Part 25 (1/2)

”We don't need spirits to lift our spirits,” Walsh said, ”or we'd d.a.m.n well better not, anyhow.” He didn't mind people drinking beer with lunch-he'd drink beer with lunch himself-but frowned on anything more than that. He led by example, too. Since he worked himself like a slave driven, the people who worked for him could hardly complain when he expected a lot from them. He tilted back his cup to drain it, then said, ”What's on the plate for today?”

”I'm still trying to work the bugs out of that skelkw.a.n.k skelkw.a.n.k-light reader,” Devereaux answered. ”If I can do it, we'll have a faster, cheaper gadget than the one the Lizards have been using since time out of mind. If I can't...” He shrugged. ”You don't win every time you bet.”

”That's true, however much you wish you did,” Walsh said. ”What about you, David?”

”I've got a couple of notions to improve the phone-number reader,” Goldfarb said, ”but they're just notions, if you know what I mean. If I get a chance, I'll do some drawings and play with the hardware, but odds are I'll spend a lot of my time giving Jack a hand. I think he's pretty close to getting where he wants to go.”

”As opposed to getting where you want me to go,” Devereaux said with a grin.

”The climate's better there in winter than it is here, but probably not in summer,” Goldfarb said.

”That would be funny, if only it were funny,” Walsh said. ”It's not by accident we call our football team the Eskimos.”

Goldfarb didn't call what the Canadians played football at all. It was, to him, one of the most peculiar games imaginable. Of course, the Canadians didn't call the game he was used to football, either. To them, it was soccer, and they looked down their noses at it. He didn't care. More of the world agreed with him than with them.

Walsh fixed himself a second cup of tea, then said, ”Let's get going.”

There were times when David was reminded he was a jumped-up technician, not a properly trained engineer. This morning gave every sign of being one of those times. He got only so far looking at drawings of the phone-number reader he'd devised. Then, muttering, he went back to the hardware and started fiddling with it. Cut-and-try often took him further fasten than study. He knew that could also be true for real engineers, but it seemed more emphatically so for him.

He wasn't altogether sorry when Jack Devereaux looked up and said, ”David, what about that hand you promised?” Goldfarb applauded him. Devereaux groaned. ”I suppose I asked for that. Doesn't mean I had to get it, though.”

”Of course it does,” Goldfarb said, but he made a point of hurrying over to see what he could do for-rather than to-the other engineer.

The motors that turned the Lizards' silvery skelkw.a.n.k skelkw.a.n.k-light disks-a technology mankind had copied widely-all operated at the same speed. As far as anyone human knew, they'd been operating at that same speed for as long as the Race had been using them. It worked. It was fast enough. Why change? That was the Lizards' att.i.tude in a nutsh.e.l.l, or an eggsh.e.l.l.

People, now, people weren't so patient. If you could make the disks turn faster, you could get the information off them faster, too. Seeing that was obvious. Getting a motor anywhere near as compact and reliable as the ones the Lizards used was a different question, though. Expectations for quality had gone up since the Race came to Earth. People didn't come so close to insisting on perfection as the Lizards did, but breakdowns they would have taken for granted a generation earlier were unacceptable nowadays.

”It runs fine,” Devereaux said, ”but it's too G.o.dd.a.m.n noisy.” He glared at the motor, which was indeed buzzing like an angry hive.

”Hmm.” Goldfarb eyed the motor, too. ”Maybe you could just leave it the way it is and soundproof the case.” He knew that was a technician's solution, not an engineer's, but he threw it out to see what Devereaux would make of it.

And Devereaux beamed. ”Out of the mouths of babes,” he said reverently. ”Let's do it. Let's see if we can do it, anyhow.”

”What measurements will we need for the case?” David asked, and answered his own question by measuring the motor. ”Let me cut some sheet metal. We ought to have some sort of insulation around here, too. That'll give us an idea of whether this'll be practical.”

He'd got used to flanging up this, that, or the other thing in the RAF. Cutting sheet metal to size was as routine as sharpening a pencil. But when he was carrying the metal back to the motor, his hand slipped. He let out a yelp.

”What did you do?” Devereaux asked.

”Tried to cut my b.l.o.o.d.y finger off,” Goldfarb said. It was indeed b.l.o.o.d.y; he added, ”I'm bleeding on the carpet,” and grabbed for his handkerchief.

Hal Walsh hurried over. ”Let's have a look at that, David,” he said in commanding tones. Goldfarb didn't want to take off the handkerchief. The blood soaking through told its own story, though. Walsh clicked his tongue between his teeth. ”You're going to need st.i.tches with that. There's a new doctor's office that's opened up in the building next door, and a good thing right now. Come along with me.”

David didn't argue. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so clumsy. He didn't want to look at his hand. Whenever he did, he felt woozy and wobbly. Blood was supposed to stay on the inside, not go leaking out all over the place.

JANE ARCHIBALD M.D., read the sign on the door. ”A lady doctor?” Goldfarb said.

”I hear she studied under the Lizards,” Walsh answered. ”She ought to be able to patch you up, wouldn't you say?”

”What happened here?” the receptionist asked when Walsh brought David into the office. Then she said, ”Never mind. Come into the examining room with me, sir. The doctor will be with you right away.”

”Thanks,” David said vaguely. Hardly noticing he'd done so, he sat down on the chair there. He was cursing softly to himself in Yiddish when the doctor hurried into the room. He stopped in embarra.s.sment all the worse because he hadn't expected the female physician to be so decorative. More slowly than he should have, he realized this tall, blond, obviously Anglo-Saxon woman was unlikely to have understood his pungent remarks.

But her laughter said she did, which embarra.s.sed him all the more. A moment later, she was all business. ”Let's have a look at it,” she said, her accent lower-cla.s.s British or perhaps Australian. David undid the makes.h.i.+ft bandage. Dr. Archibald examined the wound and nodded briskly. ”Yes, that'll take a few st.i.tches. Hold the edges together while I give you a bit of novocaine so you won't feel the other needle so much.”

”All right,” he said, and did. As she injected him, he asked, ”Do you really know Yiddish? How did that happen?”

”Just bits and pieces, Mister-?”Dr. Archibald said, threading catgut on whatever they used for sutures these days onto a needle.

”Goldfarb.” David looked away. He didn't care to see what would happen next. ”David Goldfarb.”

She stared at him, blue eyes going wide. ”Not the David Goldfarb who's related to Moishe and Reuven Russie?” She was so astonished, she almost-but not quite-forgot to start st.i.tching him up.

And he was so astonished, he almost-but not quite-forgot to notice it stung despite the novocaine. ”My cousins,” he answered automatically. ”How do you know them?”

”I was at the Russie Medical College with Reuven,” she answered. ”Hold still there, please. I want to put in a couple of more st.i.tches.” That was spoken in physician's tones. Then she went back to talking as if to a person: ”I might have married Reuven, but he wanted to stay in Palestine and I couldn't stomach living under the Race any more, not after what they did to Australia.” Her tone changed again: ”There. That's done. Let me bandage you.”

As she wrapped the finger with gauze and adhesive tape, Goldfarb said, ”I didn't meet you when I was in Jerusalem. I would have remembered.” That was probably more than he should have said. He realized it too late. Well, Naomi didn't need to know about it.

Dr. Archibald didn't get angry. She'd probably heard such things from the age of fourteen up. ”It's very good to meet you now,” she said. ”I heard about your troubles in France, and getting out of England. That you'd wound up here in Edmonton had slipped my mind. You'll need to come back in about ten days to have the sutures removed. See Myrtle out front for an appointment.” She stuck her head out the door and called to the receptionist: ”No charge for this one, Myrtle. Old family friend.”

As David went back to the Widget Works, Hal Walsh turned to him and said, ”I saw the doctor. Old family friend? You lucky dog.” David smiled, doing his best to look like the ladykiller he didn't come close to being.

Felless hadn't had a holiday in much too long. She hadn't done much work after fleeing Ma.r.s.eille for the new town in the Arabian Peninsula, but life as a refugee was vastly different from life as a vacationer. Here in Australia, too, the Race had claimed the land for its own, even more emphatically than it had in Arabia. And, unlike in Arabia, here no fanatical Big Uglies willing, even eager, to die for their superst.i.tions prowled the landscape and had to be warded against.

The landscape in the central part of the continent reminded Felless eerily of Home. The rocks and sand and soil were all but identical. The plants were similar in type though different in detail. Many of the crawling creatures reminded members of the Race of those of Home, though a rather distressing number of them were venomous.

Only the furry animals that dominated land life on Tosev 3 really told Felless she remained on an alien world. Even those were different from the large beasts on the rest of the planet; Australia, by all indications, had long been ecologically isolated. The bipedal hopping animals filling the large-herbivore ecological niche hereabouts were so preposterous, Felless' mouth fell open in astonished laughter the first time she turned an eye turret toward one. But the creatures were very well adapted to their environment.

She saw less of that environment than she might have otherwise. Business Administrator Keffesh had been even more generous than she'd hoped after she arranged the release of the imprisoned Big Ugly, Monique Dutourd. She'd brought a lot of ginger to Australia, and she was enjoying it.

That required care. Felless would spend one day in an orgy of tasting, the next in her hostel room waiting for her pheromones to subside so she could go out in public without exciting all the males who smelled them into a mating frenzy. Getting meals sent to the room rather than eating in the refectory cost extra. Felless authorized the change without the slightest hesitation.

All the individuals who brought meals to her were females. Once she noticed the pattern, she found that very interesting. Were the males and females who ran the hostels quietly adapting to the unavoidable presence of ginger on Tosev 3? She couldn't have proved it. She didn't dare ask about it. But the a.s.sumption certainly looked reasonable.

On the days when she was out and about, she noticed that ginger did indeed make its presence known in these new towns. She couldn't smell the pheromones she emitted in her season; they were for males. But she saw a couple of matings on the sidewalks, and she saw more than a few males hurrying along in unusually erect posture and with the scales of their crests upraised. That meant they smelled female pheromones and were looking for a chance to mate.

How foolish they look, she thought. Back on Home, she wouldn't have seen males interested in mating unless she was in her season herself. Then she would have found them attractive, not absurd. As things were, she viewed them with a cool detachment unlike anything she'd known on Home. she thought. Back on Home, she wouldn't have seen males interested in mating unless she was in her season herself. Then she would have found them attractive, not absurd. As things were, she viewed them with a cool detachment unlike anything she'd known on Home.

I wonder if this is the att.i.tude Tosevite females have toward their males. That struck her as an interesting notion. It might repay further research when she got back to France. That struck her as an interesting notion. It might repay further research when she got back to France. I might even ask this Monique Dutourd, I might even ask this Monique Dutourd, she thought. she thought. She owes me favors, and I know she was involved in at least one s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p. She owes me favors, and I know she was involved in at least one s.e.xual relations.h.i.+p.

The idea didn't occur to her on a day when she'd been tasting ginger, but on one when she hadn't, and when she was feeling the gloomy aftereffects of overindulgence in the herb. She wondered what that meant. Ginger was supposed to make a female clever. Maybe it only made a female think she was clever.

Such reflections disappeared when she got a telephone call from Amba.s.sador Veffani. Without preamble, he said, ”Senior Researcher, I strongly recommend that you return to France at once.”

”Why, superior sir?” Felless asked, doing her best to disguise dismay.