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reasons of mental incompetence. Tek, apparently, liked the position of
follower for some strong reason of his own. I got the impression that he was
waiting for something, and the time was not yet ripe for whatever it was. Bin
volunteered Mr reason,
"Thank God you're all right again," be said to me, the first time we were off
together out of earshot of the others, on an advance patrol in the pickup. "If
you'd gone on that way, with your mind a thousand miles off most of the time,
for another week, this outfit would have fallen apart." "Oh, I dont think so,"
I said. "Tek and Marie would probably have worked out some kind of agreement
to keep the tribe together."
He looked at me, I.thought, a little oddly.
"Even if they had," he said, "tbat'd be as bad as falling apart We're not out
here just to survive. We're out here to find out what makes the temporal
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discontinuities operate. With you not in charge, any hope of that'd be lost."
"Not necessarily," I said.
"Necessarily. I can't control them, and you're the only other intelligent
person here." He was serious.
"Don't underestimate Tek," I said.
"He's smart," said Bill grimly. "He's not intelligent He can't appreciate the
value of going after knowledge for its own sake. If be ever tries to take over
from you, Fll kitt him. I told him so."
I stared at Bill. Evidently, he meant what he had said.
"There's no danger," I said. "Anyway, you'd better wait until I call for help,
before you go thinking of killing anyone. We don't want anybody shot by
mistake."
"All right" said Bill. Exactly as if he was agreeing not to pass the salt at
breakfast until I asked for it
"Good," I said. "Now everything's just the way it has been. Let's forget it"
Only it wasnt-just the way it had been, I mean. For one tiling, Marie had gone
away from me in a manner that's hard to describe. She acted no differently wan
she ever had, but it was almost as if she had given op hope that there could
be anything more than an alliance of convenience between us. Put that way, it
doesn't sound like anything too important. But it left me feeling guilty in
spite of the fact that I was fully convinced that I owed her nothing; and, in
addition, I was helpless to do anything to mend the situation.
Tek had also changed. He was as much at my orders as ever, but I found him
taking charge of the other men whenever there was a vacuum of command, quite
as if I had appointed him my lieutenant And finally, there was the girl....
For one thing, she had evidently acquired a name while my mind was off on the
web. It sounded like "EUy" when the others used it; but Marie, when I asked
her, told me that it was actually Ellen and that Tek had given it to the girl.
Well, at least that made more sense. It was unlikely she had suddenly
remembered her name, when she had gone this long time without remembering
anything else. But when I asked Tefc what made him think he could name her, he
denied be had.
"I had to call her something," he said. "I asked her what she wanted for a
name, and that's the one she picked for herself."
Ellen was a pretty enough name in its own way; I wondered where she had gotten
it But "Elly," or however they might have spelled its contraction, was ugly, I
thought I could not bring myself to use it. As far as I was concerned she was
stilt "the girl"; but I was plainly a minority of one in that
Tek was paying a good deal of attention to her, and she was spending most of
her time in his company. For no particular reason, I found I didnt approve of
that either. She had developed more than I had noticed-I pow noticed-since
those first days when the only tilings that looked human on her were a shirt
and jeans. She wore dresses now that, possibly with Marie's help, had been
altered to fit her, and her ban: was always clean, tied in a ponytail at the
back of her head. She was even starting to develop a few curves.
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