The Man Who Lost the Sea by Theodore Sturgeon Page A

big, everybody knows them. When they’re hiring and firing the big ones, they tend to be almost as quiet as assistant clerks, Mr. Deeming … You know Antares Trading? And the Lunar and Outer Orbit Lines? And Galactic Mines?”
    “You mean this Rockhard is—”
    “In part, Mr. Deeming. In part.”
    Jimmy the Flick would have bugged his eyes and made a low whistle. Deeming put his fingertips together and whispered, “Oh, my goodness.”
    “Well?” said the man, after waiting for something more and not getting it. “Will you come and see him?”
    “You mean, Mr. Rockhard? You mean—me? You mean—now?”
    “I mean all those things.”
    “Why does he … what—well, why me?” asked Deeming, with becoming modesty.
    “He needs your help.”
    “Oh, my goodness. I don’t know what I could possibly do to help a man like … well, can you tell me what it’s about?”
    “No,” said the man.
    “No?”
    “No, except that it’s urgent, it’s big, and it will be more worth your while than anything you have ever done in your life.”
    “Oh, my goodness,” said Deeming again. ‘What you’d better do is go find an Angel. They help people. I can’t—”
    “You can do things an Angel couldn’t do, Mr. Deeming.”
    Deeming affected a laugh. It said a thousand words about the place and function of the Little Men of the world.
    “Mr. Rockhard thinks you can, Mr. Deeming. Mr. Rockhard knows you can.”
    “He knows … about
me?
”
    “Everything,” said the pudgy man, absolutely without inflection.
    Deeming had a vague swift wish that he had atomized the watch after all. It seemed to be as big and as spillable and as hot as a bowl of soup wedged into his side pocket. “Better get an Angel,” he suggested again.
    The man glanced at the door and then took a step closer. He dropped his voice and said earnestly, “I assure you, Mr. Deeming, Mr. Rockhard will not and cannot do that in this matter.”
    “It sounds like something I’d better not do,” said Deeming grimly.
    The man shrugged. “Very well. If you don’t want it, you don’t want it.” He turned to the door.
    Deeming couldn’t, for once, help himself. He blurted out, “What happens if I refuse?”
    The pudgy man did not quite turn back to face him. “You promise me you will forget this interchange,” he said casually, “especially if asked by one of the gentlemen in the pretty cloaks.”
    “And that’s all?”
    For the first time a glint of amusement crossed the bland features. “Except for wondering, for all the days of your life, what you might have missed.”
    Deeming wet his lips. “Just tell me one thing. If I go see your Mr. Rockhard, and have a talk, and still want to refuse …?”
    “Then of course you may. If you want to.”
    “Let’s go,” said Deeming. They were high over the city in a luxurious helicopter before it occurred to him that “If you want to,”said the way the man had said it, might have many meanings. He turned to speak, but the man’s face, by its very placidity, said that this was a man whose job was done and who would not add one syllable to cap it.
    Richard E. Rockhard had blue-white hair and ice-blue eyes and a way of speaking that licked out and struck deep like a series of sharp skilled axe blows, cutting deep, careless of the chips. This tool’s edge was honed so fine it was a gentleness. Deeming could well believe that this man was Galactic Mines and all those other things. He could also believe that Rockhard needed help. He was etched with anxiety and the scarlet webs of capillaries in his eyeballs were bloated with sleeplessness. He was a man who was telling the truth because he had not time to lie. “I need you, Deeming. I am supposing that you will help me and will speak my piece accordingly,” he said, as soon as they were alone in a fabulous study in an unbelievable penthouse. “I give you my word that you will be in no danger from me unless and until you do help me. If you do