"Propinquity, I imagine. We and the technicians are the only ones who go in and out of the bottle rooms at will. And one of the technicians is a plant, he told us that, so they are being watched from their own ranks. Which leaves us."
"I don't understand it at all. Why should anyone want to sabotage the bottles?"
Livermore nodded slowly.
"That's the question that Blalock should be asking. Until he finds out the why of this business he's never going to find who is doing it."
Leatha came silently into the office and said nothing as she closed the door behind her. Gust looked up from the papers on his desk, surprised; she had never been in his office before.
"Why did you do it, why?" she said in a hoarse voice, her face drawn, ugly with the strain of her emotions. He was stunned into silence.
"Don't think I don't know — that Blalock came to see me and told me everything. Where you were last night, about her, so don't try to deny it. He wasn't lying, I could tell."
Gust was tired and not up to playing a role in a bitter exchange. "Why would he tell you these things?" he asked.
"Why? That's fairly obvious. He doesn't care about you or me, just his job. He suspects me, I could tell that, thinks I could sabotage the bottles. He wanted me to lose my temper, and I did, not that it did any good. Now answer me — pig— why did you do it? That's all I want to know, why?"
Gust looked at his fists clenched on the desk before him. "I wanted to, I suppose."
"You wanted to!" Leatha shrieked the words. "That's the kind of man you are, you wanted to, so you just went there. I suppose I don't have to bother asking you what happened— my imagination is good enough for that."
"Lea, this isn't the time or place to talk about this—"
"Oh, isn't it? It doesn't take any special place for me to tell you what I think of you, you. traitor!"
His fixed and silent face only angered her more, beyond words. On the table close by was a cutaway model of New Town, prepared when it was still in the design stage. She seized it in both hands, raised it over her head, and hurled it at him. But it was too light, and it spun end over end in the air, striking him harmlessly on the arm and falling to the floor where it broke, shedding small chunks of plastic.
"You shouldn't have done that," Gust said, bending to retrieve the model. "Here you've broken it and it costs money. I'm responsible for it."
The only response was a slam, and he looked up to see that Leatha was gone.
Anger filled her, stronger than anything she had ever experienced before in her life. Her chest hurt and she had trouble breathing. How could he have done this to her? She walked fast, until she had to gasp for breath, through the corridors of New Town. Aimlessly, she thought, until she looked at the entrance to the nearby offices and realized that she had had a goal all the time. centengcom, the sign read, an unattractive acronym for the Central Engineering Commission. Could she enter here, and if she did, what could she say? A man came out and held the door for her; she couldn't begin to explain why she was standing there so she went in. There was a floor plan on the facing wall, and she pressed the button labeled secretarial pool, then turned in the indicated direction.
It really proved quite easy to do. A number of girls worked in the large room surrounded by the hum of office machines and typers. People were going in and out, and she stood for a minute until a young man carrying a sheaf of papers emerged. He stopped when she spoke to him.
"Could you help me? I'm looking for a… Miss Georgette Booker. I understand she works here."
"Georgy, sure. Over there at that desk against the far wall, wearing the white shirt or whatever you call it. Want me to tell her you're here?"
"No, that's fine, thank you very much. I'll talk to her myself."
Leatha waited until he had gone, then looked over the bent heads to the desk against the far wall and gasped. Yes, it had to be that girl, white blouse and dark hair, rich chocolate-colored skin. Leatha pushed on into the office and took a roundabout path through the aisles between the desks that would enable her to pass by the girl, slowing as she came close. She was pretty, no denying that, she was pretty. A nicely sculptured face, thin-bridged nose, but too heavily made up with the purple lipstick that was in now. And tiny silver stars dusted across one cheek and onto her chest. There was enough of that, and most of it showing too in the new peekie-look thin fabric, almost completely transparent. The large breasts rose halfway out of the blouse, and through it the black circles of her nipples could be seen. Feeling the eyes on her, Georgette looked up and smiled warmly at Leatha, who turned away and walked past her, faster and faster.
By the middle of the afternoon Dr. Livermore was very tired. He had had little sleep the previous night, and the FBI man's visit had disturbed him. Then he had to put the technicians to work clearing up the mess in the bottle room, and while they could be trusted to do a good job, he nevertheless wanted to check it out for himself when they were done. He would do that and then perhaps take a nap. He pushed the elaborate scrawled codes of the gene charts away from him and rose stiffly. He was beginning to feel his years. Perhaps it was time to consider joining his patients in the warm comfort of the geriatric levels. He smiled at the thought and started for the labs.
There was little formality among his staff, and he never thought to knock on the door of Leatha's private office when he found it closed. His thoughts were on the bottles. He pushed the door open and found her bent over the desk, her face in her hands, crying.
"What is wrong?" he called out before he realized that it might have been wiser to leave quietly. He had a sudden insight as to what the trouble might be.
She raised a tear-dampened and reddened face, and he closed the door behind him.
"I'm sorry to walk in like this. I should have knocked."
"No, Dr. Livermore, that's all right." She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. "I'm sorry you have to see me like this."
"Perfectly normal. I think I understand."
"No, it has nothing to do with bottles."
"I know. It's that girl, isn't it? I had hoped you wouldn't find out."
Leatha was too distraught to ask him how he knew but began sobbing again at this reminder. Livermore wanted to leave but could think of no way to do it gracefully. At the present moment he just could not be interested in this domestic tragedy.
"I saw her," Leatha said. "I went there, God knows why, driven, I suppose. To see just what he preferred to me was so humiliating. A blowsy thing, vulgar, the obvious kind of thing a man might like. And she's colored. How could he have done this….."
The sobbing began again and Livermore stopped, his hand on the knob. He had wanted to leave before he became involved himself. Now he was involved.
"I remember your talking to me about it once," he said. "Where you come from. Somewhere in the South, isn't it?"
The complete irrelevancy of the question stopped Leatha, even slowed her tears. "Yes, Mississippi. A little fishing town near Biloxi."
"I thought so. And you grew up with a good jolt of racial bias. The worst thing you have against this girl is the fact that she is black."
"I never said that. But there are things. "
"No, there are not things, if you mean races or colors or religions or anything like that. I am shocked to hear you, a geneticist, even suggest an idea like that. Deeply shocked. Though, unhappily, I'm not surprised."
"I don't care about her. It's him, Gust, what he did to me."