«Max, can you run up here for tomorrow evening?»
I said that I could.
«We’re throwing a wing-ding to celebrate Project Jupiter,» he said. «About fifty of us in on it so far, mostly the boys at Treasure, but there’ll be more. We’re taking a suite, or as many suites as we’ll need, at the Pleiades Hotel and it’s going to be quite a brawl.»
It was quite a brawl all right. It lasted till dawn. I found that I was the guest of honor because the newspaper releases had given me most of the credit for working out the plans for the rocket. I had to make a speech and botched it badly, but nobody seemed to care.
The publicity hadn’t hurt my stock at the L.A. Rocket Port either. I found that out Monday morning when I went back to work. If there’d been any resentment—and I’d thought there had been at least a little—about the way Klocky had jumped me up so fast, over other people’s heads, it was gone now. I was hero for a day now, and I could do no wrong. I could feel the difference.
No word from Ellen Monday or Tuesday. No reason why she should have called or written, of course. A newscast Tuesday afternoon mentioned that the President had signed the Jupiter Project bill and that it was now officially enacted. But that had been anticipated so there was no reason why Ellen should have called me about it.
But Wednesday was the date of Ellen’s appointment with Jansen, and I knew she’d phone me, or at least send a telegram, as soon as she left him. If she’d made the deal with Whitlow and if Whitlow was definitely going to get the appointment, then I was in.
Her appointment was at two o’clock, eleven Pacific time, so after eleven I stayed in my office so as not to miss a call. When it hadn’t come by noon I sent out to have a lunch brought in to me and stuck by the telephone. By one o’clock I was getting a little worried; surely her appointment with Jansen wouldn’t have lasted more than fifteen minutes. Then I decided she must have had to hurry back to the Senate and had decided to call me this evening.
But five o’clock, when I was ready to leave work, was eight o’clock for her and still there’d been no call. Don’t be a damned fool, I told myself; no news is good news. Everything went okay and she’s waiting till you’re home to phone you so the conversation can be leisurely without interrupting your work.
I ate hurriedly enroute and was home by six. At seven I phoned Ellen’s apartment in Washington and got no answer. I tried again every hour until it was two o’clock there, eleven to me, and gave up for the evening. If she wasn’t home by two she was staying elsewhere for the night. But why hadn’t she called me? Surely she’d know that I was waiting for a call and might call her if she didn’t call me, and that I’d wonder and worry when I found she wasn’t home.
I set the alarm for five and turned in. I got a little sleep off and on, but I got up at four-thirty and made myself coffee. I tried her apartment again at five; if after spending the night out she came home to change clothes or get papers to take to the Senate with her, that was the time she’d be home, an hour before the Senate opened. No answer; she hadn’t come home at all.
I made myself wait an hour and a half, then I phoned the Senate, now half an hour in session, and got the sergeant-at-arms. I had to pull my rank as director of the port to convince him my call was important enough for him to go to her desk on the floor of the Senate right away. I told him, though, that if she was there he didn’t have to pull her away to answer the phone if she was busy, but that he could give her a message to call me back as soon as convenient, and that I’d hold the phone until he came back and told me whether he’d found her or not. He came back on in ten minutes and said that Senator Gallagher had not yet come in, but that he’d watch for her and give her my message when she did come.
I thanked him and hung up.
Should I try the Washington police? If she’d been in an accident it would have been last night, in all probability, and they’d know by now. But if everything was all right, if there was a simple explanation for her absence, a call to the police might start an inquiry that would prove embarrassing to her, might even make the newspapers or a telecast before she turned up.
I sat staring at my phone. It rang.
Washington was calling. I breathed again, thinking Ellen had just reached the Senate, had had my message from the sergeant-at-arms, and had called right away.
But it was a man’s voice. «Mr. Andrews?»
I said yes.
«This is Dr. Grundleman of Kerry Hospital. I am calling on behalf of Senator Ellen Gallagher, who is a patient here and who asked me to make this call.»
«What’s wrong? Is she badly hurt?»
«It was not an accident, Mr. Andrews. She is to undergo an operation later today for the removal of a brain tumor. She asked me to tell you—»
«Save the message for a minute. How dangerous is the operation?»
«It is a serious one but the chances are fairly good. They would have been much better had the operation been performed ten days ago when the condition was first diagnosed. But I think we can bring her through.»
«What time’s the operation? Can I get there in time to talk to her before it?»
«It’s scheduled for half past two; we’ll have to start preparing her for it at two and it’s nine-fifty here now, our time, so that means there’s only four hours and ten minutes. I suppose a chartered rocket would do it, but that would be terribly expen—»
«Tell her I’ll be there,» I said. I slammed down the receiver.
I picked it up and dialed the house number of my secretary. After a few minutes she answered sleepily.
«This is Max, Dotty,» I said. «Snap awake because this is an emergency. Got paper and a pencil handy?»
«Yes, Mr. Andrews.»
«Good. Write these things down so you won’t slip up on any of them, and start doing them the second I hang up. First, call the port and tell them to get the charter rocket ready to take off the minute I get there; it’ll be within twenty minutes. If there’s more than one pilot on stand-by I want Red. Landing clearance at Washington. Got that?»
«Yes, Mr. Andrews.»
«Second you’ve finished that, get a helicab to pick me up here. Emergency priority, pilot to land on the roof. If he gets in trouble for it, I’m responsible. I’ll be on the roof in ten minutes after I finish this call. Listen, get those things started happening while I get dressed, then phone me back and I’ll give you a few more.»
I threw on clothes. Dotty called back just as I finished. The rocket was being readied and the helicab was coming. I gave her instructions about the port itself this time, who’d be in charge and what to tell him, things like that.
Then I ran up three flights to the roof, got there two minutes before the helicab landed to pick me up.
We took off from the rocket port at seven-twelve, just twenty-two minutes after I’d hung up on my long distance call from the hospital. The trip to Washington—with maximum acceleration and deceleration allowed on a passenger flight—should have taken two and a quarter hours. But Red didn’t figure me for a passenger, when I told him that every minute counted. We let down in an hour and fifty minutes. And there was a hellie waiting for me; it came right out on the field to pick me up the moment we’d landed. I hadn’t thought of that, but Dotty had.
So I reached the hospital by noon, Eastern time, two hours before they’d start preparing her for surgery.
At the desk they wouldn’t tell me Ellen’s room number. Dr. Grundleman had left orders that I was to be shown to his office on arrival. I was shown to his office.