“I’d say that it’s a trifle exaggerated. I don’t ordinarily do epic things on an empty stomach.”
“You sacrificed your own life to save the lives of five who could only be called your enemies.”
“I didn’t sacrifice my life, I didn’t save their lives, and I don’t consider them my enemies. What happened was a team effort. I contributed. So did Ysaye. Alice did the most. Even those who did nothing helped by not interfering where all of their training told them they should interfere.”
“They were watching,” the alien said slowly. “They saw the difficulties you experienced in returning to them, when you could so easily have remained with your own people. Then you gave them your oxygen. If you had not done so Alice would have come too late. You deliberately sacrificed yourself in a cause that must have appeared hopeless at the time. It appeared hopeless to them.”
“I’m a natural-born optimist.”
“You are a feebly civilized inhabitant of a remote and utterly insignificant planet, with no more than a rudimentary moral sense, and—your act has created consternation in every headquarters all the way back to Supreme.”
“You left out something,” Darzek said dryly. “My darkness is also the wrong color.”
“Do you state that as an opinion?”
“As an indictment of whoever is in charge of colors. Shall I see them again? Alice, and Ysaye, and the others?”
“They have already departed. They left a message for me to give to you.
“‘When the airless wind shall sing,
When the broken circle mends,
When the brightest day dawns without light,
And the brittle night comes softly without darkness, I shall yet remember.’
“It is from a poem celebrated on many worlds. Ysaye translated it for you, but I fear that it does not translate well.”
“Please tell them that I understand, and return to them the same feeling.”
“Certainly.”
“Before we get on with the memory erasing, there is one thing I would like to know.”
“I am at your service, Jan Darzek.”
“What is the verdict?”
“The verdict?”
“About Universal Trans. And Earth. What are you going to do?”
“The verdict is not yet formulated. Even if it were, I should regretfully decline to tell you. You know something of our Code. Surely you can understand that.”
“You won’t even tell me when my memory will be erased immediately afterwards?”
“Even if the Code permitted it, it would involve a needless complication and an impossible delay. The memory erasing is a prolonged and delicate operation, and we must first, with your assistance, devise substitute memories for the time of your absence. We must also have a technician prepare a wig for you. According to your photograph, the damage to your hair is somewhat conspicuous.”
“Just a trifle.”
“Our technicians are highly skilled in such matters.”
“I know. I can’t see the harm in your telling me, though, if it’s erased right away.”
“It would be a violation of my oath—and yours. Whatever the relationship between our peoples may be in the future, Jan Darzek, none of your people shall ever know about it. Certainly not during your lifetime—or mine. Are you ready now?”
Darzek got up resignedly.
Again he could not locate the door, and he had to wait until she opened it for him.
CHAPTER 23
Jan Darzek paid the cabdriver, tipping him exorbitantly, and stood at the curb watching him rocket away down the Chaussée de Louvain. It was a lovely day, and Brussels was a lovely city, and he would have liked to linger at least long enough to enjoy crepes suzette at a little restaurant he remembered.
But his case would not be officially terminated until he had rendered a final report—and a bill—and he shuddered to think of the work that would have piled up at his office during his absence. He turned away reluctantly, but with the confident stride of a man who has just done a difficult job well, and entered the Gare de trans universel.
A plump, wildly gesticulating little man intercepted him as he crossed the lobby. “Monsieur Darzek!”
Darzek nodded gravely. “Monsieur Vert. It is a pleasure to see you again.”
The assistant manager delivered himself of a jerky bow, and seized Darzek’s hand. “But Monsieur Darzek! Where have you been? The police we have here, the detectives from America, the engineers, all of them interfering in our operations and asking questions—my head reels to think of it! ‘Where is Monsieur Darzek?’ they ask me. ‘Where has he gone?’ ‘How should I know?’ I say. ‘I do not even see him leap into the transmitter. The gate attendant says he leaps, and poof, he is gone—’” M. Vert snapped two plump fingers. “‘But all who use the transmitter are—poof—gone, and surely it is not my responsibility if he is not—poof—gone to the right place.’ I am not certain they believed me.”
“I’ll put in a good word for you,” Darzek said. “You were most co-operative, and I didn’t have an opportunity to thank you. My business was rather pressing at the time. I’ll personally commend you to Mr. Watkins.”
“Très bien. That is most generous of you. It is extremely unpleasant to be somehow thought responsible for something one knows nothing about. But Monsieur Darzek—” The assistant manager broke off, and looked about him uneasily. “—I do have a matter of much importance upon which I would like to confer with you. If you would be so kind.”
“Certainly,” Darzek said.
“In my office, perhaps, where we can speak privately—”
“Certainly.”
Darzek trailed after him, feeling vaguely uneasy about this development. “There haven’t been more disappearances, I hope,” he said, when they reached the office and M. Vert had firmly closed the door behind them.
M. Vert looked horrified. “Non! Non! Do not even suggest such a thing! If you will seat yourself, please, then we shall talk.”
Darzek sat down, and M. Vert perched on the edge of his swivel chair and began rearranging the knickknacks on his desk. He seemed embarrassed.
“I do not know precisely how to say this, Monsieur Darzek,” he said, transferring a cigarette box from the right- to the left-hand corner. “When you were here before, you entered the Paris gate by jumping over the turnstile, and you followed a Paris passenger into the transmitter. I learned only later that you did not go to Paris. At least, I was told this so many times, by so many people, that I can only assume that it is true.”
“It’s perfectly true,” Darzek said. “I did not go to Paris.”
“Bien,” M. Vert said, pushing the cigarette box aside and moving an enormous cut-glass ash tray into its position. “Would you say that this is the fault of Universal Trans that you did not go to Paris?”
“Certainly not. I would absolve Universal Trans of any responsibility for my failure to reach Paris.”
“Excellent!” M. Vert shifted the cigarette box to the center of the desk, and beamed at Darzek. “I am delighted to hear it. I may then discuss with you this matter that troubles me. I saw with my own eyes that you did not pass through the turnstile. You jumped completely over it. You do not deny that?”
“Why should I deny it?” Darzek said. “It was imperative that I follow that passenger closely, and there was no time to discuss the matter with the gate attendant.”
“Exactly. Nevertheless, though you did not pass through the turnstile, you did enter the Paris gate, and you did enter the Paris transmitter, and you should have gone to Paris. Do you not follow me?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“But—Monsieur Darzek! Surely you are aware that a business must be conducted in accordance with firm regulations. Though you leaped over the turnstile, you did not thereby cancel your obligation to present a ticket. You are yet owing Universal Trans for one passage to Paris!”
* * * *
In the New York Terminal Darzek pau
sed only to fill his empty cigarette case before he went to Ted Arnold’s office. He lit one, marveling that a cigarette could taste so good. Considering the insipid brands that had been inflicted upon him in the past week or so, he wondered that foreigners bothered to smoke at all.
Arnold was not in, but his office door stood open, and Darzek used his telephone. “Is Ted Arnold in the building?” he asked the operator.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Would you like me to try and locate him?”
“Please do. Tell him he’s wanted in his own office immediately. Tell him the situation is critical, and if he doesn’t get here at once the sun may not set today.”
“Would you mind repeating that?” the operator asked blankly.
“It’s an emergency. E-m-e-r—”
“I’ll tell him.”
Darzek hung up, and made himself comfortable on the sofa.
Arnold barged in ten minutes later. He stared long at Darzek, uttered an unearthly howl, and enfolded him in a ponderous embrace.
“Stop it!” Darzek snapped. “After passing safely through fire and water and diverse tortures, I’m not going to let myself be mashed to death in supposedly civilized surroundings.”
Arnold released him. “Where the devil have you been?”
“That’s a fine welcome. I went to Brussels, I have been in Brussels, and I have just returned from Brussels—where, incidentally, your Universal Trans terminal is operated by pirates. Where have you been?”
“Have you called your office? Does Jean know?”
“She does not. With my customary loyalty to the interests of an employer, I came directly here.”
“I’ll tell her. She’d probably faint if you just casually walked in on her.” He snatched the telephone, dialed a number. “Jean—he’s back! Certainly. Sitting on my sofa right now with his usual smug expression smeared all over his pretty face. I haven’t asked him. He’s lost weight, and he needs a haircut, but he looks all right. Better not. The Board is meeting right now, and it’ll want him. Hours, maybe. Why not dinner tonight? Sure, we’ll throw a party. I’ll call you. ’Bye, Hon.”
“Hon!” Darzek exclaimed. “You’re calling Jean Hon?”
“You might as well know now. Jean and I are—”
“Damnation! I go out of town for a couple of weeks, and my best friend—Ted, you’re the last person I’d expect to pull a dirty trick like that.”
“Old man, I had no idea you were in love with her. She’s been working for you for four years, and you had plenty of time to declare yourself.”
“I’m not in love with her. It’s just that she’s the best office girl I’ve ever had, and darned useful on special assignments. In fact, she’s a natural-born detective. Except for me she’s the only one I’ve ever met. I ought to cross the wires on the nearest transmitter and stuff you into it. Justifiable homicide!”
“If you want a lifetime contract with an office girl, you have to marry her. Have you been in Brussels all this time?”
“Didn’t I just say I had?”
“Ed Rucks was right. It’s a big place. Just a moment.” He dialed another number. “Shuey? It’s me, beautiful. Jan Darzek has just returned from the dead. In my office. Take a note in to the Boss, will you, and tell him we’ll be up at eleven. Not a minute before then. I want to hear it myself before I turn the directors loose on him.”
He hung up. “Talk,” he said.
“About what?” Darzek asked.
“Are you serious? Rucks has been looking for you all over Europe, Universal Trans has invested a young fortune in special investigators, and we’ve all been worried sick. We figured out how they were doing it, and we knew you’d stopped them, but that didn’t give us a clue as to where you were or what had happened to you.”
“I was in a damp Belgian cellar with time hanging heavy on my hands. I can’t remember when I’ve been so bored. I suffered intensely. I’ll include that in your bill.”
“What happened to their transmitter?”
“I smashed it. I pulled it apart right down to its smallest components, and with my two hands and two feet I masticated the components into snippets. You won’t hear from it again. They couldn’t reassemble that transmitter, even if they knew how.”
“I figured something like that had happened when the disappearances stopped. Incidentally, even if they could reassemble it, they couldn’t bother us again. I worked out a couple of modifications.”
“Bully. Why didn’t you modify before I got incarcerated?”
“I didn’t know what they were doing until you tossed out that idea about some of their attempts not working.”
“Glad to hear it. I don’t like to suffer in vain. Ted, I never fully respected you before I started to disassemble that transmitter. I once saw the naked entrails of a TV set, and the complexity of the thing almost made me sick. That transmitter was an absolute nightmare. How can one mind make sense of a mess like that?”
Arnold grinned. “The mind has to be in a similar mess. So far you’ve avoided the number one question. Who are ‘they’?”
“You never asked it. And if you don’t mind, I’ll keep that one for the Board.”
“Suit yourself. How about a cup of coffee before we go upstairs?”
“I’ll have two cups. And a piece of pie. I haven’t been eating lavishly, and if there’s a decent cup of coffee anywhere in Belgium, no one thought to order it for me.”
“I’ll have it sent up. Want anything else?”
“Just the coffee and pie. Blueberry pie.”
“Right,” Arnold said, and phoned the order. “You know,” he went on, settling back with his feet on his desk, “this is the first time I’ve felt fully relaxed since you did the disappearing act.”
“Sorry I couldn’t phone in hourly progress reports.”
“Oh, I’m not blaming you. I’m betting you dove into a pretty tense situation, for all you say about being bored. I’m surprised they let you go—or did they let you go?”
“They did. They were a long time making up their minds, and then we had some interminable negotiations, but they let me go.”
“What the devil did you have to negotiate?”
“I’ll unload it all to the Board. I couldn’t stand it to go over it twice.”
“You can’t blame me for being curious,” Arnold said. “I’ve really been in a flap about this. It was the sort of problem I’d instinctively turn over to you, only you were the one who was missing. There wasn’t anything I could do but send everyone out to look for you, and gnaw my nails until they found something. Which they didn’t, of course.”
“And no wonder. You wouldn’t tackle an engineering problem with detectives. Why go after a missing person with engineers? Your man Perrin may be a whiz in the lab, but he’ll never—”
“Oh, I didn’t send Perrin,” Arnold interrupted. “Actually, I didn’t send anyone. I let Rucks pick the people and do the sending.”
“Somehow I had the impression that Perrin was looking for me.”
“Perrin is on the Moon. What are you looking so blank about? Haven’t you seen a newspaper? Didn’t you know we were on the Moon?”
“I haven’t seen a newspaper since I did my transmitter dive, and we’ve been on the Moon for years. But—Perrin?”
“I mean Universal Trans is on the Moon. With a transmitter. Perrin is running it. Unfortunately USSA is in control, and everyone and his brother who has a little political pull is grabbing a free Moon trip. The President went up day before yesterday—the first Chief Executive to leave this planet. It made a big splash in the papers, and the publicity is worth a fortune, but some of those asses on the Board are never satisfied. They think we should have sold the President a Moon ticket at so much per mile.”
“Maybe you will be selling Moon tickets some day.”
“Sooner than that. It’s all on the planning boards now. Things have been buzzing around here. We had to build special transmitters for the Moon job, and one had to be sent
up by rocket, so we had to train the astronauts to operate it until we could send an engineer through, and now we’re building transmitters for New Frontier City and Lunaville, and—”
“Ha! All this plus finding yourself a wife in the little time I’ve been gone. And you say you were just gnawing your nails and waiting for someone to find me. You may be a pretty good engineer, but as a friend you’re a total fraud. Stealing my office girl—” He broke off with a scowl.
“What’s the matter?” Arnold asked.
“Just wondering where I got the idea that Perrin was looking for me.”
A pot of coffee arrived, and the pie—a whole pie for the two of them—and they polished it off leisurely. Then they went up to the executive offices, where Miss Shue announced their arrival with all of the ceremony of a herald of old, and twice the volume and enthusiasm.
Thomas J. Watkins escorted Darzek to a waiting chair, to the accompaniment of thunderous applause. Arnold preempted a chair for himself, and Miss Shue remained standing by the door.
“We offer you both our congratulations and our thanks, Mr. Darzek,” Watkins said. “We know that you’ve been successful beyond our wildest expectations, but we have no idea what it was you did. Please report in full.”
“I’d hoped that the entire Board would be present,” Darzek said.
“It is,” Watkins assured him.
“I met several directors the day I was hired. Where is Mr. Grossman?”
“I should explain,” Arnold said quickly, “that Mr. Darzek has not seen a newspaper since the morning he disappeared. Grossman is no longer a director, Jan. He got confused over what was the company’s money and what was his own, and he resolved the issue in favor of himself. We strongly suspect that he’s your traitor, but so far he’s denied it.”
“There was no traitor,” Darzek said. “Just some directors who talked too much. Do all of you know what happened up to the time I disappeared?”
“I filled them in while we were waiting for you,” Watkins said.
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