“You about done, buddy boy?” asked Smith, glancing into the corridor.
“No.”
“You better get done. Someone’s coming.” He kept looking down the corridor. “Scratch that. A lot of someones are coming.”
“Well, close the door.”
“Good idea.”
I continued reading. Smith closed the door and blockaded it with a desk chair. I started into the fourth foot of paper. Steichen stopped me once or twice to verify an expression, trying to copy while I read.
“Just get it off the tape, Steichen. I don’t have time to wait for your shorthand.”
I read, trying to be precise and quick. People pounded on the office door. The pounding became a rhythmic thudding, shoulders applied to the outside of the door. Smith, pushing against them from the inside, bounced with each thump.
“I can’t hold this much longer, buddy boy!” shouted Smith. “Hurry up!”
“I’m hurrying.”
I read.
“How much longer?” shouted Smith over the thumping.
“One minute.”
Smith stepped back from the door. Spieler’s men hit it. It flew open, brushing aside the desk chair. A squad of green-uniformed guards spilled into the room. Smith threw up his hands.
“We give up.”
Only the leader, a short, moderately grizzly but extremely furious man, had his gun drawn, aiming it at Smith. The others, intent on breaking in the door, had holstered their weapons.
“You, again!” said Grizzly. “Hiya,” said Smith.
“Frisk them,” ordered Grizzly, then noticed me muttering to the phone. The muzzle of his gun swung to me. “You!”
I looked up. “Me?”
“Get away from that phone!”
Before I could respond, Smith moved. A foot clipped Grizzly’s gun arm—the gun flew—an elbow jammed a solar plexus, rabbit punches here, karate chops there—all placed with speed and precision. Men slumped, collapsed, groaned and gasped.
I read off the last equations to Dr. Steichen.
One of the guards, dazed, staggered backward past the camera. Dr. Steichen watched him.
“What’s going on there, Dr. Collins?”
“Dance contest. Analyze that stuff and tell me everything you can about it.”
“All right. Dr. Collins?”
“What?”
“Why would anyone want to go to the Crab Nebula?”
“That, Dr. Steichen, is what we want to know.”
A shot exploded, deafening in the crowded room. The phone-screen in front of me shattered. Everyone stood motionless, watching Grizzly with his gun. Smith’s hands went up.
“We give up.”
“That’s what you said last time,” said Grizzly.
“I lied last time.”
XIV
Embarrassed? Too mild a word. Chagrined? Yes. Humiliated? Yes. Genetic ID. Photograph, head-on, click, profile, click. Voiceprint. Fingerprints. Duff bailed us out by four o’clock. They gave us the plastic bags with our personal effects. We left.
On the steps of the Tustin Police Department, Duff positioned himself to my left to avoid walking next to Smith.
“What did he,” asked Duff, meaning Smith, “think we would gain from this escapade?”
“Ask him,” I suggested.
Duff snorted, preferring to imagine Smith elsewhere.
“He,” said Smith, “thought if it was fair for Spieler to strip Norton’s memory, it was fair for us to strip theirs.”
In jail, Smith had told me his original plan. He wanted to patch Spieler’s computer into the Merryweather computer and drain it. Whatever Spieler was planning would leave traces somewhere in the computer. I told Duff.
“Did he know how long it would have taken to sift the entire contents of Spieler Interstellar’s computer center?”
“I doubt it,” I answered.
“He knew,” said Smith, “that any clue would be somewhere within the last three months’ input and that three months’ input would not take all that long to analyze. Sometime during the last three months, Freddy Spieler figured out that he lost the ball game. That’s when he made up his mind.”
“To do what?” I asked.
“If I knew that, buddy boy, we wouldn’t have wound up in the hoosgow. But we’ve got old Higgins’ mistake now. We couldn’t have hoped for more.”
“We couldn’t?”
“Nope.”
“What, exactly,” said Duff, addressing his question to me, “is old Higgins’ mistake?”
“The Crab, Duff,” said Smith. “The Crab!”
“Very helpful,” said Duff, disgusted.
We reached Duff’s Mercedes. Smith rode in the back seat, staring out the window, thinking. I rode in the front.
“One thing still bothers me,” said Smith, lighting a cigar.
“Do you have to smoke that thing in here?” protested Duff.
“Yes.”
“What still bothers you?” I asked.
“Jail.”
“It bothers me, too.”
“Why did Grizzly and company turn us over to the police?”
“Try this,” said Duff, momentarily glaring into the rear-view mirror. “You trespassed on their property, broke into one of their buildings, impersonated an employee, terrorized an astronomer …”
“Terrorizing astronomers,” said Smith. “Serious charge.”
“… and broke up half a dozen guards. One of those men is still in the hospital!”
“Only one,” said Smith. “I’m slowing up.”
“If you’re slowing up,” said Duff, hopeful, “you should retire.”
“Tried it,” answered Smith. “It’s no fun.” He looked at me. “Why, buddy boy, did they put us in the stammer?”
“What would you have done in their place?”
“Shot us.”
I looked at him. “Are you serious?”
“I wouldn’t have shot us, but if I were them, knowing them, I would have shot us. Or at least shipped us off to Timbuktu.”
Smith had something. I had expected them to shoot us, or worse. Grizzly had left his men to guard us and made a phone call, presumably to Spieler. When he returned, his expression looked sour. Someone had taken the joy from his life. “We’ve gotta turn you birds over to the police,” he said, and did, personally signing the complaint at the Tustin Police Station.
“You may have something there, Smith,” I said.
“Yep. But what?” responded Smith, becoming aware of the road outside. “Turn here.”
“What does he want now?” asked Duff.
“He wants to turn here.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I refuse to take him back to Spieler Space Operations. I have had enough trouble for one day. I had to break an engagement to come here.”
“With Sharon?” asked Smith. Duff remained silent. It did seem to me Smith had gone too far. Duff’s relationship with Sharon Norton had entertainment value, but Duff was the wrong man to share the humor.
“Pull over, Duff,” said Smith.
“Why?”
“I want to talk to you.”
Duff pulled over, letting the engine idle. “What is it?”
“I don’t want you to see Sharon Norton until this is over.”
“You what?” shouted Duff, turning and glaring into the back seat. “What right do you have to order me—”
“Shall we take it up with Horace?”
“Yes! Damn it, Smith! Every time I see you, you make havoc out of everything! Mr. Merryweather can override me on hiring you, and on giving you the kind of authority he has, but when it comes to my private life, it is none of your damn business, or his! Do you understand that?”
“Call Horace,” said Smith.
Duff picked up the phone, cradled between the two front seats, quickly punching out a number.
“Let me speak to Mr. Merryweather,” said Duff. He paused. “Well, find him!” He glanced
at Smith, glowering, waiting. “Hello, Mr. Merryweather, this is Phillip … yes, sir, everything went just fine. I got them out … no, no problems, except him … yes, sir, Smith—”
“Gimme that phone,” snapped Smith, grabbing it from Duff’s hand. “Hello, Horace … just fine, except old Duff here’s giving me trouble. I told him not to see Sharon Norton … yes, I’m aware of your policy against interfering in your employees’ personal lives.”
“You see!” exclaimed Duff, triumphant.
“But this is business. Spieler learned about the tachyon conversion’s existence from her.”
“It’s a lie!” said Duff.
“Let’s just say, I know, Horace, and forget the details. Spieler’s relatively young and athletic, and just about her age, though that doesn’t seem to matter too much. Norton was gone most of the time.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” said Duff.
“Spieler’s a direct man,” continued Smith. “If he wants to know something, he goes straight to the source, or as close as he can get … all right, here he is.”
Smith handed the phone back to Duff.
“Yes, sir … but … sir … if … all right.” Duff jammed the handset into the cradle. He sat, both hands on the steering wheel, glaring out the front windshield. Smith, his expression genuinely sympathetic, looked at the back of Duff’s head.
“Sorry,” said Smith.
After several moments, Duff spoke. “Where to now?”
“Spieler Space Operations.”
I looked at Smith, wondering what he planned. My face must have shown my concern.
“I do have to pick up my car, don’t I?”
I had forgotten the car.: We dropped Smith at his Ferrari. Duff drove me home, silent, upset.
Dolores was out. I got a beer from the refrigerator and lay down on the couch. The range of excitement during the day had drained me. I wanted to rest and revive. First, the tension of testing the Big Gate. Second, playing spy at Spieler’s. Third, being booked. Each took its toll. Spies reminded me of Parry. I sipped the beer. Parry had proved more helpful than many of the people working for Merryweather Enterprises. With his help, the matter transmitter could reach any corner of the galaxy, if the galaxy had corners. Do fried eggs have corners? I felt drowsy. We needed more spies like Parry. Helpful spies. Benign spies. Benign ghosts. I remembered Norton. And all the king’s horses, and all the king’s men … I dozed.
Somewhere far off, something hummed, persistent and annoying. I wanted to sleep. It hummed. “Go ‘way.”
I rolled on my side. It hummed. “Go away!”
It hummed. I opened my eyes, squinting at the phone. It hummed. I pulled myself to my feet and walked to it. I glanced in the mirror Dolores keeps by the phone, scratched my head, stuck out my tongue and yawned. My cowlick stuck up from my rumpled hair. I looked hungover, drawn and pallid. The intensity of my recent work was telling on my face. I glanced at my watch. Six twenty-five. I had slept an hour and a half. The phone hummed.
“OK, OK.”
I touched it on.
A beaming, vaguely familiar face, male, grinned at me. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
The face looked disappointed. “You don’t recognize me?”
“No.”
“Most people do.”
“Good for you.”
“I’m Roger Adair!” He said it as though it were a recent discovery or a predicament. I’m flying on air! That sort of thing.
“Hi, Rog.”
“You still don’t know me?”
“Are you sure you have the right number?”
“Dr. Robert Collins?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ve got the right number.” He mouthed “OK” to someone off camera, then looked at me. “Big day, huh?”
My patience, thin when aroused from a sound sleep, broke, “Listen, Roger Adair, what in the hell is all—”
“No one told you?” He looked genuinely startled, quizzical, mouth puckered into a tight “O” and eyebrows raised.
“No.”
“Sorry. I thought they set it all up.”
“They didn’t, whoever they are.”
“Ten seconds,” he said.
“To what?”
“And now,” said Roger, looking directly at me and smiling broadly, his voice robust, “on our Late Breaker Newsmaker On-the-Spotline, we have Dr. Robert Collins, the surprisingly youthful project engineer on the Merryweather Enterprize space station!”
It dawned on me. That Roger Adair. The six o’clock news.
“Tell us, Dr. Collins,” continued Roger, beaming, “how does it feel to be in charge of the hottest scientific project since Jenson invented the Gate?”
“Feel?” I said, trying to determine how I felt about being awakened and thrust into millions of living rooms.
“Yes. What did you think when you saw the birth of the Collins asteroid?”
“The what?”
“Don’t be modest, Doctor. Tell us your true thoughts. A little pride at a moment like this would not be hubris.”
I couldn’t remember what hubris meant. My true thoughts. I remembered staring at the monitor screens, the rock rushing at them, my attention riveted. I remembered my amazement that the Gate worked. Then I drew a blank.
“I don’t remember actually.”
“Don’t remember,” said Roger, incredulous. “It just happened this morning.”
“It works. I thought something like that. The damn thing works.”
“Now let me get that exactly. Historians will want to know. The damned—”
“Damn.”
“Yes. Sorry. Damn. The damn—” He waited, expectant.
“Thing,” I repeated.
“The damn thing—” He waited.
“Works.”
“Excellent. Could you tell us a little about the future implications of today’s success, for mankind in general and you in particular?”
“Well, first, there’s the stars—”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Collins, we’re out of time for our Late Breaker Newsmaker On-the-Spotline spot for tonight. Thank you for another in-depth, on-the-spot, aaand hot, interview!” The screen went blank.
“You’re welcome.”
I wandered into the kitchen, looking for something to eat. Dolores stocks the larder irregularly. She was into her “Big Push” toward final exams. During the Big Push, everyone suffers. I lost ten pounds during the last Big Push.
I opened two bags of dog food and dribbled them into a bowl. It looked better than what I would probably get. I took it outside to Dog. He galloped up, tongue flapping, and began slobbering over the food, gulping it down. The early evening air, chilly, cleared my mind. I sat down on the backsteps and watched Dog eat.
“What do you think?” I asked him.
He looked up from the bowl, bloodshot eyes watching me. About what? they asked.
“About the future implications of today’s success, for mankind in general and me in particular.”
The question must have bored him. He returned to his dinner.
“Consider this,” I said, catching him with his mouth full so he wouldn’t interrupt. “With only minor modifications of the Big Gate, men can walk directly from Earth to the other side of the galaxy.” He seemed unimpressed. “Dogs, too.”
I looked up at the sky. The first stars were appearing in the eastern sky. Once, men thought the stars were affixed to a sphere around the Earth, just out of reach. Copernicus, unintentionally, changed all that. The stars receded, vast distances making them inaccessible mysteries, every fact about them awesome, calculated to dwarf men, size, distance, composition, utterly incomprehensible. Now the stars were closer than the spheres had ever been. I told Dog.
He looked up, eyes asking so? “The possibilities are staggering!”
Unstaggered, he licked the bowl.
“All the possibilities—for good or bad. We could send out shiploads of conquistadores! We cou
ld—” I stopped. Something about the thought disturbed me. Conquistadores? Stars? “Shiploads.”
I stood up and went back into the house. I called the Merryweather Enterprize. Berkin, Captain Wilkins’ night-shift counterpart, came on the screen, his face tan and relaxed. Working nights, he spent his days on the beach. He lived in a Merryweather community near Acapulco.
“Control-room, Berkin. Oh, hello, Dr. Collins.”
“Is the captain there?”
“No, sir. After the success today, the big “M” gave everyone the day off. Minimum crew. Just us skeletons up here. Can I help?”
“What’s the status of those two ships lying off the Gate?”
“Laying off,” he corrected. “I’ll check.” He disappeared from view. While he was off camera, Dolores came home, slamming the front door.
“I’m ho-ome!” She padded down the hall to the living room, glancing in. “I said, I’m home.”
“Hi.”
“You’re always on the phone nowadays. I saw you on the news at school.”
“How’d I look?”
“Like you do now.”
“How’s that?”
“Horrible. Your cowlick was sticking up. It was very funny.”
“Thanks.”
“Dr. Collins,” said Berkin, returning to the phone. “They’re still there. Condition unchanged.”
Dolores left, heading for the kitchen.
“Does anyone have any idea what they’re doing?”
“Captain Wilkins thinks they’re observing our tests. They’ve definitely been identified as registered to Spieler Interstellar.”
“Why don’t people tell me these things?”
“We tried. We just identified them this afternoon. You were, eh, occupied.”
I blushed. “OK. Any other news?”
“One of them’s new, fitted with special equipment.”
“What kind of equipment?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“All right. If anything else comes up, I want to know immediately. Even if I’m ‘occupied.’ Got it?”
Stargate Page 16