And she would know him for a mnemdict. It always showed, somehow, in the passion of lovemaking. All addicts and dealers were agreed on that, and he had been spotted himself once that way. The woman in that case had had no intention of turning him in, but she had adamantly refused to enlighten him on what had given him away. “Women have secrets,” she had murmured smugly. Men had them too, but he had never been able to spot another mnemdict. Probably with further experience—but he was drifting from the subject, as he did chronically. If “Sister Beth” were a police fishhook, sex would mean nothing to her; she would be right up on her a-preg, a-veedee, a-allergy shots. She probably intended to seduce him, by her most artful protests, and read the telltale traces then.

  “I can drop you off right now,” he said. He put his left hand on her smooth leg where the nightie was hiked up. This was very like the leg he had seen—where? When? But the translucent material made it more exciting than full exposure would have been. The leg was classic, like the rest of her. Suddenly the sexual compulsion was almost overpowering. Maybe it would be worth betrayal…

  “Please do,” she whispered. He could see the cloth over her bosom shaking with the force of her elevated heartbeat. Of course she protested; that was part of the role. Her excitement could even be genuine because she was on the verge of nailing him. What normal man could resist as delectable a morsel as this, so provocatively packaged and with such an ingenious story? A girl fleeing deprogramming, ready to do anything for a private ride, unable to protest even rape, lest she be erased by the drug. A decent law-abiding citizen would turn her in; a soft-hearted one would give her a ride to her Station. A callous or criminal one would take advantage of her.

  Paul was none of these. Not precisely. Now he was about to prove that. He twisted around to touch the STOP key, and the car slowed, picked its way out of the traffic flow, and came to a stop at the roadside. The seats elevated to normal sitting posture and released their clasps. “Goodbye,” Paul said.

  Sister Beth looked at him with surprise and something else. “I’m sorry I wasn’t what you expected,” she said, then quickly got out. “God bless you, Mr. Cenji.”

  God bless you. Those unfamiliar words struck him with peculiar impact. Even to him, the brutalizer, she gave her prayer. Was she, after all, genuine?

  The door closed. Automatically he punched DRIVE, and the car glided forward, still guiding itself. Paul turned in the seat to peer back at her.

  Forlorn and lovely, Sister Beth was standing on the gravel shoulder, the wind tugging at her hair and gown. Paul felt a wrenching urge to go back to pick her up again, and to hell with the consequences; there was always the chance she was legitimate.

  Then he saw a traffic hoverer descending toward her. The police had spotted her, and might spot him if he didn’t lose himself in a hurry. He merged with the flow and sweated it out. Probably she had a homing signal, so her employers could always locate her. He had had a narrow escape.

  Yet, unbidden, he repeated her words. “God bless you.” He believed neither in God nor in Sister Beth, but the power of that unexpected benediction had shaken him.

  Paul completed the trip uneventfully and delivered the car. He waited in the plush office for his payment—in the form of a boosted credit rating that would gain him unofficial but valuable privileges in a number of legitimate businesses, and of course his renewal supply of mnem, concealed in the hollow tines of his pocket comb. It took the warehouse a little while to unload the car and verify the potency and purity of the stock and make sure no police were tracing the vehicle. As soon as they had satisfied themselves in a businesslike manner about these things, they would settle with him. It was a most professional operation.

  In fact, the whole black-market mnem industry was professional—more so than many legitimate enterprises. Paul had gotten into it gradually, his philosophy of life bending in small increments to accommodate the needs of an expanding lifestyle. He had left college with a liberal arts degree, but had found no suitable employment. Clever with his hands, he had used them to do tricks with cards. That had led him into contact with legitimate gambling interests. One of the popular games, not really gambling but more of a warmup for those not ready to take the full plunge, was said to be a medieval revival, Tarocchi, using the seventy-eight-card Tarot deck instead of the fifty-three-card standard deck. The Joker of the regular deck had been expanded into twenty-two trumps for the Tarot, basically. He had adapted that deck to other games, partly luck and partly skill. A really sharp memory decreased the former factor and increased the latter, which had led him to mnem. A casino, irritated by his penchant for winning, had attempted to have him summarily bounced. That had been their mistake, for Paul was more nearly professional in his unarmed combat than in his gambling. The casino manager, no dummy, had quickly changed tactics and bought Paul off with a job. Now Paul was well set, so long as he rocked no jetboats.

  God bless you…

  The news was on the video outlet. Suddenly an item caught his attention: “A young woman committed suicide last night by flinging herself from a police craft,” the announcer said. “She has been identified as Sister Beth, for the past year a resident at a station of a religious cult, the Holy Order of Vision. Apparently she was depressed over the prospect of drug-assisted deprogramming necessitated by her theft of jewelry…”

  “She didn’t steal those jewels!” Paul exclaimed, then caught himself, feeling foolish. A picture flashed on the screen. It was the girl he had picked up, almost exactly as he had seen her last, her translucent nightgown resisting the wind. Even robocameras had a sharp eye for detail, especially when it was associated with something genuinely morbid, such as death.

  “She seemed so quiet,” a uniformed police officer was saying apologetically. “I never thought she’d pull a stunt like that, or I’da cuffed her.” He tapped the handcuffs hanging like genitalia at his crotch.

  Paul felt disbelief. It couldn’t be her; he had seen her only yesterday. She had been a police hooker with a sharp cover. Then he felt anger. How could this have happened? Why hadn’t the police taken proper care of her? But even if they had, she would be just as dead, with her complete memory erased.

  Could it be part of the set-up? No, that made no sense; no policewoman would blow her cover by such a newsflash, even a faked death. Her picture would alert her potential victims to the threat. She was too memorable, with that lush body, that innocent face. Man’s dream of heaven! She had to be legitimate—and therefore dead.

  Why hadn’t he believed her, believed in her, when it had counted? He knew why; he was cynical about the legitimacy of any religious association. He had listened to the incredibly selfish appeals of religious messages: Support Us, Give Us Credit, so that You will go to Heaven and Live Forever in Bliss, Free from Sin. That sort of thing. How anyone could have simultaneous bliss and freedom from sin was a mystery to him.

  Yet Sister Beth had seemed different, as though she really believed in the particular salvation she sought. She had not invoked Heaven once. If only he had paid attention to her words as well as to her body!

  But if she had really been a Sister, why hadn’t her God protected her? Surely He would have struck some bargain with the authorities. He would have arranged it somehow, fixing it so she would recover. It was only necessary to have faith…

  Paul had no faith. He was the cause of her demise. He had attacked her sexually and dumped her back on the roadside. They had been watching for her, and zeroed in rapidly.

  If he had only trusted her as she had trusted him. He could so easily have delivered her safely to her Station. There had been too little decency in his recent life. He had been given the opportunity to help a better human being than himself, and instead he had—

  “Sir, your account has been verified,” the secretary informed him dulcetly.

  Paul looked at her, and for a moment saw the image of Sister Beth. Something horrible boiled up inside him, a depression verging on violence. But what could he do? This was only an ordinary secretary, a conformist shell covering a formless soul, not worth even his passing attention. Sister Beth was already dead.

  Paul stood with abrupt and terrible decision. “I am closing my account,” he said. “All prior dealings shall be canceled without prejudice and forgotten.”

  She never flinched. Why should she? She was flesh and blood, with the mind of a robot. “This will have to be approved by the front office,” she said.

  “Fuck the front office.” He whirled and walked out.

  Outside, the reality of what he had done struck him. In the language of this business, he had informed the drug magnates that he was quitting, that he expected no severance pay, and would not talk to the police. He was through with mnem.

  Unfortunately, he was now in trouble. He would no longer have the perquisites of his secondary employment—and that meant his lifestyle would suffer. His primary employment at the casino would rapidly suffer too, for he was out of mnem and would soon feel the effects of withdrawal.

  It was a good evening at the casino. The clients were present in force, and free with their credit. Paul took his stint at the blackjack table, dealing the cards with the dispatch of long experience. His responses to the clients’ calls were automatic, while his thoughts were elsewhere. “Hit me.” He dealt that man an extra card. Why did Sister Beth do it. “Hit me.” He gave the lady one too. She had a peek-a-boo décolletage, but today he wasn’t interested. If only I had known! He hit her again, noting the jellylike quiver of one breast as she reached for the card. With increasing age, such jelly either liquefied or solidified, and this was beginning to age. Sister Beth’s breast would have quivered true. Sister Beth could have been the one. Not sensational and cheap and fading, like this gambling addict.

  The routine became interminable. He had suddenly lost all zest for it. Yet this was the way he earned his living, bringing in the house percentage. Where would he go from here?

  “I cry foul!” a gravelly voice said, cutting into Paul’s reverie. “He’s dealing seconds!”

  Dealing seconds: giving other players the second card in the pack, saving the top one for himself. One of the oldest and slickest devices in the arsenal of the mechanic, or slick dealer.

  Paul’s hands froze in place. All eyes were on the deck he held. The charge of cheating was serious. “The casino computer stores a record of every shuffled deck put into play,” Paul said without rancor. There were established procedures to handle such charges, just as there were for the play. “Do you want the printout?”

  “I don’t care about the shuffle,” the man snapped. He was tall, slender, and of indeterminate age. He did not look like the gambling type, but Paul had long since learned that there were no sure indicators. A person was the gambling type if he gambled; that was all. “It’s the dealing that counts. You gave me an eight to put me over, saving the low card for yourself. I saw you! No wonder my luck’s been bad.”

  “Select someone to handle the verification deck,” Paul told him coldly, “I think we can satisfy you that the game is honest.”

  “No! You’ve got shills all over the place! I’ll handle it!”

  Paul nodded equably. If the man was honest, he would soon realize he had been mistaken. If he tried to frame Paul by misdealing himself, the computer record of the cards would catch him and discredit him. “Take the deck from the hopper and deal it out slowly, face up. The cards will match those I have dealt.”

  “Of course they will!” the man exclaimed angrily. “You dealt them, all right, but in what order? You got an advance printout, so you knew what cards were coming, and you—”

  “We want you to be satisfied, sir,” Paul said. But he saw that a rational demonstration would not satisfy this man. Was he a troublemaker from a rival casino? Paul touched the alarm button with his foot.

  The casino’s closed-circuit screen came on. “What’s the problem?” the floor manager inquired, his gaze piercing even in the televised image.

  “Accusation of dealing seconds,” Paul said, nodding at the accuser.

  The manager looked at the man. “We do not need to cheat, sir. The house percentage takes care of us. The verification deck will—”

  “No!” the man said.

  The manager grasped the situation. He was quick on the uptake; that was what he was paid for. His range of options was greater than Paul’s, and he drew on them with cool nerve. “Play it again, Paul. Your way. Show him.”

  Paul smiled. His reins had just been loosened. “Here is the way it would have gone, had I been cheating,” he said, taking the verification deck. “None of these replay hands is eligible for betting; this is a demonstration only.” And the NEGATION sign lit.

  He dealt the cards as he had before, to the same people in the same order. Miss Peek-a-boo was fascinated; this was the closest she had come to excitement all evening. This time Paul’s hands worked their hidden magic; his own display always came up high, making the house a one hundred-percent winner. Yet it looked exactly as though it were an honest deal.

  “We hire the best mechanics, so that they will not be used against us,” the manager said from the screen. Perhaps he was remembering the circumstances surrounding Paul’s own hiring. “But our games are honest. We take twenty percent, and our records are open to public inspection. We have no need to cheat anyone, and no desire to, but we cannot afford to let anyone cheat us, either. Are you satisfied, sir? Or do you wish to force us to lodge a charge of slander against you?”

  The manager was hitting hard! No charge of slander could stick, but with luck the client would not know that. The manager was showing how the professionals gambled, with nerve and flair.

  Grudgingly the challenger turned away. The manager’s eyes flicked toward Paul. “Take a break; the flow has been interrupted here.” Client flow was important; people had to feel at ease as they moved from game to game and entertainment to entertainment, spending their credit. Client flow meant cash flow.

  Paul closed down the table. Miss Peek-a-boo lingered, evidently toying with the notion of making a pass, but he ignored her rather pointedly. She shrugged and took her wares elsewhere.

  But the irate gambler was not finished. He was a poor loser, through and through. He followed Paul—not too obviously, because he didn’t want to be booted out of the casino, but not too subtly either.

  Paul ambled past the ballroom area, where the decade of the seventies was in vogue at this hour; mildly dissonant groups of singers and instrumentalists performed on a raised stage, their emphasis on volume rather than finesse, while people danced singly and in pairs. A young woman in a tight-fitting costume sang into a microphone whose head and stem were compellingly phallic; she held it with both hands, close to her shaped bosom, and virtually mouthed it. Mikes, of course, had been superfluous in the seventies and since; the need being served was symbolic, not practical.

  Paul glanced at his pursuer as he circled the stage. The man seemed indifferent to the presentation. Paul found a table at the side and sat down, forcing the man to sit at another table within range of the show, where the decibels were deafening. Loud noise had erotic appeal, of course; that was the secret. Those old-time singing groups had been notorious for their seductions, and perhaps the “groupies” who had so eagerly sought those seductions had not understood the basis of that appeal. Those who disliked sex were similarly turned off by the volume, without understanding why; their protestations that it was only “poor music” to which they objected were pitiful from the point of view of succeeding generations.

  Naturally a waitress came immediately—a physical, human, female one, another period piece, rather than the efficient modern keyboard table terminal. “Vodka—straight,” Paul told her, making a tiny motion with one hand to signal negation. She recognized him as an employee and nodded; in a moment she brought him pure water in a vodka glass. He proffered his credit card, and she touched it to her credit terminal, recording NO SALE. But none of this was evident to the client at the other table. The man had to buy a legitimate drink—and Paul suspected that he was a teetotaler. That kind tended to be. This was becoming fun.

  The banjo player stepped forward on the stage for his solo stint, squatting low so that the swollen bulk of the instrument hung between his spread legs, with the neck angling forward and up at a forty-five-degree angle. His fingers jerked on the taut strings at his crotch while the instrument thrust up and down orgasmically, blasting out the sound. Paul smiled; they might not have been much for quality music in those days, but they had really animated their symbols!

  At the other table, the client was averting his gaze, but the sound was striking at him mercilessly. Sure enough, he was a prude. The question was, why had he come to an establishment like this? Was he the agent of a rival casino? That seemed unlikely; he was too clumsy, and would not have bungled the blackjack challenge like that. Could he be an inspector from the feds, checking on possible cheating or other scalping of clients? Again, too clumsy. The days of readily identifiable government agents were long gone; the feds hired real professionals, like anyone else. Could he be someone from the mnem front, making sure Paul was not about to betray them?

  No, the only thing that made sense was that he was a poor loser, looking for a way to get even. The man had not even dropped a large sum of credit; his loss was one of status, because he had been outbluffed by Paul and the management, as he should have anticipated. No amateur had a chance against the professionals. The games were honest, and any that were not would be too subtly rigged for a person like him to expose that way. Paul himself could win at blackjack without manipulating the cards at all, simply by keeping track of the cards played and hedging his bets according to the prospects for the remaining cards. Sometimes he shilled for the management by doing just that, demonstrating tangibly that the house could be beaten, drawing in many more clients. Of course it was his mnem-boosted memory that made this possible; the regular clients, as a class, could not beat the odds. Lucky individuals sometimes did, of course, but they were more than balanced by the unlucky ones.