Baer stepped between them. "Forgot, forgot - supposed to tell you," he said. "Berringer, about Berringer. Kroner said to tell you, and I forgot, forgot."
"How the hell did he get up here?"
"Kroner brought him up. Last minute thing, see? Hmm? Kroner thought it'd break his father's heart if the boy wasn't asked, and after what happened to Checker Charley and all."
"There goes the merit system," said Paul.
Baer nodded. "Yep - there it goes, there it goes, all right." He shrugged and raised his eyebrows quizzically. "Zip zip, out the window."
Paul reflected that Baer was possibly the most just, reasonable, and candid person he'd ever known - remarkably machine-like in that the only problems he interested himself in were those brought to him, and in that he went to work on all problems with equal energy and interest, insensitive to quality and scale.
Paul glanced once more at Berringer, saw his luncheon companion was Shepherd and that his shirt was green, and forgot about him.
He and Garth finally found a pair of very young strangers with two empty seats between them, and sat down.
The redheaded youngster next to Paul looked at his badge. "Oh, Doctor Proteus. I've heard of you. How are you, sir?"
"Paul, not Doctor. Fine, how are you - " he studied his companion's badge "Doctor Edmund L. Harrison, of the Ithaca Works?"
"Get to know the man next to you," said the loudspeaker. "Don't talk to anyone you know."
"Married?" said Paul.
"That's what you're here for, to get to know new people, to broaden your horizons," said the loudspeaker.
"Nossir, I'm en -"
"The more contacts you make here at the Meadows," said the loudspeaker, "the more smoothly industry will function, co-operationwise."
"I'm engaged," said Doctor Harrison.
"An Ithaca girl?"
"Two seats right over here, gentlemen - over in the corner. Right over there. Let's get our seats quickly, because there's a full program, and everybody wants to get down to knowing everybody else," said the loudspeaker.
"Nossir," said Doctor Harrison. "Atlanta." He looked at Paul's badge again. "Aren't you the son of -"
"Now that we're all seated and getting to know one another, how about a little song to pull us all together?" said the loudspeaker.
"Yes, he was my father," said Paul.
"Turn to page twenty-eight of the Song Book," said the loudspeaker. "Twenty-eight, twenty-eight!"
"He was quite a man," said Harrison.
"Yes," said Paul.
" 'Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie!' " shouted the loudspeaker. "Find it? Twenty-eight! All right, now, let's go!"
The band at the far end of the hall, amplified to the din of an elephant charge, smashed and hewed at the tune as though in a holy war against silence. It was impossible even to be cordial to oneself in the midst of the uproar. Paul's stomach knotted and his tastebuds went dead, and the delicious, expensive food went down his gullet like boiled horsemeat and hominy grits.
"Paul, Paul, Paul, oh Paul!" shouted Baer from across the table. "Paul!"
"What?"
"That's you - you they're calling for; they're calling for you!"
"Don't tell me the captain of the Blue Team is such a coward he ran out at the last minute," the loudspeaker was saying sarcastically. "Come on! Where's that Blue captain?"
Paul stood, and held up his hand. "Here," he said in a voice inaudible even to himself.
Cheers and boos greeted him, in a proportion of one to three. He was pelted by wadded paper napkins and maraschino cherries from the tops of salads.
"Well," said the loudspeaker tauntingly, "let's hear your song."
Hands gripped Paul and hoisted him into the air, and he was borne down the aisle toward the bandstand by a flying wedge of blue-shirted men. They dumped him on the bandstand and formed a cordon about him. The master of ceremonies, a fat, red old man with breasts like a woman's sticking through his wet T-shirt, thrust a Song Book into his hands. The band blasted out the fight song of the Blue Team.
"Oh you Blue Team, you tried and true team," said Paul. His voice came back at him, strange and frightening, amplified electronically to fierce defiance and determination. "There are no teams as good as you!"
At this point he was completely drowned out by the stamping of feet, whistles, catcalls, and the clank of spoons on glasses. The master of ceremonies, delighted with the high spirits he was evoking, handed Paul a blue banner to wave. No sooner were Paul's hands on the staff than he saw the ranks of his protectors split wide open. Berringer, his head lowered, his thick legs driving, charged him.
In the scuffle, Paul swung at the informality-maddened Berringer, missed, and was knocked, hors de combat, off the bandstand and halfway through the kitchen doors.
"Please! Please!" the loudspeaker was pleading. "There are very few rules at the Meadows, but the few that there are must be observed! Get back to your seat, now, you in the green shirt. There's to be no rough stuff indoors. Do you understand?"
Laughter was general.
"One more outburst like this one, and you'll be asked to leave the island!"
Kind hands picked up Paul, and he found himself looking into the grave, dull face of Luke Lubbock, the perennial joiner, who wore a busboy's uniform. One of the cooks, who had been watching with disdain, turned away quickly when Paul looked at him, and disappeared into the big meat locker.
As Paul's teammates carried him back to his seat, he realized fleetingly, as a fragment of a nightmare, that the cook had been Alfy, the master of silent television.
"Now, now," said the loudspeaker. "No more rough stuff, or we'll have to call off the rest of the fun. Now, where's the captain of the White Team?"
When the fun was over, Paul and Doctor Harrison of Ithaca walked out together.
"You have ten minutes of free time until the memorial service," said the loudspeaker. "Ten minutes to make new contacts before the memorial service."
"Nice meeting you, sir," said Doctor Harrison.
"I enj -"
"My wild Irish rose," howled the loudspeaker, "the sweetest flow'r that grows -" The refrain ended in a clatter. "Your attention, please. The Program Committee has just informed me that we're running seven minutes behind schedule, so would you please form up at the Oak right away, please. The memorial service will take place right away."
A reverent hush settled like smog over the perspiring crowd that had dispersed over the shuffleboard courts and around the ping-pong tables near the dining hall. Now they began to form about the Oak, the official symbol for the entire national organization. Its image was on every letterhead, and, stitched in a rectangle of white silk, its image snapped in the breeze, just below the American Flag on the parade-ground mast.
The youngsters imitated the oldsters' uniform stances of piety: eyes fixed on the lower branches of the magnificent old tree, hands folded before their genitals.
"White's going to win!" cried a short, thin youngster with big teeth.
The older men looked at him with sadness, with melancholy rebuke. Now was not the time for such horseplay. Now was almost the only time that was not the time. The youngster's outburst of infinite bad taste would poison his next two weeks, and probably his career. He had in an instant become "the boy who yelled at memorial service." That described him, and nobody would care to investigate him any further. Now, if he turned out to be a spectacular athlete . . . No. His flaccid physique and pale skin indicated that this avenue to forgiveness was closed to him.
Paul looked at him sympathetically, and recalled similar bad starts from the past. The man would be terribly lonely, turn to a career of surly drinking, and never be invited again.
The only sounds now were the rustling of leaves and the fluttering of the flags, and now and then the clatter of dishes and silverware from the dining hall.