Damon Knight - Orbit 14

“Mr. Freeling?”

“Mr. Freeling is Mr. Fields’ chief, Mr. Forlesen; and Mr. Fields is your chief. Mr. Freeling reports to Mr. Flint, and Mr. Flint reports directly to Mr. Frick. I am Mr. Freeling’s secretary.”

“Thank you,” Forlesen said, “I was beginning to wonder where you fit in.”

“Right out of your office, down the hall to the T, left, up the stairs and along the front of the building. Mr. Freeling’s name is on the door.”

“Thank you,” Forlesen said again.

Mr. Freeling’s name was on the door, in the form of a bronzelike plaque. Forlesen, remembering D’Andrea’s brass one, saw at once that Mr. Freeling’s was more modern and up to date, and realized that Mr. Freeling was more important than D’Andrea had been; but he also realized that D’Andrea’s plaque had been real brass and that Mr. Freeling’s was plastic. He knocked, and Miss Fawn’s voice called, “Come in.” He went in and Miss Fawn threw a switch on her desk and said, “Mr. Forlesen to see you, Mr. Freeling.”

And then to Forlesen: “Go right in.”

Mr. Freeling’s office was large and had two windows, both overlooking the highway. Forlesen found that he was somewhat surprised to see the highway again, though it looked just as it had before. The pictures on the walls were landscapes much like Fields’, but Mr. Freeling’s desk, which was quite large, was covered by a sheet of glass with photographs under it; and these were all of sailboats, and of groups of men in shorts and striped knit shirts and peaked caps.

“Sit down,” Mr. Freeling said. “Be with you in a minute.” He was a large, sunburned, squinting man, beginning to go grey. The chair in front of his desk had wooden arms and a vinyl seat made to look like ostrich hide. Forlesen sat down, wondering what Mr. Freeling wanted; and after a time it came to him that what Mr. Freeling wanted was for him to wonder this, and that Mr. Freeling would have been wiser to speak to him sooner. Mr. Freeling had a pen in his hand and was reading a letter—the same letter—over and over; at last he signed it with a scribble and laid it and the pen flat on his desk. “I should have called you in earlier to say welcome aboard,” he said, “but maybe it was better to give you a chance to drop your hook and get your jib in first. Are you finding em pee pee a snug harbor?”

“I think I would like it better,” Forlesen said, “if I knew what it was I’m supposed to be doing here.”

Freeling laughed. “Well, that’s easily fixed—Bert Fields is standing watch with you, isn’t he? Ask him for a list of your responsibilities.”

“It’s Ed Fields,” Forlesen said, “and I already have the list. What I would like to know is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

“I see what you mean,” Freeling said, “but I’m afraid I can’t tell you. If you were a lathe operator I’d say make that part, but you’re a part of management, and you can’t treat managerial people that way.”

“Go ahead,” Forlesen told him, “I won’t mind.”

Freeling cleared his throat. “That isn’t what I meant, and, quite frankly, if you think anyone here is going to feel any compulsion to be polite to you, you’re in for squalls. What I meant was that if I knew what you ought to be doing I’d hire a clerk to do it. You’re where you are because we feel—rightly or wrongly—that you can find your own work, recognize it when you see it, and do it or get somebody else to. Just make damn sure you don’t step on anybody’s toes while you’re doing it, and don’t make more trouble than you fix. Don’t rock the boat.”

“I see,” Forlesen said.

“Just make damn sure before you do anything that it’s in line with policy, and remember that if you get the unions down on us we’re going to throw you overboard quick.”

Forlesen nodded.

“And keep your hand off the tiller. Look at it this way—your job is fixing leaks. Only the sailor who’s spent most of his life down there in the hold with the oakum and . . . uh . . . fastpatch has the experience necessary to recognize the landmarks and weather signs. But don’t you patch a leak somebody else is already patching, or has been told to patch, or is getting ready to patch. Understand? Don’t come running to me with complaints, and don’t let me get any complaints about you. Now what was it you wanted to see me about?”

“I don’t,” Forlesen said. “You said you wanted to see me.”

“Oh. Well, I’m through.”

Outside Forlesen asked Miss Fawn how he was supposed to know what company policy was. “It’s in the air,” Miss Fawn said tartly, “you breathe it.” Forlesen suggested that it might be useful if it were written down someplace, and she said, “You’ve been here long enough to know better than that, Mr. Forlesen; you’re no kid anymore.” As he left the office she called, “Don’t forget your creativity group.”

He found the drilling room only after a great deal of difficulty. It was full of drill presses and jig bores—perhaps thirty or more— of which only two were being used. At one a white-haired man was making a hole in a steel plate; he worked slowly, lifting the drill from time to time to fill the cavity with oil from a squirt can beside the machine. At the other a much younger man sang as he worked, an obscene parody of a popular song. Forlesen was about to ask if he knew where the creativity group was meeting when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw Fields, who said, “Looks like you found it. Come on, I’m going to make this one, come hell or high water. Right through the door on the other side there.”

They threaded their way among the drill presses, most of which seemed to be out of order in some way, and were about to go through the door Fields had indicated when Forlesen heard a yell behind them. The younger man had burned his hand in trying to change the smoking drill in his machine. “That’s a good operator,” Fields said. “He pushed everything right along—you know what I mean?” Forlesen said he did.

The creativity meeting, as Franklin had told him, was in the corridor. Folding metal chairs had been set up in groupings that looked intentionally disorganized, and a small motion-picture screen stood on an easel. Franklin was wrestling with a projector placed (pretty precariously, Forlesen thought) on the seat of the rearmost chair; he had the look of not being as young as he seemed, and after he had introduced himself they sat down and watched him. From time to time others joined them, and people passing up and down the hall, mostly men in grey work clothing, ignored them all, threading their way among the tin chairs without seeming to see them and stepping skillfully around the screen, on which, from time to time, flashed the faint numerals, 1, 2, and 3, or the legend CREATIVITY MEANS JOBS.

After a while Fields said, “I think we ought to get started.”

“You go ahead,” Franklin told him. “I’ll have this going in a minute.”

Fields walked to the front of the group, beside the screen, and said, “Creativity group twenty-one is now in session. I’m going to ask the man in front to write his name on a piece of paper and pass it back. Everybody sign, and do it so we can read it, please. We’re going to have a movie on creativity—”

“Creativity Means Jobs,” Franklin put in.

“Yeah, Creativity Means Jobs, then a free-form critique of the movie. Then what, Ned?”

“Open discussion on creativity in problem study.”

“You got the movie yet?”

“Just a minute.”

Forlesen looked at his watch. It was 078:45.

Someone at the front of the group, close to where Fields was now standing, said, “While we have a minute I’d like to get an objection on record to this phrase creativity in problem study. It seems to me that what it implies is that creativity is automatically going to point you toward some solution you didn’t see before, and I feel that anyone who believes that’s going to happen—anyway, in most cases— doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”