the regular quarterly visit is only twelve clays away-and maybe there’ll be an
emergency-I hope!-so we’ll sit here and keep Lord Byron under surveillance every
minute. I know you girls don’t like this kind of Peeping Tomming, so you’ll be excused.
Perce?”
“Sure.” “Here?” “Okay by me.”
“That’s three. Talk to some of the graduates, will you, Perce, so we won’t have to maker
the shifts too long? I’ll take the first shift, starting now.”
Chapter 18
HUNCHERS
COMPANY AGENT A C B A A B A was a busy girl. She mated a dozen more couples
that afternoon, then shot her aircar out to Suburb Fourteen, which was under
construction. It was a beautiful layout, the girl thought, as she brought her car to a halt
and looked the suburb over from a height of ten thousand feet. Rolling, heavily-wooded
hills, a nice lake sparkling in the sunshine, and two winding streams. Lovely landscaping
and curving, contoured drives. Over sixteen hundred of its two thousand homes should be
done now-but were they? There wasn’t a single house on Thirtieth Drive yet!
Frowning, she took a map of the suburb out of a compartment and scanned it. Then she
compared it carefully with the terrain below. There was no one at work there this
afternoon, of course, but she knew the call-code of the foreman of the project, so she
punched it forthwith.
Her screen brightened, showing the head and shoulders of a man, who put both hands
flat on his head and said, “Be happy, Agent.”
“Be happy, Kubey! You’re ‘way, ‘way behind sked on Sub Fourteen. How come?”
“I know, Agent, but there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Five of my best people went
mal on me last week and the replacements they sent me were absolute gristle-heads. All
five of ’em fouled up their machines so bad I had to get a whole crew of . . .
“That’s enough. Be happy, Kubey!” “Be happy, Agent.”
She snapped the set off and gnawed at her lower lip. An Agent didn’t yap at damn stupid
dumb jerks of People-it wouldn’t do any good to, anyway, they didn’t know anything -A B
F A D A A was the lout who’d let this job get all fouled up-she’d do her yapping high
enough up so it might do some good. She punched buttons viciously and a blue-jeweled,
billiard-ball-bald man grinned at her.
“Keep your tights on, Acey,” the Blue advised her, before she could say a word. “The
World is not coming to an end.”
“But what the hell’s with it, Sub Fourteen being so damn far minus on sked?” she
demanded. “Keep on fouling off and I’m going to have to start installing on it before it’s
finished!”
“So what? There’ll be all the finished houses you’ll need, long before you’ll need ’em, so .
. .”
” ‘So what?’ ” she almost screamed. “Because it never happened before with anybody
else and because it’s absolutely contra-Regs, that’s what! And you know it as well as I
do! It’s your business to keep ahead of me, and by . . .”
. Shut up!” The man’s grin had disappeared; his face was stern and cold. “I know my
business as well as you know yours, Acey.”
“Well, then, why . . . Oh! But Abie, if you’re having as much mal trouble as that, why
didn’t you tell me?” “You just said why not. It’s Abie business, not Acey, so just keep
your tights on. And keep all this under your headband if you don’t want to get hopped
bow-legged.” He cut cam; and after a moment of lip-biting indecision, she did the same.
Then, shrugging her shapely shoulders, she set course for Suburb One and the immense
apartment house in which she and eight-hundred-odd other AC’s lived. She landed on the
roof, parked her little speedster in its stall, and walked a hundred yards or so to a
canopied, but unguarded hole with a stainless-steel pipe emerging from it. She slid
unconcernedly down the slide-pole’s three-hundred-foot length to the thirty fourth floor,
where the general offices were. She walked seventy yards along a main corridor, turned
left into a narrower one, went fifty yards along that, and turned left again into a large
room half full of desks. Some twenty girls, of about her own age and size-and with pretty
much her own spectacular shape-and as many young men, were already there. Some
were at desks, working; some were at scanners, studying; some were sitting or standing
by couples or in groups, talking or playing games; some singles were reading. All wore
the headlight-like green jewels. The girls all wore the same uniform she did; the men all
wore yellow whipcord battle-jackets, black whipcord breeches, and high-laced
red-leather boots.
“Hi, Bee-ay!” one of the men called. (Since everyone in the house was an Acey, other
letters of each symbol were used infra-house). “You jump a mean knight; come on over
and play me some chess.”
“Not enough time on the chron, Apey, I’ve got to red-tape it for a good hour yet,” and she
strode purposefully to her desk.
She had hardly seated herself, however, when a big, good-looking, fair-haired young
fellow came over and perched hip-wise on the corner of her desk.
“Hi, beautiful,” he said, swinging one big boot in a small arc. “What do you know for real
sure that’s new?” “Hi, Crip-mental, that is-nothing at all. Should I?” “Hope. Everything is
perfect in this our perfect World.” He squared his shoulders as though he had made a
momentous decision and glanced quickly around. No one was within earshot; no one was
paying any attention to their customary fete-d-fete.
Reaching into his pocket, he took out two soft, almost transparent pouches. He bent
over, pulled his locket out from under his jacket, said, “Well, beautiful, I’ll see you after,”
slipped one of the pouches over his locket, tightened its drawstring, and put the now
insulated locket back where it had been. Then, handing her the other pouch, he indicated
silently that she was to do the same.
The girl’s eyes widened and her face went suddenly stiff, but she pouched her locket and
replaced it under her sweater, between her boldly outstanding breasts. “So we’re both
mals,” she said, quietly. “Mals of the worst type-hunchers. I’ve been afraid you were, too
. . . and you, too, for me, I suppose . . . well, there goes the last secret between us-I
hope? Except I mean of course . . .”
He managed a grin. “Of course. As far as I know, sweetheart. What held me up
was-well, I may get flamed for this, and I didn’t want you to be, too … but you’ve been
flirting with the flamers and if you go there’s nothing left for me. That’s the way you look
at it, too, isn’t it?”
“Of course, darling. I wouldn’t live an hour, after. You came out because you noticed I
was going off the beam?” “How could I help but notice? But I wonder-is your hunch the
same as mine? Something so wild-so utterly utter-that there are no words for it? That
goes, some way or other, clear up to the Company itself?”
“That sounds like the same pattern, so I guess it’s the same hunch. Something ‘way out;
beyond all understanding, sense or reason. I can’t get even a clue to it. But these . . . ?”
She indicated the lockets. “Coms? Up to the Three-A’s, maybe? And you blocked ’em?
I’d never have thought of anything like that-but of course girl Sciencers First don’t really. .
.”
“I don’t know that they’re corns; I was afraid to do any testing. But I knew something
was riding you and I had to do something. But all I blocked was audio-if anybody is on us
they’re getting everything else and the well-known fact that we’re in love will account for
tension and so on-I think. I suppose you’ve heard the gossip that twelve Aceys from this
house went absento -probably mal and probably flamed?”
“I’ve heard-and with that and this horrible hunch I’ve been jittering like a witch. It got so
bad that I yapped at a Blue this afternoon-Old Baldy A B F A D A A himself.”
“Almighty Company fend you!” he gasped. “You are asking for a flame!”
“Not in that, Beedy. No fear of him howling. He can’t howl. He’s so far minus sked on Sub
Fourteen that I’m going to have to go contra-Regs. . . .” She explained the housing
situation…… so I could kick him right in the face and he couldn’t even kick me back
because I’m strictly on sked. He said he’d bop me bow-legged if I leaked about it, but
that was all.”
The man whistled softly through his teeth. “That much mal trouble?” He thought for a
moment, then threw off his dark mood. “Retrieve the insulator and slip it to me when I get