Communicating doors linked this bedroom with those to east and west. He tried them, and found (as he had expected) that they were locked on the other side. Outside each he listened for a moment and heard the creaking of springs and whispered words, but no laughter.
At the vidlink he ignored the incoming calls and coded the Library of Congress, wondering if there was still anyone left there. There was, a plain-looking black girl of about twenty. He asked if she had a taped summary of American history for the last thirty years. She nodded and started to say something else, then asked, “Who is this calling, please?” And he said, “My name is Peters. I’m with United Services Corporation.”
“Oh,” she said. And then, “Oh!”
He asked her if something was the matter.
“It’s just that I have this friend—not really a friend, someone I know—that works in the Pentagon. And he says they weren’t paid there at all for several months . . . but now they
“I’m his assistant,” Peters said.
“Well, would it be possible . . . The staff here hasn’t been paid since January. . . . Most of them are gone, and you wouldn’t have to pay them, of course; I live with my mother, and anything you could get for us . . .”
“I don’t—,” Peters began, then changed it to: “I don’t see why we couldn’t put you under military administration. I mean, nominally. Then you’d be civilian employees of the Department of Defense.”
“Oh,” the girl said, and then, “Oh, thank you.” And then, “I—I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten what it was you wanted. I’m a graduate of Maryland—I really am. Library science.”
“The history tape,” Peters said. “You ought to get more rest.”
“So should you,” the girl said. “You look tired.”
“I’m drunk.”
“Well, we’ve had so many requests for that tape that we just looped it, you know. We run it all the time. I’ll connect you.”
She pushed buttons on her own vidlink, and her face faded until only her mouth and bright eyes were visible, overlaying the helmeted figure of an astronaut. “All right?” she said.
Peters asked, “Is this the beginning or the end?”
“Sir?”
“I wanted to know—” He heard the door open behind him and hit the Cut button. “Later.” The screen filled at once with incoming calls. He turned.
It was Clio Morris. She shut the door behind her and said, “Enough to drive you crazy, isn’t it?”
He looked at her and made some commonplace reply, paying no more attention himself to what he had said than she would. She said, “Who do I remind you of?”
“Was I staring?” he said. “I’m sorry. Did you come to relieve me?”
“No, just to get away from the mess out there for a while. All right if I sit down?” She sat on the bed.
He said, “You don’t remind me of anyone.”
“That’s good, because you remind me of somebody. Mr. Peters. I’m going to have a drink—want me to bring you one?”
“I’ll get them,” Peters said. He stood up.
“No, I will. Back in a minute.”
Automatically Peters seated himself at the vidlink again and pressed the first Ready button. A man appeared who said he wanted, quite frankly, to tell Peters his management was worried about the way things were going, and that they already had a great deal sunk in this thing and could not afford to lose more. Peters agreed that things were going poorly (which disconcerted the man) and asked for positive suggestions.
“In what way?” the man said. “Just what do you mean?” “Well, we clearly need to apply greater force to Detroit than we have so far. The question, I suppose, is how we raise the force and how we can best apply it.”
“You certainly don’t expect us to commit ourselves to any plan with this little preparation.”
Peters said, “I just hoped you might have a few off-the-cuff suggestions.”
The man shook his head. “I can take the question to my management, but that’s as far as I can go.”
Peters told the man that he had heard certain foreign countries might have soldiers for hire, and that it would be possible for the man to ask among his own employees for volunteers to fight in Detroit. The man said that he would keep that in mind and signed off, and Clio came in with two old-fashioneds, one of which she handed to Peters. She asked him if he had gotten anywhere with Burglund.
Peters shook his head. “Is that who I was talking to?”
“Uh-huh. He works for ——.” She named a conglomerate, and Peters, suddenly curious, asked what they made.
“They don’t make anything,” Clio said. “Not themselves. They own some companies that make things, I suppose, and some oil tankers and real estate. Pulp-wood holdings in Georgia.”
Peters said, “I guess this is different from running pulpwood holdings in Georgia.”
“Sure,” Clio said. She sat down on one of the beds. “That’s why Lowell is losing his war.”
“What do you mean?”
