Still. . .
Well, there was no sense bothering my small brain about that sort of stuff, was there? If the heatpumps were dangerous, nobody would have bothered to invent them, would they?
I set down my glass and switched off the fireplace. Tandy was still and warm beside me; motionless but, believe me, by no means asleep.
The Wizards of Pung’s Corners
1
This is the way it happened in the old days. Pay attention now. I’m not going to repeat myself.
There was this old man. A wicked one. Coglan was his name, and he came into Pung’s Corners in a solid-lead car. He was six feet seven inches tall. He attracted a lot of attention.
Why? Why, because nobody had ever seen a solid-lead car before. Nobody much had ever seen a stranger. It wasn’t usual. That was how Pung’s Corners was in the old days, a little pocket in the middle of the desert, and nobody came there. There weren’t even planes overhead, or not for a long time; but there had been planes just before old man Coglan showed up. It made people nervous.
Old man Coglan had snapping black eyes and a loose and limber step. He got out of his car and slammed the door closed. It didn’t go tchik like a Volkswagen or perclack like a Buick. It went woomp. It was heavy, since, as I mentioned, it was solid lead.
‘Boy!’ he bellowed, standing in front of Pung’s Inn. ‘Come get my bags!’
Charley Frink was the bellboy at that time - yes, the Senator. Of course, he was only fifteen years old then. He came out for Coglan’s bags and he had to make four trips. There was a lot of space in the back of that car, with its truck tyres and double-thick glass, and all of it was full of baggage.
While Charley was hustling the bags in, Coglan was parading back and forth on Front Street. He winked at Mrs. Churchwood and ogled young Kathy Flint. He nodded to the boys in front of the barber shop. He was a character, making himself at home like that.
In front of Andy Grammis’s grocery store, Andy tipped his chair back. Considerately, he moved his feet so his yellow dog could get out the door. ‘He seems like a nice feller,’ he said to Jack Tighe. (Yes, that Jack Tighe.)
Jack Tighe stood in the shelter of the door and he was frowning. He knew more than any of the rest of them, though it wasn’t time to say anything yet. But he said: ‘We don’t get any strangers.’
Andy shrugged. He leaned back in his chair. It was warm in the sun.
‘Pshaw, Jack,’ he said. ‘Maybe we ought to get a few more. Town’s going to sleep.’ He yawned drowsily.
And Jack Tighe left him there, left him and started down the street for home, because he knew what he knew.
Anyway, Coglan didn’t hear them. If he had heard, he wouldn’t have cared. It was old man Coglan’s great talent that he didn’t care what people had to say about him, and the others like him. He couldn’t have been what he was if that hadn’t been so.
So he checked in at Pung’s Inn. ‘A suite, boy!’ he boomed. ‘The best. A place where I can be comfortable, real comfortable.’
‘Yes, sir, Mister -’
‘Coglan, boy! Edsel T. Coglan. A proud name at both ends, and I’m proud to wear it!’
‘Yes, sir, Mr. Coglan. Right away. Now let’s see.’ He pored over his room ledgers, although, except for the Willmans and Mr. Carpenter when his wife got mad at him, there weren’t any guests, as he certainly knew. He pursed his lips. He said: ‘Ah, good! The bridal suite’s vacant, Mr. Coglan. I’m sure you’ll be very comfortable there. Of course, it’s eight-fifty a day.’
‘The bridal suite it is, boy!’ Coglan chucked the pen into its holder with a fencer’s thrust. He grinned like a fine old Bengal tiger with white crewcut hair.
And there was something to grin about, in a way, wasn’t there? The bridal suite. That was funny.
Hardly anybody ever took the bridal suite at Pung’s Inn, unless they had a bride. You only had to look at Coglan to know that he was a long way from taking a bride - a long way, and in the wrong direction. Tall as he was, snapping-eyed and straight-backed as he was, he was clearly on the far side of marrying. He was at least eighty. You could see it in his crepey skin and his gnarled hands.
The room clerk whistled for Charley Frink. ‘Glad to have you with us, Mr. Coglan,’ he said. ‘Charley’Il have your bags up in a jiffy. Will you be staying with us long?’
Coglan laughed out loud. It was the laugh of a relaxed and confident man. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Quite long.’
Now what did Coglan do when he was all alone in the bridal suite?
Well, first he paid off the bellboy with a ten-dollar bill. That surprised Charley Frink, all right. He wasn’t used to that kind of tipping. He went out and Coglan closed the door behind him in a very great good humour.
Coglan was happy.
So he peered around, grinning a wolf’s grin. He looked at the bathroom, with its stall shower and bright white porcelain. ‘Quaint,’ he murmured. He amused himself with the electric lights, switching them on and off. ‘Delicious,’ he said. ‘So manual.’ In the living room of the suite, the main light was from an overhead six-point chandelier, best Grand Rapids glass. Two of the pendants were missing. ‘Ridiculous,’ chuckled old Mr. Coglan, ‘but very, very sweet.’
Of course, you know what he was thinking. He was thinking of the big caverns and the big machines. He was thinking of the design wobblators and the bomb-shielded power sources, the self-contained raw material lodes and the unitized distribution pipe-lines. But I’m getting ahead of the story. It isn’t time to talk about those things yet. So don’t ask.
Anyway, after old man Coglan had a good look around, he opened one of his bags.
He sat down in front of the desk.
He took a Kleenex out of his pocket and with a fastidious expression picked up the blotter with it, and dumped it on the floor.
He lifted the bag onto the bare desk top and propped it, open, against the wall.
You never saw a bag like that! It looked like a kind of electronic tool kit, I swear. Its back was a panel of pastel lucite with sparks embedded in it. It glittered. There was a cathode screen. There was a scanner, a microphone, a speaker. All those things and lots more. How do I know this? Why, it’s all written down in a book called My Eighteen Years at Pung’s Hall, by Senator C. T. Frink. Because Charley was in the room next door and there was a keyhole.
So then what happened was that a little tinkly chime sounded distantly within the speaker, and the cathode screen flickered and lit up.
‘Coglan,’ boomed the tall old man. ‘Reporting in. Let me speak to V. P. Maffity.’
2
Now you have to know what Pung’s Corners was like in those days.
Everybody knows what it is now, but then it was small. Very small. It sat on the bank of the Delaware River like a fat old lady on the edge of a spindly chair.