handiwork involved—bailed Eva out of a mess, and then I heard her talk about your wanting to blow up the Bridge. I checked the area when I heard the fracas start, and it did seem as if she had let things go rather far, but—What was it all about?”
Dillon ordinarily hadn’t the guile for cat-and-mouse games, and he had never looked less guileful than now. Helmuth said carefully: “Eva was upset, I suppose. On the subject of Jupiter we’re all of us cracked by now, in our different ways. The way she was dealing with the catalysis didn’t look to me to be suitable—a difference of opinion, resolved in my favor because I had the authority. Eva didn’t. That’s all.”
“Kind of an expensive difference, Bob. I’m not niggling by nature, you know that. But an incident like that while the sub-committees are here—”
“The point is,” said Helmuth, “are we going to spend an extra ten thousand, or whatever it costs to replace a truss and reinforce a caisson, or are we to lose the whole caisson—and as much as a third of the whole Bridge along with it?”
“Yes, you’re right there, of course. That could be explained, even to a pack of senators. But—it would be difficult to have to explain it very often. Well, the board’s yours, Bob; you could continue my spotcheck, if you’ve time.”
Dillon got up. Then he added suddenly, as though it were forced out of him:
“Bob, I’m trying to understand your state of mind. From what Eva said, I gather that you’ve made it fairly public. I … I don’t think it’s a good idea to infect your fellow workers with your own pessimism. It leads to sloppy work. I know. I know that you won’t countenance sloppy work, regardless of your own feelings, but one foreman can do only so much. And you’re making extra work for yourself—not for me, but for yourself—by being openly gloomy about the Bridge.
“It strikes me that maybe you could use a breather, maybe a week’s junket to Ganymede or something like that. You’re the best man on the Bridge, Bob, for all your grousing about the job and your assorted misgivings. I’d hate to see you replaced.”
“A threat, Charity?” Helmuth said softly.
“It’s a common misconception. Most psychopathic obsessions begin with a mild worry—one that can’t be shaken.”
Dillon made as if to brush that subject away. “Anyhow, I’m not threatening; I’d fight to keep you here. But my say-so only covers Jupiter V and the Bridge; there are people higher up on Ganymede, and people higher yet back in Washington—and in this inspecting commission.
“Why don’t you try to look on the bright side for a change? Obviously the Bridge isn’t ever going to inspire you. But you might at least try thinking about all those dollars piling up in your account back home, every hour you’re on this job. And about the bridges and ships and who knows what-all that you’ll be building, at any fee you ask, when you get back down to Earth. All under the magic words: ‘One of the men who built the Bridge on Jupiter!’”
Charity was bright red with embarrassment and enthusiasm. Helmuth smiled.
“I’ll try to bear it in mind, Charity,” he said. “And I think I’ll pass up a vacation for the time being. When is this gaggle of senators due to arrive?”
“That’s hard to say. They’ll be coming to Ganymede directly from Washington, without any routing, and they’ll stop there for a while. I suppose they’ll also make a stop at Callisto before they come here. They’ve got something new on their ship, I’m told, that lets them flit about more freely than the usual uphill transport can.”
An icy lizard suddenly was nesting in Helmuth’s stomach, coiling and coiling but never settling itself. The persistent nightmare began to seep back into his blood; it was almost engulfing him—already.
“Something … new?” he echoed, his voice as flat and non-committal as he could make it. “Do you know what it is?”
“Well, yes. But I think I’d better keep quiet about it until—”
“Charity, nobody on this deserted rock-heap could possibly be a Soviet spy. The whole habit of ‘security’ is idiotic out here. Tell me now and save me the trouble of dealing with senators; or tell me at least that you know I know.
One word from Dillon, and the nightmare would be real.
“Yes,” Dillon said. “How did you know? Of course, it couldn’t be a complete gravity screen by any means. But it seems to be a good long step toward it. We’ve waited a long time to see that dream come true—
“But you’re the last man in the world to take pride in the achievement, so there’s no sense in exulting about it to you. I’ll let you know when I get a definite arrival date. In the meantime, will you think about what I said before?”
“Yes, I will.” Helmuth took the seat before the board.
“Good. With you, I have to be grateful for small victories. Good trick, Bob.”
“Good trick, Charity.”
CHAPTER SEVEN: New York
P AIGE’S GIFT for putting two and two together and getting 22 was in part responsible for the discovery of the spy, but the almost incredible clumsiness of the man made the chief contribution to it. Paige could hardly believe that nobody had spotted the agent before. True, he was only one of some two dozen technicians in the processing lab where Paige had been working; but his almost open habit of slipping notes inside his lab apron, and his painful furtiveness every time he left the Pfitzner laboratory building for the night, should have aroused someone’s suspicions long before this.
It was a fine example, Paige thought, of the way the blunderbuss investigation methods currently popular in Washington allowed the really dangerous man a thousand opportunities to slip away unnoticed. As was usual among groups of scientists, too, there was an unspoken covenant among Pfitzner’s technicians—against informing on each other. It protected the guilty as well as the innocent, but it would never have arisen at all under any fair system of juridical defense.
Paige had not the smallest idea what to do with his fish once he had hooked it. He took an evening—which he greatly begrudged— away from seeing Anne, in order to trace the man’s movements after a day which had produced two exciting advances in the research, on the hunch that the spy would want to ferry the information out at once.
This hunch proved out beautifully, at least at first. Nor was the man difficult to follow; his habit of glancing continually over first one shoulder and then the other, evidently to make sure that he was not being followed, made him easy to spot over long distances, even in a crowd. He left the city by train to Hoboken, where he rented a motor scooter and drove directly to the crossroads town of Secaucus. It was a long pull, but not at all difficult otherwise.
Outside Secaucus, however, Paige nearly lost his man for the first and last time. The crossroads, which lay across U.S. 46 to the Lincoln Tunnel, turned out also to be the site of the temporary trailer city of the Believers— nearly 300,000 of them, or almost half of the 700,000 who had been pouring into town for two weeks now for the Revival. Among the trailers Paige saw license plates from as far away as Eritrea.
The trailer city was far bigger than any nearby town except Passaic. It included a score of supermarkets, all going full blast even in the middle of the night, and about as many coin-in-slot laundries, equally wide open. There were at least a hundred public baths, and close to 360 public toilets. Paige counted ten cafeterias, and twice that
