Short Stories by Robert A. Heinlein Vol 2 Part 66

'I know to what you refer.'

'Rambeau's got a second set to do the same thing!' Waldo remained silent for several seconds, then said quietly, 'Dr Stevens-'

'Yes.'

'I want to thank you for your efforts. And will you please have both sets of receptors, the two sets that are misbehaving, sent to Freehold at once?'

There was no doubt about it. Once he had seen them with his own eyes, watched the inexplicable squirming of the antennae, applied such tests as suggested themselves to his mind, Waldo was forced to conclude that he was faced with new phenomena, phenomena for which he did not know the rules.

If there were rules.

For he was honest with himself. If he saw what he thought he saw, then rules were being broken by the new phenomena, rules which he had considered valid, rules to which he had never previously encountered exceptions. He admitted to himself that the original failures of the deKalbs should have been considered just as overwhelmingly upsetting to physical law as the unique behaviour of these two; the difference lay in that one alien phenomenon was spectacular, the other was not.

Quite evidently Dr Rambeau had found it so; he had been informed that the doctor had been increasingly neurotic from the first instance of erratic performance of the deKalb receptors.

He regretted the loss of Dr Rambeau. Waldo was more impressed by

Rambeau crazy than he had ever been by Rambeau sane. Apparently the man had had some modic.u.m of ability after all; he had found out something - more, Waldo admitted, than he himself had been able to find out so far, even though it had driven Rambeau insane.

Waldo had no fear that Rambeau's experience, whatever it had been, could unhinge his own reason. His own self-confidence was, perhaps, fully justified. His own mild paranoid tendency was just sufficient to give him defences against an unfriendly world. For him it was healthy, a necessary adjustment to an otherwise intolerable situation, no more pathological than a callous, or an acquired immunity.

Otherwise he was probably more able to face disturbing facts with equanimity than ninety-nine per cent of his contemporaries. He had been born to disaster; he had met it and had overcome it, time and again. The very house which surrounded him was testimony to the calm and fearless fas.h.i.+on in which he had defeated a world to which he was not adapted.

He exhausted, temporarily, the obvious lines of direct research concerning the strangely twisting metal rods. Rambeau was not available for questioning. Very well, there remained one other man who knew more about it than Waldo did. He would seek him out.

He called Stevens again.

'Has there been any word of Dr Rambeau?'

'No word, and no sign. I'm beginning to think the poor old fellow is dead.'

'Perhaps. That witch doctor friend of your a.s.sistant - was Schneider his name?'

'Gramps Schneider.'

'Yes indeed. Will you please arrange for him to speak with me?'

'By phone, or do you want to see him in person?'

'I would prefer for him to come here, but I understand that he is old and feeble; it may not be feasible for him to leave the ground.

If he is knotted up with s.p.a.cesickness, he will be no use to me.'

'I'll see what can be done.'

'Very good. Please expedite the matter. And, Dr Stevens-'

'Well?'

'If it should prove necessary to use the phone, arrange to have a portable full stereo taken to his home. I want the circ.u.mstances to be as favourable as possible.'

'OK.'.

'Imagine that,' Stevens added to McLeod when the circuit had been broken. 'The Great-I-Am's showing consideration for somebody else's convenience.

'The fat boy must be sick,' McLeod decided.

'Seems likely. This ch.o.r.e is more yours than mine, Mac. Come along with me; we'll take a run over into Pennsylvania.'

'How about the plant?'

'Tell Carruthers he's "It". If anything blows, we couldn't help it anyway.'

Stevens mugged back later in the day. 'Mr Jones-'

'Yes, Doctor?'

'What you suggest can't be arranged.'

'You mean that Schneider can't come to Freehold?'

'I mean that and I mean that you can't talk with him on the viewphone.'

'I presume that you mean he is dead.'

'No, I do not. I mean that he will not talk over the view-phone under any circ.u.mstances whatsoever, to you or to anyone. He says that he is sorry not to accommodate you, but that he is opposed to everything of that nature - cameras, einecams, television, and so forth. He considers them dangerous. I am afraid he is set in his superst.i.tion.'

'As an amba.s.sador, Dr Stevens, you leave much to be desired.'

Stevens counted up to ten, then said, 'I a.s.sure you that I have done everything in my power to comply with your wishes. If you are dissatisfied with the quality of my cooperation, I suggest that you speak to Mr Gleason.' He cleared the circuit.

'How would you like to kick him in the teeth?' McLeod said dreamily.

'Mac, you're a mind reader.'

Waldo tried again through his own agents, received the same answer.

The situation was, to him, almost intolerable; it had been years since he had encountered a man whom he could not buy, bully, nor - in extremity - persuade. Buying had failed; he had realized instinctively that Schneider would be unlikely to be motivated by greed. And how can one bully, or wheedle, a man who cannot be seen to be talked with?

It was a dead end - no way out. Forget it.

Except, of course, for a means best cla.s.sed as a Fate-Worse-Than-Death.

No. No, not that. Don't think about it. Better to drop the whole matter, admit that it had him licked, and tell Gleason so. It had been seventeen years since he had been at Earth surface; nothing could induce him to subject his body to the intolerable demands of that terrible field. Nothing!

It might even kill him. He might choke to death, suffocate. No.

He sailed gracefully across his shop, an overpadded Cupid. Give up this freedom, even for a time, for that tortuous bondage? Ridiculous! It was not worth it.