Part 20 (1/2)
He went out again, through the French windows, to sit in a lawn chair on the patio over-looking the sea.
The ocean, never quite silent, was now almost invisible in the gathering darkness. The smell of it brought back to him no memories that were peculiar to this place. He had looked at and smelled the sea in too many other, different places for that. The one great ocean that went on and on.
Through low clouds there came suddenly the half-familiar, half-surprising sound of a slow Navy plane from the air station not far away. One of the search and rescue craft, and it sounded like it was heading out. Would they commence a search at night? That seemed unlikely, but there were always new devices, new techniques. Anyway, they wouldn't be using a plane to look for her, she hadn't gone out in a boat.
And if they hadn't started to look for her last night, when she walked out, they wouldn't be starting now.
He paused, trying to clear his thoughts. How could they have started any search last night? He still, up to this minute, hadn't told anyone how she had gone. Not yet...
Ifyou can't stand your own life, he had said to her,then I suggest you put an end to it. I have an interesting life of my own that's going to take all my time. The room seemed still to echo with the words.
The waves were getting a little louder now, rolling invisibilities up the invisible beach.
He went into the house and turned up the volume of the television slightly; he could not really remember having turned it on. The voices from the talk show came with him as he went outside again, onto the seaward patio. The hyper-fine and superhyperfine splittings could now be measured accurately, but that was only the start. Police forces all over the country were using the technique on unidentified bodies every day, with great success. n.o.body worried anymore that the technique might offer any danger to the fabric of the world. The implications were really vast. The ligand fields expanded without limit. The voices continued to follow as he opened the gate in the low wall and walked down a slope of sand to meet the still invisible burden of the waves.
WHERE THY TREASURE IS.
It was a small private hospital, so Benedict Cunningham and his doctor had a small private elevator to themselves.
Call me at any time if you think any problems are developing,” said the doctor. He was youngish and intense, and was earring Cunningham's valise himself. ”Any sort of problems.”
Cunningham smiled. He had just turned fifty, and looked quite healthy and vigorous. A sun lamp, installed in his hospital room at his in-sistence, had maintained his golf tan during his stay. His new wig was so well made that only the very few who knew him well were likely to spot it. He said: ”We went into all the possibilities pretty thoroughly ahead of time, as you'll recall. And everything has gone well. I don't antic.i.p.ate problems.”
”Nor do I. But, since you're the first-”
”Of course.”
”Don't look so grim, doctor. You're going to do quite well out of this.” Cunningham's smile was faintly amused; if the man hadn't needed money desperately, he wouldn't have done this....
A faraway look came into Cunningham's eyes. ”Wait,” he said softly. ”I'm making contact with what must be another company. Oh. Giant...I think...it's got to be AT&T. Whole networks of metal...networks of finance...I can't describe it, any more than I could the others. But it's there, yes, it's definitely there.
The whole structure ...you know, there's one detail in all this it's just occurred to me to wonder about.”
At that point the elevator door opened onto the ground floor lobby. Cunningham grabbed his valise from the doctor's hand and stepped out briskly, determined to impress the small group of waiting reporters with his smiling health.
”I'm fine,” he a.s.sured them. ”Just elective surgery to have a wen removed. Then I stayed over for my annual checkup and a little rest.”
The doctor, in turn, issued a short somewhat vague statement that revealed nothing about the unheard-of thing that he had really done. Then he walked with Cunningham to where Cunningham's chauffeur stood holding open the door of a waiting limousine.
Motioning the doctor to follow, Cunningham got into the car and greeted his wife with a hurried kiss.
s.h.i.+rley was a quiet, attractive woman with a dread of the press intense enough to have kept her waiting in the car today. She looked worried; as the doctor shook her hand hastily he wondered how much her husband had really told her.
One reporter was still watching, and Cunning-ham touched the intercom and told the chauffeur to drive away.
”What's the detail that's just occurred to you?” the doctor asked, as soon as the auto was in motion.
Cunningham raised his fingers to touch the deceptive fabric of his wig, where it covered the healed incision behind his right ear. New hair growth had made a start, and in a month or so the wig could probably be discarded. ”Huss tells me the transmitting device is concealed exactly where we wanted it at the Exchange; it should put me in contact with every corporation traded on the Big Board. But in fact the only ones I've been able to feel are those in which I own some stock.”
The doctor relaxed slightly. ”And about which you are naturally more concerned. There'll be all kinds of psychological interaction with the device.”
”About which you may someday be able to publish.”
”But nothing else bothers you.”
”There's a...” Cunnningham hesitated for just a moment. ”There's a certain feeling, hard to describe. Like being spread out, diffused, that's the best way I can find to put it.”
”You didn't mention that before.” The doctor's voice was sharp and resigned at the same time.
”It's nothing, I just notice it a little more today. If it should be permanent, I can get used to it. s.h.i.+rley, you should see that chimp in the lab. The device in his skull is just like mine, and it connects him electronically with a machine that delivers food. And he knows infallibly just when and where that next banana is going to fall, and he's there to grab it every time. Believe me, I've got my eye on some ripe bananas already.”
The last signature had just been inked into the doc.u.ment that transferred twenty thousand hectares of Idaho timberland to Benedict Cunningham, and the transaction electronically recorded for the central data banks as the law required, when he pushed his chair back from the table and uttered a low exclamation.
”All right, Ben?” asked the man who had just sold him the timber.
”Yes, fine.” Cunningham straightened his business collar. As far as he knew, he was all right; it was just that a new sensation had surprised him.
As soon as the timber-dealer had departed, Cun-ningham phoned the president of the newly formed Macrotron Engineering Company.
”Huss, I'd like you to come over to my office right away.”
”Oh?” Carl Huss's voice was guarded. ”Some-thing important?”
”I'm calling you, am I not? Get over here.” He switched off without waiting for a reply.
Cunningham knew that his order would be obeyed. He had in effect given Macrotron to Huss in payment for the two cybernetic devices and the secret installation of one of them at the Exchange; but, as Huss well knew, Cunningham still held the financial fate of Macrotron in his own masterly hands.
”Have you added anything to the device at the Exchange?” Cunningham demanded, as soon as he was alone with the engineer.
Huss was an electronic genius and a rapid talker, even more nervous and younger than the doctor. ”Of course not. Nothing needs to be added. And if I did want to try out some improvement, I'd certainly tell you about it first.”
”I should hope so.” Cunningham frowned. ”I don't suppose anyone or anything else could be causing interference?”
”The chance of that is so small-” Huss made a gesture of dismissal. ”The technicians at the Ex-change don't open up the Board once in six months now, the equipment has become so reliable. And when they do open it, they'll notice nothing to make them suspicious. I did a good job.”
”All right, then. I just wanted to make sure nothing had changed.”
”What's gone wrong?”
”Probably nothing.” Cunningham shook his head. ”It's just that I've begun feeling things, identifying with things, that aren't on the Board. Things that have nothing to do with the Stock Ex-change.”
Huss, unconsciously scowling, thought it over. ”That's not electronically possible.”
”It happens. I bought some timberland today, and the instant I owned it, it was as if a part of myself went there. That's the only way I can describe it. I can tell that there's copper under the soil there, a great deal of copper.”
”I don't understand.” Huss for once spoke slowly. ”How can you know a thing like that?”
”I was hoping that you could tell me.” Cunningham shrugged. ”It's the same substance that I see in copper wires, but mixed with rock and dirt and buried. I just feel it there. How do you know that your toenails are hard and nerveless?”