“Certainly, Ma’am,” he said with a gap-toothed smile, and worked a combination of rods and buttons on the desk beside him. In a moment, he said, “Go right in. Three up and four over; can’t miss it.”
They passed through a noisy territory of machines where metal was sliced, spun, hacked, and planed; no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. Ross wondered who had built the machines, and had a sudden flash of realization as to where those builders were now: On Minerva, staring at the unattainable free sky.
Miss Cavallo was a motherly type with a large black cigar. “Sit right down,” she said heartily. “You, too, young man. Tell me what we in Cavallo Company can do for you.”
Helena opened her mouth, but Ross stopped her with a gesture. “That’s enough,” he said quietly. “I’ll take over. Miss Cavallo,” he declaimed from memory, “what follows is under the seal.”
“Is it indeed! What do you know,” she said.
Ross said, “Wesley.”
Miss Cavallo slapped her thigh admiringly. “Son of a gun,” she said admiringly. “How this takes me back—those long-ago childhood days, learning these things at my mother’s knee. Let’s see. Uh—the limiting velocity is C.”
“But C2 is not a velocity,” Ross finished triumphantly. And, from the heart, “Miss Cavallo, you don’t begin to know how happy this makes me.”
Miss Cavallo reached over and pumped his hand, then Helena’s. To the girl she said, “You’ve got a right to be a proud woman, believe me. The way he got through it, without a single stumble! Never saw anything like it in my life. Well, just tell me what I can do for you, now that that’s over.”
Ross took a deep, deep breath. He said earnestly, “A great deal. I don’t know where to begin. You see, it all goes back to Halsey’s Planet, where I come from. This, uh, this ship came in, a longliner, and it got some of us a little worried because, well, it seemed that some of the planets were no longer in communication. We—uh, Miss Cavallo?” She was smiling pleasantly enough, but Ross had the crazy feeling that he just wasn’t getting through to her.
“Go right ahead,” she boomed. “God knows, I’ve got nothing against men in business; that’s old-fashioned prejudice. Take your time. I won’t bite you. Get on with your proposition, young man.”
“It isn’t exactly a proposition,” Ross said weakly. All of a sudden the words seemed hard to find. What did you say to a potential partner in the salvation of the human race when she just nodded and blew cigar smoke at you?
He made an effort. “Halsey’s Planet was the seventh alternate destination for this ship, and so we figured—That is, Miss Cavallo, it kind of looked like there was some sort of trouble. So Mr. Haarland—he’s the one who has the F.T.L. secret on Halsey, like you do here on Azor—he passed it on to me, of course—well, he asked me to, well, sort of take a look around.” He stopped. The words by then were just barely audible anyhow; and Miss Cavallo had been looking furtively at her watch.
Miss Cavallo shrugged sympathetically to Helena. “They’re all like that under the skin, aren’t they?” she observed ambiguously. “Well, if men could take our jobs away from us, what would we do? Stay home and mind the kids?” She roared and poked a box of cigars at Helena.
“Now,” she said briskly, “let’s get down to cases. I really enjoyed hearing those lines from you, young man, and I want you to know that I’m prepared to help you in any possible way because of them. Open a line of credit, speed up deliveries, send along some of our technical people to help you get set up—anything. Now, what can I do for you? Turret lathes? Grinders? Screw machines?”
“Miss Cavallo,” Ross said desperately, “don’t you know anything about the faster-than-light secret?”
She said impatiently, “Of course I do, young man. Said the responses, didn’t I? There’s no call for that item, though.”
“I don’t want to buy one,” Ross cried. “I have one. Don’t you realize that the human race is in danger? Populations are dying out or going out of communication all over the galaxy. Don’t you want to do something about it before we all go under?”
Miss Cavallo dropped all traces of a smile. Her face was like flint as she stood up and pointed to the window. “Young man,” she said icily, “take a look out there. That’s the Cavallo Machine-Tool Company. Does that look as if we’re going under?”
“I know, but Clyde, Cyrnus One, Ragansworld—at least a dozen planets I can name—are gone. Didn’t you ever think that you might be next?”
Miss Cavallo kept her voice level, but only with a visible effort.
She said flatly, “No. Never. Young man, I have plenty to do right here on Azor without bothering my head about those places you’re talking about. Seventy-five years ago there was another fellow just like you; Flarney, some name like that; my grandmother told me about him. He came bustling in here causing trouble, with that old silly jingle about Wesley and C-square and so on, with some cock-and-bull story about a planet that was starving to death, stirring up a lot of commotion. Well, he wound up on Minerva, because he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Watch out that you don’t do the same.”
She marched majestically to the door. “And now,” she said, “if you’ve wasted quite enough of my time, kindly leave.”
VIII
“Stupid old bat,” Ross muttered. They were walking aimlessly down Fifteen Street, the nicely-landscaped machine tool works behind them.
Helena said timidly: “You really shouldn’t talk that way, Ross. She is older than you, after all. Old heads are—”
“—wisest,” he wearily agreed. “Also the most conservative. Also the
