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fine. It seemed to him certain that she would hold together well over the years, not deteriorate; she seemed to be unbreakable. He could not imagine her getting sloppy or fat or dull.
    “I’m hungry,” Julie said.
    “You mean you want me to fix breakfast.” He perceived that; no doubt, there.
    “I’ve fixed all the breakfasts I’m going to fix for any man, you or your dumb kid brother,” Julie said.
    Again he experienced fear. She was being too harsh, too soon; he knew her, knew she was this way—but couldn’t it be glossed over, at least for a while? Was she going to bring to him whatever her last mood with Vince had been? Wasn’t there going to be a honeymoon?
    I think I’m in trouble,
he thought to himself. I’ve gotten hold of just too much here; I’m not up to it. God, maybe she’ll move on; I hope so. It was a childish hope, very regressive, not grown-up, masculine. No real man ever felt this way; he realized that.
    “I’ll fix breakfast,” he said, and went into the kitchen to do so. Julie stood at the bedroom mirror, combing her hair.
    Curtly, in his usual brisk tone, Garth McRae said, “Shut it off.”
    The Kalbfleisch simulacrum stopped. Its arms stuck out, rigid in their final gesture, the withered face vacuous. The simulacrum said nothing and automatically the TV cameras also shut off, one by one; there was no longer anything for them to transmit, and the technicians behind them, all of them
Ges,
knew it. They looked to Garth McRae.
    “We got the message across,” McRae informed Anton Karp.
    “Well, done,” Karp said. “This Bertold Goltz, this Sons of Job man, makes me nervous; I think the speech here now this morning will dispel a little of that, my legitimate fear.” He glanced timidly at McRae for confirmation, as were the others in the control room, the simulacrum engineers from the Karp Werke.
    “This is only the start,” McRae said presently.
    “True,” Karp agreed, nodding. “But a good start.” Walking up to the Kalbfleisch simulacrum he touched it gingerly on the shoulder, as if expecting it, prodded, to resume its activity. It did not.
    McRae laughed.
    “I wish,” Anton Karp said, “that it had mentioned Adolf Hitler; you know, comparing the Sons of Job to the Nazis more directly, comparing Goltz to Hitler.”
    “But,” McRae said, “that would not have helped. True as it may be. You’re not authentically a political person, Karp; what gives you the idea that ‘the truth’ is the best story to stick to? If we want to stop Bertold Goltz we don’t want to identify him as another Hitler simply because in their secret hearts fifty-one percent of the local population would like to see another Hitler.” He smiled at Karp, who looked worried, who looked, in fact, tremulous and apprehensive.
    “What I want to know,” Karp said, “is this: is Kalbfleisch going to be able to handle the Sons of Job? You have von Lessinger equipment; tell me.”
    “No,” McRae said. “He won’t be able to.”
    Karp gaped at him.
    “But,” McRae said, “Kalbfleisch is going to go. Soon. Within the next month.” He did not say what Karp at once wanted him to say, what Anton and Felix Karp and the entire Karp Werke instinctively inquired into as a first reflex, an immediate query of primary magnitude.
Will we build the next simulacrum?
Karp would have asked, had he dared, but he was afraid to speak. Karp was, as McRae knew, a coward. His integrity had long ago been emasculated in order that he be capable of functioning properly within the German business community; spiritual— moral—emasculation was a present-day prerequisite for participation in the
Ge
class, in the ruling circles.
    I could tell him, McRae thought. Ease his pain. But why? He did not like Karp, who had built and now maintained the simulacrum, kept it functioning as it had to function—without even a trace of hesitation. Any failure would have betrayed to the
Bes
the secret, the Geheimnis, which distinguished the