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He didn’t move, and he didn’t answer me When I started toward him, however, he sidestepped I cocked the 38, but it didn’t grab his attention like it should have He watched disinterestedly

I walked forward again, and he -him-back-alive clause was not a condition of my employment contract In fact, the bear had implied that any display of ery of a Hare Krishna panhandler on a adose of PCP Well, he hadn’t put it quite that way, but I got the e So I shot Graham Stone in the chest, pointblank, because I had no way of knohat he h hied, folded onto the desk, fell to the floor, and deflated Inside of six seconds, he was nothing more than a pile of tissue paper painted to look like a man A three-dily real I examined the remains No blood No bones Just ashes

I looked at the Sun Not a Disney 780 Death Hose Which meant that this hadn’t been the real Graha construct of so as it was flimsy Before I had too much time to think about that, I beat it back into the corridor No one had heard the shot The thrashadeth--a bitchin’ nu perfect cover

Nohat?

I cautiously checked the other two rooms that opened off the hallway, and I found Grahaers in the first room, as solid in appearance as any face on Mount Rushmore but was, in actuality, as insubstantial as any current politician’s ie In the second room, I shredded him with a well-placed kick to the crotch

By the tiain, I was furious When you blew a guy away, you expected hiame was played I didn’t like this cheap trick

In the washroom, I rapped on Bruno’s stall door, and he came out with his hat still pulled way down and his collar still turned up Face wrinkled in disgust, he said, "If you people don’t bother flushing, why even put the lever on the toilet to begin with?"

"There’s trouble," I said I told him about the three extra Graham Stones and demanded some explanation

"I didn’t want to have to tell you this" He looked sheepish "I was afraid it would scare you, affect your efficiency"

"What? Tell ed his burly shoulders "Well, Grahahed "Neither are you"

He looked hurt, and I felt like a blockhead

"I aenetic et that What I should have said is that Graham Stone doesn’t really come from any alternate Earth He’s an alien From another star system"

I went to the sink and splashed a lot of cold water on ood

"Tell me," I said

"Not the whole story," he said "That would take too much time Stone is an alien Huh to see that he doesn’t have any pores And if you look closely at his hands, you’ll see where he’s had his sixth fingers aer-a us," I said sarcastically

"Yes, exactly There was a shipload of these creatures that crashed on one of the probability lines seven o We’ve never been able to communicate with theeneral feeling is that we’ve alomaniacs All have been terminated except Graham Stone He’s escaped us thus far"

"If he’s an alien, why the British-sounding name?"

"That’s the first name he went by when he started to pass for human There have been others since Apparently even aliens see British has a certain connotation of class and style It’s also a constant on eighty percent of the tih there are a couple of realities wherein being froa is the epitome of class"

"And what the hell has this alien done to deserve death?" I asked "Maybe if a greater attempt was , when the doctors arrived at the labs for a continuation of the study, they found the entire night crew dead A spiderweb fungus was growing out of their et the picture? He hasn’t done it since But we don’t think he has lost the capacity"

I went back to the sink and looked at myself in the mirror Someone came in to use the urinal, and Bruno leaped backward into the toilet stall and slarowled, but the newcoe about the bearish voice

I had three minutes to study er left Then Bruno ca worse than ever

"Listen," I said, "suppose Stone ithin twenty feet ofaround with those paper decoys or whatever the hell they were He could have tripped right out of this probability by now"

"No," Bruno said "You’re a receiver, not a transmitter He’ll have to locate soet out of this time line"

"Are there others?"

"I detect tithin the city," Bruno said

"We could just stake those two out and wait for him!"

"Hardly," the bruin said "He would just as soon settle down here and take over a world line for hiive hiainst the other continuuerous"

"Let’sto the steel door from the adjacent warehouse basement

"You’reto find sarcasm in that crazy face of his I couldn’t tell what he was thinking "Marvelous? I’uy he’s marvelous--especially not when the two of them are in a bathroo to burn

"Anyway, I’uy bear, aren’t you?"

"Well, yes"

"So can it with this ’marvelous’ crap"

"All I meant was, in the space of a few short hours, you have accepted the existence of probability worlds, an intelligent bear, and an alien from another world And you don’t seeood and drunk I spent six active hours in bed with a great blonde nas, and piles of fried potatoes I sweated out every drop of tension froed ht Nobody has ever thrown anything atto start with this Besides, I have three thousand bucks at stake--to say nothing about a little thing called `pride’ Now, let’s get the hell out of here"