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people's being too materialistic. Tying themselves to the pleasures of the world. Then when they die, they can't untangle their souls. Robin's idea, according to some of these people, was that if you're in the wrong place when there's a collision, you can get permanently snared.”
    “Is any of this on the record?”
    “Not really. Look, Robin was given to kidding around. So it's hard to know what he really thought about a lot of this stuff. He'd appear at different events as a speaker, and somebody would ask the question, were there really such things as people trapped in the dimensions, or in cemeteries, and he'd play along. 'Of course there are,' he'd say. All you have to do is watch him in action, and you get the sense that he knows what he's saying is preposterous, but some part of him hopes it's so.”
    “Okay—”
    “He wasn't given to ruling things out simply because they seemed absurd. If collisions actually happen, he says somewhere, there could easily be casualties.”
    “That's a pretty spooky notion.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “But nobody's going to take this stuff seriously.”
    “Chase, as far as we're concerned, nobody has to take it seriously. It doesn't matter whether the ideas have any validity. Only that people get excited about them. Anyhow, the timing's perfect. It's this weekend, and I'm going to head over there. You want to come?”
    I put it out of my mind until, near the end of the week, Jerry Muldoon called. Jerry was a retired psychiatrist who had probably talked with a few too many patients. He was the most dispassionate guy I'd ever known, a man whose smile was automatic, and whose ability to portray empathy was nonexistent even though he thought he was good at it. Alex was on the circuit with another dealer, so I asked if I could help.
    “I understand,” he said, “that you have some personal effects that once belonged to Chris Robin?”
    “Yes, we have access to some, Jerry. But they haven't been placed on the market yet.”
    “Magnificent,” he said. “What actually do you have?”
    I told him. Then asked how it happened that he knew about them.
    “I just happened to hear about it.” His tone suggested he'd outmaneuvered us. “Word of something like this gets around. You know what I mean? Can I see what they look like?”
    “Not yet, Jerry. The owner wants to keep them under wraps for the time being. But I'm glad to hear you're interested. If you like, we'll notify you as soon as they become available.”
    “What's the delay?”
    I couldn't very well tell him that Alex was planning some backroom conniving. “They're still clearing the official documents,” I said.
    “Damn.” He sounded genuinely disappointed. The odd thing was that Jerry had always been a collector of objects associated with the collapse of the Ilurian Era. That's literally several worlds and sixteen centuries away. He'd done some ancestral research and convinced himself that his forebears were among the thieves chased out during the Rebellion, so he was interested in anything connected with them. We'd been able to get a few modestly priced items for him: a dissembler—which is a weapon since outlawed—that had once belonged to an earlier Jeremy Muldoon, a vase that had been the property of a prostitute associated with one of the rebels, and one or two other objects from the period. But I'd never known him to be interested in other antiquities.
    “Did you want these for yourself, Jerry?” I asked. “Or are you acting as someone's agent?”
    “Are you kidding, Chase? They would be for me. Absolutely.” Outside, two capers were chasing each other through the snow, waving furry tails. “All right. You will let me know, right?”
    “Absolutely.”
    “As soon as you have something.”
    Three minutes later, there was a second call. It was more of the same.
    “Sure,” Alex said. “I leaked the story.”
    “Why?”
    “Call it a test run.”
    “I'm amazed that anybody would care that much about a