Bright Segment (18 page)

The Major touched a smooth-faced lieutenant on the arm. “What goes on?”

“Huh? The suit, sir? Oh, it’s all right. G-2’s been and gone. His,
all right. He’s got to be around someplace. Well, it’s us or the hot stuff—he can take his choice. The cordon’s getting radiation armor.”

“There’ll be hell to pay over this caper.”

“Don’t think so,” said the Lieutenant. “General Storms himself pegged a couple.”

“Make ‘im bleed, corp’ral,” shouted the barker to a pfc. He hopped from one foot to another, jingling coins in his pocket. “Whatsa matter, boys, you love ’im?”

“Imagine him, making a buck,” said the Lieutenant admiringly. “Regular clown.”

“Yeah, a clown,” said the Major, and walked away.

A soft voice said, “One look around here, I wish Reger’d gotten away with it.”

The Major said warmly, “You’re a regular freak around here, mister,” and was completely misunderstood. The man ran away, and the Major could have bitten his tongue in two.

I want to be in a place
, the Major thought suddenly, passionately,
where the truth makes a difference
. And
If I were a genius at extrapolation, where would I hide?

“Mr. Reger, you’re a reasonable man,” bellowed the speaker.

“Three for a dime. For a quarter you can throw a second lootenant.”

“He should hold out. He should go back into the bald-spot and fry slowly.”

The cordon moved in a foot.
I just thought of the funniest gag
, thought the Major.
You pour vinegar on this sponge, see, and hold it up on this stick
 …

Slowly he walked back toward the cordon, and then like a warm, growing light, it came to him what he would do if he were a genius at extrapolation, trapped between the advancing wolves and the leaping flames. He’d be a flame, or a wolf. But he couldn’t be this kind of a flame. He couldn’t be an advancing wolf. He’d have to be a wolf which stayed in one spot and let the advance pass him.

He went and stood by the man. This wasn’t the notorious Reger face, hollowed, slender, with the arched nose.

He realized abruptly that the man’s nose was broken and not
bruised. And a man would have to wear coveralls for weeks to get them that filthy.

“I’ll take three,” he said, and handed the man a dime.

“Atta boy, Maje.” He handed over two rocks and a billet. The Major aimed carefully, and said from the side of his mouth, “Okay, love-and-kisses. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

The barker had an instant of utter stillness. Behind him, the speaker roared. “You can trust
me
, Mr. Reger.”

The barker roared back, “An’ I’ll trust
you
Mr. Reger. Step right up and I’ll let you have a coupla rocks.” To the Major he said, “See, Maje? I’m in a position I can trust practically anyone.”

The Major hurled his rock at the space-suit. From the side of his mouth, hardly moving his lips, he said, “High temperature, light gases, no barrier. I know what you did. Let me get you out of here.” He threw again and hit the front of the space-suit.

“One on the house, one on the house. I like the way you’re going, Maje.”

The Major said, softly, “One thing you never extrapolated, genius. Suppose she loved you so much she would take you on faith when three billion people hated your guts?” He hurled the billet, and took out another dime. “I’ll call it. I’m going to break a nose.” He aimed slowly and said almost into his shoulder, “She never broke faith for a second. She’s here now. Will you come?” He threw the rock and hit the face-plate.

“Come on, Reger,” shouted the barker. “You got it coming to you sooner or later anyway.” He picked up one of his rocks, and whispered—whimpered, perhaps, “I might kill her if I go back …”

“She might die if you don’t.”

“There’s one you never expected, Reger!” roared the barker, and threw his rock. “Want to yell a while?” he said to a buck-toothed youth in overalls. “I got to go brush my teeth.” He walked straight toward the ambulant gate in the cordon, the Major right behind him. Roughly, the Major shoved the little man through. “If it’s all the same to you,” he said to the FBI man, “I’m curtailing this enterprise.”

A CIA man nearby hitched at a shoulder holster and growled, “Fine idea, Major. I was about to mistake him for Reger, the dirty
little bloodsucker.” They passed outside.

“Never thought I’d find you yelling and gabbing and mixing like that,” said the Major.

“You do what you have to do,” said the little man. “I once saw a woman lift a six-hundred-pound garage door with one hand and pull her little boy out with the other.” He stumbled.

The Major caught him. “Man—you’re whipped!”

“You don’t know,” he whispered. Suddenly, “Don’t you love her enough to turn me over to
them?
” You’ll never have a better chance.”

“Did I say I loved her?”

“One way or another.”

They were quiet all the way back to the airstrip. The Major said, in a choked voice, “I love her more than that … enough to …” He thumped the side of the plane. “I found him,” he called.

The door opened. “I knew you would,” she said. They helped Reger in. The Major climbed in beside the pilot. “Fly,” he said.

The Major thought,
She knew I would. She has faith in me, too
.

A long time later he thought,
That’s something, anyway
.

F
OR
R
OAN
,
THERE WAS
a flicker of blackness, almost too brief to notice, and he had arrived at his destination. He stepped down from the transplat and took three preoccupied steps before he realized, shockingly, that he had not materialized in the offices of J. & D. Walsh at all, but in a small plat-court hung with heavy and barbarous drapes. There was a fresh and disturbing odor in the air, which was too warm.

He cast about him worriedly, hunting for the dialpost that would send him to his father’s office. It was not where it should be, at the corner of the court. Petals! He was late, and lateness meant trouble.

“Well-l-l?” drawled a half singing, half whispering voice.

Roan spun, hitting the side of his foot painfully on the corner of the transplat. It made him hop. He had never felt so excruciatingly foolish in his entire thirty years.

“I’m sorry,” he spluttered. “I must have dialed the wrong number.” He located the source of the voice—a door across from him was open at its top panel, and, in the small space, was framed a face …

The
face!

If you dream about faces, you dream about them
after
you meet them, not before! The thought blazed at him, made him blink, and he blinked again at the cloud of golden hair and the laughing green eyes.

“… the wrong, you see,” he concluded lamely, “number.”

“Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t,” she said, in tones which could have been scored on a musical staff. Her hand appeared, to press back the side of the golden cloud.

A bare hand.

Tingling with shock at such wanton exposure, he looked away quickly. “I’ll have to—uh—may I use your transplat?”

“It’s better than walking,” she said and smiled. “It’s over there.” A long bare arm appeared, carrying a pointing finger. The arm was retracted and there was a small fumbling at the door-latch. “I’ll show you.”

“No!”
How could this creature forget that—that she wasn’t decently covered? “I’ll find it.” He floundered against the drapes, fumbled along them, at last threw one away from the dial pedestal. With his back firmly toward her, he said, “I have no tokens with me.”

“Do you
have
to go?”

“Yes!”

She laughed, “Well, either way, be my guest.”

“Thanks,” he managed. “I’ll—uh—send—” he began to dial busily and carefully, to avoid another wrong number—“send it to when I as soon as good of you three
five
.”

Averting his eyes, he stood on the transplat. She was still inside her cubicle, thank the powers. Then he remembered that he hadn’t the slightest idea of the number he had mistakenly dialed; although it had stared him in the face on her dialpost, he had been too distraught to read it.

“Oh, I didn’t get your number!” he said hoarsely, but the familiar flicker of total blackness had come and gone, and he was standing on the transplat inside the office of J. & D. Walsh, waving his hand stupidly at Corsonmay, the oldish receptionist with the youngish hair.

“My number?” Corsonmay echoed. Appallingly, she giggled. “Why, Roan
Walsh
, I never!” Under the privacy hood, her hands flickered. As he passed her desk, she pressed upon him a slip of paper. “It’s really a very easy one to remember,” she simpered.

He wordlessly stepped to his door. It slid back. He entered and, while it was closing behind him, hurled the paper violently at the disposal slot.
“Blossom!”
he cursed and slumped into his chair.

“Roan, step in here a moment!” snarled the grille above him.

“Yes, Private!” Roan gasped out.

He sat for a moment, drawing deep breaths as if the extra oxygen would somehow give him the right words to say. Then he rose and approached a side panel, which slid open for him. His father sat glowering at him. His father was dressed exactly as he was, exactly as Hallmay and Corsonmay and Walshmam and everyone else in the world was, except—but don’t think about
her
now, whatever happens!

Private Walsh swung his glower, beard and all, across Roan, then slipped his gloved hands under the privacy hood and studied them thoughtfully. Though Roan could not see them, he knew they were held with the fingers decently together, as unlike living things as possible.

“I am not pleased,” said Private Walsh.

What now?
Roan wondered hopelessly.

“There is more to a business than making profits,” said the bearded man. “There is more to this business than moving goods. It is not a large business, but an arch’s key is not necessarily a large stone. The transportation platform—” he droned, using the device’s formal name as if the service wore a mitred hat—“is the keystone of our entire culture, and this firm is the keystone of the transplat industry. Our responsibilities are great.
Your
responsibilities are great. A position such as yours requires certain intangibles over and above your ability to make out manifests. Integrity, boy, reliability—respect for privacy. And, above all, personal honor and decency.”

Roan, having heard this many times before, wrenched his features into an expression of penitence.

“One of the first indications of a gentleman—and to be a good businessman, one must be a good man, and the best of good men is a gentleman—one of the first ways of detecting the presence of a gentleman in our midst, I say, is to ask oneself this question: “Is he punctual?” Private Walsh leaned so far forward that his beard audibly brushed the privacy hood. The sound made Roan’s flesh creep. “You were late this morning!”

Roan had a hysterical impulse to blurt, “Well, you see, I stopped off at a girl’s place on the way and had a chat with her while she
waved her bare arm …” But even hysteria yielded to his conditioning. And then his mind began to work again.

“Private,” he said sorrowfully, “I
was
late. I can explain—” he heard the intake of breath and raised his voice slightly—“but I cannot excuse and will not try.” The breath slid out again. Roan stepped backward one step. “With your permission, then, Byepry.”

“Bye nothing. What is this explanation?”

This had better be good, Roan told himself. He put his hand behind him. He knew this, with face downcast, added to his penitent appearance.

“I awoke this morning caught up with a great idea,” he said. “I think I have found an
economy
.”

“If you have,” rumbled the beard, “it’s been hiding from me.”

“Each load of freight we transplat carries a man with it. This man does nothing but hold the manifest in his hand and look up the receiver’s clerk at the arrival point. My plan is to eliminate that man.”

“You awoke with this in mind?”

“Yes, Private,” Roan lied, still marveling at his mental resourcefulness.

“And thinking about it delayed you?”

“Yes, Private.”

“Since you were apparently fated to be late in any case,” the old man said acidly, “you’d have done better to stay asleep. You would have wasted less of your time—and mine.”

Roan knew enough to keep his mouth shut.

“In the history of matter transmission,” said his father, “nine shipments have gone astray. The consequences are appalling. I shall assign you to read the history of these nine cases and memorize the figures. In one such case—the arrival of one hundred and twelve cubic meters of pig-iron in a private house measuring eighty-four meters—the results were spectacularly expensive.”

“But that can’t happen now!”

“No, it can’t,” admitted Private Walsh. “Not since the capacity-lock, which prevents the shipment of any volume to a smaller one. But there is still room for some gruesome possibilities, as in the
Fathers of Leander case, when two hundred female assembly workers were sent, in error, into the monastery of this silent order. The damages—first degree violation of privacy, you know—were quadrupled for the particular aggravation and multiplied by the number of Fathers and novitiates. Eight hundred and fourteen, if I remember correctly, and I do.

“Now, the employment of a properly trained operator would have reduced the presence of these females in that building to a matter of tenths of a second and the damages accordingly. The shipment would have been returned to its source almost before it had arrived. As long as such things can occur, the wages paid these operators are cheap insurance indeed.” He paused ironically. “Is there anything else you want to suggest?”

“If you please, Private,” Roan said formally, “I am acquainted with these matters. My suggestion was this—that phone contact be made with the receiving party when the shipment is ready—that our bonded transplat operator dial seven of the eight digits necessary—and that the final impulse be activated at the receiving point by audio or video, or even by a separate beamed radio, which we could supply to our regular customers or deliver by messenger a few minutes before the main shipment.”