My Library

I ran it smooth. (Are you about to graduate?) She flickered. (Yes.) (How do you know this?) She vibrated. (He told me you would ask the question, but you didn’t ask it right. So I can’t answer it.) I didn’t have to ask who the “he” was. (But you gave me you didn’t have a percept what happened to graduates.) She smoothed nicely. (I don’t. But you do.) I blanked completely. Did she or INSPECS have it that I was to do the informing? A boy to do a man’s job? I was so closed I almost missed the rest of it. She was vibrating warmly. (We’ve been expecting this, uh, an event to take place. Then we can leave!) I was ready to ask about who the “we” was, and the event, but I felt the familiar INSPEC signal and began to respond … and so did she! So did she! A great flood of percept ran through me and I had all the answers … I thought. (We have to go back to the site now.) She was smooth, yet vibrating. (Are you ready?) I closed … ident the knoll … reached and stretched. CLICK! I was over the knoll … about a hundred feet up … the ridges were off to the west, so I turned, looking past the fences … fences! And there were the Center buildings beyond, with their dark red roofs … the gravel road showed a cloud of dust as a car rolled past. I had made the wrong ident, back to 1982. A strange mixture of emotions surged through me, and I knew it would take much to sort them out, if I could at all. I had even returned to the second body without direction, which was unusual. It was old stuff to home in on the physical, slip in … open my eyes and move my arms and legs. I looked at the clock. Time: 2:40 A.M. Eight minutes! Only eight minutes?