"You"re from the Midwest, aren"t you?"
"Yeah."
"Get bad storms out there?"
"Sometimes."
"Try to think of the worst one you were ever in. Got a slide rule handy?"
"Right here."
"Then put a one under it, imagine a zero or two follow- ing after, and multiply the thing out."
"I can"t imagine the zeros."
"Then retain the multiplicand-that"s all you can do."
"So what are you doing up there?"
"I"ve strapped myself in the chair. I"m watching things roll around the floor right now."
I looked up and out again. I saw one darker shadow in the forest.
117 "Are you praying or swearing?"
"d.a.m.ned if I know. But if this were the Slider-if only this were the Slider!"
"He"s out there?"
I nodded, forgetting that he couldn"t see me.
Big, as I remembered him. He"d only broken surface for a few moments, to look around. There is no power on Earth that can be compared with him who was made to fear no one. I dropped my cigarette. It was the same as before. Paralysis and an unborn scream.
"You all right, Carl?"
He had looked at me again. Or seemed to. Perhaps that mindless brute had been waiting half a millennium to ruin the life of a member of the most highly developed species in business. . . .
"You okay?"
... Or perhaps it had been ruined already, long be- 156.
fore their encounter, and theirs was just a meeting of beasts, the stronger b.u.mping the weaker aside, body to psyche. . . .
"Carl, dammit! Say something!"
He broke again, this time nearer. Did you ever see the trunk of a tornado? It seems like something alive, moving around in all that dark. Nothing has a right to be so big, so strong, and moving. It"s a sickening sensation.
"Please answer me."
He was gone and did not come back that day. I finally made a couple of wisecracks at Mike, but I held my next cigarette in my right hand.
The next seventy or eighty thousand waves broke by with a monotonous similarity. The five days that held them were also without distinction. The morning of the thirteenth day out, though, our luck began to rise. The bells broke our coffee-drenched lethargy into small pieces, and we dashed from the galley without hearing what might have been Mike"s finest punchline.
"Aft!" cried someone. "Five hundred meters!"
I stripped to my trunks and started buckling. My stuff is always within grabbing distance.
I flipflopped across the deck, girding myself with a de- flated squiggler.
"Five hundred meters, twenty fathoms!" boomed the speakers.
118 The big traps banged upward and the Slider grew to its full height, m"lady at the console. It rattled past me and took root ahead. Its one arm rose and lengthened.
I breasted the Slider as the speakers called, "Four- eighty, twenty!"
"Status Red!"
A belch like an emerging champagne cork and the line arced high over the waters.
157.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes, thanks. Shouldn"t I be?"
"That was a long swim. I-I guess I overshot my cast."
"I"m happy," I said. "More triple-time for me. I really clean up on that hazardous duty clause."
"I"ll be more careful next time," she apologized. "I guess I was too eager. Sorry-" Something happened to the sentence, so she ended it there,- leaving me with half a bagful of replies I"d been saving.
I lifted the cigarette from behind Mike"s ear and got a light from the one in the ashtray.
"Carl, she was being nice," he said, after turning to study the panels.
"I know," I told him. "I wasn"t."
"I mean, she"s an awfully pretty kid, pleasant. Head- strong and all that. But what"s she done to you?"
"Lately?" I asked.
He looked at me, then dropped his eyes to his cup.
"I know it"s none of my bus-" he began.
"Cream and sugar?"
Ikky didn"t return that day, or that night. We picked up some Dixieland out of Lifeline and let the muskrat ram- ble while Jean had her supper sent to the Slider. Later she had a bunk a.s.sembled inside. I piped in "Deep Water Blues" when it came over the air and waited for her to call up and cuss us out. She didn"t, though, so I decided she was sleeping.
Then I got Mike interested in a game of chess that went on until daylight. It limited conversation to several "checks," one "checkmate," and a "d.a.m.n!" Since he"s a poor loser it also effectively sabotaged subsequent talk, which was fine with me. I had a steak and fried potatoes for breakfast and went to bed.
Ten hours later someone shook me awake and I 119 160.
propped myself on one elbow, refusing to open my eyes.
"Wha.s.samadder?"
"I"m sorry to get you up," said one of the younger crew- men, "but Miss Luharich wants you to disconnect the squiggler so we can move on."
I knuckled open one eye, still deciding whether I should be amused.
"Have it hauled to the side. Anyone can disconnect it."
"It"s at the side now, sir. But she said it"s in your con- tract and we"d better do things right."
"That"s very considerate of her. I"m sure my Local ap- preciates her remembering."
"Uh, she also said to tell you to change your trunks and comb your hair, and shave, too. Mister Andersen"s going to film it."
"Okay. Run along; tell her I"m on my way-and ask if she has some toenail polish I can borrow."
I"ll save on details. It took three minutes in all, and I played it properly, even pardoning myself when I slipped and b.u.mped into Anderson"s white tropicals with the wet squiggler. He smiled, brushed it off; she smiled, even though Luharich Complectacolor couldn"t completely mask the dark circles under her eyes; and I smiled, wav- ing to all our fans out there in videoland. -Remember, Mrs. Universe, you, too, can look like a monster-catcher.
Just use Luharich face cream.
I went below and made myself a tuna sandwich, with mayonnaise.
Two days like icebergs- bleak, blank, half-melting, all frigid, mainly out of sight, and definitely a threat to peace of mind-drifted by and were good to put behind.
I experienced some old guilt feelings and had a few is- "Going shopping?" asked Mike, who had put the call through for me.
161.
"Going home," I answered.
"Huh?"
"I"m out of the baiting business after this one, Mike.
The Devil with Ikky! The Devil with Venus and Luha- rich Enterprises! And the Devil with youl"
Up eyebrows.
120 "What brought that on?"
"I waited over a year for this job. Now that I"m here, I"ve decided the whole thing stinks."
"You knew what "it was when you signed on. No matter what else you"re doing, you"re selling face cream when you work for face cream sellers."
"Oh, that"s not what"s biting me. I admit the commer- cial angle irritates me, but Tensquare has always been a publicity spot, ever since the Erst time it sailed."
"What, then?"
"Five or six things, all added up. The main one being that I don"t care any more. Once it meant more to me than anything else to hook that critter, and now it doesn"t.
I went broke on what started out as a lark and I wanted blood for what it cost me. Now I realize that maybe I had it coming. I"m beginning to feel sorry for Ikky."
"And you don"t want him now?"
"I"ll take him if he comes peacefully, but I don"t feel like sticking out my neck to make him crawl into the Hopkins."
"I"m inclined to think it"s one of the four or five other things you said you added."
"Such as?"
He scrutinized the ceiling.
I growled.
"Okay, but I won"t say it, not just to make you happy you guessed right."
He, smirking: "That look she wears isn"t just for Ikky."
"No good, no good." I shook my head. "We"re both fis- sion chambers by nature. You can"t have jets on both ends 162.
of the rocket and expect to go anywhere-what"s in the middle just gets smashed."
"That"s how it was. None of my business, of course-"
"Say that again and you"ll say it without teeth."
"Any day, big man"-he looked up-"any place . . ."
"So go ahead. Get it said!"
"She doesn"t care about that b.l.o.o.d.y reptile, she came here to drag you back where you belong. You"re not the baitman this trip."
"Five years is too long."
121 "There must be something under that cruddy hide of yours that people like," he muttered, "or I wouldn"t be talking like this. Maybe you remind us humans of some really ugly dog we felt sorry for when we were kids. Any- how, someone wants to take you home and raise you- also, something about beggars not getting menus."
"Buddy," I chuckled, "do you know what I"m going to do when I hit Lifeline?"
"I can guess."
"You"re wrong. I"m torching it to Mars, and then I"ll cruise back home, first cla.s.s. Venus bankruptcy provisions do not apply to Martian trust funds, and I"ve still got a wad tucked away where moth and corruption enter not.
I"m going to pick up a big old mansion on the Gulf and if you"re ever looking for a job you can stop around and open bottles for me."