Turpin felt a brief pang of dismay. This was someone he didn't recognize. He'd hoped at least that they would send an acquaintance of his, sympathetic to EG. Still, there was no alternative to putting a bold face on the matter. He too strode up to the newcomer, as he was checking Sandstrom's redbook.
"Good morningl Or rather, good aftemoonl" he said. "I'm Turpin of Energetics General. I left home as soon as I heard what had happened." He offered his hand.
The black-haired man looked at it for a while, not mov-
ing to take it, and then raised piercing eyes to Turpin's face.
"Redbook?" he murmured.
Almost, Turpin let it be seen how insulted he felt, but he recovered in time and meekly produced the document -adding, as he handed it over, "Good afternoon to you too, Gunnar. Walked into a hornet's nest. didn't you?"
The crew-boss, looking troubled, didn't answer.
"Right," the dark-haired man said, handing Turpin's redbook back. "I'm-"
Turpin interrupted, "Yours too, please!"
They locked gazes for a moment. Then the newcomer chuckled and reached towards his hip pocket.
"Yes, by all means, Mr. Turpin. Correct procedure-oh, shit!"
As he touched his pocket, a yammering alarm had gone off.
He did something under his sweat-p-•ched left armpit, and the row stopped, and he finally produc`erl--the redbook. "Sorryl" he muttered with some embarrassmeltt.- "New model alarm. Very efficient. -But in the heat of the"~owent . . ."'"
The words trailed away.
Pleased to have rattled the security man, Turpin opened the redbook. Even before he read the first page, he had a strong idea of what he was going to fiild. Only the handful of key personnel who master-minded security throughout the States had those personalised alarm-systems in their clothes. Nonetheless, what he discovered amazed him. Apart from redbook #000 000 001, which was allotted to Prexy, he had never seen such comprehensive clearances. "Morton Kendall Clarke," he read. "Substantive bailiff, acting warden, United States Security Force. Seconded Continental Defense HQ."
Then: five pages of departmental stamps, four of special authorisations enabling him to assume command of Army, Navy, police, and National Guard detachments in an emergency; the usual warning to the civil population that resisting his orders carried a term of not less than one year's jail ....
It was too much. He slapped it shut and gave it back. Clarke tucked it away with a self-conscious grin, as though all too aware of how it must have affected Turpin.
"Rightl" he said, turning to Sandstrom. "Let's have the details again from the top."
Sandstrom glanced at Turpin, but all the latter could do was nod. You didn't argue with a redbook like Clarke's. The crew-boss began to recite in a manner as impersonal as 6. machine.
"We set down here at fourteen-oh-three. Randomschedule maintenance assignment serial H-506-oblique-828oblique-97. I deployed my crew in the prescribed manner. My aide, Leo Wilkie over there"-he pointed at a frecklefaced young man with a shock of tow-colored hair-"set about deploying the status-check gear for use when the site had been pronounced A-OK. Immediately he fired up the lice-counter, he drew my attention to . . ." He interrupted himself. "Uh-sorry. I mean the live-circuit remotecondition reader." .
"I `know what you rrtean," Clarke snapped. "Go on."
"Yes, sure." San dstrom licked his lips. "Well, right away we both reali°za something was wrong. Should have displaying t4v regular pattern bright as day. And the screen stay "dead. I knew there wasn't a fault in the unit because i ame fresh from overhaul this morning."
"So what did you do then?"
"Sounded the recall siren and told the crewmen what I suspected. And- Leo exchanged their routine gear for-uh -the appropriate equipment. In fact, by that time one of the crews, making for the master switching bunker, bad had their own suspicions aroused. The locks on the bunker door were not at their former setting. The door is fourinch sintered-ceramic, a kind of artificial ruby, with . . . but I guess you've been to lots of these sites."
"Yes," Clarke said. "So? What next?"
"I ordered a top-to-bottom check of the site. Didn't want to risk the chance that we'd been issued with data that actually related to somewhere else.."
"Has that ever happened to you?"
"No, sir, never. But we were warned in training not to proceed if it did happen."
"I see. Go on."
"Well"-Sandstrom made a helpless gesture-"we satis-
fied ourselves the site really was shut down. So I sent out
the alarm." _
"When?"
"I logged that, sir," the freckle-faced Leo broke in. "Fifty-three minutes after we landed."
"Fifty-three minutesl" Clarke exploded. "Nearly an hourl And now . . ." He checked his watch. "Now it's an hour and a half later stilll What the hell were you doing all that time?"
Listening, Turpin recognised the faint whine what sharpened his voice, and shivered. He knew many people like this, more women than men but plenty of men too, who had let petty power go to their heads and enjoyed stamping on the least suggestion of dilatoriness or incompetence among their subordinates . . . and were always full of excuses for their own shortcomings. He knew, and suspected that Clarke knew too, that checking out a site of this complexity in an hour was fast work.
Unfortunately, of. course, when it comes to someone
who holds a redbook like Clarke's, .you can't talk about
"petty" power . . . -
Sandstrom had stiffened, his mouth tensn"-V though he wanted to snap back but dared not. He said lih..a dead tone, "What I was doing, sir, was acting in accordance with my instruction manual. That's to say, evaluating the status of every potentially deadly item of equipment in the reserved area in order to protect my crewmen from accidental injury. If that's a satisfactory answer, I'll proceed to what I did after sending out the alarm."
"So tell -me," Clarke said with a scowl.
"I deployed half my men along the beach, under orders to look for any sips of someone coming from the sea who might have sabotaged the installation. And I deployed the other half into the woods and along the track leading to the superway, with the same-"
"Gunnarl" A top-of-the-lungs shout. They spun around. On the dirt road leading towards this spot, a man running and calling and waving, obviously very agitated. "Gunnar, this way, quick!"
And, a couple of minutes later, Turpin, Clarke, Sandstrom, and two members of the maintenance crew were staring down at a footprint on the side of a now-dry puddle-or rather, at half a footprint. Only the sole had left a mark. But that was clear enough for the brand-name to be read.
Well ahead of the scheduled time of Magda's meet with her client, Danty had left the apartment, revelling in the sensation of not being driven to do things whose outcome he could not foresee. He had sometimes tried to describe his-his . . . No, the word didn't exist. Say "premonitions"? That was absolutely wrong. "Previsions"? Wrong again. Fits of clairvoyance, perhaps . . .
Anyway: He had tried to describe them; and failed. They were an abstract, like hunger and thirst, and could only be assuaged h; letting himself drift until he found the proper conr.e of action, and pursued it. Occasionally there wac _ tingling or throbbing at the back of his head.
Today, however, he was luxuriously able to relax. He
yed it so much that for. well over two hours he simply andered about the city, saying hello now and then to his acquaintances. He had very few friends, and no close ones except Magda.
Eventually, however, he spotted a family climbing towards a hoverhalt carrying beach-gear, off for a swim, and decided on the spur of the moment to join them. The shore would be crowded, of course; today was dry and clear and not unbearably hot. Here on the Cowville side the sand was not as carefully cleansed as over by the towers of Lakonia-still, by current standards, New Lake was outstanding. Few people cared to go to the ocean any more, even if they lived within easy reach. The water was too foul. And as for rivers . . . 1
But in New Lake you could swim without risking instant diarrhoea and pharyngitis, and half a mile from shore you could climb on to a bobbing plastic platform and stare at Lakonia and daydream. Even blacks could daydream.
Besides, they could scoff at cocks who were due for overnight agony and lobster-redness in the morning.
When he scrambled down from the hoverhalt by the lake, one among a hundred all with the same idea, he
headed straight for a rental booth where two dollars obtained you a towel. That was all you had to have. Some fine Sundays they rented five thousand towels. Judging by the length of the line ahead of him, today might top the previous high.
But before he came within ten places of the head of the line, a familiar tingling started at his nape, and slowly spread.
Oh, no! he pleaded silently, and stood fast, trying to disregard it.
Eventually. however, it reached the point where-he knew from experience-he had to respond. or suffer night after night of sleepless worrying, guessing at answers for the question that could never be answered: "Suppose I had...?"
Furious, within a minute of i.° aching the rental booth,
he broke out of the line and stared wildly about him. No
one paid much attention to his behaviour, except the girl
behind him, who was so eager to get in the water she was
undressing already. You got these crazy screwhe~ by the
beach all the time.
He had very little money on him, as usual. He seldom carried more than twenty dollars, enough for car-fare and public toilets. One of the advantages of the beach was that it passed a whole day for next to nothing.
Yet his attention fixed abruptly on something he would never ordinarily have bothered with: a telescope, on a block of concrete overlooking the lake, with an engraved map of the Lakonia towers beside it-out of date by three building-projects-and the usual time-switched coinmachine controlling its shutter.
Yes. That. But why in the name of . . . ?
He sighed and walked towards it. Now, a few people did glance at him. puzzled. When money was so sc2lrce, why waste it on peering through a telescope?
He agreed. He agreed entirely. Nonetheless he pushed his dollar into the slot and closed his eyes, feeling without reference to the map where he ought to point the 'scope. At once a dozen naked kids, of both sexes, who had doubtless failed to persuade their parents to give them money for the same thing, came rushing to beg a brief glimpse of Lakonia.
He ignored them, even though they tugged at his pants so hard they threatened to pull them down. It wouldn't
have bothered anyone but him if they'd made it, of course; his balls weren't anything special to look at.
He re-opened his eyes just as the corroded and badlyserviced timing device on the shutter consented to admit that his coin was, valid. It sprang aside-not all the way, but far enough. A three-quarter circle of brilliant sundrenched sand appeared, backed by the colourful Lakonia towers. On the sand a veetol was standing, dwarfed by the buildings beyond, and its bright blue paint was marked with the symbol of Energetics General, a stylised star transfixed by a lightning bolt.
A man approached it at a stumbling run, mopping his forehead as he went. He looked familiar. But for an agonising instant Danty thought the handerchief he was using would prevent a clear sight of his face. Then, though, he' shoved it in his pocket as he made to climb the veetol's steps.
Christl Turn`. d
Almost ',efore its door was shut, the veetol howled heav~wwards, and Danty turned away from the 'scope, to
'amazement of the children around him, who took a ull ten seconds before they started quarrelling over who should make first use of the time bought and not expended.
"Reeky pigs," Potatohead said as he drew on his pants -but not too loudly. The pig who had told them to quit the beach was still within earshot. And gun-shot.
"Mm-hm," Stark said, squatting on the sand to empty some of it out of his shoes. "Funky traitors."
The pig happened to be about the same colour as they were.
"Whother fart youter down?" Josh said, coming back from an ice-cream concession holding three overbalancing cones of pale blue, yellow, and pink.
"Nosser much wha'we doon," Potatohead grunted. "Mop whother 'adiated cop think we shudnal"
Josh stared at them for a moment. Then, in a gesture of all-embracing disgust, he hurled the ice-creams to the ground and stamped on them. Nearby, a child who had been watching with large envious eyes broke into a howl of misery and would have charged up and pummelled Josh but that his father seized him by the ankle and tripped him-which led to still louder howls.
"Chrahssekl" Josh blasted. "Youter doan' spen'nough
tahm uppie chothers' cricks? Lahk youer hanna blow, hunh? 'Zat it?"
"We-yull . . ." Potatohead shuffled from one foot to the other, reincarnating Uncle Tom to the life.
"Ah, y'make muh wan'thro-wupl" Josh snarled. "Y'knoh they dullet'nyun bu' gulls scroona beachl Fay-yudl Mekun fast! Ah dwonna knoh youter blabbohs 'fo' y'eads get stray-yutl Heah muh? Ah s'd fay-yudl"
Briefly, Shark looked as though he might hurl himself at Josh; the latter, though, kicked with bare toes at the pants he had left folded on the sand and parted folds of cloth to reveal the handle of his knife. He was very fast with it, much faster than his buddies-which was a good reason for him to give the orders.
"Ah, piss'nyal" Shark sighed at length, and turned away.