He laughed, and it was not a pleasant sound. "That is if the cleaning people haven't told the landlord we've been sleeping in it for the past three months."
The horse show ran from Tuesday of one week through Tuesday of the next and, surprisingly to Colin, Mrs. Bullitt did not appear to be put out when the rules committee found in their favor on the question of Ato's breeding raised by her.
"You know," Ed said, "I don't think she really wanted to win this one. After all, if she'd managed to get our entry disqualified this time around, then she couldn't very well have expected any animal we might build for her to be eligible, if she had in mind to enter it in the future."' "I think she might expect a special class, if not for her flying horse, then for her."
But Ed could be right. She meant only to keep their entry out, to give them a charge, to encourage them, she might say, to see things her way.
He and Ed had won in the committee room, but it turned out to be an academic victory. When they got down to the stable level they found the shield-shaped sheriffs notice taped to an upright of Ato's stall. Some confusion among their creditors, the bank being chiefest. Until it could be straightened out, their assets, Ato's Pride included, were being impounded.
Sudden, impotent, frustrated fury poured through Colin. It wasn't quicksand. It was a solid bnck wall and he was backed against it. He clenched and unclenched his fists… and felt completely helplessAto's Pride made a little dancing movement with his hoofs.
He tossed his head, his nostrils flaring.
"I'm upsetting our horse," Colin said. "Let's get out of here."
"Yeah," Ed said. "Yeah." And Colin noticed that his face was white and he too was shaking.
It was after they'd checked out and were striding up the ramp to the street that the thought hit Colin.
He caught hold of Ed's arm and pulled him to a halt.
"Ed," he said, "how do you know a horse is a horse?"
Ed pulled his arm away roughly. "I'm in no mood for jokes right now," he said, "so do me a favor and skip it."
"I'm not kidding. How do you know a horse is a horse?"
"All right, Mr. Interlocutor. How do I know a horse is a horse? Because it looks like a horse. That's how." Ed stopped.
"You can't mean…"
"That's exactly what I mean," Colin said. "Turn our problem inside out. Don't try to build a horse and make it fly, instead, take a creature that can fly already and make it took like a horse."
Ed was laughing. Colin thought he heard a hysterical note in the sound.
"A… a… thousand-pound bird."
"It wouldn't weigh a thousand pounds. Birds are built differently from horses. Hollow bones… Are you listening?"
But Ed was still laughing. "A… a horse with feathers."
"What is a feather if not a modified hair… and vice versa."
Ed was wiping his eyes. "Hollow bones. Did you ever heft the bones of a thirty-pound turkey? You build an animal as big as a horse, it's going to weigh like a horse. You've still got half a ton to lift into the air, and it doesn't much matter whether it's a horse muscle or a bird muscle that tries to do it.
It still is an impossible job."
Ed was right. To end up with what they wanted, they would have to start with something just as special. "I'm sorry," Colin said, "I… I'm Just not thinking straight."
They made their way on up the ramp and walked the not-so-great distance to their office buildings. Colin laughed shortly when they came in sight of it. "It's a cold night. I hope Mrs. Bullitt hasn't managed to have us locked out."
Colin thought he was making a bitter joke, but when they reached the door of their office, a small green placard hung on its knob. The terms of their lease clearly prohibited the use of the premises as living quarters. Would they kindly be ready to vacate in the required three days.
"She is a witch," Ed said, his eyes staring.
But all Colin could do was pound his clenched hand against the wall of the passageway until the pain of it brought him to some semblance of calm.
"We're going back," he finally said. "We're going back and we'll sign her contract. We'll give her something. I don't know what, but believe me, it will look like a horse… and I promise you… it will fly."
At the Arena they found Mrs. Bullitt in the Manager's office rattling a fistful of papers under the balding man's nose while the handful of clerks in the room made it plain that they were too deep in their work to see… or hear… what was going on. Fleetingly, Colin wondered if she wore those roweled spurs to bed.
She did not seem suprised to see them, nor did she seem inclined to take Colin and Ed to her own office- She halfturned away from the manager, the papers still clutched in a fist, to face them. "You're back," she snapped. "I told you you would be."
The waspish tone of her voice might have made Colin turn around and walk away from her only the day before. Now, in some perverse way, it made him stand his ground.
He was surprised at how quiet his voice sounded. "Yes, Mrs. Bullitt. i think we're ready to accept your assignment."
The woman in the striped coat and boots made an abrupt motion to one of the clerks and the girl came to her immediately. "There's a blue envelope on my desk. Get it," Mrs.
Bullitt snapped. The girl scurried out the door.
"I knew you'd be back," she said to Colin and Ed. "You see, it's all a question of understanding people. It always is.
People never know what they can really do until they absolutely have to do it or else."
She smiled and her face looked smug. "All I ever do is provide the 'or else.' " ^ Colin held his tongue, but beside him he could hear Ed t breathing heavily. H The girl clerk came back and Abby Bullitt took the long |1 blue envelope from her hand and dropped it on the Manager's I. counter in front of Colin.?
"Sign it," she said, leaving it to him to take out and! ^ unfold the long shape of the contract for himself. ^ Colin ignored the slight, but at his first glimpse of the $ printed form he looked up at Mrs. Bullitt, puzzled. "This ^ … this contract is with the University. I don't understand.
Yesterday your husband…"
"Yesterday's contract was with me. Today's is with the University."
She smiled and now she seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself. "1 told you then that I wouldn't be as easy to get along with again."
And suddenly Colin was aghast as the full implication of what she meant to do struck him. She meant to have her flying animal, and she meant to compel them to give it to her for nothing. Absolutely nothing… or elseUnder a University grant they could, of course, use its facilities, its equipment, but at no profit to themselves, not even a mention of their names if the University was not disposed to lift them from anonymity.
He ran his eyes down the page- It was the standard University form, printed, with the usual blank spaces for additional items left to be filled in.
But the items filled in were anything but usual.
"Sixty days," Colin gasped, his eyes, unbelieving and dazed, moving from the smiling woman, to Ed, and back again. "Sixty days?"
"A little added incentive to keep you from dawdling," she said. "I know how you people like to stretch things out when you think you have hold of someone you can take advantage of. Surely in sixty days you ought to have something to show me. Now sign."
Ed took the contract from Colin's nerveless fingers, it rustled loudly in his shaking hand as he glanced down it. "Sixty days and we guarantee results." He flung the contract on the counter. "The way that's phrased, we could go to jail for outright fraud if we don't deliver."
Abby Butlitt had her arms crossed in front of her, tight.
She said nothing.
Silence hung in the room.
Abruptly Ed snatched the Manager's chained-down pen from its stand and scribbled his name across the bottom of the stiff paper. He shoved contract and pen at Colin. "Here, sign this and let's get out of here."
Through a haze that was red and gathering, Colin signed and flung down the pen. "Would you like your horse to be of any particular color?" he said bitterly, and was aghast to see that Mrs. Builitt seemed to be taking the question seriously.