Twenty-four hours had never passed so slowly.
The suction hoses squabbled with the burners. The scoops quarreled with the dynamiters. All the animate submarine mining machines constantly irritably snapped at each other. But the work was getting done.
It seemed to be a lot of work to accomplish in one twenty-four hour day, Pulcher thought seriously. The pit was down two hundred yards now, and braced. New wet-setting concrete pourers were already laying a floor. Shimmery little spiderlike machines whose limbs held chemical testing equipment were sniffing every load of sludge that came out now for richness of ore. The mine was nearly ready to start producing.
After a time Pulcher began to understand the short tempers of the machines. None of the minds in these machines were able to forget that, up topside, their bodies were going about unknown errands, risking unguessed dangers. At any given moment that concrete pourer’s body, for instance, might be dying . . . might be acquiring a disease - . . might be stretched out in narcotic stupor, or might gayly be risking dismemberment in a violent sport. Naturally tempers were touchy.
There was no such thing as rest, as coffee-breaks or sleep for the machines; they kept going. Pulcher, when finally he remembered that he had had a purpose in coming here, it was not merely some punishment that had come blindly to him for a forgotten sin, began to try to analyse his own feelings and to guess at the feelings of the others.
The whole thing seemed unnecessarily mean. Pulcher understood quite clearly why anyone who had had the experience of renting would never want to do it again. But why did it have to be so unpleasant? Surely, at least, conditions for the renter-mind in a machine-body could be made more bearable; the tactile sensations could be reduced from pain to some more supportable feeling without enough loss of sensation to jeopardize the desired ends.
He wondered wistfully if Madeleine had once occupied this particular machine.
Then he wondered how many of the dynamiters and diggers were female, how many male. It seemed somehow wrong that their gleaming stainless-steel or phosphor-bronze exteriors should give no hint of age or sex. There ought to be some lighter work for women, he thought idly, and then realized that the thought was nonsense. What difference did it make? You could work your buckets off, and when you got back topside you’d be healthy and rested- And then he had a quick, dizzying qualm, as he realized that that thought would be the thought in the mind of the tourist now occupying his own body.
Pulcher licked his-not-lips and attacked the sand with his buckets more viciously than before.
“All right, Mac.”
The familiar steel bug was back beside him. “Come on, back to the barn,” it scolded. “You think I want to have to haul you back? Time’s up. Get the tracks back in the parking lot.”
Never was an order so gladly obeyed.
But the overseer had cut it rather fine. Pulcher had just reached the parking space, had not quite turned his clanking steel frame around when, rip, the tearing and the pain hit him. .
And he found himself struggling against the enfolded soft shroud that they called “the squeeze.”
“Relax, friend,” soothed a distant voice. Abruptly the pressure was removed from his face and the voice came nearer. “There you are. Have a nice dream?”
Pulcher kicked the rubbery material off his legs. He sat up.
“Ouch!” he said suddenly, and rubbed his eye.
The man by his head looked down at him and grinned. “Some shiner. Must’ve been a good party.” He was stripping the sections of rubbery gripping material off him as he talked. “You’re lucky. I’ve seen them come back in here with legs broken, teeth out, even bullet holes. Friend, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. ‘Specially the girls.” He handed Pulcher another bleached towel. “All right, you’re through here. Don’t worry about the eye, friend. That’s easy two, three days old already. Another day or two and you won’t even notice it.”
“Hey!” Pulcher cried suddenly. “What do you mean, two or three days? How long was I down there?”
The man glanced boredly at the green-tabbed card on Pulcher’s wrist. “Let’s see, this is Thursday. Six days.”
“But I only signed up for twenty-four hours!”
“Sure you did. Plus emergency overcalls, naturally. What do you think, friend, the Agency’s going to evict some big-spending tourist just because you want your body back in twenty-four hours? Can’t do it. You can see that. The Agency’d lose a fortune that way.” Unceremoniously Pulcher was hoisted to his feet and escorted to the door.
“If only these jokers would read the fine print,” the first man was saying mournfully to his helper as Pulcher left. “Oh, well. If they had any brains they wouldn’t rent in the first place-then what would me and you do for jobs?”
The closing door swallowed their laughter.
Six days! Pulcher raced through medical check-out, clothes redemption, payoff at the cashier’s window. “Hurry, please,” he kept saying, “can’t you please hurry?” He couldn’t wait to get to a phone.
But he had a pretty good idea already what the phone call would tell him. Five extra days! No wonder it had seemed so long down there, while up in the city time had passed along.
He found a phone at last and quickly dialed the private number of Judge Pegrim’s office. The judge wouldn’t be there, but that was the way Pulcher wanted it. He got Pegrim’s secretary. “Miss Kish? This is Milo Pulcher.”
Her voice was cold. “So there you are. Where have you been? The judge was furious.”
“I-” He despaired of explaining it to her; he could hardly explain it to himself. “I’ll tell you later, Miss Kish. Please. Where does the kidnap case stand now?”
“Why, the hearing was yesterday. Since we couldn’t locate you, the judge had to appoint another attorney. Naturally. After all, Mr. Pulcher, an attorney is supposed to be in count when his clients are-”
“I know that, Miss Kish. What happened?”
“It was open and shut. They all pleaded no contest-it was over in twenty minutes. It was the only thing to do on the evidence, you see. They’ll be sentenced this afternoon-around three o’clock, I’d say. If you’re interested.”
IV
It was snowing again, blue this time.
Pulcher paid the cab driver and ran up the steps of the courthouse. As he reached for the door he caught sight of three airfish solemnly swimming around the corner of the building toward him. Even in his hurry he paused to glance at them.
It was past three, but the judge had not yet entered the courtroom. There were no spectators, but the six defendants were already in their seats, a bailiff lounging next to them. Counsel’s table was occupied by-Pulcher squinted-oh, by Donley. Pulcher knew the other lawyer slightly. He was a youngster, with good political connections-that explained the court’s appointing him for the fee when Pulcher didn’t show up-but without much to recommend him otherwise.
Madeleine Gaultry looked up as Pulcher approached, then looked away. One of the boys caught sight of him, scowled, whispered to the others. Their collective expressions were enough to sear his spirit.
Pulcher sat at the table beside Donley. “Hello. Mind if I join you?” Donley twisted his head. “Oh, hello, Charley. Sure. I didn’t expect to see you here.” He laughed. “Say, that eye’s pretty bad. I guess-” He stopped.
Something happened in Donley’s face. The young baby-fat cheeks became harder, older, more worried-looking. Donley clamped his lips shut.
Pulcher was puzzled. “What’s the matter? Are you wondering where I was?”