Cities in Flight

“You seem to be defending it to me,” Paige said slowly, “as though you cared what I thought about it. So I’ll tell you what I think: it seems mighty damned cold-blooded to me. It’s the kind of thing of which ugly myths are made. If ten years from now there’s a pogrom against biologists because people think they eat babies, I’ll know why.”

“Nonsense,” Anne said. “It takes centuries to build up that kind of myth. You’re over-reacting.”

“On the contrary. I’m being as honest with you as you were with me. I’m astonished and somewhat repelled by what you’ve told me. That’s all.”

The girl, her lips slightly thinned, dipped and dried her fingertips and began to draw on her gloves. “Then we’ll say no more about it,” she said. “I think we’d better leave now.”

“Certainly, as soon as I pay the check. Which reminds me: do you have any interest in Pfitzner, Anne—a personal interest, I mean?”

“No. No more interest than any human being with a moment’s understanding of the implications would have. And I think that’s a rather ugly sort of question.”

“I thought you might take it that way, but I really wasn’t accusing you of being a profiteer. I just wondered whether or not you were related to the Dr. Abbott that Gunn and the rest were waiting for this afternoon.”

She got out the compact again and looked carefully into it. “Abbott’s a common enough name.”

“Sure. Still, some Abbotts are related. And it seems to make sense.”

“Let’s hear you do that. I’d be interested.”

“All right,” he said, beginning to become angry himself. “The receptionist at Pfitzner, ideally, should know exactly what is going on in the plant at all times, so as to be able to assess accurately the intentions of every visitor—just as you did with me. But at the same time, she has to be an absolutely flawless security risk, or otherwise she couldn’t be trusted with enough knowledge to be that kind of a receptionist. The best way to make sure of the security angle is to hire someone with a blood tie to another person on the project. That adds up to two people who are being careful. A classical Soviet form of blackmail, as I recall.

“That much is theory. There’s fact, too. You certainly explained the Pfitzner project to me this evening from a broad base of knowledge that nobody could expect to find in an ordinary receptionist. On top of that, you took policy risks that, properly, only an officer of Pfitzner should be empowered to take. I conclude that you’re not only a receptionist; your name is Abbott; and … there we have it, it seems to me.”

“Do we?” the girl said, standing abruptly in a white fury. “Not quite! Also, I’m not pretty, and a receptionist for a firm as big as Pfitzner is usually pretty striking. Striking enough to resist being pumped by the first man to notice her, at least. Go ahead, complete the list! Tell the whole truth!”

“How can I?” Paige said, rising also and looking squarely at her, his fingers closing slowly, “If I told you honestly just what I think of your looks—and by God I will, I think the most beautiful woman in the world would bathe every day in fuming nitric acid just to duplicate your smile—you’d hate me more than ever. You’d think I was mocking you. Now you tell me the rest of the truth. You are related to Dr. Abbott.”

“Patty enough,” the girl said, each word cut out of smoking-dry ice, “Dr. Abbott is my father. And I insist upon being allowed to go home now, Colonel Russell. Not ten seconds from now, but now.”

CHAPTER FOUR: Jupiter V

The firm determination to submit to experiment is not enough; there are still dangerous hypotheses; first, and above all, those which are tacit and unconscious. Since we make them without knowing it, we are powerless to abandon them.

—HENRI POINCARÉ

THE BRIDGE vanished as the connection was broken. The continuous ultronic pulses from the Jovian satellites to the selsyns and servos of the Bridge never stopped, of course; and the Bridge sent back information ceaselessly on the same sub-etheric channels to the ever-vigilant eyes and ears and hands of the Bridge gang on Jupiter V. But for the moment, the vast structure’s guiding intelligence, the Bridge gang foreman, had quitted it.

Helmuth set the heavy helmet carefully in its niche and felt of his temples, feeling the blood passing under his fingertips. Then he turned.

Dillon was looking at him.

“Well?” the civil engineer said. “What’s the matter, Bob? Is it bad—?”

Helmuth did not reply for a moment. The abrupt transition from the storm-ravaged deck of the Bridge to the quiet, placid air of the operations shack on Jupiter’s fifth moon was always a shock. He had never been able to anticipate it, let alone become accustomed to it; it was worse each time, not better.