The Hibited Man
L. Sprague de Camp
Chapter I.
As Thomas Otterburn entered the offices of the laboratory that Friday morning and hung his hat on the rack, he heard somebody call, "Tom!" behind him.
It was Eduard Dubrowsky from the Psychoelectronic Section, looking more like a disheveled hawk than usual. Dubrowsky barked, "Busy this morning?"
"Good morning, Ed," murmured Otterburn with his usual formality."Yes, I've got to get out the weekly project-hour sheet, the biweekly news-letter, the monthly project report, the quarterly appropriations estimate, the—"
"Okay, okay—after lunch then."
"What after lunch?"
"You know, you know." Dubrowsky lowered his voice and came closer."We're ready for the first human test with the materiostat. And you're going to be it. Remember?"
"Uh—yes, I suppose I do. But—"
"But nothing. See you after lunch in my section."
"Oh, all right." Otterburn, wondering if he had been smart in volunteering for the first human tryout on Project Styx, sought his desk and spread out his papers.
On top of the pile in his in-box lay the envelope containing his pay-check. Jimmy the office-boy must have been around early. He slit the envelope and looked at the check to make sure, put the envelope in his pocket and plunged into his work despite the fact that he had ten minutes to go before the working day officially commenced.
Behind him he heard McQueen's loud: "Hi, genius!" as McQueen scaled his hat ten feet onto a hook beside Otterburn's.
"Good morning, Donald," said Otterburn.
McQueen found his own desk, put his feet on it, ran a hand through his red hair and opened his newspaper. Presently he said, "It says here—say, for gossakes, Tom, why don't you relax? There's nobody here to be impressed by your industry except me, and heaven knows I'm not."
Otterburn looked at him briefly and went on working without reply. Then' McQueen's feet came down off his desk with a bang. That meant that Seymour Barlow, head of the Fluid Mechanics Section and the mutual boss of Otterburn and McQueen, had arrived. McQueen, after a brief glance at the clock, continued reading his newspaper. Five minutes to go.
Otterburn looked up long enough to say, "Good morning, Mr. Barlow." Everybody else in the section called Barlow "Seymour," "Sey," or even "Fats."
Then, rapidly pro-rating hours of work among his various projects, he heard the sounds of the arrival of the other engineers in the section. From the glassed-in section of the big room devoted to the Stenographic Department came the clack of female tongues as the space filled up with stenos.
The bell sounded. At a certain click of heels Otterburn caught his breath and peered slantwise through his glasses without turning his head enough so you'd notice. Lucy Kneipf was coming in, one minute late as usual.
Otterburn called, "Good morning, Lucy," but so softly that the girl apparently did not hear it.
Otterburn told himself that Barlow, as usual, would do nothing about Lucy's lateness. Good-looking girls really had no business going in for engineering and then disrupting the routine. However, if he were in Barlow's position he would no doubt do the same. He'd even take advantage of his position to date Lucy.
His mind left the figures to wander off into a fantasy in which he married Lucy in the teeth of competition from the entire section and settled down with her in some suburban paradise to raise a vast family and be the envy of the whole laboratory. He had never expected to fall in love with a short dark plump girl, especially since he was on the tall thin sandy side, but there it was.
His daydream was shattered by McQueen's bawl, "Hi, gorgeous! How's the lady engineer this morning? Boy, we sure spray-painted the town last night, didn't we?"
Lucy smiled and said something that Otterburn missed. Otterburn pressed his lips together angrily and forced his mind back to his figures. He despised himself. Here that booming extravert was no section head but he managed to date Lucy all right while he, Otterburn, had never nerved himself to get beyond the how-are-you-this-nice-morning stage.
Despite the fact that he was more intelligent than McQueen and a better engineer too. Barlow had practically told him so—that he was the smartest man in the section except old Matthias back in the corner there. And if he were going to get married ever he'd better start soon. He was going to be thirty.
"It's Friday in case any of you have forgotten," said Seymour Barlow.
McQueen gave a dramatic groan."Paperwork day! I wish you guys with the brass would figure a way to let us poor mad scientists do our science instead of this glorified bookkeeping. Say, Tom!"
"Yes, Donald?" Otterburn turned his head. He thought that McQueen would probably not treat him so genially if he suspected that Thomas Otterburn was a rival for the esteem of Lucy Kneipf—even if only a latent rival.
"I sometimes wonder. Is it as bad as this in private industry? Or are all these blasted reports and dope-sheets and things a disease peculiar to government?"
"I wouldn't know," said Otterburn."I've worked for the government ever since I finished college, eight years ago."
Matthias cackled from his corner, "I can answer that one. Some big private companies are even worse. Every time some new super or manager comes in he thinks of a new periodical report he's simply got to have, so he sends out an order establishing it.
"The only trouble is he never thinks to abolish any of the old reports, so they accumulate until the personnel spend all their time filling them out and haven't any time for useful work."
Otterburn forced his mind back to his work again—no easy feat, since this kind of paperwork was the dullest task he had to do. His mind wandered off into apprehensive speculation as to what might happen this afternoon when Dubrowsky tried out his darned gadget on him. He'd been foolish to accede to Dubrowsky's urgings. If he could only say, "No!" and make it stick...
Lunch came before Otterburn realized it. He put away the small remainder of his paperwork, stopped at the check-cashing window to cash his paycheck and shuffled over to the cafeteria with the others of his section. He slouched along with nervous little steps, hands in pockets and eyes on the ground, mumbling polite responses to the helloes of his acquaintances from the other departments.
At the cafeteria he carefully let all the others of his section precede him through the door of the portion of the room partitioned off and marked Executives, Engineers and Guests Only.
Then, by quickly dodging around a table, he managed to reach Lucy Kneipf's chair in time to pull it out for her. She thanked him, and while he stood blushing and trying to think of a witty reply McQueen took the place on one side of her and another engineer that on the other.
McQueen made his usual complaints, long grown banal from repetition, about the food and the service. Then he barked at Otterburn, "Don't you think so too, Tom?"
Otterburn studied his plate and answered modestly: "Oh, I don't know. I've seen better and I've seen worse."
McQueen snorted, "Try and get you to criticize anything or anybody!" and turned his attention to giving Miss Kneipf a shamelessly public buss.
Otterburn felt a hand on his shoulder, and there was Dubrowsky looking down at him."Coming to our lab right after you finish, Tom?"
"We-ell," said Otterburn hesitantly, "I do have some more to do on the quarterly estimate."
"Oh, fertilize the estimate! It'll keep till Monday and we can't wait around. You promised you'd help us, didn't you?"
"Why, sure, you know that."
"All right then, come over to the lab with me when you finish."
Otterburn wiped his mouth, folded his paper napkin neatly, rose and followed the engineers of the Psychoelectronic Section to their own part of the building. This laboratory had a No Admittance sign on the door.