On the TV the withered, elongated, near-senile face had vanished and a moment of music, a purely audible event, had replaced it. Percy Grainger, a tune called ‘Handel in the Strand', as banal as could be ... just the appropriate postscript to what had come before, Vince reflected. He clicked his heels abruptly, came to attention, in a parody of Germanic military stiffness, chin up, arms rigid, as the melody tinkled from the speaker of the TV set; Vince Strikerock at attention to this child's music which the authorities, the so-called Ges, saw fit to play. Heil, Vince said to himself, and raised his arm in the ancient Nazi salute.

The music tinkled on.

Vince turned to another channel.

And there, on the screen, a hounded-looking man fleetingly appeared in the midst of a crowd which seemed to be cheering him; the man, with what were obviously police on both sides of him, disappeared into a parked vehicle. At the same time the newscaster declared, ‘ ... and, just as in hundreds of other cities across the USEA, Dr Jack Dowling, leading psychiatrist of the Vienna School here in Bonn, is taken into custody as he protests the newly-signed-into-law bill, the McPhearson Act ... ‘

On the screen the vehicle, a marked police car, zipped away.

A hell of a note, Vince thought glumly. Sign of the times; more repressive, scared legislation by the establishment. So who am I going to get help from if Julie's departure causes me to break down mentally? As well it might. I've never consulted an analyst -- I've never needed to in my entire life.

But this ... nothing like this, precisely this bad, has ever happened to me. Julie, he thought, where are you? Now, on the TV screen, the scene changed, and yet it remained the same. Vince Strikerock saw a new crowd, different police, another psychoanalyst being led off; another protesting soul taken into custody.