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Piers Anthony
Macroscope
The author wishes to express his
appreciation for the kind assistance given
in aspects of the research and drafting of
this novel to Alfred Jacob, Joseph Green,
Marion McIntosh and Glen Brock.
Without their diligence the scope would
have been less macro. And special thanks
to Marc Edmund Jones for permission to
quote from his texts on astrology, though
the treatment of that subject in this novel
should not be taken as in any way
official or definitive.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
Ivo did not realize at first that he was being followed. A little experimentation
verified it, however: where Ivo went, so did this stranger.
He had seen the man, pale, fleshy and sweaty, in a snack shop, and thought
nothing of it until repetition brought the matter to consciousness. Now it alarmed
him.
Ivo was a slim young man of twenty-five with short black hair, brown eyes and
bronzed skin. He could have merged without particular notice into the populace of
almost any large city of the world. At the moment he was trying valiantly to do so—
but the pursuer did not relent.
There was less of this type of thing today than there had been, but Ivo knew
that people like himself still disappeared mysteriously in certain areas of the nation.
So far he had personally experienced nothing worse than unexplained price
increases at particular restaurants and sudden paucities of accommodations at
motels. There had been disapproving frowns, of course, and loud remarks, but those
hardly counted. He had learned to control his fury and even, after a time, to dismiss
it.
But actually to be followed—that prompted more than mere annoyance. It
brought an unpleasant sensation to his stomach. Ivo did not regard himself as a
brave man, and even one experience of this nature made him long for the
comparatively secure days of the project. That was a decade gone, though, and there
could be no return.
His imagination pictured the stout Caucasian approaching, laying a clammy
hand upon his arm, and saying: "
Mister
Archer? Please come with me," and showing
momentarily the illegal firearm that translated the feigned politeness into flat
command. Then a helpless trip to a secluded spot—perhaps a rat-infested cellar—
where...
Better to challenge the man immediately, here in the street where citizens
congregated. To say to him: "Are you following me, sir?" with a significant
emphasis on the "sir." And when the man denied it, to walk away, temporarily free
from molestation. Around the corner, a short hop in a rental car, somewhere,
anywhere, so long as he lost himself quickly.
Ivo entered a drugstore and ducked behind the towering displays of trivia,
temporizing while he covertly watched the man.
Would
a direct challenge work—or
would the bystanders merely stand by, afraid to get involved or just plain out of
sympathy? Outside the glass he saw a harried white woman with two rambunctious
little boys, and after her a Negro teenager in tattered tennis shoes, and after him the
follower dawdling beside the entrance and mopping the sweat from his pallid
complexion. A plainclothes policeman? Unlikely; there would have been none of
this furtiveness.
The dark suspicion flowered into certainty as his mind dwelt upon it: once this
man laid hands upon him, his life would never be the same. Life? Worse; within
hours Ivo Archer would vanish from the face of the earth, never to be—
He
had
to face down this enemy.
"Yes?"
He looked up, startled. A clerk had approached him, no doubt having observed
his aimlessness and become alert for shoplifting. Her query was impatient.
Ivo glanced around guiltily and fixed on the handiest pretext He was beside a
rack of sunglasses. "These."
"Those are feminine glasses," she pointed out.
"Oh. Well, the—you know."
She guided him to the masculine rack and he picked out a pair he didn't need
and didn't want. He paid a price he didn't like and put them on. Now he had no
excuse to remain in the store.
He stepped out—and knew as he did so that he lacked the valor to make his
stand. Stubborn he was, in depth; courageous, no.
The surprisingly solid hand extended to touch his arm. Coarse black hairs
sprouted from the center links of three fingers. "Mr. Archer?" the man inquired. His
voice, too, was somewhat coarse, as though there were chronic phlegm coating the
larynx.
Ivo stopped, nervously touching the right earpiece of the sunglasses. He was
furious at himself but not, now, frightened. He did know the difference between
reality and his fantasies. He looked at the man, still mildly repelled by the facial
pallor and the faint odor of perspiration. Fortyish; clothing informal but of good cut,
the footwear expensive and too new. This man was not a professional shadow—
those stiff shoes must be chafing.
"Yes." He tried to affect the tone of a busy person who was bothered by being
accosted in such fashion, but knew he hadn't brought it off. This was plainly no
panhandler.
"Please come with me."
It was not in Ivo to be discourteous, even in such a situation; it was a weakness
of his. But he had no intention of accompanying this stranger anywhere. "Who are
you?"
Now the man became nervous. "I can't tell you that here." But just as Ivo
thought he had the advantage, those hairy fingers closed upon his forearm. They
were cold but not at all flabby. "It's important."
Ivo's nervousness increased. He touched the useless glasses again, looking
away. The long street offered no pretext for distraction: merely twin rows of
ordinary Georgia houses, indistinguishable from Carolina houses or Florida houses,
fronted by deteriorating sidewalks and slanted parking spaces. The meters suggested
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