Yes, Elaine had been there. Briefly. Sosnowski started to go into
a rather ecstatic description of her undeniable charms but since
he obviously had no datum to add I cut him off and rang Berkeley,
California. The Bevatron had not been activated since the time of the
accident at HOAGS; Berkeley had nothing to report.
I had George Herrmann bring me the secret files then, and was scanning
the list of all synchrotrons in the world, known either through
publicity or downright espionage (a few were operating without UN
sanction), when the visifone buzzed.
It was General Schoener.
I briefed him and told him I was about to try visifoning all known AGS
installations.
"Hold it up," he said. "I want to call the Pentagon. I think I can pull
strings and get UNACMEA/WAGS fully activated."
"That would do it, General!" I cried. "I didn't think I'd stand a
chance if I asked--"
"Look, Bob," he cut in. "Elaine's my daughter and I'm not having her
flitting around fraternizing with every Tom, Dick and Harry even if
they are Ph. D's. She made one mistake and I'm not having her make
another."
"Mistake?" I asked.
"A pilot," he said. "Nice enough guy but it turned out he was already
married and intended to remain so. Incidentally, Bob, you resemble him
to a considerable degree."
"I _do_?"
I recalled the data. Elaine had been here for about _three_ minutes
but at Phoenix and Hanford only about one minute apiece. Was _I_ a
stabilizing influence? No, I reasoned, it couldn't be me. It must be
WAGS. It's an odd 40-Bev job. Maybe its magnetic field had a partially
polarizing effect upon the anti-nucleonic factor.
"Please call the Pentagon, General--and, General, if--I mean _when_--we
get Elaine back, would you consider me as a prospective son-in-law?"
"You get her back, Bob, and ask her the big question. If she says yes,
well, fine! You look okay to me!"
"Thanks, General."
"Call me Mike," he said. "Out!"
* * * * *
It's a good thing Mike Schoener's a four-star general; if he'd been
a second lieutenant, his daughter would have bounced around the then
infinitely sadder earth to the end of her years, pursued by the vagrant
day-dreams of a hundred bug-eyed physicists until gobbled benzedrine
and tranquilizers took their toll of said dreaming BEP's.
As it was, it was afternoon here at Racine when Mike Schoener called
back and told me to stand by for the activation of UNACMEA/WAGS.
I stood in the console room for half an hour while the monitor
screens went on one by one until the five banks of them on the one
wall were all aglow. The controller at UNACME in New York gave me the
go-sign then and I said shakily, "This is Doctor Robert Mitchell at
UNACMEA/WAGS, Wisconsin, U.S.A. A strange phenomenon occurred here at
0822 hours today."
I paused, disconcerted by background voices translating my words into
dozens of foreign tongues; then, steeling myself, I went on, concluding
with the question, "Is Miss Schoener present at this moment in any one
of your installations?"
There were noes, _nons_, _niets_, _neins_--and then a hesitant _oui_
followed almost immediately by a resounding _da_.
My eyes went to the Siberian monitor and Elaine was suddenly facing me
on the screen, saying, "Doc, I'm in a lab in Russia and there's not a
soul here who can speak English, just a bunch of leering old bearded
men. I'm scared, doc, and--"
She wasn't there.
Sosnowski's voice came from Hanford, "She's here now, Bob. I cut the
AGS out and then back in and bingo!"
Elaine was behind him, sporting a Cossack hat.
"Elaine, I would--" I started. And stopped. She wasn't there.
"_Du bist wunderschon_," a guttural voice proclaimed.
I swung to the Munich monitor. I didn't need a translation. Elaine
was there and making an impression. She swapped the Cossack hat for a
Tyrolean one which a grinning Bavarian had been wearing--and vanished.
"_Elle est ici!_" a nasal tenor said. "_C'est la Sorbonne ou elle est.
C'est DuBois qui parle. Ma foi! Elle est vraiment magnifique!--Mon
dieu! Elle n'est plus!_"
Though sadly neglected since college days, my "knowledge" of French
told me that Elaine had arrived, conquered and departed, leaving
Monsieur DuBois of the Paris AGS in a state of bemusement, indeed!
"Fellows!" I cried. "Someone's not playing fair! In the last few
minutes, Miss Schoener has been in Siberia, in Hanford, Washington,
U.S.A., in Munich, Germany, and in Paris. This--"
"She's back again!" Sosnowski cried from Hanford.
I swung to the Hanford screen. "Ted," I said, "stop switching the AGS
off and on. It could be dangerous. The gauss level might even bring her
to critical mass. You're playing with something we know little about."
Sosnowski rolled his eyes from the screen to Elaine. "Brother," he
said, "this girl's always near critical mass! And I'm not playing. I'd
be happy if she'd stay right here!"
But she wasn't there.
"_Ona krasavitsa_," a jubilant voice said.
The Siberia screen displayed a Russian doing the sabre dance before
Elaine's eyes, and an interpreter somewhere in the vast UNACME network
was helpfully murmuring, "She is beautiful."
At which point Monsieur DuBois said throatily to an abruptly
materialized vision, "_Tu es belle. Reste ici, ma chere!_" And then
swore with Gallic fluency as thin air alone vibrated to his impassioned
words.
While Al Benson at Phoenix began a John Alden speech in my behalf.
I was silent, studying Elaine's lovely face as Al spoke to her. She
was apparently enjoying every second of her fantastic flitting yet I
could see perplexity deep in her dark eyes. I thought I could see a
bewilderment, a lostness.
"Al," I said, "I've got to talk to her."
Was it wishful thinking or did I see a warmth leap into her face as she
turned to see my image?
"Trust in me, Elaine," I said. "I'll bring you home."
"Home?" she asked.
"Yes, _home_--home to me," I said, naked longing in my voice--and, for
all the world to hear, "I love you, darling."
"_Moi, aussi!_" Monsieur DuBois me-too'd in French.
"_Ich auch!_" came from Munich, plus, "_Bitte komme doch bald
zuruck!_" which, I gathered, was asking her to come back but quickly!
"I mean it!" I cried through Babel.
* * * * *
My voice was lost in a storm of pleas, protestations, proposals,
propositions, presentations and plain Ph. D. philanderings, during
which Elaine's loveliness appeared briefly on the monitor screens for
Paris, Leeds, Brussels, Hanford, Stockholm, Paris, Hanford, Phoenix,
Munich, Hanford, Atomsk, Tokyo, Hanford, Madrid, Paris, Hanford, Paris,
Hanford, Paris, Hanford--
"Sosnowski!" I cried, "and you, too, Monsieur DuBois! Stop! _Arretez!_
Don't do it any more! _Ne faites-le plus!_"
The situation continued to pingpong. Hanford to Paris to Hanford to
Paris.
Sosnowski said (while Monsieur DuBois was ardently proposing to Elaine
at the Sorbonne), "I sincerely wish to marry the girl, Bob."
"So do I, Ted," I answered him. "May the better man--"
"The _best_ man," he snapped back. "Don't forget DuBois!"
I cut my microphone and said quickly to Herrmann, "George, get the
chaplain and get the mayor to bring over whatever personnel and forms
it takes to get a marriage license. And, _move_!"
And a Russian roared from the Siberia monitor something that
sounded like "_Mogoo ya zhenitsa s vashey dochery?_", which, promptly
interpreted by a linguist on the network, resulted in "May I marry your
daughter?"
I didn't burn; I blazed. _My_ daughter, indeed! So my hair is greying.
Prematurely, that is. I'm only twenty-nine.
I was in control of UNACMEA at that moment. _Full_ control. I was
vested with UN power and that's _Power_ these days, despite the snide
remarks you hear from certain quarters.
"Look," I said to the whole wide world. "You will all--repeat
all--immediately deactivate every AGS unit. This is a direct order of
the UN."