lines of
action had taken place simultaneously. Paul took off his selectorscope
spectacles with the earphone attachments.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the manager said. "I regret very much having to
announce that this vicarion of the production _Spies from Space_ was
defective. The multifilm has broken and, because of the complexity of
the vikie process, it will be impossible to splice it without returning
it to the laboratory.

"Ushers are at the exits with passes good for any future performance.
Those of you who prefer can exchange them at the box office for a full
refund of your admission price."

Paul Asher unstrapped the wired canvas band from across his chest. He
put the selectorscope spectacles into the pouch on the arm of the seat
and walked out of the R.K.O. Vicarion into High Street and around the
corner to where his car was parked.

His roommate at the communapt, MacCloy, was still up when he got there,
going over some projectos. Mac snapped off the screen and quickly swept
the slides together and into a case.

"You're back early," MacCloy said.

"The multifilm broke," Paul told him.

"Oh." Mac seemed abstracted, as he often did, and again Paul wondered
about this man he knew so casually and who had never confided in him
about anything--especially about his government job.

"So I missed the ending," Paul said. "I guess it was near the end,
anyhow. The space patrol was on the way, but the villain, that Hafitz,
was just about to blast me with his gun and I don't know how I would
have got out of that."

"I remember that," Mac said. He laughed. "You must have been Positive
all the way through. Like I was when I saw it. If you'd had any negative
reactions--if you'd leaned back against the strap instead of
forward--you'd have been at some other point in the multiplot and I
wouldn't have recognized that part. Want me to tell you how it ends?"

"Go ahead. Then if I do see it again I'll change the ending somewhere
along the line with a lean-back."

"Okay. There really wasn't much more. It takes so much film to provide
all the plot choices that they can't make them very long.

"Well, Hafitz blasts me and misses," Mac went on, "--or blasts _you_ and
misses, to keep it in your viewpoint. When you jump back, you set off a
bunch of controls. That was the control room, too, not just the
communications room. Well, those controls you lean back against take the
ship out of automatic pilot and send it into some wild