I can read people!

It was a staggering realization. He looked around the room at the nurses helping with the tie-off. When his eyes found the computer nurse, he knew she had deliberately destroyed the record tape. He knew it. Four

LIZBETH and Harvey Durant walked hand in hand from the hospital after their interview with the Doctors Potter and Svengaard. They smiled and swung their clasped hands like children off on a picnic - which in a sense they were.

The morning's rain had been shut off and the clouds were being packed off to the east, toward the tall peaks that looked down on Seatac Megalopolis. The overhead sky showed a clear cerulean blue with a goblin sun riding high in it.

A mob of people in loose marching order was coming through the park across the way, obviously the exercise period for some factory team or labor group. Their uniformed sameness was broken by flashes of color - an orange scarf on a woman's head, a yellow sash across a man's chest, the scarlet of a fertility fetish dangling on a gold loop from a woman's ear. One man had equipped himself bright green shoes.

The pathetic attempts at individuality in a world of gene-stamped sameness stabbed through Lizbeth's defenses. She turned away lest the scene tear the smile from her lips, asked, 'Where'll we go?'

'Hmmm?' Harvey held her back, waiting on the walk for the group to pass.

Among the marchers, faces turned to stare enviously at Harvey and Lizbeth. All knew why the Durants were here. The hospital, a great pile of plasmeld behind them, the fact that they were man and woman together, the casual dress, the smiles - all said the Durants were on breeder-leave from their appointed labors.

Each individual in that mob hoped with a lost desperation for this same escape from the routine that bound them all. Viable gametes, breeder leave - it was the universal dream. Even the known Sterries hoped and patronized the breeder quacks and the manufacturers of doombah fetishes.

They have no pasts, Lizbeth thought, focusing abruptly on the common observation of the Folk philosophers. They're all people without pasts and only the hope for a future to Cling to. Somewhere our past was lost in an ocean of darkness. The Optimen and their gene surgeons have extinguished our past.

Even their own breeder-leave lost its special glow in the face of this. The Durants might not be constrained to leap up at the rising bell and hurry apart to their labors, but they were still people without a past... and their future might be lost in an instant. The child being formed in the hospital vat... in some small way it might still be part of them, but the surgeons had changed it. They had cut it off sharply from its past.

Lizbeth recalled her own parents, the feeling of estrangement from them, of differences which went deeper than blood.

They were only partly my parents, she thought. They knew it... and I knew it.

She felt the beginnings of estrangement from her own unformed son then, an emotion that colored present necessities. What's the use? she wondered. But she knew what the use was - to end forever all this amputation of pasts.

The last envious face passed. The mob became moving backs, bits of color. They turned a corner and were gone, cut off.

Is it a corner we've turned and no coming back? Lizbeth wondered.

'Let's walk to the cross-town shuttle tube,' Harvey said.

'Through the park?' she asked.

'Yes,' Harvey said. 'Just think - ten months.'

'And we can take our son home,' she said. 'We're very lucky.' 'It seems like a long time - ten months,' Harvey said.

Lizbeth answered as they crossed the street and entered the park. 'Yes, but we can come see him every week when they shift him to the big vat - and that's only three months away.'

'You're right,' Harvey said. 'It'll be over before we know it. And thank the powers he's not a specialist or anything else. We can raise him at home. Our work time'll be reduced.'

'That Doctor Potter's wonderful,' she said.

As they talked, their clasped hands moved with the subtle pressures and finger shifts of the secret conversation - the No-Spoken-Word hand code that classified them as couriers of the Parents Underground.

'They're still watching us,' Harvey signaled.

'I know.'

'Svengaard is out - a slave of the power structure.'

'Obviously. You know, I had no idea the computer nurse was one of us.'

'You saw that, too?'

'Potter was looking at her when she tripped the switch,'

'Do you think the Security people saw her?

'Not a chance. They were all concentrated on us.'

'Maybe she's not one of us,' Harvey signaled. And he spoke aloud, 'Isn't it a beautiful day. Let's take the floral path.'

Lizbeth's finger pressures answered. 'You think that nurse is an accidental?'

'Could be. Perhaps she saw what Potter'd accomplished and knew there was only one way to save the embryo.'

'Someone will have to contact her immediately then.'

'Cautiously. She might be unstable, emotional - a breeder neurotic.'

'What about Potter?'

'We'll have to get people to him right away. We'll need his help getting the embryo out of there.'

'That'll give us nine of Central's surgeons,' she said.

'If he goes along,' Harvey signaled.

She looked at him with a smile that completely masked her sudden worry. 'You have doubts?'

'It's only that I think he was reading me at the same time I read him.'

'Oh, he was,' she said. 'But he was slow and lame about it compared to us.'

'That's how I read him. He was like a first reader, an amateur stumbling along, gaining confidence as he went.'

'He's untrained,' she said. 'That's obvious. I was worried. you'd read something in him that escaped me.'

'I guess you're right.'

Across the park, dust had shattered the sunlight into countless pillars that stood up through an arboretum. Lizbeth stared at the scene as she answered, Wo doubt of it, darling. He's a natural, someone who's stumbled onto the talent accidentally. They do occur, you know - have to. Nothing can keep us from communicating.'

'But they certainly try.'

'Yes,' she signaled. 'They were very intent on it there today, probing and scanning us in that lounge. But people who think mechanically will never guess - I mean that our weapons are people and not things.'

'It's their fatal blind spot,' he agreed. 'Central's carved out the genetic ruts with logic - and logic keeps digging the ruts deeper and deeper. They're so deep now they can't see over the edges to the outside.' 'And that wide, wide universe out there calling to us,' she signaled. Five

MAX ALLGOOD, Central's chief of Tachy-Security, climbed Administration's plasmeld steps slightly ahead of his two surgeon companions as befitted the director of the Optimen's swift and terrible hand of power.

The morning sun behind the trio sent their shadows darting across the white building's angles and planes.

They were admitted to the silver shadows of the entrance portico where a barrier dropped for the inevitable delay. Quarantine scanners searched and probed them for inimical microbes.

Allgood turned with the patience of long experience in this procedure, studied his companions - Boumour and Igan. It amused him that they must drop their titles here. No doctors were admitted to these precints. Here they must be pharmacists. The title 'doctor' carried overtones which spread unrest among the Optimen. They knew about doctors, but only as ministers to the mere humans. A doctor became a euphemism in here, just as no one said death or kill or implied that a machine or structure would wear out. Only new Optimen in their acolyte apprenticeship, or meres of young appearance served in Central, although some of the meres had been preserved by their masters for remarkable lengths of time.

Boumour and Igan both passed the test of youthfulness, although Boumour's face was of that pinched-up elfin type which tended to suggest age before its time. He was a big man with heavy shoulders, powerful. Igan looked lean and fragile beside him, a beaked face with long jaw and tight little mouth. The eyes of both men were Optimen color - blue and penetrating. They were probably near-Opts, both of them. Most Central surgeon- pharmacists were.

The pair moved restlessly under Allgood's gaze, avoiding his eyes. Boumour began talking in a low voice to Igan with one hand on the man's shoulder moving nervously, kneading. The movement of Boumour's hand on Igan's shoulder carried an odd familiarity, a suggestion to Allgood that he had seen something like this somewhere before. He couldn't place where.

The quarantine probing-scanning continued. It seemed to Allgood that it was lasting longer than usual. He turned his attention to the scene across from the building. It was strangely peaceful, at odds with the mood of Central as Allgood knew it.

Allgood realized that his access to secret records and even to old books gave him an uncommon knowledge about Central. The Optiman demesne reached across leagues of what had once been the political entities of Canada and northern United States. It occupied a rough circle some seven hundred kilometers in diameter and with two hundred levels below ground. It was a region of multitudinous controls - weather control, gene control, bacterial control, enzyme control... human control...

In this little comer, the heart of Administration, the ground had been shaped into an Italian chiaroscuro landscape - blacks and grays with touches of pastels. The Optimen were people who could barber a mountain at a whim: 'A little off the top and leave the sideburns.' Throughout Central, nature had been smoothed over, robbed of her dangerous sharpness. Even when the Optimen staged some natural display, it lacked an element of drama which was a general lack in their lives.

Allgood often wondered at this. He had seen pre-Optiman films and recognized the differences. Central's manicured niceties seemed to him all tied up with the omnipresent red triangles indicating pharmacy outlets where the Optimen might check their enzyme prescriptions. 'Are they taking a long time about it or it is just me?' Boumour asked. His voice carrying a rumbling quality.

'Patience,' Igan said. A mellow tenor there.

'Yes,' Allgood said. 'Patience is a man's best ally.'

Boumour looked up at the Security chief, studying, wondering. Allgood seldom spoke except for effect. He, not the Optimen, was the Conspiracy's greatest threat. He was body and soul with his masters, a super puppet. Why did he order us to accompany him today? Boumour wondered. Does he know? Will he denounce us?

There was a special ugliness about Allgood that fascinated Boumour. The Security chief was a stocky little Folk mere with moon face and darting almond eyes, a dark bush of hair low on his forehead - a Shang-cut by the look of his oven gene markers.

Allgood turned towards the quarantine barrier and with a sudden feeling of awakening, Boumour realized the man's ugliness came from within. It was the ugliness of fear, of created fear and personal fear. The realization gave Boumour an abrupt sensation of relief which he signaled to Igan through finger pressures on the man's shoulder.

Igan pulled away suddenly to stare out across from the building where they stood. Of course Max Allgood fears, he thought. He lives in a mire of fears, named and nameless... just as the Optimen do... poor creatures.

The scene across from Central began to impress itself on Igan's senses. Here, at this moment, it was a day of absolute Spring, planned that way in the lordly heart of Weather Control. Administration's steps looked down on a lake, round and perfect like an enameled blue plate. On a low hill beyond the lake, plasmeld plinths stood out like white stones: elevator caps reaching down into the locked fastness of the Optimen quarters below - two hundred levels.

Far beyond the hill, the sky began to turn dark blue and oily. It was streaked suddenly with red, green and purple fires in a rather flat pattern. Presently, there came a low clap of contained thunder. Across the reaches of Central, some Upper Optiman was staging a tame storm for entertainment.

It struck Igan as a pointless display, lacking danger or drama... which ha decided were two words for the same thing.

The storm was the first thing Allgood had seen this day to fit his interpretation of Central's inner rhythms. Things of an ominous nature set the pattern for his view of Central. People vanished into here never to be seen again and only he, Allgood, the chief of Tachy- Security, or a few trusted agents knew their fate. Allgood felt the thunderclap keyed to his mood, a sound that portended absolute power. Under the storm sky now turning acid yellow and dispersing the air of spring, the plinths on the hill above the lake became pagan cenotaphs set out against a ground as purple-green as chamomile.

'It's time,' Boumour said.

Allgood turned to find the quarantine barrier lifted. He led the way into the Hall of Counsel with its shimmering adamantine walls above ranks of empty plasmeld benches. The trio moved through tongues of perfumed vapor that swayed aside as they breasted them.

Optiman acolytes wearing green capes fastened at the shoulders with diamond lanulas came from side shadows to pace them. Worked into the green of their robes were shepherd's pipes of platinum and they swung golden thuribles that wafted clouds of antiseptic pink smoke into the air.

Allgood kept his attention on the end of the hall. A giant globe as red as a mandrake stem hung in walking beams there. It was some forty meters in diameter with a section folded back like a segment cut from an orange to reveal the interior. This was the Tuyere's control center, the tool of strange powers and senses with which they watched and ruled their minions. Lights flashed in there, phosphor greens and the blue cracklings of arcs. Great round gauges spelled out messages and red lights winked response. Numbers flowed on beams through the air and esoteric symbols danced on ribbons of light.

Up through the middle, like the core of the fruit, stretched a white column supporting a triangular platform at the globe's center. At the points of the triangle, each on a golden plasmeld throne, sat the Optimen trio known as the Tuyere - friends, companions, elected rulers for this century and with seventyeight years yet to serve. It was a wink of time in their lives, an annoyance, often disquieting because they must face realities which all other Optimen could treat as euphemisms.

The acolytes stopped some twenty paces from the red globe, but continued swinging their thuribles. Allgood moved one pace ahead, motioned Boumour and Igan to halt behind him. The Security chief felt he knew just how far he could go here, that he must go to the limits. They need me, he told himself. But he held no illusions about the dangers in this interview.

Allgood looked up into the globe. A dancing lacery of power placed a deceptive transparency over the interior. Through that curtain could be seen shapes, outlines - now clear, now enfolded.

'I came,' Allgood said.

Boumour and Igan echoed the greeting, reminding themselves of all the protocol and forms which must be observed here: 'Always use the name of the Optiman you address. If you do not know the name, ask it humbly.'

Allgood waited for the Tuyere to answer. Sometimes he felt they had no sense of time, at least of seconds and minutes and perhaps not even of days. It might be true. People of infinite lives might notice the passing seasons as clock ticks.

The throne support turned, presenting the Tuyere one by one. They sat in clinging translucent robes, almost nude, flaunting their similarity to the meres. Facing the open segment now was Nourse, a Greek god figure with blocky face, heavy brows, a chest ridged by muscles that rippled as he breathed. How evenly he breathed, with what controlled slowness.

The base turned, presented Schruille, the bone slender, unpredictable one with great round eyes, high cheeks and a flat nose above a mouth which seemed always pulled into a thin line of disapproval. Here was a dangerous one. Some said he spoke of things which other Optimen could not. In Allgood's presence, Schruille had once said 'death', although referring to a butterfly.

Again, the base turned - and here was Calapine, her robe girdled with crystal plastrons. She was a thin, high-breasted woman with golden brown hair and chill, insolent eyes, full lips and a long nose above a pointed chin. Allgood had caught her watching him strangely on occasion. At such times he tried not to think about the Optimen who took mere playmates.

Nourse spoke to Calapine, looking at her through the prismatic reflector which each throne raised at a shoulder. She answered, but the voices did not carry to the floor of the hall.

Allgood watched the interplay for a clue to their mood. It was known among the Folk that Nourse and Calapine had been bedmates for periods that spanned hundreds of mere lifetimes. Nourse had a reputation of strength and predictability, but Calapine was known as a wild one. Mention her name and likely someone would look up and ask, 'What's she done now?' It was always said with a touch of admiration and fear. All-good knew that fear. He had worked for other ruling trios, but none who had his measure as did these three... especially Calapine.

The throne base stopped with Nourse facing the open segment. 'You came,' he rumbled. 'Of course you came. The ox knows its owner and the ass its master's crib.'

So it's going to be one of those days, Allgood thought. Ridicule! It could only mean they knew how he had stumbled... but didn't they always?

Calapine swiveled her throne to look down at the meres. The Hall of Counsel had been patterned on the Roman Senate with false columns around the edges, banks of benches beneath glittering scanner eyes. Everything focused down onto the figures standing apart from the acolytes.

Looking up, Igan reminded himself he had feared and hated these creatures all his life - even while he pitied them. How lucky he'd been to miss the Optiman cut. It'd been close, but he'd been saved. He could remember the hate of his childhood, before it had become tempered by pity. It'd been a clean thing then, sharp and real, blazing against the Givers of Time.

'We came as requested to report on the Durants,' Allgood said. He took two deep breaths to calm his nerves. These sessions were always dangerous, but doubly so since he'd decided on a double game. There was no turning back, though, and no wish to since he'd discovered the doppelgangers of himself they were growing. There could be only one reason they'd duplicate him. Well, they'd learn.

Calapine studied Allgood, wondering if it might be time to seek diversion with the ugly Polk male. Perhaps here was an answer to boredom. Both Schruille and Nourse indulged. She seemed to recall having done that before with another Max, but couldn't remember if it had helped her boredom.

'Say what it is we give you, little Max,' she said.

Her woman's voice, soft and with laughter behind it, terrified him. Allgood swallowed. 'You give life, Calapine.'

'Say how many lovely years you have,' she ordered.

Allgood found his throat contained no moisture. 'Almost four hundred, Calapine,' he rasped.

Nourse chuckled. 'Ahead of you stretch many more lovely years if you serve us well,' he said.

It was the closest to a direct threat Allgood had ever heard from an Optiman. They worked their wills by indirection, by euphemistic subtlety. They worked through meres who could face such concepts as death and killing.

Who have they shaped to destroy me? Allgood wondered.

'Many little tick-lock years,' Calapine said.

'Enough!' Schruille growled. He detested these interviews with the underclasses, the way Calapine baited the Folk. He swiveled his throne and now all the Tuyere faced the open segment. Schruille looked at his fingers, the ever youthful skin, and wondered why he had snapped that way. An enzymic imbalance? The thought touched him with disquiet. He generally held his silence during these sessions - as a defense because he tended to get sentimental about the pitiful meres and despise himself for it afterward.

Boumour moved up beside Allgood, said, 'Does the Tuyere wish now the report on the Durants?'