"Files, this is Acting Director Walton. I'd like a complete transcript
of your computer's activities for yesterday morning between 0900 and
1200, with each separate activity itemized. How soon can I have it?"
"Within minutes, Director Walton."
"Good. Send it sealed, by closed circuit. There's some top-level stuff
on that transcript. If the seal's not intact when it gets here, I'll
shake up the whole department."
"Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?"
"No, that'll be--on second thought, yes. Send up a list of all doctors
who were examining babies in the clinic yesterday morning."
* * * * *
He waited. While he waited, he went through the top layer of memoranda
in FitzMaugham's desk.
There was a note on top which read, _Appointment with Lamarre, 11
June--1215. Must be firm with him, and must handle with great delicacy.
Perhaps time to let Walton know._
Hmm, that was interesting, Walton thought. He had no idea who Lamarre
might be, but FitzMaugham had drawn a spidery little star in the
upper-right-hand corner of the memo sheet, indicating crash priority.
He flipped on the annunciator. "There's a Mr. Lamarre who had an
appointment with Director FitzMaugham for 1215 today. If he calls, tell
him I can't see him today but will honor the appointment tomorrow at
the same time. If he shows up, tell him the same thing."
His watch said it was time to dispose of another fragment of Fred's
message. He stuffed it into the disposal chute.
A moment later the green light flashed over the arrival bin;
FitzMaugham had not been subject, as Walton had been in his previous
office, to cascades of material arriving without warning.
Walton drew a sealed packet from the bin. He examined the seal
and found it untampered, which was good; it meant the packet had
come straight from the computer, and had not even been read by the
technician in charge. With it was a typed list of five names--the
doctors who had been in the lab the day before.
Breaking open the packet, Walton discovered seven closely-typed sheets
with a series of itemized actions on them. He ran through them quickly,
discarding sheets one, two, and three, which dealt with routine
activities of the computer in the early hours of the previous day.
Item seventy-three was his request for Philip Prior's record card. He
checked that one off.
Item seventy-four was his requisition for the key to the clinic's
gene-sorting code.
Item seventy-five was his revision of Philip Prior's records, omitting
all reference to his tubercular condition and to the euthanasia
recommendation. Item seventy-six was the acknowledgment of this
revision.
Item seventy-seven was his request for the boy's record card--this
time, the amended one. The five items were dated and timed; the
earliest was 1025, the latest 1037, all on June tenth.
Walton bracketed the five items thoughtfully, and scanned the rest of
the page. Nothing of interest there, just more routine business. But
item ninety-two, timed at 1102, was an intriguing one:
_92: Full transcript of morning's transactions issued at request of Dr.
Frederic Walton, 932K104AZ._
Fred hadn't been bluffing, then; he actually had possession of all the
damning evidence. But when one dealt with a computer and with Donnerson
micro-memory-tubes, the past was an extremely fluid entity.
"I want a direct line to the computer on floor twenty," he said.
After a brief lag a technician appeared on the screen. It was the same
one he had spoken to earlier.
"There's been an error in the records," Walton said. "An error I
wouldn't want to perpetuate. Will you set me up so I can feed a direct
order into the machine?"
"Certainly, sir. Go ahead, sir."
"This is top secret. Vanish."
The technician vanished. Walton said, "Items seventy-three through
seventy-seven on yesterday morning's record tape are to be deleted,
and the information carried in those tubes is to be deleted as well.
Furthermore, there is to be no record made of this transaction."
The voicewrite on floor twenty clattered briefly, and the order
funneled into the computer. Walton waited a moment, tensely. Then he
said, "All right, technician. Come back in where I can see you."
The technician appeared. Walton said, "I'm running a check now. Have
the machine prepare another transcript of yesterday's activities
between 0900 and 1200, and also one of today's doings for the last
fifteen minutes."
"Right away, sir."
While he waited for the new transcripts to arrive, Walton studied the
list of names on his desk. Five doctors--Gunther, Raymond, Archer, Hsi,
Rein. He didn't know which one of them had examined the Prior baby, nor
did he care to find out. All five would have to be transferred.
Meticulously, he took up his stylus and pad again, and plotted a
destination for each:
_Gunther ... Zurich._
_Raymond ... Glasgow._
_Archer ... Tierra del Fuego._
_Hsi ... Leopoldville._
_Rein ... Bangkok._
He nodded. That was optimum dissemination; he would put through notice
of the transfers later in the day, and by nightfall the men would be on
their way to their new scenes of operation. Perhaps they would never
understand why they had been uprooted and sent away from New York.
The new transcripts arrived. Impatiently Walton checked through them.
In the June tenth transcript, item seventy-one dealt with smallpox
statistics for North America 1822-68, and item seventy-two with the
tally of antihistamine supply for requisitions for Clinic Three. There
was no sign of any of Walton's requests. They had vanished from the
record as completely as if they had never been.
Walton searched carefully through the June eleventh transcript for any
mention of his deletion order. No, that hadn't been recorded either.
He smiled, his first honest smile since FitzMaugham's assassination.
Now, with the computer records erased, the director dead, and the
doctors on their way elsewhere, only Fred stood in the way of Roy's
chance of escaping punishment for the Prior business.
He decided he'd have to take his chances with Fred. Perhaps brotherly
love would seal his lips after all.