A fraction of a second.

I understand, he thought, what that passage in the Bible means, Through a glass darkly. But my percept system is as fucked up as ever. Like they say. I understand but am helpless to help myself.

Maybe, he thought, since I see both ways at once, correctly and reversed, I’m the first person in human history to have it flipped and not-flipped simultaneously, and so get a glimpse of what it’ll be when it’s right. Although I’ve got the other as well, the regular. And which is which?

Which is reversed and which is not?

When do I see a photograph, when a reflection?

And how much allotment for sick pay or retirement or disability do I get while I dry out? he asked himself, feeling horror already, deep dread and coldness everywhere. Wie kalt ist es in diesem unterirdischen Gewolbe! Das ist naturlich, es ist ja tief. And I have to withdraw from the shit. I’ve seen people go through that. Jesus Christ, he thought, and shut his eyes.

“That may sound like metaphysics,” one of them was saying, “but the math people say we may be on the verge of a new cosmology so much—”

The other said excitedly, “The infinity of time, which is expressed as eternity, as a loop! Like a loop of cassette tape!”

He had an hour to kill before he was supposed to be back in Hank’s office, to listen to and inspect Jim Barris’s evidence.

The building’s cafeteria attracted him, so he walked that way, among those in uniform and those in scramble suits and those in slacks and ties.

Meanwhile, the psychologists’ findings presumably were being taken up to Hank. They would be there when he arrived.

This will give me time to think, he reflected as he wandered into the cafeteria and lined up. Time. Suppose, he thought, time is round, like the Earth. You sail west to reach India. They laugh at you, but finally there’s India in front, not behind. In time—maybe the Crucifixion lies ahead of us as we all sail along, thinking it’s back east.

Ahead of him a secretary. Tight blue sweater, no bra, almost no skirt. It felt nice, checking her out; he gazed on and on, and finally she noticed him and edged off with her tray.

The First and Second Coming of Christ the same event, he thought; time a cassette loop. No wonder they were sure it’d happen, He’d be back.

He watched the secretary’s behind, but then he realized that she could not possibly be noticing him back as he noticed her because in his suit he had no face and no ass. But she senses my scheming on her, he decided. Any chick with legs like that would sense it a lot, from every man.

You know, he thought, in this scramble suit I could hit her over the head and bang her forever and who’d know who did it? How could she identify me?

The crimes one could commit in these suits, he pondered. Also lesser trips, short of actual crimes, which you never did; always wanted to but never did.

“Miss,” he said to the girl in the tight blue sweater, “you certainly have nice legs. But I suppose you recognize that or you wouldn’t be wearing a microskirt like that.”

The girl gasped. “Eh,” she said. “Oh, now I know who you are.”

“You do?” he said, surprised.

“Pete Wickam,” the girl said.

“What?” he said.

“Aren’t you Pete Wickam? You always are sitting across from me—aren’t you, Pete?”

“Am I the guy,” he said, “who’s always sitting there and studying your legs and scheming a lot about you know what?”

She nodded.

“Do I have a chance?” he said.

“Well, it depends.”

“Can I take you out to dinner some night?”

“I guess so.”

“Can I have your phone number? So I can call you?”

The girl murmured, “You give me yours.”

“I’ll give it to you,” he said, “if you’ll sit with me right now, here, and have whatever you’re having with me while I’m having my sandwich and coffee.”

“No, I’ve got a girl friend over there—she’s waiting.”

“I could sit with you anyhow, both of you.”

“We’re going to discuss something private.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Well, then I’ll see you, Pete.” She moved off down the line with her tray and flatware and napkin.

He obtained his coffee and sandwich and found an empty table and sat by himself, dropping little bits of sandwich into the coffee and staring down at it.

They’re fucking going to pull me off Arctor, he decided. I’ll be in Synanon or New-Path or some place like that withdrawing and they’ll station someone else to watch him and evaluate him. Some asshole who doesn’t know jack shit about Arctor—they’ll have to start all over from the beginning.

At least they can let me evaluate Barris’s evidence, he thought. Not put me on temsuspens until after we go over that stuff, whatever it is.

If I did bang her and she got pregnant, he ruminated, the babies—no faces. Just blurs. He shivered.

I know I’ve got to be taken off. But why necessarily right away? If I could do a few more things … process Barris’s info, participate in the decision. Or even just sit there and see what he’s got. Find out for my own satisfaction finally what Arctor is up to. Is he anything? Is he not? They owe it to me to allow me to stay on long enough to find that out.

If I could just listen and watch, not say anything.

He sat there on and on, and later he noticed the girl in the tight blue sweater and her girl friend, who had short black hair, get up from their table and start to leave. The girl friend, who wasn’t too foxy, hesitated and then approached Fred where he sat hunched over his coffee and sandwich fragments.

“Pete?” the short-haired girl said.

He glanced up.

“Um, Pete,” she said nervously. “I just have a sec. Um, Ellen wanted to tell you this, but she chickened out. Pete, she would have gone out with you a long time ago, like maybe a month ago, like back in March even. If—”

“If what?” he said.

“Well, she wanted me to tell you that for some time she’s wanted to clue you into the fact that you’d do a whole lot better if you used like, say, Scope.”

“I wish I had known,” he said, without enthusiasm.

“Okay, Pete,” the girl said, relieved now and departing. “Catch you later.” She hurried off, grinning.

Poor fucking Pete, he thought to himself. Was that for neal? Or just a mind-blowing put-down of Pete by a pair of malice-head types who cooked it up seeing him—me—sitting here alone. Just a nasty little dig to—Aw, the hell with it, he thought.

Or it could be true, he decided as he wiped his mouth, crumpled up his napkin, and got heavily to his feet. I wonder if St. Paul had bad breath. He wandered from the cafeteria, his hands again shoved down in his pockets. Scramble suit pockets first and then inside that neal suit pockets. Maybe that’s why Paul was always in jail the latter part of his life. They threw him in for that.

Mindfucking trips like this always get laid on you at a time like this, he thought as he left the cafeteria. She dumped that on me on top of all the other bummers today—the big one out of the composite wisdom of the ages of psychologicaltesting pontification. That and then this. Shit, he thought. He felt even worse now than he had before; he could hardly walk, hardly think; his mind buzzed with confusion. Confusion and despair. Anyhow, he thought, Scope isn’t any good; Lavoris is better. Except when you spit it out it looks like you’re spitting blood. Maybe Micrin, he thought. That might be best.

If there was a drugstore in this building, he thought, I could get a bottle and use it before I go upstairs to face Hank. That way—maybe I’d feel more confident. Maybe I’d have a better chance.

I could use, he reflected, anything that’d help, anything at all. Any hint, like from that girl, any suggestion. He felt dismal and afraid. Shit, he thought, what am I going to do?

If I’m off everything, he thought, then I’ll never see any of them again, any of my friends, the people I watched and knew. I’ll be out of it; I’ll be maybe retired the rest of my life—anyhow, I’ve seen the last of Arctor and Luckman and Jerry Fabin and Charles Freck and most of all Donna Hawthorne. I’ll never see any of my friends again, for the rest of eternity. It’s over.