“The reception room’s a trap,” he said.
He sat down in the chair behind the desk and picked up the project schedule and had a look at it.
“What’s the trouble, E.J.?” he asked. “You back already?”
“Haven’t started yet. Not for another couple hours.”
“It says here,” said Spencer, flicking the schedule with a finger, “that you’re a Roman trader.”
“That’s what I am,” said E.J. “At least, Costumes says so. I hope to God they’re right.”
“But the sword—”
“Pardner,” said E.J., “back in Roman Britain, out on a Roman road, with a pack train loaded down with goods, a man has got to carry steel.”
He reached down and hoisted the sword into his lap. He regarded it with disfavor. “But I don’t mind telling you it’s no great shakes of a weapon.”
“I suppose you’d feel safer with a tommy gun.”
E.J. nodded glumly. “Yes, I would.”
“Lacking that,” said Spencer, “we do the best we can. You’ll pack the finest steel in the second century. If that is any comfort.”
E.J. just sat there with the sword across his lap. He was making up his mind to say something—it was written on his face. He was a silly-looking soul, with all those wiry whiskers and his ears way out to either side of him and the long black hairs that grew out of the lobes.
“Hal,” said E.J., finally making up his mind, “I want out of this.”
Spencer stiffened in his chair. “You can’t do that!” he yelled. “Time is your very life. You’ve been in it for a lot of years!”
“I don’t mean out of Time. I mean out of Family Tree. I am sick of it.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Spencer protested. “Family Tree’s not tough. You’ve been on a lot of worse ones. Family Tree’s a snap. All you have to do is go back and talk to people or maybe check some records. You don’t have to snitch a thing.”
“It’s not the work,” said E.J. “Sure, the work is easy. I don’t mind the work. It’s after I get back.”
“You mean the Wrightson-Graves.”
“That is what I mean. After every trip, she has me up to that fancy place of hers and I have to tell her all about her venerable ancestors …”
Spencer said, “It’s a valuable account. We have to service it.”
“I can’t stand much more of it,” E.J. insisted, stubbornly.
Spencer nodded. He knew just what E.J. meant. He felt much the same.
Alma Wrightson-Graves was a formidable old dowager with a pouter-pigeon build and the erroneous conviction that she still retained much of her girlish charm. She was loaded down with cash, and also with jewels that were too costly and gaudy to be good taste. For years she’d shrieked down and bought off everyone around her until she firmly believed there was nothing in the world she couldn’t have—if she was willing to pay enough for it.
And she was paying plenty for this family tree of hers. Spencer had often asked himself just why she wanted it. Back to the Conquest, sure—that made at least some sense. But not back to the caves. Not that Past, Inc., couldn’t trace it that far for her if her cash continued to hold out. He thought, with a perverted satisfaction, that she couldn’t have been happy with the last report or two, for the family had sunk back to abject peasantry.
He said as much to E.J. “What does she want?” he asked. “What does she expect?”
“I have a hunch,” E.J. told him, “that she has some hopes we’ll find a connection back to Rome. God help us if we do. Then it could go on forever.”
Spencer grunted.
“Don’t be too sure,” warned E.J. “Roman officers being what they were I wouldn’t bet against it.”
“If that should happen,” Spencer told him. “I’ll take you off the project. Assign someone else to carry out the Roman research. I’ll tell the Wrightson-Graves you’re not so hot on Rome—have a mental block or a psychic allergy or something that rejects indoctrination.”
“Thanks a lot,” said E.J., without much enthusiasm.
One by one, he took his dirty feet off the shiny desk and rose out of the chair.
“E.J.?”
“Yes, Hal.”
“Just wondering. Have you ever hit a place where you felt that you should stay? Have you ever wondered if maybe you should stay?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Once or twice, perhaps. But I never did. You’re thinking about Garson.”
“Garson for one. And all the others.”
“Maybe something happened to him. You get into tight spots. It’s a simple matter to make a big mistake. Or the operator might have missed.”
“Our operators never miss,” snapped Spencer.
“Garson was a good man,” said E.J., a little sadly.
“Garson! It’s not only Garson. It’s all the …” Spencer stopped abruptly, for he’d run into it again. After all these years, he still kept running into it. No matter how he tried, it was something to which he could not reconcile himself—the disparity in time.
He saw that E.J. was staring at him, with just the slightest crinkle that was not quite a smile at the corner of his mouth.
“You can’t let it eat you,” said E.J. “You’re not responsible. We take our chances. If it wasn’t worth our while …”
“Oh, shut up!” said Spencer.
“Sure,” said E.J., “you lose one of us every now and then. But it’s no worse than any other business.”
“Not one every now and then,” said Spencer. “There have been three of them in the last ten days.”
“Well, now,” said E.J. “I lose track of them. There was Garson just the other day. And Taylor—how long ago was that?”
“Four days ago,” said Spencer.
“Four days,” said E.J., astonished. “Is that all it was?”
Spencer snapped, “For you it was three months or more. And do you remember Price? For you that was a year ago, but just ten days for me.”
E.J. put up a dirty paw and scrubbed at the bristle on his chin.
“How time does fly!”
“Look,” said Spencer, miserably, “this whole set-up is bad enough. Please don’t make jokes about it.”
“Garside been giving you a hard time, maybe? Losing too many of the men?”
“Hell, no,” said Spencer, bitterly. “You can always get more men. It’s the machines that bother him. He keeps reminding me they cost a quarter million.”
E.J. made a rude sound with his lips.
“Get out of here!” yelled Spencer. “And see that you come home!”
E.J. grinned and left. He gave the toga a girlish flirt as he went out the door.
Spencer told himself E.J. was wrong. For whatever anyone might say, he, Hallock Spencer, was responsible. He ran the stinking show. He made up the schedules. He assigned the travelers and he sent them out. When there were mistakes or hitches, he was the one who answered. To himself, if no one else.
He got up and paced the floor, hands locked behind his back.
Three men in the last ten days. And what had happened to them?
Possibly there was something to what Garside said, as well—Christopher Anson Garside, chief co-ordinator and a nasty man to handle, with his clipped, gray mustache and his clipped, gray voice and his clipped, gray business thinking.
For it was not men alone who did not come back. It was likewise the training and experience you had invested in those men. They lasted, Spencer told himself, a short time at the best without managing to get themselves killed off somewhere in the past, or deciding to squat down and settle in some other era they liked better than the present.
And the machines were something that could not be dismissed. Every time a man failed to return it meant another carrier lost. And the carriers did cost a quarter million—which wasn’t something you could utterly forget.