Fredric Brown - The Second Fredric Brown Megapack

While we were having a cocktail apiece in the village, Michaelina mentioned her brother again. She said, “Ike doesn’t like teaching at all, Phil. Is there any chance at all that you could get him a job here on Placet?”

I said, “I’ve been badgering Earth Center for another administrative assistant. The work is increasing plenty since we’ve got more of the surface under cultivation. Reagan really needs help. I’ll—”

Her whole face was alight with eagerness. And I remembered. I was through. I’d resigned, and Earth Center would pay as much attention to any recommendation of mine as though I were a widgie bird. I finished weakly, “I’ll—I’ll see if I can do anything about it.”

She said, “Thanks—Phil.” My hand was on the table beside my glass, and for a second she put hers over it. All right, it’s a hackneyed metaphor to say it felt as though a high-voltage current went through me. But it did, and it was a mental shock as well as a physical one, because I realized then and there that I was head over heels. I’d fallen harder than any of Placet’s buildings ever had. The thump left me breathless. I wasn’t watching Michaelina’s face, but from the way she pressed her hand harder against mine for a millisecond and then jerked it away as though from a flame, she must have felt a little of that current, too.

I stood up a little shakily and suggested that we walk back to headquarters. Because the situation was completely impossible, now. Now that Center had accepted my resignation and I was without visible or invisible means of support. In a psychotic moment, I’d cooked my own goose. I wasn’t even sure I could get a teaching job. Earth Center is the most powerful organization in the Universe and has a finger in every pie. If they blacklisted me—

Walking back, I let Michaelina do most of the talking; I had some heavy thinking to do. I wanted to tell her the truth—and I didn’t want to.

Between monosyllabic answers, I fought it out with myself. And, finally lost. Or won. I’d not tell her—until just before the next coming of the Ark . I’d pretend everything was O.K. and normal for that long, give myself that much chance to see if Michaelina would fall for me. That much of a break I’d give myself. A chance, for four days.

And then—well, if by then she’d come to feel about me the way I did about her, I’d tell her what a fool I’d been and tell her I’d like to—No, I wouldn’t let her return to Earth with me, even if she wanted to, until I saw light ahead through a foggy future. All I could tell her was that if and when I had a chance of working my way up again to a decent job—and after all I was still only thirty-one and might be able to—

That sort of thing.

Reagan was waiting in my office, looking as mad as a wet hornet. He said, “Those saps at Earth Center shipping department gummed things again. Those crates of special steel—aren’t.”

“Aren’t what?”

“Aren’t anything. They’re empty crates. Something went wrong with the crating machine and they never knew it.”

“Are you sure that’s what those crates were supposed to contain?”

“Sure I’m sure. Everything else on the order came, and the ladings specified the steel for those particular crates.” He ran a hand through his tousled hair. It made him look more like an Airedale than he usually does.

I grinned at him. “Maybe it’s invisible steel.”

“Invisible, weightless and intangible. Can I word the message to Center telling them about it?”

“Go as far as you like,” I told him, “Wait here a minute, though. I’ll show Mike where her quarters are and then I want to talk to you a minute.”

I took Michaelina to the best available sleeping cabin of the cluster around headquarters. She thanked me again for trying to get Ike a job here, and I felt lower than a widgie bird’s grave when I went back to my office.

“Yeah, Chief?” Reagan said.

“About that message to Earth,” I told him. “I mean the one I sent this morning. I don’t want you to say anything about it to Michaelina.”

He chuckled. “Want to tell her yourself, huh? O.K. I’ll keep my yap shut.” I said, a bit wryly, “Maybe I was foolish sending it.”

“Huh?” he said. “I’m sure glad you did. Swell idea.”

He went out, and I managed not to throw anything at him.

The next day was a Tuesday, if that matters. I remember it as the day I solved one of Placet’s two major problems. An ironic time to do it, maybe.

I was dictating some notes on greenwort culture—Placet’s importance to Earth is, of course, the fact that certain plants native to the place and which won’t grow anywhere else yield derivatives that have become important to the pharmacopoeia. I was having heavy sledding because I was watching Michaelina take the notes; she’d insisted on starting work her second day on Placet.

And suddenly, out of a clear sky and out of a muggy mind, came an idea. I stopped dictating and rang for Reagan. He came in.

“Reagan,” I said, “order five thousand ampoules of J-17 Conditioner. Tell ’em to rush it.”

“Chief, don’t you remember? We tried the stuff. Thought it might condition us to see normally in midperiod, but it didn’t affect the optic nerves. We still saw screwy. It’s great for conditioning people to high or low temperatures or—”

“Or long or short waking-sleeping periods,” I interrupted him. “That’s what I’m talking about, Reagan. Look, revolving around two suns, Placet has such short irregular periods of light and dark that we never took them seriously. Right?”

“Sure but—”

“But since there’s no logical Placet day and night we could use, we made ourselves slaves to a sun so far away we can’t see it. We use a twenty-four hour day But midperiod occurs every twenty hours, regularly. We can use conditioner to adapt ourselves to a twenty -hour day—six hours sleep, twelve awake—with everybody blissfully sleeping through the period when their eyes play tricks on them. And in a darkened sleeping room so you couldn’t see anything, even if you woke up. More and shorter days per year—and nobody goes psychopathic on us. Tell me what’s wrong with it.”

His eyes went bleak and blank and he hit his forehead a resounding whack with the palm of his band.

He said, “Too simple, that’s what’s wrong with it. So darned simple only a genius could see it. For two years I’ve been going slowly nuts and the answer so easy nobody could see it. I’ll put the order in right away.”

He started out and then turned back. “Now how do we keep the buildings up? Quick, while you’re fey or whatever you are.”

I laughed. I said, “Why not try that invisible steel of yours in the empty crates?”

He said, “Nuts,” and closed the door.

And the next day was a Wednesday and I knocked off work and took Michaelina on a walking tour around Placet. Once around is just a nice day’s hike. But with Michaelina Witt, any day’s hike would be a nice day’s hike. Except, of course, that I knew I had only one more full day to spend with her. The world would end on Friday.

Tomorrow the Ark would leave Earth, with the shipment of conditioner that would solve one of our problems—and with whomever Earth Center was sending to take my place. It would warp through space to a point a safe distance outside the Argyle I-II system and come in on rocket power from there. It would be here Friday, and I’d go back with it. But I tried not to think about that.

I pretty well managed to forget it until we got back to headquarters and Reagan met me with a grin that split his homely mug into horizontal halves. He said, “Chief, you did it.”