by Anthology
"You really should get out of there for a while," advised Lydman, studying the size of Pauline's cubbyhole. "Sit outside a quarter of an hour at least, and let your mind spread out."
"Well, if it's really all right with you, Beryl?"
"I'm only too glad to help," said Beryl rapidly.
She wasted no time in rounding the corner to get at the door. Westervelt closed his eyes. He found it easy to envision Pauline tangling with her on the way out and causing Lydman to start all over again.
The girls managed without any such catastrophe. Pauline headed for the swivel chair behind the unused secretarial desk.
"You ought to leave that door open," Lydman called to Beryl. "If it should stick, there's hardly any air in there. You'd feel awfully cramped in no time."
"Thank you," said Beryl politely.
She left the door open, sat down, and picked up Pauline's headset. From the set of her shoulders, it did not seem that much light conversation would be forthcoming from that quarter.
Westervelt stepped further into the office, and saw that Smith was standing in his own doorway, rubbing his large nose thoughtfully. The youth guessed that Simonetta had signaled him.
Parrish cleared his throat with a little cough.
"Well," he said, "I'll be in my office if anyone wants me."
Rather than pass too close to Lydman, he retreated into the hall to use the outside entrance to his office. The ex-spacer paid no attention.
Westervelt decided that he would be damned if he would go through Parrish's office and back into this one to get at his desk. He walked around the projection of the switchboard cubicle and sat down with a sigh at his own place. He leaned back and looked about, to discover that Lydman had gone over to say a few words to Smith. Pauline glanced curiously from Westervelt to the two men, then began to shop among a shelf of magazines beside the desk of the vacationing secretary.
After a few minutes, Lydman turned and went out the door. Westervelt tried to listen for footsteps, but the resilient flooring prevented him from guessing which way the ex-spacer had gone.
He saw Smith approaching, and went to meet him.
"I've changed my mind," said the chief. "For a little bit, anyway, we'll leave him alone. He said he was sketching up some gizmo he wants to have built, and needed peace and quiet."
"Did he say we... were talking too loud?" asked Westervelt, looking at the doorway rather than meet Smith's eye.
"No, that was all he said," answered Smith.
There was a questioning undertone in his voice, but Westervelt chose not to hear it. After a short wait, Smith asked Simonetta to bring her taper into his office. He mentioned that he hoped to phone for some technical information. Westervelt watched them leave, then sank down on the corner of the desk at which Pauline was relaxing.
Beryl turned around in her chair.
"Pssst! Pauline!" she whispered. "Is he gone?"
"They all left-except Willie," the girl told her.
Beryl shut the door promptly. The pair left in the office heard her turn the lock with a brisk snap.
"What's the matter with her?" murmured Pauline.
"Nothing," said Westervelt glumly. "Why don't you take a nap, or something?"
"I'd like to," said Pauline. "It's going on seven o'clock and who knows when we'll get out of here?"
"Shut up!" said Westervelt. "I mean... uh... don't bring us bad luck by talking about it. Take a nap and let me think."
"All you big thinkers!" jeered Pauline. "What I'd really like to do is go down to the ladies' room and take a shower, but you always kid me about Mr. Parrish maybe coming in with fresh towels for the machine."
"I lied to you, Pauline," said Westervelt. "The charwoman brings them."
"Well, I could always hope," giggled Pauline.
"Not tonight," said Westervelt. "Believe me, kid, you're safer than you'll ever be!"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Pauline came back in a quarter of an hour, her youthfully translucent skin glowing and her ash-blonde curls rearranged. She glanced through the window at Beryl, who was nervously punching a number for an outside call.
"What's going on?" she asked Westervelt, who sat with his heels on the center desk.
"Mr. Smith is calling a couple of engineers he knows," Simonetta told her.
Westervelt had just heard it, when Simonetta had emerged with a tape to transcribe. He had started to mention that it might be better to phone a psychiatrist, but had bitten back the remark.
For all I know, he reflected, they might take me away! Everything I remember about today can't really have happened. If it did, I wish it hadn't!
He recalled that he had been phoned at home to hop a jet for London that morning. He had found the laboratory which had made the model of the light Smith was interested in, and been on his way back without time for lunch. Now that the jets were so fast, meals were no longer served on them, and he had had to grab a sandwich upon returning. Then there had been those poor fried eggs. That was all-no wonder he was feeling hungry again!
I should have missed the return jet, he thought bitterly. I didn't know where I was well off! Why did I have to walk in there? I might have had the sense to go look in Bob's office first.
He decided that Pauline, now chatting with Simonetta, looked refreshed and relaxed. Perhaps he ought to do the same.
The idea, upon reflection, continued to appear attractive. Westervelt rose and walked out past the switchboard. Beryl was too busy to see him. He made his way quietly to the rest room, which he found empty. He was rather relieved to have avoided everyone.
At one side of the room was a door leading to a shower. The appointments of Department 99 were at least as complete as those of any modern business office of the day. Westervelt stepped into a tiny anteroom furnished with a skimpy stool, several hooks on the wall, and a built-in towel supplier.
Prudently, he set the temperature for a hot shower on the dial outside the shower compartment, and punched the button that turned on the water.
Just in case all the trouble has affected the hot water supply, he thought.
As he undressed, he was reassured by the sight of steam inside the stall. Another thought struck him. He locked the outer door. He did not care for the possibility of having Lydman imagine that he was trapped in here. It would be just his luck to be "assisted" out into the corridor, naked and dripping, at the precise moment it was full of staff members on their way to the laboratory.
He slid back the partly opaqued plastic doors and stepped with a sigh of pleasure under the hot stream. Ten minutes of it relaxed him to the point of feeling almost at peace with the world once more.
"I ought to finish with a minute or two of cold," he told himself, "but to hell with it! I'll set the air on cool later."
He pushed the waterproof button on the inside of the stall to turn off the water, opened the narrow doors, and reached out to the towel dispenser. The towel he got was fluffy and large, though made of paper. He blotted himself off well before turning on the air jets in the stall to complete the drying process.
Having dressed and disposed of the towel through a slot in the wall, he glanced about to see if he had forgotten anything. The shower stall had automatically aired itself, sucking all moisture into the air-conditioning system; and looked as untouched as it had at his entrance.
Westervelt strolled out into the rest room proper, thankful that the lock on the anteroom door had not chosen that moment to stick. He stretched and yawned comfortably. Then he caught sight of his tousled, air-blown hair in a mirror. He fished in his pocket for coins and bought another hard paper comb and a small vial of hair dressing from dispensers mounted on the wall. He took his time spraying the vaguely perfumed mist over his dark hair and combing it neatly.
That task attended to, he stole a few seconds to study the reflection of his face. It was rather more square about the jaw than Smith's, he thought, but he had to admit that the nose was prominent enough to challenge the chief's.
No one had thought to equip the washroom with adjustable mirrors, so he gave up twisting his neck in an effort to see his profile.
"Well, that's a lot better!" he said, with considerable satisfaction. "Now if I can hook another coffee out of the locker, it will be like starting a new day. Gosh, I hope it's a better one, too!"
He walked lightly along the corridor to the main office, exaggerating the slight resilience of the floor to a definite bounce in his step. Outside the office, he met Beryl coming out. He felt himself come down on his heels immediately.
Beryl eyed him enigmatically, glanced over his shoulder to check that he was alone, and swung away toward the opposite wing. Westervelt hurried after her.
"Look, Beryl!" he called. "I wanted to say... that is... about before-"
Beryl turned the corner and kept walking.
"Wait just a second!" said Westervelt.
He tried to get beside her to speak to something besides the back of her blonde head, but she was a tall girl and had a long stride. He hesitated to take her by the elbow.
Beryl stopped at the door to the library.
"Please take note, Willie," she said coldly, "that the light is on inside and I am all alone."
At least she spoke, thought Westervelt.
"I have come down here for a little peace and quiet," she informed him. "I hope you didn't intend to learn how to read at this hour of the night."
"Aw, come on!" protested Westervelt. "It was an accident. Could I help it?"
"Being the way you are, I suppose not," admitted Beryl judiciously. "Why don't you go elsewhere and be an accident again?"
"I'm trying to say I'm sorry," said Westervelt, feeling a flush spreading over his features. "I don't know why I have to apologize, anyway. It wasn't me in there, filing away in the dark!"
Beryl looked down her nose at him as if he were a Mizarian asking where he could have his chlorine tank refilled.
"Is that the story you're telling around?" she demanded icily.
"I'm not telling-" Westervelt realized he was beginning to yell, and lowered his voice. "I'm not telling any story around. Nobody knows anything about it except you and I and Pete. Bob couldn't have seen anything."
Beryl shrugged, a small, disdainful gesture. Westervelt wondered why he had allowed himself to get into an argument over the matter, since it was obvious that he was making things worse with every word.
"I don't know why you should be so sore about it," he said. "Even Pete said to me I should forget about it."
"Oh, you two have been talking it over!" Beryl accused. "Pretty clubby! Do you take over for him on other things too?"
Westervelt threw up his hands.
"You don't seem to mind anything about it except that I should know you were in there with him," he retorted. "If he was so acceptable, why am I a disease? Nobody ever left this office on account of me!"
"It could happen yet," said Beryl.
"Oh, hell! The trouble with you is you need a little loosening up."
He grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her toward him. Slipping his left arm behind her back as she tried to kick his ankle, he kissed her. The result was spoiled by Beryl's turning her face away at the crucial instant. Westervelt drew back.
The next thing he knew, lights exploded before his right eye. He had not even seen her hand come up, or he would have ducked. He saw it as he stepped back, however. Despite a certain feminine delicacy, the hand clenched into a very capable little fist.
Beryl took one quick stride into the library.
"I don't like to keep hinting around," she said, "but maybe that will play itself back in your little mind."
She slammed the door three inches from his nose. Westervelt raised a hand to open it, then changed his mind and felt gingerly of his eye. It hurt, but with a sort of surrounding numbness.
Realizing that he could see after all, he looked up and down the corridor guiltily. It seemed very quiet.
Right square in the peeper! he thought ruefully. She couldn't have aimed that well: it must have been a lucky shot. I ought to go in there and belt her!
It was not something he really wanted to do. He could not foresee any pleasure or satisfaction in carrying matters to the extent of open war.
You lost again, Willie, he argued. You might as well take it like a man. She got annoyed at something you said, like as not, and it was too late when you began.
He prodded gently at his eye again, and decided that the numb sensation was being caused by the tightening of skin over a growing mouse.
He set off up the corridor, passed the main door with his face averted, and hurried down to the washroom before someone should come along.
Spying out the land through a cautiously opened door, he discovered the place unoccupied. In the mirror, the eye showed definite signs of blossoming. The eyebrow was all right, but the orb itself was bloodshot and tearing freely. Beneath it, the flesh above the cheekbone was pink and puffy.
"Ohmigod!" breathed Westervelt. "It'll be blue tomorrow! Probably purple and green, in fact. Or does it take a day or two to reach that stage?"
He ran cold water into a basin and splashed it over his face, holding a palmful at a time against the damaged eye.
When this did not seem sufficiently effective, he wadded a soft paper towel, soaked it in running water, and applied it until it lost its chill.
"Am I doing right?" he wondered. "I can never remember whether it's hot or cold you're supposed to use."
He thought about it while holding the slowly disintegrating towel to his eye. Someone had told him, as nearly as he could recall, that either way helped, depending upon when heat or cold was applied.
"I guess it must be that you use cold before it has time to swell," he muttered. "Keep the blood from going into the tissues-that must be it. But if you're too late for that, then heat would keep it from stiffening. Now, the question is, did I start in time?"
He examined the eye. It did not feel too sore, but it was still red and slightly swollen. The flow of tears had stopped, so he decided there was little more he could do. He dried his face and walked out into the corridor, blinking.
The com room is pretty dim, he thought.
He went to the laboratory door and opened it quietly. The room was dark and unoccupied. Westervelt swore to himself that if he stumbled over anyone this time, he would punch every nose he could reach without further ado. Unless, he amended the intention, he ran into Lydman.
He was squeamish about turning on a light, which left him the problem of groping his way through the maze of tables, workbenches, and stacks of cartons. He set down for future conversation the possibility of claiming that the department was as normal as any other business; it too possessed the typical, messy back room out of range of the front office.
He had negotiated about half the course when he felt a cool breeze. At first, he thought it must come from an air-conditioning diffuser, but it blew more horizontally. Someone must have opened a window, he decided, or perhaps broken one trying out a dangerous instrument.
He succeeded in reaching the far wall, where he felt around for the door leading to the communications room. This was over near the outside wall, but he reached it without bumping into more than two or three scattered objects.
Once through the door, he could see better because a little light was diffused past the wire-mesh enclosure around the power equipment. He walked along the short passage formed by this, turned a corner, and came in sight of Joe Rosenkrantz sitting before his screen.
"Hello, Joe," he greeted the operator.
The other jumped perceptibly, looking around at the door.
"It's Willie," said Westervelt. "I came around the other way."
He was pleased to find that Rosenkrantz had the room as dimly lighted as was customary among the TV men. Joe stared for a moment at him and Westervelt feared that the other's vision was too well adjusted to the light.
"I didn't think anybody but Lydman used that way much," said Rosenkran
tz.
"It's a short-cut," said Westervelt evasively.
He found a spare chair to sit in and inquired as to what might be new.
Rosenkrantz told him of putting through a few calls to planets near Trident, asking D.I.R. men stationed on them to line up spaceships for possible use, either to go after Harris or to ship necessary equipment for plumbing the ocean. He offered to let Westervelt scan the tapes of his traffic.
"That's a good idea," said the youth gratefully. "Even if I don't spot an opening, it will look like useful effort."
"Yeah," agreed the other. "Time drags, doesn't it. Wonder how they're making out down in the cable tunnels?"
"It can't last much longer."
"That's what this here Harris is saying too, I should think. Now, there's one guy who is really packed away!"
"Well... "
"Oh, they've pulled some good ones around here, but I have a feeling about this one," insisted the operator. "I'd bet ten to one they won't spring Harris."
Westervelt took the tapes to a playback screen and dragged his chair over.
"I told Smitty they ought to offer to swap for him," he said. "At the time, I meant it looked like the perfect way to unload undesirables. Come to think of it, though, I wouldn't mind going myself."
"What the hell for?" asked Rosenkrantz.
Westervelt realized that he had nearly given himself away.
"Oh... just for the chance to see the place," he said. "Nobody else has ever seen these Tridentians. How else could somebody like me get a position as an interstellar ambassador."
"Maybe Harris wants the job for himself. He sure went looking for it!"
The phone buzzed quietly. Rosenkrantz answered, then said, "It's for you."
Westervelt went to the screen. It was Smith.
"I thought you must have found a way out, Willie. Where did you get to?"
Westervelt explained that he was looking at the tapes of the Trident calls, to familiarize himself with the background.
"I figured there was plenty of time for me to-" He broke off as he saw Rosenkrantz straighten up to focus in a call from space. "Joe is receiving something right now. I'll let you know if it has anything to do with Trident."