Prescription for Chaos (37 page)

She smiled, and time stopped again.

Muir finally recovered enough to glance at a clock on the mantle. "It's after one. I know you won't want to leave Sally and Marius, but I think there's a fast food place down the road. If you don't mind the menu, I could bring back something for lunch."

Before she could say anything, Marius stepped back into the room. "Mom, Dad's touchstone is gone. It was always in the hall cupboard, outside your door, and it isn't there now."

Muir said, "That's what I came about. Dr. Allen put it on my desk this morning, and I've brought it with me."

The boy, startled, looked at Muir.

Gloria Griswell shook her head. "My crimes are catching up with me." She looked back at her son. "I took it in to Dr. Allen, because I thought your father would want him to have it if we didn't. And I knew Van didn't want to see it again. You used it on his plans, remember?"

"Him," sneered the boy. He glanced at Muir. "He brought his plans for the house he was going to put up here after he tore this house down. You should have heard the touchstone."

Muir shook his head. "I don't know much about it. Dr. Allen wanted me to look into it, and I came out here to ask for advice."

Marius beamed. "I'll show you how it works. Or Mom can." He looked back at his mother. "But, Mom, I'm hungry, and Sally says she's hungry. Did I just hear Felix say he'd get us something to eat?"

"Just before you came in. But—"

"You better go with him, Mom. He might get lost." The boy glanced apologetically at Muir. "It can be kind of complicated."

Gloria Griswell looked hard at her son.

Muir nodded. "A good idea." He glanced at her. "But if you'd rather not leave them alone—"

Her voice had a somewhat strangled sound. "I think they can take care of themselves." She took another look at young Marius. "It should only take us a few minutes."

"If," said Marius, "you don't get lost. I want a double cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake. Sally wants a hamburger and orange juice. We both want French fries. We could use a blueberry pie and an apple pie, and we'll fight that out after we've got them."

Muir dutifully repeated the order, led the way outside, and held the car door open.

"Did you," she said, on the way down the road, "have the impression of being manipulated?"

He laughed. "How could you think it?"

"Look there."

Straight ahead was the local franchise of a worldwide fast-food chain. So far, they had passed no intersection or side road.

She said, "Did you need my help to get here?"

"Of course. I could have turned the wrong way, coming out the drive."

"For weeks, nearly every time I've tried to go out, something would happen, and usually Marius or Sally was responsible. Now they all but push me out."

"Sally, too?"

"Sally, too. Though he's the ringleader."

They stopped in the line of cars at the drive-in. He turned to her, and she looked back and smiled. The car ahead moved on. The car behind gave a blast of the horn.

A few minutes later, they were back on the road, with their order in several large bags. As they got out of the car, Marius ran out, studied their expressions anxiously, then looked relieved. He took the bags, methodically selected his share and Sally's, and said, "I cleared off the table out by the sandbox, Mom. You and Felix can eat there."

Gloria Griswell stared after him as he went into the house, then bit her lip.

Muir said, "What's wrong with the spot?"

"Let me show you."

They went down the walk, over a little footbridge across a brook that now in the summer was reduced to a trickle, and then along a narrow path through thick young pines to a little sunny clearing containing a small very clean table, two benches, and a sandbox.

"For the children's picnics," she said.

In the warm stillness, he looked around at the dense pines. "It does look unusually private."

She divided the various burgers and drinks. "Marius has a maze of tunnels through the lower branches."

"He could pop through anytime?"

"And will."

They ate in silence, then he said, "I'm not usually tongue-tied. But—"

A trapped look momentarily crossed her face, and he glanced around. "But I haven't wanted to ask about the device Dr. Allen showed me until there was more time to talk." She flashed him a grateful look as young Marius popped out from the pines.

"Mom, is the ice-cream in the freezer?"

"Why don't you look?"

"Because you left the wash on the freezer in a clothes basket."

"Can't you—"

"It's wet. You didn't put it in the dryer."

"Then—"

"I could get it off, but it's heavy, and it might spill. And the floor's filthy . . . Because, remember, you forgot—"

"Never mind," she said.

Muir thought that he could now guess what Allen had been thinking when he implied that Gloria Griswell was handicapped in the marriage market. He said, "I'll be glad to move the clothes basket, Mrs. Griswell."

Marius said, "Mom's name is—"

She said, "Will you get out of here, Marius?"

"Why can't Felix—"

Muir turned to her. "May I call you Gloria?"

"Yes!"

Marius grinned. "You sound—"

"For heaven's sake! Marius—"

Muir smiled. "I'll help Marius look for the ice cream. After all, no one can talk and eat at the same time."

She said, "I'm not sure of that, but it's worth a try. If you'll move the basket, I'll see if I can find the ice cream. Maybe we could even have some ourselves."

Marius said shyly. "There might be a little left."

Muir had expected to leave in an hour or two, but found himself, toward four o'clock, putting Sally in her crib. Sally, who had her mother's enchanting smile, clung to Muir's hand, smiled up at him, then put her head on her pillow, sighed sweetly, and shut her eyes.

Gloria Griswell looked down unbelievingly into the crib, glanced at Muir, and bit her lip. Muir followed Gloria out of the room, glanced back at Marius standing with innocent satisfaction beside the crib, and murmured, "Is Marius staying with Sally?"

"Evidently," said Gloria.

As they started down the stairs, Muir kept his voice low, "Could we talk about the touchstone?"

"All right."

"It's in my car."

"I'll go with you. There's something I have to say."

He led the way outdoors. "Did you want to get in?"

"I . . . Yes."

He held the door for her, then got in the other side.

She sat looking at her hands. "I'm willing to help you learn about the touchstone. But I—" She paused, and turned to him in silence.

He studied her look of bleak determination, and said carefully, "If you are trying to tell me not to presume on any momentary sympathy between us, or not to imagine that Marius selects your friends for you, you'll have to say it. I'm short on tact, and make it up in stubbornness."

She looked at him in silence, then her eyes went shut, she looked away, and tears ran down her cheeks. Her voice was a whisper. "I'm trying to—to keep you from being entangled in a—fate worse then death, by Marius."

"You think Marius . . ."

"He's afraid his blockheaded mother will attract some unsympathetic fellow that he and Sally will then be stuck with. He likes you, so he's doing everything he can to throw us together. He knows Sally is a little demon when she gets mad, and he doesn't want you to see that. He's been so busy driving men away that it took a while to grasp his latest tactics."

"I liked you before he had a chance to do a thing."

She blushed, then said stubbornly, "At the risk of sounding even more silly than I must already, you don't want to get entangled with a widow with two children."

He nodded. "In principle, that's true. And you don't want to get mixed up with someone too dull to understand tact. Still, on the other hand, a lot depends on specifics. Which two children? Which woman? You can't deal with these questions in generalities. Have you considered the details?"

She said, "I'm beginning to be sorry I tried to save you."

"That's all right. I appreciate the gesture."

After a moment, she sighed. "Where were we?"

"You were going to tell me about the touchstone."

She nodded, and he got the briefcase, and they went back into the house.

She led the way down the hall, to a paneled white door with a brass knob.

"Marius's father used this room as a study."

Muir looked into a large dim room with book-lined walls, comfortable chairs and sofa, and a closed rolltop desk.

She turned on a floor lamp, and pushed up the curving slide of the desk, to reveal numerous pigeonholes and shelves. On two shelves lay a pair of books, which she placed, face-down, on the writing surface of the desk. She took the touchstone, aimed its little cone at the first book, and pressed the right-hand grey button. There was a singing melodious note.

She turned the cone toward the second book. The touchstone gave a sickly groan.

Muir picked up the first book, to recognize a chemistry text of the early 1900s. The author had used care to distinguish fact from the theories of his day, so the book was still useful. Muir picked up the second book, didn't recognize it, and read:

". . . is 'at random.' Like when you're shooting craps you don't know what numbers will turn up. Or when somebody gets high, you don't know what he or she will do. This is at random.

"When these mollies bounce off each other, and hit the wall, it is at random. But when they hit the wall, their push makes a pressure. You can measure the pressure.

"CHEMFACT: Maybe you can tell what will happen even when the thing that makes it happen is at random.

"NEWWORD: Mollie. Mollie-cule. Mol-e-cule. Molecule. See?

"CHEMQUIZ: 'When people get beered up, is it at random?'"

Muir flipped to the front of the book, to learn that "this is the first in a new series of science texts designed to relate intimately to today's more demanding student."

Gloria Griswell watched the expressions that crossed his face, and smiled. "The left button gives a reading on the meter. The right button gives a tone. The meter can measure small differences. The tone can differentiate all sorts of things."

"It's a touchstone for quality of workmanship?"

"As nearly as I can judge."

"It will work on what?"

"Anything man-made."

He let his breath out carefully. "No wonder Allen wouldn't give details. All right if I try it?"

She handed the device to him.

Muir aimed the cone at the desk itself, and pushed the right-hand button. A singing note sounded.

He tried the left-hand button. This time there was silence, but the needle swung far across the dial from left to right.

Muir glanced around the bookshelves, to a green plastic hand that held aloft a pot metal ashtray. He aimed, pushed the right-hand button. The touchstone emitted a croak.

Muir went methodically around the room. Usually the device gave a pleasant tone. But it made no response to the potted plants that sat on a window sill, and it made groaning, croaking, or bleating noises for a stoneware spider with nine legs and a built-in clock that didn't run, for a small doll in a bikini that shot from its mouth a cigarette-lighting flame, and for a printed invitation, preserved in plastic:

"Congratulations! Our sophisticated computer analysis has revealed a small select group of individuals who capably manage their own affairs. You are one of this select group! Now, for a limited time, we invite you to place at your disposal the limitless credit and extensive financial resources of our prestigious exclusive organization . . ."

Muir turned the plastic over, to find on the back a lengthy questionnaire in fine print, along with a little notice:

"DO NOT apply for Credit Approval if your income is below $39,000. Return the enclosed Card AT ONCE by Registered Mail!"

Like an insect preserved in amber, the credit card itself was embedded in the plastic, made out to "Marius Gristmill, Sr."

Muir aimed the cone-shaped coil at the card; the touchstone emitted a sickly bleating noise, several times repeated.

He looked up. "I have to agree with its sentiments. But I don't begin to understand it."

"I didn't mention understanding. I only said I would show you."

"Do you understand it?"

"I know what it will do. That's all."

"It won't work on people?"

"It will respond to clothing or accessories. There's no response to an individual, as far as I know."

"Did Dr. Griswell ever explain this?"

She nodded ruefully. "More than once."

"What—"

"The explanations varied."

"Why so?"

She shook her head. "His sense of humor. He said once that the lab had deciphered the genetic codes of the nose of a cat and the vocal organs of a goat, translated them into machine language, and burned the result into an EPROM installed in the touchstone."

As Muir grappled with this, she added, "So they had a program that could smell a rat, and say what it thought of it in sounds anyone could appreciate."

Muir became aware of a catch in her voice, and stopped asking questions. He sat down on the couch, and set the device carefully on a low table nearby.

She blew her nose, and after a moment's silence, said, "Does the touchstone make problems?"

"Unless there are circuits inside that are complicated beyond belief, and sensors to match, I'm afraid the touchstone is 'scientifically impossible'—unless Dr. Griswell made it as a joke."

"A joke?"

"Well, he could have embedded, in items around this room, tiny devices—like what's detected when a book is taken out of a library without having been checked out. The touchstone would give the reading, or the kind of sound, that had been encoded in advance."

She shook her head. "It will work on things that are brand-new as of now. How can you say it is 'scientifically impossible'?"

"If it works, of course it's scientifically possible. I mean that it looks incompatible with present-day scientific assumptions."