Part 23 (1/2)
He raced on through the night, communications springing at him. Right lane must turn right, he read.
Food gas lodging next exit. His black mood lifted. Green-to-red, green-to-amber, flas.h.i.+ng-amber, All-Night Funeral Home. He laughed aloud.
He was still grinning when the garage opened to his beeper and the house door opened to his thumb.
The house was dark, silent. He expected that, he realized. His wife was visiting her mother. Eleanor.
But his wife's name was not Eleanor, his wife was Audrey.Depression descended. Suddenly he saw he had been evading reality. Swimming and playing games with the cops instead of doing the serious thinking he had planned to do. Before tomorrow's meeting.
He turned out the lights and lay on the bed, trying to concentrate. There were paragraphs in his mind. Other things. He must concentrate. The moon set. It grew darker, and presently, very slowly, lighter. He failed to notice that he did not sleep. When the little sun rose he got up and redressed.
The San Bernardino lot was still quite empty when he pulled in; the guards seemed surprised to see him. His office, though, was sunny. Did not need light. He found the files.
His secretary came in at eight-thirty tip-toeing.
”Miss Mulm,” he said brightly. He pushed the files away.
”Yes sir?” She was instantly wary, a small, dark, softlipped girl.
”Sir?” he echoed. ”Indicating deference, subordination... are you afraid of me, Miss Mulm?”
”Why, no, Dr. Mitch.e.l.l.” Staring gravely, shaking her dark head.
”Good. There's too much of that sort of thing. Too much one-way communication. No true interaction. Entropic. Don't you feel it?”
”Well, I guess... uh-”
”Miss Mulm. You've been with me five years now. Since before I was Director. You came over from the department with me.”
She nodded, watching him intently: yes.
”Have you any feelings about the sort of work we do here?”
”I'm not sure what you mean, Doctor Mitch.e.l.l.”
”Do you-well, do you approve of it?”
She was silent. Wary. But somehow br.i.m.m.i.n.g.
”I-of course I don't understand all of it, not really. But it-it seems more military than I expected. I mean, Colonel Morelake, I guess-”
”And you don't feel quite right about military-type research?”
”Doctor Mitch.e.l.l,” she said desperately, ”if you think it's all right-”
Her eyes, face brimmed, communicating information.
”My G.o.d,” he said slowly, studying her. ”Do you think I think-does everybody here think I-No.
You can't answer that, of course. I guess I, since Hal's been away I've been doing some-” He broke off.
”Miss Mulm! Does it strike you that we are engaged in a most peculiar interaction process?”
She made a helpless confused noise.
”On the one hand we're discussing, verbally, the work of this inst.i.tution. And at the same time there is another quite different communication taking place between us. Without words. Are you aware of that?
I feel it has been going on for some time, too. Don't you think so? By the way, my name is Colin.”
”I know,” she said, suddenly not confused at all.
He came closer and slowly, experimentally, reached his hands and arms out along the force-lines of the emergent system. The system of two.
”Eleanor,” he said. The system tightened, connected body to body, changing both. His body began to move along the field stresses. It felt wonderful. It felt resonant. Resonances tuned, building to oscillation. Feedback began to drive-swelled stress- ”Eleanor!” He was galvanized with delicious danger. ”Eleanor-I-”
”Yes Colin!” Br.i.m.m.i.n.g at him, five years of small, dark very intense- ”I-I-I-” Bracing against the forcefield's bulge, ”What?””The intercom! They-they-it's time, Doctor Mitch.e.l.l!”
”Oh.” It was flas.h.i.+ng, buzzing, down there very small and far away. The ... the meeting. Yes. What the h.e.l.l had hit him. Damp. Damp the circuits. The room came back. And the paragraphs.
He was quite himself when the staff meeting opened. The project leaders, as usual, led off with their reports. There were eighteen bodies and an empty chair: the fourteen project directors, Admin, Security, Colonel Morelake, himself and the empty chair for his deputy Hal, on leave at Aspen. The reports were officially being made to him as Director, but most of the speakers seemed to be talking directly to Colonel Morelake. Again as usual.
Jim Morelake bore a disarming resemblance to a robin. A slim, neat robin with a perfectly good PhD and lots of charm. He bobbed his head in obviously genuine interest at each report. When old Pfaffman got into a tangled complaint-this time to Mitch.e.l.l-Morelake spoke up.
”Colin, I believe I know where we can get some computer time to help Max.”
Pfaffman grunted without looking at him and subsided.
That wound up the routine. They looked at Mitch.e.l.l.
”About Cal Tech North,” Colin Mitch.e.l.l said. ”I spent over six hours with Will Tenneman yesterday, before and after the general meeting. Essentially he was very ready to deal, provided we can work out the details of the grant allocations, and I feel they'll be reasonable. In fact, there was so little to talk over until we get down to specifics that I came back early. I think the main thing that was worrying him was parking s.p.a.ce.”
That brought the ritual chuckle.
”However,” Mitch.e.l.l went on. ”There's something bothering me. This business brings it to a head.
The Cal Tech North link-up is completely logical and desirable, provided we continue as we have been going. I'd like to do a little review. As you all know, especially those of you who have been here from the start-” He paused, momentarily aware of how many new faces were around him.
”This group was set up as an independent research facility annex to the university proper. It was our role to service a wide spectrum of basic research projects which could attract special funding arrangements. We started with eight projects. Two were medical, one was a short-term data a.n.a.lysis on traffic fatalities, another was historical, two were interdepartment teams in the anthro-sociology area, one was concerned with human developmental and learning processes, and one was an applied project in education. Of these, four were funded by N.I.H., one by private industry, one by the Department of Commerce, one by N.S.F., and one by the Department of Defense. Right?”
A few heads nodded, old Pfaffman's the hardest. Two of the younger men were staring oddly.
”At the present time,” Mitch.e.l.l went on, ”we have increased to fourteen projects in hand. There has been a threefold increase in personnel, and a commensurate growth in support facilities. Of these fourteen projects, one is funded by N.I.H., three by private industry, and Commerce is still continuing the traffic study. The rest, that is nine, are funded by the Department of Defense.”
He paused. The empty chair beside him seemed to be significant. Things were different without Hal.
He had chosen Hal, relied on him as an energizer. And yet-was it since Hal's time that the D.O.D.
connections had tightened?
”Everyone is, of course, very pleased,” he said heavily. ”But I wonder how many of us have taken time to a.n.a.lyze these projects, which we live with daily. If you stand back, as I have been doing over this past week, and cla.s.sify them very naively from the standpoint of their ultimate product, I think it is fair to say that five of them have no conceivable application except as means to injure or destroy human life.