Fara contemplated that darkly for a minute, as the polisher throbbed on. His voice shook with suppressed fury, when he said finally, "So they"re letting them get away with it. Its all been as clever as h.e.l.l. Can"t they see that they mustn"t give an inch before these . . . these transgressors. It"s like giving countenance to sin."
From the corner of his eye, he noticed that there was a curious grin on the face of the other. It struck Fara suddenly that the man was enjoying his anger. And there was something else in that grin; something -a secret knowledge.
Fara pulled the engine plate away from the polisher. He faced the ne"er-do-well, scathed at him,
"Naturally, that sin part wouldn"t worry you much."
"Oh," said the man nonchalantly, "the hard knocks of life make people tolerant. For instance, after you know the girl better, you yourself will probably come to realize that there"s good in all of us."
It was not so much the words, as the curious I"ve-got-secret-information tone that made Fara snap: "What do you mean-if I get to know the girl better! I won"t even speak to the brazen creature."
"One can"t always choose," the other said with enormous casualness. "Suppose he brings her home."
"Suppose who brings who home?" Fara spoke irritably. "Castler, you-"
He stopped; a dead weight of dismay plumped into his stomach; his whole being sagged. "You mean-"
he said.
"I mean," replied Castler with a triumphant leer, "that the boys aren"t letting a beauty like her be lonesome. And, naturally, your son was the first to speak to her."
He finished: "They"re walkin" together now on Second Avenue, comin" this way, so-"
"Get out of here!" Fara roared. "And stay away from me with your gloating. Get out!"
The man hadn"t expected such an ignominious ending. He flushed scarlet, then went out, slamming the door.
Fara stood for a moment, every muscle stiff; then, with an abrupt, jerky movement, he shut off his power, and went out into the street.
The time to put a stop to that kind of thing was-now!
* * * He had no clear plan, just that violent determination to put an immediate end to an impossible situation. And it was all mixed up with his anger against Cayle. How could he have had such a worthless son, he who paid his debts and worked hard, and tried to be decent and to live up to the highest standards of the empress?
A brief, dark thought came to Fara that maybe there was some bad blood on Creel"s side. Not from her mother, of course-Fara added the mental thought hastily. There was a fine, hard-working woman, who hung on to her money, and who would leave Creel a tidy sum one of these days.
But Creel"s father had disappeared when Creel was only a child, and there had been some vague scandal about his having taken up with a telestat actress.
And now Cayle with this weapon-shop girl. A girl who had let herself be picked up- He saw them, as he turned the corner onto Second Avenue. They were walking a hundred feet distant,
and heading away from Fara. The girl was tall and slender, almost as big as Cayle, and, as Fara came up, she was saying, "You have the wrong idea about us. A person like you can"t get a job in our organization. You belong in the Imperial Service, where they can use young men of good education, good appearance and no scruples. I-"
Fara grasped only dimly that Cayle must have been trying to get a job with these people. It was not clear; and his own mind was too intent on his purpose for it to mean anything at the moment. He said harshly, "Cayle!"
The couple turned, Cayle with the measured unhurriedness of a young man who has gone a long way on
the road to steellike nerves; the girl was quicker, but withal dignified.
Fara had a vague, terrified feeling that his anger was too great, self-destroying, but the very violence of his emotions ended that thought even as it came. He said thickly, "Cayle, get home-at once."
Fara was aware of the girl looking at him curiously from strange, gray-green eyes. No shame, he thought, and his rage mounted several degrees, driving away the alarm that came at the sight of the flush that crept into Cayle"s cheeks.
The flush faded into a pale, tight-lipped anger, Cayle half-turned to the girl, said, "This is the childish old fool I"ve got to put up with. Fortunately, we seldom see each other; we don"t even eat together. What do you think of him?"
The girl smiled impersonally. "Oh, we know Fara Clark; he"s the backbone of the empress in Glay."
"Yes," the boy sneered. "You ought to hear him. He thinks we"re living in heaven; and the empress is the
divine power. The worst part of it is that there"s no chance of his ever getting that stuffy look wiped off his face."
They walked off; and Fara stood there. The very extent of what had happened had drained anger from
him as if it had never been. There was the realization that he had made a mistake so great that- He couldn"t grasp it. For long, long now, since Cayle had refused to work in his shop, he had felt this
building up to a climax. Suddenly, his own uncontrollable ferocity stood revealed as a partial product of that-deeper-problem.
Only, now that the smash was here, he didn"t want to face it- All through the day in his shop, he kept pushing it out of his mind, kept thinking, would this go on now,
as before, Cayle and he living in the same house, not even looking at each other when they met, going to bed at different times, getting up, Fara at 6:30, Cayle at noon? Would that go on through all the days and years to come?
When he arrived home, Creel was waiting for him. She said, "Fara, he wants you to loan him five
hundred credits, so that he can go to Imperial City."
Fara nodded wordlessly. He brought the money back to the house the next morning, and gave it to Creel, who took it into the bedroom.
She came out a minute later. "He says to tell you goodbye."
When Fara came home that evening, Cayle was gone. He wondered whether he ought to feel relieved or -what?
The days pa.s.sed. Fara worked. He had nothing else to do, and the gray thought was often in his mind
that now he would be doing it till the day he died. Except- Fool that he was-he told himself a thousand times how big a fool-he kept hoping that Cayle would walk into the shop and say, "Father, I"ve learned my lesson. If you can ever forgive me, teach me the business, and then you retire to a well-earned rest."
It was exactly a month to a day after Cayle"s departure that the telestat clicked on just after Fara had finished lunch. "Money call," it sighed, "money call."
Fara and Creel looked at each other. "Eh," said Fara finally, "money call for us."
He could see from the gray look in Creel"s face the thought that was in her mind. He said under his breath: "d.a.m.n that boy!"
But he felt relieved. Amazingly relieved! Cayle was beginning to appreciate the value of parents and- He switched on the viewer. "Come and collect," he said.
The face that came on the screen was heavy-jowled, beetle-browed-and strange. The man said, "This is
Clerk Pearton of the Fifth Bank of Ferd. We have received a sight draft on you for ten thousand credits.
With carrying charges and government tax, the sum required will be twelve thousand one hundred credits. Will you pay it now or will you come in this afternoon and pay it?"
"B-but . . . b-but-" said Fara. "W-who-"
He stopped, conscious of the stupidity of the question, dimly conscious of the heavy-faced man saying
something about the money having been paid out to one Cayle Clark that morning in Imperial City. At last, Fara found his voice: "But the bank had no right," he expostulated, "to pay out the money without my authority. I-"
The voice cut him off coldly: "Are we then to inform our central that the money was obtained under
false pretenses? Naturally, an order will be issued immediately for the arrest of your son."
"Wait . . . wait-" Fara spoke blindly. He was aware of Creel beside him, shaking her head at him. She
was as white as a sheet, and her voice was a sick, stricken thing, as she said, "Fara, let him go. He"s through with us. We must be as hard-let him go."
The words rang senselessly in Fara"s ears. They didn"t fit into any normal pattern. He was saying: "I . . . I haven"t got- How about my paying . . . Installments? I-"
"If you wish a loan," said Clerk Pearton, "naturally we will be happy to go into the matter. I might say
that when the draft arrived, we checked up on your status, and we are prepared to loan you eleven thousand credits on indefinite call with your shop as security. I have the form here, and if you are agreeable, we will switch this call through the registered circuit, and you can sign at once."
"Fara, no."
The clerk went on: "The other eleven hundred credits will have to be paid in cash. Is that agreeable?"
"Yes, yes, of course, I"ve got twenty-five hund-" He stopped his chattering tongue with a gulp; then: