So Eli smiled. But abruptly the smile faded, to be replaced by a scowl.
"You're a damn quixotic fool," he murmured to himself. "Why the hell didn't you keep out of it?"
2
The offices belonging to Underseas formed one of the smaller suites and were well removed from even the larger committee rooms. This, combined with the fact that business was still theoretically in process in the main council room, led to their being deserted at this particular hour, with the single exception of a secretary at work in the outer office.
"See that we aren't disturbed, Kara," Eli told her, as he and Kurt entered the outer office and he led the way, with his swift limp across to the half-open door that led to his inner office that was his own.
"Yes, Eli." She looked up, her dark, somewhat angular features important with a message. "Poby Richards—"
"That's all right," said Eli. "I've spoken to him, Kara."
He led the way on into the private office and shut the door. Leading the way past the half-open aperture of a sliding panel that opened on a little adjoining room fitted with couch and lavatory, he came to the large, impressively paneled desk that was standard spokesman furniture. The desk was equipped to do everything but measure him for a new suit of clothes; and during all the seven years of his residence in this office, he had scarcely used a tenth of the gadgets installed in it. Now, as he came up to it, he punched buttons with recklessness.
A piny scent swept through the office, a murmur of woodland music crept out on the air and the desk, like a dutiful patient sticking out his tongue for a physician, thoughtfully protruded a small but complete bar from one end of itself.
"How about a drink, Kurt?" asked Eli.
"Why I suppose so," said Kurt, a little surprised. It was the first time such an invitation had ever been extended to him by Eli. "I almost never…"
Eli sighed a little.
"Neither do I any more," he said. "There was a time when I never expected to run out of thirst. But it's odd, somewhere along the way I seem to have lost it. Well"—he turned brisk—"we'll have one anyway. The occasion calls for it."
And he proceeded to make himself busy with the materials in the bar.
Kurt chuckled.
"You did a nice job."
"Nice job?" echoed Eli, looking up.
"On Tony," said Kurt.
"Oh, that," Eli frowned. "Kurt, you're going to have to watch out on that. I've just spiked this business temporarily." He checked himself abruptly, and rose with two glasses in his hands, one of which he handed to Kurt. "I'm getting ahead of myself. Here, take this."
Kurt accepted it, a little unskillfully.
"Well now," said Eli. "Here's to you, Kurt."
"To me?" said Kurt, surprised.
"Yes," said Eli, and took a small drink. "How'd you like to be spokesman for Underseas?"
Kurt grinned. But Eli did not. And gradually Kurt's grin faded. He put his glass down on the edge of the desk.
"You aren't getting out, Eli?" he said, incredulously.
"That's right," said Eli, cheerfully. "Only I call it retiring."
Kurt's face was a little pale.
"You're joking."
"No, I'm not," said Eli sharply.
"But—" Kurt stumbled. "You must be. Why, you are Underseas, Eli. The only reason our coalition groups stick with us is because of you."
"That's nonsense," said Eli, setting his own drink down on the desk. "They stick because of the advantages of being combined with us."
"But I couldn't ever handle them!" burst out Kurt in desperation.
"How do you know until you've tried?" asked Eli. "Besides, if you want, it won't have to be more than temporary—until the Domes appoint someone officially to replace me. I think they'd give it to you without a question if you wanted it. But if you don't, they'll be able to find someone else." He looked at the stunned underspokesman with sympathy. "But you don't know until you've tried whether you'll want it or not."
"But you, Eli," said Kurt, looking up at him. "I can't understand why you want to get out!"
Eli sighed gustily, and the bitter lines in his face sharpened momentarily.
"I suppose you thought the spokesmanship was something I wanted," he said.
"But, my God, Eli," protested Kurt stupidly. "You went after it like a house afire. No one knew you eight years ago!"
"Well, it wasn't," said Eli, watching him. "I suddenly woke up to realize that I was getting older and not doing anything. Everybody my own age fitted into the world. I felt I had to catch up, so I went gunning for the biggest job I could find."
"And now that there's no place else to go, you're getting out?" There was accusation in Kurt's voice.
"No," said Eli. He half turned from the underspokesman, staring at the wall of the office, but not seeing it. "I went into politics because I thought I was wasting my time doing nothing. Now, I think I'm wasting my time in politics. All my life I've been hunting for what I really want to do; and I've just decided to keep after it." He flicked a glance at Kurt. "Or do you think that at nearly forty I'm too old?"
"No," said Kurt, quickly. "No, but…" he hesitated, then suddenly burst out. "But it's a selfish thing to do, then."
"Agreed," said Eli cheerfully. It was the kind of merciless admission that he liked to make; and it restored his good humor. He became conscious, suddenly, of his aching knee and sat down.
"If that's the only reason you're getting out," amended Kurt. Having uncovered feet of clay in his idol, Kurt was in a hurry to cover them up.
"Another reason is that I think the world is headed for hell in a handbasket," said Eli. "But that needn't concern you."
"I don't understand," said Kurt.
"It doesn't take understanding," said Eli. "The most casual observation shows the groups disintegrating as a governmental system; there's no place to go but toward a completely single-unit world and in spite of the experience of the past two thousand years we don't seem to be ready for that yet. What would you guess the immediate future is going to be like?"
Kurt stared at him.
"Do you really believe that?" he asked. "I know times are tense, now, with all this superstition about the Members—"
"Tense!" echoed Eli. "Times are always tense. People are always—"
He had swung about in a half turn as he spoke and now he suddenly halted.
"Poby!" he said.
Looking very embarrassed indeed, the young courier was standing in the panel entrance to the little side room of the office. Now, with Eli's and Kurt's eyes full upon him, he faltered out into the main room.
"You asked me to wait for you in your office, Eli."
"You've been listening to all this?" demanded Eli.
"I fell asleep on your couch in there." Poby was really suffering and at once the state of his feeling jumped the gap between him and Eli as if it had been a strong electric current.
"Well, in that case," Eli said, turning back to the bar and smiling, "I imagine you rate a final drink, too. What'll it be?"
Poby stared at him for a moment in bewilderment. Then Eli's words penetrated through to him.
"No, Eli," he cried. "Why, I couldn't drink to that!"
Eli straightened up above the bottles and looked at him in slight astonishment.
"Couldn't drink to what?" he asked.
"Couldn't drink to your leaving," said Poby.
Eli stared at him. Poby turned red but stared back defiantly.
"It's not a thing for celebrating," said Poby. "It's a—it's a tragedy. Millions of people count on you. If they don't have you, who're they going to trust? If you leave—"
"Poby," interrupted Eli, dryly.
Poby stopped speaking.
"That's better," said Eli. "Now, I am not King Arthur and you are not Sir Bedivere. Thank you for your high opinion of me, though, all the same."
"But it's true!" cried Poby.
"Well, and if it were," said Eli easily, "have you ever heard of the right to i
ndividual happiness?"
"Oh, you'll answer whatever I say!" Poby burst out, transported beyond himself. "Because you're a master statesman. I can't talk! All I can do is tell you."
"That," said Eli, wearily, "is what is wrong with most of the people in the world at any time. We'll leave the matter at that, Poby, before you and I run aground on the shoals of our mutual argument." He turned to Kurt. "It's still early. I'm going to leave right away. I'll give you a recording of my resignation and you can release it whenever you feel ready. You know all there is to know about the situation and the position at the present time. Poby"—he swung back to the courier—"get that ship of yours ready. I want you to deliver me to a place about two hours from here."
Poby turned and went, to follow his instructions and think of all the arguments he might have used on Eli if they had only come to mind at the proper time. Eli waited until the youngster was out of the room. Then he turned back to Kurt.
"I'll be at the University of Miami's Calayo Banks Shallow Water Research Station," he said.
"I didn't know they had one," said Kurt.
"Let's hope nobody else does," answered Eli. "Keep that address to yourself." He looked around the office. "Well, I guess that does it—except for the resignation." He moved over to the desk and its recorder.
"You know," said Kurt abruptly, following him. "The boy was right."
Reaching over to press the record button, Eli lifted his head from the desk and looked at the underspokesman oddly.
The air-sub thrummed through the skies. He looked out the window at the blue Mediterranean below, thinking his own wry thoughts.
He and Poby were alone in the small craft. They were flashing now over the Mediterranean at some sixteen hundred miles an hour, headed for a certain point of the Turkish coast.
"Do you see it yet, Poby?" asked Eli.
"Just a minute," the pilot Scannerset in front of Poby chimed suddenly, a single dulcet note. "There! Locked on," said Poby. "We'll be down in ten minutes." He set the automatic pilot.
The plane dropped swiftly through the still air. Eli shook himself suddenly out of his mood. He gazed out the window and saw the surface of the world rushing up to meet him. Minutes later they were on the water and taxiing up to a small stone jetty sticking out in the ocean below a large resort home that dominated some smaller houses clustered down the beach from it. A rather fat man in white tunic and blue pantaloons, was waiting on the jetty for them.
The ship reached the jetty, Poby opened the door and Eli got out.
"Well, Hassan," said Eli, as he stepped up onto the jetty.
"Well, Eli," responded Hassan Bendhruk. "Come on up to the house. I've got everything ready for you to look at."
Two hours later, they sat at lunch in the pleasant little loggia extending from one end of the house.
"I'm getting too old," said Hassan, "to remain the head of a secret police."
"Then you're glad I'm disbanding this little organization of mine?" said Eli.
"Well, not really," said Hassan, grimacing slightly above the cup of coffee he had just picked up. He put it down untasted. "Perhaps I'm just trying to talk myself into the fact that I could be glad."
"Well, I'm rather glad to hear that," said Eli. "Because there are still a few things I might need done. I thought"—Eli raised one eyebrow in a quizzical expression that gave his face a slightly satanic look—"you might be willing, you alone, to do a little part-time work for me from time to time."
"Oh, that!" said Hassan, spreading his hands eagerly. "Of course!"
"You see," said Eli, "the trouble is, a man who has got to the point in the world's eye that I have, cannot just safely step back down into the anonymous ranks of the private citizens again. I know I'm through. But others may not be so quick to believe that. To some, I won't mention who…"
"Our friend whose name begins with an S," murmured Hassan, folding his hands lazily over his stomach.
"Or others," said Eli. "And it may well happen that one or more of these people decide not to take a chance on a change of heart in my case. You understand?"
"I think," replied Hassan, "that I can fairly well guarantee to let you know of anything planned against you from the sources of danger we know of." He grimaced again, slightly. "News comes daily, to knock at my private door and offer itself for sale. It is one of the sad advantages of having a great deal of wealth to pay for it." He peered keenly at Eli. "But, you really are quitting?"
"Really quitting," said Eli. "I'll give you my address."
"I have it already," sighed Hassan. Eli grinned, a trifle sourly. "What you're going to need there," went on Hassan, "is some foolproof means of communication with me that doesn't attract too much attention."
"I suppose," answered Eli ironically, "you've already got that figured out?"
"As a matter of fact, I have," replied Hassan. "If you want to come along, I'll show you what I mean."
He rose; and Eli rose with him. Together, they went out of the loggia onto the lawn, and down a winding gravel path to the sea's edge. Here they stepped into a little water skimmer, and Hassan sent them sliding over the waves down the coastline.
A few miles down the beach, they came upon a section of limestone cliffs. Here the gentle surf broke raggedly along a rocky shore. Hassan maneuvered the skimmer in among the rocks and over the surf, with such aplomb that for a moment Eli suspected him of wanting to wreck them both, and the little skimmer with them. But then, suddenly, they made a sharp turn; came upon a sudden opening in the rock, and shot through into a watery cave at the far end of which light glowed.
They slid back through the cave and around a corner. The little skimmer approached and popped through a wall of pure light. And, without warning, they found themselves in a sort of brilliant underground world.
It was an enormous cavern, glittering with illumination. An artificial sun burned overhead, so brightly that human eyes could not look up and see against its glare the ceiling of the cave. For the rest, the vast expanse of the cave was planted and laid out with grass and paths almost like a formal garden aboveground.
Hassan tied up to a small jetty. They stepped ashore onto rock. And around a dwarf fir tree, a small bent man, wearing old-fashioned spectacles, came to meet them.
"This," said Hassan, "is Johann Schoner, Eli."
"Honored," said Eli.
Johann Schoner bobbed his head in acknowledgement of the greeting. But he looked almost agitatedly at Hassan.
"But I'm not ready!" he said. "You know I'm not ready. I told you yesterday, I couldn't possibly—"
"All right, all right!" said Hassan with humorous exasperation. "We don't need any messengers yet. I just wanted to show Eli what they were like."
"Well… well, in that case"—Karl turned back toward his fir tree, casting a glance back over his shoulders—"this way, then. Come along, Johnstone."
Eli followed, and Hassan along with him, between some small trees, and back into a section of the cave, that had been walled off into compartments, by tall barriers of light. As they stepped through one of these barriers, he found himself surrounded by tiny darting birds small enough to nest, it seemed, in the palm of his hand.
"Become a bird fancier, have you?" said Eli, smiling at Hassan. Hassan shook his head seriously, his heavy face a-joggle with the movement.
"Show him," he said to Johann.
Johann reached into a heavy pocket hanging from his tunic belt. From the tunic pocket, he took out a small chamois leather bag, with a draw-string. He opened the draw-string, and extracted a small white metal ring, which he handed to Eli.
"Put it on, put it on," he said.
Eli slipped the ring onto the fourth finger of his right hand. It fitted perfectly.
"Now what—" he began, when, with an almost soundless flutter of tiny wings one of the small birds about him—a drab brown morsel scarcely larger than a mandarin orange, with wings outstretched—perched like a piece of thistle-down upon that same ring.
&
nbsp; Eli stared at it. It threw back its miniscule head and abruptly, without warning, poured forth a stream of silver notes, astonishing in their loudness for one so small.
"Now," said the voice of Hassan in his ear, "squeeze the ring."
Eli did. From the ring came a tiny sound. It spoke in human language. "Pleased to meet you, Eli," it said.
Eli turned his head to stare at Hassan and Johann.
"Quite a gadget," he said dryly.
"You wear that ring," said Hassan. "These birds can fly halfway around the world, if necessary. However, it won't be necessary for them to do quite that much to reach you. We'll have some of them based on the mainland, not more than eighty or a hundred miles from where you'll be. Just wear your ring, and get out in the open, at least once a day if possible."
"The birds are trained to come to this ring?" said Eli, glancing at it curiously.
"Not trained, sensitized!" put in Johann eagerly. "A process akin to the instincts that used to cause them to migrate."
Eh shook his head briefly in admiration.
"And the song can be made to carry any message?" he asked.
"Any at all," responded Johann. "Even a fairly long one. You see, the translator in your ring takes into account frequency, modulation, pitch and a number of other things about each note in extracting information. Oh, it's quite complicated, I give you my word." And he rubbed his nose, juggling his glasses, in obvious delight.
"I see," said Eli.
"Well then," put in Hassan, "you keep the ring, Eli. We'd better be getting back. I'll talk to you later about this more, Johann."
Johann tenderly captured the little bird that had continued to roost this while upon Eli's finger and carried it off through another wall of light. Hassan led Eli back out to the skimmer.
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