Norvie flustered out to the waiting room. “Arnie!” he said eagerly. “Come in, come In, come in!” He piloted Arnie by the elbow down the halls, around the corners, through the labs and recreation rooms, chattering and ignoring Arnie’s bulging eyes. There was a shorter way; but it didn’t lead past the labs and recreation rooms.
“Beer, Arnie?” Norvell asked, in his own office. He pushed a button; Miss Prawn came in and dailed the beer for them. “Not those chairs, please; something more comfortable.” Miss Prawn dialed two enormous armchairs.
Arnie said, swallowing his beer with some difficulty: “I imagine you realize that I’ve gone pretty far out on a limb for you.”
“Oh, no, Arnie! Please! How do you mean?”
Arnie shrugged, covertly looking around the enormous
room. “Oh, nothing I begrudge you,” he said. “After all, friendship is what really counts. As We Engineers say, ‘You brace my buttress, and I’ll brace yours.'” He set bis glass down. “And when you asked me, as a friend, to get you the file numbers and locations of the G.M.L. units, why naturally I did it Though I confess I never expected,” he went on moodily, “to stir up such a ridiculous fuss about perfectly trivial records. Corporate secrecy that hampers an able technological man is inefficiency, and inefficiency is a crime. Still, anything to oblige you and Charles Mundin.”
“I never expected you’d have any difficulty!” Norvie lied. “But you got them?”
Arnie raised his eyebrows. “Naturally, Norvell. And microfilmed them. I have them right here. But——”
“Let’s see them,” Norvell said bluntly.
He finally got his hands on the microfilm and riffled through the index tables. All there, on film—lots of it. Serial numbers. Dates. Locations. Maintenance histories. “Arnie,” he said gently, “stand up, will you, please?”
The engineer frowned, “What’s the matter?” He stood up.
Norvell Bligh put the microfilm hi his desk. He said, “Arnie, you didn’t get those as a favor to me. You got them because you thought it would get you a better job.”
Arnie flushed and said severely, “Norvell, a friend doesn’t——”
“Shut up, Arnie. Remember what you said about ‘destructive testing’ the other day?” Bligh demanded. “Well, let’s try some.”
He swung. In the next three minutes he took quite a clobbering about the head and ears, but when the three minutes were up Arnie was on the floor, trying to stanch a nose that ran with blood, and Norvell was still on his feet.
“Good-by, Arnie,” he said, happily, ringing for the guide. “Mishal will show you the way out.”
He made his way to the chem lab that operated behind locked doors and tossed the film onto the desk where Mundin was sitting, watching the flow of golden fluid Into enamel-lined cans. Mundin snatched it up testily. “Keep it away from that stuff, for God’s sake!” he cried.
Norvell grinned. “I guess we better,” he agreed. “If this get ruined we’ll have trouble getting any more out of Arnie. I beat him to a pulp.”
Which was a considerable exaggeration; but pardonable under the circumstances.
Mundin, holding tight to the arms of the seat, said, “Norvell, are you sure you can fly this thing? After all, it’s a lot bigger than the ones General Recreations——”
Norvie Bligh said briefly, “Don’t worry about a thing.” The helicopter zoomed straight up from the landing stage into the night. Apparently from sheer joy of living, Norvie buzzed the tallest nearby building before locking the course for Cos-hocton, Ohio.
He turned around casually in the pilot’s seat. “Well, that’s that. Play a game of cards? It’s a long trip.”
Mundin shook his head. “I’m a little jumpy,” he admitted.
“Oh, everything’s going to go off all right,” Norvie said reassuringly.
The little man had changed more than somewhat in a few weeks. Now all Mundin hoped was that The New Norvell Bligh really could fly a copter as advertised, well enough, at least, to get the night’s dirty work out of the way.
Bligh cheerfully switched on a dome light and began reading a magazine. Mundin leaned back and tried to relax, thinking about the things that had happened hi one crowded, tense week.