Quellen repressed a shudder. “I’m afraid that I haven’t been keeping up with the latest developments in the timehopper case. As you know, I’ve been very busy on certain projects that—”
He let his voice trail off, feeling like a fool. His eager assistants probably knew all about this situation, he thought. He wondered why he had never bothered to check with Brogg. But how could he anticipate everything?
Koll said, “Are you aware that thousands of prolets have vanished into nowhere since the beginning of the year, Quellen?”
“No, sir. Ah, I mean, of course, sir. Certainly. It’s just that we haven’t really had a chance to take action on it,” Quellen said.
The footling sound of his own voice appalled him. Verylame, Quellen, very lame,he told himself. Of course you don’t know anything about it, when you spend all your free time in that pretty little hideaway across the ocean. But Stanley Brogg probably knows every detail. Brogg is very efficient.
“Well, just where do you think they’ve gone?” Koll asked. “Maybe you think they’ve all hopped into stats and gone off somewhere to look for work? To Africa, maybe?”
The barb had poison on it. Quellen came close to gasping in shock before he could convince himself that Koll was stabbing in the dark. He hid his reaction as well as he could and replied evenly, “I have no idea, sir.”
“You haven’t been reading your history books very well, then, Quellen. Think, man: what was the most important historical development of the past five centuries?”
Quellen thought. What, indeed? The Entente? The comingof the High Government? The breakdown of the nations? The stat? He hated the way Koll could turn him into an idiotic schoolboy. Quellen knew he was no fool, however inane he might seem when hauled on the carpet. He was competent enough. But at the core of his being was his vulnerability, his hidden crime, and that meant he was jelly at the core. He began to sweat. He said, “I’m not sure how to evaluate that question, sir.”
Koll casually flipped the oxy up a little higher, in an almost insulting gesture of friendliness. The sweet gas purred into the room. Softly Koll said, “I’ll tell you, then. It’s the arrival of the hoppers. And this is the era they’re starting out from.”
“Of course,” Quellen said. Everyone knew about the hoppers, and he was annoyed with himself for not simply offering the obvious to Koll.
“Someone’s developed time travel in the past few years,” Spanner said. “He’s beginning to siphon the time hoppers back to the past. Thousands of unemployed prolets are gone already, and if we don’t catch him soon he’ll clutter up the past with every wandering workingman in the country.”
“So? That’s just my point,” Koll said impatiently. “We know they’ve already arrived in the past; our history books say so. Now we can sit back and let this fellow distribute our refuse all over the previous five centuries.”
Spanner swiveled round and confronted Quellen. “What do you think?” he demanded. “Should we follow the order of the High Government, round up this fellow, and stop the departure of the hoppers? Or should we do as Koll says and let everything go on, which defies not only Them but also incidentally the information of history?”
“I’ll need time to study the case,” Quellen said suspiciously. The last thing that he wanted to have happen to him was to be forced into making a judgement in favor of one superior over another.
“Let me show you your path right now,” Spanner said, with a side glance at Koll. “We have our instructions from the High Government, and it’s futile to debate them. As Koll here knows quite well, Kloofman himself has taken an interest in this case. Our task is to locate the illegal nexus of time-travel activity and bring it under official control. Koll, if you object, you’d better appeal to the High Government.”
“No objections,” said Koll. “Quellen?”
Quellen stiffened. “Yes, sir?”
“You heard Mr. Spanner. Get on it, fast. Track down this fellow who’s shipping the hoppers and put him away, but not before you get his secret out of him. The High Government wants control of the process. And a halt to this illegal activity. It’s all yours, Quellen.”
He was dismissed.
2.
Norman Pomrath looked coldly at his wife and said, “When is your brother going to do something for us, Helaine?”
“I’ve told you. He can’t.”
“He won’t, you mean.”
“He can’t. Who do you think he is, Danton? And will you please get out of my way? I need a shower.”
“At least you said please,” Pomrath grumbled. “I’m grateful for small mercies.”
He stepped to one side. Out of some tatter of modesty he did not watch as his wife stripped off her green tunic. She crumpled the garment, tossed it aside, and got under the molecular bath. Since she stood with her back to him while she washed, he let himself watch her. Modesty was an important thing, Pomrath thought. Even when you’ve been married eleven years, you’ve got to give the other person some privacy in these stinking one-room lives. Otherwise you’ll click your gyros. He gnawed a fingernail and stole furtive glances at his wife’s lean buttocks.
The air in the Pomrath apartment was foul, but he didn’t dare turn up the oxy. He had drawn this week’s supply, and if he nudged the stud, the utility computer somewhere in the bowels of the earth would say unpleasant things to him. Pomrath didn’t think his nerves could stand much garbage from a utility computer just now. His nerves couldn’t stand much of anything. He was Class Fourteen, which was bad enough, and he hadn’t had any work in three months, which was worse, and he had a brother-in-law in Class Seven, which really cut into him. What good did Joe Quellen do him though? The damned guy was never around. Ducking out on his family responsibilities.
Helaine was finished with her shower. The molecular bath used no water; only Class Ten and up was entitled to use water for purposes of bodily cleaning. Since most people in the world were Class Eleven and down, the planet would stink halfway across the universe but for the handy molecular baths. You stripped down, stood in front of the nozzle, and ultrasonic waves cunningly separated the grime from your skin and gave you the illusion of being clean. Pomrath did not bother to avert his eyes as Helaine’s nude white form crossed in front of him. She wriggled into her tunic. Once, he remembered, he had thought she was voluptuous. He had been much younger then. Later, it had seemed to him that she had begun to lose weight. Now she was thin. There were times—especially at night—when she hardly looked female to him.
He slid down into the webfoam cradle along one windowless wall and said, “When do the kids get home?”
“Fifteen minutes. That’s why I showered now. Are you staying here, Norm?”
“I’m going out in five minutes.”
“To the sniffer palace?”
He scowled at her. His face, creased and pleated by defeat, was well designed for scowling. “No,” he said, “not to the sniffer palace. To the job machine.”
“But you know the job machine will contact you here if there’s any work, so—”
“I want to go to it,” Pomrath said with icy dignity. “I do not want it to come tome. I will go to the job machine. And then, most likely to the sniffer palace afterward. Perhaps to celebrate and perhaps to drown my sorrow.”
“I knew it.”
“Damn you, Helaine, why don’t you get off me? Is it my fault I’m between jobs? I rank high in skills. I ought to be working. But there’s a cosmic injustice in the universe that keeps me unemployed.”