one-two-three for me, revised

I accidentally sent out this message before I was quite done. That last sentence should be replaced by the following: I don't think the stories are linked in any direct way, but they both are science fiction stories that seem to involve a supernatural event which results in the death of a woman. They both contain a story within a story and it is very hard to be sure what is going on in either the inner (supernatural) or the outer (science fiction) story, at least in part because of a lack of information. And I will add a final indication that Wolfe wasn't entirely serious in writing this story. On page 43 of Strange Travelers, there is the following passage: --------------------- ... her bot said it was for calling people who weren't there, and was well known to science and all that. So we asked what the buttons were for and the bot said they were to say who you wanted. "That's crazy," Jo An said, "why not just say who you want, like we do?" And the bot said that back then people mostly thought they were too good to talk to machines unless to call them names, so they did this. --------------------- Now, I don't find this a convincing explanation, personally. Someone is having some fun here. It could be Jak or the bot, but my money is on Wolfe. William Ansley