'Fourth and A Streets,' Ian Best said. A pause. 'Is that the pound?'

'The County Facility,' Carpenter said.

'You son of a b.i.t.c.h,' Best said. 'Sure I'll come get them; expect me in twenty minutes. You have Ed Ed Gantro there as a pre-person? Do you know he graduated from Stanford University?' Gantro there as a pre-person? Do you know he graduated from Stanford University?'

'We are aware of this,' Carpenter said stonily. 'But they are not being detained; they are merely - here. Not - I repeat not - in custody.'

Ian Best, the drunken slur gone from his voice, said, 'There'll be reporters from all the media there before I get there.' Click. He had hung up.

Walking back outside, Carpenter said to the boy Tim, 'Well, it seems you mickey-moused me into notifying a rabid anti-abortionist activist of your presence here. How neat, how really neat.'

A few moments pa.s.sed, and then a bright-red Mazda sped up to the entrance of the Facility. A tall man with a light beard got out, unwound camera and audio gear, walked leisurely over to Carpenter. 'I understand you may have a Stanford MA in math here at the Facility,' he said in a neutral, casual voice. 'Could I interview him for a possible story?'

Carpenter said, 'We have booked no such person. You can inspect our records.' But the reporter was already gazing at the three boys cl.u.s.tered around Ed Gantro.

In a loud voice the reporter called, 'Mr Gantro?'

'Yes, sir,' Ed Gantro replied.

Christ, Carpenter thought. We did lock him in one of our official vehicles and transport him here; it'll hit all the papers. Already a blue van with the markings of a TV station had rolled onto the lot. And, behind it, two more cars.

ABORTION FACILITY.

SNUFFS STANFORD GRAD.

That was how it read in Carpenter's mind. Or COUNTY ABORTION FACILITY.

FOILED IN ILLEGAL ATTEMPT TO ...

And so forth. A spot on the 6:00 evening TV news. Gantro, and when he showed up, Ian Best who was probably an attorney, surrounded by tape recorders and mikes and video cameras.

We have mortally f.u.c.ked up, he thought. Mortally f.u.c.ked up. They at Sacramento will cut our appropriation; we'll be reduced to hunting down stray dogs and cats again, like before. b.u.mmer.

When Ian Best arrived in his coal-burning Mercedes-Benz, he was still a little stoned. To Ed Gantro he said, 'You mind if we take a scenic roundabout route back?'

'By way of what?' Ed Gantro said. He wearily wanted to leave now. The little flow of media people had interviewed him and gone. He had made his point, and now he felt drained, and he wanted to go home.

Ian Best said, 'By way of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.'

With a smile, Ed Gantro said, 'These kids should go right to bed. My kid and the other two. h.e.l.l, they haven't even had any dinner.'

'We'll stop at a McDonald's stand,' Ian Best said. 'And then we can take off for Canada, where the fish are, and lots of mountains that still have snow on them, even this time of year.'

'Sure,' Gantro said, grinning. 'We can go there.'

'You want to?' Ian Best scrutinized him. 'You really want to?'

'I'll settle a few things, and then, sure, you and I can take off together.'

'Son of a b.i.t.c.h,' Best breathed. 'You mean it.'

'Yes,' he said. 'I do. Of course, I have to get my wife's agreement. You can't go to Canada unless your wife signs a doc.u.ment in writing where she won't follow you. You become what's called a "landed Immigrant".'

'Then I've got to get Cynthia's written permission.'

'She'll give it to you. Just agree to send support money.'

'You think she will? She'll let me go?'

'Of course,' Gantro said.

'You actually think our wives will let us go,' Ian Best said as he and Gantro herded the children into the Mercedes-Benz. 'I'll bet you're right; Cynthia'd love to get rid of me. You know what she calls me, right in front of Walter? "An aggressive coward", and stuff like that. She has no respect for me.'

'Our wives,' Gantro said, 'will let us go.' But he knew better.

He looked back at the Facility manager, Mr Sam B. Carpenter, and at the truck driver, Ferris, who, Carpenter had told the press and TV, was as of this date fired and was a new and inexperienced employee anyhow.

'No,' he said. 'They won't let us go. None of them will.'

Clumsily, Ian Best fiddled with the complex mechanism that controlled the funky coal-burning engine. 'Sure they'll let us go; look, they're just standing there. What can they do, after what you said on TV and what that one reporter wrote up for a feature story?'

'I don't mean them,' Gantro said tonelessly.

'We could just run.'

'We are caught,' Gantro said. 'Caught and can't get out. You ask Cynthia, though. It's worth a try.'

'We'll never see Vancouver Island and the great oceangoing ferries steaming in and out of the fog, will we?' Ian Best said.

'Sure we will, eventually.' But he knew it was a lie, an absolute lie, just like you know sometimes when you say something that for no rational reason you know is absolutely true.

They drove from the lot, out onto the public street.

'It feels good,' Ian Best said, 'to be free ... right?' The three boys nodded, but Ed Gantro said nothing. Free, he thought. Free to go home. To be caught in a larger net, shoved into a greater truck than the metal mechanical one the County Facility uses.

'This is a great day,' Ian Best said.

'Yes,' Ed Gantro agreed. 'A great day in which a n.o.ble and effective blow has been struck for all helpless things, anything of which you could say, "It is alive." '

Regarding him intently in the narrow trickly light, Ian Best said, 'I don't want to go home; I want to take off for Canada now.'

'We have have to go home,' Ed Gantro reminded him. 'Temporarily, I mean. To wind things up. Legal matters, pick up what we need.' to go home,' Ed Gantro reminded him. 'Temporarily, I mean. To wind things up. Legal matters, pick up what we need.'

Ian Best, as he drove, said, 'We'll never get there, to British Columbia and Vancouver Island and Stanley Park and English Bay and where they grow food and keep horses and where they have the ocean-going ferries.'

'No, we won't,' Ed Gantro said.

'Not now, not even later?'

'Not ever,' Ed Gantro said.

'That's what I was afraid of,' Best said and his voice broke and his driving got funny. 'That's what I thought from the beginning.'

They drove in silence, then, with nothing to say to each other. There was nothing left to say.

NOVELS BY PHILIP K. d.i.c.k.

Clans of the Alphane Moon

Confessions of a c.r.a.p Artist

The Cosmic Puppets

Counter-Clock World

The Crack in s.p.a.ce

Deus Irae (with Roger Zelazny) (with Roger Zelazny)

The Divine Invasion

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Dr. Bloodmoney

Dr. Futurity

Eye in the Sky

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Galactic Pot-Healer

The Game-Players of t.i.tan

The Man in the High Castle

The Man Who j.a.ped

Martian Time-Slip

A Maze of Death

Now Wait for Last Year

Our Friends from Frolix 8

The Penultimate Truth