And Now the News (5 page)

“We're living in a wonderful age, Joe,” said Zeitgeist as he worked. “Before long I'll turn the old soldering iron out to stud and let it father waffles. Printed circuits, sub-mini tubes, transistors. These things here are electrets, which I won't attempt to explain to you.” He bolted and clipped, bent and formed, and every once in a while, referring to his list, he selected another of the black boxes from the file and added it to his project. When there were four rows of components, each row
about one and a half by six inches, he made some connections with test clips and thrust a jack into a receptacle in the bench. He glanced up at the 'scope, grunted, unclipped one of the black rectangles and substituted another from the files.

“These days, Joe, when they can pack a whole radar set—transmitter, receiver, timing and arming mechanisms and a power supply into the nose of a shell, a package no bigger than your fist—these days you can do anything with a machine. Anything, Joe. You just have to figure out how. Most of the parts exist, they make 'em in job lots. You just have to plug 'em together.” He plugged in the jack, as if to demonstrate, and glanced up at the 'scope. “Good. The rest won't take long.” Working with tin-snips, then with a small sheet-metal brake, he said, “Some day you're going to ask me what I'm doing, what all this is for, and I'll just grin at you. I'm going to tell you now and if you don't remember what I say, well, then forget it.

“They say our technology has surpassed, or bypassed, our souls, Joe. They say if we don't turn from science to the spirit, we're doomed. I agree that we're uncomfortably close to damnation, but I don't think we'll appease any great powers by throwing our gears and gimmicks over the cliffs as a sacrifice, a propitiation. Science didn't get us into this mess; we
used
science to get us in.

“So I'm just a guy who's convinced we can use science to get us out. In other words, I'm not for hanging the gunsmith every time someone gets shot. Take off your shirt.”

“What?” said Joe, back from a thousand miles. “Oh.” Bemused, he took off his jacket and shirt and stood shyly clutching his thin ribs.

Zeitgeist picked up his project from the bench and put it over Joe's head. A flat band of spring steel passed over each shoulder, snugly. The four long flat casings, each filled with components, rested against his collarbones, pressing upward in the small hollow just below the bones, and against his shoulder blades. Zeitgeist bent and manipulated the bands until they were tight but comfortable. Then he hooked the back pieces to the front pieces with soft strong elastic bands passed under Joe's arms. “O.K.? O.K. Now—say something.”

“Say what?” said Joe stupidly, and immediately clapped his hand to his chest.
“Uh!”

“What happened?”

“It … I mean, it buzzed.”

Zeitgeist laughed. “Let me tell you what you've got there. In front, two little speakers, an amplifier to drive them, and a contact microphone that picks up your chest tones. In back, on this side, a band-pass arrangement that suppresses all those dominating high-frequency whimperings of yours and feeds the rest, the stuff you're weak in, up front to be amplified. And over here, in back—that's where the power supply goes. Go over there where you were and record something. And remember what I told you—you have to help this thing. Talk a little slower and you won't have to say ‘I mean' while you think of what comes next. You
know
what comes next, anyway. You don't have to be afraid to say it.”

Dazed, Joe stepped back to where he had been when the first recording was made, glanced for help up at the green line of the oscilloscope, closed his eyes and said, falteringly at first, then stronger and steadier, “ ‘Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this contin—' ”

“Cut!” cried Zeitgeist. “Joe, see that tone-generator over there? It's big as a spinet piano. I can do a lot but believe me, you haven't got one of those strapped on you. Your amplifier can only blow up what it gets. You don't have much, but for Pete's sake give it what you have. Try talking with your lungs full instead of empty. Push your voice a little, don't just let it fall out of you.”

“Nothing happens, though. I sound the same to myself. Is it working? Maybe it doesn't work.”

“Like I told you before,” said Zeitgeist with exaggerated patience, “people who are talking aren't listening. It's working all right. Don't go looking for failures, Joe. Plenty'll come along that you didn't ask for. Now go ahead and do as I said.”

Joe wet his lips, took a deep breath. Zeitgeist barked, “Now slowly!” and he began: “ ‘Four score and seven years—' ” The sonorous words rolled out, his chest vibrated from the buzzing, synchronized to his syllables. And though he was almost totally immersed
in his performance, a part of him leaped excitedly, realizing that never in his whole life before had he listened, really listened to that majestic language. When he was finished he opened his eyes and found Zeitgeist standing very near him, his eyes alight.

“Good,” the man breathed. “Ah, but … good.”

“Was it? Was it really?”

In answer, Zeitgeist went to the controls, rewound the tape, and hit the playback button.

And afterwards, he said gently to Joe, “You
can
cry—see?”

“Damn foolishness,” said Joe.

“No it isn't,” Zeitgeist told him.

Outside, it was morning—what a morning, with all the gold and green, thrust and rustle of a new morning in a new summer. He hadn't been out all night; he had died and was born again! He stood tall, walked tall, he carried his shining new voice sheathed like Excalibur, but for all its concealment, he was armed!

He had tried to thank Zeitgeist, and that strange man had shaken his head soberly and said, “Don't, Joe. You're going to pay me for it.”

“Well I will, of course I will! Anything you say … how much, anyhow?”

Zeitgeist had shaken his head slightly. “We'll talk about it later. Go on—get in the car. I'll drive you to work.” And, silently, he had.

Downtown, he reached across Joe and opened the door. For him, the door worked. “Come see me day after tomorrow. After dinner—nine.”

“O.K. Why? Got another … treatment?”

“Not for you,” said Zeitgeist, and his smile made it a fine compliment for both of them. “But no power plant lasts forever. Luck.” And before Joe could answer the door was closed and the big car had swung out into traffic. Joe watched it go, grinning and shaking his head.

The corner clock said five minutes to nine. Just time, if he hurried.

He didn't hurry. He went to Harry's and got shaved, while they pressed his suit and sponged his collar in the back room. He kept
the bathrobe they gave him pulled snugly over his amplifier, and under a hot towel he reached almost the euphoric state he had been in last night. He thought of Barnes, and the anger stirred in him. With some new internal motion he peeled away its skin of fear and set it free. Nothing happened, except that it lived in him instead of just lying there. It didn't make him tremble. It made him smile.

Clean, pressed, and smelling sweet, he walked into his building at eight minutes before ten. He went down to the express elevator and stepped into the one open door. Then he said, “Wait,” and stepped out again. The operator goggled at him.

Joe walked up to the starter, a bushy character in faded brown and raveled gold braid. “Hey … you.”

The starter pursed a pair of liver-colored lips and glowered at him. “Whaddayeh want?”

Joe filled his lungs and said evenly, “Day before yesterday you took hold of me and shoved me into an elevator like I was a burlap sack.”

The starter's eyes flickered, “Not me.”

“You calling me a liar, too?”

Suddenly the man's defenses caved. There was a swift pucker which came and went on his chin, and he said, “Look, I got a job to do, mister, rush hours, if I don't get these cars out of here it's
my
neck, I didn't mean nothing by it, I——”

“Don't tell me your troubles,” said Joe. He glared at the man for a second. “All right, do your job, but don't do it on me like that again.”

He turned his back, knowing he was mimicking Zeitgeist with the gesture and enjoying the knowledge. He went back to the elevator and got in. Through the closing gate he saw the starter, right where he had left him, gaping. The kid running the elevator was gaping, too.

“Eleven,” said Joe.

“Yes,
sir
,” said the boy. He started the car. “You told
him
.”

“ 'Bout time,” said Joe modestly.

“Past time,” said the kid.

Joe got out on the eleventh floor, feeling wonderful. He walked down the hall, thumped a door open, and ambled in. Eleanor Bulmer, the receptionist, looked up. He saw her eyes flick to the clock and back to his face. “Well!”

“Morning,” he said expansively, from his inflated lungs. She blinked as if he had fired a cap pistol, then looked confusedly down at her typewriter.

He took a step toward his corner desk when there was a flurry, a botherment up from the left, then an apparition of thinning hair and exophthalmic blue eyes. Barnes, moving at a half-trot as usual, jacket off, suspenders, armbands pulling immaculate cuffs high and away from rust-fuzzed scrawny wrists. “Eleanor, get me Apex on the phone. Get me Apex on the—” And then he saw Joe. He stopped. He smiled. He had gleaming pale-yellow incisors like a rodent. He, too, flicked a glance at the clock.

Joe knew exactly what he was going to say, exactly how he was going to say it. He took a deep breath, and if old ghosts were about to rise in him, the friendly pressure of the amplifier just under his collarbones turned them to mist.
Why, Miss Terr Fritch
, Barnes would say with exaggerated and dramatic politeness,
how ki-i-ind of you to drop in today
. Then the smile would snap off and the long series of not-to-be-answered questions would begin. Didn't he know this was a place of business? Was he aware of the customary starting time? Did it not seem that among fourteen punctual people, he alone—and so on. During it, seven typewriters would stop, a grinning stock boy would stick his head over a filing cabinet to listen, and Miss Bulmer, over whose nape the monologue would stream, would sit with her head bowed waiting for it to pass. Already the typewriter had stopped. And yes, sure enough: behind Barnes he could see the stock boy's head.

“Why, Miss Terr Fritch!” said Barnes happily.

Joe immediately filled his lungs, turned his back on Barnes, and said into the stunned silence, “Better get him Apex on the phone, Eleanor. He has the whole place at a stand-still.” He then walked around Barnes as if the man were a pillar and went to his desk and sat down.

Barnes stood with his bony head lowered and his shoulders humped as if he had been bitten on the neck by a fire ant. Slowly he turned and glared up the office. There was an immediate explosion of typewriter noise, shuffling feet, shuffling papers. “I'll take it in my office,” Barnes said to the girl.

He had to pass Joe to get there, and to Joe's great delight he could see how reluctant Barnes was to do it. “I'll see you later,” Barnes hissed as he went by, and Joe called cheerfully after him, “You just betcha.” Out in the office, somebody whistled appreciatively; somebody snickered. Joe knew Barnes had heard it. He smiled, and picked up the phone. “Outside, Eleanor. Personal.”

Eleanor Bulmer knew Barnes didn't allow personal calls except in emergencies, and then preferred to give his permission first. Joe could hear her breathing, hesitating. Then, “Yes, Mr. Fritch.” And the dial tone crooned in his ear.
Mr. Fritch
, he thought.
That's the first time she ever called me Mr. Fritch. What do you know. Why … why, she never called me anything before! Just “Mr. Barnes wants to see you,” or “Cohen of Electrical Marketing on the line.”

Mr. Fritch dialed his home. “Hello—Lutie?”

“Joe! Where were you all night?” The voice was waspish, harrying; he could see her gathering her forces, he could see her mountain of complaints about to be shoveled into the telephone as if it were a hopper.

“I called to tell you I'm all right because I thought it was a good idea. Maybe it was a bad idea.”

“What?” There was a pause, and then in a quite different tone she said, “Joe? Is this … Joe, is that you?”

“Sure,” he said heartily. “I'm at work and I'm all right and I'll be home for dinner. Hungry,” he added.

“You expect me to cook you a dinner after—” she began, but without quite her accustomed vigor.

“All right, then I won't be home for dinner,” he said reasonably.

She didn't say anything for a long time, but he knew she was still there. He sat and waited. At last she said faintly, “Will veal cutlets be all right?”

On the second night after this fledging, Mr. Joseph Fritch strode into the porte-cochere and bounded up the steps. He ground the bell-push with his thumb until it hurt, and then knocked. He stood very straight until the door opened.

“Joe, boy! Come on in.” Zeitgeist left the door and opened another. Joe had the choice of following or of standing where he was and shouting. He followed. He found himself in a room new to him, low-ceilinged like the others, but with books from floor to ceiling. In a massive fieldstone fireplace flames leaped cheerfully, yet the room was quite cool. Air-conditioned. Well, he guessed Zeitgeist just
liked
a fire. “Look,” he said abruptly.

“Sit down. Drink?”

“No. Listen, you've made a mistake.”

“I know, I know. The bill. Got it with you?”

“I have.”

Zeitgeist nodded approvingly. Joe caught himself wondering why. Zeitgeist glided across to him and pressed a tall glass into his hand. It was frosty, beaded, sparkling. “What's in it?” he snapped.