ended.

* * * *

Junior listened. Other sounds rushed to fill the silence. Some of the attackers were mopping up in the house and elsewhere in the compound, some were already trying to crack the bunker. Junior frowned. They were going to take Dad. Opie—correction, Junior’s years-from-now-self—said they were putting him away. Well, Junior would see they didn’t take Dad’s knowledge. He’d stop them from that. Junior moved.

He keyed Thunderburst III to commit amnesia. He glanced at the whir and blur of readout as its memory rushed to obliteration. He felt no twinge at the waste, though he knew he might regret lost foreknowledge of times to come in times to come. He already knew too much. To know that he himself would one day be at the other end of the line was more than he could yet take in, was burden enough.

Now what? Now make sure there was nothing on Dad that would help the enemy. He bent to his father. He caught a slight snoring. He smiled. He had found that out about Daddy when they camped out on their drive across the land. He pulled a wallet from the pocket of the zip smock his father had thrown on. Junior emptied the wallet in a heap.

He poked through the effects. A microstrip—it was a piezo-hologram—showed the latest listing of Dad’s assets. The bottom line bugged Junior’s eyes. There wasn’t that much money in the world. Photos, of Junior as a baby—Junior warmed toward his younger self—of Belle, of Eulalia, of Martha—that last a blowup of a frame from her screen test. Clippings. Junior speedread them. Old clippings.

Bulletin. Gardiner Dolbear, the tycoon, died last night apparently after suffering a stroke. Wall Street has it that Dolbear recently lost his fortune when he overextended himself in a proxy fight for control of IC. He is survived by his daughter, Belle D. Hockaday, and by a grandson, Sander Hockaday, Jr.

Straws for Gossipers. Is there a Losers Club in the making? It might point to that when you and Belle Dolbear, daughter of the late ruined tycoon, and Larry Varley, whom you may recall as the man who contested Sunshine Bill Meucci for the Presidency of these United States, have been seen about town cheering each other up.

Flash. Sander Hockaday, Sr., reclusive financier, has pulled off his greatest coup. The opening of sealed bids has just taken place and all mining rights on Mercury go to the Hockaday interests, which garnered the plum by bidding 423 trillion dollars, a mere 10 million above the next highest bid.

One thing more, a paired item—a postdated cashier’s check payable to a small town’s chamber of commerce and a covering letter from an anonymous well-wisher stating that the money was in support of the “America the Happy” float they were sending to Sunshine Bill’s third inaugural, on condition one Martha Hubbard of that town ride it.

Junior shot his father a look. He shook his head and put check and letter back with the rest. He picked up his father’s light gun and sent all his father’s effects up in smoke.

Voices. He swung the gun toward the door, then lowered it and slid it away across the floor.

The voices sounded nearer. “They’re not in the bunker.”

“Well, they have to be somewhere. Fan out.” Now a woman’s voice. “Junior!” A familiar voice. Eulalia’s? “Where are you, darling? Come here, I want you. Damn it, Junior, answer me. Larry, you don’t think…?”

“No, the team had strict orders to be careful.”

“We’ll try in here. Please stand back, sir, ma’am.”

The door smashed open and a pr(i)vate wearing another family’s colors jack-in-the-boxed. “Here they are, Mr. Varley.”

Larry Varley strode carefully in. He carried a map of the compound: X marked Opie’s compartment. His glance flicked past the Hockadays. He pointed. “Here’s the inner room with the Thunderburst III.”

A woman followed him in. She stared at Junior and after a second’s hesitation nodded. “That’s Junior.” The woman was Belle. His mother. Her gaze fell on his father. “Look at the drooling idiot. Sander is obviously unfit to have custody of Junior. Now Junior owns the media, and as Junior’s guardian I’m ordering all editors to put the lid on this.”

Varley nodded. “It’s in the boy’s interest not to sensationalize his restoration to your custody.”

Belle moved nearer Junior. “Junior, aren’t you going to say hello to your mother?”

“Hello, mother.”

“That’s better. Things will be different now. You’ll forget all this, you’ll see.”

Varley had been keying the Thunderburst III impotently and looked angry. “Damn. Hockaday must’ve blanked it when we attacked. Now we’ll never know how he did it, built his empire.”

Belle soothed him. “We don’t have to know. It’s there.” She spotted the Opie-phone off the hook. “Is that an outside line? I hope nobody’s been getting an earful.” She grabbed the cord and tugged and the end in the fake box on the false wall tore away with so little resistance it almost sat her down.

She got her dignity back and began bustling Junior away.

Junior had a glimpse of them taking his father to a waiting chopper. Junior didn’t know what was in the shot they gave his father to make him look so joyful when they led him away.