Planet in Peril (15 page)

Sara said: “Up. Charles, up now.”

“To the sun?”

“Or higher.”

As he decompressed to the full, the sphere shot up, and cliffs and ravines dwindled again and were lost in the all-extending, all-embracing white of the plain. Soon it was bereft of all individual features. It was a carpet of dazzling snow that stretched in every direction to the downward curving horizon. It was difficult to believe in the real existence of the world beneath the cloud belt.

Charles adjusted the controls for height stabilization. The altimeter needle bobbed gently just above the 3,000 figure. He did not know what horizontal orientation they might have; the
airspheres
were equipped with
position fixing
equipment based on the triangulation of Telecom’s beacon transmitters, but there was no hurry to find out how far they might have drifted from Philadelphia. However far it
might be, it was always possible to find a return current at some altitude. It was enough at present to relax in a warm sea of golden light, under an azure sky.

Sara slipped her tunic-coat off. Beneath it she was wearing a short one-piece dress; it was a shade of blue that went well with her dark coloring. She pushed her chair back to horizontal, and lay back. She looked up at Charles, shading her eyes against the sunlight.

“Aren’t you hot?”

He slipped his own coat off, and tossed it to the back of the
airsphere
; it lay beside Sara’s discarded garment. There was a significance about that, which he was not sure if he wanted to think about. He was wearing the sleeveless shirt and shorts he normally wore when off duty in conditioned atmospheres. The sun was very pleasantly warm on his arms and legs.

He looked down at Sara. Her eyes half closed, she was looking at him quizzically. She showed to her best advantage: the bronze of her skin against the deep crimson of the
airfoam
, and the faintly blued white of the far-away background.

He said: “I think I might relax, too.”

She smiled, but made no reply. He pushed his own chair back, and turned to face her. The smile still lingered.

“I wondered…
”

Her lips barely parted. “Yes?”

“A scientific question.”

“If
I can help you…”

“The well-known
Siraqi
inhibitions—I wondered if they functioned with the same precision at all altitudes.” The smile deepened. ‘1 should think, a very interesting question. What would be the scientific approach to it?”

“Experimental.”

He moved toward her. Her willingness was certain even before she opened her arms to him.

Dinkuhl
had explained that he was only stopping off at Philadelphia in the course of a trip to New York. He had had the idea of making the detour simply in order to have a meal with Charles, on the way. On his expense account, he further explained. He was at Oak Ridge, which was the Atomics men-only club, so Charles had to make his excuses and leave Sara.

Dinkuhl
had tall glasses of hot rum and ginger waiting when Charles arrived.

He said: “Drink it up, Charlie boy. How’s life. You look like a cat that’s been living on alcoholic cream.” Charles eased himself into a chair, and took the glass from the adjoining table. “Very fair. No complaints. How about you? No trouble from Ledbetter?”

It had been Charles’ idea that
Dinkuhl
should be given an Atomics bodyguard in view of his having been concerned with Charles both in imprisonment and escape. Atomics had been willing, but
Dinkuhl
had laughed at the idea. In his view, Telecom would be anxious to keep the defeat of their plans as private as possible. Taking it out on him would merely be an exercise in vindictiveness; it would give them no material advantage and might well provoke the reverse, should Charles urge Atomics into retaliatory action.

“Trouble?”
Dinkuhl
laughed. “You know, the first morning back,
Gillray
called me up. Asked me if I'd been taking a holiday. If that character were any smoother, his face would slide off the screen.”

They had lunch. While they talked, Charles was aware that there was something worrying
Dinkuhl
; he talked and joked but the talk and the jokes were perfunctory. He made no attempt to find out what it was;
Dinkuhl
was not the kind of person who encouraged solicitous probing into his troubles. But
Dinkuhl
brought things out into the open himself, over coffee.

“
I’ve
got a problem, Charlie boy,” he said.

Charles nodded. “Unusual. So unusual that 111 offer my help. If I can help.”

“I’d appreciate your advice. It’s not personal. That is, it’s not my worry actually. It’s Burt’s.”

“
Awkright’s
?”

“Yes. You know your new outfit used him to get in touch with us—with Sara. They spun him a yam about the wonders of Atomics Contact Section that enabled them to know he was one of my little gang of rebels— by God, if the PRO’s don’t get the fattest salary in the Contact Sections they ought to, the line of guff they hand out. He was happy enough thinking it was just Atomics that were exceptionally clever—still is. I wasn’t as happy as he was. I started looking around. I found that Atomics were not the only people in the know-very far from it. I had known that Telecom knew, of course—they had to know to pick you up through me. But it was more than two, even—Mining, Steel Genetics Division—”

“Genetics?”

“Yes. Burt’s own managerial. The boys took some precautions, but not that many. We thought we weren’t interesting. We weren’t, but I guess it kept the Contact brigades in practice. We are all neatly docketed and ticketed.”

“For action?”

“For information. The boys are all useful workers, and they find that useful workers mostly have aberrations nowadays; they put up with them providing there’s nothing dangerous there.”

Charles said absently: “Then I don’t see what’s worrying you.”

“Burt,”
Dinkuhl
said, “is a more complex person than you might guess. I’ve known him for some time, and I know what he would do if he found out his seditious associations with me and the boys were known to the Genetics brass. He’d transfer—anywhere so long as it was outside Genetics and away from Detroit. He can’t stand to be pitied or laughed at.”

“Most folk don’t enjoy it.”

“They get by; Burt wouldn’t
you
get it, though? Do I tell him the truth or not? He’s not likely to find out unless I do tell him. If I tell him, he’ll leave and he’ll be unhappy. If I don’t tell him
...
where I want your advice is there: a guy’s living in a fool’s paradise—which is best, to leave him lie or to give him the jolt?”

Charles’ thoughts were partly on Sara, partly on the problem of the miniaturization of a thermoelectric conversion system. He gave
Dinkuhl’s
question lukewarm attention, until he realized it was a question of principle on which advice was being sought. He brought his mind to focus.

“I should tell him. People are always entitled to be told the truth. No one has the right to decide in advance that it’s bad for someone else to know the truth about his own affairs. Whatever it is, and whatever he may do as a result.”

Dinkuhl
pursed his lips. “I guess you’re right. Maybe I was t
hinkin
g of myself; I’ll be sorry as hell if Burt does light out for somewhere else.”

“Tell you what,” Charles said. “Affiliate KF to Atomics and bring the works over to Philly. Raven would fork out, if only to make Telecom sore.”

Dinkuhl
smiled.
“I’ll
think of that.
I’ll
let you know— I'll be dropping in on you again soon.”

Things ran smoothly meanwhile. Raven himself dropped in at the laboratory now and then; he showed a good deal of friendliness and an intelligent interest. Charles found him standing beside him one day while he was completing the polishing of a stone. He heard Raven’s voice above the nervous grinding whine of the
scaife
.

"Mr.
Grayner
, are you finding it pleasant working here?”

"Very pleasant, sir.”

Raven looked about with an air of deprecation. “Not magnificent. Not at all magnificent. You would have fared better with Telecom; from the material point of view, at least. Still, we must try to do what we can for you. Any complaints, for instance? Are there any complaints, Mr.
Grayner
?”

Charles hesitated very briefly; the hesitation was involuntary, and he spoke quickly to cover it up.

"No complaints, sir. I have everything I want.”

"You and Miss
Koupal
are getting on all right together?”

He said, with no hesitation this time: "Very well.”

“That’s good. I hope you won’t hesitate to come to me if there should be anything. Don’t hesitate to waste my time. It is yours that is more valuable.”

Raven went, with his jaunty old man’s step, and Charles had to master an impulse to go after him, or to call him back. He mastered it as he had covered up the earlier hesitation, and for the same reason. It was not that he doubted Raven’s willingness, nor even his ability, to help him. It was that it was impossible to frame any of his doubts or his worries without criticizing, if only by implication, Sara.

Outside the laboratory, their life together proceeded very harmoniously. They did most things and went to most places together. Charles did not let his doubts carry over to spoil this part of their association. All of love was a new experience for him, and he was determined it should not be spoiled in any way.

They spent a lot of time
airsphering
—mostly together, but occasionally each in a single bubble. Then there would be the delight of chasing each other over the invisible hills and valleys of the air. Along the rivers of the wind they would chase each other, and they were rivers capable of turning, without warning, into precipitous waterfalls that plunged the spheres hundreds of feet, either up or down, in an instant. Close on her heels, Charles might suddenly find himself looking down on her far below, or gazing up, blinded by sun, to where her sphere drifted high and remote.

The Alleghenies provided them with a pleasure ground. There they could ride the updrafts, close against the rocky mountain sides, and glide dangerously alongside the knife edged spurs that could so easily rip the
plaspex
skin, spilling the sphere’s occupant down great cliffs of fall to distant midget valleys.

And, of course, there was the delight of bringing the spheres in to some sun-splashed ledge of rock, on the world’s roof, of tethering them to the mountain face with impact suckers, of eating and drinking in that warm silent isolation, of sitting and talking or simply sunbathing. Of making love.

Charles had sent Sara to check personally some supplies that had been queried by Conway when
Dinkuhl
paid his next visit.

He said: "Hi, Charlie.”

Charles said: "Burt asked for transfer?”

Dinkuhl
nodded. “He left last night. That advice you gave me. Tell the truth and let the chips fly what way they will. You still think it’s good?”

“The best. But I’m sorry you’ve lost Burt. Where’s he gone to?”

“Lignin. Somewhere north of Finland. Lignin should be pleased all right. They’re shorter of good men than most
managerials
. And they’re all short, with the notable and glorious exception of Atomics. Sara?”

“Checking supplies. She’ll be back soon.”

Dinkuhl
leaned back against one of the benches; he had a restless look and his voice had taken on the slightly affected drawl that indicated some inner excitement.

“That the set-up now?” he asked. “You do the work and she checks supplies in? I thought her middle name was Einstein.”

Charles said angrily: “What the hell do you mean by that, Hiram?”

“Brother,”
Dinkuhl
said softly, “you’re worried. You’re plenty worried. Tell Uncle Hiram.”

Charles
stared at him. “For God’s sake!
Have you gone crazy? Who’s worried?”

“What is it, Charlie?”
Dinkuhl
asked. “She isn’t as bright any longer? She doesn’t grasp things that should be simple going? You wonder even if maybe she had a knock on the head during that fortnight you were apart?” Charles restrained his voice to quietness. “I don’t know what’s got into you. Burt transferring, maybe. Anyway, I want you to keep it for somewhere else, Hiram.” He turned away. “You’ll be welcome in a different mood.” “I’ll carry the invitation in my heart. Here the lady is now. Hi, Sara. Been copying any good sketches lately?”

Charles had no idea what
Dinkuhl
was talking about, but the tone was unmistakably offensive. He expected Sara to flare up or to treat him with icy contempt. She did neither. She said
placatingly
:

“Glad you managed to get along, Hiram.”

Dinkuhl
watched her for a moment. Then he smiled. “What we all need,” he remarked, “is a drink. You both have a drink?”

Charles hesitated. Sara said: “Be glad to.”

Dinkuhl
brought a flask out of his back pocket. It had two small
plastobeakers
attached. He filled them, and looked about him inquiringly.