Andre Norton - The Science Fiction anthology

His wife’s words echoed in his mind, “Could they be a spy ring? Subversive agents?”

Don shook his head as though to clear away the confusion. His conservative habit of thought made him reject that explanation as too melodramatic.

At least one decision was easier to reach because of his doubts. Now he knew he had to keep his appointment with the Grand Chairman of POSAT.

He scribbled a memo to the department office stating that he would not be at work on Tuesday.

At first Don Alford had some trouble locating the POSAT headquarters. It seemed to him that the block in which the street number would fall was occupied entirely by a huge sprawling warehouse, of concrete construction, and almost entirely windowless. It was recessed from the street in several places to make room for the small, shabby buildings of a wholesale pharmacy, a printer’s plant, an upholstering shop, and was also indented by alleys lined with loading platforms.

It was at the back of one of the alleys that he finally found a door marked with the now familiar emblem of POSAT.

He opened the frosted glass door with a feeling of misgiving, and faced a dark flight of stairs leading to the upper floor. Somewhere above him a buzzer sounded, evidently indicating his arrival. He picked his way up through the murky stairwell.

The reception room was hardly a cheerful place, with its battered desk facing the view of the empty alley, and a film of dust obscuring the pattern of the gray-looking wallpaper and worn rug. But the light of the summer afternoon filtering through the window scattered the gloom somewhat, enough to help Don doubt that he would find the menace here that he had come to expect.

The girl addressing envelopes at the desk looked very ordinary. Not the Mata-Hari type , thought Don, with an inward chuckle at his own suspicions. He handed her the letter.

She smiled. “We’ve been expecting you, Dr. Alford. If you’ll just step into the next room—”

She opened a door opposite the stairwell, and Don stepped through it.

The sight of the luxurious room before him struck his eyes with the shock of a dentist’s drill, so great was the contrast between it and the shabby reception room. For a moment Don had difficulty breathing. The rug—Don had seen one like it before, but it had been in a museum. The paintings on the walls, ornately framed in gilt carving, were surely old masters—of the Renaissance period, he guessed. Although he recognized none of the pictures, he felt that he could almost name the artists. That glowing one near the corner would probably be a Titian. Or was it Tintorretto? He regretted for a moment the lost opportunities of his college days, when he had passed up Art History in favor of Operational Circuit Analysis.

The girl opened a filing cabinet, the front of which was set flush with the wall, and, selecting a folder from it, disappeared through another door.

Don sprang to examine the picture near the corner. It was hung at eye level—that is, at the eye level of the average person. Don had to bend over a bit to see it properly. He searched for a signature. Apparently there was none. But did artists sign their pictures back in those days? He wished he knew more about such things.

Each of the paintings was individually lighted by a fluorescent tube held on brackets directly above it. As Don straightened up from his scrutiny of the picture, he inadvertently hit his head against the light. The tube, dislodged from its brackets, fell to the rug with a muffled thud.

Now I’ve done it! thought Don with dismay. But at least the tube hadn’t shattered.

In fact—it was still glowing brightly! His eyes registered the fact, even while his mind refused to believe it. He raised his eyes to the brackets. They were simple pieces of solid hardware designed to support the tube.

There were no wires!

Don picked up the slender, glowing cylinder and held it between trembling fingers. Although it was delivering as much light as a two or three hundred watt bulb, it was cool to the touch. He examined it minutely. There was no possibility of concealed batteries.

The thumping of his heart was caused not by the fact that he had never seen a similar tube before, but because he had. He had never held one in his hands, though. The ones which his company had produced as experimental models had been unsuccessful at converting all of the radioactivity into light, and had, of necessity, been heavily shielded.

Right now, two of his colleagues back in the laboratory would still be searching for the right combination of fluorescent material and radioactive salts with which to make the simple, efficient, self-contained lighting unit that he was holding in his hand at this moment!

But this is impossible! he thought. We’re the only company that’s working on this, and it’s secret. There can’t be any in actual production!

And even if one had actually been successfully produced, how would it have fallen into the possession of POSAT, an Ancient Secret Society, The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth?

The conviction grew in Don’s mind that here was something much deeper and more sinister than he would be able to cope with. He should have asked for help, should have stated his suspicions to the police or the F.B.I. Even now—

With sudden decision, he thrust the lighting tube into his pocket and stepped swiftly to the outer door. He grasped the knob and shook it impatiently when it stuck and refused to turn. He yanked at it. His impatience changed to panic. It was locked!

A soft sound behind him made him whirl about. The secretary had entered again through the inner door. She glanced at the vacant light bracket, then significantly at his bulging pocket. Her gaze was still as bland and innocent as when he had entered, but to Don she no longer seemed ordinary. Her very calmness in the face of his odd actions was distressingly ominous.

“Our Grand Chairman will see you now,” she said in a quiet voice.

Don realized that he was half crouched in the position of an animal expecting attack. He straightened up with what dignity he could manage to find.

She opened the inner door again and Don followed her into what he supposed to be the office of the Grand Chairman of POSAT.

Instead he found himself on a balcony along the side of a vast room, which must have been the interior of the warehouse that he had noted outside. The girl motioned him toward the far end of the balcony, where a frosted glass door marked the office of the Grand Chairman.

But Don could not will his legs to move. His heart beat at the sight of the room below him. It was a laboratory, but a laboratory the like of which he had never seen before. Most of the equipment was unfamiliar to him. Whatever he did recognize was of a different design than he had ever used, and there was something about it that convinced him that this was more advanced. The men who bent busily over their instruments did not raise their eyes to the figures on the balcony.

“Good Lord!” Don gasped. “That’s an atomic reactor down there!” There could be no doubt about it, even though he could see it only obscurely through the bluish-green plastic shielding it.

His thoughts were so clamorous that he hardly realized that he had spoken aloud, or that the door at the end of the balcony had opened.

He was only dimly aware of the approaching footsteps as he speculated wildly on the nature of the shielding material. What could be so dense that only an inch would provide adequate shielding and yet remain semitransparent?

His scientist’s mind applauded the genius who had developed it, even as the alarming conviction grew that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—be allowed to leave here any more. Surely no man would be allowed to leave this place alive to tell the fantastic story to the world!