Question of Comfort Part 2

Dex, the electronics engineer, said quietly, "If it's steak when the ground is broken, what'll it be when the thing is finished?"

"A feast, for all the animals in the world--just like Suleiman-bin-Daoud." This, from the GG writer, Mel.

Their faces showed the same thing that bothered Frank.

Harry said, "We have something to do."

"Well, do it!" I tried weak joviality: "It can't be anything of earth-shaking gravity."

Hazel, long since accepted as a GG member, replied, "It's just that we're ... resigned."

"_What?_"

"We've produced nothing in months of sustained effort. That's why we're resigning," Dex replied disgustedly.

Frank touched my arm, said softly, "We've examined every angle. With the money available, it's just impossible to give a sensation of changed weight. And we know they've been pressuring you about us being on the payroll."

"Wait"--desperately--"if you pull out, everything will go. The opposition needs only something like this. Besides, the GG is the one bit of insanity I can depend on in a practical world, the prop for my judgment--"

Harry: "Clouded judgment."

Mel: "Expensive prop."

Having grown used to their friendly insults, I sensed their resolution weakening, felt the pendulum swinging back.

The waitress interrupted with news of an urgent phone call. It was the worst possible time for me to leave. And the news I got threw me.

Feeling the weight of the world, I returned.

"Can't be in two places at once," I said bitterly. "Go ahead without me; I'm leaving."

"Wait a few minutes," Mel said, between bites of steak, "we want to resign. Sit down."

"d.a.m.n it, I can't! I spoke to The Boss. I've pulled a boo-boo, but big."

"What happened?"

"Bonestell will do the backgrounds, but he has to know what rocks we're putting in the rooms. What rocks are we? Anybody have an idea what the surface of Mars looks like? G.o.d, how could I have missed that?"

"Sit down," Dex said casually, "we want to resign."

Hazel added, "You can have your rocks in 24 hours. We worked it out weeks ago. I _did_ read Van Es, and Harry has prospected, and Dex knows minerals, and Mel pushed his way through Tyrrell's 'Principles of Petrology'--"

"The science of rocks," Mel interrupted, between bites of steak.

"We got interested one day." Frank's pretty, dark eyes danced.

"We want to resign," Dex repeated casually, "so sit down."

I sat.

They began throwing the ball faster than I could catch: "No atmosphere on Mercury, then no oxidation; I insist there'd be no straight metals.... The asteroids? Ferromagnesian blocks of some kind--any basalts around here?... For Venus, grab a truckload of granodiorite--the spotted stuff--from the Sierra-Nevadas and tint it pink.... Lateritic soils for Mars? You crazy? Must have water and a subtropical climate...."

It hit me: a valid use for the GG, one that already saved money. Make them a brain team, trouble-shooters, or problem-solvers on questions that could not be solved.

I said, "Fine, go ahead. About your resignations--"

Mel said something indistinguishable--I'd caught him _on_ a bite of steak.

Hazel, belligerent, demanded: "Are you asking _us_ to resign?"

Apparently I wasn't. So they stuck, and another crisis was met.

Unfortunately, by then, I'd forgotten the shock and warning I got from the cat.

Things moved swiftly, more easily. The GG took over, becoming, in effect, my staff. They'd become more: five different extensions of me, each capable of acting correctly. As a team, they meshed beautifully.

Too beautifully, at one point. Dex and Hazel were seeing eye-to-eye, even in the dark, and I worried about the effect on the others. I might as well have worried about the effect of a light bulb on the sun. They married or some such, refused time off, and the GG functioned, if anything, better. It was almost indecent the way the five got along together.

A new problem arose: temperature. We weren't reproducing actual temperatures, but the rooms needed a marked change, for reality's sake.

I'd insisted on that, and having won the point, was stuck with it. It was after 2 A.M.; I was alone in the office.

The sound of the outer door closing startled me. Footsteps approached; I hurried to clean my desk, sweeping the bottle into the drawer.

"You're up too late. Go home." Frank had a nonarguable look in her eye.

"You're supposed to be getting sleep."

"I am, far more than before you guys began helping, but--"

"But with all that extra sleep, you're looking worse."

"I don't _need_ any more sleep!" I said angrily, then tried diversion, "Been on a date?"

"Yes, but I thought I'd better check on you." She moved close to the desk, and I remembered the last time we'd been alone, in the bar. Now I was glad I wasn't drunk.

"What the devil are you up to?"

She pawed through the desk drawers. "Finding what you tried to hide--"

"Wait, Frank!" I yelled, too late.

She looked at the bottle, then me, with a strange expression: a little pity--not patronizing--but mostly feminine understanding. "Soda pop? Of course. You don't like alcohol, do you?"

"No." Gruffly.

Her eyes blinked rapidly, as though holding back tears. "I know what's the matter with you; I _really_ know."