"Would you like this sheet, as a memento? Number Eight can easily re-do it."
"Thank you."
"And is there anything else I can show you? I don't mind admitting I'm very proud of my machines."
"Well," said Carre, "perhaps you might let me have some of your current manuscripts, just for tonight? I can make a comparative study, for Ludwig, and return them sometime tomorrow."
"Nothing easier." He assembled a bundle of stapled sheets and put them in a box, and then rang for the guards, to show him out.
"Take care of yourself, Carre. See you tomorrow."
Herbert sat, that evening, in his book-lined room, reading manuscripts. He looked more and more puzzled, and ill at ease. He got up, after a time, to pace the room, and on a sudden impulse he left the apartment and hurried up the street.
It had grown dark outside, and he hurried. He could not stand the thought of the Airway, so he walked. He had covered nearly half a mile when, at the corner ahead, two Street-taxis approached each other at right angles. The drivers glared at each other. Neither slowed to let the other pass; they crashed, and began to burn. Carre hurried on, trying not to hear the screams of the people or the siren of the approaching ambulance. No wonder, he thought, that they need Ludwig in the Bureau of Public Safety; people were behaving so irrationally!
He climbed the steps of the City Library, and advanced to the desk.