Bewildered, Art Chaffy said, 'Emigrate ? You mean they finally found a place ? We don't have to stay here ?'
'Buy a homeopape,' Myra said patiently. 'Go out now and get it; find a vending machine, read about the speech. It'll be on the front page. And then start packing your things.' TD will have to accept you, she knew. Because of Jim Briskin's speech. They've been deprived of a choice.
'Gee, thanks, Mrs. Sands,' Art Chaffy mumbled, dazed. 'I'll tell Rachael right away; I'll wake her up. And - thanks for calling.'
'Good night, Mr. Chaffy,' Myra said. 'And good luck.' She hung up, then, satisfied.
Too bad, she thought, that there's no way I can celebrate. Unfortunately no one else is up this late. Because that's what this calls for: some kind of a party.
But at least she could go to bed tonight with a clear conscience.
For perhaps the first time in years.
8
For seventy years Leon Turpin had ruled the great industrial syndrome which comprised the enterprise Terran Development. A jerry , Turpin was now one hundred and two years old and still vigorous mentally, although physically frail. The problem for a man of his age lay in the area of the unforeseen accident; a broken hip would never mend and would put him permanently in bed.
However, no such accident had yet occurred to him, and, as was his custom, he arrived at the central administrative offices of TD, located in Washington, D.C., at eight in the morning. His chauffeur let him off at his own entrance, and from there he was raised by special lift to his floor of the building and his constellation of offices, through which he moved during the working day by three-wheeled electric cart.
Today the elderly chief of TD twitched with ill-concealed nervousness as his lift raised him to floor twenty. Last night he had heard someone, a political candidate of some sort, discussing what up to then Turpin had imagined to be his corporation's top secret. Now TD's hand was tipped. Anxiously, Leon Turpin tried to picture to himself the possible means by which the news had leaked out. Politics is the enemy of a sound economic entity, he mused. New laws, harsher tax rates, meddling ... and now this. When, as a matter of fact, he himself had not even had an opportunity to inspect this new development.
Today he would visit the scene of the technological breakthrough. Possibly, if it was safe, he would pass over to the other side.
Turpin liked to see these things with his own eyes. Otherwise he could not quite grasp what was happening.
As he stepped cautiously from the lift, he made out the sight of his administrative assistant, Don
Stanley, coming toward him. 'Can we go over ?' he asked Don Stanley. 'Is it safe ? I want to see it.' He felt eager desire rising up inside him.
Stanley, a portly man, bald with heavy-rimmed glasses, said, 'Before we do that, Mr. Turpin, I'd like to show you the stellar shots they took over there.' He took hold of Leon Turpin's arm, supporting him. 'Let's sit down, sir, and discuss this.'
Disappointed, Turpin said, 'I don't want to see any charts; I want to go there.' However, he seated himself with Stanley beside him opening a large manila envelope.
The stellar charts show,' Stanley said, 'that our initial appraisal of the situation was incorrect.'
'It's Earth,' Leon Turpin said. He felt keenly discouraged.
'Yes,' Stanley said.
'Past or future ?'
Stanley, rubbing his lower lip, said, 'Neither. If you’d look at the star chart, which...'
'Just tell me,' Turpin said. He could not decipher the star chart; his eyes were not that good any more.
'Suppose we go over there now,' Stanley said, 'and I'll do my best to show you. It's perfectly safe; our engineers have shored up the nexus, expanded and reinforced it, and we're experimenting with the idea of a broader power supply.'
'You're really sure we'll get back ?' Turpin asked querulously. 'I understand there's a girl over there who killed somebody.'
Don Stanley said, 'We've caught her. A group of company police went across; she didn't try to fight it out with them, fortunately. She's in N'York now. Hold by the New York state police.' He assisted Turpin in rising to his feet. 'Now, as to the stellar chart: I feel like a Babylonian when I
start talking about "celestial bodies" and their positions, but ...' He glanced at Turpin, 'There's nothing to distinguish it from a sky-shot taken on this side of the tube.'
What that signified, Leon Turpin could not tell. However, he said, 'I see,' and nodded soberly.
Eventually, he knew, his vice presidents; and executive staff, including Stanley, would explain it to him.
'I'll tell you who we've got to conduct you across,' Don Stanley said. To be entirely on the safe side we've hired Frank Woodbine.'
Impressed, Leon Turpin said, 'Good idea. He's that famous deep-space explorer, isn't he ? The one who's been to Alpha Centaurus and Proxima and ...' He could not recall the third star-system which Woodbine had visited; his memory was just not what it once had been. 'He's an expert,'
Turpin finished lamely, 'in visiting other planets.'
'You'll be in good hands,' Stanley agreed. 'And I think you'll like Woodbine. He's competent, integrated, although you never know what he's going to say. Woodbine sees the world in his own creative way.'
'I like that,' Turpin said. 'You've notified our PR people that we have Woodbine on the payroll, of course.'
'Absolutely,' Stanley said. 'There'll be teams from all the media along, catching everything you and Woodbine do and say. Don't worry, Mr. Turpin; your trip across will be well-covered.'
Tickled, Leon Turpin giggled in glee. 'Terrific!' he exclaimed. 'I think you've done a good job,
Don. It'll be an adventure, going over there to ...' He broke off, again puzzled. 'Where do you say it is ? It's Earth; I understand that. But...'
'It'll be easier to show you than to tell you,' Stanley said 'So let's wait until we're actually there.'
'Yes, of course,' Leon Turpin said. He had always found that it paid to do what Don Stanley told him; he trusted Stanley's judgment completely. And, as he aged, he trusted Don more and more.
On the second subsurface level of TD's Washington plant, Leon Turpin met the deep-space explorer Frank Woodbine, about whom he had heard so much. To his vast surprise, he found
Woodbine to be dainty and slight. The man was dapper, with a tiny waxed mustache and rapidly blinking eyes. When they shook, Woodbine's hand was soft and a little damp.
'How'd you ever get to be an explorer ?' Turpin asked bluntly; he was too old, too experienced, to beat around the bush.
Stammering slightly, Woodbine said, 'Bad blood.'
Turpin, amused, laughed. 'But you're good. Everybody knows that. What do you know about this place we're going to ?' He had spied the Jiffi-scuttler within which the breakthrough had occurred; it was surrounded by TD researchers and engineers - and armed company guards.
'I know very little,' Woodbine said. 'I've studied the star charts that have been taken, and I don't argue the fact that it's Earth on the other side; that's certain.' Woodbine had on his heavy troublesuit, with helmet, supply of oxygen, propulsion jets, meters and atmosphere analysis gear, and, of course, two-way com system. Always he was pictured gotten up this way; everyone expected it of him. 'It's not my job to make a decision in this matter; that's up to your company geologists.'
Puzzled, Turpin turned to Don Stanley. 'I didn't know we had any geologists.'
Ten of them,' Stanley said.
'Your astrophysicists have done all they can,' Woodbine said. 'Now that the observation satellite has been launched.' Seeing that Turpin did not understand, he amplified. 'Earlier this morning, a