The odds were that it wouldn't affect the factory at all.
Ryan took a deep breath. He was getting over-anxious, that was his trouble. Probably that bloody Davies account preying on his mind. It was just as well to take a stiff line with Davies, even if it meant losing a few thousand. He would rather kiss the money goodbye if it meant kissing goodbye to the worries that went with it.
He buzzed through to Powell again.
Powell was once again on his knees, fiddling with a doll.
'Ah,' said Powell straightening up.
'Did you take care of those couple of items, Powell?'
'Yes. I spoke to Ames and I phoned Davies. He said he'd do his best.'
'Good man,' Ryan said and switched off hastily as a delighted grin spread over Powell's face.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ryan is working on a small problem that has come up concerning the liquid regeneration unit in the forward part of the ship.
It is malfunctioning slightly and the water has a slight taste of urine in it. A spare part is needed and he is instructing the little servorobot to replace the defunct element.
That was what had saved him, of course, he thought. His pragmatism. He had kept his head while all around people were losing theirs, getting hysterical, making stupid decisions—or worse, making no decisions at all.
He smiles. He had always made quick decisions. Even when those decisions were unpalatable or possibly unfashionable in terms of the current thinking of the time. It was his basic hardheadedness that had kept him going longer than most of them, allowed him to hang on to a lot more, helped him to the point where he was now safely out of the mess that was the disrupted, insane society of Earth.
And that is how he intends to remain. He must keep cool, not let the depression, the aching loneliness, the weaker elements of his character, take him over.
'I'll make it,' he murmurs confidently to himself. 'I'll make it.
Those people are going to get their chance to start all over again."
He yawns. The muscles at the back of his neck are aching. He wriggles his shoulders, hoping to limber the muscles up. But the ache remains. He'll have to do something about that. Must stay fit at all costs. Not just himself to think of.
He isn't proud of everything he did on Earth. Some of those decisions would not have been made under different circumstances.
But he didn't go mad.
Not the way so many of the others did.
He stayed sane. Just barely, sometimes, but he made it through to the other side. He kept his eyes clear and saw things as they really were while a lot of other people were chasing wild geese or phantom tigers. It was a struggle, naturally. And sometimes he had made mistakes. But his common sense hadn't let him down—not in the long run.
What had someone once said to him?
He nodded to himself. That was it. You're a survivor, Ryan. A natural bloody survivor.
It was truer now, of course, than ever before.
He was a survivor. The survivor. He and his friends and relatives.
He was making for the clean, fresh world untainted by mankind, leaving the rest of them to rot in the shit heap they had created.
Yet he mustn't feel proud. Pride goeth before a fall... Mustn't get egocentric. There had been a good deal of luck involved. It wasn't such a bad idea to test himself from time to time, run through that Old Time Religion stuff. The seven deadly sins.
Check his own psyche out the way he checked the ship.
CHECK FOR PRIDE.
CHECK FOR ENVY.
CHECK FOR SLOTH.
CHECK FOR GLUTTONY.
... and so forth. It didn't do any harm. It kept him sane. And he didn't reject the possibility that he could go insane. There was always a chance. He had to watch for the signs. Check them in time. A stitch in time saves nine.
That was how he had always operated.
And he hadn't done badly, after all.
REPAIR COMPLETED reports the computer. Ryan is satisfied.
'Congratulations,' he says cheerfully. 'Keep up the good work, chum.'
The point was, he thinks, that he, unlike so many of the rest, had never been to a psychiatrist in his life. He'd been his own psychiatrist. Gluttony, for instance, could indicate some kind of disturbance that came out in obsessive eating. Therefore if he found himself overeating, he searched for a reason, hunted out the cause of the problem. It was the same with work. If it started to get on top of you, then stop—take a holiday. It meant you could work better when you got back and didn't spend all your time bawling out your staff for mistakes that were essentially your own creation.
He presses a faucet button and samples the water. He smacks his lips. It's fine.
He is relaxing. The disturbing dreams, the sense of depression have been replaced by a feeling of well-being. He has compensated in time. Instead of looking back at the bad times, he is looking back at the good times. That is how it should be.
CHAPTER NINE
Masterson flashed Ryan about a week after he had begun his check-up.
Ryan had been feeling good for days. The Davies matter was settled. Davies had paid up two-thirds of the amount and they had called it quits. To show no hard feelings Ryan had even paid off the mortgage on Davies' apartment so that he would have somewhere secure to live after he had sold up his business.
'Morning, Fred. What's new?'
'I've been doing that work you asked for.'
'Any results?'
'I think all the results are in. I've drawn up a graph of our findings on the subject.'
'How does the graph look?'
'It'll come as a shock to you.' Masterson pursed his lips. 'I think I'd better come and talk to you personally. Show you the stuff I've got. Okay?'
'Well—of course—yes. Okay, Fred. When do you want to come here?'
'Right away?'
'Give me half an hour.'
'Fine.'
Ryan used the half hour to prepare himself for Masterson's visit, tidying his desk, putting everything away that could be put away, straightening the chairs.
When Masterson arrived he was sitting at his desk smiling.
Masterson spread out the graph.
'I see what you mean,' said Ryan. 'Good heavens! Just as well we decided to do this, eh?'
'It confirms what I already believed,' said Masterson. 'Ten per cent of your employees, chiefly from the factories in the North, are actually of wholly foreign parentage—Australian and Irish in the main. Another ten per cent had parents born outside England itself, i. e. in Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland. Three per cent of your staff, although born and educated in England, are Jewish. About half a per cent have Negro or Asiatic blood. That's the general picture.'
Ryan rubbed his nose. 'Bloody difficult, eh, Masterson?'
Masterson shrugged. 'It could be used against us. There are a number of ways. If the government offers tax relief to firms employing one hundred per cent English labour, as they're talking of doing, then we aren't going to benefit from the tax relief. Then there are wholesaler's and retailer's embargos if our rivals release this information. Lastly there's the customers.'
Ryan licked his lips thoughtfully. 'It's a tricky one, Fred.'
'Yes. Tricky.'
'Oh, fuck, Fred.' Ryan scratched his head. 'There's only one assumption, isn't there?'
'If you want to survive,' said Fred, 'yes.'
'It means sacrificing a few in order to protect the many. We'll pay them generous severance pay, of course.'