The Day the Machines Stopped
Page 14
“It’s fine,” he said when they were in Anne’s small lab at last, “but it will be a lot better if we can get electricity to work again.”
Anne nodded, then smiled suddenly. “We’ve forgotten something. Dad’s on the railroad here, and he’s off duty tonight.”
Brian looked puzzled.
She laughed. “Don’t you remember our dinner date?”
“Oh,” he said, smiling. “Am I still invited?”
“Just try to get out of it.”
“Well—” He’d forgotten that invitation made what seemed like years ago, just before the electricity went off and Carl came in to tell them Cardan wanted to see them—
And then Brian remembered other things.
“Carl. Where is he?”
“Carl? Why, he has a job here. He used to be on this floor, but Mr. Cardan moved him. I don’t know just where—”
“Excuse me a minute.” Brian’s fists tingled. He was thinking of that last crack on the head, of all the insults and underhanded blows he’d experienced from Carl. He was remembering the difference between Carl and himself. As Carl had said, that difference was that Carl always won. The room around Brian seemed to grow momentarily lighter, then darker. Then his emotions were wrapped in cotton wool, and everything else in his life was put away to wait until he had a chance to settle with Carl.
He went down the hall to Cardan’s office. “I’m looking for Carl,” he said.
“You’re just in time.” Cardan turned to the window. “If you’re quick enough, you might just manage to see him.”
Brian threw the window up and looked out.
Down far below was the open platform of the train station. A long passenger train was starting to move, and just springing aboard was a tall, blond, athletic figure, the suitcase gripped in one hand showing bits of hastily packed shirts sticking out.
Brian studied the distance to the ground. The train gathered speed. It was obvious insanity to try to make the jump to the ground and run a race with a steam locomotive capable of seventy or eighty miles an hour.
But it took a distinct effort for Brian to pull his head back in the window.
“That train is headed for the coast,” Cardan told him. “Carl just volunteered for the trip to Easter Island. All I did was tell him you were back.”
Brian drew a deep breath, and Cardan watched him smiling. Cardan had watched the struggle, and he knew what actuated the two men. And Carl’s philosophy that he must always win was no defense against someone who always did his best, once that best reached a certain level.
Brian could feel himself gradually readjust to the situation.
If Carl had stayed there, Brian would have had no choice. But now Carl was gone. Brian gradually relaxed, and pulled down the window. He looked at Cardan and grinned.
“I have some questions I’d like to ask—about terms of employment.”
Cardan sucked on his cigar. His face took on the shrewdly innocent look of a businessman determined to make a profitable arrangement, but who knew that the arrangement had to be truly profitable to both sides if he was to get the best work.
Then Brian was shaking hands, and was on the way down the hall to see Anne Cermak and make arrangements for their long-delayed dinner date.
Brian’s body ached, and his skin felt dry and hot from yesterday’s sunburn. He was wearing the same clothes in which he’d been chased across two states and spent the afternoon in a rock pile with a Springfield rifle and four dead horses. He’d been ambushed, shot at, driven through ice and smoke, forced to pillage for his food, turned into a steam-engine rebuilder by endless drudgery, and had only narrowly escaped the job of assistant dictator in one of the cleverest tyrannies since Nazi Germany. It came to Brian that he was a wreck, a shambles, and no woman would want him.
He pushed open the lab door. Anne smiled up at him and came into his arms.
It had been a rough two thousand miles, but at last he’d made it.
Brian was home.
The End
∞
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Contents
AUTHOR’S PROFILE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12