Clifford Simak - New Folks' Home - And Other Stories

He turned away and walked to the stairway, went halfway up, then turned and looked back.

It was his last dream, he knew, the last he’d ever punch; tomorrow he’d be on another job. He raised his arm in half salute.

“So long, Myrt,” he said.

Myrt thundered back at him.

Irma had left for the day and the office was empty, but there was a letter, addressed to Blaine, propped against the ash tray on his desk. The envelope was bulky and distorted when he picked it up, it jangled.

Norman Blaine ripped it open and a ring, crowded full of keys, fell out of it and clattered on the desk. A sheet of paper slipped halfway out and stuck.

He pushed the keys to one side, took out the sheet of paper and unfolded it. There was no salutation. The note began abruptly: I called to turn over the keys, but you were out and your secretary didn’t know when you would be back. There seemed no point in staying. If you should want to see me later, I am at your service. Roemer.

He let the note fall out of his hand and flutter to the desk. He picked up the keys and tossed them up and down, listening to them jangle, catching them in his palm.

What would happen to John Roemer now, he wondered. Had a place been made for him, or hadn’t Giesey gotten around to appointing him to some other post? Or had Giesey intended that the man be out entirely? That seemed unlikely, for the guild took care of its own; it did not, except under extreme provocation, throw a man out on his own.

And, for that matter, who would take over the direction of Fabrication? Had Lew Giesey died before he could make an appointment? George or Herb—either one of them—would be in line, but they hadn’t said a word. They would have said something, Blame was sure, if they had been notified.

He picked up the sheet of paper and read the note again. It was noncommittal, completely deadpan; there was nothing to be learned from it.

He wondered how Roemer might feel about being summarily replaced, but there was no way of knowing; the note certainly gave no clue. And why had he been replaced? There had been rumors, all sorts of rumors, about a shakeup in the Center, but the rumors had stopped short of the reasons for the shakeup.

It seemed a little strange—this leaving of the keys, the transfer of authority symbolized by the leaving of the keys. It was as if Roemer had thrown them on Blaine’s desk, said: “There they are, boy; they’re all yours,” and then had left without another word.

Just a little burned up, perhaps. Just a little hurt.

But the man had come in person. Why? Under ordinary circumstances, Blaine knew, Roemer would have stayed to break in the man who was to succeed him, then would have gone up to Records. But Roemer would have stayed on until his successor knew the ropes.

These were not ordinary circumstances. Come to think of it, they seemed to be turning out to be most extraordinary.

It was a fouled-up mess, Norman Blaine told himself. Going through regular channels, it would have been all right—a normal operation, the shifts made without disruption. But the appointment had not gone through channels; and had Blaine not been the one to find Lew Giesey dead, had he not seen the paper on the floor, the appointment might not have gone through at all.

But the job was his—he’d stuck out his neck to get it and it was his. It was not something he had sought, but now that he had it, he’d keep it. It was a step up the ladder; it was advancement. It paid better, had more prestige, and put him closer to the top—third from the top, in fact, for the chain of command ran: business agent, Protection, and then Records.

He’d tell Harriet tonight—but, no, he kept forgetting; he’d not see Harriet tonight.

He put the keys in his pocket and picked up the note again. If you should want to see me later, I am at your service.

Protocol? he wondered. Or was there something that he might need to know? Something that needed telling?

Could it be that Roemer had come to tell him something and then had lost his nerve?

Blaine crumpled the note and hurled it to the floor. He wanted to get out, get away from Center, get out where he could try to think it out, plan what he was to do. He should clean out his desk, he knew, but it was late—far past quitting tune. And there was his date with Harriet—no, damn it, he kept forgetting. Harriet had called and said she couldn’t make it.

There’d be time tomorrow to clean out his desk. He took his hat and coat and went out to the parking lot.

An armed guard had replaced the regular attendant at the entrance to the lot. Blaine showed his identification.

“All right, sir,” said the guard. “Keep an eye peeled, though. A suspendee got away.”

“Got away?”

“Sure; just woke a week or two ago.”

“He can’t get far,” said Elaine. “Things change; he’ll give himself away. How long was he in Sleep?”

“Five hundred years, I think.”

“Things change a lot in five hundred years. He hasn’t got a chance.”

The guard shook his head. “I feel sorry for him. Must be tough, waking up like that.”

“It’s tough, all right. We try to tell them, but they never listen.”

“Say,” said the guard, “you’re the one who found Giesey.”

Blaine nodded.

“Was it the way they tell it? Was he dead when you got there?”

“He was dead.”

“Murdered?”

“I don’t know.”

“It does beat hell. You get up to the top, then pouf …”

“It does beat hell,” agreed Blaine.

“You never know.”

“No, you never do.” Blaine hurried off.

He drove out of the lot and swung onto the highway. Dusk was just beginning and the road was almost deserted.

Norman Blaine drove slowly, watching the autumn countryside slide past. The first lamps glimmered from the windows of the villas set upon the hills; there was the smell of burning leaves and of the slow, sad dying of the year.

Thoughts flitted at him, like the skimming birds hurrying to a night-time tree, but he batted them away—the Buttonholer who had grabbed him—what Farris might suspect or know and what he might intend to do—why John Roemer had called personally to deliver the keys, and then had decided not to wait—why a suspendee should escape.

And that last one was a funny deal; it was downright crazy, when you thought about it. What could possibly be gained by such an escape, such a fleeing out into an alien world for which one was not prepared? It would be like going to an alien planet all alone without adequate briefing. It would be like walking onto a job with which one had no acquaintance and trying to bluff one’s way.

I wonder why, he thought. I wonder why he did it.

He brushed the thought away; there was too much to think of. He’d have to get it straightened out before he could think it through. He could not allow himself to get the thoughts all cluttered up.

He reached out to the dash and turned on the radio.

A commentator was saying: “ … who know their political history can recognize the crisis points that now are becoming more clearly defined. For more than five hundred years, the government, in actuality, has been in the hands of the Central Labor Union. Which is to say that the government is rule by committee, with each of the guilds and unions represented on the central group. That such a group should be able to continue in control for five full centuries—for the last 60 years in openly admitted control—is not so much to be attributed to wisdom, forebearance, or patience, as to a fine balance of power which has obtained within the body at all times. Mutual distrust and fear have at no time allowed any one union or guild or any combination to become dominant. As soon as one group threatened to become so, the personal ambitions of other groups operated to undermine the ascendant group.