“See you around.” Clifford accepted the situation and flipped off the terminal irritably. He sat for a while staring moodily at the blank screen.
“Who’s Harry Cottrill?” Sarah asked from the far side of the room. “We don’t know anybody by that name do we?”
“Huh?” Clifford half-turned and sat back to face her. “That’s the funny part. I was just wondering about it. . . . We don’t know him, but I do. He was a guy I used to know at CIT.”
“CIT?” Sarah looked puzzled. “Why should we see him around here? Did he move here or something?”
“Not that I know of. Last place I saw him was CIT.”
“That’s crazy.” Sarah returned Clifford’s nonplused look. “Why should Bernard go and say a crazy thing like that?”
“I don’t know,” Clifford said slowly and thoughtfully. “But I think he was trying to tell us something. His face became rather serious as he said it—you know—as if he was trying to make a point.”
“Who was this Harry Cottrill?” Sarah asked after a few seconds of silence. “Another physicist or suchlike?”
“No, nothing like that. . . . He was a biologist . . . had a thing about termites. He was an entomologist there . . . always talking about termites . . .”
“Bugs. Ugh. Nasty things.”
“Bugs!” Clifford looked up abruptly. “That’s what it was. Bernard was afraid of his line being bugged. That’s why he wouldn’t say anything.” He stood up and sent the chair spinning on its swivel with a sudden blow of his fist. “Bastards! What are they turning this damned world into?”
* * *
Bernard Clancy did come to ACRE. Clifford was walking along the corridor outside the conference room when the door opened and a party of visitors, several of whom he recognized as prominent mathematicians and physicists, was ushered through. Clancy just had time to catch Clifford’s eye and shrug with a brief apologetic grin before he and the rest were herded hurriedly away by Corrigan and a troupe of minions. They departed from ACRE within minutes.
* * *
“Hey, I’m sure that’s Walter Massey and his wife over there, Brad.” Sarah’s voice came down at him from the same direction as the heat bathing his prostrate body. He mumbled something unintelligible and raised his head a few inches to scan the nearby parts of the sloping tiled area that surrounded the pool. Everywhere was a sea of tanned arms, legs, and bodies, sunshades, and a few tables; the pool was crowded and noisy.
“Mmm . . . where?” he asked after a second.
“There . . .” She pointed. “Walking this way from the pool. She’s got a blue bikini on.”
“Yeah . . . I think you’re right.” He allowed his head to flop back on the towel, closed his eyes again, and gave every indication of having dismissed the matter from consciousness.
“Want me to call them over?” he heard Sarah ask, and then, before he had made any reply: “Hey! Sheila . . . Walter . . . Over here . . .” She turned back to her husband. “They’ve seen us. They’re coming over.”
Clifford flinched as drops of icy liquid peppered his skin. He opened his eyes to find the lower half of Sheila Massey’s bikini—surely it had been sprayed on—staring down at him over the top of a magnificent pair of suntanned thighs. A few seconds later he noticed that Sheila was there too, removing her swim-cap to allow cascades of jet-black hair to tumble out onto her shoulders. Walter was close behind.
“Hi,” Sarah greeted, gathering together some of their things to make room. “Come and make it a party.” Sheila sat down, accepted a towel from Sarah’s outstretched hand and began drying herself.
“Thanks,” she said. “Hi, people. Just enjoying the sun?” She looked up. “Pull up a pew, Walt.”
Walter Massey was looking toward where they had been heading. “I’ll just go on up and get my cigarettes,” he said. “Be back in a minute.” With that he disappeared from Clifford’s field of vision.
As the girls began chattering back and forth over him, Clifford became acutely aware of Sheila’s sinuous movements on one side and Sarah’s curvaceous form on the other, and he began suddenly to wonder if, perhaps, the Arabs had got it right all along after all. What was so bad about camels and tents anyway? Who needed civilization? Maybe polygamy ought to be compulsory—then perhaps everybody would forget about making bombs. Interesting thought. His reverie came to an end when he realized that Sarah was speaking to him.