Maxwell sat fascinated, staring at the page, wanting to pull his eyes away, but unable to, trapped by the weird and awful beauty, by some terrible, hidden purpose that he could not understand. Time, the Shrimp had said, was something that his race had never thought of, a universal factor that had not impinged upon his culture, and here, captured in these color plates, was something that man had never thought of, had never even dreamed.
He reached out his hand to grasp the book and close it, but he hesitated as if there were some reason he should not close the book, some compelling reason to continue staring at the plate.
And in that hesitancy, he became aware of a certain strangeness that might keep him staring at the page-a puzzling factor that he had not recognized consciously, but that had been nagging at him.
He took his hands away and sat staring at the plate, then slowly turned the page and as he glanced at that third plate, the strangeness leaped out at him-a brushed-in flickering, an artistic technique that made an apparent shimmer, as if something of substance were there and twinkling, seen one moment, not quite seen the next.
He sat, slack-jawed, and watched the flickering-a trick of the eye, most likely, a trick of the eye encouraged by the mastery of the artist over paint and brush. But trick of the eye or not, easy of recognition by anyone who had seen the ghostly race of the crystal planet.
And through the hushed silence of the dusky room one question hammered at him: How could Albert Lambert have known about the people of the crystal planet?
“I had heard about you,” Allen Preston said, “and it seemed incredible, of course. But the source of my information seemed unimpeachable and I made an effort to get in touch with you. I’m a bit worried over this situation, Pete. As an attorney, I’d say you were in trouble.”
Maxwell sat down in the chair in front of Preston ’s desk. “I suppose I am,” he said. “For one thing, it appears I’ve lost my job. Is there such a thing as tenure in a case like mine?”
“A case like yours?” the attorney asked. “Just what is the situation? No one seems to know. Everyone is talking about it, but no one seems to know. I, myself…”
Maxwell grinned wryly. “Sure. You’d like to know. You’re puzzled and confused and not quite sure you’re sane. You sit there wondering if I’m really Peter Maxwell.”
“Well, are you?” Preston asked.
“I am sure I am. I wouldn’t blame you, or anyone, if you doubted it. There were two of us. Something happened to the wave pattern. One of us went to the Coonskin system, the other somewhere else. The one who went to Coonskin came back to Earth and died. I came back yesterday.”
“And found that you were dead.”
Maxwell nodded. “My apartment had been rented, my possessions all are gone. The university tells me my position has been filled and I’m without a job. That’s why I asked about the tenure situation.”
Preston leaned back in his chair and squinted thoughtfully at Maxwell. “Legally,” he said, “I think we’d find that the university stands on solid ground. You are dead, you see. You have no tenure now. Not, at least, until it can be reestablished.”
“Through a long process at law?”
“Yes, I would suspect so. I can’t give you an honest answer. There is no precedent. Oh, sure there are precedents in the case of mistaken identity-someone who is dead being mistakenly identified as someone who is still alive. But with you, there’s no mistake. A man who undeniably was Peter Maxwell is undeniably dead, and there is no precedent for reestablishing identity in a situation such as that. We’d have to set our own precedent as we went along, a very laborious beating through the thickets of legal argument. It might take years. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure where or how to start. Oh, it could be developed, it could be carried forward, but it would take a lot of work and thought. First, of course, we’d have to establish, legally, who you are.”
“Who I really am? For God’s sake, Al, we know who I am.”
“But the law doesn’t. The law wouldn’t recognize you as you are today. You have no legal being. Absolutely none. All your identification cards have been turned in to Records and have been filed by now-”
“But I have those cards,” said Maxwell quietly. “Right here in my pocket.”
Preston stared at him. “Yes, come to think of it, I suppose you have. Oh Lord, what a mess!”
He got up and walked across the room, shaking his head. At the wall, he turned around and came back. He sat down again.
“Let me think about it,” he said. “Give me a little time. I can dig up something. We have to dig up something. And there’s a lot to do. There’s the matter of your will…”
“My will? I’d forgot about the will. Never thought of it.”
“It’s in probate. But I can get a stay of some sort.”
“I willed everything to my brother, who’s with the Exploratory Service. I could get in touch with him, although it might be quite a chore. He’s usually out with the fleet. But the point is that there’ll be no trouble there. As soon as he knows what happened…”
“Not with him,” said Preston, “but the court’s a different, matter. It can be done, of course, but it may take time. Until it’s cleared, you’ll have no claim to your estate. You own nothing except the clothes you stand in and what is in your pockets.”
“The university offered me a post on Gothic IV. Dean of a research unit. But at the moment, I’m not about to take it.”
“How are you fixed for cash?”
“I’m all right. For the present. Oop took me in and I have some money. If I had to, I could pick up some sort of job. Harlow Sharp would help me out if I needed something. Go on one of his field trips, if nothing else. I think I might like that.”
“But don’t you have to have some sort of Time degree?”
“Not if you go as a working member of the expedition. To hold a supervisory post of some sort, it would take one, I suppose.”
“Before I start moving,” Preston said, “I’ll have to know the details. Everything that happened.”
“I’ll write out a statement for you. Have it notarized. Anything you want.”
“Seems to me,” said Preston, “we might file action against Transportation. They put you in this mess.”
Maxwell hedged. “Not right now,” he said. “We can think of it later on.”
“You get that statement put together,” Preston told him. “And in the meantime, I’ll do some thinking and look up some law. Then we can make a start. Have you seen the papers or looked at television?”
Maxwell shook his head. “I haven’t had the time.”
“They’re going wild,” said Preston. “It’s a wonder they haven’t cornered you. They must be looking for you. All they have as yet is conjecture. You were seen last night at the Pig and Whistle. A lot of people apparently spotted you there last night, or thought they did. The line right now is that you’ve come back from the dead. If I were you, I’d keep out of their way. If they should catch up with you, tell them absolutely nothing.”
“I have no intention to,” said Maxwell.
They sat in the quiet office, looking silently at one another.”
“What a mess!” said Preston, finally. “What a lovely mess! I believe, Pete, I might just enjoy this.”
“By the way,” said Maxwell, “Nancy Clayton invited me to a party tonight. I’ve been wondering if there might be some connection-although there needn’t be. Nancy used to invite me on occasion.”
Preston grinned. “Why, you’re a celebrity. You’d be quite a catch for Nancy.”
“I’m not too sure of that,” said Maxwell. “She must have heard I had shown up. She’d be curious, of course.”
“Yes,” said Preston dryly, “she would be curious.”
Maxwell expected that he might find newsmen lying in wait for him at Oop’s shack, but there was no one there. Apparently the word hadn’t spread that he was staying there.