William Tenn - Firewater

“Verus? Those Primeys, I want you to take charge of the check. One of them knows how to make a synthetic fabric with the drape of silk. Get that first and then go after anything else they have.”

“Primeys, Mr. Hebster?”

“I said Primeys, Mr. Verus. You are a textile technician, please to remember, and not the straight or ping-pong half of a comedy routine. Get humping. I want a report on that synthetic fabric by tomorrow. Work all night if you have to.”

“Before we do, Mr. Hebster, you might be interested in a small piece of information. There is already in existence a synthetic which falls better than silk—”

“I know,” his employer told him shortly. “Cellulose acetate. Unfortunately, it has a few disadvantages: low melting point, tends to crack; separate and somewhat inferior dyestuffs have to be used for it; poor chemical resistance. Am I right?”

There was no immediate answer, but Hebster could feel the dazed nod. He went on. “Now, we also have protein fibers. They dye well and fall well, have the thermoconductivity control necessary for wearing apparel, but don’t have the tensile strength of synthetic fabrics. An artificial protein fiber might be the answer: it would drape as well as silk, might be we could use the acid dyestuffs we use on silk which result in shades that dazzle female customers and cause them to fling wide their pocketbooks. There are a lot of ifs in that, I know, but one of those Primeys said something about a synthetic with the drape of silk, and I don’t think he’d be sane enough to be referring to cellulose acetate. Nor nylon, orlon, vinyl chloride, or anything else we already have and use.”

“You’ve looked into textile problems, Mr. Hebster.”

“I have. I’ve looked into everything to which there are big gobs of money attached.

And now suppose you go look into those Primeys. Several million women are waiting breathlessly for the secrets concealed in their beards. Do you think, Verus, that with the personal and scientific background I’ve just given you, it’s possible you might now get around to doing the job you are paid to do?”

“Um-m-m. Yes.”

Hebster walked to the office closet and got his hat and coat. He liked working under pressure; he liked to see people jump up straight whenever he barked. And now, he liked the prospect of relaxing.

He grimaced at the webfoam chair that Larry had used. No point in having it resquirted. Have a new one made.

“I’ll be at the University,” he told Ruth on his way out. “You can reach me through Professor Kleimbocher. But don’t, unless it’s very important. He gets unpleasantly annoyed when he’s interrupted.”

She nodded. Then, very hesitantly: “Those two men—Yost and Funatti—from the Special Investigating Commission? They said no one would be allowed to leave the building.”

“Did they now?” he chuckled. “I think they were angry. They’ve been that way before. But unless and until they can hang something on me—And Ruth, tell my bodyguard to go home, except for the man with the Primeys. He’s to check with me, wherever I am, every two hours.”

He ambled out, being careful to smile benevolently at every third executive and fifth typist in the large office. A private elevator and entrance were all very well for an occasional crisis, but Hebster liked to taste his successes in as much public as possible.

It would be good to see Kleimbocher again. He had a good deal of faith in the linguistic approach; grants from his corporation had tripled the size of the University’s philology department. After all, the basic problem between man and Primey as well as man and Alien was one of communication. Any attempt to learn their science, to adjust their mental processes and logic into safer human channels, would have to be preceded by understanding.

It was up to Kleimbocher to find that understanding, not him. “I’m Hebster,” he thought. “I employ the people who solve problems. And then I make money off them.”

Somebody got in front of him. Somebody else took his arm. “I’m Hebster,” he repeated automatically, but out loud. “ Algernon Hebster.”

“Exactly the Hebster we want,” Funatti said, holding tightly on to his arm. “You don’t mind coming along with us?”

“Is this an arrest?” Hebster asked Yost, who now moved aside to let him pass. Yost was touching his holstered weapon with dancing fingertips.

The SIC man shrugged. “Why ask such questions?” he countered. “Just come along and be sociable, kind of. People want to talk to you.”

He allowed himself to be dragged through the lobby ornate with murals by radical painters and nodded appreciation at the doorman who, staring right through his captors, said enthusiastically, “Good afternoon, Mr. Hebster.” He made himself fairly comfortable on the back seat of the dark-green SIC car, a late-model Hebster Mono-wheel.

“Surprised to see you minus your bodyguard,” Yost, who was driving, remarked over his shoulder.

“Oh, I gave them the day off.”

“As soon as you were through with the Primeys? No,” Funatti admitted, “we never did find out where you cached them. That’s one big building you own, mister. And the UM Special Investigating Commission is notoriously understaffed.”

“Not forgetting it’s also notoriously underpaid,” Yost broke in.

“I couldn’t forget that if I tried,” Funatti assured him. “You know, Mr. Hebster, I wouldn’t have sent my bodyguard off if I’d been in your shoes. Right now there’s something about five times as dangerous as Primeys after you. I mean Humanity Firsters.”

“Vandermeer Dempsey’s crackpots? Thanks, but I think I’ll survive.”

“That’s all right. Just don’t give any long odds on the proposition. Those people have been expanding fast and furious. The Evening Humanitarian alone has a tremendous circulation. And when you figure their weekly newspapers, their penny booklets and throwaway handbills, it adds up to an impressive amount of propaganda. Day after day they bang away editorially at the people who’re making money off the Aliens and Primeys. Of course, they’re really hitting at the UM, like always, but if an ordinary Firster met you on the street, he’d be as likely to cut your heart out as not. Not interested? Sorry. Well, maybe you’ll like this. The Evening Humanitarian has a cute name for you.”

Yost guffawed. “Tell him, Funatti.”

The corporation president looked at the little man inquiringly.

“They call you,” Funatti said with great savoring deliberation, “they call you an interplanetary pimp!”

Emerging at last from the crosstown underpass, they sped up the very latest addition to the strangling city’s facilities—the East Side Air-Floating Super-Duper Highway, known familiarly as Dive-Bomber Drive. At the Forty-Second Street offway, the busiest road exit in Manhattan, Yost failed to make a traffic signal. He cursed absent-mindedly, and Hebster found himself nodding the involuntary passenger’s agreement. They watched the elevator section dwindling downward as the cars that were to mount the highway spiraled up from the right. Between the two, there rose and fell the steady platforms of harbor traffic while, stacked like so many decks of cards, the pedestrian stages awaited their turn below.

“Look! Up there, straight ahead! See it?”

Hebster and Funatti followed Yost’s long, waggling forefinger with their eyes. Two hundred feet north of the offway and almost a quarter of a mile straight up, a brown object hung in obvious fascination. Every once in a while a brilliant blue dot would enliven the heavy murk imprisoned in its bell-jar shape only to twirl around the side and be replaced by another.