One eyebrow lifted a trifle. "Where? Wherever you think proper, Thomas.
Or must I handle this myself?"
The proper answer, and the one I longed to make, was "Yes." Instead I
said, "Not at all, Mr. Defoe. It's only that I didn't even know there
was an undercover group until you told me about it a few moments ago; I
don't know exactly where to start. Gogarty never mentioned--"
"Gogarty," he cut in, "is very likely to be relieved as District
Administrator before long. I should like to replace him with
someone already on the scene--" he glanced at me to be sure I
understood--"provided, that is, that I can find someone of proven
competence. Someone who has the ability to handle this situation
without the necessity of my personal intervention."
The limousine arrived then, with an armed expediter riding beside the
chauffeur. Defoe allowed me to open the door for him and follow him in.
"Do you understand me?" he asked as the driver started off.
"I think so," I said.
"Good. I do not suppose that Gogarty has given you any information
about the malcontents in this area."
"No."
"It may be for the best; his information is clearly not good." Defoe
stared broodingly out the window at the silent groups of men and women
on the grass before the clinic. "Your information is there," he said
as they passed out of sight. "Learn what you can. Act when you know
enough. And, Thomas--"
"Yes?"
"Have you given thought to your future?"
I shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I've only been a Claims Adjuster a
little while, you know. I suppose that perhaps I might eventually get
promoted, even become a District Administrator--"
He looked at me impersonally. "Dream higher," he advised.
* * * * *
I stood watching after Defoe's limousine, from the marquee of the hotel
where he had left me to take a room and freshen up. _Dream higher._ He
had the gift of intoxication.
Higher than a District Administrator! It could mean only--the Home
Office.
Well, it was not impossible, after all. The Home Office jobs had to
go to someone; the super-men who held them now--the Defoes and the
Carmodys and the dozen or more others who headed up departments or
filled seats on the Council of Underwriters--couldn't live forever. And
the jobs had to be filled by someone.
Why not me? Only one reason, really. I was not a career man. I hadn't
had the early academy training from adolescence on; I had come to the
service of the Company itself relatively late in life. The calendar
legislated against me.
Of course, I thought to myself, I was in a pretty good position, in a
way, because of Defoe's evident interest in me. With him helping and
counseling me, it might be easier.
I thought that and then I stopped myself, shocked. I was thinking in
terms of personal preferment. That was not the Company way! If I had
learned anything in my training, I had learned that Advancement was on
merit alone.
Advancement _had_ to be on merit alone ... else the Company became an
oligarchy, deadly and self-perpetuating.
Shaken, I sat in the dingy little hotel room that was the best the town
of Anzio had for me and opened my little Black Book. I thumbed through
the fine-printed pages of actuarial tables and turned to the words of
Millen Carmody, Chief Underwriter, in the preface. They were the words
that had been read to me and the others at our graduation at the Home
Office, according to the tradition:
_Remember always that the Company serves humanity, not the reverse.
The Company's work is the world's work. The Company can end,
forever, the menace of war and devastation; but it must not
substitute a tyranny of its own. Corruption breeds tyrants.
Corruption has no place in the Company._
They were glorious words. I read them over again, and stared at the
portrait of Underwriter Carmody that was the frontispiece of the
handbook. It was a face to inspire trust--wise and human, grave, but
with warmth in the wide-spaced eyes.
Millen Carmody was not a man you could doubt. As long as men like
him ran the Company--and he was the boss of them all, _the_ Chief
Underwriter, the highest position the Company had to offer--there could
be no question of favoritism or corruption.
* * * * *
After eating, I shaved, cleaned up a little and went back to the clinic.
There was trouble in the air, no question of it. More expediters were
in view, scattered around the entrance, a dozen, cautious yards away
from the nearest knots of civilians. Cars with no official company
markings, but with armor-glass so thick that it seemed yellow, were
parked at the corners. And people were everywhere.
People who were quiet. Too quiet. There were some women--but not enough
to make the proportion right. And there were no children.