in his chair, causing its legs to ride through the pile of the carpet, tilting it 
backwards until it slammed against the window sill and rebounded.
  The-apparition?-the thing, where it stood half-way between the door and the desk, 
hadn't moved. At first Kyle had thought (and had dreaded the thought) that it could only 
be himself he saw standing there, somehow projected forward from the dream. But now he 
saw that it was someone-something-else. Not once did it enter his mind to question the 
reality of what he was seeing, and not for a moment did he consider it to be anything 
other than supernatural. How could it be anything else? The scanners where they 
constantly swept the room, the entire suite of offices, had detected nothing. Entirely 
independent, if they had picked up anything at all intruder buzzers would be going off 
right now, and getting louder by the minute until someone sat up and took notice. But the 
alarms were silent. Ergo, there was nothing here to scan-and yet Kyle saw it.
  It, he, was a man-a youth, anyway-naked as a baby, standing there facing Kyle, looking 
directly at him. But his feet weren't quite touching the carpeted floor and the bars of 
green light from the windows penetrated into his flesh as if it had no substance at all. 
Damn it-it had no substance at all! But the thing stared at him, and Kyle knew that it 
saw him. And in the back of his mind he asked himself: Is it friendly, or-?
  Inching his chair forward again, his eyes spied something in the back of the open 
drawer. A Browning 9mm automatic. He'd known Gormley carried a weapon but hadn't known 
about this one. But would the gun be loaded, and if it was would it be any good against 
this?
  'No,' said the naked apparition with a slow, almost imperceptible shake of its head. 
'No it wouldn't.' Which was all the more surprising because its lips didn't move by the 
smallest fraction of an inch!
  'Jesus Christ!' Kyle gasped again, out loud this time, as he once more gave an 
involuntary start away from the desk. And then, controlling himself, to himself, he said:
  You... you read my mind!
  The apparition smiled a thin smile. 'We all have our talents, Alec. You have yours and 
I have mine.'
  Kyle's lower jaw, already agape, now fell open. He wondered which would be easier: to 
simply think at the thing or to talk to it.
  'Just talk to me,' said the other. 'I think that will be easier for both of us.'
  Kyle gulped, tried to say something, gulped again and finally gasped out: 'But who... 
what... what the hell are you?'
  'Who I am doesn't matter. What I have been and will be does. Now listen, I've a lot to 
tell you and it's all rather important. It will take some time, hours maybe. Do you need 
anything before I begin?'
  Kyle stared hard at the... whatever it was. He stared at it, jerked his eyes away from 
it, peered at it out of the corner of his eye. It was still there. He surrendered to 
instinct backed up by at least two of his five senses, those of sight and hearing. The 
thing seemed rational; it existed; it wanted to talk to him. Why him and why now? 
Doubtless he'd shortly be finding out. But-God damn!-he wanted to talk to it, too. He had 
a real live ghost here, or a real dead one!
  'Need anything?' he shakily repeated the other's question.
  'You were going to light a cigarette,' the apparition pointed out. 'You might also like 
to take your coat off, get yourself a coffee.' It shrugged. 'If you do these things 
first, then we can get on with it.'
  The central heating had come on, turning itself up a notch to compensate for the sudden 
fall in temperature. Kyle carefully stood up, took off his overcoat and folded it over 
the back of his chair. 'Coffee,' he said. 'Yes-er, I'll just be a moment.'
  He walked round the desk and past his visitor. It turned to watch him leave the room, a 
pale shadow of a thing floating there, skinny, insubstantial as a snowflake, a puff of 
smoke. And yet...oh, yes, there was a power in it. Kyle was thankful it didn't follow 
him...
  He put two five-pence pieces in the coffee machine in the main office, fumbling the 
coins into the slot, and headed for the gents' toilet before the machine could deliver. 
He quickly relieved himself, picked up his steaming paper cup of coffee on the way back 
to Gormley's office. The thing was still there, waiting for him. He carefully walked 
round it, seated himself again at the desk.
  And as he lit a cigarette he looked at his visitor more closely, in greater detail. 
This was something he had to get fixed in his mind.
  Taking into account the fact that its feet weren't quite touching the floor, it must be 
about five-ten in height. If its flesh was real instead of milky mist, it-or he-would 
weigh maybe nine stone. Everything about him was vaguely luminous, as if shining with 
some faint inner light, so Kyle couldn't be sure about colouring. His hair, an untidy 
mop, seemed sandy. Faint and irregular marks on his high cheeks and forehead might be 
freckles. He would be, oh, maybe twenty-five years old; he had looked younger at first 
but that effect was wearing off now.
  His eyes were interesting. They looked at Kyle and yet seemed to look right through 
him, as if he were the ghost and not the other way about. They were blue, those eyes-that 
startlingly colourless blue which always looks so unnatural, so that you think the owner 
must be wearing lenses. But more than that, there was that in those eyes which said they 
knew more than any twenty-five-year-old had any right knowing. The wisdom of ages seemed 
locked in them, the knowledge of centuries lay just beneath the faintly blue film which 
covered them.
  Apart from that, his features were fine, like porcelain and seeming equally fragile; 
his hands were slim, tapering; his shoulders drooped a little; his skin in general, apart 
from the freckles of his face, was pale and unblemished. But for the eyes, you probably 
wouldn't look at him twice on the street. He was just... a young man. Or a young ghost. 
Or maybe a very old one.
  'No,' said the object of Kyle's scrutiny, his lips immobile, 'I'm not any kind of 
ghost. Not in the classic sense of the word, anyway. But now, since you obviously accept 
me, can we begin?'
  'Begin? Er, of course!' Kyle suddenly felt like laughing, hysterical as a schoolgirl. 
He controlled it with an effort.
  'Are you sure you're ready?'
  'Yes, yes. Go right ahead. But-er-can I record this? For posterity or whatever, you 
know? There's a tape recorder here, and I -'
  'The machine won't hear me,' said the other, shaking his head again. 'Sorry, but I'm 
only speaking to you-directly to you. I thought you understood that? But... take notes if 
you wish.'
  'Notes, yes...' Kyle scrabbled in the desk drawers, found paper and a pencil. 'Fine, 
I'm ready.'
  The other slowly nodded. 'The story I have to tell is... strange. But working in an 
organisation such as yours, you shouldn't find it too unbelievable. If you do... there'll 
be plenty for you to do afterwards; the truth of the things I'm going to tell you will 
come out then. As to any doubts you may have about the future of your branch-put them 
aside. Your work will go on, and it will go from strength to strength. Gormley was the 
head, but he's dead. Now you will be head-for a little while. You'll be up to it, I 
assure you. Anyway, nothing that Gormley knew has been lost; indeed, much has been