The Collected Stories of Frank Herbert (49 page)

After the momentary flash of anger, Gwen correctly interpreted the act as one of desperation. She found herself intrigued. She stared at the round face, the pale eyes (definitely too small, those eyes), the pug nose and wide gash of mouth above almost no chin at all.

Plus the hairline in full retreat.

“André, you are a mess,” she said.

He ignored the insult. Still speaking in the urgency octave, he said: “I have called a full staff meeting. You must attend at once.”

“Why?”

“There are two military people in there, Gwen.” He gulped. “It's desperate. Either we solve their problem or they will ruin us. They will draft every man in the agency!”

“Even you?”

“Yes!”

She moved her right hand toward the interphon's emergency disconnect. “Good-by, André.”

“Gwen! My God! You can't let me down at a time like this!”

“Why not?”

He spoke in breathless haste. “We'll raise your salary. A bonus. A bigger office. More help.”

“You can't afford me now,” she said.

“I'm begging you, Gwen. Must you abuse me?”

She closed her eyes, thought:
The insects! The damned little insects with their crummy emotions! Why can't I tell them all to go to composite hell?
She opened her eyes, said: “What's the military's flap?”

Battlemont mopped his forehead with a pastel blue handkerchief. “It's the Space Service,” he said. “The female branch. The WOMS. Enlistments have fallen to almost nothing.”

She was interested in spite of herself. “What's happened?”

“Something to do with the space armor. I don't know. I'm so upset.”

“Why have they tossed it into our laps like this? The ultimatum, I mean.”

Battlemont glanced left and right, leaned forward. “The grapevine has it they're testing a new theory that creative people work better under extreme stress.”

“The Psychological Branch again,” she said. “Those jackasses!”

“But what can we do?”

“Hoist 'em,” she said. “You run along to the conference.”

“And you'll be there, Gwen?”

“In a few minutes.”

“Don't delay too long, Gwen.” Again he mopped his forehead with the blue handkerchief. “Gwen, I'm frightened.”

“And with good reason.” She squinted at him. “I can see you now: Nothing on but a lead loincloth, dumping fuel into a radioactive furnace. Freud, what a picture!”

“This is no joke, Gwen!”

“I know.”

“You
are
going to help?”

“In my own peculiar way, André.” She hit the emergency disconnect.

André Battlemont turned away from his interphon, crossed his office to a genuine Moslem prayer rug. He sat down on it facing the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked eastward across midtown Manhattan. This was the 1479th floor of the Stars of Space building, and it was quite a view out there whenever the clouds lifted. But the city remained hidden beneath a low ceiling this morning.

Up here it was sunny, though—except in Battlemont's mood. A fear-cycle ululated along his nerves.

What he was doing on the prayer rug was practicing Yoga breathing to calm those nerves. The military could wait. They
had
to wait. The fact that he faced the general direction of Mecca was left over from two months before. Yoga was a month old. There was always some carry-over.

Battlemont had joined the Religion of the Month Club almost a year ago—seduced by his own agency's deep motivation campaign plus the Brotherhood Council's seal of approval.

This month it was the Reinspired Neo-Cult of St. Freud.

A test adecal superimposed itself on the cloud-floor view beneath him. It began playing the latest Gwen-Everest-inspired pitch of the IBMausoleum. Giant rainbow letters danced across the fleecy background.

“Make your advice immortal! Let us store your voice and thought patterns in everlasting electronic memory circuits! When you are gone, your loved ones may listen to your voice as you answer their questions exactly the way you would most likely have answered them in Life!”

Battlemont shook his head. The agency, fearful of its dependence on the live Gwen Everest, had secretly recorded her at a staff conference once. Very illegal. The unions were death on it. But the IBMausoleum had broken down with the first question put to Gwen's ghost-voice.

“Some people have thought patterns that are too complex to permit accurate psyche-record,” the engineer explained.

Battlemont did not delude himself. The sole genius of the agency's three owners lay in recognizing the genius of Gwen Everest. She
was
the agency.

It was like riding the tiger to have such an employee. Singlemaster, Hucksting and Battlemont had ridden this tiger for 22 years. Battlemont closed his eyes, pictured her in his mind: a tall, lean woman, but with a certain grace. Her face was long, dominated by cold blue eyes, framed in waves of auburn hair. She had a wit that could slash you to ribbons, and that priceless commodity: the genius to pull selling sense out of utter confusion.

Battlemont sighed.

He was in love with Gwen Everest. Had been for 22 years. It was the reason he had never married. His Interdorma explained that it was because he wanted to be dominated by a strong woman.

But that only explained. It didn't help.

For a moment, he thought wistfully of Singlemaster and Hucksting, both taking their annual three-month vacation at the geriatrics center on Oahu. Battlemont wondered if he dared ask Gwen to take her vacation with him. Just once.

No.

He realized what a pitiful figure he made on the prayer rug. Pudgy little man in a rather unattractive blue suit.

Tailors did things for him that they called “improving your good points.” But except when he viewed himself in a Vesta-Mirror to see the sample clothes projected back onto his own idealized image, he could never pin down what those “good points” were.

Gwen would certainly turn him down.

He feared that more than anything. As long as there remained the possibility …

Memory of the waiting Space Service deputation intruded. Battlemont trembled, broke the Yoga breathing pattern. The exercise was having its usual effect: a feeling of vertigo. He heaved himself to his feet.

“One cannot run away from fate,” he muttered.

That was a carry-over from the Karma month.

According to Gwen, the agency's conference room had been copied from a Florentine bordello's Emperor Room. It was a gigantic space. The corners were all flossy curlicues in heavy gilding, an effect carried over into deep carvings on the wall panels. The ceiling was a mating of Cellini cupids with Dali landscapes.

Period stuff. Antique.

Into this baroque setting had been forced a one-piece table 6 feet wide and 42 feet long. It was an enlarged bit of Twentieth Century Wallstreetiana fenced in by heavy wooden chairs. Beanbag paperweights and golden wheel ashtrays graced every place.

The air of the room was blue with the smoke of mood-cigs. (“It rhymes with Good Bigs!”) The staff seated around the table was fighting off the depressant effect of the two Space Service generals, one male and one female, seated in flanking positions beside Battlemont's empty chair. There was a surprising lack of small talk and paper rustling.

All staff members had learned of the ultimatum via the office grapevine.

Battlemont slipped in his side door, crossed to his chair at the end of the table, dropped into it before his knees gave out. He stared from one frowning military face to the other.

No response.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry I'm … ah … Pressing business. Unavoidable.” He cast a frantic glance around the table. No sign of Gwen. He smiled at one officer, the other.

No response.

On his right sat Brigadier General Sonnet Finnister of the WOMS (Women of Space). Battlemont had been appalled to see her walk. Drill-sergeant stride. No nonsense. She wore a self-designed uniform: straight pleated skirt to conceal bony hips, a loose blouse to camouflage lack of upper development, and a long cape to confuse the whole issue. Atop her head sat a duck-billed, flat-fronted cap that had been fashioned for the single purpose of hiding the Sonnet Finnister forehead, which went too high and too wide.

She seldom removed the hat.

(This particular hat, Battlemont's hurried private investigations had revealed, looked hideous on every other member of the WOMS. To a woman, they called it “the Sonnet Bonnet.” There had been the additional information that the general herself was referred to by underlings as “Sinister Finnister”—partly because of the swirling cape.)

On Battlemont's left sat General Nathan Owling of the Space Engineers. Better known as “Howling Owling” because of a characteristic evidenced when he became angry. He appeared to have been shaped in the officer caste's current mold of lean, blond athlete. The blue eyes reminded Battlemont of Gwen's eyes, except that the man's appeared colder.

If that were possible.

Beyond Owling sat Leo Prim, the agency's art director. He was a thin young man, thin to a point that vibrated across the edge of emaciation. His black hair, worn long, held a natural wave. He had a narrow Roman nose, soulful brown eyes, strong cleft in the chin, generous mouth with large lips. A mood-cig dangled from the lips.

If Battlemont could have chosen his own appearance, he would have liked to look like Leo Prim. Romantic. Battlemont caught Prim's attention, ventured a smile of camaraderie.

No response.

General Sonnet Finnister tapped a thin finger on the tabletop. It sounded to Battlemont like the slack drum of a death march.

“Hadn't we better get started?” demanded Finnister.

“Are we all here—finally?” asked Owling.

Battlemont swallowed past a lump in his throat. “Well … ah … no … ah…”

Owling opened a briefcase in his lap, glanced at an intelligence report, looked around the table. “Miss Everest is missing,” he announced.

Finnister said: “Couldn't we go ahead without her?”

“We'll wait,” said Owling. He was enjoying himself.
Damned parasites need a touch of the whip now and then!
he thought.
Shows 'em where they stand.

Finnister glared at Owling, a hawk stare that had reduced full colonels (male) to trembling. The stare rolled off Owling without effect.
Trust the high command to pair me with a male supremacy type like Owling!
she thought.

“Is this place safe from snooping?” asked Owling.

Battlemont turned his own low-wattage glare on the staff seated in the mood smoke haze around the table. No glance met his. “That's all anybody ever does around here!” he snapped.

“What?” Owling started to rise.

“Busybodies!” blared Battlemont. “My whole staff!”

“Ohhh.” Owling sank back into his chair. “I meant a different kind of snooping.”

“Oh, that.” Battlemont shrugged, suppressed an urge to glance up at the conference room's concealed recorder lenses. “We cannot have our ideas pirated by other agencies, you know. Absolutely safe here.”

Gwen Everest chose this moment for her entrance. All eyes followed her as she came through the end door, strode down the length of the room.

Battlemont admired her grace. Such a feminine woman in spite of her strength. So different from the female general.

Gwen found a spare chair against the side wall, crowded it in between Battlemont and Finnister.

The commander of the WOMS glared at the intruder. “Who are
you
?”

Battlemont leaned forward. “This is Miss Everest, our … ah…” He hesitated, confused. Gwen had never had an official title with the agency. Never needed it. Everyone in the place knew she was the boss. “Ahh … Miss Everest is our … ah … director of coordination,” said Battlemont.

“Why! That's a wonderful title!” said Gwen. “I must get it printed on my stationery.” She patted Battlemont's hand, faced him and, in her best undercover-agent-going-into-action voice, said: “Let's have it, Chief. Who are these people? What's going on?”

General Owling nodded to Gwen. “I'm Owling, General, Space Engineers.” He gestured to the rocket splash insignia on his shoulder. “My companion is General Finnister, WOMS.”

Gwen had recognized the famous Finnister face. She smiled brightly, said: “General Woms!”

“Finnister!” snapped the female general.

“Yes, of course,” said Gwen. “General Finnister Woms. Must not go too informal, you know.”

Finnister spoke in slow cadence: “I … am … General … Sonnet … Finnister … of … of … the … Women … of … Space! The WOMS!”

“Oh, how stupid of me,” said Gwen. “Of course you are.” She patted the general's hand, smiled at Battlemont.

Battlemont, who well knew the falsity of this mood in Gwen Everest, was trying to scrunch down out of sight in his chair.

In that moment, Gwen realized with a twinge of fear that she had reached a psychic point of no return. Something slipped a cog in her mind. She glanced around the table. Familiar faces leaped at her with unreal clarity. Staring eyes. (The best part of a conference was to watch Gwen in action.)
I can't take any more of this,
thought Gwen.
I have to declare myself.

She focused on the military. The rest of the people in this room owned little pieces of her, but not these two. Owling and Finnister. Space generals. Symbols. Targets!

Let the chips fall where they may! Fire when ready, Gridley. Shoot if you must this old gray head … Wait until you see the whites of their eyes.

Gwen nodded to herself.

One misstep and the agency was ruined.

Who cares?

It all passed in a split second, but the decision was made.