“But if I can’t, what happens then? And it sounds impossibly complicated to me,” Seven cried. He took on his fourteen-year-old male image to emphasize his lack of experience in such matters, and stood there, looking dismayed and put-upon. “And what about John Window and Josephine Blithe and Gregory Diggs and their problems?” he said glumly. “What do they have to do with all this?”

Cyprus took on her favorite image of the woman teacher, her face changing from an ancient, knowing one to a young one that nevertheless shone with the wisdom of age. She smiled and said softly, “Seven, I’m not going to give you all of the answers. And if I were you, I’d get busy. You left your body in the twentieth-century attic for one thing, and for another, probabilities are really spinning at this moment because George the Third is about to open up this attic door. So you’d better get back to the right time in a hurry.”

“Now I’m so confused that I don’t know how to,” Seven protested. “I certainly don’t want to go through that tunnel again either, if I don’t have to.”

Cyprus sighed. “Think of Framework Two,” she directed. “It’s the Inside of every time and place. Concentrate on the time you want, and you’ll come out there.”

“You’re sure?” Seven asked, dubiously. “And why didn’t you tell me about Framework Two before?”

“I can’t explain right now, but yes, I’m sure about the directions I just gave you. They won’t work, though, unless you’re sure, too.”

“I’m sure,” Seven said promptly. He imagined Framework Two as being the Insideness of all times and places, and then said mentally, “I want this room and time of night, but on June 2, 1982.”

To help himself concentrate, he’d closed his mental eyes and when nothing seemed to be happening, he opened them. It worked! There was his nifty twentieth-century body, lying empty on the old cot. Seven grinned, and dived into the physical form—just in time.

The attic door opened, and George Brainbridge the Third stuck his head inside the room and bellowed, “Well, it’s dawn. Did you find the damned journals?”

Chapter Sixteen

Brothers of the Mind, a Dream Investigation, and Paranoia from the Past

The Codicils were such a part of Monarch’s mental life, and so self-explanatory, that it was extremely difficult for him to imagine what the world must have been like without them. He knew that the historians had left huge gaps in their story of man’s progress. At the same time, as he prepared for the 500th anniversary, the cinquecentennial celebration of the Codicils’ origin, Monarch found himself considering the pre-Codicil world with feelings of strong disquiet.