He rose suddenly from the desk chair he’d been occupying to pace the room. “The race must find a new frontier, a new ocean to cross, a new enemy to fight.”
Girard-Perregaux raised his eyebrows.
“Don’t be a cloddy,” Gubelin snapped. “You know what I mean. Not a human enemy, not even an alien intelligence. But something against which we must pit our every wit, our every strength, our strongest determination. Otherwise, we go dull, we wither on the vine.”
The other at long last chuckled. “My dear Lofting, you wax absolutely lyrical.”
Gubelin suddenly stopped his pacing, returned to his desk and sank back into his chair. He seemed to add a score of years to his age, and his face sagged. “I don’t know why I take it out on you, Hans. You’re as aware of the situation as I. Man’s next frontier is space. First the planets, and then a reaching out to the stars. This is our new frontier, our new ocean to cross.”
His old friend was nodding. He brought his full attention to the discussion at last. “And we’ll succeed, Lofting. The last trip Pond made gives us ample evidence that we can actually colonize and exploit the Jupiter satellites. Two more runs, at most three, and we can release our findings in such manner that they’ll strike the imaginations of every Tom, Dick and Harry like nothing since Columbus made his highly exaggerated reports on his New World.”
“Two or three more runs,” Gubelin grunted bitterly. “You’ve heard the rumors. Appropriations is going to lower the boom on us. Unless we can get Pond back into harness, we’re sunk. The runs will never be made. I tell you, Hans. …”
But Hans Girard-Perregaux was wagging him to silence with a finger. “They’ll be made. I’ve taken steps to see friend Seymour Pond comes dragging back to us.”
“But he hates space! The funker probably won’t consent to come within a mile of the New Albuquerque Spaceport for the rest of his life, the blistering cloddy.”
A desk light flicked green, and Girard-Perregaux raised his eyebrows. “Exactly at the psychological moment. If I’m not mistaken, Lofting, that is probably our fallen woman.”
“Our what?”
But Doctor Hans Girard-Perregaux had come to his feet and personally opened the door. “Ah, my dear,” he said affably.
Natalie Paskov, done today in Bulgarian peasant garb, and as faultless in appearance as she had been in the Kudos Room, walked briskly into the office.
“Assignment carried out,” she said crisply.
“Indeed,” Girard-Perregaux said approvingly. “So soon?”
Gubelin looked from one to the other. “What in the blistering name of Zoroaster is going on?”
His friend said. “Academician Gubelin, may I present Operative Natalie of Extraordinary Services Incorporated?”
“Extraordinary Services?” Gubelin blurted.
“In this case,” Natalie said smoothly, even while taking the chair held for her by Doctor Girard-Perregaux, “a particularly apt name. It was a dirty trick.”
“But for a good cause, my dear.”
She shrugged. “So I am often told, when sent on these far-out assignments.”
Girard-Perregaux, in spite of her words, was beaming at her. “Please report in full,” he said, ignoring his colleague’s obvious bewilderment.
Natalie Paskov made it brief. “I picked up the subject in the Kudos Room of the Greater Metropolis Hotel, pretending to be a devotee of the space program as an excuse. It soon developed that he had embarked upon a celebration of his retirement. He was incredibly naive, and allowed me to overindulge him in semi-narcotics as well as alcohol, so that his defensive inhibitions were low. I then took him to a gambling spot where, so dull that he hardly knew what he was doing, he lost his expendable capital.”
Gubelin had been staring at her, but now he blurted, “But suppose he had won?”
She shrugged it off. “Hardly, the way I was encouraging him to wager. Each time he won, I urged him to double up. It was only a matter of time until …” she let the sentence dribble away.
Girard-Perregaux rubbed his hands together briskly. “Then, in turn, it is but a matter of time until friend Pond comes around again.”
“That I wouldn’t know,” Natalie Paskov said disinterestedly. “My job is done. However, the poor man seems so utterly opposed to returning to your service that I wouldn’t be surprised if he remained in his retirement, living on his Inalienable Basic shares. He seems literally terrified of being subjected to space cafard again.”
But Hans Girard-Perregaux wagged a finger negatively at her. “Not after having enjoyed a better way of life for the past decade. A person is able to exist on the Inalienable Basic dividends, but it is almost impossible to bring oneself to it once a fuller life has been enjoyed. No, Seymour Pond will never go back to the dullness of life the way it is lived by nine-tenths of our population.”
Natalie came to her feet. “Well, gentlemen, you’ll get your bill—a whopping one. I hope your need justifies this bit of dirty work. Frankly, I am considering my resignation from Extraordinary Services, although I’m no more anxious to live on my Inalienable Basic than poor Si Pond is. Good day, gentlemen.”
She started toward the door.
The teevee-phone on Gubelin’s desk lit up and even as Doctor Girard-Perregaux was saying unctuously to the girl, “Believe me, my dear, the task you have performed, though odious, will serve the whole race,” the teevee-phone said:
“Sir, you asked me to keep track of Pilot Seymour Pond. There is a report on the news. He suicided this morning.”
Colophon
Short Fiction
was compiled
