The Very Black Part 2

The gun came up a trifle, stiffened. There was a loud snapping sound, a click of metal on metal--Flintlock. As all the ancient guns were.

And then came the roar. Wood across the room--the window casing--splintered and flew wildly. Smoke and smell filled my senses.

He said, chuckling, "Let's call it the Abandonment Theory for lack of a better name. This old Brown Bess hasn't been thought of acquisitively for some years. It's been in the museum--abandoned.

T h e r e f o r e subject to the discarded junk pile as you yourself so cleverly put it before. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Anders?"

Perfectly--oh, perfectly, Mr. Bioplast. The rum was going around my eyes now. Going up and around and headed like an arrow for the hunk of my brain that can't seem to hide fast enough.

I guess I made it to the bedroom but I wouldn't put any hard cash on it. And I guess I pa.s.sed out.

The morning was a bad one as all bad ones usually are. But no matter how bad they get there's always the consoling thought that in a few hours things will ease up. I hugged this thought through a needle shower, through three cups of coffee in the kitchen. What I was neglecting in this reasoning was the splintered wood in the living room.

I saw it on my way out. It hit me starkly, like the blasted section of a eucalyptus trunk writhing up from the ground. I stopped dead in the doorway and stared at it. Then I got out my knife and got at it.

I probed but it was going to take more than a pocket knife. The ball--and it was just that--was buried a half inch in the soft pine of the casing.

I closed the knife and went to the phone and got Information to ring the museum.

"You people aren't missing a Brown Bess musket," I said. It was a question, of course, but not now--not the way I had said it. "n.o.body stole anything out of the museum last night, did they?"

Sweat was oozing over my upper lip. I could feel it. I could feel sweat wetting the phone in my hand. The woman on the other end told me to wait. I said, "Yeah"--not realizing. I waited, not realizing, until a man's voice came on.

"You were saying something about a Brown Bess musket, mister?" A cold sharp voice--a gutter voice but with the masking tag of _official_ behind it. Like the voice of someone behind a desk writing something on a blotter--a real police voice.

I put the phone down. I pulled all the shades in the living room, went out the door, locked it behind me and drove as fast as you can make a Buick go, out to the field. But _fast_!

The XXE-1 was ready. She'd been ready for weeks. There wasn't a mechanical or electronic flaw in her. We hoped, I hoped, the man who designed her hoped. The Doll's father--he hoped most of all. Even lying quiescent in her hangar, she looked as sleek as a Napoleon hat done in poured monel. When your eyes went over her you knew instinctively they'd thrown the mach numbers out the window when she was done.

I went through a door that had the simple word _Plotting_ on it.

The Doll's father was there already behind his desk, studying something as I came in. He looked up, smiled, said, "Hi, guy."

I flipped a finger at him. I wondered if the Doll had told him about last night.

"Wife and I were going to suggest a snack when we got home last night but you had already gone, and Marge was in bed."

I didn't look at him. "Left early, Pop. Growing boy."

"Yeah. You look lousy, guy."

I put my teeth together. I still didn't look at him. "These nights," I said vaguely.

"Sure."

I could feel something in his voice. I took a breath and put my eyes on his. He said, "I'm a h.e.l.l of an old duck."

"Not so old, Pop."

"Sure I am. But not too old to remember back to the days when I wasn't too old." There was a grave look in his eyes.

I didn't have to answer that. The door banged open and Melrose, the LC, came in. He jerked a look at both of us, b.u.t.ted a cigarette he'd just lit--lighted another, b.u.t.ted that. He ran a hand through thick graying hair and frowned.

"Anybody got a cigarette?" he said sourly. "Couldn't sleep last night.

This d.a.m.ned responsibility. Worried all night about something we hadn't thought of."

Pop looked up. Melrose went on. "Light--travels in a straight line, no?" He blinked small nervous eyes at us. Then, "Can't go around corners unless it's helped, you see. I mean just this. The XXE-One is expected to hit a significant fraction of the speed of light once it gets beyond the atmosphere. Now here's the point--how in h.e.l.l do we control it then?"

He waited. I didn't say anything. Pop didn't say anything. Melrose ran a hand through his hair once more, muttered _G.o.ddamit_ to himself, turned around and went barging out the door.

Pop said wryly, "Another quick memo to the Pentagon. He never heard of the Earth's gravity."

"He's heard," I said. "It's just that it slipped his mind these last few years."

Pop grinned. He handed me a sheaf of typewritten notes. "These'll just about make it. You'll notice the initial flight is charted pretty d.a.m.n closely."

"Thanks, Pop. I better take these, somewhere else to look 'em over.

Melrose might be back."

"Pretty d.a.m.n closely," he repeated. "Almost as closely as if she was going up under radio control...." He stopped. He looked at me from under his eyebrows.

I studied him. "Already told the bra.s.s I'd take her up, Pop." I kept my voice down.

"Sure, guy. Sure. Uh--you mention it to Marge?"

"Last night."

"I see." His eyes got suddenly far away. I left him like that. h.e.l.l with him--h.e.l.l with the whole family!

It was in the evening paper, tucked in the second section. They treated it lightly. It seemed the night watchman had opened the rear door of the museum for a breath of air or maybe a smoke. Or maybe to kitchie-koo some babe under the chin in the alley.

That's the only way it could have happened. And he'd discovered the empty exhibit case at 2:10 in the morning. The case still had a little white card on it that told about the Brown Bess musket and the powder horn and the ball shot inside.

But the little white card lied in its teeth. There weren't any such things in the case at all. And he'd notified the curator at once.

There was also mention of a mysterious phone call which couldn't be traced.

Things like this don't happen in 1953. So I didn't get loaded that night. I went home, went to the davenport, sat down and told myself they don't happen. Things like this have never happened, will never happen. What occurred last night was something in the bottom of a bottle of Jamaica rum.

"Thinking, Mr. Anders?"

I took a slow breath. He was swaying gently in the air a foot from my elbow and he was still a black mucous sc.u.m, as he had been the night before. I got up.

I said, "I'm not loaded tonight. I haven't had a thing all day." I took two steps toward him.

He wasn't there.