Accepting the locked file, Tinbane said, "Give me the key and I'll read this--on my own time."

Gore produced the key. "One thing, Officer. Don't fall for the 'pape stereotype view of Ray Roberts. A lot's been said about him, but most of it is fictitious, and what actually is true hasn't been said... but it's in there, and when you've read it you'll understand what I'm referring to. In particular I mean the violence." He leaned toward Joe Tinbane. "Look; I'll give you a choice. Alter you've read the material on Roberts, come back and see me; give me your decision then. Frankly I think you'll take the job; it's officially a promotion, a step up in your career."

Standing, Tinbane picked up the key and the locked box. I don't agree, he thought to himself. But he said, "Okay, Mr. Gore. I have how long?"

"Call me by five," Gore said. And continued to grin his acid, knowing grin.

In Section B of the People's Topical Library, Officer Joe Tinbane warily stood at the chief librarian's desk; something about the Librai y intimidated him--and he did not know what it was or why.

Several persons were ahead of him; he waited restlessly, glancing about and wondering as always about his marriage with Bethel and about his career with the police department, and then about the purpose of life and the meaning--if any--of it, what the old-borns experienced while they lay in the ground, and what it would be like, someday, to dwindle away as he eventually would, and enter a nearby womb.

As he stood there a familiar person came up beside him; small, in a long cloth coat, with her dark, extensive brown hair tumbling: a pretty, but married girl, Lotta Hermes.