"Well, if you don't like that, I have some news you will like. There's going to be another very special guest."
"Hi ho."
"And you have to go to Homestead for some Irish whisky for him. The club hasn't got any."
"Finnerty! Ed Finnerty!"
"Yes, Finnerty. He called this afternoon and was very specific about your getting some Irish for him. He's on his way from Washington to Chicago, and he's going to stop off here."
"How long has it been, Anita? Five, six years?"
"Not since before you got to be manager. That long." She was hale, enthusiastic about Finnerty's coming. It annoyed Paul, because he knew very well that she didn't care for Finnerty. She was crowing, not because she was fond of Finnerty but because she enjoyed the ritual attitudes of friendships, of which she had none. Also, since he'd left Ilium, Ed Finnerty had become a man of consequence, a member of the National Industrial Planning Board; and this fact no doubt dulled her recollections of contretemps with Finnerty in the past.
"You're right about that being good news, Anita. It's wonderful. Takes the edge off Kroner and Baer."
"Now, you're going to be nice to them, too."
"Oh yes. Pittsburgh, here we come."
"If I tell you something for your own good, promise not to get mad?"
"No."
"All right, I'll tell you anyway. Amy Halporn said this morning she'd heard something about you and Pittsburgh. Her husband was with Kroner today, and Kroner had the impression that you didn't want to go to Pittsburgh."
"How does he want me to tell him - in Esperanto? I've told him I wanted the job a dozen different ways in English."
"Apparently Kroner doesn't feel you really mean it. You've been too subtle and modest, darling."
"Kroner's a bright one, all right."
"How do you mean?"
"I mean he's got more insight into me than I do."
"You mean you don't want the Pittsburgh job?"
"I'm not sure. He apparently knew that before I did."
"You're tired, darling."
"I guess."
"You need a drink. Come home early."
"All right."
"I love you, Paul."
"I love you, Anita. Goodbye."
Anita had the mechanics of marriage down pat, even to the subtlest conventions. If her approach was disturbingly rational, systematic, she was thorough enough to turn out a creditable counterfeit of warmth. Paul could only suspect that her feelings were shallow - and perhaps that suspicion was part of what he was beginning to think of as his sickness.
His head was down, his eyes closed, when he hung up. When he opened his eyes, he was looking at the dead cat in the basket.
"Katharine!"
"Yessir."
"Will you have somebody bury this cat."
"We wondered what you wanted to do with it."
"God knows what I had in mind." He looked at the corpse and shook his head. "God knows. Maybe a Christian burial; maybe I hoped she'd come around. Get rid of it right away, would you?"
He stopped by Katharine's desk on his way home and told her not to worry about the glowing jewel on the seventh meter from the bottom, fifth row from the left, on the east wall.
"Beyond help," he said. Lathe group three, Building 58, had been good in its day, but was showing wear and becoming a misfit in the slick, streamlined setup, where there was no place for erratic behavior. "Basically, it wasn't built for the job it's doing anyway. I look for the buzzer to go off any day now, and that'll be the end."
In each meter box, in addition to the instrument, the jewel, and the warning lamp, was a buzzer. The buzzer was the signal for a unit's complete breakdown.
Chapter Two
THE SHAH OF BRATPUHR, spiritual leader of 6,000,000 members of the Kolhouri sect, wizened and wise and dark as cocoa, encrusted with gold brocade and constellations of twinkling gems, sank deep into the royal-blue cushions of the limousine - like a priceless brooch in its gift box.
On the other side of the limousine's rear seat sat Doctor Ewing J. Halyard, of the United States Department of State, a heavy, florid, urbane gentleman of forty. He wore a flowing sandy mustache, a colored shirt, a boutonniere, and a waistcoat contrasting with his dark suit, and wore them with such poise that one was sure he'd just come from a distinguished company where everyone dressed in this manner. The fact was that only Doctor Halyard did. And he got away with it beautifully.
Between them, nervous, grinning, young, and forever apologetic for his own lack of éclat or power, was Khashdrahr Miasma, the interpreter, and nephew of the Shah, who had learned English from a tutor, but had never before been outside of the Shah's palace.
"Khabu?" said the Shah in his high, frail voice.
Halyard had been with the Shah for three days now and was able to understand, without Khashdrahr's help, five of the Shah's expressions. "Khabu" meant "where?" "Siki" meant "what?" "Akka sahn" meant "why?" "Brahous brahouna, houna saki" was a combination of blessing and thanks, and Sumklish was the sacred Kolhouri drink which Khashdrahr carried in a hip flask for the Shah.
The Shah had left his military and spiritual fastness in the mountains to see what he could learn in the most powerful nation on earth for the good of his people. Doctor Halyard was his guide and host.
"Khabu?" said the Shah again, peering out at the city.
"The Shah wishes to know, please, where we are now," said Khashdrahr.
"I know," said Halyard, smiling wanly. It had been khabu and siki and akka sahn until he was half out of his mind. He leaned forward. "Ilium, New York, your highness. We are about to cross the Iroquois River, which divides the town in two. Over there on the opposite bank is the Ilium Works."
The limousine came to a halt by the end of the bridge, where a large work crew was filling a small chuckhole. The crew had opened a lane for an old Plymouth with a broken headlight, which was coming through from the north side of the river. The limousine waited for the Plymouth to get through, and then proceeded.
The Shah turned to stare at the group through the back window, and then spoke at length.
Doctor Halyard smiled and nodded appreciatively, and awaited a translation.
"The Shah," said Khashdrahr, "he would like, please, to know who owns these slaves we see all the way up from New York City."
"Not slaves," said Halyard, chuckling patronizingly. "Citizens, employed by government. They have same rights as other citizens - free speech, freedom of worship, the right to vote. Before the war, they worked in the Ilium Works, controlling machines, but now machines control themselves much better."
"Aha!" said the Shah, after Khashdrahr had translated.
"Less waste, much better products, cheaper products with automatic control."
"Aha!"
"And any man who cannot support himself by doing a job better than a machine is employed by the government, either in the Army or the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps."
"Aha! Khabu bonanza-pak?"
"Eh?"
"He says, 'Where does the money come from to pay them?' " said Khashdrahr.
"Oh. From taxes on the machines, and taxes on personal incomes. Then the Army and the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps people put their money back into the system for more products for better living."
"Aha!"
Doctor Halyard, a dutiful man with a bad conscience about the size of his expense accounts, went on explaining America, though he knew very little was getting through. He told the Shah that advances had been most profound in purely industrial communities, where the bulk of the population - as in Ilium - had made its living tending machines in one way or another. In New York City, for instance, there were many skills difficult or uneconomical to mechanize, and the advances hadn't liberated as high a percentage of people from production.