Mrs. Goudeket snapped: "In a situation like this you don't take
chances."
Groff said slowly, "I think it's all right. Gas fumes are heavy; they
hug the ground. If we hadn't been sleeping on the floor--"
"I guess I'd better not," McCue said uncertainly. "You can't smell
much up here but--I wonder where the water level is now."
"We'll know in the morning," Chesbro said. "Couple of hours. My God,
who would have thought it yesterday?"
Sharon Froman said, "It's bad, Mr. Chesbro. It means a permanent loss
of industry--unless we move fast."
"What permanent loss?" Chesbro snapped. "We shovel out the mud, we
replace the machines, we get going again. The government'll help any
sound business in a case like this."
"I am thinking," she said, "of the South."
"The South? What's the South got to do with this?"
"This is the godsend they've been waiting for! Think, Mr. Chesbro!
They've spent millions on advertising and promotion to attract
industry--to steal it, if you like. Tax exemptions. Rent-free plant.
This flood is worth a billion dollars to them, Mr. Chesbro. If it's as
big as it looks from here, it's worth all the sixteen-page ads they'll
ever run in the Sunday _Times_. Believe me, I know. There are going
to be task-forces from the Bureau of Industrial Development of every
southern state calling on every manufacturer and distributor in this
area. 'Frightful about your tragedy,' and 'Us Delta folks want to he'p
you any way we can,' and 'Don't get us wrong, friend, we ain't out to
steal industry from the No'th at a time like this, but--' And then it
starts. They'll woo them with sites, with tax write-offs, with cheap
labor rates. They'll strip the area of industry, clean as a whistle.
Unless."
"My God!" said Chesbro, appalled.
He had never considered the angle but she was, God knew, dead-right.
Nor, he reflected self-pityingly, would _he_ get any such offers. What
did he have that would attract a Mississippi chamber of commerce? It
was all intangibles that his fortune was going to come from--was almost
coming from already, he assured himself panickily. He had come pretty
close; it was only a question of time until the legislature authorized
the trotting track, until the money borrowed from his wife's father
and invested in that promising Geiger-positive tract north of Summit
turned up real pay dirt, until--
Until never, now. Not if this frighteningly plausible young woman was
right. And she sounded right.
He said slowly, "You're a very smart young woman, Miss Froman. Have you
had any experience in this field?"
She smiled candidly. "Only enough to get the feel of it, Mr. Chesbro.
I'm a writer. You might say I've made a study of everything." (And
besides, I typed Hesch's thesis for him, didn't I? _The War Between The
States, Round Two: A Study in Industrial Dynamics._)