by Larry Niven
Mementos of times past. But only the past. There were no pictures of the Shuttle, delayed once more; no reminders of the Pentagon, Johnny’s present assignment. Two pictures of the children, one with Ann in the background, short, browned, competent Ann, who already had a look of puzzled unhappiness in the photo.
His hand was wrapped around the glass, but he had forgotten glass and hand. Maureen could watch his face without his knowing it. Johnny Baker saw only the screen.
Parabolic orbits diagrammed against the concentric circular paths of the planets. Old photos of Halley’s Comet and Brooks’s Comet and Cunningham’s Comet and others, culminating in a blurred pinpoint that was Hamner-Brown. A man with large insectile glasses lectured with fierce intensity:
“Oh, we’ll get hit someday. It probably won’t be an asteroid, either. The orbits are too nearly fixed. There must have been asteroids whose orbits intersected Earth’s, but those have had four billion years to hit us, and most of them eventually did,” said the lecturer. “They hit so long ago that even the craters are gone, weathered away, except for the biggest and the newest. But look at the Moon!
“The comets are different.”
The lecturer’s pointer traced a parabola drawn in chalk. “Some mass way out there beyond Pluto, maybe an undiscovered planet… we even have a name for it. Persephone.
Some mass disturbs the orbits of these great snowballs, and they come down on our heads in a wake of boiling chemicals. None of them have ever had a chance to hit the Earth until they get thrown down into the inner system. One day we’ll be hit. We’d have about a year’s warning. Maybe more, if we can learn enough about Hamner-Brown.”
Then an antiseptic young woman proclaimed that she wasn’t married to her house, and was told that was why Kalva Soap had invented a new disinfectant for her toilet bowl… and Johnny Baker came smiling back into the world. “He really makes his points, doesn’t he?”
“It is well done. Did I tell you I met the man who put it together? I met Tim Hamner, too. At the same party with Harvey Randall. Hamner’s a case. Manic. He’d just discovered his comet, and he couldn’t wait to tell everyone.”
Johnny Baker sipped his drink. Then, after a long pause, he said, “Some funny rumors in the Pentagon.”
“Oh?”
“Gus called. From Downey. Seems Rockwell’s refurbishing an Apollo. And there’s some mutters about diverting one of the Titan boosters from a Big Bird to something else. Know anything?”
She sipped her drink and felt a wave of sadness. Now she knew why Johnny Baker had called yesterday. After six weeks in the Pentagon, six weeks in Washington with no attempt to see her, and then…
And I was going to surprise him. Some surprise.
“Dad’s trying to get Congress to fund a comet-study mission,” Maureen said.
“This for real?” Johnny demanded.
“It’s for real.”
“But…” His hands were shaking. His hands never shook. John Baker had flown fighters over Hanoi, and his maneuvers were always perfect. The MIGs never had a chance. And once he’d taken splinters out of his crew chief when there wasn’t time to get the medics. There was a splinter in the chief’s chest and Baker had removed it and sliced deftly to expose the artery, clamped it together with steady fingers while the chief screamed and the Cong mortars thudded onto the field, and his hands had never shaken.
But they were shaking now. “Congress won’t put up the money.”
“They might. The Russians are planning a mission. Can’t let them outdo us,” Maureen said. “Peace depends on showing them we’re still willing to compete if that’s the way they want it. And if we compete, we win.”
“I don’t care if it’s Martians we’re competing with. I’ve got to go. I’ve got to.” He drained his scotch His hands were suddenly steady.
Maureen watched in fascination. He’s stopped shaking because he’s got a mission. And I know what it is. Me. To get me to get him on that ship. A minute ago he might really have been in love with me. Not now.
“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “We don’t have all that much time together, and I’m laying this on you. But… you had me dead to rights. My mind doesn’t turn off.” He drank deeply of his ice-diluted scotch. His attention went back to the screen, and left Maureen wondering if she’d been imagining things. Just how clever was John Baker?
The commercial mercifully ended and the cameras zoomed in on the Jet Propulsion Laboratories.
Harry Newcombe hastily chewed the last of his sandwich while he drove the mail truck with one hand. The regulations gave him time off for lunch, but Harry never took it. He used the time for better purposes.
It was long past noon when he got to Silver Valley Ranch. As usual he stopped at the gate. There was a spot where he could look through a pass in the foothills to the majesty of the High Sierra to the east. Snow gleamed off their tops. To the west were more foothills, the sun not too far above them. Finally he got out to open the gate, drove through, and carefully closed the gate behind him. He ignored the large mailbox on its post beside the gate.
He stopped along the drive to pick a pomegranate from the grove that had started as one tree and was still, untended, propagating itself downhill toward the stream. Harry had seen it grow in the half-year he’d been on the route, and was guessing when the pomegranates would roll all the way downhill into the cocklebur patch. Would they choke out the burrs? He had no idea, really. Harry was a city boy.
Harry was an ex-city boy. Hah! And if he never saw a city again he’d be happy.
He was grinning as he shouldered his load and walked lopsided to the door. Rang. Set the bag down.
The dimly heard hurricane of a vacuum cleaner calmed. Mrs. Cox opened the door and smiled at the bulging bag beside Harry. “That day again? Hello, Harry.”
“Hi. Happy Trash Day, Mrs. Cox!”
“And a Happy Trash Day to you too, Harry. Coffee?”
“Don’t stay me. It’s against guv’mint regulations.”
“Fresh coffee. And new-baked rolls.”
“Well… I can’t resist that.” He reached into the smaller pouch that still hung at his side. “Letter from your sister in Idaho. And something from the Senator.” He handed her the letters, then shouldered the bag and wobbled in. “Anyplace special?”
“The dining table’s big enough.”
Harry spilled the contents of the larger bag across a polished table of lovely grain. It seemed to have been carved out of a slice of a single tree, and must have been fifty years old. They didn’t make tables like that anymore. If there was furniture like that in the caretaker’s home, what must it be like in the big house up the hill?
The wood grain was hidden under a deluge: begging letters from charities, from several political parties, from colleges. Offers to join lotteries by buying records, clothing, books, subscriptions to magazines. “YOU MAY ALREADY HAVE WON $100 A WEEK FOR LIFE!” Religious tracts. Political lessons. Single-tax literature. Free samples of soap, mouthwash, detergent, deodorant.
Alice Cox brought in the coffee. She was only eleven, but she was already beautiful. Long blonde hair. Blue eyes. A trusting girl, as Harry knew from seeing her when he was off duty. But she could be trusting here; nobody was going to bother her. Most of the men in Silver Valley kept rifles slung on racks in their pickups, and they damned well knew what to do with anybody who’d bother an eleven-year-old girl.
It was one of the things Harry liked about the valley. Not the threat of violence, because Harry hated violence; but that it was only a threat. The rifles came off their racks only for deer (in season or out, if the ranchers were hungry or the deer got into the crops).
Mrs. Cox brought in rolls. Half the people on Harry’s route offered him coffee and eats, on days when he ignored regulations and brought the mail up to their houses. Mrs. Cox didn’t make the best coffee on the route, but the cup was definitely the finest in the valley: thin bone china, much too good for a half-hippie mailman. The first time
Harry had been to the house he’d drunk water from a tin cup and stood at the door. Now he sat at the fine table and drank coffee from bone china Another reason to stay out of cities.
He sipped hurriedly. There was another blonde girl, this one over eighteen and legal, and it would be Trash Day for her house, too. She’d be home. Donna Adams was always home for Harry. “Lot here for the Senator,” Harry said.
“Yes. He’s back in Washington,” Mrs. Cox answered.
“But he’s coming soon,” Alice piped.
“Wish he’d hurry,” Mrs. Cox said. “It’s nice here when the Senator’s in residence. People coming and going. Important people. The President stayed at the big house one night. Secret Service made a big fuss. Men wandering all over the ranch.” She laughed, and Alice giggled. Harry looked puzzled. “As if anybody in this valley would harm the President of the United States,” Mrs. Cox said.
“I still think your Senator Jellison’s a myth,” Harry said. “I’ve been on this route eight months, and I haven’t seen him yet.”
Mrs. Cox looked him up and down. He seemed a nice enough boy, although Mrs. Adams said her daughter paid him entirely too much attention. Harry’s long, flowing, curly brown hair would have looked good on a girl. His beard was beautiful. The real masterpiece was the mustache. It came to long points which, on formal occasions, Harry could curl and wax into circles like small spectacles.
He can grow hair, Mrs. Cox thought, but he’s little and skinny, not as big as I am. She wondered again what Donna Adams saw in him. Car, maybe. Harry had a sports car, and all the local boys drove pickups like their fathers.
“You’ll likely meet the Senator soon enough,” Mrs. Cox said. It was a sign of ultimate approval, although Harry didn’t know that. Mrs. Cox was very careful about who the Senator met.
Alice had been sifting through the mound of multicolored paper on the table. “Lot of it this time. How much is this?”
“Two weeks,” Harry said.
“Well, we do thank you, Harry,” Mrs. Cox said.
“So do I,” Alice added. “If you didn’t bring it up to the house, I’d have to carry all of it.”
Back in the truck, and down the long drive, with another stop to look at the High Sierra. Then on to the next ranch, a good half-mile away. The Senator kept a big spread, although a lot of it was dry pasture, shot through with ground-squirrel holes. It was good land, but there wasn’t enough water to irrigate it.
At the next gate George Christopher was doing something incomprehensible in the orange groves. Probably setting up to smudge, Harry decided. Christopher came plodding up as Harry opened the gate. He was a bull of a man, Harry’s height and two or three times Harry’s width, with a thick neck. His head was bald and tanned, but Christopher couldn’t be a lot over thirty. He wore a checkered flannel shirt and dark trousers, muddy boots.
Harry set the bag down and got out beside it. Christopher frowned. “Trash Day again, Harry?” He studied the long hair and extravagantly trimmed beard and the frown deepened.
Harry grinned in return. “Yup, Happy Trash Day, every two weeks, like clockwork. I’ll take it up to the house for you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I like to.” There wasn’t a Mrs. Christopher, but George had a sister about Alice Cox’s age, and she liked to talk to Harry. A very bright little girl, pleasant to talk to and full of news about Harry’s valley.
“All right. Mind the dog.”
“Sure will.” Harry never worried about dogs.
“Ever wonder what the advertising industry would give for your head?” Christopher asked.
“I’ll trade ’em question for question,” Harry said. “Why does the government give them a lower rate so they can waste more of our time? And your taxes?”
Christopher’s frown faded and he almost smiled. “Have at ’em, Harry. Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for. And the taxpayer’s cause is about as lost as they come. I’ll close the gate behind you.”
Day’s end. Clockout time. Harry went into the sorting rooms behind the Post Office. There was a note pinned to his station.
“Hairy the Wolf wants to see you. Gina XXX”
Gina — tall, black, erect of posture and large of bone, the only black in the valley as far as Harry knew — was at the counter. Harry winked at her, then knocked at the supervisor’s door.
When he entered, Mr. Wolfe regarded him coldly. “Harry. Happy Trash Day,” Wolfe said.
Oops! But Harry smiled. “Thank you, and a Happy Trash Day to you, sir.”
“Not funny, Harry. Why do you do it? Why do you separate out the commercial mail and reserve it for one day every two weeks?”
Harry shrugged. He could have explained: Sorting junk mail took so much of his time that he didn’t have a chance to chat with his customers, so he’d started letting it pile up. It had begun that way, but it had become popular with his people. “Everybody’s happy with it,” Harry said defensively. “People can go through the stuff or just drop it in the fireplace.”
“It is illegal to withhold a citizen’s mail,” Wolfe said.
“If someone has complained, I’ll take him off the list,” Harry said. “I like to keep my customers happy.”
“Mrs. Adams,” Wolfe said.
“Oh.” Too bad. Without Trash Day he wouldn’t have an excuse to go up to the Adams house and talk to Donna.
“You will deliver the commercial mail according to regulations,” Wolfe was saying. “As it comes in. Not in batches Trash Day will cease.”
“Yes, sir. Any other way I can be obliging?”
“Shave your beard. Cut your hair.”
Harry shook his head. That part of the regulations he knew.
Wolfe sighed. “Harry, you just don’t have the right attitude to be a mailman.”
Eileen Susan Hancock’s office was small and cramped, but it was an office; she had worked for years to get an office of her own, away from the area behind the counter. It proved that she was more than a secretary.
She was poking at the buttons on her calculator, frowning, when a sudden thought made her burst into rippling laughter. A moment later she realized that Joe Corrigan was standing in her doorway.
Corrigan came into the office. He had unbuttoned the top button of his trousers again, and it showed. His wife wouldn’t let him buy larger sizes. She hadn’t given up hope that he would reduce. He put his thumbs into the waistband and regarded her quizzically.
Eileen’s laughter cut off. She went back to the calculator, and now she wasn’t even smiling.
“Okay,” Corrigan said. “What’s the punch line?”
Eileen looked up with wide eyes. “What? Oh, no. I couldn’t possibly tell you.”
“If you drive me nuts, you think you can gain control of the company, right? Because it won’t work. I’ve covered that.” Corrigan liked to see her like this. Eileen was all-or-nothing: very serious and hard at work, or enjoying herself to the full. “Okay,” Corrigan sighed. “I’ll give away my secret for yours. I’ve had the decorators in. You see, Robin Geston signed up for the Marina deal.”
“Oh? That’s good.”
“Yup. Means we’ll need more help. As of the first, you’re Assistant General Manager, if you want the job.”
“Oh, I want it. Thank you.” She smiled flickeringly (like a flashbulb, on and off almost before you saw it) and turned back to the desk calculator.
“I knew you would. That’s why I had the decorators in. They’re turning that room next to mine into a new office for you. I’ve told them to consult you after they do the preliminaries.” Corrigan lowered his weight onto the corner of her desk. “There. I was keeping it for a surprise. Now what’s your secret?”
“I’ve forgotten,” Eileen said. “And I do have to get these estimates done so you can take them to Bakersfield with you.”
“Okay,” Corrigan said. He went back to his office, defeated.
If he knew, Eileen thought. She had an urge to giggle, but s
he held it back. She wasn’t really trying to tease Corrigan. She had been thinking: Well, I did it. And Robin was nice. Not the world’s greatest lover, but he didn’t pretend to be either. The way he’d suggested a rematch: “Lovers need practice,” he’d said. “The second time is always better than the first.”
They’d left it vague. Maybe, just maybe, she’d take him up on it sometime; but probably not. He’d also told her definitely that he was married; she’d only suspected it before.
Never had there been any suggestion that business had anything to do with their private lives. But he’d signed up with Corrigan’s Plumbing Supplies for a very large deal — and she felt funny about that, and wondered if she’d have been as careless about finding out Robin’s marital status if the deal hadn’t been pending. But he’d signed up.
So here she was, adding up numbers, pushing papers around, and suddenly she’d asked herself: What does this have to do with plumbing? I don’t make pipe. I don’t lay pipe. I don’t ream it out, or tell people where to put it. What I do is push paper around.
It was an important job. Measure it by the chaos she could create with one random mistake or one malicious error: Thousands of tons of supplies might be sent to the ends of the Earth by a slip of her pen. But what she did had no more to do with creation, with making the things that held a civilization together, than income tax, or being the fireman on a diesel train.
Mr. Corrigan would probably spend the whole day wondering why she’d suddenly burst into sparkling laughter, and there was no way she could tell him. It had just come to her, unexpected and irresistible: What she had done with Robin Geston on the night before last was the closest she had ever come to any activity actually connected with plumbing.
The car wouldn’t be reported stolen for hours. Alim Nassor was pretty sure of that, sure enough that he would sit in it for another ten minutes. Alim Nassor had been a great man. When he had made himself great again, he would have to hide what he was doing now.
