Inside Man and Other Science Fiction Stories Part 3

Manson snapped: "If I could tell you that, I'd be an engineer."

Dowd drummed his fist on the desk. "Ah, what's the use? Sometimes I wish this wasn't a co-op. If I was a real boss, I'd just give the orders and they'd d.a.m.n well do what they were told, engineer or no engineer!"Pickett glanced up at him thoughtfully, and then returned to what he was doing paring his cuticles with a little knife. He said: "You can't, Dowd. I'd quit. I don't blame the men; I wouldn't work on anything as ticklish as that hunk of rock without an engineer. That's the way it is. On routine operations maybe we could along but this isn't routine."

"Oh, the h.e.l.l with it," Dowd said in disgust. "Here, let me tell you something. You know why we can't keep an engineer? We don't need one. Our boys have done everything that can be done with our equipment so often that they can do it in their sleep yes, even like dragging a hunk of Ceres back to where it belongs! It's only the same things they've been doing, on a slightly larger scale. They only want an engineer to yes them because they don't have confidence. That's why we've lost seventeen engineers, one after another they want work, not just a soft berth."

"So I don't know." Dowd spread his hands, baffled. "I don't blame the engineers.

When a man gets a degree, he wants to use it. Not just look at radar soundings-which are read for him and approve charge formulas which are all worked out for him and read loading schedules and shoring diagrams and h.e.l.l, the entire job! That's why we can't keep them. And that's why we don't need them, even now."

Pickett didn't look up. "No engineer, no job," he said softly, and the rest of the room murmured agreement.

Dowd sat down heavily and stared at the ceiling. It was an impa.s.se.

Brodsky cleared his throat. "You know," he said, "my sister Molly has a boy, David.

He wanted to be a violinist, but she made him go to mining college."

Manson lifted his head questioningly. "He's probably got some nice job in a nice place," he grumbled. "You don't think he'd quit some other place just to"

"Oh, he doesn't have a job yet," said Brodsky. He counted on his fingers, nodding.

"Yes, he's just getting out of school now. I remember because my niece Leah got married when he was in his soph.o.m.ore year and"

"All right! All right! What are you getting at, Brodsky? You think you can get the kid before somebody else signs him up?"

Brodsky looked surprised. "Yes."

Manson looked interested. "What do you think, Dowd?"

Dowd banged the table. "Brodsky," he roared, "why didn't you say something about this before? Get to it, man! If he's a relative, maybe there's a chance he'll stick anyway, even if he only stays long enough to get the d.a.m.ned asteroid stuck together again, that's something! Look" He figured rapidly "we'll get one of the oreboats to haul you to where you can pick up a liner. Pickett, you get on the radio and find out who's in port. Manson, you get the freight section ready to take Brodsky in. Move!""Right!" Manson smiled. "Then we've got a chance. With a mining engineer, we can do the job!"

"Yeah." Suddenly Dowd sat back again. "But only the job," he said wearily. "Then we're on our own. Relative or not, he'll never stay."

"Oh, he'll stay," Brodsky promised. "I guarantee he'll stay."

As usual in unusual situations, the membership of the Ceres Mining Cooperative was in the community square when Brodsky brought his nephew, David Bookbinder, down from the landing area.

David was a tall boy, not entirely filled out yet, with light hair that had four great waves in it a feature that the miners' wives and daughters approved and a long, sensitive face. He wore strong contact lenses a feature that the minors approved; it was evidence of studiousness.

Brodsky proudly introduced him first to the managing committee and then to the foremen of the various crews, who took him around to meet the members and their families. David held a violin case in his left hand and shook with his right, smiling gently and looking a little overwhelmed. He had to show his handsome diploma over and over to the awed and respectful miners.

Dowd, Brodsky, Pickett and Manson stood near the bandstand and watched the lad answer questions, moving shyly from one group to another.

"They like him," said Down.

Brodsky nodded, pleased. "He was worried about that. I told him once in a while, say a couple of times a month, he could give a violin concert here. That would keep him happy. And who knows, people might enjoy it."

"They'll enjoy anything he does," Dowd said enthusiastically. "Speaking of keeping him happy, we ought to work that out in detail!"

Brodsky waved his hand. "Later, later. First we put Ceres back together. Then we worry about that."

"Oh, that's no problem now," Dowd a.s.sured him. "We're all set. The wedge is being towed back the crews began that the minute we got your s.p.a.cegram, saying you and David were on the way. Now he's got the data from the other sections to go over but that won't take long."

"No, that's true," Brodsky agreed. "He'll be glad to look it over!"

"And then what?" asked Manson. "Do we lose him like the others? I'll tell you what.

I'm for voting him fifteen shares, Dowd. Why not? We could build him a big rock house down in some nice section of town put in a bar, a ballroom, whatever he wants. And we can get him a little electrocar maybe even a chauffeur, if he wants""Sure!' added Pickett. "Listen, why not get a little private rocket? It could be his let him go to Mars once in a while. You know? Maybe the rest of us could use it when he didn't mind but it would be his all the same. And we can put through that leave plan right away what the devil, why not give the guy a couple months a year on Earth or Mars? With pay, naturally. And the town looks a little drab we could spray-paint it. And a mist machine up at the ceiling to give us a blue sky and white drifting clouds"

"You're crazy!" cried Dowd, outraged. "He's just an engineer, you idiots! No engineer is worth it!" Manson scowled blackly. "You say that?" he demanded.

"After we've messed ourselves up trying to get along without one?"

Brodsky was polishing his gla.s.ses. "Gentlemen," he begged, looking distressed.

"Please, we don't have to go to all that trouble. He's just a boy. The place is fine maybe we could dress it up a little, like you say. But for us, not for David. David will stay, I a.s.sure you, and he'll be happy with the usual ten shares and our old engineer's quarters."

Wonderingly, Pickett said: "You've got more influence with your relatives than me with mine."

"Sure," said Brodsky. "Say, Dowd, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Dowd shrugged. The others nodded and walked off toward the group around the colony's new engineer.

Dowd said suspiciously: "Well?"

Brodsky cleared his throat "The fact is," he said, "David wanted to be a violinist, as I told you. But he went to mining college to please his mother"

"As you told me. I know. What about it?"

"Well," Brodsky said hesitantly, "there was just a little trouble about his grades." He took a petty cash voucher out of his pocket. "I have here"

"Wait a minute! What are you trying to tell me, Brodsky? He's an engineer, isn't he? I saw his diploma with my own eyes!"

"Oh, yes," Brodsky a.s.sured him. "Of course you did. Everybody did a beautiful diploma, right? Nice sheepskin. Nice lettering. That's what this bill I have here is five dollars for parchment, forty dollars hand lettering. I also," he added, "invested quite a lot for rosin and violin strings and things like that; but I want to pay for those myself. Call it a present for my nephew."

"A graduation present?" Dowd asked, more than a bit baffled.

"Well" Brodsky was a little embarra.s.sed. "not exactly. You see, there was the thing with his grades. So I promised him that here things would be all right hecould practice his fiddle as much as he wanted; all we'd want from him is that once in a while he had to look over whatever the foremen brought him and say yes. Easy?

He thought so. But it's worth it to us."

Dowd swallowed hard. "You mean-" he started, and had to pause to swallow again.

'You mean he isn't really-"

Brodsky shrugged. "A technicality. He's been to school? He's got a degree? What more does he need?"

"But-but suppose the data's wrong! Suppose the foremen make a mistake and"

Brodsky was shaking his head. "Never!" he said positively. "Besides, David isn't entirely ignorant. He may not be an engineer to other engineers, but to a miner, believe me, he's an engineer."

THE RICHES OF EMBARRa.s.sMENT.

The Costellos, two great little people well under five feet tall, had moved out of the one-bedroom apartment to the left of mine, and my neighbors and I wondered apprehensively who would move in. I know it's true that you can live in a Manhattan apartment house all your life and never know your neighbors, but the tenth floor of our building was lively proof that this needn't be so, and we wanted it to continue.

d.i.c.k and Charlotte Fort (two bedrooms, to right of my apartment) were airily positive that we would a.s.similate whoever it might be. The Masons (three bedrooms, across the hall) could use another cheery sitter for their manic kids, for the Costellos had always been happy to oblige. Betty Snowden (one bedroom, left of the Masons) hoped the new tenant(s?) would like Maxwell, her big, butbig , cat. Being closest to the vacant apartment, I wished for somebody quiet who wouldn't mind my typing late and might welcome an occasional visit, as everybody on the tenth floor did.

After the painters were finished, two men put down green wall-to-wall carpeting.

Furniture was brought in. On the door under the peephole appeared an inscrutable nameplate: J. McGivney. Bachelor? Divorcee? Couple? The name gave us no clue.

It happened to be my lot to find out. And the way I found out was this: I had just come up with the mail and was about to close the door when I noticed that the d.a.m.nable top screw of my lock had worked its way loose again. So I was standing with the door half open and turning the screw with my thumbnail and the elevator came up to the tenth floor. A perfectly ordinary-seeming woman in her forties emerged and headed toward me, key in hand.

"h.e.l.lo," I said brightly, introducing myself. "And you are Mrs. McGivney?"

"Miss," she said flatly, looking at what I was doing.

It did look pretty silly, and I found myself babbling, "The top screw keeps coming out, and I keep having to screw it back in. Doesn't yours?""I don't know what you mean," she said and unlocked her door and went in, followed by the sound of double-locking and chaining it.

When I reported this to the Forts, they laughed me out of my embarra.s.sment and said they would thaw her out. They put a couple of bottles of wine and some gla.s.ses on a tray and invited me to come along long to see. Out in the hall, they rang Miss McGivney's bell. The peephole opened, and an eye stared at us.

"We're the Welcome Wagon!" cried Charlotte Fort gaily.

"I didn't order any," said Miss McGivney, closing the peephole.

The Forts stood there for a long moment before soberly going back to their apartment, and I went into mine. We didn't think of drinking the wine ourselves.

So far, this doesn't sound like the start of a remarkable scientific discovery, but it was, requiring only time and more data. It was Charlotte's destiny to add the next item.

"I never go out to the incinerator," she chattered later. "That's d.i.c.k's job. But we had the people from the office over, and he went to bed feeling sick, and I couldn't face all the empty bottles that had acc.u.mulated." She shuddered. "'So there I was in the middle of the night, clutching liquor bottles, and guess who came out."

"Miss McGivney?" I supplied.

She nodded. "I was pretty high myself, but not after she watched me struggle to put the empties down the incinerator. I crept into bed, positively ill with embarra.s.sment, and tried to wake d.i.c.k, but no soap."

"That's ridiculous," said d.i.c.k heartily. "What's more natural than dumping a few bottles down the incinerator at two in the morning?"

"Fifteen," said Charlotte. "And, it was four-thirty."

d.i.c.k, the Masons and I laughed her out of it, of course. Only I knew how she felt; the others hadn't met Miss McGivney yet.

Sometime that summer, the Masons boys came home from camp for the weekend on their way to a dude ranch. Let Mrs. Mason tell it: "Mike had brought back a snake from camp. It was a pretty little one; but he couldn't keep it obviously, and I told him to take it to the ranch and let it go. A few hours after they left, the police and firemen charged out of the elevators and made for Miss McGivney's apartment, clubs and axes at the ready. When they came out, I asked what had happened. A snake, they told me, wound up in her bathtub!"

"And for that she called the police and fire department?" asked d.i.c.k Fort, stunned.

"Not only that," said Mrs. Mason, "she scrubbed every inch of the place on herhands and knees."

"But why?" asked Mr. Mason.

"To kill any eggs it may have laid. I know it's biological nonsense, but the poor woman was hysterical."

The Masons were visited by executives from the management office, who made it clear that Mrs. Mason should not have confessed so readily, and, the item made the local newspaper. We laughed them out of their embarra.s.sment, but we noticed that it was getting harder and harder to do and also that we never seemed to meet Miss McGivney except under embarra.s.sing conditions. Only d.i.c.k Fort and Betty Snowden disagreed. They said we were getting a bit paranoid.

You might say it was Betty's turn next, though not in person. Her sixteen-year-old niece from Ohio was visiting her, sleeping on the sofa because Betty, if you remember, had only one bedroom and the girl got up early and, in her shortie nightgown, went out into the hall to get the Sunday Times that Betty had delivered to her, when the door blew shut behind the girl. She rang the bell and banged on the door, but Betty had the bedroom door closed and Flents in her ears, a longtime practice. So her niece philosophically sat down on the welcome mat and started looking at the ads. That was when Miss McGivney came out on her way to early Ma.s.s.

The girl smiled up at her as she waited for the elevator and tried to explain what had happened to her.

"I don't recall asking," said Miss McGivney, and took the elevator.

"d.a.m.n it," I said when Betty finished, "is it us or what? These are the kind of things that happen once in years to anybody, yet she walks right into them every time!"

"It's your own fault," said d.i.c.k. "If you'd used a screwdriver instead of your thumbnail, or you, Charlotte, could have waited for me to get rid of the bottles the next day, or your niece, Betty, might have turned the lock before going after the paper."

"But why does Miss McGivney always come along at just the wrong moment?"

argued Mrs. Mason.

"Pure happenstance" said d.i.c.k. "And not thinking ahead."

"That's because you haven't had her walk in on you like we have," said Charlotte, too annoyed to watch her English.

"And she never will," d.i.c.k said. "I think before I act."

If life were dramatically logical, he should have been the next victim, but he wasn't. I was. The Forts had invited me to dinner, but let me finish my day's work instead ofjoining their company for c.o.c.ktails. Finished, I phoned to beg off, being so tired that I needed a nap. As always, Charlotte was gracious about it, and I lay down with a good conscience.

It was dark when I awoke, past the Forts' dinnertime. I took a shower, dressed and went toward the kitchen to open some, cans and eat standing up. But a slip of paper on the floor near, the front door seemed to have Charlotte's handwriting on it. I picked it up and read: "Look outside before you ha-ha make dinner for yourself.

Then come on in and join us."

I opened the door. Out in the hall, directly in front of my door, was a collection of plates containing uncooked spaghetti, Charlotte's famous meat b.a.l.l.s and meat sauce, salad and dressing, Italian bread, and shrimp c.o.c.ktail and dessert. Just as I bent over to take them in, Miss McGivney's door opened. I straightened and said h.e.l.lo, determined not to offer any explanation.

Looking at the things on the floor, she said, "Some sort of ritual?"

My nerve broke, and I was blathering away when the elevator saved me from further embarra.s.sment. After morosely eating, I went next door, downed two highb.a.l.l.s, and told d.i.c.k and Charlotte what had transpired.

d.i.c.k shouted, "Listen to this, people!" and uproariously repeated my story. It took me a long time to forgive him. A matter of fact, it wasn't until he met Miss McGivney face to face for the first time; he left for work before she did and came home earlier.

so they just hadn't crossed paths.

This fateful morning, d.i.c.k had overslept. He threw on his clothes, yelling to Charlotte that he didn't have time for breakfast, and was waiting for the elevator when he noticed that his zipper was open. He gave it a yank and snagged his boxer shorts.

Need I tell you who appeared at that very instant?

Much stuff has flowed under the thing since then, including Miss McGivney and the Maloons and me moving away, and Betty's cat died, so she took a sabbatical without feeling guilty, and though I still correspond with the Forts, we've stopped debating Miss McGivney and our awful moments. It's all very clear, at least to me.