Saltus flicked off the machine to prevent the tape from listening to him take a drink — as difficult as that might be — and then flicked it on again.
“I’m going topside to search for William — I’m going to try tailing him. Lord only knows what I’ll find after sixteen months but I’m going to try. It’s likely he did one of two things: either he’d go for Joliet to find out what he could about that Chicago thing, or he’d jump into the squabble if it was alongside.
“If the squabble was here — on the station — I think he’d run for the northwest corner to help the Corporal; he’d have to get into the fight.” Short pause. “I’m going up to take a look at that corner, but if I don’t find anything I’ll run into Joliet. I’m in the same boat now with old William — I’ve got to know what happened to Chicago.” He stared solemnly at the. empty space in his bottle and added: “Katrina, this sure knocks hell out of your survey. All that studying for nothing.”
Saltus stopped talking but let the machine run on.
He plugged in a radio and connected the leads to the outside antenna. After a period of band searching, he reported back to the tape recorder.
“Radio negative. Nothing at all on the GI channels.” Another slow sweep of the bands. “That’s damned funny, isn’t it? Nobody’s playing the top ten platters.”
Saltus switched over to the civilian wavelengths and monitored them carefully. “The forty- and eighty-meter bands are likewise negative. Everybody is keeping their mouths shut. What do you suppose they’re scared of?” He went back to a military channel and turned up the gain to peak, hearing nothing but an airy whisper. The lack of communications nettled him.
The send button was depressed.
“Navy boot, come in. Come in, boot, you know me — I caddied for the Admiral at Shoreacres. Saltus calling Navy boot. Over.”
He reported himself two or three times on several channels.
The radio crackled a sudden command. “Get off the air, you idiot! They’ll get a fix on you!” It went silent.
Saltus was so startled he turned off the radio.
To the tape recorder: “Chaney, did you hear that? There is somebody out there! They don’t have much going for them — the power was weak, or they were a long ways off — but there is somebody out there. Scared spitless, too. The ramjets must have them on the run.” He stopped to consider that. “Katrina, try to find out what a ramjet is. Our Chinese friends can’t be here; they don’t have the transport, and they couldn’t get through the Pacific minefields if they did. And keep that under your hat, civilian — it’s top secret stuff.”
Arthur Saltus equipped himself for the target, always remembering to keep an eye on the door.
He helped himself to a parka and pulled the hood over his head; he removed the light shoes he’d been wearing the summer he left and found a pair of hiking boots the proper size. Mittens were tucked into a pocket. Saltus slung a canteen of water over one shoulder and a pack of rations on his back. He picked out a rifle, loaded it, and emptied two boxes of cartridges into his pockets. The map was of little interest — he knew the road to Joliet, he’d been there only last Thursday to look into a little matter for the President. The President had thanked him. He loaded a camera and found room to pack away a fresh supply of nylon film.
Saltus decided against taking a radio or recorder, not wanting to be further encumbered; it would be awkward enough as it was and all signs clearly indicated the survey was sunk without a trace. Chicago was lost, forbidden, and Joliet might be a problem. But there was something he could do with the recorder and William’s brief message — something to insure its return to home base. A last searching examination of the room gave him no other thing he thought he would need. The lights were turned off.
Saltus took a long pull on his dwindling supply of bourbon and quit the shelter. The corridor was dusty and vacant, and he fancied he could see his own footprints.
He carried the tape recorder with its dangling cord back to the operations room where the vehicle waited in its polywater tank. A thorough search of the room failed to reveal an electric outlet; even the service for the clock and the calendar came through the wall behind the encased instruments, wholly concealed.
“Damn it!” Saltus spun around to stare up at the two glass eyes. “Why can’t you guys do something right? Even your lousy proton gyroscope is — is sheeg!”
He strode out of the room, marched along the dusty corridor to the adjoining laboratory door, and gave it a resounding kick to advertise his annoyance. That ought to shake up the engineers.
His jaw dropped when the door swung open under the blow. Nobody slammed it shut again. Saltus edged closer and peered inside. Nobody shoved him back. The lab was empty. He walked in and stared around: it was his first sight of the working side of the project and the impression was a poor one.
Here too some of the ceiling lights had burned out, without being replaced. A bank of three monitoring sets occupied a wall bench at his left hand; one of them was blanked out but the remaining two gave him a blurred and unsatisfactory image of the room he had just quit. The vehicle was recognizable only because of its shape and its supporting tank. The two images lacked quality, as though the tubes were aged beyond caring. He turned slowly on the ball of his foot and scanned the room but found nothing to suggest recent occupancy. The tools and equipment were there — and still functioning — but the lab personnel had vanished, leaving nothing but dust and marks in the dust. A yellow bull’s eye on a computer panel stared at him for an intruder.
Saltus put down the recorder and plugged it in.
He said without preamble: “Chaney, the treasure house is empty, deserted — the engineers are gone. Don’t ask me why or where — there’s no sign, no clue, and they didn’t leave notes. I’m in the lab now but there’s nobody here except the mice and me. The door was open, sort of, and I wandered in.” He sipped whiskey, but this time didn’t bother to conceal it from the tape.
“I’m going topside to look for William. Wait for me, Katrina, you lovely wench! Happy birthday, people.”
Saltus pulled the plug from the receptacle, wrapped the cord around the recorder and walked back to the other room to drop the machine into the TDV. To compensate for the added weight, he pulled loose the heavy camera in the nose bubble and threw it overboard after first salvaging the film magazine. He hoped the liaison agent from Washington would cry over the loss. Saltus slammed shut the hatch and left the room.
The corridor ended and a flight of stairs led upward to the operations exit. The painted sign prohibiting the carrying of arms beyond the door had been defaced: a large slash of black paint was smeared from the first sentence to the last, half obliterating the words and voiding the warning.
Saltus noted the time on his watch and fitted the keys into the locks. A bell rang behind him as he pushed open the door. The day was bright with sunshine and snow.
It was five minutes before twelve in the morning. His birthday was only just begun.
An automobile waited for him in the parking lot.
FOURTEEN
Arthur Saltus stepped out warily into the snow. The station appeared to be deserted: nothing moved on any street as far as the eye could see.
His gaze came back to the parked automobile.
It was a small one resembling the German beetle and olive drab in color, but he tardily recognized it as an American make by the name stamped on each hubcap. The car had been there since before the snow: there were no tracks of movement, of betrayal. A thinner coating of snow lay over the hood and roof of the vehicle and one window was open a crack, allowing moisture to seep inside.
Saltus scanned the parking lot, the adjoining flower garden and the frigid empty spaces before him but discovered no moving thing. He held himself rigid, alert, intently watching, listening, and sniffing the wind for signs of life. No one and nothing had left tell-tale prints in the snow, nor sounds nor smells on the wind. When he was satisfied of that, he stepped away from the operations door and eased it shut behind him, making sure it was locked. Rifle up, he inched toward a corner of the lab building and peered around. The company street was trackless and deserted, as were the walks and lawns of the structures across the street. Shrubbery was bent under the weight of snow. His foot struck a covered object when he took a single step away from the protective corner.