Man Who Sold the Moon / Orphans of the Sky Read online

  Mary Lou puffed out a cloud of smoke. “I’ve been tailed the past couple of weeks.”

  “The heck you have! Mary Lou, that tears it. I’m going to settle this thing today.”

  “Going to sell out?”

  “No.” He walked over to his desk, opened a side drawer, took out a .38 automatic, and slipped it in his pocket. Mary Lou jumped down from the bench and ran to him. She put her hands on his shoulders, and looked up at him, fear in her face.

  “Archie!”

  He answered gently. “Yes, kid.”

  “Archie, don’t do anything rash. If anything happened to you, you know I couldn’t get along with a normal man.”

  He patted her hair. “Those are the best words I’ve heard in weeks, kid.”

  Douglas returned about one P.M. Mary Lou met him at the elevator. “Well?”

  “Same old song-and-dance. Nothing done in spite of my brave promises.”

  “Did they threaten you?”

  “Not exactly. They asked me how much life insurance I carried.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Nothing. I reached for my handkerchief and let them see that I was carrying a gun. I thought it might cause them to revise any immediate plans they might have in mind. After that the interview sort of fizzled out and I left. Mary’s little lamb followed me home, as usual.”

  “Same plug-ugly that shadowed you yesterday?”

  “Him, or his twin. He couldn’t be a twin, though, come to think about it. They’d have both died of fright at birth.”

  “True enough. Have you had lunch?”

  “Not yet. Let’s ease down to the shop lunch room and take on some groceries. We can do our worrying later.”

  The lunch room was deserted. They talked very little. Mary Lou’s blue eyes stared vacantly over his head. At the second cup of coffee she reached out and touched him.

  “Relax—that’s what we’ve got to do.”

  “Speak English.”

  “I’ll give you a blueprint. Why are we under attack?”

  “We’ve got something they want.”

  “Not at all. We’ve got something they want to quarantine—they don’t want anyone else to have it. So they try to buy you off, or scare you into quitting. If these don’t work, they’ll try something stronger. Now you’re dangerous to them and in danger from them because you’ve got a secret. What happens if it isn’t a secret? Suppose everybody knows it?”

  “They’d be sore as hell.”

  “Yes, but what would they do? Nothing. Those big tycoons are practical men. They won’t waste a dime on heckling you if it no longer serves their pocketbooks.”

  “What do you propose that we do?”

  “Give away the secret. Tell the world how it’s done. Let anybody manufacture power screens and light screens who wants to. The heat process on the mix is so simple that any commercial chemist can duplicate it once you tell ’em how, and there must be a thousand factories, at least, that could manufacture them with their present machinery from materials at their very doorsteps.”

  “But, good Lord, Mary Lou, we’d be left in the lurch.”

  “What can you lose? We’ve made a measly couple of thousand dollars so far, keeping the process secret. If you turn it loose, you still hold the patent, and you charge a nominal royalty—one that it wouldn’t be worthwhile trying to beat, say ten cents a square yard on each screen manufactured. There would be millions of square yards turned out the first year—hundreds of thousands of dollars to you the first year, and big income for life. You can have the finest research laboratory in the country.”

  He slammed his napkin down on the table. “Kid, I believe you’re right.”

  “Don’t forget, too, what you’ll be doing for the country. There’ll be factories springing up right away all over the Southwest—every place where there’s lots of sunshine. Free power! You’ll be the new emancipator.”

  He stood up, his eyes shining. “Kid, we’ll do it! Half a minute while I tell Dad our decision, then we’ll beat it for town.”

  Two hours later the teletype in every news service office in the country was clicking out the story. Douglas insisted that the story include the technical details of the process as a condition of releasing it. By the time he and Mary Lou walked out of the Associated Press building the first extra was on the street:

  “GENIUS GRANTS GRATIS POWER TO PUBLIC.”

  Archie bought one and beckoned to the muscle man who was shadowing him.

  “Come here, Sweetheart. You can quit pretending to be a fireplug. I’ve an errand for you.” He handed the lunk the newspaper. It was accepted uneasily. In all his long and unsavory career he had never had the etiquette of shadowing treated in so cavalier a style. “Take this paper to your boss and tell him Archie Douglas sent him a valentine. Don’t stand there staring at me! Beat it, before I break your fat head!”

  As Archie watched him disappear in the crowd, Mary Lou slipped a hand in his. “Feel better, son?”

  “Lots.”

  “All your worries over?”

  “All but one.” He grabbed her shoulders and swung her around. “I’ve got an argument to settle with you. Come along!” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her out into the crosswalk.

  “What the hell, Archie! Let go my wrist.”

  “Not likely. You see that building over there? That’s the courthouse. Right next to the window where they issue dog licenses, there’s one where we can get a wedding permit.”

  “I’m not going to marry you!”

  “Oh, yes, you are—or I’ll start to scream right here in the street.”

  “This is blackmail!”

  As they entered the building, she was still dragging her feet—but not too hard.

  The Roads Must Roll

  “Who makes the roads roll?”

  The speaker stood still on the rostrum and waited for his audience to answer him. The reply came in scattered shouts that cut through the ominous, discontented murmur of the crowd.

  “We do!”—“We do!”—“Damn right!”

  “Who does the dirty work ‘down inside’—so that Joe Public can ride at his ease?”

  This time it was a single roar, “We do!” The speaker pressed his advantage, his words tumbling out in a rasping torrent. He leaned toward the crowd, his eyes picking out individuals at whom to fling his words. “What makes business? The roads! How do they move the food they eat? The roads! How do they get to work? The roads! How do they get home to their wives? The roads!” He paused for effect, then lowered his voice. “Where would the public be if you boys didn’t keep them roads rolling?—Behind the eight ball and everybody knows it. But do they appreciate it? Pfui! Did we ask for too much? Were our demands unreasonable? ‘The right to resign whenever we want to.’ Every working stiff in other lines of work has that. ‘The same pay as the engineers.’ Why not? Who are the real engineers around here? D’yuh have to be a cadet in a funny little hat before you can learn to wipe a bearing, or jack down a rotor? Who earns his keep: the ‘gentlemen’ in the control offices, or the boys ‘down inside’? What else do we ask? ‘The right to elect our own engineers.’ Why not? Who’s competent to pick engineers? The technicians?—or some dumb examining board that’s never been ‘down inside,’ and couldn’t tell a rotor bearing from a field coil?”

  He changed his pace with natural art, and lowered his voice still further. “I tell you, brother, it’s time we quit fiddlin’ around with petitions to the Transport Commission, and use a little direct action. Let ’em yammer about democracy; that’s a lot of eye wash—we’ve got the power, and we’re the men that count!”

  A man had risen in the back of the hall while the speaker was haranguing. He spoke up as the speaker paused. “Brother Chairman,” he drawled, “may I stick in a couple of words?”

  “You are recognized, Brother Harvey.”

  “What I ask is: what’s all the shoutin’ for? We’ve got the highest hourly rate of pay of any mechanical guild, full
insurance and retirement, and safe working conditions, barring the chance of going deaf.” He pushed his anti-noise helmet further back from his ears. He was still in dungarees, apparently just up from standing watch. “Of course we have to give ninety days’ notice to quit a job, but, cripes, we knew that when we signed up. The roads have got to roll—they can’t stop every time some lazy punk gets bored with his billet.

  “And now Soapy—” The crack of the gravel cut him short. “Pardon me, I mean Brother Soapy—tells us how powerful we are, and how we should go in for direct action. Rats! Sure we could tie up the roads, and play hell with the whole community—but so could any screwball with a can of nitroglycerine, and he wouldn’t have to be a technician to do it, neither.

  “We aren’t the only frogs in the puddle. Our jobs are important, sure, but where would we be without the farmers—or the steel workers—or a dozen other trades and professions?”

  He was interrupted by a sallow little man with protruding upper teeth, who said, “Just a minute, Brother Chairman, I’d like to ask Brother Harvey a question,” then turned to Harvey and inquired in a sly voice, “Are you speaking for the guild, Brother—or just for yourself? Maybe you don’t believe in the guild? You wouldn’t by any chance be”—he stopped and slid his eyes up and down Harvey’s lank frame—“a spotter, would you?”

  Harvey looked over his questioner as if he had found something filthy in a plate of food. “Sikes,” he told him, “if you weren’t a runt, I’d stuff your store teeth down your throat. I helped found this guild. I was on strike in ’sixty-six. Where were you in ’sixty-six? With the finks?”

  The chairman’s gavel pounded. “There’s been enough of this,” he said. “Nobody who knows anything about the history of this guild doubts the loyalty of Brother Harvey. We’ll continue with the regular order of business.” He stopped to clear his throat. “Ordinarily we don’t open our floor to outsiders, and some of you boys have expressed a distaste for some of the engineers we work under, but there is one engineer we always like to listen to whenever he can get away from his pressing duties. I guess maybe it’s because he’s had dirt under his nails the same as us. Anyhow, I present at this time Mr. Shorty Van Kleeck—”

  A shout from the floor stopped him. “Brother Van Kleeck!”

  “O.K.—Brother Van Kleeck, Chief Deputy Engineer of this road-town.”

  “Thanks, Brother Chairman.” The guest speaker came briskly forward, and grinned expansively at the crowd, seeming to swell under their approval. “Thanks, Brothers. I guess our chairman is right. I always feel more comfortable here in the Guild Hall of the Sacramento Sector—or any guild hall, for that matter—than I do in the engineers’ clubhouse. Those young punk cadet engineers get in my hair. Maybe I should have gone to one of the fancy technical institutes, so I’d have the proper point of view, instead of coming up from ‘down inside.’

  “Now about those demands of yours that the Transport Commission just threw back in your face—Can I speak freely?”

  “Sure you can, Shorty!”—“You can trust us!”

  “Well, of course I shouldn’t say anything, but I can’t help but understand how you feel. The roads are the big show these days, and you are the men that make them roll. It’s the natural order of things that your opinions should be listened to, and your desires met. One would think that even politicians would be bright enough to see that. Sometimes, lying awake at night, I wonder why we technicians don’t just take things over, and—”

  “Your wife is calling, Mr. Gaines.”

  “Very well.” He picked up the handset and turned to the visor screen.

  “Yes, darling, I know I promised, but . . . you’re perfectly right, darling, but Washington has especially requested that we show Mr. Blekinsop anything he wants to see. I didn’t know he was arriving today . . . No, I can’t turn him over to a subordinate. It wouldn’t be courteous. He’s Minister of Transport for Australia. I told you that . . . Yes, darling, I know that courtesy begins at home, but the roads must roll. It’s my job; you knew that when you married me. And this is part of my job . . . That’s a good girl. We’ll positively have breakfast together. Tell you what, order horses and a breakfast pack and we’ll make it a picnic. I’ll meet you in Bakersfield—usual place . . . Goodbye, darling. Kiss Junior goodnight for me.”

  He replaced the handset on the desk whereupon the pretty, but indignant features of his wife faded from the visor screen. A young woman came into his office. As she opened the door she exposed momentarily the words printed on its outer side: “DIEGO-RENO ROAD-TOWN, Office of the Chief Engineer.” He gave her a harassed glance.

  “Oh, it’s you. Don’t marry an engineer, Dolores, marry an artist. They have more home life.”

  “Yes, Mr. Gaines. Mr. Blekinsop is here, Mr. Gaines.”

  “Already? I didn’t expect him so soon. The Antipodes ship must have grounded early.”

  “Yes, Mr. Gaines.”

  “Dolores, don’t you ever have any emotions?”

  “Yes, Mr. Gaines.”

  ‘“Hmmm, it seems incredible, but you are never mistaken. Show Mr. Blekinsop in.”

  “Very good, Mr. Gaines.”

  Larry Gaines got up to greet his visitor. Not a particularly impressive little guy, he thought, as they shook hands and exchanged formal amenities. The rolled umbrella, the bowler hat were almost too good to be true. An Oxford accent partially masked the underlying clipped, flat, nasal twang of the native Australian.

  “It’s a pleasure to have you here, Mr. Blekinsop, and I hope we can make your stay enjoyable.”

  The little man smiled. “I’m sure it will be. This is my first visit to your wonderful country. I feel at home already. The eucalyptus trees, you know, and the brown hills—”

  “But your trip is primarily business?”

  “Yes, yes. My primary purpose is to study your road-cities, and report to my government on the advisability of trying to adapt your startling American methods to our social problems Down Under. I thought you understood that such was the reason I was sent to you.”

  “Yes. I did in a general way. I don’t know just what it is that you wish to find out. I suppose that you have heard about our road-towns, how they came about, how they operate, and so forth.”

  “I’ve read a good bit, true, but I am not a technical man, Mr. Gaines, not an engineer. My field is social and political. I want to see how this remarkable technical change has affected your people. Suppose you tell me about the roads as if I were entirely ignorant. And I will ask questions.”

  “That seems a practical plan. By the way, how many are there in your party?”

  “Just myself. I sent my secretary on to Washington.”

  “I see.” Gaines glanced at his wristwatch. “It’s nearly dinner time. Suppose we run up to the Stockton strip for dinner. There is a good Chinese restaurant up there that I’m partial to. It will take us about an hour and you can see the ways in operation while we ride.”

  “Excellent.”

  Gaines pressed a button on his desk, and a picture formed on a large visor screen mounted on the opposite wall. It showed a strong-boned, angular young man seated at a semicircular control desk, which was backed by a complex instrument board. A cigarette was tucked in one corner of his mouth.

  The young man glanced up, grinned, and waved from the screen. “Greetings and salutations, Chief. What can I do for you?”

  “Hi, Dave. You’ve got the evening watch, eh? I’m running up to the Stockton sector for dinner. Where’s Van Kleeck?”

  “Gone to a meeting somewhere. He didn’t say.”

  “Anything to report?”

  “No, sir. The roads are rolling, and all the little people are going ridey-ridey home to their dinners.”

  “O.K.—keep ’em rolling.”

  “They’ll roll, Chief.”

  Gaines snapped off the connection and turned to Blekinsop. “Van Kleeck is my chief deputy. I wish he’d spend more time on the road and less on politics. Da
vidson can handle things, however. Shall we go?”

  They glided down an electric staircase, and debouched on the walkway which bordered the northbound five-mile-an-hour strip. After skirting a stairway trunk marked OVERPASS TO SOUTHBOUND ROAD, they paused at the edge of the first strip. “Have you ever ridden a conveyor strip before?” Gaines inquired. “It’s quite simple. Just remember to face against the motion of the strip as you get on.”

  They threaded their way through homeward-bound throngs, passing from strip to strip. Down the center of the twenty-mile-an-hour strip ran a glassite partition which reached nearly to the spreading roof. The Honorable Mr. Blekinsop raised his eyebrows inquiringly as he looked at it.

  “Oh, that?” Gaines answered the unspoken inquiry as he slid back a panel door and ushered his guest through. “That’s a wind break. If we didn’t have some way of separating the air currents over the strips of different speeds, the wind would tear our clothes off on the hundred-mile-an-hour strip.” He bent his head to Blekinsop’s as he spoke, in order to cut through the rush of air against the road surfaces, the noise of the crowd, and the muted roar of the driving mechanism concealed beneath the moving strips. The combination of noises inhibited further conversation as they proceeded toward the middle of the roadway. After passing through three more wind screens located at the forty, sixty, and eighty-mile-an-hour strips, respectively, they finally reached the maximum speed strip, the hundred-mile-an-hour strip, which made the round trip, San Diego to Reno and back, in twelve hours.

  Blekinsop found himself on a walkway twenty feet wide facing another partition. Immediately opposite him an illuminated show window proclaimed: