Part 17 (1/2)

Oh, it was getting to be a Yardstick world, and no mistake. Smaller furniture, smaller meals, smaller sizes in clothing, smaller buildings--

That reminded Eric of something and he frowned again. Dammit, why didn't the communicator flick? He should be getting some kind of inquiries. h.e.l.l, he was practically _giving_ the s.p.a.ce away!

But there was only silence, as there had been all during this past week. That's why he let Lorette go. Sweet girl, but there was no work for her here any more. No work, and no pay, either. Besides, the place spooked her. She'd been the one who suggested leaving, really.

”Eric, I'm sorry, but I just can't take this any more. All alone in this huge building--it's curling my toes!”

At first he tried to talk her out of it. ”Don't be silly, luscious!

There's Bernstein, down on ten, and Saltonstall above us, and Wallaby and Son on fourteen, I tell you, this place is coming back to life, I can feel it! I'll beam for tenants next week, you'll see--”

Actually he'd been talking against his own fear and Lorette must have known it. Anyway, she left. And now he was here alone.

_Alone._

Eric didn't like the sound of that word. Or the absence of sound behind it. Three other tenants in a ninety-story building. Three other tenants in a place that had once held three thousand. Why, fifty years ago, when this place went up, you couldn't buy a vacancy. Where had the crowds gone to?

He knew the answer, of course. The Leff shots had created the new generation of Yardsticks, and they lived in their own world. Their shrunken, dehydrated world of doll-houses and miniatures. They'd deserted the old-fas.h.i.+oned skysc.r.a.pers and cut the big apartment buildings up into tiny cubicles; two could occupy the s.p.a.ce formerly reserved for one.

That had been the purpose of the Leff shots in the first place--to put an end to overcrowding and conserve on resources. Well, it had worked out. Worked out too perfectly for people like Eric Donovan. Eric Donovan, rental agent for a building n.o.body wanted any more; a ninety-storey mausoleum. And n.o.body could collect rent from ghosts.

_Ghosts._

Eric d.a.m.ned near jumped through the ceiling when the door opened and this man walked in. He was tall and towheaded. Eric stared; there was something vaguely familiar about his face. Something about those ears, that was it, those ears. No, it couldn't be, it wasn't possible--

Eric stood up and held out his hand. ”I'm Donovan,” he said.

The towheaded man smiled and nodded. ”Yes, I know. Don't you remember me?”

”I thought I knew you from someplace. You wouldn't be--Sam Wolzek?”

The towheaded man's smile became a broad grin. ”That's not what you were going to say, Eric. You were going to say 'Handle-head,' weren't you? Well, go on, say it. I don't mind. I've been called a lot worse things since we were kids together.”

”I can't believe it,” Eric murmured. ”It's really you! Old Handle-head Wolzek! And after all these years, turning up to rent an office from me. Well, what do you know!”

”I didn't come here to rent an office.”

”Oh? Then--”

”It was your name that brought me. I recognized it on the beamings.”

”Then this is a social call, eh? Well, that's good. I don't get much company these days. Sit down, have a reef.”

Wolzek sat down but refused the smoke. ”I know quite a bit about your setup,” he said. ”You and your three tenants. It's tough, Eric.”

”Oh, things could be worse.” Eric forced a laugh. ”It isn't as if my bucks depended on the number of tenants in the building. Government subsidizes this place. I'm sure of a job as long as I live.”

”As long as you live.” Wolzek stared at him in a way he didn't like.

”And just how long do you figure that to be?”