The old man snorted with good-humored incredulity and trudged off.
"What did I tell you about the Thinkers making overtures?" Farquar
chortled suddenly. "It's come sooner than I expected. Look at this."
He held out the radiogram, but the older man didn't take it. Instead he
asked, "Who's it from? Tregarron?"
"No, from Helmuth. There's a lot of sugar corn about man's future in
deep space, but the real reason is clear. They know that they're going
to have to produce an actual nuclear rocket pretty soon, and for that
they'll need our help."
"An invitation?"
Farquar nodded. "For this afternoon." He noticed Opperly's anxious
though distant frown. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you bothered
about my going? Are you thinking it might be a trap--that after the
Maelzel question they may figure I'm better rubbed out?"
The older man shook his head. "I'm not afraid for your life, Willard.
That's yours to risk as you choose. No, I'm worried about other things
they might do to you."
"What do you mean?" Farquar asked.
* * * * *
Opperly looked at him with a gentle appraisal. "You're a strong and
vital man, Willard, with a strong man's prides and desires." His voice
trailed off for a bit. Then, "Excuse me, Willard, but wasn't there a
girl once? A Miss Arkady?"
Farquar's ungainly figure froze. He nodded curtly, face averted.
"And didn't she go off with a Thinker?"
"If girls find me ugly, that's their business," Farquar said harshly,
still not looking at Opperly. "What's that got to do with this
invitation?"
Opperly didn't answer the question. His eyes got more distant. Finally
he said, "In my day we had it a lot easier. A scientist was an
academician, cushioned by tradition."
Willard snorted. "Science had already entered the era of the police
inspectors, with laboratory directors and political appointees stifling
enterprise."
"Perhaps," Opperly agreed. "Still, the scientist lived the safe,
restricted, highly respectable life of a university man. He wasn't
exposed to the temptations of the world."
Farquar turned on him. "Are you implying that the Thinkers will somehow
be able to buy me off?"
"Not exactly."
"You think I'll be persuaded to change my aims?" Farquar demanded
angrily.
Opperly shrugged his helplessness. "No, I don't think you'll change
your aims."
Clouds encroaching from the west blotted the parallelogram of sunlight
between the two men.
* * * * *
As the slideway whisked him gently along the corridor toward his
apartment, Jorj was thinking of his spaceship. For a moment the
silver-winged vision crowded everything else out of his mind.
Just think, a spaceship with sails! He smiled a bit, marveling at the
paradox.
Direct atomic power. Direct utilization of the force of the flying
neutrons. No more ridiculous business of using a reactor to drive a
steam engine, or boil off something for a jet exhaust--processes that
were as primitive and wasteful as burning gunpowder to keep yourself
warm.
Chemical jets would carry his spaceship above the atmosphere. Then
would come the thrilling order, "Set sail for Mars!" The vast umbrella
would unfold and open out around the stern, its rear or Earthward side
a gleaming expanse of radioactive ribbon perhaps only an atom thick
and backed with a material that would reflect neutrons. Atoms in the
ribbon would split, blasting neutrons astern at fantastic velocities.
Reaction would send the spaceship hurtling forward.
In airless space, the expanse of sails would naturally not retard the
ship. More radioactive ribbon, manufactured as needed in the ship
itself, would feed out onto the sail as that already there became
exhausted.
A spaceship with direct nuclear drive--and he, a Thinker, had
conceived it completely except for the technical details! Having
strengthened his mind by hard years of somno-learning, mind-casting,
memory-straightening, and sensory training, he had assured himself
of the executive power to control the technicians and direct their
specialized abilities. Together they would build the true Mars rocket.
But that would only be a beginning. They would build the true Mind
Bomb. They would build the true Selective Microbe Slayer. They would
discover the true laws of ESP and the inner life. They would even--his
imagination hesitated a moment, then strode boldly forward--build the
true Maizie!
And then ... then the Thinkers would be on even terms with the
scientists. Rather, they'd be far ahead. No more deception.
He was so exalted by this thought that he almost let the slideway carry
him past his door. He stepped inside and called, "Caddy!" He waited a
moment, then walked through the apartment, but she wasn't there.
* * * * *
Confound the girl, he couldn't help thinking. This morning, when she
should have made herself scarce, she'd sprawled about sleeping. Now,
when he felt like seeing her, when her presence would have added a
pleasant final touch to his glowing mood, she chose to be absent. He
really should use his hypnotic control on her, he decided, and again
there sprang into his mind the word--a pet form of her name--that would
send her into obedient trance.
No, he told himself again, that was to be reserved for some moment
of crisis or desperate danger, when he would need someone to strike
suddenly and unquestioningly for himself and mankind. Caddy was merely
a wilful and rather silly girl, incapable at present of understanding
the tremendous tensions under which he operated. When he had time for
it, he would train her up to be a fitting companion without hypnosis.
Yet the fact of her absence had a subtly disquieting effect. It shook
his perfect self-confidence just a fraction. He asked himself if
he'd been wise in summoning the rocket physicists without consulting
Tregarron.
But this mood, too, he conquered quickly. Tregarron wasn't his
boss, but just the Thinker's most clever salesman, an expert in the
mumbo-jumbo so necessary for social control in this chaotic era. He
himself, Jorj Helmuth, was the real leader in theoretics and all-over
strategy, the mind behind the mind behind Maizie.
He stretched himself on the bed, almost instantly achieved maximum
relaxation, turned on the somno-learner, and began the two hour rest he
knew would be desirable before the big conference.
* * * * *
Jan Tregarron had supplemented his shorts with pink coveralls, but he
was still drinking beer. He emptied his glass and lifted it a lazy
inch. The beautiful girl beside him refilled it without a word and went
on stroking his forehead.
"Caddy," he said reflectively, without looking at her, "there's a
little job I want you to do. You're the only one with the proper
background. The point is: it will take you away from Jorj for some
time."
"I'd welcome it," she said with decision. "I'm getting pretty sick of
watching his push-ups and all his other mind and muscle stunts. And
that damn somno-learner of his keeps me awake."