CANTATA-141

'Maybe the Pekes will take care of them,' Sal offered. 'They would be rather a disheartening apparition, appearing in their midst; the Pekes might take it as a bad omen and cast the two of them back here in pieces.'

'Who would be able to find this out ?' Jim said.

'You mean what George Walt are up to on the other side - assuming they're there ? Perhaps Tito

Cravelli.'

'How would Tito know ? He doesn't have any contacts among the Peking people.'

Sal said, 'Tito keeps tabs on everything.'

'Not on this,' Jim disagreed. 'George Walt, if they've crossed over, have gone where we can't scrutinize them; that's the cold, hard truth and we might as well face it.' Broodingly he said, 'If I

was positive they'd crossed over, I think I'd seriously plead with TD to shut the 'scuttler down.

To keep them bottled up over there, for the rest of eternity.'

'Are you that much afraid of George Walt ?'

'Sometimes I am. Especially very late at night. I am right now, hearing about this.' He moved a little away from Sal Heim, feeling depressed. 'I thought we were through with George Walt," he said.

Through with them ? Without killing them ?' Sal laughed.

I guess in the final analysis I'm not very bright, Jim Briskin said to himself glumly. We should have finished it, up there at the satellite, when we almost had them. Instead we chose to shuffle naively back to Terra, for what seemed a good idea at the time: a cup of hot syntho-coffee.

Now, it did not seem very brilliant. The passage of even a little time was a great edifier.

Sal said sardonically, 'Hell, Jim, maybe you won their respect by being so charitable.' He obviously did not think so. Far from it.

'You're a great second-guesser,' Jim said, with bitterness. 'Where were you with your advice then ?'

Sal said quietly, 'Nobody expected them to do something so radical as close the Golden Door.

What happened up there on the satellite that day must really have shaken them.'

Coming up beside him, ancient Leon Turpin leered happily and cackled, 'Well, Briskin, or whatever you call yourself, that's the first batch of bibs. Historic, isn't it ? Makes you feel young again, doesn't it ? Say something. At least, smile.' To Sal he said, 'Is he always this solemn ?'

'Jim runs deep, Mr. Turpin,' Sal said. 'You have to get accustomed to it.'

'Just wait until we get that rent enlarged,' Turpin wheezed. 'My boys have been on it all week and tonight they're going to hook up an entirely different power source; it's all plotted out, rechecked dozens of times. By tomorrow morning, we should have a hole two to three times bigger. And then we can really hustle them through. Zip.' He made a quick gesture.

'Have you made thorough provision,' Jim said, 'to receive them back in the event something goes wrong on the other side ?'

'Well,' Leon Turpin conceded, 'the 'scuttler will be turned off most of the night as the boys work it over. Nobody can pass through then, of course. But we weren't expecting any trouble. At least not so soon.'

Sal and Jim glanced at each other.

'President Schwarz said it would be agreeable,' Turpin added. 'After all, our contract is with the

Dept of SPW. We're acting well within the law. There's nothing that compels us to keep the

'scuttler running at all times.'

God pity those colonists, Jim Briskin said to himself, if anything does go wrong tonight.

"They know about the Pekes,' Turpin protested. 'It's been in the papes constantly; nothing's been concealed from them; as soon as they were revived the situation was explained to them in detail.

Nobody forced them to go.'

Jim said, 'They were given the choice of going across or being put back to sleep.' He knew that for a fact; Tito had informed him.

'As far as I'm concerned,' Leon Turpin said sulkily, 'those people are over there voluntarily. And any risk they're taking - '

You skunk, Jim Briskin thought.

It was going to be a long night. At least for him.

At eleven p.m. Tito Cravelli received from one of his almost infinite number of paid contacts a piece of news which did not resemble anything he had ever picked up before. Frankly, he did not know whether to laugh or rush to the tocsin; it was simply too goddam peculiar. He mixed himself a whiskey sour in the kitchen of his conap and pondered. The datum had reached him by a circuitous route; initially it had been piped from a TD exploration team on the other side of the

'scuttler nexus, prior to the shutting-down of the 'scuttler, and from there to Bohegian, whereupon Earl had of course relayed it to him. Was it possibly a gag ? If he could regard it that way, it would be a distinct relief. But he could not afford to; it might be bona fide. And in that case...

Back in the living room, he dialed Jim Briskin's number. 'Listen to this,' Cravelli said, when he had Jim on the vidscreen. He did not bother to apologize for waking Jim up; that hardly mattered. 'See what you can make out of this. George Walt is with the Pekes, at their population center in northern Europe. TD's field corps believes they made contact with the Pekes somewhere in North America, and the Pekes then transported them across the Atlantic.'

'So quickly ?' Jim said. 'I thought they had nothing better than slow surface ships.'

'Here's the substance of it. The Pekes have installed George Walt at their capital and are worshipping them as a god.'

There was silence.

Finally Jim said, 'How - did the TD field corps find this out ?'

'From parleys with North American Pekes. They've been palavering continually; you know that.

Those linguistics machines have been droning on night and day. The Pekes are - dazzled. Well, weren't we a little in awe of George Walt ourselves ? It's not so odd when you think of it. I'd make book that George Walt went there anticipating some such reaction as that; they probably did some groundwork In advance.'

Jim said cryptically, 'Another one of Sal's predictions bites the dust.' He looked weary. 'Cravelli, you know we're over our head. Schwarz is over his head. If someone suggested shutting - '

'And strand those people over there ?'

"They can be brought back tomorrow morning. And then it could be shut down.'

'There's too much momentum behind it now,' Cravelli pointed out. 'You can't turn off a mass movement like that. In Dept of SPW warehouses all over the United States, they're rousing the sleepers right and left. Assembling equipment, arranging transportation to Washington, D.C. -'

'I'll call Schwarz,' Jim said.

'He won't listen to you. He'll think you're just trying to regain a primary relationship to the project, a relationship which he inherited by moving so quickly. Schwarz has the initiative now,

Jim, not you. His whole political life depends on pushing those bibs across as fast as possible.

Fix yourself a great big stiff type drink. That's what I did. And then go back to bed. I'll talk to you again in the morning. Maybe in the light of day we can hatch something out.' But he didn't think so.

Jim said, 'I'll talk to Leon Turpin, then.'

'Ha! Turpin and Schwarz are interlaced through that lush contract let to TD through Rosenfeld; it's a masterpiece. You can't offer TD that kind of money - I hear it involves billions of dollars, and all TD has to do is keep the 'scuttler going, just stand there and pump power to it.' Cravelli added, 'And enlarge the aperture, I understand. But that ought to be easy enough; they've been studying it for the last week.' In fact they had probably already accomplished it. 'I'm going back to my drink, now. And then I'm going to fix another and then ...'

"There's one man who can stop this. The owner of the 'scuttler. I met him on that trip across the

Atlantic. Darius Pethel, in Kansas City.'

'Yes, he claims it as part of his inventory. But dammit, Jim, are you really sure you want to shut down the 'scuttler and stop emigration ? It would be the end of you politically. Sal must have told you that already.'