Gilpin's Space Page 2

  “Didn’t you keep copies of Saul’s records—you know, equations, diagrams, blueprints, parts lists, all that sort of thing?” “Geoffrey, Saul didn’t work that way. He never offered them. I never asked for them. We’ll have to depend on what Franz can tell us when he gets back. At this stage, maybe it’s just as well. There literally isn’t anything for anyone to find.”

  That I couldn’t argue with.

  As we wound down into the city, she told me what immediate action she was going to take. “We both know how the Individualist People’s Party operates,” she said. “Their goons used terrorist and KGB tactics, the whole immoral arsenal, during their drive to power and in their interparty rivalries, but we can’t waste energy getting scared. We’ll go on the offensive. We’ll report it to the local police immediately, and to the state and federal agencies. We’ll blame it on industrial espionage and sabotage. We’ll scream to all the media—theft of our super-submarine, possible kidnapping of its inventor and his daughter! We’ll raise the roof and keep on raising it. Of course, they’ll have the Coast Guard and the Navy out, but when they don’t find Cupid’s Arrow they’ll simply think she slipped away. Only sub-killers would be dead certain, and even they wouldn’t dare to use those—not in peacetime, and with all the international traffic.”

  “Okay,” I said, grinning at her. “The minute the yard gets in touch we’ll get to work.”

  2

  Laure was one of those rare, wonderful people who not only can relax and enjoy themselves even when they know the world may fall in on them tomorrow, but who can transmit the feeling to those around them. All through dinner, she kept anxiety at bay, soothing Rhoda, gradually teasing out my own worry lines, carefully briefing Janet on what had happened without alarming her. Of course, the fact that it was a splendid dinner, superbly served, did no harm; and when finally, at about ten-thirty, we went our separate ways, knowing we’d see each other again in less than half an hour, we were actually lighthearted.

  It didn’t last. As Janet and I drove up to our apartment, we saw the company car waiting at the entrance. It was Sousa, who’d been trying to phone me all evening. He’d figured we’d gone off someplace, but took the chance we’d come on home. Somebody had stolen Cupid’s Arrow—

  I made appropriate noises of shocked disbelief, and he blurted out what they had found. What with Saul living right aboard with a phone and his own kinky alarm system, they hadn’t bothered to check on the small subs for nearly an hour after they came back from the north slip—and then—well, the ship was gone. They’d called in to the office and told Ordway, who was in charge with Kellett gone, and he’d told them not to disturb anything and to get in touch right away with Mrs. Endicott or me.

  “Come up to the apartment,” I told him. “We’ve got to call the cops.”

  We hurried. I got through to city police harbor detail—and found that Laure had phoned them a few minutes before and they were on their way. She hadn’t had as far to drive as we. So then I called the feds, and some nasty bastard—a new IPP appointee by the sound of him—told me Laure had called them, too, and I’d better get my butt down to the yard on the double, and what kind of amateur job were we doing down there anyhow, letting somebody steal a friggin’ submarine?

  I gave him a soft answer, and took off after Sousa. When we roared in past the gate guard, I saw nothing but police cars, sheriffs’ cars, federal cars, and lots of media cars, with everyone snorting around and shouting orders. I pushed through to Laure’s office, and found a couple of the new federal boys trying to browbeat her and getting absolutely nowhere. I looked them over, and decided that their qualifying experience must’ve been either as jail guards or inmates. They seemed to figure they had the problem solved: Was Underseas, Ltd., having money problems? And was this weird sub insured? And for how much? And how about the Gilpin guy, was he aboard? And who stood to collect his insurance?

  Laure was playing with them, giving them deliberately evasive answers, getting them more and more fouled up in then-own confusion, and generally managing things so they’d believe what’d be best for us, so I went down into the yard again and got Dan alone for a moment. “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Fine! They’ve been stomping around over absolutely everything, even each other. Believe me, if I left any evidence when I used the laser—by the way, I took care to leave a few bums on the pier—it’s either gone by now or so kicked around it’s meaningless.”

  “Let’s hope so!”

  “There’s one guy worries me.” He frowned. “A brick outhouse sort of character named Whalen Borg. He’s not running with the pack, and he’s got a look on him like he’s out to bum a heretic.” He saw the expression on my face. “Know anything about him?”

  ’Too much. He’s a displaced ayatollah. But not stupid—no way. While he was working for the party his business was burning heretics—or at least working them over pretty nastily. And that’s not the worst. I knew him in the service. They found him pulling rough stuff on enlisted men—and women—and it was the admiral who brought charges and made them stick, but strings were pulled and he ended up out on a psychiatric discharge. He’ll have forgotten none of it, and he’ll be remembering that I testified against him, too. And now he’s a fed?”

  “Buzzer and everything. He doesn’t act like he’s in charge, but also he doesn’t act as if anyone’s in charge of him. And he’s been asking the wrong questions.”

  “Such as—”

  “Such as what kind of drive was Saul working on? And how come he was getting such special treatment? And when could his records be made available for inspection?”

  “Dan, Borg changes the whole picture. He’s a personal enemy—not just of mine, but of Mrs. Endicott’s because she’s the admiral’s widow. From now on, we can’t forget him for a moment, especially if things quiet down and he seems to fade into the background. It could be we’ll have to fight a little private war, and if we do there won’t be any rules. Catch on?” He nodded, so I gave him a slap on the back and went up to Laure’s office again. Now she had even more company— media people, agents, cops—all milling around while the agent in charge, another new appointee, sounded off about how he had the whole case in the bag. He was a gangling, school-teacherish sort of man with an abrasive sideshow barker’s voice, and he was promising the media the greatest story of the year. Of course, he had to keep it under wraps until he’d had everything checked out, but they could go ahead and tell the world that it was significant—most significant—that this Saul Gilpin’s girlfriend was Chinese. And they could also say that neither he nor the administration took any stock in Mrs. Endicott’s accusation that perhaps one of the major conglomerates had stolen the submarine. Now possibly some other irresponsible small entrepreneur…He left the suggestion hanging for the media people to bite at; and Laure Endicott, ignoring him, smiled at them regally.

  Then, in the opposite comer of the room, I saw Whalen Borg staring at me. He was enormous—almost grotesquely so because to match his chest and shoulders he should have been a foot and a half taller. His thinning hair was combed very carefully across his tub-shaped head. His round, colorless, cold eyes protruded slightly, drawing attention from his undistinguished, heavy face. He stared at me, smiling very slightly, and 1 stared through him for a moment before I let my glance drift on.

  A few minutes later, it was over. The agent in charge dismissed the media; he herded his own people through the door; he didn’t even bother to say good night. And Whalen Borg, never taking his eyes off me, was the last to leave. The first late, late newscasts were telling all about it—the suspected Chinese involvement, and how Saul Gilpin had a record of mental instability, and how taxpayers’ money was being wasted on an unimportant incident which could never have occurred at a conglomerate yard.

  On the surface all was going well. There was only that one fly in the ointment, and 1 didn’t need to point it out. Laure had seen him, too.

  The next two weeks were raucous. Individuali
st People’s Party senators and congressmen shouted about the danger of letting “flyby-night speculators” play games with industries vital to the economy; they demanded investigations; they introduced bills which—even though destined to die quickly in committee—showed clearly what the future held in store for us once both Houses were purged of our last friends. The media, of course, yelled just as loudly. Cupid’s Arrow could not be found? Their inside information said she’d been destroyed— again, for insurance—or gobbled up whole by a huge Chinese naval cargo sub like Jonah in the whale, or (God help me!) stolen by Saul Gilpin for a protracted sex orgy with his girlfriend and his daughter.

  The cops kept pestering us, always with the same questions, the same innuendos; and we kept on giving them the same answers, very patiently. Whalen Borg, to my surprise, didn’t show up again—and that alarmed me more than the rest of it. It was a dead certainty—that he was watching, planning, waiting. Of course, we kept on shouting to the media about our stolen submarine, but I knew Borg didn’t believe that it was stolen, though the rest of them swallowed the story, hook, line and sinker.

  Then suddenly all the fuss died away. The party noisemakers found new issues to panic their constituents. The media found new targets to attack. And I redoubled our precautions.

  Franz Andradi came back from his vacation a few days later. He checked in at the office, and it was obvious that Saul’s disappearance had been no surprise to him; but we didn’t want to start questioning him, not then. The admiral had sponsored his parents years before when they had emigrated, and he and the Endicotts had been close friends ever since. Andradi was dark and lithe and wild, looking more like a Hungarian hussar than a nuclear engineer, and where the ladies were concerned he made the most of it. But generally men liked him; be played fair. We had hired him with only his M.S., and he had worked for us for a little more than a year, mostly with Saul but sometimes on more conventional projects.

  It wasn’t until all three of us were in Laure’s car on the way to lunch that Franz began to talk about it. Saul had tipped him off, had told him to get out of town and stay out until the flap subsided. He promised him that, yes indeed, there was going to be a flap—a simply lovely flap—and that when Franz heard about it he’d know exactly what had happened, even if he didn’t understand exactly how. Franz had trusted Saul implicitly, guessing that whatever he was planning was in the best interest of us all. Now Franz looked at Laure apologetically to see if she was offended at having been left out of it.

  She wasn’t. She simply nodded. “And what did happen, Franz? What, exactly, did Saul’s invention do?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m a nuclear engineer—not a theoretical physicist,” he answered; and I saw that now his jauntiness had vanished, and he was deadly serious. “Even if I were, I probably wouldn’t understand it, Mrs. Endicott. He told me that it was a drive—and, knowing Saul, I’m sure that’s what it is. But I’ve never seen it driving anything. It occupies a space only about five feet by three by maybe two, and it can swallow all the energy the ship’s nukepak puts out without even warming up. Once or twice Saul let me watch it when he turned it on— watch the instruments measuring its appetite. The readings were unbelievable. Then he always turned it off—‘Before it scares you,’ he said. That’s about all I can tell you at firsthand. He wouldn’t tell me any more—all he needed me for was for modifications to the nukepak and its controls. The last time we talked about it, he twiddled that absurd moustache of his and reached up and tweaked my ear, and said, ’Franz, laddie by and by you’ll find out a lot more. Just be sure you’re back right after the flap’s over, in time for Laure’s birthday. Tell her you are invited to her party—that I invited you—and have a dozen of her drinks for me.’ Then he went off, chuckling to himself and whistling ‘Marlborough s’en va t’en guerre.’”

  “Is that all he ever told you?” I asked.

  “Not quite, Geoff,” he answered, almost reluctantly. “It’s…well, it’s hard for me to believe it even now. What he said— ’

  “as nearly as I can remember—was, ’Franz, this is the most efficient, most powerful drive anyone ever made. There’s just one trouble with it. It can’t be used in ordinary space, in space-as-we-know-it. But in its own space—ha! That’s a white horse of a different color. Why, in such a space it’d be swift as thought!’ I answered him with some wisecrack about how much did he intend to speed up his stupid submarine anyway? Then he raised a hand to heaven and swore he’d never tell me because I was jealous of his magnificent moustache.” Franz stroked his own coal-black redundancy, grinning a little ruefully. “And all the time I thought he was just kidding me?” He paused. “Okay,” he said, “just how did Cupid’s Arrow disappear? Did it get shifted out of phase with here and now? Did it get thrown into a science-fiction universe? Whatever did Saul do with it?”

  We told him exactly what Dan and Rhoda had told us, and he asked us to repeat it.

  Then the three of us were silent for half a mile, all of us thinking the same thoughts. Laure and I had teamed no more than we’d already guessed, but now we knew. What had really happened? And where were Saul and his Lillian and his daughter now?

  “Saul used words very strangely sometimes,” Laure said finally, “but he wasn’t one to waste them. His mentioning my birthday and my party couldn’t have been accidental.” She frowned. “Franz, my birthday’s only three days off, and I want you to fly down and spend those days with that girl of yours at Stanford, the one who’s silly enough to take you seriously. It’ll seem more plausible, and you can still be back in plenty of time.”

  “And Franz,” I added, “watch out for dark alleys and strange women.”

  He grinned. “Don’t worry, Geoff. Dark alleys don’t appeal to me, and the women I already know aren’t strange at all.”

  3

  Laure Endicott’s birthday parties had started while the admiral was still living, and they had always been small family affairs—Janet and I; Saul and his Polly Esther and, later, Lillian; Rhoda and her husband until he died, and finally Rhoda and Dan Kellett. Then, of course, there was always Mrs. Rasmussen, who’d been with the Endicott’s for twenty or more years, and who was family as much as anyone. It was she who served the dinner, which was invariably a triumph, sometimes calling in her daughter to assist her, but more often than not doing it all alone.

  She had been very fond of Saul and of his Polly Esther, and at first the shock of his disappearance had depressed her, but she was cheerful now, and the party, which could have turned into the sadder sort of wake, became a celebration. But then she knew something we didn’t know.

  We found out right after dinner, after Laure had blown out the candles and the cake had been cut and served. First knocking on the door, which got our attention instantly because it was something she didn’t have to do, Mrs. Rasmussen came back into the dining room, and this time she was not alone. With her there was a Boy Scout, a very young one in full uniform, neat and clean and freshly pressed, his blond hair falling down over his forehead. He was carrying a flat package wrapped in fancy paper, with a big ornate bow at either end, and he was obviously embarrassed. Seeing us there, he hesitated, blushing, shuffling his feet.

  “You know my grandson, Keithy,” Mrs. Rasmussen spoke with a lilting Danish accent. “He’s got a message for you, Mrs. Endicott.” She urged him forward. “And doesn’t he look nice? Just like in Normal Rockwell’s pictures. And look at those merit badges—and him only into scouting for a year already!

  Now come on, Keithy, you keep your promise.”

  Keithy blushed even redder than before. Then, squaring his shoulders, his eyes closed tight, he sang, “Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday, dear Auntie, Happy Birthday to you!”

  He opened his eyes again, and looked at Laure apprehensively. ’That ‘Auntie’ wasn’t mine, Mrs. Endicott,” he blurted. “That was Uncle Saul’s! He told me to sing it just like that, and then to give you this.” He came forward, holding out t
he package. “He made me promise I’d never tell about it, not to anybody, and I promised him, scout’s honor!”

  Smiling, Laure took the package. “Thank you, Keith. Nobody ever called me Auntie except Mr. Gilpin, so you did exactly right. Would you like a piece of birthday cake?”

  She placed a generous slice on a cake plate. “Sit here next to me,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Endicott,” his grandmother put in. “That wasn’t the way Mr. Gilpin wanted it. He said Keithy could have a great big slice of cake, just like the one you cut, but he was to have it with me in the kitchen, because what’s in that package is a big secret. Isn’t that right, Keithy?”

  “Yes, ma’am, that’s what he said, and I won’t tell anybody that, either. Happy Birthday, Mrs. Endicott.”

  Laure thanked him once again, and no one said a word until the door had closed behind them. In a whisper, Franz Andradi said, “I hope your present’s what I think it is!”

  Carefully, patiently, Laure took out an envelope half hidden by a bow. She opened it. She took out an enormous birthday card. There was a folded letter in it, but first she showed the card to all of us, a horribly sentimental thing featuring pink bunnies peeking out from behind enormous mushrooms. When we had all had a chance to smile over it, she unfolded the letter.

  Mi chère Matante (she read aloud),

  Didn’t know I could speak Liègeois, now did you? Admit it! Admit you didn’t know! Nor did any of those other nice people at your table. Well, there’s a whole lot they don’t know about their Uncle Saul—not your uncle, Auntie Laure. And anyhow, you’re probably all sitting there mad at me because I stole your little submarine, and you’re wondering what’s become of me and Lillian and Polly Esther. Well, I’m sure we’re going to be all right because I’ve made all sorts of preparations for a long, long journey. And don’t you ladies sit there worrying about Polly Esther, because her boyfriend, a nice sort of engineering character from Cal. Tech., is with us, and now that I’m the captain of the ship, I’ll many them myself.