Then, as he was handing his cash card over to Janice DuPage for his pay, she said, “Oh, there you are, Dan. Dr. Adcock wants to talk to you before you leave.”
And when he got to his cousin’s office she glared at him. “What’s this I’m hearing about you? Why are you asking for the Starlab flight plan?”
He wasn’t surprised that she asked the question; he had no doubt that Pat Adcock kept an ear to everything that went on in the observatory. “I wasn’t asking for myself, Pat. I got some data for Dr. Chesweiler from the Max-Planck people, and they were the ones who wanted to know. I thought it would be, you know, professional courtesy to give it to them.”
“Professional courtesy isn’t your department. You aren’t a professional here, and it’s none of their damn business. You don’t pass out any information to anyone outside the observatory without my personal approval. Ever. Do you understand that? And, another thing, Janice tells me that you’ve made a payment commitment to Cerro Toledo for their data; we’ll have to pay it, but you ought to know you don’t have any authority to do that, either. Dan, this just isn’t satisfactory. I don’t want to have to warn you again, but- Hold it a minute.”
Her screen was buzzing. Dannerman couldn’t see the face on it, but he recognized Harry Chesweiler’s voice. It sounded excited. “I’ve got your orbital elements for the CLO, and they’re damn funny. There’s definite deceleration, and-“
“Wait, Harry,” she ordered, turning back to her cousin. “That’s all, Dan. You can go. Just be more careful in die future.”
He shared the elevator going down with two of the scientists, arguing over what the search for WIMPs really signified. They seemed close to coming to blows, so he interrupted. “What’s a WIMP?”
They paused to stare at him. “Weakly interactive massive particle,” the postdoc who’d been talking to him about the missing mass said.
“Oh, thanks. And, say, long as I’ve got you, there’s something else I’ve been wondering about. If there’s a comet that radiates in gamma and EUV, and it is slowing down as it comes toward the Sun, what does that mean?”
The other man laughed. “Means it isn’t a comet, that’s all. Maybe it’s one of your fucking WIMPs, Will.”
“Jesus,” the postdoc said, “what are you telling him that for? You know it couldn’t be a WIMP. Maybe some old spacecraft?”
“You know of any old spacecraft that would be coming in toward the Sun, Will?”
“So it’s probably just a screwed-up observation. Anyway,” the man said, getting back to his own subject, “believe me, WIMPs are definitely out there, and they make the difference; they’re why the universe isn’t going to expand indefinitely.”
Dannerman gave up. He was glad enough when they came to the ground floor and he could get out. This debate about whether the universe would continually expand, or rebound to a point again, was sort of interesting, but not, as far as he could see, in any way relevant to any of the questions he was working on.
And, as far as he could know, it wasn’t, of course. Because, of course, at that point Dan Dannerman had still never heard of the eschaton.
That night there was a call waiting from the lawyer, Dixler, begging him to have lunch with him the next day. That was a puzzle. Dannerman could think of no reason the lawyer would want to talk to him, and even fewer reasons why he would want to spend an hour with the man. But when he had reported in to Colonel Hilda she said, “Do it. See what he wants.”
“It sounds like a waste of time to me.”
“So? We’re the ones who’re paying for your time, if we want you to waste it then you do it. Maybe he knows what your cousin is spending her money on.”
“What’s that about her money?”
“She’s liquidating assets, and it isn’t just to pay off her lawyers. I’d like to know why. Something else, Danno. You didn’t mention the query from Max-Planck about Starlab in your report.”
He stared at her. “Oh, Christ, you’ve put a tap on the observatory lines.”
“No tap is allowed without a court order, you know that, and we can’t apply for one without taking the chance that she’ll find out about it,” the colonel lectured him. “Of course we put a tap on their lines. I don’t like this questioning by the Krauts, though. What do you suppose their interest is?”
“You could ask the Bay-Kahs,” he suggested.
“No, I couldn’t, even if everybody wasn’t going ape about the press secretary. But I did get some data for you, like on that old lady, Rosaleen-uh-“
“ Artzybachova.”
“Sure. I think you ought to cultivate her. She’s an instrument specialist; it says in her file that she helped design the original Starlab project. Is Starlab what she’s working on there now?”
“I don’t know what she’s working on. She always blanks her screen before she lets me bring her tea in.”
“You need to get into their system, Danno. Your cousin’s keeping secrets, and that’s where she’s keeping them, I bet.”
“Are you telling me you can’t break her code?”
“It’s a closed circuit. Get in. And, listen, Danno, I’ve been checking your file and you haven’t been on the range for nearly two weeks.”
“I’ll fit it in.”
“Damn right you’ll fit it in. You want to keep your skills up. Martial arts, too, Dan, because you know what occurs to me? It occurs to me you’d make a pretty good bodyguard for your cousin.”
He protested, “Mick Jarvas already has that job.” “Maybe something can be arranged; I’ll work on it. Any questions, outside of the usual one?”
“You mean the usual one that asks you what this is all about?” She sighed. “Yes, that’s the usual one, all right, and the usual answer is still no.”
That was it. She wasn’t going to tell until somebody higher up authorized it. That didn’t surprise Dannerman; but what did surprise him was that, when he finally did get a clue, it came from that old fart of a family lawyer, Jerome Dixler.
The place the lawyer had chosen for lunch was a small private club way downtown on Gramercy Park. The place appeared to have a theatrical history. When Dannerman checked his twenty-shot and carryphone at the cloakroom-the gun was no surprise, but he was a little astonished that the club did not allow phones to ring in their dining room-he was informed that Mr. Dixler hadn’t arrived yet. He spent ten minutes in the lounge, studying full-length oil paintings of famous members, all actors of a century or more ago whose names were familiar to him only from long-ago courses at Harvard. When the lawyer showed up he was out of breath.
“Real apologies, Dan,” he panted. “The traffic gets worse every day and that driver of mine- Well, I did make it. Here, let’s get to our table and order something to drink.”
Dannerman was mildly flattered, more intrigued, by the fact that Dixler had put himself out to try to be on time. Still, he didn’t get to business right away, whatever his business was going to turn out to be. While the waiter was bringing cocktails the lawyer went over every item on the menu, discussing the provenance of the basic foods that went into it and the way the club’s chef prepared it. Dannerman knew he was meant to feel courted. Clearly Dixler had taken him to a pretty expensive place, although Dannerman’s own menu was bereft of prices for anything. He wondered just what it was that the lawyer wanted from him that justified this kind of entertainment.
Dixler was in no hurry to get to it. As soon as the orders had been placed he said brightly, “Well, then, Dan. How’re you getting along with dear little Pat?”
“Well enough. I don’t see much of her in the office.”
Dixler clucked. “That’s a pity. You know Cuthbert always hoped you two kids would get together someday.”
“Him too.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing. Someone else said the same thing, just the other night, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. For one thing, Pat never got in touch with me after Uncle Cubby died.”
Dixler gave him a wounded look. “You never called me, either, Dan. I hope you’re not holding a grudge about that problem with your inheritance.”
“There wasn’t any problem. There just wasn’t any inheritance by the time it got to me. You explained it all when I got back from Europe. As executor you liquidated the estate.”
“Had to, Dan. It’s the law. I’m sorry it worked out the way it did, but I put the whole bequest into government bonds the way I was supposed to; it’s not my fault inflation was so bad there wasn’t much there when you got home. If you’d kept in touch while you were in Europe-“