hout a mutant's predictions to make it worse.

She was looking up from the faceted glass now, shaking her head sadly.
"There's very little I can tell you. I was not able to see the murder
performed. But I skrenned a graveyard, and in it I saw your parents'
tombstone. It was an old tombstone, perhaps twenty years old. The
graveyard was on the outskirts of a place on Earth called Youngerstun."

Barrent reflected a moment, but the name meant nothing to him.

"Also," Myla said, "I skrenned a man who knows about the murder. He can
tell you about it, if he will."

"This man saw the murder?"

"Yes."

"Is he the man who informed on me?"

"I don't know," Myla said. "I skrenned the corpse, whose name was
Therkaler, and there was a man standing near it. That man's name was
Illiardi."

"Is he here on Omega?"

"Yes. You can find him right now in the Euphoriatorium on Little Axe
Street. Do you know where that is?"

"I can find it," Barrent said. He thanked the girl and offered payment,
which she refused to take. She looked very unhappy. As Barrent was
leaving, she called out, "Be careful."

Barrent stopped at the door, and felt an icy chill settle across his
chest. "Did you skren my future?" he asked.

"Only a little," Myla said. "Only a few months ahead."

"What did you see?"

"I can't explain it," she said. "What I saw is impossible."

"Tell me what it was."

"I saw you dead. And yet, you weren't dead at all. You were looking at a
corpse, which was shattered into shiny fragments. But the corpse was
also you."

"What does it mean?"

"I don't know," Myla said.

* * * * *

The Euphoriatorium was a large, garish place which specialized in
cut-rate drugs and aphrodisiacs. It catered mostly to a peon and
resident clientele. Barrent felt out of status as he shouldered his way
through the crowd and asked a waiter where he could find a man named
Illiardi.

The waiter pointed. In a corner booth, Barrent saw a bald,
thick-shouldered man sitting over a tiny glass of thanapiquita. Barrent
went over and introduced himself.

"Pleased to meet you, sir," Illiardi said, showing the obligatory
respect of a Second Class Resident for a Privileged Citizen. "How can I
be of service?"

"I want to ask you a few questions about Earth," Barrent said.

"I can't remember much about the place," Illiardi said. "But you're
welcome to anything I know."

"Do you remember a man named Therkaler?"

"C