Counter-Clock World Read Online Free PDF

that awful Mrs. McGuire. Seb told me to ask for someone else, but I don’t know anyone. And when I get scared I can’t think.” She gazed up at him miserably, appealing to him for help.
    Tinbane said, “This place gets a lot of people down.” His arm around her waist, he steered her down the corridor toward the exit.
    “I can’t leave,” she said frantically, pulling away. “Seb said I have to find out about the Anarch Peak.”
    “Oh?” Tinbane said. He wondered why. Did Sebastian expect the Anarch to be old-born in the near future?
    That would shed a somewhat different light on the pilg by Ray Roberts; in fact an entirely new light: it would explain why now and why Los Angeles.
    “Douglas Appleford,” Tinbane decided. He knew the man; a stuffy, formal, but reasonably helpful person; certainly far more easily dealt with than Mavis McGuire. “I’ll take you to his office,” he said to the frightened girl, “and introduce you to him. As a matter of fact I’m here doing research myself. On Ray Roberts. So I need assistance, too.”
    Lotta said, gratefully, “You know just about everybody.” She looked much better, now; the twisted, hunched posture had left her, and again she struck him as vital and attractive. Hmm, he thought, and guided her down the hall, toward Douglas Appleford’s offices.
    When Douglas Appleford arrived at his office in Section B of the Library that morning he found his secretary, Miss Tomsen, trying to rid herself—and him, too—of a tall, sloppily dressed, middle-aged Negro gentleman with a briefcase under his arm.
    “Ah, Mr. Appleford,” the individual said in a dry, hollow voice as he made out Appleford, obviously recognizing him at once; he approached, hand extended. “How nice to meet you, sir. Goodbye, goodbye. As the Phase has taught us to say.” He smiled a flashbulb instantly vanishing smile at Appleford, who did not return it.
    “I’m quite a busy man,” Appleford said, and continued on past Miss Tomsen’s desk to open the inner door to his especially private office. “If you wish to see me you’ll have to make a regular appointment. Hello.” He started to shut the door after him.
    “This concerns the Anarch Peak,” the tall Negro with the briefcase said. “Whom I have reason to believe you’re interested in.”
    “Why do you say that?” He paused, irritated. “I don’t recall ever having felt or expressed any interest in a religious fanatic fortunately laid in his grave for two decades.” With sudden suspicion and aversion he said, “Peak isn’t about to be reborn, is he?”
    Again the tall Negro smiled his mechanical smile—and mechanical it was; Doug Appleford now perceived the small but brilliant yellow stripe sewed on the tall man’s coat sleeve. This person was a robot, required by law to wear the identifying swath so as not to deceive. Realizing this, Appleford’s irritation grew; he had a strict, deeply imbedded prejudice against robies which he could not rid himself of; which he did not want to rid himself of, as a matter of fact.
    “Come in,” Appleford said, holding the door to his absolutely pin-neat office open. The roby represented some human principal; it had not dispatched itself: that was the law. He wondered who had sent it. Some functionary of a European syndicate? Possibly. In any case, better to hear the thing out and then tell it to leave.
    Together, in the central work chamber of his suite of chambers, the two of them faced each other.
    “My card,” the roby said, extending its hand.
    Appleford read the card, scowling.
    Carl Gantrix
Attorney-At-Law, W.U.S.
    “My employer,” the roby said. “So now you know my name. You may address me as Carl; that would be satisfactory.” Now that the door had shut, with Miss Tomsen on the other side, the roby’s voice had acquired a sudden and surprising authoritative tone.
    “I prefer,” Appleford said cautiously, “to address you in the more familiar mode as Carl Junior. If that