"Well--what are you going to do about it?" I asked, with more than a
little note of peevishness in my voice.
"Don't you think it's more important to ask what _you_ are going
to do about it?" She delivered this line very lightly, but there was
a lot behind it. I saw she was watching me in the mirror, so I turned
and went over to the window, looking out over the fatal balcony at the
snow-summitted mountain peaks beyond. What was I going to do about it?
Of course that was the question here--much bigger than she realized.
What was I going to do about the whole thing? Everyone was offering
me half-interests in a revolution I hadn't the slightest interest in.
Or did I? What _was_ I doing here? Had I come to arrest Angelina
for the Special Corps? That assignment seemed to have been forgotten
a while back. A decision had to be reached soon. My body disguise
was good--but not that good. It wasn't intended to stand up to long
inspection. Only the fact that Angelina was undoubtedly sure that she
had killed me had prevented her from recognizing my real identity so
far. I had certainly recognized her easily enough, facial changes and
all.
Just at this point the bottom dropped out of everything. There is a
little process called selective forgetting whereby we suppress and
distort memories we find distasteful. My disguise hadn't been meant to
stand inspection this long. Originally I had been sure she would have
penetrated it by now. With this realization came the memory of what I
had said the night before. A wickedly revealing statement that I had
pushed back and forgotten until now.
_You're none of these things out of the past_, I had shouted.
_None of these things ... Angelina._ I had bellowed this and there
had been no protest from her.
Except that she no longer used the name Angelina, she used the alias
Engela here.
When I turned to face her my guilty thoughts must have been scrawled
all over my face, but she only gave me that enigmatic smile and said
nothing. At least she had stopped combing her hair.
"You know I'm not Grav Bent Diebstall," I said with an effort. "How
long have you known?"
"For quite a while; since soon after you came here, in fact."
"Do you know who I am--?"
"I have no idea what your real name is, if that's what you mean. But I
do remember how angry I was when you tricked me out of the battleships,
after all my work. And I recall the intense satisfaction with which I
shot you in Freiburbad. Can you tell me your name now?"
"Jim," I said through the haze I was rooted in. "James diGriz, known as
Slippery Jim to the trade."
"How nice. My name _is_ really Angela. I think it was done as a
horrid joke by my father, which is one of the reasons I enjoyed seeing
him die."
"Why haven't you killed me?" I asked, having a fairly good idea of how
father had passed on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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