t01_264	The constant hum of the Toshiba DM-707/40 fully integrated alarm-clock mercilessly ended Ed's sleep. Rolling over to the side, Ed uttered a plaintive sound bearing a remote resemblance to the American equivalent of "yes". The Toshiba alarm-clock decreased the volume of the hum and projected a bunch of figures on the ceiling. At the same time, a clear female voice said: "Good morning. It is 06:15 a.m., Friday, Nolan 17, 2019 AD" (some months had been renamed after the Presidents of the United Continents of America). When Ed finally got up, tiny sensors in his bed registered the change in pressure and communicated it to the main computer system of his apartment (these sensors could also find out exactly how many persons were lying in the bed, but Ed preferred not to think of it). The main computer (it was a Casio Household One -- the state-of-the-art in terms of home computing -- and Ed had had quite some trouble connecting the Toshiba alarm-clock to it) heated some water to boil two eggs and make a cup of coffee, just as strong as Ed liked it. Ed for his part trotted towards the shower. Having undressed, he said sleepily: "Water, please." Instantly, a jet of very cold water hit him. With a shriek, Ed jerked backwards. He cried at the top of his voice: "Hot water, ya fuckin' idiot!" Completely overtaxed by such a complex syntactic structure, the speech recognition system responded with a helpless beep (the hordes of scientists and engineers had never succeeded in teaching a computer to understand American English). Half a minute later (Ed had spent the time trying various pronunciations of the word "hot", interspersed with a stream of colourful invective), the system finally realized that its master did not want to by a hut, but rather to change the temperature of the water.Ed took the 07:20 scissors (an American-style abbreviation of City Suspension Railways) to his office. Ed was a journalist. He worked for the Middle East Sunny Times, one of the biggest newspapers of the area, second only to Today's Rumours. At 07:55, Ed entered the tall office building of the Middle East Sunny Times (popularly known as the MIST), covered in glittering silver, which stood out against the filthy sky. When he had assumed the proper position in front of his computer desk, Ed switched on the main screen. A female, soft, and deliciously sexy voice (the one used by most software developers) requested him to enter his full name, date of birth, and some further personal data. Edward Bill Hufnagel, he punched in, born 02-21-1991, 6'3" tall "Please enter your personal ID code number now," the voice added. Ed wondered if they had a male, harsh, and sexy voice for the female employees as he punched in the code. "Clearance confirmed," the voice said. In the meantime, the screen showed an animated graphics sequence featuring a bundle of letters that whirled through outer space and, later on, formed the name of the newspaper. Then the GEM (Graphics Environment Manager) screen appeared. Ed selected the messages item from one of the pull-down menus. A short note from the editor informed him about today's work. First of all, an accident had happened in a nuclear power station. A two-page text gave a summary of what had happened, followed by the Government's official explanation, which was binding on him and all other journalists in the United Continents. Ed listlessly made up the text, being careful not to contradict the governmental edict. As soon as he has finished, he clicked the Check gadget, thus transferring the text to the computer system of the Department of the Free Press, where its contents would automatically be compared to the edicts of the Government. The text vanished from the screen as it was completely erased from all non-governmental memories (this is accomplished through a direct deletion line to all privately owned computer systems demanded by law). A few seconds later the text reappeared. Some sentences had been altered or even taken out entirely, without leaving any trace. Ed clicked the Print gadget in order to forward the text to the layout section.Next was a classified report from the archives of the MIA (Military Intelligence Agency), Overseas Department. This report proved that statements of the Federation of the Democratic Republics of Europe and Asia (FEDEREA, usually called "the Federation"), claiming that free elections took place in all its member states, were mere lies. A governmental notice appended to the text guaranteed the newspaper the right to publish the entire contents of the classified report without prosecution (for the publication of classified material was otherwise regarded as high treason and would lead to instantaneous deportation to Alaska). Ed quickly rewrote some paragraphs of the report, then he had the article checked and transferred it to layout.Ed glanced at his wristwatch. He had paid a small fortune for it (231, to be precise, which was almost half his monthly income). It was a Sharp WM-7 (the WM standing for WristMate) that allowed him to choose from more than fifty different fonts for the time display and other messages. Ed switched to the "Standard" font, the only one that was even remotely legible. The tiny display showed 12:13 p.m. There was no female, soft, and sexy voice. Ed decided that it was time for lunch. He clicked a padlock-shape icon on the screen, blocking any unauthorized access until he would unlock it with his personal code. Ed left the room and made his way to one of the elevators that would take him to the staff cafeteria. The cafeteria was located on the 121 floor, topped only by the office of the governmental supervisor.Soon the elevator came to a halt. Ed left the rather small cabin with a sigh of relief. He passed through the airlock and entered the warm, refreshing atmosphere of the cafeteria. The oxygen content of the air was unusually high here (it was said to be almost as high as it had been halfway through the 20 century), and special additives gave it the aroma of a tropic seashore. Ed joined the long queue in front of the computerized serving counter. He wondered what to choose for lunch: Minced Beef, Minced T-Bone Steak, Minced Shrimps, Fishy Mince, Minced Vegetables, Mince Alors, The names of the various dishes came to his mind, and he immediately began to feel sick as he remembered what they usually looked like. He did not dare to think about their taste. After all, he thought, it didn't matter which one he chose. They were all made from specially cultivated fungi, cut into tiny balls and artificially flavoured with a wide range of mostly toxic substances.Ed chose Mince Alors, the taste of which did not resemble anything natural known to mankind -- except for mint sauce, perhaps. He was lucky to find an empty window seat, so he could enjoy the breathtaking view of New Leningrad (that is, some fifty million people crammed into a few cubic miles of concrete) while he choked down his lunch. He tried not to look up to the filthy sky and the faint disk of the sun. Drinking his rude beer (desalinated and flavoured sea water), he remembered that he had no plans for the evening. He hoped he could pick up a girl for the night.As soon as he had returned to his office, he selected the love nest option from the Extras menu on his computer. A beautifully drawn picture appeared, the title screen of the Love Nest program (there was no censorship on pictures and photographs, at least not concerning "adult" content). A soft, female voice welcomed Ed. It was even more sensuous than the usual one. Ed entered his personal data (going into great detail) and his preferences. Soon, the computer came up with a suggestion. Ed quickly read through the data flashing across the screen, then he accepted and typed up a message for his date-to-be (the Love Nest program never showed photographs, which many believed to be the prime reason for its staggeringly high rate of accepted suggestions). No-one seemed to be aware that even these sometimes very intimate messages were checked by the government censors, and few were surprised that from time to time messages got lost in the highly advanced internal computer system of the MIST. Ed wasn't one of those few attentive people, so he unsuspectingly continued his work.Ed's last task for the day was to write a review of a new movie which had cost millions of dollars to produce, and which was expected to bring in a tremendous amount of money. Virgin Female Mud-Wrestlers Kidnapped by the European Concrete-Jungle Cannibals, it was called. On his VisiPhone, Ed watched the movie for several minutes, then he turned off the screen in disgust. Yet the government, the film company, probably the public, and most certainly his boss expected him to praise the film, so he had no choice. Ed selected film reviews from the Phrases menu. This phrase library, one of the most influential innovations in electronic publishing, offered some five thousand stock phrases to be used in articles. Ed opted for affirmative phrases and selected sex crime movies from the submenu that appeared next. An interactive search program helped him reduce the list of several hundred matching phrases that he was presented with to about fifty. All that was left to do was to fit these phrases together, thus obtaining a review guaranteed to please everyone. Except for Ed, that is, but his opinion did not count.Suddenly, the famous Love Nest tune broke the silence. Ed hopefully glanced at the screen. In fact, a few seconds later a message from his prospective date appeared. The girl had agreed to meet him that evening. After exchanging some trivialities, they decided to go to the movies and then dine in a cosy little restaurant (that is, one with less than a hundred seats) serving real synthetic steaks. The computer system printed identification signs for them: little pink badges with the number 264 (had they used a more romantic sign -- such as a red rose -- they might have involuntarily mixed up with another couple). Ed put the badge into his wallet, then switched off the computer.Half an hour later, he was on his way home. Arriving there, he pressed his thumb onto a little pad next to the door. A red light above the pad started flashing and a commanding and slightly unfriendly voice barked: "Entry denied!" Ed took off his gloves, cursing the up-to-date Padlock system that "Answers Only To Its Master's Touch", as the advertisements claimed.Inside, Ed told the computer to extend the bed to suit two persons, just in case. "What for?" the usual sexy computer voice asked. "None of your business," Ed replied, but after a little pause he added: "I might be having company tonight " --- "Oh," the computer said, "I see. Do you want me to make a video recording of the bedroom, as usual?" Ed started. "What?" he yelled, "What do you mean, as usual?" --- "Just kidding," the computer said with a chuckle.Ed took a quick shower (water had become too scarce and expensive to take a bath). Having been rubbed dry by the General Electrics Towel-O-Mate ("The Mate That Never Rubs You Up The Wrong Way"), he sprinkled most of his body with a popular expensive perfume. Some of the older people kept complaining that the perfume smelt like a musk-ox in mating season, but they could not prove their point since musk-oxes had become extinct several decades ago. Besides, musk-oxes were the last thing to come into Ed's mind as he walked over to the wardrobe. He put on his most provocative walking-out clothes: synthetic leather trousers and jacket (hardly anyone could afford to buy real leather any more), accentuating the masculine shape of his body, topped off with a spiked belt and a rubber tie. He picked up a bunch of plastic flowers he had bought for his date. Then he left the apartment.This time he took a tin (for Transports Individual; little four-person cabins moving on an extended railway system, which had replaced automobiles when most of the global oil reserves were depleted). While he pinned the little pink badge to his chest, Ed wondered what the girl might look like. It was quite certain that she would be pretty because plastic surgery was common nowadays, the average American teenager having his, or her, first "corrective operation" at the age of fifteen. Ed had had lots of dates before -- dating had almost entirely replaced marriage -- and he was getting used to the stereotypical course that they usually took, but on that evening, for some reason he could not quite work out, he felt a strange kind of nervous excitement. He looked at the plastic flowers that he had brought and noticed that his hands were trembling slightly.The tin slowed down, then it stopped. A small display showed the fare Ed had to pay. He gulped and gave his credit card a melancholic glance before he inserted it into the slot beneath the display. Getting out of the cabin, he found himself in front of the Rainbow, one of the biggest cinemas in the Middle East. High above, powerful laser beams cast the name of the cinema onto its white facade, in eight different colours. Whenever Ed spotted a girl, he stared at her breasts, hoping to see a pink badge there.And there it was! 264. His eyes followed the slender figure of the girl down to her heels. When he finally looked at her face, about a minute later, he was stunned by its beauty. Unable to avert his gaze from the girl's warm brown eyes, he felt his heart flutter. The girl smiled at him, and he almost passed out. She walked over to him and said "Hi!" Ed remained silent. He could not speak. He could not even think. He could not do anything but look into these enchanting brown eyes. But the girl seemed not to notice. She asked a few questions, and after a while they were chatting in a lively way.Some minutes later the conversation came to their plans for the evening. The girl pointed a finger at a placard to the left of the entrance and asked: "What about this one?" Ed looked at the colourful placard. It showed some beautiful jungle scenery and, in the foreground, what looked like natives wearing weird masks. Then his eye fell on the name of the movie, which read in huge lurid letters: Virgin Female Mud-Wrestlers Kidnapped by the European Concrete-Jungle Cannibals. "I'd love to see that," Ed said.Ed bought two bags of The Real Popcorn. He vaguely remembered an article about the brand that had never been printed. Some pitiful journalist, who was sacked soon after the incident, had discovered that The Real Popcorn was made from stiffened, coloured and flavoured protein foam. Ed looked at the popcorn in his hands, then he forced himself to think of something else.During the show, he incessantly watched the girl by his side. She seemed to be interested in the film. He looked at her blood-red lips, her copper-sulphate-blue eyeshadows, her potassium-nitrate-white teeth, and, over and over again, at her eyes that had the rich brown colour of thick wisps of bromine vapour. He felt a happiness he had never felt before. It came to his mind that he had not even touched the girl yet, which was very unusual. On a typical date, his hand would have been wandering up and down the girl's thighs at that time. Or even higher. But now, he just sat there, watching her until the lights came on again.It took Ed some time to realize that the show had finished. After leaving the cinema, they walked over to a machine painted in yellow and black stripes. In order to call a tin, Ed inserted his credit card into a slot. A display lit up, accompanied by a short tune, saying that a free cabin would arrive in nine minutes and eighteen seconds. Ed turned around to the girl and shrugged his shoulders. Nine minutes was an unusually long wait. The girl smiled at him, showing no signs of impatience.While they were waiting for the tin, Ed began to dislike the idea of going to a restaurant. He usually treated his dates to an expensive dinner before bringing them back to his apartment, but this girl was special. He tried of something unconventional he could do to her. With her, he corrected himself.As their transport arrived, he was still trying desperately to come up with a original idea. "Goin' to the Amusement Arcades?" he mumbled. Before he realized what a foolish thing he had said, the girl nodded her agreement.Half an hour later they arrived at the Arcades Center and walked into the main hall. It was crammed with games machines, flashing in bright colours, chirping, beeping, and thundering as formations of alien spaceships exploded on the screens. They played some of the games, and Ed felt completely happy blasting away at aliens together with the girl. There was a brand-new flight simulator game called Wold War III. Hoping to impress the girl, Ed played the game for more than an hour on end until he had defeated the Fourth Reich and reached the highest score of the day.When they left the Arcades Center at last, it was too late to go to a restaurant, so they got two self-heating TV dinners out of a vending machine. The quality of food had declined steadily over the past decades, but a TV dinner was still significantly worse than anything else. Chewing their wobbly, sponge-like meals, Ed and the girl looked at each other and smiled.Suddenly, Ed's watch started to beep softly. The message Your place or mine? on its display was meant to remind Ed to get down to brass tacks before it was too late. Ed looked at the message, but instead he said to the girl: "Let's go to the Beach." The girl agreed, and Ed called another tin.The Beach was the most famous amusement park in New Leningrad. It consisted of a huge steel hemisphere that could only be entered through airlocks. Inside, it gave the illusion of a beach at night, with fine sand and deep clear water. Tiny lamps turned the high black ceiling into a starry sky, and a steady breeze rustling the leaves of some palm trees put the final touch to the romantic atmosphere. The high concentration of oxygen in the air and certain chemicals recreated the characteristic smell of a real ocean. The Beach was open day and night, and a sunset was simulated every thirty minutes.When Ed and the girl had arrived (and he had paid a little fortune to be admitted), they strolled along the coastline, past the other young couples who were holding hands or necking each other. Soon, the simulated sunset began. When the large red disk of the sun, projected on the far side of the steel hemisphere, touched the water, Ed touched the girl for the first time. When night had fallen, they were hugging and kissing each other.Ed returned home after 03:00 a.m. Drunk with love, he kissed the Padlock instead of pressing his thumb on the pad. To Ed's great surprise, and to the great embarrassment of the corporation manufacturing the Padlock system, which received one of his infamous letters of complaint a few days later, the door opened immediately.As the computer system realized that Ed was on his own, it asked him: "Does that mean I can reset the bed to its normal size?" Still beaming, Ed just said "yes". He felt madly in love with the girl and wanted to see her again as soon as possible. "Do you want me to make the video recording anyway?" Ed didn't register the computer's sarcastic comment because in that very instant he realized that he did not know the name of the girl. He had never asked a girl for her name on a date.All of a sudden, Ed was in deep despair. How could he ever find the girl again without even knowing her name? He gave the fridge a helpless kick, which responded with an indignant "Ouch!" Without undressing he jumped into his bed. The pink badge, which he had still been wearing, fell off his chest. As Ed looked at it, the number 264 seemed to sting his eyes. When he fell asleep at last, tears were running down his cheeks, unnoticed by the computer system.The next morning, Ed felt worse than ever before. The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the pink badge, and a wave of grief swept through his mind. Depressed, he got up slowly, stared sullenly at the breakfast the computer had prepared, changed into a business suit, and left for work. The number 264 was all that he seemed to be able to think about on his way to the MIST building.Arriving at his office, Ed switched on the computer terminal on his desk and selected the messages item. The usual message from the editor appeared, and another one below. After reading through his tasks for the day, he clicked on the second message.Unbelievingly, Ed stared at the first line of the long text that had appeared on the screen. 264, it read.
t02_How_To_Swim	If you want to learn to swim, the first thing to do is to get yourself properly dressed, i.e. to put on swimming trunks (ones with little elephants printed on them will be very fashionable) after taking off all other clothes. Then you step onto the diving-board, take a deep breath, summon up all your courage, and throw yourself at the water, head first. If you are an absolute beginner, there is one very important rule to remember at this moment, because you will immediately begin to sink: Don't Panic! Swimming is a mental task as much as a physical one. You must get yourself into the right frame of mind. Try to feel as light as possible. Imagine that you are a bloated lump of yeast slowly rising from the bottom of the sea. (If you have difficulty in picturing such a preposterous idea, try to take on the personality of a dead fish. That will work out just as well.)After a few moments of practice, you will be floating steadily on the surface, bobbing slightly up and down as the occasional passer-by chuckles at your (admittedly funny) first steps into an entirely new environment. All you have to do now is move your arms back and forth rhythmically, wildly thrashing about your feet at the same time. Your hands should be kept close to the long axis of your body when moving forward, but extended as far as possible during the backward motion. Keep practising this simple pattern for an hour or two. If you want to quit your first lession, find one of the ladders on the walls of the swimming pool and approach it. Refer to page 563 of this booklet for easy-to-follow instructions on how to climb a ladder.
t03_Waiting	It was one of those numerous occasions at school, during the break, where I waited for someone who steadfastly refused to turn up. My school boasts a most peculiar design. It looks very much like a big hall, serving both as entrance and assembly hall, to which several small buildings have been added in a haphazard fashion. The classrooms surround the hall on two floors and are accessible by a stairway located right in the middle of the hall. This staircase always gave me the impression that it was designed to be as harmful as possible in the case of an emergency or a panic among the pupils. To the left of the main doors, still within the large hall, there is a notice-board. That is where I stood, waiting impatiently.I did not appreciate the extraordinary design of the school building, of course, for I had been going to that school since 1981 and was rather fed up with it. On the notice-board, changes to the time-table were displayed. I used to go and see them at least twice every day, in the abiding faith that one happy day, some of my classes would be cancelled. That day, having read the list of changes five times over, I turned my attention to the pupils scurrying hither and thither.During the break, all pupils had to leave the classrooms, so there was always a terrible crush in the hall, and I found plenty of objects for my observations -- except for the one I was waiting for, naturally. I watched the crowd for a while. Some of the younger pupils were playing merrily, some others were just running around, forgetful of a world heading for the mayhem of a wrecked environment and overpopulated continents on the brink of revolution. The older pupils stood together in threes and fours, chatting in a lively mood, in fives and sixes, eights, twelves, fifteens! Sometimes, these communicative groups split up when the conversation came to a halt; then new groups were formed. Most of the time, the scene remained unchanged, though. Occasionally, I spotted a couple indulging in mutual affection, but turned my eyes away rather quickly, unable to watch this promise of a happiness that I longed for more desperately than ever before.The behaviour of individuals can be most interesting and surprising, but in group behaviour, statistical effects lead to a predictability that makes groups a bore to watch. Although the occasional teacher passing by, with his weary face protruding from a coffee-stained shirt, provided me with a welcome diversion (making me wonder whether his incoherent grunts constituted sufficient proof of mankind's affinity with apes, or whether it was his own social comment), I soon grew tired of watching the people around me.As time went by and my wristwatch marked the passing of the minutes, my imagination gradually took over my conscious mind, opening my eyes to a different world of motion. Molecules of oxygen and nitrogen were dashing playfully about in random fashion. Every once in a while I spotted a couple made of carbon and oxygen, reeling in the bliss of perpetual embrace.Observing this scene of ceaseless activity, I eventually came upon more deliberate forms of locomotion. Bacteria were swirling through the air, clinging to everything they touched, creeping over walls, over the ceiling; ready to start their destructive work of wrecking their victims' health. But as they were squirming across the walls, they would also gather together, in fives and sixes, interacting in their lively manner, in fifties, thousands, tens of thousands!I looked at my watch. Beneath the thick layer of bacteria in which it was coated, I could barely make out the digits of its display. Time continued to fly relentlessly, and there was still no sign of the person I longed to see. The break was drawing to a close and I began to feel uncomfortable.I looked out of the window. In the garden, the bacteria were frequently obscured by menacingly large black spots. When my imagination had adjusted to their size, I discovered that I was watching insects, dashing hither and thither, ignorant of the world beyond their limited horizon. On a little fern, aphids had joined in hundreds; but they were not communicating, their microscopic minds concentrated on feeding only. The enormous variety of species was so confusing that I turned my attention back to the inside of the building and its activity.Amongst all the motion and change, one spot stood out because of the calmness it radiated. It was a puddle of pasteurized milk somebody had spilled, and there was a deadly silence about it that made me shiver. I could discern the dead bodies of some lactobacilli. They gave me a sense of decay, the sadness of a deserted world.A bell announced the end of the break. My mind snapped back to reality, and I realized that I had been waiting in vain. Slowly, sadly, I made my way back to the classroom, almost stepping into the puddle of pasteurized milk.
t04_Thrilling_Experience	Tick. A clock. Tick, tick. Of the old-fashioned type: round, with hands; no liquid-crystal display, no fancy picture in the background. Tick, tick, tick. It showed half past three, a.m. Or it would have, had there been any light. For it was dark in the house -- pitch, jet, raven, absolutely, totally black. Perfectly normal, though. Why should there be a light with no-one around to look at the clock?Suddenly, a sound interrupted the silence of the night. A faint click, hardly audible; like the leap of a grasshopper, the distant echo of an ignition key being turned. The click was followed by a crescendoeing rustle; the rustle of autumn leaves, at first rustling in the chilly breeze, then falling to the ground; finally, scrambled and piled up by the broom of a road sweeper.The rustle subsided. Once again the room lay in total silence; but it wasn't the same as before. Something had changed. There was a sense of difference that one just could not put one's finger on. So small a change that even the most discerning owl would not have noticed it.Single photons entered through a door that was ajar, heralds of a glimpse of light in the hallway. Solitary travellers that had ended up, after an odyssey of several nanoseconds, in a place well hidden from the source of the light.Then another noise broke the silence. Pouring water bubbled softly; and in the darkness of the night it seemed to be blood dripping off the wrist of a suicide. The bubbling went on, neither growing louder nor fading away.Finally it ceased, and yet there was further disturbance. This time it came with a vengeance. Mightier than incorporeal photons or the vibrations of the air, large molecules invaded the room, dispersed. Flying fortresses of the microcosm, they soon had taken over every corner of the room, had seeped into carpets and wallpapers. The room surrendered to the smell, every fibre of it captivated by an unequalled fragrance.All of a sudden, with a second faint click, the light died away. For a moment, there was nothing to hear and see. Then came turmoil.Footsteps shook the floor and stirred the air like blastings in a quarry. One could sense the approach of a large mass; a mass as menacing as a gigantic asteroid may seem to a tiny spaceship. The footsteps reached the door, and all hell broke loose. The door squeaked, it squealed, then it swung open slowly. A motion so violent, despite its slowness, that it had seemed impossible only moments before. A hand hit a switch, and suddenly the room was bathed in bright, strident light.The clock showed half past four.
t05_Idiomatic_English	"We'd better keep an eye on that new kid in the Q7 section. The rookie doesn't know yet which way the wind blows," I told Bob. He replied he saw eye to eye with me on that matter, but he was up to his eyes in work and just didn't have the time to do it. I didn't bother to hide my disappointment, so I made a rather long face.Old Bob is one of our best agents. Thick-skinned and experienced, it takes a lot to make his hair stand on end, and he'll never lose his head. Likewise, there isn't much point in arguing with him. I had half a mind to snap Bob's head off at that time, but I resisted the temptation. Insults of any kind seem to bounce off the pig-headed old devil, and he'd only go around telling everybody that "the swelled-headed swank is off his head again!" Presently, Bob tried to set my mind at rest: "Hey, take it easy. The lad's good agent stuff. He's brave in the face of danger. I'm sure he'll soon find his feet."I wasn't quite so sure about it, so it was I who eventually accompanied the rookie, Bert, on his first assignment. It was a fairly simple observation job, but in our business anything can turn out to be a matter of life and death! Bert looked a little nervous. In an attempt to take his mind off the possible danger, I teased him: "Have you already got cold feet? My, you look like an old fogey who has one foot in the grave!""I ain't no yellow chicken!" he replied angrily, but I could see his hands tremble. I'd put my foot in it!"No, no, I was just kiddin'. Didn't mean to imply anything," I said quickly. At that very moment, the sound of an approaching car made us prick up our ears. I craned my neck to see what was going on. Seconds later, a white VW van appeared and parked in front of the storehouse opposite our hiding-place. Two men in fawn trenchcoats emerged from the car."Have you fixed the bug?" I asked Bert. --- " `Course I have. It's right under their noses." He flipped a switch, and a little loudspeaker came to life: "crackle fizz hiss crackle said to him: `Just follow your nose!' crackle fizz ask me, he has no backbone! If I were him, I'd just go fizz hiss her! --- Oh, that hiss knows how to handle him. She just keeps him at arm's length crackle "Bert was struggling to get a steady signal from the tiny transmitter in the bug. While he was fiddling with the receiver, he said casually: "They don't exactly welcome me with open arms in this job, do they?" --- "It was the same when I joined in," I replied, "but I didn't bother. It went in one ear and out the other. It's no use racking your brains to try and do it their way. You'll just have to show to show Dang! It's on the tip of my tongue!"Bert interrupted me: "Hold on I think I've got it now." He turned the volume up a notch. This time, the voices were clear and without interference. " sat there tongue-tied all evening. I thinks he was pretty down-hearted. --- Well, she'd set her heart on that car, and he just couldn't afford it. Poor old sod "It didn't look as if we were going to catch anybody red-handed. That's one of the big drawbacks of my job: most of our assignments are observation tasks, and in nine out of ten cases we're on the wrong track. Pretty frustrating, I can tell you. These days, agents need a helluva lot of things to chat about, they do! Fortunately, I had more to tell"Listen, Bert, I wash my hands of office gossip; there have been some nasty things going on in the past. But I feel there is one thing you ought to know. Old Bob's manner may be very off-hand, but he's and old hand at the job. I know some who owe their lives to him!" --- "Yes, sure," Bert replied, "it's just that "I shushed him as the van's doors slammed shut. A moment later, its motor roared and the car drove off. "Alright," I said, "that's it then, kiddo. Now, you pack up the whole caboodle, and I'll lend you a hand with the bug later on. I don't fancy digging it out, myself, but we'll have to do it. Anyway, I've got to stretch my legs first. There's no denying that I'm getting on in years."EPILOGUEThat night, we had a drink in the bar together. We were getting along very well and after several Gin and Tonics, we were both quite merry. On the spur of the moment, I decided to tease Bert a little."Hey, we found something on today's tape recording, you know." --- "Really?" he asked enthusiastically, "that's terrific." --- "Yeah. You see, if you feed the whole thing into a computer and tell it to subtract the ASCII values of the word elephant from the text, it turns out to be a secret message about our defence systems!""Uh?" Bert looked at me blankly. I allowed the hint of a smile to creep into my face."You're pulling my leg?" Bert asked."Yes, I am." ---There was a short pause."Hey, who's going to buy the next round?" --- "Don't know." ---I fished a dime out of my pocket. "Heads or tails?" I asked.
t06_Garden	It seemed a day much as any other until I happened to look out of the back window. There was a little garden behind the house; a well-mown lawn surrounded by a neatly cut hedge, a few bushes and colourful flowers. There was nothing wrong with it. What had caught my eye was now standing right in the middle of the lawn, and there wasn't anything wrong with it, either.It was an elephant.Not a big elephant by any means, probably still in its adolescence, but the lawn was a particularly small one, and it must have been a most unpleasant experience for it to be walked upon by such a frighteningly huge animal. The leathery skin of the pachyderm was of a dullish grey colour, forming a harsh contrast to the ivory lustre of its long, curved tusks. Its large ears and its tail were moving lazily in a complex hemiolic rhythm. For several minutes, neither of us moved. Then, the elephant turned its head, curiously looking at me out of small, blue eyes. Its trunk rose slightly.Although the elephant showed no signs of aggressive behaviour, I was worried a bit. My experience of life did not include any established patterns for dealing with an elephant in my back garden, so I felt I needed someone to discuss matters. I walked over to the phone, but was hesitant to dial the number of the local zoo because I knew what course that sort of conversation usually took."Er hello I've got this elephant in my garden, you see, and " --- "Oh, do you?" --- "Yes, really, I mean I know you must think I'm just seeing pink elephants, I couldn't believe it myself at first, but when I looked out of the back window this morning, there was this elephant, not a particularly big one, just this middle-sized grey elephant flapping its ears at me, and no, don't hang up!"This is about as far as one might expect to get, and it is exactly as far as I got when I finally decided to give the zoo a try for want of a better idea. I started putting down the handset, stopped, thought better of it, thought better of thinking better of it, got confused about all the thinking this involved, and finally resolved to abandon that line of thought. I had been uneasy about losing sight of the elephant ever since I had walked over to the phone, and now I was wondering whether it was advisable to call in the police or whether I should rather go back to the window and see what the grey pachyderm was up to.Suddenly, a high, piercing click -- which sounded to me very much like a tusk being knocked on a pane of glass -- broke the silence. Swivelling round, I spotted the elephant peering in at me through one of the windows. It saw that it had finally attracted my attention and beckoned me with its trunk. The elephant had a reasonably friendly air about it, at least a lot friendlier than what I expected to be told by the police should I phone them, so I walked over to the window and opened it.I was deeply surprised by the next thing to happen, or rather to be spoken. It wasn't so much what was said that startled me -- in fact, it was a simple question and there was a very short answer to it -- but whom it was said by."Excuse me, do you know what I'm doing here?" the elephant asked politely. It went on to explain that it had just materialized in my garden, that it didn't know where it had come from, who had sent it here, and why he had done it, and that it didn't like the flowers that it had taken me ages to grow, particularly the pink ones which it said tasted filthy. Eventually, it asked the simple question that had startled me so much again, and I had had the time to come up with a concise and truthful, albeit very short answer to it."No," I replied, "I haven't got a clue.""Oh," said the elephant, and vanished in a small puff of white smoke.