Put talcs and lotions on it when it’s dry …
But scratch it and—God damn, I hurt, I bleed!
continuity (38)
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“Thanks,” Chad said.
Norman could hardly believe his ears. He said, “Whatinole are you thanking me for? Prophet’s beard, I should be down on hands and knees to you. I owe you—”
He stopped suddenly. There were too many people in earshot for him to speak the truth: that it wasn’t the rescue of the GT investment planned for Beninia, but the salvation of the project itself along with everything he had personally committed to the idea, for which he wanted to express his gratitude. But the presidential floor of the GT tower was swarming with distinguished guests, including the team from State who behind their spokesman Raphael Corning had been supervising the venture. He was beset with them and fellow staffers and acquaintances until he had started to feel like the quarry of hounds. He had not even had the satisfaction of telling Elihu the good news; Waterford had immediately sent messengers in search of him and Ram Ibusa on the specially mounted tour they were making of the building.
Chad sensed his mood and divined the reason behind it. He said with a wry smile, “It’s a drecky way to run a man’s life, isn’t it? You’re the crown of creation, codder, and you can’t stand it. But I guess one must learn to put up with it.”
“I’ve started noticing the things wrong with it all over again since I came home,” Norman admitted.
“I’ve never experienced them before. I spent a lot of my youth in the secluded groves of Academe—maybe that was what deluded me into thinking people would listen if I shouted at them loud enough, because my old students did at least pretend to be paying attention even if they never acted on what they were told … But I’ll have to get used, I suppose.”
“What?”
“You said you were going to hire me.”
“But—” Norman stumble-tongued. “But you’ve done what I was going to hire you for! You put Shalmaneser back on the orbit we wanted him to fly, and—”
“Norman, you’re contaminated,” Chad cut in. “You’re a nice guy and you’ve done me favours and the rest, but you’re contaminated. Look, spare-wheel!”
Without turning his head he put the empty glass he was holding on a passing trolley and snatched another.
“What did everyone say who was hanging around Shal while I had my little chat with him?”
Suddenly irritated beyond endurance, Norman snapped, “You ought to drop the modesty act. It’s pseudo. It doesn’t suit you and you’re not good at it.”
“You mean calling it a little chat? The hole!” Chad swigged his new drink down. “Get it into your skull, will you? That’s the plain truth! I never make with the modesty act—I’m congenitally conceited and I long ago gave up trying to cure myself. But it’s not that I’m so damned good at anything. I just haven’t been conditioned into thinking that the right answer can’t be a simple one. When I told you you’d been contaminated I meant by that attitude, which is wider-spread than the common cold and just as undermining. Did nobody ever point out to you that the only liberty implied by free will is the opportunity to be wrong? In words of one syllable more or less: what Shal has done is exercise his built-in faculties—the ones everybody on the design team expected, hoped for, advertised as a colossal breakthrough in cybernetics and then refused to recognise when they saw them happening! Shal did exactly what you’re doing at this moment, and he was just as wrong as you are. He—”
Inserted into the middle of the flow of words as neatly as a monofilament wire, the voice of Prosper Rankin: suave, ingratiating, and to Norman horrible.
“Mr. Mulligan—or I believe I should say Doctor, should I not?”
“Sure, I have more doctorates than a dog has fleas these days.” Chad turned, blinking, and Norman felt a stir of apprehension. “What other ailments may I cure for you besides the minor complaint I saw to already?”
Rankin gave an insincere grin: was that a joke? “I’d hardly call it minor, though naturally we wouldn’t care for people to know just how worried Shalmaneser had us there for a while. We’re tremendously indebted for your insight and assistance—and on that subject, it occurred to me to wonder whether anyone had formally asked you to join our company at the banquet we’re having to mark the successful outcome of the Beninian negotiations. Norman has presumably told you about it.”
“No, nobody’s invited me to come along to anything except this bierfest that’s going on now. And this I don’t mind because whoever does your catering appreciates good liquor.”
Fasten it, you fool. Norman frowned the thought at Rankin and wished he could utter it aloud. What I want to do is sneak out with Chad and go to a bar with him. Drunk or sober I’d rather hear what he has to say than …
“Thank you,” Rankin was saying. “Our food, I assure you, is of equally high standard. But what I was going to ask you was whether you’d care to say a few words afterwards, along with Dr. Ibusa and Dr. Masters and Dr. Corning.”
I think you ought to tell him what he can do with his speechifying.
But Norman’s momentary wild hope died. With a light in his eye that Norman had begun to recognise for a danger signal, Chad was nodding vigorously.
“By all means. I should love to say a few words to these people. I should love to.”
If there had been any chance of Norman enjoying the banquet through the euphoria of sheer relief, it vanished at that instant. All through the meal he sat moodily between a woman from State and Rex’s wife—someone else’s scheduled place, but he had offered to trade with Chad so the latter could be seated with Rankin and Waterford without upsetting the entire layout. He picked at his food, vaguely hoping that some blazing row would develop during private conversation, or that Chad would become incapably drunk and have to be taken away under the pretense of illness.
Bit by bit, however, his mood lightened. So what if Chad did do as he feared and behave in a monstrously offensive manner? There were a lot of people in the audience who would benefit from a tongue-lashing. And if it so happened that Chad chose to include the effectual head of the Beninia project, one Norman Niblock House, among his main targets—
The hole. I deserve it. I sheeting well deserve it.
As soon as he politely could, he thrust away the last of his food and lit a Bay Gold to cushion the anticipated impact. In accordance with ancient formula, Rankin, who was acting chairman, waved at Rex Foster-Stern, who had been delegated toastmaster, and the suffering began.
Rex mouthed regret about the absence of Old GT, whose sad fate cast a shadow over us all, and called on Rankin, who juggled sorrow at GT’s loss with insistence that her death would result in no harm to the Beninia project, managing with skill GT herself might have approved to prevent one assertion from contradicting the other.
After which Ram Ibusa acknowledged on behalf of the Beninian government the promised revolution in domestic affairs which his country looked forward to, and Dr. Corning gave an official blessing to the contracts which had been signed, and Elihu—mercifully brief—assured everyone that there was a great future for Beninia.
Finally, Rex returned to the podium and Norman wondered why in this allegedly streamlined modern age it always took hours to get through a commemorative or celebratory function. Why couldn’t someone programme Shal to work out a condensed version, equally formalised but completed in five minutes?
“And now I have the pleasure—the genuine honour—of introducing the guest who on this occasion—or any other—needs perhaps less introduction than practically anybody. With all due respect to Mr. Rankin, or even to Dr. Masters, whose distinction is incontestable, I feel that his name is better known to you than anyone else’s who is here. His thinking has helped to shape our society, through his books, his articles, interviews—”