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war, though, he’d been fired. The story was that he’d insulted some VIP—it might have been Field Marshal Alexander—and the story was certainly believable. Sciss was well-known for his ability to antagonize everyone around him. It was also said that Sciss was standoffish, nasty, absolutely devoid of tact, and as unmercifully frank as a child in telling other people his opinions of them.
    Remembering his own dismay at the meeting because he hadn’t been able to counter Sciss’s seemingly perfect logic, Gregory could well understand the animosity which the scientist seemed to inspire wherever he went. At the same time, though, he respected the intellectual powers of this strange man, whose tiny head made him resemble a bird. “I’ll have to get busy on this,” he said to himself, bringing his deliberations to an end, but without any clear sense of what “get busy” actually meant.
    The day faded quickly, so quickly that the displays in the shop windows were soon being lit up for the evening. The street narrowed. Gregory found himself in a district of the city which hadn’t been rebuilt since the Middle Ages. It was jammed with dark, clumsy old buildings, most of them sheltering brand-new modern shops that sparkled unnaturally like transparent glass boxes.
    Gregory turned into an arcade, amazed that the thin layer of windswept snow at its entrance still hadn’t been trampled. A woman in a red hat stood nearby looking at some smiling wax manikins dressed in evening gowns. Beyond her, where some square white floodlights brightened the concrete walk, the arcade curved slightly.
    Walking slowly, hardly conscious of his surroundings and whereabouts, Gregory brooded about Sciss’s laugh. What exactly had it meant, he wondered. It had to be significant. Despite appearances, Sciss didn’t just do things for effect, although he was certainly arrogant enough, and consequently it followed that Sciss must have had a good reason for laughing, even if he was the only one who knew it.
    Farther up the deserted arcade a man was walking toward Gregory—a tall, lean man, whose head was nodding as if he were talking to himself. Gregory was too busy with his own thoughts to pay much attention to him, but he kept him in sight out of the corner of his eye. The man drew nearer. Three shops turned off their lights for the night and the arcade suddenly became darker. The windows of a fourth shop were covered with whitewash because of a renovation in progress, and the only lights still visible were a few glittering displays in the direction from which the man was approaching,
    Gregory looked up. The man’s pace slowed, but he kept coming, albeit hesitantly. Suddenly they stood facing each other, no more than a few paces apart. Still engrossed in his thoughts, Gregory stared at the tall male figure before him without really seeing his face. He took a step; the man did the same.
    “What does he want?” Gregory wondered. The two men scowled at each other. In the shadows the man’s broad face was hidden; he was wearing his hat pushed down on his forehead, his coat was somewhat too short, and his belt was all askew, with its end twisted loosely around the buckle. There was certainly something wrong with the buckle, Gregory thought, but he had enough problems without worrying about that too. He moved as if to walk past the stranger but found his path blocked.
    “Hey,” Gregory began angrily, “what the…” his words faltering into silence.
    The stranger … was himself. He was standing in front of a huge mirrored wall marking the end of the arcade. He had mistakenly walked into a glass-roofed dead end.
    Unable to escape the disconcerting feeling that he was really looking at someone else, Gregory stared at his own reflection for a moment. The face that looked back at him was swarthy, not very intelligent, perhaps, but with a strong, square jaw that showed firmness, or at least so he liked to think, although more than once he had