this?” and she would have to explain what she was doing up in the tree. She might also have to explain how she knew he was Ulric Henry and what she was doing with his file and his picture, and he would never believe it was all a coincidence.
Number six blinked on, and the door of the elevator opened. “I can’t,” Sally thought, and pushed the lobby button. Halfway down she decided to say what she should have said in the first place. She pushed six again.
“Ulric, I love you,” she recited. “Ulric, I love you.” Six blinked. The door opened. “Ulric,” she said. He was standing in front of the elevator, glaring at her.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” he said. “Like ‘I withspeak myself?’ That’s a nice example of Germanic compounding. But of course you know that. Language generation is your area of special study isn’t that right, Sally?”
“Ulric,” Sally said. She took a step forward and put her hand on the elevator door so it wouldn’t close.
“You were home for Thanksgiving vacation and you were afraid you’d get out of practice, is that it? So you thought you’d jump out of a tree on the company linguist just to keep your hand in.”
“If you’d shut up a minute, I’d explain,” Sally said.
“No, that’s not right,” Ulric said. “It should be ‘quiet up’ or maybe ‘mouth-close you.’ More compounding.”
“Why did I ever think I could talk to you?” Sally said. “Why did I ever waste my time trying to generate language for you?”
“For me?” Ulric said. “Why in the hell did you think I wanted you to generate language?”
“Because… oh, forget it,” Sally said. She punched the lobby button. The door started to shut. Ulric stuck his hand in the closing doors and then snatched them free and pressed the hold button. Nothing happened. He jammed in four numbers and pressed the hold button again. It gave an odd click and began beeping, but the doors opened again.
“Damn it,” Ulric said. “Now you’ve made me punch in Brad’s security code, and I’ve set off his stupid override.”
“That’s right,” Sally said, jamming her hands in her pockets. “Blame everything on me. I suppose I’m the one who left that note in the tree saying you wanted somebody who could generate language?”
The beeping stopped. “What note?” Ulric said, and let go of the hold button.
Sally pulled her hand out of her pocket to press the lobby button again. A piece of paper fell out of her pocket. Ulric stepped inside as the doors started to close and picked up the piece of paper. After a minute, he said, “Look, I think I can explain how all this happened.”
“You’d better make it snappy,” Sally said. “I’m getting out when we get to the lobby.”
As soon as Janice hung up the phone Brad grabbed his coat. He had a good idea of what Old Man Mowen wanted him for. After Ulric had left, Brad had gotten a call from Time. They’d talkified for over half an hour about a photographer and a four-page layout on the waste emissions project. He figured they’d call Old Man Mowen and tell him about the article, too, and sure enough, his terminal had started beeping an override before he even hung up. it stopped as he turned toward the terminal, and the screen went blank, and then it started beeping again, double- quick, and sure enough, it was his pappy-in-law to be. Before he could even begin reading the message, Janice called. He told her he’d be there faster than blue blazes, grabbed his coat, and started out the door.
One of the elevators was on six and just starting down. The other one was on five and coming up. He punched his security code in and put his arm in the sleeve of his overcoat. The lining tore, and his arm went down inside it. He wrestled it free and tried to pull the lining back up to where it belonged. It tore some more.
“Well, dad fetch it!” he said loudly The elevator door opened. Brad got in, still trying to get his arm in the sleeve. The door closed behind him.
The panel in the door started beeping. That meant an override. Maybe Mowen was trying to call him back. He pushed the DOOR OPEN button, but nothing happened. The elevator started down. “Dagnab it all,” he said.
“Hi, Brad,” Lynn said. He turned around.
“You look a mite wadgetty,” Sue said. “Doesn’t he, Jill?”
“Right peaked,” Jill said.
“Maybe he’s got the flit-flats,” Gail said.
Charlotte didn’t say anything. She clutched the file folder to her chest and growled. Overhead, the lights flickered, and the elevator ground to a halt.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Mowen Chemical today announced temporary nnalization of its pyrolitic stratospheric waste emissions program pending implementation of an environmental impact verification process. Lynn Saunders, director of the project, indicated that facilities will be temporarily deactivized during reorientation of predictive assessment criteria. In an unrelated communication, P. B. Mowen, president of Mowen Chemical, announced the upcoming nuptials of his daughter Sally Mowen and Ulric Henry; vice-president in charge of language effectiveness documentation.
ABOUT AUTHOR
CONNIE WILLIS has won six Nebula Awards (more than any other science fiction writer), five Hugo Awards, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for her first novel,
Your perspective will never be quite the same again.
— 56273-8 $6.50/$8.99 in Canada
WINNER OF THE HUGO AND NEBULA AWARDS FOR BEST NOVEL
A twenty-first-century historian uses a newly developed technology to travel back to the fourteenth century- only to find she has become an unlikdy angd of hope during one of history’s darkest hours.
— 27025-7 $5.99/$7.99
WINNER OF THE JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL
A young historical researcher for a Civil War novelist finds his life forever changed when he meets a woman haunted by Lincoln’s dreams and the strange resonance this war still has in all our lives.
— 56436-6 $6.50/$8.99
Winner of six Nebulas and four Hugos for her short fiction, Ms. Willis brings us a collection of some of her most immortal stories. Humorous, wry, and poignant, these are tales you won’t soon forget.
— 56294-0 $3.99/$4.99
Two explorers are sent to an alien world to survey the terrain, but as they are soon to learn, there are more uncharted territories than just the physical-and one of the most complex is the human heart.
