The Final Circle of Paradise

"Look into it, I said. This town gives excellent practical lessons in abundance."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"So far, I like it here." Again he pushed away an empty plate and replaced it with a full one. "These hors d'oeuvres are strange to me… Everything is tasty and cheap… It's enviable." He swallowed a few forkfuls of salad and growled.

"We know that all great revolutionaries fought for abundance.

We don't have time to theorize, but there is no need for it, anyway. There are enough theories without us. Furthermore, abundance is in no way threatening us. It won't threaten us for quite a while yet. We have much more pressing problems."

"To hang Boadshah," I said.

"Yes – to begin with. Next we will need to do away with the dogmatists. I can perceive that even now. Next comes the realization of our legitimate claims. After that, something else will come up. And only then, and after many other things, will abundance arrive. I am an optimist, but I don't believe I will live to see it. Don't you worry – we'll manage somehow. If we can stand hunger then we can take abundance for sure… The dogmatists prattle that abundance is not an end, but a means. We reply that every means was once an goal. Today, abundance is a goal. Tomorrow, perhaps it may become a means."

I got up.

"Tomorrow may be too late," I said. "It is incorrect of you to fall back on great revolutionaries. They would not have accepted your shibboleth: now you are free – enjoy yourselves. They spoke otherwise: now that you are free – work. After all, they never fought for abundance for the belly, they were interested in abundance for the soul and the mind."

His hand twitched toward the holster again, and again he caught himself.

"A Marxist!" he said with astonishment. "But then again, you are a visitor. We have almost no Marxists, we take them and…"

I kept control of myself.

Passing by the window, I took another look at him. He sat with his back to the street and ate and ate, his elbows stuck out.

When I got home, the living room was already vacant. The youngsters had piled the bedsheets and pillows in the corner.

There was a note under the telephone on the desk. Written in a childish scrawl, it read: "Take care. She has plotted something. She was fussing in the bedroom." I sighed and sat down in the armchair.

There was still an hour until the meeting with Oscar, assuming he came. There was no sense in going to sleep, but in addition, it might not be safe – Oscar could bring company, and come earlier than expected, possibly not through the door.

I got the pistol out of the suitcase, put in a clip, and dropped it in my side pocket. Next I climbed into the bar, brewed myself some coffee, and went back to the study.

I took the slug out of my radio and the one out of Rimeyer's, lay them down in front of me on the table, and attempted again to recollect where indeed I had seen just such components and why I thought that I had seen them before and more than once. And then it came to me. I went into the bedroom and brought in the phonor. I didn't even need a screwdriver. I took the case off the phonor, stuck my index finger under the odorizer horn, and, catching it with my finger nail, extracted a vacuum tubusoid FX-92-U, four outputs, static field, capacity equals two. Sold in consumer electronic stores at fifty cents each. In local patois – a slug.

It had to be, I thought. We are disoriented by conversations about a new drug. We are constantly derailed by talk about horrific new inventions. We have already made several similar blunders.