Candace fished out and passed me a hyper-boloid long-hearer, but I didn’t need it. I remembered what the voices would be saying. There would be Connick denouncing me. Timmy Brown denouncing me. The kids denouncing me, all of them. Colonel Peyroles, denouncing me; Commander Whitling, denouncing me; even Knafti - denouncing me. All that hate and only one target.
Me.
‘Of course, Junior’ll fire you. He’ll have to, Gunner.’
I said, ‘I need a vacation anyway.’ It wouldn’t matter. Sooner or later, when the pressure was off, Junior would find a way to hire me back. Once the lawsuits had been settled. Once the Armistice Commission could finish its work. Once I could be put on the payroll inconspicuously, at an inconspicuous job in an inconspicuous outpost of the firm. With an inconspicuous future.
We slid over the top of a spiralling ramp and down into the parking bays of the scatport. ‘So long, honey,’ I said, ‘and Merry Christmas to you both.’
‘Oh, Gunner! I wish—’
But I knew what she really wished and I wouldn’t let her finish. I said, ‘He’s a nice fellow, Whitling. And you know? I’m not.’
I didn’t kiss her goodbye.
The scatjet was ready for boarding. I fed my ticket into the check-in slot, got the green light as the turnstile clicked open, entered the plane and took a seat on the far side, by the window.
You can win any cause if you care to pay the price. All it takes is one human sacrifice.
By the time the scatjet began to roar, to quiver and to turn on its axis away from the terminal I had faced the fact that that price once and for all was paid. I saw Candace standing there on the roof of the loading dock, her skirts whipped by the back-blast. She didn’t wave to me, but she didn’t go away as long as I could see her standing on the platform.
Then, of course, she would go back to her job and ultimately on Christmas morning to that nice guy at the Hospital. Haber would stay in charge of his no-longer-important branch office. Connick would win his campaign. Knafti would transact his incomprehensible business with Earth; and if any of them ever thought of me again it would be with loathing, anger, and contempt. But that is the way to win an election. You have to pay the price. It was just the breaks of the game that the price of this one was me.
<>
~ * ~
The Ghost-Maker
Mr Guinn was an amiable man but an alert one. Nevertheless, I had no difficulty in getting from him what I wanted. I had never thought of myself as a shrewd businessman, able to trick and extort; but obviously the foul treatment the Museum had given me had sharpened my wits, made me able to gain a victory where I chose. My credentials from the Museum - still, as far as he knew, perfectly valid - were most helpful, and I suppose that what finally decided him was my promise of the Museum’s mailing list in exchange for his. Naturally, I had no objection to making him that promise. I would have promised him Walter, the ninety-foot stuffed whale, and all fourteen meteorites out of the entrance hall if he had asked for them. It cost me nothing, after all.
At any rate, I had the subscription list to Beyond.
Magazines like Beyond do not have the enormous lists of the smooth-paper giants of the publishing world; the list Guinn gave me was quite small enough to be workable. And when I made the obvious deletions - striking out all the saints’ names, all the addresses like Christchurch, Trinity Place and so on; all the names like Gottesman, Dorothy and their blessed etymological equivalents - I was down to a mere page. I packed my toothbrush, the holy water and such other items as I absolutely needed, and set out.
~ * ~
The first three or four names on the list were blanks. I waited an afternoon on the lower East Side and the better part of a day in Bensonhurst without turning up anyone over the age of fourteen.
Me.
‘Of course, Junior’ll fire you. He’ll have to, Gunner.’
I said, ‘I need a vacation anyway.’ It wouldn’t matter. Sooner or later, when the pressure was off, Junior would find a way to hire me back. Once the lawsuits had been settled. Once the Armistice Commission could finish its work. Once I could be put on the payroll inconspicuously, at an inconspicuous job in an inconspicuous outpost of the firm. With an inconspicuous future.
We slid over the top of a spiralling ramp and down into the parking bays of the scatport. ‘So long, honey,’ I said, ‘and Merry Christmas to you both.’
‘Oh, Gunner! I wish—’
But I knew what she really wished and I wouldn’t let her finish. I said, ‘He’s a nice fellow, Whitling. And you know? I’m not.’
I didn’t kiss her goodbye.
The scatjet was ready for boarding. I fed my ticket into the check-in slot, got the green light as the turnstile clicked open, entered the plane and took a seat on the far side, by the window.
You can win any cause if you care to pay the price. All it takes is one human sacrifice.
By the time the scatjet began to roar, to quiver and to turn on its axis away from the terminal I had faced the fact that that price once and for all was paid. I saw Candace standing there on the roof of the loading dock, her skirts whipped by the back-blast. She didn’t wave to me, but she didn’t go away as long as I could see her standing on the platform.
Then, of course, she would go back to her job and ultimately on Christmas morning to that nice guy at the Hospital. Haber would stay in charge of his no-longer-important branch office. Connick would win his campaign. Knafti would transact his incomprehensible business with Earth; and if any of them ever thought of me again it would be with loathing, anger, and contempt. But that is the way to win an election. You have to pay the price. It was just the breaks of the game that the price of this one was me.
<
~ * ~
The Ghost-Maker
Mr Guinn was an amiable man but an alert one. Nevertheless, I had no difficulty in getting from him what I wanted. I had never thought of myself as a shrewd businessman, able to trick and extort; but obviously the foul treatment the Museum had given me had sharpened my wits, made me able to gain a victory where I chose. My credentials from the Museum - still, as far as he knew, perfectly valid - were most helpful, and I suppose that what finally decided him was my promise of the Museum’s mailing list in exchange for his. Naturally, I had no objection to making him that promise. I would have promised him Walter, the ninety-foot stuffed whale, and all fourteen meteorites out of the entrance hall if he had asked for them. It cost me nothing, after all.
At any rate, I had the subscription list to Beyond.
Magazines like Beyond do not have the enormous lists of the smooth-paper giants of the publishing world; the list Guinn gave me was quite small enough to be workable. And when I made the obvious deletions - striking out all the saints’ names, all the addresses like Christchurch, Trinity Place and so on; all the names like Gottesman, Dorothy and their blessed etymological equivalents - I was down to a mere page. I packed my toothbrush, the holy water and such other items as I absolutely needed, and set out.
~ * ~
The first three or four names on the list were blanks. I waited an afternoon on the lower East Side and the better part of a day in Bensonhurst without turning up anyone over the age of fourteen.
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