's all part of a plan. Give me a little time to think. We can talk
again, later." Wade chuckled once more. "Looks as if there'll be ample
opportunity in the future."

And there was. In the months ahead, Harry spoke frequently with his
friend behind the wall. He never saw him--prisoners at Stark Falls
were exercised separately, and there was no group assembly or
recreation. Surprisingly adequate meals were served in surprisingly
comfortable cells. In the matter of necessities, Harry had no
complaints. And now that he had someone to talk to, the time seemed to
go more swiftly.

He learned a great deal about Richard Wade during the next few years.
Mostly, Wade liked to reminisce about the old days. He talked about
working for the networks--the _commercial_ networks, privately owned,
which flourished before the government took over communications media
in the '80s.

"That's where you got your start, eh?" Harry asked.

"Lord, no, boy! I'm a lot more ancient than you think. Why, I'm
pushing sixty-five. Born in 1940. That's right, during World War II. I
can almost remember the atomic bomb, and I sure as hell remember the
sputniks. It was a crazy period, let me tell you. The pessimists
worried about the Russians blowing us up, and the optimists were sure
we had a glorious future in the conquest of space. Ever hear that old
fable about the blind men examining an elephant? Well, that's the way
most people were; each of them groping around and trying to determine
the exact shape of things to come. A few of us even made a little
money from it for a while, writing science fiction. That's how I got
my start."

"You were a writer?"

"Sold my first story when I was eighteen or so. Kept on writing off
and on for almost twenty years. Of course, Robertson's thermo-nuc
formula came along in '75, and after that everything went to pot. It
knocked out the chances of future war, but it also knocked out the
interest in speculation or escape-fiction. So I moved over into
television for a while, and stayed with it. But the old science
fiction was fun while it lasted. Ever read any of it?"

"No," Harry admitted. "That was all before my time. Tell me,
though--did any of it make sense? I mean, did some of those writers
foresee what was really going to happen?"

"There were plenty of penny prophets and nickel Nostradamuses," Wade
told him. "But as I said, most of them were assuming war with the
Communists or a new era of space travel. Sinc