Again that extraordinary harking expression. Then she drew a deep breath. “I’ve had an awful time,” she said. “Awful. You can’t know. I’ve answered letters and phone calls. I’ve met cranks and wolves and religious fanatics who have neat little dialectical capsules all packed and ready to make saints out of devils. They all yap about proof—sometimes it’s themselves and sometimes it’s someone they know—and the proof always turns out to be a reformed drunk or a man who turned to Krishna and no longer beats his wife, not since Tuesday …” She stopped for breath and half-smiled at him and, angrily, he felt a warm surge of liking for her. She went on, “And this is the first hint I’ve had that what I’m looking for really exists.”
She leaned forward suddenly. “I need you. You already have a solid contact with Sig Weiss and the way he works. If I had to seek him out myself, I—well, I just wouldn’t know how to start. And this is urgent, can’t you understand—urgent!”
He looked deep into the dark blue eyes and said, “I understand fine.”
She said, “If I tell you a … story, will you promise not to ask me any questions about it?”
He fiddled about with his fork for a moment and then said, “I once heard tell of a one-legged man who was pestered by all the kids in the neighborhood about how he lost his leg. They followed him and yelled at him and tagged along after him and made no end of a nuisance of themselves. So one day he stopped and gathered them all around him and asked if they really wanted to know how he lost his leg, and they all chorused YES! And he wanted to know if he told them, would they stop asking him, and they all promised faithfully that they would stop. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘It was bit off.’ And he turned and stumped away. As to the promise you want—no.”
She laughed ruefully. “All right. I’ll tell you the story anyway. But you’ve got to understand that it isn’t the whole story, and that I’m not at liberty to tell the whole story. So please don’t pry too hard.”
He smiled. He had, he noticed in her eyes, a pretty nice smile. “I’ll be good.”
“All right. You have a lot of clients who write science fiction, don’t you?”
“Not a lot. Just the best,” he said modestly.
She smiled again. Two curved dimples put her smile in parenthesis. He liked that. She said, “Let’s say this is a science fiction plot. How to begin …”
“Once upon a time …” he prompted.
She laughed like a child. “Once upon a time,” she nodded, “there was a very advanced humanoid race in another galaxy. They had had wars—lots of them. They learned how to control them, but every once in a while things would get out of hand and another, and worse, war would happen. They developed weapon after weapon—things which make the H-bomb like a campfire in comparison. They had planet-smashers. They could explode a sun. They could do things we can only dimly understand. They could put a local warp in time itself, or unify the polarity in the gravitomagnetic field of an entire solar system.”
“Does this gobbledegook come easy to you?” he asked.
“It does just now,” she answered shyly. “Anyway, they developed the ultimate weapon—one which made all the others obsolete. It was enormously difficult to make, and only a few were manufactured. The secret of making it died out, and the available stocks were used at one time or another. The time to use them is coming again—and I don’t mean on Earth. The little fuses we have are flea-hops. This is important business.
“Now, a cargo ship was traveling between galaxies on hyper-spatial drive. In a crazy, billion-to-one odds accident, it emerged into normal space smack in the middle of a planetoid. It wasn’t a big one; the ship wasn’t atomized, just wrecked. It was carrying one of these super-weapons. It took thousands of years to trace it, but it has been traced. The chances are strong that it came down on a planet. It’s wanted.
“It gives out no detectable radiation. But in its shielded state, it has a peculiar effect on living tissues which come near it.”
“Devils into saints?”
“The effect is … peculiar. Now …” She held up fingers. “If the nature of this object were known, and if it fell into the wrong hands, the effect here on Earth could be dreadful. There are megalomaniacs on Earth so unbalanced that they would threaten even their own destruction unless their demands were met. Point two: If the weapon were used on Earth, not only would Earth as we know it cease to exist, but the weapon would be unavailable to those who need it importantly.”
Cris sat staring at her, waiting for more. There was no more. Finally he licked his lips and said, “You’re telling me that Sig Weiss has stumbled across this thing.”
“I’m telling you a science fiction plot.”
“Where did you get your … information?”
“It’s a science fiction story.”
He grinned suddenly, widely. “I’ll be good,” he said again. “What do you want me to do.”
Her eyes became very bright. “You aren’t like most agents,” she said.
“When I was in a British Colony, the English used to say to me, every once in a while, ‘You aren’t like most Americans.’ I always found it slightly insulting. All right; what do you want me to do?”
She patted his hand. “See if you can make Weiss write another Traveling Crag. If he can, then find out exactly how and where he wrote it. And let me know.”
They rose. He helped her with her light coat. He said, “Know something?” When she smiled up at him he said, “You don’t strike me as Miss Average.”
“Oh, but I was,” she answered softly. “I was.”
TELEGRAM
SIG WEISS
TURNVILLE
JULY 15
PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT WHAT FOLLOWS HAS NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH YOUR GROSS LACK OF HOSPITALITY. I REALIZE THAT YOUR WAY OF LIFE ON YOUR OWN PROPERTY IS JUSTIFIED IN TERMS OF ME, AN INTRUDER. I AM FORGETTING THE EPISODE. I ASSUME YOU ALREADY HAVE. NOW TO BUSINESS: YOUR LAST MANUSCRIPT IS THE MOST UTTERLY INSULTING DOCUMENT I HAVE SEEN IN FOURTEEN PROFESSIONAL YEARS. TO INSULT ONE’S AGENT IS STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE: TO INSULT ONESELF IS INEXCUSABLE AND BROTHER YOU’VE DONE IT. SIT DOWN AND READ THE STORY THROUGH, IF YOU CAN, AND THEN REREAD THE TRAVELING CRAG. YOU WILL NOT NEED MY CRITICISM. MY ONLY SUGGESTION TO YOU IS TO DUPLICATE EXACTLY THE CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH YOU WROTE YOUR FIRST STORY. UNLESS AND UNTIL YOU DO THIS WE NEED HAVE NO FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE. I ACCEPT YOUR SINCERE THANKS FOR NOT SUBMITTING YOUR SECOND STORY ANYWHERE.
CRISLEY POST
Naome whistled. “Really—a straight telegram? What about a night letter?”
Cris smiled at the place where the wall met the ceiling. “Straight rate.”
“Yes, master.” She wielded a busy pencil. “That’s costing us $13.75, sir,” she said at length, “plus tax. Grand total, $17.46. Cris, you have a hole in your head!”
“If you know of a better ‘ole, go to it,” he quoted dreamily. She glared at him, reached for the phone and continued to glare as she put the telegram on the wire.
In the next two weeks Cris had lunch three times with Tillie Moroney, and dinner once. Naome asked for a raise. She got it, and was therefore frightened.
Cris returned from the third of these lunches (which was the day after the dinner) whistling. He found Naome in tears.
“Hey … what’s happening here? You don’t do that kind of thing, remember?”
He leaned over her desk. She buried her face in her arms and boohooed lustily. He knelt beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “There,” he said, patting the nape of her neck. “Take a deep breath and tell me about it.”
She took a long, quavering breath, tried to speak, and burst into tears again. “F-f-fi-fi …”
“What?”
“F—” She swallowed with difficulty, then said, “Fire of Heaven!” and wailed.
“What?” he yelled. “I thought you said ‘Fire of Heaven.’”
She blew her nose and nodded. “I did,” she whispered. “H-here.” She dumped a pile of manu
script in front of him and buried her face in her arms again. “L-leave me alone.”
In complete bewilderment, he gathered up the typewritten sheets and took them to his desk.
There was a covering letter.
Dear Mr. Post: There will never be a way for me to express my thanks to you, nor my apologies for the way I treated you when you visited me. I am willing to do anything in my power to make amends.
Knowing what I do of you, I think you would be most pleased by another story written the way I did the Crag. Here it is. I hope it measures up. If it doesn’t, I earnestly welcome any suggestions you may have to fix it up.
I am looking forward very much indeed to meeting you again under better circumstances. My house is yours when you can find time to come out, and I do hope it will be soon. Sincerely, S.W.
With feelings of awe well mixed with astonishment, Cris turned to the manuscript. Fire of Heaven, by Sig Weiss, it was headed. He began to read. For a moment, he was conscious of Naome’s difficult and diminishing sniffs, and then he became completely immersed in the story.
Twenty minutes later, his eyes, blurred and smarting, encountered “The End.” He propped his forehead on one palm and rummaged clumsily for his handkerchief. Having thoroughly mopped and blown, he looked across at Naome. Her eyes were red-rimmed and still wet. “Yes?” she said.
“Oh my God yes,” he answered.
They stared at each other for a breathless moment. Then she said in a soprano near-whisper: “Fire of …” and began to cry again.
“Cut it out,” he said hoarsely.
When he could, he got up and opened the window. Naome came and stood beside him. “You don’t read that,” he said after a time. “It … happens to you.”
She said, “What a tragedy. What a beautiful, beautiful tragedy.”
“He said in his letter,” Cris managed, “that if I had any suggestions to fix it up …”
“Fix it up,” she said in shaken scorn. “There hasn’t been anything like him since—”
“There hasn’t been anything like him period.” Cris snapped his fingers. “Get on your phone. Call the airlines. Two tickets to the nearest feederfield to Turnville. Call the Drive-Ur-Self service. Have a car waiting at the field. I’m not asking any woman to climb that mountain on foot. Send this telegram to Weiss: Taking up your very kind offer immediately. Bringing a friend. Will wire arrival time. Profound thanks for the privilege of reading Fire of Heaven. From a case-hardened ten-percenter those words come hard and are well earned. Post.”
“Two tickets,” said Naome breathlessly. “Oh! Who’s going to handle the office?”
He thumped her shoulder. “You can do it, kid. You’re wonderful. Indispensable. I love you. Get me Tillie Moroney’s number, will you?”
She stood frozen, her lips parted, her nostrils slightly distended. He looked at her, looked again. He was aware that she had stopped breathing. “Naome!”
She came to life slowly and turned, not to him, but on him. “You’re taking that—that Moron-y creature—”
“Moroney. What’s the matter with you?”
“Oh Cris, how could you?”
“What have I done? What’s wrong? Listen, this is business. I’m not romancing the girl! Why—”
She curled her lip. “Business! Then it’s the first business that’s gone on around here that I haven’t known about.”
“Oh, it isn’t office business, Naome. Honestly.”
“Then there’s only one thing it could be!”
Cris threw up his hands. “Trust me this once. Say! Why should it eat you so much, even if it was monkey-business, which it isn’t?”
“I can’t bear to see you throw yourself away!”
“You—I didn’t know you felt—”
“Shut up!” she roared. “Don’t flatter yourself. It’s just that she’s … average. And so are you. And when you add an average to an average, you’ve produced NOTHING!”
He sat down at his desk with a thump and reached for the phone, very purposefully. But his mind was in such a tangle at the moment, that he didn’t know what to do with the phone once it was in his hands, until Naome stormed over and furiously dropped a paper in front of him. It had Tillie’s number on it. He grinned at her stupidly and sheepishly and dialed. By this time, Naome was speaking to the airlines office, but he knew perfectly well that she could talk and listen at the same time.
“Hello?” said the phone.
“Ull-ull,” he said, watching Naome’s back stiffen. He spun around in his swivel chair so he could talk facing the wall.
“Hello?” said the phone again.
“Tillie, Weiss found it he wrote another story it’s a dream he invited me down and I’m going and you’re coming with me,” he blurted.
“I beg your—Cris, is anything the matter? You sound so strange.”
“Never mind that,” he said. He repeated the news more coherently, acutely conscious of Naome’s attention to every syllable. Tillie uttered a cry of joy and promised to be right over. He asked her to hang on and forced himself to get the plane departure from Naome. Pleading packing and business odds and ends, he asked her to meet him at the airport. She agreed, for which he was very thankful. The idea of her walking into the office just now was more than he could take.
Naome had done her phoning and was in a flurry of effort involving her files, which had always been a mystery to Cris. She kept bringing things over to him. “Sign these.” “You promised to drop Rogers a note about this.” “What do you want done about Borilla’s scripts?” Until he was snowed under. “Hold it! These things can wait!”
“No they can’t,” she said icily. “I wouldn’t want them on my conscience. You see, this is my last day here.”
“Your—Naome! You can’t quit. You can’t!”
“I can and I am and I do. Check this list.”
“Naome, I—”
“I won’t listen. My mind’s made up.”
“All right then. I’ll manage. But it’s a shame about Fire of Heaven. Such a beautiful job. And here it must sit until I get back. I did want you to market it.”
“You’d trust me to market that story?” Her eyes were huge.
“No one else. There isn’t anyone who knows the market better, or who would make a better deal. I trust you with it absolutely. After you’ve done that one last big thing for me—go, then, if you’ll be happier somewhere else.”
“Crisley Post, I hate you and despise you. You’re a fiend and a spider. Th-thank you. I’ll never forget you for this. I’ll type up four originals and sneak them around. Movies, of course. What a TV script! And radio … let’s see; two, no—three British outfits can bid against each other … you’re doing this on purpose to keep me from leaving!”
“Sure,” he said jovially. “I’m real cute. I wrote the story myself just because I couldn’t get anyone to replace you.”
At last she laughed. “There’s one thing I’m damn sure you didn’t do. An editor is a writer who can’t write, and an agent is a writer who can’t write as well as an editor.”
He laughed with her. He bled too, but it was worth it, to see her laughing again.
The plane trip was pleasant. It lasted a long time. The ship sat down every 45 minutes or so all the way across the country. Cris figured it was the best Naome could do on short notice. But it gave them lots of time to talk. And talking to Tillie was a pleasure. She was intelligent and articulate, and had read just as many of his favorite books as he had of hers. He told her enough about Fire of Heaven to intrigue her a lot and make her cry a little, without spoiling the plot for her. They found music to disagree about, and shared a view of a wonderful lake down through the clouds, and all in all it was a good trip. Occasionally, Cris glanced at her—most often when she was asleep—with a touch of surmise, like a little curl of smoke, thinking of Naome’s suspicions about him and Tillie. He wasn’t romancing Tillie. He wasn’t. Was he?
They landed at last, and again he blessed Naome;
the Drive-Ur-Self car was at the airfield. They got a road map from a field attendant and drove off through the darkest morning hours. Again Cris found himself glancing at the relaxed girl beside him, half asleep in the cold glow of the dash lights. A phrase occurred to him: “undivided front like a Victorian”—Naome’s remark. He flushed. It was true. An affectation of Tillie’s, probably; but everything she wore was highnecked and full-cut.
The sky had turned from grey to pale pink when they pulled up at the Turnville store. Cris honked, and in due course the screen door slammed and the old proprietor ambled down the wooden steps and came to peer into his face.
“Heh! If ’tain’t that city feller. How’re ya, son? Didn’t know you folks ever got up and about this early.”
“We’re up late, dad. Got some gas for us?”
“Reckon there’s a drop left.”
Cris got out and went back with the old man to unlock the gas tank. “Seen Weiss recently?” he asked.
“Same as usual. Put through some big orders. Seen him do that before. Usually means he’s holing up for five, six months. Though why he bought so much liquor an’ drape material and that, I can’t figure.”
“How’d he behave?”
“Same as ever. Friendly as a wet wildcat with fleas.”
Cris thanked him and paid him and they turned up the rocky hill road. As they reached the crest, they gasped together at the sun-flooded valley that lay before them. “Memories are the only thing you ever have that you always keep,” said Tillie softly, “and this is one for both of us. I’m … glad you’re in it for me, Cris.”
“I love you, too,” he said in the current idiom, and found himself, hot-faced, looking into a face as suffused as his. They recoiled from each other and started to chatter about the weather—stopped and roared together with laughter. He took her hand and helped her up the cutbank. They paused at the top. “Listen,” he said in a low voice. “That old character in the store has seen Weiss recently. And he says there’s no change. I think we’d better be just a little bit careful.”
He looked at her and again caught that listening expression. “No,” she said at length, “it’s all right. The store’s outside the … the influence he’s under. He’s bound to revert when it’s gone. But he’ll be all right now. You’ll see.”
Baby Is Three Page 18
