Dayworld (36 page)

Yet Caird had grown it and had encysted it except for one channel. Through this channel, it had siphoned off thoughts of escape as swiftly as they had come to Caird. It cut off the channel when Caird was subjected to the truth drug, and it switched the channel back on when the drug had worn off.

It had also siphoned off, neurally speaking, all the thoughts that Caird had had when, long ago, he was planning this thing of no time, no shape, and no name.

The government would sound the alarm and notify all relevant authorities when it discovered that he had escaped. But its identification of the fugitive would be wrong. The thing, which had become a man, would not be the prisoner known as Jefferson Cervantes Caird.