But it made no sense. Helaine was no genius, but she had common sense. Why would the High Government want to meddle with the sex drive? Surely not as a birth-control measure. They controlled birth more humanely, by interfering with fertility, not with potency. Two children per married couple, that was it. If they allowed only one, they might be making some headway with the population problem, but unfortunately there were substantial pressure groups who insisted on the two-child family, and even the High Government had bowed. So population was stabilized, and even reduced a little—taking into account the bachelors, like Helaine’s brother Joe, and the couples who had sworn the Sterility Pledge, and such—but no real headway was made.
Still, with fertility controlled, it was illogical for the High Government to take away sex as well. Sex was the sport of the prolets. It was free. You didn’t need to have a job in order to enjoy sex. It passed the time. Helaine decided that the rumors she had heard were sheer foolishness, and she doubted that the laundry computer had said anything on the subject to Noelle Kalmuck. Why should the computer talk to Noelle at all? She was just a giggly little fool.
Of course, you could never tell. The High Government could be devious. This time-hopper business, for example: was there any truth in it, Helaine wondered? Well, there were all the accredited documents of time-hoppers who had arrived in previous centuries, but suppose they were all frauds inserted in the history books simply to baffle and confuse? What was the real and what was imagined?
Helaine sighed. “What time is it?” she asked.
Her earwatch said gently, “Ten minutes to fifteen.”
The children would be arriving home from school soon. Little Joseph was seven, Marina was nine. At this age they still had some shreds of innocence, as much as any children could have who spent all their lives in the same room as their parents. Helaine turned to the foodbox and programmed their afternoon snack with furious jabs of her knuckles. She had just finished the job when the children appeared.
They greeted her. Helaine shrugged. “Plug in and have your snacks,” she said.
Joseph grinned angelically at her. “We saw Kloofman in school today. He looks like Daddy.”
“Sure,” Helaine said. “The High Government has nothing-better to do than visit schoolrooms, I know. And the reason-why Kloofman looks like Daddy is—” She cut herself short. She had been about to say something untrue, but Joseph had a literal mind. He’d repeat it, and the next day the investigators would come around to know why the class Fourteen Pomrath family was claiming to be related to one of Them.
Marina broke in, “It wasn’t really Kloofman anyway. Not himself. They just showed pictures of him on the wall.” She nudged her brother. “Kloofman wouldn’t come to your grade, silly. He’s much too busy.”
“Marina’s right,” Helaine said. “Listen, children, I’ve programmed you. Have your snack and start your homework right away.”
“Where’s Daddy?” Joseph asked.
“He went to punch the job machine.”
“Will he get a job today?” Marina wanted to know.
“It’s hard to say.” Helaine smiled evasively. “I’m going to visit Mrs. Wisnack.”
The children ate. Helaine stepped through the door and went uplevel to the Wisnack apartment. The door told her that Beth was home, so Helaine announced herself and was admitted. Beth Wisnack nodded to her wordlessly. She looked terribly tired. She was a small woman, just about forty, with dark, trusting eyes and dull-green hair pulled back in a tight grip to a bun. Her two children, the usual boy and girl, sat with their backs to the door, snacking.
“Any news?” Helaine asked.
“None. None. He’s gone, Helaine. They won’t admit it yet, but he’s hopped, and he won’t ever come back. I’m a widow.”
“What about the televector search?”
The little woman shrugged. “According to law they’ve got to keep it going eight days. Then that’s all. They’ve searched the registered list of hoppers, but there’s nobody named Wisnack on it. Which doesn’t mean a thing, of course. Very few of them used their real names when they arrived in the past. And the early ones, they didn’t even record the physical descriptions. So there’ll be no proof. But he’s gone. I’m applying for my pension next week.”
Helaine felt the weight of Beth Wisnack’s misery like some kind of additional humidity in the room. Her heart went out to her. Life wasn’t very attractive here in Class Fourteen, but at least you had your family structure to cling to in times of stress. Beth didn’t even have that, now. Her husband had put thumb to nose and disappeared on a oneway journey to the past. “Good-by, Beth, good-by, kids, good-by, lousy twenty-fifth century,” he might have said, as he vanished down the time tunnel. The coward couldn’t face responsibility, Helaine thought. And who was going to marry Beth Wisnack now?
“I feel so sorry for you,” Helaine murmured.
“Save it. There’ll be troubles for you, too. All the men will run away. You’ll see. Norm will go too. They talk big about obligations, but then they run. Bud swore he’d never go, either. But he was out of work two years, you know, and even with the check every week he couldn’t stand it any more. So he went.”
Helaine didn’t like the implication that her own husband was about to check out. It seemed ungracious of Beth to hurl such a wish at her, even in her own grief. After all, Helaine thought, I came on a simple neighborly mission of consolation. Beth’s words hadn’t been kind.
Beth seemed to realize it.
“Sit down,” she said. “Rest. Talk to me. I tell you, Helaine, I hardly know what’s real any more, since the night Bud didn’t come back. I only wish you’re spared this kind of torture.”
“You mustn’t give up hope yet,” Helaine said gently.
Empty words, Helaine knew. Beth Wisnack knew it too.
Maybe I’ll talk to my brother Joe, she thought. See him again. Maybe there’s something he can do for us. He’s Class Seven, an important man.
God, I don’t want Norm to become a hopper!
3.
Quellen was glad to escape from Koll and Spanner. Once he was back in his own office, behind his own small but private desk, Quellen could feel his status again. He was something more than a flunky, no matter how Koll chose to push him around.
He rang for Brogg and Leeward, and the two UnderSecs appeared almost instantly.
“Good to see you again,” Stanley Brogg said sourly. He was a large man, somber-looking, with a heavy face and thick, hairy-backed fingers. Quellen nodded to him and reached out to open the oxy vent, letting the stuff flow into the office and trying to capture the patronizing look Koll had flashed at him while doing the same thing fifteen minutes before. Brogg did not look awed. He was only Class Nine, but he had power over Quellen, and both of them knew it.
Leeward did not look awed either, for different reasons. Leeward simply was not sensitive to small gestures. He was a towering, cadaverous, undemonstrative man who went about his work in a routinely methodical way. Not a dolt, but destined never to get out of Class Nine, either.
Quellen surveyed his two assistants. He could not bear the silent scrutiny he was getting from Brogg. Brogg was the one who knew the secret of the African hideaway; a third of Quellen’s substantial salary was the price that kept Brogg quiet about Quellen’s second, secret home. Big Leeward did not know and did not care; he took his orders directly from Brogg, not from Quellen, and blackmail was not his specialty.
“I suppose you’ve been informed of our assignment to handle the recent prolet disappearances,” Quellen began. “The so-called time-hoppers have become the problem of the Secretariat of Crime, as we have anticipated for several years now.”