Monroe-Alpha was sitting in his lounging room. He looked up when Hamilton entered, but did not rise and said nothing. Hamilton walked over and planted himself in front of him. “So you’re back.”
“Yes.”
“How long have you been back?”
“I don’t know. Hours.”
“You have? I signalled your phone.”
“Oh, was that you?”
“Certainly it was. Why didn’t you answer?”
Monroe-Alpha said nothing, looked at him dully, and looked away. “Snap out of it, man,” Hamilton snapped, by now exasperated. “Come to life. The putsch failed. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Then he added, “I’m ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“You’ve come to arrest me, haven’t you?”
“Me? Great Egg! I’m no monitor.”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind.”
“Look here, Cliff,” Hamilton said seriously. “What’s gotten into you? Are you still filled up with the guff McFee dished out? Are you determined to be a martyr? You’ve been a fool-there’s no need to be a damned fool. I’ve reported that you were an agent of mine.” (In this he anticipated a decision he had made at the moment; he would carry it out later-if necessary.) “You’re all in the clear. Well, speak up. You didn’t get in on the fighting, did you?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think you would, after the hypno pills I stuffed down you. One more and you would have listened to the birdies. What’s the trouble, then? Are you still fanatical about this damned Survivors Club tommyrot?”
“No. That was a mistake. I was crazy.”
“I’ll say you were crazy! But see here-you don’t rate it, but you’re getting away with it, cold. You don’t have to worry. Just slide back in where you were and no one’s the wiser.”
“It’s no good, Felix. Nothing’s any good. Thanks, just the same.” He smiled briefly and wanly.
“Well, for the love o’ — I’ve a good mind to paste you right in the puss, just to get a rise out of you.” Monroe-Alpha did not answer. His face he had let sink down into his hands; he showed in no way that he had even heard. Hamilton shook his shoulder.
“What’s the matter? Did something else happen? Something I don’t know about.”
“Yes.” It was barely a whisper.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“It doesn’t matter.” But he did start to tell of it; once started he went on steadily, in a low voice and without raising his head. He seemed to be talking only to himself, as if he were repeating over something he wished to learn by heart.
Hamilton listened uneasily, wondering whether or not he should stop him. He had never heard a man bare his secret thoughts as Monroe-Alpha was doing. It seemed indecent.
But he went on and on, until the whole pitiful, silly picture was mercilessly sharp. “And so I came back here,” he concluded. He said nothing further, nor did he look up.
Hamilton looked amazed. “Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure you haven’t left anything out?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then what, in the Name of the Egg, are you doing here?”
“Nothing. There wasn’t anyplace else to go.”
“Cliff, you’ll be the death of me, yet. Get going. Get started. Get up off that fat thing you’re sitting on and get a move on.”
“Huh? Where?”
“After her, you bubble-brained idiot! Go find her.”
Monroe-Alpha shook his head wearily. “You must not have listened. I tell you I tried to burn her.”
Hamilton took a deep breath, let it out, then said, “Listen to me. I don’t know much about women, and sometimes it seems like I didn’t know anything about them. But I’m sure of this-she won’t let a little thing like you taking a pot shot at her stand in the way if you ever had any chance with her at all. She’ll forgive you.”
“You don’t really mean that, do you?” Monroe-Alpha’s face was still tragic, but he clutched at the hope.
“Certainly I do. Women will forgive anything.” With a flash of insight he added, “Otherwise the race would have died out long ago.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
” — then a man is something more than his genes!”
“I CANNOT say,” remarked the Honorable Member from Great Lakes Central, “that I place high evaluation on Brother Mordan’s argument that this project be taken up to get young Hamilton’s consent to propagate. It is true that I am not entirely familiar with the details of the genetic sequence involved — “