“Leave it alone,” said her husband. “No one has a right to call when I’m cranching. He knows that. He ought to know that.”
The phone rang again. In a fury, Martel rose and went to the plate. He cut it back on. Vomact was on the screen. Before Martel could speak, Vomact held up his Talking Nail in line with his Heartbox. Martel reverted to discipline:
“Scanner Martel present and waiting, sir.”
The lips moved solemnly: “Top emergency.”
“Sir, I am under the wire.”
“Top emergency.”
“Sir, don’t you understand?” Martel mouthed his words, so he could be sure that Vomact followed. “I … am … under … the … wire. Unfit, for … Space!”
Vomact repeated: “Top emergency. Report to your central tie-in.”
“But, sir, no emergency like this—”
“Right, Martel. No emergency like this, ever before. Report to tie-in.” With a faint glint of kindliness, Vomact added: “No need to de-cranch. Report as you are.”
This time it was Martel whose phone was cut out. The screen went gray.
He turned to Luci. The temper had gone out of his voice. She came to him. She kissed him, and rumpled his hair. All she could say was,
“I’m sorry.”
She kissed him again, knowing his disappointment. “Take good care of yourself, darling. I’ll wait.”
He scanned, and slipped into his transparent aircoat. At the window he paused, and waved. She called, “Good luck!” As the air flowed past him he said to himself, “This is the first time I’ve felt flight in—eleven years. Lord, but it’s easy to fly if you can feel yourself live!”
Central Tie-in glowed white and austere far ahead. Martel peered. He saw no glare of incoming ships from the Up-and-Out, no shuddering flare of Space-fire out of control. Everything was quiet, as it should be on an off-duty night.
And yet Vomact had called. He had called an emergency higher than Space. There was no such thing. But Vomact had called it.
II
When Martel got there, he found about half the Scanners present, two dozen or so of them. He lifted the Talking finger. Most of the Scanners were standing face to face, talking in pairs as they read lips. A few of the old, impatient ones were scribbling on their Tablets and then thrusting the Tablets into other people’s faces. All the faces wore the dull dead relaxed look of a haberman. When Martel entered the room, he knew that most of the others laughed in the deep isolated privacy of their own minds, each thinking things it would be useless to express in formal words. It had been a long time since a Scanner showed up at a meeting cranched.
Vomact was not there: probably, thought Martel, he was still on the phone calling others. The light of the phone flashed on and off; the bell rang. Martel felt odd when he realized that of all those present, he was the only one to hear that loud bell. It made him realize why ordinary people did not like to be around groups of habermans or Scanners. Martel looked around for company.
His friend Chang was there, busy explaining to some old and testy Scanner that he did not know why Vomact had called. Martel looked further and saw Parizianski. He walked over, threading his way past the others with a dexterity that showed he could feel his feet from the inside, and did not have to watch them. Several of the others stared at him with their dead faces, and tried to smile. But they lacked full muscular control and their faces twisted into horrid masks. (Scanners knew better than to show expression on faces which they could no longer govern. Martel added to himself, I swear I’ll never smile again unless I’m cranched.)
Parizianski gave him the sign of the Talking Finger. Looking face to face, he spoke:
“You come here cranched?”
Parizianski could not hear his own voice, so the words roared like the words on a broken and screeching phone; Martel was startled, but knew that the inquiry was well meant. No one could be better-natured than the burly Pole.
“Vomact called. Top emergency.”
“You told him you were cranched?”
“Yes.”
“He still made you come?”
“Yes.”
“Then all this—it is not for Space? You could not go Up-and-Out? You are like ordinary men?”
“That’s right.”
“Then why did he call us?” Some pre-Haberman habit made Parizianski wave his arms in inquiry. The hand struck the back of the old man behind them. The slap could be heard throughout the room, but only Martel heard it. Instinctively, he scanned Parizianski and the old Scanner: they scanned him back, and then asked why. Only then did the old man ask why Martel had scanned him. When Martel explained that he was under-the-wire, the old man moved swiftly away to pass on the news that there was a cranched Scanner present at the Tie-in.
Even this minor sensation could not keep the attention of most of the Scanners from the worry about the Top Emergency. One young man, who had Scanned his first transit just the year before, dramatically interposed himself between Parizianski and Martel. He dramatically flashed his Tablet at them:
Is Vmct mad?
The older men shook their heads. Martel, remembering that it had not been too long that the young man had been haberman, mitigated the dead solemnity of the denial with a friendly smile. He spoke in a normal voice, saying:
“Vomact is the Senior of Scanners. I am sure that he could not go mad. Would he not see it on his boxes first?”
Martel had to repeat the question, speaking slowly and mouthing his words before the young Scanner could understand the comment. The young man tried to make his face smile, and twisted it into a comic mask. But he took up his tablet and scribbled:
Yr rght.
Chang broke away from his friend and came over, his half-Chinese face gleaming in the warm evening. (It’s strange, thought Martel that more Chinese don’t become scanners. Or not so strange perhaps, if you think that they never fill their quota of habermans. Chinese love
