Cathi Roben had struggled with the lock for some moments, and she easily recognized the approach of an uncontrollable rage, an intense and screaming anger in which rational throuht would quickly vanish. When she had finally managed to force the troublesome lock, she found herself kicking the door open in disgust. Oh God, Cathi sighed in some long and resigned desponency, she was going to break that damn door down one of these days, and to hell with them when she did so. Cathi had never been gifted with a good deal of agility. For that matter, in circumstances such as these, she often remember the times Juli had teased her for being downright clumsy when they were children. But oh God, it was just so damn depressing, forever finding it necessary to take tens steps when a more ordered person might get by with two.

Cathi glanced about her apartment with an expression of sighing fatigue, certain that she must cry at the sight of a week's dishes stacked near the sink. After fighting Norecomb's street crowds on the way home from work, the thought of another twenty minutes with this additional annyoance seemed more than she could stand, and she resigned herself to the task only after some amount of concentrated mental effort. She hadn't easily recovered from the last biting dispute with the landlord regarding the condition of the apartment, and did not wish the aggravation of another quite so soon.

Cathi had broken a half dozen dishes in one clumsy movement, and then another on purpose. When her anger had again subsided, however, she found herself on her knees collecting the broken pieces, watching closely for sharp and jagged edges. Cathi lifted another shard from the floor, rested on her knees for a long moment in tense and nervous frustration, finally dropped the shard into the trash. Cathi held her hand in front of her another quick moment. Perhaps a bit of a tremble, she sighed, but no cuts. As difficult as life seemed at the moment, an irritating cut would only add to the day's misery, and despite her misery, whether it was real or simply imagined, Cathi was still thinking clearly enough to realize this. She wondered if she would be able to avoid another cursing rage as the evening wore on. They called her quiet and gentle at the office. Oh God, Cathi sighed, if they could see her by herself, what would they think? As she tossed the last of the broken dishes into the garbage, Cathi felt vaguely aware of the nagging aches she had suffered these past few days. Her most pressing hurt, however, lay deep within, and for this pain there seemed no relief. It was this interior pain, this nagging, inner distress, which seemed to magnify life's little annoyances beyond all proportion, causing such a terrible drain on her emotions.

Cathi passed the evening wandering restlessly about her cramped apartment, searching rather aimlessly for some small distraction from the pain of her life. A hot bath felt so good, it always did, one small, settling luxury where few others seemed available, however even this became just another source of aggravation as the landlord's complaints regarding the amount of the water bills came to mind. Idiot, if was was that damn cheap she would just pay the damn bills herself. Why argue? Why fight at all any more? She had fought quite enough these past few months, and for what? What good did it do? Various other unpleasant and somewhat vengeful thoughts regarding the landlord passed through Cathi's mind, however she couldn't further contemplate some needless retaliation which would likely never be carried out anyway. The pressing fatigue quickly drove the useless and the unimportant from her mind. Perhaps just a touch of wicked little sensuality would settle her, Cathi finally smiling for the thought as she gazed the length of her body. Norecomb, after all, was no longer dominated by socialists who for fifty years had decried the decadence of the monarchical cultures of the east. Even in the west, we're allowed a little earthy decadence, aren't we, Cathi smiling again, glancing down for another moment, feeling an intensely earthy little pleasure for a form which could still be called girlish. She was perhaps a bit too thin, but thin at thirty was certainly better than the other way around. Cathi pushed the sensuality to a corner of her mind, however, when she found the intensity of her feelings passing beyond the bounds she had always set for herself. She did so, she supposed, becasue she believe in God. Now that the socialists were gone and the monarchy restored, this too was allowed in Norecomb.

Cathi stumbled from the bathtub and then fumbled about for another diversion, any small yet immediately available activity, decided to change the sheets on the bed, tossing the old ones into a corner of the room. Tomorrow would be quite soon enough to decide what to do about them, and she found herself wondering several minutes later why she had bothered in the first place.

Oh God, she again sighed, collapsing into a chair beside an open window and tossing her head back and forth in the comfort of a cool breeze as she pondered the rush of Norecomb's early evening street traffic. "Norecomb -" Cathi sighed. Why in hell had she ever come back here, and Cathi allowed her thought to wander into philosophical triviality, matters of no great personal importance to her. Perhaps it would just ease the pain. Cathi had resided in Norecomb ten years ago when she had attended one of the archdiocese' small collages for a short time, though Norecomb had been a far different place back then. Now the imperial city of the empire which spanned vast lengths of the north coast, Norecomb when Cathi had studied here had just been the seat of commonwealth government, a department of which she now worked for. Even back then, however, the commonwealth of Norecomb had been the North's largest, the most industrialized.

It had been at this time that the socialist Society for Progressive Reform, membership a prerequisite for anyone apsiring to any position of importance in commonwealth government, had lost its majority in the congress of Norecomb. The Society, founded on some ancient philosophy in which Karl Marx advocated principles such as the redistribution of wealth and universal equality, still retained a number of seats on the congress of Norecomb, but the central committee of the congress as well as the plain clothed securty force on which the central committee had depended for its survival had been disbanded.

Cathy would never forget that day ten years ago when military gun trucks had rumbled along the streets of Norecomb and then onto the grounds of the congress house itself. It had been no secret that tensions had existed between the civil government in Norecomb and the commonwealth guard, the commonwealth's uniformed armed forces, for some time prior to the military occupation of Norecomb. On more than a few occasions, military aircraft, in service for twenty years now, had screamed a hundred feet above the dome of the congress house when tensions between the central committee and the senior officers of the guard were high. One of these incidents had occured when a high level commander in the guard, refusing to obey orders that he move troop formations in support of the central committee's ongoing property dispute with the archdiocese of Norecomb, had been assasinated by plain clothed agents of the government. The socialist message of the Society had been popular among the elilte of Norecomb's and the commonwealth's professional classes, but had never really taken root in those parts of society from which the guard's officer corps had been drawn, the farms and industrial shops of the commonwealth.

Ongoing disputes between the central committee and the armd forces had finally come to a head in the tenth and last year of Porten Labrensy's chairmanship of the congress of Norecomb and the first year of Carl Wendor's reign as the regent of Norecomb. While military gun trucks sat at every intersection in Norecomb, Carl Wendor, a small businessman of questionable repute who was rumored to have been engaged in the slave trade then common across the North, was marched up the steps of the congress house and then into chambers. The congress of Norecomb, staring down the barrels of military assault rifles, had proclaimed Carl Wendor regent of the restored royal commonwealth of Norecomb, the commonwealth thus reverted back to the monarchical governent it had discarded a half century before.

The facade was short lived, however, and no one was unaware that the civil government of Norecomb was indeed a facade. The guard officer who had led Carl Wendor into congress, one of the most intelligent and highly educated of the regular officer corp, had stated that he had considered leading a jackass down the central aisle and introducing it as the new leader of the commonwealth's civil government. In such esteem was Norecomb and the congress held by the armed forces at the time. For several months, the guard had then attempted to retreat into the background. Senior officers, pusblically at least, professed subordination to the crown and the congress of Norecomb. It had been Carl Wendor himself, however, who elevated his poisition into something more than that of a figurehead. Indeed, over the past ten years, the regent of Norecomb had become the second most powerful individual in the North, due in no small part to the fact that he was content to be the second most powerful individual in the North. Within months after Wendor had assumed office, he had proposed legislation to the effect that the military commander of the guard assume a rank the word for which was taken from thousands of year old literary sources, that word in the west Sirenian dialect of Sirenian spoken in Norecomb being emperor. The legislation did no more than acknowledge that which was already a fact.

Well, Cathi Roben sighed as she gazed through the window onto the street once again, at least that's what the newspapers and the magazines say. Cathi's view of it all from an office on the second floor of one of the congress house annexes was limited at best. Life wasn't worse in imperial Norecomb, she supposed. Life was just life. That Norecomb was now the seat of the empire might not have concerned Cathi in the least save for the fact that it was just such a nuisance living here, the streets far more dangerous than they had been ten years ago, the streets today crowded with people from every part of the empire.

Was there any way to be happy in this life? Genuinely happy? Was there a way to live with the pain, some way at least to live sanely? Why did it all seem so imossible at times? Perhaps tomorrow would be better. Cathi always felt better in the morning. Even in the midst of some irrational rage there remained a vague notion of hope, something to strain for through the tears. Cathi knew well how difficult life had become for many people in today's world, had read a great many confidential reports regarding its miseries and its horrors at the office. Still, an academic awareness of the statistical facts of the matter gained in the comfort and safety of a commonwealth government office was a thing quite different from the stone cold reality of everyday life endured amid such circumstances, and she felt a certain guilt of her inability to cope with stubborn door locks and broken dishes.

Cathi decided with some amount of purposeful mental effort that she was not going to spend the evening brooding, at least not the whole of the evening, and further decided that, if necessary, she would just feel alive simply by living. Just go on, get though it somehow. It would get better. Calmer now, Cathi became aware of a dim feeling of hunger, found an old can of hash in a cupboard, scraped the contents into a pan and heated it slowly, then spent another few minutes gazing at another dirty plate, another tedious invonvenience she would sooner or later have to do something about. Cathi had been told often these past few months that she should eat more regularly. She had even lost weight recently, though she could hardly afford to do so. Perhaps tomorrow she would eat something. Perhaps she would even try top quit smoking again. Cathi smiled faintly as thought of her sister once more came to mind. She remembered a particular conversation she had had with Juli many time.

Why aren't you married, Cathi? You have an outright girlish figure, and you're still very pretty. Hell, you don't look a day over twenty. Maybe you could eat a little more, gain just a little weight.

Cathi smiled again, an easy, euphoric calm settling about her as she sent another measure of her though toward her sister.

God, I love you, Juli, but you'll say the same damn thing the next time I see you. You know you will, Juli.

Cathi searched further for some little comfort, some small diversion in an effort to ease the protracted mental distress which so much of her life seemed to have become. Tomorrow, as far as she knew, she would be able to spend most of the day in the office, reading, studying, perhaps typing this or that, doing nothing of any great importance. Hell, she'd just make believe she was a clerk again, no field work, no tedious little subterfuge to worry about, no responsibility whatsoever. Several files, however, could not easily be ignored much longer, particularly those Jaim had marked covert. Many people had been putting this work off, and a number of Cathi's superiors were becoming increasingly annoyed because of this. Some would assign her the blame whether or not it was deserved. Cathi was by no means directly responsible for these or any other of the affairs of the office, however she was very much involved, was becoming more involved every day, and could never keep the various little torments associated with the work of the office from her mind. She would have to talk to Jaim about all this tomorrow. She always felt so much better when she did. God, if she could only be a little more like him. She had never known anyone who could handle difficult situations with such calm determination as could Jaim Penn, particularly with the job he had. Yes, that would help, talking to Jaim would help.

"Oh God," Cathi sighed, feeling one more small mental confort in the spoken words as she curled her legs beneath herself in the chair, running her fingers through her long black hair in tense and nervous frustration. She gazed again through the window for a long moment. Back home in Minton, she might have expected to see a few horse drawn wagons pass slowly by along the street. Not in Norecomb, however. The streets of Norecomb witnessed nothing but the rush of motorized trucks and carriages. It had all seemed so rough these past few months. Cathi sometimes wished she were still working in the file clerk pool. It had only been two years since she had returned to Norecomb, just six months since she had begun working for Jaim Penn, yet it sometimes seemed like many years. She would have to talk to him about this again, too. Damn it, one of these days that old man was going to have to tell her exactly what was going on. But oh God, what would she ever do without him now? She loved him indeed, quite as she might a father, but she had become so damned dependant on him, perhaps moreso than was good, perhaps even moreso than was safe.

And so Cathi Robin passed the evening, seeking finally in sleep that small measure of peace which so eluded her during the day.

-----

Cathi stepped slowly and cautiously from one level of this unusually vivid dream to another, and so she knew, as she had known so often in the past, that the dark and awful mysteries appearing though a black and shadowed haze could in no way harm her. Yet they mighht well terrify her, and even though this terror could at times seem overwhelming, Cathi would be unable to force herself from the depths of this frightful sleep until that which she must witness had run its course. Had she not some years ago gained that strange and inexplicable ability to purposefully direct her attention from level to level about the lower worlds though which she wandered, Cathi doubted she could ever have retained her sanity. Even with this bizare though useful gift, however, the difficulties remained. Oh God, Cathi screamed in the overwhelming silence of her mind, why must she watch these horrors day after day, night after night? And so with this small prayer, Cathi prepared herself for the winding path now stretching before her, an enclosed and all encompassing path yet one with little tangible surface, a path progressing and then vanishing into the dim and clouded distance ahead.

This particular path was not unlike the hundreds of others Cathi had walked for so many years now, though it was by no means the same either, nor once walked would she ever walk this exact path again. Other dark and mysterious paths would lay ahead, and Cathi had long since resigned herself to them, would walk them as they came, one at a time. There just seemed no other choice but to do so.

Cathi moved carefully and silently along this nondescript path, closely guarding her breath as peculiarly ordered beings of vague but frightening form streaked by, vanishing into the distance ahead at unbelieveable, inexplicable speed. Cathi turned this way and that, her long black hair flying in the breeze as she studied these awesome little creatures, carefully searching them in intricate detail as time passed, though of course there seemed no proper count for the passage of time in this altered reality. She stood as she always had on these otherworldly paths entirely naked, was intensely aware even in the moment that others of her own kind might gaze toward her in wanting, devouring delight. She gave herself up entirely to her own primal wants, stood along a crowded and frantic path realizing that it was indeed her body finally engulfed in the throes of an exploding pleasure as ferocious and hammering as any she had ever known. And yet the beings progressing along the path adamantly refused to resolve themselves into static and recognizable form, Cathy finally abandoning this useless effort toward understanding the nature of the little beings, admitting defeat in a frenzy of frustrated confusion. She did, however, somehow perceive that the order and the direction of march of the beings was artificial, was not of their own choice, and she was further certain that the strange little beings had never, in fact, actually had a choice of their own. Each of the beings had been violently assaulted by others of similar type and kind, and all were pursued by an invisible rival, a harsh and fearsome taskmaster which caused them to flee in terror. Cathi glanced toward the curious little beings for several more eons of their existence and realized that they were quite unimportant in themselves, realized further that they had no identity separate from some greater whole to which each collectively belonged, however she finally concluded that these innocents had been employed by evil and depraved men for many years now, employed in the business of buying and selling countless numbers of human souls.

Cathi then braced herself against the sudden and stiff wind which swept across the path and gazed in wondering fascination as the order and the direction of march of the laboring beings was instanly and irrevocably disrupted. Even the fercious and unmericful taskmasters which for so long had pursued the helpless beings collapsed as they were driven from the path. And then, as though this were some final event, a last terror in an age of constant and ceaseless terror, the path itself crumbled, state and time both shattered in one, single instant. Is this the end of all things, Cathi asked? The end of it all? Who would possibly disturb the strange progression of these curious little beings?

Cathi searched further to understand the mystery of this tragedy, realizing that the moment had now come. She must turn aside from the easy, effortless path and force her attention toward the dark, imageless shadows several levels deeper than she might otherwise have wished to descend. Only here did she discover that the name of this new and invading destroyer of worlds was called horror, and no power in this or any other universe could possibly turn it aside, and so horror's awesome battle front swept all else unmercifully before it, allowing none to escape.

Cathi glance about for an exit from the shattered path and suddenly found herself along in the midst of the hot and barren desert, that endless expanse of bright yellow sand from which even the possibility of life had been scorched. Cathi searched the endless desert in every direction for many moments, at times fearing her search might be in vain, until she finally gazed upon the young man walking a short distance ahead. As she approached, Cathi noticed that the young man was holding a bird in his hand, speaking to it in a soft and gentle voice as he walked.

"We have much to do out here," the young man informed his pet, and the large black raven tilted its head eagerly toward its owner's gentle caress. Cathi somehow felt it of great importance that she approach this young man more closely. Perhaps he would explain some of the mysteries she had witnessed. Perhaps he alone could do so. Perhaps he alone could explain the meaning of horror. But he was gone. The young man and his pet were gone. Cathi had never really talked to either of them. The young man nor the raven. Not yet, at least.

-----

Cathi stood a final moment at the mirror gazing the same amused vanity toward a form fitting dress its hem falling halfway to her knees. She was indeed thirty now, and yet she still appeared quite in place on Norecomb's walkways attired in youthful rather than matronly fashion. Cathi Roben finally climbed down the steps from her apartement house and then stood for a long moment in the early morning sunlight, glancing across the parking lot in which her own and a dozen other motorized carraiges sat.

No, the trolly, Cathi sighed, and she walked down the street toward the first intersection. It wasn't a good deal safer driving downtown by oneself than it was walking. Not in Norecomb. At least on the trolly the numbers were in your favor.

Cathi boarded the next trolley, then lay her head to the back of the seat. It helped, another few moments of quiet, tranquil ease. No one paid her any particular attention. Several stops further along the street, a half dozen youths dressed in home made gang colors boarded the trolley and walked to the rear seats. Cathi, along with everyone else on the trolley, avoided noticing them, and pondered one of the old horse drawn trolleys proceeding in the opposite direction. No one but tourists, many from as far away as the kingdoms in the east, rode these relics from the past, tourists who flocked to the grounds of the congress house or the regent's palace in order to photograph troops of colorfully attired cavalry performing ceremonies reminiscent of another age. Well, Cathi thought, all this was better than it had been ten years ago when under the Society scowling men in plain brown business attire stood on half of the street corners of Norecomb talking into their collars. Oh, the scowling men talking into their collars were still out there. Cathi had worked in the commonwealth government long enough to be aware of the fact. The scowling men just weren't as obvious any more. Some worked for the commonweatlh and reported to the regent. Others, guard intelligence, reported to the imperial building. All, however, now worked in the shadows rather than in broad daylight right on the streets. And the shadows, even today, could be very horrible places. That, however, was Jaim's job, not hers. Cathi read and typed reports, might on rare occasions deliver some indicipherable message for Jaim, but that, despite Jaim's insistence that she was capable of more, was it.

Cathi stepped from the trolly a few minutes later and gazed across the park like expanse of the congress house lawns, the mounted royal guard now performing the first of the day's ceremonies. Cathi gazed further along State Street toward the gray, forbidding walls of the imperial building rising in the distance. The sight still sometimes caused her to shudder, though she supposed the reason for this was the building's appearance rather than anything she knew about the emperor or the empress, neither of whom chose reside in Norecomb for more than a week or two every year. The emperor passed most of his time either on the western frontiers or along the shores of the Gulf in the east. So far an uneasy detente had been maintained with Coronya laying along the eastern shores of the Gulf, a cold war in which spies from Norecomb's empire in the west and the Coronyan empire in the east skulked through the shadows. No one rested easily, however, particularly when they looked toward the sky and one of the newer bombers, the drone of its engines audible for miles.

Cathi glanced again toward the imperial building and turned her mind to gentler matters, pondering the empress, pictures of whom she had seen in newsreels shown in moving picture theaters now common throughout the commonwealth. Willa Arelen, now forty five, remained as radiantly beautiful as she had been when she had first visited Norecomb ten years ago, though Cathi could only wonder what the empress was really like. Miss Arelen, popularly called Norecomb's and Sirenia's beloved, presided over the imperial court in Norecomb on rare occasions, though most people in Norecomb knew her only as a soft, gentle voice on the radio at Christmas and Easter, a one or two minute oration in which matters of faith were far more important than politics.

Cathi shrugged, realized again that she didn't really know a great deal about either, and turned to her own world, one of the smaller congress house annexes laying along a narrow side street a short distance from the congress house itself.

How appropriate, Cathi mused in dark humor, that the building where she worked lay in the shadow.

-----

The morning had been as frantic as any, aggravating little annoyances at every turn, and Cathi found herself seeking a moment's respite as she wandered from the small office she now shared with Jaim Penn in the congress house annex, one of the half dozen buildings which housed various departments of the royal commonweatlh government. Cathi walked slowly among the rows of desks scattered about the outer office, several dozen of them at which clerks of various order worked. Cathi knew many of the girls, had worked at one of these desks herself until six months ago, at times felt more at ease in the large and busy outer office than she did within the isolation of the smaller enclosure, an isolation resulting from her recent promotion. Cathi might have appreciated this privileged seclusion a few months ago, though lately she had come to miss the undemanding and changless uniformity she had always felt sitting at one of these desks in the outer office.

"Hi, hunn," Alis Wilen greeted in a passing yet pleasent voice. Cathi leaned toward the small stand in a corner of the room pouring coffee, her third this morning. "Have you been doing anything exciting lately, Cathi? What's it like working for Mr. Penn?"

Cathi hoped that her expression did not betray too much of her fatigue. She like Alice, wanted to make some honest attempt toward courtesy, even if idle conversation could seem trying at times. Even her smile, Cathi realized, might well be perceived as affected, though most of the girls in this office would appreciate and respect the reasons for such.

"It's okay, Alis. The job isn't all that exciting, more travel, but even that gets to be such a bother after awhile."

Cathi relished the enlivening sensation provided by the slightly bitter taste of the coffee, hoping that it would not upset her stomach. If the war did come, Cathi decided with a touch of dark humor, she'd have to switch to tea anyway. Coffee came from the plantations in Coronya. She remembered yesterday's promise to eat something a bit more substantial today, though she hadn't any real intention of keeping that promise. Oh God, perhaps if she ever made enough money to eat out and the effort demanded by cooking was no longer needed she might gain weight, but that day would probably never come. She would just somehow have to go on, survive the pressing fatigue and anxiety of the office the best way possible, even if that did mean a constant diet of coffee and donuts. She had survived so as a clerk for so many years. She would just have to keep on doing so. What other choice was there anyway?

"Cathi," a girl called from a desk a short distance away. "Phone, hunn."

Cathi wandered toward the desk, hoping it was nothing important, fearing that it might be. During these past few months, she had come to experience the nagging anxiety of such feelings often, sometimes felt little less than a sudden urge to run and hide, just disappear. But she'd never get away with it, not working in a place like this, and she reached for the phone.

"Roben-?" the barking voice demanded.

Shit, what the hell did Fosten want? He was the last thing she needed at the moment. The conversation was brief, however, and she felt a slight relief when she handed the phone back to the clerk. Cathi didn't like the fourth floor, avoided it as much as possible, however there were many taks far more difficult than simply climbing the stairs up there to retrieve a document which should have been sent to her office in the first place. Just a chance to wander around for a few more moments, and she walked without haste toward the stairwell.

A minute later, Cathi made her way through the drab hallways of the fourth floor. Everyone always seemed to lock themselves away in their offices up here. Cathy sometimes wondered if certain of them ever came out. It seemed as though she could almost feel a biting cold in this part of the building. I wonder, Cathi thought, as she glanced quickly about. I wonder. A young man wearing a messenger's uniform approached with an expression of impatient scorn and spoke with more than a touch of annoyance. Oh God, I don't need you either.

"You the one's supposed to come for this?" the young man holding a large, yellow envelope in front of him.

Cathi examined it quickly, recongnized the address of her office.

"Yes," she answered. "It's ours."

"Never know," the messenger stated flatly as he handed the envelope to Cathi and walked briskly in the direction of the staircase. "Spend half my life just looking for places like this. Ain't never heard of this place before and they expect me to find it just like that. One new office after another to look for -" the rambling messenger finally disappearing arouond the corner.

Cathi allowed inevitable feelings of irritation toward the young man to subside and then, with a nervous frown, examined the envelope for another brief moment, as though it might contain some further irritation whcih would be her responsibility to deal with. Well, she couldn't do anything about it up here, and turned quickly for the hallway. She was about to step onto the staircase when a man appeared at the entrance of one of the few doors that was open.

"Roben?" a voice of urgent demand. "Got a minute?"

Shit, what the hell did Fosten want now, and Cathi turned, hoping again that her expression did not reveal her true emotions, certainly not the total of them. Fosten was tall, middle aged, carefully, perhaps excessively groomed. Just like a wax figure, Cathi had always thought. And about as useful.

"Roben, my clerk says we're supposed to have some files from the Mendelen section up here?"

How the hell would you know anything about it, Fosten? Cathi bit her lower lip, struggling for calm, and spoke in a bland voice.

"I'll try to get them here today, Mr. Fosten."

"Well please try to do so. I'm very busy, I'll have you know. I have quotas that I must attend to."

Quotas? God, he's a babbling idiot. Cathi had turned to leave, but she couldn't resist. Fosten deserved this. He would swallow it whole, and he was going to get it.

"Mr. Fosten," Cathi began as she turned again at the door, allowing a slight yet definite touch of accusation in the tone of her voice, "are those the Mendelen B class files, the ones the congress must have by the end of the week?" The ones which are your damn responsibility, not mine.

Fosten's expression suddenly nervous agitation, Cathi was again certain that he had no idea what she was talking about. If her deception proved sufficiently effective, he would spend the next two hours in a frantic search for a missiing set of files which didn't exist.

Fosten appeared momentarily puzzled before he could again compose an authoritarian expression. For a quick moment, Fosten appeared as though prepared to challenge Cathi Roben. She, however, worked for Jaim Penn, and Fosten hadn't become section chief by being that stupid.

"I'll look into it, Miss Roben."

Thus dismissed, Cathi walked briskly for the staircase, smiling for Fosten's voice again raised in angry demand toward an assistent - "get the hell in here."

Oh God, that was wicked. Fosten was indeed an idiot, however, even if he was the section chief. He had a very poor idea of the specific nature of the work most people in his section did, and seldom bothered with more than a minimal effort toward a better understanding. Fosten crossed T's and dotted I' on the various documents passing through his hands on their way further up, and if in a particularly daring mood might actually attempt minor revisions. Generally, however, he knew better than the tamper with the work of his subordinates, and refrained from overt interference. Spending the next two hours searching for something the exact nature of which he could only guess would probably be the best thing he could do for everyone in the section. Cathi felt a shuddering chill, however, as she realized that this was also the safest thing he could do. Fosten was not dangerous in himself, however his inept direction could and often did endanger others, particularly those who worked in the field. If she could help these people even a little, then her small act of subterfuge could certainly be forgiven.

As Cathi walked down the staircase, impatient for the relative calm and comfort of her own office, various other dark and disturbing thoughts regarding the notoriety of the fourth floor ran through her mind. Here lived the men who set policy, seldom venturing into the field themselves save for an occasional meeting with their counterparts in various towns across the commonwealth and the empire. Cathi hadn't known a great deal about "the men upstairs" when she had worked in the clerical pool, and the revelations which had come since then were often very disturbing. But what could she do about it? It wasn't her responsibility.

Perhaps she would talk to Jaim move about this also. Jaim Penn was far better informed regarding the situation upstairs, quite capable of his own mischief when he judged it necessary, though the consequences of Jaim Penn's actions were always far more severe. And while she did not participate in the most sensitive of Jaim Penn's work, she was becoming a bit more involved everyday. And there was somehow very little comfort in the thought.

God, she had always been a good clerk. Could she just go back to the outer office? It would be so much simpler, make life so much easier. But she would gain no real comfort from this now unattainable fantasy. She admired and respected Jaim Penn, and would do nothing to hurt him. He had been very good to her, had treated her more like a daughter than an assistent. He'd said she was capable, that he needed her, and Cathi smiled to herself, comforted by this thought.

Cathi listened, inattentively at first, to the conversation of two men she did not recognize who walked a short distance ahead of her.

"Lant's been giving my people shit again," one commented in a tone touched with anger.

"Yeah?" questioned the other.

"Some of them don't always bother with warrents. If we stopped to explain every damn situation to some damn judge who doesn't have the slightest idea what's going on anyway, we'd never get any work doen, and we'd be right back where we were ten years ago under the Society. Damn Marxist fanatics would be running wild in the streets. Ninety nine percent of this commonwealth doesn't give a damn if we follow every one of these useless little rules the bleeding hearts are always setting up anyway, long as we keep the jackasses off their backs."

Cathi walked from the staircase wondering for which department these men who so disdained legal technicalities worked. She realized that in a way they were quite correct. Attitudes and public opinion had indeed changed drastically over the past few years, and annoyances such as warrents could by bypassed with relative ease. Perhaps war jitters had something to do with it all. This gave Cathi no comfort whatsoever, but she quickly dismissed the worry from her mind. God, she wasn't going to let something aggravate her when she couldn't possibly do anything about it in the first place. There were other matters of far more immediate concern to worry about.

-----

Cathi walked into the small inner office several minutes later as Jaim Penn worked intently at his table. She suddenly felt secure, as though in this little corner of the building she was on steady ground, a place in which the many other little torments of the office could not reach her. Cathi glanced about for a brief moment, noting that the clutter seemed to have become worse these past few days. Documents and papers of various types and degrees of importance were scattered everywhere, were gradually beginning to overflow onto the floor. Cathi sat beside the encryption terminal at her own desk quietly considering the disorder another moment, finally decided that tomorrow would be quite soon enough to do anything serious about it.

"What's this?" Cathi asked in an idle voice as she glanced toward an unfamiliar document on a stand near Jaim Penn's desk.

"Freulen," Penn asnwered with a gentle smile, although he did not turn from his work. Is he looking older, Cathi wondered? She worried about him. He was still as ruggedly handsome as ever. But he worked so hard, and at his age. "The file on Freulen, my dear. We're supposeed to get something on him up to the fourth floor by the weekend."

"I've heard of him," Cathi answered absently, though glad that Jaim did want to talk.

"He's damn difficult to keep track of. We've had six people following him around Mendelen these past few weeks, trying to figure out what he's up to. He has contacts up and down the island, and an inexhaustable amount of funds to finance his mischief. He'll spend a considerable part of those funds just to annoy us."

"Who's side is Freulen on, Jaim? He's jsut a businessman, isn't he?"

"One of the wealthiest in Mendelen, however," Cathi nodding, running Mendelen through her mind. The largest and most industrialized of the commonwealths in the East Samparitas, Mendelen was the principle battleground for covert intelligence agents from both Norecomb and Coronya. If the war turned hot, however, Mendelen would become a very real battle ground between east and west.

"As to whose side Freulin is on -" Penn sighing, shrugging, "that's what we're trying to determine. And the fact that Freulin is a businessman and an industrialist rather than someone in the Mendelen government is no reason for complacency either. The security departments in most of the industrial plants Freulin owns are nothing more or less than a modern gestapo. That, if nothing else, would seem to indicate that Freulen's sympathies might be with Coronya and the east."

"So you still think the driving philosophy behind the current government in Corona is based on one from antiquity, Jaim?" Cathi asked, an edge of questioning amusement in her features.

"The philosophy of the Society right here in Norecomb was nothing more than a revival of Marxist socialism. No one really denies that any more. Anyway, Freulin is our immediate problem. As I say, they're screaming about him upstairs. I wouldn't be surprised if the regent's office is interested in Freulin, Wendor included. Wendor may have divested himself of the more lucrative aspects of his business," the old underground slave trade though Penn didn't bother saying it, "but 'his majesty' is still a businessman at heart."

Cathi smiled for the very obvious edge of amusement in Penn's voice as he pronounced the east Sirenian honorific now in common use for the regent of Norecomb. People Penn's age were more used to refering to Wendor as either Carl the Bald or Carl the Fat, remembering the time when the regent was little more than the military's chief jackass in a congress house full of jackasses.

Cathi noticed that Penn was worrying, however, brooding in some deep concentration. He was possessed of an exceptionally ordered and systematic mind, and many people relied on his synopsis of difficult situations. Cathi admired Penn as well. He was in his mid fifties, twenty years older than herself, and had helped her a great deal when she had first come to this section. They had become very close since then, particularly since he had notice the quality of her work in both the clerical pool and on the encryption machines, and had then asked her to work for him on a permanent basis.

"Perhaps I could check some of the old tapes," Cathi commented. "There might be something that will help."

Penn sighed, though with an obvious expression of fondness as he glanced another moment atop his papers.

"No, I don't think, dear. We should have all we need for now. You and I will just have to condense what we have, try to arrange it is some kind of order which even the men upstairs will be able to understand. That should take the next two or three weeks, if it's possible at all. I'm not quite certain it is," Penn frowning another moment in silence. "Someone will have to go over to Caroly, though. They have more in the office there that we might need. Wilsen," Penn jerking a thumb toward the ceiling, toward the fourth floor and the offices of the directors, "owns a controlling interest in an advertising concern of some sort and we think he's somehow mixed up with Freulen. I don't know what the connection is, but they're getting rather annoyed with this in Caroly, and would like me to look over a number of documents for them. It's not unusual for our peopole to have outside interests, however it's widely rumored that Wilsen's interests might well be quite contrary to our own. At least that's what Caroly believes," Penn glancing toward Cathi's obvious frown. "Oh don't look so sour, dear. It's not all that bad."

"Jaim, it's all so confusing. Who the hell's working for who? And Caroly. Oh God, Jaim, I hate the place. I'd rather just fetch coffee for you, Jaim."

"Someone will also have to go all the way out to Mendelen. Our office there has documentation I would like to see, and we can't risk post or wire with it. We'll need a courier."

"Great," Cathi sighed. "I'm more frightened of Mendelen than Caroly."

Cathi shivered for another quick moment at the thought of Mendelen. Caroly, on the northeast shores of Rupert Gulf was bad enough, but it was still in the commonwealth, a few hours by boat or a half hour by plane. But oh God, Cathi sighed, not Mendelen again. Although Norecomb's guard now stood face to face with troops from the Coronyan empire along the southern and eastern frontiers of Mendelen, the uneasy truce had held for two years. Mendelen and the other commonwealths in the eastern Sampuritas were the site of constant turmoil, however, various terrorist groups taking advantage of the military standoff between east and west in order to promote their own causes in the region. Mendelen, Cathi sighed, was not a pleasant place in which to travel.

Jaim Penn smiled softly as he stole another quick glance toward Cathi, quite aware that she felt more comfortable in the office, at her desk. But he considered her talents in the field valuable, and had never hesitated to send her where he felt it necessary. Cathi had become far more than an administrative assistant to Jaim Penn, although she wasn't herself yet entirely aware of the extent to which this was true. She could be far more than a couriers as well, and Penn felt that same stab of conscience once again. He genuinely loved this sweet, quiet child who sat across the room from him, quite as he might have the daugther he had never had. But what could he do? He was who he was, and Cathi was who she was. Someone had to do this filthy, despicable job.

"There's just too much horror in the world," Cathi continued in idle tones, Penn glancing again atop his papers.

"You're in a philosophical mood today."

"I guess. I guess I enjoy it at times, Jaim. I have to be philosophical to survive this job. Do you mind, Jaim?"

"Not at all."

"Well, I won't inflict any more of my little thoughts on you for now," Cathi glancing without purpose about the room for several idle moments before continuing. "Jaim, did you hear that thing on the radio last night, the opinion poles or something like that?"

Penn broke into a soft smile, glancing toward Cathi from a corner of his eye.

"On the news as six?"

"I guess. I just came from the fourth floor, and two men were talking in the hallway. I think they must work for one of the other departments, maybe the commonwealth marshal's office, and they were talking about the bother of having to get warrents, as though they couldn't see how it was necessary, said no one gives a damn anyway. And you know, they just kept right on talking in front of me. They weren't in the least interested about who I might have been. Is that what it's going to be like if war comes? Norecomb won't be any different than Coronya."

Penn looked up from the document he had been examining long enough to be certain that Cathi didn't really expect an answer.

"What have you been up to this morning, dear?"

"Sorting those nonsense data cards you gave me, that last batch. I'm getting tired of them."

"Oh?" Penn chuckled.

"I think they're futile sometimes. I have them stacked on tables out in the hall. There must be an easier way."

"But you'll do it for me, dear?"

"I'll do it for you, Jaim."

"It makes me happy to talk with you."

Cathy looked up, a gentle smile in her features.

"It does, Cathi, it makes me very happy. You're very different from most of the other people around here, you know."

This caught Cathi a bit by surprise. Not quite certain of Jaim's meaning or intention, she turned from an idle contempation of the floor.

"Well," she finally answered in a quiet though urging voice, "you've taught me a lot, Jaim."

"Oh," Penn answered, finally pushing his work aside and meeting Cathi's eyes in intimacy. "What have I taught you?"

"Jaim," Cathi answered with a soft chuckle, "you're teasing me."

"Perhaps I am," Penn chuckling as well, jerking a thumb again toward the ceiling. "You said Wilsen was lying when I sent you upstairs yesterday."

"He was."

"You never would have been so bold just six months ago as to suggest that one of our reverend directors was anything less than virtuously honest, even if you knew it for a fact."

He was quite right, Cathi meeting his eyes, knowing mirth in hers.

"Oh, Wilsen was lying, Cathi, lying through his teeth. And Cathi Roben is one of the few people in this building who would ever be aware of it. The difference is, she now knows it herself, and trusts herself, at least enough -"

"All right, Jaim," Cathi answered with a long sigh of resignation. "But just courier work for awhile, Jaim. Please, Jaim. Nothing more like Corlon. I had to break into that danm locker for your papers, you know, Jaim."

"I needed those papers," Penn chuckled.

"I'd never done anything like that in my life. I was terrified, Jaim, and I don't want to do it again. I'm not a spy, Jaim, and I'm not going to become one."

"And you're certain I'm trying to make you into one."

"Deny it, Jaim," Cathi meeting his eyes with accusation in hers.

Penn chuckled again, his voice quiet yet urging vehemence when he continued.

"It will mostly be courier work for some time, Cathi," Penn watching her expression dissolve into gentle acceptance as she nodded. He knew as quickly that he had to say more. "Cathi," and he reached for her hand, a pleading caress. "Cathi - you know that I love you."

Cathi grasped his hand with urging strength, knew that he saw everything in her own features, all of the warmth residing in the honest depths of her own heart. It wasn't easy working for Jaim Penn. But Cathi knew that he loved her. He needn't have said it, but it felt so very wonderful when he did.

"Jaim," Cathi again meeting his eyes in finished intimacy, "I love you too."

"You're a good daughter, Cathi."

"Of course, Jaim," she chuckled, and yet the grasp of her hand to his still the same urging, caressing strength.

Penn crushed his hand onto hers. She was indeed such a sweet, beautiful child - and yet he allowed himself to see more for another fleeting moment, almost wondered why he hesitated. He had indeed any number of times in the past almost given in to that which seemed as intimate an affection between them as any he could imagine possible - and the woman onto whose hand he crushed his hiding absolutely nothing, her posture as she sat in a chair a half pace from his a moment's outright licentious mishief. He gazed for another fleeting moment and another reeling little eternity toward a young woman who was attired in the manner which had become common on city streets over the past ten years, Cathi Roben's dress of a sort which was still by elderly Society matrons declared form fitting and revealing to every improprietous extreme - and Cathi Roben some entrancing mix of girlish charm yet mature and exquisitely alluring feminine beauty. He fell again into her eyes, an embrace of finished, knowing intimacy - and she quite as he might have expected yet again speaking it all aloud.

"Jaim -" gentle amusement and yet something incomparably more in her voice, "my feelings for you aren't entirely filial, at times aren't filial in the least. Jaim -"

He waited another timeless few moments, saw that in her eyes which he no longer doubted was pleading assent.

"Cathi -" he finally, however, continued in a sighing, settling calm, "you will meet someone."

"Perhaps."

"And as soon as you do, you're fired, Cathy."

She broke into easy laughter.

"Do you promise, Jaim?"

Again, Penn grasped Cathi's hand with intimate strength. Yes, he sighed, he'd allow Cathi to continue working for now. He'd bury the guilt he felt for doing somewhere in the back of his mind. If only someone would come and take her away, someone who would give her children and a happy life in a big house somewhere instead of that small apartement, all she could afford on her government salary.

"What, Jaim?" Cathi asked when she noticed his frown. "You're not shocked with me, are you? You know I love you, Jaim, and I love you - deeply, very honestly. You're all I have, Jaim. There's no one else and - I just don't think there ever will be. And Jaim - why not - you and me -?"

"Cathi, my dear, perhaps we had better change the subject, perhaps to the current weather conditions or something equally benign."

"I'm sorry, Jaim," Cathi answered with a soft laugh though holding his eyes in pleading intimacy. "I suppose I am getting a bit carried away. I was never a good socialist in school, I suppose. When they used to teach us that the cultures of the east were decadent, I'm afraid all it did was intrigue me rather than convert me."

"Such is youth. Is it any wonder modern communism fared no better than it did in antiquity?"

Cathi allowed herself a moment's chuckling mirth as Penn finally turned back to his work. He had taught her much indeed, much about the affairs of the office, though it went far beyond just that. Penn had taught her human nature, motivations, how to recognize them, how and when to react and when not to. Courier work, particularly in this department, wasn't really all that dangerous. And still, it was better to know when to turn and walk the other way. Perhaps one of the most important things she had learned from him was that which he liked to call "quiet." It was well known that in his younger days when he had worked for guard intelligence, Jaim Penn could travel to town and country across the commonwealth and accomplish any number of potentially noisy tasks without attracting the slightest attention. Penn had told many people within the department that Cathi Roben was the one person he knew who had the potential for doing the same with an equal finesse. Penn had lived and worked in his sensitive niche with the government for many years now, and a relatively small number of people even knew that he existed. Fewer still, to this point, had ever heard of Cathi Roben, and if she were successful, few ever would. In their business, anonymity was an asset. The fewer who knew them, the better, and as often as not, the safer.

Cathi had done nothing of a particularly dangerous nature to this point in time, and in a departement dealing in the main with mountains of documents relating to various aspects of commonwealth industrial and business concern, everyday danger was not as prevalent as might be expected in some of the other departments. And still, the small acts of michief which were often necessary to accomplish much of the work she had been assigned by Penn carried with them that ever present potential for unexpected surprises. Their department had been established only quite recently, and this could also be a cause of problems as working relationships with the older departments of commonwealth and imperial government were slowly and with some amount of difficulty defined. Penn had even come to rely on Cathi's small acts of subterfuge to a greater extent in Norecomb than in their supposed field of operations in Mendelen and the other small commonwealths along the eastern borders of the empire now under Coronya occupation. Indeed, she had begun as a personal secretary, an assistent at most, however the job had quickly developed in something else. Penn had also told others that in certain circumstances Cathy could be "downright devious," particularly if the justification seemed clear and the situation demanded.

Penn had many hopes for Cathi, but knew that he must not push, must proceed with caution. He didn't suspect her basic stability, yet was quite aware that she was nervous, prone of uncontrollable fits of rage over small annoyances, did not always trust herself. She wasn't terribly agile, either, had been known to walk into doors rather than through them on more than a few occasions. Indeed, Penn had been quite surprised when Cathi had successfullyh broken into that locker in the Corlonian coach station. He had spent several afternoons showing Cathi how to tamper with various types of locks, Cathi agreeing to the instruction only when she had been assured that she wouldn't have to put the skills into practice on anything like a regular basis. Cathi had been one of the worst lock pickers Penn had ever seen. And still, she was different, somehow unique, and despite, or perhaps even because of her eccentricities, Penn knew that he must search to discover exactly how.

Cathi did have many talents, Penn certain of this, talents which might prove invaluable to their office in the future. Penn would sometimes pass an idle hour or two watching in fascination as she worked at the encrytpion terminal, deftly breaking codes where others had tried and failed for months. She could crack these codes as easily as those who had been specifically trained for the task. Perhaps as imortant as anything else was the simple fact that she was extradinarily intelligent, demonstrating a unique cleverness in various situations.

Penn rasied his eyes toward Cathi for another fleeting moment. Such a pretty young woman. She sometimes looked more like a frightened little teenager. Penn wondered if his plans for her life were fair, wondered if he should have explained in greater detail that which most likely waited in her future. But she could handle, Penn told himself. She was capable, would be all right.

But the guilt remained, and Jaim Penn did not delude himself, finally demanded of himself the full crush of brutal reality. Marianne, thirty years ago, had been a sweet child, brilliant indeed, as brilliant as Cathi, but a quiet, gentle girl who Penn might have married. Thirty years ago, Penn had held Marianne in his arms as she and he whispered in each other's ear, planning for the day when they would quit their filty, disgusting jobs and begin a real life together. A week later, Penn and another guard intelligence operative had after a frantic search cut the ropes from Marianne's ankles and lowered what was left of her body to the floor. The lifeless form Penn had taken into his arms in agonizing embrace hadn't even looked human any more.

"Oh God -" Penn groaned just under his breath, the document he held in his hands nothing but a blur for another timeless moment.

"Jaim -?" Cathi turning in concern.

"Indegestion, my dear."

"Jaim," Cathy sighed, "damn it, take some time off. Get the hell away from here for a few days."

"I love you too, my dear," Penn answered with a gentle smile as he turned back to his work.