“You must have had some friends,” Chandler began, and let it trail off. So did the girl. After a moment she began to talk about the scenery again, pointing out the brick-red and purple bougainvillea, describing how the shoreline had looked before they’d “cleaned it up.” “Oh, thousands and thousands of the homeliest little houses. You’d have hated it. So we have done at least a few good things, anyway,” she said complacently, and began gently to probe into his life story. But as they stopped before the T.W.A. message center, a few moments later, she said, “Well, love, it’s been fun. Go on in; Koitska’s expecting you. I’ll see you later.” And her eyes added gently: I hope.
Chandler got out of the car, turned … and felt himself taken. His voice said briskly, “Zdrastvoi, Rosie. Gd’yeh Koitska?”
Unsurprised the girl pointed to the building. “Kto govorit?”
Chandler’s voice answered in English, with a faint Oxford accent: “It is I, Rosie, Kalman. Where’s Koitska’s tinkertoy? Oh, all right, thanks; I’ll just pick it up and take it in. Hope it’s all right. I must say one wearies of breaking in these new fellows.”
Chandler’s body ambled around to the trunk of the car, took out the square-wave generator on its breadboard base and slouched into the building. It called ahead in the same language and was answered wheezily from above: Koitska. “Zdrastvoi. Iditye suda ko mneh. Kto, Kalman?”
“Konyekhno!” cried Chandler’s voice and he was carried in and up to where the fat man lounged in a leather-upholstered wheelchair. There was a conversation, long minutes of it, while the two men poked at the generator. Chandler did not understand a word until he spoke to himself: “You—what’s your name.”
“Chandler,” Koitska filled in.
“You, Chandler. D’you know anything at all about submillimeter microwaves? Tell Koitska.” Briefly Chandler felt himself free—long enough to nod; then he was possessed again, and Koitska repeated the nod. “Good, then. Tell Koitska what experience you’ve had.”
Again free, Chandler said, “Not a great deal of actual experience. I worked with a group at Caltech on spectroscopic measurements in the million megacycle range. I didn’t design any of the equipment, though I helped put it together.” He recited his degrees until Koitska raised a languid hand.
“Shto, I don’t care. If ve gave you diagrams you could build?”
“Certainly, if I had the equipment. I suppose I’d need—”
But Koitska stopped him again. “I know vot you need,” he said damply. “Enough. Ve see.” In a moment Chandler was taken again, and his voice and Koitska’s debated the matter for a while, until Koitska shrugged, turned his head and seemed to go to sleep.
Chandler marched himself out of the room and out into the driveway before his voice said to him: “You’ve secured a position, then. Go back to Tripler until we send for you. It’ll be a few days, I expect.”
And Chandler was free again.
He was also alone. The girl in the Porsche was gone. The door of the T.W.A. building had latched itself behind him. He stared around him, swore, shrugged and circled the building to the parking lot at back, on the chance that a car might be there for him to borrow.
Luckily, there was. There were four, in fact, all with keys in them. He selected a Ford, puzzled out the likeliest road back to Honolulu and turned the key in the starter.
It was fortunate, he thought, that there had been several cars; if there had been only one he would not have dared to take it, for fear of stranding Koitska or some other exec who might easily blot him out in annoyance. He did not wish to join the wretches at the Monument.
It was astonishing how readily fear had become a part of his life.
The trouble with this position he had somehow secured—one of the troubles—was that there was no union delegate to settle employee grievances. Like no transportation. Like no clear idea of working hours, or duties. Like no mention at all—of course—of wages. Chandler had no idea what his rights were, if any at all, or of what the penalties would be if he overstepped them.
The maimed victims at the Monument supplied a clue, of course. He could not really believe that that sort of punishment would be applied for minor infractions. Death was so much less trouble. Even death was not really likely, he thought, for a simple lapse.
He thought.
He could not be sure, of course. He could be sure of only one thing: He was now a slave, completely a slave, a slave until the day he died. Back on the mainland there was the statistical likelihood of occasional slavery-by-possession, but there it was only the body that was enslaved, and only for moments. Here, in the shadow of the execs, it was all of him, forever, until death or a miracle turned him loose.
On the second day following he returned to his room at Tripler after breakfast, and found a Honolulu city policeman sitting hollow-eyed on the edge of his bed. The man stood up as Chandler came in. “So,” he grumbled, “you take so long! Here. Is diagrams, specs, parts lists, all. You get everything three days from now, then we begin.”
The policeman, no longer Koitska, shook himself, glanced stolidly at Chandler and walked out, leaving a thick manila envelope on the pillow. On it was written, in a crabbed hand: All secret! Do not show diagrams!
Chandler opened the envelope and spilled its contents on the bed.
An hour later he realized that sixty minutes had passed in which he had not been afraid. It was good to be working again, he thought, and then that thought faded away again as he returned to studying the sheaves of circuit diagrams and closely typed pages of specifications. It was not only work, it was hard work, and absorbing. Chandler knew enough about the very short wavelength radio spectrum to know that the device he was
