Now, “This one,” the chief’s voice said on the walkie-talkie “doesn’t know who she is, and I sure as hell don’t.” Nat said, “Doesn’t she have identification in her purse?”
“Purse?” The chiefs voice was a roar. “She doesn’t even have any clothes on!” Then more gently in an aside. “All right, sister, it’s all over now. You go with these cops. They’ll take care of you.” And to the trailer again. “We’ll get you a name somehow.” The walkie-talkie was silent.
Patty said, “Whoever she is, she’s number twenty-one.’ She smiled up at Nat. “Thanks to you.”
Nat pushed himself away from the desk suddenly and walked to the doorway to look up at the tops of the great buildings. Squinting, he could make out the breeches buoy, filled again, on its catenary journey down to the Trade Center roof.
Inside the Tower Room, he knew, three or four men would be cautiously paying out the guiding line lest the canvas bag careen madly down the slope, frightening its passenger even more than it now did, perhaps even throwing one clear to fall screaming the quarter of a mile to the plaza. Idly he wondered who was in the breeches buoy on this trip.
He turned and walked back’ inside to stand again near Patty. “How long do we have?” he said. “That’s the question. How many are we going to have time to get out?”
“Maybe all of them,” Patty said. She paused. “I hope.’ She paused again, studying Nat’s face. “You don’t think so?”
Nat shook his head in silence. He said at last, “I wish I knew what was happening. Up there in the Tower Room.” He gestured suddenly. “Inside the core of the building. When it’s all over, we’ll study what’s left, and we’ll try to figure out just what happened.” He shook his head again. “But that is no substitute for knowing at the time. That’s why they put automatic recorders in commercial airplanes. If there’s a crash and the recorder survives, it shows exactly what certain flight conditions were right up to the moment of impact.” He paused contemplatively. “Maybe the computer control ought to be located well outside the building for the same reason.’ Something to think about. He was silent, thinking about it.
Patty watched and listened, the here-and-now part of herself smiling inside. Daddy had never been very far away from his work either; she doubted that the good ones ever were. She said nothing lest she interrupt Nat’s train of thought.
“This—mess,” he said at last, “is going to change a lot of thinking. We’ve gone on blithely assuming that tolerances, mistakes would automatically cancel themselves out. This time they haven’t. They’ve compounded themselves instead, and this is the result.” He paused. “Think of the Titanic”
The analogy between the World Tower and the Titanic was strained. Only the fact of inevitable disaster linked the two, because the one setting for tragedy was strangeness and the other was everyday familiarity.
The Titanic was a ship crossing the ocean in a day when crossing an ocean was not at all the usual thing to do. Within that strange setting unknown dangers lurked; their existence could be accepted as real.
But this was a building, a known world, with differences only of degree, not of kind. You enter buildings and ride elevators every day—and nothing happens. This time something had happened, but it was beyond total belief that it could be as serious as some tried to make it out. The fact of the breeches buoy had allayed many fears.
Oh, there was still some singing, and some praying, and a few people drinking or dancing while they waited their turns at deliverance. But there is singing, drinking, and dancing every day, and praying every Sunday with no immediate crises in sight.
What was left of Grover Frazee was already forgotten beneath the white tablecloth. Paul Norris was merely a hearsay death. Singed eyebrows on the two firemen were scant proof that actual disaster was at hand.
There was the breeches buoy, and one by one women rode it across the gap between the buildings to safety. Still…
The fact of the matter was that of all the people in the Tower Room, only a handful understood and accepted not only that catastrophe was in the making, but that it was inevitable.
Ben Caldwell understood and accepted. He needed no complicated calculations to convince himself; simple arithmetic sufficed:
One hundred and three persons had drawn numbers.
The round trips of the breeches buoy averaged very close to one minute.
One hour and forty-three minutes, then, would be necessary to evacuate the Tower Room.
With heat in the building’s core already sufficient to distort steel elevator rails, would the Tower Room remain a sanctuary for one hour and forty-three minutes?
No.
So be it.
With far less technical knowledge the governor nevertheless understood and accepted the situation. “The need is for haste,” he said to Beth, “but we can’t hurry.” He was remembering Nat Wilson’s cautionary words.
It was becoming hotter in the office. The governor thought of Fireman Howard’s analogy of the nest in the treetop: sooner or later the fire would reach it, and that would be the end of the nestlings. We are nestling, he thought, as unable as they to fly. The temptation was strong to hammer his fist on the desk in sheer frustration. He stifled it.
Mayor Ramsay appeared in the doorway. “Paula has gone,” he said. “I watched her land safely—if that’s the word.” She had turned to wave. He paused, remembering. “Thank God for that.”
“Good for her,” the governor said. “And I’m happy for you, Bob.”
Beth was smiling. “I’m glad,” she said.
The governor said, “What is your lottery number, Bob?”
“Eighty-three.” The mayor’s voice was expressionless.
The governor smiled. “I’m eighty-seven.”
“It isn’t fair!” Beth said suddenly. “There are people out in that room who aren’t worth any part of you! Of either of you! And what is Senator Peters’s number? I’ll bet it’s high too!”
“Easy,” the governor said. “Easy.” He stood up, took off his jacket and loosened his tie. He sat down again and began to roll up his sleeves. He smiled at Beth. “It’s probably cooler out in the big room,” he said, “but for now, at least, I prefer it here.” He paused. “Unless you disagree?”
Beth hesitated and then shook her head slowly. Her lower lip was tucked between her teeth. When she released it, tooth marks showed. “I’m sorry, Bent.”
“They’re behaving very well so far, Bent,” Bob Ramsay said. “I’ve been watching Cary Wycoff, and for the moment, at least, he is—defused. And I don’t think anybody else is in his class as a rabble-rouser.”
The last-moment rush to the lifeboats, the governor thought, or the inevitable jamming of the exits when flames appeared. He had never seen either, but he well understood that in sudden panic terrible things could happen. He said slowly, thoughtfully, “But it might be just as well, don’t you think, to have barricades set up?” He gestured with his hands at right angles. “Some of those heavy tables set in place surrounding the loading area with room for only one person at a time to come through?”
The mayor’s immediate smile was faint, bitter. He nodded. “And the opening guarded against gate-crashers.” He nodded again. “I’ll see to it.”
“Maybe,” the governor said, “we’re seeing shadows.” He paused. “But I’m afraid I don’t think so.” He leaned back in his chair and waited until the mayor was gone. Then, to Beth, “How do you walk the tightrope between cynicism and reality?” He shook his head.