Mario reflected a few moments, somberly gazing out the window, while Munis Slade sat impassively waiting for Mario's instructions. At last Mario said, "Keep at it. Get some more on the old man Thane Paren lives with."
One day Correaos called Mario on the telescreen. "We've got the new model blocked out." He was half-placating, half-challenging, daring Mario to disapprove of his work.
"I think we've done a good job," said Correaos. "You wanted to give it a final check."
"I'll be right over," said Mario.
The new model had been built by hand at the Donnic River Plant and flown into Lanchester under camouflage. Correaos managed the showing as if Mario were a buyer, in whom he was trying to whip up enthusiasm.
"The idea of this model-I've tentatively called it the Air-farer-was to use materials which were plain and cheap, dispense with all unnecessary ornament-which, in my opinion, has been the bane of the Ebery Air-car. We've put the savings into clean engineering, lots of room, safety. Notice the lift vanes, they're recessed, almost out of reach. No drunk is going to walk into them. Those pulsors, they're high, and the deflection jets are out of reach. The frame and fuselage are solid cast plancheen, first job like this in the business."
Mario listened, nodded appreciatively from time to time. Apparently Correaos had done a good job. He asked, "How about what's-his-name-Arnold? Has he come up with anything useful?"
Correaos bared his teeth, clicked his tongue. "That man's crazy. He's a walking corpse. All he thinks, all he talks, are his pestiferous electrons, what he calls a blast effect. I saw a demonstration, and I think he's right. We can't use it in a family vehicle."
"What's the jet look like?"
Correaos shrugged. "Nothing much. A generator-centaurium powered-a miniature synchrotron. Very simple. He feeds a single electron into the tube, accelerates it to the near-light speed, and it comes roaring out in a gush as thick as your arm."
Mario frowned. "Try to steer him back onto something useful. He's got the brains. Has he been to a doctor?"
"Just Stapp, the insurance doctor. Stapp says it's a wonder he's alive now. Galloping nephritis or necrosis-some such thing." Correaos spoke without interest. His eyes never left his new Airfarer. He said with more life in his voice, "Look into the interior, notice the wide angle of vision; also the modulating glare filter. Look right up into the sun, all you want. Notice the altimeter, it's got a positive channel indicator, that you can set for any given locality. Then the pressur-izer, it's built in under the rear seat-see it?-saves about twenty dollars a unit over the old system. Instead of upholstery, I've had the framework machined smooth, and sprayed it with sprinjufloss."
"You've done a good job, Louis," said Mario. "Go ahead with it."
Correaos took a deep breath, released it, shook his head. I'll be dyed-double-and-throttled!"
"What's the trouble?"
"I don't get you at all," said Correaos, staring at Mario as if he were a stranger. "If I didn't know you stem to stern, I'd say you were a different man. Three months ago, if I'd tried to put something cleanly designed in front of you, you'd have gone off like one of Arnold's electrons. You'd have called this job a flying bread-box. You'd have draped angel's-wings all over the outside, streamlined the dashboard fixtures, built in two or three Louis Fifteenth book cases. I don't know what-all. If you didn't look so healthy, I'd say you were sick."
Mario said with an air of sage deliberation, "Ebery Air-car has taken a lot of money out of the public. The old Ebery managed to keep itself in the air, but it cost a lot and looked like a pagoda on wings. Now we'll start giving "Em quality. Maybe they'll turn it down."
Correaos laughed exultantly. "If we can't sell ten million of these, I'll run one up as high as she'll go and jump."
"Better start selling, then."
"I hope you don't have a relapse," said Correaos, "and order a lot of fancy fittings."
"No," said Mario mildly. "She'll go out just as she is, so long as I have anything to say about it."
Correaos slapped the hull of the Airfarer approvingly, turned a quizzical face to Mario. "Your wife has been trying to get in touch with you. I told her I didn't know where you were. You'd better call her-if you want to stay married. She was talking about divorce."
Mario looked off into the distance, uncomfortably aware of Correaos's scrutiny. "I told her to go ahead with it. It's the best thing for everybody concerned. Fairest for her, at any rate."
Correaos shook his head. "You're a funny fellow, Ebery. A year ago you'd have fired me a dozen times over."
"Maybe I'm getting you fat for the slaughter," suggested Mario.
"Maybe," said Correaos. "Letya Arnold and I can go into business making electron elephant guns."
Two hundred thousand artisans swarmed over the Tower, painting, plastering, spraying, fitting in pipes, wires, pouring terazzo, concrete, plancheen, installing cabinets, a thousand kinds of equipment. Walls were finished with panels of waxed and polished woods, the myriad pools were tiled, the gardeners landscaped the hanging parks, the great green bowers in the clouds.
Every week Mervyn Alien conferred with Taussig and old man Kubal, approving, modifying, altering, canceling, expanding. From recorded copies of the interviews Mario worked, making the changes Alien desired, meshing them carefully into his own designs.
Months passed. Now Mervyn Alien might not have recognized this man as Ralston Ebery. At the Ebery Air-car office in the Aetherian Block, his employees were astounded, respectful. It was a new Ralston Ebery-though, to be sure, they noticed the old gestures, the tricks of speech, habits of walking, dressing, involuntary expressions. This new Ralston Ebery had sloughed away fifty pounds of oil and loose flesh. The sun had tinted the white skin to a baby pink. The eyes, once puffy, now shone out of meaty cheeks; the leg muscles were tough with much walking; the chest was deeper, the lungs stronger from the half-hour of swimming every afternoon at four o'clock.
And at last the two hundred thousand artisans packed their tools, collected their checks. Maintenance men came on the job. Laborers swept, scrubbed, polished. The Empyrean Tower was complete-a solidified dream, a wonder of the world. A building rising like a pine tree, supple and massive, overbounding the minuscule streets and squares below. An edifice not intended for grace, yet achieving grace through its secure footing, its incalculable tapers, set-backs, thousand terraces, thousand taxiplats, million windows.
The Empyrean Tower was completed. Mervyn Alien moved in on a quiet midnight, and the next day the Chateau d'lf at 5600 Exmoor Avenue, Meadowlands, was vacant, for sale or for lease.
The Chateau d'lf was now Level 900, Empyrean Tower. And Roland Mario ached with eagerness, anxiety, a hot gladness intense to the point of lust. He was slowly cleaning off his desk when Taussig poked his head into the office.
"Well, what are you planning to do now?"
Mario inspected Taussig's curious face. "Any more big jobs?"
"Nope. And not likely to be. At least not through old man Kubal."
"How come? Has he retired?"
"Retired? Shucks, no. He's gone crazy. Schizo."
Mario drummed his fingers on his desk. "When did all this happen?"
"Just yesterday. Seems like finishing the Empyrean was too much for him. A cop found him in Tanagra Square talking to himself, took him home. Doesn't know his nephew, doesn't know his housekeeper. Keeps saying his name is Bray, something like that."
"Bray?" Mario rose to his feet, his forehead knotting. Breaugh. "Sounds like senile decay," he said abstractedly.
"That's right," Taussig responded, still fixing Mario with bright curious eyes. "So what are you going to do now?"
"I quit," said Mario, with an exaggerated sweep of the arm. "I'm done, I'm like old man Kubal. The Empyrean Tower's too much for me. I've got senile decay. Take a good look, Taussig, you'll never see me again." He closed the door in Taussig's slack face. He stepped into the elevator, dropped to the second level, hopped the high-speed strip to his small apartment at Melbourne House. He thumbed the lock, the scanner recognized his prints, the door slid back. Mario entered, closed the door. He undressed Ebery's gross body, wrapped it in a robe, sank with a grunt into a chair beside a big low table.