"Yes. That"s about the last straw, chief. Shall I wait and try to a.n.a.lyse this failure, or shall I try to see Waldo?"
"Try to see Waldo."
"OK. If you don"t hear from me, just send my severance pay care of Palmdale Inn, Miami. I"ll be the fourth beachcomber from the right."
Gleason permitted himself an unhappy smile. "If you don"t get results, I"ll bc the fifth. Good luck."
"So long."
When Stevens had gone, Chief Stationary Engineer Striebel spoke up for the first time. "If the power to the cities fails," he said softly, "you know where I"ll be, don"t you?"
"Where? Beachcomber number six?"
"Not likely. I"ll be number one in my spot, first man to be lynched."
"But the power to the cities can"t fail. You"ve got too many cross- connects and safety devices."
"Neither can the deKalbs fail, supposedly. Just the same, think about Sublevel 7 in Pittsburgh, with the lights out. Or, rather, don"t think about it!"
Doc Grimes let himself into the aboveground access which led into his home, glanced at the announcer, and noted with mild, warm interest that someone close enough to him to possess his house combination was inside. He moved ponderously downstairs, favouring his game leg, and entered the lounging room.
"Hi, Doc!" James Stevens got up when the door snapped open and came forward to greet him.
"H"lo, James. Pour yourself a drink. I see you have. Pour me one."
"Right."
While his friend complied, Grimes shucked himself out of the outlandish anachronistic greatcoat he was wearing and threw it more or less in the direction of the robing alcove. It hit the floor heavily, much more heavily than its appearance justified, despite its unwieldy bulk. It clunked.
Stooping, he peeled off thick overtrousers as ma.s.sive as the coat.
He was dressed underneath in conventional business tights in blue and sable. It was not a style that suited him. To an eye unsophisticated in matters of civilized dress, let us say the mythical Man-from-Antares - he might have seemed uncouth, even unsightly. He looked a good bit like an elderly fat beetle.
James Stevens"s eye made no note of the tights, but he looked with disapproval on the garments which had just been discarded.
"Still wearing that fool armour," he commented.
"Certainly."
"d.a.m.n it, Doc - you"ll make yourself sick, carrying that junk around.
It"s unhealthy."
"Danged sight sicker if I don"t."
"Rats! 1 don"t get sick, and I don"t wear armour - outside the lab."
"You should." Grimes walked over to where Stevens had reseated himself. "Cross your knees." Stevens complied; Grimes struck him smartly below the kneecap with the edge of his palm. The reflex jerk was barely perceptible. "Lousy," he remarked, then peeled back his friend"s right eyelid.
"You"re in poor shape," he added after a moment. Stevens drew away impatiently. "i"m all right. It"s you we"re talking about."
"What about me?"
"Well- d.a.m.nation, Doc, you"re throwing away your reputation.
They talk about you."
Grimes nodded. "I know. "Poor old Gus Grimes - a slight touch of cerebral termites." Don"t worry about my reputation; I"ve always been out of step. What"s your fatigue index?"
"I don"t know. It"s all right."
"It is, eh? I"ll wrestle you, two falls out of three." Stevens rubbed his eyes. "Don"t needle me, Doc. I"m rundown. I know that, but it isn"t anything but overwork."
"Humph! James, you are a fair-to-middlin" radiation physicist - "Engineer."
"-engineer. But you"re no medical man. You can"t expect to pour every sort of radiant energy through the human system year after year and not pay for it. It wasn"t designed to stand it."
"But I wear armour in the lab. You know that."
"Surely. And how about outside the lab?"
"But- Look, Doc - I hate to say it, but your whole thesis is ridiculous. Sure there is radiant energy in the air these days, but nothing harmful. All the colloidal chemists agree-"
"Colloidal, fiddlesticks!"
"But you"ve got to admit that biological economy is a matter of colloidal chemistry."
"I"ve got to admit nothing. I"m not contending that colloids are not the fabric of living tissue- They are. But I"ve maintained for forty years that it was dangerous to expose living tissue to a.s.sorted radiation without being sure of the effect. From an evolutionary standpoint the human animal is habituated to and adapted to only the natural radiation of the sun, and he can"t stand that any too well, even under a thick blanket of ionization. Without that blanket- Did you ever see a solar-X type cancer?"
"Of course not."
"No, you"re too young. I have. a.s.sisted at the autopsy of one, when
I was an intern. Chap was on the Second Venus Expedition. Four hundred and thirty-eight cancers we counted in him, then gave up."
"Solar-X is whipped."
"Sure it is. But it ought to be a warning. You bright young squirts can cook up things in your labs that we medicos can"t begin to cope with. We"re behind - bound to be. We usually don"t know what"s happened until the damage is done. This time you"ve torn it."
He sat down heavily and suddenly looked as tired and whipped as did his younger friend.
Stevens felt the sort of tongue-tied embarra.s.sment a man may feel when a dearly beloved friend falls in love with an utterly worthless person. He wondered what he could say that would not seem rude.
He changed the subject. "Doc, I came over because I had a couple of things on my mind-"
"Such as?"
"Well, a vacation for one. I know I"m run-down. I"ve been overworked, and a vacation seems in order. The other is your pal, Waldo."