“Yeah, we can wait,” Reagan said. “There went the machine shop, so there’s no hurry at all.”
“Nobody was in there?”
“Nope, but I’ll make sure.” He ran out.
That’s what life on Placet is like. I’d had enough of it; I’d had too much of it. I made up my mind while Reagan was gone.
When he came back, he was a bright blue articulated skeleton.
He said, “O.K., Chief. Nobody was inside.”
“Any of the machines badly smashed?”
He laughed. “Can you look at a rubber beach horse with purple polka dots and tell whether it’s an intact lathe or a busted one? Say, Chief, you know what you look like?”
I said, “If you tell me, you’re fired.”
I don’t know whether I was kidding or not; I was plenty on edge. I opened the drawer of my desk and put the “God Bless Our Home” sampler in it and slammed the drawer shut. I was fed up. Placet is a crazy place and if you stay there long enough you go crazy yourself. One out of ten of Earth Center’s Placet employees has to go back to Earth for psychopathic treatment after a year or two on Placet. And I’d been there three years, almost. My contract was up. I made up my mind, too.
“Reagan,” I said.
He’d been heading for the door. He turned. “Yeah, Chief?”
I said, “I want you to send a message on the radiotype to Earth Center. And get it straight, two words: I quit.”
He said, “O.K., Chief.” He went on out and closed the door.
I sat back and closed my eyes to think. I’d done it now. Unless I ran after Reagan and told him not to send the message, it was done and over and irrevocable. Earth Center’s funny that way; the board is plenty generous in some directions; but once you resign they never let you change your mind. It’s an ironclad rule and ninety-nine times out of a hundred it’s justified on interplanetary and intragalactic projects. A man must be 100 per cent enthusiastic about his job to make a go of it, and once he’s turned against it, he’s lost the keen edge.
I knew the midperiod was about over, but I sat there with my eyes closed just the same. I didn’t want to open them to look at the clock until I could see the clock as a clock and not as whatever it might be this time. I sat there and thought.
I felt a bit hurt about Reagan’s casualness in accepting the message. He’d been a good friend of mine for ten years; he could at least have said he was sorry I was going to leave. Of course there was a fair chance that he might get the promotion, but even if he was thinking that, he could have been diplomatic about it. At least, he could have—
Oh, quit feeling sorry for yourself, I told myself. You’re through with Placet and you’re through with Earth Center, and you’re going back to Earth pretty soon now as soon as they relieve you, and you can get another job there, probably teaching again.
But damn Reagan, just the same. He’d been my student at Earth City Poly, and I’d got him this Placet job and it was a good one for a youngster his age, assistant administrator of a planet with nearly a thousand population. For that matter, my job was a good one for a man my age—I’m only thirty-one myself. An excellent job, except that you couldn’t put up a building that wouldn’t fall down again and—Quit crabbing, I told myself; you’re through with it now. Back to Earth and a teaching job again. Forget it.
I was tired. I put my head on my arms on top of the desk, and I must have dozed off for a minute.
I looked up at the sound of footsteps coming through the doorway; they weren’t Reagan’s footsteps. The illusions were getting better now, I saw. It was—or appeared to be—a gorgeous redhead. It couldn’t be, of course. There are a few women on Placet, mostly wives of technicians but—
She said, “Don’t you remember me, Mr. Rand?” It was a woman; her voice was a woman’s voice, and a beautiful voice. Sounded vaguely familiar, too.
“Don’t be silly,” I said; “how can I recognize you at mid-per—”
My eyes suddenly caught a glimpse of the clock past her shoulder, and it was a clock and not a funeral wreath or a cuckoo’s nest, and I realized suddenly that everything else in the room was back to normal. And that meant midperiod was over, and I wasn’t seeing things.
My eyes went back to the redhead. She must be real, I realized. And suddenly I knew her, although she’d changed, changed plenty. All changes were improvements, although Michaelina Witt had been a very pretty girl when she’d been in my extra-terrestrial Botany III class at Earth City Polytech four—no, five years ago.
She’d been pretty, then. Now she was beautiful. She was stunning. How had the teletalkies missed her? Or had they? What was she doing here? She must have just got off the Ark, but—I realized I was still gawking at her. I stood up so fast I almost fell across the desk.
“Of course I remember you, Miss Witt,” I stammered. “Won’t you sit down? How did you come here? Have they relaxed the no-visitors rule?”
She shook her head, smiling. “I’m not a visitor, Mr. Rand. Center advertised for a technician-secretary for you, and I tried for the job and got it, subject to your approval, of course. I’m on probation for a month, that is.”
“Wonderful,” I said. It was a masterpiece of understatement. I started to elaborate on it: “Marvelous—”
There was the sound of someone clearing his throat. I looked around; Reagan was in the doorway. This time not as a blue skeleton or a two-headed monster. Just plain Reagan.
He said, “Answer to your radiotype just came.” He crossed over and dropped it on my desk. I looked at it. “O.K. August 19th,” it read. My momentary wild hope that they’d failed to accept my resignation went down among the widgie birds. They’d been as brief about it as I’d been.
August 19th—the next arrival of the Ark. They certainly weren’t wasting any time—mine or theirs. Four days!
Reagan said, “I thought you’d want to know right away, Phil.”
“Yeah,” I told him. I glared at him. “Thanks.” With a touch of spite—or maybe more than a touch—I thought, well, my bucko, you don’t get the job, or that message would have said so; they’re sending a replacement on the next shuttle of the Ark.
But I didn’t say that; the veneer of civilization was too thick. I said, “Miss Witt, I’d like you to meet—”
They looked at each other and started to laugh, and I remembered. Of course, Reagan and Michaelina had both been in my botany class, as had Michaelina’s twin brother, Ichabod. Only, of course, no one ever called the redheaded twins Michaelina and Ichabod. It was Mike and Ike, once you knew them.
Reagan said, “I met Mike getting off the Ark. I told her how to find your office, since you weren’t there to do the honors.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Did the reinforcing bars come?”
“Guess so. They unloaded some crates. They were in a hurry to pull out again. They’ve gone.”
I grunted.
Reagan said, “Well, I’ll check the ladings. Just came to give you the radiotype; thought you’d want the good news right away.”
He went out, and I glared after him. The louse. The—
Michaelina said, “Am I to start work right away, Mr. Rand?”
I straightened out my face and managed a smile. “Of course not,” I told her. “You’ll want to look around the place first. See the scenery and get acclimated. Want to stroll into the village for a drink?”
“Of course.”
We strolled down the path toward the little cluster of buildings, all small, one-story, and square.
She said, “It’s—it’s nice. Feels like I’m walking on air, I’m so light. Exactly what is the gravity?”