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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a5bccce --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #61081 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61081) diff --git a/old/61081-h.zip b/old/61081-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 5404240..0000000 --- a/old/61081-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/61081-h/61081-h.htm b/old/61081-h/61081-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 4b0debd..0000000 --- a/old/61081-h/61081-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2379 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Cinderella Story, by Allen Kim Lang. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - -.ph1 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } -.ph1 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } - -.ph2 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; } -.ph2 { font-size: medium; margin: .83em auto; } - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cinderella Story, by Allen Kim Lang - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Cinderella Story - -Author: Allen Kim Lang - -Release Date: January 2, 2020 [EBook #61081] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CINDERELLA STORY *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="347" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>CINDERELLA STORY</h1> - -<h2>By ALLEN KIM LANG</h2> - -<p class="ph1"><i>What a bank! The First Vice-President<br /> -was a cool cat—the elevator and the<br /> -money operators all wore earmuffs—was<br /> -just as phony as a three-dollar bill!</i></p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1961.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph2">I</p> - -<p>The First Vice-President of the William Howard Taft National Bank and -Trust Company, the gentleman to whom Miss Orison McCall was applying -for a job, was not at all the public picture of a banker. His suit of -hound's-tooth checks, the scarlet vest peeping above the vee of his -jacket, were enough to assure Orison that the Taft Bank was a curious -bank indeed. "I gotta say, chick, these references of yours really -swing," said the Vice-President, Mr. Wanji. "Your last boss says you -come on real cool in the secretary-bit."</p> - -<p>"He was a very kind employer," Orison said. She tried to keep from -staring at the most remarkable item of Mr. Wanji's costume, a pair of -furry green earmuffs. It was not cold.</p> - -<p>Mr. Wanji returned to Orison her letters of reference. "What color -bread you got eyes for taking down, baby?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"Beg pardon?"</p> - -<p>"What kinda salary you bucking for?" he translated, bouncing up and -down on the toes of his rough-leather desert boots.</p> - -<p>"I was making one-twenty a week in my last position," Miss McCall said.</p> - -<p>"You're worth more'n that, just to jazz up the decor," Mr. Wanji said. -"What you say we pass you a cee-and-a-half a week. Okay?" He caught -Orison's look of bewilderment. "One each, a Franklin and a Grant," he -explained further. She still looked blank. "Sister, you gonna work -in a bank, you gotta know who's picture's on the paper. That's a -hunnerd-fifty a week, doll."</p> - -<p>"That will be most satisfactory, Mr. Wanji," Orison said. It was indeed.</p> - -<p>"Crazy!" Mr. Wanji grabbed Orison's right hand and shook it with -athletic vigor. "You just now joined up with our herd. I wanna tell -you, chick, it's none too soon we got some decent scenery around -this tomb, girlwise." He took her arm and led her toward the bank of -elevators. The uniformed operator nodded to Mr. Wanji, bowed slightly -to Orison. He, too, she observed, wore earmuffs. His were more formal -than Mr. Wanji's, being midnight blue in color. "Lift us to five, Mac," -Mr. Wanji said. As the elevator door shut he explained to Orison, -"You can make the Taft Bank scene anywhere between the street floor -and floor five. Basement and everything higher'n fifth floor is Iron -Curtain Country far's you're concerned. Dig, baby?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir," Orison said. She was wondering if she'd be issued earmuffs, -now that she'd become an employee of this most peculiar bank.</p> - -<p>The elevator opened on five to a tiny office, just large enough to -hold a single desk and two chairs. On the desk were a telephone and -a microphone. Beside them was a double-decked "In" and "Out" basket. -"Here's where you'll do your nine-to-five, honey," Mr. Wanji said.</p> - -<p>"What will I be doing, Mr. Wanji?" Orison asked.</p> - -<p>The Vice-President pointed to the newspaper folded in the "In" basket. -"Flip on the microphone and read the paper to it," he said. "When you -get done reading the paper, someone will run you up something new to -read. Okay?"</p> - -<p>"It seems a rather peculiar job," Orison said. "After all, I'm a -secretary. Is reading the newspaper aloud supposed to familiarize me -with the Bank's operation?"</p> - -<p>"Don't bug me, kid," Mr. Wanji said. "All you gotta do is read that -there paper into this here microphone. Can do?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir," Orison said. "While you're here, Mr. Wanji, I'd like to -ask you about my withholding tax, social security, credit union, -coffee-breaks, union membership, lunch hour and the like. Shall we take -care of these details now? Or would you—"</p> - -<p>"You just take care of that chicken-flickin' kinda stuff any way seems -best to you, kid," Mr. Wanji said.</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir," Orison said. This laissez-faire policy of Taft Bank's -might explain why she'd been selected from the Treasury Department's -secretarial pool to apply for work here, she thought. Orison McCall, -girl Government spy. She picked up the newspaper from the "In" basket, -unfolded it to discover the day's <i>Wall Street Journal</i>, and began at -the top of column one to read it aloud. Wanji stood before the desk, -nodding his head as he listened. "You blowing real good, kid," he said. -"The boss is gonna dig you the most."</p> - -<p>Orison nodded. Holding her newspaper and her microphone, she read the -one into the other. Mr. Wanji flicked his fingers in a good-by, then -took off upstairs in the elevator.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>By lunchtime Orison had finished the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> and had -begun reading a book an earmuffed page had brought her. The book was a -fantastic novel of some sort, named <i>The Hobbit</i>. Reading this peculiar -fare into the microphone before her, Miss McCall was more certain than -ever that the Taft Bank was, as her boss in Washington had told her, -the front for some highly irregular goings-on. An odd business for a -Federal Mata Hari, Orison thought, reading a nonsense story into a -microphone for an invisible audience.</p> - -<p>Orison switched off her microphone at noon, marked her place in the -book and took the elevator down to the ground floor. The operator was -a new man, ears concealed behind scarlet earmuffs. In the car, coming -down from the interdicted upper floors, were several gentlemen with -briefcases. As though they were members of a ballet-troupe, these -gentlemen whipped off their hats with a single motion as Orison stepped -aboard the elevator. Each of the chivalrous men, hat pressed to his -heart, wore a pair of earmuffs. Orison nodded bemused acknowledgment -of their gesture, and got off in the lobby vowing never to put a penny -into this curiousest of banks.</p> - -<p>Lunch at the stand-up counter down the street was a normal interlude. -Girls from the ground-floor offices of Taft Bank chattered together, -eyed Orison with the coolness due so attractive a competitor, and -favored her with no gambit to enter their conversations. Orison sighed, -finished her tuna salad on whole-wheat, then went back upstairs to her -lonely desk and her microphone. By five, Orison had finished the book, -reading rapidly and becoming despite herself engrossed in the saga of -Bilbo Baggins, Hobbit. She switched off the microphone, put on her -light coat, and rode downstairs in an elevator filled with earmuffed, -silent, hat-clasping gentlemen.</p> - -<p>What I need, Orison thought, walking rapidly to the busline, is a -double Scotch, followed by a double Scotch. And what the William Howard -Taft National Bank and Trust Company needs is a joint raid by forces of -the U.S. Treasury Department and the American Psychiatric Association. -Earmuffs, indeed. Fairy-tales read into a microphone. A Vice-President -with the vocabulary of a racetrack tout. And what goes on in those -upper floors? Orison stopped in at the restaurant nearest her apartment -house—the Windsor Arms—and ordered a meal and a single Martini. Her -boss in Washington had told her that this job of hers, spying on Taft -Bank from within, might prove dangerous. Indeed it was, she thought. -She was in danger of becoming a solitary drinker.</p> - -<p>Home in her apartment, Orison set the notes of her first day's -observations in order. Presumably Washington would call tonight for -her initial report. Item: some of the men at the Bank wore earmuffs, -several didn't. Item: the Vice-President's name was Mr. Wanji: -Oriental? Item: the top eight floors of the Taft Bank Building seemed -to be off-limits to all personnel not wearing earmuffs. Item: she was -being employed at a very respectable salary to read newsprint and -nonsense into a microphone. Let Washington make sense of that, she -thought.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>In a gloomy mood, Orison McCall showered and dressed for bed. Eleven -o'clock. Washington should be calling soon, inquiring after the results -of her first day's spying.</p> - -<p>No call. Orison slipped between the sheets at eleven-thirty. The clock -was set; the lights were out. Wasn't Washington going to call her? -Perhaps, she thought, the Department had discovered that the Earmuffs -had her phone tapped.</p> - -<p>"Testing," a baritone voice muttered.</p> - -<p>Orison sat up, clutching the sheet around her throat. "Beg pardon?" she -said.</p> - -<p>"Testing," the male voice repeated. "One, two, three; three, two, one. -Do you read me? Over."</p> - -<p>Orison reached under the bed for a shoe. Gripping it like a Scout-ax, -she reached for the light cord with her free hand and tugged at it.</p> - -<p>The room was empty.</p> - -<p>"Testing," the voice repeated.</p> - -<p>"What you're testing," Orison said in a firm voice, "is my patience. -Who are you?"</p> - -<p>"Department of Treasury Monitor J-12," the male voice said. "Do you -have anything to report, Miss McCall?"</p> - -<p>"Where are you, Monitor?" she demanded.</p> - -<p>"That's classified information," the voice said. "Please speak directly -to your pillow, Miss McCall."</p> - -<p>Orison lay down cautiously. "All right," she whispered to her pillow.</p> - -<p>"Over here," the voice instructed her, coming from the unruffled pillow -beside her.</p> - -<p>Orison transferred her head to the pillow to her left. "A radio?" she -asked.</p> - -<p>"Of a sort," Monitor J-12 agreed. "We have to maintain communications -security. Have you anything to report?"</p> - -<p>"I got the job," Orison said. "Are you ... in that pillow ... all the -time?"</p> - -<p>"No, Miss McCall," the voice said. "Only at report times. Shall we -establish our rendezvous here at eleven-fifteen, Central Standard Time, -every day?"</p> - -<p>"You make it sound so improper," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"I'm far enough away to do you no harm, Miss McCall," the monitor said. -"Now, tell me what happened at the bank today."</p> - -<p>Orison briefed her pillow on the Earmuffs, on her task of reading to a -microphone, and on the generally mimsy tone of the William Howard Taft -National Bank and Trust Company. "That's about it, so far," she said.</p> - -<p>"Good report," J-12 said from the pillow. "Sounds like you've dropped -into a real snakepit, beautiful."</p> - -<p>"How do you know ... why do you think I'm beautiful?" Orison asked.</p> - -<p>"Native optimism," the voice said. "Good night." J-12 signed off with -a peculiar electronic pop that puzzled Orison for a moment. Then she -placed the sound: J-12 had kissed his microphone.</p> - -<p>Orison flung the shoe and the pillow under her bed, and resolved -to write Washington for permission to make her future reports by -registered mail.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph2">II</p> - -<p>At ten o'clock the next morning, reading page four of the current -<i>Wall Street Journal</i>, Orison was interrupted by the click of a pair -of leather heels. The gentleman whose heels had just slammed together -was bowing. And she saw with some gratification that he was not -wearing earmuffs. "My name," the stranger said, "is Dink Gerding. I am -President of this bank, and wish at this time to welcome you to our -little family."</p> - -<p>"I'm Orison McCall," she said. A handsome man, she mused. Twenty-eight? -So tall. Could he ever be interested in a girl just five-foot-three? -Maybe higher heels?</p> - -<p>"We're pleased with your work, Miss McCall," Dink Gerding said. He took -the chair to the right of her desk.</p> - -<p>"It's nothing," Orison said, switching off the microphone.</p> - -<p>"On the contrary, Miss McCall. Your duties are most important," he said.</p> - -<p>"Reading papers and fairy-tales into this microphone is nothing any -reasonably astute sixth-grader couldn't do as well," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"You'll be reading silently before long," Mr. Gerding said. He smiled, -as though this explained everything. "By the way, your official -designation is Confidential Secretary. It's me whose confidences you're -to keep secret. If I ever need a letter written, may I stop down here -and dictate it?"</p> - -<p>"Please do," Orison said. This bank president, for all his grace and -presence, was obviously as kookie as his bank.</p> - -<p>"Have you ever worked in a bank before, Miss McCall?" Mr. Gerding -asked, as though following her train of thought.</p> - -<p>"No, sir," she said. "Though I've been associated with a rather large -financial organization."</p> - -<p>"You may find some of our methods a little strange, but you'll get used -to them," he said. "Meanwhile, I'd be most grateful if you'd dispense -with calling me 'sir.' My name is Dink. It is ridiculous, but I'd enjoy -your using it."</p> - -<p>"Dink?" she asked. "And I suppose you're to call me Orison?"</p> - -<p>"That's the drill," he said. "One more question, Orison. Dinner this -evening?"</p> - -<p>Direct, she thought. Perhaps that's why he's president of a bank, and -still so young. "We've hardly met," she said.</p> - -<p>"But we're on a first-name basis already," he pointed out. "Dance?"</p> - -<p>"I'd love to," Orison said, half expecting an orchestra to march, -playing, from the elevator.</p> - -<p>"Then I'll pick you up at seven. Windsor Arms, if I remember your -personnel form correctly." He stood, lean, all bone and muscle, -and bowed slightly. West Point? Hardly. His manners were European. -Sandhurst, perhaps, or Saint Cyr. Was she supposed to reply with a -curtsy? Orison wondered.</p> - -<p>"Thank you," she said.</p> - -<p>He was a soldier, or had been: the way, when he turned, his shoulders -stayed square. The crisp clicking of his steps, a military metronome, -to the elevator. When the door slicked open Orison, staring after Dink, -saw that each of the half-dozen men aboard snapped off their hats (but -not their earmuffs) and bowed, the earmuffed operator bowing with them. -Small bows, true; just head-and-neck. But not to her. To Dink Gerding.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Orison finished the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> by early afternoon. A -page came up a moment later with fresh reading-matter: a copy of -yesterday's <i>Congressional Record</i>. She launched into the <i>Record</i>, -thinking as she read of meeting again this evening that handsome -madman, that splendid lunatic, that unlikely bank-president. "You read -so <i>well</i>, darling," someone said across the desk.</p> - -<p>Orison looked up. "Oh, hello," she said. "I didn't hear you come up."</p> - -<p>"I walk ever so lightly," the woman said, standing hip-shot in front -of the desk, "and pounce ever so hard." She smiled. Opulent, Orison -thought. Built like a burlesque queen. No, she thought, I don't like -her. Can't. Wouldn't if I could. Never cared for cats.</p> - -<p>"I'm Orison McCall," she said, and tried to smile back without showing -teeth.</p> - -<p>"Delighted," the visitor said, handing over an undelighted palm. "I'm -Auga Vingt. Auga, to my friends."</p> - -<p>"Won't you sit down, Miss Vingt?"</p> - -<p>"So kind of you, darling," Auga Vingt said, "but I shan't have time to -visit. I just wanted to stop and welcome you as a Taft Bank co-worker. -One for all, all for one. Yea, Team. You know."</p> - -<p>"Thanks," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"Common courtesy," Miss Vingt explained. "Also, darling, I'd like to -draw your attention to one little point. Dink Gerding—you know, the -shoulders and muscles and crewcut? Well, he's posted property. Should -you throw your starveling charms at my Dink, you'd only get your little -eyes scratched out. Word to the wise, <i>n'est-ce pas</i>?"</p> - -<p>"Sorry you have to leave so suddenly," Orison said, rolling her <i>Wall -Street Journal</i> into a club and standing. "Darling."</p> - -<p>"So remember, Tiny, Dink Gerding is mine. You're all alone up here. -You could get broken nails, fall down the elevator shaft, all sorts of -annoyance. Understand me, darling?"</p> - -<p>"You make it very clear," Orison said. "Now you'd best hurry back to -your stanchion, Bossy, before the hay's all gone."</p> - -<p>"Isn't it lovely, the way you and I reached an understanding right -off?" Auga asked. "Well, ta-ta." She turned and walked to the elevator, -displaying, Orison thought, a disgraceful amount of ungirdled rhumba -motion.</p> - -<p>The elevator stopped to pick up the odious Auga. A passenger, male, -stepped off. "Good morning, Mr. Gerding," Miss Vingt said, bowing.</p> - -<p>"Carry on, Colonel," the stranger replied. As the elevator door closed, -he stepped up to Orison's desk. "Good morning. Miss McCall," he said.</p> - -<p>"What is this?" Orison demanded. "Visiting-day at the zoo?" She paused -and shook her head. "Excuse me, sir," she said. "It's just that ... -Vingt thing...."</p> - -<p>"Auga is rather intense," the new Mr. Gerding said.</p> - -<p>"Yeah, intense," Orison said. "Like a kidney-stone."</p> - -<p>"I stopped by to welcome you to the William Howard Taft National Bank -and Trust Company family, Miss McCall," he said. "I'm Kraft Gerding, -Dink's elder brother. I understand you've met Dink already."</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir," Orison said. The hair of this new Mr. Gerding was cropped -even closer than Dink's. His mustache was gray-tipped, like a patch -of frosted furze; and his eyes, like Dink's, were cobalt blue. The -head, Orison mused, would look quite at home in one of Kaiser Bill's -spike-topped <i>Pickelhauben</i>; but the ears were in evidence, and seemed -normal. Mr. Kraft Gerding bowed—what continental manners these bankers -had!—and Orison half expected him to free her hand from the rolled-up -paper she still clutched and plant a kiss on it.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Instead, Kraft Gerding smiled a smile as frosty as his mustache and -said, "I understand that my younger brother has been talking with you, -Miss McCall. Quite proper, I know. But I must warn you against mixing -business with pleasure."</p> - -<p>Orison jumped up, tossing the paper into her wastebasket. "I quit!" she -shouted. "You can take this crazy bank ... into bankruptcy, for all I -care. I'm not going to perch up here, target for every uncaged idiot in -finance, and listen to another word."</p> - -<p>"Dearest lady, my humblest pardon," Kraft Gerding said, bowing again, -a bit lower. "Your work is splendid; your presence is Taft Bank's most -charming asset; my only wish is to serve and protect you. To this end, -dear lady, I feel it my duty to warn you against my brother. A word to -the wise...."</p> - -<p>"<i>N'est-ce pas?</i>" Orison said. "Well, Buster, here's a word to the -foolish. Get lost."</p> - -<p>Kraft Gerding bowed and flashed his gelid smile. "Until we meet again?"</p> - -<p>"I'll hold my breath," Orison promised. "The elevator is just behind -you. Push a button, will you? And <i>bon voyage</i>."</p> - -<p>Kraft Gerding called the elevator, marched aboard, favored Orison with -a cold, quick bow, then disappeared into the mysterious heights above -fifth floor.</p> - -<p>First the unspeakable Auga Vingt, then the obnoxious Kraft Gerding. -Surely, Orison thought, recovering the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> from her -wastebasket and smoothing it, no one would convert a major Midwestern -bank into a lunatic asylum. How else, though, could the behavior -of the Earmuffs be explained? Could madmen run a bank? Why not, she -thought. History is rich in examples of madmen running nations, banks -and all. She began again to read the paper into the microphone. If she -finished early enough, she might get a chance to prowl those Off-Limits -upper floors.</p> - -<p>Half an hour further into the paper, Orison jumped, startled by the -sudden buzz of her telephone. She picked it up. "<i>Wanji e-Kal, Datto. -Dink ger-Dink d'summa.</i>"</p> - -<p>Orison scribbled down this intelligence in bemused Gregg before -replying, "I'm a local girl. Try me in English."</p> - -<p>"Oh. Hi, Miss McCall," the voice said. "Guess I goofed. I'm in kinda -clutch. This is Wanji. I got a kite for Mr. Dink Gerding. If you see -him, tell him the escudo green is pale. Got that, doll?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, Mr. Wanji. I'll tell Mr. Gerding." Orison clicked the phone down. -What now, Mata Hari? she asked herself. What was the curious language -Mr. Wanji had used? She'd have to report the message to Washington by -tonight's pillow, and let the polyglots of Treasury Intelligence puzzle -it out. Meanwhile, she thought, scooting her chair back from her desk, -she had a vague excuse to prowl the upper floors. The Earmuffs could -only fire her.</p> - -<p>Orison folded the paper and put it in the "Out" basket. Someone would -be here in a moment with something new to read. She'd best get going. -The elevator? No. The operators had surely been instructed to keep her -off the upstairs floors.</p> - -<p>But the building had a stairway.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph2">III</p> - -<p>The door on the sixth floor was locked. Orison went on up the stairs to -seven. The glass of the door there was painted black on the inside, and -the landing was cellar-dark. Orison closed her eyes for a moment. There -was a curious sound. The buzzing of a million bees, barely within the -fringes of her hearing. Somehow, a very pleasant sound.</p> - -<p>She opened her eyes and tried the knob. The door opened.</p> - -<p>Orison was blinded by the lights, brilliant as noonday sun. The room -extended through the entire seventh floor, its windows boarded shut, -its ceiling a mass of fluorescent lamps. Set about the floor were -galvanized steel tanks, rectangular and a little bigger than bathtubs. -Orison counted the rows of tanks. Twelve rows, nine tiers. One hundred -and eight tanks. She walked closer. The tubs were laced together by -strands of angel-hair, delicate white lattices scintillating with -pink. She walked to the nearest of the tubs and looked in. It was half -full of a greenish fluid, seething with tiny pink bubbles. For a moment -Orison thought she saw Benjamin Franklin winking up at her from the -liquid. Then she screamed.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" width="376" height="500" alt=""/> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>The pink bubbles, the tiny flesh-colored flecks glinting light from -the spun-sugar bridges between the tanks, were spiders. Millions -upon millions of spiders, each the size of a mustard-seed; crawling, -leaping, swinging, spinning webs, seething in the hundred tanks. Orison -put her hands over her ears and screamed again, backing toward the -stairway door.</p> - -<p>Into a pair of arms.</p> - -<p>"I had hoped you'd be happy here, Miss McCall," Kraft Gerding said. -Orison struggled to release herself. She broke free only to have -her wrists seized by two Earmuffs that had appeared with the elder -Gerding. "It seems that our Pandora doesn't care for spiders," he -said. "Really, Miss McCall, our little pets are quite harmless. Were -we to toss you into one of these tanks...." Orison struggled against -her two <i>sumo</i>-sized captors, whose combined weights exceeded hers by -some quarter-ton, without doing more than lifting her feet from the -floor. "... your flesh would be unharmed, though they spun and darted -all around you. Our Microfabridae are petrovorous, Miss McCall. Of -course, once they discovered your teeth, and through them a skeleton of -calcium, a delicacy they find most toothsome, you'd be filleted within -minutes."</p> - -<p>"Elder Compassion wouldn't like your harming the girl, Sire," one of -the earmuffed <i>sumo</i>-wrestlers protested.</p> - -<p>"Elder Compassion has no rank," Kraft Gerding said. "Miss McCall, you -must tell me what you were doing here, or I'll toss you to the spiders."</p> - -<p>"Dink ... Dink!" Orison shouted.</p> - -<p>"My beloved younger brother is otherwise engaged than in the rescue of -damsels in distress," Kraft said. "Someone, after all, has to mind the -bank."</p> - -<p>"I came to bring a message to Dink," Orison said. "Let me go, you -acromegalic apes!"</p> - -<p>"The message?" Kraft Gerding demanded.</p> - -<p>"Something about escudo green. Put me down!"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Suddenly she was dropped. Her mountainous keepers were on the floor as -though struck by lightning, their arms thrown out before them, their -faces abject against the floor. Kraft Gerding was slowly lowering -himself to one knee. Dink had entered the spider-room. Without -questions, he strode between the shiko-ing Earmuffs and put his arms -around Orison.</p> - -<p>"They can't harm you," he said. She turned to press her face against -his chest. "You're all right, child. Breathe deep, swallow, and turn -your brain back on. All right, now?"</p> - -<p>"All right," she said, still trembling. "They were going to throw me to -the spiders."</p> - -<p>"Kraft told you that?" Dink Gerding released her and turned to the -kneeling man. "Stand up, Elder Brother."</p> - -<p>"I...."</p> - -<p>Dink brought his right fist up from hip-level, crashing it into Kraft's -jaw. Kraft Gerding joined the Earmuffs on the floor.</p> - -<p>"If you'd care to stand again, Elder Brother, you may attempt to -recover your dignity without regard for the difference in our rank." -Kraft struggled to one knee and remained kneeling, gazing up at Dink -through half-closed eyes. "No? Then get out of here, all of you. -<i>Samma!</i>"</p> - -<p>Kraft Gerding arose, stared for a moment at Dink and Orison, then, with -the merest hint of a bow, led his two giant Earmuffs to the elevator.</p> - -<p>"I wish you hadn't come up here, Orison," Dink said. "Why did you do -it?"</p> - -<p>"Have you read the story of Bluebeard?" Orison asked. She stood close -to Dink, keeping her eyes on the nearest spidertank. "I had to see -what it was you kept up here so secretly, what it was that I was -forbidden to see. My excuse was to have been that I was looking for -you, to deliver a message from Mr. Wanji. He said I was to tell you -that the escudo green is pale."</p> - -<p>"You're too curious, and Wanji is too careless," Dink said. "Now, what -is this thing you have about spiders?"</p> - -<p>"I've always been terrified of them," Orison said. "When I was a little -girl, I had to stay upstairs all day one Sunday because there was a -spider hanging from his thread in the stairway. I waited until Dad came -home and took it down with a broom. Even then, I didn't have appetite -for supper."</p> - -<p>"Strange," Dink said. He walked over to the nearest tank and plucked -one of the tiny pink creatures from a web-bridge. "This is no spider, -Orison," he said.</p> - -<p>She backed away from Dink Gerding and the minuscule creature he cupped -in the palm of his hand. "These are Microfabridae, more nearly related -to shellfish than to spiders," he said. "They're stone-and-metal -eaters. They literally couldn't harm a fly. Look at it, Orison." He -extended his palm. Orison forced herself to look. The little creature, -flesh-colored against his flesh, was nearly invisible, scuttling around -the bowl of his hand. "Pretty little fellow, isn't he?" Dink asked. -"Here. You hold him."</p> - -<p>"I'd rather not," she protested.</p> - -<p>"I'd be happier if you did," Dink said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Orison extended her hand as into a furnace. Dink brushed the -Microfabridus from his palm to hers. It felt crisp and hard, like -a legged grain of sand. Dink took a magnifier from his pocket and -unfolded it, to hold it over Orison's palm.</p> - -<p>"He's like a baby crawdad," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"A sort of crustacean," Dink agreed. "We use them in a commercial -process we're developing. That's why we keep this floor closed off and -secret. We don't have a patent on the use of Microfabridae, you see."</p> - -<p>"What do they do?" Orison asked.</p> - -<p>"That's still a secret," Dink said, smiling. "I can't tell even you -that, not yet, even though you're my most confidential secretary."</p> - -<p>"What's he doing now?" Orison asked, watching the Microfabridus, -perched up on the rear four of his six microscopic legs, scratching -against her high-school class-ring with his tiny chelae.</p> - -<p>"They like gold," Dink explained, peering across her shoulder, -comfortably close. "They're attracted to it by a chemical tropism, as -children are attracted to candy. Toss him back into his tank, Orison. -We'd better get you down where you belong."</p> - -<p>Orison brushed the midget crustacean off her finger into the nearest -tank, where he joined the busy boil of his fellows. She felt her ring. -It was pitted where the Microfabridus had been nibbling. "Strange, -using crawdads in a bank," she said. She stood silent for a moment. "I -thought I heard music," she said. "I heard it when I came in. Something -like the sighing of wind in winter trees."</p> - -<p>"That's the hymn of the Microfabridae," Dink said. "They all sing -together while they work, a chorus of some twenty million voices." He -took her arm. "If you listen very carefully, you'll find the song these -little workers sing the most beautiful music in the world."</p> - -<p>Orison closed her eyes, leaning back into Dink's arms, listening to -the music that seemed on the outermost edge of her hearing. Wildness, -storm and danger were its theme, counterpointed by promises of peace -and harbor. She heard the wash of giant waves in the song, the crash -of breakers against granite, cold and insatiable. And behind this, the -quiet of sheltered tide-pools, the soft lub of sea-arms landlocked. -"It's an ancient song," Dink said. "The Microfabridae have been -singing it for a million years." He released her, and opened a -wood-covered wooden box. He scooped up a cupful of the sand inside. -"Hold out your hands," he told Orison. He filled them with the sand. -"Throw our singers some supper for their song," he said.</p> - -<p>Orison went with her cupped hands to the nearest tank and sprinkled the -mineral fishfood around inside it. The Microfabridae leaped from the -liquid like miniature porpoises, seizing the grains of sand in mid-air. -"They're so very strange," Orison said. At the bottom of the tank she -thought she saw Ben Franklin again, winking at her through the bubbling -life. Nonsense, she thought, brushing her hands.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Dink took her to the elevator and pressed the "Down" button. "Don't -come up here again unless I bring you," he said. "The Microfabridae -aren't dangerous, despite what my brother told you, but some of our -processes might involve some risk to bystanders. So don't take any -more tours above the fifth floor without me as your guide. All right, -Orison?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, Dink."</p> - -<p>The elevator stopped. "Take the lady to her office," Dink told the -bowing, earmuffed operator. "And Orison," he said, just before the -door closed, "I'm really not a Bluebeard. See you this evening."</p> - -<p>Dink Gerding, wearing an ordinary enough suit, well-cut, expensive, but -nothing extraordinary for a banker, called for Orison at seven. He'd -look well, she thought, slipping into the coat he held for her, in a -white uniform brocaded with pounds of spun gold, broad epaulettes, a -stiff bank of extravagantly-colored ribbons across his chest; perhaps -resting his right hand on the pommel of a dress saber. "Dink," she -asked him, "were you ever in the Army?"</p> - -<p>"You might say I'm still in an army," he said, turning and smiling down -at her from that arrogant posture of his. "I'm a corporal in the army -of the gainfully employed; an army where there's little glamor but -better pay than in the parades-and-battles sort. What makes you ask, -Orison?"</p> - -<p>"Because of the way you stand and walk, Dink," she said. "Like an -Infantry captain from Texas."</p> - -<p>"I'm flattered," Dink Gerding said, holding open the lobby door for -her. "The car's just around the corner."</p> - -<p>"I met your brother, Kraft, earlier today, just before he and the -Earmuffs caught me up on eighth floor," Orison said. "He's no Texan, -that one. A Junker, maybe. I'm afraid I don't much care for your -brother, Dink."</p> - -<p>"To be my elder brother is Kraft's special misfortune," Dink said. "I -understand he was quite loveable as a boy. Here's our transportation."</p> - -<p>The car was a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, splendidly conspicuous beside -the curb of the Windsor Arms, reducing that nobly-named establishment -by contrast to more democratic proportions. The ubiquitous Mr. Wanji, -liveried in a uniform nearly as ornate as the one Orison had visualized -for Dink, only his earmuffs clashing with the magnificence of his -costume, sprang from the driver's seat, raced around the limousine and -stood at attention holding the door for Orison and her escort. The -front door of the Rolls was marked, she observed, with a gold device -of three coronets. At the center of the triangle they formed was the -single letter "D."</p> - -<p>The Rolls negotiated the city streets with the dignity of the <i>Queen -Elizabeth</i> entering a minor harbor. "I thought you bankers aspired to -the common touch," Orison remarked. "I expected you to come for me in a -taxi, or perhaps a year-old Ford you drove yourself."</p> - -<p>"Wanji is a better driver than I. So I have him drive me," Dink -explained. "We each do the work we're trained for. I assist Wanji in -balancing his checkbook, for example. As for this car, it belongs not -to me, but to my family. My family owns most of the toys I play with." -He paused. "I've been thinking, Orison, of acquiring a most valuable -property for myself alone."</p> - -<p>"A nice little seventy-meter yacht?" Orison inquired. "Or the island of -Majorca, perhaps?"</p> - -<p>"Something even grander," Dink said. "You, Miss McCall."</p> - -<p>"But, Dink!"</p> - -<p>The Rolls glided to the curb. Wanji jumped out and snapped open the -door. "Sire!" he said, and saluted as Dink disbarked. Orison took -Dink's hand and stepped to the curb, acknowledging Wanji's bow to her -with a princess smile. She'd come a long way from the secretarial pool.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The doorman of the restaurant, instructed as to the importance of -these clients by their tableau at the curb, ushered Dink Gerding and -Orison McCall into the presence of the maitre d'. When the doorman -had been rewarded with a crackling handshake, the headwaiter led them -through the crowd of groundlings as though they were accompanied by -fife and drums. The table to which he bowed them, while not the most -conspicuous, was without doubt the finest the management had to offer. -The <i>Reserved</i> sign was swept aside with a gesture that indicated that -there were no reservations where Mr. Dink Gerding was concerned. -Mr. Gerding justified the maitre's confidence in him with another -green-palmed handshake.</p> - -<p>"Dink," Orison whispered across the table. "That was a fifty-dollar -bill you gave him."</p> - -<p>"Yes, it was," Dink admitted. "I felt that fifty was enough."</p> - -<p>"Quite enough," Orison assured him.</p> - -<p>The wine-steward, wearing a chain that could have held a tub to -mooring, absorbed Dink's instructions with the air of a chela attending -the dying words of his guru. The two waiters poised themselves -reverently at his shoulders, waiting the revelation of his order. -"We'll begin ..." Dink began.</p> - -<p>"Dink, I'd like a lobster," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"I'd not advise lobster," Dink said thoughtfully. "I'm afraid that -lobster won't agree with you this evening."</p> - -<p>"Dink, lobster is what I want," Orison insisted. "Haven't you heard of -the Nineteenth Amendment?"</p> - -<p>"Very well, feminist," Dink said. He turned to the waiter at his right. -"The lady will have a lobster." He turned to the left. "As for me, a -saddle of venison, and such accessory furniture as you may choose to -accompany it." The waiters bowed and retreated.</p> - -<p>"Why do you insist on being boss, even after banking-hours?" Orison -asked.</p> - -<p>"Being boss is not my nature, but is my training," Dink said. "It seems -to me, Orison, that you American women resent the dignity of being -served by an adoring man."</p> - -<p>"I prefer dignities to be more democratic," she said. "Why, in any -case, should you be exercised by my choosing lobster for dinner? My -digestion is my own affair, isn't it?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Your question," Dink said, resting his elbows on the table, "requires -a two-part answer. <i>Imprimus</i>: everything you do interests me, Orison, -inasmuch as you are my future bride. Please make no comment at this -point. Allow me to enjoy for the moment the male privilege of unimpeded -speech. <i>Secundus</i>: I once wished to be a doctor, had not my career -been chosen by my father. I still pursue the study of medicine as a -hobby. I didn't wish you to order lobster because I'm certain that -you'll be unable to enjoy lobster."</p> - -<p>"I've eaten it before," Orison said. "Except for the engineering -difficulties in getting through the shell with all those little picks -and nutcrackers and nail-clippers, I had no trouble to speak of. Dink, -are you a foreigner?"</p> - -<p>"What makes you think I may be?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"The crest of your car, the earmuffs on most your staff at the Bank and -the fact that you seem to think a woman's opinion nothing more than a -trifle. There's a beginning," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"What's wrong with earmuffs?" Dink demanded. "Everybody wears earmuffs."</p> - -<p>"Not everybody," Orison said. "Not in April. Not bank officials. Not -indoors, in any case."</p> - -<p>"Must report this to the Board," Dink said, taking a notebook from his -pocket and scribbling. "Must find alternative. No earmuffs indoors."</p> - -<p>Perfect, Orison thought, near tears. He's perfect. He'd sit astride -that milk-white charger like a round-table knight, sturdy and lean and -honest-eyed. Dink is perfect, she thought, except only that he's insane.</p> - -<p>Dink tucked his notebook back into his vest-pocket. "If I were a -foreigner," he asked, "would it make any difference to you?"</p> - -<p>"Your nationality should concern me as little as my diet concerns you," -Orison said.</p> - -<p>"You said <i>should</i>," Dink pointed out. "That means that you are -concerned with me. Therefore, I will formally invite you to marry me." -He held up his hand as Orison began to speak. "I warn you, Orison, -there are only two answers possible to my proposal. Only <i>Yes</i> or <i>Some -day</i>."</p> - -<p>"What if I said no?" Orison asked.</p> - -<p>"I'd interpret it as Some day," he said, and smiled.</p> - -<p>"You know nothing about me," Orison protested.</p> - -<p>"But I do," Dink said. "I know you're good. I know that you've fallen -half in love with me, and I entirely in love with you, in this half-day -in April that we've known each other."</p> - -<p>"No," Orison said, gripping tightly the edge of the table.</p> - -<p>"That means, Some day," he said.</p> - -<p>The lobster arrived in post-mortem splendor, borne on a silver tray, -brick-red, garnished with sprigs of parsley and geranium, served with -the silver instruments designed for his dissection and the bowl of -baptismal butter. "Oh ..." Orison said, turning her eyes away from the -supper she'd selected. "It's horrible!"</p> - -<p>"You've no appetite for lobster?" Dink asked.</p> - -<p>"I'd as soon eat boiled baby," Orison said, pressing her napkin against -her lips.</p> - -<p>"Take it away," Dink instructed the waiter. "The lady will have the -same order as I." The crustacean, red but undismembered, was again -borne aloft by the waiter to be returned to the scene of his martyrdom. -"Try a little of the wine, Orison," Dink suggested, tipping a splash of -the Riesling into her glass. "It will clear your head."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>She sipped. "It helps," she admitted. "What do you suppose happened -to me, Dink? It's as though all of a sudden I'd become allergic to -lobster."</p> - -<p>"In a sense you are, darling," Dink said.</p> - -<p>"Such a strange thing," she said.</p> - -<p>"Don't let these strange things worry you, Orison," Dink said. "Think -this: for everything in the universe, there's an explanation. If you -understand it or not, the explanation's still there, curled up in the -middle of the mystery like Pinocchio in the belly of his whale. Just -have faith in the essential honesty of the universe, Orison, and you'll -be all right."</p> - -<p>"A comforting philosophy," Orison said. "I can't imagine an explanation -for my sudden distaste for lobster, though."</p> - -<p>"Such things happen," Dink assured her. "I have a friend, for instance, -who holds life in such reverence that he eats only vegetables. Isn't -that strange? And he worries, this very good friend of mine, that -perhaps vegetables have souls, too; and that perhaps it is no more -moral to destroy them for his food than it is to roast and ingest his -fellow animals."</p> - -<p>"So what does this friend of yours eat?" Orison asked.</p> - -<p>"Vegetables," Dink said. "But he worries about it. He's now proposing -to confine his diet to cakes made from algae. His argument is that if -vegetables have souls, algae have very small souls indeed; and that -they suffer less in being eaten than would, say, a cabbage or an -apple. His guilt may be numerically greater, eating algae. But it will -be qualitatively less."</p> - -<p>"Has this micro-vegetarian friend of yours thought of psychotherapy?" -Orison asked.</p> - -<p>"Often," Dink said. "But he maintains that he's much too old to pour -out his mind to a stranger; too set in his patterns to change. He fears -most of all, he says, that he might be made uncomfortable in new ways."</p> - -<p>"We all do," mused Orison.</p> - -<p>"Do I make you uncomfortable in a new way?" Dink asked.</p> - -<p>"You're strange," Orison said. "Your Bank is fantastic. All in all, -this is the most peculiar day I've ever lived."</p> - -<p>"I promise you, Orison, that someday you'll understand why the sight -of lobster made you ill this evening, why so many of the people at the -Bank wear earmuffs, why I seem foreign. You'll understand the work of -the singing Microfabridae and you'll meet Elder Compassion; you'll -know why Wanji was excited about the escudo green; and someday soon, -this most of all I promise you, you'll love me, and be my wife. Hah! -Here are the comestibles. Let's talk of topics less vital than love -and earmuffs. Let's talk of the weather, and Mr. Kennedy, and the -orchestra."</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph2">V</p> - -<p><i>Abstract of Transcript, Monitor J-12, to U.S. Treasury Department -Intelligence:</i></p> - -<p>"Miss Orison McCall's report from Potawattomi, Indiana, was delayed -by one hour. Contact was established at 00:10 hours. Details follow -herewith:</p> - -<p>"J-12: CQ, CQ, CQ, CQ.</p> - -<p>"Miss McCall: If you'd been a minute later, I'd have been sound asleep, -dreaming bad dreams.</p> - -<p>"J-12: Is the job wearing you down?</p> - -<p>"Miss McCall: It's exciting and mysterious. Nothing like Washington. -The boss of Taft Bank appears to be a man named Dink Gerding. He's six -feet tall and slim, his hair is clipped short as a dachshund's, and he -walks like an Olympic skier. The other men at the bank bow when they -meet him, and some of them get all the way down onto the floor when -he's angry. Do you suppose this means something?</p> - -<p>"J-12: Everything means something.</p> - -<p>"Miss McCall: He said that. Dink did. For everything in the universe, -he said, there's an explanation.</p> - -<p>"J-12: Not so. I mean that everything that people do in banks is -explainable. Not all the universe is logical—the tax-structure, for -instance, or the ways of women.</p> - -<p>"Miss McCall: I'm not required to put up with male chauvinism from a -pillow, Mister, no banns having been published between us.</p> - -<p>"J-12: Sorry, beautiful. Here are instructions from the Chief. He wants -to know why some members of the Taft Bank staff wear earmuffs, and he -wants details of what goes on upstairs. He wants you to get to know -this Dink Gerding better. Over.</p> - -<p>"Miss McCall: Roger, Wilco, and Aye-Aye. Meanwhile, get philologists -working on this. The sentence, <i>Wanji e-Kal, Datto. Dink ger-Dink -d'summa</i>, means, more or less, 'This is Wanji. I'd like to speak to -Dink Gerding.' This message was received by me at Taft Bank this -morning, evidently by accident. Check also possible meaning of the -phrase, 'Escudo green is pale.'</p> - -<p>"J-12: Will do.</p> - -<p>"Miss McCall: Good night, then; wherever you are.</p> - -<p>"J-12: Good night, beautiful. Out."</p> - -<p><i>Report of Treasury Intelligence on six words of presumed -foreign-language message</i>:</p> - -<p>"<i>Datto</i> may be Tagalog <i>chief</i>. <i>Summa</i> is Latin <i>sum</i>. Total message -is nonsense in fifty languages. The clear message, <i>Escudo green is -pale</i> probably a code. Escudo is Portuguese currency presently equal to -U.S. $0.348. End of Report."</p> - -<p><i>Confidential report</i> (on scratchboard) <i>of Elder Compassion to H.R.H. -Dink ger-Dink, Prince Porphyrogenite of Empire, Heir-Apparent to the -Throne, Scion of the Triple Crown, Count of the Northern Marches, -Admiralissimo of the Conquest Forces of Empire, Captain-Commander of -the XLIIth Subversion-and-Conquest Task Force (Sol III)</i>:</p> - -<p>"She whispered to her pillow, local time 2 A.M., 'I love him.'"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Orison hadn't gone to sleep easily. She'd suppressed information from -J-12, saying nothing to him about the Microfabridae, surely the most -striking objective discovery of her two days' spying within the Taft -Bank. More central in her thoughts than her disloyalty to the Treasury -Department, though, was Dink Gerding. He'd told her that she was -half in love with him. He was half wrong, she thought. "I love him -entirely," she whispered, not knowing that J-12—in carelessness, not -subterfuge—had left the receiver-switch open to the pillow she'd made -her confidante.</p> - -<p><i>The Wall Street Journal</i> greeted her the next morning, curled up in -her "In" basket. She'd just switched on her microphone and said "Good -morning" to her invisible listener when Mr. Wanji stepped from the -elevator. His ears, she saw, were bare today. But they were pink—a -shocking, porcelain, opaque, Toby-mug shade of pink.</p> - -<p>She looked away from this latest manifestation of peculiarity in -banker's ears. "Good morning, Mr. Wanji," she said.</p> - -<p>"Hi, doll," Wanji said. "The brain-guy says you don't have to read out -loud any more. Just read quiet-like. Dig?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir," she said. "Shall I take notes on anything in particular?"</p> - -<p>"Naw," Wanji said. "The brain-guy, he remembers everything."</p> - -<p>"The brain-guy?" Orison asked. "Is that Dink Gerding?"</p> - -<p>"Naw. Dink's the boss. The brain-guy is the man who makes the wheels -go round," Wanji said. He pressed the "Up" button of the elevator. As -Wanji embarked, Orison observed that the elevator operator had the same -shocking-pink ears.</p> - -<p>Had those earmuffs been designed to hide this pinkness, the symptom of -some rare and disfiguring disease? Orison returned to her newspaper, -reading silently as ordered, wondering what obscure Pinocchio of sense -was curled up in the belly of this whale of illogic. The elevator, -she noticed with the housekeeping bit of her mind, was running much -more than usual today, up and down like a spastic yo-yo. Whatever the -mysterious business of the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust -Company might be, there was a lot of it being done.</p> - -<p>Her telephone buzzed. Orison switched off her microphone. "Miss McCall -here," she said, feeling very efficient and British.</p> - -<p>"This is Mr. Kraft Gerding," she was told. "I need you at the National -Guard Armory right away, Miss McCall. Will you come right over?"</p> - -<p>"Yes, sir," Orison said. She gathered up her purse and coat and pressed -the elevator button. The operator ushered her into his car as though -she were his queen, and the elevator the paramount plane of the royal -flight. Standing behind him as he piloted them downward five floors, -Orison studied the man's ears. They were that awful, artificial pink, -as though enameled. Pancake makeup? Orison wondered. The ears, now the -earmuffs were off, might be the clue to that fish-of-understanding she -sought. Orison dampened a fingertip and applied it to the edge of the -man's ear.</p> - -<p>He turned and stared. "A fly," Orison explained. "I brushed it off."</p> - -<p>"Oh. Thank you. Here's the street floor, Miss McCall."</p> - -<p>"Thank you." Orison stepped from the lobby to Broadway, refusing to -examine her fingertip until she was well beyond the shadow of the Taft -Bank Building. Now she looked at it.</p> - -<p>A sort of pink paint was showing there. And where she'd touched the -elevator operator's ear to remove the makeup, the flesh beneath had -shown a brilliant, eggplant purple.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Orison was greeted at the National Guard Armory by Auga Vingt, mistress -of malice. "How lovely of you to come right over, darling," she said. -"Kraft is waiting for you in the office of Company C."</p> - -<p>"Thank you, darling," Orison purred. She clutched her purse as she -walked up the indicated stairway, Miss Vingt behind her.</p> - -<p>Kraft Gerding was in full uniform behind a desk marked "Commanding -Officer," but his was not the uniform of the U.S. Army. It was the sort -that Mr. Wanji had worn as Dink's chauffeur, its splendor squared. -"Good morning, Miss McCall," Kraft Gerding said, standing. "I'm so -happy you could come. We need you here."</p> - -<p>"What am I to do, sir?" Orison asked.</p> - -<p>"Your presence is the full extent of your services required, my dear," -he said. "You see, you're my hostage. My brother's interest in your -welfare is so marked that I determined to seize you as collateral for -his cooperation. We've begun a revolution, Miss McCall. You'll stay -with us until victory. Colonel the Margravine Auga Vingt, Commander of -the Royal Refreshment Corps, will act as your hostess. Colonel, please -take Miss McCall to her quarters."</p> - -<p>"Now look here, bud!" Orison said.</p> - -<p>"The proper address to Mr. Gerding is 'Your Royal Highness,' darling," -Miss Vingt said, accompanying her point of protocol with a jab at the -small of Orison's back. "Come along, darling."</p> - -<p>"I'm not going anywhere until I've telephoned Dink," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"Terribly sorry," said Colonel Auga Vingt. "Our telephone has just -gone out of order." Two bravos wearing U.S. Army fatigues—surely the -largest such uniforms ever sewn together—stepped into the room. They -were enormous men, menacing, purple of ear. "Will you walk along like a -good girl, or shall I have my pets carry you?" the odious Auga asked.</p> - -<p>"I'll walk," Orison decided. "What's more, I'll sue."</p> - -<p>"All in good time, darling," Auga Vingt said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Orison's cell was large enough to be a ballroom, comprising as it did -the entire basement of the armory. A cot had been unfolded in one -corner, next to a parked half-track, and three olive-drab blankets were -stacked upon it. "Home, darling," Colonel Vingt said.</p> - -<p>"I hope you realize that kidnapping is a Federal offense," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"So is seizing an armory," her warden explained. "Of course, the -U.S. Army doesn't realize we've got it, yet. They drill here only on -Mondays." She turned and spoke quickly to the two guards, using what -was apparently the same language Wanji had employed over the telephone. -The guards bowed, then each chose a vehicle for his guard-post. One -seated himself behind the wheel of a weapons-carrier, the other posting -himself, cross-legged, on the steel hatch of a Sherman tank.</p> - -<p>Auga Vingt turned to leave. "Hey," Orison said. "You're not going to -abandon me here with these two gorillas."</p> - -<p>"But, darling, I am!" the obnoxious Auga replied. "If you're worried -about your virtue, rest easy, lamb. I can assure you that my thugs are -safe as kittens, providing only that you make no attempt to escape. -They are required, you see, to confine their romantic aspirations to -members of the Royal Refreshment Corps of appropriate rank. Since they -speak no English, nor any other tongue you're likely to have heard of, -they won't be much company. But they will be loyal in their attendance."</p> - -<p>"Let me out of here!" a man's voice shouted, the sound echoing among -the ranks of tanks, half-tracks, weapons-carriers, and jeeps.</p> - -<p>"Who's that?" Orison demanded.</p> - -<p>"Your fellow-prisoner," Auga explained. "Until quite recently, he was -Commanding Officer of C Company. Your keepers have strict orders not -to let you two speak to one another. But I must get on with my duties, -charming as I find your company. Good day, darling."</p> - -<p>"Drop dead," Orison suggested.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>After the door had slammed behind Auga Vingt, and the key had chattered -in its lock, she sat at the edge of her cot. The two guards watched her -as casually as though she were just another item on the Motor Company's -T.O.&E. This is what she got for playing it coy with Washington, Orison -thought. If she'd clued J-12 in on the Microfabridae, she'd at least -have been given some technical help. Then someone might have been there -to blow the whistle when she disappeared from the Taft Bank Building. -As things stood now, no one would know of her abduction until her -pillow called tonight at eleven-fifteen and got no answer: A long time -off, she thought. Perhaps she could get some help from the imprisoned -commander of C Company, she thought. Orison stood and called out, "Hey, -there! Can you hear...."</p> - -<p>A large palm suddenly closed over her mouth. The guard who'd been -seated atop the tank had sprung down and appeared beside her as -suddenly as a circus trick. Experimentally, he removed his hand from -her mouth. "... me?" Orison completed her query, and was shut off again.</p> - -<p>"Five by five," the male voice answered. "Who are...." The other guard -was gone now, and presumably stood beside the captain as his fellow -stood beside Orison. There was silence for five minutes, Orison having -trouble breathing, struggling until it became apparent that no action -of hers would have the slightest effect on the mountainous bulk of her -muffler. Then he removed his hand. Orison, out of breath, her lesson -learned, stayed quiet. The guards resumed their seats aboard the -rolling-stock.</p> - -<p>There must be another way to signal her fellow-prisoner, Orison -thought. Tapping? She clicked an S-O-S on the side of a jeep with her -pen. Her guard appeared beside her as quickly as before, and took the -pen to stick it in his pocket. She was, it appeared, effectively in -solitary confinement.</p> - -<p>Orison stood up to see if the guard minded. Apparently not. She walked -about the huge basement. She'd never before seen so much military -hardware outside an Armed Forces Day parade. Impressive, all this -steel. A ramp led up to a door the size of a barn-side, also steel, -bolted. If she could get inside a tank, and close the hatch, and -somehow get the monster up that ramp to ram that door, she'd make an -impressive call for help, Orison thought. She put one foot atop a -tank-tread when a large arm reached around her and set her aside. Her -guard, silent-footed, had been following all through her tour.</p> - -<p>Orison returned to her cot.</p> - -<p>Great deal, she thought. From desk to dungeon in an hour and a half. -She'd battled with shadows, earmuffed shadows, and had got herself set -in an amateur jail guarded by a pair of purple-eared apes. Nothing to -do but wait.</p> - -<p>Four feet crashed onto concrete, two figures bowed till the palms of -their hands brushed the floor. "<i>T'ink</i>," the newcomer said. The two -guards backed to their vehicles and resumed their seats.</p> - -<p>"Orison, my dear!" It was Kraft Gerding, all unction and teeth, -advancing upon her like the loser at tennis, hand outstretched. "I hope -you haven't been unduly discommoded," he said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"I haven't been commoded at all," Orison said. "No one showed me the -way. Would you mind explaining this chivaree to me, Mr. Gerding?"</p> - -<p>"I'd be delighted to explain, my dear," Kraft Gerding said, bowing. -"May I sit?" he asked, waving a hand toward her cot.</p> - -<p>"You may fall on your dreadful face, for all I care," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"You must learn to speak like a queen," Kraft said, seating himself on -the cot beside her. "Otherwise, of course, you are perfect."</p> - -<p>"Of course," Orison said. "I can't say the same for you."</p> - -<p>"I grow on one," Kraft said. "You wonder, no doubt, how the William -Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company became a battleground; why -many of our employees have ears the color of day-old bruises; why Wanji -was so exercised by the color of escudoes; and what the work is that -the Microfabridae sing at. No?"</p> - -<p>"Yes," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"May I smoke?" Kraft Gerding asked, bringing a cheroot from an inner -pocket of his fieldmarshal's uniform.</p> - -<p>"Smoke, glow, burst into flame. It's all the same to me," Orison said.</p> - -<p>Kraft Gerding lit his cheroot with the air of an acolyte igniting -incense. Then, puffing, "Accident," he said, "has made you privy to a -<i>coup d'etat</i>. Our Empire, you see, is based on porphyrogeniture. Thus -my brother, Dink, is the Heir Apparent. I, his elder brother, conceived -before our father became Emperor, am merely Margrave of the North, -Prince Royal of the House of Dink, Colonel-General of the Forces of the -Triple Crown, Grand Duke of the Zilf Archipelago and Holder of the Keys -to the Royal City of Chilif."</p> - -<p>"How unassuming can you get?" Orison asked.</p> - -<p>"Your un-knowledge is deeper than I bethought me," Kraft Gerding -said, smiling, scooting a little wester on the cot. Orison moved one -hips-breadth further to the west.</p> - -<p>"Very well," Kraft said. "As a primer, thus: my brother Dink ger-Dink, -heir through accident of tradition to the Triple Crown of Empire; -I, his elder, better brother; and our officers and exiles—these -latter common criminals, marked for men's contempt with purple -ears—constitute the XLIIth Subversion-and-Conquest Task Force of the -Empire of Dink. This mighty Empire, for your information, lies some -distance off in the southern skies of Earth."</p> - -<p>"How far off?" Orison asked.</p> - -<p>"As far," Kraft Gerding said, "as all your men since Adam have run in -pursuit of beauty." He scooted further west.</p> - -<p>Orison made still further westering. "You come from some foreign -planet?" she asked.</p> - -<p>"No longer foreign, my dear," Kraft said. "Our planet, our triple -footstool, welcomes young Earth to share our ancient wisdom and relax -under the shadow of our might."</p> - -<p>"And I, young Earth, tell you, Kraft Gerding, to go sail a saucer," -Orison said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Kraft Gerding stood up. "Come with me, my dear. I'll show you the -greenery that establishes me as Emperor Apparent of the planet Earth." -He strode to a steel door, took a key from his pocket, and unlocked it. -"Behold!" he said, flinging the door open.</p> - -<p>Orison stepped into the basement room, a cube some fifty feet in each -dimension. She found herself in a corridor between huge walls of -bundled paper. Kraft Gerding, behind her, pried a packet from the wall -and handed it to her. "This, my dear Orison, is the lever with which -I'll over-turn the Earth," he said.</p> - -<p>The bundle was banded with a strip of paper bearing the legend, -"$5,000 in 50's." Each bit of paper in the bundle bore the portrait -of President U. S. Grant. "This room," Kraft Gerding said, "contains -some four hundred million dollars in U.S. currency. I intend with this -money, and as much more as I need, to subvert and purchase a nation. -The United States will then be the beach-head for the world."</p> - -<p>"Counterfeits," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"But perfect counterfeits," Kraft said. "The paper was manufactured -by the master-craftsmen of Chilif. The inks were compounded by the -chemists of that same capital city of Empire. The plates were cut -by twenty million engravers, the Microfabridae of the Storm-Planet, -supervised by Elder Compassion, an ancient of the slothful race that -inhabits the planet nearest our mother sun. This is but one of my -treasuries. I have many such. There is the Threadneedle Room, filled -with pounds-sterling, in ones, fives, fifties and hundreds. There are -other rooms, boxes, trunks and trucks filled with all the currencies -of Earth. I am ready now to purchase this planet from its owners. No -violence, you see. Just subterfuge."</p> - -<p>"It's violence enough, to ruin a planet," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"It beats war," Kraft Gerding said, drawing on his cheroot.</p> - -<p>"And that disgusting Miss Vingt?" Orison asked. "What does she do in -your forces of subversion?"</p> - -<p>"Colonel the Margrave Auga Vingt is commander of the Royal Refreshment -Corps," Kraft said. "You understand that it wouldn't do to allow our -men, the purple-eared scum of three planets, to live off the land in -the delicate matter of women. Colonel Vingt's Corps both maintains -morale and prevents incidents of fraternization that Earthmen might -deplore with their fists and guns." Kraft chuckled. "You'll be amused -to hear that Auga Vingt has an ambition to become my Empress, once I -have overthrown my brother's tyranny and taken over Earth."</p> - -<p>"I must sit down," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"By all means, my dear," Kraft said. He tipped over a stack of bundled -twenty-dollar bills as a hassock for her comfort.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Could I have a cigarette?" Orison asked.</p> - -<p>"Do." Kraft Gerding removed a pack from his pocket and lighted it for -her, passing it from his lips to hers. Orison, hiding her feelings of -distaste for this intimacy, drew on the cigarette. "Perhaps I might -have a drink as well?" she asked. "All this is making me rather dizzy."</p> - -<p>"It is dizzy-making," Kraft conceded. "In an instant, my pet." He -strode from the treasure-room, shouting in his native language to the -guards.</p> - -<p>Orison tugged a twenty-dollar bill from one of the bundles on which -she'd been sitting and held it to the tip of her cigarette, drawing -to make it hot. The paper glowed, but the tiny patch of fire died out -almost at once. She fumbled in her purse. There it was—her bottle of -nail-polish remover. She splashed the aromatic fluid over the bundled -money and again touched her cigarette to it. The paper flared. Flames -ran in upstream rivers through the stacks above.</p> - -<p>Orison ran to the nearest jeep and turned the key. The gears were -unfamiliar to her, but she mastered them sufficiently to get moving -forward toward the steel doors. Up the ramp she rolled, her feet braced -down hard on the accelerator, wedged into her seat. The jeep struck the -steel doors and bounced back the ramp to the sound of a giant Chinese -gong, its engine stalled. Groggy, Orison dismounted and ran to the -door. She pounded on the steel with both fists, shouting for help.</p> - -<p>An arm encircled Orison, and she heard behind her the door of the -money-room slam shut. "The blaze will smolder itself out in a moment, -my dear," Kraft Gerding said. He spoke to the guard who held her, and -she was released. "I doubt that you've destroyed more than a million -dollars' worth of your local paper with your prank," he said. "Five -minutes' press-run. I've brought you a spot of brandy. I daresay you -can use it. Arson is thirsty work."</p> - -<p>He held out his hand. One of the purple-eared guards produced a silver -tray with a decanter and two balloon-glasses, poured them a quarter -full and presented the glasses to his chief, bowing deeply. Kraft took -one glass, giving the other to Orison. "A toast?" he asked. "To the -success of my rebellion. To our inevitable marriage. And to the health -of our progeny, who are, my dear, to inherit the Earth. A shotgun -toast," he said.</p> - -<p>Orison dashed her brandy toward his face. Kraft turned, catching the -shower against his left ear, where it trickled down to stain the braid -of his epaulette. He glared and raised his hand in a most unchivalrous -gesture, then stopped himself. One of the guards produced a silken -cloth to blot him dry.</p> - -<p>"The word 'shotgun' was perhaps ill-chosen," Kraft said. "The spirit -you show, dear Orison, is a quality most appropriate to the future -Empress of Earth."</p> - -<p>"Keep away from me," Orison said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Our ceremony of betrothal is simple," Kraft said. He put his -sword-arm about her waist. "You need only hear me say the words, 'I, -Rex-Imperator, take thee to wife,' and then bow, in the presence of -witnesses of my choosing. You'll be as noble as any princess conceived -in the Purple Chamber of the Palace of Chilif."</p> - -<p>"I'd rather die than marry you," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"You've established the parameters of the possible rather neatly, -my dear," Kraft Gerding said. "You will become my wife, and -Empress-Apparent of Earth, or you will shortly be the loveliest corpse -on this fair planet. My will is heaven's law, you understand. My -word carries the sanction of two suns, and my anger breeds massive -destruction. I ask of you your one slight person. In return, I offer to -share with you my greatness. You will rule with me in the palace I have -chosen—I forget its name, but it is presently used as the tomb of the -lady who invented the brassiere—the Taj Mahal, that's it. Perhaps we -could rename it. Answer quickly, now; great deeds are deeds of impulse: -marry me!"</p> - -<p>"You're mad," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"When a man has the power I have, he cannot be called a madman, for -his mind shapes the world to his dreams. There is then, you see, no -disorientation," Kraft said. "You've had a good ten seconds now to -decide. Shall I call my wedding-guests or my executioner?"</p> - -<p>"Dink will never let you marry me," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"His suit has come so far as that?" Kraft said. "No matter. I'll -destroy him."</p> - -<p>"Please leave me, Your Excellency," Orison said. "I need time to think."</p> - -<p>"I am clay in your lovely hands," Kraft said, bowing. "I grant your -wish."</p> - -<p>"If I might ask another boon, Your Excellency," Orison said, "I'd like -to talk with Dink."</p> - -<p>"And so you shall," Kraft promised her. "Tomorrow, perhaps. With my -brother in chains and you in the regalia of an Empress." He bowed -again, and left her. The door-lock clicked after him. The two huge -guards closed in on either side of Orison and led her back to her cot. -When she had seated herself, they withdrew to their perches on the Army -vehicles.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph2">VII</p> - -<p>I might as well have joined the Marine Corps instead of the Treasury -Department, Orison thought, resting her fists on her knees. She had no -weapons now, nothing to help her break out from this steel-shuttered -cellar. What's more, the only clear evidence she had of the crime these -extraterrestrials were plotting was a single counterfeit twenty-dollar -bill wadded up in her hand. It looked entirely genuine, she thought. -It was perhaps too perfect for her purpose. It was quite possible -that this bill could be established as a counterfeit only by the -unlikely discovery of a genuine note with the same serial-number. -The paper-makers and chemists of Chilif, the engraving millions of -Microfabridae, had done their work too well.</p> - -<p>Suddenly, across Orison's field of regard there danced dozens of -brilliant, five-pointed stars—over the weapons-carriers and the tanks, -the jeeps and the two lolling guards, the concrete floor and the steel -doors. Orison rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes, but the -stars were still there. "Don't worry," someone said. "I painted the -stars on the backs of your eyes only to get your attention." The stars -disappeared, and Orison heard again the music of the Microfabridae, a -singing almost unhearable.</p> - -<p>"Who's that?" Orison demanded, her voice uncertain.</p> - -<p>"Don't speak. You'll frighten the guards," the mysterious voice said. -"We have had long association, Orison. It was I who, so close in -empathy with you, prevented your eating lobster, for example. Earth's -lobster is a distant relative of mine. I could not see you ingest one -without feeling deep qualms. And it is to me you have been reading, -filling my mind with knowledge and amusement while I was engaged in the -dull work of projecting the images of currency to the Microfabridae at -work at their printing-plates. I am known as Elder Compassion, and I am -your friend."</p> - -<p>"And Dink's friend?"</p> - -<p>"His especially," the voice said. "Our business right now is to help -you escape. We must know exactly where you are, Orison."</p> - -<p>"I'm in the basement of the National Guard Armory," Orison said softly. -"Where are you?"</p> - -<p>"I'm on the ninth floor of the Bank building," Elder Compassion said. -"Yes, that means telepathy, of a weak and uncertain sort. I am not -one of the true telepaths, those gold and mighty minds I can hear -trumpeting in the night. I can but whisper, and eavesdrop a bit in -minds that let me. And is the fact that I speak within your ear and -listen to the currents that make words within your mind so much more -mysterious than your pillow that whispers?"</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Tell me what to do," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"Look at the entrance of your basement," Elder Compassion said. Orison -stared at the steel doors at the top of the ramp. "Yes, Dink. You're -in the right place." The inner voice ceased for a moment; and into -Orison's mind flashed a picture of those doors seen from outside. An -automobile was parked a dozen feet from the door. Dink's car! Wanji -was at the wheel and Dink, grandly uniformed, was beside him. A pink, -animate thread dipped down from the trunk of the Rolls and began -working its way toward the steel doors. Microfabridae, Orison guessed. -Then the picture in her mind flicked off, and she was alone again.</p> - -<p>She watched the doors at the top of the ramp.</p> - -<p>For ten minutes or so, there was nothing new to be seen. Then—a -pinpoint of light, a tiny movement. "Look away," Elder Compassion said -within her. "We don't want to make your guards suspicious."</p> - -<p>From the corner of her eye Orison could see the thin pink line -approaching the Sherman tank upon which one guard was sitting, at ease -but alert. The line of Microfabridae split into two columns, and one -set out toward the second guard, seated in his weapons-carrier, facing -the little room where C Company's commanding officer was imprisoned.</p> - -<p>Orison knotted her fists to keep from screaming, reminding herself -that these creeping things weren't spiders. She heard, faint at -first, but growing at the edge of her consciousness, the song of the -Microfabridae. The twin columns were thicker now. It seemed impossible -that the guards hadn't yet seen them. A living thread oozed up the side -of the tank and busied itself a moment at the guard's ankles.</p> - -<p>"What's going on?" the captain, Orison's fellow-prisoner, shouted from -his hidden cell.</p> - -<p>"Mmmmf," the guard assigned to the captain replied. Then he was -entirely silent.</p> - -<p>Orison stood. Her own guard was strapped to the steel of his tank by -a hundred strands of Lilliputian thread. A thin net of the stuff, -fine as angel-hair, covered his mouth. The second guard, in the -weapons-carrier, was bound in the same manner. He stared at Orison and -moved his jaw, but could say nothing. "They'll not be injured," Elder -Compassion told her. "It is impossible for me to allow a living being -to be hurt. Now, go look at the man who just called out."</p> - -<p>Orison went to the cell where the Captain was, avoiding as she walked -the pools of Microfabridae scattered about the floor. The man stood in -a barred room, evidently designed as the toolroom of the motor-pool, -his hands around the bars. "Good afternoon," he said. "What's going on -here?"</p> - -<p>"We're getting out," Orison told him.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>"Ask him if he can drive a tank," Elder Compassion whispered to Orison. -"Those steel doors are too well built to be quickly opened by our -little locksmiths."</p> - -<p>"Can you drive a tank, Captain?" Orison asked.</p> - -<p>"Miss, I piloted one of those M4E8 Sherman's across Europe sixteen -years ago. I've still got the strength to pull a landrel. But you'll -have to get me out there to do it; because there isn't room in this -cell."</p> - -<p>"I'll get you out," Orison promised.</p> - -<p>"You want the Microfabridae to chew through the lock?" the -voice-in-her-head asked gently.</p> - -<p>"That's what I had in mind," Orison said.</p> - -<p>"I know," Elder Compassion said. "Please look at the lock, so that I -may direct our little friends to it."</p> - -<p>Orison gazed at the lock. A line of Microfabridae snaked up the -steel door-frame and entered the keyhole. From inside the door came -a chittering sound, like a clock gone berserk. Then the crustacea -reformed and marched down the door to the floor. Orison pressed the -door-catch. The eviscerated lock gave way.</p> - -<p>The captain stepped out to stare at the Microfabridae. "Miss," he said, -"you and I could make a fortune with a team of those trained termites. -There isn't a bank in the country that could stand up against us."</p> - -<p>"It's been thought of," Orison said. "Help me get this man down from -the tank, please, and we'll be on our way." Between them they lifted -the cocooned guard, wrapped like a larva in Microfabridaean silk, to -the cot, the little workers snipping with their chelae the threads that -had bound him to the steel.</p> - -<p>"Can you unlock the steel doors?" Orison asked.</p> - -<p>"I don't have the key," the Captain said.</p> - -<p>"Then we'll have to go through them," Orison said. "Can we do it?"</p> - -<p>"We've got thirty-five tons to roll up that ramp," the captain said. -"If we can't bust out with a punch like that, shame on us. Seems kind -of rough on the taxpayers to bulldoze through that expensive door."</p> - -<p>"If we don't make it out of here, those taxpayers may find themselves -paying their thirty per cent to someone less friendly than Uncle Sam," -Orison said. She clambered up the side of the tank and tugged at the -hatch.</p> - -<p>"Let me," said the captain. He opened the hatch and dropped inside. -"You sit here to my right. We're going out the hard way, and buttoned -up." He closed the hatch, then reached over his left shoulder to -tug the master battery switch, squeezed together the twin butterfly -switches on the panel and grabbed hold of the steering-landrels. "Hold -on, Miss. We're headed for sunlight."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The Sherman's thirty-five tons were rolling along at ten miles an hour -when its bow met steel. Concrete splinters flew from the sides of the -door, which crumpled as the tank fisted into its middle. The door broke -free of its supports and slammed outside, forming a deckway over which -the treads of the tank crunched. The captain killed the engine and -opened the hatch. He boosted Orison out, and followed her.</p> - -<p>"Orison! Over here!" Dink Gerding shouted. Orison leaped from the tank -and ran toward the Rolls-Royce. "Get down!" Dink shouted again. He ran -to seize her, and threw her to the ground. "And stay down!" He was up, -drawing his sword. There was a crash. A smear of lead appeared on the -concrete beside Orison. Dink, bellowing rage, was running down the ramp -into the armory basement, his sword raised.</p> - -<p>Kraft Gerding stood at the head of his troops at the foot of the -ramp. In hand he had an Army .45. He shouted to his men, a dozen -purple-ears, dressed in fatigues, each as big and ugly as the two -who'd been guarding Orison and the Captain. They strained forward -to follow him—but fell like ten-pins, tripped up by strands of web -knitted between their ankles by fast-working Microfabridae. "Don't stop -him, Elder Cousin!" Dink shouted, his words evidently meant for the -mysterious brain-guy, Elder Compassion, in the ninth floor of the Taft -Bank Building. "This I must do," Dink said.</p> - -<p>Kraft Gerding dropped the automatic and slicked his sword from its -scabbard. The blade, Orison saw, rising to her feet, was by no means an -ornament. It looked most naked and competent. Dink advanced upon his -brother, each holding his sword at the ready like scorpions ready to do -battle. "It would distress me to wound you, elder sibling," Dink said.</p> - -<p>"<i>Lese majesty</i> or no, my liege," Kraft shouted, "I intend to chop -you to stew-meat!" Their blades met and clashed, the swordsmen taking -the shock of their contact with skillful springing of their arms and -shoulders. Behind the clash of steel, Orison heard a new sound, the -scream of a siren. A second siren called out, and both grew louder. -"The police!" Wanji shouted. "Stop it, Sires!"</p> - -<p>The captain stood beside Orison. "I've seen <i>Hamlet</i> played," he said, -"but the sword-fight was nowhere near so violent as this. Who are these -two nuts, anyway?"</p> - -<p>"My fiance, and the man who, if he lives, will be my brother-in-law," -Orison said.</p> - -<p>"Excuse me," the captain said.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Orison gripped the captain's arm and tried not to cry out at Dink's -danger. Kraft parried his brother's blade, raising it high and to his -right. Then he went in like a flash, hacking his edge down toward the -juncture of shoulder and neck. Dink fell aside. Kraft's sword bit -concrete. Dink flipped his sword in a jeweled arc, slamming Kraft's -blade from his hand to spin end-over-end through the air like a -drum-majorette's baton. Kraft's sword slammed to the pavement. In an -instant a pool of Microfabridae had covered it, binding the steel to -the concrete with strands of their angel-hair.</p> - -<p>Dink advanced on his brother, backing him against the bulk of the -Sherman tank.</p> - -<p>Kraft Gerding stood with his hands at his sides, his face composed -in dignity, waiting for the coup de grace. "Bind the traitor, Elder -Cousin," Dink said, addressing an ear not present. Microfabridae, -obedient to the command they alone heard, rolled in little waves -across the steel door and knit Kraft in a web from ankles to larynx. -The police were very near now, their sirens dying as they slowed -to halt. Dink sheathed his sword. "Wanji!" he called. "Put him in -the car. It is time that we withdraw." Wanji ran up to the cocooned -figure, saluted, and dumped Kraft Gerding across his shoulder like a -giant spool of silk. The Microfabridae flowed to the Rolls and pooled -themselves somewhere in its trunk. "To the Bank, Wanji," Dink ordered, -seating himself beside his driver. Orison sat in the back, next to the -trussed-up Kraft.</p> - -<p>Police appeared, whistling and brandishing their revolvers. One -occupied himself with kicking at Kraft's grounded sword, tied to -the pavement by tendrils tougher than steel wire. Another guarded -the ankle-bound purple-ears, obviously unable to believe what he was -seeing. "You in the car there, stop!" a police officer shouted. Wanji, -erect and unheeding at the wheel, took the limousine around the corner -of the armory and down the street toward the Bank.</p> - -<p>"You'd have done better, brother, to have killed me," Kraft Gerding -said, strait-jacketed in silk.</p> - -<p>"Killing would seem appropriate, although our Elder Cousin declares -it unlawful," Dink said over his shoulder. "Your crime is treason -against the Triple Crown, attempted assassination of the Heir Apparent, -mutiny and kidnap. What punishment would you mete out to an officer so -turpitudinous, were you Defender of the Crowns?"</p> - -<p>"I would have him put to death in a manner befitting his station," -Kraft said. "I would not bind him like a sausage and pelt him with -taunts."</p> - -<p>"Perhaps you can gain a special dispensation from Elder Compassion, -allowing me to grant you a properly noble death," Dink said. "We'll ask -him, if you like."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company was closed, -the ostensible reason given by an easel set up in front of the glass -doors of the front entrance: "National Holiday: Birthday of Millard -Fillmore." One of the loyalist Purple-Ears materialized behind the -glass as the Rolls rolled up to the curb, and unlocked the doors.</p> - -<p>Wanji and the guard carried Kraft Gerding between them into the -bank-lobby, Dink relocking the doors behind them. A knot of spectators -gathered on the sidewalk outside, shading their eyes, examining with -much conversation the sign, the purple-eared guard, the uniformed Wanji -and Dink and the figure trussed up like a rolled carpet on the parquet -floor. "I think this busts up your counterfeiting ring, Dink," Orison -said. "What now?"</p> - -<p>"That is, darling, precisely the question I want to ask our -brain-trust, Elder Compassion," Dink said. "He is both our leader and -in a sense our warden, you see. He came with us to Earth to guarantee -that we in no way violate the principle of reverence for life in our -conquest of your planet."</p> - -<p>The elevator appeared, piloted by another of the Purple-Ears. "Nine," -Dink snapped. Wanji and the guard towed the packaged Kraft aboard.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The anteroom into which the elevator door opened on ninth floor -smelled of ozone and dryness. Faint music vibrated the desert air. -"Bach?" Orison asked.</p> - -<p>"Scarlatti," Dink said. "His music consoles Elder Compassion for the -violence of men. Here—you'll need these." He handed Orison a pair of -almost opaque goggles, the sort that welders wear. "Come on," he said, -tugging Orison through a door.</p> - -<p>Even with the heavy goggles, the room beyond was brilliant beyond -belief, a Sahara summer-solstice noon in brightness. The floor was -covered by tons of sand, duned up against the windows in waves that -would have disheartened a camel. The music now was almost as oppressive -as the heat and the light. Great booming gouts of sound came from every -direction. Suddenly, as though responding to Orison's mental protest, -the music stopped. The lights dimmed somewhat.</p> - -<p>"We have come, Elder Cousin," Dink announced to the sand.</p> - -<p>"I speak to the lovely woman," an interior voice said to all of them. -"Do not fear me, Orison, though I will seem to you a most hideous -worm. My world nestles next its sun. I, made to fit a homeworld that -would seem a Hell to you, could hardly be expected to conform to green -Earth's standards of beauty. Reflect, Orison, that I wish you well."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Something dragged itself across a dune. "My God!" Orison whispered, -gripping Dink's right arm with both her hands.</p> - -<p>"Orison, this is my mentor and my dearest friend," Dink said. "His name -is Elder Compassion. He is older than the language you speak. And he -is, though housed in strange flesh, a Man of Good Will."</p> - -<p>The thing that squatted across the mid-room dune was twelve feet long -from the tip of the arched scorpion-telson to the twin pincers that -formed a chitinous mustache beneath its mouth. It stared at her with a -pair of compound eyes the size of hub-caps. "I'll not weary you further -with squeezing words into your minds," the interior voice said. "Bring -me the writing-boards, Son and Cousin."</p> - -<p>"Cornet!" Dink snapped. "Bring scratchboards."</p> - -<p>"Sire!" A young officer ran back to the anteroom and came back with a -stack of blackened boards, one of which he set up in the sand before -the monster, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the lance-like -tip that quivered in the air above him. "It is a fearsome thing, -this killing-tool my body is equipped with," the voice said, "and -embarrassing. It is rather as though your good Gandhi had been forced -to carry a sub-machine gun through life." The cornet scrambled out -of way through the sand, and the giant sting lowered itself to the -scratchboard.</p> - -<p>The words he inscribed into the blackness were written in a delicate -italic, hardly larger than human penmanship: "My son, she is lovely."</p> - -<p>"It is gracious of you, Elder Cousin, to recognize beauty in a form so -unlike your own species," Dink said, bowing.</p> - -<p>There was a mental chuckle. "Her mind, you clod!" the monster sketched -in the scratchboard. "Her lovely, lovely mind."</p> - -<p>"I am pleased that you ratify my choice of wife, Elder Cousin," Dink -said.</p> - -<p>"She will assist you in the most difficult task ever a scion of the -Triple Crown had to accomplish, Son and Cousin," Elder Compassion -wrote. "She will aid you in preparing the Golden Worlds to accept -Coca-Cola."</p> - -<p>"Your meaning, Elder Cousin, is hidden from my poor understanding," -Dink said.</p> - -<p>"I mean this," Elder Compassion sketched on his scratchboard. "You came -for conquest bearing with you the seeds of violence, and thus defeat. -You came to subvert Earth by pandering to Earth's greed. You were -yourself, through the agent of your greedy brother, rendered impotent. -Violence has been done. We must now retreat, making such amends as we -can. In the years that will soon be upon us, Earth's men will follow -us to the Golden Worlds, where you, as Emperor, and Orison, Empress, -will greet them."</p> - -<p>"To the ship, then?" Dink asked. "What will we do with the rebels? With -Kraft, my brother?"</p> - -<p>"They have earned the payment of exile," Elder Compassion wrote. "We -will leave them here."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Dink turned to the young officer. "Cornet, assist our Elder Cousin to -the ship," he ordered. He turned to two of the purple-ears. "Take Kraft -to the vault," he said.</p> - -<p>Orison spoke to the monster. "Sir," she said, "you spoke of making -amends for the damage you have done. You must first of all destroy the -paper with which you'd hoped to ruin us."</p> - -<p>"I'll give those orders, Orison," Dink said.</p> - -<p>"What will be done about the counterfeit money you've already spent, -financing your subversion?" she asked.</p> - -<p>Elder Compassion was writing on his board. "Three miles beneath this -city lies a vein of gold," he wrote. "The Microfabridae are this -minute plumbing the earth to reach it. We will leave full payment for -our fiscal sins."</p> - -<p>Dink took Orison's hand. "You'll come with us?" he asked.</p> - -<p>"I will, Dink."</p> - -<p>"Then I, Rex-Imperator, Son of the Triple Crown, Prince Porphyrogenous -of Empire, take you to wife," he said.</p> - -<p>"If you're sure this is quite legal," Orison said, "I do."</p> - -<p>"There are voices all about us," Elder Compassion spoke in their minds. -"The traitor, Kraft, is in the vault, bound and seated in the midst of -wealth. We must go, or there will be more violence."</p> - -<p>"The moment the Microfabridae have left their golden payment for our -folly, Elder Cousin, guide them to the ship," Dink said. "I long to -show my Princess her dominions."</p> - -<p>"She is the first," the voice spoke again. "The first of the -irresistible conquerors from Earth."</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="ph2">[Transcriber's Note: No Section IV or Section VI headings in original]</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cinderella Story, by Allen Kim Lang - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CINDERELLA STORY *** - -***** This file should be named 61081-h.htm or 61081-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/0/8/61081/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - - - -</pre> - -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/61081-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/61081-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index f7f3443..0000000 --- a/old/61081-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/61081-h/images/illus.jpg b/old/61081-h/images/illus.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 6b6e72e..0000000 --- a/old/61081-h/images/illus.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/61081.txt b/old/61081.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a5077a9..0000000 --- a/old/61081.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2254 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cinderella Story, by Allen Kim Lang - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Cinderella Story - -Author: Allen Kim Lang - -Release Date: January 2, 2020 [EBook #61081] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CINDERELLA STORY *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - CINDERELLA STORY - - By ALLEN KIM LANG - - _What a bank! The First Vice-President - was a cool cat--the elevator and the - money operators all wore earmuffs--was - just as phony as a three-dollar bill!_ - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1961. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - - I - -The First Vice-President of the William Howard Taft National Bank and -Trust Company, the gentleman to whom Miss Orison McCall was applying -for a job, was not at all the public picture of a banker. His suit of -hound's-tooth checks, the scarlet vest peeping above the vee of his -jacket, were enough to assure Orison that the Taft Bank was a curious -bank indeed. "I gotta say, chick, these references of yours really -swing," said the Vice-President, Mr. Wanji. "Your last boss says you -come on real cool in the secretary-bit." - -"He was a very kind employer," Orison said. She tried to keep from -staring at the most remarkable item of Mr. Wanji's costume, a pair of -furry green earmuffs. It was not cold. - -Mr. Wanji returned to Orison her letters of reference. "What color -bread you got eyes for taking down, baby?" he asked. - -"Beg pardon?" - -"What kinda salary you bucking for?" he translated, bouncing up and -down on the toes of his rough-leather desert boots. - -"I was making one-twenty a week in my last position," Miss McCall said. - -"You're worth more'n that, just to jazz up the decor," Mr. Wanji said. -"What you say we pass you a cee-and-a-half a week. Okay?" He caught -Orison's look of bewilderment. "One each, a Franklin and a Grant," he -explained further. She still looked blank. "Sister, you gonna work -in a bank, you gotta know who's picture's on the paper. That's a -hunnerd-fifty a week, doll." - -"That will be most satisfactory, Mr. Wanji," Orison said. It was indeed. - -"Crazy!" Mr. Wanji grabbed Orison's right hand and shook it with -athletic vigor. "You just now joined up with our herd. I wanna tell -you, chick, it's none too soon we got some decent scenery around -this tomb, girlwise." He took her arm and led her toward the bank of -elevators. The uniformed operator nodded to Mr. Wanji, bowed slightly -to Orison. He, too, she observed, wore earmuffs. His were more formal -than Mr. Wanji's, being midnight blue in color. "Lift us to five, Mac," -Mr. Wanji said. As the elevator door shut he explained to Orison, -"You can make the Taft Bank scene anywhere between the street floor -and floor five. Basement and everything higher'n fifth floor is Iron -Curtain Country far's you're concerned. Dig, baby?" - -"Yes, sir," Orison said. She was wondering if she'd be issued earmuffs, -now that she'd become an employee of this most peculiar bank. - -The elevator opened on five to a tiny office, just large enough to -hold a single desk and two chairs. On the desk were a telephone and -a microphone. Beside them was a double-decked "In" and "Out" basket. -"Here's where you'll do your nine-to-five, honey," Mr. Wanji said. - -"What will I be doing, Mr. Wanji?" Orison asked. - -The Vice-President pointed to the newspaper folded in the "In" basket. -"Flip on the microphone and read the paper to it," he said. "When you -get done reading the paper, someone will run you up something new to -read. Okay?" - -"It seems a rather peculiar job," Orison said. "After all, I'm a -secretary. Is reading the newspaper aloud supposed to familiarize me -with the Bank's operation?" - -"Don't bug me, kid," Mr. Wanji said. "All you gotta do is read that -there paper into this here microphone. Can do?" - -"Yes, sir," Orison said. "While you're here, Mr. Wanji, I'd like to -ask you about my withholding tax, social security, credit union, -coffee-breaks, union membership, lunch hour and the like. Shall we take -care of these details now? Or would you--" - -"You just take care of that chicken-flickin' kinda stuff any way seems -best to you, kid," Mr. Wanji said. - -"Yes, sir," Orison said. This laissez-faire policy of Taft Bank's -might explain why she'd been selected from the Treasury Department's -secretarial pool to apply for work here, she thought. Orison McCall, -girl Government spy. She picked up the newspaper from the "In" basket, -unfolded it to discover the day's _Wall Street Journal_, and began at -the top of column one to read it aloud. Wanji stood before the desk, -nodding his head as he listened. "You blowing real good, kid," he said. -"The boss is gonna dig you the most." - -Orison nodded. Holding her newspaper and her microphone, she read the -one into the other. Mr. Wanji flicked his fingers in a good-by, then -took off upstairs in the elevator. - - * * * * * - -By lunchtime Orison had finished the _Wall Street Journal_ and had -begun reading a book an earmuffed page had brought her. The book was a -fantastic novel of some sort, named _The Hobbit_. Reading this peculiar -fare into the microphone before her, Miss McCall was more certain than -ever that the Taft Bank was, as her boss in Washington had told her, -the front for some highly irregular goings-on. An odd business for a -Federal Mata Hari, Orison thought, reading a nonsense story into a -microphone for an invisible audience. - -Orison switched off her microphone at noon, marked her place in the -book and took the elevator down to the ground floor. The operator was -a new man, ears concealed behind scarlet earmuffs. In the car, coming -down from the interdicted upper floors, were several gentlemen with -briefcases. As though they were members of a ballet-troupe, these -gentlemen whipped off their hats with a single motion as Orison stepped -aboard the elevator. Each of the chivalrous men, hat pressed to his -heart, wore a pair of earmuffs. Orison nodded bemused acknowledgment -of their gesture, and got off in the lobby vowing never to put a penny -into this curiousest of banks. - -Lunch at the stand-up counter down the street was a normal interlude. -Girls from the ground-floor offices of Taft Bank chattered together, -eyed Orison with the coolness due so attractive a competitor, and -favored her with no gambit to enter their conversations. Orison sighed, -finished her tuna salad on whole-wheat, then went back upstairs to her -lonely desk and her microphone. By five, Orison had finished the book, -reading rapidly and becoming despite herself engrossed in the saga of -Bilbo Baggins, Hobbit. She switched off the microphone, put on her -light coat, and rode downstairs in an elevator filled with earmuffed, -silent, hat-clasping gentlemen. - -What I need, Orison thought, walking rapidly to the busline, is a -double Scotch, followed by a double Scotch. And what the William Howard -Taft National Bank and Trust Company needs is a joint raid by forces of -the U.S. Treasury Department and the American Psychiatric Association. -Earmuffs, indeed. Fairy-tales read into a microphone. A Vice-President -with the vocabulary of a racetrack tout. And what goes on in those -upper floors? Orison stopped in at the restaurant nearest her apartment -house--the Windsor Arms--and ordered a meal and a single Martini. Her -boss in Washington had told her that this job of hers, spying on Taft -Bank from within, might prove dangerous. Indeed it was, she thought. -She was in danger of becoming a solitary drinker. - -Home in her apartment, Orison set the notes of her first day's -observations in order. Presumably Washington would call tonight for -her initial report. Item: some of the men at the Bank wore earmuffs, -several didn't. Item: the Vice-President's name was Mr. Wanji: -Oriental? Item: the top eight floors of the Taft Bank Building seemed -to be off-limits to all personnel not wearing earmuffs. Item: she was -being employed at a very respectable salary to read newsprint and -nonsense into a microphone. Let Washington make sense of that, she -thought. - - * * * * * - -In a gloomy mood, Orison McCall showered and dressed for bed. Eleven -o'clock. Washington should be calling soon, inquiring after the results -of her first day's spying. - -No call. Orison slipped between the sheets at eleven-thirty. The clock -was set; the lights were out. Wasn't Washington going to call her? -Perhaps, she thought, the Department had discovered that the Earmuffs -had her phone tapped. - -"Testing," a baritone voice muttered. - -Orison sat up, clutching the sheet around her throat. "Beg pardon?" she -said. - -"Testing," the male voice repeated. "One, two, three; three, two, one. -Do you read me? Over." - -Orison reached under the bed for a shoe. Gripping it like a Scout-ax, -she reached for the light cord with her free hand and tugged at it. - -The room was empty. - -"Testing," the voice repeated. - -"What you're testing," Orison said in a firm voice, "is my patience. -Who are you?" - -"Department of Treasury Monitor J-12," the male voice said. "Do you -have anything to report, Miss McCall?" - -"Where are you, Monitor?" she demanded. - -"That's classified information," the voice said. "Please speak directly -to your pillow, Miss McCall." - -Orison lay down cautiously. "All right," she whispered to her pillow. - -"Over here," the voice instructed her, coming from the unruffled pillow -beside her. - -Orison transferred her head to the pillow to her left. "A radio?" she -asked. - -"Of a sort," Monitor J-12 agreed. "We have to maintain communications -security. Have you anything to report?" - -"I got the job," Orison said. "Are you ... in that pillow ... all the -time?" - -"No, Miss McCall," the voice said. "Only at report times. Shall we -establish our rendezvous here at eleven-fifteen, Central Standard Time, -every day?" - -"You make it sound so improper," Orison said. - -"I'm far enough away to do you no harm, Miss McCall," the monitor said. -"Now, tell me what happened at the bank today." - -Orison briefed her pillow on the Earmuffs, on her task of reading to a -microphone, and on the generally mimsy tone of the William Howard Taft -National Bank and Trust Company. "That's about it, so far," she said. - -"Good report," J-12 said from the pillow. "Sounds like you've dropped -into a real snakepit, beautiful." - -"How do you know ... why do you think I'm beautiful?" Orison asked. - -"Native optimism," the voice said. "Good night." J-12 signed off with -a peculiar electronic pop that puzzled Orison for a moment. Then she -placed the sound: J-12 had kissed his microphone. - -Orison flung the shoe and the pillow under her bed, and resolved -to write Washington for permission to make her future reports by -registered mail. - - - II - -At ten o'clock the next morning, reading page four of the current -_Wall Street Journal_, Orison was interrupted by the click of a pair -of leather heels. The gentleman whose heels had just slammed together -was bowing. And she saw with some gratification that he was not -wearing earmuffs. "My name," the stranger said, "is Dink Gerding. I am -President of this bank, and wish at this time to welcome you to our -little family." - -"I'm Orison McCall," she said. A handsome man, she mused. Twenty-eight? -So tall. Could he ever be interested in a girl just five-foot-three? -Maybe higher heels? - -"We're pleased with your work, Miss McCall," Dink Gerding said. He took -the chair to the right of her desk. - -"It's nothing," Orison said, switching off the microphone. - -"On the contrary, Miss McCall. Your duties are most important," he said. - -"Reading papers and fairy-tales into this microphone is nothing any -reasonably astute sixth-grader couldn't do as well," Orison said. - -"You'll be reading silently before long," Mr. Gerding said. He smiled, -as though this explained everything. "By the way, your official -designation is Confidential Secretary. It's me whose confidences you're -to keep secret. If I ever need a letter written, may I stop down here -and dictate it?" - -"Please do," Orison said. This bank president, for all his grace and -presence, was obviously as kookie as his bank. - -"Have you ever worked in a bank before, Miss McCall?" Mr. Gerding -asked, as though following her train of thought. - -"No, sir," she said. "Though I've been associated with a rather large -financial organization." - -"You may find some of our methods a little strange, but you'll get used -to them," he said. "Meanwhile, I'd be most grateful if you'd dispense -with calling me 'sir.' My name is Dink. It is ridiculous, but I'd enjoy -your using it." - -"Dink?" she asked. "And I suppose you're to call me Orison?" - -"That's the drill," he said. "One more question, Orison. Dinner this -evening?" - -Direct, she thought. Perhaps that's why he's president of a bank, and -still so young. "We've hardly met," she said. - -"But we're on a first-name basis already," he pointed out. "Dance?" - -"I'd love to," Orison said, half expecting an orchestra to march, -playing, from the elevator. - -"Then I'll pick you up at seven. Windsor Arms, if I remember your -personnel form correctly." He stood, lean, all bone and muscle, -and bowed slightly. West Point? Hardly. His manners were European. -Sandhurst, perhaps, or Saint Cyr. Was she supposed to reply with a -curtsy? Orison wondered. - -"Thank you," she said. - -He was a soldier, or had been: the way, when he turned, his shoulders -stayed square. The crisp clicking of his steps, a military metronome, -to the elevator. When the door slicked open Orison, staring after Dink, -saw that each of the half-dozen men aboard snapped off their hats (but -not their earmuffs) and bowed, the earmuffed operator bowing with them. -Small bows, true; just head-and-neck. But not to her. To Dink Gerding. - - * * * * * - -Orison finished the _Wall Street Journal_ by early afternoon. A -page came up a moment later with fresh reading-matter: a copy of -yesterday's _Congressional Record_. She launched into the _Record_, -thinking as she read of meeting again this evening that handsome -madman, that splendid lunatic, that unlikely bank-president. "You read -so _well_, darling," someone said across the desk. - -Orison looked up. "Oh, hello," she said. "I didn't hear you come up." - -"I walk ever so lightly," the woman said, standing hip-shot in front -of the desk, "and pounce ever so hard." She smiled. Opulent, Orison -thought. Built like a burlesque queen. No, she thought, I don't like -her. Can't. Wouldn't if I could. Never cared for cats. - -"I'm Orison McCall," she said, and tried to smile back without showing -teeth. - -"Delighted," the visitor said, handing over an undelighted palm. "I'm -Auga Vingt. Auga, to my friends." - -"Won't you sit down, Miss Vingt?" - -"So kind of you, darling," Auga Vingt said, "but I shan't have time to -visit. I just wanted to stop and welcome you as a Taft Bank co-worker. -One for all, all for one. Yea, Team. You know." - -"Thanks," Orison said. - -"Common courtesy," Miss Vingt explained. "Also, darling, I'd like to -draw your attention to one little point. Dink Gerding--you know, the -shoulders and muscles and crewcut? Well, he's posted property. Should -you throw your starveling charms at my Dink, you'd only get your little -eyes scratched out. Word to the wise, _n'est-ce pas_?" - -"Sorry you have to leave so suddenly," Orison said, rolling her _Wall -Street Journal_ into a club and standing. "Darling." - -"So remember, Tiny, Dink Gerding is mine. You're all alone up here. -You could get broken nails, fall down the elevator shaft, all sorts of -annoyance. Understand me, darling?" - -"You make it very clear," Orison said. "Now you'd best hurry back to -your stanchion, Bossy, before the hay's all gone." - -"Isn't it lovely, the way you and I reached an understanding right -off?" Auga asked. "Well, ta-ta." She turned and walked to the elevator, -displaying, Orison thought, a disgraceful amount of ungirdled rhumba -motion. - -The elevator stopped to pick up the odious Auga. A passenger, male, -stepped off. "Good morning, Mr. Gerding," Miss Vingt said, bowing. - -"Carry on, Colonel," the stranger replied. As the elevator door closed, -he stepped up to Orison's desk. "Good morning. Miss McCall," he said. - -"What is this?" Orison demanded. "Visiting-day at the zoo?" She paused -and shook her head. "Excuse me, sir," she said. "It's just that ... -Vingt thing...." - -"Auga is rather intense," the new Mr. Gerding said. - -"Yeah, intense," Orison said. "Like a kidney-stone." - -"I stopped by to welcome you to the William Howard Taft National Bank -and Trust Company family, Miss McCall," he said. "I'm Kraft Gerding, -Dink's elder brother. I understand you've met Dink already." - -"Yes, sir," Orison said. The hair of this new Mr. Gerding was cropped -even closer than Dink's. His mustache was gray-tipped, like a patch -of frosted furze; and his eyes, like Dink's, were cobalt blue. The -head, Orison mused, would look quite at home in one of Kaiser Bill's -spike-topped _Pickelhauben_; but the ears were in evidence, and seemed -normal. Mr. Kraft Gerding bowed--what continental manners these bankers -had!--and Orison half expected him to free her hand from the rolled-up -paper she still clutched and plant a kiss on it. - - * * * * * - -Instead, Kraft Gerding smiled a smile as frosty as his mustache and -said, "I understand that my younger brother has been talking with you, -Miss McCall. Quite proper, I know. But I must warn you against mixing -business with pleasure." - -Orison jumped up, tossing the paper into her wastebasket. "I quit!" she -shouted. "You can take this crazy bank ... into bankruptcy, for all I -care. I'm not going to perch up here, target for every uncaged idiot in -finance, and listen to another word." - -"Dearest lady, my humblest pardon," Kraft Gerding said, bowing again, -a bit lower. "Your work is splendid; your presence is Taft Bank's most -charming asset; my only wish is to serve and protect you. To this end, -dear lady, I feel it my duty to warn you against my brother. A word to -the wise...." - -"_N'est-ce pas?_" Orison said. "Well, Buster, here's a word to the -foolish. Get lost." - -Kraft Gerding bowed and flashed his gelid smile. "Until we meet again?" - -"I'll hold my breath," Orison promised. "The elevator is just behind -you. Push a button, will you? And _bon voyage_." - -Kraft Gerding called the elevator, marched aboard, favored Orison with -a cold, quick bow, then disappeared into the mysterious heights above -fifth floor. - -First the unspeakable Auga Vingt, then the obnoxious Kraft Gerding. -Surely, Orison thought, recovering the _Wall Street Journal_ from her -wastebasket and smoothing it, no one would convert a major Midwestern -bank into a lunatic asylum. How else, though, could the behavior -of the Earmuffs be explained? Could madmen run a bank? Why not, she -thought. History is rich in examples of madmen running nations, banks -and all. She began again to read the paper into the microphone. If she -finished early enough, she might get a chance to prowl those Off-Limits -upper floors. - -Half an hour further into the paper, Orison jumped, startled by the -sudden buzz of her telephone. She picked it up. "_Wanji e-Kal, Datto. -Dink ger-Dink d'summa._" - -Orison scribbled down this intelligence in bemused Gregg before -replying, "I'm a local girl. Try me in English." - -"Oh. Hi, Miss McCall," the voice said. "Guess I goofed. I'm in kinda -clutch. This is Wanji. I got a kite for Mr. Dink Gerding. If you see -him, tell him the escudo green is pale. Got that, doll?" - -"Yes, Mr. Wanji. I'll tell Mr. Gerding." Orison clicked the phone down. -What now, Mata Hari? she asked herself. What was the curious language -Mr. Wanji had used? She'd have to report the message to Washington by -tonight's pillow, and let the polyglots of Treasury Intelligence puzzle -it out. Meanwhile, she thought, scooting her chair back from her desk, -she had a vague excuse to prowl the upper floors. The Earmuffs could -only fire her. - -Orison folded the paper and put it in the "Out" basket. Someone would -be here in a moment with something new to read. She'd best get going. -The elevator? No. The operators had surely been instructed to keep her -off the upstairs floors. - -But the building had a stairway. - - - III - -The door on the sixth floor was locked. Orison went on up the stairs to -seven. The glass of the door there was painted black on the inside, and -the landing was cellar-dark. Orison closed her eyes for a moment. There -was a curious sound. The buzzing of a million bees, barely within the -fringes of her hearing. Somehow, a very pleasant sound. - -She opened her eyes and tried the knob. The door opened. - -Orison was blinded by the lights, brilliant as noonday sun. The room -extended through the entire seventh floor, its windows boarded shut, -its ceiling a mass of fluorescent lamps. Set about the floor were -galvanized steel tanks, rectangular and a little bigger than bathtubs. -Orison counted the rows of tanks. Twelve rows, nine tiers. One hundred -and eight tanks. She walked closer. The tubs were laced together by -strands of angel-hair, delicate white lattices scintillating with -pink. She walked to the nearest of the tubs and looked in. It was half -full of a greenish fluid, seething with tiny pink bubbles. For a moment -Orison thought she saw Benjamin Franklin winking up at her from the -liquid. Then she screamed. - -The pink bubbles, the tiny flesh-colored flecks glinting light from -the spun-sugar bridges between the tanks, were spiders. Millions -upon millions of spiders, each the size of a mustard-seed; crawling, -leaping, swinging, spinning webs, seething in the hundred tanks. Orison -put her hands over her ears and screamed again, backing toward the -stairway door. - -Into a pair of arms. - -"I had hoped you'd be happy here, Miss McCall," Kraft Gerding said. -Orison struggled to release herself. She broke free only to have -her wrists seized by two Earmuffs that had appeared with the elder -Gerding. "It seems that our Pandora doesn't care for spiders," he -said. "Really, Miss McCall, our little pets are quite harmless. Were -we to toss you into one of these tanks...." Orison struggled against -her two _sumo_-sized captors, whose combined weights exceeded hers by -some quarter-ton, without doing more than lifting her feet from the -floor. "... your flesh would be unharmed, though they spun and darted -all around you. Our Microfabridae are petrovorous, Miss McCall. Of -course, once they discovered your teeth, and through them a skeleton of -calcium, a delicacy they find most toothsome, you'd be filleted within -minutes." - -"Elder Compassion wouldn't like your harming the girl, Sire," one of -the earmuffed _sumo_-wrestlers protested. - -"Elder Compassion has no rank," Kraft Gerding said. "Miss McCall, you -must tell me what you were doing here, or I'll toss you to the spiders." - -"Dink ... Dink!" Orison shouted. - -"My beloved younger brother is otherwise engaged than in the rescue of -damsels in distress," Kraft said. "Someone, after all, has to mind the -bank." - -"I came to bring a message to Dink," Orison said. "Let me go, you -acromegalic apes!" - -"The message?" Kraft Gerding demanded. - -"Something about escudo green. Put me down!" - - * * * * * - -Suddenly she was dropped. Her mountainous keepers were on the floor as -though struck by lightning, their arms thrown out before them, their -faces abject against the floor. Kraft Gerding was slowly lowering -himself to one knee. Dink had entered the spider-room. Without -questions, he strode between the shiko-ing Earmuffs and put his arms -around Orison. - -"They can't harm you," he said. She turned to press her face against -his chest. "You're all right, child. Breathe deep, swallow, and turn -your brain back on. All right, now?" - -"All right," she said, still trembling. "They were going to throw me to -the spiders." - -"Kraft told you that?" Dink Gerding released her and turned to the -kneeling man. "Stand up, Elder Brother." - -"I...." - -Dink brought his right fist up from hip-level, crashing it into Kraft's -jaw. Kraft Gerding joined the Earmuffs on the floor. - -"If you'd care to stand again, Elder Brother, you may attempt to -recover your dignity without regard for the difference in our rank." -Kraft struggled to one knee and remained kneeling, gazing up at Dink -through half-closed eyes. "No? Then get out of here, all of you. -_Samma!_" - -Kraft Gerding arose, stared for a moment at Dink and Orison, then, with -the merest hint of a bow, led his two giant Earmuffs to the elevator. - -"I wish you hadn't come up here, Orison," Dink said. "Why did you do -it?" - -"Have you read the story of Bluebeard?" Orison asked. She stood close -to Dink, keeping her eyes on the nearest spidertank. "I had to see -what it was you kept up here so secretly, what it was that I was -forbidden to see. My excuse was to have been that I was looking for -you, to deliver a message from Mr. Wanji. He said I was to tell you -that the escudo green is pale." - -"You're too curious, and Wanji is too careless," Dink said. "Now, what -is this thing you have about spiders?" - -"I've always been terrified of them," Orison said. "When I was a little -girl, I had to stay upstairs all day one Sunday because there was a -spider hanging from his thread in the stairway. I waited until Dad came -home and took it down with a broom. Even then, I didn't have appetite -for supper." - -"Strange," Dink said. He walked over to the nearest tank and plucked -one of the tiny pink creatures from a web-bridge. "This is no spider, -Orison," he said. - -She backed away from Dink Gerding and the minuscule creature he cupped -in the palm of his hand. "These are Microfabridae, more nearly related -to shellfish than to spiders," he said. "They're stone-and-metal -eaters. They literally couldn't harm a fly. Look at it, Orison." He -extended his palm. Orison forced herself to look. The little creature, -flesh-colored against his flesh, was nearly invisible, scuttling around -the bowl of his hand. "Pretty little fellow, isn't he?" Dink asked. -"Here. You hold him." - -"I'd rather not," she protested. - -"I'd be happier if you did," Dink said. - - * * * * * - -Orison extended her hand as into a furnace. Dink brushed the -Microfabridus from his palm to hers. It felt crisp and hard, like -a legged grain of sand. Dink took a magnifier from his pocket and -unfolded it, to hold it over Orison's palm. - -"He's like a baby crawdad," Orison said. - -"A sort of crustacean," Dink agreed. "We use them in a commercial -process we're developing. That's why we keep this floor closed off and -secret. We don't have a patent on the use of Microfabridae, you see." - -"What do they do?" Orison asked. - -"That's still a secret," Dink said, smiling. "I can't tell even you -that, not yet, even though you're my most confidential secretary." - -"What's he doing now?" Orison asked, watching the Microfabridus, -perched up on the rear four of his six microscopic legs, scratching -against her high-school class-ring with his tiny chelae. - -"They like gold," Dink explained, peering across her shoulder, -comfortably close. "They're attracted to it by a chemical tropism, as -children are attracted to candy. Toss him back into his tank, Orison. -We'd better get you down where you belong." - -Orison brushed the midget crustacean off her finger into the nearest -tank, where he joined the busy boil of his fellows. She felt her ring. -It was pitted where the Microfabridus had been nibbling. "Strange, -using crawdads in a bank," she said. She stood silent for a moment. "I -thought I heard music," she said. "I heard it when I came in. Something -like the sighing of wind in winter trees." - -"That's the hymn of the Microfabridae," Dink said. "They all sing -together while they work, a chorus of some twenty million voices." He -took her arm. "If you listen very carefully, you'll find the song these -little workers sing the most beautiful music in the world." - -Orison closed her eyes, leaning back into Dink's arms, listening to -the music that seemed on the outermost edge of her hearing. Wildness, -storm and danger were its theme, counterpointed by promises of peace -and harbor. She heard the wash of giant waves in the song, the crash -of breakers against granite, cold and insatiable. And behind this, the -quiet of sheltered tide-pools, the soft lub of sea-arms landlocked. -"It's an ancient song," Dink said. "The Microfabridae have been -singing it for a million years." He released her, and opened a -wood-covered wooden box. He scooped up a cupful of the sand inside. -"Hold out your hands," he told Orison. He filled them with the sand. -"Throw our singers some supper for their song," he said. - -Orison went with her cupped hands to the nearest tank and sprinkled the -mineral fishfood around inside it. The Microfabridae leaped from the -liquid like miniature porpoises, seizing the grains of sand in mid-air. -"They're so very strange," Orison said. At the bottom of the tank she -thought she saw Ben Franklin again, winking at her through the bubbling -life. Nonsense, she thought, brushing her hands. - - * * * * * - -Dink took her to the elevator and pressed the "Down" button. "Don't -come up here again unless I bring you," he said. "The Microfabridae -aren't dangerous, despite what my brother told you, but some of our -processes might involve some risk to bystanders. So don't take any -more tours above the fifth floor without me as your guide. All right, -Orison?" - -"Yes, Dink." - -The elevator stopped. "Take the lady to her office," Dink told the -bowing, earmuffed operator. "And Orison," he said, just before the -door closed, "I'm really not a Bluebeard. See you this evening." - -Dink Gerding, wearing an ordinary enough suit, well-cut, expensive, but -nothing extraordinary for a banker, called for Orison at seven. He'd -look well, she thought, slipping into the coat he held for her, in a -white uniform brocaded with pounds of spun gold, broad epaulettes, a -stiff bank of extravagantly-colored ribbons across his chest; perhaps -resting his right hand on the pommel of a dress saber. "Dink," she -asked him, "were you ever in the Army?" - -"You might say I'm still in an army," he said, turning and smiling down -at her from that arrogant posture of his. "I'm a corporal in the army -of the gainfully employed; an army where there's little glamor but -better pay than in the parades-and-battles sort. What makes you ask, -Orison?" - -"Because of the way you stand and walk, Dink," she said. "Like an -Infantry captain from Texas." - -"I'm flattered," Dink Gerding said, holding open the lobby door for -her. "The car's just around the corner." - -"I met your brother, Kraft, earlier today, just before he and the -Earmuffs caught me up on eighth floor," Orison said. "He's no Texan, -that one. A Junker, maybe. I'm afraid I don't much care for your -brother, Dink." - -"To be my elder brother is Kraft's special misfortune," Dink said. "I -understand he was quite loveable as a boy. Here's our transportation." - -The car was a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, splendidly conspicuous beside -the curb of the Windsor Arms, reducing that nobly-named establishment -by contrast to more democratic proportions. The ubiquitous Mr. Wanji, -liveried in a uniform nearly as ornate as the one Orison had visualized -for Dink, only his earmuffs clashing with the magnificence of his -costume, sprang from the driver's seat, raced around the limousine and -stood at attention holding the door for Orison and her escort. The -front door of the Rolls was marked, she observed, with a gold device -of three coronets. At the center of the triangle they formed was the -single letter "D." - -The Rolls negotiated the city streets with the dignity of the _Queen -Elizabeth_ entering a minor harbor. "I thought you bankers aspired to -the common touch," Orison remarked. "I expected you to come for me in a -taxi, or perhaps a year-old Ford you drove yourself." - -"Wanji is a better driver than I. So I have him drive me," Dink -explained. "We each do the work we're trained for. I assist Wanji in -balancing his checkbook, for example. As for this car, it belongs not -to me, but to my family. My family owns most of the toys I play with." -He paused. "I've been thinking, Orison, of acquiring a most valuable -property for myself alone." - -"A nice little seventy-meter yacht?" Orison inquired. "Or the island of -Majorca, perhaps?" - -"Something even grander," Dink said. "You, Miss McCall." - -"But, Dink!" - -The Rolls glided to the curb. Wanji jumped out and snapped open the -door. "Sire!" he said, and saluted as Dink disbarked. Orison took -Dink's hand and stepped to the curb, acknowledging Wanji's bow to her -with a princess smile. She'd come a long way from the secretarial pool. - - * * * * * - -The doorman of the restaurant, instructed as to the importance of -these clients by their tableau at the curb, ushered Dink Gerding and -Orison McCall into the presence of the maitre d'. When the doorman -had been rewarded with a crackling handshake, the headwaiter led them -through the crowd of groundlings as though they were accompanied by -fife and drums. The table to which he bowed them, while not the most -conspicuous, was without doubt the finest the management had to offer. -The _Reserved_ sign was swept aside with a gesture that indicated that -there were no reservations where Mr. Dink Gerding was concerned. -Mr. Gerding justified the maitre's confidence in him with another -green-palmed handshake. - -"Dink," Orison whispered across the table. "That was a fifty-dollar -bill you gave him." - -"Yes, it was," Dink admitted. "I felt that fifty was enough." - -"Quite enough," Orison assured him. - -The wine-steward, wearing a chain that could have held a tub to -mooring, absorbed Dink's instructions with the air of a chela attending -the dying words of his guru. The two waiters poised themselves -reverently at his shoulders, waiting the revelation of his order. -"We'll begin ..." Dink began. - -"Dink, I'd like a lobster," Orison said. - -"I'd not advise lobster," Dink said thoughtfully. "I'm afraid that -lobster won't agree with you this evening." - -"Dink, lobster is what I want," Orison insisted. "Haven't you heard of -the Nineteenth Amendment?" - -"Very well, feminist," Dink said. He turned to the waiter at his right. -"The lady will have a lobster." He turned to the left. "As for me, a -saddle of venison, and such accessory furniture as you may choose to -accompany it." The waiters bowed and retreated. - -"Why do you insist on being boss, even after banking-hours?" Orison -asked. - -"Being boss is not my nature, but is my training," Dink said. "It seems -to me, Orison, that you American women resent the dignity of being -served by an adoring man." - -"I prefer dignities to be more democratic," she said. "Why, in any -case, should you be exercised by my choosing lobster for dinner? My -digestion is my own affair, isn't it?" - - * * * * * - -"Your question," Dink said, resting his elbows on the table, "requires -a two-part answer. _Imprimus_: everything you do interests me, Orison, -inasmuch as you are my future bride. Please make no comment at this -point. Allow me to enjoy for the moment the male privilege of unimpeded -speech. _Secundus_: I once wished to be a doctor, had not my career -been chosen by my father. I still pursue the study of medicine as a -hobby. I didn't wish you to order lobster because I'm certain that -you'll be unable to enjoy lobster." - -"I've eaten it before," Orison said. "Except for the engineering -difficulties in getting through the shell with all those little picks -and nutcrackers and nail-clippers, I had no trouble to speak of. Dink, -are you a foreigner?" - -"What makes you think I may be?" he asked. - -"The crest of your car, the earmuffs on most your staff at the Bank and -the fact that you seem to think a woman's opinion nothing more than a -trifle. There's a beginning," Orison said. - -"What's wrong with earmuffs?" Dink demanded. "Everybody wears earmuffs." - -"Not everybody," Orison said. "Not in April. Not bank officials. Not -indoors, in any case." - -"Must report this to the Board," Dink said, taking a notebook from his -pocket and scribbling. "Must find alternative. No earmuffs indoors." - -Perfect, Orison thought, near tears. He's perfect. He'd sit astride -that milk-white charger like a round-table knight, sturdy and lean and -honest-eyed. Dink is perfect, she thought, except only that he's insane. - -Dink tucked his notebook back into his vest-pocket. "If I were a -foreigner," he asked, "would it make any difference to you?" - -"Your nationality should concern me as little as my diet concerns you," -Orison said. - -"You said _should_," Dink pointed out. "That means that you are -concerned with me. Therefore, I will formally invite you to marry me." -He held up his hand as Orison began to speak. "I warn you, Orison, -there are only two answers possible to my proposal. Only _Yes_ or _Some -day_." - -"What if I said no?" Orison asked. - -"I'd interpret it as Some day," he said, and smiled. - -"You know nothing about me," Orison protested. - -"But I do," Dink said. "I know you're good. I know that you've fallen -half in love with me, and I entirely in love with you, in this half-day -in April that we've known each other." - -"No," Orison said, gripping tightly the edge of the table. - -"That means, Some day," he said. - -The lobster arrived in post-mortem splendor, borne on a silver tray, -brick-red, garnished with sprigs of parsley and geranium, served with -the silver instruments designed for his dissection and the bowl of -baptismal butter. "Oh ..." Orison said, turning her eyes away from the -supper she'd selected. "It's horrible!" - -"You've no appetite for lobster?" Dink asked. - -"I'd as soon eat boiled baby," Orison said, pressing her napkin against -her lips. - -"Take it away," Dink instructed the waiter. "The lady will have the -same order as I." The crustacean, red but undismembered, was again -borne aloft by the waiter to be returned to the scene of his martyrdom. -"Try a little of the wine, Orison," Dink suggested, tipping a splash of -the Riesling into her glass. "It will clear your head." - - * * * * * - -She sipped. "It helps," she admitted. "What do you suppose happened -to me, Dink? It's as though all of a sudden I'd become allergic to -lobster." - -"In a sense you are, darling," Dink said. - -"Such a strange thing," she said. - -"Don't let these strange things worry you, Orison," Dink said. "Think -this: for everything in the universe, there's an explanation. If you -understand it or not, the explanation's still there, curled up in the -middle of the mystery like Pinocchio in the belly of his whale. Just -have faith in the essential honesty of the universe, Orison, and you'll -be all right." - -"A comforting philosophy," Orison said. "I can't imagine an explanation -for my sudden distaste for lobster, though." - -"Such things happen," Dink assured her. "I have a friend, for instance, -who holds life in such reverence that he eats only vegetables. Isn't -that strange? And he worries, this very good friend of mine, that -perhaps vegetables have souls, too; and that perhaps it is no more -moral to destroy them for his food than it is to roast and ingest his -fellow animals." - -"So what does this friend of yours eat?" Orison asked. - -"Vegetables," Dink said. "But he worries about it. He's now proposing -to confine his diet to cakes made from algae. His argument is that if -vegetables have souls, algae have very small souls indeed; and that -they suffer less in being eaten than would, say, a cabbage or an -apple. His guilt may be numerically greater, eating algae. But it will -be qualitatively less." - -"Has this micro-vegetarian friend of yours thought of psychotherapy?" -Orison asked. - -"Often," Dink said. "But he maintains that he's much too old to pour -out his mind to a stranger; too set in his patterns to change. He fears -most of all, he says, that he might be made uncomfortable in new ways." - -"We all do," mused Orison. - -"Do I make you uncomfortable in a new way?" Dink asked. - -"You're strange," Orison said. "Your Bank is fantastic. All in all, -this is the most peculiar day I've ever lived." - -"I promise you, Orison, that someday you'll understand why the sight -of lobster made you ill this evening, why so many of the people at the -Bank wear earmuffs, why I seem foreign. You'll understand the work of -the singing Microfabridae and you'll meet Elder Compassion; you'll -know why Wanji was excited about the escudo green; and someday soon, -this most of all I promise you, you'll love me, and be my wife. Hah! -Here are the comestibles. Let's talk of topics less vital than love -and earmuffs. Let's talk of the weather, and Mr. Kennedy, and the -orchestra." - - - V - -_Abstract of Transcript, Monitor J-12, to U.S. Treasury Department -Intelligence:_ - -"Miss Orison McCall's report from Potawattomi, Indiana, was delayed -by one hour. Contact was established at 00:10 hours. Details follow -herewith: - -"J-12: CQ, CQ, CQ, CQ. - -"Miss McCall: If you'd been a minute later, I'd have been sound asleep, -dreaming bad dreams. - -"J-12: Is the job wearing you down? - -"Miss McCall: It's exciting and mysterious. Nothing like Washington. -The boss of Taft Bank appears to be a man named Dink Gerding. He's six -feet tall and slim, his hair is clipped short as a dachshund's, and he -walks like an Olympic skier. The other men at the bank bow when they -meet him, and some of them get all the way down onto the floor when -he's angry. Do you suppose this means something? - -"J-12: Everything means something. - -"Miss McCall: He said that. Dink did. For everything in the universe, -he said, there's an explanation. - -"J-12: Not so. I mean that everything that people do in banks is -explainable. Not all the universe is logical--the tax-structure, for -instance, or the ways of women. - -"Miss McCall: I'm not required to put up with male chauvinism from a -pillow, Mister, no banns having been published between us. - -"J-12: Sorry, beautiful. Here are instructions from the Chief. He wants -to know why some members of the Taft Bank staff wear earmuffs, and he -wants details of what goes on upstairs. He wants you to get to know -this Dink Gerding better. Over. - -"Miss McCall: Roger, Wilco, and Aye-Aye. Meanwhile, get philologists -working on this. The sentence, _Wanji e-Kal, Datto. Dink ger-Dink -d'summa_, means, more or less, 'This is Wanji. I'd like to speak to -Dink Gerding.' This message was received by me at Taft Bank this -morning, evidently by accident. Check also possible meaning of the -phrase, 'Escudo green is pale.' - -"J-12: Will do. - -"Miss McCall: Good night, then; wherever you are. - -"J-12: Good night, beautiful. Out." - -_Report of Treasury Intelligence on six words of presumed -foreign-language message_: - -"_Datto_ may be Tagalog _chief_. _Summa_ is Latin _sum_. Total message -is nonsense in fifty languages. The clear message, _Escudo green is -pale_ probably a code. Escudo is Portuguese currency presently equal to -U.S. $0.348. End of Report." - -_Confidential report_ (on scratchboard) _of Elder Compassion to H.R.H. -Dink ger-Dink, Prince Porphyrogenite of Empire, Heir-Apparent to the -Throne, Scion of the Triple Crown, Count of the Northern Marches, -Admiralissimo of the Conquest Forces of Empire, Captain-Commander of -the XLIIth Subversion-and-Conquest Task Force (Sol III)_: - -"She whispered to her pillow, local time 2 A.M., 'I love him.'" - - * * * * * - -Orison hadn't gone to sleep easily. She'd suppressed information from -J-12, saying nothing to him about the Microfabridae, surely the most -striking objective discovery of her two days' spying within the Taft -Bank. More central in her thoughts than her disloyalty to the Treasury -Department, though, was Dink Gerding. He'd told her that she was -half in love with him. He was half wrong, she thought. "I love him -entirely," she whispered, not knowing that J-12--in carelessness, not -subterfuge--had left the receiver-switch open to the pillow she'd made -her confidante. - -_The Wall Street Journal_ greeted her the next morning, curled up in -her "In" basket. She'd just switched on her microphone and said "Good -morning" to her invisible listener when Mr. Wanji stepped from the -elevator. His ears, she saw, were bare today. But they were pink--a -shocking, porcelain, opaque, Toby-mug shade of pink. - -She looked away from this latest manifestation of peculiarity in -banker's ears. "Good morning, Mr. Wanji," she said. - -"Hi, doll," Wanji said. "The brain-guy says you don't have to read out -loud any more. Just read quiet-like. Dig?" - -"Yes, sir," she said. "Shall I take notes on anything in particular?" - -"Naw," Wanji said. "The brain-guy, he remembers everything." - -"The brain-guy?" Orison asked. "Is that Dink Gerding?" - -"Naw. Dink's the boss. The brain-guy is the man who makes the wheels -go round," Wanji said. He pressed the "Up" button of the elevator. As -Wanji embarked, Orison observed that the elevator operator had the same -shocking-pink ears. - -Had those earmuffs been designed to hide this pinkness, the symptom of -some rare and disfiguring disease? Orison returned to her newspaper, -reading silently as ordered, wondering what obscure Pinocchio of sense -was curled up in the belly of this whale of illogic. The elevator, -she noticed with the housekeeping bit of her mind, was running much -more than usual today, up and down like a spastic yo-yo. Whatever the -mysterious business of the William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust -Company might be, there was a lot of it being done. - -Her telephone buzzed. Orison switched off her microphone. "Miss McCall -here," she said, feeling very efficient and British. - -"This is Mr. Kraft Gerding," she was told. "I need you at the National -Guard Armory right away, Miss McCall. Will you come right over?" - -"Yes, sir," Orison said. She gathered up her purse and coat and pressed -the elevator button. The operator ushered her into his car as though -she were his queen, and the elevator the paramount plane of the royal -flight. Standing behind him as he piloted them downward five floors, -Orison studied the man's ears. They were that awful, artificial pink, -as though enameled. Pancake makeup? Orison wondered. The ears, now the -earmuffs were off, might be the clue to that fish-of-understanding she -sought. Orison dampened a fingertip and applied it to the edge of the -man's ear. - -He turned and stared. "A fly," Orison explained. "I brushed it off." - -"Oh. Thank you. Here's the street floor, Miss McCall." - -"Thank you." Orison stepped from the lobby to Broadway, refusing to -examine her fingertip until she was well beyond the shadow of the Taft -Bank Building. Now she looked at it. - -A sort of pink paint was showing there. And where she'd touched the -elevator operator's ear to remove the makeup, the flesh beneath had -shown a brilliant, eggplant purple. - - * * * * * - -Orison was greeted at the National Guard Armory by Auga Vingt, mistress -of malice. "How lovely of you to come right over, darling," she said. -"Kraft is waiting for you in the office of Company C." - -"Thank you, darling," Orison purred. She clutched her purse as she -walked up the indicated stairway, Miss Vingt behind her. - -Kraft Gerding was in full uniform behind a desk marked "Commanding -Officer," but his was not the uniform of the U.S. Army. It was the sort -that Mr. Wanji had worn as Dink's chauffeur, its splendor squared. -"Good morning, Miss McCall," Kraft Gerding said, standing. "I'm so -happy you could come. We need you here." - -"What am I to do, sir?" Orison asked. - -"Your presence is the full extent of your services required, my dear," -he said. "You see, you're my hostage. My brother's interest in your -welfare is so marked that I determined to seize you as collateral for -his cooperation. We've begun a revolution, Miss McCall. You'll stay -with us until victory. Colonel the Margravine Auga Vingt, Commander of -the Royal Refreshment Corps, will act as your hostess. Colonel, please -take Miss McCall to her quarters." - -"Now look here, bud!" Orison said. - -"The proper address to Mr. Gerding is 'Your Royal Highness,' darling," -Miss Vingt said, accompanying her point of protocol with a jab at the -small of Orison's back. "Come along, darling." - -"I'm not going anywhere until I've telephoned Dink," Orison said. - -"Terribly sorry," said Colonel Auga Vingt. "Our telephone has just -gone out of order." Two bravos wearing U.S. Army fatigues--surely the -largest such uniforms ever sewn together--stepped into the room. They -were enormous men, menacing, purple of ear. "Will you walk along like a -good girl, or shall I have my pets carry you?" the odious Auga asked. - -"I'll walk," Orison decided. "What's more, I'll sue." - -"All in good time, darling," Auga Vingt said. - - * * * * * - -Orison's cell was large enough to be a ballroom, comprising as it did -the entire basement of the armory. A cot had been unfolded in one -corner, next to a parked half-track, and three olive-drab blankets were -stacked upon it. "Home, darling," Colonel Vingt said. - -"I hope you realize that kidnapping is a Federal offense," Orison said. - -"So is seizing an armory," her warden explained. "Of course, the -U.S. Army doesn't realize we've got it, yet. They drill here only on -Mondays." She turned and spoke quickly to the two guards, using what -was apparently the same language Wanji had employed over the telephone. -The guards bowed, then each chose a vehicle for his guard-post. One -seated himself behind the wheel of a weapons-carrier, the other posting -himself, cross-legged, on the steel hatch of a Sherman tank. - -Auga Vingt turned to leave. "Hey," Orison said. "You're not going to -abandon me here with these two gorillas." - -"But, darling, I am!" the obnoxious Auga replied. "If you're worried -about your virtue, rest easy, lamb. I can assure you that my thugs are -safe as kittens, providing only that you make no attempt to escape. -They are required, you see, to confine their romantic aspirations to -members of the Royal Refreshment Corps of appropriate rank. Since they -speak no English, nor any other tongue you're likely to have heard of, -they won't be much company. But they will be loyal in their attendance." - -"Let me out of here!" a man's voice shouted, the sound echoing among -the ranks of tanks, half-tracks, weapons-carriers, and jeeps. - -"Who's that?" Orison demanded. - -"Your fellow-prisoner," Auga explained. "Until quite recently, he was -Commanding Officer of C Company. Your keepers have strict orders not -to let you two speak to one another. But I must get on with my duties, -charming as I find your company. Good day, darling." - -"Drop dead," Orison suggested. - - * * * * * - -After the door had slammed behind Auga Vingt, and the key had chattered -in its lock, she sat at the edge of her cot. The two guards watched her -as casually as though she were just another item on the Motor Company's -T.O.&E. This is what she got for playing it coy with Washington, Orison -thought. If she'd clued J-12 in on the Microfabridae, she'd at least -have been given some technical help. Then someone might have been there -to blow the whistle when she disappeared from the Taft Bank Building. -As things stood now, no one would know of her abduction until her -pillow called tonight at eleven-fifteen and got no answer: A long time -off, she thought. Perhaps she could get some help from the imprisoned -commander of C Company, she thought. Orison stood and called out, "Hey, -there! Can you hear...." - -A large palm suddenly closed over her mouth. The guard who'd been -seated atop the tank had sprung down and appeared beside her as -suddenly as a circus trick. Experimentally, he removed his hand from -her mouth. "... me?" Orison completed her query, and was shut off again. - -"Five by five," the male voice answered. "Who are...." The other guard -was gone now, and presumably stood beside the captain as his fellow -stood beside Orison. There was silence for five minutes, Orison having -trouble breathing, struggling until it became apparent that no action -of hers would have the slightest effect on the mountainous bulk of her -muffler. Then he removed his hand. Orison, out of breath, her lesson -learned, stayed quiet. The guards resumed their seats aboard the -rolling-stock. - -There must be another way to signal her fellow-prisoner, Orison -thought. Tapping? She clicked an S-O-S on the side of a jeep with her -pen. Her guard appeared beside her as quickly as before, and took the -pen to stick it in his pocket. She was, it appeared, effectively in -solitary confinement. - -Orison stood up to see if the guard minded. Apparently not. She walked -about the huge basement. She'd never before seen so much military -hardware outside an Armed Forces Day parade. Impressive, all this -steel. A ramp led up to a door the size of a barn-side, also steel, -bolted. If she could get inside a tank, and close the hatch, and -somehow get the monster up that ramp to ram that door, she'd make an -impressive call for help, Orison thought. She put one foot atop a -tank-tread when a large arm reached around her and set her aside. Her -guard, silent-footed, had been following all through her tour. - -Orison returned to her cot. - -Great deal, she thought. From desk to dungeon in an hour and a half. -She'd battled with shadows, earmuffed shadows, and had got herself set -in an amateur jail guarded by a pair of purple-eared apes. Nothing to -do but wait. - -Four feet crashed onto concrete, two figures bowed till the palms of -their hands brushed the floor. "_T'ink_," the newcomer said. The two -guards backed to their vehicles and resumed their seats. - -"Orison, my dear!" It was Kraft Gerding, all unction and teeth, -advancing upon her like the loser at tennis, hand outstretched. "I hope -you haven't been unduly discommoded," he said. - - * * * * * - -"I haven't been commoded at all," Orison said. "No one showed me the -way. Would you mind explaining this chivaree to me, Mr. Gerding?" - -"I'd be delighted to explain, my dear," Kraft Gerding said, bowing. -"May I sit?" he asked, waving a hand toward her cot. - -"You may fall on your dreadful face, for all I care," Orison said. - -"You must learn to speak like a queen," Kraft said, seating himself on -the cot beside her. "Otherwise, of course, you are perfect." - -"Of course," Orison said. "I can't say the same for you." - -"I grow on one," Kraft said. "You wonder, no doubt, how the William -Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company became a battleground; why -many of our employees have ears the color of day-old bruises; why Wanji -was so exercised by the color of escudoes; and what the work is that -the Microfabridae sing at. No?" - -"Yes," Orison said. - -"May I smoke?" Kraft Gerding asked, bringing a cheroot from an inner -pocket of his fieldmarshal's uniform. - -"Smoke, glow, burst into flame. It's all the same to me," Orison said. - -Kraft Gerding lit his cheroot with the air of an acolyte igniting -incense. Then, puffing, "Accident," he said, "has made you privy to a -_coup d'etat_. Our Empire, you see, is based on porphyrogeniture. Thus -my brother, Dink, is the Heir Apparent. I, his elder brother, conceived -before our father became Emperor, am merely Margrave of the North, -Prince Royal of the House of Dink, Colonel-General of the Forces of the -Triple Crown, Grand Duke of the Zilf Archipelago and Holder of the Keys -to the Royal City of Chilif." - -"How unassuming can you get?" Orison asked. - -"Your un-knowledge is deeper than I bethought me," Kraft Gerding -said, smiling, scooting a little wester on the cot. Orison moved one -hips-breadth further to the west. - -"Very well," Kraft said. "As a primer, thus: my brother Dink ger-Dink, -heir through accident of tradition to the Triple Crown of Empire; -I, his elder, better brother; and our officers and exiles--these -latter common criminals, marked for men's contempt with purple -ears--constitute the XLIIth Subversion-and-Conquest Task Force of the -Empire of Dink. This mighty Empire, for your information, lies some -distance off in the southern skies of Earth." - -"How far off?" Orison asked. - -"As far," Kraft Gerding said, "as all your men since Adam have run in -pursuit of beauty." He scooted further west. - -Orison made still further westering. "You come from some foreign -planet?" she asked. - -"No longer foreign, my dear," Kraft said. "Our planet, our triple -footstool, welcomes young Earth to share our ancient wisdom and relax -under the shadow of our might." - -"And I, young Earth, tell you, Kraft Gerding, to go sail a saucer," -Orison said. - - * * * * * - -Kraft Gerding stood up. "Come with me, my dear. I'll show you the -greenery that establishes me as Emperor Apparent of the planet Earth." -He strode to a steel door, took a key from his pocket, and unlocked it. -"Behold!" he said, flinging the door open. - -Orison stepped into the basement room, a cube some fifty feet in each -dimension. She found herself in a corridor between huge walls of -bundled paper. Kraft Gerding, behind her, pried a packet from the wall -and handed it to her. "This, my dear Orison, is the lever with which -I'll over-turn the Earth," he said. - -The bundle was banded with a strip of paper bearing the legend, -"$5,000 in 50's." Each bit of paper in the bundle bore the portrait -of President U. S. Grant. "This room," Kraft Gerding said, "contains -some four hundred million dollars in U.S. currency. I intend with this -money, and as much more as I need, to subvert and purchase a nation. -The United States will then be the beach-head for the world." - -"Counterfeits," Orison said. - -"But perfect counterfeits," Kraft said. "The paper was manufactured -by the master-craftsmen of Chilif. The inks were compounded by the -chemists of that same capital city of Empire. The plates were cut -by twenty million engravers, the Microfabridae of the Storm-Planet, -supervised by Elder Compassion, an ancient of the slothful race that -inhabits the planet nearest our mother sun. This is but one of my -treasuries. I have many such. There is the Threadneedle Room, filled -with pounds-sterling, in ones, fives, fifties and hundreds. There are -other rooms, boxes, trunks and trucks filled with all the currencies -of Earth. I am ready now to purchase this planet from its owners. No -violence, you see. Just subterfuge." - -"It's violence enough, to ruin a planet," Orison said. - -"It beats war," Kraft Gerding said, drawing on his cheroot. - -"And that disgusting Miss Vingt?" Orison asked. "What does she do in -your forces of subversion?" - -"Colonel the Margrave Auga Vingt is commander of the Royal Refreshment -Corps," Kraft said. "You understand that it wouldn't do to allow our -men, the purple-eared scum of three planets, to live off the land in -the delicate matter of women. Colonel Vingt's Corps both maintains -morale and prevents incidents of fraternization that Earthmen might -deplore with their fists and guns." Kraft chuckled. "You'll be amused -to hear that Auga Vingt has an ambition to become my Empress, once I -have overthrown my brother's tyranny and taken over Earth." - -"I must sit down," Orison said. - -"By all means, my dear," Kraft said. He tipped over a stack of bundled -twenty-dollar bills as a hassock for her comfort. - - * * * * * - -"Could I have a cigarette?" Orison asked. - -"Do." Kraft Gerding removed a pack from his pocket and lighted it for -her, passing it from his lips to hers. Orison, hiding her feelings of -distaste for this intimacy, drew on the cigarette. "Perhaps I might -have a drink as well?" she asked. "All this is making me rather dizzy." - -"It is dizzy-making," Kraft conceded. "In an instant, my pet." He -strode from the treasure-room, shouting in his native language to the -guards. - -Orison tugged a twenty-dollar bill from one of the bundles on which -she'd been sitting and held it to the tip of her cigarette, drawing -to make it hot. The paper glowed, but the tiny patch of fire died out -almost at once. She fumbled in her purse. There it was--her bottle of -nail-polish remover. She splashed the aromatic fluid over the bundled -money and again touched her cigarette to it. The paper flared. Flames -ran in upstream rivers through the stacks above. - -Orison ran to the nearest jeep and turned the key. The gears were -unfamiliar to her, but she mastered them sufficiently to get moving -forward toward the steel doors. Up the ramp she rolled, her feet braced -down hard on the accelerator, wedged into her seat. The jeep struck the -steel doors and bounced back the ramp to the sound of a giant Chinese -gong, its engine stalled. Groggy, Orison dismounted and ran to the -door. She pounded on the steel with both fists, shouting for help. - -An arm encircled Orison, and she heard behind her the door of the -money-room slam shut. "The blaze will smolder itself out in a moment, -my dear," Kraft Gerding said. He spoke to the guard who held her, and -she was released. "I doubt that you've destroyed more than a million -dollars' worth of your local paper with your prank," he said. "Five -minutes' press-run. I've brought you a spot of brandy. I daresay you -can use it. Arson is thirsty work." - -He held out his hand. One of the purple-eared guards produced a silver -tray with a decanter and two balloon-glasses, poured them a quarter -full and presented the glasses to his chief, bowing deeply. Kraft took -one glass, giving the other to Orison. "A toast?" he asked. "To the -success of my rebellion. To our inevitable marriage. And to the health -of our progeny, who are, my dear, to inherit the Earth. A shotgun -toast," he said. - -Orison dashed her brandy toward his face. Kraft turned, catching the -shower against his left ear, where it trickled down to stain the braid -of his epaulette. He glared and raised his hand in a most unchivalrous -gesture, then stopped himself. One of the guards produced a silken -cloth to blot him dry. - -"The word 'shotgun' was perhaps ill-chosen," Kraft said. "The spirit -you show, dear Orison, is a quality most appropriate to the future -Empress of Earth." - -"Keep away from me," Orison said. - - * * * * * - -"Our ceremony of betrothal is simple," Kraft said. He put his -sword-arm about her waist. "You need only hear me say the words, 'I, -Rex-Imperator, take thee to wife,' and then bow, in the presence of -witnesses of my choosing. You'll be as noble as any princess conceived -in the Purple Chamber of the Palace of Chilif." - -"I'd rather die than marry you," Orison said. - -"You've established the parameters of the possible rather neatly, -my dear," Kraft Gerding said. "You will become my wife, and -Empress-Apparent of Earth, or you will shortly be the loveliest corpse -on this fair planet. My will is heaven's law, you understand. My -word carries the sanction of two suns, and my anger breeds massive -destruction. I ask of you your one slight person. In return, I offer to -share with you my greatness. You will rule with me in the palace I have -chosen--I forget its name, but it is presently used as the tomb of the -lady who invented the brassiere--the Taj Mahal, that's it. Perhaps we -could rename it. Answer quickly, now; great deeds are deeds of impulse: -marry me!" - -"You're mad," Orison said. - -"When a man has the power I have, he cannot be called a madman, for -his mind shapes the world to his dreams. There is then, you see, no -disorientation," Kraft said. "You've had a good ten seconds now to -decide. Shall I call my wedding-guests or my executioner?" - -"Dink will never let you marry me," Orison said. - -"His suit has come so far as that?" Kraft said. "No matter. I'll -destroy him." - -"Please leave me, Your Excellency," Orison said. "I need time to think." - -"I am clay in your lovely hands," Kraft said, bowing. "I grant your -wish." - -"If I might ask another boon, Your Excellency," Orison said, "I'd like -to talk with Dink." - -"And so you shall," Kraft promised her. "Tomorrow, perhaps. With my -brother in chains and you in the regalia of an Empress." He bowed -again, and left her. The door-lock clicked after him. The two huge -guards closed in on either side of Orison and led her back to her cot. -When she had seated herself, they withdrew to their perches on the Army -vehicles. - - - VII - -I might as well have joined the Marine Corps instead of the Treasury -Department, Orison thought, resting her fists on her knees. She had no -weapons now, nothing to help her break out from this steel-shuttered -cellar. What's more, the only clear evidence she had of the crime these -extraterrestrials were plotting was a single counterfeit twenty-dollar -bill wadded up in her hand. It looked entirely genuine, she thought. -It was perhaps too perfect for her purpose. It was quite possible -that this bill could be established as a counterfeit only by the -unlikely discovery of a genuine note with the same serial-number. -The paper-makers and chemists of Chilif, the engraving millions of -Microfabridae, had done their work too well. - -Suddenly, across Orison's field of regard there danced dozens of -brilliant, five-pointed stars--over the weapons-carriers and the tanks, -the jeeps and the two lolling guards, the concrete floor and the steel -doors. Orison rubbed the heels of her hands into her eyes, but the -stars were still there. "Don't worry," someone said. "I painted the -stars on the backs of your eyes only to get your attention." The stars -disappeared, and Orison heard again the music of the Microfabridae, a -singing almost unhearable. - -"Who's that?" Orison demanded, her voice uncertain. - -"Don't speak. You'll frighten the guards," the mysterious voice said. -"We have had long association, Orison. It was I who, so close in -empathy with you, prevented your eating lobster, for example. Earth's -lobster is a distant relative of mine. I could not see you ingest one -without feeling deep qualms. And it is to me you have been reading, -filling my mind with knowledge and amusement while I was engaged in the -dull work of projecting the images of currency to the Microfabridae at -work at their printing-plates. I am known as Elder Compassion, and I am -your friend." - -"And Dink's friend?" - -"His especially," the voice said. "Our business right now is to help -you escape. We must know exactly where you are, Orison." - -"I'm in the basement of the National Guard Armory," Orison said softly. -"Where are you?" - -"I'm on the ninth floor of the Bank building," Elder Compassion said. -"Yes, that means telepathy, of a weak and uncertain sort. I am not -one of the true telepaths, those gold and mighty minds I can hear -trumpeting in the night. I can but whisper, and eavesdrop a bit in -minds that let me. And is the fact that I speak within your ear and -listen to the currents that make words within your mind so much more -mysterious than your pillow that whispers?" - - * * * * * - -"Tell me what to do," Orison said. - -"Look at the entrance of your basement," Elder Compassion said. Orison -stared at the steel doors at the top of the ramp. "Yes, Dink. You're -in the right place." The inner voice ceased for a moment; and into -Orison's mind flashed a picture of those doors seen from outside. An -automobile was parked a dozen feet from the door. Dink's car! Wanji -was at the wheel and Dink, grandly uniformed, was beside him. A pink, -animate thread dipped down from the trunk of the Rolls and began -working its way toward the steel doors. Microfabridae, Orison guessed. -Then the picture in her mind flicked off, and she was alone again. - -She watched the doors at the top of the ramp. - -For ten minutes or so, there was nothing new to be seen. Then--a -pinpoint of light, a tiny movement. "Look away," Elder Compassion said -within her. "We don't want to make your guards suspicious." - -From the corner of her eye Orison could see the thin pink line -approaching the Sherman tank upon which one guard was sitting, at ease -but alert. The line of Microfabridae split into two columns, and one -set out toward the second guard, seated in his weapons-carrier, facing -the little room where C Company's commanding officer was imprisoned. - -Orison knotted her fists to keep from screaming, reminding herself -that these creeping things weren't spiders. She heard, faint at -first, but growing at the edge of her consciousness, the song of the -Microfabridae. The twin columns were thicker now. It seemed impossible -that the guards hadn't yet seen them. A living thread oozed up the side -of the tank and busied itself a moment at the guard's ankles. - -"What's going on?" the captain, Orison's fellow-prisoner, shouted from -his hidden cell. - -"Mmmmf," the guard assigned to the captain replied. Then he was -entirely silent. - -Orison stood. Her own guard was strapped to the steel of his tank by -a hundred strands of Lilliputian thread. A thin net of the stuff, -fine as angel-hair, covered his mouth. The second guard, in the -weapons-carrier, was bound in the same manner. He stared at Orison and -moved his jaw, but could say nothing. "They'll not be injured," Elder -Compassion told her. "It is impossible for me to allow a living being -to be hurt. Now, go look at the man who just called out." - -Orison went to the cell where the Captain was, avoiding as she walked -the pools of Microfabridae scattered about the floor. The man stood in -a barred room, evidently designed as the toolroom of the motor-pool, -his hands around the bars. "Good afternoon," he said. "What's going on -here?" - -"We're getting out," Orison told him. - - * * * * * - -"Ask him if he can drive a tank," Elder Compassion whispered to Orison. -"Those steel doors are too well built to be quickly opened by our -little locksmiths." - -"Can you drive a tank, Captain?" Orison asked. - -"Miss, I piloted one of those M4E8 Sherman's across Europe sixteen -years ago. I've still got the strength to pull a landrel. But you'll -have to get me out there to do it; because there isn't room in this -cell." - -"I'll get you out," Orison promised. - -"You want the Microfabridae to chew through the lock?" the -voice-in-her-head asked gently. - -"That's what I had in mind," Orison said. - -"I know," Elder Compassion said. "Please look at the lock, so that I -may direct our little friends to it." - -Orison gazed at the lock. A line of Microfabridae snaked up the -steel door-frame and entered the keyhole. From inside the door came -a chittering sound, like a clock gone berserk. Then the crustacea -reformed and marched down the door to the floor. Orison pressed the -door-catch. The eviscerated lock gave way. - -The captain stepped out to stare at the Microfabridae. "Miss," he said, -"you and I could make a fortune with a team of those trained termites. -There isn't a bank in the country that could stand up against us." - -"It's been thought of," Orison said. "Help me get this man down from -the tank, please, and we'll be on our way." Between them they lifted -the cocooned guard, wrapped like a larva in Microfabridaean silk, to -the cot, the little workers snipping with their chelae the threads that -had bound him to the steel. - -"Can you unlock the steel doors?" Orison asked. - -"I don't have the key," the Captain said. - -"Then we'll have to go through them," Orison said. "Can we do it?" - -"We've got thirty-five tons to roll up that ramp," the captain said. -"If we can't bust out with a punch like that, shame on us. Seems kind -of rough on the taxpayers to bulldoze through that expensive door." - -"If we don't make it out of here, those taxpayers may find themselves -paying their thirty per cent to someone less friendly than Uncle Sam," -Orison said. She clambered up the side of the tank and tugged at the -hatch. - -"Let me," said the captain. He opened the hatch and dropped inside. -"You sit here to my right. We're going out the hard way, and buttoned -up." He closed the hatch, then reached over his left shoulder to -tug the master battery switch, squeezed together the twin butterfly -switches on the panel and grabbed hold of the steering-landrels. "Hold -on, Miss. We're headed for sunlight." - - * * * * * - -The Sherman's thirty-five tons were rolling along at ten miles an hour -when its bow met steel. Concrete splinters flew from the sides of the -door, which crumpled as the tank fisted into its middle. The door broke -free of its supports and slammed outside, forming a deckway over which -the treads of the tank crunched. The captain killed the engine and -opened the hatch. He boosted Orison out, and followed her. - -"Orison! Over here!" Dink Gerding shouted. Orison leaped from the tank -and ran toward the Rolls-Royce. "Get down!" Dink shouted again. He ran -to seize her, and threw her to the ground. "And stay down!" He was up, -drawing his sword. There was a crash. A smear of lead appeared on the -concrete beside Orison. Dink, bellowing rage, was running down the ramp -into the armory basement, his sword raised. - -Kraft Gerding stood at the head of his troops at the foot of the -ramp. In hand he had an Army .45. He shouted to his men, a dozen -purple-ears, dressed in fatigues, each as big and ugly as the two -who'd been guarding Orison and the Captain. They strained forward -to follow him--but fell like ten-pins, tripped up by strands of web -knitted between their ankles by fast-working Microfabridae. "Don't stop -him, Elder Cousin!" Dink shouted, his words evidently meant for the -mysterious brain-guy, Elder Compassion, in the ninth floor of the Taft -Bank Building. "This I must do," Dink said. - -Kraft Gerding dropped the automatic and slicked his sword from its -scabbard. The blade, Orison saw, rising to her feet, was by no means an -ornament. It looked most naked and competent. Dink advanced upon his -brother, each holding his sword at the ready like scorpions ready to do -battle. "It would distress me to wound you, elder sibling," Dink said. - -"_Lese majesty_ or no, my liege," Kraft shouted, "I intend to chop -you to stew-meat!" Their blades met and clashed, the swordsmen taking -the shock of their contact with skillful springing of their arms and -shoulders. Behind the clash of steel, Orison heard a new sound, the -scream of a siren. A second siren called out, and both grew louder. -"The police!" Wanji shouted. "Stop it, Sires!" - -The captain stood beside Orison. "I've seen _Hamlet_ played," he said, -"but the sword-fight was nowhere near so violent as this. Who are these -two nuts, anyway?" - -"My fiance, and the man who, if he lives, will be my brother-in-law," -Orison said. - -"Excuse me," the captain said. - - * * * * * - -Orison gripped the captain's arm and tried not to cry out at Dink's -danger. Kraft parried his brother's blade, raising it high and to his -right. Then he went in like a flash, hacking his edge down toward the -juncture of shoulder and neck. Dink fell aside. Kraft's sword bit -concrete. Dink flipped his sword in a jeweled arc, slamming Kraft's -blade from his hand to spin end-over-end through the air like a -drum-majorette's baton. Kraft's sword slammed to the pavement. In an -instant a pool of Microfabridae had covered it, binding the steel to -the concrete with strands of their angel-hair. - -Dink advanced on his brother, backing him against the bulk of the -Sherman tank. - -Kraft Gerding stood with his hands at his sides, his face composed -in dignity, waiting for the coup de grace. "Bind the traitor, Elder -Cousin," Dink said, addressing an ear not present. Microfabridae, -obedient to the command they alone heard, rolled in little waves -across the steel door and knit Kraft in a web from ankles to larynx. -The police were very near now, their sirens dying as they slowed -to halt. Dink sheathed his sword. "Wanji!" he called. "Put him in -the car. It is time that we withdraw." Wanji ran up to the cocooned -figure, saluted, and dumped Kraft Gerding across his shoulder like a -giant spool of silk. The Microfabridae flowed to the Rolls and pooled -themselves somewhere in its trunk. "To the Bank, Wanji," Dink ordered, -seating himself beside his driver. Orison sat in the back, next to the -trussed-up Kraft. - -Police appeared, whistling and brandishing their revolvers. One -occupied himself with kicking at Kraft's grounded sword, tied to -the pavement by tendrils tougher than steel wire. Another guarded -the ankle-bound purple-ears, obviously unable to believe what he was -seeing. "You in the car there, stop!" a police officer shouted. Wanji, -erect and unheeding at the wheel, took the limousine around the corner -of the armory and down the street toward the Bank. - -"You'd have done better, brother, to have killed me," Kraft Gerding -said, strait-jacketed in silk. - -"Killing would seem appropriate, although our Elder Cousin declares -it unlawful," Dink said over his shoulder. "Your crime is treason -against the Triple Crown, attempted assassination of the Heir Apparent, -mutiny and kidnap. What punishment would you mete out to an officer so -turpitudinous, were you Defender of the Crowns?" - -"I would have him put to death in a manner befitting his station," -Kraft said. "I would not bind him like a sausage and pelt him with -taunts." - -"Perhaps you can gain a special dispensation from Elder Compassion, -allowing me to grant you a properly noble death," Dink said. "We'll ask -him, if you like." - - * * * * * - -The William Howard Taft National Bank and Trust Company was closed, -the ostensible reason given by an easel set up in front of the glass -doors of the front entrance: "National Holiday: Birthday of Millard -Fillmore." One of the loyalist Purple-Ears materialized behind the -glass as the Rolls rolled up to the curb, and unlocked the doors. - -Wanji and the guard carried Kraft Gerding between them into the -bank-lobby, Dink relocking the doors behind them. A knot of spectators -gathered on the sidewalk outside, shading their eyes, examining with -much conversation the sign, the purple-eared guard, the uniformed Wanji -and Dink and the figure trussed up like a rolled carpet on the parquet -floor. "I think this busts up your counterfeiting ring, Dink," Orison -said. "What now?" - -"That is, darling, precisely the question I want to ask our -brain-trust, Elder Compassion," Dink said. "He is both our leader and -in a sense our warden, you see. He came with us to Earth to guarantee -that we in no way violate the principle of reverence for life in our -conquest of your planet." - -The elevator appeared, piloted by another of the Purple-Ears. "Nine," -Dink snapped. Wanji and the guard towed the packaged Kraft aboard. - - * * * * * - -The anteroom into which the elevator door opened on ninth floor -smelled of ozone and dryness. Faint music vibrated the desert air. -"Bach?" Orison asked. - -"Scarlatti," Dink said. "His music consoles Elder Compassion for the -violence of men. Here--you'll need these." He handed Orison a pair of -almost opaque goggles, the sort that welders wear. "Come on," he said, -tugging Orison through a door. - -Even with the heavy goggles, the room beyond was brilliant beyond -belief, a Sahara summer-solstice noon in brightness. The floor was -covered by tons of sand, duned up against the windows in waves that -would have disheartened a camel. The music now was almost as oppressive -as the heat and the light. Great booming gouts of sound came from every -direction. Suddenly, as though responding to Orison's mental protest, -the music stopped. The lights dimmed somewhat. - -"We have come, Elder Cousin," Dink announced to the sand. - -"I speak to the lovely woman," an interior voice said to all of them. -"Do not fear me, Orison, though I will seem to you a most hideous -worm. My world nestles next its sun. I, made to fit a homeworld that -would seem a Hell to you, could hardly be expected to conform to green -Earth's standards of beauty. Reflect, Orison, that I wish you well." - - * * * * * - -Something dragged itself across a dune. "My God!" Orison whispered, -gripping Dink's right arm with both her hands. - -"Orison, this is my mentor and my dearest friend," Dink said. "His name -is Elder Compassion. He is older than the language you speak. And he -is, though housed in strange flesh, a Man of Good Will." - -The thing that squatted across the mid-room dune was twelve feet long -from the tip of the arched scorpion-telson to the twin pincers that -formed a chitinous mustache beneath its mouth. It stared at her with a -pair of compound eyes the size of hub-caps. "I'll not weary you further -with squeezing words into your minds," the interior voice said. "Bring -me the writing-boards, Son and Cousin." - -"Cornet!" Dink snapped. "Bring scratchboards." - -"Sire!" A young officer ran back to the anteroom and came back with a -stack of blackened boards, one of which he set up in the sand before -the monster, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the lance-like -tip that quivered in the air above him. "It is a fearsome thing, -this killing-tool my body is equipped with," the voice said, "and -embarrassing. It is rather as though your good Gandhi had been forced -to carry a sub-machine gun through life." The cornet scrambled out -of way through the sand, and the giant sting lowered itself to the -scratchboard. - -The words he inscribed into the blackness were written in a delicate -italic, hardly larger than human penmanship: "My son, she is lovely." - -"It is gracious of you, Elder Cousin, to recognize beauty in a form so -unlike your own species," Dink said, bowing. - -There was a mental chuckle. "Her mind, you clod!" the monster sketched -in the scratchboard. "Her lovely, lovely mind." - -"I am pleased that you ratify my choice of wife, Elder Cousin," Dink -said. - -"She will assist you in the most difficult task ever a scion of the -Triple Crown had to accomplish, Son and Cousin," Elder Compassion -wrote. "She will aid you in preparing the Golden Worlds to accept -Coca-Cola." - -"Your meaning, Elder Cousin, is hidden from my poor understanding," -Dink said. - -"I mean this," Elder Compassion sketched on his scratchboard. "You came -for conquest bearing with you the seeds of violence, and thus defeat. -You came to subvert Earth by pandering to Earth's greed. You were -yourself, through the agent of your greedy brother, rendered impotent. -Violence has been done. We must now retreat, making such amends as we -can. In the years that will soon be upon us, Earth's men will follow -us to the Golden Worlds, where you, as Emperor, and Orison, Empress, -will greet them." - -"To the ship, then?" Dink asked. "What will we do with the rebels? With -Kraft, my brother?" - -"They have earned the payment of exile," Elder Compassion wrote. "We -will leave them here." - - * * * * * - -Dink turned to the young officer. "Cornet, assist our Elder Cousin to -the ship," he ordered. He turned to two of the purple-ears. "Take Kraft -to the vault," he said. - -Orison spoke to the monster. "Sir," she said, "you spoke of making -amends for the damage you have done. You must first of all destroy the -paper with which you'd hoped to ruin us." - -"I'll give those orders, Orison," Dink said. - -"What will be done about the counterfeit money you've already spent, -financing your subversion?" she asked. - -Elder Compassion was writing on his board. "Three miles beneath this -city lies a vein of gold," he wrote. "The Microfabridae are this -minute plumbing the earth to reach it. We will leave full payment for -our fiscal sins." - -Dink took Orison's hand. "You'll come with us?" he asked. - -"I will, Dink." - -"Then I, Rex-Imperator, Son of the Triple Crown, Prince Porphyrogenous -of Empire, take you to wife," he said. - -"If you're sure this is quite legal," Orison said, "I do." - -"There are voices all about us," Elder Compassion spoke in their minds. -"The traitor, Kraft, is in the vault, bound and seated in the midst of -wealth. We must go, or there will be more violence." - -"The moment the Microfabridae have left their golden payment for our -folly, Elder Cousin, guide them to the ship," Dink said. "I long to -show my Princess her dominions." - -"She is the first," the voice spoke again. "The first of the -irresistible conquerors from Earth." - -[Transcriber's Note: No Section IV or Section VI headings in original] - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cinderella Story, by Allen Kim Lang - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CINDERELLA STORY *** - -***** This file should be named 61081.txt or 61081.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/0/8/61081/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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