Lane-Walsh showed signs of imminent apoplexy. "I want to know what this meeting was! Ayesmies or what?"
"The meeting," said Ryan imperturbably, "was of the Los Angeles Three-dimensional Chess Club."
Lane-Walsh tore at his coppery hair with his free hand. "Liar! If it were a chess club, you'd have boards and pieces!"
"That's simple. We play it in our heads."
Juniper-Hallett touched Lane-Walsh's arm. "Better let me talk to him," he said. He asked a few questions of the two men, but got no more satisfaction than had Lane-Walsh.
They held a whispered consultation. "What'll we do with 'em?" said Lane-Walsh. "If we start a public row, we'll expose the Ayesmy, but they'll take the dormouse away from us."
Juniper-Hallett thought. "I think I know a place where we can hide 'em for a few days." He addressed Duke-Holmquist: "Mr. Duke-Holmquist, I don't know why you went to so much trouble to steal Mr. Ryan. But it's obvious that you wanted him pretty badly. So I won't threaten you; I'll just say that unless you come along peacefully, we'll shoot Mr. Ryan. We'll try not to shoot him fatally. All right, Justin old fathead, make 'em follow me."
He led the way out of the secret room. Behind him he could hear a whispered argument between the two engineers: "I told you we ought to have changed the meeting place." "But we couldn't on such short notice; you know why." "Bunk! Once a dormouse was involved, somebody was bound to stumble on us sooner or later—"
7
Miles Carey-West, Juniper-Hallett's elderly geneticist friend, was astonished to find four men ringing his doorbell at half-past one.
When the prisoners had filed in, Juniper-Hallett took Carey-West aside and explained the situation.
"Horace!" protested Carey-West. "I can't— That's a terrible thing to do to me! Where would I keep them? What if it were found out—"
"You could blame it all on us," said Juniper-Hallett. "And we'll keep them in your basement. Please! Maybe I can use them to stop the Stromberg-Crosley feud. And Janet—"
"Oh, very well," grumbled the geneticist. "No arguing with you, I see."
Duke-Holmquist and the ex-dormouse were taken down to the basement and made more or less comfortable.
"What'll we do now?" asked Lane-Walsh. "Flip a coin to see who gets 'em?"
"I've got a better idea than that," said Juniper-Hallett. He explained his plan for using the dormouse as bait to persuade the heads of the Stromberg and Crosley companies to bury their feud and merge.
"What!" cried Lane-Walsh. "Us join up with a lot of lousy Crosleys? The worst manufacturing company in the business?"
"Yep. You'll find we're not so bad."
"Oh, I see why you want it—so they'll let you and Janet live together peacefully. Though why some people are so hot about married life I never could see."
"That does enter in."
"Huh! As if it weren't bad enough that a good Stromberg gal goes and marries a weak sister like you, you want to ruin the proudest and noblest house of 'em all by—"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute, Justin old louse. Think of all the credit we'll get for stopping the feud and bringing about the merger! Everybody's forgotten what started it in the first place, and I'm sure the execs would be glad to call it off if they could do so without losing face."
"Hm-m-m. Well. Now that you put it that way—but I'd have to think about it."
"That's easy enough. We'll have to get some sleep before we can start our campaign."
They agreed that Lane-Walsh should take the first watch. Juniper-Hallett, as he curled up, gave his partner a fleeting glance. In his mind were the first seeds of suspicion. If he were asleep, and Lane-Walsh had the gun, and Lane-Walsh decided to double-cross him and turn Ryan over to his company forthwith—
But so far Lane-Walsh had played the game fairly enough, even though he and Juniper-Hallett liked each other no better than when they started. A double-cross like that, so easy, would be a violation of the code. And Horace Juniper-Hallett still had a good deal of faith in his code. What would be would be. He went to sleep.
Lane-Walsh awakened him at three, gave him the gun, and went to sleep in turn.
Across the dimly lit basement the prisoners sprawled on their mattress. Duke-Holmquist was asleep, but Arnold Ryan was looking at him silently with bright black eyes.
"I wish you birds would tell me something about your activities," said Juniper-Hallett.
"I," said Ryan, "am a biological engineer, as you ought to know. I'm working on the development of a variety of pepper tree that doesn't shed little sticky red berries all over the sidewalk, to stick to the soles of your shoes. Those little berries are one of the major drawbacks to life in your charming capital, as I see it."
"No, seriously," said Juniper-Hallett, feeling very young and inadequate in the presence of this smooth jokester. "If I knew what you were up to, I'd have a better idea of whether I was doing the right thing. For instance, you're part Hawaiian, aren't you?"
"Everybody knows that," said Ryan. "My mother's name was Victoria Liliuokalani Hashimoto, which is as good an old Hawaiian name as you'll find. Each of the names carries the flavor of one of the three main ethnic strains we're descended from."
"Are you working for the Hawaiians?"
Ryan laughed. "You wouldn't expect me to admit it if I were?" he asked.
"All right. Can you tell me something about Hawaii? As far as I know, no American has been there for many years."
Ryan shrugged. "I can tell you what I knew from firsthand experience before I went into the hibernine sleep; or I can tell you what I've heard in the few days since my awakening. Not, you understand, that I've been in personal touch with Hawaiians."
"Mainly I'd like to know why they don't let themselves be civilized like other people, and won't let anybody on their islands."
"Oh, that," said Ryan. "You think they should organize themselves into a tightly compartmented Corporate State like the American Empire, with an arrogant and disorderly aristocracy at the head of it, and worship Service at the Gyratory and Tigers' Clubs every Sunday, and spend half their time running their legs off to produce as much as possible, and the other half running their legs off trying to consume what they have produced?"
"Well—I didn't say they should; I asked why they didn't."
"They don't like the idea, that's all. They'd rather just lie on the beach. They've got a stationary population, all the food they can eat, and all the houses they can live in. And in that climate nobody wears much of anything anyway. They do a good deal of scientific research, partly for fun and partly to devise new ways of keeping out people they don't want. But production—phooey!"
"They sound like a lazy lot."
"They are. And they value the right to be lazy so much that they've wiped out three fleets sent out from the American and Mongolian empires to change their way of living."
Juniper-Hallett's conscience bothered him a little for getting all this information while his partner was asleep. But, he thought, he could tell him the important parts later. He asked: "Are they hooked up with the Ayesmy somehow? "
Ryan grinned. "Sorry, my boy, but you ought to know that topic is tapu."
"Well, what do they want? They're up to something, I'm sure."
"I am told," said Ryan carefully, "that they're tired of living in a perpetual state of siege. They'd like to travel and see the world now and then. So, I suppose, they'd be glad to back any change in conditions in the empires that would enable them to do so."
"How did they manage to defeat those fleets?"
"As I understand it, by three means: one, a new source of power—neither coal, nor petroleum, nor atomic power. Don't ask me what it is, because I wouldn't tell you even if I knew. You'll hear more about it when the Antarctic coal fields run out. Two: a system of multiplying terrestrial magnetism over a given area, so that any fast-moving metal object, like an airplane engine, gets red-hot from eddy currents when it passes through the field. And finally their aerial torpedoes, which are no
thing very remarkable except for their system of remote control. Now you know almost as much about their defenses as the defense chief of the Empire."
"What's the Ayesmy?"
"The American Society of Mechanical Engineers."
"I know that," said Juniper-Hallett. "But who are they and what are they trying to do?"
"You're the most persistent young fellow. But I'm not telling you anything that the heads of your companies don't know already. When the professional societies were suppressed as a disrupting influence by the first dictator, who came to power following the short-lived Communist regime that ruled after we lost the War of 1968—as I was saying, the A.S.M.E. was the only one that survived; underground, of course. And when the dictatorship began to decay under the fourth and fifth dictators, with the actual power being taken by a Board of Control representing the Companies they revived, though the Companies fought them almost as hard as the dictators had done.
"Nowadays, as I understand it, the Ayesmy consists of a lot of engineers who don't like the Corporate State generally and the compulsory contract system in particular. They claim it makes them just high-priced slaves."
Juniper-Hallett was silent for a few seconds while he tried to figure out how the term "high-priced slave" applied to the engineers, and, if it did, what was so objectionable about that status. He asked: "What do you think about the compulsory contract system?"
"I don't. I never have opinions on political questions." Ryan gave a slight, malicious grin that told Juniper-Hallett he wasn't to take these statements too seriously.
"Look here, what would you like us to do with you?"
"Let us go, and forget you'd ever seen us or the room under the Crypt."
"Why?"
"We'd just prefer it, that's all."
"We can't very well do that," said Juniper-Hallett. "Our reinstatement depends on giving you up."
"I was afraid that was the case. But you asked me what we'd like."
"Is there any particular reason why we should let you go?"
Ryan shrugged. "Just say we're allergic to having the affairs of the Los Angeles Three-dimensional Chess Club poked into."
"Oh, now, you don't expect me to believe—"
"I don't care what you believe, young man."
Juniper-Hallett, feeling a bit hurt, shut up. This man fascinated him; Juniper-Hallett was sure he had the solution of all the little mysteries and discrepancies that had been puzzling him. But the man was not, he thought, inclined to meet him halfway.
"You understand," Juniper-Hallett told Lane-Walsh when they had breakfasted, "you're to telephone first to Lord Archwin, and then to Lord Billiam. You tell each one you'll hand the dormouse over to the other unless they'll listen to our proposals. When you've softened 'em up, arrange a three-way connection so you can talk terms. And—if you get a chance to send Janet here without letting the other Strombergs know where our hideout is, I wish you would. This being just married and not even being able to see your wife is driving me nuts. Got it?"
"I get it, shrimp."
Juniper-Hallett hesitated. "I . . . I don't want you to think I'm suspicious, Justin old scum, but will you give me your word as a businessman? "
"Sure. You've got it."
Juniper-Hallett gave a sigh of relief. The word of a businessman was a pretty serious thing. He took the pistol from Lane-Walsh, and watched his partner tramp up the basement steps and out.
Duke-Holmquist turned his monocle on Juniper-Hallett. "You're a pretty trusting young man," he said.
Juniper-Hallett shrugged. "He gave me his word. And if he ever wants to be reinstated, he won't dare break it."
Arnold Ryan grinned sardonically. "You have a lot to learn," he said. Juniper-Hallett paced the floor nervously, keeping an eye on his captives. These did not seem much disturbed. Ryan was chewing gum and Duke-Holmquist smoking a malodorous pipe.
"Tell me," said Juniper-Hallett to Ryan, "how did they wake you up?"
Ryan shrugged. "Strontium bromide; an otherwise more or less useless salt. Some bright Stromberg engineer discovered that it counteracted hibernine. They kidnaped me from the Crypt so they could wake me up and ask foolish questions about the Hawaiians' power, without having to release the formula to the Board of Control and bid against the other companies for my custody. If any one company got the secret of the Hawaiians' power, it could practically extort control of the Board when the coal shortage arrives."
Juniper-Hallett continued pacing. For the first hour he was not much concerned. But as the second wore on, he felt more and more uneasy. Lane-Walsh, in accordance with his instructions, should have finished his telephoning and reported back by now. Of course, the fact that he was to make his different calls from different drugstores, in case one of the chairmen should try to locate him, would complicate matters. Juniper-Hallett couldn't leave his prisoners to do some telephoning of his own.
Time passed, and suspicion and alarm grew in Juniper-Hallett's young brain. Lane-Walsh might have met with foul play, or he might be indulging in a little of the same himself—
And he was tied to his prisoners. He didn't dare use his host's phone for fear of being located. He could not walk the captives around the streets in broad daylight at the point of a gun. He regarded the weapon with distaste; he had never fired one, and had been brought up to consider the possession of one by a whitecollar or businessman a disgraceful thing.
He heard old Carey-West's doorbell ring. He listened, tensely, for Lane-Walsh's return.
But it was Janet.
"Darling!" they both cried at once. In the midst of the embrace that followed, Juniper-Hallett had the presence of mind to swing his beloved around so that her back was to the captives, whom he still menaced with the gun.
"Here," said Juniper-Hallett, pressing the gun into her hand. "Cover these men; don't let them get away until I get back."
"But Horace—"
"Can't explain now. Going out to phone. I'll be back shortly." And he bounded up the steps. Good old Justin—the louse had stuck to his word after all.
Outside the drizzle had ceased. Pools of water lay on the sidewalk, reflecting the cold blue of the sky. Juniper-Hallett shivered and stuck his hands deep in his pockets. He wished he had his overcoat along.
The nearest drugstore was The Sun at the corner of Wilshire. Juniper-Hallett found his way through the hardware and furniture departments to the phone booths, tucked in one corner of the sporting-goods department.
He called Archwin of Crosley. As Lord Archwin was ex officio of the rank of entrepreneur, he could be located at any time through his private portable radiotelephone set.
"Horace!" cried Lord Archwin. "Where are you, my boy? I've been worried about you. Very much worried."
"I'm all right, Your Integrity," said Juniper-Hallett. "And I've got the dormouse."
"You have? You have? Where? We'll come collect him, at once!"
"Just a minute, Your Integrity. You see, I didn't catch him all by myself." He gave a thumbnail account of his co-operation with Justin Lane-Walsh, and of his offer to give up the dormouse in return for the chairman's promise to initiate a merger.
Archwin of Crosley heard him through, then asked suspiciously: "Where's that Lane-Walsh? Is he with you?"
"No, sir, he went out to phone you and his own chairman, leaving me with the prisoners. But I haven't heard from him, and I'm afraid something happened to—"
"You idiot!" yelled Archwin into his transmitter. "Idiot! Idiot! Imbecile! Fool! Don't you know he's gone to get the Strombergs to take your men away from you? Don't you know that?"
"But he gave me his word as a businessman—"
"Idiot! What's a businessman's word worth? Nothing, when his company's interests are involved! Nothing! What's any Stromberg's word worth? Nothing, again! You tell us where to find the dormouse, quick, before the Strombergs get there, or—"
"Hey!" said Juniper-Hallett. "I won't do anything of the kind. And Justin Lane-Walsh did keep his word, at least as f
ar as sending my wife to me. I've kept my word and he's—"
"You utter nitwit!" shrieked the chairman. "You young jackass! You can kiss your reinstatement good-by! We don't want traitors and sentimental pantywaists in the organization! You—"
Juniper-Hallett had heard Lord Archwin in a tantrum before, and knew that arguments were useless. He hung up and started sadly back to the geneticist's house. If the chairman said he wouldn't readmit him to the company, he wouldn't readmit him to the company. He wondered whether Lane-Walsh had gotten in touch with his own chairman—
And then an ominous thought struck him. He walked faster.
Janet was still there in the basement, covering the two engineers, who were being gallant.
Juniper-Hallett bounded down the steps. "Janet! Didn't Justin Lane-Walsh send you here?"
"Why no, Horace. I haven't heard from Justin since he was degraded. I came here because I thought Mr. Carey-West could tell me where you—"
"Oh my Service! Then Justin did double-cross me! Lord Arhwin was right; I am an idiot. Now I'm in bad with the Crosleys, and Justin'll be here any minute with a gang of Strombergs!" He took the pistol from Janet and laid it on the table. He turned to Ryan and Duke-Holmquist. "I guess you birds can go; I don't see how I can do any good keeping you here."
The engineers grinned as if they had expected something of the sort all along. Duke-Holmquist said: "Why don't you throw in with us, young man? You can't expect anything from the companies, you know."
"I don't know . . . I don't know what you stand for—"
Duke-Holmquist opened his mouth to say something. Just then the door flew open, and four Strombergs with duelling sticks tumbled down the steps. In their lead was Justin Lane-Walsh.
Lane-Walsh pounced on the pistol. He turned to Juniper-Hallett, grinning nastily. "Hah, sister, so you're still here, huh? Very nice, ve-ery nice, indeed. We'll take these smart engineers along. But first we'll teach you to marry a decent Stromberg girl."
Janet exploded. "You let him alone! He's my husband!"
"Exactly; that's just the point. But when we get through with him he won't be anybody's husband. Then maybe you can marry some decent Stromberg. Not me, of course," he added hastily.
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