"We Can Build You" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Philip K.)

8

It took several days to rewire the Lincoln simulacrum. During those days I drove from Ontario west through the Oregon Sierras, through the little logging town of John Day which has always been my favorite town in the western United States. I did not stop there, however; I was too restless. I kept on west until I joined the north-south highway. That straight road, the old route 99, goes through hundreds of miles of conifers. At the California end you find yourself going by volcanic mountains, black, dull and ashy, left over from the age of giants.

Two tiny yellow finches, playing and fighting in the air, swept up against the hood of my car; I heard and felt nothing but I knew by their disappearance and the sudden silence that they had gone into the radiator grill. Cooked and dead in an instant, I said to myself, slowing the car. And sure enough, at the next service station the attendant found them. Bright yellow, caught in the grill. Wrapping them in Kleenex I carried them to the edge of the highway and dropped them into the litter of plastic beer cans and moldering paper cartons there.

Ahead lay Mount Shasta and the border station of California. I did not feel like going on. That night I slept in a motel at Klamath Falls and the next day I started back up the coast the way I had come.

It was only seven-thirty in the morning and there was little traffic on the road. Overhead I saw something which caused me to pull off onto the shoulder and watch. I had seen such sights before and they always made me feel deeply humble and at the same time buoyed up. An enormous ship, on its way back from Luna or one of the planets, was passing slowly by, to its landing somewhere in the Nevada desert. A number of Air Force jets were accompanying it. Near it they looked no larger than black dots.

What few other cars there were on the highway had also stopped to watch. People had gotten out and one man was taking a snapshot. A woman and a small child waved. The great rocketship passed on, shaking the ground with its stupendous retro-blasts. Its hull, I could see, was pitted, scarred and burned from its re-entry into the atmosphere.

There goes our hope, I said to myself, shielding my eyes against the sun to follow its course. What's it got aboard? Soil samples? The first non-terrestrial life to be found? Broken pots discovered in the ash of an extinct volcano--evidence of some ancient civilized race?

More likely just a flock of bureaucrats. Federal officials, Congressmen, technicians, military observers, rocket scientists coming back, possibly some _Life_ and _Look_ reporters and photographers and maybe crews from NBC and CBS television. But even so it was impressive. I waved, like the woman with the small boy.

As I got back into my car I thought, Someday there'll be little neat houses in rows up there on the Lunar surface. TV antennae, maybe Rosen spinet pianos in living rooms. .

Maybe I'll be putting repossession ads in newspapers on other worlds, in another decade or so.

Isn't that heroic? Doesn't that tie our business to the stars? But we had a much more direct tie. Yes, I could catch a glimpse of the passion dominating Pris, this obsession about Barrows. He was the link, moral, physical and spiritual, between us mere mortals and the sidereal universe. He spanned both realms, one foot on Luna, the other in real estate in Seattle, Washington, and Oakland, California. Without Barrows it was all a mere dream; he made it tangible. I had to admire him as a man, too. He wasn't awed by the idea of settling people on the Moon; to him, it was one more--one more very vast--business opportunity. A chance for high returns on an investment, higher even than on slum rentals.

So back to Ontario, I said to myself. And face the simulacra, our new and enticing product, designed to lure out Mr. Barrows, to make us perceptible to him. To make us a part of the new world. To make us _alive_.

When I got back to Ontario I went directly to MASA ASSOCIATES. As I drove up the street, searching for a place to park, I saw a crowd gathered at our office building. They were looking into the new showroom which Maury had built. Ah so, I said to myself with a deep fatalism.

As soon as I had parked I hurried on foot to join the crowd.

There, inside the showroom, sat the tall, bearded, hunched, twilight figure of Abraham Lincoln. He sat at an old-fashioned rolltop walnut desk, a familiar desk; it belonged to my father. They had removed it from the factory in Boise to here for the Lincoln simulacrum to make use of it.

It angered me. Yet I had to admit it was apropos. The simulacrum, wearing much the same sort of clothing as the Stanton, was busy writing a letter with a quill pen. I was amazed at the realistic appearance which the simulacrum gave; if I had not known better I would have assumed that it was Lincoln reincarnated in some unnatural fashion. And, after all, wasn't that precisely what it was? Wasn't Pris right after all?

Presently I noticed a sign in the window; professionally lettered, it explained to the crowd what was going on.

THIS IS AN AUTHENTIC RECONSTRUCT OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. IT WAS MAN-

UFACTURED BY MASA ASSOCIATES IN CONJUNCTION WITH

THE ROSEN ELECTRONIC ORGAN FACTORY OF BOISE, IDAHO.

IT IS THE FIRST OF ITS KIND. THE ENTIRE MEMORY AND

NEURAL SYSTEM OF OUR GREAT CWIL WAR PRESIDENT HAS

BEEN FAITHFULLY REPRODUCED IN THE RULING MONAD

STRUCTURE OF THIS MACHINE, AND IT IS CAPABLE OF

RENDERING ALL ACTIONS, SPEECH AND DECISIONS OF

THE SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT TO A STATISTICALLY PERFECT

DEGREE.

INQUIRIES INVITED.

The corny phrasing gave it away as Maury's work. Infuriated, I pushed through the crowd and rattled the showroom door; it was locked, but having a key I unlocked it and passed on inside.

There in the corner on a newly-purchased couch sat Maury, Bob Bundy and my father. They were quietly watching the Lincoln.

"Hi, buddy boy," Maury said to me.

"Made your cost back yet?" I asked him.

"No. We're not charging anybody for anything. We're just demonstrating."

"You dreamed up that sixth-grader type sign, didn't you? I know you did. What sort of sidewalk traffic did you expect to make an inquiry? Why don't you have the thing sell cans of auto wax or dishwasher soap? Why just have it sit and write? Or is it entering some breakfast-food contest?"

Maury said, "It's going over its regular correspondence." He and my dad and Bundy all seemed sobered.

"Where's your daughter?"

"She'll be back."

To my dad I said, "You mind it using your desk?"

"No, mein Kind," he answered. "Go speak with it; it maintains a calmness when interrupted that astonishes me. This I could well learn."

I had never seen my father so chastened.

"Okay," I said, and walked over to the rolltop desk and the writing figure. Outside the showroom window the crowd gawked.

"Mr. President," I murmured. My throat felt dry. "Sir, I hate to bother you." I felt nervous, and yet at the same time I knew perfectly well that this was a machine I was facing. My going up to it and speaking to it this way put me into the fiction, the drama, as an actor like the machine itself; nobody had fed me an instruction tape--they didn't have to. I was acting out my part of the foolishness voluntarily. And yet I couldn't help myself. Why not say to it, "Mr. Simulacrum"? After all that was the truth.

The truthl What did that mean? Like a kid going up to the department store Santa; to know the truth was to drop dead. Did I want to do that? In a situation like this, to face the truth would mean the end of everything, of me before all. The simulacrum wouldn't have suffered. Maury, Bob Bundy and my dad wouldn't even have noticed. So I went on, because it was myself I was protecting; and I knew it, better than anyone else in the room, including the crowd outside gawking in.

Glancing up, the Lincoln put aside its quill pen and said in a rather high-pitched, pleasant voice, "Good afternoon. I take it you are Mr. Louis Rosen."

"Yes sir," I said.

And then the room blew up in my face. The rolltop desk flew into a million pieces; they burst up at me, flying slowly, and I shut my eyes and fell forward, flat on the floor; I did not even put out my hands. I felt it hit me; I smashed into bits against it, and darkness covered me up.

I had fainted. It was too much for me. I had passed out cold.

Next I knew I was upstairs in the office, propped up in a corner. Maury Rock sat beside me, smoking one of his Corina Larks, glaring at me and holding a bottle of household ammonia under my nose.

"Christ," he said, when he realized I had come to. "You got a bump on your forehead and a split lip."

I put up my hand and felt the bump; it seemed to be as big as a lemon. And I could taste the shreds of my lip. "I passed out," I said.

"Yeah, didn't you."

Now I saw my dad hovering nearby. And--disagreeably-- Pris Frauenzimmer in her long gray cloth coat, pacing back and forth, glancing at me with exasperation and the faint hint of contemptuous amusement.

"One word from it," she said to me, "and you're out. Good grief."

"So what," I managed to say feebly.

To his daughter, Maury said, grinning, "It proves what I said; it's effective."

"What--did the Lincoln do?" I asked. "When I passed out?" Maury said, "It got up, picked you up and carried you up here."

"Jesus," I murmured.

"Why did you faint?" Pris said, bending down to peer at me intently. "What a bump. You idiot. Anyhow, it got the crowd; you should have heard them. I was outside with them, trying to get through. You'd think we had produced God or something; they were actually praying and a couple of old ladies were crossing themselves. And some of them, if you can believe it--"

"Okay," I broke in.

"Let me finish."

"No," I said. "Shut up. Okay?"

We glared at each other and then Pris rose to her feet. "Did you know your lip is badly gashed? You getter get a couple of stiches put in it."

Touching my lip with my fingers I discovered that it was still dribbling blood. Perhaps she was right.

"I'll drive you to a doctor," Pris said. She walked to the door and stood waiting. "Come on, Louis."

"I don't need any stitches," I said, but I rose and shakily followed after her.

As we waited in the hall for the elevator Pris said, "You're not very brave, are you?"

I did not answer.

"You reacted worse than I did, worse than any of us. I'm surprised. There must be a far less stable streak in you than any of us knows about. And I bet someday, under stress, it shows up. Someday you're going to reveal grave psychological problems."

The elevator door opened; we entered and the doors shut.

"Is it so bad to react?" I said.

"At Kansas City I learned how not to react unless it was in my interest to. That was what saved me and got me out of there and out of my illness. That was what they did for me. It's always a bad sign when there's effect, as in your case; it's always a sign of failure in adjustment. They call it parataxis, at Kansas City; it's emotionality that enters interpersonal relations and makes them complicated. It doesn't matter if it's hate or envy or, as in your case, fear--they're all parataxis. And when they get strong enough you have mental illness. And, when they take control, you have 'phrenia, like I had. That's the worst."

I held a handkerchief to my lip, dabbing and fussing with the cut. There was no way I could explain my reaction to Pris; I did not try.

"Shall I kiss it?" Pris said. "And make it well?"

I glared at her, but then I saw that on her face there was vibrant concern.

"Hell," I said, flustered. "It'll be okay." I was embarrassed and I couldn't look at her. I felt like a little boy again. "Adults don't talk to each other like that," I mumbled. "Kissing and making well--what sort of dumb diction is that?"

"I want to help you." Her mouth quivered. "Oh, Louis-- it's all over."

"What's all over?"

"It's alive. I can never touch it again. Now what'll I do? I have no further purpose in life."

"Christ," I said.

"My life is empty--I might as well be dead. All I've done and thought has, been the Lincoln." The elevator door opened and Pris started out into the lobby of the building. I followed. "Do you care what doctor you go to? I'll just take you down the street, I guess."

"Fine."

As we got into the white Jaguar, Pris said, "Tell me what to do, Louis. I have to do something right away."

At a loss I said, "You'll get over this depression."

"I never felt like this before."

"I'm thinking. Maybe you could run for Pope." It was the first thing that popped into my mind; it was inane.

"I wish I were a man. Women are cut off from so much. You could be anything, Louis. What can a woman be? A housewife or a clerk or a typist or a teacher."

"Be a doctor," I said. "Stitch up wounded lips."

"I can't stand sick or damaged or defective creatures. You know that, Louis. That's why I'm taking you to the doctor; I have to avert my gaze--maimed as you are."

"I'm not maimed! I've just got a cut lip!"

Pris started up the car and we drove out into traffic. "I'm going to forget the Lincoln. I'll never think of it again as living; it's just an object to me from this minute on. Something to market."

I nodded.

"I'm going to see to it that Sam Barrows buys it. I have no other task in life but that. From now on all I will think or do will have Sam Barrows at the core of it."

If I felt like laughing at what she was saying I had only to look at her face; her expression was so bleak, so devoid of happiness or joy or even humor, that I could only nod. While driving me to the doctor to have my lip stitched up, Pris had dedicated her entire life, her future and everything in it. It was a kind of maniacal whim, and I could see that it had swum up to the surface out of desperation. Pris could not bear to spend a single moment without something to occupy her; she had to have a goal. It was her way of forcing the universe to make sense.

"Prig," I said, "the difficulty with you is that you're rational."

"I'm not; everybody says I do exactly what I feel like."

"You're driven by iron-clad logic. It's terrible. It has to be gotten rid of. Tell Horstowski that; tell him to free you from logic. You function as if a geometric proof were cranking the handle of your life. Relent, Pris. Be carefree and foolish and stupid. Do something that has no purpose. Okay? Don't even take me to the doctor; instead, dump me off in front of a shoeshine parlor and I'll get my shoes shined."

"Your shoes are already shined."

"See? See how you have to be logical all the time? Stop the car at the next intersection and we'll both get out and leave it, or go to a flower shop and buy flowers and throw them at other motorists."

"Who'll pay for the flowers?"

"We'll steal them. We'll run out the door without paying."

"Let me think it over," Pris said.

"Don't think! Did you ever steal anything when you were a kid? Or bust something just for the hell of it, maybe some public property like a street lamp?"

"I once stole a candy bar from a drugstore."

"We'll do that now," I said. "We'll find a drugstore and we'll be kids again; we'll steal a dime candy bar apiece, and we'll go find a shady place and sit like on a lawn for instance and eat it."

"You can't, because of your lip."

I said in a reasonable, urgent voice, "Okay. I admit that. But you could. Isn't that so? Admit it. You could go into a drugstore right now and do that, even without me."

"Would you come along anyhow?"

"If you want me to. Or I could park at the curb with the motor running and drive you the second you appeared. So you'd get away."

"No," Pris said, "I want you to come into the store with me and be right there beside me. You could show me which candy bar to take; I need your help."

"I'll do it."

"What's the penalty for something like that?"

"Life everlasting," I said.

"You're kidding me."

"No," I said. "I mean it." And I did; I was deeply serious. "Are you making fun of me? I see you are. Why would you do that? Am I ridiculous, is that it?"

"God no!"

But she had made up her mind. "You know I'll believe anything. They always kidded me in school about my gullibility. 'Gullible's travels,' they called me."

I said, "Come into the drugstore, Pris, and I'll show you; let me prove it to you. To save you."

"Save me from what?"

"From the certitude of your own mind."

She wavered; I saw her swallow, struggle with herself, try to see what she should do and if she had made a mistake-- she turned and said to me earnestly, "Louis, I believe you about the drugstore. I know you wouldn't make fun of me; you might hate me--you do hate me, on many levels--but you're not the kind of person who enjoys taunting the weak."

"You're not weak."

"I am. But you have no instinct to sense it. That's good, Louis. I'm the other way around; I have that instinct and I'm not good."

"Good, schmood," I said loudly. "Stop all this, Pris. You're depressed because you've finished your creative work with the Lincoln, you're temporarily at loose ends and like a lot of creative people you suffer a letdown between one--"

"There's the doctor's place," Pris said, slowing the car.

After the doctor had examined me--and sent me off without seeing the need of stitching me up--I was able to persuade Pris to stop at a bar. I felt I had to have a drink. I explained to her that it was a method of celebrating, that it was something which had to be done; it was expected of us. We had seen the Lincoln come to life and it was a great moment, perhaps the greatest moment, of our lives. And yet, as great as it was, there was in it something ominous and sad, something upsetting to all of us, that was just too much for us to handle.

"I'll have just one beer," Pris said as we crossed the sidewalk.

At the bar I ordered a beer for her and an Irish coffee for myself.

"I can see you're at home, here," Pris said, "in a place like this. You spend a lot of time bumming around bars, don't you?"

I said, "There's something I've been thinking about you that I have to ask you. Do you believe the cutting observations you make about other people? Or are they just off-hand, for the purpose of making people feel bad? And if so--"

"What do you think?" Pris said in a level voice.

"I don't know."

"Why do you care anyhow?"

"I'm insatiably curious about you, for every detail and tittle."

"Why?"

"You've had a fascinating history. Schizoid by ten, compulsive-obsessive neurotic by thirteen, full-blown schizophrenic by seventeen and a ward of the Federal Government, now halfway cured and back among human beings again but still--" I broke off. That was not the reason, her lurid history. "I'll tell you the truth. I'm in love with you."

"You're lying."

Amending my statement I said, "I _could_ be in love with you."

"If what?" She seemed terribly nervous; her voice shook.

"I don't know. Something holds me back."

"Fear."

"Maybe so," I said. "Maybe it's plain simple fear."

"Are you kidding me, Louis? When you said that? Love, I mean?"

"No, I'm not kidding."

She laughed tremulously. "If you could conquer your fear you could win a woman; not me but some woman. I can't get over you saying that to me. Louis, you and I are opposites, did you know that? You show your feelings, I always keep mine in. I'm much deeper. If we had a child, what would it be like? I can't understand women who are always having children, they're like mother dogs... a litter every year. It must be nice to be biological and earthy like that." She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. "That's a closed book to me. They fulfill themselves through their reproductive system, don't they? Golly, I've known women like that but I could never be that way. I'm never happy unless I'm doing things with my hands. Why is that, I wonder?"

"No knowing."

"There has to be an explanation; everything has a cause. Louis, I can't remember for sure, but I don't think any boy ever said he was in love with me before."

"Oh, they must have. Boys in school."

"No, you're the first. I hardly know how to act... I'm not even sure if I like it. It feels strange."

"Accept it," I said.

"Love and creativity," Pris said, half to herself. "It's birth we're bringing about with the Stanton and the Lincoln; love and birth--the two are tied together, aren't they? You love what you give birth to, and since you love me, Louis, you must want to join me in bringing something new to life, don't you?"

"Guess so."

"We're like gods," Pris said, "in what we've done, this task of ours, this great labor. Stanton and Lincoln, the new race... and yet by giving them life we empty ourselves. Don't you feel hollow, now?"

"Heck no."

"Well, you're so different from me. You have no real sense of this task. Coming here to this bar... it was a momentary impulse that you yielded to. Maury and Bob and your dad and the Stanton are back at MASA with the Lincoln--you have no consciousness of that because you _want_ to sit in a bar and have a drink." She smiled at me genially, tolerantly.

"Suppose so," I said.

"I'm boring you, aren't I? You really have no interest in me; you're only interested in yourself."

"That's so. I realize you're right."

"Why did you say you wanted to know everything about me? Why did you say you were almost in love with me except that fear held you back?"

"I dunno."

"Don't you ever try to look yourself in the face and understand your own motives? I'm always analyzing myself."

I said, "Pris, be sensible for a moment. You're only one person among many, no better and no worse. Thousands of Americans go to--are right now in--mental health clinics, get schizophrenia and are committed under the McHeston Act. You're attractive, I'll admit, but any number of movie starlets in Sweden and Italy are more so. Your intelligence is--"

"It's yourself you're trying to convince."

"Pardon?" I said, taken aback.

"You're the one who idolizes me and is fighting against recognizing it," Pris said calmly.

I pushed away my drink. "Let's get back to MASA." The alcohol made my cut lip burn searingly.

"Did I say the wrong thing?" For a moment she looked disconcerted; she was thinking back over what she had said, amending it, improving it. "I mean, you're ambivalent about me..."

I took hold of her arm. "Finish your beer and let's leave."

As we left the bar she said wanly, "You're sore at me again."

"No."

"I try to be nice to you but I always rub people the wrong way when I make a deliberate effort to be polite to them and say what I ought to say... it's wrong of me to be artificial. I told you I shouldn't adopt a set of behavior-patterns that are false to me. It never works out." She spoke accusingly, as if it had been my idea.

"Listen," I said, as we got back into the car and set out into the traffic. "We'll go back and resume our dedicated task of making Sam Barrows the core of all that we do-- right?"

"No," Pris said. "Only I can do that. That's not within your power."

I patted her on the shoulder. "You know, I'm much more sympathetic to you, too, than I was. I think we're beginning to work out a very good, wholesome, stable relationship between us."

"Maybe so," Pris said, unaware of any overtone of sarcasm. She smiled at me. "I hope so, Louis. People should understand one another."

When we got back to MASA, Maury greeted us excitedly. "What took you so long?" He produced a piece of paper. "I sent a wire to Sam Barrows. Read it--here." He pushed it into my hands.

Uneasily, I unfolded the paper and read Maury's writing.

ADVISE YOU FLY HERE AT ONCE. LINCOLN SIMULACRUM IN-

CREDIBLE SUCCESS. REQUEST YOUR DECISION. SAVING ITEM

FOR YOUR FIRST INSPECTION AS PER PHONE CALL. EXCEEDS

WILDEST HOPES. EXPECT TO HEAR FROM YOU WITHIN DAY.

MAURY ROCK,

MASA ASSOCIATES

"Has he answered yet?" I asked.

"Not yet, but we just phoned in the wire."

There was a commotion and Bob Bundy appeared. To me he said, "Mr. Lincoln asked me to express his regrets and find out how you are." He looked pretty shaky, himself.

"Tell him I'm okay." I added, "And thank him."

"Right." Bundy departed; the office door shut after him. To Maury I said, "I have to admit it, Rock. You're onto something. I was wrong."

"Thanks for coming around."

Pris said, "You're wasting your thanks on him." Puffing on his Corina agitatedly Maury said, "We've got a lot of work ahead of us. I know we'll get Barrows' interest now. But what we have to be careful of--" He lowered his voice. "A man like that could sweep us aside like a lot of kindling. Am I right, buddy?"

"Right," I answered. I had thought of that, too.

"He's probably done it a million times to small operators along the way. We got to close ranks, all four of us; five, if you include Bob Bundy. Right?" He looked around at Pris and me and my dad.

My dad said, "Maury, maybe you should take this to the Federal Government." He looked timidly at me. "_Hab' Ich nicht Recht, mein Sohn?_"

"He's already contacted Barrows," I said. "For all we know, Barrows is on his way here."

"We could tell him no," Maury said, "even if he shows up. If we feel this should go to Washington, D.C., instead."

"Ask the Lincoln," I said.

"What?" Pris said sharply. "Oh for god's sake."

"I mean it," I said. "Get its advice."

"What would a hick politician from the last century know about Sam K. Barrows?" Pris shot at me sardonically.

In as calm a voice as possible I said, "Pris, watch it. Honest to god."

Maury said quickly, "Let's not get to quarreling. We all have a right to express our opinions. I think we should go ahead and show the Lincoln to Barrows and if for some crazy reason--" He broke off. The office phone was ringing. Striding over he picked it up. "MASA ASSOCIATES. Maury Rock speaking."

Silence.

Turning toward us Maury mouthed silently: _Barrows_.

That's it, I said to myself. The die is cast.

"Yes, sir," Maury was saying into the phone. "We'll pick you up at the Boise airfield. Yes, we'll see you there." His face glowed; he winked at me.

To my dad I said, "Where's the Stanton?"

"What, _mein Sohn?_"

"The Stanton simulacrum--I don't see it around." Recalling its expression of hostility toward the Lincoln I got up and went over to where Pris stood trying to hear the other end of Maury's phone conversation. "Where's the Stanton?" I said loudly to her.

"I don't know. Bundy put it somewhere; it's probably down in the shop."

"Wait a minute." Maury lowered the phone. To me, with a strange expression on his face, he said, "The Stanton is in Seattle. With Barrows."

"Oh no," I heard Pris say.

Maury said, "It took the Greyhound bus last night. Got there this morning and looked him right up. Barrows says he's been having a good long talk with it." Maury covered the phone with his hand. "He hasn't gotten our wire yet. It's the Stanton he's interested in. Shall I tell him about the Lincoln?"

"You might as well," I said. "He'll be getting the wire."

"Mr. Barrows," Maury said into the phone, "we just sent you a wire. Yes--we have the Lincoln electronic simulacrum operating and it's an incredible success, even more so than the Stanton." Glancing at me with an uneasy grimace he said, "Sir, you'll be accompanied on the plane flight by the Stanton, will you not? We're anxious to get it back." Silence, and then Maury once more lowered the phone. "Barrows says the Stanton told him it intends to stay in Seattle a day or so and look at the sights. It intends to get a haircut and visit the library and if it likes the town maybe even think about opening a law office and settling down there."

"Christ's cross," Pris said, clenching her fists. "Tell Barrows to talk it into coming back here!"

Maury said into the phone, "Can't you persuade it to come with you, Mr. Barrows?" Again silence. "It's gone," Maury said to us, this time not covering the phone. "It said goodbye to Barrows and took off." He frowned, looking deeply distressed.

I said, "Anyhow, finish up as to the flight."

"Right." Maury drew himself together and again addressed the phone. "I'm sure the damn thing'll be all right; it had money, didn't it?" Silence. "And you gave it twenty dollars, too; good. Anyhow, we'll see you. The Lincoln one is even better. Yes sir. Thanks. Goodbye." He hung up and sat staring down at the floor, his lips twisting. "I didn't even notice it was gone. You think it was sore about the Lincoln? Maybe so; it's got one hell of a temper."

"No use crying over spilt milk," I said.

"True," Maury murmured, chewing his lip. "And it's got a battery good for six months! We may not see it until next year. My god, we've got thousands of dollars tied up in it-- and what if Barrows is stringing us? Maybe he's got the thing locked up in a vault somewhere."

"If he had," Pris said, "he wouldn't be coming here. In fact, maybe this is all for the good; maybe Barrows wouldn't be coming here except for the Stanton, what it said and did-- he got to see it and maybe the wire wouldn't have brought him. And if it hadn't run off and ditched him maybe he would have snared it and we'd be out in the cold; right?"

"Yeah," Maury agreed morosely.

My dad said, "Mr. Barrows is reputable, isn't he? A man with so much social concern as he expresses, this letter my son showed me about that housing unit with those poor people he's protecting."

Maury nodded again, still morosely.

Patting my dad on the arm Pris said, "Yes, Jerome; he's a civic-minded fellow. You'll like him."

My dad beamed at Pris and then at me. "It looks as if everything is turning out good, _nicht wahr?_"

We all nodded, with a mixture of gloom and fear.

The door opened and Bob Bundy appeared, holding a folded piece of paper. Coming up to me he said, "Here's a note from Lincoln."

I unfolded it. It was a short note of sympathy:

Mr. Louis Rosen.

My Dear Sir:

I wish to enquire of your condition, with hope that you have

improved somewhat.

Yours Truly,

A. Lincoln

"I'll go out and thank him," I said to Maury.

"Do that," Maury said.