'I've heard you say it many times. "I can't be hurt." Hell, you sure can. You were hurt just now.
You want everyone to love you, White and Col both. I don't know how you ever got into politics in the first place. You should have stayed a newsclown, delighting young and old. Especially the very young.'
Jim said, 'I want to help the human race.'
'By changing the ecology of the planets ? Are you serious ?'
'If I'm voted into office I actually intend to appoint Bruno Mini, without even having met him, director of the space program; I'm going to give him the chance they never let him have, even when they - '
'If you get elected, ' Pat said, 'you can pardon Dr Sands.'
'Pardon him ?' He glanced at her, disconcerted … 'He's not being tried; he's being divorced.'
'You haven't heard the rumes ?' Pat said. 'His wife is going to dig up something criminal he's done so she can dispatch him and obtain their total property. No one knows what it is yet but she's hinted - '
'I don't want to hear,' Jim Briskin said.
'You may be right,' Pat said thoughtfully. 'The Sands divorce is turning nasty; it might backfire if you mentioned it, as Sal wants you to. The mistress, Cally Vale, has disappeared, possibly murdered. Maybe you do have an instinct, Jim. Maybe you don't need us after all.'
'I need you,' Jim said, 'but not to embroil me in Dr Sands' marital problems.' He sipped his drink.
Rick Erickson, repairman for Pethel Jiffi-scuttler Sales & Service, lit a cigarette, tipped his stool back by pushing with his bony knees against his work bench. Before him rested the master turret of a defective jiffi-scuttler. The one, in fact, which belonged to Dr Lurton Sands.
There had always been bugs in the 'scuttlers. This first one put in use had broken down; years ago, that had been, but the 'scuttlers remained basically the same now as then.
Historically, the original defective 'scuttler had belonged to an employee of Terran Development named Henry Ellis. After the fashion of humans Ellis had not reported the defect to his employers ... or so Rick recalled. It had been before his time but myth persisted, an incredible legend, still current among 'scuttler repairmen, that through the defect in his 'scuttler Ellis had - it was hard to believe - composed the Holy Bible.
The principle underlying the operation of the 'scuttlers was a limited form of time travel. Along the tube of his 'scuttler - it was said - Ellis had found a weak point, a shimmer at which another continuum completely had been visible. He had stooped down and witnessed a gathering of tiny persons who yammered in speeded-up voices and scampered about in their world just beyond the wall of the tube.
Who were these people ? Initially, Ellis had not known, but even so he had engaged in commerce with them; he had accepted sheets - astonishingly thin and tiny - of questions, taken the questions to language-decoding equipment at TD, then, once the foreign script of the tiny people had been translated, taking the questions to one of the corporation's big computers to get them answered.
Then back to the Linguistics Department and at last at the end of the day, back up the tube of the
Jiffi-scuttler to hand to the tiny people the answers - in their own language - to their questions.
Evidently, if you believed this, Ellis had been a charitable man.
However, Ellis had supposed that this was a non-Terran race dwelling on a miniature planet in some other system entirely. He was wrong. According to the legend, the tiny people were from
Earth's own past; the script, of course, had been ancient Hebrew. Whether this had really happened Rick did not pretend to know, but, in any case, for some breach of company rules Ellis had been fired by TD and had long since disappeared. Perhaps he had emigrated; who knew ?
Who cared ? TD's job was to patch the thin spot in the tube and see that the defect did not reoccur in subsequent 'scuttlers.
All at once the intercom at the end of Rick's workbench blared. 'Hey, Erickson.' It was Pethel's voice. 'Dr Sands is up here asking about his 'scuttler. When'll it be ready ?'
With the handle of a screwdriver Rick Erickson savagely tapped the master turret of Dr Sands'
'scuttler. I better go upstairs and talk to Sands, he reflected. I mean, this is driving me crazy. It can't malfunction the way he claims.
Two steps at a time, Rick Erickson ascended to the main floor. There, at the front door, a man was just leaving; it was Sands - Erickson recognized him from the homeopape pics. He hurried, reached him outside on the sidewalk.
'Listen, doc - how come you say your 'scuttler dumps you off in Portland, Oregon and places like that ? It just can't; it isn't built that way!'
They stood facing each other. Dr Sands, well-dressed, lean and slightly balding, with deeply tanned skin and a thin, tapered nose, regarded him complexly, cautious about answering. He looked smart, very smart.
So this is the man they're all writing about, Erickson said to himself. Carries himself better than the rest of us and has a suit made from Martian mole cricket hide. But - he felt irritation. Dr
Sands in general had a helpless manner; good-looking, in his mid-forties, he had an easy-going, bewildered geniality about him, as if unable to deal with or comprehend the forces which had overtaken him. Erickson could see that; Dr Sands had a crushed quality, still stunned.
And yet Sands remained a gentleman. In a quiet, reasonable tone he said, 'But that's what it seems to do I wish I could tell you more, but I'm not mechanically inclined.' He smiled, a thoroughly disarming smile that made Erickson ashamed of his own gruffness.
'Aw, hell,' Erickson said, backtracking. 'It's the fault of TD - they could have ironed the bugs out of the 'scuttlers years ago. Too bad you got a lemon.' You look like a not too bad guy, he reflected.
' "A lemon,"'Dr. Sands echoed. 'Yes, that sums it up.' His face twisted; he seemed amused. 'Well, that's my luck. Everything has been running like this for me, lately.'
'Maybe I could get TD to take it back,' Erickson said. 'And swap you another one for it.'
'No.' Dr Sands shook his head vigorously. 'I want that particular one.' His tone had become firm; he meant what he said.
'Why ?' Who would want to keep an admitted lemon ? It didn't make sense. In fact, the entire business had a wrong ring to it, and Erickson's keen faculties detected this - he had seen many, many customers in his time.
'Because it's mine,' Sands said. 'I picked it out originally.' He started on, then, down the sidewalk.
'Don't give me that,' Erickson said, half to himself.
Pausing, Sands said, 'What ?' He moved a step back, his face dark, now. The geniality had departed.
'Sorry. No offense.' Erickson eyed Dr Sands acutely. And did not like what he saw. Beneath the doctor's suavity there lay a coldness, something fixed and hard. This was no ordinary person, and
Erickson felt uneasy.
Dr Sands said in a crisp voice, 'Get it fixed and soon.' He turned and strode on down the sidewalk, leaving Erickson standing there.
Jeez, Erickson said to himself, and whistled. My busted back. I wouldn't want to tangle with him, he thought as he walked into the store.
Going downstairs a step at a time, hands thrust deep in his pockets, he thought: Maybe I'll stick it all back together and take a trip through it. He was again thinking of old Henry Ellis, the first man to receive a defective 'scuttler; he was recalling that Ellis had not wanted to give up his particular one, either. And for good reason.
Back in the service department basement once more, Rick seated himself at the work bench, picked up Dr Sands' 'scuttler-turret and began to reassemble it. Presently, he had expertly restored it to its place and had hooked it back into the circuit.