reasonable time….
“Surprised, Pete?” Alice Hendricks said at his elbow.
He swung about, grinned at her. “Am I? You said it. And here I was about to go. I never thought you’d make it before one.” His grin faded a little. “How’d you do it? Sweet-talk one of the guards into letting you in at the head of the line?”
She shook her bandanaed head, slid onto the stool beside him and crossed her knees—a not very convincing sign of femininity in a woman wearing baggy denim coveralls. “Aren’t you going to buy me a drink, honey?”
“Oh, sure.” He glanced over at the bartender. “Another beer. No, make it two.” He pulled the five dollars out of his pocket, shoved it across the bar, and looked back at Alice, more closely this time. The ID badge, pinned to her hip. The badge, with her name, number, department, and picture—and the little meter that measured the strength of her Mind Shield.
The dial should have pointed to full charge. It didn’t. It registered about seventy per cent loss.
Alice followed his gaze. She giggled. “It was easy,” she said. “The guards don’t do more than glance at us, you know. And everyone who’s supposed to go through Shielding on Thursday has the department number stamped on a yellow background. So all I did was make a red background, like yours, and slip it on in the restroom at Clean- up time.”
“But Alice….” Pete Ganley swallowed his beer and signaled for another. “This is serious. You’ve got to keep the shields up. The enemy is everywhere. Why, right now, one could be probing you.”
“So what? The dial isn’t down to Danger yet. And tomorrow I’ll just put the red tag back on over the yellow one and go through Shielding in the same line with you. They won’t notice.” She giggled again. “I thought it was smart, Petey. You oughta think so too. You know why I did it, don’t you?”
Her round, smooth face looked up at him, wide-eyed and full-lipped. She had no worry wrinkles like Susan’s, no mouth pulled down at the corners like Susan’s, and under that shapeless coverall….
“Sure, baby, I’m glad you did it,” Pete Ganley said huskily.
Riuku was glad too, the next afternoon when the swing shift started pouring through the gates.
It was easy, once he’d found her. He had tested hundreds, all shielded, some almost accessible to him, but none vulnerable enough. Then this one came. The shield was so far down that contact was almost easy. Painful, tiring, but not really difficult. He could feel her momentary sense of alarm, of nausea, and then he was through, integrated with her, his thoughts at home with her thoughts.
He rested, inside her mind.
“Oh, hi, Joan. No, I’m all right. Just a little dizzy for a moment. A hangover? Of course not. Not on a Friday.”
Riuku listened to her half of the conversation. Stupid Earthman. If only she’d start thinking about the job. Or if only his contact with her were better. If he could use her sense perceptions, see through her eyes, hear through her ears, feel through her fingers, then everything would be easy. But he couldn’t. All he could do was read her thoughts. Earth thoughts at that….
… The time clock. Where’s my card? Oh, here it is. Only 3:57. Why did I have to hurry so? I had lots of time….
“Why, Mary, how nice you look today. That’s a new hairdo, isn’t it? A permanent? Yeah, what kind?”… What a microbe! Looks like pink straw, her hair does, and of course she thinks it’s beautiful…. “I’d better get down to my station. Old Liverlips will be ranting again. You oughta be glad you have Eddie for a lead man. Eddie’s cute. So’s Dave, over in 77. But Liverlips, ugh….”
She was walking down the aisle to her station now. A procession of names: Maisie, and Edith, and that fat slob Natalie, and if Jean Andrews comes around tonight flashing that diamond in my face again, I’ll—I’ll kill her….
“Oh hello, Clinton. What do you mean, late? The whistle just blew. Of course I’m ready to go to work.” Liverlips, that’s what you are. And still in that same blue shirt. What a wife you must have. Probably as sloppy as you are….
Good, Riuku thought. Now she’ll be working. Now he’d find out whatever it was she was doing. Not that it would be important, of course, but let him learn what her job was, and what those other girls’ jobs were, and in a little while he’d have all the data he needed. Maybe even before the shift ended tonight, before she went through the Shielding boost.
He shivered a little, thinking of the boost. He’d survive it, of course. He’d be too well integrated with her by then. But it was nothing to look forward to.
Still, he needn’t worry about it. He had the whole shift to find out what the weapon was. The whole shift, here inside Alice’s mind, inside the most closely guarded factory on or under or above the surface of the Earth. He settled down and waited, expectantly.
Alice Hendricks turned her back on the lead man and looked down the work table to her place. The other girls were there already. Lois and Marge and Coralie, the other three members of the Plug table, Line 73.
“Hey, how’d you make out?” Marge said. She glanced around to make sure none of the lead men or timekeepers were close enough to overhear her, then went on. “Did you get away with it?”
“Sure,” Alice said. “And you should of seen Pete’s face when I walked in.”
She took the soldering iron out of her locker, plugged it in, and reached out for the pan of 731 wires. “You know, it’s funny. Pete’s not so good looking, and he’s sort of a careless dresser and all that, but oh, what he does to me.” She filled the 731 plug with solder and reached for the white, black, red wire.
“You’d better watch out,” Lois said. “Or Susan’s going to be doing something to you.”
“Oh, her.” Alice touched the tip of the iron to the solder filled pin, worked the wire down into position. “What can she do? Pete doesn’t give a damn about her.”
“He’s still living with her, isn’t he?” Lois said.
Alice shrugged…. What a mealy-mouthed little snip Lois could be, sometimes. You’d think to hear her that she was better than any of them, and luckier too, with her Joe and the kids. What a laugh! Joe was probably the only guy who’d ever looked at her, and she’d hooked him right out of school, and now with three kids in five years and her working nights….
Alice finished soldering the first row of wires in the plug and started in on the second. So old Liverlips thought she wasted time, did he? Well, she’d show him. She’d get out her sixteen plugs tonight.
“Junior kept me up all night last night,” Lois said. “He’s cutting a tooth.”
“Yeah,” Coralie said, “It’s pretty rough at that age. I remember right after Mike was born….”
Don’t they ever think of anything but their kids? Alice thought. She stopped listening to them. She heard Pete’s voice again, husky and sending little chills all through her, and his face came between her and the plug and the white green wire she was soldering. His face, with those blue eyes that went right through a girl and that little scar that quirked up the corner of his mouth….
“Oh, oh,” Alice said suddenly. “I’ve got solder on the outside of the pin.” She looked around for the alcohol.
Riuku probed. Her thoughts were easy enough to read, but just try to translate them into anything useful…. He probed deeper. The plugs she was soldering. He could get a good picture of them, of the wires, of the harness lacing that Coralie was doing. But it meant nothing. They could be making anything. Radios, monitor units, sound equipment.
Only they weren’t. They were making a weapon, and this bit of electronic equipment was part of that weapon. What part? What did the 731 plug do?
Alice Hendricks didn’t know. Alice Hendricks didn’t care.
The first break. Ten minutes away from work. Alice was walking back along the aisle that separated Assembly from the men’s Machine Shop. A chance, perhaps. She was looking at the machines, or rather past them, at the men.
“Hello, Tommy. How’s the love life?” He’s not bad at all. Real cute. Though not like Pete, oh no.
The machines. Riuku prodded at her thoughts, wishing he could influence them, wishing that just for a moment he could see, hear, feel, think as she would never think.
The machines were—machines. That big funny one where Ned works, and Tommy’s spot welder, and over in the corner where the superintendent is—he’s a snappy dresser, tie and everything.
The corner. Restricted area. Can’t go over. High voltage or something….
