"Give me the Homicide Detail," said Lantry, smiling.
"The _what_?"
"Who investigates murders?"
"I beg your pardon, what are you talking about?"
"Wrong number." Lantry hung up, chuckling. Ye gods, there was no such
a thing as a Homicide Detail. There were no murders, therefore they
needed no detectives. Perfect, perfect!
The audio rang back. Lantry hesitated, then answered.
"Say," said the voice on the phone. "Who _are_ you?"
"The man just left who called," said Lantry, and hung up again.
He ran. They would recognize his voice and perhaps send someone out
to check. People didn't lie. _He_ had just lied. They knew his voice.
He had lied. Anybody who lied needed a psychiatrist. They would come
to pick him up to see why he was lying. For no _other_ reason. They
suspected him of nothing else. Therefore--he must run.
Oh, how very carefully he must act from now on. He knew nothing of this
world, this odd straight truthful ethical world. Simply by looking
pale you were suspect. Simply by not sleeping nights you were suspect.
Simply by not bathing, by smelling like a--dead cow?--you were suspect.
Anything.
He must go to a library. But that was dangerous, too. What were
libraries like today? Did they have books or did they have film spools
which projected books on a screen? Or did people have libraries at
home, thus eliminating the necessity of keeping large main libraries?
He decided to chance it. His use of archaic terms might well make him
suspect again, but now it was very important he learn all that could be
learned of this foul world into which he had come again. He stopped a
man on the street. "Which way to the library?"