"Well, I'll get it," she said. "I thought the other nurse had brought
it." She started out, and then she came back and had to fuss with his
cushions, and then she saw the tray on the floor.
"You did so have your lunch!" she accused.
Tom looked at her as innocently as ever. "Oh, you mean these samples?
Why, they were good; I'll take all of them. And a big slab of roast
beef, and brown gravy, and mashed potatoes. And how about some ice
cream?"
It was a good try; too bad it didn't work.
"Don't worry, Tom," I told him. "I'll get my lawyer to spring you out
of this jug, and then we'll take you to my place and fill you up on
Mrs. Laden's cooking."
The nurse sniffed. She suspected, quite correctly, that whoever Mrs.
Laden was, she didn't know anything about scientific dietetics.
* * * * *
When I got back to the _Times_, Dad and Julio had had their lunch and
were going over the teleprint edition. Julio was printing corrections
on blank sheets of plastic and Dad was cutting them out and cementing
them over things that needed correcting on the master sheets. I gave
Julio a short item to the effect that Tom Kivelson, son of Captain and
Mrs. Joe Kivelson, one of the _Javelin_ survivors who had been burned
in the tallow-wax fire, was now out of all danger, and recovering. Dad
was able to scrounge that onto the first page.
There was a lot of other news. The T.F.N. destroyer _Simón Bolivar_,
en route from Gimli to pick up the notorious Anton Gerrit, alias Steve
Ravick, had come out of hyperspace and into radio range. Dad had
talked to the skipper by screen and gotten interviews, which would be
telecast, both with him and Detective-Major MacBride of the Colonial
Constabulary. The _Simón Bolivar_ would not make landing, but go into
orbit and send down a boat. Detective-Major MacBride (alias Dr. John
Watson) would remain on Fenris to take over local police activities.
More evidence had been unearthed at Hunters' Hall on the frauds
practiced by Leo Belsher and Gerrit-alias-Ravick; it looked as though
a substantial sum of money might be recovered, eventually, from the
bank accounts and other holdings of both men on Terra. Acting
Resident-Agent Gonzalo Ware--Ware, it seemed, really was his right
name, but look what he had in front of it--had promulgated more
regulations and edicts, and a crackdown on the worst waterfront dives
was in progress. I'll bet the devoted flock was horrified at what
their beloved bishop had turned into. Bish would leave his diocese in
a lot healthier condition than he'd found it, that was one thing for
sure. And most of the gang of thugs and plug-uglies who had been used
to intimidate and control the Hunters' Co-operative had been gathered
up and jailed on vagrancy charges; prisoners were being put to work
cleaning up the city.
And there was a lot about plans for a registration of voters, and
organization of election boards, and a local electronics-engineering
firm had been awarded a contract for voting machines. I didn't think
there had ever been a voting machine on Fenris before.
"The commander of the _Bolivar_ says he'll take your story to Terra
with him, and see that it gets to Interworld News," Dad told me as we
were sorting the corrected master sheets and loading them into the
photoprint machine, to be sent out on the air. "The _Bolivar_'ll make
Terra at least two hundred hours ahead of the _Cape Canaveral_.
Interworld will be glad to have it. It isn't often they get a story
like that with the first news of anything, and this'll be a big
story."
"You shouldn't have given me the exclusive by-line," I said. "You did
as much work on it as I did."
"No, I didn't, either," he contradicted, "and I knew what I was
doing."
With the work done, I remembered that I hadn't had anything to eat
since breakfast, and I went down to take inventory of the
refrigerator. Dad went along with me, and after I had assembled a
lunch and sat down to it, he decided that his pipe needed refilling,
lit it, poured a cup of coffee and sat down with me.
"You know, Walt, I've been thinking, lately," he began.
Oh-oh, I thought. When Dad makes that remark, in just that tone, it's
all hands to secure ship for diving.
"We've all had to do a lot of thinking, lately," I agreed.
"Yes. You know, they want me to be mayor of Port Sandor."
I nodded and waited till I got my mouth empty. I could see a lot of
sense in that. Dad is honest and scrupulous and public-spirited; too
much so, sometimes, for his own good. There wasn't any question of his
ability, and while there had always been antagonism between the
hunter-ship crews and waterfront people and the uptown business crowd,
Dad was well liked and trusted by both parties.
"Are you going to take it?" I asked.
"I suppose I'll have to, if they really want me. Be a sort of
obligation."
That would throw a lot more work on me. Dad could give some attention
to the paper as mayor, but not as much as now.
"What do you want me to try to handle for you?" I asked.
"Well, Walt, that's what I've been thinking about," he said. "I've
been thinking about it for a long time, and particularly since things
got changed around here. I think you ought to go to school some more."
That made me laugh. "What, back to Hartzenbosch?" I asked. "I could
teach him more than he could teach me, now."
"I doubt that, Walt. Professor Hartzenbosch may be an old maid in
trousers, but he's really a very sound scholar. But I wasn't thinking
about that. I was thinking about your going to Terra to school."
"Huh?" I forgot to eat, for a moment. "Let's stop kidding."
"I didn't start kidding; I meant it."
"Well, think again, Dad. It costs money to go to school on Terra. It
even costs money to go to Terra."
"We have a little money, Walt. Maybe more than you think we do. And
with things getting better, we'll lease more teleprinters and get more
advertising. You're likely to get better than the price of your
passage out of that story we're sending off on the _Bolivar_, and that
won't be the end of it, either. Fenris is going to be in the news for
a while. You may make some more money writing. That's why I was
careful to give you the by-line on that Gerrit story." His pipe had
gone out again; he took time out to relight it, and then added:
"Anything I spend on this is an investment. The _Times_ will get it
back."
"Yes, that's another thing; the paper," I said. "If you're going to be
mayor, you won't be able to do everything you're doing on the paper
now, and then do all my work too."
"Well, shocking as the idea may be, I think we can find somebody to
replace you."
"Name one," I challenged.
"Well, Lillian Arnaz, at the Library, has always been interested in
newspaper work," he began.
"A girl!" I hooted. "You have any idea of some of the places I have to
go to get stories?"
"Yes. I have always deplored the necessity. But a great many of them
have been closed lately, and the rest are being run in a much more
seemly manner. And she wouldn't be the only reporter. I hesitate to
give you any better opinion of yourself than you have already, but it
would take at least three people to do the work you've been doing.
When you get back from Terra, you'll find the _Times_ will have a very
respectable reportorial staff."
"What'll I be, then?" I wondered.
"Editor," Dad told me. "I'll retire and go into politics full time.
And if Fenris is going to develop the way I believe it will, the
editor of the _Times_ will need a much better education than I have."
I kept on eating, to give myself an excuse for silence. He was right,
I knew that. But college on Terra; why, that would be at least four
years, maybe five, and then a year for the round trip....
"Walt, this doesn't have to be settled right away," Dad said. "You
won't be going on the _Simón Bolivar_, along with Ravick and Belsher.
And that reminds me. Have you talked to Bish lately? He'd be hurt if
you didn't see him before he left."
* * * * *
The truth was, I'd been avoiding Bish, and not just because I knew how
busy he was. My face felt like a tallow-wax fire every time I thought
of how I'd been trying to reform him, and I didn't quite know what I'd
be able to say to him if I met him again. And he seemed to me to be an
entirely different person, as though the old Bish Ware, whom I had
liked in spite of what I'd thought he was, had died, and some total
stranger had taken his place.
But I went down to the Municipal Building. It didn't look like the
same place. The walls had been scrubbed; the floors were free from
litter. All the drove of loafers and hangers-on had been run out, or
maybe jailed and put to work. I looked into a couple of offices;
everybody in them was busy. A few of the old police force were still
there, but their uniforms had been cleaned and pressed, they had all
shaved recently, and one or two looked as though they liked being able
to respect themselves, for a change.
The girl at the desk in the mayor's outside office told me Bish had a
delegation of uptown merchants, who seemed to think that reform was
all right in its place but it oughtn't to be carried more than a few
blocks above the waterfront. They were protesting the new sanitary
regulations. Then she buzzed Bish on the handphone, and told me he'd
see me in a few minutes. After a while, I heard the delegation going
down the hall from the private office door. One of them was saying:
"Well, this is what we've always been screaming our heads off for. Now
we've got it good and hard; we'll just have to get used to it."
When I went in, Bish rose from his desk and came to meet me, shaking
my hand. He looked and was dressed like the old Bish Ware I'd always
known.
"Glad you dropped in, Walt. Find a seat. How are things on the
_Times_?"
"You ought to know. You're making things busy for us."
"Yes. There's so much to do, and so little time to do it. Seems as
though I've heard somebody say that before."
"Are you going back to Terra on the _Simón Bolivar_?"
"Oh, Allah forbid! I made a trip on a destroyer, once, and once is
enough for a lifetime. I won't even be able to go on the _Cape
Canaveral_; I'll take the _Peenemünde_ when she gets in. I'm glad
MacBride--Dr. Watson--is going to stop off. He'll be a big help. Don't
know what I'd have done without Ranjit Singh."
"That won't be till after the _Cape Canaveral_ gets back from Terra."
"No. That's why I'm waiting. Don't publish this, Walt, I don't want to
start any premature rumors that might end in disappointments, but I've
recommended immediate reclassification to Class III, and there may be
a Colonial Office man on the _Cape Canaveral_ when she gets in.
Resident-Agent, permanent. I hope so; he'll need a little breaking
in."
"I saw Tom Kivelson this morning," I said. "He seems to be getting
along pretty well."
"Didn't anybody at the hospital tell you about him?" Bish asked.