“He was.”
“Bernie, I can no more fill his shoes than Dolores’.”
“Wear your own. You’ll do all right.”
“You, and Dolores, and Merryweather are all nuts. No, I take that back. Merryweather isn’t nuts. He hasn’t hired me yet.”
“That isn’t the way I heard it. He liked you. After you left, he told one of his secretaries he was thinking about hiring a ping-pong champion to run the Merryweather Enterprize project.”
“Bernie, why didn’t you strike that off the resume?”
“I liked it. See you in the sweatshop, boss.” He hung up.
By the next morning, I knew the job was out of my league. Norton’s reports boggled me more than the interview with Mr. Merryweather. Perhaps Norton could boss five hundred men and a ten-billion-dollar annual budget with one hand while he practiced the most inspired engineering since Archimedes with the other, but the Mr. Collins had trouble bossing one small Chicano. Or is it Chicana?
“Why?” asked Dolores, fixing coffee, angry.
“Why what?”
“Why aren’t you going?”
“Look at this!” I waved one of Norton’s reports at her. “I can’t do this! That’s all there is to it!”
“You can do it.”
“What do you know about it?” I threw the report down and stalked into the bathroom. Slapping depilatory on my face and staring at Baby Face Collins in the mirror, I knew I was right. In his right mind, Mr. Merryweather would never hire me. Once hired, I would turn their space station into an orbiting monkey cage. I had resolved to mail back the reports and go to the beach with Dog. I glanced out the bathroom window. It was raining. Dolores came into the bathroom.
“Isn’t there any privacy around here?”
“No.”
I grunted and rinsed my face.
“Robert.”
I knew I was in for it. “What?” “If you don’t go to that interview, I’m leaving.”
“So leave. I can see what kind of a wife you’d make right now. ‘Robert, you’re thirty-four years old and not President of the United States. What’s the matter with you?’ ”
She mumbled something.
“What was that crack?”
“I said, you have to be thirty-five.”
I laughed. Dolores smiled at my reflection in the mirror and came up behind me. She circled my waist with her arms and rested her cheek on my back.
“Bobby.”
“What?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to say it. Why aren’t you going back to the interview?”
I turned around and took her in my arms. “I told you. Even if they hire me, I can’t do the job.”
“Bernie thinks you can.”
“What does he know about it? He’s the one who got me into this in the first place.”
“He knows more than you do.”
“Says who?”
“That’s what you’re always saying.”
Logic. She had me.
“So?” It was the best I could do. She pulled her head away from my chest, looking at me. “Unless—”
“Unless what?”
“You’re afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Responsibility. Five hundred people, ten billion dollars. You could fail.”
“Yes,” I said quietly, “I could fail.”
She looked at me. “You are.”
“I am what?”
“Afraid!” It delighted her.
“No, I—” I stopped talking. Dolores was right. Five hundred people, ten billion dollars—it scared me stiff. And Norton, that hovering presence of genius, the thought of him scared me as much as anything. Yet, confronting it, verbalizing it with Dolores, shrank it. I needed a job. Merryweather Enterprises had a job. The five hundred people were hired to help, not hinder. Mr. Merryweather knew my background. If he hired me, he could take the responsibility for my inevitable failure. It was an opportunity, the only one around, true, but nonetheless an opportunity. More than that, it was a challenge. If I could carry through Norton’s project, I could do anything. I could be President at thirty-four.
“OK, I’ll go.”
III
When I got to the Merryweather Building, I had to wait by the rubber plant. The blond glanced at me several times and smiled once. From time to time, she got up and left the lobby. I enjoyed watching her come and go. I even enjoyed watching her stand still. It passed the time.
I was about to ask when Mr. Merryweather would be free when I saw Duff, overcoat flapping, hurrying up the broad entrance steps into the building. He burst into the lobby, shouting for the blond—Pamela—to tell Mr. “M” he was on his way up with an emergency.
He started toward the elevator, then halted, brought up short by my presence.
“You.”
I grinned, displaying as many teeth as possible. “None other.” “You’d better come, too. This concerns you.”
“Me?”
“Come on.” He charged off toward the elevator.
I got Norton’s reports and followed. In the elevator, he mumbled to the pushbuttons, ignoring me.
“I told her not to make a scene
“… too late now … much too late …”
“For what?”
“Good thing she did, though . . .”
“Who?”
“Great man …” He spat out the words. “Oh, yes, he was a great man, but not great enough for Mr. “M” to go himself …”
“Who?”
“He had to send me . . .”
“You?”
“Ah, here we are. Open up, damn it! Slowest elevator in the building!”
The doors slid open. Duff surged forward, leading me by ten feet. He paused at the secretary’s desk closest to Mr. Merryweather’s office.
“Who’s he with?”
Startled, the girl blinked. “No one at the moment, but Mr. Collins has an appoint—oh, I see you have Mr. Collins with you.”
“I’ve got Collins.”
Duff started for Mr. Merryweather’s office door. I followed. By his tone, I felt as if I was being fired, that malefactor Collins, caught with his fingers in the till again. I reminded myself they had to hire me to fire me.
Duff barely paused for the office doors. They opened. Mr. Merryweather looked up from a pile of papers on his desk, recognizing me.
“Ah, Mr. Collins.” He rose and started around the desk toward us, stepping into the well area and extending his hand.
“Mr. Merryweather,” interrupted Duff. “I must talk to you.”
“Can’t it wait? Mr. Collins and I—”
“No.”
Mr. Merryweather looked at me, lifting one eyebrow. “I sent Phillip to poor Norton’s funeral this morning—a great man, Norton. A fine engineer. Have you had an opportunity to look over his reports, Mr. Collins?”
“Yes, and I agree.”
Duff, his face contorted in anxiety, fidgeted, trying to break in. “What is it, Phillip?”
“Norton.”
“What about him?”
“The funeral.”
Duff launched into a frantic account of the funeral. He had arrived late. The service, eulogizing Norton—an activity Duff apparently found repugnant on general principles—was already under way. Inconspicuously, he had edged in the side door of the church. The pews were full.
“I didn’t know Norton had so many friends,” said Duff. “He must have belonged to a lodge.”
Duff had made his way to the rear of the church and sat on a collapsible metal chair by the aisle, Norton’s casket clearly in view. The minister, a young man with a goatee, was intoning the standard thesaurus of virtues. Duff had stopped listening, thankful for Norton’s closed casket. Seeing Norton again, he said, especially in the beneficent posture composed by the morticians, would have spoiled his lunch. He had spotted Sharon Norton in t
he front pew, with a black pillbox hat on her head and a black veil covering her face.
“I remember that hat especially,” Duff said. “Every time the minister said something like, ‘Though Edward is gone from us now, he is not forgotten,’ a moan went up from Sharon’s—I mean Mrs. Norton’s pew and that hat tilted back. It was horrible, just horrible. I knew she would make a scene.”
“How is Mrs. Norton, Phillip?” interrupted Mr. Merryweather.
Duff stopped, blushed, looked at me with a pained expression, shaking his head from side to side as if denying the innuendo’s truth. Mr. Merryweather persisted.
“She did quash the divorce proceedings after his death, didn’t she?”
Duff looked uncomfortable, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Yes.”
“Go on, Phillip.”
Duff had listened to her moaning from his place at the rear of the church. The minister had continued, saying that all men were mortal, that Norton was a man, that therefore Norton was mortal. “Very logical,” said Mr. Merryweather.
Sharon Norton had wailed, the volume increasing with each mention of Norton’s name.
“I knew she’d make a scene,” said Duff. “I knew it.”
“Just tell us what happened, Phillip.”
The minister had intoned that no one would see Norton’s likes again. Sharon Norton had wailed and stood in the pew. She must, she had said. The minister had assured her she would not. She must, she had shouted, one last time! Barely evading outstretched hands, she had bolted from the pew and stepped to the casket. A murmur had risen from the congregation as she pulled at the upper lid of the coffin.
“Unseemly,” commented Mr. Merryweather.
“Indeed. I kept thinking, Why is Sharon—Mrs. Norton—doing this? She couldn’t expect to get the casket open. They secure them. Frankly, it struck me as overacting. Playing the bereaved widow is one thing. Improvising on the role is something else.”
“You can skip the editorial, Phillip.”
“Yes, sir.”
The minister had abandoned his pulpit, approaching Sharon Norton from behind, his compassionate hands extended. She had her fingers between the coffin and the lid, prying. An instant before the minister reached her, the lid had come up. A gasp had erupted from the congregation. Duff, telling it, flinched, grimacing.
Holding up the lid, Sharon Norton had thrust her veiled face toward the opening. She peered. She groaned. She dropped the lid. It slammed into place. Duff, half out of his collapsible chair at the time, had stood up. She had turned to the congregation, and her voice, when it came, was shaken but audible: “He’s gone.”
“Gone?” said Mr. Merryweather. “That’s what she said.”
“Was he?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Merryweather nodded and began pacing the room, stroking his chin and watching his path. He glanced up at Duff from time to time.
“Nothing else?”
“Pardon me?”
“She didn’t say anything else, either there or, uh, privately?”
“I haven’t talked to her yet.”
Mr. Merryweather continued his pacing. Eventually, he stopped, looking at Duff. “He was gone.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Duff threw up his hands. “I haven’t the vaguest idea. It’s probably some joke of Norton’s. He never was very considerate of other people.”
“I don’t think it was a joke, Phillip.”
Duff snorted, indicating his disbelief.
“He died by accident,” continued Mr. Merryweather. “It gave him very little time to prepare jokes.”
“I still wouldn’t put it past him,” said Duff.
I stood there, listening to their discussion and wondering why Duff had said it concerned me. Unless I was supposed to have Norton’s body socked away at home, I was unable to see how. Duff had no idea where Norton was. I had no idea why it was important. Interesting, yes. But important? Only to Mrs. Norton, if to her.
Finally, Mr. Merryweather looked at Duff and sighed. “All right, Phillip. Find out what you can. Call around. And get me an up-to-date list of all Spieler’s projects, not just that fossilized drone fleet of his.”
“Yes, sir.”
Duff left.
Mr. Merryweather looked at me and smiled wearily. “There are times, Mr. Collins, when I regret giving up teaching for business.”
“You taught?”
“English. The death scene in Hamlet, for example—it’s so much more wholesome than real life.” He walked to his desk and touched the intercom. “Hold all my calls, Sandra, except from Mr. Duff.” He turned to me, sitting lightly on the edge of his desk. “I’m forgetting myself, Mr. Collins. Sit down, please. Juice?”
I declined and sat on the leather couch.
“Have you had an opportunity to examine Norton’s reports?”
“Yes.”
“And what do you think?”
“He was brilliant.” ‘
Mr. Merryweather nodded. “And the project?”
I could have lied. I could have said the project looked excellent, that Norton had solved the major technical problems, that success was just around the corner. Most people like approval and confirmation of their judgment. Mr. Merryweather was not most people. I decided to give a frank opinion.
“You could go bankrupt.”
He laughed. “Yes, I could.”
“Norton seems to have licked the interface problem along with the size limitations. Power is the only drawback, but a big drawback.”
“I agree. Norton, unfortunately, saved that problem for last.”
“If I could look at his working papers, perhaps—”
“Working papers!” Mr. Merryweather laughed. “Those reports are all we have.” He tapped his temple. “Norton kept everything in here. He called it a gift. I call it a curse. He only agreed to make progress reports at all because I sent Pamela—our receptionist—you saw her downstairs?”
“The statuesque one.”
“Among other things. I sent her to get the reports. He liked Pamela. There was nothing more to it than that, I’m sure. I told him countless times to write things—” He broke off, shrugging. “What’s done is done.”
Norton’s methods struck me as odd. Most engineers only believe a thing is real when they see it on paper, or at least laid into a drafting computer. Trying to remember thousands of complicated specifications is like trying to memorize a Chinese dictionary. Why memorize when you can carry the book in your pocket?
The phone glowed. Mr. Merryweather answered.
“What is it?”
“Mr. Duff, sir.”
“Thank you. Put him on.”
He moved the phone around so I could see Duff’s face and turned up the volume. Duff came on, frowning. The depth adjustment was off, exaggerating the bags under Duff’s eyes.
“Mr. Merryweather,” said Duff, “I’ve checked everywhere. Mrs. Norton is still hysterical—she’s under sedation—but the morticians know nothing about it either. The man I talked to”—he glanced down at something on his desk—“a Mr. Cunningham, thought I was accusing him of taking it. He was extremely agitated. Apparently, the police and media have already been there. He just snapped that the damn thing was in the box when they shipped it out and hung up.”
“What about the delivery people?”
“Same story. They got a closed casket from Cunningham. They delivered a closed casket to the church. Beyond that, we are supposed to contact their attorneys.”
“The church?”
“The casket was delivered and sent directly to the chapel.”
“All right, thank—”
“I have the list of Spieler’s projects.”
“Fine. Feed through a copy.”
The document feed light on the phone lit and a foot-long sheet of paper emerged from a slot below the screen. Mr. Merryweather glanced at it, reading as it emerged. Duff and I waited.
“Beats me,” sa
id Mr. Merryweather, picking up the copy and walking over to me. “See what you can make of it.” He handed me the sheet.
Only the strictly commercial ventures like hotels, along with one or two of the technical activities, were comprehensible to me. The projects ranged from business to biology. Number seven on the list, Drone Phase-Shift Elimination, caught my attention. Drone ships used a modified Jenson Displacement system to shift themselves across the galaxy. Because of the relatively small mass involved, stability of the Gate field on a drone ship is critical. On short jumps, up to a quarter of a million miles, standard Jenson Gates, grounded against the Earth or the Moon, are sufficiently stable. For longer jumps in space, the minutest improper phasing at the interface means permanent dematerialization. Spieler’s ships made two jumps per trip. Poor phase accounted for half the eighty-percent loss rate. Unanticipated accidents accounted for the other forty percent. Even the surviving twenty percent showed significant enough evidence of poor phasing to prevent human beings aboard the ships. The effect on ore, though detectable, was negligible. Life is less stable. What a rock or metal spacecraft can safely do, human beings, if they want to avoid being hamburger, must decline. Drones do their work well enough without human supervisors. I pointed to the item.
“Norton solved this.”
Mr. Merryweather nodded. “For our purposes, yes. Possibly for drone ships, too. But he doesn’t know it yet. At least he doesn’t know how.”
He, apparently, was Spieler. “Norton never published?”
“As I said, Norton kept everything in his head. I would have asked him to delay publication in any case. For business reasons.”
He must have noticed my discomfort. It had occurred to me that if I were hired and if I developed anything significant, I might want to publish, for the sake of my next resume if nothing else.
“But only delay it, Mr. Collins. We are not in the habit of suppressing matters of technological significance, at least not after our patent lawyers have finished their work. What do you make of the list?”
I shrugged. “Most of it’s out of my field.”
“Did you notice the item second from the bottom?”
I looked at it. Giant Molecule Reconstitution, Organic.
Stargate Page 3
