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Nile s ears still rang with the din. Lying back in the water, she watched the
ship dwindle in a brilliant blue sky.
Run, Palachs, run! But see, it s too late!
Two thin fire lines converged in the blue on the shrinking dot of the Parahuan
ship. Then a new sun blazed in white fury where the dot had been. The fire
lines curved away, vanished.
Federation warships had come hunting out of space. . . .
She swung about in the water, saw a section of a broken floatwood bough twenty
feet away, caught it and clambered aboard. A wave lifted the bough as she came
to her feet, sent it rushing south. Nile rode it, balanced against a spur,
gaze sweeping the sea . . . a world of brilliance, of dazzling flashes, of
racing wind and tumbling whitecaps. Laughter began to surge in her, a bubbling
release. One of the great sleds knifed past, not a hundred yards away, rushing
on humming drives toward the island. A formation of CA patrol cars swept above
it, ports open. Jet chutists would spill from the ports in minutes to start
cleaning the abandoned children of Porad Anz from the floatwood.
Details might vary considerably. But as morning rolled around the world, this
was the scene that was being repeated now wherever floatwood drifts rode the
ocean currents. The human demon was awake and snarling on Nandy-Cline. . . .
Nile
Dan! Where are you?
On the surface. just spotted you. Look southwest. The aircar s registering.
Dr. Cay s all right. . . .
Flick of guilt I forgot all about Ticos! Her eyes searched, halted on a swell.
There he was.
She flung up an arm and waved, saw Parrol return the salute. Then she cut in
the rig, dived from the floatwood, went down and flashed through the quivering
crystal halls of the upper sea to meet him.
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Chapter 10
You are not, said the blonde emphatically, Dr. Ticos Cay. You are not Dr.
Nile Etland. There are no great white decayed-looking monsters chasing you
through a forest!
Rion Gilennic blinked at her. She was an attractive young creature in her
silver-blue uniform; but she seemed badly worried.
No, he told her reassuringly. Of course not.
The blonde brightened. That s better! Now, who are you? I ll tell you who you
are. You re Federation Council Deputy Rion Gilennic.
Quite right, Gilennic agreed.
And where are you?
He glanced about. In the transmitter room.
Anybody can see that. Where s this transmitter room?
On the flagship. Section Admiral Tatlaw s flagship. Oh, don t worry! When I m
myself, I remember everything. It s just that I seem to slide off now and then
into being one of the other two.
You told us, the blonde said reproachfully, that you d absorbed recall
transcriber digests like that before!
So I have. I realize now they were relatively minor digests. Small doses.
She shook her head. This was no small dose! A double dose, for one thing. A
twenty-six minute bit, and a two minute bit. Both loaded with emotion peaks.
Then there was a sex crossover on the two minute bit. That s confusing in
itself. I think you ve been rather lucky, Deputy! Next time you try out an
unfamiliar psych machine, at least give the operators straight information. On
a rush job like this we had to take some things for granted. You could have
stayed mixed up for weeks!
My apologies, said Gilennic. Then he made a startled exclamation.
Now what? the blonde asked anxiously.
What time is it?
She checked her watch. Ship or standard?
Standard.
She told him. Gilennic said, That leaves me something like ten minutes to get
straightened out before Councilman Mavig contacts me.
I can give you a shot that will straighten you out in thirty seconds, the
blonde offered.
Then I won t remember the digests.
No, not entirely. But you should still have the general idea.
Gilennic shook his head. That s not good enough! I need all the details for
the conference.
Well, I understand the Councilman s absorbed the digests too. He may not be
in any better shape.
That ll be the day! said Gilennic sourly. Nothing shakes the Councilman.
She reflected, said, You ll be all right, I think. You ve been coming out of
it fast. . . . Those two subjects had some remarkable experiences, didn t
they?
Yes, remarkable. Where are they at present?
She looked concerned again. Don t you remember? They left ship almost an hour
ago. On your order. Dr. Etland wanted to get Dr. Cay back to the planet and
into a hospital.
Gilennic considered. Yes, I do remember now. That was just before this stuff
began to take effect on me, wasn t it? I suppose
He broke off as the entrance door slid open. A trim young woman stepped in,
smiled, went to the transmitter stand, placed a sheaf of papers on it, and
switched on the screen. She glanced about the other items on the stand and
looked satisfied.
These are the reports you wanted for the conference, Mr. Gilennic, she
announced. You ll have just time enough to check them over.
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Thanks, Wyl. Gilennic started for the stand.
Anything else? Wyl asked.
No, he said. That will be all.
Wyl looked at the blonde. We d better be leaving.
The blonde frowned. The Deputy isn t in good condition! she stated. As a
Psychology Service technician, I have a Class Five clearance. Perhaps
Wyl took her arm. Come along, dear. I m Mr. Gilennic s confidential secretary
and have a Class Two clearance. That isn t good enough to let me sit here and
listen.
The blonde addressed Gilennic. If you start running hallucinations again
He smiled at her. If I do, I ll buzz for help. Good enough?
She hesitated. If you don t put it off too long, it will be. I ll wait beside
the buzzer. She left the room with Wyl, and the door slid shut.
Rion Gilennic sighed and sat down at the stand. His brain felt packed that was
perhaps the best way to describe it. Two sets of memories that weren t his own
had been fed in there in the time span of fifty seconds. He gathered that the
emotional effects they contained were damped out as far as possible; but they
remained extraordinarily vivid memories as experienced by two different
sensory patterns and recorded by two different and very keen minds. For the
next several hours, a part of him would be in effect Dr. Ticos Cay, able to
recall everything that had occurred from his first realization of a search
party of alien beings closing in stealthily on the floatwood hideout to the
moment consciousness drained from him in the incubator pod. And another part
would be Dr. Nile Etland, scanning at will over the period between her
discussion with the Sotira sledmen and her return to the mainland with Danrich
Parrol, Dr. Cay, and a pair of mutant otters.
By now Gilennic s mind seemed able to recognize these implants for what they
were and to keep them distinct from his personal memories. But for a while
there d been confusion and he d found himself running colorful floatwood
nightmares in a wide-awake condition, blanked out momentarily on the fact that
he was not whichever of the two had experienced that particular sequence. He d
really been much less upset about it than the two transcriber technicians who
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