places where it isn’t safe for a citizen to travel. It is causing worldwide ruckuses. It is tearing this country apart. There was a lot of wailing in Congress that the issue was ever allowed to arise.
Terrific pressure groups are developing. It is the hottest potato Washington has ever fielded, or tried to field.
The answer, of course, is to strike at Mastodonia and time travel. If you can’t get to Mastodonia, you can’t travel in time. And if you can’t travel in time, the issue becomes moot.”
“This means that Safari can’t use the time roads,” said Ben. “That nobody can use the time roads. This probably kills the talks with the movie people. This action could put us out of business.”
“At the moment, it does,” said Courtney. “We can move for a temporary injunction. If the injunction is granted by the court, then we’ll be back in business until the merits of the case can be adjudicated. The court then could make the injunction permanent, which would mean we’d be back in business for good, or it could deny the injunction, which would mean that the order would stand and we’d be out of business for good.”
“Or we could move the operation to some other country,” said Rila.
“I suppose that could be done,” Courtney told her.
“But it would involve negotiations with the country you wanted to move to and that might take considerable time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it also would require substantial payments of monies.”
“Bribes,” said Ben.
“They’d probably call it something else. Most nations, in the face of what our government has done, would be reluctant to let us in. First, you’d have to find a country. I warn you it would not be one of the better countries, probably a dictatorship. Once you were there, you might find the officials difficult to get along with. There is one good thing about the State Department order. It tacitly admits that Mastodonia is another country and that spikes the guns of the IRS.”
“You’ll file for the injunction soon,” said Ben.
“Immediately,” said Courtney. “I think it likely I can convince Safari and the movie people to join us in the action. They can claim unfair restraint of trade.
There probably are a lot of other arguments we can cite. I’ll have to think about that.”
“It looks as if we’ll just have to hunker down and weather the storm,” said Ben. “How certain are you that you will get an injunction?”
“I honestly don’t know. Ordinarily, it’s no great problem to get a temporary injunction. But in this case, we are bucking the State Department. That could be heavy.”
He hesitated for a moment and then said, “I don’t know if I should mention this right now, but I suppose I may as well. There may be another out. I’m not sure. I may have my signals wrong. But the CIA has been in to talk with me. Hinting about cooperation and our patriotic duties. Trying to make it off the record, but I never told them it was off the record — although if I were you, I’d not talk about it. I gained the impression they’d like to use time travel to get some of their men into position ahead of time in some sticky situations. They didn’t say so, but that’s one way they could use time travel. I played stupid, but I don’t think I fooled them.”
“You mean that if we’d let them use time travel,” said, Ben, “the State Department might lift the order.
That the order may be no more than a pressure tactic.”
“I can’t be sure,” said Courtney. “The signal’s not strong enough. If I signaled back to the CIA we were willing, there might suddenly be a lot of pressure on the State Department.”
“Well, why don’t we try it,” said Ben. “It’s no skin off our noses who uses time travel, or for what.”
“No,” said Rila.
“Why not?” asked Ben.
“Once you give the government a foot in the door, they begin taking over,” she said.
“I’m inclined to agree,” said Courtney. “My advice, for what it’s worth, is to save the CIA for future consideration. We might want to make that last desperate deal to save ourselves.”
“Okay,” said Ben. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Understand, I’m not even sure how the CIA ties into this,” said Courtney. “I’m just guessing.”
He rose and said, “Ben, if you’d drive me back. I have work to do.”
Rila and I headed for home. As we drove into Mastodonia, we saw at once something was wrong. The mobile home had been tipped over. Standing beside it was Stiffy. Bowser stood a little way off, barking fiercely. Hiram was belaboring Stiffy with a stick, but the old mastodon was paying no attention to him.
I speeded up the car.
“He’s after those damn carrots,” I said. “We never should have fed them to him.”
I saw as we drove nearer that he was not only after the carrots; he already had them. He had smashed the kitchen end of the home, had somehow gotten the refrigerator open, and was contentedly munching carrots.
I skidded the car to a halt and the two of us jumped out. I started forward, but Rila grabbed me and held on.
“What are you going to do?” she asked. “If you try to drive him off …”
“Drive him off, hell,” I yelled. “I’m going to get a rifle and shoot the son-of-a-bitch. I should have done it long ago.”
“No,” she shouted. “No, not Stiffy. He is such a nice old guy.”
Hiram was yelling at him, one word over and over:
“Naughty, naughty, naughty.”
And, as he yelled at Stiffy, he beat him with the stick. Stiffy went on eating carrots.
“You can’t get a gun, anyhow,” said Rila.
“If I can clamber up there and get the door open, I can. The rack is just inside.”
Hiram yelled and beat at Stiffy. Stiffy switched his tail, leisurely and happily. He. was having a good time.
As I stood there, I found the anger draining out of me and I began to laugh. It was ridiculous — Hiram yelling and wailing away at Stiffy and Stifiy paying no attention whatsoever.
Rila was weeping. She had let go of me and her arms hung at her side. She stood erect, too stiffly erect, while she was racked by sobs. Tears ran down her cheeks. In a few more minutes, I realized, she could become hysterical.
I put an arm around her and got her turned around and urged her back toward the car.
“Asa,” she gasped between her sobs, “it’s awful.
Nothing has gone right today.”
I got her in the car, then went back to collect Hiram. I grabbed him by the arm that held the stick and took it away from him.
“Cut out that yelling,” I told him sternly. “It’s not doing any good.”
He looked at me, blinking, surprised to see me there.
“But, Mr. Steele,” he said, “I told him and I told him. I told him not to do it, but he did it just the same.”
“Get in the car,” I said.
Obediently, he shuffled toward the car.
“Come on,” I said to Bowser. Bowser, no fool, glad to get off the hook, stopped his barking and trotted at my heels.
“In the car,” I told him and he jumped in back with Hiram.
“What are we going to do?” asked Rila wildly.
“What can we do?”
“We’re going back to the farm,” I told her. “We can stay there for a while.”
That night, in my arms, she cried herself to sleep.
“Asa,” she said, “I love Mastodonia. I want to have a house there.”
“You will,” I said. “You will. One too big and strong for Stiffy to tip over.”
“And, Asa, I so wanted to be rich.”
I had no assurances on that.
THIRTY-ONE
