“It’s Runciter,” Al said to all of them seated around the big table.
After a pause Tippy Jackson said, “Add that to your list.” Her voice was barely audible.
“I see two processes at work,” Pat said presently, as Al reseated himself and began to make the addendum on his piece of paper. “One, a process of deterioration; that seems obvious. We agree on that.”
Raising his head, Al said to her, “What’s the other?”
“I’m not quite sure.” Pat hesitated. “Something to do with Runciter. I think we should look at all our other coins. And paper money too. Let me think a little longer.”
One by one, the people at the table got out their wallets, purses, rummaged in their pockets.
“I have a five-poscred note,” Jon Ild said, “with a beautiful steel-engraving portrait of Mr. Runciter. The rest-” He took a long look at what he held. “They’re normal; they’re okay. Do you want to see the five-poscred note, Mr. Hammond?”
Al said, “I’ve got two of them. Already. Who else?” He looked around the table. Six hands had gone up. “Eight of us,” he said, “have what I guess we should call Runciter money, now, to some extent. Probably by the end of the day all the money will be Runciter money. Or give it two days. Anyhow, Runciter money will work; it’ll start machines and appliances and we can pay our debts with it.”
“Maybe not,” Don Denny said. “Why do you think so? This, what you call Runciter money-” He tapped a bill he held. “Is there any reason why the banks should honor it? It’s not legitimate issue; the Government didn’t put it out. It’s funny money; it’s not real.”
“Okay,” Al said reasonably. “Maybe it’s not real; maybe the banks will refuse it. But that’s not the real question.”
“The real question,” Pat Conley said, “is, What does this second process consist of, these manifestations of Runciter?”
“That’s what they are.” Don Denny nodded. “‘Manifestations of Runciter’ – that’s the second process, along with the decay. Some coins get obsolete; others show up with Runciter’s portrait or bust on them. You know what I think? I think these processes are going in opposite directions. One is a going-away, so to speak. A going-out-of-existence. That’s process one. The second process is a coming-into-existence. But of something that’s never existed before.”
“Wish fulfillment,” Edie Dorn said faintly.
“Pardon?” Al said.
“Maybe these are things Runciter wished for,” Edie said. “To have his portrait on legal tender, on all our money, including metal coins. It’s grandiose.”
Tito Apostos said, “But matchfolders?”
“I guess not,” Edie agreed. “That’s not very grandiose.”
“The firm already advertises on matchfolders,” Don Denny said. “And on TV, and in the ‘papes and mags. And with junk mail. Our PR department handles all that. Generally, Runciter didn’t give a damn about that end of the business, and he certainly didn’t give a damn about match-folders. If this were some sort of materialization of his psyche you’d expect his face to appear on TV, not on money or matchfolders.”
“Maybe it is on TV,” Al said.
“That’s right,” Pat Conley said. “We haven’t tried it. None of us have had time to watch TV.”
“Sammy,” Al said, handing him back the fifty-cent piece, “go turn the TV set on.”
“I don’t know if I want to look,” Edie said, as Sammy Mundo dropped the coin into the slot and stood off to one side, jiggling the tuning knobs.
The door of the room opened. Joe Chip stood there, and Al saw his face.
“Shut the TV set off,” Al said and got to his feet. Everyone in the room watched as he walked toward Joe. “What happened, Joe?” he said. He waited. Joe said nothing. “What’s the matter?”
“I chartered a ship to bring me back here,” Joe said huskily.
“You and Wendy?”
Joe said, “Write out a check for the ship. It’s on the roof. I don’t have enough money for it.”
To Walter W. Wayles, Al said, “Are you able to disburse funds?”
“For something like that I can. I’ll go settle with the ship.” Taking his briefcase with him, Wayles left the room.
Joe remained in the doorway, again silent. He looked a hundred years older than when Al had last seen him. “In my office.” Joe turned away from the table; he blinked, hesitated. “I – don’t think you should see. The man from the moratorium was with me when I found her. He said he couldn’t do anything; it had been too long. Years.”
“‘Years’?” Al said, chilled.
Joe said, “We’ll go down to my office.” He led Al out of the conference room, into the hall, to the elevator. “On the trip back here the ship fed me tranquilizers. That’s part of the bill. Actually, I feel a lot better. In a sense, I don’t feel anything. It must be the tranquilizers. I guess when they wear off I’ll feel it again.”
The elevator came. Together they descended, neither of them saying anything until they reached the third floor, where Joe had his office.
“I don’t advise you to look.” Joe unlocked his office, led Al inside. “It’s up to you. If I got over it, you probably will.” He switched on the overhead lighting.
After a pause Al said, “Lord god.”
“Don’t open it,” Joe said.
“I’m not going to open it. This morning or last night?”
“Evidently, it happened early, before she even reached my room. We – that moratorium owner and I – found bits of cloth in the corridor. Leading to my door. But she must have been all right, or nearly all right, when she crossed the lobby; anyhow, nobody noticed anything. And in a big hotel like that they keep somebody watching. And the fact that she managed to reach my room-”
“Yeah, that indicates she must have been at least able to walk. That seems probable, anyhow.”
Joe said, “I’m thinking about the rest of us.”
“In what way?”
“The same thing. Happening to us.”
“How could it?”
“How could it happen to her? Because of the blast. We’re going to die like that one after another. One by one. Until none of us are left. Until each of us is ten pounds of skin and hair in a plastic bag, with a few dried-up bones thrown in.”
“All right,” Al said. “There’s some force at work producing rapid decay. It’s been at work since – or started with – the blast there on Luna. We already knew that. We also know, or think we know, that another force, a contra-force, is at work, moving things in an opposite direction. Something connected with Runciter. Our money is beginning to have his picture on it. A matchfolder-”
“He was on my vidphone,” Joe said. “At the hotel.”
“On it? How?”
“I don’t know; he just was. Not on the screen, not the video part. Only his voice.”
“What’d he say?”
“Nothing in particular.”
Al studied him. “Could he hear you?” he asked finally.
“No. I tried to get through. It was one-way entirely; I was listening in, and that was all.”
“So that’s why I couldn’t get through to you.”
“That’s why.” Joe nodded.
“We were trying the TV when you showed up. You realize there’s nothing in the ‘papes about his death. What a mess.” He did not like the way Joe Chip looked. Old, small and tired, he reflected. Is this how it begins? We’ve got to establish contact with Runciter, he said to himself. Being able to hear him isn’t enough; evidently, he’s trying to reach us, but-
If we’re going to live through this we’ll have to reach him.
Joe said, “Picking him up on TV isn’t going to do us any good. It’ll just be like the phone all over again. Unless he can tell us how to communicate back. Maybe he can tell us; maybe he knows. Maybe he understands what’s happened.”
“He would have to understand what’s happened to himself. Which is something we don’t know.” In some sense, Al thought, he must be alive, even though the moratorium failed to rouse him. Obviously, the moratorium owner did his best with a client of this much importance. “Did von Vogelsang hear him on the phone?” he asked Joe.
“He tried to hear him. But all he got was silence and then static, apparently from a long way off. I heard it too. Nothing. The sound of absolute nothing. A very strange sound.”
“I don’t like that,” Al said. He was not sure why. “I’d feel better about it if von Vogelsang had heard it too. At least that way we could be sure it was there, that it wasn’t an hallucination on your part.” Or, for that matter, he thought, on all our parts. As in the case of the matchfolder.
But some of the happenings had definitely not been hallucinations; machines had rejected antiquated coins – objective machines geared to react only to physical properties. No psychological elements came into play there. Machines could not imagine.