They’ve paused in their walking. Roger stares back at the man. The Antimexico. “Ideas of the opposite” themselves, but on what cortex, what winter hemisphere? What ruinous mosaic, facing outward into the Waste… outward from the sheltering city… readable only to those who journey outside… eyes in the distance… barbarians… riders….

“We both have Slothrop,” is what Pointsman has just said.

“Pointsman—what are you expecting out of this? Besides glory, I mean.”

“No more than Pavlov. A physiological basis for what seems very odd behavior. I don’t care which of your P.R.S. categories it may fit into—oddly enough none of you’s even suggested telepathy: perhaps he’s tuned in to someone over there, someone who knows the German firing schedule ahead of time. Eh? And I don’t care if it’s some terrible Freudian revenge against his mother for trying to castrate him or something. I am not grandiose, Mexico. I am modest, methodical—”

“Humble.”

“I have set myself limitations in this. I have only the reversal of rocket sounds to go on… his clinical history of sexual conditioning, perhaps to auditory stimuli, and what appears to be a reversal of cause-and-effect. I’m not as ready as you to junk cause-and-effect, but if it does need modifying—so be it.”

“But what are you after?”