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
Rosenkrantz.
"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."
"Department 99, Terra," the operator was saying when Westervelt turned
from the phone, as if the mere call signal had not satisfied the party
at the other end.
There seemed to be a lot of action on the screen. Men were running
in various directions in what appeared to be a large hall with an
impressive stairway.
"Yoleen!" Rosenkrantz flung over his shoulder. "Tell Smitty!"
"Mr. Smith!" said Westervelt, turning back to the phone screen. "Joe
says it's Yoleen coming in. Maybe you'd like to see it yourself.
Something looks wrong."
"Coming!" said Smith, and the phone went dark.
Westervelt looked around to see that most of the running figures had
hidden themselves. A voice was coming over, and he listened with the
operator.
"... knocked apart so I have to use one of the observation lenses they
have planted around the embassy. He's shooting up the place good!"
"I'm taping until someone gets here," said Rosenkrantz. "Better tell me
what happened, just in case."
_Yoleen_, thought Westervelt. _That would be ... let me see ... Gerson,
the kidnap case. Do they mean that he's shooting them up?_
"... and after he left me with this mess, in the com room, he headed
for the stairs," said the voice of the unseen operator. "He seems to be
trying to get out of the embassy. We don't know why--the boys got him
there without any trouble."
"Was he all right?" asked Rosenkrantz, cocking an ear at the door.
"He looked pretty sick, as if he wasn't eating well, and he had a
broken wrist. They took him along to the doctor with no trouble. Then
the chief went up to see how he was and found Doc out cold on the
floor. He set up a yell, naturally. Someone finally caught up with
Gerson in the military attache's office."
"What did he want there?" asked Rosenkrantz.
"We don't know yet. He left a corpse for us that isn't answering
questions."