TWENTY

Westervelt watched them walk up the hall. He thought of going back into

the laboratory to find the open window. In his mind, he could see the

straight, twenty-five story drop down the side of the dark tower to the

roof of the larger part of the building.

He recalled having looked down once or twice. The people down there had

paved patios outside their offices. A hurtling body would....

He shook the thought out of his head and hurried to catch up to Parrish

and the two girls.

They trouped into the main office and took turns in telling Smith

the story. He flatly refused to believe it for about five minutes.

Ultimately convinced, he told Pauline to check Rosenkrantz by phone

every ten minutes.

"If we're wrong," he said, "it's unfair to have him sitting down there

all alone. Bob might somehow have outsmarted us, but if he did it to

this extent, it means he isn't safe on the loose!"

Westervelt noticed that Simonetta was looking pale. He wondered about

his own features. The eye would probably stand out very picturesquely.

"I don't believe it," he said when the others had all fallen silent.

They looked at him, hoping to be convinced.

"He isn't that kind," said Westervelt. "All right, you tell me he had a

hard time in space and it left him a little off; but this doesn't sound

like the direction he would go off in."

"What do you mean, Willie?" asked Smith intently.

"Well ... maybe he'd run wild. Maybe he'd get desperate and blow

something up. I could see him taking a torch to that door and burning

anybody that tried to stop him...."

He paused as they hung on his words.

"... but I _can't_ see him quitting!" said Westervelt. "If he was that

kind, he never would have gotten back to Terra, would he?"

Smith snapped his fingers and looked around.

"Sure, sure," he said. "I don't know what I was thinking up in my

imagination. We've all heard Bob utter a threat now and then, when some

bems out in deep space broke his own private law, but no one ever heard

him even hint at suicide."

He grinned ruefully, and added, "I should have thought of it myself--I

had to review his application and examinations when he came to us."

"Some days," said Parrish, "are just too much. Nobody's fault."

"Then, in that case," said Westervelt, "there was one little thing I

noticed."

He told them about the open window. Who would keep a window open with

the building air-conditioning operating as perfectly as it did?

Smith fell to running his hands through his hair again.

"Now, let's _think_!" he muttered. "There must be some logical

explanation."

_Logical explanations_, Westervelt thought, _are always the reasons

other people think of, not me._

He found a space to sit on the edge of the empty desk. Simonetta leaned

beside him, and Beryl wandered over to the window of the switchboard

cubicle to listen as Pauline checked Rosenkrantz.

She shook her head to Smith's inquiring look.

Then Lydman strolled through the double doors.

"What's the conference about?" he asked.

Beryl let out a shriek. Her back had been to the corridor when she

jumped, but she came down facing the other way.

Everyone stiffened.

Lydman stood quietly, regarding them with considerable calm.

After a moment, Beryl tottered back to lean against the glass of

Pauline's window. She pressed one hand to her solar plexus, looking as

if she might fold up at any breath.

"Oh," she gasped. "Oh, Mr. Lydman...."

He examined her with a clinical detachment.

"Doesn't someone have a tranquilizer for her?" he asked. "I don't

usually scare pretty girls."

"Oh, no, no, no ... it's just that ... I mean, everyone was worried

about you," stammered Beryl.

"Why?" asked Lydman. "Don't you think I can take care of myself?"

For the first time, Westervelt noticed the curiously set expression on

the ex-spacer's face. He had until then been too busy watching Beryl

and trying to calm his own nerves. He could not be certain, but it

seemed as if Lydman's forehead displayed a faint sheen of perspiration.

"Of course you can, Bob," said Smith. "We were--"

Beryl, nearly to the point of hysteria in her relief, got the ball away

from him.

"We were worried about the elevator being stopped," she babbled. "And

the door--you'll never believe it, Mr. Lydman, but the door to the

emergency stairs wouldn't open!"

Westervelt thought he heard Parrish swear, then realized it had been

his own voice. He started to step in front of Simonetta.

Parrish was moving slowly in Lydman's direction, trying to look at ease

but looking tense instead.

"Dammit!" shouted Smith. "Beryl, you're _fired_!"

It did not seem to register on anybody, Beryl least of all. Lydman was

confounding them all by standing quietly. His face tightened a little

more at the news, but it did not seem to be the expression of a man who

had just taken a bad jolt.

"I know," he said. "I looked at it a couple of times after I saw the

blackout downstairs."

Smith regarded him warily.

"How do you feel, Bob?" he asked.

"You know how I feel," said Lydman.

He let his gaze wander from one to another of them. Westervelt felt a

chill as the handsome eyes looked through him in turn, but accepted the

comforting realization that the stare was about as usual.

Beryl was the picture of a girl afraid to breathe out loud, but the

others relaxed cautiously. Smith even planted one hip on the corner of

Simonetta's desk and tried to look casual.

"You seem to be doing pretty well," he said. "We were thinking of

looking in the lab for something to cut the latch with, but it might

have been waste motion. They should be getting the power on any minute

now."

"I think...." Lydman began.

"Oh, I guess we could find something in the lists," pursued Smith. "If

you'd rather we look...?"

"I have several things we could use," said Lydman.

He walked into the office proper and looked about for a chair.

Westervelt stepped back of the center desk and brought him the chair

of the vacationing secretary. Lydman sat down beside the partition

screening the active files opposite Simonetta's desk.

"In fact," continued the ex-space, "I got them out when I was trying to

figure how much that door would stand. Then I decided that would only

raise a commotion."

Westervelt watched him with growing interest. Now that he had the man

at closer range, he was sure that it was a tremendous effort of will

that kept Lydman so relatively calm. The man seemed to be seething

underneath his tautly controlled exterior.

"What did you think of doing?" asked Smith carefully.

"Oh, I dug out a better gadget, one that would do _me_ more good,

anyhow," said Lydman. "It's a little rocket gun attached to a cannister

of fine wire ladder."

"Wire ladder?" repeated Smith.

"Yeah. About six inches wide at the most. I opened a window and shot it

up to the flight deck. Say--did you know some hijackers stole all three

of our 'copters?"

"Stole all three of...." Smith's voice dwindled away. When no one else

broke the silence, he forced himself to resume. "Yes, I knew. What I

would deeply appreciate, Robert, is your telling me how the hell _you_

knew!"

He finished yelling. Westervelt thought that he looked at least as bad

as Lydman. Anyone twenty feet away would have completely misjudged them.

"Just as I said," answered Lydman with his tight calm. "I shot this

ladder to the roof and climbed up."

"You climbed up? _Outside the building?_"

"Of course, outside," said Lydman, for the first time showing a trace

of snappishness. "I couldn't stand it _inside_."

He looked around at them again, surprised that there was the slightest

hesitation to accept his statement.

"We'll have to redesign that ladder, though," he said. "It's a mite too

fine--cuts the hell out of your hands!"

He held out his palms. Across each were several welts. One, on his

right hand, had apparently resumed bleeding stickily since Lydman had

come in. He fumbled out a handkerchief with his other hand and blotted

it.

Smith held his hands to his head.

"I can't swallow it yet!" he groaned. "You feel ... uneasy ... in here,

so you go out a window ninety-nine floors in the air--"

"Only twenty-four above the set-back, really," Lydman corrected him.

"It's enough, isn't it? So you go out, climb up to the helicopter

roof, and _then_ climb down again and back through the window! And you

pretend to feel better. I would have had a heart attack!"

"Who wouldn't?" said Westervelt.

The mere conception of what it must have been like made him feel sick.

"As long as I know it's there," muttered Lydman. "As long as I know

it's there. I can use that way any time. Just don't anybody pull that

little ladder down."

"Would...?"

The meek little syllable came from Beryl, who had now managed to stand

without the support of the partition.

Every head in the room swiveled to bear upon her. She gulped, and found

part of her voice.

"Would there be an old martini lying around in the locker?" she asked.

"I'm afraid to go for it myself because my knees feel as if they'll

collapse at the first step."

There was a general outburst of laughter that revealed the enormity of

their relief. Parrish hurried over to put an arm around the blonde, and

Smith himself went to the locker and opened it.

With the break in the tension, Beryl managed to walk pretty well,

perhaps with a little more swagger of the hips than usual, Westervelt

thought. Smith found a drink for her, and insisted that Lydman have

tea. The chief pulled the tab himself and held the cup for the few

seconds required to heat the beverage.

Most of them, like Westervelt, had had too many coffees or sandwiches,

and were content to sit down and regain their composure. Westervelt was

mildly surprised to see Parrish take a position behind Lydman and knead

the big man's neck muscles to relax him.

"Did they tell you the news yet?" asked Smith. "We got two out--Syssoka

and Greenhaven!"

"No!" said Lydman, managing a smile. "Tell me, but if I get up to leave

in the middle, I'd rather you didn't stop me."

"Nobody is stopping anybody tonight!" said Smith, and fell to giving

his assistant an account of Taranto and Meyers.

Westervelt got up quietly and padded into the switchboard cubbyhole.

"Lend me your headset, Pauline," he murmured, "and punch Joe's number."

"Sure," said the little blonde.

She left the screen off and kissed him behind the ear just as

Rosenkrantz answered.

"Nothing personal, Willie," she giggled. "I just feel so relieved!"

"Who is it now?" demanded Rosenkrantz's voice. "You left the lens off,

did you know that?"

"It's Willie, Joe. He came back and he's sitting down having tea."

"_Back?_ Where was he?"

Westervelt told him.

Then he told him again and switched off. Joe, he thought, would have to

live with it for a while.

When he stepped out of the cubicle, everyone was watching Smith

narrate, with broad gestures, the flummoxing of the staid authorities

of Greenhaven. The chief was not above calling upon Parrish for an

estimate of the charms of Maria Ringstad that caused an outcry among

the girls. Lydman smiled politely, but not from the heart. He was still

quietly reserved.

Everyone was watching Smith. No one paid any attention to the redhaired

man who drifted into the office area just as Westervelt squirmed past

Pauline and stepped out of the switchboard room.

The youth blinked at the topcoat over the man's arm. He focused upon

the wavy hair and reached for the man's shoulder to turn him around.

"Charlie Colborn!" he yelped.

Smith got it first.

"Well, now," he said, standing up. "If it's getting so everybody and

his brother start parading through that door at this time of night, I'm

leaving! Where's my hat, Si?"

Lydman had caught on almost as quickly, and was on his feet before the

general whoop went up.

"I just want to phone my wife," said Colborn. "It's so late I might as

well stay here the rest of the night. What's keeping all of you?"

They glared at him.

"The power's been on for fifteen minutes," he told them. "I would have

been up sooner, but that nut of a building manager insisted on running

test trips with all the elevators before he'd let anyone come up."

Lydman had started for the elevator, in shirtsleeves as he was and

carrying a cup of tea in one hand and a bloody handkerchief. There was

no doubt that he meant to go home that way.

"BOB!" roared Smith. "All of you--_listen_!"

Lydman stopped but did not turn around.

"In the first place, Charlie," said Smith, "you are _not_ going to call

your wife from here unless you faithfully give the impression that you

are all alone. If you slip, I'll swear to her I saw you picked up by

two redheads in a helicopter and you had all the office petty cash with

you."

"But--"

"Tell her the traffic was too much. Don't tell her we couldn't get to

the street. That goes for everybody else too!"

"But ... _why_?" Colborn got out.

"Why? You want the D.I.R. boys throwing this up to us every time I try

to get money out of them for the bare necessities of our operation? We

can get people out of dungeons on planets not even in the Galatlas, but

can't even escape from our own little hideaway?"

"It never happened," Parrish agreed quickly.

"Damn' right!" said Smith. "Okay, Bob, push the button! Go with him,

Willie! You girls--nobody in before noon tomorrow; we have an extra TV

operator to take care of things."

"Look, I...." Colborn started to say as he stepped out of Westervelt's

way.

"Aw, thanks for phoning in the first place," grinned Smith, punching

him lightly on the shoulder. "Wait for me downstairs, Willie! We'll see

what we can do about Harris tomorrow!"

"Appoint him an ambassador," muttered Westervelt, coming up behind

Lydman as the elevator door slid smoothly open.

_What an outfit!_ he thought to himself. _I'm going to apply for field

duty, where you can get out among the stars and let someone else figure

ways to keep you out of trouble._

Somehow, incredibly, everyone but Colborn managed to catch the same

elevator.