Or maybe she even asked that person to tell it to me. And it was reported to me as being a very positive statement."

"I'm glad it happened exactly this way, Finn. I'm so grateful to you for... confronting me with it."

"Confrontation is a management tool, Jenny. Direct contact can solve a lot of problems. I certainly wouldn't want to force you out of here, because you are one of the very few I can really depend on."

And that too, she thought, as she sat there smiling, is another management tool developing loyalty through flattery and a hint of exclusivity.

"I'll try to be worthy of your trust," she said.

He smiled.

"We are in Rome and it is full of Romans. You may have noticed."

"I'm sorry I got angry," she said.

"I suppose I'd better tell all this to Jenny."

"I expect you to."

"She's going to be really upset. We've made jokes about people wondering if we were more than good friends. But I really didn't think anybody actually thought so."

"Run along now. And don't worry about it. I'll do all the worrying. You just keep on doing your job and keeping your head down."

As she started toward the door he called her back and, grinning at her, said, "Have you figured out how to beat the system yet?"

The system?"

"The incoming money, the deposits, the records. What else?"

"Mr. Efflander. Finn, I would never under any circumstances..."

"Stop kidding yourself, Jenny. And stop kidding me. Every intelligent person who works around a lot of raw cash tries to figure out ways to beat the system. What makes a good supervisor is an active imagination. You plan how to beat it, and plug that particular hole and try again. What's the best way to beat it right now?"

"I can't think of one. I've thought of about six since I took charge there, and I plugged up every hole. Right now I can't think of exactly how it could be done. But I'm beginning to get the ghost of an idea. It involves a conspiracy between my roller-skating Angel and one of the security guards."

"Keep thinking. It can be done. Count on it. Two of your people will get together and find a way."

She started to turn toward the door just as she realized that it would not be characteristic were she not to try to use this new relationship to her own advantage. She turned back toward him, biting her lip.

"Finn, I do have one suggestion."

"Let's hear it."

"We do get little foul-ups from time to time because Mrs. Diskant, who is in charge of Outgoing Mail, is on exactly the same level of authority and responsibility as I am. I think she is a fine woman and she does a fine job. But if I were to be in charge of my own operation and of O.M. as well, the coordination would be better. And I would certainly not interfere in any way with how she handles that department. You could explain to her why this change of status was necessary and I'm sure she would understand."

"I will... give it serious consideration."

She beamed at him and said, "God is love."

Looking only mildly surprised, he said, "Bless His holy name."

Between five and nine-thirty on that Tuesday evening, Glinda Lopez had completed twenty-one more long-distance phone calls to Church members delinquent in their tithes. With the help of the keyboard, her good memory, the Japanese voice synthesis modules and her quickness of wit and improvisation, she had spoken to them with the rich ripe personal tone and cadence and intimacy of the Reverend Doctor Matthew Meadows in his prime.

After he had turned off the special equipment, she and Mickey Oshiro had wandered out of Communications and over to sit in darkness on the raised circular edge of the Fountain of Memory in the Garden of Mercy. A faint blue light shone on the spray of water, reflecting on their faces. There was a tickle on the side of her throat and she whacked a mosquito, rolled it into a tiny moist ball between finger and thumb and dropped it into the fountain. The sweat of long nervous concentration had soaked through her blouse and dampened her sweater and the waistband of her skirt.

"Mick," she said in a dead voice, "I am really whipped. This makes me tireder than anything else ever did. I don't know if I can keep it up without getting ulcers or a heart attack or something. And he wants me to train somebody else. My God, how can I train somebody to do something I can just barely handle myself?"

"It'll get easier. Once you get used to controlling the phonemes for stress and inflection and pitch, it'll turn into fun."

"You keep saying that, pal. I don't think it is going to get any easier because somehow I really hate it."

"Come on, Glin. What's to hate?"

"He's a loony, that old man is. You know. You and Mr. Efflander had me over there in the Manse to meet him.

Sometimes his voice would be okay, and then it would go all wavery and thin again. I remember, he was asking me if I was from the store. What store? Then I was supposed to be Chris."

"Chris? Chris who?" he asked.

"She was John Tinker's wife. She died years ago."

"I didn't know he'd ever been married."

"Oh sure. But it was a long time ago. She drowned. They were guests on a yacht in the Bahamas and it was at anchor.

She got up in the night and fell overboard somehow and drowned. It was a very big news story at the time. I was in high school when it happened. Anyway, what I was trying to say is how I hate it that people really think I'm the old man. It makes me feel weird."

"How do you mean?"

"I am inside the old man's voice and I am driving it like a car with no brakes. I say things he never said and never will say."

"So it's an illusion, Glin. We both know it is. Efflander brought me here and he's paying me well to create and develop this illusion. To me it's just a technical problem. Match the old recordings of the voice. Match the speech curves. Devise a new keyboard language, with half-tone drops at the end of a sentence, half-tone raises at the end of a question. But I know why it bothers you. The person who operates the system has to have a lot of quick responses. And that means a lot of imagination. And what is getting in your way is all that imagination."

"It just feels wrong."

After thinking for a few moments he said, "How about this.

They send out thousands and thousands of letters that look like originals, with a signature nobody can tell from real. Lots of people must think old Matthew actually signed their letter.

Or John Tinker. I bet there are thousands of letters going out that John Tinker has never even read. So what's the difference?"

"Maybe no difference. Maybe all the difference in the world.

Take that woman in Lubbock the other night. God! The one that told me her dead husband comes back almost every night and sits on the side of her bed and talks to her. So she asks, what about that? I can't answer. So I got confused and hit one of the responses I'd already used and so she asked if I was a recording. Somehow, Mick, you've got to give me more time to think. These people come up with weird things. I need to stall.

Maybe... Hey, maybe a little bit of coughing?"

"Nice!" Mickey Oshiro said, after a few moments of thought.