Mrs. Frost, arose, folded her arms, and said to Allen: “We all agree it isn’t remotely possible to call this material proof. But it’s disturbing. Evidently you did make these phone calls; you did go somewhere out of the ordinary; you have been gone the last week. What you tell me I’ll believe. So will Mrs. Hoyt.”
Mrs. Hoyt inclined her head.
“Have you left your wife?” Mrs. Frost asked. “One simple question. Yes or no.”
“No,” he said, and it was really, actually true. There was no lie involved. He looked her straight in the eye. “No adultery, no affair, no secret love. I went to Hokkaido and got material. I phoned a male friend.” Some friend. “I visited the same friend. This last week has been an unfortunate involvement in circumstances beyond my control, growing out of my retiring from my Agency and accepting the directorship. My motives and actions have been in the public interest, and my conscience is totally clear.”
Mrs. Hoyt said: “Let the boy go. So he can take a bath and get some sleep.”
Her hand out, Sue Frost approached Allen. “I’m sorry. I am. You know that.”
They shook, and Allen said: “Tomorrow morning, at eight?”
“Fine.” She smiled sheepishly. “But we had to check. A charge of this sort—you understand.”
He did. Turning to Blake and Luddy, who were stuffing their material back in its briefcase, Allen said: “Packet number 355-B. Faithful husband the victim of old women living in the housing unit who cook up a kettle of filth and then get it tossed in their faces.”
Hurriedly, glancing down, Blake murmured good nights and departed. Luddy followed after him. Allen wondered how long the false lead would keep him alive.
16
His new office at Telemedia had been cleaned, swept, repainted, and his desk had been moved from the Agency as a gesture of continuity. By ten o’clock Monday morning, Allen had got the feel of things. He had sat in the big swivel chair, used the pencil sharpener, stood before the one-way viewing wall covertly surveyed his building-sized staff.
While he was stabilizing himself, Myron Mavis, looking as if he hadn’t gone to bed, appeared to wish him luck.
“Not a bad layout,” Mavis said. “Gets plenty of sunlight, good air. Very healthy; look at me.”
“I hope you’re not selling your hoofs for glue,” Allen said, feeling humble.
“Not for awhile. Come on.” Mavis guided him out of the office. “I’ll introduce you to the staff.”
They squeezed past the bundles of congratulatory “flowers” along the corridor. The reek of crypto-flora assailed them,’ and Allen halted to examine cards. “Like a hot house,” he said. “Here’s one from Mrs. Hoyt.”
There was a bundle from Sue Frost, from Harry Priar, and from Janet. There were gaudy bundles from the four giant Agencies, including Blake-Moffet. All bore formal greetings. Their representatives would be in shortly. And there were unmarked bundles with no cards. He wondered who had sent them. Persons in the housing unit; perhaps little Mr. Wales who had stuck up for him during the block meeting. Others, from anonymous individuals who wished him luck. There was a dingy bunch, very small, which he picked up; some sort of blue growth.
“Those are real,” Mavis said. “Smell them. Bluebells, I think they were called. Somebody must have dredged them up from the past.”
Probably Gates and Sugermann. And one of the anonymous bundles could represent the Mental Health Resort. In the back of his mind was the conviction that Malparto would be seeking to recover his investment.
The staff quit work and lined up for his inspection. He shook hands, made random inquiries, spoke sage comments, greeted personnel he remembered. It was almost noon by the time he and Mavis had made the circuit of the building.
“That was kind of a bad scrape, last night,” Mavis said, as they returned to the office. “Blake-Moffet has been after the directorship for years. It must hurt like hell to see you in.”
Allen opened the file he had brought and rummaged for a packet. “Remember this?” He passed it to Mavis. “Everything started with this.”
“Oh yes.” Mavis nodded. “The tree that died. The anti-colonization Morec.”
“You know better than that,” Allen said.
Mavis looked bland. “Symbol of spiritual starvation, then. Severed from the folk-soul. You’re going to put that through? The new Renaissance in propaganda. What Dante did for the afterworld, you’re going to do for this.”
“This particular packet,” Allen said, “is long overdue. It should have come out months ago. I suppose I could start out cautiously, process only what’s already been bought. Interfere with the staff as little as possible. Let them go the way they’ve been going—the low-risk approach.” He opened the packet. “But.”
“Not but.” Mavis leaned close, put the side of his hand to his lips, and whispered hoarsely: “The watchword is Excelsior.”
He shook hands with Allen, wished him luck, hung lonelily around the building for an hour or so, and then was gone.
Watching Mavis shuffle off, Allen was conscious of his own burden. But the sense of weight made him cheerful.
“Seven with one blow,” he said.
“Yes, Mr. Purcell,” a battery of intercoms responded, as secretaries came to life.
“My father can lick your father,” Allen said. “I’m just testing the equipment. You can go back to sleep, or whatever it is you’re doing.”
Removing his coat he settled himself at his desk and began dividing up the packet. There was still nothing in it he cared to alter, so he marked it “satisfactory” and tossed it in the basket. The basket whisked it off, and, somewhere down the long chain of command, the packet was received and put into process.
He picked up the phone and called his wife.
“Where are you?” she said, as if she was afraid to believe it. “Are you…”
“I’m there,” he said.
“H-how’s the job?”
“Power unlimited.”
She seemed to relax. “You want to celebrate tonight?”
The idea sounded good. “Sure. This is our big triumph; we should enjoy it.” He tried to think what would be appropriate. “I could bring home a quart of ice cream.”
Janet said: “I’d feel better if you told me what happened last night with Mrs. Frost.”
There was no point in giving her grounds for her anxiety. “You worry too much. It came out all right, and that’s what matters. This morning I put through the tree packet. Remember that? Now they can’t bury it in dust. I’m going to transfer my best men from the Agency, men like Harry Priar. I’ll trim down the staff here until I have something manageable.”
“You won’t make the projections too hard to understand, will you? I mean, don’t put together things over people’s heads.”
“Nobody can say what’s ‘over people’s heads,’” Allen said. “The aged-in-the-stalk formula material is on its way out, and all sorts of new stuff is coming in. We’ll try a little of everything.”
Wistfully, Janet said: “Remember how much fun it was when we started? Forming the Agency, hitting T-M with our new ideas, our new kind of packets.”
He remembered. “Just keep thinking about that. I’ll see you tonight. Everything’s coming out fine, so don’t worry.” He added goodbye, and then hung up.
“Mr. Purcell,” his desk intercom said, “there are a number of people waiting to see you.”
“Okay, Doris,” he said.
“Vivian, Mr. Purcell.” What sounded like a giggle. “Shall I send the first one in?”
“Send him, her, or it in,” Allen said. He folded his hands in front of him and scrutinized the door.
The first person was a woman, and she was Gretchen Malparto.
17
Gretchen wore a tight blue suit, carried a beaded purse, was pale and drawn, dark-eyed with tension. She smelled of fresh flowers and looked beautiful and expensive. Closing the door, she said:
“I got your note.”
&n
bsp; “The baby was a boy. Six pounds.” The office seemed filled with tiny drifting particles; he rested his palms against the desk and closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes the particles were gone but Gretchen was still there; she had seated herself, crossed her legs, and was fingering the edge of her skirt.
“When did you arrive back here?” she asked.
“Sunday night.”
“I got in this morning.” Her eyebrows wavered and across her face flitted a blind, crumpled pain. “You certainly walked right out.”
“Well,” he said, “I figured out where I was.”
“Was it so bad?”
Allen said: “I can call people in here and have you tossed out. I can have you barred; I can have all kinds of things done to you. I can even have you arrested and prosecuted for a felony, you and your brother and that demented outfit you run. But that puts an end to me. Even Vivian walking in to take dictation is the end, with you sitting there.”
“Who’s Vivian?”
“One of my new secretaries. She comes along with the job.”
Color had returned to Gretchen’s features. “You’re exaggerating.”
Allen went over and examined the door. It had a lock, so he locked it. He then went to the intercom, pressed the button, and said: “I don’t want to be disturbed.”
“Yes, Mr. Purcell,” Vivian’s voice sounded.
Picking up the phone, Allen called his Agency. Harry Priar answered. “Harry,” Allen said, “get over here to T-M in something, a sliver or a Getabout. Park as close as you can and then come upstairs to my office.”
“What’s going on?”
“When you’re here, phone me from my secretary’s desk. Don’t use the intercom.” He hung up, bent over, and ripped the intercom loose. “These things are natural taps,” he explained to Gretchen.
“You’re really serious.”
“Bet you I am.” He folded his arms, leaned against the side of the desk. “Is your brother crazy?”
She gulped. “He—is, in a sense. A mania, collecting. But they all have it. This Psi mysticism. There was such a blob on your -gram; it tipped him across.”
“How about you?”
“I suppose I’m not so clever either.” Her voice was thin, brittle. “I’ve had four days travelling in to think about it. As soon as I saw you were gone, I followed. I—really thought you’d come back to the house. Wishful thinking…it was so damn nice and cozy.” Suddenly she lashed out furiously. “You stupid bastard!”
Allen looked at his watch and saw that Harry Priar would, be another ten minutes. Probably he was just now backing the sliver onto the roof field of the Agency.
“What are you going to do with me?” Gretchen said.
“Drive you out somewhere and dump you.” He wondered if Gates could help. Maybe she could be detained at Hokkaido. But that was their gimmick. “Didn’t it seem a little unfair to me?” he said. “I went to you for help; I acted in good faith.”
Staring at the floor, Gretchen said: “My brother’s responsible. I didn’t know in advance; you were starting out the door to leave, and then you keeled over. He gas-pelleted you. Somebody was detailed to get you to Other World; they were going to ship you there by freight, in a cataleptic state. I—was afraid you might die. It’s risky. So I accompanied you.” She raised her head. “I wanted to. It was a terrible thing to do, but it was going to happen anyhow.”
He felt less hostility, since it was probably true. “You’re an opportunist,” he murmured. “The whole affair was ingenious. Especially that bit when the house dissolved. What’s this blob on my -gram?”
“My brother puzzled over it from the time he got it. He never figured it out, and neither did the Dickson. Some psionic talent. Precognition, he thinks. You japed the statue to prevent your own murder at the hands of the Cohorts. He thinks the Cohorts kill people who rise too high.”
“Do you agree?”
“No,” she said, “because I know what the blob means. You do have something in your mind nobody else has. But it’s not precognition.”
“What is it?”
Gretchen said: “You have a sense of humor.”
The office was quiet as Allen considered and Gretchen sat smoothing her skirt.
“Maybe so,” Allen said finally.
“And a sense of humor doesn’t fit in with Morec. Or with us. You’re not a ‘mutant’; you’re just a balanced human being.” Her voice gained strength. “The japery, everything you’ve done. You’re just trying to re-establish a balance in an unbalanced world. And it’s something you can’t even admit to yourself. On the top you believe in Morec. Underneath there’s that blob, that irreducible core, that grins and laughs and plays pranks.”
“Childish,” he said.
“Not at all.”
“Thanks.” He smiled down at her.
“This is such a goddamn mess.” From her purse she got her handkerchief; she wiped her eyes and then stuffed the handkerchief into her coat pocket. “You’ve got this job, Director of Telemedia, the high post of morality. Guardian of public ethics. You create the ethics. What a screwy, mixed-up situation.”
“But I want this job.”
“Yes, your ethics are very high. But they’re not the ethics of this society. The block meetings—you loathe them. The faceless accusers. The juveniles—the busybody prying. This senseless struggle for leases. The anxiety. The tension and strain; look at Myron Mavis. And the overtones of guilt and suspicion. Everything becomes—tainted. The fear of contamination; fear of committing an indecent act. Sex is morbid; people hounded for natural acts. This whole structure is like a giant torture chamber, with everybody staring at one another, trying to find fault, trying to break one another down. Witch-hunts and star chambers. Dread and censorship, Mr. Bluenose banning books. Children kept from hearing evil. Morec was invented by sick minds, and it creates more sick minds.”
“All right,” Allen said, listening. “But I’m not going to lie around watching girls sun-bathe. Like a salesman on vacation.”
“That’s all you see in the Resort?”
“That’s all I see in Other World. And the Resort is a machine to process people there.”
“It does more than that. It provides them with a place they can escape to. When their resentment and anxiety starts destroying them—” She gestured. “Then they go over.”
“Then they don’t smash store windows. Or jape statues. I’d rather jape statues.”
“You came to us once.”
“As I see it,” Allen said, “the Resort acts as part of the system. Morec is one half and you’re the other. Two sides of the coin: Morec is all work and you’re the badminton and checkers set. Together you form a society; you uphold and support each other. I can’t be in both parts, and of the two I prefer this.”
“Why?”
“At least something’s being done, here. People are working. You tell them to go out and fish.”
“So you won’t go back with me,” she said reasonably. “I didn’t really think you would.”
“Then what did you show up here for?”
“To explain. So you’d understand how that whole damn foolish business happened, and what my part was. Why I got involved. And so you’d understand about yourself. I wanted you to be aware of your feelings—the hostility you feel toward Morec. The deep outrage you have for its cruelties. You’re moving in the direction of integration. But I wanted to help. Maybe it’ll pay you back for what we took. You did ask us for help. I’m sorry.”
“Being sorry is a good idea,” he said. “A step in the right direction.”
Gretchen got up and put her hand on the doorknob. “I’ll take the next step. Goodbye.”
“Just sit down.” He propelled her back to the chair but she disengaged her arm. “What now?” he demanded. “More speeches?”
“No.” She faced him. “I give up. I won’t cause you any more trouble. Go back to your little worrying wife; that’s where you belong.”
“
She’s younger than you,” Allen said. “As well as smaller.”
“How wonderful,” Gretchen said lightly. “But—does she understand about you? This core you have that makes you different and keeps you out of the system? Can she help bring that out as it should be? Because that’s important, more important than anything else. Even this heroic position, this new job, isn’t really—”
“Still the welfare worker,” he said. He was only partly listening to her; he was watching for Harry Priar.
“You do believe what I say, don’t you? About you; about what’s inside you.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m taken in by your story.”
“It’s true. I—really care about you, Allen. You’re a lot like Donna’s father. Equivocating about the system, leaving it and then going back. The same doubts and mistrusts. Now he’s back here for good. I said goodbye to him. I’m saying goodbye to you, the same way.”
“One last thing,” Allen said. “For the record. Do you honestly suppose I’m going to pay that bill?”
“It does seem stupid. There’s a routine procedure, and it was marked ‘for services rendered,’ so nobody would identify it. I’ll have the account voided.” She was suddenly shy. “I’d like to ask for something. Possibly you’ll laugh.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Why don’t you kiss me goodbye?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.” He made no move.
Stripping off her gloves, Gretchen laid them with her purse and raised her bare, slim fingers to his face. “There really isn’t anybody named Molly, is there? You just made her up.” She dug her nails into his neck, tugging him down against her. Her breath, as she kissed him, was faintly sweet with peppermint, and her lips were moist. “You’re so good.” she said, turning her face away.
She screamed.
On the floor of the office was a metal earwig-shaped creature, its receptor stalks high and whirring. The juvenile scuttled closer, then retreated in a dash of motion.
Allen grabbed up a paper weight from the desk and threw it at the juvenile. He missed, and the thing kept on going. It was trying to get back out the window, through which it had come. As it scooted up the wall he lifted his foot and smashed it; the juvenile fell broken to the floor and crawled in a half-circle. Allen found a typewriter and dropped it on the crippled juvenile. Then he began searching for its reservoir of tape.