‘This is the thing that you designed in toto and that I never could understand any part of. All I did was build it. It must generate those Prime fields.’
‘Probably,’ Garlock flashed back. ‘I didn’t understand it any too well myself. How does it look?’
‘He isn’t even close. He’s got only half of the constants down and half of the ones he has got down are wrong. Look at this mess here…’
‘Ill take your word for it. I haven’t your affinity for blueprints, you know, nor your eidetic memory for them.”
‘Do you want me to give him the whole works?’
‘We’ll have to, I think. Or the ship might not work at all.’
‘Could be – but how about intergalactic hops?’
‘He couldn’t do it with the Pleiades, so he won’t be able to with this. Besides, if we change it in any particular he might. You see, I don’t know very much more about Unit Eight than you do.”
‘That could be, too.’ Then, as though just emerging from his concentration on the drawings, James thought at Delcamp and Fao, but on the open, general band.
‘A good many errors and a lot of blanks, but in general you’re on the right track. I can finish up this drawing in a couple of hours, and we can build the unit in a couple of days. With that in place, the rest of the ship will go fast.
‘// Miss Talaho wants me to,’ he concluded, pointedly.
‘Oh, I do, Jim – really I do!’ At long last, stiff-backed Fao softened and bent. She seized both his hands. ‘If you can, it’d be wonderful!’
‘Okay. One question. Why are you building your ship so small?’
138
“Why, it’s plenty big enough for two,’ Delcamp said. ‘For four, in a pinch. Why did you make yours so big? Your Main is almost big enough for a convention hall.’
‘That’s what we figured it might have to be, at times,’ Gar-lock said. ‘But that’s a very minor point. With yours so nearly ready to flit, no change in size is indicated now. But Belle and I have got to have another conference with the legal eagle.’ He turned to James. ‘So if you and Brownie will ‘port whatever you need out of the Pleiades, we’ll be on our way.
‘So long – see you in a few days,’ he added, and the Pleiades vanished; to appear instantaneously high above the stratosphere over what was to become the Galaxian Field of Earth.
‘Got a minute, Gene?’ he sent a thought.
‘For you two Primes, as many as you like. We haven’t started building or fencing yet, as you suggested, but we have bought all the real estate. So land the ship anywhere out there and I’ll send a jeep out after you.’
‘Thanks, but no jeep. Nobody but you knows that we’ve really got control of the Pleiades, and I want everybody else to keep on thinking it’s strictly for the birds. We’ll ‘port in to your office whenever you say.’
‘I say now.’
In no time at all the two Primes were seated in the private office of Eugene Evans, Head of the Legal Department of the newly reincorporated Galaxian Society of Sol, Inc. Evans was a tall man, slightly thin, slightly stooped, whose thick tri-focals did nothing whatever to hide the keenness of his steel-grey eyes.
‘The first thing, Gene,’ Garlock said, ‘is this employment contract thing. Have you figured out a way to break it?’
‘It can’t be broken.’ The lawyer shook his head.
‘What! I thought you top-bracket legal eagles could break anything, if you really tried.’
‘A good many things, yes, especially if they’re long and complicated. The Standard Employment Contract, however, is short, explicit, and iron-clad. The employer can discharge the employee for any number of offenses, including ^insubordination – which, as a matter of fact, the employer himself is allowed to define. On the other hand, the employee can’t quit except for some such fantastic reason as the non-tendering –
139
not non-payment, mind you, but non-tendering – of salary.’
‘I didn’t expect that – it kicks us in the teeth before we get started,’ Garlock got up, lit a cigarette, and prowled about the big room. ‘Okay. Jim and I will have to get ourselves fired, then.’
Tired!’ Belle snorted. ‘Clee, you talk like a man with foam rubber inside his skull! Who else could run the Project? That is’ – her whole manner changed – ‘he doesn’t know I can run it as well as you can – or better – but I could tell him. And maybe you think I wouldn’t!’
‘You won’t have to. Gene, you can start spreading the news that Belle Bellamy is a real, honest-to-God Prime Operator in every respect. That she knows more about Project Gunther than I do and could run it better. Ferber undoubtedly knows that Belle and I have been at loggerheads ever since we first met – spread it thick that we’re fighting worse than ever. Which, by the way, is the truth.’
‘Fighting? Why, you seemed friendly enough…’
‘Yeah, we can be friendly for about fifteen minutes if we try real hard, as now. The cold fact is, though, that her heart pumps 99 percent pure potassium cyanide…’
‘I like thatl’ Belle stormed. She leaped to her feet, her eyes shooting sparks. ‘All my fault! Why, you self-centered, egotistical moron, I could write a book…’
That’s enough – let it go – pleasel’ Evans pleaded. He jumped up, took each of the combatants by a shoulder, sat them down into the chairs they had vacated, and resumed his own seat. “The demonstration was eminently successful. I’ll spread the word, through several channels. Chancellor Ferber will get it all, rest assured.’
‘And /’// get the job!’ Belle snapped. ‘And maybe you think I won’t take it!’
‘Don’t worry, I believe it,’ came Oarlock’s searing thought. ‘You’d sleep with Ferber to get it. And to keep it you’d go on the sofa whatever mornings he doesn’t prefer one of his other girlfriends. Yeah -1 don’t think.’
‘Oh?’ Belle’s body stiffened, her face hardened. ‘I’ve heard stories, of course, but I couldn’t quite … but do you suppose he’d actually think … why, the bloated, obscene cockroach! But surely he can’t be that stupid – to think he can buy me like
140
so many pounds of calf-liver?’
‘He surely is. He does. And it works. That is, if he’s ever missed, nobody ever heard of it.’
‘But how could a man in such a big job possibly get away with such foul stuff as that?’
‘Because all that SSE is interested in is money, and Alonzo P. Ferber is a tremendously able top executive. In the big black-and-red money books he’s always ‘way, ‘way up in the black.’
Belle, even though she was already convinced, glanced ques-tioningly at Evans.
‘That’s it, Miss Bellamy. That’s it, in a precise, if somewhat crude, nutshell.’
‘That’s that, then. But just how, Clee – if he’s as smart as you say he is – do you think you can make him fire you?’
‘I don’t know – haven’t thought about it yet. But I could be pretty insurbordinate if I really tried.’
‘That the understatement of the century.’
Til devote the imponderable force of the intellect to the problem and check with you later. Now, Gene, about the proposed Galactic Service, the Council, and so on. What is the reaction? Yours, personally, and others?’
‘My personal reaction is immensely favorable; I think it’s the greatest advance that humanity has ever made. I’ve been very cautious, of course, in discussing the matter, or even mentioning it, but the reaction of everyone I have sounded – good men; big men in their respective fields – has been as enthusiastic as my own.’
‘Good. It won’t surprise you, probably, to be told that you are to be this system’s councillor and – if we can swing it, and I think we can – the first President of the Galactic Council.’
Evans was so surprised that it was almost a minute before he could reply coherently. ‘I am surprised – very much so. I thought, of course, that you yourself would…’
Tar from it!’ Garlock said. ‘I’m not the type. You are. You’re better than anyone else of the Galaxians – which means better than anyone else period. With the possible exception of Lola, and she fits better on our exploration team. Check, Belle?’
‘Check. For once, I agree with you without reservation. That’s a job we can work at all the rest of our lives, and
141
scarcely start it.”
‘True – indubitably true. I appreciate your confidence in me and if the vote so falls I will do whatever I can.’
We know you will, and thank you. How long will it take to organize? A couple of weeks? And is there anything else we have to cover now?’