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"Familiar with infinite universe sheafs and open-ended postulate syste is possible - and Ihas happened Everything"
- Heinlein
THE POSSIBILITY-BINDERS
An hour later, I was nursing a weak highball and a black eye in the sleepy-time darkness on the couch farthest fro on around it and the bar, while the Place waited for rendezvous with Egypt and the Battle of Alexandria
Sid had swept all our outstanding probleh-handedly as if they&039;d been those of a bunch of the Minor Maintainer, he had settled them all as schoolkids
It amounted to this:
We&039;d been Introverted when s had happened, so presumably only we knew about them, and ere all in so deep one way or another that we&039;d all have to keep quiet to protect our delicate co the bomb did balance rather neatly Bruce&039;s incite, while everybody who had declared for the peaceto hide Mark and Kaby I felt inclined to trust anywhere, Maud for sure, and Erich in this particular matter, damn him Illy I didn&039;t feel at all easy about, but I told myself there always has to be a fly in the oint one this time, and furry
Sid didn&039;t mention his own dirty linen, but he knee knew he&039;d flopped badly as boss of the Place and only recouped himself by that last-minute flimflam
Re Sid&039;s trick made me think for a ery, I&039;d had a vivid picture of what they ain It depressedable to reined I&039;d had a picture, like a hophead on a secret-of-the universe kick Me ever find out anything about the Spiders? - except for nervous notions like I&039;d had during the recent fracas? - what a laugh!
The funniest thing (ha-ha!) was that I had ended up the least-trusted person Sid wouldn&039;t give me time to explain how I&039;d deduced what had happened to the Maintainer, and even when Lili spoke up and ad it, she acted so bored I don&039;t think everybody believed her - although she cUd spill the realistic detail that she hadn&039;t used partial inversion on the glove; she&039;d just turned it inside out to et the lining back inside
I tried to get Doc to confir out the same way I had, but he said he had been blacked out the whole ti the first part of the hunt, and he didn&039;t re that had happened I decided that it was going to take a little reat detective was established
I looked over the edge of the couch and just loves It ht-hand one My big clue, and was I sick of it! Gotoctopus, Illy shot up a tentacle fro, and snatched the glove like it was a e These ETs can seeht of what a cold-blooded, skin-saving louse Illy had been, and about Sid and his easy suspicions, and Erich and ot left alone in the end Myan A-tech Like a lot of us, he&039;d had several widely different jobs during his first weeks in the Change World and one of theroup of the minor atoathered he&039;d also absorbed some of his bothersome ideas from them I hadn&039;t quite decided yet what species of heroic heel he belonged to, but he was thick with Mark and Erich again Everybody&039;s ue with anybody; all the wild cohty resolves were dead now, anyway until they&039;d had a good long rest I sure could use onewilder Lili had been dancing the black bottom on top of it and now she ju a long tiray dress looked about as innocent on her as diapers would on Nell Gwyn She continued her dance, distributing her marks of favor equally between Sid, Erich and the satyr Beau didn&039;t ht" - which she&039;d practically shouted&039; to hilad to be out of the party Who can cohly experienced, utterly disillusioned seventeen-year-old really throwing herself away for the first ti touched my hand Illy had stretched a tentacle into a furry wire to return ht to have known I didn&039;t want it I pushed it away, privately calling Illy a washed-out uilty What right had I to be critical of Illy? Would e if I&039;d been locked in with eleven octopoids billion years away? For thatcritical of anyone?
Still, I was glad to be out of the party, though I kept on watching it Bruce was drinking alone at the bar Once Sid had gone over to hiether and I&039;d heard Bruce reciting froland&039;s the one land, I know, Where eshire, of all England, The Shire for Men who Understand;" and I&039;d re in World War One and ot fuzzy Butby himself Every once in a while Lili would look at hiured out this Bruce-Lili-Erich business as well as I cared to Lili had wanted the nest with all her heart and nothing else would ever satisfy her, and now she&039;d go to hell her oay and probably die of Bright&039;s disease for a third tie World Bruce hadn&039;t wanted the nest or Lili as ave for Soldierly cavorting and poetic drunks; Lili&039;s seed wasn&039;t his idea of healing the cosmos; maybe he&039;d make a real mutiny some day, but more likely he&039;d stick to barroom epics
His and Lili&039;s infatuation wouldn&039;t die coht now The real-love angle le and it ain
Erich had his Kauts and cleverness to disarer You have to hand it to Erich for having the nerve to put us all in a situation where we&039;d have to find the Maintainer or fry, but I don&039;t know anything disgusting enough to hand to hione up behind hiotten your und so weiter?" and as he turned, I clawed ot the black eye Maud wanted to put an electronic leech on it, but I took the old handkerchief in ice water Well, at any rate Erich had his scratches to match Bruce&039;s not as deep, but four of theet infected - I hadn&039;t washed my hands since the hunt Not that Erich doesn&039;t love scars
Mark was the one who helped ot any omnias for that?" I snapped at hi that&039;s been happening to us," I told hiustedly
He seemed to actually think for a moment and then he said, "O?" I asked hi is really lost"
It would be a wonderful philosophy to stand with against the Change Winds Also damn silly I wondered if Mark really believed it I wished I could So it&039;s a lot of baloney trying to be any decent kind of Deood Entertainer Then I tell ot to love through it somehow" But there are times when so brushed the palain It was Illy&039;s tentacle, with the tendrils of the tip spread out like a little bush I started to pull my hand away, but then I realized the Loon was siossaot the words, "Feeling lonely, Greta girl?"
It al feather-talk, which I just didn&039;t, and I was understanding it in English, which didn&039;t ht Illy must have spoken, but I knew he hadn&039;t and for a couplethe feather-talk as cues Then I tulish on my palm like on the keyboard of his squeakbox, and since I could play English on a squeakboxthis aled to be hocused by selfconsciausness I just lay back and let the thoughts coood to have soht octopus, and without the squeaks Illy didn&039;t sound so silly; his phrasing was soberer
"Feeling sad, Greta girl, because you&039;ll never understand what&039;s happening to us all," Illy asked hting shadows - and trying to love shadows In between the battles? It&039;s ti a war at all, although it looks that way, but going through a kind of evolution, though not exactly the kind Erich had in ht has a word for it and a theory for it - a theory that recurs on many worlds It&039;s about the four orders of life: Plants, Aniy-binders - they can&039;t y and transform it Animals are spacebinders - they can h space Man (Terran or ET, Lunan or non-Lunan) is a timebinder - he has memory
"Demons are the fourth order of evolution, possibility-binders - they can ht be part of what is, and that is their evolutionary function Resurrection is like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly: a third-order being breaks out of the chrysalis of its lifeline into fourthorder life The leap fro reality is like the first anie World is the core ofbehind the many myths of immortality