Accepting the locked file, Tinbane said, "Give me the key and I'll read this--on my own time."
Gore produced the key. "One thing, Officer. Don't fall for the 'pape stereotype view of Ray Roberts. A lot's been said about him, but most of it is fictitious, and what actually is true hasn't been said... but it's in there, and when you've read it you'll understand what I'm referring to. In particular I mean the violence." He leaned toward Joe Tinbane. "Look; I'll give you a choice. Alter you've read the material on Roberts, come back and see me; give me your decision then. Frankly I think you'll take the job; it's officially a promotion, a step up in your career."
Standing, Tinbane picked up the key and the locked box. I don't agree, he thought to himself. But he said, "Okay, Mr. Gore. I have how long?"
"Call me by five," Gore said. And continued to grin his acid, knowing grin.
In Section B of the People's Topical Library, Officer Joe Tinbane warily stood at the chief librarian's desk; something about the Librai y intimidated him--and he did not know what it was or why.
Several persons were ahead of him; he waited restlessly, glancing about and wondering as always about his marriage with Bethel and about his career with the police department, and then about the purpose of life and the meaning--if any--of it, what the old-borns experienced while they lay in the ground, and what it would be like, someday, to dwindle away as he eventually would, and enter a nearby womb.
As he stood there a familiar person came up beside him; small, in a long cloth coat, with her dark, extensive brown hair tumbling: a pretty, but married girl, Lotta Hermes.
"'Bye," he said, pleased to run into her.
Her face white, Lotta whispered, "I--can't stand it in here. But I have to look up some information for Seb." Her discomfort was palpable; her whole body was held rigidly, awkwardly, so that its natural lines were warped; her fear made her misshapen.
"Take it easy," he said, surprised at her apprehension; he wanted at once to make her feel better and he took her by the arm, led her away from the chief librarian's desk, out of the immense, dully booming room and into the relatively stress-free corridor.
"Oh god," she said miserably. "I just can't do it, go in there and face that woman, that awful Mrs. McGuire. Seb told me to ask for someone else, but I don't know anyone. And when I get scared I can't think." She gazed up at him miserably, appealing to him for help.
Tinbane said, "This place gets a lot of people down." His arm around her waist, he steered her down the corridor toward the exit.
"I can't leave," she said frantically, pulling away. "Seb said I have to find out about the Anarch Peak."
"Oh?" Tinbane said. He wondered why. Did Sebastian expect the Anarch to be old-born in the near future?
That would shed a somewhat different light on the pilg by Ray Roberts; in fact an entirely new light: it would explain why now and why Los Angeles.
"Douglas Appleford," Tinbane decided. He knew the man; a stuffy, formal, but reasonably helpful person; certainly far more easily dealt with than Mavis McGuire. "I'll take you to his office," he said to the frightened girl, "and introduce you to him. As a matter of fact I'm here doing research myself. On Ray Roberts. So I need assistance, too."
Lotta said, gratefully, "You know just about everybody." She looked much better, now; the twisted, hunched posture had left her, and again she struck him as vital and attractive. Hmm, he thought, and guided her down the hall, toward Douglas Appleford's offices.
When Douglas Appleford arrived at his office in Section B of the Library that morning he found his secretary Miss Tomsen trying to rid herself--and him, too--of a tall, sloppily dressed, middle-aged Negro gentleman with a briefcase under his arm.
"Ah, Mr. Appleford," the individual said in a dry, hollow voice as he made out Appleford, obviously recognizing him at once; he approached, hand extended. "How nice to meet you, sir. Goodbye, goodbye. As the Phase has taught us to say." He smiled a flashbulb instantly vanishing smile at Appleford, who did not return it.
"I'm quite a busy man," Appleford said, and continued on past Miss Tomsen's desk to open the inner door to his especially private office. "If you wish to see me you'll have to make a regular appointment. Hello." He started to shut the door after him.
"This concerns the Anarch Peak," the tall Negro with the briefcase said. "Whom I have reason to believe you're interested in.,,
"Why do you say that?" He paused, irritated. "I don't recall ever having felt or expressed any interest in a religious fanatic fortunately laid in his grave for two decades." With sudden suspicion and aversion he said, "Peak isn't about to be reborn, is he?"
Again the tall Negro smiled his mechanical smile--and mechanical it was; Doug Appleford now perceived the small but brilliant yellow stripe sewed on the tall man's coat sleeve. This person was a robot, required by law to wear the identifying swath so as not to deceive. Realizing this, Appleford's irritation grew; he had a strict, deeply imbedded prejudice against robies which he could not rid himself of; which he did not want to rid himself of, as a matter of fact.
"Come in," Appleford said, holding the door to his absolutely pin-neat office open. The roby represented some human principal; it had not dispatched itself: that was the law. He wondered who had sent it. Some functionary of a European syndicate? Possibly. In any case, better to hear the thing out and then tell it to leave.
Together, in this central work chamber of his suite of chambers, the two of them faced each other.
"My card," the roby said, extending its hand.
Appleford read the card, scowling.
Carl Gantrix
Attorney-At-Law, W.U.S.
"My employer," the roby said. "So now you know my name. You may address me as Carl; that would be satisfactory." Now that the door had shut, with Miss Tomsen on the other side, the roby's voice had acquired a sudden and surprising authoritative tone.
"I prefer," Appleford said cautiously, "to address you in the more familiar mode as Carl Junior. If that doesn't offend you." He made his own voice even more authoritative. "You know I seldom grant audiences to robots. A quirk, perhaps, but one concerning which I am notoriously consistent."
"Until now," the robot Carl Junior murmured; it retrieved its card and placed it back in its wallet, a thrifty, robotish move. Then, seating itself, it began to unzip its briefcase. "Being in charge of Section B of the Library, you are of course an expert on the Hobart Phase. At least so Mr. Gantrix assumes. Is he correct, sir?" The robot glanced up keenly.
"Well, I deal with it constantly." Appleford affected a vacant, cavalier tone; it was always better to show a superior attitude when dealing with a roby. Constantly necessary to remind them in this particular, fashion--as well as in countless others--of their place.
"So Mr. Gantrix realizes. And it is to his everlasting credit that via such a profound realization he has inferred that you have, over the years, become something of an authority on the advantages, sir, the uses and also manifold disadvantages, of the Hobart reverse- or anti-time field. True? Not true? Choose one."
Appleford pondered. "I choose the first. Although you must take into account the fact that my knowledge is pragmatic, not theoretical. But I can correctly deal with the vagaries of the Phase without being appalled. And it is appalling, Junior, the things that pop into being under the Phase. Such as the deaders. That really doesn't appeal all that much to me; that, in my opinion, is one of the greater disadvantages. The rest of them I can stand."