The SF Hall of Fame Volume Two B (19 page)

He looked past the peeling gasoline pumps, up and down the
highway, which burned off into the distance, losing each slight dip in its
surface under the shimmering pools of mirages. Only private cars were on it,
soughing back and forth past him. The mirages clipped off their wheels as they
hissed away through them, and melted the skirts of their fenders.

Hawks turned, pulled open the limply screened door with its
grimy bread advertisement pressed through the weave, and stepped inside.

The store was crowded with shelves and cabinets filling almost
every square foot of floor space, leaving only narrow aisles. He looked around,
blinking sharply once or twice as he did so. There was no one in the store. A
narrow, blank door opened into a back room, from which no sound came. Hawks
refastened his collar and straightened his necktie.

He had laid his coat on the lid of a Coca-Cola cooler beside
him. He picked it up now and swung back the cooler's lid, looking down at the
bottles inside. They were all some local brand, bright orange and glassy red,
up to their crowns in dirty water. He closed the lid and took a deep breath.

There was a soft crunch of gravel outside as a car rolled up
to the gasoline pumps, and a bell rang as its wheels passed over the warning
air hoses. Hawks looked out through the screen door. A girl driving an old
business coupe looked back at him through her rolled-down window.

Hawks turned toward the rear room. There was no sound. He
took a step toward it, awkwardly, opened his mouth and closed it again,

The car door opened and clicked shut as the girl stepped
out. She came up to the screen door and peered in. She was a short, dark-haired
girl with pale features and wide lips now a little pinched by indecision as she
shaded her eyes with her hand. She looked directly at Hawks, and he half
shrugged.

She stepped in, and said to Hawks: "I'd like to buy
some gasoline."

There was a sound of sudden movement in the back room—a
heavy creak of bedsprings and an approaching shuffle of feet. Hawks gestured
vaguely in that direction.

"Oh," the girl said. She looked at Hawks' clothes
and smiled apologetically. "Excuse me. I thought you worked here."

Hawks shook his head.

A fat, balding man in an undershirt and khaki pants, came
out of the back room. He rubbed the pillow-creases on his face and said
hoarsely, "Just catchin' forty winks." He cleared his throat and
rubbed his neck. "What'll it be?" he said to both of them.

"Well, this gentleman was here first," the girl
said.

The man looked at Hawks. "You been waitin'? I didn't
hear nobody call."

"I only want to know if a city bus goes by here."

"Suppose a bus had gone by while you was in here? Would
a felt pretty foolish, wouldn't you?"

Hawks sighed.
"Does
a bus pass by here?"

"Lots a busses, friend. But don't none of them stop to
pick up local passengers. Let you off anywhere, if you're comin' from the city,
but won't pick you up 'less it's a official bus stop. Rules. Ain't you got no
car?"

"No, I don't. How far is it to the nearest bus
stop?"

" 'Bout a mile and a half down the road, that
way." He waved. "Gas station. Henry's Friendly Service."

Hawks wiped his face again.

The man glanced aside toward the girl. "You want some
gas, Miss?" He grinned. "Fix you up in a jiffy." He shouldered
past Hawks to the doorway, and awkwardly held the screen door open for her with
his soft, extended white arm. He said to Hawks from the doorframe: "You
better figure out what you're gonna do, friend—walk, hitch-hike, buy
somethin'—I ain't got all day." He grinned again toward the girl.
"Got to take care of the young lady, here."

The girl smiled uneasily at Hawks and said "Excuse
me," softly, as she moved past him. As she stepped through the doorway,
she brushed her left hip and shoulder against the frame to clear the owner's
bulk on her other side.

The man pursed his lips with a spitting motion behind her
back, ran measuring, deprived eyes over her skirt and blouse, and followed her.

Hawks watched through the window as she got back into the
car and asked for ten gallons of regular. The man banged the hose nozzle loose
from its bracket, and cranked the dial reset lever with an abrupt jerk of his
arm. He stood glowering toward the front of the car, his hands in his pockets,
while the automatic nozzle pumped gasoline into the tank. As the automatic
surge valve tripped shut, while the pump's counter was passing nine and a half,
the man immediately yanked the dribbling nozzle out and slammed it back on its
bracket. He crumpled the five-dollar bill the girl held out through her window.
"C'mon back in the store for your change," he growled, and strode
away.

Hawks waited until the man was bent over the counter,
fumbling in a cash drawer under its top. Then he said: "I'll take the
lady's change back to her."

The man turned and stared at him in fury, money clutched in
his fist. Hawks looked toward the girl, who had the screen door half-open, her
face pale and strained. "That'll be all right, won't it?" he said to
her. She nodded.

"Yes," she said nervously.

The man slapped the change into Hawks' palm. Hawks looked
down at it.

"Ain't that right for ten gallons, Mister?" the
man said belligerently. "You want to look and see what it says on that
Goddamned pump?"

"It's not right for four-tenths less than ten gallons.
I did look." Hawks continued to face the man, who turned suddenly and scrabbled
in the cash drawer again. He gave Hawks the rest of the change.

Hawks stepped out and gave it to the girl.

The girl said with some effort: "Do—do you need a ride
into the city?"

"To the bus stop, yes, thank you." He smiled
gently as she looked up. "I forgot I wasn't a boy anymore. I set out on a
longer walk than I thought."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," the
girl said. She frowned and shifted her feet. "I have to go all the way
into the city," she said. "There's no point just dropping you at the
bus stop."

Hawks plucked uneasily at the coat over his arm. Then he put
it on and buttoned it. "All right. Thank you."

"Let's go, then," the girl said. They got into the
car and pulled out into the traffic stream on the highway.

They sat stiffly in the car as it rolled down the road, its
tires thumping regularly over the oozing expansion joints in the concrete.

"I don't look like a pick-up," the girl said.

Hawks, still frowning faintly, looked at her. "You're
very attractive."

"But I'm not easy! I'm only offering you a ride.
Because you need it, I suppose." Her short hands clicked their scarlet
nails against the steering wheel's worn, pitted plastic.

"I know that," he said quietly. "And I don't
think you're doing it out of gratitude. That fellow wasn't anybody you couldn't
have handled by yourself. I only spared you some effort. I'm not your gallant
rescuer, and I haven't won your hand in mortal combat."

"Well, then," she said.

"We're trapping ourselves again," he said.
"Neither of us knows quite what to do. We're talking in circles. If that
fellow hadn't come out, we'd still be in that store, dancing a ritual dance
around each other."

She nodded vehemently. "'Oh, I'm sorry—I thought you
worked here!'" she mimicked herself.

"No, uh, I don't," he supplied.

"Well-uh-is anybody here?"

"I don't know. Do you suppose we should call out, or
something . . . ?" He trailed away in a tense imitation of an embarrassed
mumble.

The girl thumped her left foot impatiently against the
floorboards. "Yes, that's
exactly
how it would have been! And now
we're doing it here, instead of there! Can't
you
do something about
it?"

Hawks took a deep breath. "My name is Edward Hawks. I'm
forty-two years old, unmarried, and I'm a college graduate. I work for
Continental Electronics."

The girl said: "I'm Elizabeth Cummings. I'm just
getting started as a fashion designer. Single. I'm twenty-five." She
glanced aside at him. "Why were you walking?"

"I often walked when I was a boy," he said.
"I had many things to think about. I couldn't understand the world, and I
kept trying to discover the secret of living successfully in it. If I sat in a
chair at home and thought, it worried my parents. So I walked to be alone with
myself. I walked miles. And I couldn't discover the secret of the world, or
what was wrong with me. But I felt I was coming closer and closer. Then, when
enough time had passed, I gradually learned how I could behave properly in the
world as I saw it." He smiled. "That's why I was walking this
afternoon."

"And where are you going now?"

"Back to work. I have to do some preliminary setting-up
on a project we're starting tomorrow." He looked briefly out through the
window, and then brought his glance back to Elizabeth. "Where are you
going?"

"I have a studio downtown. I have to work late tonight,
too."

"Will you give me your address and 'phone number, so I
can call you tomorrow?"

"Yes," she said. "Tomorrow night?"

"If I may."

She said: "Don't ask me questions if you know the
answers." She looked at him. "Don't tell me unimportant things just
to pass the time."

"Then I'll have many more things to tell you."

She stopped the car in front of Continental Electronics'
main gate, to let him out. She touched his sleeve as he opened the car door.
"That's too hot to wear on a day like this."

He stopped beside the car, opened the jacket, took it off
and folded it over his arm. Then he smiled, raised his hand in a tentative
gesture, turned, and walked through the gate a guard was holding open for him.

The suit lay open on its long adjustable table like a
sectioned lobster, trailing disconnected air hoses from its sides, its
crenelated joints bulging arthritically because of the embedded electric motors
and hydraulic pistons that would move them. Hawks had run leads from a test
power supply into the joints; the suit flexed and twitched, scraping its legs
ponderously on the table's plastic facing, writhing the tool and pincer
clusters at the ends of its arms. One of the Navy men wheeled up a compressed
air cylinder and snapped the air hoses to it. At Hawks' nod, the helmet,
crested with reinforcing ridges, its faceplate barred by a cross-hatch of steel
rods, hissed shrilly through its intakes while the table surface groaned.

"Leave it, Ed," Sam Latourette said. "These
men can handle that."

Hawks looked apologetically at the Navy team of dressers,
who had all turned their eyes on Latourette. "I know that, Sam."

"Are
you
going to wear it? Leave it alone!"
Latourette burst out. "Nothing ever goes wrong with any of the
equipment!"

Hawks said patiently: "I want to do it. The boys,
here—" He gestured toward the dressers. "The boys don't mind my
playing with their erector set."

"Well, this fellow Barker's down at the gate. I just
got a call. Give me his pass and stuff, and I'll go down and get him."

"No, I'll do that, Sam." He stepped back from the
table, and nodded toward the dressers. "It's in fine shape. Thank
you." He left the laboratory and went up the stairs to the ground floor.

Outside, he walked out along the fog-wet black asphalt
driveway toward the gate, which was at first barely visible through the acrid
mist. He looked at his wristwatch, and smiled faintly.

"Well,
morituri te salutamus,
Doctor,"
Barker said as he stepped through. "We signify your status at the point of
our death."

Hawks' face twitched. "I've also read a book," he
said softly, and turned away. "Put your badge on and come with me."

Barker took it from the gate guard, who had logged its
number, and clipped it to his Basque shirt pocket, falling into step with Hawks.

"Claire didn't want me to come," he said, cocking
his head up sideward to glance significantly at Hawks. "She's
afraid."

"Of what I might do to you, or of what might happen to
her because of it?" Hawks answered, keeping his eyes on the buildings.

"I don't know, Doctor." There was wariness in
Barker's tension. "But," he said slowly, his voice hard and sharp,
"I'm the only other man that's ever frightened her."

Hawks said nothing. He continued to walk back toward the
building, and after a while Barker smiled once again, thinly and crookedly, and
also walked with his eyes only on where his feet were taking him. . . .

Hawks unlocked the door of his office and let Barker in
ahead of him. He turned on the lights and motioned toward the visitors' chair.

"Please sit down. I have to tell you, now, what this is
about—and where you're going."

Barker sat down carelessly. "I'd be grateful,
Doctor."

Hawks arched an eyebrow. "Would you?" He sat down
and faced Barker across the desk, much as he had faced Rogan. "Now, this
is going to be a long story.

"It begins with the fact that we have a matter
transmitter—that is, a piece of electronic equipment which produces the effect
of moving an object from one location to another at the speed of light."
Hawks looked across the desk at Barker.

"And you want to test it on me," Barker said.

"It's been tested hundreds of times. Dozens of men have
gone through it with no visible difficulty. It's been in operation for a year.
I haven't come anywhere near your part in this, as yet. But there is one thing
I particularly want you to remember; like any other piece of electronic
hardware, it actually sends nothing but a signal. It is a communications
device, not a boxcar. This fact enables us to do more with it than simply send
a man from one place to another. Like any other communications device, it
transmits information which the receiver converts into a systematic result
intelligible to the unaided human senses.