"Found the short, Al?" he asked.
"Yes," Al Dosker said. He fooled, fumbled, under the dashboard, his face concealed. "Should be okay now. Recharge the meta-bat, stick it back in, and she can take off."
The other attendant, satisfied, departed. Freya and Al Dosker were alone once more, briefly, with the flapple door hanging open.
"You — may be wrong," Dosker said.
Freya said, "It's got to be something like that. It can't be three hundred assorted-shape volunteer army privates, because Ferry and Bertold or at least one of them would have moved in, and that's the one fact we know: we know what they're like. There just cannot, Dosker, be a power vacuum at Whale's Mouth."
"All ready to go, miss," one of the other attendants called.
The flapple's articulation-circuit asserted, "I feel a million times better; I'm now prepared to depart for your original destination, sir or madam, as soon as the superfluous individual has disemflappled."
Dosker, trembling, said, "I — don't know what to do."
"Don't go to Ferry or Bertold. Begin at that."
He nodded. Evidently she had reached him; that part was over.
"Mat will need all the help he can get," she said, "from six o'clock on. From the moment his first field rep hits Whale's Mouth. Dosker, why don't you go? Even if you're a pilot, not a rep. Maybe you can help him."
The flapple started its motor up irritably. "Please, sir or madam, if you will request — "
"Are you teleporting?" Dosker asked her. "With them?"
Freya said, "I'm scheduled to cross at five. To rent living quarters for Mat and me. I'll be — remember this so you can find us — Mrs. Silvia Trent. And Mat will be Stuart Trent. Okay?"
"Okay," Dosker mumbled, backed out, shut the flapple door.
The flapple began to ascend, at once.
And she relaxed. And spat out the capsule of Prussic acid, dropped it into the disposal chute of the flapple, then reset her "watch."
What she had said to Dosker, god knew, was the truth. She knew it — knew it and could do nothing to dissuade Matson. On the far side professionals would be in wait, and even if they didn't anticipate the coup, even if there had been no leak and they saw no connection between the two thousand male individuals scattered all over the world, applying at every Telpor outlet on Terra... even so, she knew they would be able to handle Mat. He was just not that big and they could handle him.
But he did not believe it. Because Mat saw the possibility of power; it was a gaff that had hooked deep in his side and the wound spilled with the blood of yearning. Suppose it was true; suppose only a three-hundred-man army existed. Suppose. The hope and possibility enflamed him.
And babies, she thought, as the flapple carried her toward the New New York offices of Lies Incorporated, are discovered under cabbages.
Sure, Mat; you keep on believing.
7
To the pleasant, rather overextensively bosomed young female receptionist Matson Glazer-Holliday said, "My name is Stuart Trent. My wife was teleported earlier today, so I'm anxious to slip in under the wire; I know you're about to close your office."
She glanced searchingly at him, at this bald-headed man with his prominent ridge-bones above his dark, almost pain-haunted eyes. "You're certain, Mr. Trent, that you desire to — "
"My wife," he repeated harshly. "She's already over — she left at five." He added, "I have two suitcases. A leady is bringing them." And, into the office of Trails of Hoffman, strode the robot-like machine, bearing the two genuine cowhide bulging suitcases.
The consummately nubile receptionist said, "Please fill out these forms, Mr. Trent. I'll make certain that the Telpor techs are ready to receive one more, because, as you say, we are about to close." The entrance gate, in fact, was now locked.
He made out the forms, feeling only a coldness, an empty, mindless — fear. Lord, it really was fear! He actually, at this late moment, when Freya had already been teleported across to Whale's Mouth, felt his autonomic nervous system secrete its hormones of cringing panic; he wanted to back out.
However, he managed to fill out the forms anyhow. Because, higher than the autonomic nervous system, was the frontal lobe's awareness that the moment Freya crossed over, it was decided.
In fact, that was his reason for sending her in advance; he knew his own irresolution. He had made her the cat's paw of that irresolution; by having her go he forced himself to complete this. And, he thought, for the best; we must find some way, in life, to overcome ourselves... we're our own worst enemies.
"Your shots, Mr. Trent." A THL nurse stood by with needles. "Will you please remove your outer garments?" The nurse pointed to a small and hygienic back chamber; he entered, began removing his clothing.
Presently he had received his shots; his arms ached and he wondered dully if they had done it already. Had this been something fatal, administered over the cover of prophylactic shots?
Two elderly German technicians, both as bald as doorknobs — as himself — all at once manifested themselves, wearing the goggles of Telpor operators; the field itself, if viewed too long, caused permanent destruction of the retina. "Mein Herr," the first technician said briskly, "kindly, sir, remove the balance of your garb. Sie sollen ganz unbedeckt sein. We wish not material, no sort, to impede the Starkheit of the field. All objects, including your parcels, will follow you within minutes." Matson finished undressing, and, terrified, followed them down a tiled hall to what suddenly loomed as a mammoth chamber, almost barren; he saw in it no elaborate Dr. Frankenstein hodgepodge of retorts and bubbling caldrons, only the twin perpendicular poles, like the concrete walls of a good tennis court, covered with circular cuplike terminals; between the poles he would stand, a mute ox, and the surge of the field would pass from pole to pole, engulfing him. And he would either die — if they knew who he was — or if not, then he would be gone from Terra for the balance of his life, or at least thirty-six years which for him was the same.
Lord god, he thought. I hope Freya got by all right. Anyhow the short encoded message signifying everything all right had arrived from her.
"Mr. Trent," one of the technicians said, fitting his goggles in place, "bitte; please look down so that your eyes do not perceive the field-emanations; Sie versteh 'n the retinal hazard."
"Okay," he said, nodding, and looked down, then, in almost a gesture of modesty, raised one arm, touched his bare chest with one hand, as if concealing himself — protecting himself against what suddenly became a stunning, blinding ram-head that butted him simultaneously from both sides; the forces, absolutely equal, made him freeze, as if poured as a polyester as he stood; anyone watching would have thought him free to move, but he was ensnared for good by the surge passing from anode to cathode, with himself as — what, the ion ring? His body attracted the field; he felt it infuse him as a dissolving agent.
And then the left surge dropped; he staggered, glanced up involuntarily.
The two bald, goggled Reich technicians were gone. He was in a far smaller chamber, and one elderly man sat at a desk, carefully logging from numbered tags a huge mound of suitcases and wrapped, tied parcels.
"Your clothing," the official said, "lies in a metal basket to your right marked 121628. And if you're faint, there's a cot; you may lie down."
"I'm — all right," Matson Glazer-Holliday said, and made his way unsteadily to his clothing; he dressed, then stood uncertainly.