"Get back to work!" I yelled at him. I picked up the phone and got Witeck on his wristphone. I tell you, I was boiling. As soon as Witeck answered I lit into him; I didn't give him a chance to get a word in. I gave it to him up and down and sidewise; and I finished off by giving him a direct order. "You Over that man," I told him, "or I'll personally Over you! You hear me?"
There was a pause. Then Witeck said, "Jerry? Will you listen to me?"
That stopped me. It was the first time in ten years, since I'd been promoted above him, that Witeck had dared call me by my first name. He said, "Jerry, listen. This is something big. This guy is really from the center of the earth, no kidding. He-"
"Witeck," I said, "you've cracked."
"No, Jerry, honest! And it worries me. He's right there in the next room, waiting for me. He says he had no idea things were like this on the surface; he's talking wild about cleaning us off and starting all over again; he says-"
"I say he's an Over!" I yelled. "No more talk, Witeck. You've got a direct order-now carry it out!"
So that was that.
We got through the Census Period, after all, but we had to do it shorthanded; and Witeck was hard to replace. I'm a sentimentalist, I guess, but I couldn't help remembering old times. We started even; he might have risen as far as I-but of course he made his choice when he got married and had a kid; you can't be a breeder and an officer of the Census both. If it hadn't been for his record he couldn't even have stayed on as an Enumerator.
I never said a word to anyone about his crackup. Carias might have talked, but after we found Witeck's body I took him aside. "Carias," I said reasonably, "we don't want any scandal, do we? Here's Witeck, with an honorable record; he cracks, and kills himself, and that's bad enough. We won't let loose talk make it worse, will we?"
Carias said uneasily, "Chief, where's the gun he killed himself with? His own processor wasn't even fired."
You can let a helper go just so far. I said sharply, "Carias, we still have at least a hundred Overs to process. You can be on one end of the processing-or you can be on the other. You understand me?"
He coughed. "Sure, Chief. I understand. We don't want any loose talk."
And that's how it is when you're an Area Boss. But I didn't ever get my vacation at Point Loma; the tsunami there washed out the whole town the last week of the Census. And when I tried Baja California, they were having that crazy volcanic business; and the Yellowstone Park bureau wouldn't even accept my reservation because of some trouble with the geysers, so I just stayed home. But the best vacation of all was just knowing that the Census was done for another year.
Carias was all for looking for this *In that Witeck was talking about, but I turned him down. "Waste of time," I told him. "By now he's a dozen C.A.'s away. We'll never see him again, him or anybody like him-I'll bet my life on that."
The Candle Lighter
THE TRUSTEESHIP DIRECTOR fished out a pack of cigarettes and offered them to Jaffa Doane. “I heard your speech last night,” he said. “Cigarette?”
“I don’t smoke,” said Jaffa Doane.
“It was a good speech.” The Director lit his cigarette thoughtfully, flicked the match away. Doane waited with patience in his eyes an expression that seemed very much out of place on the face of Jaffa Doane. But Doane had practiced patience before the Director’s “invitation” had reached him that morning. He knew it was coming; you can’t tell blunt truths on a world hookup and not expect to make a stir.
The Director said, “I’ve checked your record, Doane.
It’s a good one. You have consistently fought for a lot of things that I happen to believe in myself. Naturally, I think you’re off base this time, but I was with you on the Kaffirs; I was with you on the Ainus; I’ll be with you again. I’m sure. In fact, if you look it up in the books of your Equality League, you’ll find that I sent in my two dollars dues long ago.” He peered at Doane under his eyebrows and chuckled. “Don’t look so surprised.”
“I can’t help it,” Doane said severely. “After what your administration has done to the Martians”
“The Martians! Why, those never mind.” He clamped the words down in his throat. “Just what,” he demanded, “have we done to them?”
Doane leaned forward. “Turned them into savages! Exploited them, degraded them, reduced them to barbarism.
Do you want the entire catalogue, sir? I know how the Mars Trusteeship has been run! The Administrators have made themselves gods, sir, gods! Their every whim is a commandment. That’s what you’ve done!”
The Director managed a smile, though his nostrils were flaring. “I said I heard your speech,” he reminded Doane.
“You had some suggestions to make, didn’t you?”
“I did,” said Doane proudly.
“And among them, you suggested that we remove Administrator Kellem and replace him with someone acceptable to the Equality League.”
“It was. Kellem’s handling of the General Mercantile incident was”
“I know,” the Director interrupted, and for the first time his smile relaxed. “I have here a radiogram from the Administration Comzone on Mars. Read it, Mr. Doane.”
Doane took it suspiciously, but as he read, he began to beam.
MEDICAL CHECKUP SHOWS LOW-PRESSURE ASTHMA APPROACHING TERTIARY STAGE, INCURABLE AND DANGEROUS WITHOUT IMMEDIATE PERMANENT RETURN TO EARTH. REQUEST IMMEDIATE CLEARANCE FOR REPLACEMENT AND RETIREMENT.
KELLEM, MARS
Doane gloated, “He’s retiring! Low-pressure asthma, my foot! I thought the stink from General Mercantile would drive him out!”
The Director said in a level tone, “Kellem almost died last week, Doane.”
“All right.” Doane shrugged. “It makes no difference.
In any case, I demand to be consulted in choosing his successor.”
The Director eyed him. “You do, do you?” He pressed a button on his desk and said, “Ask Ne Mieek to come in.” A sexy contralto replied, “Yes, sir.”
The Director looked at Doane. “Ever seen a Martian?”
he asked. “You take such an interest in them, I wonder if you’ve ever met one. Face-to-face, I mean; the pictures don’t quite do them justice. No? Well, it’s about time you did.”
He stood up and gestured toward the door.
“Jaffa Doane,” he said, “meet Ne Mieek.”
Doane rose and turned to see who was coming in. He swallowed. “How do you do,” he managed to say.
A suppressed sighing sound came from the thing that dragged itself through the doorway. Doane thought it formed words in a sort of airless whisper, the sound that might be made by a man with a slashed throat.
It went: “GI’d f n’w y” The vowels were almost inaudible, the consonants as though they were being forced out against a gag. It was English, all right; you could make it out if you tried.
But if the thing’s words were understandable, its expression was not. As the Director had said, you had to meet a Martian in the flesh; photos did not give more than a hint. On the squashed, whitely translucent face was what Doane thought a grin of savage glee, while the huge dull eyes held inexpressible sorrow. Neither interpretation, Doane told himself, meant much; that was anthrophomorphic thinking, and dangerous. But those looks took a little getting used to, all the same.
“Don’t try to shake hands with him, Mr. Doane,” said the Director. “He hasn’t any.”
It was true. Four supple, articulated tentacles waved around the Martian’s midsection, but there were no hands or arms. The pear-shaped body was supported on stubby little legs which had neither knee nor ankle, as far as Jaffa Doane could see.
The Director was saying, “Ne Mieek is the Martian legate here in Washington and, like Kellem, the strain of an alien environment has hurt his health. He’ll be going back to Mars on your ship, Doane, and you’ll be working with him.”
“Working with him?” Doane gasped.