Free Dayworld by Philip José Farmer Page B

stoned shoulderbag on the floor, and he said, “Ouch!” After dropping the gun, he leaned hard against the cold and heavy dummy. It fell away from him, stopping when the side of its head hit the cylinder. He crowded in front of the dummy and straightened up. Anyone looking in would see part of it behind him.
    Three seconds to go before destoning power struck. It would have no effect on him since he was not stoned. Maybe he could pull this off.
    Perhaps it was the sight of his wife, recalling the one he had just left, that stabbed a panicky thought through the other panics. “Oh, my God! I forgot to complete the license application! Ozma will kill me!”
     
     
     

 
     
    Wednesday-World
    VARIETY, Second Month of the Year
    D5-W1 (Day-Five, Week-One)
     
     
     

 
    8.
     
    Nokomis Moondaughter, a long-legged brunette of medium height, stepped out of the cylinder. She wore a clinging scarlet ankle-length robe slashed with black. Her thinness and sharply angled face made her look like a ballerina, which she was. She stopped just outside the cylinder door and narrowed her eyes.
    Caird knew that she was wondering why he was still standing in the cylinder. He gave up his intention to “carve,” as he called the process, the persona of Bob Tingle. That would have to come later; no time for it now. Just now, he must keep her from seeing the dummy.
    He pushed the door open, bounded through the doorway, and closed the door behind him quickly. Bounding again, he grabbed Nokomis and lifted her in his arms. Whirling, he danced down the hall.
    “What are you doing?” she cried. “What’s gotten into you?” He set her down in the kitchen and said, “I love you, and I’m so glad to see you! Is that so hard to understand?”
    She laughed, then said, “No. Yes. Usually, you slouch out like some rough crotch-scratching beast who’s lost his way to the bathroom. You’re grumpy until you’ve had your coffee. Don’t you think you should put some clothes on?”
    “Yes, you’re right. It’s too early for the sight of naked me.”
    He leaned down and kissed her lips. “Shall we have coffee and talk a while? Or should we sleep first?”
    She narrowed her dark eyes, and something settled over her face, what he called the suspiration of suspicion. It was like the mist formed on a mirror by a breath. Suspiration of suspicion.
    “How could you forget?” she said. “You know I slept for six hours before getting up for stoning. You told me you took a nap for an hour or so while I was sleeping. You woke up just as I did. Or so you said. You never go to sleep right after a nap. Why do you want to sleep now?”
    As Bob Tingle, he would have remembered what he had told her. But he was still Jeff Caird, desperate after yesterday’s events and jittery with the present urgency. The dummy. He had to deflate it.
    He told himself to smooth out the rippling inside himself. Press it down with a quiet and cool mental hand.
    “I’m not Tik-Tok,” he said. “I don’t run on wind-up machinery. Now and then, I use free will. Or call it whim. Or indigestion.”
    “You certainly didn’t act sleepy and tired when you sprang out like a jack-in-the-box.”
    Before he had married her, he had known that she was a radar set sensitized only to nonroutine phenomena, a TV channel with a wavelength of near-paranoia. She even suspected the weathercaster’s motives when rain came instead of the predicted clear skies. Perhaps that was exaggerating somewhat. But not much. As Jeff Caird, he would never have married her, would not even have dated her very long. As Bob Tingle, he had fallen in love with her. Just now, he disliked and resented her because of her suspicions, and he also was wondering why he had ever tied himself to this scrawny woman. No. He, Caird, had not done that. Tingle had.
    The near-panic wrapped itself around him again. It was an octopus of ectoplasm seen and felt only by himself. But which self? Not just Caird. Caird would not have