The Best of Science Fiction 12

Jayne threw up his hands. "Well, then, you fellows just do whatever you have to do, to fix this. Say the right words over it. Do your legal mumbo jumbo."

Patrick studied Jane quietly for a moment. "Harvey. I'm going to do something I shouldn't. I'll clear a trademark — no, not Neol. Some other mark."

Jayne looked dubious. " We would have to originate it. Our ad people have to screen these things. All kinds of image and audio requirements."

"Impossible, Harvey. This is not a job for the agency. All they can do is put together syllables to skirt along the fringes of what they think your customers will almost but not quite recognise. The way they draw up those lists, they practically guarantee their mark will be weak. Leave them out of this. I'll give you a mark I will guarantee you will like and that will not infringe any existing mark."

"But if it isn't on my list, how can you be so sure I'll like it?"

Patrick smiled. "We've never lost a customer."

"Probably it will be very similar to a trademark on my list."

Patrick picked up the list and scanned it briefly. "No, I think not. But we're wasting time. Let's move on to the next item."

"Next item?"

"Payment."

"Charge my department."

"You don't quite understand, Harvey. Let's go over it again. I'm promising you a clean, desirable trademark. I'm giving you a guarantee — on something that as yet doesn't even exist. I don't have to do it. This is above and beyond the call of duty. A big favour to you."

"So?"

"If the company gets sued, you're in the clear, but it's a black eye for me. They'll say Hope needs a younger man in their Patent Department. Patrick is slipping. And then the next time it happens, I'm out on my ear. So I'm taking a chance, and I want payment."

Jayne was suspicious. "Like what?"

"We need not be crass. You could offer a prize for a suitable mark."

"And you would win it?"

"The Patent Department would win it."

"Go on," said Jayne acidly.

"The prize couldn't be money."

"I can see that. As you say, crass. How about wall-to-wall carpeting?"

"No."

"A conference room ... "

"Not that, either."

"Electric typewriters ... "

"Not exactly what I had in mind."

"Then what do you want?"

Patrick leaned over and murmured, "Willow."

Jayne was silent for a moment. Finally he said, "I don't know what to say. It's cheap, shoddy, not in character with you, Con. Furthermore, I don't make the rules. This promotion program is a company policy. It's not anything you or I have anything to do with. I need a secretary. I have a vacancy. I either fill it by promoting a girl from the lab, or I go outside. I think it's a good policy."

"So do I," said Patrick morosely. "I hate to do this."

"You don't have to do it. In fact, you're being absolutely unreasonable. If you insist on doing this to me, I'll have to take it up with Andrew Bleeker."

"If you do that, you could get me in trouble."

"As you say, I would hate to have to do it,"

"At the same time, you will also have to mention to Bleeker that you couldn't get the Manual out in time for the Board. You won't have to tell him why, though. He'll be first on my list of carbons of my trademark infringement report to you. He will not be happy."

The room became very quiet. The pale drift of typewriters ebbed and flowed in the outer bays.

Jayne's restraint was massive. "You win."

"Thank you, Harvey. And now, just so we won't have any misunderstandings, when Miss Willow comes back to us from having been your secretary, she'll keep her double raise?"

"I thought that she was never leaving you. How can she come back to you?"

"It's all over the place, Harvey, that she's being transferred to you. If we kept her here, she'd be entitled to think that we cheated her out of a raise. So we have to get her transferred to you on the books, get her double raise, and then transferred back to us on the books. Physically, of course, there would seem to be no reason for her to transfer ... that is, clean out her desk, or anything like that."

"So that not only I don't get a secretary, Willow gets two raises."

"But you get a clean bill of health for your Manual."

"And a good trademark?"

"Absolutely." Patrick was solemn. "We can pick one here and now. We guarantee we can get the trademark application on file this afternoon. All we need is a more exotic name — one not made out of these garden variety building units, A really beautiful name."

Cord picked up the cue. "How about some foreign words that mean 'beautiful'?"

"Well, there's a thought. Harvey, what do you think?"

Jayne shrugged his shoulders. "Like what?"

" Pulchra — Latin for 'pretty'," said Cord.

"Hard to do anything with it," said Patrick. "What else?"

" Kallos — 'beautiful' in Greek."

Patrick looked doubtful. " Bel ?" said Cord.

"That's a little better. What is it in Italian?"

" Bella ."

"Still not quite right," said Patrick.

"You could take a big jump. 'Beautiful' in German is schön . You'd have to Anglicise the accent a little, give it a long 'a'."

"Ah yes. 'Shane'. Shane! " Patrick's eyes lit up. "I really like that. Harvey?"

"Not bad. Shane. Hm-m-m. Yes, I must admit, there's something about it. Something tantalising."

"I hear it, too, Harvey."

Cord's eyes rolled upward briefly.

"How long will it take to search it out in the Washington trademarks?" demanded Jayne.

"We can do it this afternoon. My man will call in, any minute now, and we'll tell him to go ahead."

"I'll take it," said Jayne.

"Good enough. If it's clear in the Trademark Division, we'll get the application on file this afternoon."

Jayne looked surprised. "You'll have to have labels made up. Then you'll have to make a bona fide sale in interstate commerce. And then have the trademark application executed by Andy Bleeker. I don't think you can do all that in three hours. And I won't pay off on a phony."

"Of course not." Patrick smiled angelically as the other left.

In the early afternoon Patrick walked across the court to the terpineol pilot plant and into the cramped dusty office of John Fast. As he stepped inside, his eyes were drawn immediately across the cubicle, beyond Fast's desk, to a large painting, in black and white, hanging on the wall behind Fast. He poised at the doorway, slackjawed, staring at this ... thing.

Within the plain black frame were two figures, one large, and, in front, a smaller. The outlines of the larger figure seemed initially luminous, hazy, then, even as he squinted, perplexed and uneasy, the lines seemed to crystallise, and suddenly a face took form, with eyes, a mouth, and arms. The arms were reaching out, enfolding the figure in front, a man wearing a medieval velvet robe and feathered beret.

Unaccountably, Patrick shivered. His eyes dropped, and found themselves locked with those of John Fast, unquestioning, waiting.

Fast murmured, "It is an oversize reproduction of Harry Clarke's pen-and-ink drawing, the end-piece of Bayard Taylor's translation of Goethe."

"What is it?" blurted Patrick.

"Mephistopheles, taking Faust," said John Fast.

Patrick took a deep breath and got his voice under control. "Very effective." He paused. "John, I'm here to ask a favour."

Fast was silent.

"I understand you have a certain skill in the art of hypnosis."

Fast's great dark eyes washed like tides at Patrick. "That's not quite the right word. But perhaps the result is similar."

"I'll come to the point. All this is highly confidential. Our basic terpineol patent application is in interference in the Patent Office. We intend to dissolve the interference by a motion contending that the interference count is unpatentable over the prior art. This prior art is a college thesis. The problem is, Paul Bleeker is the only one who has seen the thesis, and he can't remember anything about it. Is it possible for him to remember, under hypnosis?"