The Metrognome and Other Stories

by Alan Dean Foster

  Let's see. He could sneak into the planning office and burn the station blueprints. No, that wouldn't do. They were bound to have plenty of copies. Charlie had to fill out three copies of a form himself just to requisition a box of paper clips.

  He could sneak into the station site and try to sabotage the construction machinery. That would delay things for awhile. Except he didn't think he knew enough about the machinery to successfully bust any of it. He'd never been very mechanically inclined. In fact, he'd failed handicrafts miserably in high school. Everything he had tried to make had turned out to be a napkin holder.

  How about using the site to stage a rally for the admission of Nationalist China to the UN? That was always sure to draw a noisy, rambunctious crowd. They might even sabotage the construction gear themselves! He knew a friend who was faintly associated with the John Birch Society who might . . . no, that wouldn't work. Rightist radicals would hardly be the group to get to try to halt construction of anything.

  Besides, they were all only temporary. Delaying tactics. Also, he could go to jail for any one of them. A prospect that enthralled him even less than missing his regular Sunday call to his mother in Greenville.

  Dinnertime rolled around, and he still hadn't thought of anything. He was reminded of the real world by the smell of incinerating frozen veal cordon bleu. The delicately carbonized odor permeated his tiny living room.

  The unappetizing result in his stove was not calculated to improve his humor, already bumping along at a seasonally low ebb.

  What he did was most unusual. For Charlie it was unique. He dug down, deep, deep into the bowels of his cupboards, past countless cans of Mr. Planter's peanuts, down past an immaculate cocktail shaker, never used since its purchase three years ago, down past things better left unmentioned, until he found a hair of the dog.

  Never more than a social drinker mostly at official company functions Charlie thought a few sips might sharpen his thoughts. It seemed to work for old Agent X 14 regularly every Friday evening on channel 3. So he sipped delicately and carefully. For variety, he alternated bottles. They were friendly dogs, indeed. Warm and cuddly, like a Maltese. Shortly thereafter they were rather more like a couple of playful Saint Bernards. And very shortly thereafter he was in no condition to aspire to any analogies at all.

  Actually, he hadn't intended to get drunk. It was, however, an inescapable by product of his drinking. He ran out of sippables in what seemed indecently short order.

  He threw on his raincoat it wasn't raining, but you never knew, he thought belligerently and headed in search of more follicles of the pooch. It was sheer good fortune he didn't start for the pound.

  On the way he had the fortune and misfortune to encounter Miss Overshade in the hallway. Miss Overshade occupied the apartment across the hall from Charlie, on the good side of the building. She was a local personality of some note, being the weather lady on the early news on channel 8. She had at one time been voted Miss Continental Shelf by the Port of New York Authority and currently held the title Miss High Pressure Area from the New York Council of Meteorologists.

  In point of fact she actually was constructed rather along the lines of an especially aesthetic gathering of cumulus clouds. She noticed Charlie, sort of.

  "Good evening, Mister . . . uh, Mister . . ."

  "Dimsdale," mumbled Charlie. "Dimsdale."

  "Oh, yes! How are you, Mister Dimsdale?" Without pausing to learn if he was on the brink of a horrible death, she vanished into her apartment. That voice was calculated to bring on the monsoon. For all she cares, he thought, I might as well be a . . . a gnome.

  He hurried down the stairs, insulting the elevator.

  At seven sharp Charlie was perusing the soluble delights of an aged and not so venerable establishment known as Big Swack's Bar. Currently, he existed in a state of blissful inebriation that followed a thin path betwixt nirvana and hell. For the nonce, nirvana prevailed.

  Charlie had a thought, grappled with it. It was brought on by something Van Groot had said. He looked at it hard, piercingly, turning it over in his mind and searching for cracks. It squirmed, trying to get away. He was careful, because he'd seen other things tonight that hadn't been at all real. This thought, however, was.

  He left so fast, he forgot to collect the change from his last drink. An occasion that so astonished the proprietor, "Big Swack" whose real name was Hochmeister that he talked of nothing else for days afterward.

  "Jonson, Jonson! Bill Jonson!" Charlie hammered unmelodically on the door.

  Bill Jonson was a sandy haired, rather sandy faced young geologist who occasionally shared with Charlie a pallid sandwich in the equally pallid Subway Authority cafeteria. He did not need minutes to observe that his friend was not his usual bland self.

  "Charlie? What the hell's the matter with you?"

  Now, Charlie was somewhat coherent because on the way up to his friend's abode he'd had enough sense to ingest three Sober ups. These were chased downstream consecutively by water, half a Pepsi, and an orange drink of sufficient sweetness to destroy any self respecting molar inside a month. As a result, his mind cleared at the expense of his stomach, which was starting to cloud over.

  "Listen, Bill! Can you take a . . . a sounding, a reading, a . . . you know. To determine if there's something special in the ground? Like a big hollow place?"

  "I suspect a big hollow place, and it's not in the ground. Come back tomorrow maybe, Charlie, huh? I've got company, you know?" He sort of tried a half grin, half blink. It made him look like a man suffering an attack of the galloping gripes.

  "Bill, you've got to take this sounding! You can take one? I've heard you mention it before. Pay attend hic!-man! This is important! Think of the telephone company!"

  "I'd rather not. I got my bill two days ago. Now, be a good chap, Charlie, and run along. It can wait till Monday. And I have got company."

  Charlie was desperate. "Just answer me. Can you take a sounding?"

  "You mean test the substrata, like I do for the Subway Authority?"

  "Yeah! That!" Charlie danced around excitedly. This did not inspire Bill to look on his friend with favor.

  "You've got to take one for me!"

  "A reading? You're drunk!"

  "Certainly not!"

  "Then why are you leaning to the left like that?"

  "I've always been a liberal. Listen, you know the new station they're planning to build for the extended Bronx-Manhattan line? The one at Sixth and 16th?"

  "I've heard about it. That's more your department than mine, you know."

  "Indirectly. You've got to come down and take a reading there. Now, tonight. I . . . I've reason to suspect that the ground there is unstable."

  "You are crazy. There's no real unstable ground in Manhattan unless you count some of the bars in the Village. It's practically solid granite. Do you have any idea what time it is, anyway?" He looked pointedly at his watch. "My God, it's nearly eight thirty!"

  This unsubtle hint did not have the intended effect on Charlie.

  "My God," he echoed, looking in the general vicinity of his own timepiece, "it is nearly eight thirty! We've got to hurry! We've only got till twelve!"

  "I'm beginning to think you've got even less than that," said Bill.

  "Who does?" came a mellifluous voice from behind the door.

  "Who's that?" Charlie asked, trying to peer over his friend's shoulder.

  "The television. Now look, go on home and I'll do whatever you ask. Monday, huh? Please?"

  "Nonsense, Bill," said the voice. The door opened wider. A young lady in rather tight slacks and sweater came into view behind Bill. "Why don't you invite your friend in? Charlie, wasn't it?"

  "Still is," said Charlie.

  "I can't think of a single reason," said Bill in a tone that would have sufficed to tan leather. He opened the door with great reluctance, and Charlie slipped inside.

  "Hi. My name's Abigail," the girl chirped.

  "Abigail?" said Charlie
in disbelief.

  "Abigail," replied Bill, nodding slowly.

  "My name's Charlie," said Charlie.

  "I know."

  "You do? Have we met before?"

  "Get to the point," said Bill.

  "Abigail, you've got to help me. I must enlist Bill's inexhaustible fount of scientific knowledge. In an enterprise that is vital to the safety of the city of New York!" Abigail's eyes went wide. Bill's got hard, like dumdum bullets.

  "I have reason to believe," he continued conspiratorially, "that the ground at Sixth Avenue and 16th Street is unstable. If this is not proved tonight, lives will be endangered! But I must buttress my theory with fact."

  "Don't swear. Gee, that fantastic! Isn't that fantastic, Bill?"

  "It sure is," Bill replied. In a minute he would fantasize her further by strangling his own friend right before her fantasized eyes.

  Charlie began to prowl around the living room, his own oculars darting right to left. "Well, don't just stand there, Bill! We've got to assemble your equipment. Now. Don't you agree, Abigail?"

  "Oh, yes. Hurry, Bill, let's do!"

  "Yes;" murmured Bill tightly. "Just let me get my hat and my coat." He took another look at his friend. "Is it raining out?"

  Charlie was on his hands and knees, peering under the couch. "Raining out? Don't be absurd! Of course it isn't raining out. What makes you think it's raining out?"

  "Nothing," said Bill. "I can't imagine where I got the idea."

  Sixth Avenue and 16th Street was not a very busy intersection, even late on a Saturday night. Especially since it had been blocked off in spots by the construction machinery. On the other hand, it wasn't exactly a dark alley, either. The winos, comfortably tucked into their favorite corners, were no problem. But there were enough pedestrians about to make Bill feel uncomfortable and conspicuous with his heavy field case.

  "Why can't we go in there?" he asked, pointing to an assemblage of heavy earth movers.

  "Because the construction area is protected by a three-meter high wire fence topped with three rows of barbed wire with triple alarms on the gates and is patrolled by vicious large fanged guard dogs, is why."

  "Oh," said Bill.

  "Can't you do whatever you have to do right here?" asked Abigail.

  "Yeah, you're not going to set off a very big explosion, are you?" Charlie blurted.

  It is true that Charlie was still fairly intelligible. But the effects of the Sober ups were wearing off, and he tended to talk rather louder than normal.

  So the word "explosion" did have the useful effect of sending several couples scurrying to the other side of the street and clearing a broad space around them.

  "For cryin' out loud," whispered Bill, "will you shut up about explosions! You want to get us arrested?" He turned to survey the wooden fence that closed off the vacant lot behind them. "There's bound to be a loose board or a gate in this fence. All I'm going to do inside is set off the smallest cap I've got. You'll get the briefest reading I can take, and that's it!"

  While Bill and Charlie screened her from the street, Abigail slipped under the hinged plank they'd found. Charlie followed, and Bill came last, after slipping through his field kit. They stood alone in the empty lot.

  "Oooo, isn't this exciting!" Abigail whispered.

  "One of the most thrilling nights of my life," growled Bill. He'd long since resigned himself to the fact that the only way he was going to get rid of his friend, short of homicide, was to go through with this idiocy.

  "Only let's be ready to get out of here quick, huh? I don't feel like trying to explain to any of New York's finest what I'm doing taking seismic readings in a vacant lot at nine o'clock Saturday night."

  "Is it that late already?" yelled Charlie, oblivious to his friend's attempts to shush him. "Hurry, hurry!"

  "Anything, if you'll only shut up!" Bill moaned nervously. The others watched while he proceeded to dig a small hole with a collapsible spade. He put something from his case into it, then filled in the dirt, tamping it down tightly with the flat of the spade. He walked back to them, trailing two thin wires.

  "This is exciting!" said Abigail. Bill gave her a pained look while Charlie fairly hopped with impatience.

  Bill hit the small push button device the wires led from. There was a muffled thump! Clods of earth were thrown several meters into the tepid air of the New York night. They were accompanied by a non-organic shoe and several tong empty tuna fish cans.

  "Well?" asked Charlie. He said it several times before he realized Bill couldn't hear him through the earphones. Finally he tapped him on the shoulder. "How long will it take?"

  "Too long," said Bill, mooning at Abigail, who was inspecting the midget crater. "It was a very small bang. I've got to amplify and reamplify the results and wait for a proper printout from the computer. Maybe an hour, maybe two."

  "That is too long!" Charlie whimpered piteously.

  "That is too bad!" Bill was just about at the end of his good humor.

  "Well, okay, but hurry it up, will you?"

  Bill chewed air and didn't reply.

  "I don't believe it!" There was a peculiar expression on the young geologist's face.

  "What is it, what's happened?" said Abigail.

  Bill turned slowly from his instruments, looked up at Charlie.

  "You were right. Son of a bitch, you were right! I don't believe it, but . . . unstable! Geez, there's a regular cave down there!"

  "Will it affect the tunnel?"

  "No, not the line, but as for putting a station down here . . . The whole thing could collapse under other sections of the block. And I couldn't begin to predict what blasting here might do. I don't think anyone would get hurt, but the added expense . . . to ensure the safety of the crane operators and such . . ."

  "Now, that would be serious," said Charlie. "Hey, what time is it?"

  " 'Bout twenty to twelve," Bill replied, glancing down at his watch.

  Charlie looked askance at his watch. "Heavens, it's twenty to twelve! I've got to run! See you soon, Bill!"

  "Not likely," the geologist murmured.

  "And thanks, thanks a million! You'll report your results to the commissioner's office, won't you?"

  "Yeah, sure!" shouted Bill as his friend slipped through the loose board. No reason not to. He'd get a lot of credit for his foresight in detecting the faulted area. Maybe a paper or journal article out of it, too. And he'd take it after what he'd gone through tonight.,

  "Now, don't be bitter," whispered Abigail, kissing him selectively. "You were marvelous! It wasn't that difficult. Besides, I think it was fun. And different. I've never been invited out for a seismic reading before."

  Bill squinted glumly into the bright light that had settled on them. "And you'll be the first girl to be arrested for it, too." He sighed, kissing her right back.

  "Van Groot! Hey, Van Groot!" Charlie had been stumbling through the tunnel for what seemed like hours. He'd wandered off and on the inspectors' walkway, unmindful of the fact that at any moment a train could have come roaring down the subterranean track to squash him like a bug.

  "Here, gnome, here, gnome!" That sounded even worse. If he ran into a night inspector, he might be able to alibi away "Van Groot!" He didn't think he was clever enough to explain away "Here, gnome!"

  Could he? Well, could he?

  "De Puyster!" came a familiar voice. "Stop that shouting! I can hear you."

  "Van Groot! I've found you!"

  "Eureka," the gnome said dryly. "I'd sure be distressed if you'd found me and I turned out to be someone else."

  Tonight the gnome administrator was wearing blue sharkskin. The beret was gone, replaced by a gunmetal-blue turban. A gold silk handkerchief protruded from the jacket pocket, matched to the gold shoes of water buffalo hide.

  "Well?"

  Charlie tried to catch his breath. It occurred to him that the steady diet of booze and exercise he'd been existing on all night did not go together like, say, chocolate chip
and cookie.

  "It's . . . it's all right! Everything's going to be okay. You can tell the relatives up north they can leave their maple syrup in the trees and not black out cities or any of that kind of stuff! Your mine won't be harmed."

  "Why, that's merry marvelous!" said Van Groot. "How ever did you manage it? I admit I didn't have much confidence in you."

  "Friend . . . friend of mine will present enough evidence to the Subway Planning Board showing that the ground, the area for the proposed station, is unstable. Unsuitable for practical excavation. If they think it'll cost them another five bucks, they'll move it to the south side of the tunnel. It was all a matter of just using the fact of your mine, not trying to pretend it wasn't there. They don't know it's a mine, of course."

  "Seismic test?"

  "Yeah. How did you know?"

  "Reasonable. Three of my best pick gnomes reported in earlier this evening with migraines."

  "Sorry."

  "Don't give it no mind. Serves 'em right." Van Groot chuckled with satisfaction.

  "Anyway," Charlie continued, "lives, time, and difficulty cannot stop the New York Subway Authority. But money . . . yeah, your mine is safe, all right."

  "And so are your phone lines. So is that of the chairman of the board of General Computers."

  "It'll be an express station, anyway. It shouldn't bother you too much," Charlie added. He was getting groggy again. His stomach and brain were ganging up on him.

  "You've done very well, indeed, my boy: I'm surprised at you. It's been a long time since any human traded favors with us:"

  "Aw, I'll bet you set the whole thing up. Anyway, I've got to be honest about it. I didn't do it for you. I didn't do it for me, either. I--I did it " And here he stood very tall, straight, and patriotic. " for the telephone company!" It was all he could do not to salute.

  "Bravo! I wish there was something we could give you. A little token, a remembrance. I don't suppose you could use a nice scepter."

  "I'm afraid not. No coronations for a month at least. I'm going on the wagon."