“Thank you, Mr. Runciter,” Edie Dorn said in a wispy, shy trickle of a voice; she blushed and stared wide-eyed at the far wall. “It’s good to be a part of this new undertaking,” she added with undernourished conviction.
“Which one of you is Al Hammond?” Runciter asked, consulting his documents.
An excessively tall, stoop-shouldered Negro with a gentle expression on his elongated face made a motion to indicate himself.
“I’ve never met you before,” Runciter said, reading the material from Al Hammond’s file. “You rate highest among our anti-precogs. I should, of course, have gotten around to meeting you. How many of the rest of you are anti-precog?” Three additional hands appeared. “The four of you,” Runciter said, “will undoubtedly get a great bloop out of meeting and working with G. G. Ashwood’s most recent discovery, who aborts precogs on a new basis. Perhaps Miss Conley herself will describe it to us.” He nodded toward Pat—
And found himself standing before a shop window on Fifth Avenue, a rare-coin shop; he was studying an uncirculated U.S. gold dollar and wondering if he could afford to add it to his collection.
What collection? he asked himself, startled. I don’t collect coins. What am I doing here? And how long have I been wandering around window-shopping when I ought to be in my office supervising—he could not remember what he generally supervised; a business of some kind, dealing in people with abilities, special talents. He shut his eyes, trying to focus his mind. No, I had to give that up, he realized. Because of a coronary last year, I had to retire. But I was just there, he remembered. Only a few seconds ago. In my office. Talking to a group of people about a new project. He shut his eyes. It’s gone, he thought dazedly. Everything I built up.
When he opened his eyes he found himself back in his office; he faced G. G. Ashwood, Joe Chip and a dark, intensely attractive girl whose name he did not recall. Other than that his office was empty, which for reasons he did not understand struck him as strange.
“Mr. Runciter,” Joe Chip said, “I’d like you to meet Patricia Conley.”
The girl said, “How nice to be introduced to you at last, Mr. Runciter.” She laughed and her eyes flashed exultantly. Runciter did not know why.
Joe Chip realized, She’s been doing something. “Pat,” he said aloud, “I can’t put my finger on it but things are different.” He gazed wonderingly around the office; it appeared as it had always: too loud a carpet, too many unrelated art objects, on the walls original pictures of no artistic merit whatever. Glen Runciter had not changed; shaggy and gray, his face wrinkled broodingly, he returned Joe’s stare—he too seemed perplexed. Over by the window G. G. Ashwood, wearing his customary natty birch-bark pantaloons, hemprope belt, peekaboo see-through top and train-engineer’s tall hat, shrugged indifferently. He, obviously, saw nothing wrong.
“Nothing is different,” Pat said.
“Everything is different,” Joe said to her. “You must have gone back into time and put us on a different track; I can’t prove it and I can’t specify the nature of the changes—”
“No domestic quarreling on my time,” Runciter said frowningly.
Joe, taken aback, said, “ ‘Domestic quarreling’?” He saw, then, on Pat’s finger the ring: wrought-silver and jade; he remembered helping her pick it out. Two days, he thought, before we got married. That was over a year ago, despite how bad off I was financially. That, of course, is changed now; Pat, with her salary and her money-minding propensity, fixed that. For all time.
“Anyhow, to continue,” Runciter said. “We must each of us ask ourselves why Stanton Mick took his business to a prudence organization other than ours. Logically, we should have gotten the contract; we’re the finest in the business and we’re located in New York, where Mick generally prefers to deal. Do you have any theory, Mrs. Chip?” He looked hopefully in Pat’s direction.
Pat said, “Do you really want to know, Mr. Runciter?”
“Yes.” He nodded vigorously. “I’d very much like to know.”
“I did it,” Pat said.
“How?”
“With my talent.”
Runciter said, “What talent? You don’t have a talent; you’re Joe Chip’s wife.”
At the window G. G. Ashwood said, “You came in here to meet Joe and me for lunch.”
“She has a talent,” Joe said. He tried to remember, but already it had become foggy; the memory dimmed even as he tried to resurrect it. A different time track, he thought. The past. Other than that, he could not make it out; there the memory ended. My wife, he thought, is unique; she can do something no one else on Earth can do. In that case, why isn’t she working for Runciter Associates? Something is wrong.
“Have you measured it?” Runciter asked him. “I mean, that’s your job. You sound as if you have; you sound sure of yourself.”
“I’m not sure of myself,” Joe said. But I am sure about my wife, he said to himself. “I’ll get my test gear,” he said. “And we’ll see what sort of a field she creates.”
“Oh, come on, Joe,” Runciter said angrily. “If your wife has a talent or an anti-talent you would have measured it at least a year ago; you wouldn’t be discovering it now.” He pressed a button on his desk intercom. “Personnel? Do we have a file on Mrs. Chip? Patricia Chip?”
After a pause the intercom said, “No file on Mrs. Chip. Under her maiden name, perhaps?”
“Conley,” Joe said. “Patricia Conley.”
Again a pause. “On a Miss Patricia Conley we have two items: an initial scout report by Mr. Ashwood, and then test findings by Mr. Chip.” From the slot of the intercom repros of the two documents slowly dribbled forth and dropped to the surface of the desk.
Examining Joe Chip’s findings, Runciter said, scowling, “Joe, you better look at this; come here.” He jabbed a finger at the page, and Joe, coming over beside him, saw the twin underlined crosses; he and Runciter glanced at each other, then at Pat.
“I know what it reads,” Pat said levelly. “ ‘Unbelievable power. Anti-psi field unique in scope.’ ” She concentrated, trying visibly to remember the exact wording. “ ‘Can probably—’ ”
“We did get the Mick contract,” Runciter said to Joe Chip. “I had a group of eleven inertials in here and then I suggested to her—”
Joe said, “That she show the group what she could do. So she did. She did exactly that. And my evaluation was right.” With his fingertip he traced the symbols of danger at the bottom of the sheet. “My own wife,” he said.
“I’m not your wife,” Pat said. “I changed that, too. Do you want it back the way it was? With no changes, not even in details? That won’t show your inertials much. On the other hand, they’re unaware anyhow…unless some of them have retained a vestigial memory as Joe has. By now, though, it should have phased out.”
Runciter said bitingly, “I’d like the Mick contract back; that much, at least.”
“When I scout them,” G. G. Ashwood said, “I scout them.” He had become gray.
“Yes, you really bring in the talent,” Runciter said.
The intercom buzzed and the quaking, elderly voice of Mrs. Frick rasped, “A group of our inertials are waiting to see you, Mr. Runciter; they say you sent for them in connection with a new joint work project. Are you free to see them?”
“Send them in,” Runciter said.
Pat said, “I’ll keep this ring.” She displayed the silver and jade wedding ring which, in another time track, she and Joe had picked out; this much of the alternate world she had elected to retain. He wondered what—if any—legal basis she had kept in addition. None, he hoped; wisely, however, he said nothing. Better not even to ask.
The office door opened and, in pairs, the inertials entered; they stood uncertainly for a moment and then began seating themselves facing Runciter’s desk. Runciter eyed them, then pawed among the rat’s nest of documents on his desk; obviously, he was trying to determine whether Pat had changed in any way the composition of the group.
&
nbsp; “Edie Dorn,” Runciter said. “Yes, you’re here.” He glanced at her, then at the man beside her. “Hammond. Okay, Hammond. Tippy Jackson.” He peered inquiringly.
“I made it as quick as I could,” Mrs. Jackson said. “You didn’t give me much time, Mr. Runciter.”
“Jon Ild,” Runciter said.
The adolescent boy with the tousled, woolly hair grunted in response. His arrogance, Joe noted, seemed to have receded; the boy now seemed introverted and even a little shaken. It would be interesting, Joe thought, to find out what he remembers—what all of them, individually and collectively, remember.
“Francesca Spanish,” Runciter said.
The luminous, gypsy-like dark woman, radiating a peculiar jangled tautness, spoke up. “During the last few minutes, Mr. Runciter, while we waited in your outer office, mysterious voices appeared to me and told me things.”
“You’re Francesca Spanish?” Runciter asked her, patiently; he looked more than usually tired.
“I am; I have always been; I will always be.” Miss Spanish’s voice rang with conviction. “May I tell you what the voices revealed to me?”
“Possibly later,” Runciter said, passing on to the next personnel document.
“It must be said,” Miss Spanish declared vibrantly.
“All right,” Runciter said. “We’ll take a break for a couple of minutes.” He opened a drawer of his desk, got out one of his amphetamine tablets, took it without water. “Let’s hear what the voices revealed to you, Miss Spanish.” He glanced toward Joe, shrugging.
“Someone,” Miss Spanish said, “just now moved us, all of us, into another world. We inhabited it, lived in it, as citizens of it, and then a vast, all-encompassing spiritual agency restored us to this, our rightful universe.”
“That would be Pat,” Joe Chip said. “Pat Conley. Who just joined the firm today.”
“Tito Apostos,” Runciter said. “You’re here?” He craned his neck, peering about the room at the seated people.
A bald-headed man, wagging a goatish beard, pointed to himself. He wore old-fashioned, hip-hugging gold lamé trousers, yet somehow created a stylish effect. Perhaps the egg-sized buttons of his kelp-green mitty blouse helped; in any case he exuded a grand dignity, a loftiness surpassing the average. Joe felt impressed.
“Don Denny,” Runciter said.
“Right here, sir,” a confident baritone like that of a Siamese cat declared; it arose from within a slender, earnest-looking individual who sat bolt-upright in his chair, his hands on his knees. He wore a polyester dirndl, his long hair in a snood, cowboy chaps with simulated silver stars. And sandals.
“You’re an anti-animator,” Runciter said, reading the appropriate sheet. “The only one we use.” To Joe he said, “I wonder if we’ll need him; maybe we should substitute another anti-telepath—the more of those the better.”
Joe said, “We have to cover everything. Since we don’t know what we’re getting into.”
“I guess so.” Runciter nodded. “Okay, Sammy Mundo.”
A weak-nosed young man, dressed in a maxiskirt, with an undersized, melon-like head, stuck his hand up in a spasmodic, wobbling, ticlike gesture; as if, Joe thought, the anemic body had done it by itself. He knew this particular person. Mundo looked years younger than his chronological age; both mental and physical growth processes had ceased for him long ago. Technically, Mundo had the intelligence of a raccoon; he could walk, eat, bathe himself, even—after a fashion—talk. His anti-telepathic ability, however, was considerable. Once, alone, he had blanked out S. Dole Melipone; the firm’s house magazine had rambled on about it for months afterward.
“Oh, yes,” Runciter said. “Now we come to Wendy Wright.”
As always, when the opportunity arose, Joe took a long, astute look at the girl whom, if he could have managed it, he would have had as his mistress, or, even better, his wife. It did not seem possible that Wendy Wright had been born out of blood and internal organs like other people. In proximity to her he felt himself to be a squat, oily, sweating, uneducated nurt whose stomach rattled and whose breath wheezed. Near her he became aware of the physical mechanisms which kept him alive; within him machinery, pipes and valves and gas-compressors and fan belts had to chug away at a losing task, a labor ultimately doomed. Seeing her face, he discovered that his own consisted of a garish mask; noticing her body made him feel like a low-class windup toy. All her colors possessed a subtle quality, indirectly lit. Her eyes, those green and tumbled stones, looked impassively at everything; he had never seen fear in them, or aversion, or contempt. What she saw she accepted. Generally she seemed calm. But more than that she struck him as being durable, untroubled and cool, not subject to wear, or to fatigue, or to physical illness and decline. Probably she was twenty-five or -six, but he could not imagine her looking younger, and certainly she would never look older. She had too much control over herself and outside reality for that.
“I’m here,” Wendy said, with soft tranquility.
Runciter nodded. “Okay; that leaves Fred Zafsky.” He fixed his gaze on a flabby, big-footed, middle-aged, unnatural-looking individual with pasted-down hair, muddy skin plus a peculiar protruding Adam’s apple—clad, for this occasion, in a shift dress the color of a baboon’s ass. “That must be you.”
“Right you are,” Zafsky agreed, and sniggered. “How about that?”
“Christ,” Runciter said, shaking his head. “Well, we have to include one anti-parakineticist, to be safe. And you’re it.” He tossed down his documents and looked about for his green cigar. To Joe he said, “That’s the group, plus you and me. Any last-minute changes you want to make?”
“I’m satisfied,” Joe said.
“You suppose this bunch of inertials is the best combination we can come up with?” Runciter eyed him intently.
“Yes,” Joe said.
“And it’s good enough to take on Hollis’ Psis?”
“Yes,” Joe said.
But he knew otherwise.
It was not something he could put his finger on. It certainly was not rational. Potentially, the counter-field capacity of the eleven inertials had to be considered enormous. And yet—
“Mr. Chip, can I have a second of your time?” Mr. Apostos, bald-headed and bearded, his gold lamé trousers glittering, plucked at Joe Chip’s arm. “Could I discuss an experience I had late last night? In a hypnagogic state I seem to have contacted one, or possibly two, of Mr. Hollis’ people—a telepath evidently operating in conjunction with one of their precogs. Do you think I should tell Mr. Runciter? Is it important?”
Hesitating, Joe Chip looked toward Runciter. Seated in his worthy, beloved chair, trying to relight his all-Havana cigar, Runciter appeared terribly tired; the wattles of his face sagged. “No,” Joe said. “Let it go.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Runciter said, raising his voice above the general noise. “We’re leaving now for Luna, you eleven inertials, Joe Chip and myself and our client’s rep, Zoe Wirt; fourteen of us in all. We’ll use our own ship.” He got out his round, gold, anachronistic pocket watch and studied it. “Three-thirty. Pratfall II will take off from the main roof-field at four.” He snapped his watch shut and returned it to the pocket of his silk sash. “Well, Joe,” he said, “we’re in this for better or worse. I wish we had a resident precog who could take a look ahead for us.” Both his face and the tone of his voice drooped with worry and the cares, the irreversible burden, of responsibility and age.
SIX
* * *
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“Welcome to Luna,” Zoe Wirt said cheerfully, her jolly eyes enlarged by her red-framed, triangular glasses. “Via myself, Mr. Howard says hello to each and every one of you, and most especially to Mr. Gl
en Runciter for making his organization—and you people, in particular—available to us. This subsurface hotel suite, decorated by Mr. Howard’s artistically talented sister Lada, lies just three-hundred linear yards from the industrial and research facilities which Mr. Howard believes to have been infiltrated. Your joint presence in this room, therefore, should already be inhibiting the psionic capabilities of Hollis’ agents, a thought pleasing to all of us.” She paused, looked over them all. “Are there any questions?”
Tinkering with his test gear, Joe Chip ignored her; despite their client’s stipulation, he intended to measure the surrounding psionic field. During the hour-long trip from Earth he and Glen Runciter had decided on this.
“I have a question,” Fred Zafsky said, raising his hand. He giggled. “Where is the bathroom?”
“You will each be given a miniature map,” Zoe Wirt said, “on which this is indicated.” She nodded to a drab female assistant, who began passing out brightly colored, glossy paper maps. “This suite,” she continued, “is complete with a kitchen all the appliances of which are free, rather than coin-operated. Obviously, outright blatant expense has been incurred in the constructing of this living unit, which is ample enough for twenty persons, possessing, as it does, its own self-regulating air, heat, water, and unusually varied food supply, plus closed-circuit TV and high-fidelity polyphonic phonograph sound-system—the two latter facilities, however, unlike the kitchen, being coin-operated. To aid you in utilizing these recreation facilities, a change-making machine has been placed in the game room.”
“My map,” Al Hammond said, “shows only nine bedrooms.”
“Each bedroom,” Miss Wirt said, “contains two bunk-type beds; hence eighteen accommodations in all. In addition, five of the beds are double, assisting those of you who wish to sleep with each other during your stay here.”
“I have a rule,” Runciter said irritably, “about my employees sleeping with one another.”
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