“They deducted the time for that, though.”
“Sure, but I lost time wondering if I could be right in my diagnosis when I noticed there wasn’t any clamp depresser in the parts they had supplied. They don’t deduct for that. If it had been a Hensler, I would have known I was right. How could I match up then? The top winner was a San Franciscan. So were three of the next four. And the fifth guy was from Los Angeles. They get big-city Educational tapes. The best available. Beeman spectrographs and all. How do I compete with them? I came all the way out here just to get a chance at a Novian-sponsored Olympics in my classification and I might just as well have stayed home. I knew it, I tell you, and that settles it. Novia isn’t the only chunk of rock in space. Of all the damned—”
He wasn’t speaking to George. He wasn’t speaking to anyone. He was just uncorked and frothing. George realized that.
George said, “If you knew in advance that the Beemans were going to be used, couldn’t you have studied up on them?”
“They weren’t in my tapes, I tell you,”
“You could have read—books.”
The last word had tailed off under Trevelyan’s suddenly sharp look.
Trevelyan said, “Are you trying to make a big laugh out of this? You think this is funny? How do you expect me to read some book and try to memorize enough to match someone else who knows.”
“I thought—”
“You try it. You try—” Then, suddenly, “What’s your profession, by the way?” He sounded thoroughly hostile.
“Well—”
“Come on, now. If you’re going to be a wise guy with me, let’s see what you’ve done. You’re still on Earth, I notice, so you’re not a Computer Programmer and your special assignment can’t be much.”
George said, “Listen, Trev, I’m late for an appointment.” He backed away, trying to smile.
“No, you don’t.” Trevelyan reached out fiercely, catching hold of George’s jacket. “You answer my question. Why are you afraid to tell me? What is it with you? Don’t come here rubbing a bad showing in my face, George, unless you can take it, too. Do you hear me?”
He was shaking George in frenzy and they were struggling and swaying across the floor, when the Voice of Doom struck George’s ear in the form of a policeman’s outraged call.
“All right now. All right. Break it up.”
George’s heart turned to lead and lurched sickeningly. The policeman would be taking names, asking to see identity cards, and George lacked one. He would be questioned and his lack of profession would show at once; and before Trevelyan, too, who ached with the pain of the drubbing he had taken and would spread the news back home as a salve for his own hurt feelings.
George couldn’t stand that. He broke away from Trevelyan and made to run, but the policeman’s heavy hand was on his shoulder. “Hold on, there. Let’s see your identity card.”
Trevelyan was fumbling for his, saying harshly, “I’m Armand Trevelyan, Metallurgist, Nonferrous. I was just competing in the Olympics. You better find out about him, though, officer.”
George faced the two, lips dry and throat thickened past speech.
Another voice sounded, quiet, well-mannered. “Officer. One moment.”
The policeman stepped back. “Yes, sir?”
“This young man is my guest. What is the trouble?”
George looked about in wild surprise. It was the gray-haired man who had been sitting next to him. Gray-hair nodded benignly at George.
Guest? Was he mad?
The policeman was saying, “These two were creating a disturbance, sir.”
“Any criminal charges? Any damages?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, then, I’ll be responsible.” He presented a small card to the policeman’s view and the latter stepped back at once.
Trevelyan began indignantly, “Hold on, now—” but the policeman turned on him.
“All right, now. Got any charges?”
“I just—”
“On your way. The rest of you—move on.” A sizable crowd had gathered, which now, reluctantly, unknotted itself and raveled away.
George let himself be led to a skimmer but balked at entering.
He said, “Thank you, but I’m not your guest.” (Could it be a ridiculous case of mistaken identity?)
But Gray-hair smiled and said, “You weren’t but you are now. Let me introduce myself, I’m Ladislas Ingenescu, Registered Historian.”
“But—”
“Come, you will come to no harm, I assure you. After all, I only wanted to spare you some trouble with a policeman.”
“But why?”
“Do you want a reason? Well, then, say that we’re honorary towns-mates, you and I. We both shouted for the same man, remember, and we townspeople must stick together, even if the tie is only honorary. Eh?”
And George, completely unsure of this man, Ingenescu, and of himself as well, found himself inside the skimmer. Before he could make up his mind that he ought to get off again, they were off the ground.
He thought confusedly: The man has some status. The policeman deferred to him.
He was almost forgetting that his real purpose here in San Francisco was not to find Trevelyan but to find some person with enough influence to force a reappraisal of his own capacity of Education.
It could be that Ingenescu was such a man. And right in George’s lap.
Everything could be working out fine—fine. Yet it sounded hollow in his thought. He was uneasy.
During the short skimmer-hop, Ingenescu kept up an even flow of small-talk, pointing out the landmarks of the city, reminiscing about past Olympics he had seen. George, who paid just enough attention to make vague sounds during the pauses, watched the route of flight anxiously.
Would they head for one of the shield-openings and leave the city altogether?
The skimmer landed at the roof-entry of a hotel and, as he alighted, Ingenescu said, “I hope you’ll eat dinner with me in my room?”
George said, “Yes,” and grinned unaffectedly. He was just beginning to realize the gap left within him by a missing lunch.
Ingenescu let George eat in silence. Night closed in and the wall lights went on automatically. (George thought: I’ve been on my own almost twenty-four hours.)
And then over the coffee, Ingenescu finally spoke again. He said, “You’ve been acting as though you think I intend you harm.”
George reddened, put down his cup and tried to deny it, but the older man laughed and shook his head.
“It’s so. I’ve been watching you closely since I first saw you and I think I know a great deal about you now.”
George half rose in horror.
Ingenescu said, “But sit down. I only want to help you.”
George sat down but his thoughts were in a whirl. If the old man knew who he was, why had he not left him to the policeman? On the other hand, why should he volunteer help?
Ingenescu said, “You want to know why I should want to help you? Oh, don’t look alarmed. I can’t read minds. It’s just that my training enables me to judge the little reactions that give minds away, you see. Do you understand that?”
George shook his head.
Ingenescu said, “Consider my first sight of you. You were waiting in line to watch an Olympics, and your micro-reactions didn’t match what you were doing. The expression of your face was wrong, the action of your hands was wrong. It meant that something, in general, was wrong, and the interesting thing was that, whatever it was, it was nothing common, nothing obvious. Perhaps, I thought, it was something of which your own conscious mind was unaware.
“I couldn’t help but follow you, sit next to you. I followed you again when you left and eavesdropped on the conversation between your friend and yourself. After that, well, you were far too interesting an object of study—I’m sorry if that sounds cold-blooded—for me to allow you to be taken off by a policeman.—Now tell me, what is it that troubles you?”