But those orders did not apply-McFee had not known about Hamilton.
He knew now. That was certain. Therefore, the orders did apply. What was it McFee had said? “I’ve decided to take no chances on him.”
They didn’t trust him. Even McFee knew him for what he was-a thumb-fingered idiot who could be depended on to do the wrong thing at the wrong time.
He never had been any good. All he was fit for was to do fiddling things with numbers. He knew it. Everybody knew it. Hazel knew it. If he met a girl he liked, the best he could do was to knock her off her feet. Hamilton knew it. Hamilton hadn’t even bothered to kill him-he wasn’t worth killing. They hadn’t really wanted him in the Survivors Club-not in a pinch. They just wanted him available to set up the accounting for the New Order. McFee had spoken to him about that, asked him if he could do it. Naturally, he could. That’s all he was-a clerk.
Well, if they wanted him for that, he’d do it. He wasn’t proud. All he asked was to serve. It would be a fairly simple matter to set up foolproof accounting for a collective-type state. It would not take him long; after that, his usefulness ended, he would be justified in taking the long sleep.
He got up, having found some comfort in complete self-abnegation. He rinsed out his mouth, drank more than a litre of water, and felt a little better. He rummaged in the larder, opened a seal of tomato juice, drank it, and felt almost human, in a deeply melancholy way.
He then investigated his location. The car was hovering; it had reached the extreme limit of its automatic radius. The ground was concealed by clouds, though it was bright sunlight where he was. The pilot showed him the latitude and longitude; a reference to the charts placed him somewhere over the Sierra Nevada Mountains-almost precisely over the Park of the Giant Redwoods, he noticed.
He derived a flicker of interest from that. The Survivors Club, in their public, social guise, claimed the Generalsherman Tree as president emeritus. It was a nice jest, he thought-the unkillable, perfectly adapted Oldest Living Thing on Earth. The sabotaged pilot put wrinkles between his eyes. He could fly it manually, but he could not enter the traffic of the Capital until it was repaired. He would have to seek some small town —
– No, McFee had said to go away and stay away-and McFee meant what he said. If he went to any town, he would be mixed up in the fighting.
He did not admit to himself that he no longer had any stomach for it-that Hamilton’s words had left him with unadmitted doubts.
Still, it must be repaired. There might be a repair station at the Park-must be, in fact, in view of the tourist traffic. And surely the Change would not cause any fighting there. He cut in the fog eyes and felt his way down. When he grounded a single figure approached. “You can’t stay,” the man said, when he was in earshot. “The Park’s closed.”
“I’ve got to have a repair,” said Monroe-Alpha. “Why is the Park closed?”
“Can’t say. Some trouble down below. The rangers were called on special duty hours ago, and we sent the tourists out. There’s nobody here but me.”
“Can you repair?”
“Could…maybe. What’s the trouble?” Monroe-Alpha showed him. “Can you fix it?”
“Not the talkie box. Might scare up some parts for the pilot. What happened? Looks like you smashed it yourself.”
“I didn’t.” He opened a locker, located his car gun, and stuck it in his holster. The caretaker was brassarded; he shut up at once. “I think I’ll take a walk while you fix it.”
“Yes sir. It won’t take long.”
Monroe-Alpha took out his credit folder, tore out a twenty credit note, and handed it to the man. “Here. Leave it in the hangar.” He wanted to be alone, to talk to no one at all, least of all this inquisitive stranger. He turned and walked away. He had seen very little of the Big Trees in landing; he had kept his eyes glued to the fog eyes and had been quite busy with the problem of landing. Nor had he ever been in the Park before. True, he had seen pictures-who has not? — but pictures are not the trees. He started out, more intent on his inner turmoil than on the giants around him. But the place got him.