by Max Ehrlich
David nodded.
They drove through the darkened streets toward the place where Carol lived.
He rang the bell, and Carol opened the door.
"David!"
Then she was in his arms. He could feel her body taut against his for a moment, then begin to tremble violently. Her nails bit into the back of his neck as he kissed her.
"David, David . . ."
Her body relaxed and blended into his now. He could feel the soft warmth of her; her lips inflamed him as she half cried, half laughed his name against his ear. After all, it had been three months since he'd last been East, since he'd last seen her.
He lifted her up, carried her into the room, and kissed her again.
Finally he set her down, and she said breathlessly: "Darling, darling, give me your coat and hat." She put them on a chair and turned back to him. "I'm not even going to bother hanging them up. Not now. Sit here, David, by the fireplace. Wait a minute, here's an ottoman for your legs; you have such long, long legs and you always like to lean them on something." She was excited now, nervous, all quick movement. "You've left the door open and your bag's still standing out in the hall. No, darling, don't move, I'll get it. Just sit here by the fire and don't go away. I've got scotch and soda ready in the kitchen -- I know you never drink anything else."
He started to say something, but she put a finger on his lips and shook her head.
"No, David. Don't say anything. Not now. Not until I bring in the drinks and we can really sit down together. Not until I have a chance to really look at you again. Then we'll talk. . . ."
He watched her go into the tiny kitchenette, and he thought. She's coming back to Palomar with me. Tomorrow, right after that meeting, she's leaving this deathtrap and going back with me, if I have to beat her over the head and drag her with me.
He had written, wired, and telephoned her frantically to leave New York and come to the Coast. But Carol had refused, she had stayed on, she had business in New York. A talented and successful radio and television actress, she was making half-hour film television transcriptions for shipment to isolated military outposts. But more important, with her fluent knowledge of French and German, she was broadcasting short-wave to Occupied Europe.
The Department of Information was responsible for Carol's being in New York. The department, a super-streamlined agency, and a long cry from the old Office of War Information of World War II, had finally managed to tear itself away from the State Department. Now it stood on its own feet, its Secretary occupied a seat in the Cabinet, its power over all media was far-flung and virtually authoritative. It did not order an editorial line -- not yet. It merely "suggested." But there was hard steel in the suggestions. And every day, in the temporary capital somewhere in the Middle West, the Secretary of Information lunched with the Secretary of National Defense.
"Information" had "suggested" that Carol and others like her volunteer for the hazardous New York post. It would be only temporary, the Secretary had pointed out. In another week the networks would complete the transfer of their entire New York radio and television operation to a new and emergency Radio City in Kansas.
David leaned back on the couch and listened to the clink of ice in glasses in the kitchenette. It was a relief to be here, in this warm and comfortable room, away from the graveyard outside. He looked about the room, noted that the furniture had been changed since he had last been in town three months ago. It was the new plastic and non-inflammable furniture -- the kind they called "Modern Translucent." It was, he decided, a little too modern for his taste.
But then, he thought, he might have become a little stuffy, fallen behind the times, in his roost at Palomar. He could never quite understand how a lovely and talented girl like Carol could have fallen for a rather prosaic person like himself. True, he had a certain amount of prestige in his own field; he was first assistant to the Old Man himself.
But you couldn't eat prestige. And the fact that Carol made four or five times as much money as he did sometimes nagged him.
"David!" She spoke suddenly from the kitchenette. "I know you said you wouldn't tell me, but I just can't stand it. Why are you in New York now?"
"Military secret," he said lightly.
"Something in that brief case you brought in with you?"
"Yes."
"And you can't even tell your own wife?"
"You're not my wife yet." He grinned. "But that reminds me -- there's something I can tell you." Then he paused dramatically. "I've found a place for us to live."
"David!" she cried out in delight. "No!"
"Yes! Right in the observatory colony. A cottage -- fieldstone and white shingles, and two bathrooms. Wait'll you see it!"
"But, David, how on earth ?"
"Just one of those lucky breaks. That is, lucky for us -- unlucky for someone else. The place belonged to one of our research associates -- the man who ran the Schmidt camera. Anyway, he and his wife broke up, and they moved. He went to Lick Observatory, and she took the children and went back to her mother's. Anyway, there it is, all furnished and everything, waiting for our new name plate. We'll send out a hundred invitations for our housewarming."
She sounded surprised at that. "A hundred? Are there that many people at Palomar?"
"Sure. On the staff alone we've got four research associates, twenty-one research workers, and twelve computers. Not to mention their wives and children. And then there's all the other personnel -- the cook, and steward, and chauffeurs, and engineers, and telescope mechanics." He listened to cupboards slamming and the pop of a soda bottle from the kitchenette. "But never mind that. What's taking you so long?"
"I'll be right in." A pause, and then: "David, did you really miss me?"
"Hurry up and come back in here," he said. "And I'll show you how much!"
She laughed. "Why, darling, you sound positively dangerous."
Maybe I do, he thought. He was one of the few bachelors at the observatory colony, and for him it was rather a lonely life. Palomar was a graduated society, in the manner of a small and isolated Army post, and its social life was restrained and somewhat clannish. Couples naturally entertained couples, and he was always the extra man.
As such, he was an irritant to the staff wives in the colony, and they had tried their hardest to marry him off, at least in the beginning. They had invited "friends" up from Los Angeles or elsewhere for week ends and thrown them into David's company.
Even Emily Dawson, the Old Man's wife, had made a special effort to marry David off. The Dawsons were childless, and when she learned that both David's parents were dead she had taken him under a motherly wing. She had a niece in San Francisco, and she'd brought the girl to Palomar just to meet him.
But the experiment had failed, and finally she had told David almost reproachfully:
"I had hopes for you and Ann, David. It would have done my old heart good to have you in the family. Why, I was even dreaming of a big wedding right here in my own house." Then she had shaken her patrician head and sighed. "I'm afraid you'll just have to bring this young lady, Carol, back to Palomar here, before we all burst a collective blood vessel!"
Now that he thought of it, he had spent most of his time with Dr. and Mrs. Dawson. It had been monastic, almost like living in a lighthouse without a woman. But there was blood running in his veins, good red blood, and sometimes, just before dawn, when the domed roof finally closed over the Big Eye like a great halved eyelid, his need of Carol had become a gnawing hunger.
Carol came in carrying a tray on which there was a bottle of scotch, soda, and glasses filled with cylindrical tubes of ice. David looked at the frozen cylinders curiously, then remembered seeing them advertised in magazines. They were a feature of the latest refrigerators -- individual frozen ice tubes instead of the old and clumsy cubes. You merely pressed an ejector button in the refrigerator, and the ice tubes popped out, one by one. They fitted into a glass very neatly, one to a drink.
They think of something ne
w every minute, thought David a little cynically.
Carol sat down beside him, gave him his drink. "How's His Eminence?"
"Who?"
"Dr. Dawson."
"Oh," grinned David. "Working his head off -- on something big."
"What is it?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. The Old Man's keeping this one close to his chest."
"Poof!" She laughed at him. "I thought Dr. Dawson told you everything!"
He grinned back at her. "He usually does. But this time he hasn't seen fit to consult me and get the benefit of my vast experience. He never does till the job's all over." He put down his glass suddenly and looked at her. "But never mind the Old Man. It's been a long time, Carol. Come here."
They were in each other's arms again, and as David held her he thought, The hell with it all, the cold war, and the dark city outside, everything. It was bound to come; they could conceivably be blown up tomorrow, or now, tonight, at this moment, when he held Carol close. The world outside was complicated; you could worry yourself crazy just thinking about it, living in it.
This was the stuff, this was the idea, the way to live while living was good. A warm and comfortable room, the feel of a woman against your chest, and in your arms, and on your mouth, the touch of warm, throbbing, living flesh under the thin dress, the scent of her hair against your face, the sound of her tiny moans in your ear, the leaping, exciting hope that tonight, maybe tonight . . .
The phone rang.
It jangled with a kind of obscene insistence. It was an intruder there, unwelcome, coarse, inconsiderate. They did not stir, but it would not go away.
It rang again, and again, and again.
"David," whispered Carol. "David, let me go."
He released her finally, and she arose a little unsteadily. She smoothed her dress and walked toward the phone, and as she did, David thought shakily, She's lovely, she's wonderful. Everything about her -- the way she walked, the way she talked with that low, husky voice of hers, the pale skin, the oval face, the way her jet-black hair was brushed up and back over her head, and her mouth, luscious and full.
Carol lifted the receiver, said: "Hello." She listened for a moment, and then:
"Dr. Hughes? Yes, he's here." She held the phone toward David. "It's long distance. Palomar calling."
"Palomar?"
He rose from the couch, suddenly worried. What had happened at the observatory? Why did they want him now? As he came to the phone Carol asked:
"How did they know you'd be here?"
"I told the steward he could locate me at your apartment, and if I wasn't here you'd know where to find me." He took the phone and said:
"This is David Hughes."
The operator told him to wait a moment. He heard a crisscross of vague filtered voices. Someone was trying to locate someone else in New York; someone wanted a St. Louis number. The voices were remote and mysterious; they began and were cut off abruptly, like disembodied wraiths.
David waited a full minute, then jiggled the receiver.
"Operator! Operator!"
The operator's voice came on again, told him to wait again, and he hung on impatiently. He glanced at his watch. One o'clock. That would be ten on the Coast. If it was clear, if the sky and seeing were good, the Old Man should be taking settings now, with Bill Forrester at the pulpit. . . .
The operator came on suddenly:
"Here's your party."
It was Francis, the steward. His voice sounded shaky, agitated; it was trembling.
"Dr. Hughes, Dr. Hughes!"
"Yes, Francis? This is Hughes. What?"
"Come back to Palomar at once. On the next plane. Dr. Daw- "
Francis's voice was suddenly snapped off abruptly. There was a buzz, and the phone went dead. David swore, jiggled the receiver. The instrument buzzed again and then cleared; the phone was alive again for just an instant.
An operator spoke somewhere, very faint and very far away.
"Rio is ready for you, Palomar. Rio is waiting. We'll hold the Amsterdam circuit until -- "
The operator's voice cut off. The phone went dead again.
What in hell was going on? thought David. Why were they calling Rio, Amsterdam, and God knows where, all of a sudden?
And why did Francis tell him to come back? Before his voice had been snatched off the circuit he had said something to David about the Old Man. But the Old Man had sent him on this mission; the Old Man knew he had to be at that meeting tomorrow morning, or else!
He got the New York operator, asked her to try Palomar, He told Carol briefly what Francis had said, and then he began to worry.
"I don't like it, Carol," he said. "Francis sounded like a scared rabbit. Maybe something's happened to the Old Man. His heart isn't any too good -- angina -- carries around nitroglycerin pills. Mrs. Dawson packs a vial of pills in every suit he's got, in his desk, and there's even a vial of the stuff up in the observer's cage at the top of the Eye. But the Old Man's pretty absent-minded; he's left 'em home more than once. And when he needs one of those pills under his tongue, he needs it fast!" He shook his head. "I don't know, Carol. He's been working his head off lately, and the generals have been running him ragged, and maybe his heart -- maybe he's had a collapse. Otherwise, why would Francis sound the way he did?"
"David, you mustn't fret like that." Carol came over and twined her arm into his. "Perhaps it isn't Dr. Dawson at all. Those calls to Rio and Amsterdam you just told me about -- maybe they mean something."
David jiggled the receiver, called for the operator. "This goddamned phone," he raged. "First they cut me off, and then I can't even get an operator!"
"The trouble's probably at the New York end, darling," said Carol. "They've only got a skeleton crew working. Most of the switchboard girls have left, and you can't blame them."
Finally an operator came on. She was maddeningly cahn. She told David the circuits to California and to Palomar were busy. He begged her to get him through. She was properly sympathetic but very professional.
"I'll call you when we make the connection," she told David.
He paced up and down the floor, jittery, confused. He had to get through to Palomar, to get more details.
Francis had told him to come back, to take the first plane back. But there was that all-important meeting in the morning at military headquarters, wherever that was. He had some very important data in his brief case, and his presence would immediately be missed.
He was, in short, under orders to be there. From General Hawthorne. Maybe the Old Man was big enough to defy the top brass.
But he was only David Hughes.
And he could be slapped down, and hard, for not showing up at that conclave. It could mean a drumhead trial, a prison, a firing squad, maybe. In times like these they weren't too particular. The area between the civil and the military had faded into a nebulous no man's land.
No matter how much the Old Man protested that David had returned to the Coast under his, Dawson's, orders, an Army court would be sure to take the simple and disastrous view that General Matt Hawthorne, four stars, had ordered him to be there.
There was also another, and far more important, consequence.
Suppose the data in his brief case was valuable, really valuable?
Suppose the figures, diagrams, and conclusions, all neatly itemized on paper in his brief case, proved the key on which the men at the meeting made their decision?
Suppose, on the basis of what he was bringing to that all-important meeting in the morning, they decided to throw any further caution out of the window and strike at Russia immediately?
It was possible. It was horribly, damnably, and obviously possible that he, David Hughes, might be carrying the match for the fuse there in that shiny leather bag on Carol's table. By his not going to that meeting, by his failing to present that data and interpret it for the group, they might make a mistake and start the inferno.
Or, failing David's presence with vital information, th
ey might make a different mistake and hold their attack, when the sound decision would be to strike. They might hold it a little too long, and the Soviet might beat them to it.
At this moment, David realized miserably, at this hellish moment, he was an unwilling giant on a world stage, carrying a hot torch he didn't want and couldn't handle.
It was too much, he thought. It was too much to ask of any one man. Even if the Old Man himself had asked him to come back.
But had he?
David didn't know, he wasn't sure. He didn't know whether the order for his return had actually come from the Old Man, or whether something had happened to Dr. Dawson, and Francis had called David on his own authority.