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  'You're lying.'

  'I won't give it up. I'd rather leave you and try to make it on my own.' Her fear had become, momentarily, obstinate defiance. 'Look, if I'm hooked on JJ-180 I can't give you the supply I possess – that's what it means to be hooked! I don't want to take any more; I have to take it. Anyhow, there's not much.' She shuddered. 'It makes me wish I were dead; that goes without saying. God, I don't know how I got myself into this.'

  'What's the experience like? I understand it involves time.'

  'Yes, you lose your fixed point of reference; you pass easily back and forth. What I'd like to do is put myself at the service of someone or something, find a use for the period that I'm in the hands of. Could the Secretary use me? Eric, maybe I could get us out of the war; I could warn Mplinari before he signs the Pact of Peace.' Her eyes glowed with hope. 'Isn't it worth trying?'

  'Maybe so.' However, he recalled Festenburg's statements on the subject; perhaps Molinari had use of JJ-180 already. But the Mole clearly had not tried – or been able – to find a route back to pre-pact days. Perhaps the drug affected each person uniquely. Many stimulant, hallucinogenic drugs did.

  'Can I get access to him through you?' Kathy asked.

  'I – suppose so.' But something sprang to life inside him and made him wary. 'It would take time. Right now he's recovering from the kidney operation, as you seem to know.'

  She shook her head then, nodding with pain. 'Jesus, I feel awful, Eric. Like I'm not going to survive. You know... impending disaster. Give me a bunch of tranquilizers; it might help a little.' She held out her hand and again he saw How badly it shook. Even worse, it seemed, than before.

  'I'll put you in the building's infirmary,' he decided, rising to his feet. 'For the time being. While I figure out what to do. I'd prefer not to give you any medication, though; it might further potentiate the drug. With a new substance you never—'

  Kathy broke in, 'Want to know what I did, Eric, while you were off getting the Secret Service? I dropped a cap of JJ-180 into your coffee cup. Don't laugh; I'm serious. It's true, and you've drunk it. So you're addicted now. The effects should begin any time; you'd better get out of this cafeteria and to your own conapt, because they're enormous.' Her voice was flat and drab. 'I did it because I thought you were going to have me arrested; you said you were and I believed you. So it's your own fault. I'm sorry ... I wish I hadn't, but anyhow now you have a motive for curing me; you've got to find a solution. I just couldn't depend on your sheer goodwill; we've had too much trouble between us. Isn't that so?'

  He managed to say, 'I've heard that about addicts in general; they like to hook other people.'

  'Do you forgive me?' Kathy asked, also rising.

  'No,' he said. He felt wrathful and dizzy. Not only do I not forgive you, he thought, but I'll do everything I can to deny you a cure; nothing means anything to me now except getting back at you. Even my own cure. He felt pure, absolute hate for her. Yes, this was what she would do; this was his wife. This was precisely why he had tried to get away.

  'We're in this together,' Kathy said.

  As steadily as possible he walked toward the exit of the cafeteria step by step, past the tables, people. Leaving her.

  He almost made it. He almost.

  * * *

  Everything returned. But totally different. New. Changed.

  Across from him Don Festenburg leaned back, said, 'You're lucky. But I'd better explain this. Here. The calendar.' He pushed a brass object; across the desk Eric saw. 'You've moved slightly over one year ahead.' Eric stared. Sightlessly. Ornate inscriptions. 'This is June 17, 2056. You're one of the happy few the drug affects this way. Most of them wander off into the past and get bogged down in manufacturing alternate universes; you know, playing God until at last the nerve destruction is too great and they degenerate to random twitches.'

  Eric tried to think of something useful to say. Could not.

  'Save yourself the effort,' Festenburg said, seeing him struggle. 'I can do the talking; you'll only be here a few minutes so let me get it said. A year ago, when you were given JJ-180 in the building cafeteria, I was fortunate enough to get in on the flurry; your wife became hysterical and you of course – disappeared. She was taken in tow by the Secret Service and she admitted her addiction and what she had done.'

  'Oh.' The room dropped and rose as he reflexively nodded.

  'So that – you're feeling better? So anyhow, but now Kathy is cured, but we won't go into that; it hardly matters.'

  'What about—'

  'Yes, your problem. Your addiction. There was no cure then, a year ago. However, you'll be gratified to hear that there is now. It came into being a couple of months ago, and I've been waiting for you to show up – so much more is known about JJ-180 now that I was privileged to compute almost to the minute when and where you'd appear.' Reaching into his rumpled coat pocket, Festenburg brought out a small glass bottle. This is the antidote which TF&D's subsidiary now manufactures. Would you like it? If you took it now, twenty milligrams, you'd be free of your addiction even after you return to your own time.' He smiled, his sallow face wrinkling unnaturally. 'But – there are problems.'

  Eric said, 'How is the war going?'

  Deprecatingly, Festenburg said, 'What do you care? Good God, Sweetscent; your life depends on this bottle – you don't know what addiction to that stuff is like!'

  'Is Molinari still alive?'

  Festenburg shook his head. 'Minutes he's got and he wants to know about the Mole's state of health. Listen.' He leaned toward Eric, his mouth turned down poutingly, his face puffy with agitation. 'I want to make a deal, doctor. I'm asking astonishingly little in return for these medication tablets. Please do business with me; the next time you take the drug – if you're not cured – you'll go ten years into the future and that'll be too late, too far.'

  Eric said, 'Too late for you, but not for me. The cure will still exist.'

  'You won't even ask what I want in return?'

  'No.'

  'Why not?'

  Eric shrugged. 'I don't feel comfortable; I'm being subjected to pressure and I don't care for that – I'll take my chances with the drug without you.' It was sufficient merely to know that a cure existed. Such knowledge obliterated his anxiety and left him free to do as he liked. 'Obviously, my best bet is to use the drug as often as physiologically possible, two or three times, going farther into the future each time, and then when its destructive effects become too great—'

  'Even one use,' Festenburg said between his clenched teeth, 'causes irreversible brain damage. You damn fool – you've already used it too much. You saw your wife; you want that damage for yourself?'

  After a moment, considering deeply, Eric said, 'For what I'll get out of it, yes. By the time I've used it twice I'll know the outcome of the war and if the outcome is unfavorable possibly I'll be in a position to advise Molinari how it could be avoided. What's my health compared to that?' He was silent then; it seemed perfectly clear to him. There was nothing to discuss: he sat waiting for the effects of the drug to wear off. He waited to return to his own time.

  Opening the glass bottle, Festenburg poured out the white tablets; he dropped them to the floor and ground them to dust under his heel.

  'Did it occur to you,' Festenburg said, 'that within the next ten years Terra may be so destroyed in the war that TF&D's subsidiary may no longer be in a position to supply this antidote?'

  It had not occurred to him; although jolted, he managed not to show it. 'We'll see,' he murmured.

  'Frankly I have no knowledge of the future. However, I have knowledge of the past – of your future, this last year.' He produced a homeopape, which he turned toward Eric and spread out on the desk. 'Six months following your experience in the White House cafeteria. It'll interest you.'

  Eric scanned the lead article and its headline.

  SWEETSCENT IMPLICATED AS PRIME MOVER IN

  DOCTOR'S PLOT AGAINST ACTING UN SECRETARY

  DONALD F
ESTENBURG, HELD BY SECRET SERVICE.

  Abruptly Festenburg whipped the newspaper away, crumpling it and tossing it behind him. 'I'm not saying what became of Molinari – find that out for yourself, since you're uninterested in reaching a rational agreement with me.'

  After a pause Eric said, 'You've had a year to print up a fake of the Times. I seem to recall that such has been done before in political history... Joseph Stalin did it to Lenin during Lenin's last year. Had a completely phony edition of Pravda printed, given to Lenin, who—'

  'My uniform,' Festenburg said wildly, his face dark red and quivering as if it were about to burst. 'Look at my shoulder patches!'

  'Why couldn't that be faked, too? I'm not saying it is, or that the homeopape was faked.' After all, he was not in a position to know one way or another. 'I'm merely saying it could be, and that's enough to cause me to suspend my judgement.'

  With enormous effort Festenburg managed to gain partial control of himself. 'All right; you're playing cautious. This entire experience is disorienting for you – I understand. But doctor, be realistic for a moment; you've seen the pape, you know that in a way which I'm not specifying I succeeded Molinari as UN Secretary. Plus the fact that six months from your own time period you were caught red-handed conspiring against me. And—'

  'Acting UN Secretary,' Eric amended.

  'What?' Festenburg stared at him.

  'A pro tern situation is implied. Transitional. And I wasn't – or won't be – caught "red-handed." The pape merely relates an accusation; there's been no trial, no conviction. I could be innocent. I could be about to be framed, and by you. Again, recall Stalin during his last year, the so-called—'

  'Don't lecture me in my own field! Yes, I know of the situation you related; I know how completely Stalin fooled the dying Lenin. And I know about the doctor's plot, paranoiacally engineered by Stalin during his final illness. Okay—' Festen-burg's voice was steady. 'I admit it. That homeopape which I showed you just now – it was faked.'

  Eric smiled.

  'And I'm not Acting UN Secretary,' Festenburg continued. 'But as to what actually has happened — I'll leave it to you to guess. And you're not going to be able to; you're going to return to your own time a few moments from now knowing nothing, not a damn thing, about the world of the future – whereas if you had made a few deals with me you could know everything.' He glowered at Eric.

  'I guess,' Eric said, 'I'm a fool.'

  'More than that: polymorphic perverse. You could be going back armed with incredible weapons – in the figurative sense, of course – to save yourself, your wife, Molinari. And for one year you'll stew ... assuming that you survive your drug addiction that long. We'll see.'

  For the first time Eric felt a wavering doubt. Was he making an error? After all, he had not even heard what he would need to pony up in order to consummate the deal. But now the antidote had been destroyed; it was too late. This was just talk.

  Rising, Eric took a quick look out of the window at the city of Cheyenne.

  The city was in ruins.

  While he stood staring at that he felt the reality of the room, the substantiality of what he saw, ebb; it eased away from him and he clutched at it, trying to retain it.

  'Much luck, doctor,' Festenburg said hollowly, and then he, too, became a streak of foglike wispiness that eddied gray and indistinct around him, blending with the disintegrated remnants of the desk, the walls of the room, the objects that a moment before had been utterly stable.

  He lurched – and struggled to catch himself. Losing his balance, he pitched into the sickening experience of no weight... and then, with pain banging at his head, he looked up, saw around him the tables and people of the White House cafeteria.

  A group had formed around him. Concerned but hesitant. Unwilling to actually touch him; they remained spectators.

  'Thanks for the help,' he grated, and got unsteadily to his feet.

  The spectators melted guiltily off to their tables, leaving him alone. Alone – except for Kathy.

  'You were out about three minutes,' she said.

  He said nothing; he had no desire to speak to her, to have anything to do with her. He felt nauseated and his legs shook under him; his head felt splintered and broken and he thought, This must be how it feels to experience carbon monoxide poisoning. As described in the old textbooks. A sense of having imbibed of death itself.

  'Can I help you?' Kathy asked. 'I remember how I felt the first time.'

  Eric said, 'I'll take you to the infirmary now.' He grabbed her by the arm; her purse bobbed against him. 'You must have your supply in your purse,' he said, and yanked it away from him.

  A moment later he held two elongated spansules in his hand. Dropping them into his pocket, he returned her purse to her.

  'Thanks,' she said with massive irony.

  'Thank you, too, dear. We've each got a lot of love for one another. In this new phase of our marital relationship.' He led her from the cafeteria then; she accompanied him without resistance.

  I'm glad I didn't make a deal with Festenburg, he thought. But Festenburg would be after him again; this was not the end. However, he possessed an advantage over Festenburg, one which the sallow-faced speech writer did not – at this date – know of.

  From this encounter a year hence he knew that Festenburg had political ambitions. That in some fashion he would attempt a coup and would try to buy support. The UN Secretary uniform had turned out to be ersatz, but Festenburg's aspirations had not.

  And it was entirely possible that Festenburg had not yet begun this phase of his career.

  Festenburg, in this time period, could not take Eric Sweet-scent by surprise because one year in the future, unknown to his present self, he had tipped his hand. And, in doing so, had not grasped the implications of what he had done.

  It was a major political error and one which could not be retrieved. Especially in view of the fact that other political strategists, some with immense capabilities, were on the scene.

  One of these was Gino Molinari.

  * * *

  After he had gotten his wife admitted to the White House infirmary he placed a vidphone call to Jonas Ackerman at TF&D in Tijuana.

  'So you know about Kathy,' Jonas said. He did not look happy.

  'I'm not going to ask you why you did it,' Eric said. 'I'm calling in order to—'

  'Did what?' Jonas' face convulsed. 'She told you I put her on the stuff, did she? Not true, Eric. Why should I do that? Ask yourself.'

  'We won't discuss that now.' There was no time. 'I want to find out, first if Virgil knows anything about JJ-180.'

  'Yes, but no more than I do. There's not much—'

  'Let me talk to Virgil.'

  Reluctantly, Jonas switched the call to Virgil's office. Eric after a moment faced the old man, who leered with guileless abandon when he saw who was calling. 'Eric! I read in the pape – you've already saved his life once. I knew you'd make out. Now, if you can do that every day—' Virgil chuckled delightedly.

  'Kathy is addicted to JJ-180. I need help; I have to get her off it.'

  The pleased emotions left Virgil's face. 'That's horrible! But what can I do, Eric? I'd like to, of course. We all love Kathy around here. You're a doctor, Eric; you ought to be able to do something for her.' He tried to babble on but Eric interrupted.

  'Tell me who to contact at the subsidiary. Where JJ-180 is made.'

  'Oh yes. Hazeltine Corporation, in Detroit. Let's see . .. who should you talk to there? Maybe Bert Hazeltine himself. Just a minute; Jonas is up here in my office. He's saying something.'

  Jonas appeared on the vidscreen. 'I was trying to tell you, Eric. When I found out about Kathy's situation I contacted Hazeltine Corporation immediately. They've already sent someone out; he's on his way to Cheyenne; I figured Kathy would show up there after she disappeared. Keep Virgil and me posted as to what progress he can make. Good luck.' He disappeared from the screen, evidently relieved to have contributed his share.
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  Thanking Virgil, Eric rang off. Rising, he at once went to the White House receiving room to see if the representative of Hazeltine Corporation had shown up yet.

  'Oh yes, Dr Sweetscent,' the girl said, checking her book. Two persons arrived just a moment ago; you're being paged in the halls and in the cafeterias.' She read the names from the book. 'A Mr Bert Hazeltine and a woman. Miss Bachis... I'm trying to read her writing; I think that's it. They were sent upstairs to your conapt.'

  When he reached his conapt he found the door ajar; in the small living room sat two individuals, a middle-aged man, well dressed, in a long overcoat, and a blonde-haired woman, in her late thirties; she wore glasses and her features were heavy and professionally competent.

  'Mr Hazeltine?' Eric said, entering with his hand out.

  Both the man and the woman rose. 'Hello, Dr Sweetscent.' Bert Hazeltine shook hands with him. This is Hilda Bachis; she's with the UN Narcotics Control Bureau. They had to be informed of your wife's situation, doctor; it's the law. However—'

  Miss Bachis spoke up crisply, 'We're not interested in arresting or punishing your wife, doctor; we want to help her, as you do. We've already arranged to see her but we thought we'd talk with you first and then go down to the infirmary.'

  In a quiet voice Hazeltine said, 'Your wife has how large a supply of the drug with her?'

  'None,' Eric said.

  'Let me explain to you, then,' Hazeltine said, 'the difference between habituation and addiction. In addiction—'

  'I'm a doctor,' Eric reminded him. 'You don't have to spell it out for me.' He seated himself, still feeling the effects of his bout of the drug; his head still ached and his chest hurt when he breathed.

  'Then you realize that the drug has entered her liver metabolism and now is required for that metabolism to continue. If she's denied the drug she'll die in—' Hazeltine calculated. 'How much has she taken?' Two or three capsules.'

  'Without it she'll die very possibly within twenty-four hours.'

  'And with it?'

  'She'll live roughly four months. By that time, doctor, we may have an antidote; don't think we're not trying. We've even tried artiforg transplant, removing the liver and substituting—'