Hubble shook his head. “I suppose that’s what they want one to think, Charles. They’re there, all right. You can see the lights in the building at night—the only one in the city. It isn’t a beacon as most people suppose. And as for a real Mr. Green and a real Mr. Charlesworth—no. Or I should say, probably no. The firm name is a couple of hundred years old, so—— But I admit I’m not sure. When you go there you never see anyone important. Clerks, junior executives, department heads. You do business with them; and there are long waits, weeks sometimes, while they’re ‘deciding policy questions.’ I suppose that means while they’re getting their instructions. Well—congratulations, Charles. Now you know as much about Green, Charlesworth as anybody else. Just remember, if they turn up anywhere, or you encounter anything, well, anomalous
that makes you suspect they’re turning up, blow the whistle. We’ll handle it.”
Harry Coett said, “But this is just a precaution. There won’t be any trouble, I’m confident. They’ll go along with us when the chips are down. Fundamentally, after all, they’re progressive.”
“Reactionary!” said Nelson.
“Middle-of-the-roaders!” Hubble insisted.
Norvie Bligh sang out: “Coshocton! End of the line!” Mundin jumped in his seat, and looked around dazedly. The copter was turning and swooping low.
He peered out. There below lay Coshocton, the most average city in the most average state in the union. Fifty years before, Hamilton Moffatt, “father of the bubble-house,” had signed the first of the industrial-lease G.M.L. contracts with the Federated Casket Company of Coshocton. Mundin asked, “Can you find the bubble-city?” “We’re over it now. Get out your squirt sun.” It wasn’t a squirt gun; it was a belly tank pressurized with freon. Mundin pushed on a bowden wire to open the nozzle; the needle on the gauge before his eyes quivered to show that the “squirt gun” was squirting. “Make your first pass,” Mundin ordered. The coptor fluttered over the bubble-city at a thousand feet, trailing a falling plume of golden fluid. The drops partly vaporized; but the fluid was Leavy, and the liquid reached the bubble-houses in quantity large enough to film them.
Four times Norvell Bligh quartered the bubble-city, until all of the fluid was gone. Then he set course for the long trip home, leaving behind the glittering domes which had been leased to Federated Casket for its contract employees; which had been duly absorbed by General Foundries when Federated Casket went under in the big switch to cremation; which had been duly swallowed by National Nonferrous; which was Mundin’s friend Mr. Nelson, who was at home gritting his teeth as he counted the cost of the night’s work that Mundin and Bligh were putting in.
Chapter Twenty
bligh was passing out cigars. “It’s a boy,” he proudly told anybody in the office who would listen. “I looked through the foetoscope myself. Doctor says it’s the finest forty-day embryo he’s ever seen, and that wasn’t just a snow-job. By God, when that kid gets born he’s going to have every advantage I——”
Charles Mundin emerged from his office.
“Morning!” Norvie Bligh bellowed. “It’s a boy, boss! The doctor raved about him. Have a cigar.”
“Congratulations,” Mundin said sourly. “Norvie, can we get to work now? This is the big day, after all!”
Norvie, sobered, said, “Yessir.” They entered Ryan’s office.
A clerk had overheard. Norma Lavin, following half a minute behind Mundin and Bligh, saw the girl pick up a vase of flowers and hold it to her lips. Thirsty? Norma wondered. But the girl did not appear to be drinking the water; her lips were moving. Getting rid of her gum, Norma thought Or—talking? But then Bliss Hubble hailed her and she forgot it.
Which was a pity, in a way, for the girl had not been getting rid of her gum. Norma Lavin vaguely heard the clerk’s low-pitched murmur, but by then Norma was slapping Bliss Bubble’s hand off her arm and no one was looking at the clerk.
The girl put the vase back and returned briskly to work.
The Big Seven—the two Lavins, Mundin, Ryari, Hubble, Nelson, and Coett—and Norvell Bligh were assembled in Ryan’s office.