vide animal cover and so on. It always winds up with him telling me the world’s going to hell in a hand-basket and people have got to be made to realize it-and me telling him we’ve always got along somehow and we’ll keep going somehow.” Kathy laughed incredulously and the commander went on: “They’re fools, but they’re tough. They have discipline. A cell system. If you get one Consie you always get the two or three others in his cell, but you hardly ever get any more. There’s no lateral contact between cells, and vertical contact with higher-ups is by rendezvous with middlemen. Yes, I think I know them and that’s why I’m not especially worried about sabotage or a demonstration here. It doesn’t have the right ring to it.” Kathy and I lolled back watching the commercials parade around the passenger compartment of the jet at eye level. There was the good old Kiddiebutt jingle I worked out many years ago when I was a trainee. I nudged Kathy and told her about it as it blinked and chimed Victor Herbert’s Toyland theme at us. All the commercials went blank and a utility announcement, without sound effects, came on. In Compliance With Federal Law, Passengers Are Advised That They Are Now Passing Over The San Andreas Fault Into Earthquake Territory, And That Earthquake Loss And Damage Clauses In Any Insurance They May Carry Are Now Canceled And Will Remain Canceled Until Passengers Leave Earthquake Territory. Then the commercials resumed their parade. “And,” said Kathy, “I suppose it says in the small print that yak-bite insurance is good anywhere except in Tibet.” “Yak-bite insurance?” I asked, astonished. “What on earth do you carry that for?” “A girl can never tell when she’ll meet an unfriendly yak, can she?” “I conclude that you’re kidding,” I said with dignity. “We ought to land in a few minutes. Personally, I’d like to pop in on Ham Harris unexpectedly. He’s a good kid, but Runstead may have infected him with defeatism. There’s nothing worse in our line.” “I’ll come along with you if I may, Mitch.” We gawked through the windows like tourists as the jet slid into
the traffic pattern over San Diego and circled monotonously waiting for its calldown from the tower. Kathy had never been there before. I had been there once, but there’s always something new to see because buildings are always falling down and new ones being put up. And what buildings! They’re more like plastic tents on plastic skeletons than anything else. That kind of construction means they give and sway when a quake jiggles southern California instead of snapping and crumbling. And if the quake is bad enough and the skeleton does snap, what have you lost? Just some plastic sheeting that broke along the standard snap grooves and some plastic structural members that may or may not be salvageable. From a continental economic viewpoint, it’s also a fine idea not to tie up too much fancy construction in southern California. Since the H-bomb tests did things to the San Andreas fault, there’s been a pretty fair chance that the whole area would slide quietly into the Pacific some day-any day. But when we looked down out of the traffic pattern, it still was there and, like everybody else, we knew that it would probably stay there for the duration of our visit. Before my time there had been some panic when the quakes became daily, but I’d blame that on the old-style construction that fell hard and in jagged hunks. Eventually people got used to it and-as you’d expect in southern California-even proud of it. Natives could cite you reams of statistics to prove that you stand more chance of being struck by lightning or a meteorite than you do of getting killed in one of their quakes. We got a speedy three-man limousine to whisk us to the local branch of Fowler Schocken Associates. My faint uneasiness about Market Research extended to the possibility that Ham Harris might have a tipster at the airport to give him time to tidy up for a full-dress inspection. And that kind of thing is worse than useless. The receptionist gave me my first setback. She didn’t recognize my face and she didn’t recognize my name when I gave it to her. She said lazily: “I’ll see if Mr. Harris is busy, Mr. Connelly.” “Mr. Courtenay, young lady. And I’m Mr. Harris’s boss.” Kathy and I walked in on a scene of idleness and slackness that curled my hair. Harris, with his coat off, was playing cards with two young employees. Two more were gaping, glassy-eyed, before a hypnoteleset, obviously in trance state. Another man was lackadaisically punching a calculator, one-finger system.