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bathroom, then, and shut--and locked--the door after him. For this moment, brief as it was, of quiet. Of being a mere biochemical organism, not President St. James of the Tom Mix World War III antiseptic subsurface communal living tank, established in June of 2010. A.D. _Long_ A.D., he thought; a hell of a long time After Christ.
     
         What I ought to do, he decided, is come back, not with the artiforg, but with the Bag Plague for you all. Every single last one of you.
     
         His bitterness surprised him. But of course it was superficial. Because, and he realized it as he began running hot water by which to shave, the actuality is that I'm a frightened man. I don't want to lodge myself for forty-eight hours in that vertical tunnel, waiting to hear Nunes cut through below me or a team of Brose's leady police pick up the sound of my scoop from above, and then, if not that, emerge into the radioactivity, the rubble, the war. Into the pox of death from which we've fled, hidden ourselves: _I don't want to emerge on the surface, even for a necessary cause_.
     
         He despised himself for his attitude; it was hard, as he began to lather his jowls, to look at himself in the mirror. In fact it was impossible. So he opened the bathroom door on Stu and Edie's side and called, "Hey, can I borrow your electhc razor?"
     
         "Sure," his kid brother said, and produced it.
     
         "What's the matter, Nick?" Edie said, with unusual--for her-- compassion. "Good lord, you look just awful."
     
         "I am awful," Nicholas said, and seated himself on their rumpled, unmade bed to shave. "It takes force," he said. "to make me do the right thing." He didn't feel like talking about it; he shaved in introverted silence.
     
     
     
     
     

5
     
     
     
         Over green countryside, the fields, the meadows, the open world of North American forests with occasional clusters of buildings, demesnes at odd, unexpected locations, Joseph Adams flew by flapple from his own demesne on the Pacific where he was dominus to the Agency in New York City, where he was one Yance-man among many. His work day, the longed-for and at last achieved Monday, had come.
     
         Beside him on the seat lay a leather briefcase, initialed JWA in gold, which contained his handwritten speech. Behind him, crowded together in the rear seat, four leadies from his personal entourage.
     
         Meanwhile, by vidphone, he discussed biz with his associate from the Agency, Verne Lindblom. Verne, not an idea man, not a user of words but an artist in the visual sense, was in a better position than Joseph Adams to know exactly what their superior Ernest Eisenbludt in Moscow had in mind scenewise, was up to at the studio.
     
         "It's San Francisco next," Lindbiom said. "I'm building it now."
     
         "What scale?" Adams asked.
     
         "No scale,"
     
         "_Life-size?_" Adams was incredulous. "Brose has okayed it? This isn't another of Eisenbludt's hare-brained storms of creative--"
     
         "Just a segment. Nob Hill and overlooking the bay. Should take about a month to construct; there's no rush. Hell, they just ran that Detroit sequence last night." Lindblom sounded relaxed. And, as a master craftsman, he could afford to be. Idea men were one-fourth poscred a dozen, but the actual fabricators--they were a closed guild which even Brose, with all his agents, couldn't crack. They were like the red-stained-glass makers of France in the Thirteenth century; if they perished their skills perished with them.
     
         "Want to hear my new speech?"
     
         "God no," Lindblom said genially.
     
         "It's hand-done." Adams spoke with humility. "I kicked out that gadget; it was getting me into a rut."
     
         "Listen," Lindblom said, all of a sudden serious. "I heard a rumor. You're going to be pulled off speeches and put onto a special project. Don't ask me what; my source didn't